Wait, so if you had a circle of 72... when a single man can have weaves spanning countries.

... how on earth can team shadow combat that?

so to create a circle of 13 woman and 1 man. You'd need to have

12 women. Then add a man. then add a woman.

If I'm reading you right about men not being able to come last

Can the effects of Sa'angreal and linking stack?

 

Like can Rand be linked with a hundred men and women and then use Callandor? or the Choedan Kal?

 

Yes. Though, I think the limit of a circle is 72.

 

Correct, it starts with 2 full circles of 13 women linked with 1 man but you can only increase the circle by 8 women per man after this to a max of 72

It goes

13 women linked

+ 1 man

13 more women

+1 man

8 more women

+1 man

8 more women

+1 man

8 more women

+1 man

8 more women

+1 man

8 more women

MAX 66 women, 6 men or I assume any combo of men and women equaling 72 as long as there are not more men than women.

So only 6 men can take part in a linking? Can these 6 come at any point? Like can you have a linking of 1 woman and 6 men?

What about the Male A'dam?

Can men be the Sul'dom using ANY type of A'dam?

Wait, when a female uses an A'dam on another woman, they can use that other woman's Power against their will, right? Could the same thing happen with the Male A'dam. Could a woman use it to wield Callandor?

Can the effects of Sa'angreal and linking stack?

Like can Rand be linked with a hundred men and women and then use Callandor? or the Choedan Kal?

D'awwwwwwwwww

I'm not a fan of puppeteers but I've a nagging fear

someone else is pulling at the strings

Something terrible is going down through the entire town

wreaking anarchy and all it brings

I can't sit idly, no, I can't move at all

I curse the name, the one behind it all...

Shai'tan, I'm howlin' at the moon

And sleepin' in the middle of a summer afternoon

Shai'tan, whatever did we do

To make you take our world away?

Shai'tan, we won't take it anymore

So take your tyranny away!

I'm fine with changing status quo, but not in letting go

Now the world is being torn apart

A terrible catastrophe played by your symphony,

what a terrifying work of art!

what side effect is that, just wondering?

It might've just been early installment weirdness, but what was with Rand acting weird as hell in book 1? I'm thinking of scenes like in the town of Baerlon and on the ship after Shadar Logoth. He seems to inexplicably become possessed or euphoric, and started acting like a spaz. Even he was scared by it when he noticed. Initially I thought it was taint madness but given how it ACTUALLY ended up affecting him, and given that he hadn't even started properly channeling more than trickles unconsciously by that point, it doesn't really make sense.

He isn't bound in Shayol Ghoul. Shayol Ghoul contains the bore that he originally tried to get through. It's pretty much a hole in a wall that's been plastered up. I'd assume it's the closest he can come to Randland without stepping through.

The bound by time thing I always assumed meant that he wwas bound by the way time applied to his minions

But wasn't one of his prophecies that he would die and come back? so that death was forseen by the pattern

Don't get me started on Couladin... (grumbles) best Aiel in the whole story and he gets killed off off-screen. What tripe

"Let the lord of Chaos reign"?

And that's why I think a Ta'veren character dying would help in this case. to establish that Ta'veren can be killed permanently, and enforce some rules. Right now, all of the life or death situations I see are kinda tensionless cuz I'm thinking, "How will REALITY bend to save him this time?" not "how will HE save himself this time?"

Look at FOH as an example. Rand didn't accomplish anything in that himself. Rahvin would've won if Nynaeve hadn't COINCIDENTALLY been there. It's not an accomplishment of the character, and it felt like Rahvin was screwed over. He didn't lose because he was bested. He lost because reality contrived to kill him.

No! Usually the story doesn't outright tell me that reality is bending to help the heroes. If you're going to introduce this element then you need to establish the rules

Does it matter? You know that Frodo is not going to die, because LotR is just not the same without him, isn't it?

 

Okay, let me put it this way. Ta'veren are very lucky. If an assassin is trying to kill Rand with bow and arrow, a lot can go wrong. Something may distract the assassin, he can miss, Rand can move at the right time etc. But if Ishamael corners and overpowers Rand, or Slayer just appears at his back and plants a knife through his heart, he is dead. He is not immortal but he is luckier than most men so harder to kill.

It is different, actually. When I'm reading a story, I can lose myself in the world. I can ignore the narrative devices being employed in the story's structure because no one brings attention to them.

In WOT, even if I do lose myself in the story, those narrative devices are IN THE ACTUAL DIAGETIC WORLD. I can't ignore the fact that coincidences always seem to happen around the main characters because the story keeps pointing it out.

Okay, I can buy that, then if you were a Chosen, how do you go about fighting someone who could fire an arrow randomly and just so happen to hit something important? Or could suddenly make you lose the grip on your sword as you're fighting him. Or who could lead to someone coincidentally stumbling across you and helping him.

No! Usually the story doesn't outright tell me that reality is bending to help the heroes. If you're going to introduce this element then you need to establish the rules

but Mat also came back.

None of the Ta'veren die permanently, so I don't know what their limits are. HOW DO YOU FIGHT THEM?!

Yeah, I know all that. You just highlighted the problem!

How can I feel like the characters are in danger when reality is shifting IN-UNIVERSE to protect them? How can the villains fight that? Why don't they quit? If reality will contrive a person to sneak up on them just as they're about to make the final blow then why do they bother?

and more importantly, why should I care?

It really feels like Ta'veren are invincibe. I know I keep being told that they aren't. but I see know reason to believe those people.

Okay, what does being Ta'veren entail exactly? As in what's the point of them? If the pattern controls people's lives, and Ta'veren follow the pattern's will... then why bother having them at all?

great for the villains or great for Rand? Because the former I'll find awesome and the latter I'll probably want to kill someone over

Oh, you mean the "He wants to destroy the pattern too because he's tired of the repetitive nature of the WOT" thing? Cuz I know that

hmmmm... Is Demandred smarter than Lews. Or was Lews perfect at everything? -____-