Is Rand still holding Sadin (some spolier stuff from chapter 1)

[Suttree]

...

 

I was speaking of the kill count in the quote above, not the overall size of the force. Which I have agreed in this thread may have reached 600,000.

 

Regardless the overall force being a million is already a stretch, saying he killed a million is laughable in the extreme and totally unsupported by even the most generous interpretation of the scenes. In fact we have numbers of dead listed in text for both books, we have an author confirming the numbers are correct. It is not what he "intended" to write, it is what the books say flat out.

 

On the opposite side we have guess work by fans claiming they disagree despite no concrete evidence supporting their views. It is all wild guess work. Argue all you want about the overall size of the force but it is absurd to claim a million dead based on the cut and dry evidence to the contrary.

 

Edit: as an aside the reactions of Bashere and Ituralde confirm nothing. You can intepret it a certain way but it most certainly is not a confirmation. As stated earlier they would have reacted the same for a force even 2 or 3 times the size of the original.

[Sigur]

It was always my assumption that the light holding the darkness back was the Eye of the World.

 

Was proboly created to give the Dragon reborn a buffer for the taint.

[Suttree]

Nice little tidbit in the pre-release material today...

 

AMoL

It had been useful at Maradon. Nobody knew he had it. That was important

 

So Rand most likely had help with his attack against the Trollocs. It quite possibly was an item of power. More evidence to back up Brandon's claim that Rand had already "powered up" as of KoD.

[Hopefire]

...

 

I was speaking of the kill count in the quote above, not the overall size of the force. Which I have agreed in this thread may have reached 600,000.

 

Regardless the overall force being a million is already a stretch, saying he killed a million is laughable in the extreme and totally unsupported by even the most generous interpretation of the scenes. In fact we have numbers of dead listed in text for both books, we have an author confirming the numbers are correct. It is not what he "intended" to write, it is what the books say flat out.

 

On the opposite side we have guess work by fans claiming they disagree despite no concrete evidence supporting their views. It is all wild guess work. Argue all you want about the overall size of the force but it is absurd to claim a million dead based on the cut and dry evidence to the contrary.

 

Edit: as an aside the reactions of Bashere and Ituralde confirm nothing. You can intepret it a certain way but it most certainly is not a confirmation. As stated earlier they would have reacted the same for a force even 2 or 3 times the size of the original.

 

The numbers I've shown are not "wild guess work." I've clearly shown how I've gotten each of those numbers.

 

The only precise listing of the dead in the Storm of Light referred to the field directly in front of Rand and was described as tens of thousands. Since the Shadownspawn were coming up from the hills, this was only the forward vanguard of the force. Ituralde's POV also makes it clear that the carnage continued on up onto the hills in front of the city, based on his note that Rand apparently left the towers there untouched while killing Shadowspawn. The only listing of the escaped Shadowspawn was "whole legions"; as a legion is 3,000 to 6,000 troops, you need an awful lot of "whole legions" to escape to make up the difference between 100,000 and 600,000+. Further, these Trollocs were motivated for the most part, crawling over the bodies of the dead to reach Rand. If Rand only killed 100,000, then these are quite probably the most cowardly Trollocs of the series so far - even in Knife of Dreams they seem to have fought until they were all dead, in the Two Rivers they fought until they were all dead, in the Eye of the World Rand reduced an army that "dwarfed" the Shienar army to one that was only twice their number and they only milled around in fright and confusion rather than taking off and running away. I suppose I hadn't considered that there is a possibility that Rand just mind-broke an entire Shadowspawn army the way he did Torkumen and his wife. Given that the Trollocs didn't just turn around and come back a few hours later (per Rand saying to the Borderlander monarchs later that he saved the city), that is one explanation for how the Trollocs are accounted for.

 

 

Brandon can say whatever he likes about numbers. That's not supported by the text. Your entire argument boils down to the premise that Brandon Sanderson can do no wrong as an author. I guess you're welcome to it, but I'll hold it against you in the future.

 

Finally, is there any chance you can be more civil? I get that you have a different interpretation of the text than some of us. But our interpretation of the text is based on the text, and the use of terms like "wild guess work," "laughable" and "absurd" doesn't serve to further your own position.

[Suttree]

Brandon can say whatever he likes about numbers. That's not supported by the text. Your entire argument boils down to the premise that Brandon Sanderson can do no wrong as an author. I guess you're welcome to it, but I'll hold it against you in the future.

 

Finally, is there any chance you can be more civil? I get that you have a different interpretation of the text than some of us. But our interpretation of the text is based on the text, and the use of terms like "wild guess work," "laughable" and "absurd" doesn't serve to further your own position.

 

Apologies if that came off as uncivil as it was not my intent. When someone presents a reasoned theory, backed up by solid evidence counter to my own I have no problem giving over and congratulating them. When someone says something "laughable" such as a million trollocs killed in this battle when it is highly unlikely the entire force even reached that number I will call it what it is. Not even the most ardent supporters of your side have come remotely close to that number in their estimates of the dead, hence me calling it "absurd". Also to use a throwaway line of the term "many"(more than the 200,000) from a great captain as "confirmation" of millions of shadowspawn when it is nothing more than a wild guess(you must call it what it is, in essence your are "guessing" at what he meant by "many more") on your part.

 

Further my argument has nothing to do with "Brandon can not make a mistake" and if you are familiar with my critique of him as an author and his various mistakes you would understand how funny that claim is. My argument boils down to both texts giving us a number of dead and an author confirming that number. I will take that over a fan interpretation(you have shown to be wrong a few of times in your guess work such as the assault went on for "hours") based on flawed evidence. By all means feel free to ask Brandon if he made a mistake via twitter/Q&A, until then however we have our answer.

[Dreggs Morlock]

Suttree, I've gone back and re-read all the relevent chapters, and I have to agree with Hopetree in that there was a minimum of 900,000 trollocs present (the term "several" isn't used to replace "a couple", so the original force is 300+ thousand). I do not argue that Sanderson said the numbers at the manor house of dead trollocs were comparable to Maradon, but all that does is make me question his ability to keep these things straight.

 

At best, his descriptions at Maradon inflated the numbers of trollocs beyond what they should have been, creating a buttload of confusion,

 

~Or~

 

Rand only killed around 100k at Maradon, and Sanderson is saying the other 800,000 trollocs ran away, fast enough to get out of range of the Dragon Reborn's retribution.

 

Either way, this really takes the wind out of my sails as far as how cool the battle for Maradon was.

[Suttree]

Suttree, I've gone back and re-read all the relevent chapters, and I have to agree with Hopetree in that there was a minimum of 900,000 trollocs present (the term "several" isn't used to replace "a couple", so the original force is 300+ thousand).

 

Hopefire is saying 1million+ dead not present, that is what I can't buy. No way...also we know the original force was 200k per Ituralde.

[muddasssir]

I really do not know whether there were a million trollocs dead or not but to me this scene was just a replay of battle for stone, He did there with Callandor and here he did with something else that we will most probably learn off in time. Important thing is that we do not know for sure as for BS interview we all know that he has made this sort of mistakes before. I promised that I will not overly criticise BS so I will refrain from it, but one interesting thing is that they say that to attack and conquer successfully you need a force at least three times the defending force. We have seen in history that is not strictly true at all times, but this the general rule of thumb they go by so I do not know if it is valid but I read somewhere in an earlier post that rand had about 100,000 troops I have not read ToM in recent times so I do not know whether it is an accurate figure or a ball park estimate, but if we take it as a starting point than it could be anything from 500,000 to 1,000,000 a for about 100,000 dead I know BS said that killing was comparable with one done at manor and it makes sense as he was alone at maradon while at manor he had help from Logain and several other channelers and Bashere's soldier, but on the other hand even if we accept the claim of Sutt that there were about only 600,000 Trollocs and Rand killed about 100,000 of them what was to stop the shadowspawn from coming back and taking the city once Rand left. I think that Rand specifically mentions that he has secured the city or some such thing. So, maybe a million seem a bit excessive, but 100,000 is too low. Whatever the size of that force. Not many would have been left to come back and retake maradon.

[Suttree]

what was to stop the shadowspawn from coming back and taking the city once Rand left.

 

They fled for the blight per the text, we don't know what happened after. Trollocs were deemed failures as a a creation and are beyond cowardly, we know they break very easily when things turn bad...

 

BWB

They could perform only comparatively simple tasks, and they had extremely deceitful and unstable personalties. As soldiers they were usually unable or unwilling to follow orders unless driven by fear. Even then, if the Trollocs were more afraid of the foe than of the commanders that drove them, they often turned and ran, sometimes trampling or killing those commanders in the process.

 

 

[muddasssir]

that is exactly my point they could have easily spied out that Rand has left and if they had a major force they would have come back and passed through maradon and moved on to mainland. I will have to look up the exact quote but Rand said something to the effect that i will not allow him to take back what these men held with their sweat and blood. As for they would need forsaken to drive them well who orchestrated that attack in first place? Bela does not seem like a likely answer

[Suttree]

Well as I said we don't know what happened for sure but a fair portion of the fan base seems to think the borderlands have been largely over run by the start of AMoL.

[muddasssir]

your opinion sutt with which i beg to disagree let me get that quote for you and then we will talk

[Hopefire]

Brandon can say whatever he likes about numbers. That's not supported by the text. Your entire argument boils down to the premise that Brandon Sanderson can do no wrong as an author. I guess you're welcome to it, but I'll hold it against you in the future.

 

Finally, is there any chance you can be more civil? I get that you have a different interpretation of the text than some of us. But our interpretation of the text is based on the text, and the use of terms like "wild guess work," "laughable" and "absurd" doesn't serve to further your own position.

 

Apologies if that came off as uncivil as it was not my intent. When someone presents a reasoned theory, backed up by solid evidence counter to my own I have no problem giving over and congratulating them. When someone says something "laughable" such as a million trollocs killed in this battle when it is highly unlikely the entire force even reached that number I will call it what it is. Not even the most ardent supporters of your side have come remotely close to that number in their estimates of the dead, hence me calling it "absurd". Also to use a throwaway line of the term "many"(more than the 200,000) from a great captain as "confirmation" of millions of shadowspawn when it is nothing more than a wild guess(you must call it what it is, in essence your are "guessing" at what he meant by "many more") on your part.

 

Further my argument has nothing to do with "Brandon can not make a mistake" and if you are familiar with my critique of him as an author and his various mistakes you would understand how funny that claim is. My argument boils down to both texts giving us a number of dead and an author confirming that number. I will take that over a fan interpretation(you have shown to be wrong a few of times in your guess work such as the assault went on for "hours") based on flawed evidence. By all means feel free to ask Brandon if he made a mistake via twitter/Q&A, until then however we have our answer.

 

I am familiar with your opinion of Brandon with regards to the Wheel of Time, which is why I said what I said: you're basing your entire argument on "Brandon MUST have written what he meant to write, and there's no possible way he was wrong. Also, Bashere isn't competent enough to be a Great Captain."

 

Yes, I was wrong about the battle being at least an hour rather than hours; I was citing that from memory. The presence or lack of an 's' on one part of my argument does not invalidate the rest of the argument.

 

 

 

Anyhow, I'm done. I've made my points, and I'm sticking with "there were an absolute minimum of 600,000 Trollocs in the second wave of the attack on the city (with numbers of 1,000,000 more likely), and Rand killed the vast majority of that horde."

[Suttree]

I am familiar with your opinion of Brandon with regards to the Wheel of Time, which is why I said what I said: you're basing your entire argument on "Brandon MUST have written what he meant to write, and there's no possible way he was wrong. Also, Bashere isn't competent enough to be a Great Captain."

 

Yes, I was wrong about the battle being at least an hour rather than hours; I was citing that from memory. The presence or lack of an 's' on one part of my argument does not invalidate the rest of the argument.

 

Anyhow, I'm done. I've made my points, and I'm sticking with "there were an absolute minimum of 600,000 Trollocs in the second wave of the attack on the city (with numbers of 1,000,000 more likely), and Rand killed the vast majority of that horde."

 

Which is of course a ridiculous claim and a straw man to boot in relation to my argument. Logical fallacies don't help yor cause. You have been wrong concerning a number if things in your argument beyond just the "hours" part and your methodology for coming up with numbers again amounts to little more than a guess as you know seen to have conceded, even while seeming to back off yor claim of 1 million dead.

 

For the last time feel free to ask Brandon if he made a mistake both in what he wrote in TGS and what he confirmed to be true. Just don't try to pretend as if you know better based off guesses that have now varied in their amounts by almost half a million.

[Barid Bel Medar]

Well, the conversation seems to have run it's course, best to get back to the original topic and no derail it any further.

[goksekor]

Very interesting idea, especially when thinking about the Dragonborn(I think this was the term for Rand and Avi's children?). There is obviously evidence for the contrary, which can be refuted by some theories which will have to be RAFOed. But I really like the implications of this with the Dragonborn kids.

 

However, even if this is true, I don't think this has anything to do with keeping madness at bay. I am not well versed with theories and such but obviously something changed in Rand during the VoG and he will not be subject to madness because of this. And I remember he is mentioning somewhere that his madness is hearing LTT in his head(He was talking to Perrin maybe, saying this was his madness and ironic that the same madness caused by the taint will be his way of winning LB since LTT is the only one who knows about sealing the bore). VoG Rand accepted EVERYTHING as it is, that he is a human he can make mistakes, he can not do everything he wants or he can not have everything he needs. Madness is a part of him now. LTT and Rand became one. I do not think he will go berserk and topple mountains and such with his madness, he only hears LTT and had to battle constantly with him for control of his body. Now that he has embraced his madness, I don't think this will be an issue for post VoG Rand any longer.

 

Cheers

[TheVitaleMob]

This thread reminds me of xkcd:

 

[Entreri]

The Shadowspawn Army at Maradon was monstrous in size, facing off against the greatest and strongest channeler, it prove to be impotent.  Around 1 million is a good estimate of it's size. 

 

"He was like an entire army of channelers. Thousands of Shadowspawn died. Deathgates sprang up, striking across the ground, killing hundreds".     

 

Thouands died within a few seconds!  Rand was going for the largest area of affect devastation = 1000's dead in a few seconds. 

 

Here are some numbers, very conservative estimate:  only 1/2 hour channeling.  Ituralde "at LEAST an hour had passed"

 

-1000 Shadowspawn dead every 10 seconds (very conservative, given thousands died within few seconds).

-6000 dead every minute

-180,000 dead in a 1/2 hour

 

Given Brandon's description, with only 1/2 hour channeling, 180,000 dead Shadowspawn.  Rand could never let up the pace, because they were attacking him by the LEGIONS, ground and air.  

 

It took everything 25-30 channelers had to finish off 100,000 Shadowspawn...Rand, Logain, Nyaneve+angreal, Aliva, Cadsuane+angreal etc for that battle. What Rand did at Maradon was something special. 

[Barid Bel Medar]

While I think the overall forces (not the ones killed) that had been thrown at Ituralde from the very start (he defended for a few weeks) would be above 500 thousand in total (Ituralde killed a heap over those weeks, retreating from two vantage points then into a walled city, then setting up ambushes when the gates fell, along with Rand's killing of how many thousands) the hordes that still remained and ran surrounded the city completely. A captial like Maradon would take a fair size to surround completely. Not to mention the forces still coming from the Blight) 

 

Still, I don't think Rand killed that many, 100, 000 at a maximum, but most likely a lot less. Brandon has a habit of going overboard with descriptive battles that make it seem larger than it was. 

 

So I suppose I can even apply that to the numbers that were apparently attacking Maradon. If it was RJ (and I mean no disrespect to Brandon with this, it's just he exaggerates) I would be confident the force was over 500k. However, it is very much possible it was something like 200k and Rand only killed 10-30k. 

 

Edit: Oh, whoops, I just contradicted my own suggestion. Best take this discussion to new thread if anyone wishes. Feel free to copy my post and I will reply there, but shouldn't continue on this thread and derail it further. 

[Suttree]

What Rand did at Maradon was something special. 

Can not wait to see what Rand had hidden at Maradon.

 

Edit: @Barid

 

You are of course very much correct in relation to Sanderson.

[Suttree]

Looping back on the size of the attack on Maradon just found this piece

 

KoD

"I've never seen anything like what's outside," Bashere said quietly as he walked. "A big raid out of the Blight is a thousand Trollocs."

That pretty much puts to bed the claim that a Great Captain wouldn't be cowed by anything short of a million trollocs.

[he who comes with a bong]

I think that all the great captains are all going to be over whelmed when it coems to any of the last battles themselves with that quote from Bashere, it seems pretty obivious that the 1000 trolloc raid would be the norm. So any thing after that is going to be very crazy when they in fact start to fight because they are deff not ready for it in ways ya know.