An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time III: Something's Fishy in the White Tower

[Sivarias]

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Well, i do think Gawayn is more dumb than a sack of bricks. He is the moron who though his bit of sharp metal would actually allow himself to get revenge at a channeler. One who was strong enough to claim the title of dragon/false dragon.
I think the rumor bit was fair enough though. He had 2 people claiming the opposite of what everyone else were saying, despite not having any other arguments than "because i say it" and still allowed it to sway him back into a neutral stance on the subject.

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He wasn't nuetral. The closest he came to that was not killing Rand while he was captured pre Dumai Wells. Not attempting to assassinate Rand when it would have resulted in his death or torture at the hands of the Aes Sedai is not neutral.

[Sapphire Guard]

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He doesn't accept Elayne or Egwene's word because he thinks they're too close to Rand to be objective (also, they offer no evidence beyond 'trust me'). He gives Min's word more weight, (she probably is more reliable, in fairness) and when he comes across Rand and Min in the battle at Dumai's Wells, doesn't attack him.

Egwene says something like 'Give me a chance to prove it' IIRC, and he agrees.
Re attacking a channeller with a sword, when it comes to Demandred, he's the only one that realises that won't work and tries an assassination instead of a duel.

[Wookieetank]

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He doesn't accept Elayne or Egwene's word because he thinks they're too close to Rand to be objective (also, they offer no evidence beyond 'trust me'). He gives Min's word more weight, (she probably is more reliable, in fairness) and when he comes across Rand and Min in the battle at Dumai's Wells, doesn't attack him.

Egwene says something like 'Give me a chance to prove it' IIRC, and he agrees.
Re attacking a channeller with a sword, when it comes to Demandred, he's the only one that realises that won't work and tries an assassination instead of a duel.

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A poorly planned assassination using un-identified cursed rings. I was very much rooting for Demandred in that fight, just so that I wouldn't have to suffer through more Gawyn. And really how is putting yourself in mortal peril with a very high chance of indirectly incapacitating the most powerful mage on your side of the battle, keeping said mage "safe"? Doing this for Egwene's sake my ass.

[lord_khaine]

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I would like to point out that firstly, Gawyns gamble did not have a chance of messing anything up for any of the top 3 strongest "mages" on the side of light.
And secondly, they were kinda desperate at that point. Demandred were wrecking anything else they threw at him. He would have murdered Egwene brutally if she had fought him.
But Gawyn was also right in that the only real chance a non-channeler had against a channeler were to assasinate him.

(it is for that matter one of the few things i dislike with that world. The divide between "mage" and normal is far to wide.

[Wookieetank]

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I would like to point out that firstly, Gawyns gamble did not have a chance of messing anything up for any of the top 3 strongest "mages" on the side of light.
And secondly, they were kinda desperate at that point. Demandred were wrecking anything else they threw at him. He would have murdered Egwene brutally if she had fought him.
But Gawyn was also right in that the only real chance a non-channeler had against a channeler were to assasinate him.

(it is for that matter one of the few things i dislike with that world. The divide between "mage" and normal is far to wide.

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Seeing as how Egwene and Elayne were the top power light side mages at the Field of Merrilor, putting one of them at risk was needlessly careless (The top 2 overall, Cadsune and Nynaeve were at Shayol Ghul). Putting one at risk with no warning of the risk they were in even moreso. If Egwene hadn't been able to pull through from the loss of Gawyn, even if he had killed Demandred, the battle would have been lost to Taim and his channelers. And both of them were put out of commission for a short bit, at the same time even, and things went south terribly fast during that time.

[Sapphire Guard]

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How do you feel about Lan's plan, then? He had a significantly worse plan that put an even more critically important mage (Nynaeve) at risk of cracking in an even more critically important position than either Egwene or Elayne. But somehow he doesn't get the same flack.

[Wookieetank]

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How do you feel about Lan's plan, then? He had a significantly worse plan that put an even more critically important mage (Nynaeve) at risk of cracking in an even more critically important position than either Egwene or Elayne. But somehow he doesn't get the same flack.

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Good point, his plan is arguably worse. Although Lan has been portrayed as nothing less than competent the entire series, and Gawyn, well he's a Trakand, so that might be part of why Lan gets so much more of a pass. That and the whole Lan and Nynaeve being on different battlefields kinda made me forget about it honestly. Also even if Lan dies and Nynaeve cracks, Rand already had access to and control of her power and she couldn't regain control of it unless Rand were to relinquish control of it back to her, so its not completely terrible, just mostly.

[lord_khaine]

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Actually, if we go by that chart then the top light side channelers were Alivia, Nynavene, Cadsuane, Rand, Logain, and likely some other Ashaman.
And Egwene's power were rather clearly not cutting it against Demandred. I think it is clear that he would have won if someone had not done something about him. A desperate gamble was needed.

Regarding Nynavene, she was absolutely vital. If she had cracked at the wrong point she would have been unable to keep Alanna alive. Rand would have freaked and all of creation would have been lost.

[Wookieetank]

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Actually, if we go by that chart then the top light side channelers were Alivia, Nynavene, Cadsuane, Rand, Logain, and likely some other Ashaman.
And Egwene's power were rather clearly not cutting it against Demandred. I think it is clear that he would have won if someone had not done something about him. A desperate gamble was needed.

Regarding Nynavene, she was absolutely vital. If she had cracked at the wrong point she would have been unable to keep Alanna alive. Rand would have freaked and all of creation would have been lost.

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Still puts all the topmost tier channelers at Thakan'dar. And really Logain was pretty useless thanks to Idrool stealing the show. Egwene couldn't take on Demandred, but if she had been incapacitated, then Taim would've still been running lose (with Demandred's spiffy magical staff no less), and the battle would have still been lost even if Demandred was taken out I feel. Granted its entirely speculation, but seems pretty solid from what was presented.

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Still confused about the whole not providing any sort of magical protection to any of the military leaders bit though. You know you're up against shifty bastards who have few to any qualms, why are you not trying to protect your important leaders? You have a world's worth of magical items, someone who can identify by touch, and the only ones being put to use are those that give you more spell slots... I just...

[Sivarias]

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Still puts all the topmost tier channelers at Thakan'dar. And really Logain was pretty useless thanks to Idrool stealing the show. Egwene couldn't take on Demandred, but if she had been incapacitated, then Taim would've still been running lose (with Demandred's spiffy magical staff no less), and the battle would have still been lost even if Demandred was taken out I feel. Granted its entirely speculation, but seems pretty solid from what was presented.

Not entirely related:

Still confused about the whole not providing any sort of magical protection to any of the military leaders bit though. You know you're up against shifty bastards who have few to any qualms, why are you not trying to protect your important leaders? You have a world's worth of magical items, someone who can identify by touch, and the only ones being put to use are those that give you more spell slots... I just...

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I think that's it's honestly a case of "this didn't occur to me." They were generally good people who didn't consider compulsion to be acceptable behavior and kind of forgot that it was a thing to be protected against. Just my opinion

[lord_khaine]

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Still puts all the topmost tier channelers at Thakan'dar. And really Logain was pretty useless thanks to Idrool stealing the show. Egwene couldn't take on Demandred, but if she had been incapacitated, then Taim would've still been running lose (with Demandred's spiffy magical staff no less), and the battle would have still been lost even if Demandred was taken out I feel. Granted its entirely speculation, but seems pretty solid from what was presented.

Their physical position dont change their position on the power ranking, just confess that you made a mistake when assigning top spots to Egwene, Cadsuane and Nynavene
I also dont think Logain was useless. He was just not given any real screentime in the largest battle in recorded history. But there likely were only 2 living people that was stronger than him in the one power, so doubt he was not doing a lot ofscreen.

Otherwise, you can of course feel for whatever you like or love. I just cant see any rational arguments for why Taim of all people would have been able to swing the tide of battle. He had not shown much competence in general.

As for subtly influencing the enemys generals though the world of dreams. Yeah, i dont blame the side of light for not spotting that. Its the sort of subtle trickery Sanderson is Fameous for. They likely did guard those generals both day and night with Aes Sedais and Ashaman.

[Wookieetank]

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I think that's it's honestly a case of "this didn't occur to me." They were generally good people who didn't consider compulsion to be acceptable behavior and kind of forgot that it was a thing to be protected against. Just my opinion

Fair enough.

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Their physical position dont change their position on the power ranking, just confess that you made a mistake when assigning top spots to Egwene, Cadsuane and Nynavene
I also dont think Logain was useless. He was just not given any real screentime in the largest battle in recorded history. But there likely were only 2 living people that was stronger than him in the one power, so doubt he was not doing a lot ofscreen.

Otherwise, you can of course feel for whatever you like or love. I just cant see any rational arguments for why Taim of all people would have been able to swing the tide of battle. He had not shown much competence in general.

As for subtly influencing the enemys generals though the world of dreams. Yeah, i dont blame the side of light for not spotting that. Its the sort of subtle trickery Sanderson is Fameous for. They likely did guard those generals both day and night with Aes Sedais and Ashaman.

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Well Taim and his Cronies were balefiring it up like mad, so without Egwene stopping him, everything not Taim and his cronies gets balefired (and reality becomes more and more frayed). When you can remove your enemies from existence such that it brings your own fallen back, you don't have to be terrible competent about how you command your forces.

As for the generals, it is stated that they're guarded, but that's it. No wards, no angreals, no other precautions other than meat shields. And with how several of the forsaken at this point have used, and very effectively so, compulsion, you'd think they'd at least have put a ward warning of tampered goods on important people. Hell, Greandal spent a large chunk of the last battle compelling people to join her and turn them against their allies.

The white tower had thousands of years worth of angreal stockpiled, and the only ones they bothered using were ones to give them more spell slots (outside of the dream rings, but those weren't used in the last battle). You'd think there'd be some defensive ones lying around (+1 AC, +2 Dex and what not) that would've been ideal to hand out, but nope. Instead we just get Egwene's wand of infinite fireballs, Moraine's bracelet of unlimited power, Cadsune's hairnet of bottomless reserve magic, and the Bowl of winds which are really just flavors of the same thing. Much as I like to hate on Gawyn, at least he made use of passive enchantment angreal when no one else was.

[Gnoman]

Fair enough.

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Well Taim and his Cronies were balefiring it up like mad, so without Egwene stopping him, everything not Taim and his cronies gets balefired (and reality becomes more and more frayed). When you can remove your enemies from existence such that it brings your own fallen back, you don't have to be terrible competent about how you command your forces.

As for the generals, it is stated that they're guarded, but that's it. No wards, no angreals, no other precautions other than meat shields. And with how several of the forsaken at this point have used, and very effectively so, compulsion, you'd think they'd at least have put a ward warning of tampered goods on important people. Hell, Greandal spent a large chunk of the last battle compelling people to join her and turn them against their allies.

The white tower had thousands of years worth of angreal stockpiled, and the only ones they bothered using were ones to give them more spell slots (outside of the dream rings, but those weren't used in the last battle). You'd think there'd be some defensive ones lying around (+1 AC, +2 Dex and what not) that would've been ideal to hand out, but nope. Instead we just get Egwene's wand of infinite fireballs, Moraine's bracelet of unlimited power, Cadsune's hairnet of bottomless reserve magic, and the Bowl of winds which are really just flavors of the same thing. Much as I like to hate on Gawyn, at least he made use of passive enchantment angreal when no one else was.

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The vast majority of the Tower's ter'angreal (the sort of magic item's you're talking about) are unidentified. There probably are such items in the Tower's stockpile, but the Aes Sedai don't have a clue what they are. They can always identify angreal (make your spells stronger) or sa'angreal (make your spells much, much stronger) so they used all of those that were available.

[lord_khaine]

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No, Taim and his cheerleeders were doing the same as any other channeler on the battlefield. Murdering large amount of people with the one power. But Rand straight up showed it. No matter how strong you are as a channeler, then you can still get crushed by a focused counterattack if you engage to deeply. Its why he he had to fight in disguise. Dont get me wrong. Taim was an immense asset on the side of darkness. But he would not have decided the outcome of the battle on his own.

As for the wards and angrels. None of them would really have mattered since Grendel did not assult them from the physical world.
I will also dare to claim that the actual relevant terangrel were the angrel and the sa'angrel. Because those act as a force multiplier for the most relevant force on the battlefield.
Meanwhile most Terangrel is junk of some sort. We dont know the exact rate between the thing that turns your bathwater the perfect temperature, your hair red or doubles your strenght. But i dont believe sorting though the junk in the tower would have been a valuable use of time, if it mainly meant doubling the efficiency of a single soldier among 999 others.

[Wookieetank]

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No, Taim and his cheerleeders were doing the same as any other channeler on the battlefield. Murdering large amount of people with the one power. But Rand straight up showed it. No matter how strong you are as a channeler, then you can still get crushed by a focused counterattack if you engage to deeply. Its why he he had to fight in disguise. Dont get me wrong. Taim was an immense asset on the side of darkness. But he would not have decided the outcome of the battle on his own.

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Then why did Egwene have to use anti-Balefire (Flame of Tar Valon) to counter him? And Taim also ended up with Demandred's staff of magnificence so he was a bit better off than just "any other channeler".
If Egwene hadn't stopped him when she did, Taim and the ever increasing number of brought back to life sharans from his balefire shenanigans, would've balefired the White Tower forces to oblivion.

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As for the wards and angrels. None of them would really have mattered since Grendel did not assult them from the physical world.
I will also dare to claim that the actual relevant terangrel were the angrel and the sa'angrel. Because those act as a force multiplier for the most relevant force on the battlefield.
Meanwhile most Terangrel is junk of some sort. We dont know the exact rate between the thing that turns your bathwater the perfect temperature, your hair red or doubles your strenght. But i dont believe sorting though the junk in the tower would have been a valuable use of time, if it mainly meant doubling the efficiency of a single soldier among 999 others.

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Avienda can identify angreals just by touching them, so you'd think they would've had her identifying as many of them as she could. And with traveling being such a common thing by the end of the series, you'd think Egwene would've been sending her angreals by the cartload to find out their battle effectiveness. *Shrug* Lord Helmet had it right, "for good is dumb"
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[Gnoman]

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Avienda can identify angreals just by touching them, so you'd think they would've had her identifying as many of them as she could. And with traveling being such a common thing by the end of the series, you'd think Egwene would've been sending her angreals by the cartload to find out their battle effectiveness. *Shrug* Lord Helmet had it right, "for good is dumb"
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She doesn't just touch one and know exactly what it does, and how to activate it. She gets a general sense of the idea from touching it, and can spend some time probing it to get harder information. Let us say it takes 10 minutes to ID one ter'angreal. This is not inconsistent with her ID of the bookstorer. That's six per hour.

The White Tower has millions of the things, and the majority will turn out to be things that are generally quite useful, but not much good for battle. Remember that the vast majority of the things were made during an age of peace and prosperity (yes, Rand discusses how war was likely to break out even without the Breach, but that is an observation from hindsight), where the very idea of war and killing was something from old tales. It wasn't until the War of the Power broke out that they started to make the kind of combat goodies that you're talking about, and the ability to make more was lost not too long (relatively speaking) after the war ended, and anything that needed saidin was impossible to make due to the taint. This means that most of the ones made for battle were probably carried into battle during the War, and lost then or in the Breaking.

Very generously speaking, one in a hundred of the Tower's stockpile might be handy on the battlefield, with no possibility of presorting. At six per hour, that means it would take an average of just under two days of work to find each one. Does that sound like a productive use of Avihenda's time?

[Sapphire Guard]

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She'd also need a fixed position so that the carts can find her, which sound like somewhere the Forsaken would immediately raid.

[Wookieetank]

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She doesn't just touch one and know exactly what it does, and how to activate it. She gets a general sense of the idea from touching it, and can spend some time probing it to get harder information. Let us say it takes 10 minutes to ID one ter'angreal. This is not inconsistent with her ID of the bookstorer. That's six per hour.

The White Tower has millions of the things, and the majority will turn out to be things that are generally quite useful, but not much good for battle. Remember that the vast majority of the things were made during an age of peace and prosperity (yes, Rand discusses how war was likely to break out even without the Breach, but that is an observation from hindsight), where the very idea of war and killing was something from old tales. It wasn't until the War of the Power broke out that they started to make the kind of combat goodies that you're talking about, and the ability to make more was lost not too long (relatively speaking) after the war ended, and anything that needed saidin was impossible to make due to the taint. This means that most of the ones made for battle were probably carried into battle during the War, and lost then or in the Breaking.

Very generously speaking, one in a hundred of the Tower's stockpile might be handy on the battlefield, with no possibility of presorting. At six per hour, that means it would take an average of just under two days of work to find each one. Does that sound like a productive use of Avihenda's time?

Fair enough, I had gotten the impression it was just touch and go. I shall leave this hill for someone else to die on XD

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She'd also need a fixed position so that the carts can find her, which sound like somewhere the Forsaken would immediately raid.

Also a fair point.

[lord_khaine]

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I will just ask, what is the number of forsaken class channelers who was brought down without the Flame of Tar Valon? Rather high.
And the number of forsaken class channels brough down by it, is one.

So yes its the solution Egwene used to fix the situation. But that does not mean its the only possible solution.

[tiornys]

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I will just ask, what is the number of forsaken class channelers who was brought down without the Flame of Tar Valon? Rather high.
And the number of forsaken class channels brough down by it, is one.

So yes its the solution Egwene used to fix the situation. But that does not mean its the only possible solution.

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There's a strong implication that the Flame of Tar Valon saves the Pattern from unraveling out from under the Last Battlefield. It wasn't the only solution to Taim, but it likely was the only solution to the current state of the battle.

Also, depending on how attached you think Egwene is to Gawyn, there's an argument that his death was necessary so that she wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice herself when it was needed.

[Anteros]

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Then why did Egwene have to use anti-Balefire (Flame of Tar Valon) to counter him? And Taim also ended up with Demandred's staff of magnificence so he was a bit better off than just "any other channeler".
If Egwene hadn't stopped him when she did, Taim and the ever increasing number of brought back to life sharans from his balefire shenanigans, would've balefired the White Tower forces to oblivion.

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Honestly? Because Sanderson wasn't satisfied using Jordan's magic system and wanted to modify it. That's why you never see any of the nonsense about opposite weaves in any of Jordan's books. If Jordan had intended such an important plot point he would have added a ton of foreshadowing about it. That's just how he wrote.

[anjxed]

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Honestly? Because Sanderson wasn't satisfied using Jordan's magic system and wanted to modify it. That's why you never see any of the nonsense about opposite weaves in any of Jordan's books. If Jordan had intended such an important plot point he would have added a ton of foreshadowing about it. That's just how he wrote.

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I wonder what will happen if the weave is palindrome-like for example water air air water weave. I think Sanderson didn't think that through.

[GrayDeath]

Did all the unnecessary spoiler-Rage drive ES away?

After all, its an "AES Reads Wheel of Time" Thread, not a "Dispute stuff in spoilers for 3 pages" thread, no?

[Sivarias]

Did all the unnecessary spoiler-Rage drive ES away?

After all, its an "AES Reads Wheel of Time" Thread, not a "Dispute stuff in spoilers for 3 pages" thread, no?

He's a busy guy with (multiple?) kid(s). He gets in when he can, and we all appreciate it when he does. We just like keeping this thread alive so that when he comes back he doesn't have to necro the thread again.

[Adderbane]

Did all the unnecessary spoiler-Rage drive ES away?

After all, its an "AES Reads Wheel of Time" Thread, not a "Dispute stuff in spoilers for 3 pages" thread, no?

I wonder how long it'll be until a significant chunk of discussion can take place out of spoilers...

[Feytalist]

I wonder how long it'll be until a significant chunk of discussion can take place out of spoilers...

Round about Lord of Chaos, I'd imagine. I know we tend to discuss a lot of the later plotlines, and with good reason, but that's one of the more significant shifts in the series. It's well worth talking about.

[Anteros]

Round about Lord of Chaos, I'd imagine. I know we tend to discuss a lot of the later plotlines, and with good reason, but that's one of the more significant shifts in the series. It's well worth talking about.

Really not much we can discuss without spoilers at this point unfortunately. We could talk about whether Cenn Buie is a crazy person, or a prophet of the Dark One if you'd like. Although that'll probably devolve into spoilers rather quickly as well.

[Ibrinar]

We can ship Mat with all the girls and prodict from whom he would run away the earliest!

Yeah people at the same point in the story could discuss some stuff and make predictions but for people who have read the series spoiler free discussion of the early parts is a bit limited. I guess only questions that never get resolved or talk about characters being idiots is possible.

[tiornys]

We can ship Mat with all the girls and prodict from whom he would run away the earliest!

Yeah people at the same point in the story could discuss some stuff and make predictions but for people who have read the series spoiler free discussion of the early parts is a bit limited. I guess only questions that never get resolved or talk about characters being idiots is possible.

Characters being idiots is something we can discuss, as long as we refrain from mentioning stuff later in the series. But we can't openly discuss questions that never get resolved, because the fact that they don't get resolved is a spoiler.

[YossarianLives]

Really not much we can discuss without spoilers at this point unfortunately. We could talk about whether Cenn Buie is a crazy person, or a prophet of the Dark One if you'd like. Although that'll probably devolve into spoilers rather quickly as well.

Shhhh! AES Isn't supposed to know that one yet. Next you'll be telling him that Bela was the Dark one all along.