Ugh, I rewatched it myself - who the hell taught Billy Zane how to pronounce Aes Sedai? ("Ay-yez SYEDYE")

Quote Originally Posted by TheStranger View Post
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On every reread of the series, I’m underwhelmed by Aginor’s treatment in EotW. Once we know anything at all about how channeling works, his confrontation with Rand makes zero sense. It’s bad enough that Rand can supposedly already handle more of the Power a month after he first channels than one of the most powerful Forsaken, but Aginor also decides to ignore his massive advantage in skill with the Power of favor of just drawing as much as he can but not using it for anything?

It’s a recurring problem with the Forsaken that appear in the first few books, I think. Setting them up as powerful channelers from the AoL while still letting Rand kill them is a tough balancing act, but IMO Aginor is the only one who’s completely unbelievable. I can buy Moiraine sucker punching Be’Lal, and Ishy is both insane and more than willing to sacrifice himself as part of some kind of gambit.

I think the Eye of the World scene would work with just Balthamel present, really. Let him fight with Moiraine and be crippled but not killed by the Green Man before Rand kills him, and you’ve hit most of the key story beats without Worfing the Forsaken nearly as much. You could even have Rand channel to protect one of his friends instead of running away from the fight. Then bring Aginor into the Black Tower in his original incarnation if you still want to use that plotline. Or the other way around - kill off Aginor at the Eye and save Balthamel for something else. But you probably don’t need to have two Forsaken being incompetent at the Eye.
And why did Aginor need the Eye at all?
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He's already protected from the taint, and it's not like the Eye is an amplifier like the Choedan Kal - or if it is, that wasn't at all explained. The whole point of the Eye is that a bunch of AS strained the taint out (killing themselves in the process) and left a big pool of clean Saidin for the baby Dragon to find later. And they hid Lews' stuff + the Horn there, so that Isshy's gaggle of deluded idiots over the centuries would never find them before the heroes did.