It seems like an interesting theory (and did Slayer actually have Luc's soul? It was my understanding that only one of them was dead, and if that were Luc then I could see the Horn working on him) the only problem with that (well there are several) is that it should have been referenced at some point in the series, one would think it would have played a role in the Last Battle at least? Admittedly RJ's position on the Horn seems to have been somewhat vague, at least in the notes.

The problem is that though Luc may not be properly dead and therefore would show up in his previous form, Tigraine should show up as a Hero of the Horne as Tigraine which she does not, granted they don't have to show up as their previous life, but it is my understanding that that is definitely the protocol.

"Goodkind's work is a veritable how to guide for unscrupulous publishers who do not have the rights"

Is that really true? I have never read any of his work, but Goodkind's series is published by Tor is it not? 

So, let me get this straight: Egwene dies, along with her discovery of maybe the single-greatest spell EVER!  Now nobody will rediscover that weave for thousands of years, if ever!  Common!!!

I thought it was a rather silly weave, perhaps if I ever reread the book it will make more sense but at the time I thought it was rather silly. But remember that as the wheel turns that weave shall be rediscovered so you don't have to feel bad.

Majesty the video game had the ratmen use balefire from their catapults, I would assume it was a wheel of time reference

How about the many times that men have come back as women in many T.V series, like Supernatural to name one of them.

I don't think that is really attributable to RJ, also when has that happened on Supernatural? Are you just referring to angel vessel issues?

 

 

As your Moiraine quote showed, she did, in fact, show aptitude with politics. For comparison, it took Rand two weeks of training from Elayne (mixed with kissing sessions) to come up with a plan to play the Tairen factions against each other. Why is it okay for Rand to pick up politics from his girlfriend in two weeks, but not okay for Egwene to pick up politics after months of lessons from Moiraine?

IIRC it was three days, not two weeks.  

 

Every main character in this series learns things at an amazing rate. Not sure Egwene tends to be singled out for this. Mat learned to juggle 6 balls at once in 2 weeks or so, and Elayne learned how to make back flips on a high rope in about the same period. Even freaking Aram become super badass with a sword in a few months.

 

Most of the characters had the good excuse of magic, whether it be Rand reacquiring skills from a previous life or Mat also using previous lives, Perrin's skills did not grow implausibly aside from Taverness causing things to work out in his favour more often than not. Mat's juggling is not a good example, as I don't think RJ realised how hard that was.

The problem with Egwene was that she was not ta veren and that frankly seemed far too good at playing politics than she should be. I suppose to some extent it is also because I had always had problems with Egwene's political mentor Siaun as well, I did not think that she was anywhere near old enough to rule the WT and prior to New Spring had always mentally doubled her age because of it. I just found a teenage girl defeating centuries old women at their own game extremly implausible.

[

R.e. Egwene's humanity, I think she sometimes comes across as lacking in this department just by comparison to other characters. She is more accepting of the sacrifices and hard decisions a leader has to make than the three ta'veren (particularly Rand), possibly because she didn't want to be a vilage girl - she wanted to leave the TR and possibly had dreams about where she would end up.

 

In CoT there is an Egwene chapter followed by a Rand chapter where both are thinking abou how they have to use people. Egwene thinks about how far she has come from a village girl while rand is disgusted with himself.

I agree with that, to some extent I suppose it is the character RJ wanted, but coupled with the other issues I had with the plausibility of her arc it really rendered the Egwene portions of the later books quite  a chore to me.

I really doubt that the death of Egwene had anything to do with "sexism" or fan dislike. At all.

Personally I did not like her death as the whole anti-balefire thing seemed kind of silly. I do agree with the above that I never found Egwene as Amyrlyn to be plausible, they did not elect Popes that young in the Middle Ages after all, I just found it extremely implausible to have her succesfully outplotting women with centuries of experience. Additionally I did not find her sympathatic (particularily not after FoH) which certainly did not help.

I don't know about a full page describing a dress but there were ten back to back pages describing toe nails and nail polish. From memory Elayne had red toe nails, Aviendha red, Egwene red, Min red, Moiraine red, Nynaeve red ... or was that yellow? I can't remember :-(

Don't mock that scene, RJ was a master, Moraine's red nail polish (as opposed to her accustomed blue) foreshadowed her duel with Lanfear. Also Nynaeve's were green remember like those dresses she wore for Lan...

This has long vexed me as well. But I think that one thing we must keep in mind is that even if one of the primary differences was the Shadow's victory at Talidar it would appear that that world had been different for a long time, as the existence of grolm would indicate, as people would have travelled to this world from Seanchan after the Breaking, and it was already different centuries before Hawkwing. Although I don't believe we see any evidence for the grolm or other exotics neccessarily being native to this land, it could just be that Lanfear brought them there as well and the grolm originally came from a different portal world.

I always assumed that for the sparkers it was need which lead to them starting to channel (as I believe was mentioned in one of the books), they really needed to heal a friend or a pet or they needed a fire or a lightning bolt to strike someone down. At first they did this essentially unconsciously but eventually they realised that it was because of them that the lightning bolts struck down their enemies, and so they gradually learned to do it consciously although possibly with some sort of block for instance, they may think that in order for the lighting to come down they would need to say abracadabra and make some sort of hand gesture, (as that is what they did when the lightning came) and the man could teach his followers to do the same. Eventually the One Power would end up getting examined more scientifically and the more mystical and superstitious elements of channeling could be abandoned as unnecessary, for instance the hand gestures which many Aes Sedai are taught to make when they do not actually need to.

Does that any make sense at all to anyone aside from myself?

I think it is worth noting that many (most?) False Dragons cannot channel.

@ Kael Pyralis I believe the "first" channeler (at least conscious channeller was Tamyrlin and I believe RJ also stated that these first channelers had a heavy attrition rate as they taught themselves to channel.