Battles (Full Spoilers)

[Black-veiled Aiel]

Agree with most of what's already been written, well summed up Morden. For me, the way the battle was depicted had me agitated. So many holes...

 

 

the inexplicable weakening of the OP on the light side, the missing channellers, the weak battle strategies on both sides, the lack of Padan Fain, he was built up into awesomeness throughout the entire series for a CAMEO at the business end! .....Chaos created by Graendal went too far, Moridon was almost zen badass but in AMOL he was useless, what happened to the super warriors the Aiel? Seemed very ineffective, the Seanchan stayed out of it too long, the numbers overall were way out, Lanfear was a waste of space - could have been used better and Demandred's pov had some real potential, but after a while it became too unrealistic and most disappointing as I thought Demandred was more calculated than that. Moiraine had no personality bah I could go on. I liked the previous 2 books, thought he did an admiral job even if some of the dialogue seemed "off" however this didn't feel like a WOT novel.

[Chackern]

After having read the entire series and having studied alot of military history, I found the Last Battle to be harder to follow. That is one of the main differences that I found in writing styles. Brandon did do well in Towers of Midnight with the siege of Maradon, but planning a defense is simpler than a campaign. It was harder to "see" the armies in my minds eye, I know it was the Last Battle and all but, still...I found myself looking forward to the individual confrontations than the actual battle scenes. In actuality Jordan provided better of both, I looked forward to his battle scenes and the indivual confrontations were well done, there was a good balance: think about the Battle to relieve Cairhien could have been the Siege of Vienna, and Dumai's Wells with the arrival of the Ashaman and the destruction that they wrought? No comparison

 

I feel like I was treated to the comic book version of the Last Battle.

[Garibaldi1972]

I have a question about the final battle at Merrilor..

 

Im not sure if this is right spot..but it is a question about the battle..

 

Mat sends a small force along with Grady to the mouth of the river because he has a memory of how in a forgotten battle he was defeated because the enemy dammed it up and took away a strategic barrier..

 

He tells Grady to hide a do nothing to defend it, but rather wait till the time is right to break the dam that will inevitably be built...in affect sacrificing the small poorly trained force to initially defend it.

 

This makes Grady mad because those people were initially slaughtered by Demandred's forces, but he follows orders anyway.

 

Then, near the end of the fight the defending Dreadlords and Grady are surprised when all those dead people magically reappeared from a gateway and overran their positions which allowed Grady to break the dam and split the remain Dark One forces which ultimately contribute to turning the tide.

 

Grady later asks Mat how he did that, and Mat basically put him off.

 

Ok..question how did Mat do that..and did I just miss that in my urgency to finish the book?

[Agitel]

I have a question about the final battle at Merrilor..

 

Im not sure if this is right spot..but it is a question about the battle..

 

Marpt sends a small force along with Grady to the mouth if the river because he has memory of how a forgotten battle he was defeated because the enemy dammed it up and took away a strategic barrier..

 

He yells Grady to hide a do nothing to defend it, but rather wait till the time is right to break the dam that will inevitably be built...in affect sacrificing the small poorly trained force to initially defend it.

 

This makes Grady mad about those people who were initially slaughtered by Demandred's forces, but he follows orders anyway.

 

Then, near the end of the fight the defending Dreadlords and Grady are surprised when all those dead people magically reappeared from a gateway and overran their positions and allowed Grady to break the dam and split the remain Dark One forces which ulimately contribute to turning the tide.

 

Grady later asks Mat hiw he did that, and Mat basically put him off.

 

Ok..question how did Mat do that..and did I just miss that in my urgency to finish the book?

 

The Gateway was to Hinderstrap, where the people go mad every night and start slaughtering each other and then all are alive again the next day. Grady's POV does mention the name of the village in there.

[Garibaldi1972]

oh..I totally forgot about that town..

 

Thanks, guess I'm getting to old to remember every detail over the last decade :-)

[wintermute]

On why the Lightsiders opened 4 fronts initially - remember that one of their goals was to distract the Shadow so Rand can sneak inside Shayol Ghul. Spreading out their forces helped with this deception. Also, initially, each individual army looked strong enough to overcome (Bashere's forces) or at least draw (Agelmar and Bryne) with their known opponents.

 

Turned out though that Trollocs are mobile than the Lightsiders imagined (at least when forced marched by Fades), and of course Demandred sprang out a Sharan army that could Travel. Not to mention, Graendal's Compulsion cost a healthy chunk from each of the Lightside forces. Put them all together, and it's no wonder the Light was losing at that point.

 

And oh, I think the "missing" channelers were at Thakandar/Shayol Ghul. The Aiel Wise Ones at least should have been there, accompanying the Aiel spears. Some of Rand's Asha'mans must have been there too. They were facing off against Aiel red veils after all, so the fight must have kept them all occupied.

[Nihra]

And oh, I think the "missing" channelers were at Thakandar/Shayol Ghul. The Aiel Wise Ones at least should have been there, accompanying the Aiel spears. Some of Rand's Asha'mans must have been there too. They were facing off against Aiel red veils after all, so the fight must have kept them all occupied.

 

I believe there were a lot of actual missing channelers, but with that said we also have to account for all the channelers that went with moving/protecting supplies. There was probably a quite ridiculous amount of them at the healing station in Mayene as well with others just being spread out around the world preforming tasks.

 

Something about the battles that I just realized was completely missing is varied forces of Shadowspawn. It was basically just Myrdraal and Trollocs with a little drissle of Gray Men and Dragkhar. We've basically just seen the Jumara once in the entire series and I was honestly expecting them to be a part of the battle, though I guess no one has any control over them. The Red Veiled Aiel were interesting though.

[Aulduron]

They probably can't train the Jumara to fight for them.

[wcbrooks]

My Opinion about the Battle Strategy ------

 

One thing Channelers have limits they will get tired using that much of the one power and not all Channelers can create gateways or one big enough for an army.  and then you also have to keep some aside for healing. you do not want to waste a valuable resources just to move a huge force.

 

which leads into having a huge force from different nations in one area it can cause problems in both coodinations and maneuvers and supplying the army with new weapons or repairing weapons or even food is also harder.

 

To break it down into 4 battlefronts is better for a short term solution. hold off 3 and eliminate one and keep going. Caemlyn is a logical choice as if you destory them they won't spread out and attack nations whose army has gone, create a base in your home territory, and won't attack from behind and join the force either at Tarwins Gap or Kandor. Also with Kandor and Tarwins Gap been close to the Blight they will have an endless supply of reinforcements

 

Someone here suggest to get the Channelers to oliberate Caemlyn - you never want to that it will lose morale and would you like to basically destroy your know Town - if something is lost you can take it back, if something is burned then you can rebuild and regrow....but once people morale has gone then they lose hope and won't know what they are fighting for.

[Monkeyfister]

The Channelers of the Light Count Deficiency Issue...

 

Channelers Available before Seanchan and Ashaman joined the battlefield fight:

 

White Tower post-reunification and Post Black Ajah purge= ~850 by Egwene's own reckoning-- Battlefield Ready ~650 (I am figuring about 150 Full Yellows sent to Mayene's Hospital, and 100 Greys for Logistics, as per AMoL asides)

11 Aiel Holds of Wise Ones (based on Shaido Hold having ~200) = ~2200

Wavefinders of Tramalking= ~350

Kinwomen (based on 1700 total, as per the book, assuming those that didn't pass the final AS Test, but powerful enough for battle) 750

 

3950 Battle-ready female Channelers... Low-balled.

 

Divide by 4 battle fields-- 987

Divide by 6 four-hour shifts, as laid out in Lan's POVs-- 164 on the Battlefield, channeling at any given time.

 

At any given time, before the Ashaman, and Seanchan joined the fight, there should have been no less than 164 Channelers on the battlefields at any given time, with three shifts resting 12-hours at a time. Against mindless Trollocks and a Myrhdraal per 50-1000 fist. In EothW Lan says a Fist is 1000 Trollocs, but the BWB says it varies... so what? Take out the whippers and the Linkers and Trollocs either fall apart and start running away or killing each other, or die on the spot if linked.

 

And yet:

 

-- Lan only had a couple dozen and 2-1/2 Ashaman. Tops. They don't target Myrhdraal in the text.

 

-- Elayne had a few-four dozen effective channelers at any time, and they were always exhausted with nothing to show for it. Her Channelling forces, by inventory, included the dozen or so Wise Ones following Perrin and all of the Kinswomen. She SHOULD have had HUNDREDS of Battle-Ready Kinswomen, or the circled equivalent of at least 200. But, against the numbers, Chapter 30 tells us "Elayne had all the Kinswomen with her who could hold on to Saidar-- no matter how weak or tired-- and formed two circles with them. She had twelve with her in her own circle, but their collective strength was barely more than a single Aes Sedai." So, another circle is another dozen or so. All of the other 1675 were all pooped out? The previous books tell us that many of the Kinswomen grew stronger with their incredible longevity. Not a Wise One to be seen. They seemed to all avoid Myrhdraal. 

 

-- Sanderson tells us in Chapter 13, Egwene had about 175 on the field with the rest (2nd shift of 2) resting. "She led over a hundred Aes Sedai, many from the Green Ajah... Two other smaller forces made way to the flanks..." So her numbers are magically diminished by ~1/3, alone.Targeting Myrhdraal is an afterthought to the lot of them.

 

-- Iturald had ALL of the Windfinders and ALL of the Aiel Wise Ones save for the few with Elayne and Avienda-- all fresh and fat from eating bonbons for the week while the others fought and died on the other fronts. They were never, ever asked to fill in gaps or shifts. A fit and fresh force close to 2500. In battle, it was always a few dozen, and they were always-- ALWAYS-- at their very end at any given time. Plenty of energy to gather brambles and logs, and oil from the four corners of the world, but never enough energy to make a gateway to drop a cliff wall on Myrhdraal Battalions and Trolloc fists. Ignored Myrhdraal.

 

BlahBlahBlah-- "Graendal's Compusion nonsense..." is nonsense. Sanderson looked at the numbers available, realized that Lights numbers could easily wipe out 200,000 Trollocs and Myrhdraal per battlefront in short order given the terrain, and Gateways, ( the Blight and the Dark One Couldn't put out Gazillioninfinty amounts of Trollocs in time... Just when DID that start happening?) and so decided to slash the number of Channelers by 2/3s across the board, and have them all forget that they know how to use Gateways--  for DRAMA!!! Ta Da!!!! Oooohhhhhh.... the Dramahhhhh!

 

And then a tiny few Black Tower Ashaman or Sharan Channelers show up, and it spells DOOOOOM on them all, taking out 1/4 of the fighting force, and a devastating chunk of the Channelers in scant minutes on every battlefield?

 

Bollocks.

 

We add these basic low-balled numbers to the equation, and the battles barely equalize:

 

Seachan Damane-- ~1000

Logaine's Ashaman-- ~500

 

The numbers barely nudged when at least 1000 Seanchan Damane, and another (at least) 500 Ashaman took to the field for the forces of Light. It seems the Shadow's forces gained might overnight. Dramahhh!!!

 

Sanderson seemingly killed off dozens in the three retreat movements just keep his lousy numbers fix in place, allowing only Androl, his Mary Sue, (and his own Hinterstop deus ex machina) to win the Battle for the Channeling Forces... Oh-- and Han Cauthon/Matrim Solo-- the Doppleganger he replaced Matrim Cauthin with. Magic! 

 

Ridiculous, and utter BOLLOCKS.

 

And just HOW does a few days of practice and a barely-won battle make Perrin the complete and TOTAL master of TAR, after 12-3/34 books of Perrin whining his ass off that, "WAAAAAAAAAH-- I don't WANT to be da Wolf Thiiiing!!!!" All of a sudden he's there in the flesh, and the TOTAL master of all he surveys! By gum-- it MUST be the last book in the series that Sanderson will write, so let's kill everyone that Rand didn't have the chance to kill, or killed a time or two but the series was becoming too lucrative, that  Master TOR hisself resurrected some of the Forsaken a few times for DRAMAHHHH!

 

I would really like to have the actual Jordan-written portions of the Last Book released at this point.

 

Either we've lionized Robert Jordan inappropriately, or Sanderson wrecked an extraordinarily excellent 20-year long series for no logical reason.

 

Yes. I am disappointed, and feel cheated after 20-years of reading this series.

 

 

The Channelers rarely targeted Myhrdraal-- regardless of linking possibilities, it is widely known that the Myrhdraal whip the Trollocs to simply obey, without the whippers, the Trollocs flee, or just go crazy and try and eat each other opening tactical opportunities for the Forces of Light. They never used Gateways to anything close to full extent until Mary Sue Androl showed up.

 

That is bad writing. 

 

Heck... I'll just let others take up from here. This book is just wretchedly bad beyond repair and beyond defense.

 

I am just totally sad at what it ended up to be. Just a quagmire of the worst of the worst of the worst possible crap writing I always imagined avoiding reading. 

 

Yay... the Light wins in a really odd way. 

 

I honestly wish Sanderson let us share that victory honestly Under the Light.

 

 

[Aulduron]

There were 1783 kinswomen on the rolls, total. They weren't all with Elayne. They weren't all in Ebou Dar. They weren't all gathered. Many of them probably weren't much stronger than Morgase. It is likely that most of the non AS/WO/WF damane the Seanchan took on the continent were Kin. Many of them were killed before the LB. Yes, they used gateways to gather more kin, but there was never a mention of large numbers gathered in Camelyn or anywhere else.

 

I can't find confirmation, but I'm pretty sure the Shaido was the largest clan, with more chanelling  WO than most.

[Monkeyfister]

There were 1783 kinswomen on the rolls, total. They weren't all with Elayne. They weren't all in Ebou Dar. They weren't all gathered. Many of them probably weren't much stronger than Morgase. It is likely that most of the non AS/WO/WF damane the Seanchan took on the continent were Kin. Many of them were killed before the LB. Yes, they used gateways to gather more kin, but there was never a mention of large numbers gathered in Camelyn or anywhere else.

 

I can't find confirmation, but I'm pretty sure the Shaido was the largest clan, with more chanelling  WO than most.

 

As I wrote... There were over 1700 Kinswomen, A scant few were afield and not gatherable, but Elayne had them all. Elayne SHOULD have had HUNDREDS of Battle-Ready Kinswomen, or the circled equivalent of at least 200 Full-bore, heavy-duty Aes Sedai.

 

The book tells us she had a few dozen on the field at any given time-- not linked in strength. Even at the moment when all was lost, before Logaine appeared, the count was only a few dozen, She had all that could be gathered. Damned near 1700 strong. The numbers that Sanderson puts up simply do not add up to the Reality of what Jordan told us were available.

 

As per the Aiel Wise Ones-- you are trying to pick over a few nits, 200 is a pretty decent average number. The Shaido were not special in relation to the 12 Clans. They were just another Clan. There are not 2200 Aiel Channellers under Iteralde-- Sanderson gives us less than 200, and they are constantly too exhausted to fight from picking brambles and gathering logs.

 

Sanderson decided to just cut their numbers and Channeling strength by a full Factor in most cases just BECAUSE-- Drama!

 

And failed.

 

And the readers who know better are kinda pissed that Sanderson is innumerate, and took us for granted.

 

 

[Troilen]

I pretty much have to agree with Monkeyfister, and most everyone else here.  Sadly disappointed, had hoped for so much more =(

[balefired-ed2]

As has been pointed out, the idiot ball was heavy in this book on all sides.

 

IMO, though, nowhere was it more readily apparent than the genius four front battle plan, specifically the Andor front.

 

Why do you need to draw them into an ambush in the Braem wood? The entire Shadow Army on that front is sitting in Caemlyn! They can't Travel! They aren't an army at that point, they are targets! I know you know the GD concept of scorched earth, you have already discussed using it! There are probably somehow some form of Duck Trolloc maybe, so they are literally sitting ducktrollocs! Travel to Caemlyn, set up some form of barricade/gateways outside the city gates, and burn the entire city to the ground! Boom! Done! One army annihilated and no more Andor front!

 

/rant

 

So much of the book was just pointless, boring battles. Battles are a part of what makes a fantasy story great, but characterization and motivations are just as, if not more important, and a little less battle and a little more development of oh, say, Demandred and the Sharans would have GREATLY improved this book. How did he come to power? What are their prophecies? What was the Sharan rationalization besides some platitude about destroying in order to remake the world?

 

Instead of any sort of feelings of excitement or desperation at the battles, like I felt during Falme, Tear, Cairhien, Dumai's Wells, the Cleansing, the Damonas, or Maradon, I felt only boredom. I like ice cream, but I don't want to eat ice cream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That would be too much ice cream.

[kevin pls go]

@ Monkeyfister

 

Agreed with everything.

 

@balefired-ed2

 

"Instead of any sort of feelings of excitement or desperation at the battles, I felt only boredom."

 

Agreed once again.

 

 

 

Let me tell you my biggest issue with the Last Battle. It is not any of the following, although they are all legitimate and extremely annoying:

 

 

 - Army numbers and strength off by a large margin

 - Channeler numbers and strength off by a large margin

 - Stupid tactics

 - Seanchan lowered to a regular army power level despite being a lot better than anyone in Randland (except Aiel)

 - insignificant and small units like the Mayen Guards or the Two River bowmen given much more spotlight, mention and ability. When did the Mayners turn into superheroes and since when are 500 people more important to the battle than 5000 or 50 000? Realistically they cannot do anything. The Legion of the Dragon, Wolfguard and regular army are much more capable due to their numbers. The Mayeners are not channelers or super soldiers and couldn't have had as alrge an impact as was implied.

 - Lack of destruction, no one south of Andor even knew or felt the Last Battle, except a month of bad weather. Where is the destruction we saw in the Age of Legends flashbacks? The Forsaken, shadowpsan and darkfriends were pathetic.

 - Shara way underpowered for a continent sized nation that is supposed to breed channelers.

 - Lack of death of characters. The Last Battle leaves all the main and most of the side characters alive. One Egwene doesn't suffice.

- etc., etc., etc.

 

BUT THOSE ARE NOT WHAT BOTHERS ME THE MOST.

 

The biggest, most appaling and downright criminal mistake Sanderson made was to ignore the Aiel. The Aiel forces that we know of would be able to SOLO  the number of shadowspan we saw at the last battle. The clans that came from the Waste would have been able to march to Shayol Gul while laughing and telling jokes and kill a couple of million shadowspan on the side as a distraction on the way. Yes, they were hyped up for a dozen books, but there is a reason for that.

 

Why make them the best soldiers and then not use them? Maybe Sanderson realized he would have needed ridiculous amounts of shadowspan in order to threaten the Aiel? Anyway, nerfing them was a bad decision. He turned the most powerful force into another Andoran or Gheladanin squad. Exremely disappointing. 

 

Please, do not point me about the Aiel who fell to the Belakness as a reason for the nerf. Their numbers were not that great.

Also, only the Miadens and the Brotherless went to Shayol Guyl, as mentioned in the text several times, that's why Rhuarc resigned as clan chief in order to go there and the rest of the clan chiefs were dead on Merillor, so the "all Aiel went to Shayol Gul" has no foundation in reality.

 

Where are my 250 000 to 500 000 invincible Aiel Sanderson? I could have accepted everything else in the books, but not this. This is an insult.

[Vardar]

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.

I posted about it in another thread. Apparently 2 out of 3 Ashaman died in the battle for the black tower which occurred off screen. Logain had 100 taim had 100 and Team Rand, being nice, had about 100. That estimate Taim gave for matching the WT was how many books ago? So we also have to assume they stopped recruiting before saiden was cleansed which is a lie. That was the only number I knew was off.

 

I guess I imagined the numbers were higher as I read. I did notice the lack of Aiel especially channeling wise ones, who are more numerous than the WT but they weren't given their own front to hold?

[Vardar]

Oh and where did Shara get male channelers? We've been told for books the only male channeler they have is the king. So where did the rest come from? They kill them at 18 did they suddenly stop that practice? I'm ok with that but let's be real how many could they have if they suddenly stopped this year? Less than 100 id say and them not trained in actively channeling. So... They're pure fodder.

[wintermute]

Pretty sure most of the Aiel were at Thakandar, guarding Rand's back while he went to face the DO. Unfortunately most of the Thakandar battles were off screen, so we don't really see what happens.

 

We are told though that the Sea Folk Windfinders were tied up throughout in controlling the weather. They did so until almost the very end, when they either tired out or were killed by Shadow forces, I don't think it was stated.

 

Most of the Aiel Wise Ones were there as well I think, as well as Cadsuane's gang.

 

Against them, they were facing the Red Veiled Aiel - do we have an idea of their numbers? And presumably the usual Shadowspawn (Trollocs/Fades). And Graendal, showing more awesome than in all the previous books put together. THAT'S how I would expect a Forsaken to act in battle.

 

I would really have liked some more screen time for the Thakandar battles. We're only told that the Aiel and Tairen (I think it was the Defenders?) forces were decimated.

[kevin pls go]

Pretty sure most of the Aiel were at Thakandar, guarding Rand's back while he went to face the DO

 

Only the Miadens and the Brotherless went to Shayol Guyl, as mentioned in the text several times, that's why Rhuarc resigned as clan chief in order to go there, plus, all the rest of the clan chiefs were dead at Merillor and I don't think they would have lef ttheior armies to go somewhere without them, so the "all Aiel went to Shayol Gul" has no foundation in reality.

 

200 to 500k Aiel went missing. Thanks Brandon.

[Morden]

The funny thing is, I find the Shayol Ghul battlefront most plausible because it was done off screen so we dont actually know what it faced except that it was enough to decimate the lights forces there. At the other fronts based on what has happened in the other 13 books we know 100% it should not have worked out like it did, because it was given so much screen time to make it totally and utterly implausible without totally ruining any sort of continuity. 

 

Even assuming everything we saw such a tiny amount of what had been gathered or what could have been gathered that it makes no sense half the time.

 

Take Caemlyn for example, they could have used a full circle and warded the place with shadowspawn killing weaves, something which is known to all Aes Sedai/Rand etc and then gone to another battlefront while those shadowspawn died a few hours later. Yes they would have had some Black Ajah with them, but they would not have been able to do a whole hell of a lot about it because the damage would have been done.

 

Armies lost their versatility, became static and used none of the tactics they had vaunted over the past 13 books. tbh the only really innovate tactic was the Dragons and the gateways. Bows/Crossbows were underused, in part because of poor locations but that still does not explain the lack of use.

[Rhienne]

Part of me was pleased to have so much action.  Because the POV switched so often and things actually happened it did come as a refreshing surprise and was almost enough to distract me in some places from the issues with the battles.  I was glad Mat got control of the armies but would have liked to see some of his luck or memories play more of a role - his tactics seemed way too simplistic.

 

While I did enjoy some individual scenes (Lan's fight with Demandred, Egwene's death, Logain chosing to save the refugees), on the whole a lot of the scenes became very repetitive.  Because there were so many characters, I felt that Brandon had felt the need (or had been told) to try and get all of them a mention (e.g. Juilin, Hurin, etc.) before the end of the series, and I just didn't care about them enough after their prolonged absence from the main story to want to read about how they killed trollocs after already having to read how Mat, Galad, Tam, Birgitte, Arganda, etc. ad infinitum had killed trollocs.  The total lack of variety in enemies also added to this sense of deja vu during the battle - Sharan channelers or trollocs, with only at the very end the Last Hunt coming in.  I think killing off all the other Forsaken during the rest of the series led to a real derth of interesting Shadow leaders.  We had loads of Light generals or leaders to read about but only really Taim and Demandred which made for pretty limited tactics from the Shadow.

 

I think the main issue I had with the battle was that from previous scenes showing the power of channeling, really the channelers should have wiped the floor with the regular soldiers/trollocs.  What Rand did at Maradon was special as he's the Dragon but he only had one angreal.  Surely a circle of a dozen Aes Sedai with a couple of the White Tower angreal should have been able to do something roughly equivalent?  And even the channeling became so repetitive - just fireballs and lightning again and again and again.  Surely we could have seen some shards of ice or something just to break it up a bit!?

[Vardar]

Well to be honest in prolonged battles channelers always revert to fire, lightning and earth explosions along with air shields. I'm guessing its easier and less tiresome. I mean fancy sword work is nice, but chopping kills more over an extended period in a crowd. Same theory applies.

 

Now, back to the make Sharan channelers. They heck did they come from

[mbuehner]

Someone here suggest to get the Channelers to oliberate Caemlyn - you never want to that it will lose morale and would you like to basically destroy your know Town - if something is lost you can take it back, if something is burned then you can rebuild and regrow....but once people morale has gone then they lose hope and won't know what they are fighting for.

 

You know what really hurts morale? Losing the Last Battle. Oh, and also loosing an army of trollocs on half of Andor and Caemlyn. I don't think there's a soldier alive that would prefer to keep a city infested with trollocs intact in exchange for their lives and tens of thousands of their comrades. Nuke the waygate, go fight somewhere else... say perhaps saving Lan's army from destruction. Might even have saved Fal Dara and Fal Moran. How was that on morale btw?

[mbuehner]

200 to 500k Aiel went missing. Thanks Brandon.

 

I've got it! They sent 500,000 Aiel to protect the 1000 channelers so busy making logistical gateways.  Clearly the single most important goal in this fight was getting the wounded to Mayene. I'm not sure if anybody considered it, but by using half of your resources to ensure you could fight an extended battle and heal the wounded... you undoubtedly ensured an extended battle instead of a decisive victory.

[David Selig]

Honestly the Aiel numbers (both channellers and regular fighters) were so huge Jordan spent the second half of the series coming up with contrived ways not to use the vast majority of them to keep some tension in the battles and military campaigns. All those thousands of channelling Wise Ones were barely ever used even when rand couldn't use the Asha'man. Sanderson just followed this.