How Do You Rank The Books Thus Far?

[MattHildenbrandt]

Why all the CoT hate? Perrin is whiny and one dimensional. Mat is bullied by a completely different set of women. The rebel AS don't do anything. The incumbent AS don't do anything. Elayne doesn't do anything. And Rand and Nyn sleep through the whole thing. Its pretty epic.

 

That being said, I'll defend my like of the last two books by saying for me its more about the story, less about the story telling. The less nonsense I feel I have to plod through, the better. I would much rather read Eddings than Hawthorne or Dickens. On to the rankings.

 

tGS. I loved Darth Rand. I would have loved him more if he added Tenobia to the list. VoG was also solid(I'm well aware that the new Rand is exactly where he is supposed to be, and I'm cool with it)

tSR or tFoH For all the same reasons as everybody else

tGH or tDR I like them, there were a lot of good memories, and a lot of character progression

EotW or ToM Story driven, nice fast, leisurely read

The rest...a few really solid scenes, and a lot of plodding and skipped chapters on rereads

[Shaidar]

I prefer to rank them in trilogies/quartets.

 

1. The Eye of the World --> The Dragon Reborn. An epic start to what I originally thought might be one the greatest fantasy series ever written... the pace is good, the characterization solid.

 

2. Knife of Dreams --> (hopefully) AMoL. RJ begins seizing back control of the narrative, and BS finishes the job - if crudely at times (this is not a criticism; he is not RJ, and this can't be helped).

 

3. The Shadow Rising --> A Crown of Swords. I rank these books lower than most because this is where RJ begins to lose control over the plot, and all the insane skirt twitchings and arms being folded under breasts and BDSM overload begins.

 

4. Winter's Heart --> Crossroads of Twilight. A total swamp.

[Amandera]

I hate to disagree with anyone in this thread since it's all about personal preferences but I just have to say it broke my heart that you included tSR to the RJ losing control category.

[Yosarian]

1. The Dragon Reborn: I love how he ties all the plots together in this one, how everyone converges on Tear for the key moment. It's one of the best examples in the whole seires of how Ta'varn is supposed to work, with everything coming together for a dramatic conclusion.

 

2. The Great Hunt

 

3: The Shadow Rising

 

4. The Gathering Storm I guess I have a higher opinion of TGS/TOM these then most people. I found the whole thing with Rand using the TP, Dark Rand, and then Rand coming back to the Light to be one of the most interesting storylines in the whole series, and I think the Rand PoV chapters in TGS were really well done.

 

5. Towers of Midnight:

 

6. Knife of Dreams

 

7. Eye of the World: I loved this book when I first read it, it really got me into the series, but I feel like it doesn't have as much re-read value as many of the other books. It just doesn't seem to fit as well with the rest of the seires. It's still very good, though

 

8. Fires of Heaven: I have to say that the Nynaeve POV chapters in this book were some of the funniest things in the whole series. I just find it hillarious how totally lacking in self awareness she is.

 

9. Lord of Chaos

 

10. Crossroads of Twilight

 

11. Crown of Swords

 

12: Path of Daggers

 

13. Winter's Heart: For the books on the botton, the two storylines I hate most of all are the "Perrin rescues Faiel storyline" (it could have been decent, there were some good ideas in there, but the pacing was horrible; it took RJ about three books to do a storyline that earlier in the series he'd have finished in a chapter or two) and worse, the "Mat gets quasi-raped by Tylin" storyline. Those were both aweful, and it made basically all of the Mat and Perrin chapters for multiple books either dull or almost unreadable. Which is terrible, since they are my favorate two characters.

 

I have to say, after Winter's Heart, I was really afraid the series was just in a downwards spiral. It got better after that, though.

[batcaver]

I hate to disagree with anyone in this thread since it's all about personal preferences but I just have to say it broke my heart that you included tSR to the RJ losing control category.

I gotta second this. TSR really distinguished itself from the previous three books in several ways. First of all, Ba'alzamon (Ishamael) is finally out of the picture, allowing the other Forsaken and the Shadow in general to gain depth and become a greater part of the story. He was cool, but he'd gone as far as he needed to and we'd had enough of him. Channeling also started to become a much more intricate and interesting subject in TSR, with more rules and possibilities established. We get to see the characters moving further out into the world; the Waste and the Aiel are fantastic additions. Rand's sequence in the columns is my favorite in the series. I tend to hate flashbacks in stories, but Jordan somehow made me look forward to them because he wrote them so well. I loved Lanfear's prominence here - she's been disappointingly boring since she became Cyndane. Mat's character develops so much in this book. To me, the first 3 books almost feel like a trilogy within the series in some ways, and as original as they are they still kind of bow in homage to some fantasy cliches that kind of bore me. This is only a very minor quibble that I usually don't think about, but TSR was the first time I realized that Jordan could transcend that to the degree that he did.

 

 

4. The Gathering Storm I guess I have a higher opinion of TGS/TOM these then most people. I found the whole thing with Rand using the TP, Dark Rand, and then Rand coming back to the Light to be one of the most interesting storylines in the whole series, and I think the Rand PoV chapters in TGS were really well done.

 

I liked what happend in TGS and TOM pretty well, just often not HOW it happened. The bullet points seemed just fine for the most part and I think that all of the swift plot advancement is the major reason these books are as good as they are. If BS had had to take over for COT I probably would have carved my eyes out.

[Shaidar]

The problem with TSR is that it was the start on the road to perdition.

 

Yes, a great deal of depth was introduced. The storyline was cut into four (Aiel, Two Rivers, Tanchico, and Siuan). Unfortunately, as would later become clear, RJ would be unable to keep these strands coherent, and they fray in the later books.

 

Siuan and Leane should have been killed off here; the Nynaeve - Moggy showdown was unrealistic (we get all this buildup about how great the Forsaken are, and here Moggy loses to a relatively untrained Aes Sedai); and I'm skeptical of the wisdom of even including the Aiel as a major part of the story.

 

FWIW, my "internal" ranking of this quartet is FoH > TSR >> LoC > aCoS.

[Sagacious Lu]

For me the strongest entries in the series are The Shadow Rising, The Fires of Heaven and Lord of Chaos. Many of the most memorable moments in the series occur in those three, probably because it is in those books that our heros from the Two Rivers really come into their own and start taking the reigns of the story. I think my two favorite moments are when Rand tries to resurenct the little girl in The Stone of Tear (that scene is still horrific all these years later) and Dumai's Wells.

I have to say I loved The Gathering Storm and Towers of Midnight but somehow I just can't bring myself to rank the books written by proxy with Jordan's work. IMHO Sanderson has done an excellent job thus far, but we all know who this series belongs to.

If I'm going to be critical I think Crossroads of Twilight is the weakest entry in the series. The scene where Perrin dismembers the Shaido was great, but that's the only part that REALLY stands out in my memory from that book.

[Yosarian]

Siuan and Leane should have been killed off here; the Nynaeve - Moggy showdown was unrealistic (we get all this buildup about how great the Forsaken are, and here Moggy loses to a relatively untrained Aes Sedai); and I'm skeptical of the wisdom of even including the Aiel as a major part of the story.

 

In terms of pure strength, Nynaeve is supposed to be the strongest Aes Sedi anyone's seen in generations. She is apparently equal in power to Moggy, who is probably the weakest of the Forsaken in terms of pure power. That doesn't seem unreasonable to me. Granted she doesn't have the training Moggy has, but she made the mistake of fighting Nynaeve basically head to head, in a pure wrestling match of Power.

[Shaidar]

Moggy had 100 years of subterfuge, and 10 years of total war, to hone her skills and find out what works and what doesn't.

 

I found it incredible that she would engage in this "pure wrestling match". It is skin to a blademaster facing an unarmed tough throwing away his sword and engaging in a punching bout instead.

 

Not to mention that in the next book she gets imprisoned in her own element, TAR, and not even by Egwene, who is at least a Dreamer, but by Nynaeve!!!

 

In general, the books have been criticized for making out the Forsaken as superhumans, when in fact they are bumbling incompetents most of the time. Moggy perhaps more than any other epitomizes this (though Graendal is now a strong contender too).

[Amandera]

Oh, no. The title for most incompetent goes to either Balthamel or Aginor. One getting killed by a tree and the other OD'ing on saidin.

[Wool-headed lummox]

I'd argue one of RJ's weaknesses is his structuring, and it shows a bit on LOC (though not nearly as much as it does on ACoS).

It shows on all his books. RJ's typical way of structuring the plot:

 

0. Prologue. Easily the most exciting part of the book. Interesting characters go ahead with their plans, achieve something of note, find themselves in new and unexpected positions, discover things that readers care about.

 

1. First half of the book. Nothing happens. Characters whine a lot, and reiterate things we've heard a thousand times.

 

2. Third quarter of the book. Little happens. Characters move from place A to place B while whining and bickering a lot.

 

3. Last quarter of the book. Things start to look like they are about to happen. Tons of a-pulled drama and men vs. women issues.

 

4. Final chapter. GUNS BLAZING APOCALYPSE CRASHING DOWN ON CHARACTERS' TIRED SHOULDERS DEATH HORROR DESTRUCTION RAINING EVIL COMES TO FRUITION BLOOD-CHILLING SCREAMS FLAMING MOLTEN ROCK GLORIOUS BATTLES AND VICTORIES FOR ALL.

 

5. Epilogue. People in remote villages think that Martians on tripods burnt down Cairhien and anal-probed the Dragon Reborn.

 

 

Brandon Sanderson improved these problems as much as he could, but his books sometimes read like fanfiction or Extended Universe material.

 

Barndon Sanderson's Aes Sedai: "My White Tower training tells me to treat you overly forcefully and make my motives cryptic and unreadable, therefore I shall proceed to do so immediately, puny man".

[Yosarian]

Moggy had 100 years of subterfuge, and 10 years of total war, to hone her skills and find out what works and what doesn't.

 

I found it incredible that she would engage in this "pure wrestling match". It is skin to a blademaster facing an unarmed tough throwing away his sword and engaging in a punching bout instead.

 

Not to mention that in the next book she gets imprisoned in her own element, TAR, and not even by Egwene, who is at least a Dreamer, but by Nynaeve!!!

 

In general, the books have been criticized for making out the Forsaken as superhumans, when in fact they are bumbling incompetents most of the time. Moggy perhaps more than any other epitomizes this (though Graendal is now a strong contender too).

 

Yeah; with only a few exceptions, the Forsaken, and really all the darkfriends as a whole, are pretty sad. If they didn't spend 60% of their time backstabbing each other and the other 40% of their time torturing each other, they would be a much bigger threat.

 

The genius of Jordan is that he took the whole "light vs dark" conflict and made it much more complicated and interesting by taking the whole "light side" and having them be far more complex and human then in other fantesy books. Some of them don't believe it, some of them are more interested in getting power then saving the world, some of them are terrible people in their own right, some of them have been raised to have cultrual moral codes that seem horrible to us (the Senchen being just one example), and everyone is acting on incomplete information and making mistakes because they just don't know or understand something important. This makes the series much more belivable and interesting then most fantasy books I've read.

 

The problem is, he didn't do that for the dark side. They're nearly all kick the dog, "chaotic stupid", evil for the evulz, to an almost unbeivable degree, and most of them are pretty incompetent as well. It makes them much less interesting as villains then they should be. There are a few exceptions, but even they slip into this occasionally.

 

In this case, and in may others, one of the Forsaken's biggest mistakes is totally underestimating everyone from the current age. They're children, they think, not real aes sedi, so they assume that they're no threat. Same at for the ending of the Eye of the World; they had no idea that one relitivly weak Aes Sedi, a handfull of untrained kids, and the Green Man could pose any threat to two forsaken. They probably should have, but, yeah, they're idiots.

[BFG]

tSR 68

tFoH 90

tGH 104.5

LoC 126.5

tEotW 131

tDR 137

tGS 146.5

KoD 174.5

ToM 187.5

CoS 194.5

PoD 215

WH 224

CoT 279.5

 

 

Average so far- same as before: Only included people that have ranked all the books released so far (excluding NS). If people have group ranked books then the score they're given is the average of those books, so eg tDR, tGH and tSR are all ranked equal first, then in this chart they've each been given a value of 2 and whichever book comes next is given rank of 4.

 

For really geeky people (like myself) Batcaver has the most consensus view of the books, and Luckers the least.

 

EDIT: Font size

[Sightblinder'sMinder]

I'm just about finished with KoD, so I can't rank TGS or ToM, but I'll give it a shot:

 

1. Lord of Chaos

2. The Shadow Rising

3. The Great Hunt

4. Knife of Dreams

5. The Eye of the World

6. The Dragon Reborn

7. The Fires of Heaven

8. Winter's Heart

9. Path of Daggers

10. Crown of Swords

11. Crossroads of Twilight

[batcaver]

Average so far- same as before: Only included people that have ranked all the books released so far (excluding NS). If people have group ranked books then the score they're given is the average of those books, so eg tDR, tGH and tSR are all ranked equal first, then in this chart they've each been given a value of 2 and whichever book comes next is given rank of 4.

 

For really geeky people (like myself) Batcaver has the most consensus view of the books, and Luckers the least.

 

EDIT: Font size

Ha! I am the golden mean of the WOT.

 

 

I'd argue one of RJ's weaknesses is his structuring, and it shows a bit on LOC (though not nearly as much as it does on ACoS).

It shows on all his books. RJ's typical way of structuring the plot:

 

0. Prologue. Easily the most exciting part of the book. Interesting characters go ahead with their plans, achieve something of note, find themselves in new and unexpected positions, discover things that readers care about.

 

1. First half of the book. Nothing happens. Characters whine a lot, and reiterate things we've heard a thousand times.

 

2. Third quarter of the book. Little happens. Characters move from place A to place B while whining and bickering a lot.

 

3. Last quarter of the book. Things start to look like they are about to happen. Tons of a-pulled drama and men vs. women issues.

 

4. Final chapter. GUNS BLAZING APOCALYPSE CRASHING DOWN ON CHARACTERS' TIRED SHOULDERS DEATH HORROR DESTRUCTION RAINING EVIL COMES TO FRUITION BLOOD-CHILLING SCREAMS FLAMING MOLTEN ROCK GLORIOUS BATTLES AND VICTORIES FOR ALL.

 

5. Epilogue. People in remote villages think that Martians on tripods burnt down Cairhien and anal-probed the Dragon Reborn.

 

 

Brandon Sanderson improved these problems as much as he could, but his books sometimes read like fanfiction or Extended Universe material.

 

Barndon Sanderson's Aes Sedai: "My White Tower training tells me to treat you overly forcefully and make my motives cryptic and unreadable, therefore I shall proceed to do so immediately, puny man".

This whole post was funny to me. I don't think it was true of all of the books, but definitely several.

 

 

 

Moggy had 100 years of subterfuge, and 10 years of total war, to hone her skills and find out what works and what doesn't.

 

I found it incredible that she would engage in this "pure wrestling match". It is skin to a blademaster facing an unarmed tough throwing away his sword and engaging in a punching bout instead.

 

Not to mention that in the next book she gets imprisoned in her own element, TAR, and not even by Egwene, who is at least a Dreamer, but by Nynaeve!!!

 

In general, the books have been criticized for making out the Forsaken as superhumans, when in fact they are bumbling incompetents most of the time. Moggy perhaps more than any other epitomizes this (though Graendal is now a strong contender too).

 

Yeah; with only a few exceptions, the Forsaken, and really all the darkfriends as a whole, are pretty sad. If they didn't spend 60% of their time backstabbing each other and the other 40% of their time torturing each other, they would be a much bigger threat.

 

The genius of Jordan is that he took the whole "light vs dark" conflict and made it much more complicated and interesting by taking the whole "light side" and having them be far more complex and human then in other fantesy books. Some of them don't believe it, some of them are more interested in getting power then saving the world, some of them are terrible people in their own right, some of them have been raised to have cultrual moral codes that seem horrible to us (the Senchen being just one example), and everyone is acting on incomplete information and making mistakes because they just don't know or understand something important. This makes the series much more belivable and interesting then most fantasy books I've read.

 

The problem is, he didn't do that for the dark side. They're nearly all kick the dog, "chaotic stupid", evil for the evulz, to an almost unbeivable degree, and most of them are pretty incompetent as well. It makes them much less interesting as villains then they should be. There are a few exceptions, but even they slip into this occasionally.

 

In this case, and in may others, one of the Forsaken's biggest mistakes is totally underestimating everyone from the current age. They're children, they think, not real aes sedi, so they assume that they're no threat. Same at for the ending of the Eye of the World; they had no idea that one relitivly weak Aes Sedi, a handfull of untrained kids, and the Green Man could pose any threat to two forsaken. They probably should have, but, yeah, they're idiots.

This, times a million. The Forsaken have been a huge let down to me. All that scary prophecy in the beginning had me on the edge of my seat, but only rarely have they lived up to it at all. Semirhage didn't pull her plans off, but she did some damage at least and was scary. The others....Well, I'm holding out hope for Moridin, Demandred and SH but all other proxies of the DO seem to be totally incapable. I was always hoping for another 'DO speaks to the congregation' scene that might explain his motives for not just telling them to burn the world down. Seems to me that aside from the food shortage thing the Seanchan have been more of a threat to Randland by far. At least militarily. The cleansing was my all time WTF moment with this. I know that shadowspawn can't move through gateways, but can't darkfriends? Dreadlords? Was that really all the shadow could muster for that major event? If I'm off here then call me out because I really do want it to be more satisfying. It seems to me the shadow's really screwed the pooch here. Oh well, maybe next age guys.

[Sightblinder'sMinder]

Just finished KoD, and I thought it was one the strongest in the series. Definitely a good way to go out. The general consensus seems to be CoT was a bit underwhelming, so I'm glad he got to tie up the loose ends.

[Sagacious Lu]

The problem is, he didn't do that for the dark side. They're nearly all kick the dog, "chaotic stupid", evil for the evulz, to an almost unbeivable degree, and most of them are pretty incompetent as well. It makes them much less interesting as villains then they should be. There are a few exceptions, but even they slip into this occasionally.

 

This is spot on. The darkfriends remind me of Heath Ledger's line as the Joker: "I'm like a dog chasing a car; I wouldn't know what to do if I caught it." There isn't one Don Corleone in the whole bunch. If there were things would have been very different.

[Yosarian]

There are a few Forsaken who seem reasonably intellegent and effective. Lanfear did, and her plan actually would have worked if it hadn't been for Moraine.

 

I think Rahvin was smart and effective; he subtly and slowly took over Andor, starting with very subtle compulsion and manipulation until he drove away everyone who knew the queen well and had influence, and then slowly expanding his influence. He was even skilled enough so when Queen Morgase escaped him he was able to consolidate control as king of Andor without any major internal problems. He only fell because he was attacked by Nyverene AND Moggy from behind, surrounding him with fire, and then nuked with balefire by Rand when he turned around to deal with them; I can't think of anyone in the series who could have survived that kind of pincer attack, and it was pretty close to blind luck on the part of the good guys that it fell out that way.

 

Moridin also seems pretty smart now, although we'll see.

 

As for other darkfriends, the one who seems the most competent and dangerous is Taim. Granted, with an army of asha'men under his personal control he really should have been able to do a better job at killing Rand then he has, but he is still pretty worrying. That comment early on when Rand told Taim that he needed to train a lot of male channelers becase the Dark One would certanly have dreadlords again in the last battle...is kind of painful to read now that I'm pretty sure that most of those dreadlords are going to come FROM Taim.

[Centauri25]

..and these blast points. Too accurate for darkfriends. Only Forsaken could be so precise.

 

As for my list, I will go with the group method:

 

TSR/FOH/LOC - these are what I really think of when I think WOT, though LOC was starting to get a little soft around the middle.

 

EOTW/TGH/TDR - these really feel different. still good, but simpler, younger than 4-6. I have read that they were originally intended to be self contained, but expanded when they became hits. I think it shows

 

TGS/TOM - very good, but Jordan was simply a better writer, at least of his story. Love the pacing, and story, but a step below the 6 above.

 

<huge gap>

 

COS/WH/POD/COT/KOD - ughh. Most of these were a real slog for me on the first read. After COS, I was mainly reading simply to keep up with the story with the promise that there was an ending already written, we were just getting there.

[fuzz1717]

There are a few Forsaken who seem reasonably intellegent and effective. Lanfear did, and her plan actually would have worked if it hadn't been for Moraine.

 

I think Rahvin was smart and effective; he subtly and slowly took over Andor, starting with very subtle compulsion and manipulation until he drove away everyone who knew the queen well and had influence, and then slowly expanding his influence. He was even skilled enough so when Queen Morgase escaped him he was able to consolidate control as king of Andor without any major internal problems. He only fell because he was attacked by Nyverene AND Moggy from behind, surrounding him with fire, and then nuked with balefire by Rand when he turned around to deal with them; I can't think of anyone in the series who could have survived that kind of pincer attack, and it was pretty close to blind luck on the part of the good guys that it fell out that way.

 

Moridin also seems pretty smart now, although we'll see.

 

As for other darkfriends, the one who seems the most competent and dangerous is Taim. Granted, with an army of asha'men under his personal control he really should have been able to do a better job at killing Rand then he has, but he is still pretty worrying. That comment early on when Rand told Taim that he needed to train a lot of male channelers becase the Dark One would certanly have dreadlords again in the last battle...is kind of painful to read now that I'm pretty sure that most of those dreadlords are going to come FROM Taim.

 

We probably should include Demandred... he's an enigma that we can only assume is doing SOMETHING productive. To be fair, Aginor used to be productive (after all, he was the one who made all the forsaken) and Bel'al (or is it Be'lal?) had the potential to do some evil... he just was beaten by luck, like Rahvin was.

 

For all the rest of the forsaken though... some of their deaths were flat out comedic. I mean come on Balthemael, killed by a tree? Really bro? And Sammael? You have way more experience than Rand, you have an army and a well fortified city, and a trap prepared, yet you still manage to be distracted by Liah and die to an evil fog? The only "legit" deaths of the forsaken I think were Lanfear, Rahvin, Bel'al/ Be'lal, and maybe Semirhage.

[Yosarian]

Semirhage was a delibrate pawn sacrifice on the part of the Dark One; you can't really blame her for that.

 

As for Balthemael...eh, the Green Man had been a figure of legend, and he had been hyped up as this ancient mythical figure for the entire book. He had to do *something* badass before dying.

[Shaidar]

0. Prologue. Easily the most exciting part of the book. Interesting characters go ahead with their plans, achieve something of note, find themselves in new and unexpected positions, discover things that readers care about.

 

1. First half of the book. Nothing happens. Characters whine a lot, and reiterate things we've heard a thousand times.

 

2. Third quarter of the book. Little happens. Characters move from place A to place B while whining and bickering a lot.

 

3. Last quarter of the book. Things start to look like they are about to happen. Tons of a-pulled drama and men vs. women issues.

 

4. Final chapter. GUNS BLAZING APOCALYPSE CRASHING DOWN ON CHARACTERS' TIRED SHOULDERS DEATH HORROR DESTRUCTION RAINING EVIL COMES TO FRUITION BLOOD-CHILLING SCREAMS FLAMING MOLTEN ROCK GLORIOUS BATTLES AND VICTORIES FOR ALL.

 

5. Epilogue. People in remote villages think that Martians on tripods burnt down Cairhien and anal-probed the Dragon Reborn.

 

Hilarious, Wool-headed lummox. Thanks for providing a good laugh!

 

Semirhage was a delibrate pawn sacrifice on the part of the Dark One; you can't really blame her for that.

 

She mounted a ridiculously underpowered attack on Rand's party, then when rescued, proceeded to torture Rand (or was it Min? Don't remember; not that it matters) instead of getting the hell away from there, as commanded by my Haran.

[Suttree]

She mounted a ridiculously underpowered attack on Rand's party, then when rescued, proceeded to torture Rand (or was it Min? Don't remember; not that it matters) instead of getting the hell away from there, as commanded by my Haran.

 

The attack really only failed because Cads had an item of power that didn't exist in the AoL.

[BFG]

She mounted a ridiculously underpowered attack on Rand's party, then when rescued, proceeded to torture Rand (or was it Min? Don't remember; not that it matters) instead of getting the hell away from there, as commanded by my Haran.

 

The attack really only failed because Cads had an item of power that didn't exist in the AoL.

 

Probably, but I'm pretty sure that Cads and Nyn were already holding the source through their angreals - particularly with Nyn that's going to make an open attempt at shielding more likely to fail and that would have been their first attempt - they had collars for everyone that could come.

 

Incidentally do we know where the extra male collars came from? The Seanchan don't make ter'angreal (except female a'dam - and with the chaos in Seanchan now would they have been able to make male a'dam), they have a stock of bloodrings - or some unknown source, and on our side Elayne's the only one that's figured out how to make ter'angreal.

[Luckers]

She mounted a ridiculously underpowered attack on Rand's party, then when rescued, proceeded to torture Rand (or was it Min? Don't remember; not that it matters) instead of getting the hell away from there, as commanded by my Haran.

 

The attack really only failed because Cads had an item of power that didn't exist in the AoL.

 

Probably, but I'm pretty sure that Cads and Nyn were already holding the source through their angreals - particularly with Nyn that's going to make an open attempt at shielding more likely to fail and that would have been their first attempt - they had collars for everyone that could come.

 

 

Semirhage probably has something prepared that would leave everyone in too much pain to channel, all of which was destroyed by Cadsuane.