Quality Discussion Thread

[Aleator77]

The numbers issue really is unforgivable.  I noticed it during my first read-through but I tried to ignore it.  However, now that I'm done...the longer I think on it the worse it seems.  It's really going to ruin the entire story on future read-throughs to know how poorly the ending is written.  

 

I certainly didn't expect Sanderson to get every tiny thing perfect...but you'd imagine they could have at least gotten the numbers of people participating in the books at least within a reasonable approximation instead of just being lazy, only having 1/10th of them, and pretending the rest just didn't exist.

 

 

Someone really needs to ask Brandon what the other million soldiers and 3000 chanellers on the light side were doing during the last battle.  Maybe they were handing out with Roedran in Murandy?  Seriously.  Completely lazy and unforgivable. 

[thoro]

Could you specifiy the numbers issue, I have nothing in mind concerning that..

[Aleator77]

Could you specifiy the numbers issue, I have nothing in mind concerning that..

 

There should be about 3000 more Light side chanellers and a few million more troops in the books than Brandon actually shows us.  They just randomly disappeared with no explanation.  The Shaido alone had 400 wise ones who could channel.  Apparently the other 11 Aiel clans combined had a few dozen.  At least that's the way Brandon wrote it.  Also, we know from earlier books there were around 1000 Aes Sedai and around 800 Asha'man not even counting novices and accepted.  We know they lost around 200 Aes Sedai to the Black Ajah.  The book had about 400 Aes Sedai and maybe a few hundred Asha'man.  At most.  The normal troop numbers are also extremely reduced from what they were in earlier books.  The Light should have had literally millions more troops than Brandon portrayed in this book.  The Aiel forces alone numbered around a million, and yet the book is written as if there are barely enough of them to take a single valley.  

 

If Brandon really wanted to create tension in the books, he should have found a way to either increase the Shadow's numbers or realistically decrease the numbers of the Light.  Instead he just randomly pretended that an enormous portion of the Light's forces never existed and hoped no one would notice.  It's absolutely ridiculous, and for me personally is almost enough to ruin the entire series.  At the very least it ruins this book.  

 

But hey, at least he weakened the Light enough so that his self-insert character could play hero and save the day over and over.

[thoro]

Concerning the numbers: I can´t remember AMoL featuring detailed numbers, but that might just be my imagination. The only recent thing I remember is the line in the very end, where "hundreds of thousands (of dead)" are mentioned on the fields. Where does this mentioned vast discrepancy become evident?

 

And which self-insert character do you mean?

[Agitel]

LOL just saw that link about Brandon planning a 36 book series...

 

It's a setting, not a series. Most of the books have little crossover. Those familiar with his works will be able to see how they fit into the same setting.

 

Brandon's currently working on a ten book series in this setting, and it's a bit heavier on the cross-references than others (though not obvious unless you're looking for it).

 

He also, to my knowledge, hasn't said "I'm planning on a thirty-six book epic!" He's just laid out his future plans, and if counted up, the number of total novels set in this "Cosmere" is thirty-six. That includes novels he's already written.

[Guest jamessmith445]

Before I criticise the book in any way, what I will concede AMoL showed in abundance was a gripping narrative and some moments of real poignancy; my personal favourites being the Lan & Demandred fight and the Noal & Olver reunion.

 

However, you read a lot of criticism of WoT along the lines that Jordan let the plot spiral out of control, particularly around books 6-10, but I had always discredited it, envisaging AMoL as a grand realignment of a myriad of storylines into the culmination of Jordan's literary masterpiece.

 

However, having finished AMoL, I find myself reluctantly agreeing with the doubters. In his scope and ambition Jordan was the architect of his own downfall. AMoL relentlessly cut incredibly complex plotlines and character threads short with a casual snip. The sheer number of exceptional characters who died off-screen (Siuan, Bryne, Tenobia etc.) with a casual flick of the pen was remarkable. Furthermore, some of the on-screen endings were similarly anti-climatic. Can anyone truly say they were satisfied with the Padan Fain ending, or the haphazard and convenient insertion of the Creator via CAPS?

 

Even the culmination of Rand's storyline seemed rushed. It is often taken for granted that the readership are familiar with concepts such as the body-swap theory, and thank goodness that's generally true, as without forum guidance I would be willing to bet there would be a fair amount of confusion as to why Rand is now walking around in Moridin's body.

 

Furthermore, so much was left simply unfinished or at least finished inadequately, in particular some narrative around what happens to some of the key characters would have been appreciated.

 

I personally found this even more galling considering the addition of completely un-needed detail into the final book. For example the arrival of the Sharans, whilst cool, merely served to open up more questions and provide Sanderson with even more to tie-off.

 

The whole thing had the feel to me of desperately trying to wrangle an exceptionally complex of web of disparate plots, into a single coherent ending. Thus, whilst we got AN ending, I can't personally say it was a satisfying one, and God does it hurt to write that!

[Suttree]

@jamessmith

 

How is all the blunt plot work and holes Jordan's fault? There was an appalling amount of bloat and filler in these last three books. Brandon had more than enough room to do things justice.

[thoro]

@jamessmith

 

How is all the blunt plot work and holes Jordan's fault? There was an appalling amount of bloat and filler in these last three books. Brandon had more than enough room to do things justice.

 

As far as I am reading his critique he doesn´t blame it on RJ. The thing he does not, unlike many people here (though I might be mistaken, since I´m just working my way through the AMoL-threads), is to simply blame everything he doesn´t like on BS. In my opinion there´s a difference in more or less neutrally (as far as that is possible with such a subjective thing like a book) stating one´s emotions or giving an assessment after reading than to simply going: "I like = RJ" "I dislike = BS"

 

Though, again, I might be on the wrong end on my last statement too, since you guys have been comparing BS and RJ for years now and might also have access to insider information that enables you to better separate the RJ- and BS-sections of the last 3 books.

[Suttree]

 

 

 

 

@jamessmith

 

How is all the blunt plot work and holes Jordan's fault? There was an appalling amount of bloat and filler in these last three books. Brandon had more than enough room to do things justice.

As far as I am reading his critique he doesn´t blame it on RJ. The thing he does not, unlike many people here (though I might be mistaken, since I´m just working my way through the AMoL-threads), is to simply blame everything he doesn´t like on BS. In my opinion there´s a difference in more or less neutrally (as far as that is possible with such a subjective thing like a book) stating one´s emotions or giving an assessment after reading than to simply going: "I like = RJ" "I dislike = BS"

 

Though, again, I might be on the wrong end on my last statement too, since you guys have been comparing BS and RJ for years now and might also have access to insider information that enables you to better separate the RJ- and BS-sections of the last 3 books.

He said...

 

In his scope and ambition Jordan was the architect of his own downfall.

Then goes on to detail all the things he thought wasn't given enough attention.

 

The point being however this discussion really shouldn't be a Jordan v. Brandon one. All along critics have been clear that no one expects to be as good as RJ. It's about the quality of AMoL and yes we know largely who was who. Keep in mind Jordan's contribution only included 200 pages consisting of finished scenes AND summarized sections total for these last three books.

 

@thoro

 

Also you asked above about numbers being off. We have thousands of WOs and many Ashaman that were simply forgotten in the plot. Here is a good post detailing some of it.

 

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.

[Leflair]

Cutting down on the Light Sides huge numbers would have been *perfect* to show of (Like: Dropping a Mountain on them) Demandred and some of the Other Forsaken at their top, increase tension and up the stakes. Instead... "eh".

 

I don't think the number-thing is the most important error overall, just another lost opportunity to take the ending away from feeling like the final battle-sequence of LoTR (but with way more fireballs).

[thoro]

 

 

 

 

 

@jamessmith

 

How is all the blunt plot work and holes Jordan's fault? There was an appalling amount of bloat and filler in these last three books. Brandon had more than enough room to do things justice.

As far as I am reading his critique he doesn´t blame it on RJ. The thing he does not, unlike many people here (though I might be mistaken, since I´m just working my way through the AMoL-threads), is to simply blame everything he doesn´t like on BS. In my opinion there´s a difference in more or less neutrally (as far as that is possible with such a subjective thing like a book) stating one´s emotions or giving an assessment after reading than to simply going: "I like = RJ" "I dislike = BS"

 

Though, again, I might be on the wrong end on my last statement too, since you guys have been comparing BS and RJ for years now and might also have access to insider information that enables you to better separate the RJ- and BS-sections of the last 3 books.

He said...

 

>In his scope and ambition Jordan was the architect of his own downfall.

Then goes on to detail all the things he thought wasn't given enough attention.

 

The point being however this discussion really shouldn't be a Jordan v. Brandon one. All along critics have been clear that no one expects to be as good as RJ. It's about the quality of AMoL and yes we know largely who was who. Keep in mind Jordan's contribution only included 200 pages consisting of finished scenes AND summarized sections total for these last three books.

 

 

I agree that this shouldn´t be the heart of the conversation, however, most of the people in here treat it like that. Faults are generally blamed on BS, no matter what they are. I just find that to be slightly ridiculous, since more often than not I have the feeling that people would accept the same "mistakes" had they come from Jordan himself. But that´s just my point of view, mainly rooting in the fact that the feeling while reading the BS-books wasn´t particularly off for me and also coming from the fact, that - as far as I know - most of the important storylines had been laid out by RJ himself.

 

Thanks for the clarification on the WO numbers, I firstly thought you meant the armies in general which didn´t seem vastly undersized to me.

[Suttree]

But that´s just my point of view, mainly rooting in the fact that the feeling while reading the BS-books wasn´t particularly off for me and also coming from the fact, that - as far as I know - most of the important storylines had been laid out by RJ himself.

 

Just to be clear, although Harrriet did pull together an outline after RJ's death we know that the notes were not nearly as robust as orginally thought. Brandon had to creat a huge amount of material on his own. Brandon Sanderson

The thing about the notes is that a lot of the notes were to him, and so he would say things like “I’m going to do this or this” and they’re polar opposites. And so there are sequences like that, where I decide what we’re going to do, and stuff like that

By his admission he created over 50% of ther material without any guidance from the notes.

 

&

 

Brandon

I do think I've been able to do some fun things with the series, as a fan, that I've been wanting to do, from reading it since I was a kid, but that's actually a weird things because, as a fan coming on, I had to be careful. You don't always want to do what the inner fan wants you to do; otherwise it just becomes like a sequence of cameos and inside jokes. So I had to be very careful, but there are some things that I've been wanting to have happen, and the notes left a lot of room for me to explore. I did get to have a lot of creative involvement in it; it wasn't just an outline, which has been awesome. You know, if it had been mostly done, they would have been able to hire like a ghostwriter to clean it up, and they didn't have that. They needed an actual writer, and so there are lots of plots I got to construct, and as a fan, that's awesome.

[rane008]

 

 

If he had written at full speed....approximately a book ever year or 1.5 years...and completed the series, I dont think anyone would look back and say that he got lost or wandered.

A year to write/finish the editing process for books of this length is far too rushed. We saw quite clearly what happened to the quality when they tried to hold to that schedule for these last three. Hell plot decisions were actually made on certain things not being finished or ready as in the BT being moved from ToM to AMoL as opposed to what was best for the plot. When RJ hit that pace early in his career it was manily because he had quite a bit of the content all ready written.

 

Ya, but either way he could have written faster.  Maybe 2 years per book is appropriate.

 

Just pointing out that if the books took 2 years each AND we had the same number of books in the end, we'd be waiting till 2018 to get the final book.

[thoro]

@Suttree: I was aware of that. Maybe my post was misleading. By "...had been laid out by RJ himself." I meant, that RJ basically had more or less fixated what would happen to the most important storylines when they got resolved. Everything in between can be and is a big part Brandon, I´m not challenging that fact.

[mrhumble1]

 

Could you specifiy the numbers issue, I have nothing in mind concerning that..

 

There should be about 3000 more Light side chanellers and a few million more troops in the books than Brandon actually shows us....

 

The numbers issue is but one of the conveniently placed inconsistencies that we are talking about here.  A number in particular is the number one.  I am talking about the power wielded by one guy, Rand, many books ago and how that compares to events in TG.

 

Back in PoD Rand uses Callandor, by himself, to basically rout 2 armies in just a few minutes.  So let's get back to numbers:

 

1 powerful guy (Rand) + 1 sa'angreal (Callandor) = quick destruction of 2 armies

 

So let's assume that battle is fought again but Rand used Callandor in a small circle with two women and had no fear of using balefire.  In that case he should have been able to EASILY directly damage the Seanchan army and destroy it completely with ease.  Instead he was by himself (and went crazy) yet still was able to rain down powerful destruction and defeat the Seanchan army and greatly damage his own army.

 

Now let's move on to the math Demandred used during TG:

 

1 powerful guy (Demandred) + 1 sa'angreal (Sakarnen) + A CULL CIRCLE (72 dreadlords/Black Ajah) = Some balefire here and there???

 

Demandred should have been able to DECIMATE all in front of him.  He would have been able to explode huge chunks (many acres) of land in quick succession and rain down all manner of destruction.  Also since he was perfectly fine using balefire, he should have just drawn a line of death through the battle and wiped out enormous masses of people/land/trees/equipment/etc.  He didn't even need total line-of-sight with balefire because if a hill was in his way he could have just blown it up. 

 

They went on and on about how Rand could have leveled continents when he was holding the Access Key and he was just in a circle of two.  Yeah Sakarnen wasn't as powerful as the Chodean Kal, but Denandred didn't need to melt a continent, he just needed to destroy some armies that were right in front of him.

 

Nobody on Team Rand had anywhere near that much power at their disposal.  Egwene was the only thing even remotely close but it shouldn't be a comparison.  She had a sa'angreal, true, but she wasn't nearly as powerful as Demandred (personally) to begin with and he had a far larger circle.

 

Some may say Demandred didn't want to just win outright because his main goal was to fight Rand (though I think this is a very flawed idea), but how better to draw out Rand than to utterly destroy all of the Light's forces??

 

So clearly the numbers do not add up here.  BS gave Demandred a grand entrance and immense power but didn't let him do much with it.  This is just one more inconsistency among many.

[avernite]

I am going to look for a power-induced disease harming the light's forces. I'm sure this would be the thing a smart Shadow would do, and it would be the kind of thing needing a full circle (sickening hundreds of channelers and tens/hundreds of thousands of people?)

 

Alas, I don't think I missed it, and if I did, it was not given the attention it deserved.

 

 

Still, AMoL still gripped me on the first read, so it obviously did something right. I'm just enough of a literary critic to know what.

[Rhienne]

 

 

Could you specifiy the numbers issue, I have nothing in mind concerning that..

 

There should be about 3000 more Light side chanellers and a few million more troops in the books than Brandon actually shows us....

 

The numbers issue is but one of the conveniently placed inconsistencies that we are talking about here.  A number in particular is the number one.  I am talking about the power wielded by one guy, Rand, many books ago and how that compares to events in TG.

 

Back in PoD Rand uses Callandor, by himself, to basically rout 2 armies in just a few minutes.  So let's get back to numbers:

 

1 powerful guy (Rand) + 1 sa'angreal (Callandor) = quick destruction of 2 armies

 

So let's assume that battle is fought again but Rand used Callandor in a small circle with two women and had no fear of using balefire.  In that case he should have been able to EASILY directly damage the Seanchan army and destroy it completely with ease.  Instead he was by himself (and went crazy) yet still was able to rain down powerful destruction and defeat the Seanchan army and greatly damage his own army.

 

Now let's move on to the math Demandred used during TG:

 

1 powerful guy (Demandred) + 1 sa'angreal (Sakarnen) + A CULL CIRCLE (72 dreadlords/Black Ajah) = Some balefire here and there???

 

Demandred should have been able to DECIMATE all in front of him.  He would have been able to explode huge chunks (many acres) of land in quick succession and rain down all manner of destruction.  Also since he was perfectly fine using balefire, he should have just drawn a line of death through the battle and wiped out enormous masses of people/land/trees/equipment/etc.  He didn't even need total line-of-sight with balefire because if a hill was in his way he could have just blown it up. 

 

They went on and on about how Rand could have leveled continents when he was holding the Access Key and he was just in a circle of two.  Yeah Sakarnen wasn't as powerful as the Chodean Kal, but Denandred didn't need to melt a continent, he just needed to destroy some armies that were right in front of him.

 

Nobody on Team Rand had anywhere near that much power at their disposal.  Egwene was the only thing even remotely close but it shouldn't be a comparison.  She had a sa'angreal, true, but she wasn't nearly as powerful as Demandred (personally) to begin with and he had a far larger circle.

 

Some may say Demandred didn't want to just win outright because his main goal was to fight Rand (though I think this is a very flawed idea), but how better to draw out Rand than to utterly destroy all of the Light's forces??

 

So clearly the numbers do not add up here.  BS gave Demandred a grand entrance and immense power but didn't let him do much with it.  This is just one more inconsistency among many.

100% agree with this.  I found this spoiled the book more than the discrepancies in the numbers of armies and channelers, which were almost ignorable if you deliberately didn't think about them.  Demandred with full circle and sa'angreal being completely unpowered was massively jarring.  His lines of balefire didn't seem any bigger than any other channelers have been in the past throughout the series. 

 

Added to this, I do not understand why the Aes Sedai didn't form at least one circle.  I know the numbers of channelers on the field were way lower than they should be, but surely it would have been worth having < 20 each of Aes Sedai, Kin, Windfinders, and Wise Ones fighting in a circle with Egwene and her sa'angreal rather than individually?  I guess given that apparently having a full circle of 72 gave Demandred next to know extra power maybe there wasn't any point.

[Aleator77]

To be fair, I don't think Demandred really is in a full circle.  That's just the assumption one character makes because he feels so powerful with his Sa'angreal.

[mrhumble1]

To be fair, I don't think Demandred really is in a full circle.  That's just the assumption one character makes because he feels so powerful with his Sa'angreal.

 

I guess that's possible, but the text is specific.  Einar says "A full circle.  Seventy-two."  Why would BS write such specific dialogue if it wasn't at least mostly accurate?  For all we know Einar saw a group of people there and did quick count in his head.  Maybe it was a slight exaggeration but I highly doubt there was a circle of only 5-10.

[Lord D]

 

To be fair, I don't think Demandred really is in a full circle.  That's just the assumption one character makes because he feels so powerful with his Sa'angreal.

 

I guess that's possible, but the text is specific.  Einar says "A full circle.  Seventy-two."  Why would BS write such specific dialogue if it wasn't at least mostly accurate?  For all we know Einar saw a group of people there and did quick count in his head.  Maybe it was a slight exaggeration but I highly doubt there was a circle of only 5-10.

Sukarno is NOT Callandor.  The Choedan Kal were the most powerful sa'angreal ever made, then Callandor, then other sa'angreal.  Thus Callandor could do much more damage than the 2nd order sa'angreal.  Egwene couldn't do anything like what Rand did with Callandor when she held Vorin's sa'angreal, and the same goes for Dem with Sukarno.

[Lord D]

My feelings on the book is that I greatly enjoyed it.  Yes, there was a lot of blood and death, but I actually liked the battle scenes.  Yes, perhaps Brandon was inconsistent when it comes to the numbers of channellers, but nowhere in the books is it explicitly stated exactly how many channellers there are on all sides - we have to draw our conclusions from hints here and there.  I also liked the humour that leavened the grimness, and Rand and Mat's meeting is a prime example of this humour.  Things were unresolved at the end, but this is more Jordan's doing than Brandon's, and I actually find the lack of resolution to everything is more realistic than a "they all lived happily ever after" type ending.

[Suttree]

 

 

 

To be fair, I don't think Demandred really is in a full circle. That's just the assumption one character makes because he feels so powerful with his Sa'angreal.

I guess that's possible, but the text is specific. Einar says "A full circle. Seventy-two." Why would BS write such specific dialogue if it wasn't at least mostly accurate? For all we know Einar saw a group of people there and did quick count in his head. Maybe it was a slight exaggeration but I highly doubt there was a circle of only 5-10.

Sukarno is NOT Callandor. The Choedan Kal were the most powerful sa'angreal ever made, then Callandor, then other sa'angreal. Thus Callandor could do much more damage than the 2nd order sa'angreal. Egwene couldn't do anything like what Rand did with Callandor when she held Vorin's sa'angreal, and the same goes for Dem with Sukarno.

 

TITLE: Shadow Rising

CHAPTER: 9 - Decisions

"I cannot trust you fully, Lews Therin. Not yet." She [Lanfear] came closer, and he [Rand] considered simply seizing her. He was bigger and stronger by far - and blocked as he was, she could wrap him up with the Power like a kitten tangled in a ball of string. "Not with that, certainly," she added, grimacing at Callandor. "There are only two more powerful that a man can use. One at least, I know, still exists. No, Lews Therin. I will not trust you yet with that." "Stop calling me that," he growled. "My name is Rand. Rand al'Thor."

Demandreds very well may have been that other item.

[scott K]

 

 

 

 

To be fair, I don't think Demandred really is in a full circle. That's just the assumption one character makes because he feels so powerful with his Sa'angreal.

I guess that's possible, but the text is specific. Einar says "A full circle. Seventy-two." Why would BS write such specific dialogue if it wasn't at least mostly accurate? For all we know Einar saw a group of people there and did quick count in his head. Maybe it was a slight exaggeration but I highly doubt there was a circle of only 5-10.

Sukarno is NOT Callandor. The Choedan Kal were the most powerful sa'angreal ever made, then Callandor, then other sa'angreal. Thus Callandor could do much more damage than the 2nd order sa'angreal. Egwene couldn't do anything like what Rand did with Callandor when she held Vorin's sa'angreal, and the same goes for Dem with Sukarno.

>TITLE: Shadow Rising

CHAPTER: 9 - Decisions

"I cannot trust you fully, Lews Therin. Not yet." She [Lanfear] came closer, and he [Rand] considered simply seizing her. He was bigger and stronger by far - and blocked as he was, she could wrap him up with the Power like a kitten tangled in a ball of string. "Not with that, certainly," she added, grimacing at Callandor. "There are only two more powerful that a man can use. One at least, I know, still exists. No, Lews Therin. I will not trust you yet with that." "Stop calling me that," he growled. "My name is Rand. Rand al'Thor."

Demandreds very well may have been that other item.

 

Possible, but maybe not. My personal theory was always that the Ring of the Tamrylin was the missing middle sa'angreal.

[mrhumble1]

Sukarno is NOT Callandor.  The Choedan Kal were the most powerful sa'angreal ever made, then Callandor, then other sa'angreal.  Thus Callandor could do much more damage than the 2nd order sa'angreal.  Egwene couldn't do anything like what Rand did with Callandor when she held Vorin's sa'angreal, and the same goes for Dem with Sukarno.

 

I never said it was.  Sure Callandor is the strongest, but that doesn't mean Sakarnen is weak.  You're just guessing that Einar was wrong when we really have no reason to believe that's the case.  This is TG, the battle to decide the fate of the world.  It's highly likely that one of the Forsaken would come to the party in a full circle.

 

The point is BS wrote in a specific qualifier (full circle) to make Demandred's entrance so grand and then didn't use it at all.  Even with half a circle one of the Forsaken and a sa'angreal could have blown up a ton of crap.  It really didn't feel like Demandred was a huge factor in the battle itself.  He just seemed to be put there to eventually fight Lan.

[scott K]

 

Sukarno is NOT Callandor.  The Choedan Kal were the most powerful sa'angreal ever made, then Callandor, then other sa'angreal.  Thus Callandor could do much more damage than the 2nd order sa'angreal.  Egwene couldn't do anything like what Rand did with Callandor when she held Vorin's sa'angreal, and the same goes for Dem with Sukarno.

 

I never said it was.  Sure Callandor is the strongest, but that doesn't mean Sakarnen is weak.  You're just guessing that Einar was wrong when we really have no reason to believe that's the case.  This is TG, the battle to decide the fate of the world.  It's highly likely that one of the Forsaken would come to the party in a full circle.

 

While reading the battle, I was assuming that the circle gradually lost strength as his minions were killed. This seems reasonable given the numbers involved, but there is no indication in the text this happened.