Discuss the Shadow (Full Spoilers)

[Wool-headed lummox]

If you consider that the entire Wheel of Time takes place on one continent, it's not so hard to believe they all speak the same language.  The only nation of people who are across the ocean are the Seanchan who are descendents of the English speaking people of Randland (or call it whatever language you want).  It's like Canadians and Americans speaking a different version of English than the English.

That doesn't have anything to do with my point, but Shara has been completely isolated from the rest of the world since the Breaking. When Shara was formed as a single nation, people still spoke the Old Tongue. Over the course of centuries, the Old Tongue turned into the New Tongue, to the point where the two languages lost any semblance of mutual intelligibility. It is impossible for people in Shara to speak the same language as people elsewhere, because the Old Tongue could not have developed into the same language in several isolated societies. The Aiel and the Seanchan were also isolated from Randlanders for centuries if not thousands of years, so there should be at least four distinct languages in the WoT world.

[pmtang]

People routinely traded goods with the Aiel and some went as far as Shara.  Regardless, this lack of a language barrier thing is common in fantasies and accepted.  He made the Seanchan and Aiel uniquely different which is already more than most other fantasies. 

 

I suppose you are also going to argue that the Forsaken shouldn't know any of the New Tongue too right since they've been in the Bore for 3000 years? 

[probe907]

I was expecting more from the Shadow. What did they do in the end?

They burned Caemlyn and a few Borderland cities. They did cause a civil war in Seanchanland, but that's so far away we hardly care. And then tricked the Sharans; though Shara, presumably, is in good shape.

They killed Egwene, Gawyn, and a few secondary characters. Birgitte's death doesn't count because she had to go back to the Horn, and Bela's death doesn't count because it was obvious trolling on the part of the authors.

They didn't defend Shayol Ghul, they didn't smash the seals (Maybe Taim didn't tell anybody he had the seals and had a plan of some sort? But then why not tell us about it?), they didn't balefire cities and threaten to really break the pattern...

They didn't do anything. Just dropped like flies.

 

In the end we got USA vs the Nazis rather than Russia vs the Nazis. I sort of expected the Last Battle to last for 2-3 books, in one of which the good guys take a licking. Instead, we had a Pearl Harbor-type event (Caemlyn), followed by a straightforward mop-up. There wasn't enough tension. But I must admit, after 13 books, I had fun, and read the bulk of MoL in a straight 16 hour sitting. Perhaps the authors wanted to make the point that in the end, Good utterly "dominates" Evil. And that's reasonable.

[Aeo Sedai]

 

I too was glad with Fain's end. Although I can fully understand the people that wanted more. 

 

But I just couldn't ever stomach the idea of Fain being the new DO, doing anything important really. He was a weasel, Mordeth was a traitorous weasel as well. For all the Power of Shadar Logoth, it was wasted on these pathetic creatures. Fain deserved nothing more than a meaningless death. In fact, I believe that's what makes it so good. The fact that Fain SOO wanted to kill Rand and/or the DO. That for all the power it entailed, Fain was useless- as he has always been. A forgotten relic, not important enough to warrant any special attention. 

 

Having said that, while I thought the death itself was fitting - I agree with probably the majority in wanting more from Fain, more explanation about his powers and talents. So perhaps a few more PoV's that show the transformation, similar to the one from ToM throughout ToM and aMoL would have been good, then at the end the death scene as it was in the book. 

 

I agree 100%.  Fain needed about a dozen more pages of screen time, but his ending was fitting IMO.  Just dropping him in as some weird mist with a new name at the last second felt really lame.

 

TBH, I disagree. RJ should have killed Fain back when Shadar Logoth got nuked. The character never really did much except stalk Rand, and stalk him poorly, and I never felt he contributed to the story after the Whitecloak thing in Two Rivers.

[probe907]

TBH, I disagree. RJ should have killed Fain back when Shadar Logoth got nuked. The character never really did much except stalk Rand, and stalk him poorly, and I never felt he contributed to the story after the Whitecloak thing in Two Rivers.

I'm with you on that one. I also think Perrin should have killed Slayer during the Seanchan-WT confrontation, and Matt should have freed Moiraine around book 10 (imagine CoT with a Tower of Ghenjei scene... would have worked out great). A lot more plotlines should have been closed before the Last Battle. This failure to kill off plotlines was the main reason the WoT went downhill after book 6. Back in the first 6 books, plotlines would often open and close in the same book, and major things happened all the time. After that, boring plotlines that begged closure, like Perrin/Shaido and Elayne/Andor, would drag on forever (perhaps due to chronology issues), while prophecied events would keep receiving build-up. In the end it was book 12 and most prophecied events had yet to occur - which caused horrible troubles to BS's pacing.

 

I suppose problems of this type are inevitable in a 20-year long 4-million word project; especially given RJ's sickness and death.

[Wool-headed lummox]

I suppose problems of this type are inevitable in a 20-year long 4-million word project;.

 

Of course not. These problems are inevitable in a project with an author who has no sense of pace and no idea of what needs to make it into the final draft, and what needs to be cut. What was the point of extending Perrin rescues Faile from the Shaido over such a long time? Why did Elayne spend so much time becoming the Queen of England? Why was Demandred completely obscured from the reader for such a long time? Why were so many plotline resolutions cramped into the final volume, and how did RJ even envision going from KoD type of pacing (near-total standstill after a total standstill) to the crazy amount of action and continuity porn in AMoL? AMoL made for an extremely crazy reading experience, it was completely unlike any other WoT novel, and felt like more of an obligatory plot-line closing supplement than a real book. The plotlines were not only disconnected from one another, they also lost their significance because there were just too many of them. And the Shadow was simply bland generic bad guys killing things because they are bad, and this includes the Dark One. Was anyone expecting an actual reason as to why the DO is doing what he does, or what his origins are, or anything at all noteworthy or interesting about him? YOU WILL SEE THE TRUTH YOU WILL SEE YOU CANNOT WIN THE WHEEL WILL BE BROKEN MY TOASTER IS ON FIRE INSERT RANDOM SUPER VILLAIN CLICHE HERE. Shuddup.

[Entreri]

Rand going to dark side being a draw is nonsensical.  For instance, if Rand joined the Dark Side of the Force, he would have destroyed the world using the Choden Kal, which he almost did...

 

If Rand died, another champion taking over? Come now, Rand barely survived having LTT's memories and being Rand Sedai, forget it. 

 

I know it is a fantasy series, but still, it makes no sense. 

 

What is up with Lanfear?

 

Demandred?

 

Oh well.

[Beer Rot]

No it isn't. There's just one language in the WoT world (which is a completely ridiculous idea, but anyway) - the New Tongue, which is a modified version of the Old Tongue, which looks nothing like English. Well, the Old Tongue looks nothing like anything, because it's just a few nonsensical syllables with too many apostrophes, borrowed from any foreign word RJ happened to think looked cool. Purely stylistic choices, like spelling wild with y, completely do not translate from English to the New Tongue and are bereft of meaning. Somehow, it seems like something Brandson Sanderson would do, rather than Robert Jordan, but who knows.

 

It was mentioned that there was more than one language in Seandar before Hawkwing unified it, although I suspect they were just drift offs of the old tongue.  Also Trollocs and Ogier have their own language.

 

I suspect there was only two languages in the AoL, ogier and the old tongue.  It doesn't surprise me that the old tongue didn't drift too much over 3,000 years... especially with the AS in randland doing its best to keep them unified for TG.

[Wool-headed lummox]

It doesn't surprise me that the old tongue didn't drift too much over 3,000 years... especially with the AS in randland doing its best to keep them unified for TG

Shara was completely sealed off from the rest of the world for 3500 years. There's no way for them to speak the same language as Randlanders.

 

 

Anyway, the biggest disappointment for me personally, in regards to the Shadow, is that the AMoL finally revealed what I was suspecting for a long time. That there's no great framework uniting the schemes and plots of the Shadow, no metaphysics or philosophy explaining the forces of Light and Shadow. The Dark One didn't have any master plan, different pieces did not form a single picture, and it all boiled down to Rand choosing either to surrender or to take hold of the Dark One completely down in the Bore. All the slaughtering and warfare was for nothing, because Rand's victory/failure was the only thing that determined the end result. There's no explanation for where Mordeth/Fain gained his powers, why they were an antithesis to the Shadow despite being just as evil, why Shadar Logoth annihilated the taint on Saidin, and no specific role for Fain to play in the book. He just showed up, waved his tentacles around, and got killed. He added nothing to the plot of the book, and added nothing to the story of the series ever since the invasion into the Two Rivers, and should have been killed off right there to stop wasting everyone's time.

 

The mystery of Demandred also turned out to be a fluke. As a matter of fact, the whole cryptic scene in LoC where the DO tells Demandred what to do, and Demandred is mind-blown with shock and amazement was a fake - there's nothing that the DO could have told Demandred that would have surprised him so much. What did he say, that there's a large nation in the East ruled by channelers, that can be seized easily without anyone in Randland finding out? What's so mind-blowingly shocking about that? As a matter of fact, why was Demandred the only who bothered taking control of such a huge territory? Graendal even went to Shara and kidnapped their symbolic rulers for no reason, but never bothered establishing a power base there, what the hell?

What did the line "will you unleash balefire for me?" mean, Demandred did nothing of the sort, at least, no more than anyone else on the Shadow's side. If unleashing balefire helps the DO get his victory, then why did the Shadow stop using it thousands of years ago, for fear of reality collapsing? Isn't reality collapsing exactly what the DO wants? Is he so incompetent that he can't trick/force his own subordinates into doing exactly what he needs?

 

Ugh, the magnitude of failure in this volume and by extension the entire series is so great, it's almost spectacular. I can go on and on.

[Bellarific]

Was Laras a forsaken?

[Beer Rot]

Laras was Bela in disguise, and everyone knows Bela is the Creator.

[Treebeard]

As a matter of fact, why was Demandred the only who bothered taking control of such a huge territory? Graendal even went to Shara and kidnapped their symbolic rulers for no reason, but never bothered establishing a power base there, what the hell?/../

what of Shemirhage?  was´t she trying to get hold of Seanchan or did she just loll around as truthspeaker for the fun of it. And not Demandred unleash balefire ? a) we don´t know what he did in Shara , he maby killed several armies with it and second what did he do in the last battle , yes shouting balefire . and the last question : yes if you read the dark one wanted the pattern destroyed so he could remake it in his image - and the forsaken at least Demandred and Moridin was fine with it , and they were two of very few forsaken left . So you arguments dear sir is null and void.

[mbuehner]

Rand going to dark side being a draw is nonsensical.  For instance, if Rand joined the Dark Side of the Force, he would have destroyed the world using the Choden Kal, which he almost did...

 

If Rand died, another champion taking over? Come now, Rand barely survived having LTT's memories and being Rand Sedai, forget it. 

 

If Rand was forcibly turned he would become immensely selfish and wicked, hence destroying the world would be the last thing he'd want to do. He would seek to dominate it. The only way to see the world destroyed is to break Rand fair and square and have him do it of his own free will. Rand won that battle in VoG, which a lot of us maintain was the true LB. Everything after was just wrapping up the 3rd age one way or another.

[nolirion]

 

As a matter of fact, why was Demandred the only who bothered taking control of such a huge territory? Graendal even went to Shara and kidnapped their symbolic rulers for no reason, but never bothered establishing a power base there, what the hell?/../

what of Shemirhage?  was´t she trying to get hold of Seanchan or did she just loll around as truthspeaker for the fun of it. And not Demandred unleash balefire ? a) we don´t know what he did in Shara , he maby killed several armies with it and second what did he do in the last battle , yes shouting balefire . and the last question : yes if you read the dark one wanted the pattern destroyed so he could remake it in his image - and the forsaken at least Demandred and Moridin was fine with it , and they were two of very few forsaken left . So you arguments dear sir is null and void.

Not only Shemirhage , pretty much all the forsaken tried , and succeed , to take control of land or force . Most of them where hunted and killed by the main character that's all .

 

On another note , Something have been bothering me with Graendal , how did she compelled the great captain exactly ? She Use Tel'aran'rhiod to get to them, but did she simply use it a medium for transport or did she wen't into their dream , strongly suggested by Ituralde Pov .

If this is  the latter hod did she get into Bryne dream ? Morraine affirmed Warder dream were protected in some way .

[Wool-headed lummox]

 

As a matter of fact, why was Demandred the only who bothered taking control of such a huge territory? Graendal even went to Shara and kidnapped their symbolic rulers for no reason, but never bothered establishing a power base there, what the hell?/../

what of Shemirhage?  was´t she trying to get hold of Seanchan or did she just loll around as truthspeaker for the fun of it. And not Demandred unleash balefire ? a) we don´t know what he did in Shara , he maby killed several armies with it and second what did he do in the last battle , yes shouting balefire . and the last question : yes if you read the dark one wanted the pattern destroyed so he could remake it in his image - and the forsaken at least Demandred and Moridin was fine with it , and they were two of very few forsaken left . So you arguments dear sir is null and void.

Pardon me, I have no idea what you just said.

 

What I said was, there were originally 13 Forsaken, who thought that the one with the strongest power base will become ruler of the world when the Dark One breaks free. Almost all of them ended up cramped into the nations of Randland, as if there is some reason that makes Randland so special. What the hell was Belal thinking, becoming ruler of tiny Tear? Why did Sammael bother with Illian? How could Graendal have limited herself to Arad Doman? Only one Forsaken established a power base in the gigantic continent of Seanchan. Only one Forsaken established a power base in the gigantic closed-off land of Shara. Shouldn't more Forsaken be interested in the resources, armies and channellers that such vast lands can provide? Zero Forsaken established a power-base among the Aiel, not even among the Shaido. Zero Forsaken decided to take control of the Sea Folk. Shouldn't they be interested in a vast tribal military force, or a huge fleet, and the secret channelers these cultures possess?

 

In preparations for the Last Battle, the Forsaken dropped like flies and lost the measly power bases they initially held. Which is the reason all the Shadow could count on during the Last Battle were Trollocks and Sharans, when there was so much more they could have done. The Shadow is entirely  moronic and incompetent, and always has been, and it completely deflates the tension and meaning of the conflict.

[Suttree]

It's compelled not compulse.

[nolirion]

It's compelled not compulse.

I just knew I should have use subjugated , pardon me Great Suttree .

[Suttree]

 

 

It's compelled not compulse.

I just knew I should have use subjugated , pardon me Great Suttree .

Lol...it's a fairly common mistake. Just throwing it out there.

[Allenbird]

 

TBH, I disagree. RJ should have killed Fain back when Shadar Logoth got nuked. The character never really did much except stalk Rand, and stalk him poorly, and I never felt he contributed to the story after the Whitecloak thing in Two Rivers.

 

I can agree with that. Instead of dragging his plot line out and making it seem he had a bigger role to play. I just thought it was always intriguing how they used the 2 half healed scars in Rand's side as an example or shadow fighting evil or some such, which was the basis for cleansing the taint. In that it would have been better if he was just killed off then.

 

Lanfear...good ol' Lanfear. One of the Aes Sedai who found the dark one's prison and broke it open. This seems to be an amazing feat in itself seeing all the power they used to build the prison back. She had some amazing roles back in the day but it seems even with all that power and knowledge, all she was in the end was jealousy and couldn't get over it.

 

I always wanted to see more from Aginor. I mean to be intelligent and twisted enough to make the shadowspawn, Makes me think he should have been used more in that way, yet he was just a pawn by the end.

 

What about all the creatures of the blight? The fabled creature in the high passes that even the worms were afraid of?

 

Also, going away from the last book....what was the point of Be'lal? idk it always kinda irked me that he was a friend to LTT and did the whole sword fighting thing with him only to have a few pages in the 3rd book to describe his whole existence in the universe.

[Beer Rot]

Thinking back on it, instead of Lanfear standing ready to kill the girls, it should've been Moggy and Lanfear saves the day.

 

Those two were supposedly the true masters of TAR, I would've liked to have seen them duke it out instead of Perrin just snapping Pixie Telamon's neck and Moggy getting collared.

[Agitel]

 

 

As a matter of fact, why was Demandred the only who bothered taking control of such a huge territory? Graendal even went to Shara and kidnapped their symbolic rulers for no reason, but never bothered establishing a power base there, what the hell?/../

what of Shemirhage?  was´t she trying to get hold of Seanchan or did she just loll around as truthspeaker for the fun of it. And not Demandred unleash balefire ? a) we don´t know what he did in Shara , he maby killed several armies with it and second what did he do in the last battle , yes shouting balefire . and the last question : yes if you read the dark one wanted the pattern destroyed so he could remake it in his image - and the forsaken at least Demandred and Moridin was fine with it , and they were two of very few forsaken left . So you arguments dear sir is null and void.

 

On another note , Something have been bothering me with Graendal , how did she compelled the great captain exactly ? She Use Tel'aran'rhiod to get to them, but did she simply use it a medium for transport or did she wen't into their dream , strongly suggested by Ituralde Pov .

 

It was through their dreams, I believe. She accessed them by going to that sliver between T'A'R and the waking world where Egwene can go, the dark place where she can see everyone's dreams as lights. You may be onto something with how this would have worked on Bryne. Perhaps those wards weren't enough. Or maybe she went to him for real.

[Beer Rot]

 

 

 

As a matter of fact, why was Demandred the only who bothered taking control of such a huge territory? Graendal even went to Shara and kidnapped their symbolic rulers for no reason, but never bothered establishing a power base there, what the hell?/../

what of Shemirhage?  was´t she trying to get hold of Seanchan or did she just loll around as truthspeaker for the fun of it. And not Demandred unleash balefire ? a) we don´t know what he did in Shara , he maby killed several armies with it and second what did he do in the last battle , yes shouting balefire . and the last question : yes if you read the dark one wanted the pattern destroyed so he could remake it in his image - and the forsaken at least Demandred and Moridin was fine with it , and they were two of very few forsaken left . So you arguments dear sir is null and void.

 

On another note , Something have been bothering me with Graendal , how did she compelled the great captain exactly ? She Use Tel'aran'rhiod to get to them, but did she simply use it a medium for transport or did she wen't into their dream , strongly suggested by Ituralde Pov .

 

It was through their dreams, I believe. She accessed them by going to that sliver between T'A'R and the waking world where Egwene can go, the dark place where she can see everyone's dreams as lights. You may be onto something with how this would have worked on Bryne. Perhaps those wards weren't enough. Or maybe she went to him for real.

lanfear told rand she could break through his wards, i'll go out on a limb and say graendal was able to pass bryne's warder bond protection.

[nolirion]

 

 

 

 

As a matter of fact, why was Demandred the only who bothered taking control of such a huge territory? Graendal even went to Shara and kidnapped their symbolic rulers for no reason, but never bothered establishing a power base there, what the hell?/../

what of Shemirhage?  was´t she trying to get hold of Seanchan or did she just loll around as truthspeaker for the fun of it. And not Demandred unleash balefire ? a) we don´t know what he did in Shara , he maby killed several armies with it and second what did he do in the last battle , yes shouting balefire . and the last question : yes if you read the dark one wanted the pattern destroyed so he could remake it in his image - and the forsaken at least Demandred and Moridin was fine with it , and they were two of very few forsaken left . So you arguments dear sir is null and void.

 

On another note , Something have been bothering me with Graendal , how did she compelled the great captain exactly ? She Use Tel'aran'rhiod to get to them, but did she simply use it a medium for transport or did she wen't into their dream , strongly suggested by Ituralde Pov .

 

It was through their dreams, I believe. She accessed them by going to that sliver between T'A'R and the waking world where Egwene can go, the dark place where she can see everyone's dreams as lights. You may be onto something with how this would have worked on Bryne. Perhaps those wards weren't enough. Or maybe she went to him for real.

lanfear told rand she could break through his wards, i'll go out on a limb and say graendal was able to pass bryne's warder bond protection.

She also told he wouldn't like that ( meaning that would hurt him ?) witch would alarm both him and Suan , endangering her masterplan no ?

 

 

 

Lol...it's a fairly common mistake. Just throwing it out there.

Glad I could make you laugh .

[Yarazin]

Has anyone mentioned the fact that Moghedien still had her cour'souvra?  How will that affect her around the Seanchan?  They will definately remove her possesions I would think?

 

Also, the Bryne thing to me did seem like a error.  I suspected that was going on a little bit before it was discovered and figured that it should not have been possible with Bryne.  Maybe for him, Graendal was returning to the real world to use compulsion in his tent?   Maybe not with Siuan there, but didnt she do that in Ituralde's tent, travel back and forth between real and dream worlds?

[myifanw]

She teleported out of the dream and compelled. That's what happened to Darlin when Avienda saw Grendal.