A common flaw in Sanderson's writing. I'm waiting to see what we get in aMoL, but it could be as simple as Sanderson not being able to articulate a better comparison.

I wonder if Sanderson has even grasped the issue that many WoT readers have addressed in previous books - with the situation as it is, the Dark One is winning by default. The world is collapsing around Rand & co, as the various effects of the Dark One's growth in power weaken, demoralize and kill off more and more people.

Why ruin a strategy that has worked for his side fairly well up until now? A lot of his greatest success has come from reacting on the fly. Remember the first strong blow dealt against the Dark One (and possibly the strongest dealt by the good guys over the course of the series - whatever the impression of shallow readers, killing off a minion here or there hardly ranks with breaking the Dark One's grip on reality, however temporarily) occurred because Moiraine dragged three ta'veren, one of whom was almost certainly the Dragon Reborn, into the lion's den, seeking to place these apparently vital resources for the Light in Tarmon Gaidon, in the path of the Dark One's next possible strike in the hope that they might divert it somehow. And it worked. Rand didn't have much of a plan for his next two confrontations with Ba'alzamon, and raced off half-cocked in reacting to Rahvin and Couladin. He deliberately tried to avoid that with Sammael, but that was where he began taking his first steps to Dark Rand. Maybe it's a good thing that he seems to be embracing his old modus operandi.

Plan? What plan?

I love how the easiest way to get her to do something is to ask her to help with something else. For all that people keep saying that about the Two Rivers men, how often does anyone actually get away with doing it to them? When presented with the reality of the situation and the stakes, they tend to reluctantly suck up their objections and do what is asked of them, in matters as great as embracing their destinies, and as trivial as accepting their romantic relationships. For all that Egwene likes to sniff about how stubborn, contrary or otherwise obstinate her old neighbors were back in the Two Rivers, she seems the least removed from this supposedly typical bit of pettiness from their old lives.

Because when push comes to shove, she's kind of gutless. She only takes risks when shoved into them or when they are unnecessary. She's always the first one to call a necessary tactic "madness" otherwise.


Not really. Egwene thinks Rand is going out on a limb when he plans to attack two nations with a force of Aiel three times the size of one that fought a dozen nations to a standstill. She's never enthusiastic about risks, unless they are frivolous or vainglorious attempts to garner attention to herself. As for Rand, as I note above, his tendency to win the fights he goes into without a plan is very much a character trait.


Yeah, but what do any of them know about the Dark One. Two important things to know when taking on an enemy are Know Yourself, and Know Your Enemy. They have spent 13 books figuring out the former, but have no idea anything beyond the most general facts about the latter. Perhaps they need to take his measure before deciding how to defeat him.


The dream did not warn against anything. There was no suggestion of any connotation of a warning or that this was something that needed to be averted. I took her dream to be simply a notification that it was going to happen, period. She had no forebodings or portents of doom - any negative impressions or opinions she gets from the dream are purely of her own distaste for the idea.
The original "fateful" conflict was over the need to take a necessary risk and one side being sticks in the mud, and refusing to countenance the required gamble. This has been the pattern of Egwene's and Rand's conflict from day one. She NEVER likes going along with ANY of his ideas, and it always has to be HER plan. I think this conflict is what RJ had in mind all along, and B-Sand is simply building up to it in an inept manner because he does not understand the characters well.