I have to chime in and say that I think this was the most masterful use of Compulsion in the series. No heavy handed-ness, no complicated webs reinforcing each other - just a basic web of it, a command that is so close enough to any living beings' self-interest and a complicated Shield with inverted flows. Using much less strength and power than any of the other Forsaken, she destroyed an opponent while sending the same opponent elsewhere to cause even more harm for the Lightsiders. Lanfear and Graendal leave devastation - Moghedien leaves webs that make it hard to attack her directly because you are so busy concentrating on creatures stuck within the strands. I think that is the whole point of her character, though - she is incredibly skilled with her abilities, so that only a fool would dismiss her as a threat. She may be the least powerful but she had located the male a'dam and come closest to defeating Rand, who was very weak at the time, and was only foiled because Rand had female defenders already on her trail.




The Black Sister may have been unimpressed but it's still important to note that Moghedien didn't want them to know her strength in relation to the other Forsaken. When it came time to defeating them, I think their expressions made it somewhat obvious that even the least Forsaken could wipe the floor with all of the Black Sisters in the house to the extent that no one else tried to attack her or undo her work. The remaining Sisters weren't thinking "She's only two times as strong as I am - I can take her!" It's not all about raw power after all.

To be honest, I think that Lanfear or Graendal would have easily overpowered most of the Black Ajah Sisters in a Heart because they are much more skillful with managing their connections and defeating a Shield that is held on them. Moghedien did this in a few moments and even though Nynaeve's Shield was less skillfully woven, it was still held with her full strength at the time.



But, then again, Ishamael was killed by a farmboy with no training, Lanfear was tackled, and Rahvin was too proud to run when he could have. The strongest of the Forsaken seem to fumble when confronting Wonderboy and his Superfriends pretty easily, so the main source of amazement to me is that the weaker and mid-tier Forsaken such as Mesaana, Moghedien and Aran'Gar/Balthamel haven't had a fatal mishap, yet.