On 10/19/2023 at 8:10 AM, Scarloc99 said:

I mean you assume they are unique, you never know, maybe there where queues hours long waiting for the latest release of the Fat Man angreal. Fat Man 5.6, now slightly slimmer and in a different shade of green.  

Yes, but if that were true, the Forsaken would not have to be very concerned about whether they could identify what they were dealing with.

If the ter'angreal were sensibly designed, they'd all have some form of identification and instruction manual built-in. And if alternatively, you needed a common database to look the items up... Then for a common tool, at least one would likely have survived to fall into Aes Sedai hands.

Anyway, WoT's ter'angreal seem like ancient magic in many series... Mostly unique objects without much history or concern for the ecosystem necessary to enable building them.

Nothing wrong with that really.

It would've been nice if RJ's actual notes for the final books had been released along with the books.

I would like to know what details Brandon Sanderson changed or added on himself.

Some of the writing definitely had the vibe of fanfiction, and of a perspective that is more akin to a reader's than a writer's.

Like how the question of whether Mat was one of the Heroes of the Horn... If that is the answer, then it's almost not worth giving the answer. Because it takes away from people's imaginations while not really adding anything.

6 hours ago, Yamezt said:

I think this solution would more or less have the same effect as severing as they will lose the will to live because they can feel the source but cannot touch it.

If we think of it as akin to withdrawal from a drug... You'd just need someone to continue administering the drug regularly.

6 hours ago, Yamezt said:

I can't imagine a woman will want to head the link as then she would be exposed to the taint (certainly there will be outliers - but in general I can't imagine that would be the case)

The taint only seemed to hit the body of the man it was being channeled through. At most the female Aes Sedai could sense that the taint was there.

6 hours ago, Yamezt said:

From recollection, it was the 100 companions that were instantly mad. Then the remaining male aes sedai gradually became mad.

You may be right. 

I would think though, given that the taint appeared to be finite (which allowed Rand to channel it away in a day of use of the Choedan Kal)...

That on Day 1, the taint was a whole lot stronger. And you would be hurt a whole lot faster if you channeled.

Maybe some male Aes Sedia just hadn't channeled that day yet, and started getting the news that something appeared to have gone wrong with Saidin. Which would have given them some ability to adapt.

6 hours ago, Yamezt said:

Given the amount of knowledge is lost, even just for Saidar, I think the breaking was really terrible, and knowledge about working together with the power would have been lost.

Mostly, it seems that the female Aes Sedai of the time didn't do a good enough job in getting organized. 

Normally, you'd build some kind of defensive base that you could try to act out of.

Collections of female Aes Sedai who could link should have been able to pull that off, against male Aes Sedai that were just acting individually.

But... One can't overthink the setting of a novel. There's nothing to say that RJ put a lot of thought into the details of the breaking and exactly what was done by whom at the time.

On 8/14/2022 at 9:41 PM, ForsakenPotato said:

At first I thought Egwene stopped wanting to be with Rand because she could do better...but then she ended up with Gawyn so I had to throw that theory out the window.

At the time when she started becoming attracted to Gawyn, he was indeed a much better option than Rand.

Egwene does seem like the type to think that they deserve to be high status.

Luckily, the first book I read was the 5th - where RJ had conveniently added enough of an intro for newcomers that you didn't need to read the earlier ones.

Around Book 5, the story was seriously moving!

I'm not sure I'd have liked the series as much if I'd started from Book 1... Which seemed heavily influenced by Lord of the Rings.

IMO, it's not a bad idea to just read Books 4-6 and then stop reading. lol

On 10/2/2023 at 8:43 AM, Bugglesley said:

"Jim's going mad, he knows it and I know it, so let's make him swear not to hurt anyone unless he's personally threatened." Jim wakes up, sees the whole room full of Trollocs, and only after smashing the walls together does he realize it was his loved ones all along.

A practical solution there would just be "Don't channel except in a link where the woman controls the link" - or just don't channel at all, outside of linking.

I think the set up though is supposed to be that a ton of male channelers went completely mad instantaneously when Saidin was originally tainted. So, it was like millions of people were suddenly terrorists with rocket launchers.

It's true though that common sense should've prevailed eventually once things stabilized, and some mature Aes Sedai that were still alive, and thinking long term, should've tried stabilizing a group of male channelers... Because they were necessary for a lot of advanced stuff.

But, if they were sensible, how would we get so much drama?

Ultimately, an author has a story that they want to tell. And it's hard to account for the many details of how billions of real humans might have acted in a given situation.

That might end up being the kind of thing that you can simulate with AI... It'll be interesting to see some of the virtual worlds that will likely be created in the future.

The concept was overall dodgy since channeling is supposed to be linked to the soul, and that's a hard addiction to get rid of.

The ending seemed to be breaking the established rules of the world... Which was kinda fine, but also unnecessary.

I personally assumed that it was Creator power.

On 10/16/2023 at 5:13 PM, TravellingIsAGatewayDrug said:

I know it would largely invalidate a lot of what the character was about, but I was hoping that she would've been healed by Nynaeve and return as a user of the One power in some capacity.

Healed by Asha'man so that she'd be back at full power.

I'd expected her ter'angreal knowledge to come in handy. Plus, her reactions to advancements in ter'angreal knowledge would've been some good fan service.

The problem is that many of the ter'angreal seem to be one-off, artisinal artifacts.

Like, if they were just consumer products, you wouldn't make special shapes for an angreal (like Rand's fat man angreal)... You'd just have some generic shape where it's obvious that "It's an iPhone".

The fact that even The Forsaken are wary of the objects of Power that might be in the Stone of Tear because of their unknown effects, implies that they might not be able to recognize that many of them either.

Stuff like ancestral memory recall, or interdimensional simulation (if not actual possession of bodies in alternate lives)...

I'd be more inclined to assume that they are billion dollar research projects and not consumer goods.

The Age of Legends also just doesn't seem very advanced from a usability standpoint as far as their products are concerned... Maybe because their tech was more dependent on things like "the talent for making angreal" rather than Math.

On 9/18/2023 at 12:30 PM, Elendir said:

damane were slaves

The Damane seem like the best group for iteration on effective battle tactics. Since the Suldam could see weaves and control them - and they would benefit from new techniques that brought victory in battle.

Like, even a weak female channeler may be able to use air to block your nostrils and mouth with Air, and then you're dead pretty quick. And even before they died, most people would be panicking pretty hard, so they'd be useless in a fight.

But... If the story became too much about the channelers, then that would complicate things. And human soldiers would quickly become meaningless in deciding the outcomes of battles.

Reading WoT could be annoying at times because the characters often seemed remarkably stupid. But that's part of what created the drama that made the story entertaining.

I was like... Eh??

First, the Dark One was turned into a total loser who could be crushed in Rand's hand once he was brought into the world... After all the fake scenarios that he and Rand experienced that were just distracting from the plot.

And then we find that the ending that Robert Jordan had most likely written before he started writing the series was... That Rand would finally be able to put down the weight of responsibility and be completely free...

"Duty is heavier than a mountain; death is lighter than a feather" ...

Overall, the ending was very contrived and not very satisfying... Especially the excuse for why the Dark One needed to be left alive.

Humans do not need Satan, to lead them astray or make them evil. We are perfectly capable of that on our own. lol