Who was Mat?
by Don Harlow, Joe Shaw, somebody else It may be that Mat was Aemon of Manetheren, although there is little direct proof. It is certain that, in all his lives, he was a military genius. There has been a lot of speculation that Mat is the reincarnation of an ancient king of Manetheren. It seems to me fairly evident that Mat is the reincarnation of a fairly large number of personalities (I would say “different” personalities, except I suspect that they were all fairly similar). This is evidenced by Mat’s pseudo-memories that emerge when Jasin Natael is singing a song about a battle at a river and how the enemy of Manetheren had mercy on the defeated Manetherenites, because they were so brave, etc. Mat remembers himself, the king’s advisor, being killed by that foe’s treachery; and then he remembers himself, somebody else, seeing that foe, older and grayer, being killed in another battle somewhere else. [TSR: 37, 610-1, Imre Stand, 424-5] Additionally, he forms the Band of the Red Hand ne
