And was significant only in how underwhelming it was. We were supposed to be shocked at an entire nation committing ritual suicide by first poisoning all their children and then themselves all in response to fulfillment of a prophecy connected with the Last Battle (that the shining Choedan Kal in Tremalking portended the end of the World of Illusions). We were supposed to be horrified that they were HAPPY about it (it was set up as a big fake out when the smiling idiot in the CoT Epilogue runs off to tell his fellow cultists the "good" news about the statue). The Sea Folk were traumatized to the point it disrupted a diplomatic meeting with Rands emissaries, IIRC, but they had an advantage readers lacked: They'd actually ENCOUNTERED the Amayar for more than five seconds. Jordan didn't take into account the fact that it's hard for most people to get worked about genocide if it's in a world we know is fictional to begin and affects a race to which none of us has even had the chance to form any attachment anyway. When Aviendhas visions in ToM raise the prospect of wiping out the Aiel I actually care a little bit because I "know" the Aiel, individually and as a culture. Telling me the Amayar murdered their own children then killed themselves matters about as much to me as telling me the same thing about the Sharans would.

It wouldn't be that big a deal if it hadn't been built up as the GASP Moment that generated so much speculation in the months before KoDs release and left most of us still searching for it even after we'd finished the book. Big 'splosions are well and good (though we don't even see the Amayar on screen when they're dying, we hear about it from a Windfinder later) but if I tried to tell my mom why Moiraines rescue was a big deal she wouldn't care even after I explained it.