[Book Spoilers] Wheel of Time 3: Black Ajahpaloosa

[Poobah]

13 minutes ago, karaddin said:

I thought the usefulness of Min telling Mat about the vision is that if it doesn't happen at Falme it's going to be a justification for Mat to try and distance himself from Rand for as long as it hasn't happened which doesn't undermine Mat for the audience.

It makes me wonder if the show is going to have Ishy somehow be able to give her a false vision as that would mean it just hangs around with the fear never going away for Mat.

Either way I remain convinced it won't play out as Mat legit betraying and trying to hurt Rand.

Agreed. I'm not really sure what they're doing with her visions, I'd need to go back to S1, I don't remember if they actually showed any or just had her describe them, but they're very different to the book ones which I don't really like but which also leaves me finding it very hard to guess or speculate about how this is going to play out. In the books if she understood the meaning of one of her viewings then that was the true meaning 100% an inescapably fated part of the pattern.

[fionwe1987]

I could see this go two ways. Either Mat goes to Falme, and does betray Rand in some way, under Fain's influence, since he has the dagger. Then that lays the groundwork for him to be taken back to Tar Valon to be Healed from its influence.

Or, they do the Healing they did in the start of tGH, where, without the dagger, Leane, Moiraine, Siuan and Verin do something to ward him off completely from it. They're all of them in Cairhein now, where Mat is, and worried about his betraying Rand. Safe from the dagger, he might go to Falme thinking the danger is passed, and ends up doing something that is a metaphorical betrayal of Rand.

 

[karaddin]

They did have the "sparks trying to fill the darkness" one that surrounds them all when they're tougher but it didn't really look like much to me, they did show others as well but like the wolf visions they were much more real rather than abstract.

The other thing about the vision is she didn't react negatively to Mat and then defended him to Ishy, so I think she doesn't have that "true understanding" thing for this one and is just interpreting what she literally saw. I've seen it suggested that the vision could still just represent Fain doing the stabby stab on the justification that Mat started the chain of events by taking the dagger.

[fionwe1987]

1 hour ago, karaddin said:

They did have the "sparks trying to fill the darkness" one that surrounds them all when they're tougher but it didn't really look like much to me, they did show others as well but like the wolf visions they were much more real rather than abstract.

Yeah Min's visions in the books are random patterns, symbols, and colors. She is seeing pieces of the Pattern, and interpreting the events, and she is always correct. Trying to prevent something by letting the affected person know changes nothing, unless it is a warning kind of thing, like "you'll both die if you're not together". 

1 hour ago, karaddin said:

The other thing about the vision is she didn't react negatively to Mat and then defended him to Ishy, so I think she doesn't have that "true understanding" thing for this one and is just interpreting what she literally saw. I've seen it suggested that the vision could still just represent Fain doing the stabby stab on the justification that Mat started the chain of events by taking the dagger.

I like that idea. It would work perfectly if it was a Dream of Egwene's, where meaning is often hidden this way. I guess it's something they're going to spread for all the prophesy type stuff. The Foretellings are vague anyway. 

Come to think of it, the certainty of visions and dreams is something RJ did one of his most obvious, handwave retcons on, saying that after the Dark One started touching the Pattern really actively, new visions and dreams are more uncertain. So it wouldn't even necessarily be a departure from the books. 

[Gertrude]

I still somehow feel that it will be Mat actually stabbing Rand, but thinking he's doing him a favor. Mat asked Rand to make a pact with him in Tar Valon - if either of us can channel. we won't let the other end up like Logain. I can maybe see Mat seeing Rand channeling and having an issue of control or sanity or something and him kicking into gear. Right now we have Mat being exceptionally accepting of the Dragon Reborn, but he hasn't seen what it means yet.

I don't know how well Mat stabbing Rand will play on screen, but I really do think it's just what it looks like it is - we're just lacking the story leading up to it. I have trust they will get us there and have it make sense (even if we don't like it).

[karaddin]

In the vision Rand didn't look betrayed so that's been one of the possibilities in my mind since as well. I think it really needs to be neither of them viewing it as such.

The last episode is the one that's given me pause with the confirmation that it was *that* dagger though, I just wasn't expecting Mat to have it again. I guess the show hasn't had the dagger be especially deadly up to this point (I think we all just want to forget that component of the season 1 finale, the show certainly did lol) so Mat may not have reason to think it's any different from using any other dagger to do so.

[Argonath Diver]

I'm not nearly as beholden to the novels as most here, and I'm shocked after that crappy first season that I'm suddenly waiting for Thursdays for this show. What a great time it's been, right? This second season is a sea change from the very dull first one.

Anyway, loving it all, and I would like to mention a specific scene. Moiraine finally approaches her nephew Barthanes and compliments his sandwiches. She says "I think you'll make a wonderful King, Barthanes, a king to make our house proud." So, she can't lie, right, and surely at this point she doesn't know, well, who he ends up being.  It jumped out to me, though, that she has to know he's an incompetent idiot, but she says that openly to him, so she truly believes he'll be a king to make the Damodred house proud? Anyway no worries and I'm not too worried but her compliments to this moron stuck out like a sore thumb to me.

[Scott_N]

14 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

I thought this was the best episode of the series so far. 

Agreed. By some margin too.

Maybe it was just me but it felt like less of the spectacle and more about the people, a more relatable level, this episode. Whatever it was it worked really well.

[IlyaP]

Have we worked out officially which Forsaken the show has kept and which they've removed/amalgamated? We've got, what, Ishy, Lanfear, Moggy, Graendal, Demandred, Sammael, possibly Asmodean? Who's left? And is it 8 Forsaken including Ishy? Or Ishy + 8 Forsaken?

 

[Maia]

Great episode. I thought that the first season was OK until the last couple of episodes and was even on board with some of the additions, including the deep dive into warder-AS relationships, etc. But this season is so much better so far. Here is to hoping that they don't fumble the conclusion. 

After this episode I feel fairly sure that Barthanes is (along with Anvaere?) a DF here. Previously, I thought that they'd mix it up and he is going to be an innocent victim. They sure intend to heap lots of (too much?) heartbreak on Moiraine, given what must happen with Siuan in season 3. I expect that she'd get straight-up killed, too, since there is no room for all the wandering, etc. Also, much of her plot post-coup theme of retaining agency and pursuing goals without OP has been re-purposed for this season.

Isn't Siuan suddenly changing her plans in order to visit a disgraced AS far too blatant? I mean, sure she can pretend that it is about the wedding, but didn't she demand to see Moiraine immediately? Also, she shouldn't have been traveling with just a couple of guards on her return from Caemlyn - surely they could have afforded a few extras.

I continue to be not a fan of Lan's plot.

 

I wish that RJ hadn't been so obsessed with OP strength in the books - his strength charts remind me of Tolkien's preoccupation with and repeated changes to the minutiae of his world, while what I would have so badly wanted him to do with his time is creating a meaty 1st and 2nd Age plot for Galadriel and ditto for Gil-Galad.  I have been so sure that this would be in Silmarillion, when I first picked it up, sigh.

Nearly all of important and innovative channelers initially being on or near the top of OP strength for their organizations was just so boring. Sanderson's Androl may have been a too-late over-correction, but I have always disliked how skill and creativity in channeling seemed to be mostly tied to strength in RJ books. It was needed for Rand and the super-girls, of course, but it didn't have to be so ubiquitous.

Cadsuane would have been far more interesting and worthy of respect if she had been a mid AS, who had managed to become so famous that she could safely ignore conventions, rather than yet another "strongest in a millenium", who even gets her level upgraded from being under El and Egs to being over them. Zzzz.  For that matter, the strict strength hierarchy among the AS doesn't even fit with them constantly manoeuvring and plotting for advantage against each other. Jordan does make a few half-hearted attempts to expand from it in the later books with weak channelers having really powerful Talents - but that's just another in-born trait that a person has no control over, so not much better.

And there seemed to be some build-up for the strength hierarchy getting overturned, which, along with sharing of secret weaves might have made the AS drastically more effective... but nothing comes of it. And it may be Sanderson failing to deliver on it, but Jordan himself had abandoned quite a other few set-ups in his books previously, so we'll never know.

 

On 9/20/2023 at 10:32 PM, fionwe1987 said:

 The damane show no such inhibitions, and indeed, in battles where it is damane vs Asha'man, there's no massive difference in effectiveness.

 

There is, though - witness the sound beating that just 50 Asha'man backed by a small army deliver to the Seanchan in TPoD. And they are often even trying not to kill the damane, since many have a weaker version of chivalry syndrom. Naturally, they also have an advantage of being free channelers who can make their own decisions and the damane being unpracticed at fighting trained male channelers, in addition to all the other benefits that men get over women, which is OK. But they are very much superior.

And no, violence isn't depicted as cool in WoT, but it is shown as necessary. Also, professional military and generals, who specialize in violence, are depicted with sympathy and respect. I don't see how letting female channelers fight capably as well and help determine military strategies would have been toxic.

RJ didn't have to inflate the destructive potential of OP as much as he did either, or he could have come with better ways to counter-act and limit it in battle. That attack on the farm in KoD where a group of channelers, yes, including Rand, but also explicitely noting that Logain wasn't much weaker than him, mowed down a quarter million Shadowspawn was absolutely unnecessary. Nor did he have to make it so easy to lead mixed circles and weave with the opposite half of OP, when it should have been by an order of magnitude harder than doing what comes naturally. The only one who really needed to be able to on the side of Light was Rand and he had LTT for that. It would have also given the FS an edge and made them more menacing.

 

How you fight evil absolutely does matter - particularly in WoT where fighting the DO has strong metaphysical aspects concerning agency and free will, which is why having Seanchan fighting on the side of Light in pretty much unchanged state shouldn't have worked. Speaking of "psychopath production factories".  I expected that at the very least at some point in the Last Battle the situation was going to become so desperate that experienced sul'dam would have to begin channeling to save the day. But nope. And I wish that I could blame Sanderson for it, but Jordan began pivoting away from sul'dam having channeling potential being a smoking gun and a general feeling that Seanchan in Randland would have to change and adapt substantially in order to keep their gains to "but they are so orderly and well-organized that we'll just have to arrange ourselves with them" a few books earlier, when he decided to write a sequel series about Mat and Tuon.

 

Quote

The story would be more "equal" if the women forced each other (linking is not a solution- you can't walk around linking with Novices and draining them to exhaustion. No sane human will stand for that), gave up the Oaths, and got to figuring out fancier ways to blow stuff up.

 

I don't see how forcing is different from basic training the soldiers go through, which is aimed at quickly increasing their fitness and endurance. It has been shown repeatedly that AS artificially slow down the training process in favor of indoctrination, "character-building" and education. Ditto the WOs. And the supergirls skipping almost all of that is shown to be right and neccessary in view of the desperate existential threat that they are facing. So why be hypocritical about it with rank-and-file? Particularly if linking allows them to quickly increase in strength safely, without the risks that the protagonists had to take?

Egwene recruited the 2K women specifically in preparation for the TG - they were supposed to fight  in it, so wouldn't it have made sense to make sure that they'd have the best chances of doing so successfully? Sure, try to instill them with values and so on, but all the rest can come later - if there is one. Learning to fight and to heal should have had absolute priority. Ditto with the WOs et al.

There is a lot of useful work that could have been done with channelers working linked with powerful, but untrained recruits too - I expected them to start producing cuendillar armor and shields around the clock to increase the defensive capability of the White Tower army in the Last Battle , but of course re-invention of cuendillar merely served  to get Egwene captured... 

The Oaths don't do what they are supposed to do and are borderline useless. Even more so with so many channeling groups becoming independent of the White Tower, which has been previously able to keep a lid on any public mis-use of OP through intimidation. Catching and punishing channeling miscreants  was bound to become a massive quagmire as a result and normal people wouldn't have been able to distinguish the differences of allegiance and blamed the AS anyway, further eroding the already miniscule trust. RJ was so invested in kicking the WT, that he didn't think it through.

Yes, the Black Tower was massively borked, but not because Asha'man were trained to fight competently, but because it was lead by a Darkfriend and all it's members had a terminal condition. In fact, it should have been much worse than shown in the books as a result. The whole "absence of hope"and "ticking clock" aspects wouldn't have existed for female channelers, just as it doesn't for normal soldiers. Etc.

[Gaston de Foix]

at the risk of asking a basic (book-answered) question can someone please explain what was going on with Egwene and the jug of water? I don't understand how the adam knew her future intentions were malevolent (and even if it did, did Egwene herself know?).  Or was it just testing for whether she had been broken to Renna's will?

[fionwe1987]

33 minutes ago, Gaston de Foix said:

at the risk of asking a basic (book-answered) question can someone please explain what was going on with Egwene and the jug of water? I don't understand how the adam knew her future intentions were malevolent (and even if it did, did Egwene herself know?).  Or was it just testing for whether she had been broken to Renna's will?

The a'dam is a bit like a computer that taps into you. In the books, when two people link their powers, they feel each others sensations.

The a'dam is a ter'angreal, basically, a machine powered by the One Power, and one that draws it independently to function, and what it does plays in this sharing of sensation, but perverts it. First, where a link needs to be entered into willingly (the Black Ajah have a secret way to break this rule, but that isn't widely known). The a'dam is a forced link.

When linked, one of the channelers in the group is the focus/leader, and this control can be passed around, but with restrictions based on gender and circle size. With the a'dam, the person wearing the bracelet leads the circle, whether they themselves can actively channel or not, and that's the sul'dam. 

But while they can feel the sensations of their damane, they can also add to them. One of the sul'dam makes Egwene feel like she's up to her neck in a pot of boiling water, for instance.

In contrast, the damane does not feel the regular sensations of the sul'dam, but any pain the sul'dam feels, the damane feels 2x, as a way to motivate her to protect her sul'dam more than she'd even protect herself. 

The a'dam also acts as a behavioral filter. Self harm, harm to the sul'dam, access to weapons, even potential weapons, is prohibited, and the prohibition is an enforcement not just against action, but perspective. Anything damane see as a weapon, to hurt yourself or your sul'dam, is something they can't engage with.

So with the jug, Egwene didn't just have to not want to hurt Renna less than she wanted a drink. She had to erase any hope or thought or desire to harm Renna with it. She must deny the reality of any ability in herself to wield the jug as a weapon, and then and only then could she touch it.

Edited September 23, 2023 by fionwe1987

[Corvinus85]

2 hours ago, Maia said:

Isn't Siuan suddenly changing her plans in order to visit a disgraced AS far too blatant? I mean, sure she can pretend that it is about the wedding, but didn't she demand to see Moiraine immediately? Also, she shouldn't have been traveling with just a couple of guards on her return from Caemlyn - surely they could have afforded a few extras.

Moiraine confirmed to Rand that she schemed to have Logain taken from the Tower to Cairhien, so that could be a pretext for Siuan to come deal with Moiraine again. We don't know exactly what Lan told her, but he did it in front of Tower guards, so he may have given Siuan a good pretext. (Btw, I was disappointed how small Siuan's retinue was in that scene, but budget and all that)

2 hours ago, Maia said:

I wish that RJ hadn't been so obsessed with OP strength in the books - his strength charts remind me of Tolkien's preoccupation with and repeated changes to the minutiae of his world, while what I would have so badly wanted him to do with his time is creating a meaty 1st and 2nd Age plot for Galadriel and ditto for Gil-Galad.  I have been so sure that this would be in Silmarillion, when I first picked it up, sigh.

Nearly all of important and innovative channelers initially being on or near the top of OP strength for their organizations was just so boring. Sanderson's Androl may have been a too-late over-correction, but I have always disliked how skill and creativity in channeling seemed to be mostly tied to strength in RJ books. It was needed for Rand and the super-girls, of course, but it didn't have to be so ubiquitous.

...

And there seemed to be some build-up for the strength hierarchy getting overturned, which, along with sharing of secret weaves might have made the AS drastically more effective... but nothing comes of it. And it may be Sanderson failing to deliver on it, but Jordan himself had abandoned quite a other few set-ups in his books previously, so we'll never know.

I mean Egwene and other characters criticize this system, too, so I think RJ had thought about making a flawed system that can be later challenged. Nothing comes of it because of the Last Battle and too many other plot threads to close, but the question was left open enough for how the AS might change afterwards.

I take it as a way to show how AS started treating themselves as royalty. What makes one royal, what gives them the right to rule over a nation? Family and silly traditions. So really the AS are no different with this system than all the royals in their world and in ours.

Edited September 23, 2023 by Corvinus85

[karaddin]

Chivalry syndrome  I love it.

I would have been bothered by the size of Siuan's retinue being so small is she was actually getting attacked and it became plot relevant, but since it wasn't then yeah - just a shrug at budget limitations.

[Myrddin]

Anyone else looking forward to (hopefully) Cat Crosses the Courtyard next week?

[fionwe1987]

5 hours ago, Maia said:

Nearly all of important and innovative channelers initially being on or near the top of OP strength for their organizations was just so boring. Sanderson's Androl may have been a too-late over-correction, but I have always disliked how skill and creativity in channeling seemed to be mostly tied to strength in RJ books. It was needed for Rand and the super-girls, of course, but it didn't have to be so ubiquitous.

But it wasn't. As the world expands beyond the Wondergirls, and the Tower, we see plenty of channelers who are weak but have great skill. We meet Kinswomen who are so weak they can't join the Tower, but are so skilled with shielding they could hold one of the Forsaken. We meet a Kin Healer who is more skilled at Healing than Nynaeve, and as innovative. We see that among the Sea Folk, skill with the weather doesn't rely on strength, and so their hierarchy also gives no thought to strength. It's all over the place. Androl was, on the other hand, simply annoying. 

5 hours ago, Maia said:

Cadsuane would have been far more interesting and worthy of respect if she had been a mid AS, who had managed to become so famous that she could safely ignore conventions,

Safely how? Can you propose a way to do this that doesn't just sound like convenient rule bending for a character? By Tower custom, a stronger sister can cut you off, or order you to penance for violating the strength hierarchy. Are we to buy that someone was so famous every douchebag strong sister, including the likes of Elaida, let her get away with breaking the rules that favor them? 

5 hours ago, Maia said:

rather than yet another "strongest in a millenium", who even gets her level upgraded from being under El and Egs to being over them. Zzzz.  For that matter, the strict strength hierarchy among the AS doesn't even fit with them constantly manoeuvring and plotting for advantage against each other.

It does, because there's a gaping caveat to the hierarchy: no sister can ask another what she's doing, or interfere, regardless of strength. Stronger sisters get a leg up, but they're not ensured political success based on just strength. 

This is honestly like saying the wealth heirarchy in this world means you have to be as wealthy as someone else to plot or maneuver against them. Wealth, incidentally, works in our world remarkably like strength is used in the Tower. Organization after organization has tried to curb it, but the highest paid person in the room inevitable gets deferred to by everyone else. In the Tower, it is this unspoken deference that wealth enjoys that is hardened into an enforceable custom that guides social interaction. As with the wealth imbalance, it is stupid, and sick, and the entire series calls that out repeatedly. 

5 hours ago, Maia said:

Jordan does make a few half-hearted attempts to expand from it in the later books with weak channelers having really powerful Talents - but that's just another in-born trait that a person has no control over, so not much better.

Nope, Talent is not just in born. It needs to be practiced. The women we meet with all these new skills are experienced and practiced, too, to maximize their in built affinity for a Talent. Nynaeve even gets criticized for the lack of finesse in her weaves by some Kinswomen, who don't have the Aes Sedai wonder over Nynaeve using Fire and Earth, which made her seem revolutionary to them. 

5 hours ago, Maia said:

And there seemed to be some build-up for the strength hierarchy getting overturned, which, along with sharing of secret weaves might have made the AS drastically more effective... but nothing comes of it. And it may be Sanderson failing to deliver on it, but Jordan himself had abandoned quite a other few set-ups in his books previously, so we'll never know.

Well something does come of it: Egwene merges the Tower with the Kin. Sisters would retire into the Kin, and on your first day as a kinswoman, regardless of your strength, you'd be very low in the heirarchy because they focus on seniority.

She also has the Tower, Wise Ones and Windfinders agree to training programs with each other.

The Kin plan, especially, makes the long term survival of the strength heirarchy questionable. If I need to defer to you before you retire, but if I'm older and weaker than you, and you'll need to defer to me once you retire, that rebalances the calculus quite bit. You're no longer assured of being at the pinnacle of the heirarchy for life, just because you're born strong, and that's gonna shape behavior.

As, ideally, is increased contact with the Wise Ones. 

5 hours ago, Maia said:

There is, though - witness the sound beating that just 50 Asha'man backed by a small army deliver to the Seanchan in TPoD.

Sound beating? A stalemate that only happens because Rand uses Callandor in a wild display is not a sound beating. You really might want to read that sequence again. It is grim, and not at all any kind of victory. 

5 hours ago, Maia said:

And they are often even trying not to kill the damane, since many have a weaker version of chivalry syndrom.

This is not true at all. The damane aren't facing them from nearby, they're trading lightning and fire and explosions. Rand even has a whole spiel where he tells an Asha'man it's ok he killed a sul'dam and damane, and that that's the only thing you can safely do, because the women don't take prisoners either. Let's stick to facts, for this debate?

5 hours ago, Maia said:

Naturally, they also have an advantage of being free channelers who can make their own decisions and the damane being unpracticed at fighting trained male channelers, in addition to all the other benefits that men get over women, which is OK. But they are very much superior.

Nope. They have advantages of being free, and being able to Travel. Can you tell me in what exact way they were superior?

One of the early engagement has Furyk Karede have 12 sul'dam and only 2 damane. The engagement ends with 2 captured damane and 8 dead channelers on Rand's side. Of course, none of this was in channeler to channeler combat, but the damane more than hold their ground. 

Here's Bashere reflecting on this, when they're fighting outside Altara later:

Quote

Bashere nodded slowly. Not in agreement with the last. There were plenty of enemy soldiers left, almost anywhere you looked hard enough. But a good many were dead. He had patterned his movements on what he had studied of the Trolloc Wars, when the forces of the Light seldom came anywhere near the numbers they had to face. Slash at the flanks, and run. Slash at the rear, and run. Slash, and run, and when the enemy chased after, turn on the ground you had chosen beforehand, where the legionmen lay waiting with their crossbows, turn and cut at him until it was time to run again. Or until he broke. Already today he had broken Taraboners, Amadicians, Altarans and these Seanchan in their strange armor. He had seen more enemy dead than in any fight since the Blood Snow. But if he had Asha’man, the other side had those damane . A good third of his Saldaeans lay dead along the miles behind. Nearly half his force was dead, all told, and there were still more Seanchan out there with their cursed women, and Taraboners, and Amadicians and Altarans.

At the start of this engagement, we're told there are 50 damane sent out of the city.

More do come later, and Rand defeats them with Callandor, and both sides are hampered by the aftereffects of what the Windfinders do with the Bowl of the Winds (which makes saidin and saidar hard to control, and sickens the channelers).

The damane are always a massive threat through the battle, and the Asha'man really don't do better. 

5 hours ago, Maia said:

And no, violence isn't depicted as cool in WoT, but it is shown as necessary. Also, professional military and generals, who specialize in violence, are depicted with sympathy and respect. I don't see how letting female channelers fight capably as well and help determine military strategies would have been toxic.

They do, though. Female channelers do fight capably, and the whole bloody Last Battle is led by one, as is the defense of the White Tower, the defense of the Cleaning of saidin, and so on. 

5 hours ago, Maia said:

RJ didn't have to inflate the destructive potential of OP as much as he did either,

This is a different point, but I really don't see why. That's a different series. The Power is the underlying energy of the universe, and it's used are varied and wide and not at all overpowered. 

If you want magic systems that are restrained, read another series. 

5 hours ago, Maia said:

or he could have come with better ways to counter-act and limit it in battle. That attack on the farm in KoD where a group of channelers, yes, including Rand, but also explicitely noting that Logain wasn't much weaker than him, mowed down a quarter million Shadowspawn was absolutely unnecessary.

It wasn't, because it wasn't the advantage you think it was. A quarter of a million Trollocs were beaten back by 50 or so channelers yes. Leaving them all exhausted. Rand himself notes that another wave of cannon fodder would have ended them, and the Shadow has orders of magnitude more Trollocs to toss into the meat grinder. 

I'm perfectly happy the Power is wide, varied, powerful, and woven into the fabric of WoT.

5 hours ago, Maia said:

Nor did he have to make it so easy to lead mixed circles and weave with the opposite half of OP, when it should have been by an order of magnitude harder than doing what comes naturally. The only one who really needed to be able to on the side of Light was Rand and he had LTT for that. It would have also given the FS an edge and made them more menacing.

The Forsaken wouldn't link. It makes no sense, given their personalities, for them to trust each other that far. The one time in the series they pretended they'd do that, each of the 4 proposing to do this was doing so for a secret reason with the plan to not actually link with anyone.

5 hours ago, Maia said:

How you fight evil absolutely does matter - particularly in WoT where fighting the DO has strong metaphysical aspects concerning agency and free will, which is why having Seanchan fighting on the side of Light in pretty much unchanged state shouldn't have worked. Speaking of "psychopath production factories".  I expected that at the very least at some point in the Last Battle the situation was going to become so desperate that experienced sul'dam would have to begin channeling to save the day. But nope. And I wish that I could blame Sanderson for it, but Jordan began pivoting away from sul'dam having channeling potential being a smoking gun and a general feeling that Seanchan in Randland would have to change and adapt substantially in order to keep their gains to "but they are so orderly and well-organized that we'll just have to arrange ourselves with them" a few books earlier, when he decided to write a sequel series about Mat and Tuon.

I absolutely agree about the Seanchan, at the end. Not a fan of how they were looped into the story without any concessions on the fundamentals of the damane system.

5 hours ago, Maia said:

I don't see how forcing is different from basic training the soldiers go through, which is aimed at quickly increasing their fitness and endurance.

Here's Rand receiving a training update from the Black Tower, in Path of Daggers:

Quote

“Nineteen deserters, so far. The M’Hael, he has ordered them killed whenever they are found, and their heads brought back for examples.” Plucking a bit of glazed pear from the proffered tray, he popped it into his mouth and smiled brightly. “Three heads hang like fruit on the Traitor’s Tree at this moment.”

...

Rand held the other man’s gaze until it fell. “How many losses in training?” he demanded. The sharp-nosed Asha’man hesitated. “How many?”

...

Torval shrugged, too casually. “Fifty-one, all told. Thirteen burned out, and twenty-eight dead where they stood. The rest. . . . The M’Hael, he adds something to their wine, and they do not wake.” Abruptly his tone turned malicious. “It can come suddenly, at any time. One man began screaming that spiders were crawling beneath his skin on his second day.”

Four times more men dying than the taint of the Dark One could manage on its own. That's what Forcing does. It is absolutely not basic training. Basic training is not destined to cause death or burn out of this kind. These are insane losses, and no wonder it leads to desertion, which they deal with by murdering the poor souls who decide this insanity is not for them. 

5 hours ago, Maia said:

It has been shown repeatedly that AS artificially slow down the training process in favor of indoctrination,

They don't. Their training program is built to minimize death. Seems like a valid concern to me.

5 hours ago, Maia said:

"character-building" and education.

Utterly useless things for someone who will have the ability to kill thousands in a battle, I'm sure. Much better that they be stupid, but with all the strength. 

5 hours ago, Maia said:

Ditto the WOs. And the supergirls skipping almost all of that is shown to be right and neccessary in view of the desperate existential threat that they are facing. So why be hypocritical about it with rank-and-file? Particularly if linking allows them to quickly increase in strength safely, without the risks that the protagonists had to take?

Linking does not allow quick increase in strength. You'd have to link, then have the Novice/Accepted hold the power to the fullest for long periods of time. Daily. And in this period, the Novice won't be learning to channel, unless you propose a Novice lead the circle where other Novices are also drawing to the brim, so their untrained mistakes can have all the force and power of a full circle. 

This is a nonsensical approach to any kind of training. It is not workable.

5 hours ago, Maia said:

Egwene recruited the 2K women specifically in preparation for the TG - they were supposed to fight  in it, so wouldn't it have made sense to make sure that they'd have the best chances of doing so successfully?

That best chance would be by having them fully powered but clueless how to use that Power? Spending days sitting drawing the Power to exhaustion?

5 hours ago, Maia said:

Sure, try to instill them with values and so on, but all the rest can come later - if there is one. Learning to fight and to heal should have had absolute priority. Ditto with the WOs et al.

Sure. I'm not saying the lack of Novices in the Last Battle was fine. It wasn't what RJ intended at all, since the whole Tower defense was managed by Egwene and Novices. Incidentally, Novices who weren't forced, but instead given care and training so they trusted her and felt able to follow her.

That Sanderson tossed this aside to have the Novices be batteries for Healers in the Last Battle was yet another way the last book was just stupid, but that's another discussion. 

5 hours ago, Maia said:

There is a lot of useful work that could have been done with channelers working linked with powerful, but untrained recruits too - I expected them to start producing cuendillar armor and shields around the clock to increase the defensive capability of the White Tower army in the Last Battle , but of course re-invention of cuendillar merely served  to get Egwene captured... 

So the cuendillar shields thing was discussed at length, I remeber. It just isn't workable. The shield/armor itself will remain undamaged, but cuendillar doesn't block the Power, or the forces the Power can unleash, beyond being undamaged from them. A cuendillar clad soldier hit with a blast of fire will just die from internal injuries and become a dead body clad in undamaged armor. A lightning strike will not hurt the cuendillar, but it'll certainly kill the soldier, and so on. 

It would have been useful against balefire, however. Sanderson had Egwene pulling columns of iron to redirect lightning, but forgetting that she could instantaneously change that iron to cuendillar that would protect her side from the balefire Taim was using. Another not great moment from the Last Battle. 

5 hours ago, Maia said:

The Oaths don't do what they are supposed to do and are borderline useless. Even more so with so many channeling groups becoming independent of the White Tower, which has been previously able to keep a lid on any public mis-use of OP through intimidation. Catching and punishing channeling miscreants  was bound to become a massive quagmire as a result and normal people wouldn't have been able to distinguish the differences of allegiance and blamed the AS anyway, further eroding the already miniscule trust. RJ was so invested in kicking the WT, that he didn't think it through.

Hmmm not sure what you mean here. All this was covered by Egwene, who even considered just tossing the Oaths entirely. But Siuan made the case that the Oaths are the only thing that unify the Tower, internally. Whatever the effect of the Oaths externally, it allows members of the Tower to trust each other and have a shared set of principles. Those principles have a lot of give, of course, but they also have mechanism that can force honesty. 

And that's what Egwene uses the Oaths for. To weed out Darkfriends. That's hardly useless.

5 hours ago, Maia said:

Yes, the Black Tower was massively borked, but not because Asha'man were trained to fight competently, but because it was lead by a Darkfriend and all it's members had a terminal condition.

This just isn't true. Rand botched it too, by telling the Asha'man they were meant to be cannon fodder. Just read the way even the "good" ones behave in Path of Daggers. They're emotionally and mentally compromised, and not because of the taint. It's why they didn't stand up to Taim, till Logain came along. Which is thanks to Egwene. The entire Black Tower was a full and complete failure on Rand's part. 

5 hours ago, Maia said:

In fact, it should have been much worse than shown in the books as a result. The whole "absence of hope"and "ticking clock" aspects wouldn't have existed for female channelers, just as it doesn't for normal soldiers. Etc.

Again, I think our ideas of a competent force of soldiers is vastly different. I'll take weaker but sensible and careful soldiers over uberpowerful and reckless folks any day. 

3 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

I mean Egwene and other characters criticize this system, too, so I think RJ had thought about making a flawed system that can be later challenged. Nothing comes of it because of the Last Battle and too many other plot threads to close, but the question was left open enough for how the AS might change afterwards.

Two things Egwene did spell the end of the strength heirarchy. One, she got the Aes Sedai to retire into the Kin, which is an age based system. So if you have a sister older than you who is weaker, and you behave like the Aes Sedai of old, you have to do so knowing that the script is gonna be flipped the day you retire.

Second, she got the Tower, the Wise Ones and the Windfinders to agree to cross train, meaning every Novice and Accepted will, eventually, spend time with cultures of channelers that don't give a fig about strength. 

Beyond that, a total rearrangement just in time for the Last Battle didn't make sense, and I'm good with that. 

3 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

I take it as a way to show how AS started treating themselves as royalty. What makes one royal, what gives them the right to rule over a nation? Family and silly traditions. So really the AS are no different with this system than all the royals in their world and in ours.

Yep. It's a stupid, but entirely believable thing for a group of humans to do. 

Edited September 23, 2023 by fionwe1987

[Gigei]

9 hours ago, Argonath Diver said:

It jumped out to me, though, that she has to know he's an incompetent idiot, but she says that openly to him, so she truly believes he'll be a king to make the Damodred house proud?

Isn't he just going to be king in the sense of the queen's consort though? Like, not a ruler. So a kind, gentle, slightly dumb guy would make a good king since all he has to do is basically sire children and attend parties. Heck, perhaps the queen chose him exactly because she thinks he wouldnt be a threat. It's different in the books. In the show, he is to mary Galldrian, the Queen of Cairhien.

[Corvinus85]

There was another cool nugget of worldbuilding consistency - Liandrin is from Tarabon (she used to wear braids in season 1) and her son's name is Aludran, one letter more than Aludra who is also from Tarabon. (I assume she will appear in the show eventually) So we have here the male and female versions of a name from the same country.

Still waiting on a clarification of accents and maybe a few more accents.

[Wouter]

On 9/22/2023 at 4:15 PM, Poobah said:

It rather reminds me of TNG's Chains of Command with Picard's torture "there are four lights".

I was not convinced by that TNG episode, which had a rather ridiculous setup to get Picard captured in the first place and was hurt by the attempt to use some (very bad) French and by being a "plot of the week" thing, forgotten by the next week.

This WOT episode was much better, though also much harder to watch in a way. A bit ironic that it is those episodes that finally seem to give the show some recognition with critics.

On 9/23/2023 at 2:22 PM, Maia said:

Isn't Siuan suddenly changing her plans in order to visit a disgraced AS far too blatant? I mean, sure she can pretend that it is about the wedding, but didn't she demand to see Moiraine immediately? Also, she shouldn't have been traveling with just a couple of guards on her return from Caemlyn - surely they could have afforded a few extras.

I continue to be not a fan of Lan's plot.

I think her hand was forced by Alanna learning from Lan that Moiraine found the dragon reborn. With Alanna then going to the Amyrlin, she would have to react at once or it would look very badly for Alanna. And she can't trust Alanna, so she has to give a show of some kind.

Siuan's knives of air were cool though.

On 9/23/2023 at 7:15 PM, Gigei said:

Isn't he just going to be king in the sense of the queen's consort though? Like, not a ruler. So a kind, gentle, slightly dumb guy would make a good king since all he has to do is basically sire children and attend parties. Heck, perhaps the queen chose him exactly because she thinks he wouldnt be a threat. It's different in the books. In the show, he is to mary Galldrian, the Queen of Cairhien.

I think so, too. Assuming Barthanes is not a darkfriend (he may very well be, and if not him Anvaere still migt be, but Moiraine doesn't know that), he seems nice and sociable enough to at least be a good king-consort - without notable power of his own. If the children would inherit the Damodred name (rather than, what was it, Riatin?), it would even make the house proud in the longer run, as they would be actually ruling the country.

 

It is quite intriguing to see the interplay between Ishamael, Lanfear and Rand. It does seem like the former two both want to manipulate/force Rand to Falme, but I suppose that Lanfear does not have the same outcome in mind as Ishy ('dear'). Especially since in ep.5, Ishy claimed that the last battle would be fought in Falme, which is about as misguided as Moirain's belief in S1 that it would be fought at the Eye of the World. Unless Ishamael was lying to Suroth and doesn't believe so himself, which he has been known to do I suppose...

If he really does believe it, he is in for a shock at the end of the season.

Edited September 24, 2023 by Wouter

[Wouter]

On 9/23/2023 at 1:34 PM, IlyaP said:

Have we worked out officially which Forsaken the show has kept and which they've removed/amalgamated? We've got, what, Ishy, Lanfear, Moggy, Graendal, Demandred, Sammael, possibly Asmodean? Who's left? And is it 8 Forsaken including Ishy? Or Ishy + 8 Forsaken?

 

The "forsaken temple" also seemed to show 8 statues, just like Stepin's little ones. Ishamael is one of them. Lanfear has been on screen, Moggy and Graendal have been named. Of the others, Asmodean is the most recognisable one from the statues (due to the instrument visible) and based on physical attributes Semirhage and Sammael are suspected as well, though the latter may be a merge of two or more male forsaken taking different characteristics of each. Demandred and Rahvin seem the most interesting candidates for the last spot.

Lanfear not naming Semirhage causes some to think that she is out (in favour of "the boys"), but the statues seem to contradict that so WAFO.