How Did Your Predictions Go? (Full Spoilers)

[Luckers]

For specific discussion of the predictions made in the Final Predictions for aMoL Thread, and your feelings about how things turned out. The original thread may be found here: http://www.dragonmount.com/forums/topic/77744-final-amol-predictions-get-them-stated/

 

Note, this thread is for discussion of the predictions and your feelings about them. Detailed discussion of what occurred belongs in either the Full Book thread, or the chapter restricted thread to the point in which is occurs.

[ScoundreltheToy]

I got the first 2 paragraphs of that true dream Egwene had from CoT 'In the Night' right when not a single person in the fandom ever saw it nor agreed with me.  1st paragraph was FOM meeting and 2nd paragraph of it was Moiraines arrival.  The third paragraph I thought was Tuon/Egwene which it might have been but I never really felt a 'we can reach the top moment' from Egwene/Tuon or Egwene/Leilwin in the story at all.  So....seems that really fell flat in the even being fulfilled through anyone.  I also have no idea about the Seanchan woman handing Egwene an adam was fulfilled either.

 

Also the huge red herring with Into the heart he thrust the sword prophecy I was right about.  Was wrong about a lot of others but those two I was sure about and turned out to be so.

[neverspeakawordagain]

Was right about Demandred's territory being Shara, which I've believed for over a decade, and was strengthened in when the Sharaman showed up in Tear in CoT. That one seemed obvious to me from the first mention of Hawkwing's daughter leading an expedition there to take over (unsuccesfully), with the Semirhage / Demandred parallels making it blindingly clear. Not sure why more people didn't believe that, especially when the Aiel reported that the Sharan trading posts were at war.

.

 

Was right about Mat's connection to the Horn of Valere being severed by Rahvin.

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Was right about the body switch.

.

 

Oddly, was right about my looney theory (which I swear you can find somewhere in an archive of rasfw-rj from about 1997) that somebody would think to open a gateway to the inside of a volcano.

.

 

Was wrong about pretty much everything else.

[MarkDiLillo]

I never really make solid theories that can turn out right or wrong; I just speculate on what I think loosely and often times contradict myself while doing so.  However, I was definitely wrong on all of the Lanfear stuff I had originally predicted.  Even given the direction she went, I think that her ending really was botched (both in concept and execution).

 

She was a character that had so much potential and was a relatively major character in the series that was revived....and then pretty much totally forgotten and very loosely thrown back into things at the end.  I feel like she turned out to be a casualty of the series expanding from 3-6 books into more than a dozen.  My sense is that RJ had originally intended her to have a much larger role in the ending and the story....but by the time we got there 20 years later her character had been almost accidentally written out of the series and he more or less just dropped her in to tie up loose ends.

 

I more or less called the ending with the Dark One essentially being a force of nature and not some evil god that needed to be fought and destroyed in the sense that everyone thought.  Definitely did not anticipate quite how it played out though.

 

Egwene's death I saw coming pretty clearly though I was never entirely sold that it was going to happen - I just saw a pretty clear logical path towards it.

 

I expect that Terez is pretty disappointed that none of her Moiraine/Gawyn/etc kill Rand theories turned out to be true.  :P

[fyodor]

I had thought that Logain would become the public "Dragon" that was remembered as winning the last battle, allowing Rand to disappear into obscurity. One of the running themes of the books had been how stories divulge from actual events.

 

It also would explain the scale of glory that Logain was predicted to have. I don't really see how what he's achieved gets him that type of glory.He's basically going to be an influential and maybe famous person but no more so than any of the other important non-Rand players in the Last Battle.

[neverspeakawordagain]

It also would explain the scale of glory that Logain was predicted to have. I don't really see how what he's achieved gets him that type of glory.He's basically going to be an influential and maybe famous person but no more so than any of the other important non-Rand players in the Last Battle.

 

It's pretty clear that civilization is basically destroyed in its entirety at the end of aMoL -- every nation pulled all of their resources together to fight in the last battle, and 90% of them died. It seems to be a perishing of nations on a scale of what happened in the real world to the Aztecs. From the end, it seems like Logain is taking on the role of protector of all and rebuilder of civilization on a grand scale from the ruins it was left in after the last battle -- somewhat similar in extent (although hopefully less brutally) to what Charlemagne did in rebuilding civilization in central Europe after it was completely destroyed with the fall of the Western Roman Empire. He's the protector and defender of the people, and he seems willing to step into the role by the end of the book. 

 

I mean, think about it. At the end of the book, Faile is the queen of Saldaea. But how many Saldaeans do you honestly think there are left in the world? A few hundred? Maybe as many as 5,000, assuming that some non-combatants survived back in Saldaea? Most of the world has been completely destroyed, and somebody needs to be a beacon of light to ensure that it grows back healthy and strong. The White Tower certainly can't do it -- even if Cadsuane somehow manages to remove the oaths so that she can survive more than a year or two as Amyrlin, how many Aes Sedai are left alive in the world? Certainly less than 100. I expect Logain to be humanity's leader after humanity's fall... I really can't think of a better example than Charlemagne, although I suppose Catherine the Great, Giuseppe Garibaldi, or Frederick II might be close.

[MarkDiLillo]

I highly disagree that 90% of the population died.  90% of the fighting population died.  Lots and lots and lots of people survived that didn't fight though.

[neverspeakawordagain]

I highly disagree that 90% of the population died.  90% of the fighting population died.  Lots and lots and lots of people survived that didn't fight though.

 

Given the bits like the little vignette at the beginning of The Gathering Storm with the farmers beating their plowshares into weapons and heading up to fight at the last battle, along with the description in aMoL of who exactly remained in Cairhien, I'd say that pretty much 100% of the male population between the ages of 8 and 80 (and a good number of the female population) fought in the last battle. Outside of the fighters who survived, I'd say that the only other people living (outside of Seanchan territories) would be the people working supply depots like in Whitebridge or the people in Mayene. 

[MarkDiLillo]

We didnt' see very many women dying outside of Aiel and Aes Sedai.  That's almost 50% of the population right there

[fyodor]

RJ said  that Andor alone has about ten million people putting the total population of the Randland continent conservatively at 50 million. We don't see anything like that or any reference to their much-smaller standing armies being dwarfed by much greater numbers of newly-arriving civilians.

 

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=128

 

Rand's musings at the end about going on adventures and visiting cities, etc, don't suggest a world where all of civilization has collapsed.

[neverspeakawordagain]

RJ said  that Andor alone has about ten million people putting the total population of the Randland continent conservatively at 50 million. We don't see anything like that or any reference to their much-smaller standing armies being dwarfed by much greater numbers of newly-arriving civilians.

 

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=128

 

Rand's musings at the end about going on adventures and visiting cities, etc, don't suggest a world where all of civilization has collapsed.

 

I think you're forgetting that before aMoL even started, much of the population had most likely starved to death. Remember what happened in Bandar Eben before Rand came back there and fixed their food supply; that type of thing was most likely happening all over the continent, in places Rand didn't end up getting to. 

 

One problem with the book as written was that we didn't quite get the proper scale of the battle; my impression is that, before the fighting actually starts on the four fronts, there should have cumulatively been about 8 million or so lightside soldiers on the field. That would include about 4 million trained soldiers and almost as many again cannon fodder -- based on the idea that there were about 400,000 borderlanders from Far Madding, at least as many as that again from the actual borderlands, about a million Aiel (based on numbers from FoH), and probably another million combined between Andor, Cairhien, Altara, Tear, Illian, the Legion of the Dragon, Perrin's forces, Murandy, the Band of the Red Hand, the Ogier, etc.; and about another million Seanchan). BS didn't really do a good job of conveying numbers like that on the field, but that's what there really were.

[fionwe1987]

 

RJ said  that Andor alone has about ten million people putting the total population of the Randland continent conservatively at 50 million. We don't see anything like that or any reference to their much-smaller standing armies being dwarfed by much greater numbers of newly-arriving civilians.

 

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=128

 

Rand's musings at the end about going on adventures and visiting cities, etc, don't suggest a world where all of civilization has collapsed.

 

I think you're forgetting that before aMoL even started, much of the population had most likely starved to death. Remember what happened in Bandar Eben before Rand came back there and fixed their food supply; that type of thing was most likely happening all over the continent, in places Rand didn't end up getting to. 

 

One problem with the book as written was that we didn't quite get the proper scale of the battle; my impression is that, before the fighting actually starts on the four fronts, there should have cumulatively been about 8 million or so lightside soldiers on the field. That would include about 4 million trained soldiers and almost as many again cannon fodder -- based on the idea that there were about 400,000 borderlanders from Far Madding, at least as many as that again from the actual borderlands, about a million Aiel (based on numbers from FoH), and probably another million combined between Andor, Cairhien, Altara, Tear, Illian, the Legion of the Dragon, Perrin's forces, Murandy, the Band of the Red Hand, the Ogier, etc.; and about another million Seanchan). BS didn't really do a good job of conveying numbers like that on the field, but that's what there really were.

4 million soldiers? LOL.

[neverspeakawordagain]

4 million soldiers? LOL.

 

When Rand crossed the Dragonwall, he had seven clans and four hundred eighty thousand spears. The four clans that didn't join him until after that probably brought that total up to about 700,000, but they weren't marching in full force of all the spears of the clans. Given losses since FoH, and adding in reserves brought in from the Waste for the Last Battle, I don't think that one million Aiel is an unreasonable number. 

 

The numbers aren't just pulled from thin air; I mean, You can go take a look at the FAQ: http://wotfaq.dragonmount.com/node/136

 

That's all stuff pulled from the text. 

[Rand the Plumber]

1) Rand becomes Moridin becomes Rand in a transmigratory soul-boogie. I really don't want this to happen because it reeks of week-old fish, but I haven't been convinced by any of the alternatives yet.

Right. Drat.

 

2) Nakomi reappears and is easily explained away as a bit of minor ta'verenness to nudge Aviendha into thinking in the right direction. I don't want her to have a major or significant part in any plot, but I will be cross if she is forgotten. She appeared too late, and her scene was too significant for it to be ignored at this stage.

Wrong, but I don't feel as bad about it as I thought I would.

 

3) Mistress Anan becomes Tuon's Truthspeaker. I like the idea of Nynaeve taking this job after the glorious death in battle of her hubby, but I can't see Fortuona suddenly becoming so blasé about the One Power that she appoints a marath'damane to the most sacred and influential position in the entire Seanchan court. 'Tain't natural. Mistress Anan, on the other hand, already has Fortuona's favour, and Fortuona appreciates her wisdom.

Oh, so wrong.

 

4) Fortuona gets to experience the dirty end of an a'dam. This, or something very much like it, convinces her to rethink the whole damane business. I do not expect the practice to cease immediately, nor do I expect her to take tea with the Amyrlin and exchange childhood stories of butterflies and dancing, but I think we will "hear" her thinking very deep thoughts about how the damane system can be dismantled without plunging Seanchan into even further chaos.

Well an a'dam wasn't involved, but between the Rand and Egwene put large cracks into Fortuona's certainties. I'm going to say I got this right.

 

5) The Black Tower is destroyed, along with Taim. Androl and Pevara are key to this, but I think they will spark something more substantial rather than do it all themselves.

Half right. Taim was destroyed and the Black Tower seems to be in very poor shape indeed, but it wasn't directly related to Andrara's activities. I expect that the BT will be rebuilt in its current location.

 

6) Egwene goes out in a blaze of glory. This is probably the triumph of hope over expectation, but I see Egwene as a sort of James Dean Sedai crossed with Frodo Sedai, in that her legend will be greater because of the shortness of her reign. I'm pretty much pro-Egwene, but I think that the Legend of Egwene al'Vere, the Nine-Month Amyrlin will do more to help the White Tower than the Three Hundred Year Reign of Egwene al'Vere. Egwene will save the White Tower, but not for herself. However, she will become the prototype for all future Amyrlins.

Right. Yay!

 

7) After the Last Battle, when things are being picked up, dusted off and glued back together, there will be talk of the Black Tower residing in Tar Valon, but not in the White Tower itself. Perhaps Elaida's palace. Asha'man will begin to be treated as equals by Aes Sedai, but they will not *be* Aes Sedai. There will be talk of Asha'man taking oaths on the oath rod, too. Bonding of Asha'man and Aes Sedai will be talked about as if it is a normal thing, and the reverse, or even dual-bonding, will be ideas that are discussed openly. None of this will come to pass in the book, but we will be left with the understanding that it is on the cards.

Tiny bit of this right - Aes Sedai do seem to be beginning to thaw. Everything else, completely wrong.

 

8) Nynaeve, bless 'er, will be a widow and will become Cadsuane II after the prototype goes to a glorious death, possibly dressed as a Valkyrie.

Oh, how wrong I was. I think that Cadsuane surviving, and being forced to become Amyrlin, dishonours her and also cheapens Egwene's sacrifice.

 

9) Perrin, assuming he doesn't die of terminal Emo, will settle down in the Two Rivers with Faile. Faile won't inherit the Broken Crown, at least not yet, for reasons of plot: it would confuse the "Perrin is Steward of the Two Rivers, a vassal state of Andor" narrative. It will happen in the far future, but it will not feature in aMoL.

We didn't see this in the book, so it remains unanswered.

 

10) Mat will find himself being chased by Elayne and Birgitte to become First Prince of the Sword, since Gawain and Galad are otherwise engaged. The prospect of this will terrify him so much that it will prompt him to flee with Fortuona to Seanchan.

Wrong.

 

11) The Epilogue will be about 10 years later. Rand and his wifelets will be on Platform 9 3/4 with their young son. Meanwhile in Hogwarts, Professor McGonagal observes to Professor Sprout that the wind seems to be picking up. No? Oh, alright then. I'll get my coat.

Maybe in a subsequent outrigger?

[skalors3]

I almost nailed everything that was important. I didn't guess on many things though.

 

Dem was in Shara -right

Min was Tuons TS - right

Matt was severed from the Horn - right

Rand would not experience a ressurection - I think I win on that, not sure how though, I stuck to it out of stubborn pride

Body swap of some sort occurred - right

Lans line survived - right

Mat kills Fain - right (for the record, I even said it would be anti climatic a long time ago)

Rand uses the TP as a buffer to prevent the taint - right

 

Wrong :

Rand dies and stays dead - Not even a death :(

who kills who, I got very few right

 

A lot of it went where I always envisioned it. I am immensely satisfied with the end. Thank you RJ. Also, BS for ensuring its delivery.

[WhiskyJack]

Sorilea, Bashere- Not DF

Rand- not some uber chaneller.

 

[clu7ch]

I knew eggy was going to die. I knew that at the start of TGS, but I really REALLY got the impression when Gawyn started fingering his 'precious.' I kinda figured she'd go out all Eldrene (sp?) on someone's face. 

[TristanWebb]

Things I got wrong.

 

Demandred was in Shara, callendor is a TP angreal, the heroes have to follow the dragon banner.

 

Things I got right.

 

Body swap, no singing to seal the bore and no linear time.

[Mikeel]

I'm going to be doing a blog while i read the book and i just wanted to get the word out thier, here's the link:

 

http://www.dragonmount.com/forums/blog/196-a-memory-of-light-reaction-while-reading/

[skalors3]

Things I got wrong.

 

Demandred was in Shara, callendor is a TP angreal, the heroes have to follow the dragon banner.

 

Things I got right.

 

Body swap, no singing to seal the bore and no linear time.

I would not say that you got the heroes following the Dragon Banner completely wrong.

[TristanWebb]

My contention was that the only had to follow the banner at that specific calling (Falme). It is pretty clear that they follow the Dragon and his banner at all times. Thus wrong.

[skalors3]

Oh, then yes.

[Elan Tedronai]

predicted rand and moridin will merge and one dies. moridin.

 

predicted rand will retire and disappear with no access to one power

 

 

Not bad.

[mockeryjones]

was dead on about

 

predicted callandor being able to handle the true power and being used as the fulcrum for the 3 become 1

using the taint to shield the DO

 

 

was way off in the following

 

was convinced either perrin or faile would die.  still think this should have been the case, they were both perfectly set up to be tragic hereos

lan lives,  annoying, if anyone had been fated to bite it in the last battle it would have been him.  letting him live after slaying demandred left me unfufilled.

was convinced that elayne would die.  ok with this not being the case

thought loial would have a bad ass moment speaking before the stump, still wish it had happened

[MarkDiLillo]

Did the three ever become one?  I feel like the only time Callandor was really used in the sealing was when they took it from Moridin and let Rand use his power.  Meaning the FOUR become one...