Final Wheel of time inc !!

[khoregate]

OK final book of the wheel of time series is out Jan 8th who is gonna get it or has it on pre order?

[Kitten Champion]

I suppose I will, although pre-ordering has always seemed like a stupid term. You're simply ordering.

How could I not, when I've read the series at least 3 times over by now?

[Aidan305]

I'll be picking it up, if only to fill in the last space on that shelf of my bookshelves.

I'll be reading it too, of course. There's too many questions left to answer to not do it.

[JoshL]

Preordered, can't wait! I've been reading this series for over half my life! Can't wait to see how it all ends...and then the grand start-to-finish re-read!

[lightningcat]

Of course I'll be getting it. The real question is am I going to do another marathon reread of the rest of the series before reading it.

[TheEmerged]

Once upon a time, I was warned to stay away from this series until the final book was out.

I guess that means it's time to start hunting for the first book :smallbiggrin:

[Elder Tsofu]

Get the audio-books, the pages fly away when you're able to "read" them while washing/driving to work/shovelling snow. It might give you a different perspective on things too since you hear the words through an other person.

---

Not pre-ordered the book, but eagerly waiting for it. Have only been at it the last 10 years so I can wait a little while longer.

[Emmerask]

Well most of the characters got almost near likeable the last two books ^^

Yep getting this one, hopefully it has a "good" (not in happy necessarily) ending because most fantasy series really have poor endings, I remember one series where it literally was "a god(des) shows up and makes everything right, the end".

Well lets hope this one will be awesome :smallsmile:


Get the audio-books, the pages fly away when you're able to "read" them while washing/driving to work/shovelling snow. It might give you a different perspective on things too since you hear the words through an other person.


yep, while not as good as the harry potter audiobooks (quality wise) they are pretty good!

[TheWombatOfDoom]

Wheel of time = TL:DR. By the time I got to book 6 I was forgetting what HAD happened. I'm a pretty decent reader and the storyline and amount of characters got to be too much for me. And that's a shame.

[khoregate]

nearly finished my marathon re-read on the gathering storm now with 2 weeks to go to read towers of midnight ( gotta love a kindle lugging around the books would be a pain at work :) )

[Lord Seth]

I suppose I will, although pre-ordering has always seemed like a stupid term. You're simply ordering.Pre-ordering specifies you are reserving a copy prior to its release. Regular ordering is ordering one after its release. How is that distinction "stupid"?

[Traab]

Wheel of time = TL:DR. By the time I got to book 6 I was forgetting what HAD happened. I'm a pretty decent reader and the storyline and amount of characters got to be too much for me. And that's a shame.

This. I bought book 7 and all, but past book 6 I am just lost. There are too many characters factions and plots to keep track of for me. Also, Iirc, at one point rand is in a position where he is basically doing it. He has brought a half dozen nations or so under his banner, he is setting things up. Then he almost goes through a reset. Its like everything fell apart. I think it happened after he cleansed the male half of the source But its been so long I cant remember. That being said, books 4 5 and 6 are pretty damn awesome all the way around. Lots of cool stuff happens, some of my favorite scenes, and it represents the time frame where I had the most hope of the series coming to a suitably epic conclusion.

[Soras Teva Gee]

All I keep thinking reading this thread is: Pffpht! Pansies!

When I first discovered the series I put it EotW thru WH three times in as many months. Course truly appreciating the series only comes in on about the fifth time through.

But enough about Scotsmen and other things. I won't be marathoning the whole series (even I can't pack the series in that quick), well until after when I can go back to the early books and see how much was there waiting back then even.

[Helanna]

I'm nearly done with my re-read. I just gotta finish Gathering Storm and Towers of Midnight, so I should be done juuust before the 8th. Whereupon I will drive 40 minutes out to the nearest major bookstore at 8 in the morning to be sure I get it as soon as possible. I took the next few days off of work as well (because I work in retail, and January is a really good time for a mini vacation anyway), so I'll probably end up locking myself in my room and reading it a couple of times.

I'm just a little excited here. I've only been reading for about 8 years, definitely not nearly as long as some people, but WoT is basically single-handedly responsible for introducing me to the internet and it shaped a lot of my interests when I was in middle school.

As with every other WoT thread, I'm gonna plug Leigh Butler's re-read (http://www.tor.com/features/series/wot-reread). It's absolutely excellent if you need a refresher for any (or all) of the books. I've also heard from a couple people who lost interest around books 7/8 that you can just read the summaries for those books and then jump back into the series where Brandon Sanderson took over (aka where things started happening again. I love this series like crazy but holy CRAP does the plot screech to a halt in those books).

[Kjata]

Wheel of time = TL:DR. By the time I got to book 6 I was forgetting what HAD happened. I'm a pretty decent reader and the storyline and amount of characters got to be too much for me. And that's a shame.

I read the first book years ago, and while it wasn't the best book ever, I was willing to continue. So I looked into the rest of the series. And upon finding a list of books in the series, promptly gave up to read something that came in trilogy form.

[Douglas]

I have a pair of vacation days reserved for this. I am uncertain whether the second one will be used to finish the book, or to recover from staying up ridiculously late to finish it earlier.

[TheWombatOfDoom]

I read the first book years ago, and while it wasn't the best book ever, I was willing to continue. So I looked into the rest of the series. And upon finding a list of books in the series, promptly gave up to read something that came in trilogy form.

I felt the first book was a good stand alone. I'll even go on to say I loved the series until it kept churning and expanding.

However, your attitude about los of books turning you off as a reader terrifies me as a writer....:smalleek:

[Traab]

I felt the first book was a good stand alone. I'll even go on to say I loved the series until it kept churning and expanding.

However, your attitude about los of books turning you off as a reader terrifies me as a writer....:smalleek:

I read it not realizing it was the start of a series until it was too late. Then I groaned in rage as I learned the third book wasnt due to be released for a few months. Then I felt true despair as the centuries rolled by, and book after book after book came out, complicating the story further and further. Making it even harder to keep everything straight because I kept having to wait a year for the next book to find out what happened next. Perhaps, had I not learned of this series until say, last week, it would have gone differently for me. But its hard to stay interested in a series you have been reading in short spurts for a decade or so.

[TheWombatOfDoom]

I read it not realizing it was the start of a series until it was too late. Then I groaned in rage as I learned the third book wasnt due to be released for a few months. Then I felt true despair as the centuries rolled by, and book after book after book came out, complicating the story further and further. Making it even harder to keep everything straight because I kept having to wait a year for the next book to find out what happened next. Perhaps, had I not learned of this series until say, last week, it would have gone differently for me. But its hard to stay interested in a series you have been reading in short spurts for a decade or so.

Granted, but it's also hard to do if say, you have a busy life and limited time to read in it. I don't have the time to commit to reading this series even though I have all the books save the last three. And its not because they're bad or good, but because they are so complex. Which in small doses is great! But why does it have to keep getting even MORE complex? Does he ever make the plot shrink again or is the 150+ characters now?

[JoshL]

Granted, but it's also hard to do if say, you have a busy life and limited time to read in it. I don't have the time to commit to reading this series even though I have all the books save the last three. And its not because they're bad or good, but because they are so complex. Which in small doses is great! But why does it have to keep getting even MORE complex? Does he ever make the plot shrink again or is the 150+ characters now?

Why? Because that's what some of us keep coming back for! Not for everyone, but the rich, complex and changing world is one of the things that appeal to me about this series. And almost everyone, up to and including the barely-developed maid gets a chance to be truely awesome!

The friend of mine who loaned me the books in the first place used to keep an outline. I personally never had much of a problem keeping the characters and stories straight over the years, but she was more organized than me in general. It really pays off on re-reads though. Little details setting up things that don't happen for five books. Lots of big twists that, in retrospect, were foreshadowed well enough that you really should have seen them coming.

It's definitely not for everyone (but then again, what is?) but hopefully now that it's ending more people will give it a shot/another shot.

[Traab]

Why? Because that's what some of us keep coming back for! Not for everyone, but the rich, complex and changing world is one of the things that appeal to me about this series. And almost everyone, up to and including the barely-developed maid gets a chance to be truely awesome!

The friend of mine who loaned me the books in the first place used to keep an outline. I personally never had much of a problem keeping the characters and stories straight over the years, but she was more organized than me in general. It really pays off on re-reads though. Little details setting up things that don't happen for five books. Lots of big twists that, in retrospect, were foreshadowed well enough that you really should have seen them coming.

It's definitely not for everyone (but then again, what is?) but hopefully now that it's ending more people will give it a shot/another shot.

I think my biggest issue was the lack of a sense of permanence to their actions. Its been awhile, but didnt several of the bad guys rand struggled so hard to kill early on end up coming back to life somehow? Also, the aforementioned disintegration of his nascent empire after he cleansed the male half of the source. It seemed to me that every time he started to get somewhere, jordan just walked it all back and redid it all. That has always been a turnoff to me to read a story where the conclusion seems to be approaching only for the author to go "YOINK!" and add on another 3000 pages. Honestly, the story could have been wrapped up a half dozen books ago and still been an incredibly epic series.

[TheWombatOfDoom]

Why? Because that's what some of us keep coming back for! Not for everyone, but the rich, complex and changing world is one of the things that appeal to me about this series. And almost everyone, up to and including the barely-developed maid gets a chance to be truely awesome!

The friend of mine who loaned me the books in the first place used to keep an outline. I personally never had much of a problem keeping the characters and stories straight over the years, but she was more organized than me in general. It really pays off on re-reads though. Little details setting up things that don't happen for five books. Lots of big twists that, in retrospect, were foreshadowed well enough that you really should have seen them coming.

It's definitely not for everyone (but then again, what is?) but hopefully now that it's ending more people will give it a shot/another shot.

But everyone AND the maid? Really? To me that just seems to be that Robert Jordan doesn't know how to keep a focus on the things...or rather it often felt like the story had taken off without his control...maybe I have an issue with that style, but a similar thing happens in song of ice and fire...and I have been reading these now...

Perhaps my tastes have changed and I shouldn't trust my younger self's views of it, but from what I remember at the time it was getting to the 6th book, and I was like....I have to read it all again because I don't remember who these people are at all. And that was 5 monumental books to slog through and I was...I couldn't bring myself to do it. It took me awhile just to get that far and to have to re-go-over all of that...Perhaps 8 years later will fix this...

For the record, I don't mean to rag on the series. I did enjoy the books I had read. I loved the clever sneak in of the Sword in the Stone (thought it creative and enthralling) and Perrin's wolf abilities were awesome...but I had serious doubts that everything would be resolved in the end due to the ever expanding storyline without ever having closure on ANY front, and that caused me to become exasperated.

[Douglas]

I think my biggest issue was the lack of a sense of permanence to their actions. Its been awhile, but didnt several of the bad guys rand struggled so hard to kill early on end up coming back to life somehow? Also, the aforementioned disintegration of his nascent empire after he cleansed the male half of the source. It seemed to me that every time he started to get somewhere, jordan just walked it all back and redid it all. That has always been a turnoff to me to read a story where the conclusion seems to be approaching only for the author to go "YOINK!" and add on another 3000 pages. Honestly, the story could have been wrapped up a half dozen books ago and still been an incredibly epic series.
A grand total of four Forsaken have been brought back to life by the Dark One. Of those, two have been killed again, one by a method that put him beyond the Dark One's reach and the other in disgrace such that the Dark One hasn't been willing to bring him back again. Of the other two, one is the head Forsaken and pretty much has to be around for the series climax, and the other was sent to an alien world and Rand should never have assumed she was dead in the first place - she didn't actually die until another Forsaken came and killed her because it was the most expedient way of getting her back out.

Six other Forsaken have been killed permanently.

As for Rand's empire, Tear, Illian, Mayene, and the Aiel are still loyal, he's gained Arad Doman and Ghealdan, the Borderlands have joined him, and Andor and Cairhien only split off because he was intentionally handing them over to Elayne. His empire hasn't gone anywhere.
It seems to me that your problem is some combination of confusing different locations with each other, assuming too readily that the occasional venture into "Rand-with-strike-force" scale action meant the empire was gone rather than temporarily out of focus, and mis-assessing the scale in the first place. The series has never really gone backwards on progress (unless you count a certain plot by Elaida in book 4 or thereabouts), it's just that there's so much and the world map is so large that there keeps being an additional area that hasn't been dealt with yet - but those areas have always been there either on the world map or in foreshadowing and prophecy.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I figure I'll finally go out, read the summaries of the books (as I haven't read them in forever), and then read Sanderson's books. I loved The Way of Kings, so I can't wait to see what he does with WoT. I think he's capable of righting Jordan's more grievous flaws.

[danzibr]

I think the tl;dr people just lack tenacity. They really are great books.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I think the tl;dr people just lack tenacity. They really are great books.
What about "did read; too long"? :smallwink:

[Douglas]

For the record, I don't mean to rag on the series. I did enjoy the books I had read. I loved the clever sneak in of the Sword in the Stone (thought it creative and enthralling) and Perrin's wolf abilities were awesome...but I had serious doubts that everything would be resolved in the end due to the ever expanding storyline without ever having closure on ANY front, and that caused me to become exasperated.
That's just the tip of the iceberg with regard to references to various elements of mythology. For example, there's (minor Gathering Storm spoiler, Norse reference):
Odin Mat riding into Valhalla Hinderstap.

Heh, speaking of the Sword in the Stone, it just occurred to me that Moiraine's name is moderately similar to "Merlin".

Anyway, there's been lots and lots of closure in the last two books, plus a lesser amount before that, and the upcoming book is definitively the final one. For anyone who needs a refresher on things but doesn't want to read the whole series again, I second Helanna's recommendation of Leigh Butler's Wheel of Time Reread (http://www.tor.com/features/series/wot-reread). She did a great job of summarizing everything, and pointing out and commenting on anything worth special note. Just don't get sucked into reading the comments too; you'd lose all the time you would have saved.

[JoshL]

What about "did read; too long"? :smallwink:

Short attention spans? :smallwink:

The maid comment is exactly what I mean. It's not a story of One Guy or even A Couple People. It's a full world, where everyone is active, not just sitting there when the camera is off. But I can totally understand how that might seem unfocused, especially if that's not your cup of tea.

Oh, and Verin is one of my favorite characters in fantasy literature!

[Traab]

I think the tl;dr people just lack tenacity. They really are great books.

I do agree, they are great books. Its just, you can only make a story last so long before it starts to feel like its just being dragged forward and padded. When a single story is reaching the point where it takes over one and a half entire bookshelves, I think that is just too damn long. I have authors like Mckiernan, or mercedes lackey who can manage to fill the same space, but they do it with a large number of separate stories all set in the same world. They all tie together, they all have callbacks and foreshadowing from other works, but you dont have to read the timeline in order to enjoy it, or feel you have to read the next series to find out what happens next. By making the wheel of time a single story it just feels bogged down to me.

[Soras Teva Gee]

I do agree, they are great books. Its just, you can only make a story last so long before it starts to feel like its just being dragged forward and padded.

I did a re-read looking for padding once, and found remarkably little.

The point of course is a rather deconstructive look at how "saving the world" would have to actually be. That your army doesn't come from thin air, and how having one is only the start of your problems. And how beating the Dark One won't mean a thing if everyone dies anyways from a land fighting itself just as much as anything.

And a look at how complex a world would actually be, how it isn't all just the chosen few heroes but a look into the secondary, tertiary, and pentiary roles that make a world actually work.

Put simply the WoT is complex and long, because it needs to be. Because it takes fewer shortcuts and everything doesn't work out just right. The Tower Aes Sedai stories are a good case of this. They AREN'T going nowhere, they are there to fold into Egwene's plot. And some things even get aborted because things change, like the Ajah heads, and the the point is that the plan came to nothing because sometimes the world moves on past you and your efforts mean little.

tl:dr... the WoT isn't too long, everything else is just too short! If its your classic epic that is.

[Tebryn]

Short attention spans? :smallwink:

The maid comment is exactly what I mean. It's not a story of One Guy or even A Couple People. It's a full world, where everyone is active, not just sitting there when the camera is off. But I can totally understand how that might seem unfocused, especially if that's not your cup of tea.

Oh, and Verin is one of my favorite characters in fantasy literature!

Doesn't change the fact that it's an overlong series and that some people just don't like that. I stopped after the 8th book. The characters were mostly unlikeable and the story slow. Overall, a big meh on my end for the end of the series. Come get me when G.R.R.M finishes A Song of Ice and Fire.

[Emmerask]

Doesn't change the fact that it's an overlong series and that some people just don't like that. I stopped after the 8th book. The characters were mostly unlikeable and the story slow. Overall, a big meh on my end for the end of the series. Come get me when G.R.R.M finishes A Song of Ice and Fire.

You mean the other overly long series with lots of extremely unlikable characters and snail pace story?

couldn´t resist that one :smallbiggrin:

/edit for the record I actually like both series but they are in fact very similar in certain aspects (mainly those aspects you named as a flaw in wheel of time :smallbiggrin:)

[Traab]

I did a re-read looking for padding once, and found remarkably little.

The point of course is a rather deconstructive look at how "saving the world" would have to actually be. That your army doesn't come from thin air, and how having one is only the start of your problems. And how beating the Dark One won't mean a thing if everyone dies anyways from a land fighting itself just as much as anything.

And a look at how complex a world would actually be, how it isn't all just the chosen few heroes but a look into the secondary, tertiary, and pentiary roles that make a world actually work.

Put simply the WoT is complex and long, because it needs to be. Because it takes fewer shortcuts and everything doesn't work out just right. The Tower Aes Sedai stories are a good case of this. They AREN'T going nowhere, they are there to fold into Egwene's plot. And some things even get aborted because things change, like the Ajah heads, and the the point is that the plan came to nothing because sometimes the world moves on past you and your efforts mean little.

tl:dr... the WoT isn't too long, everything else is just too short! If its your classic epic that is.

Maybe padding isnt the right term. What I meant was more, there was always something else that had to be done in order to do something else which lead into doing yet another thing. The steps didnt go from A to B to C, they went all the way to W and that completed stage 1. I do understand what he was going for, and he did a great job of showing us everything important going on in the world, but it was just too much for me to properly enjoy. We dont need to know what virtually every country is thinking or planning in detail. Just a simple, "X is against us, Y is neutral, and z loves us" would be enough. Every main story group alone could be their own novel, so it works out to him telling us 3-4 stories at once that only once in awhile will intersect.

In one of mckiernans books, Silver Wolf Black Falcon, you have the main characters. They are the primary focus of the story. At the same time he will change focus on whats happening back home, what the other races are doing, what the bad guys are doing. The difference is, instead of dedicating 300+ pages to what the bad guys are doing, we get a couple pages to update what he has done and what his next step is, then we go back to the main characters. Wheel of Time has too many main characters. It focuses too much detail on too many different storylines and that makes it hard to keep track and focus on whats going on. Thats why there are all these rereads and synopsis online,. because its too much detail on too many fronts to keep track of easily.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

You mean the other overly long series with lots of extremely unlikable characters and snail pace story?

couldn´t resist that one :smallbiggrin:

/edit for the record I actually like both series but they are in fact very similar in certain aspects (mainly those aspects you named as a flaw in wheel of time :smallbiggrin:)
As a point, The Wheel of Time series is still three times as long as A Song of Ice and Fire, by wordcount, and the latter series has done a lot more, when you compare the "before" and "after" states of the world. I also have more faith in Martin to actually be able to wrap his series up in seven books, as opposed to Martin originally planning a trilogy and still attempting to promise that A Memory of Light would be one book.

There's not padding per se in the story, but there's certainly plenty that could be cut, plot-wise. Something can be unnecessary and not be padding. That's the one thing I criticize Jordan for. (When it comes to Martin, I more criticize his sense of pacing, which I already criticize Jordan for ten times over.)

[Emmerask]

As a point, The Wheel of Time series is still three times as long as A Song of Ice and Fire, by wordcount, and the latter series has done a lot more, when you compare the "before" and "after" states of the world. I also have more faith in Martin to actually be able to wrap his series up in seven books, as opposed to Martin originally planning a trilogy and still attempting to promise that A Memory of Light would be one book.

There's not padding per se in the story, but there's certainly plenty that could be cut, plot-wise. Something can be unnecessary and not be padding. That's the one thing I criticize Jordan for. (When it comes to Martin, I more criticize his sense of pacing, which I already criticize Jordan for ten times over.)

True Wheel of time is the worse offender in both counts, I agree, but criticizing this and then mentioning the second biggest offender* as "the thing to wait for"
feels kind of strange :smallbiggrin:

I mean if he would have mentioned David Gemmell who can create a whole epic in just one book (despite the other shortcomings his works may have [a bit formulaic etc]) then I would have wholeheartedly agreed with his criticism of wheel of time... but soiaf comon :smallwink:


*only regarding the better known fantasy works of recent times, I´m sure there are plenty even worse if one just digs deep enough

[TheWombatOfDoom]

Some of these points is the reason I've considered that age had a hand in my lack of enjoyment of WoT, as I stated earlier. I suppose I'll finish my ownership of the series, and perhaps slowly begin going through again. In my opinion, the summaries will only help me if I take a break between books and need a refresher, otherwise what's the point in reading/owning any of them. So I'll read the series again after I finish some of the other books in my pile. I'll be back with my verdict when such a time happens. :smallbiggrin:

[Caesar]

Ugh. I liked the first couple books, but things got too drawn out and quite frankly, the constant, stupid sexism just got on my nerves even more than the plot contortions.

[Tvtyrant]

I enjoy Wheel of Time extremely, so I will be buying it. The thing I like most about the Wheel of Time is how much of it there is. Gives me a lot of words to chew on, so I don't fly through the books in an afternoon and feel irritated about being done too fast.

[Gadora]

That's just the tip of the iceberg with regard to references to various elements of mythology. For example, there's (minor Gathering Storm spoiler, Norse reference):
Odin Mat riding into Valhalla Hinderstap.

Heh, speaking of the Sword in the Stone, it just occurred to me that Moiraine's name is moderately similar to "Merlin".


Moiraine? I thought that was Thom Merrilin. :smallwink:

A very quick search turned up this (http://wot.wikia.com/wiki/Talk:Real-world_references) giving more information regarding parallels and references, but I seem to remember seeing Jordan himself weighing in on this, somewhere on his site.


And aye, put me down as one of those who can hardly wait for that last book.

[turkishproverb]

I think the tl;dr people just lack tenacity. They really are great books.

I read. He should have cut at least a quarter the books out, as next to nothing happened, and shortened and/or combined most others. It would have made the overall series much better and he might have lasted to finish it.

Might have given him a way to excise some of the worse elements too...

[Traab]

I read. He should have cut at least a quarter the books out, as next to nothing happened, and shortened and/or combined most others. It would have made the overall series much better and he might have lasted to finish it.

Might have given him a way to excise some of the worse elements too...

I still say the biggest problem was that he had too many "main" characters. He was trying to tell a complete story following the adventures of what, 4-5 different groups at once? That being said, each story WAS very interesting, its just, there were too many of them all being told at once. Its like reading three chapters of the belgariad, three chapters of the elenium, three chapters of magic kingdom for sale, three chapters of the shanarra series, then going back to reading three more chapters from the belgariad.

[Fjolnir]

I am certainly in the minority on this it seems but I actually like the divergence of the story, we are dealing with a war where the result is a given but the road is long and tough, and the amount of work to keep it all from going pear shaped afterward is immense especially since all the factions distrust one another for various reasons (magic, tradition, etc)

[Pronounceable]

Years ago when I started reading 3rd (or maybe 4th) book of WoT, I had a sudden enlightment that I despised every damn character I'd seen so far except that Thom dude who was only moderately cool. So I threw the book away in midsentence and never looked back (http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/25p36/). I give minus three damns about what happens to characters I hate or how rich the background world is when there's not a likable dude or dudette to anchor me into that world. Would it kill Jordan to have just one of those billion protagonists to be sympathetic?

extra: from what I hear, maybe it's a good thing that there wasn't one character I liked that made me keep reading. I'd have imploded even worse if I had to wade thru million pages of stuff I hate to learn what happens to the one person I actually care about.

Far as I'm concerned, best thing WoT series ever did is to make Brandon Sanderson famous.

[Velaryon]

I think I will be checking the last book out of the library (probably more than once, as I will be busy with grad school and not able to devote as much time to reading it as I would like). I only own the first three, so I feel no particular compulsion to pick this one up unless it turns out to be really amazing.

I enjoy the series, and there isn't a single book in there that I disliked reading, but it absolutely feels bloated to me. I think Jordan created too many characters for his own good, kept the vast majority of them alive, and added too many scattered point of view characters that had to be followed. So while the books got to be pretty long, individual characters only got a few chapters, which left me feeling at the end of several books like not much had really happened. Having to keep track of Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene, Nynaeve, Elayne, Lan, Moiraine, Min, Aviendha, Galad, Verin, Siuan, Faile, and plenty of others when they often got scattered all over the world, it just got to be spread too thin to actually get anything done. I wonder if some of the books might have worked out better if Jordan had split them by character rather than chronologically, similar to how GRRM split A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons.

[Acanous]

Years ago when I started reading 3rd (or maybe 4th) book of WoT, I had a sudden enlightment that I despised every damn character I'd seen so far except that Thom dude who was only moderately cool. So I threw the book away in midsentence and never looked back (http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/25p36/). I give minus three damns about what happens to characters I hate or how rich the background world is when there's not a likable dude or dudette to anchor me into that world. Would it kill Jordan to have just one of those billion protagonists to be sympathetic?

extra: from what I hear, maybe it's a good thing that there wasn't one character I liked that made me keep reading. I'd have imploded even worse if I had to wade thru million pages of stuff I hate to learn what happens to the one person I actually care about.

Far as I'm concerned, best thing WoT series ever did is to make Brandon Sanderson famous.
Mat got awesome around book 6 or so, when he stopped being a detestable twit.

Now he's my favorite character.

[Helanna]

The point of course is a rather deconstructive look at how "saving the world" would have to actually be. That your army doesn't come from thin air, and how having one is only the start of your problems. And how beating the Dark One won't mean a thing if everyone dies anyways from a land fighting itself just as much as anything.

And a look at how complex a world would actually be, how it isn't all just the chosen few heroes but a look into the secondary, tertiary, and pentiary roles that make a world actually work.


Quoting this because it's so true.

Everyone who's complaining that it was bloated because there are too many plotlines or characters - that's the point. If you don't like reading it or it's not your cup of tea, that's fine, but listing it as a flaw is kind of unfair when it's completely intentional. One of the reasons I love the series so much is because it draws attention to just how hard it would be for 'the Chosen one' to actually save the world when half of it is trying to pretend he's lying and the other half thinks *they* just happen to know exactly how he should do it - and that's exactly what would happen in real life. It treats even the smallest bit characters as actual people, with their own lives and goals and motivations completely separate from the main characters'. And I quite enjoy that perspective.

[Grinner]

Pardon my ignorance, but I could have sworn that the author died some time ago?

Anyway, I think I'm going to try reading the series now, starting with that half-finished first novel.

[Douglas]

Pardon my ignorance, but I could have sworn that the author died some time ago?

Anyway, I think I'm going to try reading the series now, starting with that half-finished first novel.
5 years ago, I think, yes. He made it clear that he wanted the series finished even if he couldn't be the one to do it, though, and his widow selected another author to take his notes (which were quite extensive) and write the final volumes.

Those notes included a plot outline, the final series-ending scene, some unknown number of other completed scenes, and a ton of background information. The writing may be from a different author, but the intent and planning of the original author are also there, and the editor is the same person as before.

[Seerow]

Mat got awesome around book 6 or so, when he stopped being a detestable twit.

Now he's my favorite character.

Yeah, Mat in the first few books was awful, but he quickly achieves best character in the series status after he makes it to Tar'Valon. Perrin I found had a somewhat opposite problem, started out fairly likable, wound up turning really boring and whiney, and then as of the last book finally hit his stride filling the potential he was showing from much earlier in the series.

[mangosta71]

Maybe padding isnt the right term. What I meant was more, there was always something else that had to be done in order to do something else which lead into doing yet another thing. The steps didnt go from A to B to C, they went all the way to W and that completed stage 1. I do understand what he was going for, and he did a great job of showing us everything important going on in the world, but it was just too much for me to properly enjoy. We dont need to know what virtually every country is thinking or planning in detail. Just a simple, "X is against us, Y is neutral, and z loves us" would be enough. Every main story group alone could be their own novel, so it works out to him telling us 3-4 stories at once that only once in awhile will intersect.
That approach would be tantamount to taking a world history class, except it's really just US history and only brushes up with the rest of the world when events elsewhere directly impact the US.

As others have noted, giving each nation its own culture and goals makes the world more alive and immersive. The best way to show the differences between distinct groups is via characters. And frankly, reading what each character does as it happens is far more satisfying than having a recap every time Rand comes across them again (those of you who have read it will recognize that each PoV character only gains a PoV after meeting Rand).

Edit: When I checked a couple months ago, the release had been pushed back to March. I've never heard of a release date getting changed to be earlier.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Quoting this because it's so true.

Everyone who's complaining that it was bloated because there are too many plotlines or characters - that's the point. If you don't like reading it or it's not your cup of tea, that's fine, but listing it as a flaw is kind of unfair when it's completely intentional.

Or rather its not "bloated" because its as big as it actually should be for what it is doing.


That approach would be tantamount to taking a world history class, except it's really just US history and only brushes up with the rest of the world when events elsewhere directly impact the US.

As others have noted, giving each nation its own culture and goals makes the world more alive and immersive. The best way to show the differences between distinct groups is via characters. And frankly, reading what each character does as it happens is far more satisfying than having a recap every time Rand comes across them again (those of you who have read it will recognize that each PoV character only gains a PoV after meeting Rand).


I personally always enjoyed realizing that Jordan didn't let his characters look at the script at all, they never act with knowledge of things they weren't there for and most really haven't seen each other for books and books now.

[Corvus]

I did a re-read looking for padding once, and found remarkably little.



Wasn't there an entire chapter which was just people entering a room, with their clothes described in meticulous detail? if that isn't padding (and he is notorious for way over-describing) then I don't know what is.

[Traab]

That approach would be tantamount to taking a world history class, except it's really just US history and only brushes up with the rest of the world when events elsewhere directly impact the US.

As others have noted, giving each nation its own culture and goals makes the world more alive and immersive. The best way to show the differences between distinct groups is via characters. And frankly, reading what each character does as it happens is far more satisfying than having a recap every time Rand comes across them again (those of you who have read it will recognize that each PoV character only gains a PoV after meeting Rand).

Edit: When I checked a couple months ago, the release had been pushed back to March. I've never heard of a release date getting changed to be earlier.

In a way you have the right analogy, the thing is, a world history book doesnt make for enjoyable light reading. Without a main character and main focus, the story drifts all over the place. Like I said, I understand what he was going for. I get that he was trying to give us an immersive world where we got to see how everyone was reacting to everything, but he went into too much detail on it. I dont need a 100 page report on how the three factions of one nation are reacting to rand crossing the dragonwall with the aeil, only to switch to ANOTHER nation and get the same thing again. Sometimes its all right to sum up a bit.

[snoopy13a]

Quoting this because it's so true.

Everyone who's complaining that it was bloated because there are too many plotlines or characters - that's the point. If you don't like reading it or it's not your cup of tea, that's fine, but listing it as a flaw is kind of unfair when it's completely intentional. One of the reasons I love the series so much is because it draws attention to just how hard it would be for 'the Chosen one' to actually save the world when half of it is trying to pretend he's lying and the other half thinks *they* just happen to know exactly how he should do it - and that's exactly what would happen in real life. It treats even the smallest bit characters as actual people, with their own lives and goals and motivations completely separate from the main characters'. And I quite enjoy that perspective.

The complaint is the plotline bloat occurs after the first few books. So, essentially, readers who were enjoying Earl Grey got served English Breakfast Tea.

[DrK]

I'm really looking forward to the release... only a few more days now till that big old brick comes through the door. With some of the comments above - (aside from the obvious, if you don't like it don't read it) the WoT has for a lot of people some nostalgia as its been going on for some 25 years and thats a long time so closure is good.

I think a better series than the overated GRRM to compare it to would be the Malazan book of the fallen which another 10 weighty Tome epic that has massive world sweeping carnage as well and a focus on lots and lots of minor characters. (though Erikson's writing is rather more complicated).

Still.... 5 more days! :smallbiggrin:

[snoopy13a]

Oh, for those of you who can't wait or want to get a head start on reading, the prologue is still available as a e-book download for a small fee.

[DrK]

Oh, for those of you who can't wait or want to get a head start on reading, the prologue is still available as a e-book download for a small fee.

And chapter 1, parts of 11 and 3 and the audio of chapter 2....

[snoopy13a]

And chapter 1, parts of 11 and 3 and the audio of chapter 2....

??
I meant that one can download the prologue legally by paying money to Barnes and Noble and, probably, Amazon.

[Douglas]

??
I meant that one can download the prologue legally by paying money to Barnes and Noble and, probably, Amazon.
Chapter 1 (http://www.tor.com/stories/2012/09/a-memory-of-light-chapter-1-qeastward-the-wind-blewq)
Audio of Chapter 2 (http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/10/audioslice-a-memory-of-light-chapter-2-qthe-choice-of-an-ajahq)
Part of Chapter 3 (http://www.npr.org/2012/12/29/168075551/exclusive-first-read-a-memory-of-light-by-robert-jordan-and-brandon-sanderson)
Part of Chapter 11 (http://www.tor.com/stories/2012/09/a-memory-of-light-chapter-11-excerpt)

All of these are free, released legally by or with permission of the publisher, as part of Tor's marketing efforts. There's also one scene from the prologue (http://www.tor.com/stories/2012/04/a-memory-of-light-prologue-excerpt). If you want the whole prologue, though, that's an e-book going for $2.99 (available here (http://www.dragonmount.com/forums/store/product/2716-By_Grace_and_Banners_Fallen_Prologue_to_A_Memory_o f_Light/) and here (http://www.amazon.com/By-Grace-Banners-Fallen-ebook/dp/B009AEM4NI), among other places).

[Tvtyrant]

Chapter 1 (http://www.tor.com/stories/2012/09/a-memory-of-light-chapter-1-qeastward-the-wind-blewq)
Audio of Chapter 2 (http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/10/audioslice-a-memory-of-light-chapter-2-qthe-choice-of-an-ajahq)
Part of Chapter 3 (http://www.npr.org/2012/12/29/168075551/exclusive-first-read-a-memory-of-light-by-robert-jordan-and-brandon-sanderson)
Part of Chapter 11 (http://www.tor.com/stories/2012/09/a-memory-of-light-chapter-11-excerpt)

All of these are free, released legally by or with permission of the publisher, as part of Tor's marketing efforts. There's also one scene from the prologue (http://www.tor.com/stories/2012/04/a-memory-of-light-prologue-excerpt). If you want the whole prologue, though, that's an e-book going for $2.99 (available here (http://www.dragonmount.com/forums/store/product/2716-By_Grace_and_Banners_Fallen_Prologue_to_A_Memory_o f_Light/) and here (http://www.amazon.com/By-Grace-Banners-Fallen-ebook/dp/B009AEM4NI), among other places).
Don't tempt me Frodo! Through this I would seek to placate my desires, but through E-books it would unleash a hunger in me too great and terrible to imagine.

[mattie_p]

I just got it in the mail. Leave me alone. I'll see everyone in a few days.

[DrK]

I just got it in the mail. Leave me alone. I'll see everyone in a few days.

Jealous! Mine will arrive tomorrow I hope.

[snoopy13a]

I just bought it today and am about to get started. My only hope is,


That the Aiel get taken down. I've detested them since they've been introduced.

Other than that, I'm more or less fine with what occurs. I'm not concerned whether my favorite characters--Mat, Morrainne, Thom, and various minor characters--survive or have a noble death. Although, I guess I'd like Loial to have more of a role. He's been on the backburner way too long.

P.S. Please pardon my spelling. I'm too lazy to look up correct spelling, and I'm a bit paranoid over spoilers.

[DrK]

I just bought it today and am about to get started. My only hope is,

I have a few hopes that will be realised when I get the book tomorrow...
1. Elayne dies a painful death killed by her own burgeoning ego
2. Gawyn kills himself with his own sword
3. Nyneave is awesome. She was great in Towers Midnight and I hope it continues
4. The Senchean Ogier and the mainland Ogier meet

Lots more but thats the top 4 really.

[mattie_p]

I'm a fast reader. Page 319. I will say nothing here. Maybe we'll need a completely separate thread?

[JSSheridan]

Still waiting on my copy to arrive. Amazon.com says it still hasn't shipped.

[Douglas]

I'm getting early warning signs of a fatigue headache, and finishing the book is unfortunately not worth that price.:smallfrown: Oh well, there's a reason I took two vacation days for this.

As for the book's contents, I will say only this:
Oh, you poor, ignorant, arrogant, presumptuous fool, Deman-"FACE-ME-LEWS-THERIN"-dred.:smallamused:

[mattie_p]

You took two days vacation? Smart thinking. Beginning to think I should have done that.

[Helanna]

Well, it took 12 straight hours of reading, but I finished it. Once I got near the end, I absolutely couldn't have stopped if I'd wanted to.

Wow. Just wow. What an ending. I, uh . . . I'm gonna need some time to process this.

Some basic, current thoughts: (MAJOR ENDING SPOILERS, obviously)


BEEELLLLAAAA! NOOOOOO! HOW COULD THEY? :smallfrown:

Olver sounding the Horn, I did not see coming. Noal coming back for him? Absolutely adorable, and I basically started crying.

I wasn't expecting Gawyn to die, but I was really hoping! I really wasn't expecting Egwene to die, but, well, fair enough trade. Plus it ties back in really well with the story in the first book about the Manetheren Aes Sedai queen.

And the Rand/DO scenes were really, really intense. I liked them.

And even though I knew what the last paragraph was gonna be, it still got me pretty choked up.

[Seerow]

I took about 17 hours, but I had several interruptions in between. Finished reading around 4am last night.

Big time Ending spoilers below. If you haven't read the book, don't click the spoiler button.

I was honestly shocked that Egwene died. I figured she was one of the safe ones. I didn't really get choked up on it like some people, but it was still a major surprise to me.

Nynaeve's role in the end seemed very meh. All that fuss about going into the Bore with Rand, and she gets to spend half an hour or so treating somebody with Herbs (what she was doing way back in book 1), and act as a Saidar conduit? Bleh. I'd rather have had her down south on Merrilor Fields.

I was really disappointed with the resolution to the Fain arc. He's been a major recurring antagonist since book 1, and he gets what, 2 pages of screen time total this book? And he dies just to Mat playing dead and stabbing him. It just was not the climactic showdown I had expected. Especially with all of Fain's ramblings about wanting to kill the Dark One and Rand both, I had expected him to play a role in the final showdown between those two.

Anyway, onto the good. Rand's scenes with the Dark One were just about perfect. Those scenes I think ultimately are why Sanderson got chosen for this project. At the time he got brought in, none of his published stories really handled a massive cast of characters or intricate plots. Having read this book, I am certain that it was Hero of Ages that got Sanderson hired on, because many of the same themes present themselves, and I like to think that Harriet recognized that and thought that touch was needed.

While Fain was disappointing, Mat's story otherwise definitely did not disappoint. I was upset at first when Elayne came to be acting head of the grand coalition, with the 4 great captains taking on a battlefield each, as I felt that that should have been Mat's job. And then comes the Sabotage and Merillor, with Mat right at the center of it all. Also, I always liked Mat and Tuon's relationship, and while Fortuona the Empress is not the same as Tuon the kidnapped DotNM, much of the same interplay still exists between them, and I was glad we got to see so much of them together in this book. I was somewhat worried we wouldn't.

Perrin learning to move in and out of Tel'Aran'Rhiod in the flesh at will was really cool. It really lent him that something extra needed to be a badass on par with the big name channelers. Being able to travel places in seconds without gateways and being able to get through Dream Spikes is a pretty impressive thing. Also him finally ****ing killing Slayer was nice. While I think it could have happened in ToM, it would have left Perrin with little to do in AMOL, so the way things played out worked.


And speaking of things working, the ending as a whole really did just work. I honestly do think that for a series as long and convoluted as the Wheel of Time, saying that the ending actually worked is about the highest praise you can give. I am a person who generally can't stand endings. Usually when I get to the end of a series, I find myself disappointed and wishing for more. While there are a few areas I would have liked to see more of in Wheel of Time, I am not disappointed. And that was definitely by far my biggest fear going in. The book as a whole is satisfying, and I can walk away from the series now happy with all the time I have invested into it.

[Traab]

All I have to say is thank god. If the ending had sucked it would have basically ruined 13,000 pages of story. I mean think about it. Fans have been reading this series for HOW many years now? To have it all come to a crappy conclusion at the end would be just terrible in a way that a bad ending in a single novel cant compare to.

[Douglas]

Ok, I'm done now.

The early part of the book has some weak sections; in particular, there's a period where it feels like you're just going down a checklist of "we're going to do this, this, this, this, this, this, and this". Sort of like you're being rushed through an outline. It has several good moments even there, though, and it improves vastly later on. There wasn't even a twinge of that left by the middle of the book.

The ending itself is superb, though there is one particular detail I was quite disappointed to not see shown.

SPOILERS:
The detail I'm disappointed about is that Mat asked Hawkwing to talk with Tuon... and it's never even mentioned whether he did it or not, much less what they talked about.:smallmad:

Mat getting to show off his commanding skills was great, even if it did take a while to get him in that position.

The repeated attempts to duel Demandred turned out much better than I was afraid might happen when Gawyn set out. Gawyn winning that would have just felt cheap. Gawyn, then Galad, then Logain, and finally Lan with a near-suicide was a properly satisfying way to do it. The perpetual obsession with Rand Lews Therin was funny, especially with all the supposed signs of his presence that Demandred kept misinterpreting.

Rand vs the Dark One was definitely the crowning piece of the whole book. The scene where Rand makes that vision of a world without the DO was perfect, and combined wonderfully with Rand's realization later that he could, in fact, kill Shai'tan, but that doing so would actually be a twisted form of defeat.

Androl the pageboy Lava-bringer was a nice moment of awesome, though his victory against Taim in the Black Tower was too abrupt for my taste.

I can't help but notice that it seems all the major character deaths are either both halves of a mated pair or unmated individuals. At least, I can't think of any counterexamples.

Moiraine's reunion with Rand was... underwhelming. The speech talking all the rulers into going along with Rand's plan was good, and justified the importance ascribed to her by various visions, etc., but the reunion itself was far too short and de-emphasized.

Taim disguising a disguised Androl as Androl was a nice laugh. And I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that Androl's highly checkered past includes some time as a pickpocket.

The True Power being a critical component of the resealing process was something I've been theorizing about for a long time, along with Callandor being a True Power sa'angreal. The flaw in it and the way Rand intentionally exploited it against Moridin was a surprise, though. Very well done.


I am certain that it was Hero of Ages that got Sanderson hired on, because many of the same themes present themselves, and I like to think that Harriet recognized that and thought that touch was needed.
Actually, it was Mistborn: Final Empire. Hero of Ages had not been published yet.

What brought Sanderson to her attention in the first place was his eulogy essay for Robert Jordan, and Mistborn was the book she read to assess his writing skill and style.

[snoopy13a]

Egwene was a surprise.

I thought the Pevara/Androl subplot was the most tense. We knew that Rand would win; we also knew that most of the characters would fight at the Last Battle. Some would die heroically while others lived. However, in that subplot, the characters were facing losing their entire self-identity and who they were. That actually added high stakes. Off-hand comments of So-and-So died aren't too tense because dying in the Last Battle isn't a bad thing and it isn't like there's going to be another book :smalltongue:

The aftermath of the Lan-Demandred fight was a little sloppy. Galad had Berelain send the medallion to Mat, but Lan took it for himself without telling anyone. No one, knew that Lan was wearing the medallion and outside of Matt, Galad, and a few others, no one knows what the medallion actually does. Essentially, the channelers didn't take the medallion off of Lan before healing him.

[Helanna]

SPOILERS:
The detail I'm disappointed about is that Mat asked Hawkwing to talk with Tuon... and it's never even mentioned whether he did it or not, much less what they talked about.:smallmad:



Moiraine's reunion with Rand was... underwhelming. The speech talking all the rulers into going along with Rand's plan was good, and justified the importance ascribed to her by various visions, etc., but the reunion itself was far too short and de-emphasized.



I was worried that Moiraine's reunion with Rand would be underwhelming, but I was pretty pleased with her entry scene. Especially her excellent sense of timing, her near-legend status, and the fact that she seems to be the only person besides maybe Cadsuane who actually read the freaking Prophecies. :smalltongue:

I do wish we'd seen Hawkwing talking with Tuon. That's part of your legacy, dude, maybe go over and tell them to stop being so delusional? Ah well, I think Mat will be a good influence either way.

On a side note, I do have hope for the Seanchan presence in Randland. If Tuon sticks to the agreement she and Egwene made, I think they'll eventually get over the whole, y'know, slavery thing.

[Tvtyrant]

Got it done in 8 hours! My eyes hurt...

BoysgoneWyld was a great call back. One of the Forsaken mentioned that he might be in Shara at least 6 books ago now, and him purposefully abusing Balefire in order to cause the weave to tear apart references his earlier conversation with the DO about whether he would break his decision in the War of Power not to use it.

I really, really wanted Lan to die. They made Demandred with his Sa'Angreal and gigantic circle of followers out to be unstoppable, and then Lan Sheathes the Sword (which never seems to actually get you killed) and cuts his head off.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Work yesterday was absolute torture while I counted down the seconds until I could get home and start reading, but once I got my hands on it I breezed through it with another friend of mine. (We raced. I won. 6 hours.)

I saw the Callandor/True Power takeover twist coming, since I felt they made a bit too big a deal of the flaw being dangerous for him to just overcome it and power through, but Olver with the Horn and the Flame of Tar Valon both got me completely. Well played, good sirs, well played.

I agree with snoopy about the Pevara/Androl subplot. I was looking forward to seeing Androl be a badass, and I was not disappointed.

There were a few weak points in the book, but overall it's everything I was hoping for.

[mattie_p]

Holy 190-page chapter Batman!

I don't have time to post my thoughts, but I am satisfied.

[Douglas]

Holy 190-page chapter Batman!
Considering the chapter title is "The Last Battle", it really shouldn't be surprising.

[afroakuma]

Wow, long chapter was long, big book was big.

Thoughts compiled... I hope... must collate now.

First the bad:

• The Song should have been Sung. The Tinkers have been looking for it for who knows how long, the Ogier could have joined in, even the gai'shain could have been made useful in this fashion. It would have been a nice tie-in and helped allay the question of how they kept from starving during the Last Battle.

• Sanderson really lost a lot of characters' voices in this one. There were too many times where internal monologues - and more than a bit of dialogue - felt out of place.

• The confrontation boiling down to a game of show and tell was... ehhh... there were times I appreciated it, and times I did not.

• Too much bloody war. Surely it could have been pared down a tad for more character moments. There were parts where it just didn't seem to matter what one page said as a previous page had given us largely the same.

• Sort of as an aside, I'm sad we didn't really get to see Saldaea, Arafel and Kandor, not the way we popped into all the other nations in Randland.

• This was a Michael Bay movie, book-style. Lot of explosions, lot of Power, lot of explodeable things. Only two Aes Sedai did Seekrit Murdah, while everyone else was quakes, fire and lightning.

• Crystals. Really?

• Fain. Came out of nowhere, sporting a name we'd never seen before, accomplished nothing. I know I had long ago expected him to be the Gollum of the Wheel of Time, and my reaction to that not being the case was half and half, but considering his significance and the combination of horrors he personally represented by that point, his whole appearance felt extraordinarily cheap and wasted, as though an afterthought.

• Slayer... lost a lot of resonance for me between this book and the last. One of many things that gave this book a tone not in keeping with the series it sprang from.

• "Bao the Wyld?" I'm sorry, but that's a dumb name. It was also one of those out-of-nowhere things that clutter a book up, especially given that he identified himself while introducing himself (not a tautology :smalltongue:). Also I had this weird picture of him in my head; why did Demandred show up dressed like an idiot? I'm probably wrong, mind you.

• Speaking of dumb names, "Knotai?"

• A lot of missing character interactions that would have been really nice to see. In general, everything that was not explosions felt compressed, rushed and not given due justice.

• Nynaeve and Moiraine had pretty trivial roles. So did Thom, for that matter.

• What the heck was up with that sa'angreal? It bothered me greatly; no prior mention, weird design the book kept calling attention to (suggesting significance that never came to pass) and Demandred could somehow seal it to himself?

• Stupid Seanchan costumes.

• Still wish Taim had turned out to be Be'lal.

• So, Ishamael, uh... why not balefire yourself? Or let Eggy or someone do it? Heck, just jump in the ray when some nitwit Dreadlord starts firing it off. Oblivion is really easy to come by when the Lord of the Grave can't de-grave you anymore. You make no sense to me, and you are wasted in this book.

Now the good:

• Galad finding out he had a brother.

• Egwene. Didn't see that one coming at all.

• The Shadow makes plans. Holy cripes do they make plans. For all that their master is an impotent scary doom force, the plan of battle schemed up between Moridin, Demandred and the Scorn Sisters was pretty epic in its utter horribleness. Taim helped too. Turning for Dreadlords, dream-Compulsion for the Great Captains, Moghedien doing what Moghedien does, Lanfear doing... well, some variation on what Lanfear does... every kind of Shadowspawn out on the move, Waygates and cannibal food supplies... Alanna at the very end.

• Demandred. Man may have gone out like an idiot (AL'THOR. STOP FIGHTING THE DARK ONE VERY VERY FAR AWAY WHERE YOU CANNOT HEAR ME, AND COME OVER HERE) but it took three increasingly epic blademasters and a ticked-off False Dragon (serially, mind) to finish him off, and in between he was casually being a whole front of the war and its prime mover. If Demandred had been the first one out of the Bore, the series would be called The Spoke of Time.

• Hehehe... Shara.

• Hehehe... cheating weasel Dragon Reborn, sings The Song under his breath to make himself look like a god.

• Hehehe... Taim and Demandred had "a familiarity." Jossed!

• Hehehe... "why aren't you him?" Jossed 2.0!

• Smart Gateways. Eye in the sky, catch and release, lava spews... Androl is the man.

• Suck it Cadsuane.

• Suck it Graendal. That said, you're a beast.

• Demandred again: welcome to being too full of yourself, Taim. Too full of yourself and the True Power, that is. I really thought he was going to kill M'Hael with that one.

• Demandred again again: his Alternate Eastern Dragon Reborn With A Silly Name may have had issues, but him having a twisted messiah dream was actually rather insightful with regards to setting him apart from similar Forsaken.

• Why Mat was no longer Hornblower. Never considered that death. Should have... did not.

• Really the whole 900 pages of awesome. :smallbiggrin:

[Tvtyrant]

The eternal question that I spend many fantasy books trying to ignore is where the unlimited population of enemies comes from. Trollocs are said to eat more than humans and come from a ruined and mostly barren area of the world, but apparently outnumber humanity by a decent margin.

[Seerow]

The eternal question that I spend many fantasy books trying to ignore is where the unlimited population of enemies comes from. Trollocs are said to eat more than humans and come from a ruined and mostly barren area of the world, but apparently outnumber humanity by a decent margin.




This was discussed in the book actually. Normally the trollocs aren't bred in such huge numbers, and do a lot of raiding. Since the shadow held them back for years, during that time they ate all of the food in the blight completely, so they were literally starving at the start of the war. However since they eat literally anything, after they were able to start eating dead off the battlefield, they were fine for food again. One of the Captains took advantage of this

[snoopy13a]

The eternal question that I spend many fantasy books trying to ignore is where the unlimited population of enemies comes from. Trollocs are said to eat more than humans and come from a ruined and mostly barren area of the world, but apparently outnumber humanity by a decent margin.



Well, if we're on that:

Might as well ask why the Aiel Waste can support more warriors than all of the continental lands east of the Waste combined.

On an unrelated note, it seems that Rand thought the king of Murandy was Demendard and was surprised at the summit that he wasn't. After that, however, we don't see the Murandians throughout the entire Last Battle. Author oversight?

Plus, we don't learn the fates of several minor characters. I'm going with the assumption that if they weren't mentioned, that they didn't die.

Overall, there was some sloppiness. I really don't blame Sanderson. I think he was given an extremely difficult task--which took away a signficant amount of time from his own schedule. It took him three very lengthy volumes to wrap up the "last" book, which shows that Jordan's tale had gotten way out of control. For example, as people have noted, Sanderson had to wrap up Fain, an antagonist throughout the series, with a scant few paragraphs.

I believe that sacrifices had to be made, and I don't blame Brandon Sanderson at all. I think that he faced a yeoman's task putting Jordan's final outline to print.

[Douglas]

Might as well ask why the Aiel Waste can support more warriors than all of the continental lands east of the Waste combined.
I attribute that one to the wetlands being subjected to a deliberate depopulation effort by Ishamael's machinations over 3000 years while the Waste was mostly left alone, combined with Aiel society having a far greater percentage of warriors than wetland society. Also, the Waste is big. Very very big.

If the wetlands were as close to the limits of what the land can support as the Aiel and had the same attitude towards military pursuits, I'd expect them to be mustering combined armies totaling at least a million or two, maybe more.


On an unrelated note, it seems that Rand thought the king of Murandy was Demendard and was surprised at the summit that he wasn't. After that, however, we don't see the Murandians throughout the entire Last Battle. Author oversight?

For Murandy, I think it's more that the country is so divided that the military force available to the King (and that he's willing to take away from guarding what little area he does control and commit to the Last Battle - remember, he seemed not all that convinced about the whole thing) is insignificant.

[Tvtyrant]

This was discussed in the book actually. Normally the trollocs aren't bred in such huge numbers, and do a lot of raiding. Since the shadow held them back for years, during that time they ate all of the food in the blight completely, so they were literally starving at the start of the war. However since they eat literally anything, after they were able to start eating dead off the battlefield, they were fine for food again. One of the Captains took advantage of this

It was given a mention in the book, but I still find it far-myrddraaled. The point about the Aiel Waste was a Mongol shout out I thought, as the Aiel are almost all warriors while in the other nations only a small percentage were.

I did like that the Seanchan critters were finally allowed to fight the shadow ones, even if it was only for a few lines.

[Da'Shain]

Bought it last evening, just finished it. Couldn't put it down. I have some quibbles, but overall I'm satisfied with this as an ending to the series.
Not as many characters died as I was expecting. I had thought Lan and Cadsuane, at least, were sure things, and Egwene dying caught me by surprise. This was good, as I didn't predict events as closely as I thought. I did like the confrontation of ideals with the Dark One, and I especially enjoyed the time dilation twist, making it conceivable that that confrontation lasted for the entirety of the more mundane battle. I did foresee the True Power essentially shielding the world from the DO by using his own power against him, but I did not predict the particular trick they would use to get access to it. Well played! I wonder if Elan Morin got his oblivion; I have to assume not.

The story itself did an impressive job of cycling through characters for different perspectives on the same events, and I felt, at least, that most of the characters' voices remained intact. I liked the reveal of what Demandred had been up to very much; it gave the man much more depth, I thought, than simply being jealous of the Dragon. Instead, seemingly alone among the Forsaken, his base urge is to be a hero, he just feels he has to be THE hero, and that's what blinds him.

Overall, it was a gripping, moving tale, and while I won't claim that it moved me to tears at any point, it did rekindle my connections to some characters for whom I'd only felt disgust or contempt the last few books. It ended rather abruptly, but on a high note, I felt, and I'm glad to have read the series through to this conclusion. An ending is hard to do in a satisfying manner, and Mr. Sanderson and Mr. Jordan mostly accomplished it. Kudos to you both!

Now, of course, since I have to quibble:

I was actually not a fan of the series of one on one duels with Demandred. It got to the point of a bad joke, I felt, when people just kept on haring off after him and running into no real resistance on the way, then not having Demandred just toss a sufficiently large rock at them when he realized they weren't Rand/Lews Therin. He also kills only one of them, which seemed rather unbelievable to me; dude not only outclassed them all in swordplay, but had a sa'angreal and a full circle to pull on? It made him seem far less powerful than he was built up to be.

I was expecting this to be Mat's moment to shine, actually, with Demandred distracted trying to fight off the returned Seanchan and Mat's cannons, and Mat just having a gateway open above the guy's head, dive through ignoring Demandred's distracted split-second response (gust of wind, balefire, whatever) and spearing the bastard right through the top of his head. I figured his medallion would lead to him killing at least one of the Forsaken, and thought it odd that they didn't try something like this.
Also, Mat's plan, while it had incredibly awesome moments (the gateway cannons were one such), didn't ... really ... make a whole lot of sense to me. Specifically, getting the Seanchan to leave. It really did not seem like this did anything to throw Demandred off guard, and instead simply weakened the Light's forces on the field for what ended up being virtually no benefit. I guess it got Moghedien out of their inner circle? But it turns out the same could have been accomplished by simply having Tuon order all the servants and unnecessary nobles from the room. Maybe I just didn't get it?
As has been mentioned, Fain/Mordeth/Mashadar's resolution was pretty weak and obviously tossed in at the last second. I thought Fain had disguised himself as Vanin, actually, and was trying to steal the Horn and use it to help wipe both sides out. But no, he's just ... there, and has vague plans to kill both Rand and the Dark One ... somehow, and gets stopped by Mat just playing dead and stabbing Fain.
The Seanchan. I suppose this falls under "the world continues, even if the main story ends," but at the close of the Last Battle, the Seanchan are essentially poised to take over the world. Due to the aforementioned plan, the remaining forces of this eastern continent (the many nations, the Aiel, and the Sharans) are all reeling, while the Seanchan largely kept themselves out of the battle and only swooped in towards the end. If Tuon is of a mind, the only things preventing her from simply sweeping over the land like a plague are a piece of paper, some words, and the rebellion back in Seanchan proper ... which, given they know how to Travel now, Tuon can most likely quell pretty fast and then come straight back over. She has lost none of her preconceived notions (except knowing that Trollocs and such are real); she still feels the lands are hers by right, she still views all around her as puppets in one way or another, and she still views channellers as simply potential slaves. Mat and Min might have enough of an effect on her to keep her from going back on her word, but given her last words to Mat in the books were basically "I don't need you anymore" and she's never been driven by her own attachments ... I doubt it.

Really, I don't see how Aviendha's vision of the future doesn't come to pass at this point. Which colored the entire ending for me a bit, because while the prose seemed to be trying to suggest that Tuon would abide by the agreement, everything we know of her suggests she won't.



Might as well ask why the Aiel Waste can support more warriors than all of the continental lands east of the Waste combined. IIRC, they don't, actually. The Aiel were outnumbered during the invasion of Cairhien and make up a strong minority of the total forces of the Dragon in the current day, at least after the other nations actually start joining up. But the Aiel are just so good at war, and fight in their own particularly effective way, that their lesser numbers were more than offset in the Cairhien invasion and they're pretty much the elite mooks of the forces of the Dragon. There's a surprisingly large number of them, but considering nearly all of them are warriors their total population is likely equal to or less than one of the larger countries in the western part of the continent.

[Helanna]

The Seanchan. I suppose this falls under "the world continues, even if the main story ends," but at the close of the Last Battle, the Seanchan are essentially poised to take over the world. Due to the aforementioned plan, the remaining forces of this eastern continent (the many nations, the Aiel, and the Sharans) are all reeling, while the Seanchan largely kept themselves out of the battle and only swooped in towards the end. If Tuon is of a mind, the only things preventing her from simply sweeping over the land like a plague are a piece of paper, some words, and the rebellion back in Seanchan proper ... which, given they know how to Travel now, Tuon can most likely quell pretty fast and then come straight back over. She has lost none of her preconceived notions (except knowing that Trollocs and such are real); she still feels the lands are hers by right, she still views all around her as puppets in one way or another, and she still views channellers as simply potential slaves. Mat and Min might have enough of an effect on her to keep her from going back on her word, but given her last words to Mat in the books were basically "I don't need you anymore" and she's never been driven by her own attachments ... I doubt it.

Really, I don't see how Aviendha's vision of the future doesn't come to pass at this point. Which colored the entire ending for me a bit, because while the prose seemed to be trying to suggest that Tuon would abide by the agreement, everything we know of her suggests she won't.


This is something that I feel should have been addressed in the book, but I'm hoping Hawkwing actually got a chance to talk to her and told her to stop being so crazy. That would go a very long way in convincing her to keep her word.

She may also abide by her agreement with Egwene - allow anyone who wants to be collared, be collared, but also let anyone who wants to be free, be free. Egwene's gone, but Tuon may still do it to deflect criticism from other nations. I really, really, really, really hate Tuon, but to be fair, she honestly believes that her way is best for everyone, and thinks that if she makes that agreement, everyone will eventually come to be collared. If anyone ever does manage to convince her that it's wrong to enslave channelers, I think she'd stop the practice as soon as possible.

Mat's also going to be a good influence. Min would be too, and would be in a great position to influence Tuon (by straight up lying, if need be) but honestly I think she'd probably sneak out at the first opportunity and follow Rand.

Finally, the Wise Ones said they would not be declaring war on the Seanchan no matter what, and since the columns are still there for them to prove what a bad idea that would be, the Aiel are probably safe.

Actually, I wonder how those columns are going to affect everything. I guess it's not too dissimilar from Dreaming, since it was just showing a possible future, but that's still a pretty handy device to have.

[Douglas]

Fix the spoiler block in that quote, please.

[Helanna]

Fix the spoiler block in that quote, please.

Sorry, wasn't paying nearly enough attention. It's fixed now.

[Douglas]

The Seanchan. I suppose this falls under "the world continues, even if the main story ends," but at the close of the Last Battle, the Seanchan are essentially poised to take over the world. Due to the aforementioned plan, the remaining forces of this eastern continent (the many nations, the Aiel, and the Sharans) are all reeling, while the Seanchan largely kept themselves out of the battle and only swooped in towards the end. If Tuon is of a mind, the only things preventing her from simply sweeping over the land like a plague are a piece of paper, some words, and the rebellion back in Seanchan proper ... which, given they know how to Travel now, Tuon can most likely quell pretty fast and then come straight back over. She has lost none of her preconceived notions (except knowing that Trollocs and such are real); she still feels the lands are hers by right, she still views all around her as puppets in one way or another, and she still views channellers as simply potential slaves. Mat and Min might have enough of an effect on her to keep her from going back on her word, but given her last words to Mat in the books were basically "I don't need you anymore" and she's never been driven by her own attachments ... I doubt it.

Really, I don't see how Aviendha's vision of the future doesn't come to pass at this point. Which colored the entire ending for me a bit, because while the prose seemed to be trying to suggest that Tuon would abide by the agreement, everything we know of her suggests she won't.

The rebellion back in Seanchan proper is a giant many-sided civil war covering a continent the size of North America and South America combined, and a huge number of the leaders in the conflict are ambitious enough to not bow to Tuon until after she proves she can beat them. That's just how Seanchan political culture works. Quelling it is an ENORMOUS project, and Robert Jordan had planned to have it as the centerpiece of a whole extra (presumably shorter) series.

When she talked with Rand, she agreed to the Dragon's Peace in no small part because she actually had serious concerns about her current holdings being contested by the other nations. She may have taken less casualties, proportionately, than the other nations, but she did still take significant casualties, and by the time the rebellion is quelled the other nations will have recovered.

Additionally, in Aviendha's vision it was strictly the Aiel that broke the peace. The Seanchan were abiding by the treaty completely. The descent was long peace->Aiel attack->Seanchan strike back exclusively at the Aiel->Aiel drag other nations into it one by one. At every stage, the Seanchan were not the aggressors. So, the Aiel not starting it eliminates the entire chain of events.

On the flip side, if the Seanchan do decide to attack without provocation (which would itself be a major break from the vision), the terms of the Dragon's Peace would bring everyone into the war immediately. There would be no piecemeal conquering and absorbing one nation at a time until the Aiel talk or trick the next nation into joining, they'd be up against the entire unified force from the beginning.

As for Tuon's last words to Mat, I honestly believe that she didn't really mean them. That kind of attitude has, by that point, become a sort of running joke that they use in banter with each other.

[mangosta71]

(Some of) my thoughts:Prologue Talmanes is a certified badass.

I was a little disappointed that Hurin wasn't mentioned as being among the Heroes of the Horn (as Hawkwing hinted back in book 2 that he might be joining them).

I expected Elayne to more affected by the severing of the Warder bond than she was, especially after all the trouble Jordan went to to suggest that they felt each other more strongly than typical bonded pairs.

I also wonder exactly what sort of adventures Gaidal and Birgitte will get up to, given the implication that the end of this book marks the beginning of a new Age of peace.

I was hoping for the end of the sul'dam/damane thing, and then they collared Moghedien in the epilogue, and now I'm not sure whether I should hope they abandon the practice or not. Also, that horrid bitch Elaida is, presumably, still collared...

On the topic of Forsaken, I didn't expect any of them to survive. After Perrin caught Graendal in TAR, I especially didn't expect her to live in any fashion and I'm curious how Perrin reacted when/if he saw her in the aftermath. The rest died in surprising ways - only M'Hael ate a weave. Demandred dying on a sword caught me by surprise, but not as much as Lanfear getting her neck snapped by Perrin, of all people. And Mat didn't get to kill any of them, which made me sad.

I would have liked to see more of the interplay between Galad and Berelain after the battle. Also Gaul, Chiad, and Bain - the last we see of any of them, Gaul is severely wounded in TAR, and Chiad and Bain are heading to Merrilor to search the battlefield for wounded while the audience knows that Moghedien has just ordered the Shadow's forces to fall upon the rescue parties. At least we know that Galad survived (minus an arm, but still alive).

As for responses to what others have said:
Of course Taim wasn't Be'lal. Be'lal was still imprisoned when Taim first appeared in the series. Also, Be'lal ate balefire in book 3.

Having the Seanchan appear to abandon the field is a time-honored feint intended to sucker your opponent into over-committing so you can have a surprise reserve catch him with his pants down. Probably not necessary in this case, as the opponent was already throwing everything he had at them, but it also allowed them time and opportunity to flush out the spy in the Seanchan ranks. Simply ordering "everyone not neccesary" from the room had no guarantee of working, as the spy could have been one of those "necessary" individuals, and given who it turned out to be wouldn't have worked anyway - Moghedien could have listened from outside just as easily as she posed as a da'covale.

Fain being mostly absent doesn't bother me much, as when he appears his motivation is extremely simple and straight-forward. How much time really needed to be devoted to his (lack of) scheme? He shows up, planning to absorb everything on the field between himself and the Bore, and Mat shanks him with his own dagger. I found it satisfying.

[Alleran]

(Some of) my thoughts:I was a little disappointed that Hurin wasn't mentioned as being among the Heroes of the Horn (as Hawkwing hinted back in book 2 that he might be joining them).
What I find puzzling are the questions of the true identities of Rand, Mat and Perrin and their link to the status of "hero to be spun out" as needed. Obviously Rand, as the Dragon and Creator's Champion who must oppose the Dark One every time, is spun out as needed and probably hangs out in the World of Dreams between resurrections. But is he bound to the Horn? Or wouldn't it matter? After all, when the Heroes are called, they come, but they must follow the Banner and the Dragon. That implies that whether the Dragon is bound or not is a moot point, because he'll have to be around for the Heroes to come and do anything anyway. Yet Hawkwing points out that he has fought by the side of Rand many times, but has also fought against him.

Mat? He's explicitly not one of the Heroes, but he is important. The Heroes seem to know him and call him Gambler (their use of the term seemed to mark that he is a recurring thread, to me), which might also mean that he is a Hero that the Pattern does spin out from time to time (would play into how he reiterates concepts from older Ages - the Odin thing, hat and eyepatch, ravens and so on) and waits in the World of Dreams between lives. But he's not one of those bound to the Horn, perhaps because regardless of incarnation he doesn't want to be.

Perrin? Who knows. I don't think it was ever stated.

Jain Farstrider being bound to the Horn makes sense. I'd wonder if there were any others who were bound to the Wheel over the course of the series like that. Sadly, Hurin doesn't seem to have been, but there could be others. Or other heroes that are currently spun out (e.g. Gaidal, though he's obviously much younger) and so weren't with ones who came at the Horn's call during the series.
But setting all that aside, I have one thing that bugs me:
The impossible pipe. How did Rand light it? It's quite explicit that he didn't use the One Power or the True Power, since he no longer has either of them, for whatever reason. But he did still light it. And he did it by looking at the pipe, thinking it lit and deciding that it was so. And it was lit.

So what, is he changing reality now? Dreaming things with a thought? Is the waking world to him like the World of Dreams is to a Dreamwalker? Can he make anything happen by thinking it? Is it related to how he is such an integral part of the Pattern that the Wheel Weaves as He Wills? Is he the Weave itself or some outgrowth of it?

Curious.
EDIT: Well, maybe two things.
What did Hawkwing say to Tuon? He didn't seem impressed with what he knew the Seanchan had done when Mat asked him to talk with her.

[mangosta71]

Oh, something else that occurs to me, where was the Elayne-Morgase reunion? Tallanvor, Gill, Lini...they all just kinda disappeared after coming to Merrilor with Perrin.

[Douglas]

Oh, something else that occurs to me, where was the Elayne-Morgase reunion? Tallanvor, Gill, Lini...they all just kinda disappeared after coming to Merrilor with Perrin.
In the previous book. They got back together in Towers of Midnight, and Morgase gave Elayne advice on how to handle Perrin.

[snoopy13a]

What I find puzzling are the questions of the true identities of Rand, Mat and Perrin and their link to the status of "hero to be spun out" as needed. Obviously Rand, as the Dragon and Creator's Champion who must oppose the Dark One every time, is spun out as needed and probably hangs out in the World of Dreams between resurrections. But is he bound to the Horn? Or wouldn't it matter? After all, when the Heroes are called, they come, but they must follow the Banner and the Dragon. That implies that whether the Dragon is bound or not is a moot point, because he'll have to be around for the Heroes to come and do anything anyway. Yet Hawkwing points out that he has fought by the side of Rand many times, but has also fought against him.

Mat? He's explicitly not one of the Heroes, but he is important. The Heroes seem to know him and call him Gambler (their use of the term seemed to mark that he is a recurring thread, to me), which might also mean that he is a Hero that the Pattern does spin out from time to time (would play into how he reiterates concepts from older Ages - the Odin thing, hat and eyepatch, ravens and so on) and waits in the World of Dreams between lives. But he's not one of those bound to the Horn, perhaps because regardless of incarnation he doesn't want to be.

Perrin? Who knows. I don't think it was ever stated.

Jain Farstrider being bound to the Horn makes sense. I'd wonder if there were any others who were bound to the Wheel over the course of the series like that. Sadly, Hurin doesn't seem to have been, but there could be others. Or other heroes that are currently spun out (e.g. Gaidal, though he's obviously much younger) and so weren't with ones who came at the Horn's call during the series.
But setting all that aside, I have one thing that bugs me:
The impossible pipe. How did Rand light it? It's quite explicit that he didn't use the One Power or the True Power, since he no longer has either of them, for whatever reason. But he did still light it. And he did it by looking at the pipe, thinking it lit and deciding that it was so. And it was lit.

So what, is he changing reality now? Dreaming things with a thought? Is the waking world to him like the World of Dreams is to a Dreamwalker? Can he make anything happen by thinking it? Is it related to how he is such an integral part of the Pattern that the Wheel Weaves as He Wills? Is he the Weave itself or some outgrowth of it?

Curious.
EDIT: Well, maybe two things.
What did Hawkwing say to Tuon? He didn't seem impressed with what he knew the Seanchan had done when Mat asked him to talk with her.

Hmm,

As for Hawkwing, maybe he ended up talking to Berelain instead :smalltongue: . I don't think he'd be able to influence the Seanchan anyway. With Seanchan's Byzanstine-on-steriods politics, Tuon might be assassinated next week for all we know. Thus, any influence she might have on others is questionable. This would also leave the Dragon's Peace in doubt.

Speaking of the pattern, how does the pattern recover from balefire? I suppose new souls must be created to replace those balefired. Otherwise, as the wheel turns, and people get balefired, the number of threads would eventually reach zero. More ominious is that one has a minuscule chance of being balefired during one's lifetime. Thus, as one is reborn, it would seem that eventually, one will be balefired--that minuscule chance will occur sooner or later.

This is rather depressing as it would lead to the destruction of one's existence. Of course, we don't know for sure if balefire necessarily destroys one's soul or simply removes it from the pattern (and the Dark Lord's reach). All of the characters, including the Dark Lord, may be ignorant on this point.

If a victory by the Dark Lord would led to the Wheel's stop, then I suppose that the Dragon must win and the whole process has to be rigged by the Creator. If the Dark Lord had any chance of winning and the wheel has turned thousands of times, then the Dark Lord would have almost certainly won by now--simply due to probability. Although, the assumption that the wheel stops if the Dark Lord wins may not be accurate. For all we know, the Dark Lord may win at the end of some ages and the Dragon is reborn as a resistance leader to the Dark Lord's rule.

As for rebirth, it seems that some souls, such as Birgitte, are reborn constantly--several times in the third Age. Others, such as the Dragon, are reborn seldom--once an Age. In addition, the Dragon's soul must be somehow protected from balefire by the pattern. Otherwise, again due to probability, the Dragon would be balefired sooner or later.

As for Ages, it seems that the past Age, the 2nd, is an "Age of Legend" and that the people living at the crux of an Age change remember the end of the last Age. Therefore, it must be assumed that the people living at the end of the Second Age had some knowledge of the ending of the First Age. We also that the people living at the end of the Second Age were not aware of the Dark Lord's prison. This suggests that the "First Age" ends in a whimper, not a bang. Perhaps the Dragon and the Dark Lord do not fight at the end of this age? Or perhaps the conflict is subtle and no one--outside of those two-are aware of this?

This finally begs the question of what happens at the end of the other Ages? There are seven spokes in the wheel and seven ages. We know that at the end of the 2nd Age, the Dark Lord's prison is repaired imperfectly and at the end of the 3rd Age, the Dark Lord's prison is sealed anew. However, what happens at the end of the other five Ages? Is the Dark Lord more or less sealed until the end of the 2nd Age? Or does the Dark Lord escape in one of the Ages, reigns during an Age, only to be resealed at the beginning of the First Age (or before)?

Oh well, all of this theorectical mumbo-jumbo makes me want to eat a cookie :smallbiggrin:

[PairO'Dice Lost]

This finally begs the question of what happens at the end of the other Ages? There are seven spokes in the wheel and seven ages. We know that at the end of the 2nd Age, the Dark Lord's prison is repaired imperfectly and at the end of the 3rd Age, the Dark Lord's prison is sealed anew. However, what happens at the end of the other five Ages? Is the Dark Lord more or less sealed until the end of the 2nd Age? Or does the Dark Lord escape in one of the Ages, reigns during an Age, only to be resealed at the beginning of the First Age (or before)?

Oh well, all of this theorectical mumbo-jumbo makes me want to eat a cookie :smallbiggrin:

Well, we know that the First Age is essentially the modern era of the real world, with all the references to technology, real places, real-world legends, etc., the Second Age is the Age of Legends, the Third Age is the main WoT one, and the Fourth Age is (shaping up to be) an Age of peace. It looks like there's another Age of war coming up, based on how things ended up and Aviendha's visions. The Dark One escaping is unlikely, as that would mean breaking the Wheel, but his influence does probably wax and wane between Ages.

So, crazy theory time! Here's a hypothesis for how the Ages might go:

Third Age: The Dark One's influence grows, so the Light gathers its forces to defeats the Dark One. The Dragon is spun out as the focus of the Light, defeats the Dark One, and ushers in an Age of peace.

Fourth Age: The Seanchan Empire does its thing with the Aes Sedai/damane trading discussed at the end, then withdraws from the mainland to deal with its internal issues. The Dragon's Peace ensures that peace reigns for a long time, while the Dragon himself wanders the world anonymously, doing his own thing.

Fifth Age: The Seanchan Empire has settled its internal squabbling and returns to the mainland, conquering everyone piecemeal. The Dark One's influence is barely able to touch the world, not enough to create Trollocs and turn channelers and such, but enough to foster distrust and anarchy among the nations and make them easy prey for the Seanchan. The Dragon is spun out to help resist this, but eventually the Empire wins and there's an Age of tyranny.

Sixth Age: Everything reaches the breaking point, and the Dragon sits this one out. Uncollared channelers rebel, the Empire is fragmented, the One Power is almost used up in one final conflict, and everything goes kablooie. The major conflict between Dark and Light breaks the world, wiping out most life and turning the world into a volcanic hellscape. No knowledge, artifacts, or anything else before this point survives.

Seventh Age: The Creator intervenes, repairing the world, creating life, and so forth--think Pangaea, dinosaurs, the whole bit--and reinforces the Dark One's prison to prevent him from interfering with the world's recovery. Humanity eventually comes into existence, and the fledgling human race makes it to the beginnings of civilization.

First Age: Humanity thrives, going from cavemen to modernity. Channeling has yet to be rediscovered, the Dark One is still sealed away, the Dragon and other heroes remain dormant, and the Creator basically leaves the world alone to let it recover after the last Breaking. Eventually, scientific experiments into some unknown energy source hit paydirt, reveal the One Power, and usher in the next Age.

Second Age: The discovery of the One Power ushers in an Age of Legends, known as the Second Age. Everything is a utopia, channelers help everyone, etc. etc. etc. The Dark One's prison weakens enough to let him begin to touch the world, and he starts persuading people that, hey, discovery of the One Power ushered in a great age, how awesome would this "True Power" thing be, right? The Dragon is spun out to try to prevent anything bad from happening, but we know how that turns out....

And so on and so forth.

[Seerow]

On balefiring souls, I'm pretty sure Balefire doesn't destroy the soul. I think I saw this explained somewhere, but can't remember where. The gist of it is the Dark One can snatch a soul only within moments of the death happening. Balefire causes the death to happen moments earlier, so by the time the Dark One can react, the window is gone and he can't do anything about it.



On the ages, PoD I think you're over-emphasizing the Seanchan, and underestimating just how long ages last. A given age is between 1000 and 3000 years, or thereabouts. Remember Hawking's Empire was an entirely 3rd age construct that rose, gave birth to the Seanchan, and fell, without heralding the end of an age. I could easily see the Seanchan returning home, stabilizing, and coming back, all within a few generations, not being the primary focus of the 4th age. Similarly, the Seanchan taking over the world wouldn't be something causing a 5th age. All of what you described could happen and merely be a small part of what happens within the 4th age.


I also don't buy the 7th Age being a point that totally wipes out all knowledge entirely. It would have to be a major change, to be sure, but the Wheel of Time takes pains to create links between the third age we are reading about and myths and legends in our real world. So obviously something survives. I don't see a return to the age of dinosaurs for a few billion years after the creator intervenes and hits reset being right.

[Douglas]

Some of the things you're talking about really don't need to go in spoiler blocks.


Speaking of the pattern, how does the pattern recover from balefire? I suppose new souls must be created to replace those balefired. Otherwise, as the wheel turns, and people get balefired, the number of threads would eventually reach zero. More ominious is that one has a minuscule chance of being balefired during one's lifetime. Thus, as one is reborn, it would seem that eventually, one will be balefired--that minuscule chance will occur sooner or later.

Balefire does not destroy souls, remove them from the pattern, or otherwise prevent them from being reborn by the normal process. This has been explicitly stated by Robert Jordan.

The reason balefire prevents the Dark One from resurrecting someone is the time manipulation aspect of it. In order for the DO to bring someone back, he has to grab the soul within a short time of the moment of death. When someone dies from balefire, that interval gets skipped - the person goes directly from "alive" to "died 5 minutes ago", denying the DO the opportunity to grab them at "died 30 seconds ago" (or whatever the limit is).

The real problem with accumulation over many turnings of the Wheel is cuendillar. Why isn't the world practically drowning in the stuff by now? The Dark One's power is the only thing known to be capable of even scratching it, much less actually destroying it, so where does it all go to keep from piling up over 50 or 100 Ages?


So, crazy theory time! Here's a hypothesis for how the Ages might go:
I think you're seriously underestimating the length of an Age and overestimating the longevity of nations and empires.


It looks like there's another Age of war coming up, based on how things ended up and Aviendha's visions.
Quite the contrary, it looks like we have a long period of peace coming up. The problems that led to breakdown in Aviendha's visions have been thoroughly dealt with. In particular, the lack of a purpose for the Aiel, and them not being forbidden from starting the war.

In Aviendha's vision, at every stage the Aiel were the aggressors, not the Seanchan. Further, they started it in large part because warfare was the only reasonably simple way they knew to gain what they viewed as honor. As things stand now, the Aiel have made a firm decision specifically against that aggression, and their new role as peacekeepers and enforcers introduces a new simple and obvious way to gain honor.

[Seerow]

Yay for being a 30 minute ninja. I feel like balefire was involved somehow.

[Balain]

I never read past winter's heart. But I figured, I'd try to re-read and finish the series

[PairO'Dice Lost]

On the ages, PoD I think you're over-emphasizing the Seanchan, and underestimating just how long ages last.


I think you're seriously underestimating the length of an Age and overestimating the longevity of nations and empires.

We know the past two Ages were a few thousand years long, but Ages correspond to major shakeups in the world, so I could see them lasting from a few hundred years to a few billion depending on what the breakpoints are. I did say it was a crazy theory; gotta fit dinosaurs in there somewhere. :smallwink:

Either way, yes, I know that this off-the-cuff hypothesis can't be what actually happens, because as douglas noted, Aviendha's visions have been contradicted by the Aiel's new purpose, and with what we've seen with balefire, the Aelfinn and Eelfinn, and other stuff it appears that time isn't deterministic in the WoT-verse. I'd actually expect that Ages aren't tied so closely together that the same events happen each time--there are probably Ages of Legends that don't end with a Bore and a Breaking of the World, and some where the Dark wins for a while, and some where it's the female Aes Sedai that try fighting the Dark One and getting tainted, and so on.

That would actually have been a cool direction to take potential WoT sequels. I remember reading an article or interview that talked about Jordan possibly writing some side books like New Spring about the goings-on in the Seanchan Empire. It would be interesting if the Seanchan Empire was in an area less affected by the Breaking and has some records from previous Ages on what happened then, and was acting the way they did because their omens told them things would turn out the same way this Third Age when events were actually quite different. Or maybe a book focusing on Mat and Perrin several Ages from now, who get spun into the world to fix some things while Rand takes a well-deserved break and draw on their past-life memories of defeating Demandred and Slayer to aply them to current events.

There are lots of exciting directions things could be taken, and it's a real shame they'll probably never get written. :smallfrown:

[Anteros]

I doubt Hawkwing said anything good on the Damane front. I mean, he's the one who spent the majority of his last life seiging Tar valon, and it's his policies that lead to the chaining of channelers in the first place. Maybe he's more laid back in his hero of the horn form...but maybe not as well.

On the pipe: Rand was weaving the pattern itself during his fight against the Dark One. Maybe he just remembers how? I think it's left ambiguous on purpose just to give the fans something to argue against.

The main thing that bothered me about this book was that the Light's tactics under Elayne until Mat took over were...stupid. Very very very stupid. "Alright, let's hurry up and destroy the army in Caemlyn so that we can reinforce the other fronts! We'll best accomplish this by hiding in the woods hundreds of miles from the city and slowly drawing them towards us over the course of several days, and then organize a fighting retreat from there!" It's completely self contradictory. I think that's probably more Sanderson's fault than anything.

Then again, Elayne was in charge at this point, and she's been shown to be a complete idiot on many, many occasions so maybe it isn't surprising.

Also, Sanderson's shenanigans with Gateways were not appreciated. Some of them were clever, but honestly if horizontal gateways were possible then people are absolutely stupid for not using them earlier. I'd rather believe that Jordan didn't intend for them to be possible rather than just having everyone in his universe be a complete idiot.

As far as the Ages go, I think there's a Jordan quote floating around somewhere that it varies wildly. Some ages could be a few thousand years while others could be literally billions.

Oh, and on the Cuendillar issue...Jordan stated that there was a second way to destroy it...but we never see what it is. Maybe it just changes back to iron after a few million years or something. Not a big enough issue to be a plot hole to me.

[Douglas]

Yes, Hawkwing besieged Tar Valon, but he did that under the influence of Ishamael. In his Hero form he should be free of that, and he also has a ton of memories and experiences from other lives that should give him a more balanced perspective on the issue. One way or another he knows Lews Therin personally, and that alone should be enough to put his stance well short of "enslave them all". Also, the situation in Seanchan when Luthair arrived had a lot more to do with it than Hawkwing's opinions - the whole continent was a chaotic mess where channelers did whatever they damn well pleased while everyone else tried to stay out of the way and prayed.

For Elayne's tactics, keep in mind that she was up against a horrendous numerical disadvantage. The strategy she followed was a bit slow, but it allowed her to inflict disproportionate casualties, and in a war for existence that was the true paramount concern. Also, the general(s) who made that plan were operating under Compulsion by the end, and it's unclear when that started.

For horizontal gateways, see this (http://linuxmafia.com/jordan/node/97.html). Robert Jordan is officially on record saying that they are possible. Also, I think you're being overly harsh about character intelligence on this. Situations where a horizontal gateway would really be useful just haven't really come up much before, at least not with someone able to make one present. On top of that, it is a non trivial conceptual leap. Gateways are, fundamentally, a means of long distance transportation. Yes, they can be used for other things, but that is the purpose pretty much everyone first learned them for, and there are countless real world examples of people being completely oblivious to possible applications of something outside of its established common usage. It is easy to say "of course, how simple and obvious!" after the fact; it is much much harder to invent the new idea in the first place.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I think that's probably more Sanderson's fault than anything.

Then again, Elayne was in charge at this point, and she's been shown to be a complete idiot on many, many occasions so maybe it isn't surprising.

I'm inclined to go with Elayne being massively outnumbered and having corrupted commanders, like douglas said. I doubt Jordan's notes on the Elayne-controlled portion of the Last Battle consisted entirely of "Eh, make something up that works." :smallwink:


Also, Sanderson's shenanigans with Gateways were not appreciated. Some of them were clever, but honestly if horizontal gateways were possible then people are absolutely stupid for not using them earlier. I'd rather believe that Jordan didn't intend for them to be possible rather than just having everyone in his universe be a complete idiot.

Most of the gateway shenanigans were done by Androl, who has an exceptional Talent for them like Nynaeve has for Healing, so I'd say it's reasonable for him to come up with new uses for them that no one else did...and even without Word of Jordan saying that they're possible, the scouting gateways and the Dragonmount lava gateways were important enough to the narrative that I'm fairly sure they would have been in Jordan's notes rather than improvised by Sanderson.

[Anteros]

Yes, Hawkwing besieged Tar Valon, but he did that under the influence of Ishamael. In his Hero form he should be free of that, and he also has a ton of memories and experiences from other lives that should give him a more balanced perspective on the issue. One way or another he knows Lews Therin personally, and that alone should be enough to put his stance well short of "enslave them all". Also, the situation in Seanchan when Luthair arrived had a lot more to do with it than Hawkwing's opinions - the whole continent was a chaotic mess where channelers did whatever they damn well pleased while everyone else tried to stay out of the way and prayed.

For Elayne's tactics, keep in mind that she was up against a horrendous numerical disadvantage. The strategy she followed was a bit slow, but it allowed her to inflict disproportionate casualties, and in a war for existence that was the true paramount concern. Also, the general(s) who made that plan were operating under Compulsion by the end, and it's unclear when that started.

For horizontal gateways, see this (http://linuxmafia.com/jordan/node/97.html). Robert Jordan is officially on record saying that they are possible. Also, I think you're being overly harsh about character intelligence on this. Situations where a horizontal gateway would really be useful just haven't really come up much before, at least not with someone able to make one present. On top of that, it is a non trivial conceptual leap. Gateways are, fundamentally, a means of long distance transportation. Yes, they can be used for other things, but that is the purpose pretty much everyone first learned them for, and there are countless real world examples of people being completely oblivious to possible applications of something outside of its established common usage. It is easy to say "of course, how simple and obvious!" after the fact; it is much much harder to invent the new idea in the first place.

According to the Seanchan the channelers were like that. Who knows if that is actually true. I highly doubt they are an unbiased source on the subject.

Also, are you really telling me that you didn't think of the horizontal gateway idea before it was in the book? I personally know lots and lots of people who had that idea long before this book ever came out. In addition, Brandon is on record stating that the "creativeness" with Gateways was entirely him, and that he was constantly pushing team Jordan on it, and that they were uncomfortable with it.

As far as Elayne's "tactics". The whole point of targeting Caemlyn first was to wipe them out quickly and move on to support other fronts. Camping a week away and slowly drawing the enemy towards you is not exactly a great way to accomplish that goal. Besides, these armies can instantly travel, while shadowspawn cannot. There's literally no reason to open up 4 different fronts. Move all your forces to Caemlyn, wipe that army out in a day or two and then travel up to the gap and reinforce Lan. The Kandor front can be left for last. Kandor has already fallen and there are literally hundreds of miles of empty land between them any anything else.

Also, aren't there supposed to be about 1000 Aes Sedai in the White Tower and 600 Asha'man in the Black? The Shaido Clan alone had 200 Wise Ones who could channel, so the other 11 clans should have around 2000 channelers, plus however many there are among the sea folk. Basically the Light should have access to about 4000 trained channelers not even counting the ones still in training. The Shadow has what? 400 from Shara and maybe another 200-300 from the black ajah and asha'man. The Light's chanellers outnumber the dark's by 4 to 1. This is simply ignored and it's pretended that the Light's chanellers can barely hold on. This isn't even accounting for the fact that the Seanchan are reported to have 1000 damane. Yet we only ever see maybe a few dozen channellers on the field at any given time. Why?



I'm inclined to go with Elayne being massively outnumbered and having corrupted commanders, like douglas said. I doubt Jordan's notes on the Elayne-controlled portion of the Last Battle consisted entirely of "Eh, make something up that works." :smallwink:



Most of the gateway shenanigans were done by Androl, who has an exceptional Talent for them like Nynaeve has for Healing, so I'd say it's reasonable for him to come up with new uses for them that no one else did...and even without Word of Jordan saying that they're possible, the scouting gateways and the Dragonmount lava gateways were important enough to the narrative that I'm fairly sure they would have been in Jordan's notes rather than improvised by Sanderson.

Honestly I would be inclined to agree with you except that Sanderson flat out stated that Androl is his own character that he added to the series and that the Gateway things were his ideas from a novel he was planning on writing and that he worked them into the WoT instead.

You might be right about the Elayne thing, but it's not any less dumb regardless who's idea it was.

I should note that I actually enjoyed the book as a whole. I've got so much invested in this series it's honestly impossible for me to not enjoy the conclusion. I'm just facilitating discussion.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Honestly I would be inclined to agree with you except that Sanderson flat out stated that Androl is his own character that he added to the series and that the Gateway things were his ideas from a novel he was planning on writing and that he worked them into the WoT instead.

Huh, I didn't know that. Do you have a link to where that's stated?

[Seerow]

Also, are you really telling me that you didn't think of the horizontal gateway idea before it was in the book? I personally know lots and lots of people who had that idea long before this book ever came out. In addition, Brandon is on record stating that the "creativeness" with Gateways was entirely him, and that he was constantly pushing team Jordan on it, and that they were uncomfortable with it.


See the link someone else posted above. RJ said back in 1996 that horizontal gateways were possible, just nobody had a reason to do so. That much at least was not an invention by Sanderson, it was characters not quite grasping the power of what they had with gateways.

Androl and his shenanigans I'm willing to believe are all Sanderson. But really, how much of what he did was that outrageous? Redirecting weaves was something that was obviously possible because I'm pretty sure we'd seen weaves go through a gateway before. Androl's talent for gateways lets him make them fast enough to actually use that effectively. Similarly, the big lava gateway made me wtf at first, but assuming the dragon mount was an active volcano with lots of flowing lava, then why not? He had his talent plus a full circle of full strength ashaman backing him up, even if all the women were exhausted and contributing nothing. Not exactly something where it's like "Why didn't we do this earlier?".

That said, I was personally just expecting a giant sized death gate, creating a huge gateway and moving it through the shadowspawn army, killing them all instantly.

[Alleran]

Hmm,

If a victory by the Dark Lord would led to the Wheel's stop, then I suppose that the Dragon must win and the whole process has to be rigged by the Creator. If the Dark Lord had any chance of winning and the wheel has turned thousands of times, then the Dark Lord would have almost certainly won by now--simply due to probability. Although, the assumption that the wheel stops if the Dark Lord wins may not be accurate. For all we know, the Dark Lord may win at the end of some ages and the Dragon is reborn as a resistance leader to the Dark Lord's rule.
I'm fairly certain that Jordan said somewhere that the Dragon vs Dark One fight does happen for a Last Battle, but not every time. He's spun out into the Pattern as needed to battle the Dark One, for that reason and that reason only - it's his purpose for existing, for his binding to the Wheel. Similarly, the battle between the Dragon and the Dark One is a "must win" game. If the Dragon is turned and raised up as the Champion of the Dark One, then that basically amounts to a draw. If the Dragon defeats the Dark One and re-imprisons him, that basically amounts to a win.

If the Dragon ever actually loses (i.e. the Dark One fully breaks free and remakes the Pattern), then it's game over. There are just "degrees of victory" that the Shadow is willing to accept if it has to.

[Douglas]

If the Dragon ever actually loses (i.e. the Dark One fully breaks free and remakes the Pattern), then it's game over.
Yeah. For both of the possible outcome worlds the Dark One showed Rand, I don't really see victory even being possible for the Light by any means short of direct intervention by the Creator.

In the first one, resistance is too systematically crushed and/or Turned before it can even get off the ground. Even if a group of channelers evades detection, the SuperTaint (which I'm assuming was also on Saidar in that world) would destroy them while they were still figuring out the most basic elements of their own abilities. Any non-channeling resistance is unlikely to be able to deal with the world-wide Blight, and would get crushed by all the Shadow's channelers anyway.

In the second, no one even knows there's anything that should be resisted and there's no way to find out.

Heck, the only reason the Shadow has a chance in the actual world is direction intervention by the Dark One.


According to the Seanchan the channelers were like that. Who knows if that is actually true. I highly doubt they are an unbiased source on the subject.
I think there are other sources on that, possibly even an authorial quote, but I don't have them handy. In any case, it seems thoroughly plausible to me - the only reason it didn't happen in the mainland is that the channelers there all set up their own societies and effectively police themselves.


Also, are you really telling me that you didn't think of the horizontal gateway idea before it was in the book? I personally know lots and lots of people who had that idea long before this book ever came out. In addition, Brandon is on record stating that the "creativeness" with Gateways was entirely him, and that he was constantly pushing team Jordan on it, and that they were uncomfortable with it.
I did not think of horizontal gateways before reading about it in the FAQ question and answer I linked. That was quite some time ago, and I didn't spend much time and effort thinking about gateway uses in the first place, but there it is.

You and all your friends are people who came to the whole system with fresh eyes, no preconceptions, and the urge to speculate about new possibilities. Aes Sedai, Wise Ones, Windfinders, and damane are all brought up familiar with the system, and in general taught an established set of things and not encouraged to innovate. They have thousands of years of institutional knowledge behind them, with its ingrained assumption that what's in that institutional knowledge is almost everything. When presented with a new previously unknown weave, their standard reaction is to take it at face value and use it for the purpose presented, not to start asking what other purposes it could be used for. Add to all this the fact that the primary thing horizontal gateways were used for is a battlefield command and strategy thing, which is far outside their standard domain.

So, I find it entirely reasonable that none of the standard female channeling groups came up with the idea of horizontal gateways. New ideas in general just aren't their thing, and ideas (new or not) related to battlefield command are really not their thing. On the male side, most of them are thoroughly occupied with learning everything else from scratch, so them missing it isn't a real surprise either. Then you show gateways to the greatest battlefield commanders alive, who have never before worked with channelers and their capabilities in significant ways, and in very short order they ask "can we use them for X". And you have one guy who can't do anything but gateways, and he promptly deals with it by using gateways for everything.

I find this sequence entirely reasonable.


As far as Elayne's "tactics". The whole point of targeting Caemlyn first was to wipe them out quickly and move on to support other fronts. Camping a week away and slowly drawing the enemy towards you is not exactly a great way to accomplish that goal. Besides, these armies can instantly travel, while shadowspawn cannot. There's literally no reason to open up 4 different fronts. Move all your forces to Caemlyn, wipe that army out in a day or two and then travel up to the gap and reinforce Lan. The Kandor front can be left for last. Kandor has already fallen and there are literally hundreds of miles of empty land between them any anything else.
Wiping that army out in a day or two would have required assaulting them within the walls of Caemlyn, with a devastatingly bad loss ratio. Drawing them a full week out was a bit far, but drawing them out period was absolutely essential. And again, they needed force multipliers. They could not afford an avoidable even fight, which is what fighting in the open would have been. Drawing the battle into the forest gave them an advantage, and that was probably the closest forest that was big enough.

As for instant travel of the whole army, yes they can do it but gateways on that scale take a lot of power and would leave many of their channelers exhausted if they did it too often.


Also, aren't there supposed to be about 1000 Aes Sedai in the White Tower and 600 Asha'man in the Black? The Shaido Clan alone had 200 Wise Ones who could channel, so the other 11 clans should have around 2000 channelers, plus however many there are among the sea folk. Basically the Light should have access to about 4000 trained channelers not even counting the ones still in training. The Shadow has what? 400 from Shara and maybe another 200-300 from the black ajah and asha'man. The Light's chanellers outnumber the dark's by 4 to 1. This is simply ignored and it's pretended that the Light's chanellers can barely hold on. This isn't even accounting for the fact that the Seanchan are reported to have 1000 damane. Yet we only ever see maybe a few dozen channellers on the field at any given time. Why?
Aes Sedai:
1000 total
Around 200 are black.
Around a third were out in the world, away from the Tower, when the split happened, and may or may not have made it back since.
Some have died in recent events, including quite a few casualties in the Seanchan raid.
Many are untrained or unsuited for battle.
I'd say 200 to 300 battle-worthy Light side Aes Sedai is about right.

Aiel:
The Shaido were by far the largest clan.
Wise Ones in general are not trained for battle.
I'd guess maybe 1000 Wise Ones, but lack of practice in One Power combat drops their effectiveness to, say, 500 or so.

Asha'man:
600 total
I'd guess a percentage of blacks about equivalent to Aes Sedai, so there goes 20%.
Add a bunch of Turned people on top of that.
I'd say there are probably 300 or 400 able to fight for the Light.

That puts the Light side at around 1200 or so channelers.

Meanwhile on the Dark side there are:
400 Sharans
200 Black Aes Sedai
200 Black Asha'man
Who knows how many Samma N'Sei. Enough to match the Wise Ones, probably, from Turned Aiel who "went to kill the Dark One", plus more from breeding. 1000+ easily. And unlike the Wise Ones they are trained and experience with battle weaves.

Dark side: 1800 or more channelers

This could be overly pessimistic, but I doubt it's off by all that much anywhere except the Wise Ones numbers, and any adjustment there should be matched by a similar adjustment to the Samma N'Sei because they come from the same source.

[Anteros]

Yeah. For both of the possible outcome worlds the Dark One showed Rand, I don't really see victory even being possible for the Light by any means short of direct intervention by the Creator.

In the first one, resistance is too systematically crushed and/or Turned before it can even get off the ground. Even if a group of channelers evades detection, the SuperTaint (which I'm assuming was also on Saidar in that world) would destroy them while they were still figuring out the most basic elements of their own abilities. Any non-channeling resistance is unlikely to be able to deal with the world-wide Blight, and would get crushed by all the Shadow's channelers anyway.

In the second, no one even knows there's anything that should be resisted and there's no way to find out.

Heck, the only reason the Shadow has a chance in the actual world is direction intervention by the Dark One.


I think there are other sources on that, possibly even an authorial quote, but I don't have them handy. In any case, it seems thoroughly plausible to me - the only reason it didn't happen in the mainland is that the channelers there all set up their own societies and effectively police themselves.


I did not think of horizontal gateways before reading about it in the FAQ question and answer I linked. That was quite some time ago, and I didn't spend much time and effort thinking about gateway uses in the first place, but there it is.

You and all your friends are people who came to the whole system with fresh eyes, no preconceptions, and the urge to speculate about new possibilities. Aes Sedai, Wise Ones, Windfinders, and damane are all brought up familiar with the system, and in general taught an established set of things and not encouraged to innovate. They have thousands of years of institutional knowledge behind them, with its ingrained assumption that what's in that institutional knowledge is almost everything. When presented with a new previously unknown weave, their standard reaction is to take it at face value and use it for the purpose presented, not to start asking what other purposes it could be used for. Add to all this the fact that the primary thing horizontal gateways were used for is a battlefield command and strategy thing, which is far outside their standard domain.

So, I find it entirely reasonable that none of the standard female channeling groups came up with the idea of horizontal gateways. New ideas in general just aren't their thing, and ideas (new or not) related to battlefield command are really not their thing. On the male side, most of them are thoroughly occupied with learning everything else from scratch, so them missing it isn't a real surprise either. Then you show gateways to the greatest battlefield commanders alive, who have never before worked with channelers and their capabilities in significant ways, and in very short order they ask "can we use them for X". And you have one guy who can't do anything but gateways, and he promptly deals with it by using gateways for everything.

I find this sequence entirely reasonable.


Wiping that army out in a day or two would have required assaulting them within the walls of Caemlyn, with a devastatingly bad loss ratio. Drawing them a full week out was a bit far, but drawing them out period was absolutely essential. And again, they needed force multipliers. They could not afford an avoidable even fight, which is what fighting in the open would have been. Drawing the battle into the forest gave them an advantage, and that was probably the closest forest that was big enough.

As for instant travel of the whole army, yes they can do it but gateways on that scale take a lot of power and would leave many of their channelers exhausted if they did it too often.


Aes Sedai:
1000 total
Around 200 are black.
Around a third were out in the world, away from the Tower, when the split happened, and may or may not have made it back since.
Some have died in recent events, including quite a few casualties in the Seanchan raid.
Many are untrained or unsuited for battle.
I'd say 200 to 300 battle-worthy Light side Aes Sedai is about right.

Aiel:
The Shaido were by far the largest clan.
Wise Ones in general are not trained for battle.
I'd guess maybe 1000 Wise Ones, but lack of practice in One Power combat drops their effectiveness to, say, 500 or so.

Asha'man:
600 total
I'd guess a percentage of blacks about equivalent to Aes Sedai, so there goes 20%.
Add a bunch of Turned people on top of that.
I'd say there are probably 300 or 400 able to fight for the Light.

That puts the Light side at around 1200 or so channelers.

Meanwhile on the Dark side there are:
400 Sharans
200 Black Aes Sedai
200 Black Asha'man
Who knows how many Samma N'Sei. Enough to match the Wise Ones, probably, from Turned Aiel who "went to kill the Dark One", plus more from breeding. 1000+ easily. And unlike the Wise Ones they are trained and experience with battle weaves.

Dark side: 1800 or more channelers

This could be overly pessimistic, but I doubt it's off by all that much anywhere except the Wise Ones numbers, and any adjustment there should be matched by a similar adjustment to the Samma N'Sei because they come from the same source.

I mean...you're making some rather large assumptions here. 1000 Samma N'Sei? That's a vast assumption. Even if they turn every single Aiel man born with the spark...there are a ridiculously low number of those. Even with a breeding program in place, I doubt they match the wise ones who supposedly find every single aiel girl who is even capable of learning to channel. Aside from which they aren't even present on any battlefront except Shayol Ghul so they're largely irrelevant to the vast majority of the battles in the story.

Even if the Shaido is the largest clan, they had 200+ wise ones who could channel. Am I supposed to believe that all other 11 clans combined only had around 1000? Also, the only reason their clan was so big was that they were taking in cast-offs from the other clans. These numbers did not include Wise Ones.

Of the Black Aes Sedai only around 100 or so escaped. If I remember correctly it was closer to 80. Also, you're discounting a gigantic portion of Light Side channelers by saying they probably aren't battle capable yet you're willing to believe that every single channeler for the Dark Side is battle capable? That seems a stretch.

Also, you're ignoring the fact that there are 600 windfinders and over 1000 damane.

Also, as far as Caemlyn goes, they could have just brought in a few hundred chanellers, torched the place to the ground, and been home for lunch. Rand could have done it by himself in a few hours, and probably wouldn't even be tired if he used Callandor. As they point out many, many times during the book...walls are completely useless when you're fighting against enemy channelers. Unless they're commanded by Elayne I suppose.

@ PairO'Dice: I saw it on Dragonmount.com in an interview with Sanderson. I'll dig around a little and see if I can find the direct quote.

[snoopy13a]

I don't think there are really any Aes Sedai who aren't "battle-capable." Any channeler who isn't "battle-capable" does not become an Accepted. And every Aes Sedai has passed the test for the shawl--which involves 100 different weaves under duress. Sure, some Aes Sedai may not have a talent for fireballs, but even the weakest could almost certainly do a combat friendly task such as weave a shield of air to cover their comrades from arrows. Remember, Lan says:

"Only the weakest Aes Sedai would fail to be a match for a Fade, one against one, but many a good man and true has fallen to them." (emphasis added)

Thus, even most of the weaker ones are better than Fades. And the weakest almost certainly have to be better than Trollocs and nearly all soldiers. Finally, every Aes Sedai, excluding Reds, can bond Warders who gain advantages over common soldiers.

So, let's start with 1000 Aes Sedai. 20% are black and let's say another 20% have died or were captured by the Seachan. I'm also going to assume that everyone else can make it for the Last Battle. That leaves 600 Aes Sedai. About 1/7 of these are Yellows and delegated to healing duty (along with the Accepted and Novices. So, that's about 515 battle-ready Aes Sedai. I'd assume that the support gateway tasks are delegated to the Kin.

As for Wise Ones, it is a little more complex because not all Wise Ones are channelers. In addition, Wise Ones, unlike Aes Sedai, do not cast out weak channelers (Aes Sedai also cast out strong channelers who fail tests or are too undisciplined). Aes Sedai also do a relatively poor job of finding channelers. Too many who can learn never do and too many who have the spark become wilders (and usually die). Finally, unlike Aes Sedai, Wise Ones often marry and have children. So the Aiel are not "culling" channeling.

So, the average Aes Sedai ought to be a better channeler than the average Wise-One channeler but the Aiel should have more channelers per captia than the Westlands. Finally, unlike the Aes Sedai, the Wise Ones do not necessarily prepare for battle.

For the Samma N'Sei, many are just run-of-the-mill darkfriends and not channelers. In addition, breeding programs probably aren't that likely. Slayer mentions that life as a child in Evil Town is fairly difficult. Likely, any children borne from a woman and a male channeler won't survive until adulthood.

However, it is unclear how many male channelers are born with the spark. Although male channelers in the Westlands are supposed to tried and gentled, we know that the Red (and Black) Ajah had ignored that law in the time after the Aiel War. Additionally, many male channelers with the spark kill themselves. So we have no idea how many overall.

It is probable that more arise per captia under the Aiel than the Westlands (because of culling). But still, that doesn't leave us with much.

[JoshL]

Just finished. Overall, loved it, and thought it was a great ending to the series. The book was pretty non-stop, as should really be expected. It's hard saying goodbye to a world that's been a part of my life for so long.

I have more thoughts, but it's all sort of sinking in right now...the way a good book should!

[Moridin]

I find it ironic (or just difficult to understand) that there are people in this forum criticizing Wheel of Time for being too bloated or having too many characters or storylines. WoT is what the story of random-guy-destined-to-defeat-ultimate-evil is if you expand it a lot and make it very complicated, adding lots of characters, factions and backstory to it. It's weird that people from this forum are criticizing it, considering Order of the Stick tries to do the same thing. It's a party of adventurers trying to save reality from destruction, but with 6 to 7 different factions vying for the control of the Narl. Some of those factions are introduced very late and some of the side-stories aren't really necessary if you wanted to tell just how these adventurers destroy/control the Narl. Like Elan's father or Vaarsuvius deal with the devils. Or the backstory behind the goblins (Right-Eye, etc). But I like those side-stories since they add depht to the central story, making it seem bigger, and that's why I also like Wheel of Time. Because both are very ambicious stories that want to tell very complicated conflicts where there isn't simply two sides for most of it.

For those critics, probably OoTS should've ended in comic # 100 or before, when the Order faces Xykon in the first dungeon (without introducing things like Nale, etc). It'd be a good story then, about a warrior getting vengeance for his father's death, but it wouldn't be an awesome story, about a 6-way conflict for reality. As Wheel of Time wouldn't be awesome if it stuck with just Rand defeating the Dark One in one of the earlier books and not introducing a lot of different concepts and conflicts (White Tower split, Aiel civil war, Seanchan invasion, Padan Fain/Shadar Logoth, Slayers x wolves, etc).

[Aidan305]

I find it ironic (or just difficult to understand) that there are people in this forum criticizing Wheel of Time for being too bloated or having too many characters or storylines. WoT is what the story of random-guy-destined-to-defeat-ultimate-evil is if you expand it a lot and make it very complicated, adding lots of characters, factions and backstory to it. It's weird that people from this forum are criticizing it, considering Order of the Stick tries to do the same thing. It's a party of adventurers trying to save reality from destruction, but with 6 to 7 different factions vying for the control of the Narl. Some of those factions are introduced very late and some of the side-stories aren't really necessary if you wanted to tell just how these adventurers destroy/control the Narl. Like Elan's father or Vaarsuvius deal with the devils. Or the backstory behind the goblins (Right-Eye, etc). But I like those side-stories since they add depht to the central story, making it seem bigger, and that's why I also like Wheel of Time. Because both are very ambicious stories that want to tell very complicated conflicts where there isn't simply two sides for most of it.

For those critics, probably OoTS should've ended in comic # 100 or before, when the Order faces Xykon in the first dungeon (without introducing things like Nale, etc). It'd be a good story then, about a warrior getting vengeance for his father's death, but it wouldn't be an awesome story, about a 6-way conflict for reality. As Wheel of Time wouldn't be awesome if it stuck with just Rand defeating the Dark One in one of the earlier books and not introducing a lot of different concepts and conflicts (White Tower split, Aiel civil war, Seanchan invasion, Padan Fain/Shadar Logoth, Slayers x wolves, etc).
Not really, because the focus of OOTS tends to stay on the party, with only the occasional shift of perspective for clarification on a matter or for purposes of a joke. Whereas the Wheel of Time had the party decide to split at the beginning of book 2 and never got back together again. As we result we were constantly kept in a state of shifting perspectives with each new perspective bringing its own set of characters. For your example to be correct, OOTS would have to be looking at a completely different set of characters every 20 pages or so.

[dps]

Not really, because the focus of OOTS tends to stay on the party, with only the occasional shift of perspective for clarification on a matter or for purposes of a joke. Whereas the Wheel of Time had the party decide to split at the beginning of book 2 and never got back together again. As we result we were constantly kept in a state of shifting perspectives with each new perspective bringing its own set of characters. For your example to be correct, OOTS would have to be looking at a completely different set of characters every 20 pages or so.

Well, while you're correct that OotS tends to focus on the Order more than TWoT focuses on Rand & whoever's currently with him, it's more than that. In OotS, there may be "at least 9" factions, but except for the Order, the Linear Guild, and Team Evil, nobody's gotten more than a few strips except when they're directly interacting with one of the Big 3 Factions. Granted, the Order was split for a while, into 2 and later 3 groups, but that still only made for 6 groups to keep track of. TWoT has dozens of groups, and many or most of them have multiple subfactions.

Now, personally, I don't mind that. I like that it's a big, complicated world. But it's hard to keep track of everything. It's not just the size or complexity, though. There's the factor of time. The first 6 books all came out in less than a 5 year period (Jan 1990 to Oct 1994), and it wasn't that hard to remember most of the previous book when a new one came out. But then they started to be spaced out more, and it was harder and harder to keep track of everything. I had to start re-reading the earlier books to remind me who was who, and by now, it's gotten to the point that I just don't have the time to re-read the whole thing. I'll pick up the latter books and read the whole saga from the start eventually, but I may not have the free time to do that until I retire.

Oh, and while I don't think that the plot itself is needlessly padding, we could certainly do without some of the lengthy passages about clothing.

[danzibr]

Bought it when it first came out (actually, wifey did for me) and I just now finished it. Man I'm a slow reader.

And man, I wish Robert Jordan had been able to write it himself. I don't want to get too critical, but... right, I'll leave it at that.

One thing I wonder about (which I notice has been said) is
Rand's lighting of the pipe. It seems he can will things to be in the real world now, just as Perrin/many other people can in tel'aran'rhiod.

EDIT: Right, I also wonder how Rand and Moridin did the switch-a-roo.

[IthilanorStPete]

Bought it when it first came out (actually, wifey did for me) and I just now finished it. Man I'm a slow reader.

And man, I wish Robert Jordan had been able to write it himself. I don't want to get too critical, but... right, I'll leave it at that.

One thing I wonder about (which I notice has been said) is
Rand's lighting of the pipe. It seems he can will things to be in the real world now, just as Perrin/many other people can in tel'aran'rhiod.

EDIT: Right, I also wonder how Rand and Moridin did the switch-a-roo.

Sanderson's said that pretty much the whole epilogue, including the two bits in question, were written by Jordan himself, an that they were intended to be ambiguous.

[danzibr]

So much room for a sequel... or at least a little blurb for each character.
Rand's ability to will things in the living world... crazy potential. I wonder how he got it. Maybe the Creator saying thanks.

[Feytalist]

So I finally got the book for myself, but I'm not going to read it yet, oh no. Not the end to the series I've been reading for pretty much half of my life.

So what I've done, I've read the prologue, then I went back and read the previous book. Skimmed, really. Just so I knew where everything was in the series.

Now I'm reading everything from book one. Again. Reading that and knowing what's come after, it really looks like Jordan knew where the whole story was going right from the get go. That's pretty cool.

[Kitten Champion]

So much room for a sequel... or at least a little blurb for each character.
Rand's ability to will things in the living world... crazy potential. I wonder how he got it. Maybe the Creator saying thanks.

I thought it was heavily implied that he succeeded in bending the whole of the pattern to his will and not merely the limited 5 elements of channelling, which is why he could truly seal the bore and even potentially destroy Shai'tan.

He faced his own demons and gained enlightenment. There isn't room for a sequel really, not about Rand at least.

[danzibr]

I thought it was heavily implied that he succeeded in bending the whole of the pattern to his will and not merely the limited 5 elements of channelling, which is why he could truly seal the bore and even potentially destroy Shai'tan.

He faced his own demons and gained enlightenment. There isn't room for a sequel really, not about Rand at least.
Hmm right, I remember that bit. But I seem to recall him channeling the whole pattern, but now he can't channel.

Anyway, even if the sequel were just Rand going from town to to town sightseeing and having a good time I'd read it.

[Fjolnir]

WoT book fifteen: Rand uses the Ways to perform the most epic pub crawl the world has ever known?

[Kitten Champion]

Hmm right, I remember that bit. But I seem to recall him channeling the whole pattern, but now he can't channel.

Anyway, even if the sequel were just Rand going from town to to town sightseeing and having a good time I'd read it.

We've seen forces outside of the One Power frequently, Min, Hurin, Shadar Logoth, the dimension stones - channelling isn't the only magic in reality. Rand's transcended it. Most of the final battle seemed like him standing there, doing nothing.

Anything after "the last battle" is going to be hugely anti-climatic. I'd really like to read about the preceding ages. WoT has constant references to fantastic events and characters. Like the life and death of Artur Paendrag, the fall of Manetheren, the colonization of the Seanchan lands, the War of Power, or the Breaking. A competent author could go into any of that without seeming too much like crass fanfiction or getting all Star Wars prequel on us.

[Armaius]

We've seen forces outside of the One Power frequently, Min, Hurin, Shadar Logoth, the dimension stones - channelling isn't the only magic in reality. Rand's transcended it. Most of the final battle seemed like him standing there, doing nothing.

Anything after "the last battle" is going to be hugely anti-climatic. I'd really like to read about the preceding ages. WoT has constant references to fantastic events and characters. Like the life and death of Artur Paendrag, the fall of Manetheren, the colonization of the Seanchan lands, the War of Power, or the Breaking. A competent author could go into any of that without seeming too much like crass fanfiction or getting all Star Wars prequel on us.

It would be interesting to see some stuff with the Age of Legends. However, according to WoT cosmology...

we're living in that past right now. There's subtle references to real life people, like Mother Theresa or John Glenn in some of the legends Thom mentions in passing, as well as distorted versions of real life events such as the Cold War. There's even a Mercedes-Benz logo that shows up at one point!

[Anteros]

We're living in a different age of the wheel. It isn't the age of legends though.

[Douglas]

The legends referencing modern times are from "the Age before the Age of Legends." In other words, the First Age.

[Kitten Champion]

Ever since the Word of God stated definitely that Randland is/was/will be Earth at some point, I've been imagining any potential explanations as to how our reality developed from the First Age into the Second. Or whenever it is that we first discover the One Power.

I like the idea of emerging magic running wild across modernity, but no one has done that story quite to my taste.

[mangosta71]

The Shadowrun setting has great potential for that. A really satisfying story could be written there - it just hasn't been.

[Seerow]

The Shadowrun setting has great potential for that. A really satisfying story could be written there - it just hasn't been.

The Shadowrun setting is similar, but while it is cyclical, the age cycles are centered around magic coming and going, waxing and waning. A new age starts when magic comes back, then another one starts when it goes away again.

In Wheel of Time we already see 3 consecutive ages with magic still in tact.