Battles (Full Spoilers)

[Palarran]

The logical thing to do would be to have Rand (because Egwene and Logain probably couldn't agree on which of them should do it) lead a full circle w/ everyone using the strongest sa'angreal/angreals available, and nuke Caemlyn.  Don't balefire it, just nuke it.  Poof, one army gone.

 

This will probably draw out Damendred, and Rand would be anticipating this.  A plan would need to be in place to deal with him.  But if he doesn't come out, simply rinse and repeat.  The light really did have all of the advantages here, and they threw them all away.  But, it is a theme of the series that people do really stupid things and don't see obvious solutions, so I'll go with it.  It was a good read.

[hjustinpace]

Osan'gar, do you know what scorched earth means? That's exactly what they were doing. They were falling back, denying the opponent any of the resources of the newly conquered territory. They literally burned their own and their enemies corpses because Trolloc armies don't carry food

Yeah, I was clumsy in my wording. They were willing to destroy things as they withdrew, but not to give up any part of Randland they didn't have to.

[esvath]

How did they (the characters in book) know how many Trollocs the Shadow had? I read the book and imagined that the Light was preparing for endless Trollocs (endless as in infinite number, not just several millions of them).

 

Travelling to Tarwin's Gap, destroying the Trollocs, then move to other battle front was not a sound plan, becasue the moment the force of Light move from Tarwin's Gap, there would be another hordes of Trollocs.

 

Caemlyn was the most vital battle front because it open access to souther nations and the one that could be finished fast (kill the Trollocs, seal Waygate, set up defender around the Waygate). Kandor and Tarwin's Gap both were considered as battle front without time limit (since they assumed that the number of Trolloc was infinite). But by focusing at Caemlyn only, Tarwin's Gap would be lost.

 

The Light also did not know how many days the Last Battle will last, and how it will end (Rand defeating DO?). So they were preparing for a long, protacted war. One of the most important things about long, protacted war is supply. Most of the channelers were providing supply, like what Lan ordered the channelers with him, not flinging fireballs, but providing supply. Remember, they were preparing for a long, protacted war without time limit and clear victory objective.

 

Mat chose a last stand because the four-battle front strategy was failed (due to Great Captains' condition). At that time, he did not have enough resources to maintain three battle fronts, thus gathering his force in one place.

[Amandera]

There is no need for a full circle. All it takes is a circle of Narishma with Callandor + Alivia with Vora's sa'angreal + random female with the second strongest sa'angreal with Alivia melding the flows. They should be enough to obliterate Caemlyn from what we saw earlier and Rand doesn't need to spend a drop of his strength.

[Palarran]

You're right; the light just needs to send three channellers with an escort, maybe 200 people tops, and Caemlyn is gone.  Elane was already willing to burn the city to the ground to get the trollocs out, so this isn't any different, and no one has to fight.

 

I disagree that they felt the number of trollocs was infinite.  It was clearly stated in multiple places that the dark had nearly emptied the waste of shadowspawn in order to conduct the invasion.  While the light was outnumbered maybe 20:1 in total numbers of bodies, the number of shadowspawn they needed to destroy was not infinite.  With what should have been an advantage of 3:1 or so in channellers (WO + WF + AS + Kin + AM + SD = many thousands), that was the light's ace in the hole. 

[Grr Aaargh]

I thought a few small things were very strange:

 

1. The Aiel somehow stopped being extraordinarily good fighters, or at least, they weren't used particularly inventively at any point during the battles.

 

2. Why didn't the Aes Sedai rely more on small circles? They wouldn't have been as thoroughly worn out, and they could have countered all the Dreadlords much more efficiently.

 

3. Why didn't Rand send Nynaeve to the Borderland armies in the beginning, until she was needed for Shayol Ghul? They needed more people who could channel, and I honestly don't quite see her staying away from Lan after all that time, and before they can both expect to die, too!

[Palarran]

2. One possible advantage I see to individuals channelling is that it creates a lot more weaves heading towards the enemy at one time. More weaves than one person can deal with, as the human brain can only process so much information at once.

[cfrancis1023]

Forgive me if this was discussed elsewhere earlier, but how exactly did Team Dark get so many Trollocs to Caemlyn? Yes, the Waygate and DF plants. But in one of the early books Verin states that only groups of 50-100 Trollocs could travel at a time without immediately attracting Machin Shin. I think this was during the invasion of the Two Rivers. Did something happen to change the behavior of the Black Wind from being attracted to and eating large groups of living entities traveling the Ways? Maybe I missed it.

[Amandera]

We simply don't know. I have seen theories around but nothing that really explains it. It started first in KoD when someone moved 100.000 Trollocs to attack Algarin's mansion.

[reneyan]

Overall I enjoyed the book, but alot was missing. BS comment the Do has access to more trollocs than the blight can hold doesn't seem accurate and where the other shadowspawn? Worms and such, it's Tarmon Gaidon, go for broke. The DO had portal stones which is how he got the army to face Perrin. Why wasn't the WT destroyed, it was nearly empty and attacking that and destroying would've been a huge blow to morale. My pet theory was that the seanchan in the process of their attack would have to defend Tar Valon, and I think a huge shadow attack on the Tower would have an epic feel. Maybe I've been reading wrong, all the shining walls comments throughout all 11 RJ books seem to herald an attack by the shadow. Also Logain and some Asha'Man knew arrows of fire, Blossoms of fire and deathgates, A surprise like that could wreak tremendous havoc. 

[dreadlord]

A really quick point.  Even with maintaining four battlefields you could still concentrate on one battlefield at a time and leverage your ability to travel. 

 

Caemlyn and Tarwin's Gap are the best examples.  You leave sufficient forces in place to hold the Trollocs in the city and in the Gap.  And, you free up the rest of the forces for use as a more mobile offensive force.

 

Basically, it is not necessarily an either/or matter.

[NitroS]

The sharan should have more chanellers i mean they breed ayyad, at age 16 they bed their male channelers with their female channelers so they should have had more aes sedai considering they breed and aes sedai had no males to reproduce with.

 

Also wasnt half the seanchan still in seanchan cause of the trouble with the succession

[Palarran]

My guess as far as Shara is that D basically had to level the place to gain full control.  Yes, they started with a lot of channellers, but most of them were not DF; and when it comes down to it, most people are willing to fight and die rather than side with the DO.  Along with normal sectionalism, I can see that he really needs to kill lots of people to solidify his rule.

[Jonrox]

Like many in the thread, I came away with a feeling that the numbers were off, the relative strength (not just numbers, but proficiency) of the forces were off, and I lost the scope of the battle because they were just numberless hordes.  Particularly with the Dark Side forces simply being countless, the impact of killing a thousand trollocs is meaningless.

The worst, for me, was the Sharan army.  The way it worked out, is they were strong enough to beat the White Tower army, but not overrun them.  At the same time, though, they were also strong enough to stop the entirety of the Seanchan force teamed with the White Tower.  It seems like if they were strong enough to equal that latter coalition, then the should have been able to finish off the Tower without any problem, before the Seanchan even got there.

It also seemed like we lost a lot of the Black Tower channelers.  Wasn't there supposed to be something close to 1000 of them, and weren't the majority of those loyal to Taim?  I don't know if the book even referred to 100 Asha'man the entire way through.

[MasterAblar]

It also seemed like we lost a lot of the Black Tower channelers.  Wasn't there supposed to be something close to 1000 of them, and weren't the majority of those loyal to Taim?  I don't know if the book even referred to 100 Asha'man the entire way through.

Yes there should have been around 1000, but no most were not loyal to Taim. The numbers he had depends on how many he managed to turn. In any case either the majority of the Asha'man fell into a black hole between ToM and aMoL, or we're just sort supposed to assume they're out there blowing stuff up. At least with the Windfinders and the Aes Sedai we know more or less where they all were, but the Asha'man seemed to be just all over the place, which does make a little sense since they're the only male channellers the Light have and are therefore quite valuable (linking, sensing male channelling). So there is a logic to sending to all the fronts. What's annoying is that it's never mentioned where exactly and how many.

[pmtang]

From the Shadow's perspective, the only battle that really matters is the one at Shayol Ghul.  The only person they had to defeat was Rand.  So why were all the shadow's forces not sent there?  Ok so we know trollocs can't move through gateways so maybe they stay and do their thing at the other 3 battlefronts, but why not send in all the channellers and even the Sharans?  Surely Demandred should have been there at the very least. 

 

The Light on the other hand couldn't afford to send all their armies to Shayol Ghul because they couldn't afford to let the trollocs ransack the rest of the world.

[Aver]

If the forces of light were willing to burn Caemlyn in order to smoke the Trollocs out why not just burn the city and murk the Trollocs as they try to leave with the dragons. the retreat all the way to Cairhien was goofy the battles really don't hold up under closer inspection. 

[Vermillion]

The big question for me is why not tie off gates? Why not do a full circle and let Androl just gate away the trollocs? Why didn't Androl or other channellers just open gates on people?

[Morden]

The big question for me is why not tie off gates? Why not do a full circle and let Androl just gate away the trollocs? Why didn't Androl or other channellers just open gates on people?

Haha imagine Androl with a full circle and a decent Angrael... he could have done a horizontal gateway and dropped it on the hostile armies head. Job done, that would probably be hundreds of metres wide/long if not kilometres based on the gateway Demandred managed. When Androls talent magnifies the size he can make compared with others.

[flinn]

From the Shadow's perspective, the only battle that really matters is the one at Shayol Ghul.  The only person they had to defeat was Rand.  So why were all the shadow's forces not sent there?  Ok so we know trollocs can't move through gateways so maybe they stay and do their thing at the other 3 battlefronts, but why not send in all the channellers and even the Sharans?  Surely Demandred should have been there at the very least. 

 

The Light on the other hand couldn't afford to send all their armies to Shayol Ghul because they couldn't afford to let the trollocs ransack the rest of the world.

 From the DOs perspective, the only thing that really matters is tormenting, breaking, and destroying hope, it is his nature. That is why he can't offer oblivion. 

[Aredeis]

Newsflash, the reason the DO doesn't try to overwhelm Rand at SG is the same reason he hasn't killed him the entire freaking series.  The DO needs Rand in order to win, he needs the confrontation to take place with the Dragon.

[Duskfire]

Anyone find it weird that Perrin missed out on basically the whole big battle, and his power wrought hammer did little except kill a bunch of darkhounds at the very end? He should have been up on the Heights side by side with Mat, destroying waves of Trollocs like in ToM. Instead, we got some weird thing where he was too fatigued and injured to be healed properly. bah :P

[Mr. Micawber]

Anyone find it weird that Perrin missed out on basically the whole big battle, and his power wrought hammer did little except kill a bunch of darkhounds at the very end? He should have been up on the Heights side by side with Mat, destroying waves of Trollocs like in ToM. Instead, we got some weird thing where he was too fatigued and injured to be healed properly. bah :P

 

This comment is archetypical of what I'm angry about. I didn't pay forty bucks to read about them destroying wave after wave of Trollocs. This is just lazy writing by Sanderson

[Treebeard]

What did you pay 40 $ to read then ?

[Mr. Micawber]

You cannot be serious, so I assume you're trolling me. I've been reading this series for 16 years. That's why