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Re: Actually, didn't RJ do the Forsaken infodump thing too? Sidious Send a noteboard - 25/09/2010 10:02:02 AM

Then, right after Rand's attack, as a second POV, the remaining part of the scene (the counterpoint to Rand's scene in TGS), which seems to have been outlined only by Jordan as too many details are off in characterization, style and plot details. It seems to me Jordan only put down that Graendal would get Aran'gar and Delana to compel Ramsalan, but Brandon came up with the details. It's terribly contrived. The BA doesn't know Compulsion, at least not Graendal's style. Even Verin has put together only a half-baked version of it, and Liandrin's is a pitiful thing. Why would a middling too-young Sitter BA who used to need Siuan's patronage during their early years have been taught Compulsion? By whom? Obviously, this was up to Graendal to teach her at the last minute. As for asking Aran'gar straight out to compel Ramsalan, this was very lame, very un-Forsaken like. Aran'gar is an idiot, but not so much an idiot that she would not have suspected Graendal's motive for asking her to weave Compulsion with saidin on a man she was to send out to Rand, when Rand was at her doorstep! Also, this is the first time we see the weave of compulsion itself being used this way (the weave itself including the orders). That's wrong. Always before, what the net of compulsion does is open the brain to orders, create a feeling of adoration/awe and make the subject totally receptive to . The orders are then given verbally. Graendal is so good at it because she's a psychiatrist and knows how to read a mind and manipulate it, not because her Compulsion weave is more intricate than others'.... Delana should just have opened Ramsalan, and Graendal could have given him her convoluted, subtle orders herself. Mind reading appears to be possible (Ishamael seems to have done it in TGH)... using the True Power.


I was wondering if you could clarify this ... are you wondering who taught her, or are you saying that it was Graendal but you find it silly? I always thought it was Graendal who taught her, and she probably did it weeks before that in attempt to make Delana a useful minion to her. When Nynaeve delves Ramshalan she says that the Compulsion is very complex with lots of weaves. That goes strongly against Moghedien's mediocre use of the weave, and I doubt Mesaana and Cyndane had anything to do with Delana at any stage.

Another thing that isn't properly set up is Graendal puzzling out what Rand was up to. In Jordan's hands, she would have had reports about his increasing darkness, Semirhage's death, his new attitude toward women of his inner circle. Graendal would have known Rand was on the edge, and while Lews Therin would never, never have done such a thing, maybe al'Thor was frustrated, maddened and far gone enough to do something as irrational and crazy as balefiring a whole palace to kill her... In Brandon's hands, that solution merely pops up in Graendal's head out of the blue. One second she thinks of Rand one way, the next she is convincedt he's about to do this un-LTT like, completely mad and destructive attack just to get rid of her. Not even Graendal has that big an ego that she would think Rand would destroy the whole palace and kill so many to get rid of her - not without analyzing accurately his present state of mind, as Jordan's Graendal would have done.


I thought this was a perfectly reasonable assumption by Graendal, and she admits to herself that she underestimated his danger. That in its self implies that she thought she was safe even if only for the fact that she was a woman. Her assumption is also logical - Rand is standing right outside her palace and Aran'gar tells her that he's holding a huge amount of saidin. There can really be no doubt about what Rand's about to do. The chances that he's there for a benign purpose with the Choedan Kal would be remote.

What does bug me is that Graendal assumes that he's about to use balefire, and thus her instant reflex to kill Aran'gar and Delana. There is no reason for her to believe this. Rand was just as likely to consume the palace with fire or swallow it into the earth. The Forsaken struggle to use balefire, and can't conceive of Rand's liberal use of it. Graendal would not have made that leap so easily.
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Re: Actually, didn't RJ do the Forsaken infodump thing too? - 25/09/2010 08:30:59 PM 680 Views
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