Prologue Through to the End of the Epilogue--Full Book Discussion.

[KakitaOCU]

Without giving details, Brandon did confirm Nakomi was experienced with T'A'R.  I like the hero fo the horn approach myself.  Though that begs the question of where she was during TGH.  Then again we didn't have every hero described, just a handful, ten or so out of around 100 I believe?

 

Back to the ending not explaining everything.  Why is everyone so shocked and surprised about this?  Jordan warned us of this years ago, before he even knew he was ill if I recall right.  The ending was always going to be relatively open.

[zanethanatos]

Back to the ending not explaining everything.  Why is everyone so shocked and surprised about this?  Jordan warned us of this years ago, before he even knew he was ill if I recall right.  The ending was always going to be relatively open.

 

I think people are upset because the series was built on the overwhelming detail and numerous subplots. A lot of that got lost in the ending, with many questions being touched upon only briefly if at all.

[Werthead]

I'm thinking it's easier than that. She was a hero of the horn. From what I've read here, we see her amongst the heroes. Seems to me that lovely meeting with Avi was in TAR. That explains many of the weird details.

 

I was going to say that there's no evidence the meeting happens in TAR, but if Brandon's said it was that's fair enough, I guess.

 

The Hero of the Horn thing may be more understandable then, since if the former meeting was in TAR and Rand and Moridin emerged when the Heroes were still around, that does track. Maybe one of the Aiel from Rand's prior visions in Rhuidean then? Other possibilities don't seem too convincing (Tigraine/Shaiel could be a possibility, but why appear as such an old woman and not in the prime of life, like the other Heroes?).

 

I think people are upset because the series was built on the overwhelming detail and numerous subplots. A lot of that got lost in the ending, with many questions being touched upon only briefly if at all.

 

Again, I think mentioning specifics (in the other thread) is the best way to go. So far a key element not addressed has indeed come up: the additional letters that Verin wrote to other people which have simply not been mentioned again.

 

I'd be interested to see what Brandon and Team Jordan's responses are now to questions. "Read and find out...in the Encyclopedia!" could be a little lazy.

[Red2111]

So instead of asking about the Bore....he asks about the Dark One? How does that make sense?

 

 

if i recall, and as i said before in the quote you directly quote, Moriane states specifically "you cannot ask questions touching the shadow, these are punished by death."  its either near the end of tDR or in the beginning of tSR where this is explained and rather bluntly so by Moriane to the girls.

 

not meaning to be snarky, but its rather point blank why Rand couldn't ask or didn't ask questions invlovling any aspect of the DO or his prison, seeing as you can't ask any question that concerns the Shadow. 

 

edit - Sanderson wouldn't have had to make up some reason why Rand didn't ask about the Bore as his 3rd question because Jordan already covered this by clarifying "you can't ask any question that touches the Shadow."

 

if i recall as well, this vexed Moriane and drove a burr up her skirt because she was mainly interested in the twisted doorway to get questions concerning what Rand had to do to ensure the Light would win but couldn't ask questions about Rands fate as his fate was too closely tied to the Shadow, given what he is.

 

so my point is, i dont get why you would make this sort of comment about Rands 3rd question when its already answered previously why he wouldn't have asked that.

[Suttree]

Ironic that in certain parts of this series Jordan spent hours blabbering about the scenery plus all sorts of assorted nonsense and in the end Sanderson could not even bring all the important points on screen because he ran out of space!!

There was more than enough time to do so in these last three books. The amount of filler in TGS and ToM is beyond astounding now that we have seen how things are wrapping up.

[zanethanatos]

 

Ironic that in certain parts of this series Jordan spent hours blabbering about the scenery plus all sorts of assorted nonsense and in the end Sanderson could not even bring all the important points on screen because he ran out of space!!

There was more than enough time to do so in these last three books. The amount of filler in TGS and ToM is beyond astounding now that we have seen how things are wrapping up.

 

I still hold to the idea it was intentional.

[Cybertrolloc]

So one part Thomas Convenant series 1 (well Foul v Tom plus the battles from book 2 over 3) and two parts Luckers AMoL outline that he posted years ago (heh, and should probably be moved here now)? Except the author doesn't know words like apotheosis or at least how to use them well :)

[oxylus]

I think Werthead hit most of the important points I wanted to bring up in post #463 - but I'll add a couple of points that bugged me enough to drop me out of the narrative.

 

The ratio of lightside/darkside OP users is wrong. Adding up Kin, Wise Ones, Aes Sedai, damane, Windfinders, and Asha'man there should be many thousands (well over 5000) of lightside channelers. There is no way that the Turned Asha'man, surviving Black Ajah and Sharans could field anywhere near that many.

 

Even taking into account Demandred + sa'angreal, the lightside should have decimated  the shadow on the pure numbers of channelers they fielded. With that many channelers the actual hand-to-hand combat would have almost been irrelevant.

 

I had the strong feeling that the author(s) were fudging the numbers to make the battle more even than it should have been - not to mention the whole Sharan thing coming out of nowhere feels exactly like "oh the darkside is badly outnumbered, I'll create some competent channelers out of somewhere else to shore the numbers up". 

 

I'm also uncertain about the whole re-sealing thing. Is Rand's new TP+OP prison the same as what Meirin originally detected the DO through and drilled the bore into? Is the Wheel simply going to repeat whatever it did during the last revolution without any real progress? Groundhog day on a geological timescale.

 

What about Avi's vision Re: Aiel and Seanchan? I would really, really liked to have more closure on that (and the whole "you can keep the damane you already have" deal that Rand made). Considering that these damane will live for hundreds of years, the Seanchan empire will have a significant weapon for couple of centuries if the status quo is maintained. The Aiel are probably decimated - so they won't be a very powerful "police force" against the Seanchan - who probably took the least casualties of all.

[Axon]

I'm also uncertain about the whole re-sealing thing. Is Rand's new TP+OP prison the same as what Meirin originally detected the DO through and drilled the bore into? Is the Wheel simply going to repeat whatever it did during the last revolution without any real progress? Groundhog day on a geological timescale.

 

IMO, yes, it's the same prison, and he will be freed again in the Age of Legends. 

[neverspeakawordagain]

From what I gather from reading these threads, the DO and Rand battle each other by trying to re-weave reality. It sounds like the DO attempts to remake reality with no rules or morals, ie everyone is "evil". My question though is, haven't we been lead to believe the DO actually wants to destroy everything?

 

When we get insight to Moridin (Ishmael's) perspective throughout the series, he has turned to the Shadow because of his belief of the inevitability of victory and he's tired of reliving this struggle over the course of the turning of the Wheel. He wants it all to end; the DO wins, the wheel is broken, people stop being reborn, basically everything just gets destroyed. Rand in fact almost makes this happen in VoG, thinking something along the lines of "what if He is right, what if it's better to just end it all" before his revelation.

 

The other Forsaken believe in this reality the DO attempts to create, where they rule over a world that is just dominated by the Shadow. I had thought though the DO's true motive was to destroy everything; Moridin certainly seemed to think so. Does everything in AMoL basically mean Moiridin was wrong about what the DO ultimately wants to achieve?

 

It's made VERY clear that nothingness was not he D.O.'s goal; that was Moridin's desire, which the D.O. allowed him to believe would transpire. Moridin was duped - he comes out of aMoL poorly.

[neverspeakawordagain]

Just finished.Have to say the ending made no sense to me especially about the fact that Rand cannot channel... Er but he can just think fire and fire happens.So he is now God? WTF!!

 

My take on that: Rand has been outside the pattern, weaving threads of the world, so he's familiar with the idea of creating your own reality. For him, the real world is now like TAR -- he just needs to think a thing to make it be.

[Suttree]

 

 

 

 

Ironic that in certain parts of this series Jordan spent hours blabbering about the scenery plus all sorts of assorted nonsense and in the end Sanderson could not even bring all the important points on screen because he ran out of space!!

There was more than enough time to do so in these last three books. The amount of filler in TGS and ToM is beyond astounding now that we have seen how things are wrapping up.

I still hold to the idea it was intentional.

Oh for certain, RJ said as much concerning not wrapping everything up.

[zanethanatos]

I'm also uncertain about the whole re-sealing thing. Is Rand's new TP+OP prison the same as what Meirin originally detected the DO through and drilled the bore into? Is the Wheel simply going to repeat whatever it did during the last revolution without any real progress? Groundhog day on a geological timescale.

 

Yep, same (original) prison. It had to be done that way - the world only works with both good and evil. So one day again, someone will let the DO out to some extent - at least so that he will be able to influence events again.

[zanethanatos]

 

 

 

 

 

Ironic that in certain parts of this series Jordan spent hours blabbering about the scenery plus all sorts of assorted nonsense and in the end Sanderson could not even bring all the important points on screen because he ran out of space!!

There was more than enough time to do so in these last three books. The amount of filler in TGS and ToM is beyond astounding now that we have seen how things are wrapping up.

I still hold to the idea it was intentional.

Oh for certain, RJ said as much concerning not wrapping everything up.

 

Have to wonder how much the outrigger novels would have answered for us.

[KakitaOCU]

zanethanatos, As I said, Jordan said upfront a while ago that not everything would be resolved.  Your response to that is that people are unhappy how not everything was answered and how some things only got brief comments?

I think that falls in nicely with Jordan's statement of "not all arcs will be wrapped up."

 

oxylus, things are definately going to repeat themselves, that's been something Jordan has stated several times, the whole thing is an endless cycle.  Rand even confirms this for himselve during Veins of Gold in TGS.  Each time he gets to try again.

As for the Seanchean Aiel future, Egwene and Tuon's brief meeting suggesting further truce is likely to go forward, specially with Min and Mat to advise Tuon and Cadsuane as Amyrlin.

 

Edit: I doubt the Outriggers would answer much in terms of the grand scheme of things.  Since they were going to involve Mat and Tuon reclaiming Seanchan you can probably only expect that those characters would have continued, not the rest.

[neverspeakawordagain]

I liked the book, but was displeased with the very last Mat scene (the last we will ever read about him). The whole Perrin storyline was not exciting: (1) he could not heal turned channelers (which would have been cool), (2) he overcame forsaken compulsion with 'love' (cheesy)

 

It wasn't "love." He was thinking of Faile as home, which grounded him in reality during his training with Hopper, against the unreality of the compulsion. He beat compulsion by mental focus.

[zanethanatos]

Kakita - that was in response to someone asking WHY people weren't happy. It was just my take on why people aren't entirely happy with the ending. However, I like the ending (for the most part). I think it's a good (and satisfactory) ending to the series - even though a lot didn't get answered. To me... it didn't really have to be. In addition, I knew RJ had said long ago that much would not be answered plus Sanderson told us more recently that he was given specific things to make sure he didn't reveal.

 

And I don't expect that a lot would have been answered by the outrigger novels, just curious what else we might have learned.

[KakitaOCU]

Fair enough, and my apologies for misunderstanding what you were going for. :)

[zanethanatos]

Fair enough, and my apologies for misunderstanding what you were going for. :)

 

No worries

[neverspeakawordagain]

To everybody saying the ending was too abrupt: remember that that last little vignette with Rand was specifically written by RJ to be the last words of the series. It's kind of hard to show life years after the last battle when it's been preordained that the series MUST end with the corpses still fresh.

[Terez]

 

So instead of asking about the Bore....he asks about the Dark One? How does that make sense?

 

 

if i recall, and as i said before in the quote you directly quote, Moriane states specifically "you cannot ask questions touching the shadow, these are punished by death."  its either near the end of tDR or in the beginning of tSR where this is explained and rather bluntly so by Moriane to the girls.

 

not meaning to be snarky, but its rather point blank why Rand couldn't ask or didn't ask questions invlovling any aspect of the DO or his prison, seeing as you can't ask any question that concerns the Shadow. 

 

Yes, everyone knows what Moiraine said (and it had nothing to do with punishment by death). That doesn't change the fact that all three of Rand's actual questions touched on the Shadow, and that his third-revealed question about killing the Dark One touched even more heavily on the Shadow than asking about sealing the Bore would have. So your reasoning makes no sense.

 

PS—In case you don't remember them:

 

1. How do I cleanse the Dark One's taint from saidin?

2. How do I win and survive the Last Battle?

3. How do I kill the Dark One?

 

All three clearly Shadow-related, and the one that was left open until now (#3)—the one where he might have asked how to seal the Bore—was the most Shadow-related of them all.

[fionwe1987]

 

 

So instead of asking about the Bore....he asks about the Dark One? How does that make sense?

 

 

if i recall, and as i said before in the quote you directly quote, Moriane states specifically "you cannot ask questions touching the shadow, these are punished by death."  its either near the end of tDR or in the beginning of tSR where this is explained and rather bluntly so by Moriane to the girls.

 

not meaning to be snarky, but its rather point blank why Rand couldn't ask or didn't ask questions invlovling any aspect of the DO or his prison, seeing as you can't ask any question that concerns the Shadow. 

 

Yes, everyone knows what Moiraine said (and it had nothing to do with punishment by death). That doesn't change the fact that all three of Rand's actual questions touched on the Shadow, and that his third-revealed question about killing the Dark One touched even more heavily on the Shadow than asking about sealing the Bore would have. So your reasoning makes no sense.

 

PS—In case you don't remember them:

 

1. How do I cleanse the Dark One's taint from saidin?

2. How do I win and survive the Last Battle?

3. How do I kill the Dark One?

 

All three clearly Shadow-related, and the one that was left open until now (#3)—the one where he might have asked how to seal the Bore—was the most Shadow-related of them all.

Remind me, where is it that we get that question 3 was "How to kill the DO"?

[Amandera]

It's a reasonable assumption. He says "I asked the Aelfinn the wrong question. To choose is our fate. If you have no choice, then you aren't a man at all. You're a puppet..." to Nakomi. Mix that with "Dark One was never the enemy" and Rand's dream of a world without the DO. Then you can only come up with "How can I kill the DO" or "Can I kill the DO" or "Can I stop evil forever" or something else along those lines.

 

 

Most likely, RJ didn't leave the answer in the notes so Brandon made it up. I assume that's also the reason we hear nothing of Moiraine's and Mierin's demands of Eelfinn.

[Ryan52]

So just finished the book a couple hours ago.  It definitely had its flaws but overall I found it an enjoyable book and felt like the series came to an appropriate end, I never felt in a lull once the story really got rolling, the battle itself was done justice and one of the stronger points in my opinion.  Demandred and Graendal made up for a lot of previous Forsaken incompetence and put together effective plans I thought which was nice to see, the main character casualty count was low but the Light paid a big price population wise.  I also thought that despite the pre-release material of Mat looking rough in a number of ways this installment was Sanderson's best take on the character, I found myself really enjoying Mat again and actually laughing a number of times during his POVs.  The word tempest is used an obscene amount of times, I lost count but it had to number in the dozens.  Moridin and his showdown with Rand was a disappointment for me, even when he does do something clever to get the upper-hand Alanna just releases the bond.    

 

I could certainly see some people finding the ending too abrupt for their taste.  Honestly though most characters are fairly easy to peg at least roughly what their future holds and we do get some answers such as who will replace Egwene as Amyrlin.  Was the book flawless or a perfect finish to the series?  Not by any means.  I do feel that it should be entertaining and enjoyable to anyone that was a fan of the series and provides a solid close to the story.  I am looking forward to interviews with Sanderson now that all is said and done, to get whatever insight possible into what he was working with from an outline perspective; it will likely have an impact on how I critique the book(s).  I am still processing things really but I would say that my initial take is a positive one. 

[Ryan52]

On another note I do not think there is any question about the whole ranking the Blademasters thing anymore, after TOM some people started talking about Lan losing a step or Gawyn surpassing him (which was all ridiculousness imo).  After seeing a rested Gawyn wearing three rings get rolled easily by Demandred and Galad not having much more success, it was pretty clear Lan was on a whole different level even after being in constant battles since Tarwin's Gap and utterly exhausted.  When he killed the two fades and the borderland prince is standing there blown away was pretty amusing as well.