AMOL Prologue Spoiler Discussion

[Barid Bel Medar]

Well, since this is a discussion of the Prologue, not "point of DF's", I will keep it short. Or else someone start a thread on it.

 

1. Since when has anyone in the series actually done anything efficient? If they did, Rand would be dead or turned by now.

2. As per Rand, people of a certain....association... cannot hide any more. (heh, this actually works against my point as well, since Rand would be able to spot them immediately, but I won't go into that here.)

3. Who said they had to be "farmers"? I thought the most common thing people are taught is don't judge a book by its cover.

4. Tensions are high, Perrin fears things will explode. A sizeable force may just tip the balance and create bloodshed.

5. Since when does the DO care about DF's? If it creates an opportunity to kill Rand and mess up the Light, he would sacrifice 100,000 DF's for the cause.

6. One could simply restrain a fewDF's trying to make a scene, an army of 5,000 however, would be somewhat harder.

7. Channelers could be included in this, Dreadlords and the like, could cause some serious damage.

 

 

Now before starting anything up, my comment was intended to be an aside, as it isn't the point of this thread. I know that the "likely" explanation is simple, and I am not saying it is likely what I say will happen, I'm just throwing ideas around to keep it fresh, we have quite a wait until the release.

[MasterAblar]

1. Since when has anyone in the series actually done anything efficient? If they did, Rand would be dead or turned by now.

 

Can't argue with that.

 

2. As per Rand, people of a certain....association... cannot hide any more.

 

All the more reason for them to stay carefully concealed within his forces, instead of gathering into one group. Imagine if Rand decides to take a stroll through their camp. When not a single person can look at him, he'll quickly figure out something's not right.

 

3. Who said they had to be "farmers"? I thought the most common thing people are taught is don't judge a book by its cover.

 

Very true, but they appear to be behaving like farmers, and according to Gawyn they have the same tools as farmers. Though it's not so much that they're farmers which is important (since that could just be an act), it's that they're all gathered together.

 

4. Tensions are high, Perrin fears things will explode. A sizeable force may just tip the balance and create bloodshed.

 

Sure but it would be more efficient to me if that sizeable force was spread out among the various forces.

 

5. Since when does the DO care about DF's? If it creates an opportunity to kill Rand and mess up the Light, he would sacrifice 100,000 DF's for the cause.

 

He would but I'm just saying that he would be better served by keeping them in their role as spies. The trollocs are the expendable grunts. DF's are more valuable.

 

6. One could simply restrain a fewDF's trying to make a scene, an army of 5,000 however, would be somewhat harder.

 

50 or 5000, when channellers get involved, all bets are off. The problem with them being gathered as they are is that they are essentially putting themselves out in the open. If they stay hidden within the armies, it'll be much harder to get a hold of them.

 

7. Channelers could be included in this, Dreadlords and the like, could cause some serious damage.

 

There could but again the Shadow would be better served if they were spread throughout the armies, and were starting trouble between the opposed factions.

 

Now before starting anything up, my comment was intended to be an aside, as it isn't the point of this thread. I know that the "likely" explanation is simple, and I am not saying it is likely what I say will happen, I'm just throwing ideas around to keep it fresh, we have quite a wait until the release.

 

No problem, I'm just rather skeptical of the farmers=darkfriends theory.

[MyKillK]

Very nice, but Sanderson to be pretty terrible with names. Lord Davies? Seriously?

 

Lord Davies wasn't so bad. I thought the worst name in that passage was Morear...I know Brandon admits he isn't as good at picking names, but Morear made me cringe as a I read it. It was either "mo' rear" or "more-ear" in my head and both sounded silly.

[Chesus]

I'd rank the farmers=darkfriends theory right up there with b@+$hit crazy ideas like Taim is a good guy or Thom can channel.

[rand4747]

I see Morear as 'Mow re are' or maybe 'more re are'

[Barid Bel Medar]

See, you are relying on the point of "more efficient". Not that I am saying your wrong, it is indeed quite true from out point of view, but we know little of the Shadow's plan or its military efficiency really.

 

The Shadow has a lot of things up its sleeves, we have only seen a few, like the Dreamspike. Moridin has a whole lot of ter'angreal and stuff, and the Shadow works in different ways to any "logic". If we are going on reason, why does the DO do anything at all?

 

We cannot say what is truly the most efficient. Their aims need not be "efficient", but targeted at one goal, it could be simply to kill as many people as they can, to hell with everything else. Shadowspawn could be waiting to pop up from Portal Stones or Waygates ready to fight with the DF army. That kind of thing. Note: I don't think the Shadowspawn thing will happen, just pointing out as an example.

 

The DO stopped everyone from attempting to kill Rand, not a very efficient way of dealing with the problem, but as we later see, they had a different plan.

 

Think also about Verin's comment about the war not being fought in the way anyone thinks it will be. Now I am not directly applying it to this situation, but just saying that not all is as it seems outwardly.

 

Also, as I mentioned, Lanfear and Moggy are rallying the DF's. Rand says they cannot hide. It suggests a mass gathering of DF's like an army. Not to say that there are no DF's infiltrating positions still, just that not all are used for this purpose.

 

Sorry, I said I didn't want to derail the thread, promise it will be the final post about it here.

 

I get being sceptical, obviously it isn't a likely option, I just think it merits some attention.

 

 

quote name='rand4747' timestamp='1335540588' post='2274450']

I see Morear as 'Mow re are' or maybe 'more re are'

 

Yeah, that is how I read it aswell, kinda like Moria (LotR)

 

Also, to be fair, this could be one of the names from the charity thing, some names must be hard to fit in without changing it too much.

[yoniy0]

Let's leave the point of the farmers at tFoM to another thread, alright?

[b3arz3rg3r]

I liked the prologue. I wonder what determines who is affected by Rand's pull and by how much. So far it seems those who are unorganized and those who lack a clear purpose are affected the most, while those who live in order are left largely untouched. If so it would explain why the Seanchan who are very good at creating order may be left largely unaffected.

 

Let's leave the point of the farmers at tFoM to another thread, alright?

 

As long as we are speculating that groups like the one in the excerpt are part of them, this is the only possible thread. In all others AMOL spoilers are not allowed.

 

On that note I don't think anything standing in the way of the "Farmers" including groups like those unbound soldiers we saw here. For one the majority of them may as well be farmers and not soldiers. Only a couple of thousand had arrived from what I recall when we last hear a count of them. Those numbers could rise rapidly to half a million for all we know. With everyone else having used Travelling there's no telling how many people are on the road somewhere. And among many thousand farmers a couple of thousand unorganized soldiers would be hard to spot. Besides, remember how quickly beggars turned into soldiers once Rand affected them. The same will happen with those unorganized farmers. Either Mat, Perrin or Rand will give them a fixed purpose and once that happens they'll change into whatever they are needed to be.

[yoniy0]

b3arz3rg3r is naturally right 'yall. No spoilers on any other threads (except the one about the cover, actually). However, the discussion of those farmers has thus far gained very little from what we saw of the Sarand army in the prologue, and I think it can safely be conducted elsewhere.

[Majsju]

The passage I found more interesting than the report on it. The scene itself seemed pretty ordianary (well, compared to what COULD have been read, like a Forsaken chapter or something) but I think it has a lot of potential Forshadowing.

 

Alot of interesting stuff musing about the DO, and how concentrating on his work made it seem Lighter, that he thinks this was the way to fight the DO.

 

I found that interesting as well. Almost as if the act of creating something helped push the DO's effect back to some extent. "Belief and order give strength"?

 

Hands off, that is my old theory!

Granted, i kinda hit the wall with it when I tried to incorporate Leyas comment in TDR, "It is with the strength of our belief that we fight the Shadow". A very typical tinker-thing to say, but how to make it work together with the rest (since we know there has to be an awful lot of violence during TG).

[randsc]

Interesting theory. Shades of Modesitt.

[Terez]

It occurred to me while reading this that I said in the other thread that we've never seen Jarid. Which is, of course, not true; he was with Rand in the beginning of LOC.

[GB]

i did enjoy the prologue, a good teaser of what is about to unfold or already unfolding all over Randland. be nice to see what happens to them and if they make it to the north or end up in camelyn fighting the trollocs on their way north since they are near Whitebridge

[Graendals favourite]

Interesting that Lan's oath was: "To stand against the shadow so long as iron is hard and stone abides. To defend the Malkieri while one drop of blood remains. To avenge what cannot be defended." Other Borderlanders might have similar. If the stones stop abiding, Lan would suddenly no longer have his duty to stand against the shadow... Not that I know that makes much of a difference. I suppose. Actually, since the Darkhounds leave tracks on stone, and the Dark Hunt rides, you could say Lan, if he should hear of the events, would not longer be obliged to fight the Shadow. But perhaps for a Borderlander that would mean that when these two things happen, it is no longer the Borderlanders' task to guard the Blight, but that at that stage the whole world takes part.

 

Which reminds me the Aiel: "till shade is gone, till water is gone, into the shadow with teeth bared, screaming defiance with the last breath, to spit in Sightblinder's eye on the Last Day." And them wishing people to always have water and shade. Well, shade you could say is already gone with the constant gloom, perhaps, though apparently water still abounds.

[yoniy0]

Ha. They don't swear on these things by way of putting conditions on their duty. Rather, they are swearing to remain faithful until the very last.

[rand4747]

Ha, they just choose something they think cant possibly become different, just with iron it did :p, It just shows how deciated they intend to be to whatever it is. Essentially never will they stray from the dedication.

[Randommer]

The way how fragile the world is, I think the last battle is fairly early in the book. I could be wrong though.

Yeah; I get the impression that the whole book will basically be different aspects of the last battle. I mean, considering this was orignally supposed to be the last third of the last book, there's probably going to be a lot of action. Could be that the entire book will only cover a really short space of time, or that TG will just go on for ages. I'd guess the first one.

 

On another note, BS seems to be quite fond of the 'and then they went mad...' thing. But then, I'm reading stuff by David Farland atm, who uses it a lot, so maybe it's just annoying me more than it should. Or maybe it was all that Shakespeare in school... Lazy-writing asshole

[Kaznen]

The prologue seemed to be the pattern saying, "only one fight to focus on now" to me at least. That is why the soldiers lost there weapons.

 

That and the farmers at the FoM and the borderland farmers heading north is pointing out the everyone will be fighting the last battle. There is no cilivan population to protect, no hiding out the storm, no sitting on the sideline. Everyone needs to be there and everyone will have a place in the Army of the Light even if they are not fighting.

 

The LB is win or die. If the good guys lose, all are dead.

[Maleshub]

The prologue seemed to be the pattern saying, "only one fight to focus on now" to me at least. That is why the soldiers lost there weapons.

 

That and the farmers at the FoM and the borderland farmers heading north is pointing out the everyone will be fighting the last battle. There is no cilivan population to protect, no hiding out the storm, no sitting on the sideline. Everyone needs to be there and everyone will have a place in the Army of the Light even if they are not fighting.

 

The LB is win or die. If the good guys lose, all are dead.

 

Definitely on the mark. It is scary how large the butcher's bill is going to be when all is said and done in TG.

[RandA lThor]

I think this stopped the idea of Jarid Sarand being Demandred, I cannot believe that Demandred would be owned like that or go that crazy. Good intro, nice way to start it out without someone incredibly major, but someone gone from the storyline for ever. Very interesting intro I loved it. This is going to be awesome.

[Aemon raHal]

I haven't seen this discussed....

 

The 'softening' metal: is that a bubble of evil, or a global phenominon?

 

If it's 'global', then not great news for Mat's and Andor's cannons!

Unless they're converted to Cuellendar.

 

On a wider scope, this will obviously have a huge effect on all of the armies (perhaps less so on the Aiel) - especially if the Darkfriend 'armies' and Trollocs etc are either unaffected or have been equiped with non metal weapons....

[ptolemy99]

This is just a quick aside about the 5k farmers at the FoM.

 

Maybe they are part of the a VERY secret society that have been quietly setting the world up for the LB. They look like farmer, but they were actually the ones making sure Laman cut down the tree, the Aiel were able to make the water pact, Aridhols eventual fall and sealing until Fain comes along, etc.

 

Pretty unlikely, but what if....

[yoniy0]

The 'softening' metal: is that a bubble of evil, or a global phenominon?

It's localized. Maria said so.

 

they were actually the ones making sure Laman cut down the tree

I'm not sure if you're joking. For the off chance that you're not, this chain of events began when Tigraine and Luc disappeared. And we know who was responsible for that...

[FarShainMael]

Ah yes. Gitara 'of-course-I'm-not-a-DF' Moroso.

[Suttree]

Ah yes. Gitara 'of-course-I'm-not-a-DF' Moroso.

 

Is this another theory along the lines of Bashere? She has done far more for the light than most AS in the story. Will be interesting to see how it plays out.