How many male channelers were with the Sharans? If Demandred recruited as he went along, put a stop to some of the Sharan practices, he could have taught them some weaves, and even set up his own "school" in Shara. He had access to darkfriend men who could channel from the west, no reason he couldn't have used some to help.

 

 

 

Exactly. The strategy didn't make any sense. Once they had the trollocs outside of Caemlyn, Perrin's army and a couple dozen channels could have finished off the trollocs in a afternoon.

 

How exactly would this work? The only way for an army of archers to destroy infantry is if the infantry can't get to the archers. This worked for the English at places like Crecy and Agincourt because they had knights, and they were able to use the terrain to force the attacking French knights into a narrow enough space that they couldn't bring the bulk of their army to fight. There's no such terrain available outside of Caemlyn. Archers arrive, Dreadlords sense the channeling, nuke the archers coming out of it, send out Trolloc parties to overwhelm the archers before they can put up their defenses, let the Aes Sedai/Asha'man wear themselves out killing hordes of Trollocs, then kill them, and now you've got still got a vast army of Trollocs with few bowmen, and much depleted in it's heavy artillery. 

 

Perrin's army was not just archers. He had the Whitecloaks, the Mayeners, the Ghealdians, and the Wolf Guard in addition to his Two Rivers men. 

So you've got approximately 80k men vs how many hundreds of thousands of Trollocs? Still wouldn't work. 

And I'm fairly sure he only took relatively small contingents of each for that mission. He did not bring along his entire army. He needed it to be mobile.

Was the number of Sharan channelers given as 400? I could have sworn there were more.

What's so difficult to understand about the rotations at Tarwin's Gap? There was a single front, they weren't fighting on all sides. Fighting there went on for weeks. Committing everyone at once would have been pure suicide on Lan's side. Everyone would drop from exhaustion within a few hours and the Trollocs would just murder them as they lay helpless and move on.

Also, that Note that Egwene found really was the equivalent to Rand happening upon the fat man an'greal at Dumai's Wells. So last minute!

The Wheel was certainly weaving as it would at that moment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-The willingness of people at DM to break their own fourth wall.?

What does that even mean? Are you seriously trying to suggest that Brandon didn't does this a number of times in an utterly blunt way?

 

Don't lump me in entirely with his original post, but there's a lot of complaints about Brandon breaking the fourth wall. Literally speaking, he didn't do that.

Not sure what you mean by "literally speaking" he didn't do that?

 

Brandon didn't actually put in asides where characters addressed the audience. Even cases where there was an obvious nod to a popular fan theory or a character was explaining something, I felt they didn't break me out of the experience and that they were better masked in AMoL than they have been in previous WoT books.

Splitting hairs rather fine don't you think Agitel? He broke the 4th wall in the classic sense a number of times. It has been comented on in almost every review of the book. Just because it didn't bother you doesn't mean it didn't happen. Theories were not the only time he did it btw.

I mentioned explanations that were there only for the benefit of the audience. I felt such things were much better masked in AMoL. I don't consider more modern speaking to be a breach of the fourth wall, personally. There were a couple of times, though. "Arabesque." He used that word to describe a type of architecture somewhere. That is a breach. There weren't many of those that I noticed, though.

 

 

 

 

-The willingness of people at DM to break their own fourth wall.?

What does that even mean? Are you seriously trying to suggest that Brandon didn't does this a number of times in an utterly blunt way?

 

Don't lump me in entirely with his original post, but there's a lot of complaints about Brandon breaking the fourth wall. Literally speaking, he didn't do that.

Not sure what you mean by "literally speaking" he didn't do that?

Brandon didn't actually put in asides where characters addressed the audience. Even cases where there was an obvious nod to a popular fan theory or a character was explaining something, I felt they didn't break me out of the experience and that they were better masked in AMoL than they have been in previous WoT books.

 

-The willingness of people at DM to break their own fourth wall.?

What does that even mean? Are you seriously trying to suggest that Brandon didn't does this a number of times in an utterly blunt way?

Don't lump me in entirely with his original post, but there's a lot of complaints about Brandon breaking the fourth wall. Literally speaking, he didn't do that. There were some nods to popular theories, of course. It seems like those put a damper on the experience for many of you. For others, we just had a brief chuckle to ourselves as we continued to plow forward. What I think he's trying to say is that a lot of these criticisms are a result of bias, that you're far less likely to overlook things, as the smallest detail out of place is a reminder that Sanderson's the one writing, not Jordan.

 

 

Actually no it isnt in a trollocs nature to fight, its in its nature to slaughter, they are base cowards and opportunists who run away from a challenge if they are not forced by fades.  

 

As for the wards, your probably right but it would have been more fitting with how the other 13 books had gone than. "I have a great plan, we shall wait for those cowardly mongrols to attack us, dont worry it wont take long, they have no food in Caemlyn... oh what you say? they will eat our friends/family/neighbours? oh no dont be daft trollocs are vegetarians... they will attack us before the night is done."

 

Its like reading a different series with the names of a few people we've seen in other books. Honestly the battles seem like out of the Stormlight Archive. The difference is that in The Way of Kings, the armies are fighting the wars as a sport and competition, not to win the war, which explains why they fight so stupidly. You dont expect that from people who know they are fighting for the lives of every human alive.

 

It's in their nature to fight until they realise they can't win, even if it was the case they didn't look for fights without fades, there are still fades there to drive them. 

 

And how many people do you think the trollocs had to feed on? Probably close to a hundred thousand if you discount those who escape/died in fires. That's not enough to get them to turn down a fight they think they can win without fades pressuring them to stay put. The trollocs behaved unusually because the Shadow made them, you could argue the light should have seen this earlier and changed the plan, but that's a tactical mistake and the Light had enough reasons to make those by that point. 

 

Caemlyn had around 300k pemenant inhabitants or close, add in atleast a 200% growth of refugees if not more, Caemlyn was the only place in Andor getting food so a 1mil population is not out of the realm of possibility, Suttree could probably give an accurate count. If they got half of those out before the Trollocs started sealing the exists then they would have been lucky. Then you have the ones which Talmanes got out, thats probably another 100k if you believe in wishful thinking.

 

No sorry just dont buy them not leaving a good 200k dead or still alive hiding under their beds, the trollocs were intentionally leaving people alive to make the forces of light come into Caemlyn after them.

 

As for the Trollocs, in almost every scene we see of them in aMoL they are being driven by fades because they're cowards. None of them want to be the first to die, and in their minds why attack the army infront of them when they can swan off into the country side and eat some farmers. They dont give a damn about fighting, they care about eating and killing. The Fades held them together but even if they didnt, they wouldnt have been charging off into an army between 200-400k large. they would have split into a hundred small groups.

 

Sorry the entire Caemlyn front was a terrible plot hole, ignored the lore of the series as a whole (how they got so many through the waygate) it simply served to explain why part of the lights forces couldnt do anything productive whilst the lights most useful troops(those that were in the book) were decimated... i.e the borderlanders, the aes sedai.

 

I would have been more understanding if they had sent 50k, destroyed caemlyn to demoralise the light and to give warning that other attacks might occur at the home cities of other rulers and had them pull back large chunks of their forces. At least that would actually be fitting with the series as a whole. There is absolutely no way based on 13 books worth of information that Machin Shin would have let millions of trollocs through the waygate and there were no portal stones nearby. so machin shin was ignored and sensible options went out the window with the Aiel, the Seanchan, the Great Captains... (Why didnt Elayne give them a Foxhead....)

I'm not saying there weren't plenty of questionable things around Caemlyn, but you may be taking it a little too far.

Also, they weren't expecting trollocs to charge a few hundred thousand troops. They expected them to charge after a small group attempting to harass them.

 

 

I agree, Gawyn knew he was dead the moment he put the ring on his finger. 

 

True, but he also knew he had days and probably weeks given how long the blood knives stalked the WT. If he dies after the LB, thats fine. If he dies at a critical moment during the LB, not so fine.

Well, then why didnt he  say something to Egwen. He was her warden,husban and as somebody say soulmate ?? Because I have feeling he used rings before. And when he went after Demandred that was second time  ??

She'd never have let him, and it would have caused her more distress to know that he had, distracting her, and causing conflict between them when there was no time.

I'm not saying he was right, but he had reasons.

 

 

 

If they just level the waygate that leaves 100k trollocs unopposed to plunder or attack them from the rear at their leisure, they needed to be destroyed.

 

I always thought Braem Wood was much closer than a weeks march, if it was a weeks march away then it does seem rather dubious, I'd have to go back and check though. 

 

They didnt need to be destroyed... if theyre sitting in Caemlyn they arent a threat. If they leave Caemlyn they are in the open and can be harrassed by an observation force and dealt with at leisure. They are walking, they wont get anywhere vital for many days. The greatest advantages the light has is traveling and a huge cavalry, which would be perfect for dealing with such an isolated trolloc army if and when they decided to move. In the meantime the entire force of the light (less a covering force in Kandor) could have fallen on the trolloc army in Shienar and destroyed it, and then pivoted to deal with Kandor. If that trolloc army flooded south? So much the better, its empty land between Kandor and Tar Valon with hundreds of miles in between. They'd probably starve or if nothing else not arrive until the Last Battle was long over. The depopulation of huge portions of Rand Land was a huge advantage to the light.

 

The logic for drawing them to the Braem Wood was that it was more easily defensible and would be difficult for the sheer number of trollocs to overwhelm the forces of Light. This way, they got to choose their battleground and set up a defensive position. Had Bashere not been making "mistakes," they may never have been driven out of the Wood, and have finished there. The trollocs behaved oddly in not engaging Perrin's group immediately. Perrin's long march needs further elaboration, though. It could be done, but not without the best horses and maybe remounts along the way. It would be grueling, and we deserved to see it.\. Trollocs need to sleep, too. I feel that we should also have seen leveling Caemlyn considered, and need a solid explanation as to why it wouldn't work. It's not that what happened is impossible, but some things would be better served with an explanation.

 

I agree with this- but the problem was the Grand Strategy was to devote the lionshare of resources to win fast at Caemlyn. This strategy could never win fast. Certainly not fast enough to finish up and aid Lan. For that matter... lets say it worked like a charm and that trolloc army was destroyed at Braem Wood. Ok- oops, well now its been over a week and at least as many trollocs have reinforced to Caemlyn as there were originally. So you are back where you started. How does that get you anywhere? There was nothing decisive about this plan, and the entire war hinged on winning somewhere decisively so you can reinforce another front.

How long did it take for the trollocs to engage Perrin's forces? How do we define quick? We also know that Lan's forces should have been able to hold much longer than they did at the Gap.

As for the bolded. That, I'm not so sure of. It was largely a ploy to disrupt unity for the Light and to cause the alliance to fracture. It seems like forces were sent to Cairhien instead.

I personally feel that gateways killed the battles in these books.

 

When you can just dump lava on an army.  When you can sit inside a mountain and use gateways to fire out.  When you can use them to view the battle and instantly know what's happening.  When shadowspawn can't cross them.  When you can create gateways to sever a man's heart.  When you can move entire armies instantly anywhere.   They're just TOO powerful.

Heh, some of these are aspects of modern warfare, which I think is part of the point.

 

If they just level the waygate that leaves 100k trollocs unopposed to plunder or attack them from the rear at their leisure, they needed to be destroyed.

 

I always thought Braem Wood was much closer than a weeks march, if it was a weeks march away then it does seem rather dubious, I'd have to go back and check though. 

 

They didnt need to be destroyed... if theyre sitting in Caemlyn they arent a threat. If they leave Caemlyn they are in the open and can be harrassed by an observation force and dealt with at leisure. They are walking, they wont get anywhere vital for many days. The greatest advantages the light has is traveling and a huge cavalry, which would be perfect for dealing with such an isolated trolloc army if and when they decided to move. In the meantime the entire force of the light (less a covering force in Kandor) could have fallen on the trolloc army in Shienar and destroyed it, and then pivoted to deal with Kandor. If that trolloc army flooded south? So much the better, its empty land between Kandor and Tar Valon with hundreds of miles in between. They'd probably starve or if nothing else not arrive until the Last Battle was long over. The depopulation of huge portions of Rand Land was a huge advantage to the light.

The logic for drawing them to the Braem Wood was that it was more easily defensible and would be difficult for the sheer number of trollocs to overwhelm the forces of Light. This way, they got to choose their battleground and set up a defensive position. Had Bashere not been making "mistakes," they may never have been driven out of the Wood, and have finished there. The trollocs behaved oddly in not engaging Perrin's group immediately. Perrin's long march needs further elaboration, though. It could be done, but not without the best horses and maybe remounts along the way. It would be grueling, and we deserved to see it.\. Trollocs need to sleep, too. I feel that we should also have seen leveling Caemlyn considered, and need a solid explanation as to why it wouldn't work. It's not that what happened is impossible, but some things would be better served with an explanation.

One thing that bugged me about the battles is, it kind of felt like at the very beginning of the book (like chapter one or two whichever was the first Rand PoV) Rand didn't want to divide his forces. Then they divide their forces. 

 

Like, what? Did I miss something?

Rand wanted a coordinated effort. What he feared was each monarch retreating to their own lands and making their own decisions about where to commit their forces.

 

 

They split up into 4 because they thought Caemelyn could be won quickly and they could hold back the other two armies until then, thus limiting the damage.

 

Yes. And then they hatched a strategy that would ensure Caemlyn could not be won quickly. That made no sense to me, even if Bashere was already compromised. Nobody raised the point that waiting a week for the trollocs to chase Perrin back to the Woods would allow several hundred thousand additional trollocs to come through the way gate? And that in the meantime the bulk of the light forces would be standing idle?

Pretty sure they were under the impression the trollocs would be hungry and itching for a fight. If the trollocs charge out immediately then it's a decent enough plan. Levelling the city would have been the ideal choice but levelling Caemelyn is easier said than done, even with dragons and channeller it's still a massive job. I would have started to destroy the city if I could get the dragons close enough without the trollocs being able to catch them as a way of drawing them out but drawing them out and destroying them was the best way. 

I don't believe they could count on large numbers of reinforcements coming through the Ways. That was a major gamble and effort by the Shadow. Anyway, the Trolloc army at Caemlyn behaved oddly compared to their past experiences. That's exactly because they were literally reading Bashere's battle plans and compelling him. I'd imagine that common experience from fighting in the Borderlands would have led them to believe that the Trolloc army would quickly engaged if driven out and harassed. But the Shadow knew their plan and intentionally held back. Tarwin's Gap was a great defensive position. It makes sense that they wouldn't abandon that front. And while Kandor was already largely overrun, the army hadn't yet dispersed. If the Kandor front had been ignored to concentrate on other fronts first the army would have swept south into other nations or swung around to flank the army at Tarwin's Gap.

The primary objective was to delay the Trollocs and to force the Shadow to keep sending forces south out of the Blight, to draw attention away from Shayol Ghul. At the same time, the entire alliance could have fractured if monarchs were told that their nation and people would be abandoned (Kandor had already been lost). They'd have tried to withdraw to defend their own borders.

Now, the distribution of channelers and the strategy at Caemlyn is still suspect. Razing Caemlyn wasn't even discussed. Perhaps Elayne would never have considered it herself and Bashere was being compelled anyway. But would razing have worked? Could Caemlyn have truly been leveled if they tried? Literally leveled, not just destroyed. Or would Elayne's forces have been forced into moving into the city in order to truly work? At best, containing the force at Caemlyn wouldn't have been that hard, but that wasn't an option.

Considering the fact that the Wheel of Time has already become the work of multiple authors, and how many stories there are left to tell, what would people think of an "extended universe" series of books in the vein of the Star Wars extended universe novels?

 

No. *shudders*

Just no. I'm glad to see Jordan's primary series finished, but it's time to let it rest. I don't care what author is picked.

 

 

 

 

 

Egwene is the worst character from the series. From her selfishness to her insistence on the seals not being broken then to be broken by her(?) to wanting Saiden to be tainted again(that would be convinent for her eh?) to wanting the white tower to have leadership of the light's forces. Her ending was also cr@p. Thankfully she died while Tuon lives.

Seriously what is wrong with you xxx? Your are either trolling or have no concept of what you are reading. She didn't actually want Saidin to be tainted, Moiriane told her she needed to break the seals and her death helped heal the pattern itself. Her ending was well done, even people who dislike her have been claiming that.

 

Lastly contrary to what you have so shrilly claimed over and over we now see the direct balance between Dragon/Amyrlin and how they both have a connection to the land. Balance is the main theme of the books and it was highlighted in this instance.

 

There is no connection between Egwene and the land like what Rand has.Did the grass grow green around her? Did sunlight show where she walked?.The Dragon is a special soul.Egwene is not.She is not even a hero of the horn.Taking some of Egwene's own observations when she held Saider and connecting it to what Rand does with his very presence(not the OP) is quite a stretch.

 

She did not want Saiden tainted? She suggested Rand do the same thing he did in the last age and then said we are prepared to handle tainted Saiden this time.What book are you reading?

 

 It was brought up and then quickly dissmissed. She did not seriously "want saidin to be tainted again" as you claim above.

 

Further the connection the land is made clear and then hammered home even more so with her healing the pattern with her death.

 

That whole sequence is rather poorly constructed but I think that a blanket allegation of 'troll-ness' for citing it is a little overdone.

 

She is obtuse and stubborn about breaking the seals

She was right about the seals in the end. Breaking them at (or just after) Merrilor would have been a disaster.

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

I'm not saying there weren't problems, but it does make sense that the channelers would face exhaustion. The Aes Sedai had been engaged in battle for weeks before the final one. And much of the concentration of many of the channelers had to be focused at other channelers specifically to prevent them from wreaking havoc on regular troops. You could say a large amount of energy at Merrilor wasn't spent on attacking regular troops but on just trying to neutralize the attacks of other channelers, specifically when they were outnumbered.

Anyway, 7,000 channelers for the Light? Perhaps Brandon underestimated, but I'd lower that to two thousand, and that's being very generous, not counting damane, who were held in reserve, apparently.

I like considering ToM and AMoL to be one book, not two. They fit together well that way, and it helps make some of the plotlines in ToM (Graendal and Slayer) fall a little less flat as they do feel as if they go somewhere in AMoL. I feel that also made the incredible amount of battle scenes somewhat more bearable. If you consider AMoL as a standalone, it's way too much. It's still a lot even considering it as the second half (or last third) of a multi-part book, but more tolerable.

Anyway, plausibility aside, they did keep me hooked.

I would have liked more close-ups of Demandred. There seemed to be potential there.

I just finished. I enjoyed it. When I finished, I felt this sense of release.

I was going to read everyone's reactions right off, but I think it's best if I just digest everything a little. I don't want to potentially let other people's thoughts bring me down right now. Maybe later.

It's a 100 spans tall, not a hundred paces.

 

The BWB is fine if the info is not mentioned in a book, but it's in the books that's a 100 spans, and that makes 600 ft.

This is true. I'm going to go with the 600 feet estimate and go against the BWB. I think we've already been over it in this topic (excuse me, I just woke up minutes ago). If we assume that it's 500 feet in real world units, then we have to assume that a WoT foot does not equal a real foot. And if that's the case, then all of the characters are unusually short. Because that would make five real-world feet equal to six WoT feet. And if that's the case, then 0.833 real feet equals one WoT foot. And Rand suddenly goes from 6'6" to 5'5".

And Moiraine goes from just over five feet to 4'3".

5'5" and 4'3" are 165 cm and 130 cm, respectively.

This comes from 3 WoT-feet to a pace and 2 paces to a span. I can understand 100 spans being an estimate, but there's a huge difference between 83 spans and 100 spans, enough that rounding up to a 100 is unlikely.

There are those especially skilled at shielding, of course. Strength is terribly important and in most cases the definitive issue, but an especially talented shielder could likely achieve the same or better results with less power.

Do Angreal and Sa'angreal increase your ability to reach the source or does it only help in letting you take in more of it?

 

What I mean is: If Rand was shielded then managed to grab Calandor, would he be able to burst through the shield easily or does it only work if he's able to touch the source in the first place?

I would guess that it would be more difficult to shield someone who's already channeling through an angreal. However, I would think that an already shielded person would not have an advantage if they tried to use one. The channeler pulls additional power through the angreal, but I'd imagine a shield would be just as much of a wall between them and the angreal as it is between them and the Source. I don't know if the latter issue has been directly addressed, but that's how I reasoned it out through my knowledge of the metaphysics.

I just finished Brother, I'm dying by Edwidge Danticat. I'm feeling a little depressed, now.

I'm also juggling a few other books, though I'm finding little time to continue them at the moment. I'm rereading A Dance with Dragons by George RR Martin, reading Memories of Ice by Steven Erikson, and The Poincare Conjecture by Donal O'Shea.