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Re: Biggest blows to the Shadow... Cannoli Send a noteboard - 13/03/2012 04:51:32 AM
What are you top 3 "biggest blows to the Shadow" in the entire series? Please keep the trolls against individual characters or groups of characters out of this.

My top 3:

1. Rand cleansing Saidin.
2. Egwene's (through Verin) purging of the black ajah ( I know she was not the person who compiled the lists, but she came up with the process to implement the data)
It's still not a blow against the Shadow. She only got the ones in the rebel camp, leaving the others free to do their thing. The ones she subsequently got from the Tower faction were the result of faulty deployment. Secondly, these are only Aes Sedai. They are pretty much the least effective group of channelers in open combat, and much of what the Black Ajah represents and can do from a hiding place within the system is useless at this point. At best, she trimmed some of the Shadow's deadwood a little early. They are just soldiers in the Shadow's army, and as such, this qualifies as little more than a skirmish, like Rand & co obliterating the Trolloc army that attacked Algarin's manor house.
3. Rand's choice to destroy the male Chodean Kal and continue the fight against the Shadow. This gave him peace within himself and the ability to use Lews Therin's memories as his own freely.
This one and the first one are good, because they represent shifts in the paradigm and changes in the state of the world. The purge just cleared off some pawns.

My choices would be:
1. The Dragonmount event
2. Cleansing Saidin
3. The Eye of the World thing
4. The events in the Stone when Rand drew Callandor
5. The Bowl of the Winds
6. Falme

Anything else is a long step below these things. Numbers 1, 3 & 5 I placed on the list because they were visibly seen to have effects on the Shadow's touch on the world. After Dragonmount, the effect of the ta'veren on the accelerated corruption was more pronounced (although Perrin might have been showing it beforehand. With Sanderson's appalling handling of continuity & chronology, it's hard to tell if that was deliberate or not). After the events of the Eye of the World, the Dark One was clearly weakened and had to relinquish his grip on the weather and allow spring to finally come. Likewise with the Bowl of the Winds, which is somewhat unique in that it was human beings directly challenging the Dark One's working and achieving precisely the purpose they set out to gain. No one has done, to the best of my knowledge, since Lews Therin attacked Shayol Ghul. Even the more significant events on this list were the end result of people with different intentions or goals. The Cleansing was also an event like that, but that was more like altering an old status quo.

In case it is not obvious, I am judging absolutely none of these events by their bodycounts or number of Forsaken, Darkfriends and Shadowspawn killed. Those things are lesser threats that humanity is perfectly well equipped to combat on their own. Blows against the actual Shadow, in my mind, are those things which strike at the underlying power and evil which makes the human minions and monsters so formidable. RJ made it clear in the QotW where he mentioned that the Forsaken who were not sealed up at Shayol Ghul died off rather anticlimactically, that the real threat is the Dark One, and the Forsaken and Shadowspawn are more like symbols of his evil and examples of what he will do to the world given his way. Thus, a dead Forsaken here, or some captured Darkfriends there, or a bunch of slaughtered Shadowspawn (such as Algarin's manor, or the Two Rivers, or the Stone of Tear) are just shuffling deck chairs in the grand scheme of things. The important blows against the Shadow are the ones that affect the Dark One or get the Pattern moving in the right direction.
Cannoli
“Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.” GK Chesteron
Inde muagdhe Aes Sedai misain ye!
Deus Vult!
*MySmiley*
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Biggest blows to the Shadow... - 12/03/2012 07:15:32 PM 1909 Views
Re: Biggest blows to the Shadow... - 12/03/2012 11:44:08 PM 687 Views
Re: Biggest blows to the Shadow... - 13/03/2012 12:37:55 AM 809 Views
Those were the exact three I had first on my list. Good call. *NM* - 13/03/2012 04:55:29 AM 371 Views
Re: Biggest blows to the Shadow... - 13/03/2012 04:51:32 AM 898 Views
Re: Biggest blows to the Shadow... - 14/03/2012 06:22:51 PM 667 Views
Re: Biggest blows to the Shadow... - 14/03/2012 11:36:00 PM 796 Views
Another Concord... - 15/03/2012 12:33:51 AM 704 Views
The LB started in the epilogue of TOM, if you ask me... - 15/03/2012 04:24:43 PM 568 Views
That's the war against the Shadow... - 20/03/2012 06:01:02 AM 681 Views
This is a wonderful summary of what I feel the situation at Merrilor wil be and I wish I wrote this - 29/04/2012 07:41:53 PM 685 Views
Shouldn't my post have ended in NM? *NM* - 29/04/2012 07:49:07 PM 246 Views
Re: Biggest blows to the Shadow... - 13/03/2012 08:03:59 PM 691 Views
I disagree on number three don't think it's broad enough - 17/03/2012 02:53:08 PM 555 Views
I wonder if it was advertised though? - 17/03/2012 04:25:23 PM 630 Views
I very much doubt it - 17/03/2012 04:48:56 PM 540 Views
Re: I very much doubt it - 17/03/2012 07:33:48 PM 492 Views
It's funny because I don't think the Forsaken have proven particularly effective either - 17/03/2012 07:47:58 PM 574 Views
I think they've been pretty effective - 19/03/2012 10:46:11 AM 567 Views
Yet they have done very little to move the grand plan forward - 19/03/2012 11:51:59 PM 529 Views
What plan? - 20/03/2012 08:18:40 AM 750 Views
Re: I very much doubt it - 17/03/2012 09:59:15 PM 562 Views
Regarding Demandred - 19/03/2012 11:11:22 AM 506 Views
Re: Regarding Demandred - 19/03/2012 06:26:49 PM 639 Views
Re: Regarding Demandred - 21/03/2012 09:48:40 PM 503 Views
Re: I disagree on number three don't think it's broad enough - 17/03/2012 05:46:31 PM 655 Views
I always thought of the victory at the Eye as the Lights first big win in the series - 17/03/2012 07:27:12 PM 615 Views
Re: I always thought of the victory at the Eye as the Lights first big win in the series - 17/03/2012 09:16:08 PM 659 Views
I largely agree with you - 18/03/2012 03:25:17 AM 603 Views
"Seemingly young girl"? Is she actually old or something? Maybe she's not a girl? - 19/03/2012 01:39:12 AM 645 Views
Re: "Seemingly young girl"? Is she actually old or something? Maybe she's not a girl? - 19/03/2012 10:35:57 AM 710 Views
Oh, I'd probably die. That's not the important thing. - 20/03/2012 03:08:37 AM 588 Views
Not that this debate really matters... - 20/03/2012 03:40:37 AM 528 Views
Re: Oh, I'd probably die. That's not the important thing. - 20/03/2012 08:14:51 AM 545 Views

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