I remember someone yelling about a full circle of 72, but I think they were confused by Demandred's sa'angreal

 I suspect it was both and it was Demandred opening the worlds biggest waygate, which is the kinda superfocused thing you want to do with a huge circle.

Gateway.

Not a Waygate.

Waygates are the doors to The Ways.

Odd thought about all the battles...

Is the ebb and flow of the four (five, including Merrilor) battles a reflection of Rand's progress in the Pit of Doom, like the battle of Falme reflected in the progress of the first fight between Rand and Ishy in "The Great Hunt"?

Same deal writ big, and more subtle?

I'm also extremely pleased that Siuan had NO IDEA her Warder was being Compelled by the Shadow.

It was the moment that I realized that exact point when I found myself finally unable to excuse Sanderson's horrible writing in this book.

After that, finishing it was just a grudgefrack.

Death by a thousand papercuts... last straw.

 

 

 

 

They split up into 4 because they thought Caemelyn could be won quickly and they could hold back the other two armies until then, thus limiting the damage.

 

Yes. And then they hatched a strategy that would ensure Caemlyn could not be won quickly. That made no sense to me, even if Bashere was already compromised. Nobody raised the point that waiting a week for the trollocs to chase Perrin back to the Woods would allow several hundred thousand additional trollocs to come through the way gate? And that in the meantime the bulk of the light forces would be standing idle?

Pretty sure they were under the impression the trollocs would be hungry and itching for a fight. If the trollocs charge out immediately then it's a decent enough plan. Levelling the city would have been the ideal choice but levelling Caemelyn is easier said than done, even with dragons and channeller it's still a massive job. I would have started to destroy the city if I could get the dragons close enough without the trollocs being able to catch them as a way of drawing them out but drawing them out and destroying them was the best way. 

Several hundred thousand humans had been killed in Caemlyn. The trollocs there were probably the least hungry in the world. Not to mention the people still trapped inside...

 

They could have warded the city like Rand did the waygates, invert weaves on all the exits and the trollocs would die shortly after leaving. it would have hurt them more than just sitting and waiting for them to come after them. Hell use a full circle and ward the entire city so that all shadowspawn inside die and the job is done. But that would mean that trollocs/fades arent as strong as they have been since erm book 1 when they were actually dangerous...

Trollocs are always hungry and looking for a fight! It's in their nature. 

 

The second bit is easier said than done and I can guarantee if Rand had done that people would have gone MENTAL on here. I'm guessing you can't just ward every entrance to a city like Caemelyn.  

Caemlyn only had five gates. 

1. Sunrise Gate
2. Far Madding Gate
3. Mondel Gate
4. Whitebridge Gate
5. Tar Valon Gate

They oiled much of the city (using Gateways to Mayene for the oil, and then all over Caemlyn to oil-up basements), and set it ablaze to drive the Trollocs out. Would have made much more sense to ward the gates, or just open Gateways (Deathgates) across the entrances when the Shadowspawn fled in panic. 

For as much as their plan failed in the long run, the POINT of the whole thing was to destroy the Waygate, which was never done.

Total waste of, well, everything on their part, I'd say.

And speaking of the Waygate, and The Ways... Did Machin Shin decide to take the month off to go lighten-up in Disneyland? How did all those dambed Shadowspawn get through in the FIRST place???

There were 1783 kinswomen on the rolls, total. They weren't all with Elayne. They weren't all in Ebou Dar. They weren't all gathered. Many of them probably weren't much stronger than Morgase. It is likely that most of the non AS/WO/WF damane the Seanchan took on the continent were Kin. Many of them were killed before the LB. Yes, they used gateways to gather more kin, but there was never a mention of large numbers gathered in Camelyn or anywhere else.

 

I can't find confirmation, but I'm pretty sure the Shaido was the largest clan, with more chanelling  WO than most.

As I wrote... There were over 1700 Kinswomen, A scant few were afield and not gatherable, but Elayne had them all. Elayne SHOULD have had HUNDREDS of Battle-Ready Kinswomen, or the circled equivalent of at least 200 Full-bore, heavy-duty Aes Sedai.

The book tells us she had a few dozen on the field at any given time-- not linked in strength. Even at the moment when all was lost, before Logaine appeared, the count was only a few dozen, She had all that could be gathered. Damned near 1700 strong. The numbers that Sanderson puts up simply do not add up to the Reality of what Jordan told us were available.

As per the Aiel Wise Ones-- you are trying to pick over a few nits, 200 is a pretty decent average number. The Shaido were not special in relation to the 12 Clans. They were just another Clan. There are not 2200 Aiel Channellers under Iteralde-- Sanderson gives us less than 200, and they are constantly too exhausted to fight from picking brambles and gathering logs.

Sanderson decided to just cut their numbers and Channeling strength by a full Factor in most cases just BECAUSE-- Drama!

And failed.

And the readers who know better are kinda pissed that Sanderson is innumerate, and took us for granted.

The Channelers of the Light Count Deficiency Issue...

Channelers Available before Seanchan and Ashaman joined the battlefield fight:

White Tower post-reunification and Post Black Ajah purge= ~850 by Egwene's own reckoning-- Battlefield Ready ~650 (I am figuring about 150 Full Yellows sent to Mayene's Hospital, and 100 Greys for Logistics, as per AMoL asides)

11 Aiel Holds of Wise Ones (based on Shaido Hold having ~200) = ~2200

Wavefinders of Tramalking= ~350

Kinwomen (based on 1700 total, as per the book, assuming those that didn't pass the final AS Test, but powerful enough for battle) 750

3950 Battle-ready female Channelers... Low-balled.

Divide by 4 battle fields-- 987

Divide by 6 four-hour shifts, as laid out in Lan's POVs-- 164 on the Battlefield, channeling at any given time.

At any given time, before the Ashaman, and Seanchan joined the fight, there should have been no less than 164 Channelers on the battlefields at any given time, with three shifts resting 12-hours at a time. Against mindless Trollocks and a Myrhdraal per 50-1000 fist. In EothW Lan says a Fist is 1000 Trollocs, but the BWB says it varies... so what? Take out the whippers and the Linkers and Trollocs either fall apart and start running away or killing each other, or die on the spot if linked.

And yet:

-- Lan only had a couple dozen and 2-1/2 Ashaman. Tops. They don't target Myrhdraal in the text.

-- Elayne had a few-four dozen effective channelers at any time, and they were always exhausted with nothing to show for it. Her Channelling forces, by inventory, included the dozen or so Wise Ones following Perrin and all of the Kinswomen. She SHOULD have had HUNDREDS of Battle-Ready Kinswomen, or the circled equivalent of at least 200. But, against the numbers, Chapter 30 tells us "Elayne had all the Kinswomen with her who could hold on to Saidar-- no matter how weak or tired-- and formed two circles with them. She had twelve with her in her own circle, but their collective strength was barely more than a single Aes Sedai." So, another circle is another dozen or so. All of the other 1675 were all pooped out? The previous books tell us that many of the Kinswomen grew stronger with their incredible longevity. Not a Wise One to be seen. They seemed to all avoid Myrhdraal. 

-- Sanderson tells us in Chapter 13, Egwene had about 175 on the field with the rest (2nd shift of 2) resting. "She led over a hundred Aes Sedai, many from the Green Ajah... Two other smaller forces made way to the flanks..." So her numbers are magically diminished by ~1/3, alone.Targeting Myrhdraal is an afterthought to the lot of them.

-- Iturald had ALL of the Windfinders and ALL of the Aiel Wise Ones save for the few with Elayne and Avienda-- all fresh and fat from eating bonbons for the week while the others fought and died on the other fronts. They were never, ever asked to fill in gaps or shifts. A fit and fresh force close to 2500. In battle, it was always a few dozen, and they were always-- ALWAYS-- at their very end at any given time. Plenty of energy to gather brambles and logs, and oil from the four corners of the world, but never enough energy to make a gateway to drop a cliff wall on Myrhdraal Battalions and Trolloc fists. Ignored Myrhdraal.

BlahBlahBlah-- "Graendal's Compusion nonsense..." is nonsense. Sanderson looked at the numbers available, realized that Lights numbers could easily wipe out 200,000 Trollocs and Myrhdraal per battlefront in short order given the terrain, and Gateways, ( the Blight and the Dark One Couldn't put out Gazillioninfinty amounts of Trollocs in time... Just when DID that start happening?) and so decided to slash the number of Channelers by 2/3s across the board, and have them all forget that they know how to use Gateways--  for DRAMA!!! Ta Da!!!! Oooohhhhhh.... the Dramahhhhh!

And then a tiny few Black Tower Ashaman or Sharan Channelers show up, and it spells DOOOOOM on them all, taking out 1/4 of the fighting force, and a devastating chunk of the Channelers in scant minutes on every battlefield?

Bollocks.

We add these basic low-balled numbers to the equation, and the battles barely equalize:

Seachan Damane-- ~1000

Logaine's Ashaman-- ~500

The numbers barely nudged when at least 1000 Seanchan Damane, and another (at least) 500 Ashaman took to the field for the forces of Light. It seems the Shadow's forces gained might overnight. Dramahhh!!!

Sanderson seemingly killed off dozens in the three retreat movements just keep his lousy numbers fix in place, allowing only Androl, his Mary Sue, (and his own Hinterstop deus ex machina) to win the Battle for the Channeling Forces... Oh-- and Han Cauthon/Matrim Solo-- the Doppleganger he replaced Matrim Cauthin with. Magic! 

Ridiculous, and utter BOLLOCKS.

And just HOW does a few days of practice and a barely-won battle make Perrin the complete and TOTAL master of TAR, after 12-3/34 books of Perrin whining his ass off that, "WAAAAAAAAAH-- I don't WANT to be da Wolf Thiiiing!!!!" All of a sudden he's there in the flesh, and the TOTAL master of all he surveys! By gum-- it MUST be the last book in the series that Sanderson will write, so let's kill everyone that Rand didn't have the chance to kill, or killed a time or two but the series was becoming too lucrative, that  Master TOR hisself resurrected some of the Forsaken a few times for DRAMAHHHH!

I would really like to have the actual Jordan-written portions of the Last Book released at this point.

Either we've lionized Robert Jordan inappropriately, or Sanderson wrecked an extraordinarily excellent 20-year long series for no logical reason.

Yes. I am disappointed, and feel cheated after 20-years of reading this series.

The Channelers rarely targeted Myhrdraal-- regardless of linking possibilities, it is widely known that the Myrhdraal whip the Trollocs to simply obey, without the whippers, the Trollocs flee, or just go crazy and try and eat each other opening tactical opportunities for the Forces of Light. They never used Gateways to anything close to full extent until Mary Sue Androl showed up.

That is bad writing. 

Heck... I'll just let others take up from here. This book is just wretchedly bad beyond repair and beyond defense.

I am just totally sad at what it ended up to be. Just a quagmire of the worst of the worst of the worst possible crap writing I always imagined avoiding reading. 

Yay... the Light wins in a really odd way. 

I honestly wish Sanderson let us share that victory honestly Under the Light.

1. I agree the earlier posts, it was annoying that the numbers of the armies and channellers were about the half (or third) than it should have been. In contrast, I could accept that the channellers were not as effective as earlier (they were a little bit overpowered).

 

2. I love the military history so it was an important point for me.

I would say that the original battle plan (4 fronts) wasn't the one I would have chosen, but it was an acceptable strategy. The main problem is that the distribution of the the force and channellers was faulty. As others mentioned they would have dealt with Caemlyn first. Furthermore the light side should have reserve containing channellers which could have helped out in dire situations qickly in any fronts.

 

3. "All that time using Gateways, and they never learned how to use Gateways. All of the first three major battles could have been dealt with using a token force of Military, and a couple dozen channelers sitting in Merrilor."

It is too strong but overall I agree.

 

Finally, and the most important thing that I did not ever read in the first three battles-- They never, ever targeted the Myrdraal. After all the battles in the other books, where it was spelled out as common wisdom that all the Trollocs linked to Myrdraal die as soon as their Myrdraal is killed. Nobody targeted them... ever. They ALWAYS went after the Trollocs first. Killing a Myrdraal was always an afterthought. 100,000 Trollocs is 100 Fists. One Myrdraal per fist.. Sometimes a few extra to push the pushers. Seems to me they could have ended the battles pretty quickly had they fought smarter. The Channelers took the hills, so they had the advantage of height.

Still-- the better advantage of height would have been to conduct the channeling part of the battles via Gateways in the sky.

All that time using Gateways, and they never learned how to use Gateways. All of the first three major battles could have been dealt with using a token force of Military, and a couple dozen channelers sitting in Merrilor.

Gateways are the most powerful weapon available to a Channeler this side of Balefire. Tarwin's Gap could have been a victory in a matter of days, instead of a route, and the loss of Fal Moran and Fal Dara would not have been necessary. 

The Battle of Caemlyn/Braem Wood could have been finished in a matter of hours, as the city was lost, anyway. The Channelers could have then moved to Kandor...

Kandor could have been dealt with in less than a day or two. On to Tarwin's Gap with all of them.

Shayol Ghul would have been the only real full-on, heavy-duty battle but everyone would have been at full strength, fresh and ready.

The book was 400 pages of frustratingly needless battles and deaths too long. 

1. One, or a few, channeler(s) opens a Gateway (or Gateways) horizontally over the field of battle. Bird's eye view.
2. Several others looking in, open Gateways under Myrdraal, or under whole parts of Caemlyn, sinking them hundreds of feet below ground. 
3. As Trollocs try to flee, others open Gateways in front of them, and the Trollocs die passing through, or lay the Gateway horizontal and cut them in half en masse. Token army for mop-up.
4. At Tarwin's Gap, use Gateways to slice off bits of the mountains to send tumbling into the Gap, sealing it, or lay down Gateways under Myrdraal and Trollocs. Open Gateways in mountains elsewhere that would dump Earth on top of darkspawn, further sealing the Gap, and killing the darkspawn.
5. Use Androl's ploy to kill Dreadlords. He certainly should not have been the first to cypher that one out. 

The total lack of sharing information between Channelers, Rand and Generals/Elayne cost thousands of needless deaths, and lots of wasted effort and energy.