The epilogue isn't entirely RJ, and BS quotes about Nakomi imply she's his invention (in this thread) as opposed to something RJ wrote into the end then BS used in ToM.

This is one of the few interesting areas of conversation left to me r.e. WoT, and part of the reason I stuck with the series (I expected RJ would have come up with something more interesting or at least have hand-waved away better).

The problem is thinking about how TLB would be fought given what we've seen channelers do (mostly without knowing what they were doing), I don't see much besides cower in Steddings and the first side that figures out how to nuke them wins :)

It was one of those Brandon's answer changes everything deals. I know we've talked about and think it was pretty recent, but theoryland interview search and websearch here is coming up empty (my user name + dragon + champion of light).

Other souls can be Champion of the Light, it's just that when the Dragon's around, it's him. As well as there also being a Dragoness type soul or the possibility of one or something.

Iirc, the first age to second age is because of the discovery of channeling (there's some RJ chatter on this, not sure how authoritative or how well recorded). Nothing in the main books about it, and doesn't sound like there was a good v evil to do in that one, but probably wouldn't pan that idea immediately either.

We don't know, only that she seems to be entirely BS. Ask and find out.

That's some delicious irony, please don't delete this page mods.

KP, there's two things in AMoL: voice heard by Rand (others?) when he enters the Pit then the old lady when he comes out.

Well, the problem is we have to circle the drain for pages until a semi-clear picture pops out from interview quotes. I was there last time that happened, it's horrible to read. Then you get to the conclusion that Rand's soul is special, special because it's special, special: yay.

Back the first paragraph up plz Suttree. Was my understanding from interview crap that Dragon = CoL if spun out, but others can be CoL. Don't remember anything about eternal struggle v Ishy except RJ saying "you believed Ishy?!?!"

There's some oddities from other books then. Like traditionally the shield on a man brought to Tar Valon is done with your full ability--see LoC.

Still leaves the overarching problem that channeling is just way too good, and makes everything else pointless excepting very specific circumstances. I have reasons and examples and counterexamples for those examples but I'd rather make a specific topic of it rather than do so here (I guess it could be done now because you don't need AMoL spoilers).

Maybe if the last battle revolved around steddings or something (yah, Itulrade, but there's issues with how he beat the seanchan in tGS too).

To be fair, the city nuking or moutain chain raising solo works probably were because of massive over-drawing and resulted in death.

There's another side to that, if the light-side channelers start fighting intelligently (you know, open a gateway under a trolloc force and drop it on another enemy force or the like), how bad does it get for the light? The light has to pay attention to keeping non-channelers alive (because they're not evil and all), so why doesn't Taim + 71 others sit in a recliner anywhere on the planet, open a gateway, toss nuke, close gateway, repeat until dinner?

I suppose that's always the problem with this situation, too many possibilities and very little to go on.

The last many page thread I don't think we could get very many people to agree on what the attack was supposed to accomplish, what actually was accomplished (and why/not) and who could possibly benefit from those. And it always gets side-tracked into Fain lol.

Quickly on Fain: he has to get to a subvertable pile of shadowspawn quickly (we're a handful of days from the end of CoT when Fain was in Far Madding). Probably means the Blight, which means a few days in the Ways for him. Then a few other assumptions as well as going against character, he just killed people that were trying to kill Rand after all. Takes too many leaps of faith and things we haven't seen.

I'm with jsbrads, though even I wouldn't phrase it that harshly. Throw infinite trollocs at Rand's group there (even less Logain + whomever's with him), you should just have infinite dead trollocs. I think that needs resolving before looking into who sent the attack, i.e. if it was meant to actually do something besides what it does (spur Rand into action, but he'd been waiting on Bashere's news anyway).

Bowl of Winds for purpose described seems too much bad fantasy cliche for me (yah, RJ's used or subverted cliches in the past too). Will have to dig into more specific thoughts later.

I'd put Mat and probably quite a few others ahead of Rand for being universally liked.

Grown up Jumara or big whatever the Seanchan birds are called? Contrails don't only come from engine exhaust vapor, but that is the most common cause.

If all the characters in the books are stupid, then why should you believe the conclusions and observations they make? Particularly the Forsaken, since they've obviously bought a bridge to Brooklyn :)

That vision comes up several times, I wouldn't be that quick to dismiss it :)

Having read the paperback instead of the hardcover, I'm a good bit more charitable to most of Egwene's actions compared to people I tend to agree with in other areas. So there's that, but I'm certainly not going to compare the two texts.

Granted I think the first half of Egwene's tGS story was done much more effectively in 10 pages of KoD, and I'm still baffled why that was redone poorly instead of any of a dozen different plot threads getting screen time.

Mr Ares' posts shouldn't be that hard to understand: Just read them in Christopher Lee's Saruman voice and you'll get it.

Can't think of any canon from NS contradicting the main sequence novels, but there isn't that much overlap up to tGS (AS test and what little I can recall of Kandor in the regular series of course). It's better reading than the Perrin chapters of CoT at least :)

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I work in a field where spelling something that ends in ene with ine can kill you and anyone that happens to be breathing the same air as you. Pays a lot less than editing major novels too. Well, life didn't come with a fairness guarantee.

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So what's the topic again? Hmm. Probably something to do with plot sprawl or plotting in general.

It's arc! >:(!eleven!

If Arkelias is this worked up over aCoS, I can't wait for the CoT and PoD lists. After all, the two pages of dress descriptions chapter and the interminable bath scenes are on your horizon. Wondering if knowledge that the Perrin, Elayne, etc drug-out-forever subplots are coloring your opinion?

ACoS does have some good payoff moments with other characters, and are related together (say the Egwene shipping Lan off to Ebou Dar and the results of that). It also broadens (deepens?) the world again (not to mention the shorter time frame plus pretty much everyone being just a step away from anywhere), just when we thought there were enough major players and crazy abilities around, I wouldn't rate it as among the dregs of WoT.

Lanfear stilled isn't way out there, but it's not proven. Moiraine stilled = likely (Lan). Lanfear had been channeling through an angreal that Mo batted out of her hand before they went through the door. That's a recipe for burning out, but then Lanfear is pretty capable with the power and all.

you would have to go back and figure out if the description of Cyndane as a "boxoum" type is parallel with a description of Cabriana as well.

 

I hadn't thought that they may have used her body.

Cyndane: long silver hair, "vivid" blus eyes, short, bosomy, breathy voice.

Cabriana: long blond hair, pale blue eyes. She has a bit part in New Spring which I don't have now. I'll check the Semi passage, but I don't think there's anything there to describe voice, height or bosom.

Decent place for having most things Selene in one place is Night in the Light's Longest Theory (bit down on this page) I think there's some interesting things to argue in the Selene/Lanfear/someone else occasionally bits and pieces in books 2-4...but I don't think it'll be important to the end of the series.