I expect so. It's been a long time since I read the books, but at the very least I remember the Seanchan campaign from The Path of Daggers kept switching to PoVs from either side, which helped provide the impression that both sides were active. Even with the Forsaken, who have earned a reputation for ineptitude, usually when they were attacked, they had a fallback plan in order to attempt to regain the initiative. Ishamael and Rahvin fled to Tel'aran'rhiod, Sammael to Shadar Logoth. With Demandred it felt very much like he was the final boss at the end of the level. Hell, I have no idea how Galad is supposed to have reached him at the centre of the Shadow army. Gawyn had his Bloodknife rings, Logain Travelled, Lan charged through ranks of Trollocs with the aid of the Two Rivers archers... how did Galad get there?

Yes, I agree. Though to be fair, sometime Jordan provided us with some informed abilities as well. Particularly Morgase's supposed brilliance.

I agree.

Seriously!

Sometimes I get the impression that some writers would rather be writing movies. Battles in the books, at least in my opinion, are important in how they affect the people who participate in them, I suspect that's why, as you pointed out, a lot of the time Jordan's battles were presented from the chaotic perspective of those participating in them, because what's important is to know their fears, their excitement, their resolution. Not the tactical movements going on.

There's one fight I really like from George Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. It's the duel between Oberyn Martell and Gregor Clegane for Tyrion's trial. The battle is presented from Tyrion's PoV, though he's just a spectator. Though he and Oberyn are both hoping Gregor is taken down, they have very different motives, and a significant part of the suspense comes from realising that Oberyn could kill Gregor, but he's not doing so because he wants him to confess first. It's the realisation that Tyrion's fate is entirely out of his hands, and the one who does have it under his power doesn't care at all. Blow by blow description is used, but while it's still filler, it's intended as filler as it draws out the suspense.

Yeah, I was fine with it. Though unlike you, I really felt that the battle was smaller than it should be. I know someone on Wotmania had a map with the locations and sizes of every army in the Westland as of whatever book it was, but I can't seem to find it. I did find though. It estimates about four hundred thousand Aiel, a hundred and fifty thousand Andorans, a very small force of Domani, thirty thousand men in the Band of the Red Hand, two hundred thousand Borderlanders who went south to find Rand, plus the twelve thousand who joined Lan, thirty thousand Cairhienin, eighty thousand Illianers, seventy thousand Legion of the Dragon, seventy thousand mixed forces in Perrin's army, ninety thousand Tairens, less than one hundred thousand Tower Guard, if Bryne's rebel army is included, and the mysterious Murandian army. All told, over one million two hundred thousand troops of varying degrees of skill. Though presumably some forces would be left behind to guard their nations. Then again, this is not the impression we got when the Trollocs attacked Cairhien during the split armies segment.

As for channelers, Rand sent a hundred Asha'man with Ituralde to fight at Maradon. That force alone is larger than the combined channeling division at Thakan'dar, and they're not included in whatever happened at the Black Tower. The page linked above expects seven hundred men at the Black Tower, and Demandred says that Taim had a hundred pet Asha'man, so unless the off-screen battle for the Black Tower was far more bloody than anybody ever bothered to tell us, there should be hundreds of Asha'man available. It also gives at most two hundred and twenty Aes Sedai, Novices and Accepted excluded. If we extrapolate from the two hundred Shaido Wise One channelers, there should be over two thousand channeling Wise Ones in Rand's army - which is more than five times the number of Ayyad Demandred gloats about.

I wasn't paying attention that much, and don't really feel like trying to locate the information in the two hundred page The Last Battle chapter, but there were moments when I certainly felt like these were not the numbers we were dealing with. For example, during Elayne's section of the split armies segment when her forces are skirmishing with the Trollocs in the forest. Maybe these were just skirmishers and don't represent what most of the army was doing, but Elayne's Captain-General was with them, and Elayne herself kept moving her command tent among hiding places in the woods. Is this normal for an army of several hundred thousands? What really got my attention though was the lack of mention from the forces of Tear and Illian, both very powerful nations, probably comparable to Andor. The Companions and Defenders of the Stone were occasionally mentioned, but only as small elite units. What happened to these armies? Meanwhile Perrin's force, while respectable when combined, but it kept getting described as its components - the Wolf Guard, the Whitecloaks, the Mayeners and Ghealdanin - appeared to represent something approximating half the forces on Merrilor, while they were in fact a few tens of thousands in an army of hundreds of thousands. Obviously at this point they'd all suffered casualties from the earlier battles, but still.

Oh, I knew it wouldn't be important to Tarmon Gai'don, but I expected it to be something that would help rebuild after, like Rand's Dragon's Peace. Also, I'm pretty sure I remember something about Aiel men only ever singing in battle, and I don't recall this coming up either.

Yeah, but why? It just sort of happened. This isn't A Song of Ice and Fire, I expect a reason behind a character's death. Here we just sort of turned around and she was dead. Hell, if she'd died offscreen and her name appeared in Rand's list, I'd have understood it better than the way it happened here.

Oh, definitely. It also ties back to how Cadsuane broke Semirhage earlier, obviously, and it demonstrates the difference between the two. Cadsuane is stronger than Semirhage was.

I should hope so. Also, I get the impression that Galad never had any friends. I mean, Taringail's children were all royalty, so obviously none of them had friends, but I think it was even worse with Galad. So it would matter to him that Gawyn actually liked him. You don't choose your family.