Loved Egwene being mostly silent til her death threat and also love Renna being clearly hurt. Rennas actress has actually been brilliant in her subtle play of the role.

I'm gonna say it. The show does its villians better than the books did. Thats not to say the show doesnt have problems.... but yeah between liandrin, lanfear and renna i honestly think they are better than their book eiquivalents.

14 hours ago, DaddyFinn said:

Or Miri is her damane name and Alivia true name

An interesting thought. I don't think it holds up in book--nothing specifically forbids it as far as I recall (there was something about one of the damane in Caemlyn not remembering her original name but I dont think that was about Alivia). Either way enough discussion around her happens by the characters for it to be commented on that she has reverted to her original name vs the name she was referred to when captured by Rand.

Doesnt mean it couldnt be a tv show thing?

I dunno having a freed damane as a character early on could be a very interesting and clever adaption especially if the goal is to advance the plot more quickly than in the books (which has been made clear)

14 minutes ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

They are gaidin, Morgase's whelps were just students. And also in the books the whole point was not their ability but the fact that the women were ogling them. Putting Mat against two warders to help out Rand would be making it much more difficult (Gawyn is taken out before he realises that Mat is any kind of a threat) and more heroic. 

I mean... yes theres a bit of this. But theres also a bit of that and a bit of the other thing...

In the books Mat winning was mostly about RJs understanding that popular expectations regarding a fight is unreliable. Yes everyone expects the prince with the sword to win, but whos the best gaidan and how was he defeated? Jearom, and by a farmboy.

As for ogling... the worst Galad had to expect was waking up bonded to a green... and that was sorta a joke maybe

Just now, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

Totally agree 🙂

Lets agree that her sul'dam has to be Seta. *nods firmly* haha

5 minutes ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

As someone pointed out in another thread the damane is named in the credits (or whatever that Xray thing is) and her name is Miri.

Ah true. Yeah, I'm casually reontroducing myself to the information available. Poop tho, woulda been fun.

Its not going to happen but the blonde damane they've had pointing dramatically at marath'damane being Alivia and an early insert show v books who maybe gets scooped up in whatever freedom is going to happen would be a fun way to continue deepening the book topic v the show.

Its a new turning you never know...

She's nothing but a piece of intrigue placed in the books for the fans to be intrigued about. This is made clear by three things.

1. Her existence was not something RJ plotted for this book but something based on something Brandon found 'deep in the notes'. Which leads us to two.

2. Brandon has disavowed using the notes--rather, when he needs something, he goes and asks Maria, who does the research.

3. She didn't really do anything. Or rather, she did nothing that wouldn't have occurred just as easily without her presence.

Brandon needed something (a mystery for the fans, perhaps--one may note his likening of Nakomi's role to the fandom with Asmodean's), went to Maria who provided him with something he could use, and ultimately the entire thing had little to no plot relevance.

 

And her death felt contrived--as in, the specifics--the sa'angreal suddenly being bufferless despite no mention and this only resulting from the extreme conditions known in manufacturing during the final days of the Way of the Shadow...

There were a number of throwawy lines like this as if it was forgotten the first time around and added as a band aid after the fact.

 

Faile non-chalantly thinking one sentence about her father being a DF and betraying the light was another odd one. Something like that would certainly have loomed much larger on her mind.

It did occur to me that this was beta fix to Egwene burning out whilst using a sa'angreal. It's a bit sad though--there were other ways, say, the same path that the female Choedan Kal went and it being a result of stress, not drawing too much.

Cheap answers plague the last three books.

Early Battles played out in a formulaic fashion--people discussed what needed to be done, wizz-bang general laid out innovative but likely impractical option, short sequence of Action-by-Adjective and then someone kindly explained to someone else (the reader) why what was done was good or bad.

The Last Battle was better, though still an Action-by-Adjective sequence. Though, I suspect to degrees my dislike of Demandred's arc through that chapter may be tainting that perspective and in re-reads I'll find it better than I did initially.

That being said my favourite scene in a book was a battle. Loial's charge was just beautifully written and so epic.

Egwene dying did feel a bit like 'a major character needs to die, which is the least liked--yup, short straw'.

That being said the concept of Egwene's death--killing the M'hael, restoring order to Patter by undoing what BF did (restoring order being Egwene's underlying theme).

I didn't feel that emotionally it paid off though--that she'd block and repair balefire became obvious in her oft repeated angst about balefire, her consideration of Perrins comment, and he fixing of the balefire fissures (which themself felt designed to show bluntly what she was achieving).

And her death felt contrived--as in, the specifics--the sa'angreal suddenly being bufferless despite no mention and this only resulting from the extreme conditions known in manufacturing during the final days of the Way of the Shadow...

40,000 but in KoD 25 Asha'man and Aes Sedai destroyed 100,000 Trollocs.

The numbers may or may not have been off, but even if the citations were on, they often felt in description like they were way too low, in particular the Seanchan, at least too me.

So, Lan, Elayne, etc. All the early battles (Ogier too). + the Last Battle.

For the moment this can cover the Aes Sedai and issues related (say, Kin, Oaths, Future of the Aes Sedai etc).

IIRC Luckers once culled a quote to show that channelers (not potential channelers but somebody who hs already embraced the source) are immune to normal infections.

They need to eat, drink, and they can suffer physical injury or psychic injury including stuff (13x13 and oath rods) that can't happen to ordinary people.

I don't have my books on my but its in the Eye of the World whent he gang reunite in Caemlyn. Nynaeve offers to help Moiraine with Mat, stating that she doesn't catch illnesses. Moiraine says that her immunity would not protect her from the evil of Shadar Logoth. The inference of Nynaeve's offer and Moiraine's understanding is that channelers have a far stronger immunity to normal people, possibly even a perfect one.

A single strong AS with the female Choeden Kal might be able to shield Rand without an angreal.

Or Lanfear with her angreal came close to doing it

Semirhage evidently believed she could shield Rand if she got the drop and she also believed that damane (without angreal) could shield very strong Ashaman like Logain or else she wouldn't have attempted the failed capture that cost Rand his hand.

A woman using the Choedan Kal could shield Rand without trying. She'd have to be strong enough to survive using the Choedan Kal, but if she was its no question.

Lanfear with an angreal came close to shielding Rand with an angreal.

Semirhage's plan was likely to stun everyone with a web that induced pain and then leash them whilst they were stunned. That web was likely destroyed along with her Mirror of Mists when Cadsuane used her ter'angreal to do what she did. Her plan had nothing to do with her expectations of the play out in a damane/Asha'man duel.

does anybody know the ID of the kinswoman, who nearly took Gawyn's foot off on his return to the WT to foil the bloodknives in ToM. I have always taken that as a hint of DF's among the kin.

It wasn't the Kinswoman's fault. The Gateway closed because Perrin brought the dreamspike to Tar Valon at that moment.

Is it ever explained why Aes Sedai are so insufferable?

Yes, here: http://www.dragonmount.com/forums/topic/50876-the-life-and-times-of-an-aes-sedai/

@Tensai0211 What makes you think that they don't know about the Kin?

 

There a viewpoint from Falion where they kill a reader while looking for the cache, it might simply be RJ was keeping them secret because its before Elayne and Nynaeve go to see Mat and get taken to the KIn. But when i was reading it i was wondering why they were killing Callie if they knew the Kin existed why they didn't infiltrate the Kin?

 

Who says there aren't DF's among the Kin? Just because we haven't met any yet, doesn't mean jack.

They're in every other organisation.

The logic for it is layed out by Adeleas, when first proving that Vandene's killer must be Aes Sedai. It runs that the Black Ajah's search for the Kin's ter'angreal shows there are no darkfriends amongst the Kin (a point we can reinforce with considerable strength given Sammael made contact with Darkfriend circles [including darkfriends with wide influence upon other darkfriends] in Ebou Dar specifically to set them this task, and yet learned nothing of this].

If there were Darkfriends amongst the Kin, presumably the Shadow would have looked to them first, for all the reasons that Falion and Ispan were torturing redbelts--for that matter, the same reason Nynaeve and Elayne sought them out. And you would think the existence of darkfriend channelers would be something the Forsaken would have heard of--if they learned enough of modern darkfriend hierarchies to find Mili Skane and Carridan, anyway.

So yeah, it's obviously not rock solid, but it is reasonable evidence to suggest that there likely aren't any, or many, darkfriends amongst the Kin. Which does make sense, as the Kin are only Tower initiates that failed the Training, and the sort of women who would become darkfriends are the sought who are more likely to seek out the Shadow immediately upon being put out of the Tower (i.e. Mili Skane) then to join the Kin with their strict rules and their age based hierarchy (place new comers at the very bottom). The Kin have strict rules too about who they approach and how, and a woman seeking to become a darkfriend would likely exclude herself pretty damn fast.

Who says there aren't DF's among the Kin? Just because we haven't met any yet, doesn't mean jack.

They're in every other organisation.

 

That's not what i'm talking about, i'm wondering why they're torturing and killing random Readers in Ebou Dar if they know there is an organisation based there that takes in runaways and cast outs.

They weren't killing random readers, so far as I recall. They were torturing red belts specifically because they knew of the Kin and were thought they'd be a good place to start--the red belt being the easily identified potential kin members.

They knew as much as any Aes Sedai remember--that the Kin existed in Ebou Dar, but beyond that no specifics, and considerable misinformation mixed in, all they had to go on was throwing a net for channelers.

How many Aes Sedai were there at the height of their power? When was their height of power? (Pre-Trolloc Wars, during, just after, before Hawkwing?) If it wasn't Trolloc Wars, what were their numbers?

There's a part were it refers to the Tower holding four thousand Aes Sedai, with perhaps twice that out in the world, so I'd say 7 to 8 thousand.

what side effect is that, just wondering?

The normal one. The first few times touching the Source for a sparker results in precisely that sort of thing.

From Moiraine...

"But I can tell you how it began."

 

"I don't want to hear any more of your lies," she said, but the Aes Sedai went right on. "Perhaps as much as eight or ten years ago - the age varies, but always comes young – there was something you wanted more than anything else in the world, something you needed. And you got it. A branch suddenly falling where you could pull yourself out of a pond instead of drowning. A friend, or a pet, getting well when everyone thought they would die.

 

"You felt nothing special at the time, but a week or ten days later you had your first reaction to touching the True Source. Perhaps fever and chills that came on suddenly and put you to bed, then disappeared after only a few hours. None of the reactions, and they vary, lasts more than a few hours. Headaches and numbness and exhilaration all mixed together, and you taking foolish chances or acting giddy. A spell of dizziness, when you tripped and stumbled whenever you tried to move, when you could not say a sentence without your tongue mangling half the words. There are others. Do you remember?"

Just a random thought/question.

We have been told that using the True power is not the only way to damage cuendillar.

 

Just thinking out loud but I wonder if opening a gateway on a piece of cuendillar would cut it?

RJ answered this one...

Michael Martin

 

 

What happens to a piece of heartstone if a gateway is opened across it?

Robert Jordan

 

 

Heartstone is pushed aside, gateway remains intact. (He appeared fairly amused by this one.)

I've speculated in the past that the other way of destroying cuendillar involves reversing the process and turning it back to iron. consider that it is said that using the Power on cuendillar 'makes it stronger'. That seems odd, given its indestructable. My guess is that what using the Power on cuendillar actually does is make in increasingly harder to reverse the process of making it cuendillar.

I have no problem with Egwene--or rather, perhaps, I have no problem with what Egwene was growing into under RJ, or even to degrees in tGS. In TofM though she just suffers a massive reversion to self-involved. Didn't love that.

Egwene in CoT or KoD though... probably one of my favourite characters.

Thank you for the information Luckers, so if you had a very irresponsible channeler, male or female that started teaching a child they found that could learn then you could have a child channeler?

Possibly. We know children went to special schools for Aes Sedai the second their ability was detected (provided they (or, I suppose, their parents) chose to go through with the training, which the vast majority did), but I'm guessing that was just to recieve a base education. I highly doubt they were sparked that young, and thus we have no information to suggest its possible aside from Aviendha's children, and they are... odd.

Ok we know that the age someone with the spark will begin to channel is ca early teens to early twenties for women and late teens to early thirties for men, but what about those who can learn, we also know that you can have someone much older than that who can be discovered to be able to learn, in theory you could have a 90 year old of either gender who is discovered to be able to learn, my question then is do it work the other way as well, could you have someone much younger than the normal age of manifestation for their gender who is discovered. What happens if you take a six year old boy with a ability learn and plop him down in front of Taim and test him? Will his ability then be discovered or will there just be nothing there until he is older. I think someone further up in this thread mentioned that some of the Two Rivers boys at the black Tower where about 14 which would be far below the age of manifestation for a male channeler if that is correct.

 

Also what about talents that only show up in channelers but which the individual do not actively need to channel to use, like Dreaming, could that manifest before the actual ability to channel do?

If it helps at all, in the Age of Legends they tested children for the ability at the age of ten.

No, it was the age v. treatment that was remarked on, though some did point out that the Dragon wouldn't like people from his home ill treated, and others pointed out that it had been Rand himself who had told Taim to 'pluck the Two Rivers'.

What gave it away for me was the scene in Path of Daggers where he undergoes a complete personality change and starts to lecture Rand on the "strangeness" of Saidin (during Rand's campaign against the Seanchan in Altara). He's suddenly a different person altogether, angry and pedantic instead of his typical aloof and apathetic self, which made me think the whole "guy with his head in the clouds" thing was a front. The fact that we knew Aginor was in his new body trying to position himself made him the prime suspect.

This, though from dim memory I don't think I actually clued in that he was Osan'gar specifically, just that there was more to him than met the eye.