Shadow Rising Questions

[DemandredFO]

I thought it was Kevin federline or however you spell it

[Jonn]

I thought it was Kevin federline or however you spell it

 

If you want to be technical about it, the North American spelling is: K-Fed

[Luckers]

Birgitte. That Braid's not decorative you know.

[leo]

Luckers,

 

Just for clarification.  You said:

...nearly forty years into the Breaking--all the Forsaken, all the Shadowspawn were still there...

I thought only Ishamael of the Forsaken wasn't trapped with the seals.  Am I way off?  If so straighten me out please.

[DemandredFO]

Only the thirteen most influential forsaken were there, and of those yes only Ishamael was partially free.  However, there were lots of other Forsaken, I don't know how many

[Llewin]

Well Moggy indicated that more than 20 individuals had been given the right to use the True Power, and I am fairly sure it wasnt just handed out willy-nilly to every upstart channeler who decided to join the Dark Side...so I'd say dozens...

[Snowy Dawn]

But gateways aside, it would have been prudent to send a couple of Aes Sedai (women, of course) along with the Aiel to help keep them safe. But perhaps there weren't two to spare for a long time given the other needs of the time---constructing the Eye of the World &c.

 

As noted, two eventually do show up by the time the Aiel cross over the Dragonwall, and they in turn work with the Jenn on the Rhuidean project. Thus much may be gleaned from Ch. 25 of <i>The Shadow Rising</i>, ``The Road to the Spear''.

[Generic Aelfinn #2]

so I'd say dozens...

 

try thousands(tens of thousands? more?).  half of all aes sedai joined the shadow.

 

although i believe that info is from the BWB, so you can take it with a grain of salt.  nevertheless, that is the only number that makes sense.

[RAND AL THOR]

There is a difference between Forsaken and Dreadlords. (Dreadladies?)

 

Only the most powerful Dreadlords would have been allowed to be promoted to Forsaken. And of those promoted ones, only the 13 most powerful were trapped behind the Seals of the Bore.

 

Most likely, every other male Forsaken/dreadlord went insane as well. The taint was a sudden counterstroke by the DO so he couldn't possibly have planned it beforehand and so the Forsaken/dreadlords who were not trapped would have had no protection at all. The ones trapped were slumbering and I guess that somehow didn;t affect them until the DO worked out a way to grant them protection.

[Generic Aelfinn #2]

um...why yes, there IS a difference between forsaken and dreadlords.  why NO, the difference is NOT what you stated

 

forsaken are channelers that turned themselves over to the shadow during the war of power.  dreadlords are channelers that turned themselves over to the shadow during the trolloc wars.  theres also THE forsaken: thirteen of the highest ranked forsaken who were trapped in the sealing of the bore and were preserved into the 3rd age.

 

and um....the male [THE] forsaken were safe because they weren't actually using saidin...or doing anything for that matter(ishamael aside).

[Mr Ares]

Generic Aelfinn #2 is correct:

Week 12 Question: In Winters Heart, you mention that back in the Age of Legends, there were several other Forsaken that the Dark One had killed because he suspected they would betray him. What's their story? Were those people ever as high ranking as the 13 survivors, or where they more like high-ranking Dreadlords then actual Forsaken?

 

Robert Jordan Answers: First off, Dreadlords was the name given to men and women who could channel and sided with the Shadow in the Trolloc Wars. Yes, the women were called Dreadlords, too. They might have liked to call themselves "the Chosen," like the Forsaken, but feared to. The real Forsaken might not have appreciated it when they returned, as prophecies of the Shadow foretold would happen. Some of the Dreadlords had authority and responsibility equivalent to that of the Forsaken in the War of the Shadow, however. They ran the Shadow's side of the Trolloc Wars, though without the inherent ability to command the Myrddraal that the Forsaken possess, meaning they had to negotiate with them. Overall command at the beginning was in another's hands.

 

Forsaken was the name given to Aes Sedai who went over to the Shadow in the War of the Shadow at the end of the Age of Legends, though of course, they called themselves the Chosen, and despite the tales of the "current"Age, there were many more than a few of them. Since they occupied all sorts of levels, you might say that many were equivalent to some of the lesser Dreadlords, but it would be incorrect to call them so. At the time, they were all Forsaken—or Chosen—from the greatest to the least.

 

Some of those Forsaken the Dark One killed were every bit as high-ranking as the thirteen who were remembered, and who you might say constituted a large part of the Dark One's General Staff at the time of the sealing. With the Forsaken, where treachery and backstabbing were an acceptable way of getting ahead, the turnover in the upper ranks was fairly high, though Ishamael, Demandred, Lanfear, Graendal, Semirhage, and later Sammael, were always at the top end of the pyramid. They were very skilled at personal survival, politically and physically.

 

In large part the thirteen were remembered because they were trapped at Shayol Ghul, and so their names became part of that story, though it turned out that details of them, stories of them, survived wide-spread knowledge of the tale of the actual sealing itself. Just that they had been sealed away. Other Forsaken were left behind, so to speak, free but in a world that was rapidly sliding down the tube. The men eventually went mad and died from the same taint that killed off the other male Aes Sedai. They had no access to the Dark One's protective filters. The women died, too, though from age or in battle or from natural disasters created by insane male AesSedai or from diseases that could no longer be controlled because civilization itself had been destroyed and access to those who were skilled in Healing was all but gone. And soon after their deaths, their names were forgotten, except for what might possibly be discovered in some ancient manuscript fragment that survived the Breaking. A bleak story of people who deserved no better, and not worth telling in any detail.

[Luckers]

Indeed, since others have already answered for me all thats left for me to point out is that three percent of the population could channel in the Age of Legends--3% of a highly industrialized world. In order for the Shadow to have stood a fighting chance--much less be winning--half or more must have turned to the shadow.

 

Which means hundreds of thousands of Chosen, even with losses to the war and to the Taint.