The DO will be the underdog in Tarmon Gai'don?

[richnewton82]

.

[dwn]

We all have our PoV's. I can state confidently that the majority of people 'get' the level of despair and foreboding that RJ has instilled.

 

While the unravelling of reality and sense of decay is nifty, and he social breakdown at the nation level has been well done, the sense of despair at the personal level has been lacking. Most of the (non main) characters we see are frightened but oblivious, choosing to bury their heads in the sand, so to speak. Political turmoil should have given way to uncertainty of survival.

 

In our world, if food stores everywhere suddenly began spoiling, if corridors and murals started shifting, if the ghosts of people and places started intruding on us, the entire world would soon descend into panic. There'd be riots, looting, suicides, mass hysteria... and multitudes just giving up and waiting for The End.

 

The DFs should have been on a recruiting spree--there isn't any other organized 'religion' to turn to (Masema is new and localized, the Children are too militant to have broad appeal). Of course, the DFs we've seen have been somewhat inept, so perhaps proselytizing is beyond them.

 

All of these things have certainly been hinted at, but Our Heroes haven't really needed to drastically change tactics for 8 books or so.

 

-- dwn

 

[Ashaman DeRouge]

 

"I'm reading the book of revelations 10 hrs into an acid trip during a hurricane or something."

 

Good times!

 

I meant to say, I don't want to offend anyone, and I don't think that anyone has personal problems haha.

 

And dwn you are correct, OUR world would fall apart. I don't think the GENERAL MASSES of people in Randland quite get the scope of whats happening yet (until the prologue anyway), but the main characters seem to.

 

I would be willing to say that the majority of the foreboding, if not picked up from the text, is definately IMPLIED, and perhaps automatically filled in by the imagination of the reader. That is, they read the books from the perspective that everything is terrible, and therefore are impacted more by the terrible things that happen, be they as rare as you think they are or not. Yourself, and others, seem to have not been affected by this "darkening" of the mood, and therefore view each 'terrible' event as an isolated, minimum impact event, that ultimately dosn't counteract the Victories of the Light.

 

Consider Julian Sandar and (Ronda?) Macura, in Fires of Heaven. Her imagination makes up a much worse torture, a far more bleak outlook, Julian could ever come up. RJ, perhaps, by specifically and repeatedly mentioning large, world crushing events, has left us to fill in the gaps, and make the cognitive leap to the dire situation the world is in. Even if nothing is explicitely mentioned, we get, in msot chapters late on, a reminder of how horrible everything is, and how worried the characters are.

 

By doing this, by creating this MOOD as opposed to creating the situation, he gets to have the Light survive mostly intact, on the verge of decimation, right up to the last battle. He has left ALL the peices on the board, in order to make it the most thrilling end game ever. The MOOD has the ability to emotionally alter the readers perception of EVERY EVENT. Killing a character to give the DO a "Victory" is short to medium term, and potentially has no impact on the overall feel of the situation anyway.

 

If Elayne were dead, would the DO be stronger? A little, sure. Rand would be pissed. But these are just cause and effect. They are fleeting. The instilled Darkness has a broader scope, with much more impact, but ONLY IF THE READER BUYS INTO IT. If RJ hasn't left enough triggers for the readers imagination to fill in the rest, then we result in the situation we find outselves in now: an impasse.

 

Ramble much? Sorry!

 

Im at work, and keep losing my train of thought!

 

 

[dwn]

 

And dwn you are correct, OUR world would fall apart. I don't think the GENERAL MASSES of people in Randland quite get the scope of whats happening yet (until the prologue anyway), but the main characters seem to.

 

They also have objective proof of the DO, prophecy, magic, etc., which would alter how they would react to weird stuff happening. It's not a direct comparison to be sure.

 

[quote/

I would be willing to say that the majority of the foreboding, if not picked up from the text, is definately IMPLIED, and perhaps automatically filled in by the imagination of the reader. [...]

 

I agree that a lot is implied.  There's also snippets like the farmers in the TGS prologue, the Amayar mass suicide, starvation in Cairhien and later Arad Doman, etc. Since these things don't appear to have a huge impact on the main characters, their impact on the reader is reduced.

 

The Amayar suicide is a good example. The Sea Folk are horrified, sure, but I hardly care what a couple tertiary characters think. If we had seen Amayar characters here and there, if Mat, Perrin or Elayne had known them, the news of their deaths would have been huge. As it was neither we nor characters we care about have any chance to get attached to them. Reanne Corly's death was far more meaningful than the suicide of an entire culture!

 

It's always more powerful to show something than to tell it, and much of the DO's (and Rand's) impact on the world is merely told.

 

-- dwn

 

 

[havoc110]

WARNING! POTENTIAL LORD OF THE RINGS AND STAR WARS SPOILERS BELOW!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I apologize for using the same comparisons over and over, but they are the best I can do. 

 

I don't remember any editorials by Tolkien explaining how Sauron is winning.  I didn't need any interview by Lucas to explain to me how the Empire was really crushing the Rebellion. 

 

Why weren't these things necessary?  Because everyone already knew.  They/we felt it through the main characters.  It wasn't just in the background. 

 

The Empire blows up Leia's home planet, in front of her and all of us.  The message here:  Dark is winning and they crush things that get in their way.  Same with the end of Ep. V.  I didn't need a press release to understand that the EMPIRE IS WINNING.  How will the Rebels possibly win now?  We're reasonably sure they will carry the day, but things are pretty bleak in the meantime.

 

Same thing in LotR:  Boromir is dead, two hobbitses are in sackses, and the Fellowship is broken.  How will Sam and Frodo possibly get to Mt. Doom, without Gandalf or Strider's help? 

 

If I were to go and write an essay, or in this day and age a blog or a forum post about how LotR fails in providing the reader a scene more powerful than the Breaking of the Fellowship/The Departure of Boromir, does that mean I don't like or somehow hate the whole series?  What a strange, reactionary, idea.  Actually, I'm pretty sure that that essay has already been written several times over, and I'm just as sure that no-one who would write such an essay would do so with the motivation of exposing the failings of Tolkien as an author or LotR as a story.  And to me, the LotR movies are so good, both just as movies, but as adaptations, but I think it hits home even more that the most powerful scene in the series is the death of Boromir.

 

So strangely enough, RJ's post is the #1 piece of evidence for BOTH sides of this argument.  The readers who have felt this all along, agree with RJ, say see, RJ is telling it like it is, and that's the way I've felt.  I, and like-minded others say that the fact that RJ has to try and clarify to us why Dark is winning makes our argument for us.  Similar explanations are not needed for other epic tales, why now with WoT?  And I don't think it's because I lack the intelligence required to pick up on inferences.  I see the inferences and submit to you that they don't equate to what other stories have done, which is have the reader feel the intensity of the conflict directly through the main characters.

 

I don't have poll results, but it seems that there is a reasonably sized (most likely still a minority, my guess is around 25%-30%) portion of readers who have read 11 books, having never gotten the sense that Dark is winning, and as others have mentioned, no amount of explanation, by the author himself, or by others repeating the words of the author himself will likely change anyone's mind.

 

I hope/think that the tables will turn between now and TG.  I've always felt that way.  Otherwise what I (and perhaps others) perceive as a weakness in the story will become a critical flaw.  Please don't confuse this with hating the series or the author(s).  But RJ's post makes me wonder.  He think's that I should understand that Dark's been winning all along.  Maybe this explains the "sensationalism snowball" effect in our culture's mass media, but Rand's having been stuffed in a chest and later losing his hand hasn't done it for me.  Probably a combination of hero loses hand being done before and the fact that we knew well in advance he was going to lose the hand has diluted its effect.

[havoc110]

And before others do so, I will accuse myself of arguing both sides of the same issue. 

 

I don't have a big issue with LotR and Boromir being the best/most powerful scene in the books.  Sure, I wish that the climactic scenes were as great or greater, but they're still great.  Tolkien forked his story and ended up with two climcatic scenes, one at Pellinore Fields and then at Mount Doom. 

 

RJ had the ending scene out of the gate.  He most likely didn't want anyone to look back and have his end scene upstaged by an intermediate scene.  You can guess that I will propose that he does not have a great risk in this regard.  Most of the threads will probably be brought back together at a single site at TG.  What he will have, though, is a 13-and-a-half book (minimum) build-up to his one scene. That's a lot of pressure, now resting firmly on the shoulders of Mr. Sanderson.

 

And as a continuation (perhaps even a refute of it) of my sensationalism argument, Moirane/Lanfear is close to, if not as good as Obi-Wan/Vader, or Gandalf/Balrog.  And considering that, if you are of similar age (39) as myself, Gandalf and Obi-Wan occurred at an age before the understanding of archetypes, the epic formula, etc.  So despite having seen it before, and maybe even armed with the knowledge that it's coming, RJ gets it right with Moiraine/Lanfear where he perhaps misses with Semi/Rand's hand.  Of course, between Moiraine's sacrifice and the loss or Rand's hand, there's been 12 years in Earth-time in which a reader can become more jaded and/or cynical.

[Nightstrike]

Shadowspawn, regular darkfriends, channeler darkfriends, seanchan, whitecloaks, selfish nobility, the DO (and all evil destruction he causes), Shaidar Haran (something beyond regular Shadowspawn) & the Forsaken are all are all fighting for the Shadow. Intentionally or not. They have all evil means available to them, without any morality issues. Shooting a woman in the back is not an issue, for instance.

 

The light has an insane Rand, a bunch of channelers that are fighting among themselves and some major armies. That's it. With a little help from the Wheel, perhaps. They are also restraining themselves from killing women or doing other nasty stuff.

 

So, I'd say that the Light has a very difficult time ahead of them.

 

[Charlz Guybon]

 

 

Hey, I partook of the Iraq war Kool-Aid.  Wow, was I duped.  But this "Dark is winning, really" Kool-Aid is too much for me to take.   Clearly some of us had a couple refills too.

Not a valid analogy. We as private citizens never saw the intelligence reports, and were unable to judge them ourselves. We had to decide whether to trust the government or not. Most people chose to trust, but the government, whether through incompetence or maliciousness, was wrong.

 

In Wot we know more information than any of the protagonists. We can make an informed judgment on our own. I see a Black Tower in the control of the Shadow, the White Tower thrown into civil war and both sides subverted, great swaths of the land have been thrown into chaos by invasion, civil war and anarchy. The entire continent is on the brink of famine and the Dark One is twisting reality more every day. Quite clearly the Shadow has the initiative, not the Light.

 

 

So strangely enough, RJ's post is the #1 piece of evidence for BOTH sides of this argument.  The readers who have felt this all along, agree with RJ, say see, RJ is telling it like it is, and that's the way I've felt.  I, and like-minded others say that the fact that RJ has to try and clarify to us why Dark is winning makes our argument for us.  Similar explanations are not needed for other epic tales, why now with WoT?  And I don't think it's because I lack the intelligence required to pick up on inferences.  I see the inferences and submit to you that they don't equate to what other stories have done, which is have the reader feel the intensity of the conflict directly through the main characters.

 

RJ's post has nothing to do with my views on the situation. I think it is obvious that the Dark is winning.

 

[havoc110]

You missed the analogy then.  The analogy is Colin Powell's presentation to RJ's blog post.

 

If it is/was so obvious, then why would RJ feel the need to make that post?

 

Back to the original post.  At the current situation, I put the Light at about 3-5 on the TG morning line.  How's that compare with:  "Great shot kid, that was one in a million."

 

And before you go there, eleventy-billion Trollocs is nothing to Rand.  About as significant in the grand scheme as rats and weevils.

[DemandredFO]

havoc, you are ignoring facts and I'm not going to repost them.  Most importantly, how is the light better of than the Shadow?

[sheikh chilli]

 

 

And before you go there, eleventy-billion Trollocs is nothing to Rand.  About as significant in the grand scheme as rats and weevils.

 

indeed. the coedan kal in the hands of rand, logain, narishman or flinn can take out all the trollocs in the world in second. hell callandor itself is enough to waste a few dark armies.

 

the dark one has nothing. he lost his one chance of getting rid of the dragon. He just has a few worthless pawns. once the towers are mended and united, then it will be all over for him in a flash.

[Muad Cheade]

Any use of the Choedan Kal could possibly lead to the destruction of the world. That's why the Aes Sedai (mainly the female ones) refused to support Lews Therin Telamon's plan. That's why Rand's plan to use two of them was very risky. It's not even certain that Rand could use Callandor to destroy any Shadowspawn army due to its lack of a buffer and the necessity of a man and two women linked.

 

He just has a few worthless pawns.

 

You have no idea who his pawns are! Anyone who has not had a POV (and even some of them) could be Darkfriends. Read what Moghedian did in the War of Power when she was a secret Darkfriend (from tWoRJWoT). Below:

 

She turned to the Shadow in the early stages of the Collapse, although she did not make this public until halfway through the War...During the War she was of middle rank in Lews Therin's command structure, but secretly ran an intelligence organization for the Shadow. She was eventually discovered; in order to escape, she sabotaged a public transportation vehicle, narrowly escaping. Thousands were killed.

 

Imagine what thousands of those kinds of people could do without suspicion. Think of it as Invasion of the Body Snatchers except on a global scale.

 

once the towers are mended and united, then it will be all over for him in a flash.

 

What you fail to see every time it's brought up is that THE TOWERS ARE CURRENTLY NOT UNITED AND ARE FILLED WITH DREADLORDS, BLACK AJAH AND DARKFRIENDS!!!! Forgive the all caps but you consistently fail to realize that. Both of the Towers are the farthest thing from united. Why do you think the next book is called "Towers of Midnight?" Because the Shadow controls them.

 

Again, you do realize that things that make what Semihrage did in the AoL seem pale if those secret Black Sisters chose to do anything.

[sheikh chilli]

^ err you got it wrong. the plan to use the sangreal was actually what the women wanted. lews therin's plan was to use a circle to seal the bore. his plan was the most dangerous of the two.

 

the choedan kal unlike callandor has no need for any buffers. it can be used nicely and a few death gates using the thing would take out all the trollocs hiding in the blight before they know it. as for callandor it does not have to rand that uses it. logain can weild it himself with his two sisters.

 

as for the towers not mended all it needs is the outing of the dark friends in both towers and the leadership of the towers under egwene and logain. if you look at elaida's foretelling of the black tower its pretty obvious that the black tower will be privy to one massive battle between the good and bad ashaman and including sisters as well.

 

for the dark one to truly create a blow he needs to decapitate both towers in a single blow. he needs to raze tar valon and the black tower beyond all recognition. aes sedai scattered to the four winds and the ashaman completely destroyed. and to be honest i dont think he or his worthless pawns are up to it.

 

 

the dark one is living o borrowed time and no amount of trollocs or dreadlords will be able to save him. he allowed the dragon reborn to live at the cost of one of his best generals and that will prove to be his undoing.

[DemandredFO]

aren't all these arguments meaningless, wasn't the original poster saying that the Darkone is a superhero dog. ;D

[Mr Ares]

now how dumb moridin can be when he thinks he has a chance of conversion of rand when rand is so much different than the bumbling fool he was back in TDR.

How dumb would he be to try and kill him when he died last time, and Rand knows a lot more now? Looks like he learnt from that mistake.

for such a dumb move sammael died.

For disobendeince, Sammael died. He was a soldier, he should know how to obey orders.

the shadow have resorted to such pitiful things like famine, rats, creating discord etc

Yes, threatening the survival of humanity is pitiful. In the bigger picture, they are way ahead. The Light has a few victories, undoubtedly, but the Shadown continues to gain ground while the Light is divided against itself, infiltrated, and starving. And spied on, reality is breaking apart. Pitiful indeed.

13 powerful forsaken have become just a few.

13 is a few. So, a few have become fewer. Oh dear. How awful.

at this point all the forces of shadow have is a few million trollocs armies

What a pitiful resource.

some dreadlords from the black tower

Including the guy running it, and the BA in the White Tower, which is busy fighting itself, so can't do anythinf about the Shadow.

a few incompetent forsaken.

Then the loss of a few canhardly hurt all that much.

just a mended black tower under logain, a mended white tower under egwene from destroying the shadow's pitiful attempts at creating discord.

That's two steps. The Ogier and the Borderlanders and the Seanchan. 5. Minimum.

faine and rats are just side shows to the main event.

A big enough famine, they might not live to see the main event.

 

I don't remember any editorials by Tolkien explaining how Sauron is winning.

Well, Tolkien didn't have a blog, so he couldn't talk to his fans in the same way RJ could. And Lord of the Rings was only one book, so...

 

And bear in mind that the Light might not have the opinion they are currently losing. If we don't see them feeling this despair, this sense that they are barely hanging on, we might easily be fooled. Look at little deeper, though.

[Braus]

now how dumb moridin can be when he thinks he has a chance of conversion of rand when rand is so much different than the bumbling fool he was back in TDR.

How dumb would he be to try and kill him when he died last time, and Rand knows a lot more now? Looks like he learnt from that mistake.

for such a dumb move sammael died.

For disobendeince, Sammael died. He was a soldier, he should know how to obey orders.

the shadow have resorted to such pitiful things like famine, rats, creating discord etc

Yes, threatening the survival of humanity is pitiful. In the bigger picture, they are way ahead. The Light has a few victories, undoubtedly, but the Shadown continues to gain ground while the Light is divided against itself, infiltrated, and starving. And spied on, reality is breaking apart. Pitiful indeed.

13 powerful forsaken have become just a few.

13 is a few. So, a few have become fewer. Oh dear. How awful.

at this point all the forces of shadow have is a few million trollocs armies

What a pitiful resource.

some dreadlords from the black tower

Including the guy running it, and the BA in the White Tower, which is busy fighting itself, so can't do anythinf about the Shadow.

a few incompetent forsaken.

Then the loss of a few canhardly hurt all that much.

just a mended black tower under logain, a mended white tower under egwene from destroying the shadow's pitiful attempts at creating discord.

That's two steps. The Ogier and the Borderlanders and the Seanchan. 5. Minimum.

faine and rats are just side shows to the main event.

A big enough famine, they might not live to see the main event.

 

I don't remember any editorials by Tolkien explaining how Sauron is winning.

Well, Tolkien didn't have a blog, so he couldn't talk to his fans in the same way RJ could. And Lord of the Rings was only one book, so...

 

And bear in mind that the Light might not have the opinion they are currently losing. If we don't see them feeling this despair, this sense that they are barely hanging on, we might easily be fooled. Look at little deeper, though.

 

I spy with my little eye that sheihk is making Mr Ares misspell awfully alot, some emotion going on while replying?:P

[Jaric Mar Tedronai]

 

as for the towers not mended all it needs is the outing of the dark friends in both towers and the leadership of the towers under egwene and logain. if you look at elaida's foretelling of the black tower its pretty obvious that the black tower will be privy to one massive battle between the good and bad ashaman and including sisters as well.

 

To me that sounds like you think rand can waltz onto the black tower grounds, call down lightning, and that will be that. You say 'massive battle' yet it is negated by the terminology "all it needs is the outing of the dark friends...". As Mr Ares said, Taim is a darkfriend, and more likely than not enjoys the patronage of Moridin and/or Demandred. He has over one hundred full Asha'man in his 'private classes', so they are all powerful weapons most likely armed with knowledge of weaves from the age of legends. This is not a simple problem with a simple solution. Well, the solution in itself is simple, i.e. kill the darkfriends, but the execution of this is definitely not.

 

As far as the white tower goes, we have heard repeatedly that sisters of the black ajah have walked its grounds since it was founded. even if they dont all know each other, they are still numerous, and not under any compunction about using the power as a weapon at will, lying, and causing overall strife.

 

I doubt we will see these problems resolved in full short of the last battle coming and the darkfriends simply moving out into the open. We may see this battle between Taim and Logain, and probably the seanchan attack on tar valon, but for all of the darkfriends to be removed from both towers in one fell swoop will be hard to pull off in a feasible way, without dedicating maybe an entire book to it. Granted, TOM may be mainly directed at just that, Rand and logain could move on the black tower, the seanchan and/or the rebels on the white, but im skeptical.

[Seven of Nine]

How many rods are out and about anyway? The BA members have been freed of the 3 oaths (via a rod--the one at the WT?) We know there's the one Galina wanted, and the one at the WT.

[havoc110]

I think we have only 2 binding/oath rods with on-stage presence.  #3 (WT and probably BA) and #111 (Sammael/Therava/Faile/Galina/Therava).

[Muad Cheade]

^ err you got it wrong. the plan to use the sangreal was actually what the women wanted. lews therin's plan was to use a circle to seal the bore. his plan was the most dangerous of the two.

 

You're right for once. However, the Choedan Kal were meant to be used to erect a barrier around Shayol Ghul.

 

the choedan kal unlike callandor has no need for any buffers. it can be used nicely and a few death gates using the thing would take out all the trollocs hiding in the blight before they know it. as for callandor it does not have to rand that uses it. logain can weild it himself with his two sisters.

 

But like I said, any use of the Choedan Kal could potentially destroy the entire world. That was one of the reasons the Forsaken feared rand using them.

 

as for the towers not mended all it needs is the outing of the dark friends in both towers and the leadership of the towers under egwene and logain. if you look at elaida's foretelling of the black tower its pretty obvious that the black tower will be privy to one massive battle between the good and bad ashaman and including sisters as well.

 

Basically look at Jaric Mar Tedronai's comment. You seem to underestimate what it will cost to even try to expell the Dreadlords from the towers.

 

for the dark one to truly create a blow he needs to decapitate both towers in a single blow. he needs to raze tar valon and the black tower beyond all recognition. aes sedai scattered to the four winds and the ashaman completely destroyed. and to be honest i dont think he or his worthless pawns are up to it.

 

He has powerful channelers ingrained in both of the towers. He doesn't need to destroy them. They're not only destroying themselves but also, they're affecting every nation. Just look at what Aliviarin's proclamation that no one could talk to the Dragon Reborn except through the Tower.

 

I gave you the example of Moghedien severely hurting the Light during the AoL simply because they didn't know she was of the Shadow. Now imagine what hundreds of sleeper agent channelers could do.

 

the dark one is living o borrowed time and no amount of trollocs or dreadlords will be able to save him. he allowed the dragon reborn to live at the cost of one of his best generals and that will prove to be his undoing.

 

To be quite honest, Rand seems to be living on borrowed time. To be brutally honest, if Demandred showed up right in front of him, I seriously doubt Rand could defeat him without any help.

 

Sammael disobeyed and he was punished by the Nae'blis. His punishment was death. Rand just happened to be the executioner.

 

And finally, I'm pretty sure Trollocs will outnumber human armies as they did in the War of Power and the Trolloc Wars.

 

In a way, Rand's physical state resembles that of the Light: battered, looking for a way out of the current situation, hurting, unwilling to trust those around him, etc, etc.

 

So for the umpteenth time, I'm pretty sure Robert Jordan knew what he was saying when he said the Light was losing.

[havoc110]

This is the second time I have heard this about Sammael's demise.  Can someone explain how being smothered by Mashadar equals being executed by Moridin or executed by Rand or killed for disobedience? (Honest question here, thanks).

[Seven of Nine]

As I was listening to KoD I got to the part where Min has a reading where everyone she sees is going to die of starvation. I'd forgotten about it. That's a little more serious than food going bad and full of weavils.

[dwn]

As I was listening to KoD I got to the part where Min has a reading where everyone she sees is going to die of starvation. I'd forgotten about it. That's a little more serious than food going bad and full of weavils.

 

I just reread 'In So Habor' from Crossroads of Twilight and was thinking much the same thing. Unfortunately, the main characters (Perrin in this case), seem to shrug off the horror since they have more important things to worry about. This causes me, as a reader, to also give less weight to these problems.

 

If you analyze the situation, the Good Guys are in serious trouble and the Shadow looks likely to win. But you shouldn't have to analyze anything to come to that conclusion. The heroes say they're worried, frequently, but they don't act like it.

 

-- dwn

 

[Braus]

 

as for the towers not mended all it needs is the outing of the dark friends in both towers and the leadership of the towers under egwene and logain. if you look at elaida's foretelling of the black tower its pretty obvious that the black tower will be privy to one massive battle between the good and bad ashaman and including sisters as well.

 

Again, its like saying to some guy who is playing soccer, just shoot the ball in goal. Its simple, all you gotta do is shoot it in the goal and you have won. I bet whoever thinks of that first will be the best soccer player in the world. Truthfully.

 

 

[Mr Ares]

I spy with my little eye that sheihk is making Mr Ares misspell awfully alot, some emotion going on while replying?:P

No, just a failure to spellcheck before posting. That said, I can spot a couple of errors in your much briefer post - I must have really pissed you off.

 

As far as the white tower goes, we have heard repeatedly that sisters of the black ajah have walked its grounds since it was founded. even if they dont all know each other, they are still numerous, and not under any compunction about using the power as a weapon at will, lying, and causing overall strife.

Even if we did put aside the Blacks, the other seven Ajahs in the Tower are too busy foghting one another to do anything useful, and the Tower is under siege from the rebels, and the Seanchan are going to attack. Sheikh chilli's refusal to accept these clearly stated facts really show that there is no hope of reasoned debate here. One Tower run by a darkfriend, the other paralysed, and this isn't playing into the hands of the Shadow?

 

(WT and probably BA)

The BA use the White Tower's binder to remove their Oaths - it's why Galina goes out of her way to get the other one from Therava - she doesn't know if Oaths sworn on one rod can be removed by another.

 

Can someone explain how being smothered by Mashadar equals being executed by Moridin or executed by Rand or killed for disobedience?

If Moridin hadn't saved Rand, Sammael would not have been distracted by Rand and allowed Mashadar to get him.

 

Unfortunately, the main characters (Perrin in this case), seem to shrug off the horror since they have more important things to worry about. This causes me, as a reader, to also give less weight to these problems.

That might have been what RJ was going for. He has said he always credited his readers with intelligence, which is why he doesn't always spell things out. He shows us the problems, so even if the characters don't notice how bad things are, we do. Much the same as Rand does't go around thinking "Taim is a darkfriend, I'm sure of it", but we have had sufficient evidence for us to believe it (most of it in Rand povs).