She is RJ's last inclusion of a minor, tertiary character. Personally, while I think her background involves time travelling or stasis, it doesn't really make a difference, either way. 

I think she is an Aiel Aes Sedai from the Age of Legends with either the Foretelling Talent or who saw the future through the ter'angreal that put herself into a time stasis with a ward that would release her when one of her people did what Aviendha did. Perhaps she wanted to witness this moment for herself or something to make sure someone else would gain knowledge of the future.

Honestly I liked the channeling system, and I think it would be ruined if any of the above changes were made, which I think goes to show that its an uphill battle for an author to find a system that suits everyone!

Yeah, I think that's impossible lol. As I said, I tend to like magic users and sorcery, so for me, most of my favorite characters were random Aes Sedai, Forsaken and Ashaman. I agree that B. Sanderson didn't have the same conceptual understanding or creativity for this system that R. Jordan did, and interestingly enough, his depiction of channeling seemed like a throwback to "The Eye of the World" to me where things were left vague and before those mounting differences, minute perceptual elements and etc. were not described in-depth by Jordan (probably because none of the main characters could control their channeling, yet). And he clearly didn't care to describe what Circles with that much power could do (I'd like to think that he is capable of imagining what they could do, but maybe he felt pressured to finish this series), so it was left to our imaginations for the most part. I just couldn't get into Shielding because it seemed like an easy way out and it started to look like another way to nerf female channelers (i.e. being very strong as a female channeler, but Shielded by an above average male channeler and etc). Magic systems tend to find ways to put both sexes on an equal ground, and for this series especially, it didn't make sense that some of the concepts were essentially uneven.

Reading this thread all the way through has made me want to create another discussion.

 

Mods, if you would be so kind, I would like a thread on the ways we as fans would change channeling to make this story better. Maybe call it "fixing channeling" or something more creative if that isn't enough for you.

 

I know people won't like to hear it, but channeling and the one power, one of the most integral parts of the series, turns into IMO one of the biggest weaknesses of the series at the end. It is simply too strong, too much.

 

Channeling being weaker, having fewer channelers, or having major restrictions on what individual channelers could do would have majorly helped WOT.

I don't mind channeling, but I do tend to like magic systems. I really don't think there are that many issues with the One Power, but I would (T)roll out three suggestions:

1) No Shields, every channeler would have to overwhelm the opposition until they can be captured and contained. Since an exhausted channeler may take days or weeks to recover, this makes every channeler, no matter how weak, a threat.

2) If two powers used by the two sexes must be used, it would be nice to show the differences in how the weaves work than just tell us about them. For example Travelling using Egwene's method should look and feel different than opening a Gateway with saidin. 

3) Get rid of strength differences in the Powers. If you are very strong, then you are simply very strong. Having to elaborate on sliding scales and how a strong woman compares to a strong man just got annoying. 

*Honorable mention: Making the system more conceptual based for mastery instead of education based.

ETA: Edited to remove TL;DR type descriptions.

Can anyone tell my why the Aes Sedai would go to battle wearing skirts.There is even a line in the book that skirts are not meant for running..no shit then why wear them to go battle?Did they think they would stand and fight,drinking a cup of tea while at it?

 

MAssive Aes Sedai fail again.

LOL Yeah, I was thinking of the descriptions of all the corpses lying around on the field wearing colorful dresses. Maybe they should have at least worn divided skirts for riding.

 

I think that's my only problem with Rand's story arc. I felt that while

many things happened to him and he had the world on his shoulders for

quite some time, other characters ultimately paid a greater price then

he did. Perhaps it would have been a major sacrifice if none of his

wives survived unscathed or his friends all died or lost loved ones to

give him time during his various confrontations with The Dark One, but

as it is, he got off pretty well. He has an attractive new body to

galivant around the world in, his wives are alive and he can surely

visit them in secret if he wants to and he has the freedom to start over

again if he so chooses, to live a new life. He didn't want to be a king

or have temporal authority in the first place, so it's not as if giving

up riches and influence is a big deal for him. This may be where RJ

might have changed things after getting to the end after writing a few

drafts.

 

I get what you're saying, but I think Rand suffered mentally and emotionally more than most of the other characters.  Yes, perhaps he didn't have as many tangible losses as some of the others, but he spent pretty much the whole series pretty certain he was going to die.  He obviously also struggled massively with the enormous responsibility he felt, initially the women who died for him, evolving to pretty much the future of the entire world. 

From my perspective, suffering is so subjective that it can be hard to gauge. There is probably a reason why sacrificing your life or a loved one is called the ultimate price, while suffering from self-induced stress or self hatred is rarely in the same category. A lot of his suffering was self-inflicted. At the end of the day, though, Rand suffered but didn't have to pay a price. Most of the heaviest prices were paid by other characters and he comes out of this pretty well set up as an everyman, but he never really evolved past that phase in the way I feel Egwene, Annoura or some other characters did.

My views of justice are not very pleasant to many others.  So if it was up to me, I'd have tried to capture Demandred alive.  Then after the LB he could be tried for war crimes, found guilty, and put to death by slow impalement.  Many evil women but few evil men in the series get fates worse than death (see my thread discussing those fates), so a barbaric method of execution would even the scores.

I would have loved if Demandred ended up collared with the male a'dam (too bad Rand destroyed the only one confirmed to still exist) or Shielded and judged by the Hall. I really like it when villains built up to be so amazing and mysterious are taken down by characters they generally underestimate.

 

 

But he confirmed it later really with his comment that Cadsuane's fate was RJ's idea. 

Ahh good catch. Remember being surprised by that as well given it was his addition in the epilogue. For some reason that just doesn't click with me as something RJ would do to her. Also he said it was not "his idea", which means it could have been Harriet's possibly?

Good point.

 

That is another possibility, considering Bela, Harriet wasn't afraid of putting her mark on the story so it's possible. 

 

I would say it was still RJ's idea. He did reference the Cadsuane scene in Rand's PoV, where he sees her harassed by the three others, but it is up for debate. 

 

Another thought I had in reference to Brandon saying RJ had trouble with characters "staying dead", was that perhaps Egwene was meant to come back - kind of like Rand did, but relieved of Amyrlin duties etc..  

 

I prefer it how it turned out - just as I think Rand had earned his rest in death. But it would definitely be RJ-esque. 

I think that's my only problem with Rand's story arc. I felt that while many things happened to him and he had the world on his shoulders for quite some time, other characters ultimately paid a greater price then he did. Perhaps it would have been a major sacrifice if none of his wives survived unscathed or his friends all died or lost loved ones to give him time during his various confrontations with The Dark One, but as it is, he got off pretty well. He has an attractive new body to galivant around the world in, his wives are alive and he can surely visit them in secret if he wants to and he has the freedom to start over again if he so chooses, to live a new life. He didn't want to be a king or have temporal authority in the first place, so it's not as if giving up riches and influence is a big deal for him. This may be where RJ might have changed things after getting to the end after writing a few drafts. 

 

That being said, having the focus on individual battlefields was probably a mistake. I was really hoping for a global war feel, where the enemy attacked from all over the place, and crises popped up all over the place with the theaters being similar to what was described about the War of Shadow, where the battlefronts were always changing, gateways like the one that surprised the Aes Sedai in Kandor popping up to completely change the idea that you could engage an enemy on one front to prevent their movements.

 

I was expecting the Last Battle to be more like that too.  I expected it to be very chaotic with Trollocs rampaging far and wide over much of Randland, and with channelers using gateways to attack unpredictably in many locations.  The bad thing, from a plot perspective, is that that would have taken the large armies mostly out of the battles. 

 

However, the way the book was actually written, I think the battles had the opposite problem.  Namely, the battles were too much about the armies and not enough about channelers. 

I agree with this. Because the channeling wasn't described in that much detail, outside of a few mentions of that battle being very important, it really did seem as if the major portion of concentration was entirely on the massive numbers of Trollocs and various troop movements.

I agree with the overall slant of critiques above. I think that B .Sanderson did a good job, though, given what he was hired and brought on to do. It's very difficult to complete a creators' work knowing how much of a story changes from initial notes to a final version. 

That being said, having the focus on individual battlefields was probably a mistake. I was really hoping for a global war feel, where the enemy attacked from all over the place, and crises popped up all over the place with the theaters being similar to what was described about the War of Shadow, where the battlefronts were always changing, gateways like the one that surprised the Aes Sedai in Kandor popping up to completely change the idea that you could engage an enemy on one front to prevent their movements. The use of Compulsion wasn't that bad - TBH, I thought the throwaway line about Egwene's headache having to do with the residual effects of Compulsion that was a good reminder that many leaders were vulnerable to a Forsaken pulling that stunt. This series could have been much larger in scale if most of the action wasn't confined to the Westlands.

I don't see Egwene as negatively as some do. Her Bond with Leilwin showed that when it came to the greater good, she could outgrow her prejudices, and while this was not expanded upon, it was meant to show that she had grown since Gawyn & Leilwin remarked on her bias earlier in the book. I also think that Fortuona and Egwene ultimately share similaries, and that a revelation on either of their part, could have been a breakthrough in their dealings with each other. 

I was hoping that the following would happen: Egwene survived her final battle, and instead of destroying the Sharans, would have woven a massive Shield or something to make them helpless. Both women would have a breakthrough - Tuon would understand a bit more about the Oaths and how they were similar to the a'dam and a conversation with Hawkwing would show how effective the Shadow was at undermining the Seanchan by creating this anti-channeler perspective, while Egwene would understand the Seanchan point of view in regards to untrustworthy channelers, and show this by doing the reverse of what she had mentioned before when she insisted on the freedom of the Seafolk...she could have told the Seanchan that any Black Ajah or Dreadlord they captured would need to be controlled with the a'dam as execution was to merciful for them and they needed to be made to serve as punishment. After all, ultimately, Egwene used the a'dam to control Moghedien in much the same way.

Both are young leaders dealing with centuries of tradition that they individually may not entirely believe in, but I think there was a lot more potential for both women growing then simply continuing with the same mindset after nearly seeing the end of the world. Honestly, with how Egwene and Rand's relationship was set up, I was expecting her to be more of a peacemaker post TG, especially with her Talents relying on seeing beyond the physical world and building and while I'm sure it will turn out well, Cadsuane just didn't have any character development and with her habit of kidnapping queens and kings, she seems like a worse candidate to deal with Tuon than Egwene. Besides, as much as people like to say Egwene sees things in absolutes, her actions generally are noble - she didn't have to stand up for the Seafolk, but honor and obligation required her to fight for them because they were sacrificing to help the Light Side (and also to honor Elayne and Nynaeves' promise), even after she had to concede that she may never get Aes Sedai taken during the assault on the White Tower back. She's like any of the Two Rivers folk - they may be proud, stubborn and seemingly intractable, ultimately, they all do the right thing and are trustworthy. 

It just seems to me that there was too much time that needed to be given to battle scenes to convey the massive opposition but not enough time to really push character development forward in this book. Those scenes happened, but unlike the past, we didn't get much besides a sentence. Tuon, for example, knows that Siuan saved Mat and that, despite her disagreements with Aes Sedai, she was being violently targeted by channelers siding with the Shadow and that ultimately, it was Ashaman and Aes Sedai that willingly gave their lives to fight, Heal and be of use without needing sul'dam or a'dam to compel them, while the sul'dam and damane didn't want to help because they needed to be told first. But it seemed that the notes just didn't convey any indication of Tuon's reaction because there just wasn't much of impact from her during her scenes in the last half of the book.

 

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. 

The numbers seem set up to be fuzzy, but it just seems to me that between the amount of attacks flying from the sheer numbers of Sharan channelers were just hammering the LS so badly that most of the LS Circles just weren't faring that well until Egwene gave them a reason to focus on defense while she attacked.

Also, battlefield conditions make it even worse. You essentially had women running around in colorful clothing and men wearing distinctive outfits that stood out to the Sharan channelers, so they would just be targets if they were in a Circle and unable to defend themselves. Even with gateways, they couldn't get away instantly if things turned against them, so every time they had to reset or fall back, we'd have to account for time spent getting from the front lines to a place where they could recover, making them targets in the way that Romanda was. I think it is easy to overestimate a Circle's usefulness on a battlefield, though - Demandred and Mazrim's Circles, respectively, could most likely complete destroy every channeler in a weaker Circle with a focused attack, and take out other channelers nearby, as well, while the weaker Circles would be unable to defend against the more powerful Circles' attacks or get a moment to attack while other Sharans were attacking its' members. Considering how quickly Egwene's support was decimated with balefire, it just seems like this was a bloodbath on the LS channelers side.

I am adding my vote to the idea of having other circles of 72 facing Demandred.  I just do not understand why the Light-side didn't make their own circles. I think this would have helped on a number of fronts.  It would solve the problem of why Demandred+full circle+sa'angreal didn't just decimate the Light forces - if his circle had its hands full facing circles of Lightside channelers it would have sensibly kept them from just balefiring the whole forces of the Light.

 

I also think it would have made for a more believable set-up of Demandred engaging sword fights.  As it stands it just doesn't make sense that Demandred and his circle are standing around on top of a hill watching lone swordsmen come up and attack him.  Yes, they have the foxhead medallion but surely all of the Sharan army would be capable of sticking a few arrows in Galad and Lan (if not Gawyn because of the rings).  If we had had 2+ full circles fighting each other I think there would have been much more chaos (i.e. Demandred wouldn't have just been sitting perched on a hill waiting for swordsmen to come and challenge him, which did feel very anime/videogame-ish), with land being ripped up and the whole topography of the battlefield concievably changing rapidly.  In that kind of scenario Gawyn/Galad/Lan would have been able to get closer to Demandred more realistically.

 

I still think the three of them facing him one by one was a bit silly.  I would have preferred Gawyn to go out in an actual blaze of glory cutting a way out of the Sharan camp for him and Egwene.  Then I would have had some real chaos with circles leading to Lightsiders getting much closer to Demandred with the battle being taken right to him.  At that point Galad could have seen an opportunity to target Demandred (possibly distracted by looking for a way to get out of the thick of the battle), and attacked him.  I found it implausible that Galad had his arm chopped off but wasn't finished off by someone on the battlefield, so I would have had Lan coming to the rescue as Galad lost his arm, giving Galad a more plausible way to be carried off to Mayene, and removing the boss battle feel that the scene had.

 

For me, it worked for Lan to kill Demandred.  I liked the fact that he got to strike a real blow at the Shadow (possibly the most important other than Rand's defeat of the DO), having committed his whole life to fighting them.  And I don't think Mat would have worked.  Having two generals fighting each other would have been ridiculous given that there shouldn't be any reason they would end up facing each other as generals are meant to stay apart from the main battle.

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. Also, Egwene and her senior advisors actually commented that they would need to form a Circle to match a Circle of 72 and deal with Demandred's forces, but the whole logistics and tactics necessary would have been essentially walking into a trap - with so many channelers concentrated without the ability to defend themselves, they would need to commit more channelers to defending the Circle and Demandred could have wiped out many of them in the same way that Aviendha's Circle was being destroyed point by one (p.592) but on a larger scale. Also, IIRC (this might belong more in the Battle Thread), but IIRC Demandred came out occasionally to scream  but it was actually Mazrim Taim leading the bulk of the Sharan dreadlords who were in that massive One Power battle with the White and Black Tower on the western side. Most of the LS Channelers had to be very selective about who they Linked with and when. We know that Circles are best for focused channeling, but in a battle this large with multiple enemy channelers, having groups of channelers with similar Talents, other groups with male channelers Linked with female channelers, and still other groups where a male and female are Linked while any other males or females nearby are on defense and recon like Androl and Pevara's group seemed the only way to hold their ground. Also, a male must lead a Circle of 72. I think this meant that Egwene wouldn't be able to lead, which would have been a disadvantage considering that, frankly, she had gained more battle experience through being forced and because of her innate skills than any Aes Sedai or Ashaman on the field. I was actually thinking that reversing and inverting weaves would have been more useful to counter Demandred's channelers - most of them didn't seem to know that technique and reversing/inverting would have allowed the AS to bypass their defenses and those skills can't be learned from observation. I would have loved to see some creativity here - maybe a massive inverted an reversed Gateway falls on top of the Sharans, sending them to a stedding, where Dragons completely surround their position and pulverizing them. Demandred wouldn't have been prepared for that. Or even better, a massive inverted and reversed Gateway right on top of the Circle, lead by a LS Circle of 72 with Androl at the head channeling through another Gateway, and dump lava right on top of Demandred before he even knew what was happening or, to give Gawyn's sacrifice more gravitas, performed while he had Demandred's attention knowing that he would die.

I am in agreement with some of the criticisms in the Battle Thread that if they had really needed to smash the opposing armies as quickly as possible, it would have made more sense to have the Circles of 72 send completely focused attacks directly on top of the Shadow armies with the fewest dreadlords at the very start of the three front battle and while they were at full strength, essentially nuking the brunt of the Shadow's trollocs and Myrdraal. As Ripley said "It's the only way to be sure." It's really a shame that the LS channelers on all fronts didn't have a Great Captain of Channeling, to really match Demandred on the OP strategic side. A creative thinker who could put together the hundreds of Talents they had access to into a coherent patchwork quilt of tactics and strategem could have won most of the fights, even without a complete understanding of mundane strategy. It would have been great to see Egwene or someone completely unexpected like Sharina Melloy or Bode Cauthon to suggest cataloguing each Sister and Ashaman's Talents, work out rough calculations for what power level each one has, and work out an idea as to which Circles could operate at the highest capacity with a limited amount of channelers the whole idea being that a Circle with a channeler strong in Fire in the Lead could do a lot of damage even if that channeler isn't that strong and one with a channeler with a Travelling Talent like Androl can open up many creative uses of time and space).

Persoanlly I would like everything to happen the same except.......Lan actually dies! I think it would bring full circle what he taught Rand on that tower in Fal Dara, the whole sheathing the sword concept. Because lets face it, we read the entire books knowing Lan would die....then when he survives its abit like buhhh?

 

"There will come a time when you must achieve a goal at all costs. It may come in attack or in defense. And the only way will be to allow the sword to be sheathed in your own body.... when the price is worth the gain, and there is no other choice left to you. That is called Sheathing the Sword. Remember it." -LM

 

I think defeating one of the Forsaken gravitates enough to this.

Yes. Ironically, I think Egwene and Aviendha's arcs and climactic battles had more to do with ultimately embracing this concept than any other character, including Rand - at least in this Turning. I can't really count Mat's loss of his eye, because it didn't really seem to inconvenience him much. 

 

I was also hoping that Fortuona would get channeling sickness and need to be taught to at least embrace the Power by an Aes Sedai to survive, instead of dealing with an Assassin or if Moghedien used an a'dam on Fortuona to just nudge her in the right direction and wrap up what was going to be a lingering plot point. 

This would actually have been excellent.  I was left feeling that the 'sul'dam can channel' plotline was left rather unresolved.  It seemed like it was really going somewhere in book 4 when the Seanchan were trying to cover up the evidence of it, and capture/kill any escaping or defecting sul'dam left at Falme, and then nothing really happened with it.  Even when Egwene confronted Tuon with the knowledge her response was equivalent to "So what?".  

Right. I know she can only learn to channel and doesn't have the spark, but it would have been a nice way to move the plot forward with minimal time: Moghedien collars her, forces her to perform a few weaves, Moghedien has to escape (maybe replace the assassination scene with that), someone removes the a'dam from Tuon and while she tries to keep it a secret, the channeling sickness is triggered leading on to some character development on her part. But there were other missed moments - Artur Hawkwing was asked to speak to her by Mat, but this was not followed up, or at least this was supposed to have been further developed in the proposed Outrigger novels. And the Seanchan reaction to the Sharan cahnnelers was baffling - they hated the idea of marath'damane ruling over people, and are confronted with a sizable force that is even more militant than the Aes Sedai, and they don't have anything interesting to add or any animosity towards the Sharans. Just a bit upsetting. 

But, anyway, while I liked Egwene's arc, I did feel as if she had the most promise of most of the major characters, due to the makeup of her faction, so her loss was pretty keen for me. 

I would have loved Siuan, Leane or another weaker channeler take him down Aes Sedai style with finesse and dexterous channeling. Here is how I imagine it: Demandred is busy killing thousands of troops and wiping out hundreds of Lightside channelers withhis massive Sharan Circle, and when he takes a moment to call for Lews Therin, a reversed web of saidar stops his heart, and the loss of so much Power instantly burns out or kills the Sharan's in his link or even better, while Gawyn is dueling Demandred, a sharp shield of inverted Spirit destroys his connection to saidin in a sneak attack and he is brutally cut down by Gawyn while screaming in the wake of the loss of his connection to Saidin. Siuan or Leane sneak off, and then remove the Mask of Mirrors, as they get closer to enemy lines. The image of him making a speech and then falling over dead after having taken his safety for granted would be hilarious.

I prefer power fights, but I do notice that R.J. seemed more invested in them than B.S. is. R.J. would talk about the various weaves, the difficulty in splitting/countering flows and the channeling process, whereas B.S. tends to just pass over the mechanics and go straight to the conclusion - instead of desperately weaving Fire just so to throw fireballs, blossoms of flames, blasts of fire, etc. we got multiple descriptions that were described in the same way - "lines of Fire" etc with occasional bursts of ingenuity (the use of Egwene's talent to pull up metal to attract lightning came out of nowhere). They just have different styles when describing things and while R.J. was intent on conveying exactly how he envisioned the scene playing out, B.S. is more concerned with telling you how the scene plays out.

For a while I thought she was the Reborn incarnation of Latra Posae Decume (this ended once Cadsuane entered the story) or Amerasu (especially with her holding the angreal like a sword and the end of the Age comment). I became convinced that she was Eldrene Reborn when the attack on the White Tower took place and she stated that if she left she would be abandoning them, not escaping to rebuild. Queen Eldrene's back story included a betrayal of her and the kindgom of Manetheren by The White Tower, whose Amyrlin at the time was jealous of her power and stature, and a death in which she destroyed an entire army in order to save her people. 

I have mixed thoughts on her death, though - we've never seen anyone die from merely holding an immense amount of power magnified by sa'angreal earlier in the series. Usually, they just need to control their release of the Power - powering down, as it were, so it diminishes in a controlled way. And I also didn't recall an earlier mention of a lack of a buffer on Vora's sa'angreal. That just seemed to come out of nowhere. 

Anyway, she was my favorite character in the cast, so her death was poignant for me, even though it was awesome that she took out the bulk of the dreadlord army, reinforced the Pattern on the battlefield and scored a decisive victory in her theater of war with her master stroke. The battle against Taim was pretty good, too. I loved the bravado and grim approach she took. Something like "Didn't I already send him packing? Guess I'll have to spank him again."

The massive channeling battle was very sad for me, because it actually reminded me that Robert Jordan's detail-heavy style when describing channeling was missing in one of the highlights of the final chapter. We did get multiple indications that it was chaos on that side of the Field's battleground but we just didn't see much of it. 

Sidenote: I also noticed the irony that the Aes Sedai who survived to that battle were outnumbered 4 to 1 and the fact that the Seanchan damane system essentially couldn't even the odds because the sul'dam was not using their full potential (Seanchan channelers basically require 2 people to get the benefit of one channeler who can't enter a Circle). In a way, Egwene organized her death blow to even the odds since the regular Aes Sedai and Ashaman on the battlefield were pretty much defeated in that last hellish fight and the sul'dam and damane pairs would not be a match for the Sharans. I was also hoping that Fortuona would get channeling sickness and need to be taught to at least embrace the Power by an Aes Sedai to survive, instead of dealing with an Assassin or if Moghedien used an a'dam on Fortuona to just nudge her in the right direction and wrap up what was going to be a lingering plot point.