Ask Simple questions, get simple answers (aMoL version covering the entire series)

[Suttree]

 

 

As Taim goaded Demandred, the Shadow has at least 4 times as many forces as the Light, and more channelers and a super Sa'angreal to boot, and the greatest general of the AOL, how is it that the Shadow did not simply decimate the Light forces at Merrilor in the first hour?

Good Guy syndrome. The same way that you favourite action hero gets missed by every single bullet that is shot at him in every fight sequence. The same way Rand managed to avoid being killed by every forsaken in the earlier books. Its a happy ending story. The good guys through impossible odds need to come through to win to make a better story.

Granted, except the staving off defeat might have been made more plausible, like if the Shaido alone had between 400-500 channelers in just one clan , how is it that 12 clans provided virtually none? Also, the Horn of Valere was only available after the battle was almost over.

They dropped the ball in a major way with all the disappearing channelers. Battles and strategy would have entirely different had they been present. In relation to the Shaido for instance.

 

Dom

The first time around this bugged me, but I brushed it off believing I must have misread or lost track of a mention of where they were or something, as between Maria and the betas, Brandon could not possibly have done such a mistake.

 

But on my reread I've reached the point where Aviendha is briefly captured by red veils and she asks for circles, gets two small ones, that had to include AS sworn to Rand and two WO - and Sorilea speaks of going to find a few more and then asking off-duty Windfinders to join manage to get a third circle. Huh, what? It's all the WO channelers Aviendha had?

 

Brandon really made a huge error. The Shaido clan alone had over 400 WO who could channel at Malden - about 200 hundred of them got captured by the Seanchan. It's a big clan, but still... with eleven clans involved in the LB the total number of WO who can channel has to be above 2500 and it's probably conservative. Brandon gave Aviendha a pathetic skeleton crew of WO at Shayol Ghul. Elayne has but a handful (the six with Perrin plus a few extras.. and they're forgotten in nearly all Elayne's tallies of her channelers in the book), Egwene has none, Lan has none, a few like Melaine went to lend their strength to Yellows in Mayene. Where the heck have the thousands of WO channelers gone? Brandon just went and deprived the Light of its biggest group of female channelers. There's no helping that now, but that's a really big error. None of the battles Brandon designed would have gone as they do with these extra 2000-3000 or more female channelers... that could easily double the number of women with Egwene, and added 500 for both Lan and Elayne and still leave 1000 with Aviendha! And if they were all with Aviendha, the battle at Shayol Ghul, the scale of it, the tactics etc. would have been nothing like it is in the book.

IMO it's pretty much inexcusable. When you take into account the other channeling groups that were missing it drastically changes the very nature of the LB.

[stevescustoms]

Glad to have some things answered. Still have many questions.

[NitroS]

 

 

 

As Taim goaded Demandred, the Shadow has at least 4 times as many forces as the Light, and more channelers and a super Sa'angreal to boot, and the greatest general of the AOL, how is it that the Shadow did not simply decimate the Light forces at Merrilor in the first hour?

Good Guy syndrome. The same way that you favourite action hero gets missed by every single bullet that is shot at him in every fight sequence. The same way Rand managed to avoid being killed by every forsaken in the earlier books. Its a happy ending story. The good guys through impossible odds need to come through to win to make a better story.

Granted, except the staving off defeat might have been made more plausible, like if the Shaido alone had between 400-500 channelers in just one clan , how is it that 12 clans provided virtually none? Also, the Horn of Valere was only available after the battle was almost over.

They dropped the ball in a major way with all the disappearing channelers. Battles and strategy would have entirely different had they been present. In relation to the Shaido for instance.

 

Dom

>>The first time around this bugged me, but I brushed it off believing I must have misread or lost track of a mention of where they were or something, as between Maria and the betas, Brandon could not possibly have done such a mistake.

 

But on my reread I've reached the point where Aviendha is briefly captured by red veils and she asks for circles, gets two small ones, that had to include AS sworn to Rand and two WO - and Sorilea speaks of going to find a few more and then asking off-duty Windfinders to join manage to get a third circle. Huh, what? It's all the WO channelers Aviendha had?

 

Brandon really made a huge error. The Shaido clan alone had over 400 WO who could channel at Malden - about 200 hundred of them got captured by the Seanchan. It's a big clan, but still... with eleven clans involved in the LB the total number of WO who can channel has to be above 2500 and it's probably conservative. Brandon gave Aviendha a pathetic skeleton crew of WO at Shayol Ghul. Elayne has but a handful (the six with Perrin plus a few extras.. and they're forgotten in nearly all Elayne's tallies of her channelers in the book), Egwene has none, Lan has none, a few like Melaine went to lend their strength to Yellows in Mayene. Where the heck have the thousands of WO channelers gone? Brandon just went and deprived the Light of its biggest group of female channelers. There's no helping that now, but that's a really big error. None of the battles Brandon designed would have gone as they do with these extra 2000-3000 or more female channelers... that could easily double the number of women with Egwene, and added 500 for both Lan and Elayne and still leave 1000 with Aviendha! And if they were all with Aviendha, the battle at Shayol Ghul, the scale of it, the tactics etc. would have been nothing like it is in the book.

IMO it's pretty much inexcusable. When you take into account the other channeling groups that were missing it drastically changes the very nature of the LB.

 

The only reason i can see for brandon doing this was the battle would be to one power heavy handed and it would have taken away from all the normal armies fighting. If you added up all of the light channelers compared to the shadows. The light should have an extra 900 ashaman cause taim was said to have 100 at merrilor. 80 Black ajah escaped the tower if i remember correctly and say there was another 50 black ajah around the world that makes 230 shadow channelers not including shara and the Red Veiled men channelers which cant be too many considering the amount of male channelers the other land had had pre Rand being the dragon. So then we have atleast 1000 channeling wise one, Who knows how many windfinders. 500 or so Aes Sedai, Over 1000 accepted and novices, then all the Sean chan Damane which would be 1000s if you included all of seanchan. Put those numbers against the black ajah, taims dark ashaman and sharans they would be annihilated and the lights armies wouldnt be needed like at the beggining of the kandor battle with the aes sedai. So without adding some other random force of channelers against the light or making the one power really weak which cant really work considering the earlier parts of the series i guess he had to do it that way which is bad writing but it was set up wrong from the beginning.

 

The quote that the dark tower has resolved itself but there channelers wont be available for awhile annoys me. They had like 10 channelers in that fight to rescue logain.

 

Was it ever stated how many windfinders that could channel throughout the series? surely there was more then the 13 using the bowl of the winds.

 

edit: forgot the Kin

[dir ehlef]

How is it that uber creatures like worms and Jumjara and those that even worms feared never showed up in the LB?

[hawkeye31]

Who murdered Sahra and the farmlady where she was sent?

 

This should answer your question (from Terez's magnificent database)...

 

INTERVIEW: Apr 17th, 2011[/size]

Driving Mr. Sanderson - Terez (Verbatim)

 

TEREZ (CALLANDOR)

Who killed Sahra Covenry?

 

BRANDON SANDERSON

Bob Kluttz made a guess at this on the Encyclopaedia [The Shadow Rising 17] and he was correct. [bob noted that the most popular choice was Alviarin.]

[Suttree]

@Nitros

 

Please stop with the apologetics. There are a number of very simple solutions and many if them have already been explained to you in various threads. Nothing was set up wrong from the beginning and Brandons did not have to do it that way. In fact as many others have said I would be shocked if it was a conscious decision(if it was that makes it worse) on his part given how many other mistakes there are.

[dir ehlef]

Perrin says at the end of Amol that he and Rand are no longer Ta'veren. Is he correct? How about Mat?

[Suttree]

Perrin says at the end of Amol that he and Rand are no longer Ta'veren. Is he correct? How about Mat?

Well we know people are only ta'veren for periods of time, not their whole life. No way to know for sure though.

[wRAR]

What did Amadicians do with their wilders?

[dir ehlef]

What did Amadicians do with their wilders?

Considering that the whitecloaks were centered there, any women channeling got out fast or kept the ability very hidden. Even healing, which was done by women everywhere else, in Amadicia was done by men.

[dir ehlef]

If someone is balefired, can that soul ever be reborn?

[Suttree]

If someone is balefired, can that soul ever be reborn?

Yes.

 

Interview: Nov 21st, 1998                                                           

 

TPOD Signing Report - John Novak (Paraphrased)                                                                                       

John Novak                                                                                       

[is balefire the eternal death of the soul?]

 Robert Jordan                                                                                       

If someone is balefired, the Dark One can't reincarnate them. But they CAN be spun back out into the Wheel as normal. Balefire is NOT the eternal death of the soul. He also made a comment to the effect that even in the absence of balefire, there may be circumstances where the Dark One cannot bring someone back. There was a long line, so I didn't press.

[lostcause]

Is it true that Harriet insisted on Bela getting killed in aMoL?

 

If so, do we know why? Was it too Disney for her or...? :)

[dir ehlef]

Is it true that Harriet insisted on Bela getting killed in aMoL?

 

If so, do we know why? Was it too Disney for her or...? :)

Narg was lonely.

[Suttree]

Is it true that Harriet insisted on Bela getting killed in aMoL?

 

If so, do we know why? Was it too Disney for her or...? :)

Yup.

 

 

Twitter 2013 (WoT) (Verbatim)                                            

  Jeffrey Bernard (23 January 2013)                                            

 

                                            

With all the deaths that occurred in A Memory of Light, were there any that hit you harder than any others?          

 

Brandon Sanderson (23 January 2013)                                            

                                           

Egwene. After that, Bela. I'd promised she would live, but Harriet decided that I was cheating to keep her alive.

Raj Ayer

How long did it take you to write Egwene's death? What were your emotions then? How much had RJ written of it?

Brandon Sanderson

It was a hard one, to be sure. Hardest in the books. Had a long conversation with Team Jordan about how to manage it.

Brandon Sanderson

RJ had not written much of that sequence.

Andy Lee

Why did Egwene have to die? Very sad.

Brandon Sanderson

I agree. But if you look at the arc of her character, you might begin to see why it was important.

Travis Hall

Without spoilers, were there any characters you want to kill/save that you couldn't do to Jordan's wishes?

Brandon Sanderson

There was one. But it was Harriet's call, not RJ's, that ended them.

Bellygod

Who did you find hardest to kill?

Brandon Sanderson

 

Egwene by a mile. Followed by Bela.

Bellygod

Why did you kill Bela?

Brandon Sanderson

I tried to keep her alive! Harriet told me I'd put her in too bad a situation, and she needed to die.

Brandon Sanderson

She was right, of course, but it still hurts.

 

&

 

 

 

Interview: 2013                                 

Twitter 2013 (WoT) (Verbatim)                                            

Can (13 January 2013)                                            

                                         

@Terez27 Do we know which character is dead by Harriet's choice?

Terez

Bela. @BrandSanderson told us twice that she would survive. :( But apparently Harriet later insisted she should die.

 

Brandon Sanderson (13 January 2013)                                            

                 

Yeah. Harriet felt that we had painted that character into a corner, and the story demanded that conclusion.

Daniel Shepard

 

Is that the GRRM moment? Or the character that was gonna recover from their injuries?

Brandon Sanderson

Character was going to recover.

Brandon Sanderson

 

She was right to make that call, but it does turn me into a liar. That's what I get for speaking too soon...

Werthead

 

That does seem slightly ludicrous. I think the fanbase turned Bela into a bit of a meme.

Brandon Sanderson

 

True, but I will note that Harriet personally has a special fondness for her.

Brandon Sanderson

 

She has said that she would joke with RJ that Bela was the character based on Harriet in the books.

Peter Ahlstrom

 

Harriet even has "Bela" in her email address. She took her fate quite seriously.

Werthead

 

The average reader wouldn't even remember who she was. Weird this much effort was spent on her.

Peter Ahlstrom

 

You think? Back when I was an average reader and hadn't talked about the books online, I loved Bela.

 

I totally agree with Wert and was pretty surprised to see the reaction this got in the online communities.

[Kmp]

How was Galad healed enough to survive if he was wearing the ter'angreal which blocked channeling?

[Suttree]

Does anyone have the answer to this once the person went up in line?

 

Q for
Brandon: Loial is my favorite character in the series.  Are his scenes in AMoL written more by Brandon Sanderson or by Robert Jordan?

A:  Brandon replies by saying he will need to keep this vague due to not wanting to reveal spoilers to those who have not finished reading.  He will answer this individually when the person comes up to him in line.

[blazetheearth]

How was Galad healed enough to survive if he was wearing the ter'angreal which blocked channeling?

 

Simple. It wasn't touching his skin for the duration of the healing (which we know seems like forever, but actually happens within a couple seconds).

[dir ehlef]

 

 

 

 

As Taim goaded Demandred, the Shadow has at least 4 times as many forces as the Light, and more channelers and a super Sa'angreal to boot, and the greatest general of the AOL, how is it that the Shadow did not simply decimate the Light forces at Merrilor in the first hour?

Good Guy syndrome. The same way that you favourite action hero gets missed by every single bullet that is shot at him in every fight sequence. The same way Rand managed to avoid being killed by every forsaken in the earlier books. Its a happy ending story. The good guys through impossible odds need to come through to win to make a better story.

Granted, except the staving off defeat might have been made more plausible, like if the Shaido alone had between 400-500 channelers in just one clan , how is it that 12 clans provided virtually none? Also, the Horn of Valere was only available after the battle was almost over.

They dropped the ball in a major way with all the disappearing channelers. Battles and strategy would have entirely different had they been present. In relation to the Shaido for instance.

 

Dom

IMO it's pretty much inexcusable. When you take into account the other channeling groups that were missing it drastically changes the very nature of the LB.

>>The first time around this bugged me, but I brushed it off believing I must have misread or lost track of a mention of where they were or something, as between Maria and the betas, Brandon could not possibly have done such a mistake.

 

But on my reread I've reached the point where Aviendha is briefly captured by red veils and she asks for circles, gets two small ones, that had to include AS sworn to Rand and two WO - and Sorilea speaks of going to find a few more and then asking off-duty Windfinders to join manage to get a third circle. Huh, what? It's all the WO channelers Aviendha had?

 

Brandon really made a huge error. The Shaido clan alone had over 400 WO who could channel at Malden - about 200 hundred of them got captured by the Seanchan. It's a big clan, but still... with eleven clans involved in the LB the total number of WO who can channel has to be above 2500 and it's probably conservative. Brandon gave Aviendha a pathetic skeleton crew of WO at Shayol Ghul. Elayne has but a handful (the six with Perrin plus a few extras.. and they're forgotten in nearly all Elayne's tallies of her channelers in the book), Egwene has none, Lan has none, a few like Melaine went to lend their strength to Yellows in Mayene. Where the heck have the thousands of WO channelers gone? Brandon just went and deprived the Light of its biggest group of female channelers. There's no helping that now, but that's a really big error. None of the battles Brandon designed would have gone as they do with these extra 2000-3000 or more female channelers... that could easily double the number of women with Egwene, and added 500 for both Lan and Elayne and still leave 1000 with Aviendha! And if they were all with Aviendha, the battle at Shayol Ghul, the scale of it, the tactics etc. would have been nothing like it is in the

book.

The only reason i can see for brandon doing this was the battle would be to one power heavy handed and it would have taken away from all the normal armies fighting. If you added up all of the light channelers compared to the shadows. The light should have an extra 900 ashaman cause taim was said to have 100 at merrilor. 80 Black ajah escaped the tower if i remember correctly and say there was another 50 black ajah around the world that makes 230 shadow channelers not including shara and the Red Veiled men channelers which cant be too many considering the amount of male channelers the other land had had pre Rand being the dragon. So then we have atleast 1000 channeling wise one, Who knows how many windfinders. 500 or so Aes Sedai, Over 1000 accepted and novices, then all the Sean chan Damane which would be 1000s if you included all of seanchan. Put those numbers against the black ajah, taims dark ashaman and sharans they would be annihilated and the lights armies wouldnt be needed like at the beggining of the kandor battle with the aes sedai. So without adding some other random force of channelers against the light or making the one power really weak which cant really work considering the earlier parts of the series i guess he had to do it that way which is bad writing but it was set up wrong from the beginning.

 

The quote that the dark tower has resolved itself but there channelers wont be available for awhile annoys me. They had like 10 channelers in that fight to rescue logain.

 

Was it ever stated how many windfinders that could channel throughout the series? surely there was more then the 13 using the bowl of the winds.

 

edit: forgot the Kin

Please keep in mind, many of the Light's forces were old men or young boys and women who'd never actually fought, hardly a match for battle-ready 9 and 10 foot trollocs, each of which was worth as much as 5 strong soldiers according to the author. 

 

4 times as many trollocs each worth 5 men and thousands of myrdraal who could easily take out 12 or more professional soldiers each, that's odds of 20 to 1!

 

Simply put, under the leadership of the world's greatest general, and with a circle of 72 and Sakarnen to boot, The battle should have been over in no time, even a bad general should have mopped the floor with those odds.

 

Especially when he has a spy right in the enemy's command center and the ability to see the entire battle using the true powered falcon. So he knows how and where virtually all his opponents are deployed, and has real time info on their command center too!

 

This is compounded by the fact that Demandred is a gambler, he knows that he has an incredible overwhelming advantage, is not overcautious, as he accuses LTT of being, yet does not use his forces to easily win this battle. Highly underwhelming for the greatest general in history, no?

[NitroS]

 

 

 

 

 

As Taim goaded Demandred, the Shadow has at least 4 times as many forces as the Light, and more channelers and a super Sa'angreal to boot, and the greatest general of the AOL, how is it that the Shadow did not simply decimate the Light forces at Merrilor in the first hour?

Good Guy syndrome. The same way that you favourite action hero gets missed by every single bullet that is shot at him in every fight sequence. The same way Rand managed to avoid being killed by every forsaken in the earlier books. Its a happy ending story. The good guys through impossible odds need to come through to win to make a better story.

Granted, except the staving off defeat might have been made more plausible, like if the Shaido alone had between 400-500 channelers in just one clan , how is it that 12 clans provided virtually none? Also, the Horn of Valere was only available after the battle was almost over.

They dropped the ball in a major way with all the disappearing channelers. Battles and strategy would have entirely different had they been present. In relation to the Shaido for instance.

 

Dom

IMO it's pretty much inexcusable. When you take into account the other channeling groups that were missing it drastically changes the very nature of the LB.

>>The first time around this bugged me, but I brushed it off believing I must have misread or lost track of a mention of where they were or something, as between Maria and the betas, Brandon could not possibly have done such a mistake.

 

But on my reread I've reached the point where Aviendha is briefly captured by red veils and she asks for circles, gets two small ones, that had to include AS sworn to Rand and two WO - and Sorilea speaks of going to find a few more and then asking off-duty Windfinders to join manage to get a third circle. Huh, what? It's all the WO channelers Aviendha had?

 

Brandon really made a huge error. The Shaido clan alone had over 400 WO who could channel at Malden - about 200 hundred of them got captured by the Seanchan. It's a big clan, but still... with eleven clans involved in the LB the total number of WO who can channel has to be above 2500 and it's probably conservative. Brandon gave Aviendha a pathetic skeleton crew of WO at Shayol Ghul. Elayne has but a handful (the six with Perrin plus a few extras.. and they're forgotten in nearly all Elayne's tallies of her channelers in the book), Egwene has none, Lan has none, a few like Melaine went to lend their strength to Yellows in Mayene. Where the heck have the thousands of WO channelers gone? Brandon just went and deprived the Light of its biggest group of female channelers. There's no helping that now, but that's a really big error. None of the battles Brandon designed would have gone as they do with these extra 2000-3000 or more female channelers... that could easily double the number of women with Egwene, and added 500 for both Lan and Elayne and still leave 1000 with Aviendha! And if they were all with Aviendha, the battle at Shayol Ghul, the scale of it, the tactics etc. would have been nothing like it is in the

book.

The only reason i can see for brandon doing this was the battle would be to one power heavy handed and it would have taken away from all the normal armies fighting. If you added up all of the light channelers compared to the shadows. The light should have an extra 900 ashaman cause taim was said to have 100 at merrilor. 80 Black ajah escaped the tower if i remember correctly and say there was another 50 black ajah around the world that makes 230 shadow channelers not including shara and the Red Veiled men channelers which cant be too many considering the amount of male channelers the other land had had pre Rand being the dragon. So then we have atleast 1000 channeling wise one, Who knows how many windfinders. 500 or so Aes Sedai, Over 1000 accepted and novices, then all the Sean chan Damane which would be 1000s if you included all of seanchan. Put those numbers against the black ajah, taims dark ashaman and sharans they would be annihilated and the lights armies wouldnt be needed like at the beggining of the kandor battle with the aes sedai. So without adding some other random force of channelers against the light or making the one power really weak which cant really work considering the earlier parts of the series i guess he had to do it that way which is bad writing but it was set up wrong from the beginning.

 

The quote that the dark tower has resolved itself but there channelers wont be available for awhile annoys me. They had like 10 channelers in that fight to rescue logain.

 

Was it ever stated how many windfinders that could channel throughout the series? surely there was more then the 13 using the bowl of the winds.

 

edit: forgot the Kin

Please keep in mind, many of the Light's forces were old men or young boys and women who'd never actually fought, hardly a match for battle-ready 9 and 10 foot trollocs, each of which was worth as much as 5 strong soldiers according to the author. 

 

4 times as many trollocs each worth 5 men and thousands of myrdraal who could easily take out 12 or more professional soldiers each, that's odds of 20 to 1!

 

Simply put, under the leadership of the world's greatest general, and with a circle of 72 and Sakarnen to boot, The battle should have been over in no time, even a bad general should have mopped the floor with those odds.

 

Especially when he has a spy right in the enemy's command center and the ability to see the entire battle using the true powered falcon. So he knows how and where virtually all his opponents are deployed, and has real time info on their command center too!

 

This is compounded by the fact that Demandred is a gambler, he knows that he has an incredible overwhelming advantage, is not overcautious, as he accuses LTT of being, yet does not use his forces to easily win this battle. Highly underwhelming for the greatest general in history, no?

Which is the problem with all underdog good guys win stories. They are immune to bullets and losing even with impossible odds. You cant make the bad guys too smart or they win which is unintended.

[dir ehlef]

 

 

 

 

 

 

As Taim goaded Demandred, the Shadow has at least 4 times as many forces as the Light, and more channelers and a super Sa'angreal to boot, and the greatest general of the AOL, how is it that the Shadow did not simply decimate the Light forces at Merrilor in the first hour?

Good Guy syndrome. The same way that you favourite action hero gets missed by every single bullet that is shot at him in every fight sequence. The same way Rand managed to avoid being killed by every forsaken in the earlier books. Its a happy ending story. The good guys through impossible odds need to come through to win to make a better story.

Granted, except the staving off defeat might have been made more plausible, like if the Shaido alone had between 400-500 channelers in just one clan , how is it that 12 clans provided virtually none? Also, the Horn of Valere was only available after the battle was almost over.

They dropped the ball in a major way with all the disappearing channelers. Battles and strategy would have entirely different had they been present. In relation to the Shaido for instance.

 

Dom

IMO it's pretty much inexcusable. When you take into account the other channeling groups that were missing it drastically changes the very nature of the LB.

>>The first time around this bugged me, but I brushed it off believing I must have misread or lost track of a mention of where they were or something, as between Maria and the betas, Brandon could not possibly have done such a mistake.

 

But on my reread I've reached the point where Aviendha is briefly captured by red veils and she asks for circles, gets two small ones, that had to include AS sworn to Rand and two WO - and Sorilea speaks of going to find a few more and then asking off-duty Windfinders to join manage to get a third circle. Huh, what? It's all the WO channelers Aviendha had?

 

Brandon really made a huge error. The Shaido clan alone had over 400 WO who could channel at Malden - about 200 hundred of them got captured by the Seanchan. It's a big clan, but still... with eleven clans involved in the LB the total number of WO who can channel has to be above 2500 and it's probably conservative. Brandon gave Aviendha a pathetic skeleton crew of WO at Shayol Ghul. Elayne has but a handful (the six with Perrin plus a few extras.. and they're forgotten in nearly all Elayne's tallies of her channelers in the book), Egwene has none, Lan has none, a few like Melaine went to lend their strength to Yellows in Mayene. Where the heck have the thousands of WO channelers gone? Brandon just went and deprived the Light of its biggest group of female channelers. There's no helping that now, but that's a really big error. None of the battles Brandon designed would have gone as they do with these extra 2000-3000 or more female channelers... that could easily double the number of women with Egwene, and added 500 for both Lan and Elayne and still leave 1000 with Aviendha! And if they were all with Aviendha, the battle at Shayol Ghul, the scale of it, the tactics etc. would have been nothing like it is in the

book.

The only reason i can see for brandon doing this was the battle would be to one power heavy handed and it would have taken away from all the normal armies fighting. If you added up all of the light channelers compared to the shadows. The light should have an extra 900 ashaman cause taim was said to have 100 at merrilor. 80 Black ajah escaped the tower if i remember correctly and say there was another 50 black ajah around the world that makes 230 shadow channelers not including shara and the Red Veiled men channelers which cant be too many considering the amount of male channelers the other land had had pre Rand being the dragon. So then we have atleast 1000 channeling wise one, Who knows how many windfinders. 500 or so Aes Sedai, Over 1000 accepted and novices, then all the Sean chan Damane which would be 1000s if you included all of seanchan. Put those numbers against the black ajah, taims dark ashaman and sharans they would be annihilated and the lights armies wouldnt be needed like at the beggining of the kandor battle with the aes sedai. So without adding some other random force of channelers against the light or making the one power really weak which cant really work considering the earlier parts of the series i guess he had to do it that way which is bad writing but it was set up wrong from the beginning.

 

The quote that the dark tower has resolved itself but there channelers wont be available for awhile annoys me. They had like 10 channelers in that fight to rescue logain.

 

Was it ever stated how many windfinders that could channel throughout the series? surely there was more then the 13 using the bowl of the winds.

 

edit: forgot the Kin

Please keep in mind, many of the Light's forces were old men or young boys and women who'd never actually fought, hardly a match for battle-ready 9 and 10 foot trollocs, each of which was worth as much as 5 strong soldiers according to the author. 

 

4 times as many trollocs each worth 5 men and thousands of myrdraal who could easily take out 12 or more professional soldiers each, that's odds of 20 to 1!

 

Simply put, under the leadership of the world's greatest general, and with a circle of 72 and Sakarnen to boot, The battle should have been over in no time, even a bad general should have mopped the floor with those odds.

 

Especially when he has a spy right in the enemy's command center and the ability to see the entire battle using the true powered falcon. So he knows how and where virtually all his opponents are deployed, and has real time info on their command center too!

 

This is compounded by the fact that Demandred is a gambler, he knows that he has an incredible overwhelming advantage, is not overcautious, as he accuses LTT of being, yet does not use his forces to easily win this battle. Highly underwhelming for the greatest general in history, no?

Which is the problem with all underdog good guys win stories. They are immune to bullets and losing even with impossible odds. You cant make the bad guys too smart or they win which is unintended.

Sorry, but if the shadow had a less fantastic general, or a more even balance of troops, this would not be as unacceptable, but Demandred losing like this is flat out not acceptable. It requires a better explanation than just "well the good guys needed to win against overwhelming odds."

 

Furthermore, when we see Demandred's PoV, he says that the enemy general is matching him on a level only LTT could achieve. This is the understatement of the entire book! The enemy general has 1/20 the power the shadow has, and other disadvatages too, yet is holding its own, how can Demandred think himself a better general than such an opposing general who can still match him with such an utterly crushing disadvantage? Demandred knows war, he is keenly aware of the situation on all fronts, yet can't understand that he's being totally outmatched? This simply doesn't fit with Demandred's skill set.

 

What I'm trying to get at, is that the way the plot and Demandred has been portrayed, it screams for further explanation.

[NitroS]

I think the Problem was Brandon was trying to show the power of Demandred and Matt while maintaining a no chance of win vibe from the light and it didnt work out to full effect.

[dir ehlef]

I think the Problem was Brandon was trying to show the power of Demandred and Matt while maintaining a no chance of win vibe from the light and it didnt work out to full effect.

I don't have a question about Demandred's power and knowledge. Nor do I question the incredible odds against the Light.

 

I do question why the shadow did not pulverize the Light in the first hour. Nothing in the book or in the reply given explains how this was avoided.

 

The bigger question is how Demandred, who is incredibly knowledgeable about war and battle can think he's matching up against a general with an army 1/20 of the size and still holding its own. It simply does not fit.

 

I think I've done what I can to clarify my question, and being that this thread is meant for short topics, I'm ready to move on with the reply Suttree gave.

[dir ehlef]

Was callandor left in the pit of doom? Any reason why?

[Terrel88]

What happened to the 2 aiel channelers sent with Luc/Isam to kill Rand?