As far as I remember from Verin's explanation, not only is TAR not like the portal stone realities, it is a constant in all these "trouser legs of time". Along with the imprisoned Dark One, the only constants. Which makes no sense really. Why does Egwene or Perrin ever meet their infinite portal stone doppelgangers? Why isn't it neck deep in wolves? What would happen if a Shadow-aligned ta'veren got into TAR? If each reality has its own TAR - how does Verin call that a constant? Very loose with their terminology, these Browns. You can tell she isn't a White.

Moggie also survives. She is a survivor that one.

I have to agree I'm amazed at how much has survived rather than how little. The only issue I have with the Brown Ajah is that their raison d'etre doesn't relate to channelers at all. Also the Whites. While the Gray Ajah can draw on the authority of the White Tower, their personal power and the Three Oaths, the only thing that I can think of that helps is their longevity, giving time to really become experts. While of course this doesn't stop Aes Sedai being the librarians and researchers of the world, where are the muggles that are helping them? Why is there not a whole infrastructure of scribes and researchers and investigators, etc., to support the Brown Ajah in their mission? Sadly I can think of only two answers, one, they are only interested in knowledge that will be bound to the Tower, not knowledge for it's own sake. Two, the whole concept of balance. The more they have their... er, stuff together, the worse things like Hawkwing's siege and the Trolloc Wars have to be to balance it out. The greater the order they preserve, the greater the damage wrought by the Lord of Chaos must be.

While you could argue that the sisters are too worried about leaving the Tower as that might affect their Ajah's influence, we never really see it that bad. There are no democratic votes or force of arms needed in general. In the early books we hear about "the Warders" scouting and keeping an eye on the Blight. But that doesn't really seem to be carried forward in any meaningful way. It seems strange that the Aes Sedai would not be more involved in the Blight border. Agelmar even says one Aes Sedai is worth a thousand troops. Indeed it is kind of weird that no one helps the Borderlanders at all to the extent that most of the people they are protecting don't even believe in the Blight or Shadowspawn.

The hour of my death thing is, how can I put it?, dumb. Yes, it gives an "aaaah" moment to the reader, but it doesn't really make sense. Especially where a Black Ajah member could realistically expect to be executed if caught, that the Oaths would stop working for the hour before their inevitable, inescapable and alloted execution makes no sense. It isn't a "no one could ever have thought of this" moment, it is only a "I bet a reader never thought of this" mechanic. But not terrible. One can assume no real darkfriend would try, and no one but darkfriends would be admitted to the Black. But still... Why even gave Oaths if it is so unimportant? But yeah, Verin is awesome. She is troubling from the start. How she pushes her way into Mother's secret confidence, how she destroys knowledge about the world of dreams and dreamers, and obviously isn't playing straight when she gives the Wonder Girls info that points straight to Ebou Dat as if it was random nonsense. She uses compulsion on those loyal to the Tower (or only darkfriends?), and she is on Rand's side all the time a way few are. She is great, but the denouement was a little lacking. Inescapable Oaths should not be so easy to get around, imho.

There is the point that his swelling form was an illusion. The details are slightly hazy to me at the moment, but I think the boys slash at him but hit nothing. He though is trapped there, losing his temper and killing them (even if that form can do so) does not help him at all. Mat escaping with the dagger was a way out, and even if Mat had for example dropped it, them surviving to tell tales of a crazy guy offering roomfulls of gold to travellers could easily entice more greedy less clever people there to infect. So it would be actually in his interest to protect them from Mashadar, not feed them to it. Though... How did the stupid and greedy Trollocs not free him? Why did he not trick them? I guess Mashadar could not resist attacking the evil it was created to combat. Or something...

Which video game is that?

I think they were more concerned with politics. And hopefully good politics. Like when Suian chewed up Byrne so that he would leave a Murundian noble alone who would hopefully unite the country, which would stop them all squabbling and wasting their resources fighting. And I can imagine they might work against "bad" rulers. But I would guess their focus would more be on unity and strength against the Shadow, rather than straight forward social justice. Though maybe they noticed that keeping populaces happy was a good way to stop people turning to the Shadow. But I don't remember any evidence they worked against the High Lords of Tear despite their abuses of their subjects, for example, though of course they were antagonistic to the Tower and were important to the Prophecies. But most of the Ajahs are a bit dodgy when you look too closely at them.

I think the Red are given an unfair press. I think given their obvious opposition and trepidation to Rand, Jordan plays them a bit heavily into the villain category. I get their distaste for Warders, as it plays so nicely into opposition with the Green, but it is a little strange as they would need someone watching their back. I guess you could say that Warders are protecting from mundane sources of danger, where the Reds need protection from the One Power more so need help from Sisters. They also are manipulated by the Black rather easily with Elaida and the illegal gentling of men around Rand's birth (the discontinued Thom's nephew story line). Which I suppose is both a criticism and a softening circumstance. They shouldn't have been that easy to manipulate and they were not really that bad of their own accord. Pevara was a welcome addition to the Reds. And Silvianna, to be fair, to make them more relatable. Though one of the worse criticisms of the Reds for me is that Cadsuanne was the most successful male channeler hunter. Why have an Ajah dedicated to that purpose if a bored and insufferable Green is going to be more successful singlehandedly?

It wasn't a list on merit 🙂 Mehmet is something of a hero to me. I was a huge fan of Alan Savage as a young man (a pseudonym of Christophe Nicole iirc) with such titles as Ottoman, the Eight Banners and Moghul, and while his books centre on English imports into the narrative I think they are fairly historically accurate. Don't think I have Ottoman in my collection (was a library kid) but have picked up a few since. And I'm sure there is a whole bunch of interesting historical figures I haven't touched on. My brain was obviously busy with Japan if you look at my examples. Not that there is anything wrong with that, the Sedoku Jidai is a fascinating period of history, but there are many many many such eras around the world. Sadly. When you think about it.

Hawking is one of the many many Arthur references. Based on a lot. Caesar still was instrumental in the creation of the Principet. So his legacy lived on, not least in the Kaiser, Tsar, etc. Alexander's empire collapsed, thanks a great deal to Alexander allegedly (to the strongest). So that rings true here. But there are many. Sun Tzu. Takeda Shingen. Oda Nobunaga. Charlemagne, Alphonso of Portugal, Mehmed II of the Ottomans, Tokugawa Ieyesu, the Zulu commanders Napoleon, etc.

I have never heard of him, the poor bloke.

There is also Perrin's guilt and horror at him killing the whitecloaks. He fears the violence that beckons, mirroring his struggle with being bigger and stronger than everyone else in Emond's Field and the ease with which he could accidently hurt people. Perrin is willing to make sacrifices to keep others safe from himself. (A theme we also see in his reasoning to travel to the Two Rivers). An aside, but wolf packs are not hierarchical, they are based on family ties to the breeding pair. They are large cooperative families. The thing about alpha wolves comes from studying unrelated wolves in captivity forced to share living space. The dude that coined the phrase in the seventies has literally spent the rest of his life trying to undo the impact of his mistake research (assuming that wolves in the wild act as those in captivity do) and he has had little effect on popular culture and the concept of the alpha wolf.

Because she didn't want to tell them she had given them a tracking device without telling them. But certainly it would have been useful to tell them later, but this could be seen as another example of Aes Sedai scheming bites them - she is so used to hiding her motivations and manipulations that hurts her own mission.

The steam engines are already travelling from Cairhien to Tear before the Final Battle. Something of a pet peeve of mine. That isn't how these things work, that you have an industrial revolution because someone just thinks up an invention. You need a whole bunch of prerequisites. An evolution of ideas and circumstances. Near unique circumstances to make each step worth taking on the road to industrialisation. It isn't down to British genius that it happened there, but geography and geology and rudimentary patent system and a few other factors. Not one guy inventing an efficient steam engine on his own - and mass producing it - that can immediately be put on unprepared roads for hundreds of leagues without incident. Bah. It gets me annoyed just thinking about it. But however incredulous it is, it is questionable how desirable industrialisation would be in a world with the One Power, or whether it could combine with the One Power to make something better (like I think the lack of pollution is mentioned in story by the One Power being able to deal with waste on a molecular level). Do they need to develop new ways of transport with Travelling available? Would they put up with children and workers being chewed up by machinery in horrible factories (sunken screws were invented due to the occurrence of screws catching on clothing and dragging workers into the machinery, including child workers). Personally I think it was a conceit to include the invention of the steam engine due to Rand's largess. To big an advance not properly thought through. Same with cannons being invented immediately as devasting weapons instead of being an evolution from useful but limited weapons gaining in lethality over time. But the Final Battle marks the End of the Age. The cannons and steam engines, along with non-insane male channelers point to how the Age will shape up, without giving much clarity on the details.

Wasn't that a ter'angreal or a talent though? I don't quite remember. Cadsuane I think had a ter'angreal so possibly so did Nynaeve her Paralis-net. And didn't Moggie teach them something that sort of worked but really just gave them a splitting headache? Hmm. Certainly comes up more often than I first remembered but it doesn't seem to be a native ability - not like the goosebumps men get when women are holding the power. Though maybe I'm still misremembering some of it. I think the Chosen involved were Sammael and Rahvin, Sammael always willing to strike first and Rahvin being the cautious politician, the moment help define their characters as well as indicate the dangers of the Chosen interacting with each other.

Not in the books as far as I know. Obviously there is the implication that the Seventh Age ends with something so apocalyptic that it sends us back to the Stone Age with no trace whatsoever of the preceding Ages. I don't know if any companion literature or answers from Jordan deals with this, I haven't read all of that.

As far as I remember, women cannot sense saidin or its weaves or if a man is holding the power. I think the only things I can remember is them reacting to knowing that Rand was channeling, not that they could feel it. I think this was pretty clearly set in canon at Elayne and Egwene's training session with Rand in Tear. So I don't think that this has anything to do with anything fundamental about the Power.

You mean aside from the rule of cool? Myrdraal are magical beings. It isn't really discussed how. Not in the books at least. We are told that they have their own powers - which Warders are shielded from by the bond - but only the weakest Aes Sedai would be unable to match them. This comment is never explained at all, and indeed we see non-Warders deal with them all the time with no evidence of any powers at all. We so know that Aginor theorized they were partially on another plane of existance (how they can travel between shadows) and could account for such things as their preternatural speed and their cloaks which are somehiw affected by their life force. IR could make sense by how they see, but we don't see that they can see body heat or are blinded by fire or hot objects. I don't think there is anything I. The books that even hints at anything else.

A staff could easily beat an unarmoured man. Whether it would survive against heavier polearms (such as an axe), I couldn't say, possibly part of the technique would be to make sure you deflect your opponents blows rather than letting directly strike the staff. A "war" quarterstaff would likely be reinforced such as spears were with steel. Armour would likely negate much of a lighter staff's effectiveness. Then you would be more looking at variations of halberds and bills which were specifically developed to deal with heavily armoured soldiers. A staff would also need a lot of room to operate so not very useful in formation, and I'm not sure it would fare well against other long reach weapons such as a zweihander sword. Iron isn't superior to bronze. It has different properties, but the main feature was the abundance of iron ore. High grade steel is a superior metal, but ancient civilisations did not have that technology. Even in the middle ages, the technique for mild steel was closely guarded and apparently lost. Milanese armour in the 14th century was mild steel, in the 15th it was simple iron, iirc. We tend to assume that iron was better than bronze because we believe in progression and technology, but the real reason bronze fell out of use was the scarcity of tin and I believe it is very labour intensive to work. In short it was expensive and rare.

Actually if I remember right, the version I heard (from my Dad, this kind of thing was right up his alley) was about legs. Which would make more sense for cannibalism. So maybe your version isn't quite as gruesome @Caelan Arendor, lol.

Yes I think the strength of the story is its scale and width. And I think Jordan was a master at artful handwaving to suggest even more depth and detail, while leaving everything vague enough most of that detail comes from the reader. Given how expansive the books are that is quite an achievement. Like Elgee says, the magic system feels real. The place feels real, the characters feel real in a way that excessive attention to detail wouldn't manage. Jordan was a master story-teller in my opinion.

Yes, Mat's isn't too bad. That is interesting. But I didn't like that we didn't see what happened to Rand, when that was so important for the motivations for the "main" character, which I think pushed Rand into the background except the "soap opera" aspects of his life. And I think also as learn more about the Age of Legends that it gets a bit silly, that everything is being done due to Foretelling, the Eye, Rhuidean, everything is set up by prophecy, which is a self fulfilling one. There seems to be very few bits that happen organically, or at least, a lot less than it appears at first. But that is just one of my pet peeves.

Are these from your notes about all characters? While I admit, I am terrible with names, I don't remember anything about Jurad Accan at all.

Well, it would probably help if you highlighted which parts you were unsure of, or what other interpretations could there be. I'll send you a PM about signing up - it should be pretty straightforward, and I have just been made the Assistant Mistress of Novices/Mistress at Arms. So it is kind of my problem if people cannot sign up.