Logain's Arc (Full Spoilers)

[Charred Knight]

I felt like the entire subplot with Logain having to chose between power and compassion was forced. We already seen that Logain was compassionate when he made sure the guy he hit with a rock was alright when he rescued Siuan, Leane, and Min, we saw it when he dealt with the Windfinders and helped calm the Aes Sedai nerves, we saw his compassion with how he dealt with Toveine, he was a guy who was willing to back up Rand even after Rand treated him badly. That's why he was my favorite character up until the last book. He was a good man from the very beginning. I didnt need Sanderson to tell me what Jordan had already told me. The whole thing with Logain having to endure the Turning a huge amount just comes off as Sanderson trying to make an excuse for writing Logain out of character.

 

 

Here's the thing about Logain and his role as leader of the Black Tower. Why should Logain get your respect? He saved a bunch of people from Trollocs? We already saw that, we already have seen that countless times. That was the first thing Lan and Moraine did in the series. With the last battle were people are doing all kinds of great deeds Logain needs to do more to have people actually take notice of him. In a 14 book series at no point in time does Logain actually get a moment of showing actual leadership, in the one book were he gets several point of view scenes, he gets a major subplot, he gets upstaged by Androl. Androl shows actual leadership, Androl shows actual abilities, Androl is the actual main character of the Black Tower subplot.

 

What does Logain do in this book? He loses to Taim, and gets nearly his entire group killed until being saved by Androl, he shows up to the Last Battle and gets control of about 6 people because pretty much everyone else in Logain's faction is now working for the Shadow because they were turned, he starts complaining about he wasnt the Dragon Reborn, and the one great thing his group actually accomplishes is when Androl dumps a bunch of lava on the enemy forces. The one great thing he attempted was to kill Demandred but he barely even meets the guy before his running through a portal to escape. The thing with Logain having to choose between saving refugees and getting a really powerful Sa'angreal rings hollow with how Logain was written by Jordan.  Why would anyone outside of the 100+ refugee's actually care about the Black Tower when it's actions in the Last Battle was overshadowed by the actions of everyone else?

 

Could he have found a way to heal people who were Turned? Sure, it would have beat watching a bunch of people you saw for several books get treated like they sold their souls to the Dark One themselves.  In a subplot were Sanderson tries to show that Logain is compassionate Sanderson himself shows no compassion for Jordan's own characters. Instead all we are given is some promise that in the future Logain will do great things but we never see those great things, and we never will see those great things. After 10 books (longer than the White Tower schism storyline) about constantly talking about how Logain will do great deeds, we are still waiting for Logain to do those great deeds by the end of the series. Why did that subplot even exist if there is no payoff?  What could Logain possibly do after the Last Battle to actually match that hype we were given about how great the glory would be?

 

The whole thing has made me question whether or not it was even a good idea to finish the Wheel of Time if the payoffs to its plots either don't happen, or are subpar.

[mokaloka99]

If you really think about Logain through the entire series I believe you will see that his story was a good one. Your first reaction to his character in AMOL is disgust because he is whiny and power hungry. 

 

Compare him to Rand. He is basically a power hungry Rand, someone that liked to be in Power, was expecting to be the Dragon Reborn. He isn't as gentle of nature as Rand or grounded by his raising. You take that back story and combine it with him going through many of the same things Rand went through. Was Rand not pretty unstable from books 6-11? Much of his instability stemmed from being captured, beaten, and cut off from the one power by the Aes Sedai and from being captured/tortured/herded throughout most of the books by Aes Sedai, Forsaken, Others.

 

Logain had the same things happen to him so can we really blame him that he is bitter, resentful, a little mad, and based on his background, looking for a way to keep that from ever happening again? He also probably wants a little revenge. Remember he isnt as grounded as Rand so now he can see himself possibly leading the next age.

 

He wasnt a favorite character of mine but i didnt dislike him either. I was pleased with how his story ended. Hopefully his actions in the last part of the book will help in healing him mentally so he can lead the Ashaman  into the next Age.

[Charred Knight]

The problem is that the events Logain went through appear to be less about making him more like Rand (especially when Logain was constantly contrasted with Taim) and more about changing Logain into a new character so that the Black Tower subplot became a creation entirely of Sanderson's doing.  The characters that Jordan setup are all Turned except for Gabrelle and Logain, the Logain vs Taim subplot is dropped when Androl frees everyone and instead Taim interacts with Demandred, and is killed by Egwene. Logain is the leader not out of accomplishments, or actual skill but merely because its an artifact of the Black Tower subplot that Jordan wrote. 

 

That last sentence you wrote kind of says it all you "hope" that Logain's actions are going to help him lead the Ashaman into the next age because there are no assurances outside of a prophecy.

 

You hope that the White Tower will find a replacement for Egwene since her successor is 300 years old (when Aes Sedai die at that age) and her succession is dealt with in a comedic scene, you hope that the Seanchan will reform and free all the people the women they captured, you hope that the world will recover because Jordan and Sanderson never actually wrote a path to recovery.

[JavnaGolina]

I am not great at reading between the lines - why did Logain need to choose between getting the golden sceptre angreal, and saving people? Couldn't he have saved people more easily with all that power?

Overall I am happy with his arc. I agree that his glorious moment needed to be more glorious though. It was touching when he saw how the people respected him, but I don't know, I felt like it should have been more... foreceful.

I found his lusting for power and wanting people to fear him very compelling, and quite rational. Still, I was half-expecting him to do something major at Shayol Ghul to get the glory, and was sort of bummed when that never happened.

[XXX]

Because he needed time to break the crystal which contained the sa'angreal and the people were dying.By the time he saved the people,the earthquakes that buried the crystals and the sa'angreal.

[JavnaGolina]

So he probably went back and fetched it afterwards. Just to be safe :P

[Aulduron]

[q]I found his lusting for power and wanting people to fear him very compelling, and quite rational. Still, I was half-expecting him to do something major at Shayol Ghul to get the glory, and was sort of bummed when that never happened.[/q]

 

I expected that too, but was pleased when it went differently. Rand tried to usher in another age of peace, and this glory goes well with that. Glory for saving, instead of killing.

[Ruth]

I really liked Logain's Arc. It was pretty amazing that he was able to function after the torture he went through. It would have been unrealistic to have him go up against Taim in his condition. Getting the Sa'angreal made sense to me. The BT should have some angreal to be more in balance with the AS. If he had made the choice to get the angreal instead of save the children, he would have likely died in the earthquake and we would all cheer. He made the right choice and he got his reward in their future support of the BT. There is no reason why he cannot still try to dig for the Sa'angreal in the future. Logain's arc was one of only a few that dealt with saving common people. Hundreds of thousands of common people were slaughtered and I like that this Arc at least was about saving some ordinary people. We get so invested in the main characters that we resent when any words are given to anyone else. The last battle was far more than killing the enemy.

 

I liked Androl and his arc made it possible for Logain and the BT to play a significant role. He will make a great side kick for Logain. Because of Androl's weaves, they all powered up. It is satisfying that the future looks very promising for the BT.

[huskylord]

Min had a viewing of "glory" for Logain.

I always thought he'd have a more heroic chapter allotted to him.

I thought Sanderson could have done a better job for Logain.

[nikios2099]

People need to keep in mind we have no idea if Cads will even end up as Ayrlin. It wasn't an official summons and she has escaped that exact scenario before.

 

 

we know that Cadsuane will be the next amyrlin seat because of her last scene in the last book of the serie ... why would have BS written that scene if not to let us know that cadsuane will be the next amyrlin ???

[Suttree]

 

People need to keep in mind we have no idea if Cads will even end up as Ayrlin. It wasn't an official summons and she has escaped that exact scenario before.

 

 

we know that Cadsuane will be the next amyrlin seat because of her last scene in the last book of the serie ... why would have BS written that scene if not to let us know that cadsuane will be the next amyrlin ???

That is a logical fallacy on your part. Everyone here is aware of the last scene but was purposely left open ended(which has since been confirmed in interviews) and links back to things RJ specifically left in his notes. Getting out of it would be entirely in character.

 

RJ

Cadsuane first refused to be raised a Sitter in 846 NE; she reportedly did so a second time as well, though even one refusal was unheard of. She refused to be raised head of the Green Ajah in 862 NE, another thing that was unheard of. She was said to have vanished from the Tower for ten years (from roughly 890 NE to 900 NE) when she learned that the Hall intended to raise her Amyrlin after Sereille Bagand.

 

Again we simply can't say for sure either way.

[Charred Knight]

 

 

People need to keep in mind we have no idea if Cads will even end up as Ayrlin. It wasn't an official summons and she has escaped that exact scenario before.

 

 

we know that Cadsuane will be the next amyrlin seat because of her last scene in the last book of the serie ... why would have BS written that scene if not to let us know that cadsuane will be the next amyrlin ???

That is a logical fallacy on your part. Everyone here is aware of the last scene but was purposely left open ended(which has since been confirmed in interviews) and links back to things RJ specifically left in his notes. Getting out of it would be entirely in character.

 

RJ

>Cadsuane first refused to be raised a Sitter in 846 NE; she reportedly did so a second time as well, though even one refusal was unheard of. She refused to be raised head of the Green Ajah in 862 NE, another thing that was unheard of. She was said to have vanished from the Tower for ten years (from roughly 890 NE to 900 NE) when she learned that the Hall intended to raise her Amyrlin after Sereille Bagand.

 

Again we simply can't say for sure either way.

 

If Cadsuane is not the next Amyrlin seat than the White Tower is in just as bad a spot as the Black Tower, severely reduced in power, both have reasons to hate the other Tower, and neither would have a strong leader who can help keep the tower together during the rebuilding process.  I mean who else could be the Amyrlin?  Moraine?  Nyneave? 

[nikios2099]

 

 

People need to keep in mind we have no idea if Cads will even end up as Ayrlin. It wasn't an official summons and she has escaped that exact scenario before.

 

 

we know that Cadsuane will be the next amyrlin seat because of her last scene in the last book of the serie ... why would have BS written that scene if not to let us know that cadsuane will be the next amyrlin ???

That is a logical fallacy on your part. Everyone here is aware of the last scene but was purposely left open ended(which has since been confirmed in interviews) and links back to things RJ specifically left in his notes. Getting out of it would be entirely in character.

 

i don't know what BS has said in interviews but it's obvious for me that he had a good reason to write this scene and if his purpose was to leave the question really open , then he just had to not write it ...

 

so , if he writes the scene , it's because he want us to understand that cadsuane will probably be the next amyrlin ... you can argue that it's not 100% sure but 95% is enough for me ^^

 

 

and from a character point of view , it seems to me that cadsuane has given Rand too much lessons about duty to escape the amyrlin seat now that she is obviously the better choice ...

[Suttree]

and from a character point of view , it seems to me that cadsuane has given Rand too much lessons about duty to escape the amyrlin seat now that she is obviously the better choice ...

It has been confirmed that it was purposely left open ended as I said above.

 

Who knows if she is the best choice. On one hand diplomacy is not her best character asset on the other we know one of her most important lessons in life is "what must be endured, can be endured".  It really comes down to how Cads views the situation, Moiraine to my mind for example would be a better choice.

[Charred Knight]

 

and from a character point of view , it seems to me that cadsuane has given Rand too much lessons about duty to escape the amyrlin seat now that she is obviously the better choice ...

It has been confirmed that it was purposely left open ended as I said above.

 

Who knows if she is the best choice. On one hand diplomacy is not her best character asset on the other we know one of her most important lessons in life is "what must be endured, can be endured".  It really comes down to how Cads views the situation, Moiraine to my mind for example would be a better choice.

I dont think Moraine would want to be Amyrlin anymore than Cadsuane would, and her weakness in the power is going to cause a lot of problems with a lot of Aes Sedai.  

[MasterAblar]

If Cadsuane is not the next Amyrlin seat than the White Tower is in just as bad a spot as the Black Tower, severely reduced in power, both have reasons to hate the other Tower, and neither would have a strong leader who can help keep the tower together during the rebuilding process. I mean who else could be the Amyrlin? Moraine? Nyneave?

 

The White Tower is weakened, although it's hard to tell precisely how many sisters died, and Egwene's death is a huge loss, but that said, there is an enormous amount of novices who will become Aes Sedai eventually, among them women like Sharina. The WT is weakened but it'll definitely bounce back

 

As for the BT, last I checked Logain was alive at the end of the Last Battle. As for the number of Asha'man. Before aMoL, there should have been at least 1000. Yet somehow there were only around 400 maximum, darkfriends included, mentioned in the book. So it's really impossible to accurately assess the state of the BT, in terms of numbers, after the Last Battle.

 

It has been confirmed that it was purposely left open ended as I said above.

 

Who knows if she is the best choice. On one hand diplomacy is not her best character asset on the other we know one of her most important lessons in life is "what must be endured, can be endured". It really comes down to how Cads views the situation, Moiraine to my mind for example would be a better choice.

Moiraine is a fair choice. If nothing there's Saerin. She's nothing special, at least compared to Egwene, but I think she could hold things together until the WT really recovers.

[Charred Knight]

 

If Cadsuane is not the next Amyrlin seat than the White Tower is in just as bad a spot as the Black Tower, severely reduced in power, both have reasons to hate the other Tower, and neither would have a strong leader who can help keep the tower together during the rebuilding process. I mean who else could be the Amyrlin? Moraine? Nyneave?

The White Tower is weakened, although it's hard to tell precisely how many sisters died, and Egwene's death is a huge loss, but that said, there is an enormous amount of novices who will become Aes Sedai eventually, among them women like Sharina. The WT is weakened but it'll definitely bounce back

 

As for the BT, last I checked Logain was alive at the end of the Last Battle. As for the number of Asha'man. Before aMoL, there should have been at least 1000. Yet somehow there were only around 400 maximum, darkfriends included, mentioned in the book. So it's really impossible to accurately assess the state of the BT, in terms of numbers, after the Last Battle.

 

>>It has been confirmed that it was purposely left open ended as I said above.

 

Who knows if she is the best choice. On one hand diplomacy is not her best character asset on the other we know one of her most important lessons in life is "what must be endured, can be endured". It really comes down to how Cads views the situation, Moiraine to my mind for example would be a better choice.

Moiraine is a fair choice. If nothing there's Saerin. She's nothing special, at least compared to Egwene, but I think she could hold things together until the WT really recovers.

 

Given the fact that Taim appeared to have already turned most of the experienced and powerful Asha'man I highly doubt that there are more than a hundred.  I wouldn't be shocked if there was less than 50.   

[MasterAblar]

Given the fact that Taim appeared to have already turned most of the experienced and powerful Asha'man I highly doubt that there are more than a hundred.  I wouldn't be shocked if there was less than 50.

 

In the Prologue of WH Toveine estimates there are 500 Asha'man at the BT. This is a 107 days after Taim arrives in Caemlyn in LoC. That's a rate of about 5 Asha'man recruited per day, which is even faster than the 3-4 Torval had claimed in PoD, when he reported there were 438 Asha'man at the BT.

 

Later in KoD Logain says he's sent more than half the Asha'man out of the BT, and none of them loyal to Taim. This is 54 days after Toveine's estimation in WH. If we go with the 5 Asha'man per day recruitement rate, their numbers go up to 770, and it might even be higher than that since the more Asha'man there are, the more recruting parties there are. Using Torval's 3-4 per day, we're closer to 700. I'd estimate between 350 and 400 Asha'man would make up about half of what the BT had at the time. If the rate of recrutement kept on at the same pace, there should have been at least 1000 Asha'man by the beginning of aMoL (910 at the least, 1200 at the most).

 

In aMoL, Logain shows us in Cairhien with 200 Asha'man according to Elayne. That's still less than he should have had.

 

As for how many Asha'man Taim turned, that's impossible to say. We only see a few: Mezar, Kajima, Evan. I expect there were more, but Taim had to stay discreet. According to Demandred, he has 100 dreadlords with him at the battle of the FoM.

 

Logain should have far more than 50 Asha'man left after the Last Battle, but considering how messed up the numbers are in aMoL, compared to previous books, it's really impossible to give even a somewhat educated guess.

 

Between 1 and 1000. There, that's the best I can come up with.

[Charred Knight]

Sanderson never did think those numbers through did he.  Logain's faction is left with about 5 guys and yet his portrayed as the Defacto leader of the entire Black Tower, out of 50 Aes Sedai from Toveine Group the only confirmed person not to be turned is Gabrelle, Pevara is the only person from her group not turned, and yet Taim only brings 100 dreadlords a number he had at the end of Knife of Dreams.

[MasterAblar]

Sanderson never did think those numbers through did he.  Logain's faction is left with about 5 guys and yet his portrayed as the Defacto leader of the entire Black Tower, out of 50 Aes Sedai from Toveine Group the only confirmed person not to be turned is Gabrelle, Pevara is the only person from her group not turned, and yet Taim only brings 100 dreadlords a number he had at the end of Knife of Dreams.

All the Asha'man with bonded Aes Sedai were sent out of the BT in KoD. There are only a few who were later caught by Taim's men, and that's because they were the ones who stuck with Logain. So almost none of them would have been turned. Also, turning someone to the Shadow appears to be a rather tiring buisness from what we were shown, and it goes slower turning men when no women are involved. Combined with the fact that Taim had too few men to simply take every Asha'man loyal to Rand hostage, and had to keep discreet in order to not draw too much attention, it's not suprising that he didn't turn a huge amount of channellers. 100 Dreadlord is less than he should have had, but there isn't a huge gap either. He probably should have had around 150.

 

Logain is portrayed as defacto leader because he was essentially Rand's second in command, and from the moment he arrived at the BT, he's been leading the anti-Taim faction. After Taim is ousted, that faction essentially becomes the entire BT. So it's not suprising that he's considered their leader. His faction isn't left with 5 guys, it's just that the focus is on them.

[XXX]

Sanderson never did think those numbers through did he.  Logain's faction is left with about 5 guys and yet his portrayed as the Defacto leader of the entire Black Tower, out of 50 Aes Sedai from Toveine Group the only confirmed person not to be turned is Gabrelle, Pevara is the only person from her group not turned, and yet Taim only brings 100 dreadlords a number he had at the end of Knife of Dreams.

 

Logain brings more than 100 to help Elayne in AMOL. More than 400 shd have been out of the tower but who knows with nos now. Sanderson did a piss poor job on this.

[Charred Knight]

 

Sanderson never did think those numbers through did he.  Logain's faction is left with about 5 guys and yet his portrayed as the Defacto leader of the entire Black Tower, out of 50 Aes Sedai from Toveine Group the only confirmed person not to be turned is Gabrelle, Pevara is the only person from her group not turned, and yet Taim only brings 100 dreadlords a number he had at the end of Knife of Dreams.

 

Logain brings more than 100 to help Elayne in AMOL. More than 400 shd have been out of the tower but who knows with nos now. Sanderson did a piss poor job on this.

 

The problem is that the book was still being written like Jordan was alive so we have all these open plotlines that would have novels written about them (Seanchan in particular with Tuon basically being the token evil member of the Alliance) since Jordan is dead we will probably never find out who becomes Amyrlin, we will never find out what happens between the Seanchan and Aiel, we will never find out how Logain rebuilds the black tower.

[Byzantine279]

I personally figure Cads will accept it, realizing that at this point there really is NO ONE else left who could drag the Aes Sedai into the 4th age.  Besides, Egwene had already started it, so they aren't all as worthless as she used to think.

 

The trouble is I figure that most of the Asha'man were too untrained to be worth anything in the fight, and so were left behind in the tower.  Having 1,000 members doesn't mean much if only 100 can weave fast enough to be of use.  This is the same reasoning that although the Aes Sedai had over 1,000 new novices they couldn't do anything with them during the battle, they were too untrained to be of use.

[nikios2099]

The trouble is I figure that most of the Asha'man were too untrained to be worth anything in the fight, and so were left behind in the tower.  Having 1,000 members doesn't mean much if only 100 can weave fast enough to be of use.  This is the same reasoning that although the Aes Sedai had over 1,000 new novices they couldn't do anything with them during the battle, they were too untrained to be of use.

 

a good explanation for another battle but it's tarmon gaidon aka the last battle of humankind ... even the less untrained channelers ( or the weakest one as morgase ) should have been used as part of a circle ...

[XXX]

I personally figure Cads will accept it, realizing that at this point there really is NO ONE else left who could drag the Aes Sedai into the 4th age.  Besides, Egwene had already started it, so they aren't all as worthless as she used to think.

 

The trouble is I figure that most of the Asha'man were too untrained to be worth anything in the fight, and so were left behind in the tower.  Having 1,000 members doesn't mean much if only 100 can weave fast enough to be of use.  This is the same reasoning that although the Aes Sedai had over 1,000 new novices they couldn't do anything with them during the battle, they were too untrained to be of use.

 

That  makes no sense, 200 of them within 6 months of training made mince meat of the shaido at Dumai Wells. And more than half were at the Seachan borders.Why will they be sent from the borders where they were doing guard duty to back to the tower?