Well the Dark One winning is just an abstract, it's more likely that if he does win, it's game over.

Without getting into spoilers, we do  get some further insight into the nature of the DO, and why he loses.  I was pretty satisfied with the revelations.

And besides, even if the DO did win, and the pattern does turn things around, it would likely be a VERY long period of darkness and despair.  Long enough to where the people living at the time (if there were any) would consider it permanent.

 

 

I would be really angry if it were true. Because the only way I can tolerate the pattern is believing that it ain't invincible and unstoppable.

For a more lore friendly answer, it's not about saving the pattern for Rand and company, it's about life.  To them, the pattern has nothing to do with it.  They want to protect the people they life and make sure they have a future, whatever the pattern may will that future to be.

 

 

I don't like it when the villain CAN'T win.

 

I don't just care about the main characters living or dying. It kills some of the magic for me if the antagonist has no chance of achieving his goal

 

But the DO COULD win.  The pattern can only "stack the deck," so to speak.  And that's just to give the good guys a fighting chance.  WIthout the pattern's intervention, the Shadow would have won, no contest.  The pattern didn't make Rand reach enlightenment on Dragonmount, that was all Rand.  The pattern didn't even win the last battle.  It set the pieces, and it was the determination of the people involved that made it trn out the way it did.

I would be really angry if it were true. Because the only way I can tolerate the pattern is believing that it ain't invincible and unstoppable.

For a more lore friendly answer, it's not about saving the pattern for Rand and company, it's about life.  To them, the pattern has nothing to do with it.  They want to protect the people they life and make sure they have a future, whatever the pattern may will that future to be.

I would be really angry if it were true. Because the only way I can tolerate the pattern is believing that it ain't invincible and unstoppable.

Would it make you feel better or worse if I told you that from a physics point of view, everything is predestined as well.  From the start of the big bang, every partical was set in motion, and has preset trajectories and could be theoretically calculated.  Right down to the chemical processes in your brain that govern your decisions and actions.  They were all set in motion 14 1/2 billion years ago.  If anything, the Pattern offers more "true" free will than our own universe does. :)

The lore of the world says that the Dark One would destroy the pattern, but can he?  In the infinite turnings of the wheel, maybe the Dark One HAS won before, and made the world into his own image, only to have the pattern rebalance things again.  And now, the threat of total destruction of time and the pattern is just so much bluster.  I'm sure I'm talking out of my posterior, just a thought.

Well ok then, lol

 

That's cool.  I like it better that way.  It's a small reminder that the DO is not all powerful.

The fact that he always ALWAYS loses without fail should be reminder enough of that (sadface)

 

DO we know THAT for sure?  It's been said that the Dragon has fallen to the shadow in the past, what happened then?

That's cool.  I like it better that way.  It's a small reminder that the DO is not all powerful.

So what about balefire makes the DO unable to bring someone back?  Is it because he can't reach back in time to "grab" the person's thread?

 

Is someone killed by Balefire reborn again?  Ir is their thread gone forever?

Yes, and no. Balefire merely kills you in the past, it doesn't destroy your soul.

 

Are we sure about that?  Killing someone with balefire diallows the DO from bringing them back.  I always understood it as burning their thread completely out of the pattern

I agree with you for the most part, but to justify the AS actions I might say that the AS within the WT were desperate for leadership.  They were paranoid, separated, and depressed.  And in walks Egwene, head high, defiant to Elaida the tyrant.  It could be some of them instantly respected her more than the Salidar AS did.  It could also be that they were testing her, in a way, and gaging her answers to see if she was fit to throw their allegiance behind.

As for her contradictory statement, I might chalk that up to her using different language to influence different personality types.  I think in her head she firmly believed that respect must be earned, but at times she had to give more of the "parental" answer of "because I said so."

That's the Creator, the antithesis of the dark one.  Creator - Destroyer.  Besides, I'd hate the idea that the only thing the Dark One's counterpart did in the whole series was cook dinner for Avi, lol.

Am I the only one who read her as a plot device and simply moved on afterwards.  (Especially considering what happens next for Avi).

I'd honestly forgotten about her until I saw this post.  I was curious about who she was when she first appeared, but she didn't stick with me as an important mystery.

I'd like to find out for curiosity's sake, but that's it.

Ituralde defintely sees the most combat in the books, but we don't see the others lead enough to rank them, in my opinion.

 

- Demandred suffering from a terrible dose "silly bad guy" syndrome. Firstly, although he had to dispatch Logain, fighting the 3 sword fights was incredibly pointless and stopped him from commanding his armies, not to mention the destruction he was channeling down. This guy fights 4 duels, mortally wounding 3 opponents yet he is the only one who dies where the duels occur. I would have expected less mercy from one of the most evil men remaining alive ;) He lets Gawyn leave and have his final few dying words, Galad is pointlessly allowed to continue living in the story, and as for the Lan moment - this was the single worst part of the entire series. It served no purpose to keep him alive, just let the man die already. Gah. And finally, this is one of the greatest general masterminds ever, yet he manages to lose a battle in which he had overwhelming numbers even before the Sharans arrived. Hmmm!

 

 

To be fair, he didn't stop short of killing them out of mercy.  It was to let them linger and hopefully draw Rand (who he believed was commanding the armies of light, which was, admittedly, a little dense of him considering how many darkfriends/other forsaken knew for a fact that he was in THakan'dar) into direct combat.  Not only that, but Gawyn and Galad were more or less beneath his notice once they were taken out of the fight.

As for losing the battle, he may have been one of the greatest military minds ever, but remember, he lost to hundreds or more of the greatest military minds all rolled into one person.

I think it ended the only way it could.  If the story went a single step further, I think it would only serve to start new plots that would, by necessity, be either left hanging, or force the author to begin an entire new series of book.  Either that, or you'd have an entire novel's worth of reflections by the characters on the end of the LB, and while we might think we want that, I think it would get boring pretty quick.  Just my opinion, of course.

I read them back to back, so I don't remember the books separately like many on here can.  But I imagine, Barid could whip out something metaphorical that makes perfect sense.

The fact that Tylee, a Seanchan General and master tactician, had nothing but praise for Perrin's plans and tactics is almost enough proof of his intelligence by itself.

They don't believe in fate.  Even the Karaethon Cycle is what MAY happen, it doesn't even say for sure that the Dragon will win.  The pattern is a weave, and each thread is a life.  The pattern spins you out a certain way, and if you just coast through life your destiny won't change much.  THat's nothing groundbreaking.  A thread can go astray, though.  It's just that the further you stray from your original direction, the harder you have to struggle against the pattern.

Now CERTAIN things are meant to happen.  Mat DID have to marry Tuon.  As for what would happen if he killed her, well, we all know he never would, so that's a pointless question.

Taveren don't get the same luxury, they're more firmly attached in the pattern, as are the threads that surround them.

Rand & Min like rabbits; which book & chapter and which scene?

 

Rand & Aviendha in snow, I recall them only walking/running around in that scene; not anything sexual.

 

Perrin & Faile; their first scenes after Shadow Rising seem to indicate that they just traveled around after their wedding.

Yeah, you DEFINITELY need to learn to read between the lines.  RJ is never explicit, he never writes "and then they banged it out," haha.

 

Rand and Min had plenty of sex without her getting pregnant. So did Perrin and Faile.

 

The most I recall with both couples is the 2 sleeping together.  And the earliest for either couple to have sex seems to be the last several books.

 

I think you may need to read between the lines a bit more.  Rand and Avi had their romp in the snow WAY back, and Rand and Min were like rabbits througout the middle of the series. 

Doesn't Rand have the Choedan Kal?

 

Why isn't he using that to roflstomp all of his problems? (like the Seanchan) It's not like he has to worry about taint anymore.

 

Is he afraid that it'll break if he uses it too much like with Nynaeve so he's saving it for when he really needs it?

Because using it for most problems is akin to performing brain surgery with a sledge hammer. :)

Why is Rand continuing to entrust the clearly evil megalomaniac with his most powerful group of weapons?

 

Taim emits an AURA OF VIOLENCE when he enters a room!

 

Might as well leave Grand Moff Tarkin in charge of the Rebel Alliance!

 

No joke, Mazrim Taim is the most obviously evil ANYTHING I've ever seen. Lucius Malfoy is more trustworthy than this guy.

Rand takes a (badly) calculated risk with Taim.  The man exuded violence, not necessarily evil.  As the reader you get a slightly clearer picture of Taim than Rand does.  And at the time Rand was going through his change into a very violent person himself, and he wanted living weapons more than anything else.  He felt that Taim, despite his flaws, was the best choice to provide them for him.  He might have been worried that he would have to deal with Taim later, but he didn't predict just how badly it would go.

Has Moiraine had sex with a man before Eye of the World? If so, do you think it was with Lan or somebody else?

 

emphasis on the word man here btw... 

Please, let us not fall into the quagmire of crappy fanfiction please. 

Oooh, boy, let's see.  Almost done Hitchhiker's Guiide to the Galaxy

After that the queue is:

Memory of LIght

Blindness - Jose Saramago

Slaughterhouse 5 - Vonnegut

Girl Who played with Fire/Kicked the Hornet's Nest - Steig Larsson

The list goes on, that's just for the next month or two depending on my schedule.