The Cleansing - I just don't understand Rands lack of preparation?

[wvlr]

Rand goes to FM so he can take out as many Rogue Ash'amen before the Cleansing, because he knows that the Cleansing is going to be a dangerous time.

 

So why doesn't he prepare MORE when they get to SL.  He had Lan and Ariel and AS and just common sense to set up a battle plan before he started.  Why not get and use their advise?

 

 

First of all.    Before he started why didn't he have the Warders and Ariel mark out a circle of say 100 yards radius.    They could have marked trees and such by cutting notches on the inside of the bark and/or put up flags on the inside of bushes that would not be visable from outside the circle.

 

Then he and the other channelers could have each taken a different section OUTSIDE the circle and laid all kinds of inverted traps to kill any Forsaken and rogue Ash'amen and BA that showed up Outside the 100 yard Radius circle.

 

As long as his defending people kept within the marked circle they would be safe from the traps.

 

The Forsaken though, would have had to contend with the massive Bolts from Callander, the inverted traps and the roving defenders.  For that matter, didn't the Ariel have bows?  they could have been scattered around within the circle.  With their camo gear they would have been mostly invisable and arrows could have killed a few of the Forsaken as well.

 

Sure it would have taken a little extra time to prepare but the results would have been much better.    After the Cleansing the DO should have been working Overtime giving new bodies to his Forsaken.

[krelianzg]

His group successfully defended him and Nynaeve against the combined might of nearly all the living Forsaken. I'd say that qualifies as phenomenal success if you ask me...

 

Planning to cleanse Saidin and kill off the Forsaken at the same time seems a little ambitious even for Rand.

 

What I don't understand was the Forsakens' lack of preparation. I know this is argued back and forth a lot, but I personally feel that they put in a pretty bad showing against Rand's forces.

[RobertAlexWillis]

I imagine that Rand did not want large numbers of powerful, inverted traps in his vicinity, because he didn't know how they might react after the Cleansing was finished.  He was worried that a tube made of saidin might shatter as the taint leaked out of it.  Tying off weaves may have made them vulnerable to the same effect, with no idea what the weave might turn into.  Whereas active channelers could simply release the Source if that seemed imminent.

 

Also, Rand did not want to give the Forsaken much warning, and if he had brought large numbers of others into it, they would have found out (they did anyway, of course, but he didn't know that they knew in advance).

 

If there is anything I would have done differently, it is that I might have lured the Forsaken to me by activating the Choedan Kal, and then used their power against the Forsaken.  Simply incinerate a ten mile radius as soon as one appears.

 

But, Rand was afraid of several things. He was afraid of what he might do, using that much Power.  He was afraid of Breaking the World accidentally, or on purpose if he went mad.  He was also afraid of breaking one of the Choedan Kal.  So, he chose to take his chances and get the most important objective accomplished the first time.

 

He's bloody lucky that Cadsuane followed him to Far Madding with the crew.  If Rand had tried to do it with just himself and Nynaeve (as seems to have been his original plan), then he'd have been screwed.  He made the right choice in leaving the defensive planning up to her.

 

And yes, the Forsaken did perform poorly ... as usual.  They all worked independently ... which was not very rational, under the circumstances.  And yet -sigh- they did it.

 

 

[wvlr]

His group successfully defended him and Nynaeve against the combined might of nearly all the living Forsaken. I'd say that qualifies as phenomenal success if you ask me...

 

Planning to cleanse Saidin and kill off the Forsaken at the same time seems a little ambitious even for Rand.

 

What I don't understand was the Forsakens' lack of preparation. I know this is argued back and forth a lot, but I personally feel that they put in a pretty bad showing against Rand's forces.

 

Myself, I think that the Forsaken - for once -  did quite well considering that they did not know when or where the Cleansing was going to take place.    There was little preparation that they could make.     And when it did - they mostly wanted to stay away from all the stuff that was flying.    They could feel the CKs power being used and Callander and all the other stuff going on.    I think that RJ showed pretty well what they would have been up against.    Every time they Traveled or did ANYthing shit hit the fan and they had to run for their lives.    The only thing that kept most of them there was fear of the DO.

[Baldar]

His group successfully defended him and Nynaeve against the combined might of nearly all the living Forsaken. I'd say that qualifies as phenomenal success if you ask me...

 

Planning to cleanse Saidin and kill off the Forsaken at the same time seems a little ambitious even for Rand.

 

What I don't understand was the Forsakens' lack of preparation. I know this is argued back and forth a lot, but I personally feel that they put in a pretty bad showing against Rand's forces.

If most of the Forsaken weren't being such pansies, and actually worked together, they would have been successful.

[wvlr]

If there is anything I would have done differently, it is that I might have lured the Forsaken to me by activating the Choedan Kal, and then used their power against the Forsaken.  Simply incinerate a ten mile radius as soon as one appears.

 

He's bloody lucky that Cadsuane followed him to Far Madding with the crew.  If Rand had tried to do it with just himself and Nynaeve (as seems to have been his original plan), then he'd have been screwed.  He made the right choice in leaving the defensive planning up to her.

 

And yes, the Forsaken did perform poorly ... as usual.  They all worked independently ... which was not very rational, under the circumstances.  And yet -sigh- they did it.

 

Thanks RAW.    Those first two were things that I meant to include but forgot.

 

As far as the Forsaken if they had all banded together in a circle they still would not have come close to being able to take on Callander (I think) and they would still have had all the other circles to deal with.  If only one had control how would the others have protected themselves or gotten away from the massive Callander attacks.  The one controlling the circle would probably just have looked after his own skin, if not on purpose - then in the panic of fleeing.

 

Mostly I think that they did good considering that they are all completely untrustworthy - who would they give control to.

 

 

 

***Simply incinerate a ten mile radius as soon as one appears.***  Yes, that is what I think that Callander should have done as well, instead of the massive string of lighting bolts.  That ALL the Forsaken were obviously able to dodge.

[DemandredFO]

Maybe the AS didn't know how, Jahar might have known but he didn't control the circle, the control freak did.  Correct me if I'm wrong but I think Rand learned incineration from Lews Therin.  Basically, all we've seen from AS as far as weapons go are fireballs, lightning and exploding rocks.  Now maybe Aes Sedai know more but we haven't seen complicated weapon-weaves.

[Tyrell]

Mm well the indications are that, atleast at the time, Jahar wasn't all that strong, but with Callandor the circle should easily have been able to blow up big areas of forest.

 

And yes, I am constantly disapointed with the forsaken; infact every re-read disapoints me more and more. I don't want to sound like the devil, but I'm comming to the conclusion that RJ wrote himself into a bad corner with the forsaken and their power, especially weave-reversing, which lead him to have to make them inneffective to give the goodies a chance. I mean, some of them haven't done too badly, but by rights Rand's story should have ended by about book two or three with him a smoking corpse then focused on the forsaken's power struggles over who gets the world, ending with the Dark One breaking free and destroying the world, which, if the forsaken hadn't sat on their hands for months on end, while Rand slowly became an actual threat to them, he surely woud have.

 

I mean, I know one of the main themes is lack of communication / cooperation, but cooperation wouldn't be nessecary to do some massive damage, either to Rand or to the world - all it'd have taken was Lanfear killing him in one of many opertunities, Moggy snagging him into the dreamworld in his sleep in one of the first 4 books and killing him there before he could do anything or turning him into her pet, Ishy killing him outright instead of trying to convert him for two / three books, Graendal Compelling him etc. and the dark would have won.

 

Lanfear could probably have anhilated the tower with her ability hidden and reversed / inverted weaves as could any of the men most likely, especially with the help of the Black Ajah, even my poor cowardly Asmodean could have picked off sisters one or two at a time with the mask of mirrors to make him look like various different warders.

 

They could have destroyed the nations of Randland (as Semi managed to do with Seanchan, despite channelers being much more widespread there, but the continent of Seanchan isn't essential to the plot aside from sending out The Return, so I count the actual damage to the forces of light as not that large, if she'd taken out all the leaders of Randland, that would have been faar more effective).

 

But what did they do? Mooch around and achieve very little. Of all people Asmodean managed to cause some of the most significant damage to Rand and his forces by giving Couladin his Dragons. All I can say is that I **PRAY** that when we finally learn what Demandred has been dooing it isn't another disapointment.

[BrainFireBob]

Few errors.

 

1) Finding the dreams of a particular person is hard. It's easier if you know them, but still hard. Now, Moghedian may not have had Ishy's trick with finding ta'veren. Means that finding Rand's dreams until he learned to ward them was a difficult proposition.

 

2) You mistake the Forsaken's goals and understanding of the DO, though they do state several times in text. They want to become Nae'blis- which means none of them gave a damn about a "primitive" like Rand al'Thor early on. They spent as much time fighting each other as the Light in the WoS- their behavior is a continuation. More, their goal is not the nihilistic destruction of everything (that's Ishy's goal), but a new world that they rule. To that end, they set out to conquer the world, not destroy it- this has the added bonus of gaining an edge in the Nae'blis competition (they think) by presenting the DO with pre-conquered power bases.

 

3) As a continuation of 2, I'd like to reiterate- their goal is not, and has never, been a military annihilation of the Light's forces by destroying all existing social structure.

[Nightstrike]

The forsaken are a bunch of single-minded, egocentric and easily fooled cowards. That's why they joined the Shadow in the first place. Some of them joined the Shadow only after they realized they might be on a loosing side without any hope left. Of course they wouldn't trust another forsaken (they know themselves to well). And they wouldn't attack Rand if someone else could do it for them.

[DemandredFO]

Going to the point of RJ not writing the foresaken well.  I think RJ has a very good grasp of history, we've seen examples where powerful men, don't trust one another even though doing so would have brought them greater power.  Besides, they're all paraniod, they were traitors once what's to say they couldn't be again.  I think the foresaken are very realistic.  That's my take

[Guest leebarr]

Rand's group did a  good job of keeping him and Nyn safe. you have to remember there is few he can trust so things went pretty well

[wvlr]

Going to the point of RJ not writing the foresaken well.  I think RJ has a very good grasp of history, we've seen examples where powerful men, don't trust one another even though doing so would have brought them greater power.  Besides, they're all paraniod, they were traitors once what's to say they couldn't be again.  I think the foresaken are very realistic.  That's my take

 

That is basically my take on it as well.    Time after time in the Forsaken POVs we have seen them thinking of ways that they can kill other Forsaken and even heard mention from some of them the desire to overthrow the creator AND the DO.

 

If I was one of them, I would not willingly join a circle that was controlled by anyone other than myself.    That creates a Catch - 22 where it is near impossible to have a Forsaken circle.

 

The only option that they would have, is that they each could have/should have had a stockpile of BA that they could have gathered quickly prior to Traveling to the Cleansing.

 

How far away can the people in a circle be from the "Controller"?    If they have to be in the immediate vicinity - it would create an additional problem of a Gruop would be much more visable than a single Forsaken and would have easily been left behind when they found themselves running for their lives.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rand's group did a  good job of keeping him and Nyn safe. you have to remember there is few he can trust so things went pretty well

 

Having the people with him, that he already supposidly trusts, spend 1 to 2 hours setting traps does not require him to trust any more people.    Just use the ones he has a little more effectively.

[Guest Dreadlord]

The way I see it, Rand knows that Darkfriends could be anywhere, right under his nose, as indeed we all know they are. If Rand had made such an intricate plan for the Cleansing those plans would have been relayed to the Forsaken, so just taking all the super channellers witth him would have been adequate. Not making too many plans, taking it as it comes if you will, would and did work better than making intricate plans on how to defend during the Cleansing. Such intricate planning would be too easy to disrupt if the Forsaken did find out what was going on

[wvlr]

I'm not saying that he had to tell them anything before they arrived at SL.    But once they arrived he could have sent them out in groups setting traps.    Only one to two hours of work could have produced great rewards (dead Forsaken) and would have been well worth the time spent.    Even if someone in his group was able to communicate to the Shadow in those two hours - it would not have given much time for the Shadow to make any massive changes if any.