Wheel of Time - Page 30

Really, really wanted a more epic battle with the Dark One. Got a dragonballZ-esk shouty match.

I think the whole Androl arc blew my mine a little bit. How could I have not seen all the possibilities? Obviously I was not thinking with portals.

I feel that the horn, The Black Tower, Fain, Shaidar Haran and the schools rand established were underutilised in the last battle.

The ending chapters of the book felt rushed, and needed a little more fleshing out. I just don't feel like all the characters had their arc's resolved well enough.

I now have a love hate relationship with the series :/

I didn't find this confusing at all. Removing the Dark One completely would have basically meant using compulsion on the entire world. (This was shown in Rand's "ideal" reality, in which he met a completely unrealistic Elayne). People have good and bad in them, and what Rand did was rebury the Dark One to reset the situation back to before the Bore was opened. The final sentence of the entire series ("but it was an ending.") pretty much confirmed that people would mess up and open the Bore again at some point in the distant future anyway. The Wheel of Time keeps spinning.

What were the (3000+?) kinswomen doing during this? And the (1000+?) novices? Even if they didn't want to fight, they'd have been perfect to be used as wells. I mean, that would bring it to 5000+ for white tower, maybe 500-1000 damane, and 300-400 black tower guys. With that many it should have been a walkover for them, against under 1000 sharans and i'd imagine just a few hundred evil folks.

And what's up with rand, is he the creator now or something?

On a side note, Alivia's "help Rand die" thing was definitely one of the most amusing moments of the series. And Matt kicked ass this entire last book

The Aiel channelers hardly seemed to take part at all, same as the Sea folk (both only at shayol grul).
In the Aiel wars, the spears of four clans basically kicked the ass of most wetland nations combined, while in the last battle the armies of eleven clans only get mentioned as a side note. Taim claims that he is about to "match the white towers numbers" in book six, at dumai wells there already seem to be several hundred ashaman, the kin numbers in the thousands, same as the novices Egwene took in (if every last farmer goes to fight so should they), the Sea folk and the Aiel are two entire people worth of channelers, the Seanchan Return represents at least a good chunk of an entire continent, but in the last battle channelers usually get mentioned as "dozens, several, twenty" etc.

Obviously the failed attempts at Demanded are used to build up suspense and show how strong he is. Seems to work very well for other readers. The Flame of Tar Valon was figured out by Egwene just like she did with Traveling. The trollocs could barely reach Olver. The whole scene is probably only a few seconds long until Noal rescues him. It introduces him as the new Hornsounder and was one of the few surprises for me (had forgotten about Mats death in book 5). Rand and Moridin have been linked since their balefires touched in Shadar
Logoth.

Rand's

And the Last Battle between the Dark One and Rand not being epic enough? Really? They fought with the probability of reality and Rand realised that destroying the Dark One would have destroyed all he loved just as surely as if the Dark One won. In leaving it alive Rand kept humanity alive, leaving the good and darkness in the world, but making sure the Dark One could not directly interfere. Of course someone could come along again in the future and bore back down to the Dark One, but as someone noted, the Wheel spins once more.

The only thing that disappointed me was Padan Fain's arrival. He kinda came from nowhere, did nothing and was killed, a loose end to be dealt with. I was hoping for a little more from him, for someone who had been such an unpredictable wildcard throughout the series.

As for the numbers of channellers, keep in mind the Sharans' arrival. An entire continent, previously unexplored in the series, filled with warriors and channellers trained in warfare fighting the White Tower and Black Tower for most of the book, while the Seanchan hung back. The Wise Ones fought mainly at Shayol Ghul against Dreadlords there. The numbers didn't seem that off

There's no reason to imagine they have very many at all. They're only ever referred to as 'hundreds' right from when they first attacked Egwene's army. And Shara isn't another continent, Seanchan is. Shara is reached crossing the waste (or sailing around by the sea folk) The area of Shara is also fairly certainly less than the rest of the continent as well. The numbers were heavily off, should be 3:1 to 5:1 (or more) in favor of 'the light', it was just glossed around by the fact the Kinswomen/Novices are never used and never do anything.

A single Aiel clan has more channelers as the Sharan's brought to the battlefield. That's grossly inconsistent with the fact that Sharan's use male and female channelers, actively tries to breed them and that Shara itself is 5-6 times as large as the entire Aiel Waste.

According to interviews from Jordan the number of channelers was 2-3% of the total population in the Age of Legends, the percentage in Shara should be similar since they don't actively hunt down men who can channel or send them to the Waste to battle the Dark One.

Yup, the numbers really annoyed me. Although I can argue, though the male Sharans were bred, they were killed before they started channelling. So not only did they have a limited window to have kids, it's never really proven how exactly channeler + channeler affects the kids. Maybe they have to be proficient with the power for it to really take hold, maybe a certain age, maybe (lol) having feelings for each other matters, and even then who knows what the chances are. So it wouldn't be close to the age of legends percentages.