Mark... how can the Seanchan hold the wise ones and seafolk short of fork rooting them to near death or outright killing them??? how could they win against Andor's cannons... (sorry Aludra... Dragons..) the white and black tower and the Aiel without absolute control over the Damani... plus the voyage through the pillars describes a war of attrition fueled by the ability to turn chanellers against their former allies...It is simply not plausible from what we know...

i know... i doubt that theory is true too, i was just trying to give brandon the benefit of a doubt...

we know that the seanchan eventually switch from damane, to guns, but we dont know why... it could be attrition of channelers, or a ter'angreal failure, or linking ability switching, or some other reason... we just dont know.

@metal head.

moiraine bracelet is an angreal,not a sa'angreal,i just finished rereading

the relevant pages in tom.

angreal, or sa'angreal, it does increase her power to near the top of the scale... tho, i dont think she's as powerful as cyndane...

another option, that may not include her death... is that when the horn is sounded, she's ripped out of reality, and back as a hero... sorta the opposite of what already happened...

that way it wouldnt need a tramatic death, just a "whoops! i didnt know that would happen..."

tho i should say this doesnt take into account the foreshadowing of her death(taking up a sword)... still :)

@Metal Head. If her connection to the Horn was broken, and is to be reestablished, I think she's banking on street credit. She had the misfortune of being tied to Elayne's story arc for 9 books now. Nothing happened, let alone anything heroic.

thats a BIG if... but still... in the chance that she has, theres nothing saying she'll be rebound during this revolution of the wheel... ultimately, all threads are rewoven into the pattern...

however, since gaidal already got spun out, it makes me believe she still is bound...

Alot of things explain that From Mat's influence on Tuon to the Damani being to precious to deal with the likes of the remains of the Aiel...They did fight The White and Black tower and Avienda's daughter to apparent defeat... I'm sure the Damani's were used there at least. In fact that was the point of the feud .. the Seanchan would not release the captive Wise Ones....

yes, but this is the transition point between the ages, clearly things will change... the last turning grew the longing, and whatnot... perhaps, if this isnt an error, this turning grew to that the ability to link was swapped man <--> woman... which would mean that damane would be able to be leashed... the a'dam is a forced link, and if the swich is done intentionally by rj/brandon, then it stands to reason that the a'dam wouldnt work anymore...

you would think that by now Mr. Sanderson or Tor.. or Mrs. Mc Dougal would utilize the hardcore fans to ferret out these glaring errors... I mean... it's only a beloved authors last words to his fans... no reason to be careful there is there? It's just plain careless... and I'm sorry but after obviously riding over "Robert Jordan's" last wish of making the last book a single tome... you would think that they would at least get the details right in the final.... Final Book... or maybe Brian Sanderson is trying to speak to the fans in the only way that his contract with TOR will allow... perhaps they are leaving us with one last conspiracy theory to muddle over in the absents of anything more to come...

or at least check with "the world of robert jordan's 'wheel of time'"...

if it is intentional, that women can no longer initiate links, only men can, would be a HUGE change to the story... would explain why the seanchan dont use damane in aviendha's rhuidean adventure... but then, itd WAY unbalance the OP, having men stronger, and linking, while women are weaker, and cant link... seems kinda unbalanced...

I think everyone is underestimating Moiraine. Cyndane isn't as powerful as she was when she was Lanfear.

very much agree, cyndane has stepped down a rung on the powerometer, and moiraine has fallen FAR down... but with the sa'angreal, i suspect she'll be more than a match for her this time...

@mark, when I said that we were at "THE END" -- I thought BS and Harriet said that this would be it, and that other than the forthcoming encyclopedia, there wouldn't be any further WoT novels, outriggers, or prequels; that it was being put to bed, permanently. My statement was based on that belief, that there will be no additional new canon WoT content after AMoL. So I don't think we'll see Birgitte again after her death, IF she dies. That's why I say "we'll probably never know."

agreed that we'll probably never know for certain, but yes... this will likely be the last book of the series, but RJ did say that there is no end to the spinning of the wheel... thus, there is no "end" of the story, where the DO is destroyed permenantly...

Birgitte must eventually be retied to the wheel as a hero of the horn, but that doesnt mean it will be right away... however, ive yet to be convinced that she has been severed from that connection already... according to the wolves, whenever someone dies in TAR, they die permenantly... but she didnt die atall, she got pushed into reality... her weak thread got bound to elaynes when she bonded her... so she may or may not be severed from the horn, we dont know... however, that the wheel spun out gaidal just before TG, and her death seems almost certain, AND she was always younger than gaidal, tells me she'll likely die, and be reborn almost right away, ready to reunite with him... else, the wheel wouldnt have spun him out...

i suspect she will die, and therell be some sort of confirmation in TAR that she's alive there... tho, im convinced she's still a hero, i dont need confirmation...

Wouldn't it be GRAND if Birgitte was spun out as one of the main characters kids? I don't think that's possible for Elayne or Aviendha, since they are/will be preggo before Birgitte MAY die...but it's a nice thought. Even nicer thought that her eternal romance with Gaidal Cain would continue. I think she's a goner in the LB too, but I still hate to see her go and hope she remains conneted to the Wheel.

actually, brandon confirmed that the thread of the baby is "attached" when the child is capable of self-sustaining life, just before birth... so it is possible for one of elaynes babies to be brigette... tho, i dont think she will be :)

Then again, we'll probably never know for sure, since this is, you know, THE END.

RJ did say that there is no end to the turning of the wheel... and, RJ did plan for outrigger novels involving mat, so the pattern does continue... and aviendha's walk through the pillars did show the next age...

i think, youre just plainly wrong on this... this isnt the end of the story... just another turning... i think rand will have to destroy the prison, and recreate it... "clear the rubble", so that it can be bored anew later...

@metal head.

i always considered falme the true birthplace of the dragon,not tear when rand took callandor.

actually, dragonmount is the true birthplace of the dragon reborn... falme was his procolomation of return, and tear was his confirmation...

@Metal Head

have to agree... the wheel is neither good, evil, or neutral, it exists to continue...

i highly doubt that the wheel actually has the ability to make anything happen... that much said, i dont believe that the wheel was capable of simply displaying their battle in the sky because it wanted too... however, the wheels job, is to spin... it had spun out a method of causing the battle to happen in the sky...

as such, as RJ said, its an "EFFECT of the wheel"... but not the wheel itself... the only other unique thing that happened, was the blowing of the horn of valere... which to my mind, is the effect of the horn, and which was triggered at that time, because of the wheel's spinning of the horn(and the banner)...

Are they also going to release chapter 3 early?

i dont have the foretelling talent

That seemed to be what happened. Pevara initiated it and Androl completed it and took control.

androl shouldnt have had to "complete" anything... only women can initiate... they would reach through the man just like with a woman, only, they wouldnt be able to channel atall, they would have to pass control to the man...

Back to the Horn. When Fain took the horn from FalDara, He wrote on the wall for Rand to fallow him to Falme. Later, when Fain was in the White tower to steal the dagger back, he didn't look at the horn twice and just left it there. Seems to me that he didn't even care about the horn, just rand.He could of taken the horn and killed Mat later to sever his connection. There has been no real effort on any darkfriends to get the horn, just alot of worry by Moraine. Hawkwing said the heroes had to follow the Dragon and the Dragon Banner. I don't think that they would follow a darkfriend. Course if the dfs got the horn then Mat couldn't call the heroes at TG.

we actually have no idea where the horn is... its somewhere that only verin and suian know of... i doubt its in the tower, i suspect that verin took it to the two rivers...

@snowball.

you are correct,the whitecloaks were annihilated by the damane in seconds

at the very beginning of the battle.

by the way,rand's company was just himself,mat,perring and hurin.

verin and the shienarans were not there and ingtar stayed behind to guard

their backs

hey, i forgot about that :D rand and company didnt meet up with the shienarans and verin until after the battle... even more credance to that the whitecloaks and damane probably didnt even notice they were there...

weren't the whitecloaks annihilated by the damane in seconds? IIRC, "Rand's party" consisted of Verrin, the Shienarans, and the boys.

and the hero's of the horn...

it doesnt say who killed the whitecloaks at falme(i think)... it does say that the whitecloaks were coming on one side, and seanchan on the other... and from previous comments, the whitecloaks likely didnt even know rands party was there... they were attacking the seanchan, and rands party would have been crushed inbetween...

:D

i hope this is the most error-full chapter :S this doesnt make me feel so optimistic...

i do like the whole "you steal me, ill steal you back" angle tho :P

is it just me, or is there an error here...? when rand linked with nynaeve, she initiated the link, not rand... but this chapter says that when its a 1:1, the man has to initiate the link...? imo, this is against everything thats said about linking in the rest of the books... men cant link, only women can...

and yet perrin and company flee the whitecloaks many times in that section...

i can accept that "my enemies enemy is my friend", same side maybe, but i would not say he fought WITH the whitecloaks...

@mashiara sedai

actually it was rand/heros, vs ishamael/seanchan vs whitecloaks... it was never implied(as far as im aware) that ithe whitecloaks were working with rand...

it was whitecloaks attacking the seanchan, and rand/heros attacking them both...

@polaridin thats a great point... :D the horn did seem to make reality and TAR "closer"... we'll have to wait till the last book to see if the sky event is a function of the horn, or something else... but, i suspect youre right...

as far as the hero's winning/loosing as rand did, it could be attributed to "the land is one with the dragon, and the dragon one with the land

ill agree that the wheel is functionally intelligent...

there are many reasons why rands battle was seen in the sky over falme... firstly to announce him to the world... secondly, the two false dragons also saw it, and it was the cause of them being captured/killed...

the wheel is neither good nor evil, it exists to continue... weaving threads of both dark and light simultaneously...

question... do objects have threads? i mean, they are balefireable... and if so, wouldnt all of reality be threads of the pattern, not only lives...?

ive always considered that the alternate realities that rand saw when he and company went through the portal stones in tGH. are actually happening... they are the wheel's testing of which threads to spin out to get to the outcome of rand winning TG... so, while it could be that the wheel is showing off, i see it that the wheel is more like a monkey jumping on a typewriter... eventually itll get something right, and that will be the weaving it will use...

Yeah, I think the soul must be marked as the DO's in order for him to be able to grab it.

id say more specifically... it must be marked(linked to him via the black cable) in order for the DO to care to want to resurrect them... i mean... theres no point in the DO just resurrecting everybody... he'd only want to resurrect allies...

I think he will need to re-seal the Dark One before he dies. If he dies first, the Dark One will have access to his soul, like Ishamael taunted oh so many books ago. Rand's soul in the hands of the Dark One is not a good thing. Unless it comes down to a tug-of-war, with the DO on one side, Nynaeve on the other, both trying to pull Rand's soul back. Maybe. But I'm thinking Rand will die after the DO is no longer free.

This goes back to an earlier point... if the DO has access to the waiting pool of souls... would rands soul be in that pool, as he would go to TAR when he dies... his soul would still be in use... imo, the DO cannot revive the heros of the horn...

nor, does he have the black cable on him, unlike what we've seen with other forsaken, i dont think you could choose(or tell) which soul you would be using, unless it was specifically marked out(the cable)...