Channelers at the Last Battle.

[Igrift]

I've been doing somethinking on the last battle to come and came to the conclusion that the Dark one is alittle screwed.  My reasoning is this:

 

We've all seen what channeling can do in a battle, either by Rand destroying thousands with the One power or even Moraine sweeping aside all those trollocs in the two rivers.  From what I've percieved it seems that one channeler can take down upwards of 500 shadow spawn in a battle, and thats not putting into effect the extremley powerfull channelrs like elayne, Nyn...ect.

 

Now that being said, really how many channelrs do you think are on the "Dark side".  Not many if you think about it.  A few forsaken left and a few ressurrected ones, big deal, we got rand and an army of Ashamen and all the White tower (both sides)!!  Not to mention the countless wiseones that can channel and the sea folk and the Seanchan!  Its quite over whelming actually.  The DO is going to need MILLIONS of Trollocs to take no these numbers in channelrs, and by "take on" I mean be fodder untill the channelrs tire out.

 

I also though, well....you have the forsaken to even it out a bit, but they are clearly not enough, even considereing they are the most powerfull.  but they are few, and the "good side" has equally powerfull channelrs to match the forsaken (nyn vs mog for instance).  So are they to coundt on the Dark Friend channelrs?  How many do you honestly think are Black Ajah?  One in 100? maybe.  When you honestly think about, the DO muct have somthing unbeleivable up his sleeve or he's going to be out channeld and out powered.  And Im not even including all the soilder fighting for rand aswell, the whole world basically, and most likley the seanchan too. 

 

Excuss me for the spelling but im at work and in a hurry at the moment and just wanted to get this though out there. Thanks.

[Kaznen]

You didn't mention the BA, the renegade Asha'man (They will probally become dreadlords)

 

And there is the way to force people to switch to the dark side, if any channeler gets captured, that will probably happen.

 

TG isn't going to be a few battles, it is going to be a lot more major then that, effecting the whole world.

[Igrift]

Thats true the Asha'man will have some defectors, but its such a small amount.  Especially compared to how many hundreds of Asha'man he already has.  there is really nothing that shows me that the DO has any chance against the might of the worlds channelrs.  Correct me if im wrong, but how many defectors or Black Ajah do you think there really are in relation to the good guys? 

[Majsju]

Thing is, while the numbers favours the Light bigtime, that would mostly be relevant if there were two armies facing eachother on the battlefield, and last man standing wins the day.

 

That is not how TG will be fought. Sure, there will be face-to-face battles. But the shadow will have infiltrated pretty much every single army, as well as all major cities. Strategical assassinatons, poisoning water supplies, guards leaving their posts at a critical moment...And then comes the shadowspawn, where the shadow possess creatures even Worms are afraid of...

[Xcom]

Thats true the Asha'man will have some defectors, but its such a small amount.  Especially compared to how many hundreds of Asha'man he already has.  there is really nothing that shows me that the DO has any chance against the might of the worlds channelrs.   Correct me if im wrong, but how many defectors or Black Ajah do you think there really are in relation to the good guys?   

 

Correct me if I am wrong but I believe most of the full asha'man are tiams pets and do not support rand 100%. We saw in the last book that at least 100 asha'man are darkfriends if tiams statement about letting the lord of chaos rule implies he supports the great lord of the dark. I would also guess that many more of the white tower women are black adja then we have been lead to believe. Remember 20 years ago they felt strong enough to put one of their own on the amyerlin seat.

 

sorry for the spelling errors in a rush atm

[Igrift]

Your totally right about the Shadow spawn, I forgot about all the nasty cratures that only the one power can stand up against.  Like the hounds, and what not.

 

 

 

"That is not how TG will be fought. Sure, there will be face-to-face battles. But the shadow will have infiltrated pretty much every single army, as well as all major cities. Strategical assassinatons, poisoning water supplies, guards leaving their posts at a critical moment"

 

I'im just curious where you came to that conclusion, was this mentioned somewhere or is this an assumption?  don't get me wrong, your probably right, im just curious if this was hinted at somewhere or something.

[Majsju]

It is the logical concölusion based on everything we know, both from the books, and from RJs comments.

[Mighty Chin]

Moridin does wield the True Power and we haven;t seen what that can really do yet!

[Xcom]

Igrift the do might also be able to recruit more channelers from the island of mad men. Shara as well could supply some dread lords. Both places have male and female channelers.

[Aaronjw]

I'm probably way off on this, but here goes:  Am I correct in saying that TG happones when the DO brakes out of Shayol Ghul?  If this is so, might it be possible that the DO himself might be coming out in person, in some form or other, a la Sauron in the beginning of the Fellowship of the Ring movie?

[wconn1979]

I always assumed that the Last battle was when the seal was finaly broken to keep the D.O. from breaking free because if he ever gets out I doubt anyone is strong enough to stuff him back in it.

[Cillian]

I'm probably way off on this, but here goes:  Am I correct in saying that TG happones when the DO brakes out of Shayol Ghul?  If this is so, might it be possible that the DO himself might be coming out in person, in some form or other, a la Sauron in the beginning of the Fellowship of the Ring movie?

 

I think if the DO gets out at all Randland is Royally buggered.

[aslansrevenge]

Have you not thourgh that the DO will be training Channellers of his own thay can be trained by anyone that has learnt to channel tham selves if they have the spark ore the gift to learn. So what is to stop him?

[Luckers]

This is from my military roundup thread from back in the day--its a summary of the channeling situation.

 

 

CHANNELERS

 

Black Tower - Around 1000 now, though that may have climbed. 100 Darkfriends and 900 Light.

 

White Tower - 2200. Including all Aes Sedai, and novices. I'd place around 300 Black Ajah... to be kind. The disposition of the novices is unimportant, since they will be used like batteries in circels. 1900.

 

Wise Ones - Based on the Shaido, 5500. Lets be extremely kind and give a third to the Shadow. 1875 Dark and 3625 light

 

Seanchan - Hard to say. They get every sparker, and the Seanchan have a much much larger population by all accounts. Plus they've taken loads of new damane since ariving (randoms, the shaido, the windfinders, the kin... loads). I'll give them 6,000 and think thats conservative. It might only be 4,000, or may be as high as 8,000. Not many darkfriends amongst the sul'dam, so i wont give any to the Shadow.

 

The Kin - Given likely losses to the Seanchan i'll put them at 1,300. No darkfriends.

 

The Windfinders - Given ship distribution, presense of apprentices and so forth, i'd guess around 3,000. Being kind ill give a third to the shadow. 1,000 dark and 2,000 light.

 

CONCLUSION

 

Armed Forces of the Light - 2, 333, 000. That isn't including Murandy, who may be Shadowbound.

 

Channeling Forces of the Light - 15,725

 

Channeling Forces of the Dark - 3,275

 

OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

 

Given the disparate amount of Dark Channelers, and RJ's insistance that the Light is in a bad way, there are some other possible considerations.

 

1. Aiel Male Channelers. Have been going north for a very long time. Possibly been turned to the Shadow. I'd suggest around 1000... remember, 1/4 would have died.

 

2. Taim. I believe that Taim was trained a while back by Ishamael (when Ishy first suspect Rand's birth), and sent out to start training men who can channel for the Shadow. Since this must have been done by Ishy for the Trolloc Wars (since we know men fought in those wars, and someone must have gathered and trained them) i think this is very likely. Moreover, i suspect there might be women out there doing the same thing. The Aes Sedai ignored wilders and those channelers that never bothered to come to the Tower, and the Kin never recruited... they only accepted Tower dropouts which leaves a fairly massive (even with recent recruitments) untapped force. This scenario matches Taims comments of his past--he admits to trying to train people, but claims they went insane... if Taim is a darkfriend, as seems likely, then those men would have had the option of joining the dark.

 

This could be quite a large force--roughly one percent of the population can channel, and even if we put the population of Randland at a very lower number--say 20 million--that still means there are tens of thousands of channelers sitting around amongst the general populace. That being said, its still a furtive operation at best... even with a whole bunch of people doing it... My guess would put it at around 2,000... but ill be kind and say 4,000, just because.

 

3. The Sharans. They are a massive untapped force... but there are some problems. They are ruled by the channelers from the background, which means a monolithic organisation with diffused circles of power. They use compulsion all the time in their ruling, which would make it hard to control them in this manner. Additionally from purely plot perspective it would be hard to swallow... the Aiel Instant Army was hard to swallow, and he spent the better part of two books doing that.

 

4. The Land of the Madmen... i believe this is where the shadow has been gathering channelers... the stories about the place strike me as a massive smokescreen... but meh. Alternatively it might be a ripe recruitment area for the Shadow. ill given them 4,000 channelers too... male and female.

 

If these are true, it boosts the number of Dark Channelers to 12,275. A much more even number.

 

[Majsju]

You think Shara would be hard to swallow from a plot perspective, but happily accepts the land of madmen?

 

Shara is not only referred to in the books, we have hard evidence that Graendal has been there. We also have a Sharan making a cameo in KOD. Add to that the rumours about civil war in Shara, which does raise questions about just how strong that monilithic organisation is right now.

 

The Land of Madmen on the other hand...All the information we have is from external sources, which imo does not count when it comes to plot structure. You should not have to rely on interviews and a guide with ugly illustrations to get information about something so important for the plot as several thousand channelers popping out of nowhere. Based on the books, the land of madmen does not exist.

Now, I could buy it playing some role, like a dozen or so channelers showing up. But thousands, or even hundreds? Nuh-uh.

[Luckers]

You think Shara would be hard to swallow from a plot perspective, but happily accepts the land of madmen?

 

No--if the Land of the Madmen are a seperate political power with their own people then it has exactly the same problems as Shara.

 

If, on the other hand, it is the place where channelers discovered in the mainland as a result of Ishamael's recruiting, then yes i could accept that because in that scenario the characters would originate from pre-known cultures. Establishing it could be done in a single chapter. Introducing Shara as a political force in the books would require introducing their entire culture, and there is no room for that. The location would only be a location, it wouldn't require the detailed depth an established culture would.

 

Oh we may well see individual Sharans playing a roll, but Sharan armies or channeling forces of strong enough a nature to make an impact--no. Same with Madmenian if they are a seperate group of people.

 

Shara is not only referred to in the books, we have hard evidence that Graendal has been there. We also have a Sharan making a cameo in KOD. Add to that the rumours about civil war in Shara, which does raise questions about just how strong that monilithic organisation is right now.

 

I'm not sure i see a point there?

 

The Land of Madmen on the other hand...All the information we have is from external sources, which imo does not count when it comes to plot structure. You should not have to rely on interviews and a guide with ugly illustrations to get information about something so important for the plot as several thousand channelers popping out of nowhere. Based on the books, the land of madmen does not exist.

 

Cept it does. It's in the Sea of Storms. Sorry mate.

 

 

[Mr Ares]

Igrift the do might also be able to recruit more channelers from the island of mad men. Shara as well could supply some dread lords. Both places have male and female channelers.

Except the Ayyad kill their male cannelers when they start channeling.

[Majsju]

If, on the other hand, it is the place where channelers discovered in the mainland as a result of Ishamael's recruiting, then yes i could accept that because in that scenario the characters would originate from pre-known cultures. Establishing it could be done in a single chapter. Introducing Shara as a political force in the books would require introducing their entire culture, and there is no room for that. The location would only be a location, it wouldn't require the detailed depth an established culture would.

 

The Land of Madmen is not a pre-known culture. Drop what you know from the guide and from interviews, and look only at what is actiually in the books. Based on the 11 main novels we know that RJ always hints at major events, as long as you pay attention. And dropping thousands of channeler from out of nowhere onto the board is definitly a major event. Look at the "super"-shadowspawn we can expect seeing at TG, they were hinted at as early as TEOTW. But the Land of madmen? No hints whatsoever. And again, drop the guide and interviews, those are for people who wishes to go deeper whan it comes to understanding the world of WOT. You should not be required to follow all those things in order to keep tabs on the major things that happens in the books.

Unless RJ planned to spend half the prologue introducing us to a new continent, including a backstory to explain why they are appearing from out of the blue.

 

If any channelers at all from the Land of Madmen appears in AMOL, it will be perhaps a dozen or so in a cameo, at the very most.

 

Shara on the other hand, that is something we are vaguely familiar with. And with the cameo of a Sharan in KOD, it is strongly hinted that they will make an appearance in AMOL.

 

It is quite simple, hints vs no hints.

[Fryn]

I thought there were a few references to the isle of madmen in the books? Jain mentions them to oliver and Thom (or the sea captain) mentions them at some point. It was also mentioned in passing that it was the one area the sea folk won't travel. Could be a blur though and that was all from teh BWB

[DemandredFO]

The Land of Madmen might be like a Dark Tower(White Tower for darkfriends) but without a city rapped around it.  Ishamael had 2,000 years after the Trolloc Wars to establish the legend of the Land of Madmen.  We could have Moridin reflect on how he decieved those blind fools in Tar Valon.

Luckers. where do get there are only 300 BA?  I know it's never said anywhere but I got the impression there were more, I was thinking 1/3rd of the tower.  I think the 100 dark for the ashaman is low too.  I mean that's all we have seen but I would at least of the dedicated are leaning black.  Judging from how the Windfinders we've seen, with the exception of Jorin in tSR, they seem very well setup for evil. I would think it fairly easy to recruit darkfriend Windfinders.  So I think number is low too.  Now, that's just the way I see things but I'm probably wrong but we'll see.  Luckers what did you mean by the Aiel Instant Army was hard to swallow?  That is their culture, history replete with examples of warrior cultures.

[Majsju]

No way 1/3 of the AS would be BA. That would basically mean that more than 1/3 of the worlds population were potential darkfriends, since Aes Sedai should be quite representative of the world. And the percentage of potential darkfriends in the world would be higher than the percentage of BA in the White Tower, since recruiting must be very discrete. As RJ put it, once someone is approached, she either goes BA or she goes dead. And while the fact that accidents does happen every now and then so the occasional death is relatively easy to cover up, there is a limit to how many bodies they can leave behind.

 

As for Windfinders, I think it would raher be more difficult to recruit there, since it is a small and relatively closed community.

[algspkr]

No way 1/3 of the AS would be BA. That would basically mean that more than 1/3 of the worlds population were potential darkfriends, since Aes Sedai should be quite representative of the world. And the percentage of potential darkfriends in the world would be higher than the percentage of BA in the White Tower, since recruiting must be very discrete. As RJ put it, once someone is approached, she either goes BA or she goes dead. And while the fact that accidents does happen every now and then so the occasional death is relatively easy to cover up, there is a limit to how many bodies they can leave behind.

 

As for Windfinders, I think it would raher be more difficult to recruit there, since it is a small and relatively closed community.

I believe that a third of the current AS could be Black.  I believe that you are wrong about there being fewer DFs in the WT than outside of it (percentage wise) because until recently the WT has functioned by having women seek to become AS, and there are many stories across the lands of the WT being a haven of the shadow.

 

And 300 is slightly less than a third of the AS so it is a very reasonable number.

[Asmo]

Darkfriend Asha'man: Roughly a hundred men who wear the Dragon, specially trained by Taim in the use of who knows what kind of weaves, and he probably has more among the Dedicated and the Soldiers who are not living in his palace, using them to keep an eye on the rest. And even those Dedicated / Soldiers that are not actually Darkfriends can be enticed to join Taim's ranks, since their loyalty lies more to him than the Dragon Reborn.

 

Black Ajah Aes Sedai: The Black Ajah has a Supreme Council of 13. A Supreme Council. If you need thirteen people to watch over your organization, how many people do you have all in all? I find it hard to imagine that the Black Ajah has less than a hundred Aes Sedai. And of course, there are these Red sisters who will bond Taim's Asha'man - I'm sure Taim has thought of a way to make them fight for him instead of for Rand.

 

The Forsaken: Moghedien, Cyndane, Demandred, Moridin, Graendal, Aran'gar, and Mesaana are still active. Sure, they may not seem much by themselves, but considering their knowledge and the fact that they can command circles, they can be devastating if they decide to use their brains for once.

 

In short, I'd estimate nothing less than 200 channelers for the Dark, and probably more. Enough to form almost three full circles. If Mesaana manages to grab a few sa'angreal from the Tower, they can put them to good use. With that kind of circle, they can blow up cities in one shot.

 

Now let's look at the Light. Sure, there are about a thousand Aes Sedai (about seven hundred if you remove the Black sisters and the Dragonsworn Aes Sedai, as well as a large chunk of the Red Ajah that will not ally with the Dragon Reborn). Rand and Logain keep a coterie of about 100 sisters with them, either sworn to Rand or bonded by Logain's Asha'man, or those in Cadsuane's group. Five hundred Wise Ones who can channel were with Shaido. If we think that each clan left about half their Wise Ones in the Waste, and each clan has less than the Shaido, we can still easily count two to three thousand Wise Ones in the Westlands. There are also around two thousand of the Kin, however, many of their strongest and leading members have been murdered. Then there are the Windfinders, and the damane in the Westlands. They could have over three thousand channelers between them, but I think they have much less.

 

So what? A total of six thousand channelers, perhaps, if you add the Asha'man. Are they enough to wipe out whatever the Shadow can bring at them? Definately, even without counting Callandor and the male Choedan Kal.

 

However, how fast / easily can so many channelers be deployed? Especially when they aren't even allied with each other as of yet? How many are weaker than Daigian, channelers that can only be effective in a circle? How many will, in the end, fight in the Last Battle? Half? Probably less, in my view. But let's say Rand brings in Arad Doman a good three thousand channelers, all fully ready to cooperate with each other, knowing how to link etc.

 

It took about eighty channelers to bring down an ambush of a hundred thousand Trollocs and Myrdraal, including the very strongest the Light possesses, such as Rand, Alivia, Nynaeve, Logain... Let's say it takes about a hundred mediocre channelers to deal with a hundred thousand Trollocs. So theoretically, the Light has enough channelers to destroy thirty armies of a hundred thousand Trollocs, which adds up to three million Trollocs in total.

 

However, are Trollocs the only problem the Light has to face? Even if Rand's conventional military forces deals with the Darkfriends / bandits and whatnot, there are still other Shadowspawn to account for. Darkhounds - they can only be decisively killed by Balefire, as far as we've seen. Gholam. Probably more, that we haven't even seen yet. How many channelers will it take to deal with all of those? And of course, there are the Shadow's own channelers, who even though they are considerably outnumbered here, possess greater knowledge and probably greater overall power, if you include the Forsaken etc.

 

And of course, let's not forget the actual Last Battle. By all we've seen, the Last Battle begins when the seals are broken and Rand starts resealing the Bore. He probably will have his own Hundred Companions there to assist him, since he lacks the female Choedan Kal which would probably allow him to solo the Dark One along with a female channeler. Those will probably be too busy sealing the Bore to deal with Shadowspawn, and they will be handpicked amongst the best of the best.

 

And that's all discounting what the Dark One himself can do, touching the world as he is. In the end, I think the Light will be very lucky to get through the Last Battle.

[Igrift]

Thanks Luckers for that breakdown of the forces.  I've always wanted to put into prespective the actuall amount of channelers in the land, your made sense.  Asmo, your post I have to agree with the most.  I think there will be a lot of "Other" baddies the good side will have to worry themselves with during the final battle.

 

I don't think there could be anyway that the dark sisters have more than 100.  To me thats even to ogenerous.  Think about it, they are killers and have no ties to the oath rod AND they are all working within their enemy organization.  Basically if they had and sort of significant numbers the Black Ajah could easliy ambush the tower in a day, killing all the good sisters before they even knew what hit them.  I know that the black sisters are limited to whom they know are also black sisters (usually only a 1 or 2 each know eachother)  but we all know someone rules over all the black ajah and therefore must know all the names, so we could assume they would be smart ebnough to figure out they could overthrough the White tower, IF they had the numbers. Which I believe they don't.

 

Its safe to say that RJ probably had something up his sleeve when he wrote the last few chapters.  There will be some catalys that will make the DO seem to be winning for a little while, to give suspense.  If thats bringing men from Sharan of the Islans then so be it.  Something is on the back of my mind though...Demandred mentioned once that as soon as he entered Shyol Goul he realeased the one power, ( i assumed in respect to the DO)  but he also said something like "no one would dare embrace the power here.."  This could mean a number of things, and one of them could be that there are effects to using the one power so close to Shyol goul.  This is a possible way to eleminate the unfairness.

 

again, sorry for the spelling, im always in a hurry at work and I didnt want to wait till I got home to post.

[Hybrid]

Actually, even if the numbers of Dark channelers were reasonably low and ignoring the likely appearance of Sharans and the less likely of the Land of Madmen, I would think that the Shadow is at advantage.  Look at it this way.  TG begins.  Massive armies are in the midst of battle, and there are hundreds of channelers present as well.  No DF channelers have been revealed yet.  All of a sudden, all the DF channelers turn and start blowing up their own forces.  How much havoc do you think that will cause?  They have the element of surprise and could kill a substantial amount of the Light's channelers before anyone knew something was up.  Also, with the number of channelers present, it may be pretty hard to figure out who's doing what.  This sort of massive betrayal would lead to chaos and defeat for the forces of Light.