Which of the Great Captains is the best?  Or are they all equal?  I have a vague impression that Rodel might have a slight edge but I can't remember what each has accomplished so not sure whether this is based on facts or just that I have recently reread his impressive campaign against the Seanchan.

 

There is a scene that mentions all 5 captains.  I do not remember where that scene is; I think Knife of Dreams.

I believe it's in CoT. It's when Rand and Cadduane are discussing the Seanchan's military prowess.

Which of the Great Captains is the best?  Or are they all equal?  I have a vague impression that Rodel might have a slight edge but I can't remember what each has accomplished so not sure whether this is based on facts or just that I have recently reread his impressive campaign against the Seanchan.

I think at their level, there is no significant difference. When you're as skilled as they, you're simply in the class above, with anyone capable of beating anyone.

What's the reason behind the names of osme of the books.

 

"Eye of the World, Great Hunt, Dragon Reborn, Shadow Rising, Lord Of Chaos, Crown Of Swords, PAth of Daggers, Winters Heart all make sense.

 

But what about Fires Of Heaven, Crossroads and Knife of Dreams?

Fires Of Heaven and Crossroads of Twillight are from the prophecies of the Dragon. Knife of Dreams is from the book Fog and Steel by the general Madoc Comadrin.

According to this poll at theoryland:

http://www.theoryland.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=6662

Egwene is more liked than she is disliked. She's definitely a polarizing character, but she's not universally hated, and certainly not for being a strong female character, of which there are many in the WoT.

 

 

He wanted so badly to have revenge on Lews Therin for being the dragon instead of him, but at the same time, he was always too level-headed to just run into the fray and try to take him out. His extreme anger is balanced so well with his cool deameanor that the hatred the other forsaken feel toward Rand seems almost trivial.

AMOL SPOILER

 

Don't really see where. I thought it was pretty common knowledge earlier on in the series about Demandred's connection with Lews Therin. I gave nothing away. I could be wrong, but I knew of that connection well before reading AMOL.

 

It's not refering to your post, it's refering to what's in Suttree's spoiler caption.

 

 

 

...

My least favourite scene: Gawyn's idiotic decision to face Demandred.

I'm willing to defend Gawyn on this one. He decided to sacrifice himself, and it was not only a good plan, but he was really close to carry it through.

And like we saw with Lan later, attacking Demandred with sword/dagger was the best (and pretty much the only) thing to do.

Not me. He was Warder to the Amyrlin and his death effected her during the Last Battle. We know how the loss of a Warder effects AS.

 

I am not a Gawyn fan, but to be fair, Lan was bonded to one of the women at SG helping Rand wield Callandor.  Wasn't his attempt equally stupid from that perspective?  Imagine if he had actually died just as Rand needed Moiraine and Nynaeve to use Callandor to trap Moridin?  Although, I did find it strange that we didn't get a Nynaeve POV when Lan came very close to dying - maybe she was able to just focus on the job.

 

Agreed, and there's also the case of Elayne, Min, and most of all Aviendha. Any one of them dying would have meant defeat for the Light. And yet they were all either fighting or near the front lines. They all came very close to dying at one point or another. Yes, Gawyn's death affected Egwene but she was still able fight after resting for a short while. Someone needed to take out Demandred and since no one could figure out how, Gawyn decided to to it himself. With the rings he had a better chance than most. There was more to gain than to lose in my opinion, and like previously stated he was hardly the only Warder or wardee out there fighting, nor was he the most important.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Question: If the ability to channel is soul tied, then presumably if you are burnt out, you would never be reborn with the ability to channel? If so, Egwene will never have the ability to channel again in any incarnation.

 

 

 

Interview: Feb 20th, 2013AMOL Signing Report - JaimieKrycho (Paraphrased)

Question

Regarding burning out, is it Healable?

Brandon Sanderson

Not in the same way that stilling is Healed. All it says in the notes is what I just said. And that Nynaeve would not be able to Heal Setalle. Being reborn would heal burning out, but transmigration would not. That's why even though Lanfear shifted bodies, she was still reduced.

I suppose souls can heal themselves, just like the pattern. Do we know what happens to souls that have been turned? Are they like trolloc souls in that they're ruined?

 

 Don't believe we have an answer for that. I don't feel it is ruined as RJ hinted that with some aid they could come back to the light.

Right, I don't believe it's impossible to heal, just wondering if it's carried over to the next life. I doubt it but it would really suck of it is.

 

Question: If the ability to channel is soul tied, then presumably if you are burnt out, you would never be reborn with the ability to channel? If so, Egwene will never have the ability to channel again in any incarnation.

 

 

 

Interview: Feb 20th, 2013

AMOL Signing Report - JaimieKrycho (Paraphrased)

 

Question

 

Regarding burning out, is it Healable?

 

 

Brandon Sanderson

 

Not in the same way that stilling is Healed. All it says in the notes is what I just said. And that Nynaeve would not be able to Heal Setalle. Being reborn would heal burning out, but transmigration would not. That's why even though Lanfear shifted bodies, she was still reduced.

 

 

I suppose souls can heal themselves, just like the pattern. Do we know what happens to souls that have been turned? Are they like trolloc souls in that they're ruined?

@Master Ablar:

 

How else do you suggest she should have beaten Taim? I doubt she could have formed a circle on the spot or anything.

I honestly have no idea . I just thought she resorted to brute strength a little too quickly. Maybe someone else could have distracted Taim while they were fighting *shrug*.

I am wondering, in the end can we say the Gawyn killed Egwene? Without him dying pointlessly Egwene wouldn't draw as much as she did. Demandred was dead anyway so arguably the army of Light doesn't really need her to wipe out of enemy channelers in one strike. Surely Logain with a circle or maybe with Taim's sa'angreal and wipe them out easily?

No, I think Egwene killed Egwene. While Gawyn's death was a shock it was one she overcame, at least temporarily. I kind of feel she should have tried to beat Taim without resorting to self sacrifice.

Makes you wonder how Mogheiden became a successful Chosen. She's considered the weakest and she's SUPPOSED to be the master of stealth, yet she feels the need to unsubtly go after anyone who's comparable to her strength wise (as Nynaeve demonstrated)

Weakest amongst the Forsaken is still pretty damn strong. And she's the best in Tar.

 

 

The Lightside did use smaller Circles - the problem was that the Black Tower did not have many LS Ashaman left, which limited the maximum amount and most of the Aes Sedai didn't trust the less experienced Asha'man to lead.

How do you figure? They had more than enough LS ashaman left, they simply disappeared from the story like a number of the other channeling groups.

 

Master Ablar is good with the numbers for that. Perhaps he could break down the actuals?

 

I was thinking that we have to account for at least two major losses for both groups and the usual fatigue issue which reduces who could usefully be on the battlefield at any point. 1) Major Loss for Aes Sedai: The Arrival of the Sharans at the Kandori battlefield, Major Loss for Ashaman: The defection of Dreadlords and the Battle at the Black Tower's losses, 2) Major Loss 2: Off-screen deaths at the battlefield at Merrilor similar to Siuan's or when a Bondmate dies and then we'd have to account for the fatigue factor which is so individual and subjective that it just leaves you open to plot convenience: Stronger channelers like Egwene, Aviendha and Elayne felt tired to their bone, but they forced themselves to their feet and continued channeling strongly and effectively but weaker channelers, like the ones at Egwene's last stand were so tired that their lines broke and they couldn't cover their own withdrawal. I recall Siuan and/or Egwene hearing a report of the survivors after the Sharan's arrival in Kandor (this seems to have reduced their numbers by a 3rd) but it didn't seem as if a similar accounting was given for the Ashaman. 

Nah, the numbers were completely off. Logain brought 100 to Elayne, there's another 46 that went with the Aes Sedai that came to bond them, Taim had a 100 darkfriends according to Demandred, and there a few already outside of the BT from the beginning of the book. Even counting the darkfriends who died at the BT, it probably comes out to around 300. There were already 448 in tPoD, chapter 14. That grew to around 500 at the beginning of WH. Seeing as that was less that halfway between Taim's arrival in Caemlyn and the beginning of aMoL, there should have been around 1000 Asha'man easy, and a little less than half of those out of the BT thanks to Rand's order in KoD. So basically more than 2/3 of the Asha'man just plain disappeared like Suttree said. And pretty much all of them were lightsiders.

 

Am I the only one who found the whole anti-Balefire thing to be a bit of an ass-pull?

What do you mean?  Baelfire was outlawed during the War of Power, why would it be any different now?

He's talking about Egwene's weave.

Who was the most important person in the Last Battle at Merrilor? Lan, Egwene, Mat...?

Mat I would say, but all of them were needed for the Light to win. Without Lan, Demandred continues to slaughter the armies of the Light and the Shadows armies would not have broken. Without Egwene the Sharan channellers would have ripped the Aes Sedai apart, and there's the balefire weakening the pattern to consider. But Mat was the indispensable individual I would say.

From what I saw in aMoL, the WT and BT don't seem to be headed to any kind of merging for the moment. There's a small amount of cooperation on the individual level, with Androl and Pevara being the most obvious example, but that's pretty much it. Considering Logain and Androl's thoughts on the whole matter, things look like they're going to remain just as they are for now. And considering how unbalanced everything is already likely to be in the Last Battle's aftermath, that's probably a good thing.

Then I'm kinda lost about Maradon and the numbers now look worse. The hell are all these Ashaman hiding. LAN only had 5. Wtf is that about.

Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction while reading the book. At least Maradon the Asha'man are shown in action fighting the trollocs. It's just that there are a huge amount of trollocs, too many for them to deal with.

But in aMoL they're not even mentioned. Logain shows up with 200 (according to Elayne), which is less than he should have had, but it's like 600-700 Asha'man just fell off the map at some point.

The first part: I seriously doubt it. But we'll never know. So I'll agree to disagree here good sir.

 

The second part. Hmm. I thought a lot of them were coming back and forth, mostly coming back. I know Itrulade didn't get 100, it had to be less than that. Rand's personal cadre of Ashaman was like 10 or less, when they came to Maradon, they thought they had to abandon it, if Itrulade had 100, he would have put up a much better defense! Much much better. I'll go back and look for numbers tho just to make sure.

 

Are we sure Logain didn't mean those of the Rank Ashaman? Weren't nearly all the "Two Rivers Boys" still in the BT? I mean there were dozens or a hundred of them alone. I'm going to search thru KOD tho, thanks for the tip. I'll report back.

 

"More than half the Black Tower is in Arad Doman and Illian. I sent all the men with bonded Aes Sedai except those here, as you ordered" (KoD, chapter 29)

A little later he also says:

"One thing pleased him [Taim] though: that I didn't take any of his cronies." (KoD, chapter 29)

In any case, most if not all the full Asha'man at the BT were Taim's men, apart from Logain, since Taim didn't promote anyone to the rank of Asha'man who wasn't loyal to him.

According to Tam, Taim brought 40 men back from the Two Rivers in PoD.

As for the number of Asha'man given to Ituralde, it was definitely 100:

"What could you do if I gave you a hundred men who could channel?" (tGS, chapter 10)

All I have really asked is for a specific example where Egwene is altruistic without personal gain.

 

In tEotW, she tells Perrin they should take turns riding Bela. Pretty sure she didn't gain anything but cramps out of that. Oh and in tGH, she hides Rand from the Aes Sedai in Fal Dara. Again I doubt she gained anything out of it.

 

 

Egwene was on a power trip from hell during the entire Last Battle, thinking she was the only one who mattered ("all of the Aes Sedai can die, but as long as I live, the White Tower stands!")

 

Did she say this? I don't remember her saying that. I think a few times she noted that she was very important to keep alive (as the leader of the largest group of channelers), which is a nice bit of pragmatism compared to Elayne or Rand's "i can do everything myself, oh shit i got captured". Without her in the lead, it would be hard for the Aes Sedai to unite on anything.

I think she said something like that after the Sharans first appeared and things were looking very, very bad.

And how long was he there blowing people up before he made that arrangement? A good while. He gave Taim the item towards the end there. He called for Rand in a full circle, with the 2nd most powerful item of power made for men in existence. I'm sure he would have laid it down nicely if Rand had appeared. I mean he's not evil or anything. 

 

Honestly, I wouldn't be suprised if he did just that. Yes the dude is evil, but he's also dangerously obsessed with proving himself better than LTT/Rand. His hatred of LTT is what defines him. Look at how he dealt with Gawyn and Galad. He could have blasted them to pieces at any moment if he had wished to, or let his guard deal with them. But he didn't because what he wants more than anything else is to step out of LTT's shadow. Hiding behind a Sangreal wouldn't allow him to do that, unless Rand uses Callandor, which Demandred thought was very unlikely since he couldn't do so safely. If he called for Rand while in a full circle and with a Sangreal, it's because he was busy winning a battle, which he thought he was fighting against LTT, again going back to proving himself the best.

 

Where are you getting this 400 number from? Rand's Ashaman he had post Ebon Dar were sent back, he didn't send 400 with Ituralde, he only had about 10 with him, and I'd guess Ituralde had 30 or so, they had a unit, with 2 unit leaders. Couldn't be that many. Where is this 400 coming from?

 

In the Prologue of WH Toveine estimates there are 500 Asha'man at the BT. This is a 107 days after Taim arrives in Caemlyn. That's a rate of about 5 Asha'man recruited per day, which is even faster than the 3-4 Torval had claimed in PoD, when he reported there were 438 Asha'man at the BT.

Later in KoD Logain says he's sent nearly half the Asha'man out of the BT, and none of them loyal to Taim. This is 54 days after Toveine's estimation in WH. If we go with the 5 Asha'man per day recruitement rate, their numbers go up to 770, and it might even be higher than that since the more Asha'man there are, the more recruting parties there are. Using Torval's 3-4 per day, we're closer to 700. I'd estimate between 350 and 400 Asha'man would make up about half of what the BT had at the time. If the rate of recrutement kept on at the same pace, there should have been at least 1000 Asha'man by the beginning of aMoL (910 at the least, 1200 at the most).

And I believe Rand gave Ituralde 100 Asha'man in tGS.

Yes I'm sure he was totally honorable slaying thousands of innocents to piss Rand off. The reason he was calling out for Rand was because he had the superior ground there and he knew it. He was taking the cowards way out. His full circle of 72, and his Sangreal, he knew he could beat Rand. There's no honor in that sir. 

 

As for killing a bunch a people, well he's a Forsaken and it's the greatest battle of the age. Of course he's going to be killing people. If he can goad Rand into facing as well by doing so than good for him.

The Black Tower was explained away in a true to the previous books fashion... Unfortunately that was one of the few explanations that fits within the WoT. When channellers fight it is a massacre which is why most of the Asha'man didnt survive it, so they werent really a strategic asset overall so it would have been women vs women overall.

 

It didn't make any sense actually. Half the BT was sent out in KoD. That should have been around 400 Asha'man, every one of them loyal to Rand. And as for those at the BT, I don't recall it ever being said that a huge amount of Asha'man died there. Taim had 100 with him later on, which is probably slightly less than he should have had, but still fairly close. I don't see any evidence that "good" Asha'man were slaughtered at the BT. It seems to me that after Androl and Logain broke free, Taim took his men and got the hell out of there. So, unless there were a bunch Asha'man running around in all the battles and BS just didn't bother mentioning it, there's a whole lot of Asha'man who fell off the map at some point. There actually should have been more Asha'man than Egwene had Aes Sedai, considering how many AS have been lost throughout the books.

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

Demandred tells Taim he has 400 channellers with him.

She didnt kill any Aes Sedai dint she ??

 

We're told Sakarnen is powerful. We have no clue how powerful it is with respect to Vora's wand. If you read the section again, you'll see that before she overdraws, Egwene and Taim match each other exactly. Neither of their streams is able to overmatch the others. Its at this time that Egwene decides to draw in more of the OP than is safe.

 

So Sakarnen is definitely as powerful as Vora's wand. Which is unsurprising. Why should we think that there would be so many male sa'angreal in the upper reaches, but not female ones? And apart from the Choedan Kal and Callandor, Sakarnen and Vora's wand are the only two other sa'angreal that have names attached to them. To me, the attachement of a name indicates a powerful sa'angreal. So rare in its strength that it got its own name. It wasn't just some object, anymore. 

I think it's just a little suprising because nothing was ever made of the strength of Vora's wand. If it's about the same strength as Sakarnen, then that means it's even stronger than Callandor. You'd think at some point someone would have mentioned how incredibly powerful it is. The other thing is that it's quite fortitious that the WT, having lost so many angreal and sangreal, managed to hold on to the most powerful one, apart from the CK.

Also I wish we'd have been given some hint as to how Demandred found Sakarnen.

 

 

I also think it's funny that Egwene bonded Leilwin for all of 2 hours after losing Gawyn. Talk about a rebound!

 

Yeah Leilwin must have gone on a warder rage right?? So she should be dead too! We dont really find out what happens to her though... Egwenes death was like Lews Therin's death in a much smaller scale actually..

Egwene ends the bond before killing herself.