Discuss The Forsaken

[OptimusPrime]

Taims hand.

[Ryamano]

That is a good point. Why turn the White Tower against itself? A and B were dead by the time the rest came out of the hole, but they still had 11 of them plus the couple hundred BA and Taim, so why not link up in a super-circle, vaporize the place and then worry about what to do with Rand while he's looking for the Horn? It would seem like a decent step one in any plan.

 

After that, fan the Black Ajah out around the continent. Tell Illian that Tear did with a ter'angreal that can level cities and vice versa and set them against each other. Same for Andor and Cairhien and a bunch of places out west. Turn the whole continent to rubble and then worry about making Rand depressed and angry.

 

RJ talked about the why of that in one of his posts in the blog. He compared the Forsaken to the Nazis. In WWII some Nazi commanders were still sending resources to the concentration camps to kill the people there (Jews, gypsies, homossexuals, political dissenters) even when the people defending the Reich in France, Italy and Eastern Europe barely had resources. Why use trains to transport these undesirable people to be exterminated instead of soldiers or ammo or fuel? Evil sometimes is stupid, according to him, and so are the Forsaken.

[Ryamano]

aginor backed the young sheepherder to the edge of a cliff and was about to destroy him when rand unconsciously pulled TEOTW's source away from him, causing ag to panic and overdraw himself in response. then, his second go around he had rand lined up for a blast of balefire but was killed by elza who had no idea he was a chosen.

 

be'lal was prepared to waste rand the moment he drew callandor but moiraine (who he had accounted for and even set up a trap in her room) intervened and pulled balefire out of her arse, which caught the forsaken and the entire reading community by surprise. did you know she could weave BF? well neither did the enemy and that's hardly something to chalk up to lack of preparation.

 

ish/moridin primarily works towards turning rand to the shadow instead of killing him because he correctly understands that killing the dragon is only a temporary victory, and to achieve the shadow's ultimate goal of oblivion the creator's champion must be turned. if ish wanted rand dead he never would have got out of emond's field.

 

even feeble asmo was about to defeat rand when they fought over the access key, but the fat man angreal rand carried at the time gave him just enough edge to win.

 

without moiraine's foreknowledge of lanfear's attack at the cairhien docks, rand, avi, and egwene would have been slaughtered.

 

rahvin was moments away from polymorphing rand into some kind of four-legged animal during their TAR fight when he got sneak attacked and distracted by nynaeve.

 

sammael had him hanging on for dear life in shadar logoth when moridin spoiled his victory.

 

semi had him set up perfectly when posing as tuon, only cadsuane's hair net (whose purpose was unknown to all, again including the readers) broke up her disguise. then she had him seconds away from killing his lover when rand surpised the readers again with using the TP to waste her.

 

mesaana had rand in a box for god's sake and also played the white tower like a fiddle.

 

as readers we are strongly conditioned to believe that any plans laid by the forsaken will fail after all of these events. but looking at these situations from the perspective of a character in the world, for example when loial puts all this stuff down in his chronicles, it appears that it was a miracle that the light triumphed against impossible odds time and time again. but for us who are looking from the outside, the bad guys look like bumbling idiots even when they are just as surpised by unforseen turning of events as we are.

 

Add to that list:

 

Moghedien saw Nynaeve in Ebou Dar. Moghedien used compulsion on a tavern owner and went to the top story of the building. Moghedien used balefire to destroy the boat Nynaeve was in, sniper like ... BUT some birds took flight at that exact moment and she didn't shoot right. Nynaeve just kind of drowned and then got rescued by Lan.

 

Nynaeve isn't even ta'veren for god's sake. This was just random luck (aka the author demands it). If all of the forsaken made a circle of 11 at TGH and attacked the White Tower or Rand probably a random lightning would attack the leader of the circle and make them easy bait. It's incredible how random luck save our heroes so much. Except for Graendal's plan to kill Perrin, which was just dumb.

 

And for those who said that the Gholam should be sent to the Cleansing or the White Tower, remember that the Gholam received orders from Sammael only, who discovered him. And his orders were to kill Elayne and Mat. That's it. No one else even knows that he still existed or where he was. Sammael could've ordered him to do differently, killing different targets, but Sammy died in the meantime in Shadar Logoth.

[AvroChris]

Plot armour and the Rule of Cool takes precedence over common sense and realism in fantasy. I think that's the point of it!

[Ryamano]

There's no sign at all that Delana was compelled. Elza Penfell (and the rest of Elaida's embassy) is an example of a compelled channeler being able to function, though.

 

It must be said that Verin's compulsion was very subtle, so noone noticed a difference in Elza. Well, everyone thought it was weird that a Red would swear allegiance to the Dragon Reborn, but she functioned normally on all other matters.

 

Moghedien's compulstion on the tavern owner in ACOS isn't as subtle. The woman had her brain partially fried. Also Graendal's compulsion isn't subtle as well. Rand comments that the guy they find who gives the name of Natrim's Barrow probably was slow witted due to her Compulsion.

 

So using mass compulsion in the White Tower would be problematic. It seems people don't function as normally as they did before in several cases. The Aes Sedai could notice that something was odd with all the dumber people around and become suspicious of the Shadow.

 

Rahvin used compulsion on all channelers he found in Caemlyn and it's possible that Be'lal and Sammael did the same. But they were in their own power base, secure from the notice of other channelers.

[Ryamano]

After some thought... as a group, the Forsaken are foolish and weak.

 

However...

 

While from the reader's perspective, Graendal's plan to kill Perrin was worthless - how much do any of the Forsaken (save perhaps Moridin, and he's the kind of jerk who doesn't volunteer info like that) know about Wolfbrothers and their capabilities? How many wolfbrothers even show ability in Tel'aran'Rhiod, let alone this kind of strength? If Perrin had not had this ability, or had not been able to get strong quickly enough, Slayer would have killed Perrin and the Trollocs may well have taken out everyone else.

 

Slayer knows about Perrin's TAR abilities. Maybe Slayer underestimated Perrin and didn't think he should mention to Graendal that Perrin could walk in the world of dreams. That's one case where not sharing information hurts the bad guys and not the good guys (as usually happens in WOT).

 

But I think Graendal's plan wasn't all that much, even without the dream spike. It consisted of trapping Perrin in a place where he would battle lots of trollocs and/or Whitecloaks. Among all the confusion, a DF whitecloak would try to kill Perrin, if a trolloc or other soldier didn't do the deed first.

 

That's not really a great plan. Perrin has more channelers than the other forces he would face, not to mention that his army (with all those longbows) proved very good against one of the best of Randland's forces (the Aiel - the Shaido). Even if he was trapped, he could still defeat those armies and survive (unless Graendal was thinking about sending 1,000,000 Trollocs. But that would just be silly, since how much power would be needed for that? And how could that go unnoticed if it was done in weeks?).

[Ryamano]

It occurs to me how strange it is that the Forsaken could not make or copy (ter)angreal. I guess it's lucky for our heroes that they could not, but it's convenient too.

 

I am not exactly sure how Talents work, or the nature of the (ter)angreal, so maybe expecting them to know the basics might be asking too much. I mean, we might not know how to produce a Ming vase, but I can surely make a passable ashtray right? I digress, maybe those items of Power are closer to cars than they are pottery :). I surely could not make a car, even though I can get a speeding ticket driving one.

We know what the Forsaken did before they turned to GLoD.

Lanfear - researcher in the OP and TAR, hottest of the hot, power-monger.

Ishy - Philosopher,

Aginor - bioscientist

Belal - Lawyer, swordsman

Demandred - politician, soldier

Sammael - athlete, soldier

Balthamiel - anthropologist

Mesaana - educationist

Asmodean - musician

Moghedien - investment councillor

Graendal - shrink

Semirhage - physician

Rahvin - womaniser

 

These are all full-time professions. No reason why any of them would have dabbled in ter'angreal making. It was a stroke of luck that Moggy had a clue about making cuen'dillar.

FWIW, quite a lot of the stuff that AoL used would also have required advanced technology - funny glass columns with bizarre properties, weird metallic alloys, sound-recorders, kindles, stasis boxes. Even if they know how to do it in principle and they have some Talent, it would be impossible to reproduce these without a major industrial backup.

The simple stuff like the domination band, they could reproduce even with 3rd Age tech.

I'm sure foxhead medallion copies might suddenly appear somewhere at TG

 

Not a single engineer there. So we don't get to see someone attempting to build a shotgun or a chainsaw, like in Evil Dead 2. It'd be kind of weird (but still awesome) to have an Ash-like Forsaken who tried to arm himself and his men with shock-lances and sho-wings and stuff like that.

[fikkie77]

There's no sign at all that Delana was compelled. Elza Penfell (and the rest of Elaida's embassy) is an example of a compelled channeler being able to function, though.

 

It must be said that Verin's compulsion was very subtle, so noone noticed a difference in Elza. Well, everyone thought it was weird that a Red would swear allegiance to the Dragon Reborn, but she functioned normally on all other matters.

 

Moghedien's compulstion on the tavern owner in ACOS isn't as subtle. The woman had her brain partially fried. Also Graendal's compulsion isn't subtle as well. Rand comments that the guy they find who gives the name of Natrim's Barrow probably was slow witted due to her Compulsion.

 

So using mass compulsion in the White Tower would be problematic. It seems people don't function as normally as they did before in several cases. The Aes Sedai could notice that something was odd with all the dumber people around and become suspicious of the Shadow.

 

Rahvin used compulsion on all channelers he found in Caemlyn and it's possible that Be'lal and Sammael did the same. But they were in their own power base, secure from the notice of other channelers.

Elza was Green, she had a darkfriend warder.

[Ryamano]

 

Elza was Green, she had a darkfriend warder.

 

Forgot about that, my mistake. What happened to Fearil, her warder, after she died?

[stoneface]

As mentioned previously, if the Forsaken and the DO's minions were not so tied up with their own plots, the series would have been shorter:

 

TEotW, Chapter 1

 

The wind blew ... OK, enough about the wind already.

 

Rand pulled his cloak tighter about him, and saw a brief glimpse of something black before his head was cut off. Tam heard the ominous thump of a falling body, and came around the cart. His last thought was a regret for leaving his sword at home.

 

The Fade twisted into shadow and reappeared behind a blacksmith's apprentice...

 

The whole series is done in a few paragraphs. And that is why the DO's minions tie their shoelaces together.

[Guest c_edwards86]

Like others have said, the reason the Forsaken aren't that great is because RJ refuses to let any characters get killed. I'm not saying this series should be like George RR Martin books or anything, but come on, it's the LAST BATTLE! The Dark One is escaping, Trollocs, Myddraal, Forsaken, etc. are everywhere and not one single character dies as the result of this? Does that make any sense?

 

It would have been perfect for Gawyn to die defending Egwene: he'd have a heroic and emotional death and we'd get a lot of very interesting character development from Egwene about it. The whole sequence is indicative of how any real sense of danger has been stripped from this series. I doubt anybody was really thinking that he wouldn't make it.

 

I remember that WoT Guide book that came out gives character details about the Forsaken and says they were the most powerful of the channelers who went to the Dark One. Since that book wasn't part of an in-universe mythology, we can trust that they weren't just average people, but pretty much some of the best the AoL had.

 

I love this series but outside of Ish the Forsaken are a huge disappointment. They really were just plot devices to let Rand fight someone supposedly tough at the climax of each book. You can only have these people bumble along for so long before they lose any mystique they had or fear they inspired.

 

I think/hope that we are going to see some people dying off in the last installment. I think/hope this for two major reasons. One, so far none of the "good guys" has died. Even in Lord of the Rings, which several critics have stated Jordan's novels are related to in their scope, grandeur and basic elements, in the very first book one of the "good guys" Boromir (I know, tempted by the power of the Ring, he tries to take it from Frodo, making him a bad guy, but honestly its not all black and white, he is a good guy, who fails in a moment of weakness) dies heroically trying to save Pippen and Merry thus redeeming himself for his earlier weakness. So far we've really not seen that in the WoT. We've lost Aram, who for all intents and purposes was completely corrupted by Masema. Masema is another instance of a good guy gone bad, but without redemption to make his death meaningful or cause the audience to feel for him other than to think, "good riddance to another bad guy". Ultimately, we have yet to see a character that the audience sees as being 100% a good guy fall to the powers of the "bad guys" or even the "quasi-bad guys". All we've seen is a lot of pain, suffering, anger, and sacrifice, but no meaningful deaths. All of the main characters, regardless of missing limbs are still alive and for the most part healthy. If Jordan/Sanderson are going to establish their place within the genre some major character that the audience has grown to love and cherish and uphold, is going to have to die. If anything, the closest thing we have to this throughout the series so far is two fold. One Moiraine's death in Cairhein is close, except that we come to know that she lives, so it doesn't really count. Two Noal's death in Finnland. We come to know that he is Jain Farstrider, whose stories are well known throughout the book and who we have come to know as a hero of many of our heroes from their own childhood. However his time in the series is relatively short, with only minor development, and without as monumental of an ending as we might have come to expect, making it less memorable and meaningful for the audience. He was for all intents and purposes a secondary or tertiary character. Second I think/hope that people are going to start dying off in the last installment are complex. I believe that because everyone has been paired up in the last several books (Suian/Bryne, Egwene/Gawyn, Perrin/Faile, Mat/Tuon, Rand/Elayne/Min/Avihenda, Galad/Berelain, Morgase/Tallanvor, Lan/Nynaeveetc.) is because some of these characters are going to die, leaving the loved one behind. I believe this because a good portion of the last two books has been about understanding the reason for rebirth, and that reason being to experience love. Argumentatively one cannot experience Love without know the pain of loss, etc, but that's another philosophical thread of the novels. Another reason I think that this will happen is for all those who have not been paired off. Tam for instance, I believe that he will play a larger portion than previously possibly dying before Rand (just a calculated guess), perhaps Birgitte (possibly allowing for the Wheel to right itself), and ultimately because I believe Jordan, who enjoyed drawing out his prose, might have waited until the final installment of the story to finally let his audience feel the pain of loss, for characters we've come to know so well.

 

Now as to the Forsaken. I think first and foremost we need to remember to take the story as a whole, which is very difficult recognizing its scope and and length. I'm not positive, but I believe four Forsaken have been met with Balefire possibly five meaning they are gone for good. Rhavin in Andor (1), I always thought Sammael met with Balefire in Shadar Logoth (2?), but someone mentioned earlier that Jordan said Mashadar ate him (not sure if that means his soul is accessible to the Dark Lord), I believe Asan'gar is set up by Greandal (3), Semihrage at the manor house in Tear (4), and again cant remember if anyone else gets blasted with balefire (didn't Moiraine kill one of the Forsaken with balefire in the Stone?). So balefire means they can't be transmigrated, cause they dont exist anymore.If we assume that the physical body must die for the soul to be transmigrated, then my assumption would be that Messana is also out of the picture cause her mind is snapped by Egwene, but she doesn't actually die she's just a vegetable (which I like cause she's one of the few Forsaken not taken out or faced head on by Rand).

 

Also considering the Forsaken I think we need to remember Verin. She explicitly notes that the reason the Dark Lord uses them is because they are a predictable tool. And as Cadsuane's actions prove they are not superhuman, they are all too human. While they may be powerful, we've known since the beginning that the new Channelers of this age are just as powerful if not as knowledgeable, but even that has not remained the same as the new Channelers have been "rediscovering Talents" throughout the entire series, even exceeding the knowledge from the Age of Legends (Nynaeve accomplishes healing of Insanity, something Rand/Lews Therin Telamon says, was not common during the Age of Legends, if memory serves correctly). This means that we've known fairly early on that the Forsaken as really nothing more than roadblocks, and tests for our heroes in order to prepare them for the Tarmon Gaidon (archetypally speaking this is an important part of story and character development). Additionally their actions have and continue at the end of Towers of Midnight to bring the possibility of being at or winning Tarmon Gaidon to the edge of a knife. So if six Forsaken are out of the picture that leaves, Moghedien, Moridin, Osan'gar, Damendred, Greandal, Cyndane, (I'm not sure who the last one is). Ultimately this leaves seven major characters to play a role in the final chapters of the WoT. There is a lot that they could still do, a lot that they have done, and a lot for Sanderson to wrap up. However it could be as simple as their leadership at Tarmon Gaidon, condsidering that we've been informed from the beginning that the darkside would have Dreadlords (or at least I think that's the term they use for Channelers of the Dark One).

 

On a personal note. The more I think about it, the more I think that Damendred, is behind what is going on at the Black Tower. Either directly, having taken on the role of Mazrim Taim, or indirectly having influenced, allied with, or used Compulsion on Mazrim Taim. There are several reasons I think this. One, we've really yet to see Logain achieve the glory that Min has been saying he will achieve. It could be that it is Logain who defeats on of the Forsaken, recapturing the Black Tower for the forces of the Light, and not Rand. Or Rand will realize his errors and attempt to recapture the Black Tower, defeating yet another Forsaken before Tarmon Gaidon. Honestly I see the former happening more than the latter. Just as Egwene has faced and defeated one of the Forsaken, Nynaeve has faced and defeated one of the Forsaken, Perrin quasi-defeated one of the Forsaken, (it would be nice to see Mat defeat one of the Forsaken given that he has the foxhead ter'angreal).

 

Additionally I believe that as with Semihrage, it was always intended to have the other characters of the story, and thus the audience come to realize that the Forsaken are not what they were thought to be at the beginning of the story. For one ultimate reason, because this entire story has been building towards the end of a Age, and as such developing toward the end of current beliefs. One of the beliefs that would come to an end is the one surrounding the Forsaken, just as they have been working toward ending the beliefs surrounding men who can Channel. And of course the Prophecies surrounding who Rand would destroy the world, that I believe includes destroying the commonly held beliefs.

 

Ultimately I think that without the Forsaken, this story would not be as nearly as complete, and wonderfully complex and vibrant as it is without the Forsaken as part of the story for both the small parts and the large parts that they take throughout.

 

Edit: Cadsuane is another person I think will die at the end of this next installment with a great sacrifice. She has been one of the most interesting characters within the series so far. Determined, thoughtful, acting on her beliefs, but showing a will to change her ideas and approaches when necessary. She's accepting of people (I believe it is Bair she holds so much respect for, though she is a Wilder and no where near Cadsuane in the power). Even while she sees Nynaeve as a child she wishes much for Nynaeve's future.

 

Edit: Galad is another character who is undergoing, in the second half of Towers of Midnight, a rather deep character development. While it might be explained to the reader rather than simply letting the reader see it happen it is still development. Similar to the way Gawyn's development is appears somewhat contrived because it is explained to us in the open rather than us just seeing it happen. I think this happens because the series is coming to an end and this development is just now taking place. It is unfortunate and it is not the best character development ever written but it is there.

[Mandro]

For a long time I thought that the world before the AOL was one of science and not of magic. I don't believe that anymore. I think the wheel is necessary, especially with the dia/monologue between LTT and Rand. "So we can love again."

 

The wheel is outside our world, but randland is not our world.

[capuga]

For a long time I thought that the world before the AOL was one of science and not of magic. I don't believe that anymore. I think the wheel is necessary, especially with the dia/monologue between LTT and Rand. "So we can love again."

 

The wheel is outside our world, but randland is not our world.

 

Pretty sure RJ has said that Randland is our world's past/future. Which indicates that there will be an age or ages that do not have access to the One Power. Note that that doesn't mean the One Power won't exist and won't be turning the wheel, just that the people will not be able to access that Power for whatever reason.

[RembrandtQ.Einstein]

I believe Ishamael will play some sort of complex role in the upcoming events. He is after all the only Forsaken to not join his side out of selfish reasons or for personal gain. His deeper knowledge of all events will play out and for all we know he might have some ulterior motive in the entire charade that will only unfold near the end.