Ah, thanks for your condescion. I mean, I'm a Scotsman that lives in the Netherlands, but you know, obviously not relevant. My point is that anyone who has argued about lack of quality yet crows about politics when it is cancelled is obviously a hypocrite, not that all critics of the show are. Whether we enjoyed the show or not is subjective. You didn't enjoy the show from what I have seen from your posts: I did. Neither of us is "objectively correct", nor are either of us wrong. We just have different opinions.

I'd just like to point out the hypocrisy of anyone that has argued the show has struggled with poor writing or any other "objective" criticism, only to summarize the demise of the show as "go woke, go broke". You are letting your bigotry show.

Had Lews Therin balefired himself his soul would have been ripped from the Pattern and Rand could not have been born, if I understand the lore correctly. On a non-canon point, it would an interesting idea, death by self balefire. As this would remove you from the pattern in the past... Meaning you would not have balefired yourself. Would this create a temporal paradox like killing your own grandparents in the past? Or in the case cited, would LTT and his soul be removed from the Pattern and Ilyena and the others be restored to life? Could he have undone the attack on Shayol Ghul? I guess undoing something like that would destroy the Pattern quicker than destroying whole cities as the Age Lace is woven around such important events. To be fair, I think Jordan kept his magic system soft to avoid such paradoxes. I feel Sanderson would be the kind of author to explore the implications this would cause in a hard magic system, like he did with Gateways in his books.

Welcome to Dragonmount, Samarah. Hope you enjoy your time here, and I look forward to seeing you about on the forum.

Or it could be something inbetween that the wilders are a different lineage and that it is random. In the Two Rivers, "the old blood ran strong" and there were many wilders (or women dying as they could not control the Power) and many that be taught. So wilders could just be end of the bell curve. So depending on if the sul'dam reproduce the situation maybe similarish. (you would assume they must, otherwise they would have bred the lineage out nearly immediately, only male non-wilders would pass their lineage on). The Seanchan collar all their wilders. No offspring. In the Westlands, most wilders die (75%) and a portion go to the White Tower (no offspring). Most channelers continue reproduce in both cases. So if there are more channelers in the Westlands, this may have more to do with the old blood running strong (a more pleasant way of saying inbred? Or just a different gene pool perhaps) than any systemic difference.

Interesting question. My take would no, and yes. While of course the Oaths are open to interpretation and are flawed (in the sense that "speak no word that is not true" can only mean what the individual thinks is true), I cannot see how any Aes Sedai would not understand the Third Oath to mean to defend herself, not to save herself. She could of course channel if she was in extreme peril, but that would be a bit counter-productive as a damane. So I would say that no, she could not rationalize that she was saving her life. At least not without a caveat. Also, a pedantic point, the Third Oath makes no mention of Darkfriends. Which is a confusing point as we are told repeatedly that it does through the story, but the only time we directly see the Oaths (to the best of my knowledge) rather than a summary of what they are or a paraphrasing is in New Spring when Moraine and Suian are raised and they do not mention Darkfriends. Which has always been a very confusing point for me, as for example, Sheriam does specifically tell Egwene (I think) in The Great Hunt that Darkfriends are included in the Oath. This seems to point to the fact that to an Aes Sedai, this is assumed in the name Shadowspawn, which hardly seems satisfactory. But I digress. The caveat is that what would happen to an Aes Sedai that was insane? Who was suffering from psychosis? That was so traumatically damaged by the sul'dam that she no longer knew what was real? Who had been convinced that only the word of the sul'dam was true? I suppose we can only speculate, but in that case, just like the Matrix defense used in the New York sniper case (if I recall correctly) individuals can reject reality and believe a persuasive individual as due to mental disorders everything feels unreal and false, so when someone tells them it is the only Matrix and they alone know the truth, that rings true to their experience as they are the only ones that confirm the sick person's daily reality. It would seem a wasteful and dangerous experiment to conduct on a damane, but I guess the Seanchan probably wouldn't be too bothered about that.

Oooh, that could be good. With no memory of who we are? That could be interesting to see what it comes up with for our eventually revealed identity.

Well done, dude. Epically impressive 🙂 Hope you have a similarly epic sense of achievement.

Good luck 🙂

Thanks Ithi, that was awesome. I suppose we need to go back to playing Battleships now. I'll try C4.

I will guided by your wisdom, O Game Master.

Time for a breather after all that excitement?

Well done guys. The universe is safe in your hands 🙂

You guys have been busy 🙂 Sorry, RL intervened for a bit over the last couple of weeks. I'd love to contribute but even reading a few pages back I have no idea what the Hollow Star is which makes making a decision somewhat tricky. However, I am happy to see Kevin and Nyra still in the story. I trust you guys fully know what you are doing though 😄

The Wonder Girls all go through character arcs - and over the course of the series we meet many different Aes Sedai that are not all quite as annoying. The reason they are so annoying at times, has a lot of influences, in my opinion. Jordan's idea of a strong woman seems to rub some people the wrong way. This gets better through the books, as a theme no individual can effect things alone. I think this compounds with the fact that the Aes Sedai are meant to be the most powerful individuals in the world. So it can make them seem rather arrogant. Also by the point you are in the story, it should becoming apparent that the White Tower is not as effective as it thinks it is. Their knowledge and their traditions, despite their collective certainty, are, shall we say, sub-optimal. Also, as I see it, Jordan tends to have protagonists and antagonists in scenes, and leans into nearly caricature. I think this one of things that people like about his characterisations, as it throws characters and traits into strong contrasts, which I think a lot of readers find relatable. Like if a character is being stupid, then they act really stupid, rather than having to show that they really are intelligent under that. For most of the books, we encounter Aes Sedai as the antagonists to our main characters, whether through well meaning interference or less well meaning. Later in the book, we see more from the point of view of actual sisters and White Tower starts to feel much more like a real place with real well-intentioned, flawed people. But yes, the depiction of the female characters is both one of the books strong points and weak points, imho. There will always be an element of what is annoying you, as far as I can tell, but it does get better as the characters grow and the story develops.

Welcome, Bucky. Hope you enjoy your time here 🙂

I'm guessing this is aimed at me, given the context of the thread, so please allow me to attempt to clarify. I had never hoped to come across as hating on the books. I suppose I kind of assume that to everything I post there is an unspoken postscript explaining that I truly love the books regardless of any criticism I may have. There are even bits I love and hate, such as the arguing about what food they are going to buy and that kind of thing. Parts I loved but thought were a bit dodgy, such as Valan Luca's obsession with Nynaeve's bosom. And indeed some bits I didn't like, perfection is not possible, in my estimation. There is a lot about the ending that I found very disappointing, true, but that is within the context of the greater story. There are a lot of strange things for me towards the end, some of it probably inevitable from bringing such an epic sprawling story line to a close, some from the author change and the at least partíal writing by committee where the editors perhaps had more power over Brandon Sanderson than would be normal in such circumstances. But my intention is not to hate on the books. Rather it is to discuss them in all their aspects, without the unfortunate habit in the discussions of the show to assign dastardly intentions to those who disagree with us. For example I really didn't like Egwene's death. I was not a great fan of her character in the book but it seemed to me that to be the greatest Amyrlin of all time you would need to Amyrlin for longer than a year. The whole anti-balefire creation at point of death also seemed very rushed, especially as it isn't made very clear how others learned it and especially what it was called. But other people have said they loved that piece. That is was incredibly moving for them. So I'm happy to discuss it, to see others opinions, and take solace that others do enjoy those aspects and hopefully can temper my opinions by seeing the positivity in others. I hope there is no implication that my opinion is somehow superior or more justified or that I am trying to convince anyone of The One True Opinion. Throughout the forums you will probably see people that really don't like the Faile/Shaido arc and those that love it. People that really don't like certain books, or the beginning, or the middle or the ending, and those that love exactly those parts. The same with characters etc etc. But to me that is all part of loving and living with the books, and I can only apologise if that comes across as hating, because that isn't the way it is meant, I mean it as discussing the aspects of the books that I love in all their aspects. For me being critical of the books does not in anyway undermine my love for them, and I really like discussing things with people that have different favourite characters or completely different takes from me as that can deepen my own understandjng of the story or just be interesting. Tl:dr sorry, my bad.

I am not sure that citing insanity for characters acting irrationally is a great plot device. I mean sure, but why not have characters act coherently at this crucial point in the narrative? It seems a strange choice. Having three duels will always seem a weird point - a single duel was a rather arbitrary way to end Demandred given the context - three would seem to need a really important function in the narrative to make sense, and for me, there wasn't. I could be wrong but at least for Lan it clearly said in my memory that Lan was easily the better swordsman, but he was exhausted, so not performing as well. And there was so much wrong with the battle. The Shadow had had great effect dividing their forces and driving deep into friendly territory, yet when on the brink of victory, agreed to meet the forces of the Light in one pitched battle, allowing the Light simultaneously fight at Merrilor and Shayol Ghul without people desrting to protect their own homelands. Pike formations sliced apart with balefire is not some kind of minor inconvenience, Mat's army would have collapsed at that point, not bravely fought on, without a formation pikes are utterly useless. Sending the Seanchan away did nothing. Demandred did not alter his plan and it had no effect on the battle except limiting how Mat could use them as a tactical reserve. The aping of Austerlitz where they lose the heights and then retake them was not explained at all - why was this a good idea? How could they suddenly have the troops to fight on another front? Using the villagers from Hyam(?) to defend the dam was a great little idea, explaining why Mat would not properly reinforce them, but having them retake it was nonsensical. How could they have overpowered Dreadlords? How would the troops defending the dam even have known they were the same people back from dead? Why during the Last Battle would they be so shocked that they would not have fought back but just let themselves be killed without raising a finger? It's like the Ateam where they make a custard gun and all the bad guys stand about saying "oh I'm covered in custard" until they get arrested and completely forget they are still holding M60s and the Ateam have, well, a custard gun. None of the battle made sense to me at all. Not the tactical moves, not how they protected the troops from the One Power, not Mat's great plan... Add in the duels, Bela's death, the disgusting Olver being made a hero, the heroes explaining they might be immortal and all powerful but the bad guys might tie them up and hide them in a cupboard somewhere (thanks Brandon! some magic is better left soft), Egwene's death and creation (and naming! while dying and not telling anyone?) of the Flame of Tar Valon, the weirdness with Logain who rescued refugees rather than confronting Taim... For me it was just a disaster from start to finish. The only thing I can say in its defense is compared to how bad endings of long series can be, it wasn't that bad, all things considered. Oh and Thom and Moiraine, lol. And Alvara helping Rand live again or whatever Min's viewing said by laying out clean underwear for him. Actually when I think about, let's have Demandred have three duels in the middle of the battle for no reason doesn't seem that bad in comparison.

I don't see that for me this really clarifies anything. Demandred had Mat beaten, all of Mat's battle skills were useless, why have them if he was just going to dumb luck his way through it all? His stratagems seemed completely ineffective and the whole set-up of making Demandred bet heavily on a losing hand never seemed to actually come to fruition. Three duels just seemed to be pointless as well, putting them down to ta'veren seems rather unsatisfactory. Why not just have Demandred fall from his horse? What was the actual point of making the duels such a central point of the battle? Though maybe you should not listen to me, there is very little I liked about the ending to the series. The battle with the Demandred and the Sharans high on the list of those things that I did not like. I don't think any of it made any sense to me at all.

Unfair

Wine

Daredevil

We gotta prepare. Training montages and all that.

Wasp

May as well have a look about town.