Hmm, I have to think a bit, it's been a while since I reread the whole series.

1. LoC. Because 'kneel, or you will be knelt' is one of the most powerful scenes in the series, IMO (it would have been even better if Taim was 'just' power-hungry)

2. TGH. Ingtar's darkness, and Rand's growth, combine to make it great. Special mention to the Seanchan for being really just powerhungry maniacs, even if Suroth was actually evil. The whole Damane sequence... And Rand vs. the Amyrlin was a much better story here than in ToM.

3. TSR. Because the Two Rivers and the Rhuidean bits were heart-wrenching and yet heroic.

4. TGS. Because it has so much that actually translates to any world. Just how far do you go to defeat evil? And was Rand actually wrong to balefire that fortress of Graendal-puppets?

5. tEotW. The story of Manetheren sucked me in, and I never got out again. Plus it probably has the best ending of the early series (although a large part of it is halfway-retconned into irrelevance in TGH).

6. KoD. I am a sucker for good stories, and Nynaeve rallying the Malkieri relied on it.

7. tFoH. It doesn't stand out too much, but given where it is in the series, that still makes it darn good.

8. WH. The cleansing, and the scenes in Far Madding, were pretty good. Bonus points for explaining why all these Forsaken had been such wacko's (they were generals, not soldiers).

9. ACoS. Again, nothing much to remark on.

10. ToM. Good story, Rand laying the smack down, but Egwene was jarring. Almost felt like a bit too much emphasis on how good Rand and Nynaeve were compared to these silly AS.

11. TDR. It threw Rand as main character out of the window, and while it was okay, I feel it didn't handle that so well.

12. AMoL. It could have been more, and there are some consistency issues (which we can discuss elsewhere), it still dragged me in and on to the end.

13. tPoD. First book where, at the end, I thought 'why the hell is it called this anyway?'. Not enough a point to the story, though it's also the last book that was published at the time I read it, so this may be coloured by having to wait for WH.

14. CoT. Someone has to be last, and CoT had no excuse to get away.

 

 

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.

 

I didn't think it needed a name - or if it was to be given one, it should be posthumous. Didn't think the weave itself was silly though.

 

It was either that, or Egwene picking up an iron shield (can't be a sword I guess due to 2nd oath - though iron shield probably would be near impossible to carry) with air - hurl it at Taim - turn it into cuendillar - and shield bash Taim to death through the balefire. Less glamorous though ^^

 

They should've built a nice metal cage/ball, hurled it at Demandred, and then turned it to Cuendillar. See him dodge THAT ;)

 

 

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.

 

Convenient yes, but not really silly.  yin and yang, black and white, all kinds of balances are a central theme in the books.  It only makes sense that there is an opposite to balefire.

 

I don't know; fixing compulsion requires a sort of mirror-weave, but fireballs and lightning are usually dissolved with shields or dodging, rather than an anti-fireball. I would have found a weave that fixes the damage to the pattern from balefire quite reasonable - but a direct anti-weave that blocks the stream seems too much like an anti-fireball for me.

Correct but all of them understood where they stood with regard to their partners. Egwene always thought herself the equal of Rand when she was not. Gawyn thought himself Egwene's equal for a while and guess what happened Egwene nearly got killed.

Maybe I'm just odd that way - but I think it would absolutely be good for people in relationships to consider themselves equals. Egwene felt she could not let Gawyn be her equal, because of his place in life and tendency to express the sense of equality in public (unlike, say, Thom, Min or Lan, who would probably know exactly when to shut up and continue the discussion in private).

But if Rand were her partner? Noone would be truly shocked if they rebuffed eachother in public, and neither would be undermined by it by book 7-8 or so.

Only if you take away from the story that Egwene wanted a stooge would you think she would want Rand as lesser partner... and even then, I think trying such tricks on Rand would be precisely what would be needed to fix that desire.

To be honest, I think Egwene would have been an excellent choice for being Rand's 'love of his life'.

As it happened, in the books, all Rand's relations were either to accessories (Min) or not very present (Elayne, Aviendha). Likewise, Egwene only has Gawyn who has to work for her (and who would story-wise probably have been better off dead at Dumais wells, really :p ). But Amyrlin to Dragon could have been a relation of more-or-less equals. They'd obviously bicker, but they could have recaptured some of the magic of Rand's desire to protect Egwene, and Egwene's to help Rand reach what he has to. Now that early-book tendency only re-appeared when Egwene died.

(which, as an aside, implies Egwene was always meant to die. After reading books 1-3 it doesn't feel so odd for Rand to feel horrible about being unable to protect Egwene, and for Egwene to tell him to let HER be a hero, too; fits her response to Mat's rescue, even if that response was more immature. After reading books 7-14 you'd sooner think Rand would have such a response to Nynaeve's or Min's death instead)

I do think we should count Seaqnchan as pro-women; they haven't had an Emperor in ages even if it's not explicitly impossible.

And of course the Aes Sedai are probably the most powerful of all.

 

I hold the view that heroes of the horn can't channel.

 

As cool as the idea that they could appear in the world with all their past lives knowledge of weaves from different ages (and within ages) (and that sounds like Avatar the Last Airbender), we have no evidence that anyone who can channel is tied to the horn. We do not know if the Dragon is/was dead, that the horn can summon him as well. 

Per RJ Rand's soul is a HotH.

Well yes, but that doesn't mean he can channel while stuck in T'a'R or summoned by the horn. All the things the heroes do while summoned are pretty fancy anyhow, so it's not like he would need it. Then again, we know fairly little about the Horn and all, maybe it only ever gets used while Rand is in the world, so the precepts keep his channeling from being any sort of issue.

It might have worked betterr instead of being halfway happy losing Saidin (When did that ever happen to anyone before?) he'd have half panicked and then 'Somehow amidst the pain, he THOUGHT the pipe lit, and it was...' which would give him his final peace. Completing the line that Rand is constantly suffering losses, never quite reaching peace, and then a way out... A painful way, but a way.

I would note that most remarks on Aiel awesomeness are about small unit fights (where pikemen really don't work yet). I would also say that Aiel, being exceedingly mobile, would also defeat pikemen in larger numbers... but the problem in Thakan'Dar was that the light couldn't turn it into a mostly maneuvring battle where the Aiel would be awesome. Not if they wanted to hold, rather than simply whittle down the trollocs. They discussed the possibility of having to hold for years after all.

Not that that solves everything. There's some mention of Aiel, for example, in I think Egwene's POV somewhere, but they are never seen again. May have been Elayne's (by my own argument, that would make more sense).

The point about armour is a good one with all channellers (male or female). We are often told about stray arrows can kill them and all the channelling wouldn't save them. Yet, only Demandred is seen with armour - though it is probably only ceremonial.

 

I don't see the skirts a huge issue. The Sul'dum and Damane are in skirts and leashed together. Their mobility must probably be the worst among all, yet they are always considered/written to be formidable. You would think a nation very comfortable with war would dress them more suited to war. Personally I think it is RJ's bias they stay in dress.

 

Anyway looking at battles historically, armies don't always wear sensible clothes we see now. We take it for granted now soldiers wear camos suitable to their environment. Yet, not too long ago, armies were in Scarlets, with your officers wearing more elaborate headgear to single them out. 

Those scarlets WERE sensible. In the chaos of a normal battle, it's quite convenient if you know who is an enemy and who is not. Now, with the advent of modern armies lines got so continuous (and sitances between two armies so big) that the location of someone was enough of a clue that not being seen by the bad guys was more important... but that wasn't always so.

But yeah, I suppose the clothes aren't THAT major an issue. Bit odd to go into war wearing skirts, I still think, but indeed Aes Sedai had done it before and done well.

 

 

They are a failed institution that wasn't properly preprared. I mean we know there are individual sisters up patrolling the blight. We know they have apparently been studying old strategies and practice dueling in training. Problem being we get to see very little of this in the actual series.

 

What type of preparation is not even having a proper dress for battle?

 

Battle: 101

Kind of moot when you don't really have to move a lot compared to a swordsman and you can fling fireballs from a large distance.

Well... the series has hammered the point home that even an Aes Sedai is not immune to arrows. Being able to jump out of the way of something flying your way seems somewhat useful in a chaotic battle situation... let alone the ability to swiftly retreat if need be. Or even running to a fallen soldier to heal him/her.

 

So trying to wrap my head around the Nakomi entity.

 

A theory of mine is that Nakomi is in essence the caretaker of the wheel/pattern. She has the knowledge of how the pattern is weaved and can be nudged to make certain events happen. Sorta like it is mentioned that the wheel weaves as the wheel wills. Well what if there was a person at the center of that weaving? How I got to this is that there are 7 ages/spokes in the wheel and we know at some point the DO will be released somehow. Thus the Dragon's soul is spun out and we start down the same path again. So let's say in the last spinning of the wheel we go though all the DO being released and the person who is Dragon at that time seals it back up again, as a reward for "winning" or fixing or bringing the pattern back into balance, that person now becomes the caretaker of the pattern in the waking world. 1 caretaker per spinning of the wheel.

 

So let's say Nakomi was the previous winning Dragon in the prior spinning, she is now caretaker. Now as the spinning continues, the same events happen again, DO is released in some fashion, and now it is up to Rand in this spinning to put it back into balance, he does and the final job the prior caretaker has is to transtion her role to the new Dragon(Rand) so that he may now be the caretaker. Thus why both Nakomi and Rand appear to have the same thread/weaving ability within the pattern.

 

My guess is that once Nakomi did her job of making sure Rand survived/transtioned to new role in the end, she will then disappear and now it will be Rands job to be the caretaker, up through the next spinning of the wheel, when this will all happen again. Rands role will then be to help the next Dragon transtion to their role as caretaker, etc, etc, etc.

 

Ramblings of a long time WOT reader.

 

This is exactly the conclusion I came to about Nakomi. The One Power is comprised of saidin and saidar, so it seems plausible that there is both a male and a female Champion of the Light. Seven ages ago it was saidar that was tainted (then cleansed), and Nakomi was the one to save the world. These two souls alternate every seven ages between the more active role of World Savior (being born and dying, channeling saidin or saidar, being tested and making sacrifices), and the more passive role of Caretaker (living and wandering through all seven ages, weaving the pattern, and ensuring the DO cannot attain ultimate victory).

I recall RJ said Saidar being tainted wouldn't fit the wheel (as the Dragon, supposedly, is always male too, and all).

Plus, it makes the wheel feel unbalanced. One Age of strife (well, and the end of the AoL) and risk to the world, and after that 6 ages of happy la-la land?

IF she is the Champion or caretaker or such, I'd think it much more likely she's from the 6th/7th Age or so. A time when the Wheel is saved by a woman, possibly, or simply a time when she had to step up to bring peace. Rand now gets to be caretaker for 2-4 Ages, and then she (or a third) takes the reins again in a new incarnation.

So I was rereading tEotW for a bit, and noted Elayne saying 'by law and custom guests of the royal family can weart arms, even in the presence of the Queen' Ch40 (retranslated), but in ToM the Cairhienin lose their weapons before meeting her ToM ch 50 on Betrome 'he wore a lrge knife - swords had been fprbidden in the Queens presence'.

Rules change, of course, but are the Cairhienin not guests, did the rules change without a mention, or did I just find a very obscure inconsistency?

Air can obviously control the wind, so making an Asha'man-glider driven by a nice airflow with wings made of Air attached to said AM's arms would look like a decent possibility. Or maybe make an Air-propellor attached to each 'wing'.

Next up, Asha'man Stukas.

For sheer brilliance in conveying meaning with what is, on the face of it, a useless/duh argument:

Dyelin and Elayne in ToM:

D: "The Ciarhienin are a proud people. To think of themselves living conquered beneath Andor's Crown...."

E: "They lived beneath Rand's power."

D: "With all due respect, Elayne,"Dyelin said. "He is the Dragon Reborn. You are not."

Indeed, the most significant description of the decline, to me, seems to be during TGH: the area between Shienar and Cairhien held a nation after the hundred years' war. This nation collapsed and was usurped by Shienar and Cairhien. So far so good. However, subsequently not only their control was reduced, but the population itself went down ever further leaving only a few scattered villages when the Hunt passes there.

Now, this is a single example which could be explained by a shifting climate, but still. Mesoamerica had a population collapse at some point, however, before the Europeans arrived (IIRC the essential end of Maya civilization) so maybe that's what RJ based his ideas on. Not sure why that collapse was again, though.

Here I will prove that because of the non-existance of a UK equivilant in Randland, it would never have developed like Europe did.

 

I argue that the European case is not comparable to Randland, because Europe's arable land is significantly limited compared Randland's. Also Randland doesn't have any close island neighbors like Europe does with the UK. The existance and success of the UK I would argue is the reason Europe as a whole prospered where Asia and Africa and the America's stagnated.

 

What makes the UK special is that it has serverely limited arable land compared to Europe, and a tiny fraction compared to Randland. This has drastic consequences for Briton in the Middle ages when it comes to the question of taxable farm land for the crown. In the European feudal system, the crown taxed his lords for income (as well as started wars for income) and when you wanted more sustainable income, you went out and expanded into your neighbor's land, or converted forests to farms. In places like Germany/France/Austria/Russia, this system of expansion could work for an extremely long time due to large swathes of land. In England, they used up their forests, and had every inch of the island that could be used for farming as a farm very quickly. However, the crown still wanted more income to compete with the Continental kings. England's need to be competative or be destroyed by France/other invaders will be a key feature to its success. One could even argue that the constant war with its neighbors only made it more competative.

 

Another feature of the feudal system were lords cheating on their taxes, in some cases paying tiny fractions of what they owed to the crown. In England, the kings (and the lords in turn) found that instead of having the surfs farm the land as perpetual slaves (extremely in-efficiently I might add), it was more economical to lease the land directly to the surfs, and have the surfs work the land themselves as part owners. This leads to collecting taxes directly from the surfs, skipping the cheating lords altogether, and increasing wealth for the crown without expansion. It also leads to the surfs motivation to work the land more efficiently in order to increase his own wealth (because he partly owns the land). This in turn increases output for the nation as a whole, as well as taxes for the crown even more.

 

The surfs, their own wealth and livelihood in hand, started demanding fair representation in the judicial system and at court. To better achieve this, reading and writing became a necessity for the common people. As the common people became more educated, they demanded even more rights, taking more and more power away from the crown. Combined with the invention of the printing press, the surf's need to be educated was easier and easier to achieve. This all happened while in France/Germany/Spain, the surfs were still completely dependant to the crown for everything. There was no need to give the surfs some land directly to increase wealth as long as your nieghbor always had land to invade. This sort of social reform in England happened in smaller places like the Netherlands, but only in England did such wide-spread economic and social change take place. Thus England was at the forefront of representation by the people as early as 1215, (with the Magna Carta and the establishment of parliement), education (at Oxford), and invention (Industrial revolution)... all due to limited land and the need to generate wealth through limited means. ie innovation.

 

Seeing and hearing of what was happening in England only galvanized the rest of Europe to catch up socially, and eventually economically. (The Catholic church initially condemning the social reforms that took place in England in the 13, 14, and 1500s.) You can even see, in the European example, the more land a particular nation had (like Russia) the more socially and scientifically behind that nation was.

 

In Randland, there is no England counter part. The expansion-to-increase-wealth feudal system in place could go on for another 1000 years. Thus kings don't need to rely on surfs to increase their wealth, but just goto war with your neighbor... If any social reform happened in Randland, it was short lived. Invention is by accident, instead of due to economic need. War is the food of the day to increase wealth. The Aes Sedai (being the equivilant of the Catholic Church) could at best keep the old traditions in place, ie reading/math, and at worse be the cause of wars and mismanagement of nations.

Your analysis of England's position seems a bit odd.

The Venetian republic, arguably the epitome of succesful medieval 'democracy', was effectively isolated from England save for some very rare cases. The Magna Carta was essentially the victory of the lords you claim do not stand between the serfs and king in England; while eventually its protections came to cover the farmers and labourers, the Carta was only for the Barons.

And the Netherlands were so small that most European trade was monopolized by the Republic for a few decades, and its population density was vastly higher than the English leading to such innovations as draining swamps and lakes to create extra farmland. This is not to say England wasn't important in the push into the industrial revolution, but at that point the specifics of serf-lord-king interactions were already spread all over the place between the old city states of Italy, the Dutch republic, absolutist France, and Tsarist Russia.

More interestingly, Randland has no major mercantile powers save the Seafolk, who have no military power at all. Where the Venetians/Genoese/Pisans, then Portuguese-Spanish, then Dutch-English-French took over large parts of European and worldwide trade and gladly intervened to ensure the flow of trade in their favour, no such power exists in Randland. The riches from such trade propelled advances much further, with the Italians establishing the first modernistic finances, the Portuguese especially getting great advances in shipbuilding, and then the more northern Europeans getting all the precision engineering and metallurgy in place (for armaments, windmills, sawmills) that the industrial revolution could take off.

The Seanchan seem much more the essence of the European powers that took over the world to create the demographic explosion Randland would want: an efficient administration outside the classic nobility, naval capabilities to rapidly transport goods, and the will to use power to ensure its dominance. Aviendha's vision almost seems to confirm this, so the only real oddity is that noone in Randland has done this, but perhaps the Forsaken did indeed do it (even then, 1000 years since the war of the hundred years seems plenty to recover and gain expansionist tendencies again).

Yes, and if the Shadow hadn't come along and mucked things up, the Aes Sedai would likely have pulled themselves out of their public relations hole, and I agree that they nearly did so twice, first in the Compact, and second through cooperation with Hawkwing's early empire. My point is that they have a public relations hole to climb out of in the first place. I'm not some Tower hater who thinks the Aes Sedai suck in general. I'm actually rather impressed with the progress they have been able to achieve, limited as they are. Don't underestimate the power of the Breaking in making a general distrust of channelers very deeply ingrained. It lasted for 300 years, and reduced the population from what would have been at least 5 billion people at the end of the War of Power to no more than a billion, even after the whole 3000 years of relative peace of the 3rd Age. No war or plague before or since has ever been so fatal for humanity. Channelers rearranged continents, for crying out loud. I'd be surprised if more than about 500 million people overall survived the Breaking.

What evidence do we have for a 'public relations hole' before the trolloc wars? Aes Sedai ruled, Aes Sedai approved monarchs, Aes Sedai organised the Compact... And, from what we know, Manetheren's people gladly fought for their Aes Sedai queen.

As far as I can tell, the Compact pre-Trolloc Wars was a lot wealthier and more developed than the current era. Hawkwing's empire controlled close to all the land between the spine of the world, the blight and the ocean.

From those, I conclude that the wars were REALLY devastating (real world thirty years war level, but then for all the area, not just a part). The decline of the westlands seems in a way similar to the decline of Rome in our world, outside those two cataclysms: there are still riches, there are resurgences under good leaders, but too much conflict slowly but surely eats away at nations. I suspect the darkfriends must be involved somehow, or countries like Andor/Cairhien/Tear would be growing... But, perhaps they were before the Aiel wrecked Cairhien.

So, I think we are 1) looking at a bad time (just after the most progressive/rich area from trade, Cairhien, was destroyed) and 2) someone's actively trying to undermine countries. Had Cairhien enjoyed its riches for a while longer, probably its population would have grown enough to expand into the empty space around it (while obviously wasting plenty more on useless fights with Andor) and from there help other nations also grow again, slowly bringing back similar riches and sophistication as the pre-Hawkwing world enjoyed.

I think its too early to know whether or not halima put compulsion on egwene, it could be something more against rand than anything an with the very limited interaction between the two of them it could be possible yet

Exactly, she knew one of the only ways to save rand was not to swear on the oath rod, but she did it anyways. She went from supporting Rand to writing letters to turn all his holdings and followers against him drawing them to the FOM. There's more there, the "headaches" were a means of being able to speak with Eggy while her fingers undid the headaches. Any Forsaken that would NOT use compulsion on an A.S. in her/his control should have their henchman card torn up. We just have to RAFO.

In some ways, it would make perfect sense.

Consider: in ToM, Egwene acted like a bit of a doofus. Apparently didn't act against the shadow invasion, was all up in arms about the oaths and anti-Rand... exactly what Halima would want. Now consider TGS. Egwene is in a completely unpredicted situation, and shines.

Perhaps, then, Halima was compelling Egwene about things she predicted would be important. She just got caught off-balance by Egwene being in a completely different situation, Egwene showed what great leader she could be, but then ended up in a situation where all the compulsion was useful.

I'll just look as Rand as a super-powered sparker:

He called down lightning, healed a horse, and moved a boom. Not very impressive, maybe, but those were just his first three instances, and he already got a kill.

Now, consider how far he got with NO teaching: Ishamael dead, a forsaken trying to snatch the most powerful Sa'Angreal beaten, and used Callandor to kill shadowspawn. Along the way he manhandled two quite powerful Aes Sedai apprentices.

Does this mean many men can do this? Nope. But, considering Logain and Taim both were very close to Rand's power, we can imagine that the false dragons are the type who do call down lightning for kills, and who can handle one (or sometimes two) Aes Sedai alone. Add some skill and luck, and they might cause 3-6 deaths.