On 8/27/2018 at 11:19 AM, solarz said:

 

Mat has memories of battles and women.

Mat has memories of being various lords and soldiers and not just of women and battles, but of cities, being various lords, dancing, lore of old stories, music, and history stemming from battles before, during, and after (including those he died in).  If he can remember songs and dance steps enough to teach musicians in an Inn, he can write a letter.  Remember, he has to concentrate in order to separate his memories from those stuffed into his head.  Those, along with those regained from his past life as King and leader of the Heart Guard including language skills during his healing in the white tower, are settled in his mind at this point of the book seamlessly.

Maybe he was distracted while talking with Thom and was in "Mat Mode" but to me this was always intended to promote humor.  

On 11/23/2019 at 9:22 PM, jibJAB said:

Yeah, there must've been some weird kind of tension between having an egalitarian society and having channelers/non-channelers. Maybe that's where ter'angreal came in to equalize things a bit?

The Ter'angreal for non-channelers we see from the scraps in the tower and what the girls come across shows that they could be used to operate machines (iirc some kind of harvester) and many, many other kinds to make things easier for the non-channelers.  I think that they were tied into the lay lines that powered them with the power.  

As far as the names go and whether Ms. Sunhair could channel or not, I don't remember anything mentioned aside from the color of her hair and how she was the love of LTT's life and the misery he was in for killing her in his madness.  There is a POV from one of the male forsaken who believe LTT stole her from him or took her off the market right before he was about to move in.  It doesn't say she was a channeler, but to move in those high society circles that she did to gain the attention of LTT after Lanfear, and the other male forsaken she had to be very important and very prominent. 

I never saw it mentioned, but with those kind of details it seems that this is very likely, just not spelled out for us readers.  Kind of fitting, the Seafolk making off with Tuon's ship.  Quite a prize for the Seafolk.

On 11/14/2018 at 7:29 PM, Sabio said:

Why does every prophecy have to favor the Dragon?  Clearly the part of the prophecy had Bao not being able to channel.  Hence the TP coming into play, since in Shara a man who can channel is tattoed, can't read or write. forbidden to leave village, is used as breeding stock and killed as soon as they show signs of starting to channel.  So Dem couldn't show up channeling.  Dem hijacked the prophecy but there nothing saying Rand was meant to do it, could be it was destined for Dem to do.

We see that there are shadow prophesies, this is revealed by a POV from Moridin, iirc.  Demandred undertakes these trials to finish assembling his uber-powerful Sa'angreal and to bring the Sharans as an army on the side of the shadow.

We see in Demandred's POV of his visit to SG that the Fades have limitations to their power.  Their power lies in their ability to freeze people by the waves of fear they promote in others, and in their blade.  The blades wear out and captives are required to give power to the blades with their souls which we see in the forgers scene with the handful of captives and D's POV of how the halfmen had to be gnashing their teeth at so few captives and so few new swords being produced.  

As a note, the fades are far more effective than the forsaken.  This is probably why the DO creates Shadar Haran as his vessel rather than trusting a flawed human/forsaken.

Another quick mention...there were more than just the 13 Forsaken.  The 13 we know are those that weren't killed and were sealed away by LTT and his 100 companions.  Can't find my companion or BWB but there might have been some that were free and not trapped and certainly others killed beforehand.  Any not trapped would have been killed before or during the breaking.

Ishy was trapped in the bore, but in such an imperfect way that he was thrown free/able to exist and touch the world every so often before being pulled back in somewhere near the edge which made him very mad.  He influenced Hawkwing and I can't remember the other major events, maybe the Trolloc War?  Sorry, but it's been a while.  I'm going through the series once more in Audiobook format and just getting started.  I should mention that we see in the Prologue that Ishy knows about the wheel and history repeating itself.  He wants to break and end the wheel back then, so add in 3000 years of awareness and madness seeing the ages come and go so his ultimate goal is to end everything.

Nice theory.  It's mine as well.  In handling the threads of creation in his battle with the Dark One he learned how to create an entire world and existence, he didn't need to channel, he just created the flame.  Maybe he did it using the creator's own power, the threads of creation itself.  Nice catch on the Aiel and their beliefs, I like that.

When Matt is healed in the White Tower, we see his flashback POV as Aemon commanding the Heart Guard.  Aemon was married to an Aes Sedai Queen who drew too much of the OP and melted Manetheran away when he died, and for the betrayal of the Aes Sedai and the men of Aridhol not coming.  Oddly enough, the Ogier supposedly couldn't come in time, yet they had the Ways in which to travel through.  I don't believe they were dark at that time.

The parallels between Tuon channeling and being empress of Seanchan and Matt's behavior also lend to him being Aemon. 

On 9/5/2018 at 12:48 PM, idiotsavant said:

I have started my annual re-read of the series (Currently in the middle of tDR) and am still amazed at the quality of this series. I have read so many series by other authors. Some I enjoyed immensely, others... not so much. But the WoT is just as good the 20th time you read it as the first. It was what I binged before I knew what Netflix was. It was what I took off work for the day a new book came out. Just amazes me how gripping these books are and how they have become so intertwined with my life. (I even named my first daughter Elayna fercryinoutloud!) 

This doesn't really have a point, I guess. I just wanted to share how much I love this series.

May you find water and shade.

Matt

I think most of us hardcore fans took a day off when the next book hit shelves or RJ came to town on a book signing tour.   I took have done many rereads of the series, but I have done the audiobooks more than the books.  I used to start with Eye and go through the entire series listening until I fell asleep, and start over.  It took two months to get through them all, and to spice things up I'd add in New Spring once in a while as well.

On 7/26/2017 at 5:40 PM, Maedelin said:

Ok, so get this:

 

I've been thinking a lot about the Aiel and their purpose during the Age of Legends.  A group of people who have bound themselves and all (ostensibly) successive generations of their progeny to non-violence and service of the Aes Sedai.  In fact, when the Bore was made and the hole in the Dark One's prison were created, Rand's ancestor said specifically that they failed.  I had always found that odd; what had they failed to do?  How?  Beyond just keeping the Aes Sedai cautious, which you can tell people to be careful as much as you'd like, but I can't imagine that the Aes Sedai would always listen.

 

A few days ago, I finally read River of Souls. (My opinion on that can be saved for another day.) Within Bao (Demandred) describes how he was trained to assumed The Oneness.  Within this description, it was reported that Barid Bel Medar learned to get The Oneness being dragged on a sled in snow, and with a coal pressed to his skin.  Regardless of the quality of healing in that time, neither of these practices sound like the practices of an advanced society.  That revelation, combined with the Aiel, and the last few books that kept discussing how Lews Therin was so arrogant led me to an interesting conclusion.

 

So!  My theory is this: The Age of Legends wasn't as utopian as it is described.  It was actually a society built on overbearing pride, status-driven social climbers, and a callous regard of their society as a whole.  In fact, it mirrors a little what the Dark One had in mind for the world.  Remember what people did to Charn on the eve of the end of the War of Power?  All they feared was the Ogier coming after them.

 

Perhaps the Dark One was influencing society more subtly than anyone would have imagined, enticed Mierin Eronaile (Lanfear/Cyndane) and Beidomon to unwittingly drilled a hole into the prison of the Dark One.  Due to this dystopian society that had a utopian sheen to it, the Aiel were indeed the only people who held to a true path on the Light.

 

What do you all think of this?  I'd love to hear points and counter-points!

The Aiel were secret guardians of the knowledge that the Dark One existed and through their non-violence hoped to continue to influence the world to be a better place and to keep the DO at bay.  When the bore was drilled they knew they had failed.  

In all seriousness, the AOL is sort of like a Hunger Games Utopia.  The wealthy and privileged wined and dined and worked at their own uses of the OP or using the tech powered by the OP to do their own thing.  There were lavish cities and gardens and Graendal is a perfect example of the indulgence, LTT a good example of the arrogance and superior thinking.  Those people didn't really give much thought to all the others, those who supported that society by making the wine and tending the fields.  Then again go sing a song and watch a Greenman dance and you have all the food you need in one go that just has to be harvested. 

The Forsaken were off doing their little experiments on people's minds or other experiments creating the precursors of the Trollocs and all the shadow's creatures, so there was a lot of shady stuff going on behind the scenes done against the less fortunate.  If you got caught or exposed and became an embarrassment, then you were forced to use a binding rod to swear on that you wouldn't do that stuff any more.  The Aes Sedai were servants of the people, they healed the sick, improved roads and made bridges out of Heartstone, and were up to all kinds of things.  Even as great as the US or the UK and other "modern" powers are in being an overall good society, there is deviance and there is poverty and people going missing all the time.  That is part of the balance.  

The "Test" is only effective in singling out women born with the spark, who will channel regardless.  That is why they leap on RM's forkroot tea.  It is far more effective and likely faster.  It seems to work on any woman who can or can learn to touch the source.  There are many references of women fainting or going weak after drinking it.  Most likely never knew they could touch the source or could learn.  The collar is only effective on suldam who have worked long supervising and being linked to channelers.  

Yes, that scene was well-intended, but missed the mark.  I think that in trying to provide some levity, BS forgot that Mat had the memories of countless noblemen.  He wouldn't misspell words and have poor writing skills.  After all, he issues orders to his men like a true lord and general.

You have to remember that the Forsaken trapped at the sealing of the Bore were the strongest and the only ones left alive by that time.  Many had been killed, and not just by the forces of Light.  The Forsaken plotted and schemed and double-crossed one another all the time.  

Basically they were all reborn, or rather, they were replaced with new forsaken and Dreadlords which kind of took their place.  Those turned against their will, those darkfriends who could channel that went to be trained by Taim...I'm sure off screen Taim and his few trusted lackeys were testing all the male darkfriends they could.  And then Demi went and converted (freed) an entire nation of channelers gaining many hundreds of male and female channelers who kind of didn't seem to care who they served.  

Then there was the Black Ajah who lost a good number of their people in the culling.  Much like Jordan believed, especially with the Wheel turning, history repeated itself.  Or a version of it.  It is kind of hard to believe, but LTT and Rand are from two different parts of history...one doomed to fail, and the other the true savior, both are the same soul, yet both need one another in order to exist.  There will someday be a society who had forgotten the Dark One, who tries to use him for a source of new power, and is duped into boring a hole.  The new Rand will come along and rebalance everything so that for thousands of years people will live in relative safety and will achieve a gaia-like existence, forgetting their history, even the Source at some point, and it all starts over.  

RJ was a historian and as a youth did some traveling of the world thanks to the US Army (Vietnam).  He studied in a prestigious War Academy, and was heavily influenced by Empires and Armies and famous battles.  (The last battle's main fight is vaguely reminiscent of the Battle of Gettysburg and the Round Tops of the American Civil War.)  I would say that the Aiel are a blend of the Zulus with the spears and the running everywhere, while their physical appearance is more Scottish (All the red hair and fair skin.)

I do agree that RJ borrowed from anywhere and everywhere, knowingly and unknowingly.  I saw the Never Ending Story as a kid and about a year ago saw it with my kids and several glaring things stuck out (many!), the same with the original Star Wars series and so many other things.  Tolkien is where he borrowed from heaviest and where he got the main idea.  He admits it in his interview for the audiobooks.  He couldn't stand the quick start to traditional fantasy of a wizard showing up and everyone was like, "You are the one" and the character's quick acceptance of his fate.  Of course there are a lot of commonalities as these are what separates fantasy from westerns or spy novels.

In a lot of my writing, when I go back through and edit I find things all the time, especially in trying to generate random names for my characters on the fly.  Of course when RJ has some 3,000 character names it's hard not to find something close, or character names in other novels I've read or the names of cities and such.

His dad went there to die like the male channelers discovered among the Aiel.  After Rand's mom dies he loses himself, blames himself for not denying her, doesn't know where the child went.  After that, in his eyes it was the honorable thing to do.  I don't think that Luc vowed anything or much cared about his sister.  Luc loves to hunt, and we see in the Two Rivers that he hunts the Shadow's creatures as much as he does any other.  It was likely all prophesied, and meant to happen though that was only a mention for us to puzzle out, him being a man with a face of his dead love whom he couldn't raise a weapon to.  Otherwise he probably would have killed Slayer or scared him into T'A'R because Slayer is a bully and likes easy kills.  An Aiel Chief or soon to be chief out for blood, wanting to take as many of the shadow with him before he gets it?  My money's on the Aiel.

Might be crossover from LTT.  In his day weaves and nets were called "webs" iirc, but we see the term "nets" used with some of the weaves when the girls are together, especially when they figure out how to change their appearance, I believe.  Some of the forsaken are seen in character thinking of what they were doing as spinning or casting webs, especially referring to compulsion or maybe punishment weaves.

While they had access to Wells, no one had a need to store a concentrated form of the power during that time when everyone was relatively strong and in the case of LTT and the Hundred companions, arrogant.  Your logic is correct, however.  If an Eye or a pool had existed and was used, then it would be tainted and would have driven them mad.  The world would have broken but the source wouldn't be tainted.  

The only use for a concentrated well like the Eye was cleaning and storing the source in a physical form which concentrated it, whether that was the use or an unintended consequence we don't know.  We do know that the Aes Sedai hid the banner and a seal and the HOV beneath the pool, likely based off prophecy.  And we also know there were the same number of Eyes in RJ's original manuscript as there were seals, iirc.  That was reworked and for a time it looked like for each Forsaken Rand and CO killed that a seal was broken, but then that fettered out.  I attribute all that to early bookisms, the editing process where the publisher had a lot more input early on and so forth.

While Tolkein's LOTR was a big inspiration for him, admitted in his audiobook interview and how he wanted to change the way most fantasy involved someone showing up and announcing a prophesy of "You are the one..." he also borrowed from many sources outside of Myth and Religion...including The Never Ending Story, and Star Wars!

Sorry for the rant, but I worked in retail and had to ship stale cigarettes back.  I made the mistake of asking the vendors if the company destroyed it and was told what they do with it.  Spread the cigarettes onto racks and treat them with chemicals and repackage them as new cigs.  Some of the tobacco products can be well over a year old.  Makes me even more glad I don't partake.  So the next time you smokers detect a slight difference in your cigarette...now you know it's probably one of those packed with extra chems!

Pipe tobacco and Cigarette tobacco are different.  Also, in Randland Big Tobacco hasn't pumped all kinds of chemicals into the tobacco, they also don't recall Two Rivers Tobacco and steam in chemicals once past its date to "refresh it" and sell it as fresh tobacco...they also don't put fiberglass into chewing tobacco.  Randland Tobacco= Natural original Native American Tobacco.  Still not healthy, but in Randland it is an occasional enjoyment.

On 5/21/2018 at 9:10 AM, agreddon said:

The issue is that according to reproduction 101, women are born with all the eggs they will ever have and they lose those eggs at more or less at a  constant rate.  That's not even dealing with the genetic problems of giving birth later on in life.  So unless they're cycles slow down tremendously we have a logic hole here.

No logic hole here, just a confusion with biology.  Women have over 100,000 eggs and use 12 a year.  You do the math.

Sammael stood on the Illian side of a gateway he opened using inverted weaves to hide where he was and used the storm the girls had raised to send the lightning bolts down marching across Rand's Maidens and the Tower, then closed it when he saw his handiwork had the desired effect.

It wouldn't go noticed.  People might remark on men dying suddenly and unexpectedly, their, "luck running out."  With the vile tricks that they had at their disposal it is entirely likely.  Look at the methods of the BA and the other sisters that we see.  Stopping someone's heart, compulsion in varying degrees, people vanishing like novices sent to work on farms and the farm owners which was strange but nothing was done.  People went missing all the time that had no ties to the power, so 10,000 is entirely believable.

Most of the men from the Two Rivers were younger boys too young for Perrin to consider taking with him.