Hmmmm, guess you guys are right.  The timing would be wrong for the attackers to be part of Sam's random dispersal of Shaido.

So, who else do we find in the picture at about the right time?

How about Halima? 

Why Fain?  Because the attackers are pretty obviously his corrupted Whitecloaks.

The Aiel that Mat encounters are simply part of the random Shaido distribution that Sammael conducted.  Entirely accidental.

That's been my reaction, too.

The whole Perrin/Faile relationship is unhealthy in the extreme.  Grotesque isn't nearly strong enough to describe it.

A relationship like that doesn't need to be in this story.  Having to read about it in order to keep track of the overall plot just leaves me with the feeling that I need to bathe afterwards.

Perrin was my favorite character when the series started.  Now he just fills me with disgust.  It's punishing to read his parts of the story.

And, Min being there may have been the worst thing that could have happened.

At some point, Rand is going to have to quit allowing other people to define him and decide for himself who and what he is.  Having to face something like Semi's accusations alone and with nothing but his own resources and judgement to support him might be the thing that finally forces him to do that.

Past time for him to let go of Mommy's apron strings and go toddling off on his own.

Interpretations of whether chivalry is really a form of disrespect aside, Min was the one who insisted on coming.  Would it have been more respectful for him to insist on her staying behind? 

Exactly how is her lover supposed to behave in such a situation?  Where is the Warder supposed to place himself with respect to his Bond-holder? 

Rand reacted instinctively.  So did LTT.  So did Min.

Instinct was a poor guide for all of them.

I don't blame Min for Rand's hand, that was definitely more LTT's fault.  But I do not think she should have gone along, she should have known Rand would protect her over himself.  But then, there was speculation over a possible viewing she had in LoC when Rand said he would cut off his own hand before he hurt her, and she got this sad expression on her face and said she knew.  So if at that point she had a viewing about Rand losing his hand, she knew it was going to happen anyway and would rather be there than not.  So I don't think I can blame her for that. 

Possible viewing or not, LTT or not, had she not been there Rand could/would have simply ducked or dodged.  Problem solved.  Hand still attached.  Vision still clear.

Well, first they gotta learn to knock or ring the bell, but then...

Oh, yeah.  Where both Mat and Perrin are concerned. 

Got angry at not knowing, too.

Why it doesn't occur to any of them to use that Technicolor Ta'veren Telepathy for something useful is the question.

Mat certainly knows TG is coming.  He also knows that his head contains more military knowledge than anyone else's.

What's he done with that knowledge, so far?  Not much.  He helped with some of the initial planning for the assault on Illian.

From what we see, he hasn't given a single thought for the wider war to come.  He hasn't thought in any detail about anything beyond getting through the Molvaine Gap.

In short, he's still playing it entirely by ear.  The only progress has been a grudging admittance that he will have to play some part.

Min's stubborn and egocentric like everybody else in the series.  Sometimes that's good ( insisting that Rand be taken back to the Palace in Cairhien after Fain wounded him ) and sometimes that's bad ( insisting on going to the meeting with "Tuon" ).

Mat's gotten better, but he's still doing everything on an ad hoc basis.  He doesn't plan long-term.  He's still depriving Rand of the full benefit of all those memories.

They've both got a long way to go yet, and no time to get there.

One of my biggest fears is that this is going to turn into just another series where the good guys win through luck rather than clear thinking.

It's likely to be a boxed two ( or more ) volume set.  Take a wheelbarrow to the store.

Pricey, too.

You need to loosen up, Dreadlord.  We're ( almost ) all friends here.  Take your shoes off.  Put your feet up.  Make yourself to home...

Now... tell us how you really feel about Faile.

Ooooooohhhhhhh... You've got way too nasty an imagination.

Sadly, I think you might be right.

Only in a series from what most around here would consider a hack author.

Jordan is supposed to be above such silly trickery.  He employs scientific principles.  There's rules about how things work in Randland - ones that have at least a passing acquaintance with reality.

Although it's confusing as ****, saidin and saidar have to both be thought of as equal monopoles, bearing the same polarity.  Two North Poles, if you will, which is why they repel each other rather than attract.

Now, when the conduit of saidar attempts to push the nearby saidin away, the saidar on the opposite side of the tube has to push it back.  The stress from all sides, as the saidar attempts to collapse into a single stream is what forces the saidin to thin and elongate.  The saidin itself only has to expend enough energy to remain coherent, since it is supported on all sides by the pressure from the surrounding saidar.  But the saidar, having no surrounding support against the repelling pressure from saidin, has to work extremely hard in order to remain integrated.  The saidin merely needs to "be".  The saidar has to do all of the work of holding the combined working together.

So, the female key and the female CK itself get vastly overworked and fail.

Drawing on saidin, fighting it, mastering it in the deadly dance he knew so well, he forced it into the flowery weave of saidar. And it flowed through. Saidin and saidar, like and unlike, could not mix. The flow of saidin squeezed in on itself, away from the surrounding saidar, and the saidar pushed it from all sides, compressing it further, making it flow faster. Pure saidin, pure except for the taint, touched Shadar Logoth.

It flowed only so far as to touch Shadar Logoth; to make the connection.  It didn't flow into Shadar Logoth.  Only the taint did that.  Saidin was the wire, the taint was the free electrons flowing along the surface of the wire; one evil attracted by the opposite polarity of the evil within Shadar Logoth.

Presumably, the effort of maintaining the conduit of saidar, and the work it did in compressing the wire of saidin was what did in the female CK and its access key.

Let's attempt to straighten something out.

There was no flow of saidin.

Just like electricity, saidar was the conduit and saidin was the wire.  Shadar Logoth was the load to which the wire was connected.  The taint flowed along the 'surface' of saidin into Shadar Logoth, but no saidin flowed into Shadar Logoth.

Now, as to why functioning as a conduit was more stressful than functioning as the wire???

Depending on what the Legal Code of Cairhien is, Moiraine could legally be Rand's aunt without being his aunt by blood.

The reason Rand's wounds haven't healed or canceled each other is that since they can't be healed, the healers have walled them off. Both from Rand and from each other.

Given what happenened to Shadar Logath, that's probably a good move. Letting them come in contact would probably leave Rand, if he survived, with a nasty, gaping wound in his side.

To return to the topic of inconsistencies...

What about Padan Fain?

Jordan has said that the evils of the DO and Mordeth are polar opposites. That they attract each other.

Rand used that fact to cleanse saidin, funneling all of the taint on saidin into Shadar Logoth where the two polar opposites canceled each other, removing the city from existence in the process.

Yet, we have Fain. A person repeatedly modified by the DO, incorporating aspects of the DO, who also incorporates the soul and most essential essence of Mordeth.

How is it the he hasn't canceled himself? Imploded? Exploded? Winked into nothingness?

There's the cord and there are also the tendrils.

The cord seems to be that through which the Forsaken males draw filtered saidin.

I've seen no explanation for what the tendrils do or why they are there.

In Asmo's case, Rand severed them all, and in the process disconnected Asmo from all that had been sustaining his immortality. What else that may have accomplished ????

They were endlessly "thinking it through". The technical term for that is dithering. It's what those who are incapable of appeciating the tactical and strategic realities call "analysis."

There was no further time for such analysis. It was ACT NOW or be utterly defeated.

The women dithered and the men acted. If the result was less than unqualified success, the women have noone to blame for that but themselves.

Of course, since there were men handy to scapegoat, it somehow became "all their fault."

But, in the last analysis, did they "screw it up" at all?

If their "failure" wasn't part of the overall Age Lace, then the Wheel would have woven a different ending to that endeavor. Since it didn't, that so-called failure was actually part of the Creator's overall design for mankind.

Thus, the men accomplished exactly what the Creator meant for them to accomplish.

That's the problem with "Divine Design", "Age Lace", "the Wheel", and a preordained universe. Ultimately there are no mistakes.

The most glaring inconsistencies for me all have to do with logistics.

I've already gone into the problems I have with how the hordes of Trollocs are sustained within the Blight, so I won't belabor that.

Normal folks have many of the same problems. There are cities great and small. Towns, villages hamlets. But, they're scattered all over the place, and other than a smattering of farms in the vicinity of each, everything else is wilderness.

So, where's all the food coming from? How is that population being sustained from a pre-industrial food growing standpoint? And, if Rand can field over 2 million soldiers for the upcoming battle, the overall population has to be in excess of 100 million people, but according to the books very few of them live and work on farms.