How you think Tuon gave to Joline a pain through the a'dam or here was something other?

 

"If you think that you can," she began, then cut off abruptly, her mouth going tight. An angry light shone in her eyes. 

"You see, the a'dam can be used to punish, though that is seldom done." 

 

I'm not sure I understand the question. That is one of the functions of the a'dam and Tuon as we know trains damane.

Scott Lynch "The Republic of Thieves"! So stoked this is finally out. Know Scott was dealing with a number of issues over the last few years so this is a pretty big accomplishment on his part. It's a shame because this was one of the most promising new series a few years back. Hope he can get the momentum rolling again.

The above suggests to me that the double bond was BS as I'm not sure what other characters would have been slated to show us it.

Think that's safe to say, especially considering BS got it wrong when he had Androl initiate the link that set off that rather inane double bond sequence.

Nice poll here about people's favorite books and some rankings. These threads pop up every now and then and it is always interesting to check out people's thoughts.

http://www.dragonmount.com/forums/topic/79565-your-favourite-books-in-the-series/?hl=+rank

1. TSR
2. tFoH
3. KoD
4. LoC
5. TDR
6. TGH
7. tPoD
8. CoS
9. tEotW
10. WH
11. tGS
12. CoT
13. AMoL
14. ToM

 So I believe she was once a dragon and when making that sacrifice and correctly doing it (unlike Lews Therin originally did) you become a sort of spirit of the pattern, never to be reborn but to guide the world in subtle ways.

The Dragon was merely a title given to LTT. As for different turnings, Rand's soul is the Champion of the Light time after time.

Interview: Apr 4th, 2001

Leiden Signing Report - Aan'allein (Verbatim)

 

...

Aan'allein

It would be the same soul, or it would be a different soul?

Robert Jordan

It would be the same soul. That is, that is the belief of the world that I've set up, that it's the same soul. It's a soul of someone bound to the Wheel, which is spun out for the purposes, for the Wheel's purposes really, to attempt to re-balance the Weaving of the Pattern.

Aan'allein

But the soul would always be male. Souls don't change gender, so ...

Robert Jordan

...so the soul of the Dragon Reborn is always going to be male, just as Birgitte's soul is always born as a woman, just as Ameresu's soul is always born as a woman. There are divisions here, and they are not interchangeable.

Interview: Apr, 2001

RJ in the Netherlands - Marion Kippers (Paraphrased)

Robert Jordan

I liked the explanation of how the different turnings of the Wheel of Time create similar but very different tapestries for the same age—but the Dragon Reborn will always be a male soul (that was the question), just like Birgitte will always be a female soul.

Eg does a great deal to change this during the meeting, but that doesn't alter the reality and perception before the meeting.

Some good points there BFG. So are you suggesting that the WF's policy on teachers(as Zhon points out it's all, not just AS) isn't so much cultural? It actually stems from some inherent distrust of AS a need to steer clear of WT entanglements?

 Additionally, the Sea Folk knew the AS would somehow end up stealing every last channeler from them given half a chance, and wanted to nip that in the bud.

Zhon alreadys shot most of the theory down but wanted to address this. We see what happenes in the books when the AS were given "half a chance" and the "channeler exchange" program is implemented. There are safeguards set in place in place precisely so the above doesn't happen.

Why, exactly, do you think she threw that suggestion out there if not to protect the White Tower, and ultimately, her own interests?

As has been pointed out to you many times before, you can fault Egwene for putting to much faith in the failed AS institution but you can't question her motives. To say all she cared about was personnel power and she could care less about saving the world is laughable. I mean for one just go back and look at AMoL, your claim is directly contradicted by what is written.

"So you don't know," she said. "Well, I have been looking, reading, listening. Have you read the works of those who have studied this, thought about it?"

 

"Aes Sedai speculation."

 

"The only information we have, Rand! Open the Dark One's prison and all could be lost. We have to be more careful. This is what the Amyrlin Seat is for, this is part of why the White Tower was founded in the first place!"

 

He actually hesitated. Light, he was thinking. Could she be getting through to him?

 

"I don't like it, Egwene," Rand said softly. "If I go up against him and the seals are not broken, my only choice will be to create another imperfect solution. A patch, even worse than the one last time—because with the old weakened seals there, I'll just be spreading new plaster over deep cracks. Who knows how long the seals would last this time? In a few centuries, we could have this same fight all over again."

 

"Is that so bad?" Egwene said, "At least it's sure. You sealed the Bore last time. You know how to do it."

 

"We could end up with the taint again."

 

"We're ready for it, this time. No, it wouldn't be ideal. But Rand . . . do we really want to risk this? Risk the fate of every living being? Why not take the simple path, the known path? Mend the seals again. Shore up the prison."

 

"No, Egwene." Rand backed away. "Light! Is this what it's about? You want saidin to be tainted again. You Aes Sedai . . . you're threatened by the idea of men who can channel, undermining your authority!"

 

"Rand al'Thor, don't you dare be that level of a fool."

<removed>

Emperor of Thornes by Mark Lawrence.

 and that Elayne and Nynaeve had no idea only the Sea Folk had the knowledge to operate it successfully.

Elayne had a pretty clear idea of how much more advanced there skills where in that area.

. Had he come forward and said he was going to break the seals with no plan whatsoever and just see what happens without even considering her objections, then her opposition would have been justified. But as it is, that's not what he did, and he sounded perfectly sane troughout the meeting something she thought was peculiar, and something she should have investigated before making any decisions about him and his ideas. She was rash in deciding that breaking the seals was unnecessary, something she had no proof of at that point. That she acted precisely as Rand expected her to is irrelevant. She made an extremely important decision, in spite of the fact that she was in the dark and severely lacking in information, and yet had time to at least attempt to gain greater understanding of the situation. And for a person in her position with all that relies on her, that's a pretty big mistake. There's no doubt that her intentions were good, she just didn't think it through very well.

But here is the thing MA, she didn't just try to stop him and again there is no other realistic reaction given the circumstances. She raised the forces as a buffer and continued studying the situation to discuss it at the FoM. She then comes around to saying the seals could possibly be broken but it needed to happen at the correct time. As for lacking information I also found it very odd that Rand would just offhandedly dismiss the research as "AS speculation".

Look the reality is her multiple personality disorder post-TGS makes it impossible to really gauge the situation. Barid said it well here...

Eh, Egwene was a hit and miss through the book.

 

Her death was heroic and truly fitting end to a great woman.

 

However, she was all over the place in the rest of the book, you couldn't determine what she was going to do or say, she was so inconsistent. Her research and words to Elayne about the Seals were totally thrown out the window in the Dragon's Farce.

 

Her and Rand both were so ridiculous in that scene, she changed completely and acted like a total idiot, all her development thrown out the window. First she goes in and intends to have the White Tower in control of the Last Battle (inconsistent in itself) then when Rand says the Amyrlin is no good to lead, she doesn't say a thing. Not to mention that bloody farce of a paragraph when she suggests Rand takes the "safe" option and gets saidin tainted again! Of course, she is not doing what Rand says, but there is no way I am buying Egwene would suggest that, no matter the reasons. Since when has she ever shirked from a difficult task. Rand's reaction to it was similarly ridiculous, but at least understandable in the slightest, it was so out of character that it almost seemed like a reasonable conclusion for Rand.

 

Her meeting with Tuon was good for her, but it made Tuon out to be a total idiot - which she is most definitely not, whatever else you may call her. Egwene was awesome, but unfortunately it required replacing Tuon with Mesaana.

 

I was angry that Gawyn did that too her, she deserved so much more, and while she did hold the world together, dying well, perhaps it was even needed to keep the world alive, it was annoying nonetheless, that Gawyn practically killed her.

 

Then the random flip with the Seals was ridiculous. It reminds me off the cliche of a villain "righting all their wrongs" on their deathbed. It was good that she came to the conclusion, but poorly done. She should have slowly changed her mind, seeing the horrors of the Last Battle, and the balefire, slowly realise that it was necessary.

 

So while I admire her heroic end, and her as a character, the inconsistencies really took away from her death, I SHOULD have felt more sorrow, but it was just so strange that I can only do it in hindsight.

The above take about inconsistencies fits just the same with ToM.

Edit:

Also curious to hear why you think she had zero contact with Nyn or the WO's to hear about Rand's growing darkness? It had been developing for books.

@ Suttree- You are right that essentially he had no plan ( even though the plan to destroy the seals ended up being the correct one ) but can you honestly say that collecting nations of military might is anything short of an attempt to bully Rand into Egwene's choice of actions?

But Rand left her no choice, he purposely manipulated the situation so he would get that exact reaction.

ToM

I've poured hot oil into the White Tower, and it will be boiling soon. Time. We don't have time! I will get help to Lan, I vow it to you, but right now I must prepare to face Egwene."

Considering that he was insane until shortly before the meeting, she has been hearing about his dark actions(slaughtering his own men in the Damona Campaign, Natrin's Barrow, leaving a city to starve when he couldnt use them as "tools") and how much he has changed from Nyn she really couldn't handle it any other way. You can't think of it from a readers perspective, you need to view it from what she knows. No one can fault her for questioning him at this point. She tried to have an exchange of info and plan:

ToM

"You can't break the seals," Egwene said. "That would risk letting the Dark One free."

 

"A risk we must take. Clear away the rubble. The Bore must be opened fully again before it can be sealed."

 

"We must talk about this," she said. "Plan."

 

"That is why I cam to you. To let you plan."

 

He seemed amused. Light!

Rand refuses and goads her into that course of action. This is an idea  that can threaten the entire world and goes against what every single person in Randland believes to be true except possibly 3 or 4 people who have been told why it needs to happen and are working towards what needs to be done. Again you can't fault her for questioning him at this point. The WT has been the main force for the light for 3,000 years, of course she would question something like this.

I said all along that he should have set Cads and Min to working with the WT and use the resources in the library(where the AS ended up finding a crucial piece of info). He could have gathered the armies just as easily without the subterfuge. Her own thoughts in the meeting show she was ready to trust him, contrary to your assertion that she only viewed him as the DR:

ToM

Light, she thought. I'm wrong. I can't think of him only as the Dragon Reborn. I'm here for a reason. He's here for a reason. To me, he must be Rand. Because Rand can be trusted, while the Dragon Reborn must be feared.

 

"Which are you?" she whispered unconsciously.

 

He heard. "I am both, Egwene. I remember him. Lews Therin. I can see his entire life, every desperate moment. I see it like a dream, but a clear dream. My own dream. It's part of me."

 

The words were those of a madman, but they were spoken evenly. She looked at him, and remembered the youth that he had been. The earnest young man. Not solemn like Perrin, but not wild like Mat. Solid, straightforward. The type of man you could trust with anything.

 

Even the fate of the world.

The lack of assistance or counsel was what ultimately lead to the failure of Lews Therin and the breaking of the world. ( imo )

Actually, we know that isn't true. The plan was flawed:

Robert Jordan

Okay, then you know about the political struggles that were going on, and the different plans to try and end the War of the Shadow, and seal up the...and why various groups thought that one plan or the other was the best way to go. And in the end, what resulted was the so-called “Fatal Covenant” [it was actually the “Fateful Concord”], which had the female Aes Sedai swearing not to go along with Lews Therin’s plan, that they would not support it. The result of this was that Lews Therin carried out his plan with only male Aes Sedai, so there were only male Aes Sedai channeling there, which was a lucky thing, because if there’d been women as well, then both saidin and saidar would have been tainted.

Egwene did some good things. She did bring the White Tower back together and went out with a bang in the end, however it doesn't change the fact that I viewed her in the end as a Tyrant who considered herself a just a small step under the creator. I know this has no weight as an argument with someone who is Pro Egwene, in fact it would carry about as much weight as any argument brought to me against the Seanchen, who were hands down my favorite 

Ha. There has been some pretty intense Seanchen debates here over the years. As for Egwene I think you will find most people are pretty open to various interpretations. There are some who took it waaaaaay overboard on each side of the debate(ie. Kael pro-Eggy, lilltempest anti-Eggy)but for the most part people are reasonable.

what atrocities of rands are you referring too?

Leaving a city to starve to death since it could not be used as a tool:

ToM

"Rand, you aren't responsible for this," Min said. "You weren't here to . . ."

 

His pain increased, and she realized she'd said the wrong thing. "Yes," he replied softly, "I wasn't here. I abandoned this city when I saw that I could not use it as the tool I wished it to be.

@lill

There really is no point in speculating who else could have potentially passed on info to Logain if Egwene was absent, as you said we have to go off what's in the text and she was the one who did it(as an aside do we know Egwene's letter she wrote to Rand with her findings was never sent?). She even brings up the research done at the FoM and he dismisses it as "Aes Sedai speculation".

In terms of the balefire your take seems to ignore what would have happened had the cracks continued or gotten worse. The point isn't that the pattern could have healed itself down the line as ages come and go. It is stopping things from reaching a tipping point in the present.

@MA

You make a valid point and it's part of what makes it so hard to truly discuss the ending. Terez had this to say on the topic at Theoryland the other day:

I can understand why people think there are still many details to be discussed in the last volume, but for me it just all falls apart due to a web of inconsistencies and retcons. Disbelief has been suspended too far.

Though as Suttree asked above:

 

 

Curious as to what else you would have her do considering she had been hearing word of Dark Rand's atrocities and at that point his plan was basically break the seals and pray Min came up with the key to sealing the bore(essentially he had no plan). There was no other realistic option for her to take.

 

What did you think her course of action should have been then? I am curious too.

Logain breaks the seals after hearing Egwenes last words - look for the light (to paraphrase).  Breaking the seals at the wrong time would have been disastrous.

 

Additionally as Sutt says, she healed much of the damage done by balefire and took out most of the Sharan Channelers. 

 

Given that Moiraine was crucial for bringing Rand and Eg together, then Eg was important.

Indeed, as I said above she set the WT to studying the situation in the archives and they found:

AMoL

Elayne shuffled through the sheets of paper, then stopped on one of them. " 'His blood shall give us the Light . . .' " She rubbed the page with her thumb, as if lost in thought. " 'Wait upon the Light.' Who added this note?"

 

"That is Doniella Alievin's copy of the Termendal translation of The Karaethon Cycle," Egwene said. "Doniella made her own notes, and they have been the subject of nearly as much discussion among scholars as the Prophecies themselves. She was a Dreamer, you know. The only Amyrlin that we know of to have been one. Before me, anyway."

 

"Yes," Elayne said.

 

"The sisters who gathered these for me came to the same conclusion that I have," Egwene said. "There may be a time to break the seals, but that time is not at the start of the Last Battle, whatever Rand thinks. We must wait for the right moment...

She then later passed on the correct time to Logain with her last words.

Time for a reread Goat. It's clear our dislike of the character seems to be seriously clouding your judgement. There are plenty of Egwene hate threads around here for you to vent in but they don't realy help advance any serious discussion on the topic.

It's not only things like the above either. The WT culture was largely broken and had failed despite all the good it has done over the years. Her reforms and the reunification will go a long way in helping lead it back to it's true purpose.

 

Her character became irrelevant after she was named Amyrlin in Salidar she couldn't speak 2 sentences without proclaiming she was Amyrlin. The whole split of the White Tower lasted much too long and was never a real player in the story after the Battle of Dumai's Wells. Yes certain Aes Sedai still played major roles but they were largely independent of Tar Valon.  I was happy to see her die I was pissed that it happened at the very end of the series all that time wasted on a self centered character which brought so little to the whole in the end.      

She really started grinding my gears when she considered herself Rand's equal, or quite possibly his better and actually had the gall to attempt to unite nations against him!

 

ZOMFG! The gall to try and unite the countries against the DR!?!?!

Curious as to what else you would have her do considering she had been hearing word of Dark Rand's atrocities and at that point his plan was basically break the seals and pray Min came up with the key to sealing the bore(essentially he had no plan). There was no other realistic option for her to take.

Further I have no idea what Goathill is talking about seeing as how she played a crucial role in key events. The author has said Moiraine was needed as she got Rand and Egwene to work together at the FoM. Rand to break the seals and Egwene to delay him so it happened at the right time. She is the one who found out the right time to break the seals through WT research and gave order for it to be done in addition to healing much of the damage from balefire.

What about the shadowspawn created in the War of Power?  Aginor used techniques of genetic engineering to construct animal/human hyrbids.  But he used the One Power to do so.  MIND BLOWING!  What's the science of rearranging a genome with the One Power????

Actually he used the true power. The experiments were a failure up until that point.

I just read an interesting piece. When Cadsuane goes to the Sun Palace in the winter, she confronts Alanna. Alanna embraces the source, and Cads feels one of her hair ornaments go slightly cold. 

(PoD)

 

"Alanna stiffened. The light of saidar suddenly shone around her.

"If you wish to be truly fulish, " Cadsuane smiled, a cold smile. She made no move to embrace the Source herself. One of her dangling hair ornaments, intertwined golden crescents, was cool on her temple.

Mayhaps another weave-blocking terangreal, like Mat's medallion?

 Her paralis-net has a number of different items of which that is one.

Interview: Oct 4th, 2005

Robert Jordan's Blog: ONE MORE TIME

Robert Jordan

For Krassos, yes, a channeler could still channel wearing Mat's amulet. Cadsuane has one much like it.

We also see Nyn has a similar one that works in WH during the Alivia v. Lanfear fight. Lanfear would have schooled her otherwise.

WH

   Just as it reached the woman, almost close enough to singe her garments, the web of Fire unraveled. The woman did not do anything; the net simply came apart! Cyndane had never heard of a ter'angreal that would break a web, but it must be that.

There are some awesome moments during her early interactions with the ash'aman in which Cads is practically daring them to channel as well.

As she said, if she didn't have all those items of power her life would have gone very differently.

CoT

That [Not earning her ter’angreal] would have altered a great deal of history. For one thing, it would have been unlikely that she would be in anything approaching her present circumstances.

Here's the thing:  I simply do not find the attacks on what BS was asked to do by Harriet and TJ on all of our behalves fair.  Critiques on specific style, prose, narrative etc. is not petty and has a valid place in a forum such as this where people who cared enough about the books seek out an outlet for discourse.  You misread my intent, and maybe it was overly harsh.  I do expect and look forward to argument on particular criticisms, but I have seen acrimonious attacks on BS on this site as well as Westeros.

Indeed and as I stated a few people have certainly taken it too far.

Actually, I meant that the chapter selection, POV's chosen, how to move the story forward through the POV's of secondary/tertiary characters, as well as the actual rhythm of the narrative was paced beautifully.

Agree with credit due in places, disagree with a fair amount of the above. Take moving the story forward for instance, many arcs were artifically stretched out due to the split and it took Brandon a good deal of time to tell certain stories. Take this example of Gawyn for instance:

Dom

It's appalling how many POVs and pages Brandon has needed to write that story. Typically, we might have gotten one Gawyn shortish POV in Dorlan (typically prologue stuff) where he learned Egwene's captive, and he is thorn, and then nothing until suddenly he interrupted a Siuan/Bryne scene with a sudden arrival, his growing frustration mentioned only via observations of Siuan from then on (we didn't need a Lelaine scene making completely irrelevant and stupid inquiries about orchards in Andor (!) we just needed a reference by Siuan that Lelaine was manipulating Gawyn, until as a last resort Siuan went to him for the rescue. For the rest, we needed one confrontation with Egwene, and one conversation with Elayne or Bryne or Siuan, not three scenes of the same whining and self-pity, with each of them in turn...

Space should have been at a premium even after the split and it certainly wasn't used wisely in places.Not sure why he didn't employ literary devices like ellipsis to advance the action at times. Another example from AMoL is the long "battle" chapter. It really just devolved into video game style "battle porn" with trollocs being used as fodder. It becomes tedious and repetitive. Don't get me wrong, there were some things I liked about it but it could have been cut down a fair bit to help the rythm.

I disagree with those perspectives.  Try reading a deposition.  The dialogue had humor, tension, apprehension, and passion.  I reveled in much of it.  Especially Mat's letter to Elayne (not precisely dialogue), Egwene and Verin's last conversation, Rand's reunions with first Perrin then Mat.  I thoroughly enjoyed the dialogue.  Please remember, fantasy is not in and of itself juvenile, but it is geared to a readership that will historically draw 12-21 year old males.  I don't need Faulkner or Hemingway in Fantasy.  I just need to laugh, cry, cringe and smile.  BS's dialogue accomplished all of that for me.

I very much enjoyed the Verin/Eggy scene although can't say I remember the dialogue all that well. Really disliked the Rand/Mat reunion. That is a key example of unnatural dialogue that felt really forced. I kept expecting one of them to break out a ruler. As for the letter, that one has received a mostly negative response from the fandom. In fact Mat's "voice" was a pretty big issue under BS. Here is what the author himself had to say:

BS

I didn't understand Mat. I tried so hard to make him funny, I wrote the HIM out of him.

Lastly I don't find that the whole "well it's just fantasy" argument holds much water, especially when we have recent authors like Bakker and going farther back Peake, Crowley or Wolfe. Is it wrong to expect more from a quality perspective?

I am actually learning this now.  I honestly did not know he handled the Pevara/Androl story himself and that he interjected himself more than I suspected.  Is it true that RJ actually wrote the majority of the Ghenjei raid?

Yeah the ToG sequence was mainly RJ.

Welcome to the community Ghettoe. It is refereshing these days for someone to discuss some of the points being raised and offer examples backing their view. Glad to have you on board.

I have read the criticism of Brandon Sanderson, and I simply find the critiques petty.

There have been how many pages of well thought out, very valid critique(the people who went overboard can be counted on one hand)and you dismiss it all like that? Why not try addressing some of the actual points made and show why you don't agree.

TGS, ToM and MoL were paced beautifully, the epic arc completions of each of the major protagonists were spectacular, and the conclusion of the series satisfied almost completely.

By "paced beautifully" I'm assuming you mean the pace continued to pick up after it did so in KoD? One would hope it would, it has as much to do with where we were in the story arc as anything else though. Not sure I agree with the "beautifully" part given the amount of bloat, filler and structural issues that crept into these last two books.

The other two things you mention are of course entirely subjective, glad you enjoyed it so much though.

That being said, Sanderson was very skilled writing dialogue,

Many think his dialogue is overly blunt, unnatural and juvenile. I certainly wouldn't call it a strength. Not only where some of the characters voices entirely off(most secondary characters turned into cardboard cutouts) but we got clunkers like the below:

""Perhaps. Perhaps not. First, we should negotiate my price for taking you to Andor. I assume you want to reach Caemlyn?"

 

"Price?" Mat said. "But you think the Pattern forced you here! Why demand a price of me?"

 

"Because," she said, raising a finger, "while I waited to find you—I honestly didn't know if it would be you or young Perrin—I realized that there were several things I could provide you that no other could."

She reached into a pocket of her dress, pulling out several pieces of paper. One was the picture of Mat. "You didn't ask where I got this."

 

"You're Aes Sedai," Mat said, shrugging. "I figured you . . . you know, saidared it."

 

"Saidared it?" she asked flatly.

Any argument that he failed to deliver on bringing Rand to the brink and then writing his character post DM epiphany is flat out disingenuous.

Has anyone actually made that argument? Dark Rand was certainly one of Brandon's high moments in the WoT.

I can accept that Sanderson did not want to interject himself and his own ideas into the story too much.  Sanderson had to complete the series within the framework of the outline and input provided by Team Jordan, but there had to be room for some additional plot.

But he did interject himself, in fact over half the material in these last three books was all Brandon with zero guidance from the notes. Team Jordan pretty consistently scaled back how robust they were. Even when there were notes they often look like this:

Brandon

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. And this all is what became the trilogy that you’re now reading.

&

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.

There has been quite a bit of discussion about Androl and Pevara, as many people feel that the arc was among the best writing in the final book, but that is balanced against the fact that many fans would have preferred to see more of their favourite characters who were fairly short-changed on screen time, e.g. Moiraine, Nynaeve, Min, etc.

In addition to the lack of screen time, Pevara bore little resemblance to the AS we knew before AMoL. I haven't seen all that many people claim it was among the best writing in AMoL. For instance this Isam style summary by Luckers was close to what we got in the absurd double bonding scene:

Pevara: I'm Aes Sedai, you're a man who can channel. You scare me.

Androl: I can't trust you.

Pevara: I can help you plan your coup against Taim. He's taken the rest of my sisters. That totally happened. I cried. Off screen.

Androl: You offer yourself as bait?

Pevara: Say what now?

Androl: Ah sarcasm.

Pevara: You really don't know anything about Aes Sedai do you?

Androl: Wait, what about your ideas for the coup?

Pevara: We're discussing Aes Sedai now. Keep up.

Androl: Well, sure I know alot about Aes Sedai. I know all your innermost flaws.

Pevara: So you've spent time studying us?

Androl: Oh no, I've avoided you as best I can.

Pevara: Then how can you know about flaws none but the Wise One's, some Kinswomen and maybe Fortuona know about.

Androl: I read this thread: http://www.dragonmou...f-an-aes-sedai/ . How did you know about those other things?

Pevara: eWoT, idiot. Let's link.

Androl: Well, okay, just so long as you don't freak out on me.

Pevara: Don't be silly. Now, break the laws of physics and initiate the link. Don't worry, I misunderstood something I studied earlier. It will work.

Androl: Okay...

Pevara: ZOMG YOU'RE CONTROLLING ME!!!!! #MindRapeBond

Androl: You said you wouldn't freak out. Just for that... #MindRapeBond.

Pevara: Well, that was certainly interesting.

Androl: Oh yes. I enjoyed it, myself. Look, the door is opening. I, the weak one, will take steps to protect us from the very likely reality that we're about to be Mindraped in a far less congenial way. You just stand there and wax lyrical about the One Power. Good girl.

FanStandInChild: Hey Mum! I'm on TV!!!

Pevara: Calm down sparky, at this stage it's just a book. Now, what terrible news do you have?

FanStandInChild: Weilyn 13.0 just rocked up. You can infer that Logain might suffer the same fate.

Pevara: OH NO NOT LOGAIN!!!!!

Androl: Poor Melare. She seemed nice.

Pevara: Who?

Androl: Never mind. Onward and upward my friends! Into the breach!

Pevara: You're strange. I have a feeling we're going to end up together.

Androl: Say what now?

Brandon: To be continued....

And Egwene did not have a plan, her only plan was not to break the seals at any cost. BS obviously saw that she was looking like a total douche in TOM and gave her multiple personality disorder within few pages by then saying tht maybe the seals shd be broken at a particular time.But she had not idea what that time would be.

Yet as of ToM Rands plan was to break the seals and? Pray that Min found the answer for him in time? Look things had to play out as they did.

Further not sure how you can claim she thought the seals should not be broken at any cost and then go on to say she thought they had to be broken at the correct time? As for multiple personality disorder that started in ToM. Just see the meeting with Rand in TV for proof.

The author has already said both her and Rand's ideas were needed and it was Moiraine's role to get them on the same page. Egwene had sisters researching the issue and hit upon the fact that the seals had to be broken at the correct time. She even passed the order to do so along as she died which proved critical.

 

1)  Lan comment on Rand's natural ability from the start.  Now, how much of this is Rand and how much is LTT bleedover is unknown, at least to me, but you figure LTT at least made learning easier, the same as he did with the OP

Okay, so where does this bleed come from? The taint?

Yes that is the prevailing theory. The taint broke down barriers that allowed the LTT memories to begin seeping in.

One would think power wrought weapons and their capabilities would be included in the encyclopedia.

As for Sanderson, we all know he has a propensity for being overly dramatic with descriptions at times. That said I thought he handled Perrin extremely well and enjoyed the hammer scene.

Always loved that last quote from the SaSG.

"Whoever read this, if any remain to read it, weep for us who have no more tears. Pray for us who are damned alive."

The Stooges-No Fun

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmLt4jbdig0