The Battle Ajah.....and Cadsuane.

[Durinax]

As regards the sisters working vs. being in the Tower all of the time, Elaida made a summons for all sisters to return to the Tower when she was raised Amyrlin. I think this is an indication that an awful lot of them do work in the world. I think this is further shown when 1/3 of sisters are in the Tower, 1/3 with the rebels and the last third are still out there doing their jobs. 

thats because of during the coup so many sisters fled, she wanted a full strength tower ready to deal with Rand

[Azrayne]

 

 

I greatly dislike Egwene, I think she is self centered, acts like Elaida yet descries anything the other woman does.

Ahh the old Egwene as bad as Elaida hyperbole. Haven't seen this one for a bit(maybe we can pull out forsaken like as well ;). One seized power through an illegal coup and as Fain along with the BA influenced her bungled from bad decision to bad decision. The other had AS attempt to turn her into a puppet and had to use any means necesarry to get her feet under her. She has done more to reform the culture of the WT than anyone in maybe a thousand years and has clearly shown time and again how focused she is on helping the world survive TG. Wondering where you see a connection here?

 

Egwene is hardly my favorite character, but claiming she's just as bad as Elaida is a little absurd.

[avernite]

I always felt the fall of the Tower was a sort of perfect storm. Which is why I think the Seanchan will be in for a rude surprise if Egwene et al. are back in the Tower when their gateway attack hits.

 

 

Elaida is plainly incompetent. The hall is bickering if they should overthrow her. The Ajah heads feel they've messed up but aren't sure what to do. Blacks (e.g. Katerine) are busy undermining anything they can find. Egwene is sawing through the few pillars still holding up the whole mess. In short, the Tower is on the brink of collapsing all by itself.

 

And then, in the midst of that, a surprise attack using tactics and an angle of attack the Aes Sedai are not familiar with. Leaderless, divided, surprised... it's no surprise the Aes Sedai were given a harsh beating. If the Seanchan strike now, they will face a Tower struck only by some surprise, but united and led. The Hall has prestige back. The Ajah heads sort of know what to do. So even if you'd take down Egwene now, you'd still face multiple sources of real authority, rather than an almost-usurped sitter and a rebel amyrlin.

[Durinax]

I always felt the fall of the Tower was a sort of perfect storm. Which is why I think the Seanchan will be in for a rude surprise if Egwene et al. are back in the Tower when their gateway attack hits.

 

 

Elaida is plainly incompetent. The hall is bickering if they should overthrow her. The Ajah heads feel they've messed up but aren't sure what to do. Blacks (e.g. Katerine) are busy undermining anything they can find. Egwene is sawing through the few pillars still holding up the whole mess. In short, the Tower is on the brink of collapsing all by itself.

 

And then, in the midst of that, a surprise attack using tactics and an angle of attack the Aes Sedai are not familiar with. Leaderless, divided, surprised... it's no surprise the Aes Sedai were given a harsh beating. If the Seanchan strike now, they will face a Tower struck only by some surprise, but united and led. The Hall has prestige back. The Ajah heads sort of know what to do. So even if you'd take down Egwene now, you'd still face multiple sources of real authority, rather than an almost-usurped sitter and a rebel amyrlin.

I am mostly intoxicated but to me it sounds like your saying that because of egwene the ajah heads will know what to do and that there is more leadership as a whole. Personally I find that there is a fine line between leadership and dictactorship, the main difference being how much resistance there is to being led. The WT has not truly been united yet, and if in the final book it is completely united I will be disgusted since the overall theme of the WT is that it is not united under singular leadership, and personally I see egwenes rise from puppet to amyrlin to be extremely contrived and without any meaningful conflict.

 

btw you forgot to mention that the BA (especially katerine) are busy undermining anything that supercedes their authority. Anything that will grant them more power will be pushed to its fullest.

[Suttree]

How has the WT not been united yet?

 

Also not sure what you point is about the BA? Are you trying to suggest what they were trying to do before they were driven out/destroyed didn't actually undermine the WT?

[Durinax]

How has the WT not been united yet?

 

Also not sure what you point is about the BA? Are you trying to suggest what they were trying to do before they were driven out/destroyed didn't actually undermine the WT?

I am stating that 1-2 months is unrealistic in a complete unification (I am mostly meaning ajahs)

and for the BA I don't mean to say that they had no part is undermining the WT, but rather when the chips where down they would toss their lot in with the light to fight the seanchan, so sisters would have reverted back to (original) ajah, instead of BA

[avernite]

 

How has the WT not been united yet?

 

Also not sure what you point is about the BA? Are you trying to suggest what they were trying to do before they were driven out/destroyed didn't actually undermine the WT?

I am stating that 1-2 months is unrealistic in a complete unification (I am mostly meaning ajahs)

and for the BA I don't mean to say that they had no part is undermining the WT, but rather when the chips where down they would toss their lot in with the light to fight the seanchan, so sisters would have reverted back to (original) ajah, instead of BA

 

Considering Katerine WAS trying to usurp one of the points of resistance (to the detriment of its organisation) I am not so sure.

 

As to unification: it is my understanding that on any normal day, an aes sedai would obey a Sitter from any Ajah. In a battle, they might even obey without arguing. In the Seanchan raid Elaida and Alviarin had unbalanced everyone to make such authority weak and opposed. And, given its weakness, I don't think the Hall deserved such obedience anyway. But now, I'd say the Aes Sedai are getting back to their normal routine of obeying Sitters and bickering via the Hall and subtle undermining of opponents. Still a weakness for the Tower, but less so in an actual immediate crisis situation.

[Durinax]

Considering Katerine WAS trying to usurp one of the points of resistance (to the detriment of its organisation) I am not so sure.

She wasn't trying to weaken the organization though. She was trying to use it to fight back, which is why I am not including her on the weakening resistance side of the argument

[Ozzie_aiel]

The Greens response to the Seanchan incursion could've been better, yes, but you cannot base what a group of people can do in war based on one skirmish. The greens were caught completely by surprise by an unexpected attack, coming from an unexpected direction, by a foe that was supposed to be hundreds of leagues away who no-one has experience with and to many Aes Sedai, probably not real anyway. So, those who think the Green Ajaah choked I ask you; how well would YOU have done?

 

I believe the greens did a lot behind the scenes and were probably saved many who would've been taken. Adelorna had lost a Warder, had another injured and was still going.

 

The biggest problem the greens (and other ajah) have is lack of co-hesion; every Sister basically acting independantly. During TG this is less of a weakness as each sister will more than likely be alone with a company of soldiers while she blasts away at Shadowspawn. In the attack on the White Tower, it only meant they could be picked off one by one

[DSgamer64]

Okay, well, you posted that whilst I was writing. My main point was that I am not sure even Elaida was the greatest factor because Siuan was not a very good Amyrlin to begin with.

 

Something she admitted to in TGS. Siuan knows in her heart that the tower was already dividing before she was pulled down and stilled and that she didn't do enough as Amyrlin to keep the Ajah's working together. Some of the blame can be laid on her for not doing anything sooner, however Elaida did so much damage to the tower during her tenure as Amyrlin that I think Siuan could be forgiven for her mistakes. What was already a slightly divided tower, got torn right down the middle when Siuan was deposed, basically Elaida was the one who pulled on the slightly torn edge of paper and all went to hell in a bucket.

 

I think part of the problem with the way the Green's acted during the attack on the WT though was probably because so many of the sisters still didn't trust one another, even within their own Ajah's. Bearing in mind that there were around 204 Black sisters in the tower who were culled out after the battle with the Seanchan, it could be understandable if it was hard to trust someone.

[Azrayne]

I'm not sure it's fair to say that Siuan was a bad Amyrlin. She definitely handled some things things incorrectly, as she said, but there's nothing to suggest overall incompetence. And how many of the mistakes she made were a result of the prevalent Aes Sedai culture and understanding of events taking place? Remember that a large part of Egwene's success is thanks to Siuan's tutoring. I'd imagine in any other time she'd have done well, but the dividing of the tower wasn't just an issue of internal politics, it was influenced by the massive cultural shifts and the turmoil surrounding them, I think it was ineveitable no matter who was Amyrlin. That's why Egwene is such a good fit, she's young, and so she isn't set in her ways with decades of indoctrination, as well as having been exposed and actively evolved in changing world events, so she understands what has to be done to move the Tower forward with the times.

[Viperswhip]

Siuan actually has the thought at one point that she played the Ajahs off against each other, I cannot remember which book it is in, but I just finished a reread and that thought stuck out to me. There may have been a black or two voting on whether to depose her, but point of fact is, there were other Sitters there that just didn't like her at all.

 

I think of it like this and forget the metaphor because I am annoyed lol, I now have a rock chip in my windshield because of some asshat, but that's Siuan, Elaida is the crack that develops if the problem is not dealt with in time. Egwene basically replaced the whole damn windshield, especially with her, no secret voting measure in ToM.

[Azrayne]

Siuan actually has the thought at one point that she played the Ajahs off against each other, I cannot remember which book it is in, but I just finished a reread and that thought stuck out to me. There may have been a black or two voting on whether to depose her, but point of fact is, there were other Sitters there that just didn't like her at all.

 

Yeah I read that chapter the other day. It sounds like such techniques are par for the course for Amyrlins, or anyone involved in highend WT politics, I think they just backlashed on her because they weren't suitable for what was happening in the world at the time, with the Dragon rising the the Last Battle approaching and all.

[BFG]

@Ozzie-aiel

The Greens response to the Seanchan incursion could've been better, yes, but you cannot base what a group of people can do in war based on one skirmish. The greens were caught completely by surprise by an unexpected attack, coming from an unexpected direction, by a foe that was supposed to be hundreds of leagues away who no-one has experience with and to many Aes Sedai, probably not real anyway. So, those who think the Green Ajaah choked I ask you; how well would YOU have done?

 

The Green Ajah did choke, I would have done worse, but then I don't pride myself on standing ready for any Battle, let alone TG :)

 

I believe the greens did a lot behind the scenes and were probably saved many who would've been taken. Adelorna had lost a Warder, had another injured and was still going.

Except Adelorna also states (don't have books to hand, but can quote later), that the Seanchan are so skilled with battle weaves that they defeated the other Greens with her within moments. The way she's thinking then says nothing about surprise attacks, and although the general surprise attack and disunification of the Ajahs went into how the battle went overall, the Greens (in particular) should have done better, especially Adelorna who is Captain General of the Green.

 

The biggest problem the greens (and other ajah) have is lack of co-hesion; every Sister basically acting independantly. During TG this is less of a weakness as each sister will more than likely be alone with a company of soldiers while she blasts away at Shadowspawn. In the attack on the White Tower, it only meant they could be picked off one by one

 

 

Agree with this completely - although Adelornas thoughts show that not all the AS are seperated at the beginning and yet are still defeated in confrontations.

[Ozzie_aiel]

Of course the damane are better at battle weaves, the Aes Sedai haven't fought in open warfare since the Trolloc Wars, and its unlikely they have ever faced another channeller in any skirmish

[fionwe1987]

Of course the damane are better at battle weaves, the Aes Sedai haven't fought in open warfare since the Trolloc Wars, and its unlikely they have ever faced another channeller in any skirmish

Yes. Male channelers and False Dragons turn into bunnies at the sight of Aes Sedai.

[Ozzie_aiel]

False dragons are predominantly Red Ajah business, often have many followers to attack for them, are wilders, with all it entails and usuqlly have a circle of half dozen at least ready for them.Men who can channel often run, striking out in fear. They never attack Aes Sedai in the Tower, or press the battle so hard.

 

Comparing Male Channellers to Damane would be like comparing an armed postal worker to a green beret soldier. Both can be dangerous, but the the soldier has the training and knowledge.

[Suttree]

False dragons are predominantly Red Ajah business,

There are a number exceptions however, Cadsuane as a Green has taken down more male channelers than any ten Reds put together.

[avernite]

 

False dragons are predominantly Red Ajah business,

There are a number exceptions however, Cadsuane as a Green has taken down more male channelers than any ten Reds put together.

 

While true, I had the idea a significant number of those weren't actually very combative channelers... more like the standard 'too lucky village smith' type. But then, I only think so. In any case, the Aes Sedai seem to focus on overwhelming to shield, where the Damane have greater skill in blowing up opposing chanellers (even if they clearly also know about shielding).

[yoniy0]

No spoilers here, please. And I mean none, tags or no tags.

[Suttree]

 

No spoilers here, please. And I mean none, tags or no tags.

So have the rules Luckers posted about AMoL spoilers changed? Or did that only apply to pre-release not the whole book?

[XXX]

 

Of course the damane are better at battle weaves, the Aes Sedai haven't fought in open warfare since the Trolloc Wars, and its unlikely they have ever faced another channeller in any skirmish

Yes. Male channelers and False Dragons turn into bunnies at the sight of Aes Sedai.

 

Because most of them do not know how to fight.Never been trained.Trained male channelers fare very well against Aes Sedai so does the odd false dragon with enough time to train himself.

 

Edit:-Going to stay off this part of the forum for some time.Almost posted something which would have got me banned!!