WOT - A Memory of Light [Spoilers]

Cafe Society
1

So A Memory of Light has been released, and I’ve just finished it. I know there’s a few fans of WOT on here and thought a discussion could be had. I’m interested in thoughts and opinions on the book, and the series as a whole if you like.

Spoilers ahoy of course, so if you’re still waiting to read this, I’m planning on discussing stuff that will definitely spoil the book for you!
Overall personal impression, I liked it, I think it was a suitable ending to the series. I had one or two things I had issues with, but overall was happy.

The outcome of Rand resealing the bore, I think was sufficiently foreshadowed, that it wasn’t a surprise that he didn’t kill the Dark One. Plus Rand’s survival also was reasonably expected IMO anyway. I’m not sure how I feel about the Neo aspect to the ending, with Rand apparently able to manipulate reality now, but it’s not a huge issue, just curious that they went that way.

I don’t think there was a single braid pull or skirt smooth in the entire book, and I don’t recall more than one or brief fashion descriptions, so that was good! :wink:

The book went all GRRM on the world, with heaps of known and named characters dying, although only one of the ‘A-listers’ in Egwene coping it. I was happy enough with that. More ‘realistic’ I think, although Faile surviving was a slight cop-out though, given the situation she wound up in.

My main beef with the book is the battles, particularly the battle at Merrilor.
#1 the numbers of troops quoted were way of I think, in terms of previous books and then numbers of troops available to the armies of light anyway.

#2 The bigger issues IMO, is the flow of the battles themselves. We keep getting told that Merrilor was a battle between the two best generals of all time (Mat & Demandred) but the actions and movements as described (moreso of the armies of light - because we get to see the process of them) don’t sound brilliant at all. The whole Seanchan gambit was just plain stupid. The damming of the river as well, the water gives such a massive advantage against the Trollocs and Mat just throws away the advantage. To bring it back through (I don’t know what weird event with the ‘resurrected’ commoners) far too late for it too matter.

So that aspect of the book bothered me, and because it was just such a large part of the book, it was a constant niggle.

There were quite a few threads left dangling which should leave plenty of fodder for discussions by fans for years to come. I think that was inevitable given the length of the series and the amount of stuff that was going on.

One question that I haven’t found the answer to is what happened with those ‘commoners’ and some of the Band at the dam above the battle of Merrilor. I couldn’t find a reference to that village, and wondering if I’ve missed something in the books?

So what do you think? Like it hate it?

2

After Game of Thrones “shocked and awed” me in the regard of POV character killing, I thought WoT was going to follow the usual fantasy convention of having very few if any major characters actually die. Which would have been pretty unrealistic in The Last Battle, so I’m glad Jordan/Sanderson didn’t go that far.

The battle strategy part didn’t really hook me either, but I just sort of went with the flow on that one. However I did find it unrealistic that Demandred wouldn’t simply have wiped the field in short order if he could arrive from Shara with 400+ channelers of both genders hooked up in a full circle of 72 channerls with him at the head, AND possessing a super sa’angreal for saidin, AND be able to touch the True Power. He was shown to be able to direct beams of balefire wide enough to erase scores of Aes Sedai in a single pass and their actions going back nearly half an hour. The dude should have been like a balefire lighthouse.

Egwene’s finale was pretty awesome. I agree that Faile probably “should” have died, and also think that Lan should have “stayed dead” from a dramatic standpoint.

I was surprised (and liked it) that Logain’s foreshadowed “glory” was not to pull down Taim, to lead a group of Asha’man to save Rand’s bacon in some way, or to defeat Demandred head-on… But just to make the choice to give up pursuing Demandred/Taim’s sa’angreal in order to lead the Black Tower to rescue the defenseless refugees being attacked by Trollocs.

I liked the ending but was confused by it. How did Rand “switch bodies” with Moridin? Also, Rand’s “Fourth Age” life is to be as a normal man, as Moridin’s body had been burned out from channeling anything from the unbuffered super-channeling of both halves of the One Power plus the True Power through Callandor while creating the Perma-Seal (until the Wheel eventually comes back to the Second Age, the Age of Legends and the Bore that breaks the Seal). I can even understand how he might not be suicidally depressed about not being able to touch the One Power any more (as most channelers are in this situation). But then how does he light the pipe?

3

I probably shouldn’t read this thread. Aaaaaaaaaaaaah! You’re killing me! :smiley: I’m waiting for it to come out on Kindle.

4

Oh, and Thom being posted as sentry outside the entryway into Shayol Ghul while Rand, Nynaeve and Moiraine were in there dueling with Moridin/Shai’tan was kind of ridiculous. He was shown as having collected a small stack of 5 or 6 Black Ajah sisters who had tried to get by him disguised as Cadusane or some other Light sided Aes Sedai, where he pretended to be taken in, then killed them with a knife in their backs, hard thrown and well placed enough to sever the spinal cord at a throwing distance.

First, is that really even possible, to throw a knife (not an axe or machete) hard enough to sever a spinal cord, other than a freak thing where going 5-for-5 seems superhuman?

Second, if so much as a single Darkfriend channeler entering the area could cause Rand to fail and the Dark One to win… Why were they going in one by one?

Third, if you were a Darkfriend channeler and wanted to get by Thom Merrelin at the mouth of a cave, why wouldn’t you choose a One Power based offensive solution (ranging up to and including balefire) instead of a passive Mask of Mirrors disguise with no secondary defense (Air-woven shields, etc.)?

5

Thom has always been a fairly unbelievable character… it just isn’t possible to juggle that many balls that well and also have all his other skills. So that part didn’t bother me.

My biggest complaints:

(1) Padan Fain. So much build up over the series, and… poof
(2) Perrin and his hammer. He spent this book basically doing what he spent the last two books doing, fighting Slayer in T’a’r. Yipee.
(3) Suddenly finding a zillion awesome uses for gateways. This bugs me not so much because it’s unrealistic or anything, but because it seemed to so come out of nowhere… presumably the influence of Brandon Sanderson, whose books I like a lot, but it definitely felt like a left turn for the series as a whole
(4) Did Gawyn ever find out that Morgase was alive?
(5) Seems a little off for me for Demandred to be such a good swordsman. He grew up in the Age of Legends, where for some of his life there was presumably no war or fighting, and then for some of his life he was involved in crazy magic fighting. How is he a better swordsman than someone like Lan? How is he so much better than Gawyn that he fairly easily beats Gawyn even through triple super-ninja-ring?
(6) A few too many people fake-died. Talmanes, Galad and Lan, off the top of my head, were all described in ways that seemed pretty distinctly fatal, and all survived, as did Faile?
(7) No resolution of the future of the Aiel, or who that mysterious lady was that Aviendha met last book. After all that build up, seems to me we should have gotten something…
(8) I wish we’d gotten a bit more precise info about what happened to Rand at the end. How did the body swap occur? Why didn’t he want to tell even his closest buddies Mat and Perrin he’s alive? Or is he planning to do so in the future? Why isn’t anyone alarmed that a presumed-one-of-the-Forsaken just got up and walked away?

Things I liked:
(1) Mat and Tuon and the big battle scene
(2) Most of Rand’s confrontation with the DO (although I thought Rand was going to decide that the super-happy future was a lie… Humans have plenty of capacity for evil all on their own without a conscious evil being corrupting and guiding them)
(3) Egwene going out like a boss
(4) Noal becoming a hero of the horn, and saving Olver (although I wish the heroes of the horn had had a chance for a bit more badassery… the first time they showed up back in The Great Hunt they were so awesome, and seemed a lot less badass this time)

6

Mat first stumbled upon that village in A Knife of Dreams. The village was caught in a bubble of evil that did 3 things. First, it drove everyone in the village insane come nightfall. Second, it set up a time loop, so people relived the same 24 hours over and over. Third, it trapped anyone who stayed overnight in the time loop.

People tried leaving the village. Once the time loop kicked in and reset, they found themselves back in the village, regardless of how far away they were. Anyone who died was also back alive once the time loop kicked in. Everyone remembers what happens the previous day, so there is no memory wipe of the events.

Mat took advantage of this by sending 100 of his Red Arms there so they would be trapped in the loop as well. He then used the Redarms and the villagers to defend the area, knowing their deaths wouldn’t matter, since they would all be back alive the next day.

Back in A Crown of Swords, Rand and Moridin were in Shadar Logath. A wall of Mashadar was descending upon them, and they both used balefire to destroy it. Rand was using saidin, while Moridin was using the True Power. The two beams crossed, causing a bond to form between the two of them. This is what allowed Rand to later tap into the True Power, and allowed Moridin to once again invade Rands dreams. It’s also why Moridin’s hand started bothering him after Rand lost his.

Rand, knowing he was dying at the end, took advantage of this link to switch bodies with Moridin.

As for the pipe lighting bit, I assume he’s using his knowledge of how to weave the pattern itself to do it. After all, once brought entire worlds to the forefront by weaving them using threads from the pattern, what effort is it to light a pipe?

Gawn found out about Morgase in Towers of Midnight. It wasn’t much of a big deal, I think it covered like half a page, if that.

Demandred being a good swordsman makes perfect sense. Back before the War of Power in the Age of Legends, people practiced sword fighting as an art form. If he started as a young man, Demandred had roughly four hundred years to practice, against others who had trained just as long, before being sealed away. That’s bound to make a guy good. Through in the fact that he had hundreds of years of practice using the Void, and had saidin & true power enhanced senses, and it all adds up to a deadly fighting machine. I was surprised Gawn lasted as long as he did, actually. He was off balance from all the speed enhancements, he was losing strength due to the affects of the ring, plus he was tired from lack of sleep and food. The way Lan won is probably the only way someone could defeat Demandred in a one on one sword fight.

I completely agree with the fake dying. Faile should have died after having both a horse and trolloc fall on top of her, then laying under them for hours.

I wasn’t expecting Talamnes to die. I figured the way they were going on about him standing up to the poison for so long that he would gain some kind of weird new power from it, or gain Mydraal like abilities, or something.

Overall I loved the book. I knew there would be things left hanging, as Jordan once said that he intended to leave some things unanswered, since in real life not everything gets resolved.

My biggest complaint was the epilogue. It covered maybe 3 pages, when the prologue took something like 62. I wanted to know more about what happened in the world after the battle was over. Did Faile become queen, or did she renounce the throne? Did Elayne have Camelyn rebuilt, or did she have a new capital built? Did the White Tower and Black Tower begin working together, or do they still distrust one another? Was the Grey Tower ever formed?

I’m hoping Jordan’s wife will allow Sanderson to keep producing WoT stories. There’s so much that can be done, now that the Last Battle has occurred.

7

That makes sense, I guess. I knew that was how Rand was able to tap the True Power on occasion, and the reason for Moridin’s “ghost pain” in his hand and their occasional meetings in dreams. I didn’t think it’d allow for a full-on body switch though, at least without some kind of POV explanation instead of “that must be what happened”. Unless I missed it. I guess I’ll go back and re-read that part again (I read it at like 2AM on Friday, so it’s quite possible I wasn’t picking up anything subtle).

How can he do that without channeling though? He was able to do the “simulated future” thing with the Dark One by being outside the Pattern and outside space/time, he shouldn’t be able to do that from within the Pattern itself. Is he basically a godlike creature now?

8

I sort of presumed that given his understanding of how the pattern is weaved, that he now has the ability to affect the real world in a similar fashion to how dreamwalkers can affect things in Tel’aran’rhiod.

And thanks** Mr Accident** for the details on the village, I do remember that now.

9

Many points I liked and didn’t like are already covered, but wanted to throw a few more things in there…

Didn’t like the Demandred fight/death. Lets send one swordsman, than another, than another?? Seemd… silly?

Siuan not even getting a good death scene? She deserved better, as did Bryne.

Bridgette coming back and saving Elayne… way over the top for me.

Perrin and Gaul just running around in the dreamworld for 400pages… but Padin Fain gets 1 page???

Mat asks Artur Hawkwing to go speak to Tuon, but when Mat sees her at the end she doesn’t say a word about it! lol, I would have loved to see that meeting.

Overall I really enjoyed the series it didn’t end as well as it started but Jordan took it in so many directions i’m very impressed that Sanderson was able to pull it all back in.

I hope we get one or two “after” stories as their are still many tales to tell in there I think!

10

Well the idea of using one of the fox-head medallions floating around to send an expert fighter in to take out Demandred the Balefire Lighthouse came to three people independently. Interesting to think of the missed opportunity to have sent THREE guys at the same time.

Yeah, I was missing that too!

11

Now it is finished, would you recommend the series? I’ve read none of them, having avoided them since the late '90’s(due to them being never-ending).

Now it is done, is it a worthwhile series?

I know he isn’t the main author, but I loved the Mistborn trilogy and Elantris.

12

I just finished the book and I enjoyed it a lot. I think what impressed me the most is the Jordan had written the last chapter before he died and I kept waiting for the voice to change between him and Sanderson and I never noticed it. I really think that goes to show how much talent that Sanderson has and leaves me very excited for the next Path of Kings book.

As far as a review I didn’t like how little emotional impact the deaths had. I was expecting a bunch but even having Egwene die didn’t make me sad. I’m not sure what could have been done to make them matter more but it seemed more like they just happened then they mattered. Besides that I really liked the time dilation and how that effected everyone’s story and how much page space they got. It really did feel like a bunch of stuff was happening away and then slowed the closer you got to the bore.

My plan now is to reread the entire series start to finish. Unfortunatly, my girlfriend decided to start reading The Eye of the World for the first time so I’m going to either have to wait or find another copy to read. As far as someone else starting for the first time my thoughts would be; I loved the characters and the world and enjoyed Jordan’s style of storytelling. The first three books are the best with Eye of the World being my favorite. If you’re not hooked by The Dragon Reborn just stop its not going to ge better for you and even if you like it there is about a 3 book slog from Crown of Swords through Winter’s heart (I think that was the 3 the last one was where the source was cleansed if someone can help me out) but it picked up at the end and I think over all is the best series of books I’ve ever read.

13

It’s such a huge a distinct series that it’s kind of heart to really fairly assess. I’d say, start reading, and see if you like it. Then if you do, brace yourself for a serious dip in quality basically from book 6 through book 10… you might want to just read chapter summaries for those books (although there are a few bits that you’ll really miss out on if you do that).

14

So I am posting this in response to the creator of this thread. They asked about the villagers that Matt sent that came back and this has to be from the village that Matt and talmanes visited where every night for the villagers would go crazy attack each other but then be reborn morning. I would quote which book but happen to be posting from my phone so I am sorry if someone else answered already.

Matt stayed too late as he was gambling for provisions

15

Those bastards killed Bela.

16

I just wish they would have killed off Tuon and left Bela alone.

17

Just finished it tonight. It was, well, epic IMHO. I kind of predicted the ending, but was still surprised by the amount of carnage of both minor and main characters. At any rate, I’m a bit sad it’s all over, but glad it’s all over at the same time. Haven’t read through the responses here, as I know there are a lot of folks who dislike the books and generally come into these threads to say how much the books suck, but just wanted to give my own drive by post and say that, for this Jordan fan it was everything I was hoping for. I was praying for something that wasn’t another Dark Tower conclusion and I think the book delivered.

18

I am pissed at Jordan’s wife for delaying the ebook release from the fear that the hardcover would not reach the top of the bestseller lists.

I always feel a bit sad when I think about WoT. I just remember some of the totally awesome scenes in the earlier books and how the quality went so sharply downhill in the following books. I’ve already read the summary for A Memory of Light but will still purchase the Kindle version when it comes out.

19

I was satisfied. It engaged me more than any other recent book I’ve read, and I enjoyed it more than any of the previous 13 volumes (probably because things were finally happening!)

Valid criticisms are made above, but I’m still pleased that it it worked as well as it did. I feared much worse.

I was more broken up about Bela than Egwene, for some reason.

I too wish that we could have seen Tuon and Hawkwing’s meeting.

I like that Taim turned out to be, well, Taim.

I didn’t mind Fain’s ending being so brief because I never felt Fain added much to the whole story. He should have been killed off long ago, or possibly omitted completely.

Would I recommend the series? Mmmmmmmmmmaybe. The first and last 4 books were really very good. 5-7 were good to fair, 8-10 were poor to awful.

Now, back to waiting for GRRM to finish writing, or die, or something.

20

I enjoyed the book / ending.

One question: who is the woman’s voice that Rand hears when he exits the cave saying something like “yes, thats what you needed to do”. It’s says its a voice he doesn’t recognize so I like to think it was the mysterious woman aviendha met in the waste. What do you think? Was he just so out of it that he didn’t recognize a friend’s voice, or am I right?

Oh and my only complaint: they made Androl’s gateway talent too powerful, and then didn’t utilize it. For example when he confronts demandred, why doesn’t he open a tiny gateway to slit his throat, not that I think that makes a good story, but it was what I expected him to try. Now that I think about it, we never got a wrap up for Androl/Pevara, and I really liked their storyline/relationship.