A Memory of Light

[Archanon]

If you count tag teams, Lan + Rand is my winner - Lan was obscenely badass for what he did but it was Rand's omnipresent announcement that really drove it home.

Egwene countering Balefire and Androl's LAVA are a fraction of an inch lower.



(actually that reminds me of how annoyed I was at Aviendha blocking balefire with a rock in defiance of how Balefire has worked EVERY OTHER TIME we saw it.)

 

[datenchi]

I'd like to add Thom Merrilin to the "Big F@$&ing Hero Award". Why? Because he was a fuping badass in his one scene, JUST one, and he's one of the biggest players around.

 

[trueseeker]

I'd like to add Thom Merrilin to the "Big F@$&ing Hero Award". Why? Because he was a fuping badass in his one scene, JUST one, and he's one of the biggest players around.

Hmmmm.... Not quite a hero moment... I would say that would be more along the lines of a Badass Normal Award moment, and it would probably qualify as one of the top ones in the book too.

--TS

 

[trueseeker]

If you count tag teams, Lan + Rand is my winner - Lan was obscenely badass for what he did but it was Rand's omnipresent announcement that really drove it home.

Well if your teaming folks up, you got to get Tam in for that moment as well. He had that redonkulous setup in which he got the Two Rivers lads to literally work a straight line open in front of Lan one trolloc at a time, a foot in front of him, WHILE HE WAS ON HORSEBACK!

--TS

 

[seitora]

Well, I finally sat down and finished the rest of the book. I dunno, all my motivation to finish it just washed away awhile ago.

The ending sucked but the lead-up was fun, though I think some characters got a bit shafted for moments of awesomeness (see: Logain and some other scenes that would have been cool to see like the implied meeting between Hawking and Tuon. Also I think we got trolled with a lot of 'That person was killed by THIS PERSON?!' moments.

 

[Watashiwa]

Tell me about it. Glad it's over, but sadder to see how it ended than to see it end. I suppose it was inevitable.

But goddamn it Perrin. You just couldn't nearly keep up your performance in the last book could you?

 

[seitora]

After a day for it to ferment, I realised one of my biggest problems with the book.

Roughly, that there was probably at least a good 50 pages of bloat to all the various descriptions of fighting. Which is bad, because it's the Last Battle, what's there shouldn't feel like bloat, it should be fun and awesome and epic all the way through. You can only read through the nth variation of 'such-and-such character was badass and killed five Trollocs/Sharans/Dreadlords/etc. in only a few seconds' before getting bored.

Also, Graendal seemed to be vastly underused. Mesaana apparently managed to find the Seanchan continent, so it stands to reason Graendal could have gone there or gone to the Land of Madmen and basically Compulsed a few hundred Channelers to do her bidding or something (of course, that could have broken the plot, soooo...)

 

[Rising Dragon]

... Semirhage was the one who infiltrated the Seanchan, not Mesaana. Also, I don't recall a whole lot of "such -and-such character was badass and killed five Trollocs/Sharans/Dreadlords/etc. in only a few seconds" scenes in the books.

I do agree that it dragged on a bit. That chapter was... what, some two hundred pages long? As bad as the later-book prologues.

 

[seitora]

Yes, Semirhage I meant.

Off the top of my head, Mat kills a bunch of Sharan soldiers while going off on a romp to 'investigate the battlefield', Galad kills several Sharan channelers (with the help of a foxhead medallion, mind), Tam and multiple of the other Two River bowman all are stated to kill one Trolloc per arrow at a few points, and I think even Gawyn at one point does so with regular Sharans while he has the rings on.

 

[Rising Dragon]

Those scenes, at least Galad's specifically, were off-screen so to speak and stated after the fact; they were not really depicted in real-time as you're suggesting. Needless to say, though, they didn't spend a whole lot of time when did do such fighting. Or are you suggesting it would've been better if, say, they described Gawyn just running right past every danger on the battlefield and immediately facing off against Demandred, completely ignoring the chaos that is a battlefield?

 

[seitora]

It could as easily have been stated in retrospect, like have Gawyn up near Demandred thinking about the many Sharans he killed on his way up.

Speaking of that...I'm a little eh with Galad's "OH MY CREATOR the Dragon Reborn's my half-brother." But what's done is done.

 

[Ashaman]

I was actually bit weirded out that someone else had figured it out other than Rand, mostly because no other character had the necssary information apart from Rand.

Who was that told Galdad/Gawyn again?

 

[seitora]

It was that one Andoran noble chick who had part of it figured out first (that Rand looked a lot like Tigraine who ran off) and told him so. Maybe she told Gawyn? I totally can't remember.

 

[Rising Dragon]

IIRC, Elayne told Gawyn. My brain keeps telling me it was either her or Egwene, and I'm fairly sure it was Elayne from when she called him out on his behavior.

 

[seitora]

By the way, wasn't one of Min's foretellings that Aviendha was supposed to have quadruplets or something?

Because unless she's already pregnant, there's something disturbing about Rand using Moridin's body for that...

Also I just realised Elayne's kids will have the heritage of Mantear, Trakand and Damodred so lots of status there, DR's kids besides

 

[Rising Dragon]

Given the bond, I imagine the body wouldn't be too difficult for the girls to get past, since they KNOW it's Rand.

 

[trueseeker]

IIRC, Elayne told Gawyn. My brain keeps telling me it was either her or Egwene, and I'm fairly sure it was Elayne from when she called him out on his behavior.

I'm pretty sure it was Rand who told Gawyn and Egwene when he was talking with them right after both sides learned about the sacking of Caemlyn. Rand specifically goes on to mention that he and Elayne have no blood ties which is the first thing that comes to Gawyn's mind.

Gawyne then tells Galad for some kind of object lesson I couldn't understand and Galad.... He kinda just takes it in stride.

One thing I didn't get is how Leilwinn Shipless lasted as long as she did to try and get the seals broken when she should have been insane with depression and rage after the Epic Crystal Oblivion scene.

-TS

 

[seitora]

Given the bond, I imagine the body wouldn't be too difficult for the girls to get past, since they KNOW it's Rand.

I was talking more about that it's Moridin's body which was taken from a nameless Borderlander

So Avi's future kids would be born from an Aiel and...a Borderlander.

 

[Archanon]

IIRC, Elayne told Gawyn. My brain keeps telling me it was either her or Egwene, and I'm fairly sure it was Elayne from when she called him out on his behavior.

I'm pretty sure it was Rand who told Gawyn and Egwene when he was talking with them right after both sides learned about the sacking of Caemlyn. Rand specifically goes on to mention that he and Elayne have no blood ties which is the first thing that comes to Gawyn's mind.

Gawyne then tells Galad for some kind of object lesson I couldn't understand and Galad.... He kinda just takes it in stride.

One thing I didn't get is how Leilwinn Shipless lasted as long as she did to try and get the seals broken when she should have been insane with depression and rage after the Epic Crystal Oblivion scene.

-TS

Egwene released Leilwinn from the bond just before she did that. Thus it didn't break.

 

[Ashaman]

IIRC, Elayne told Gawyn. My brain keeps telling me it was either her or Egwene, and I'm fairly sure it was Elayne from when she called him out on his behavior.

I'm pretty sure it was Rand who told Gawyn and Egwene when he was talking with them right after both sides learned about the sacking of Caemlyn. Rand specifically goes on to mention that he and Elayne have no blood ties which is the first thing that comes to Gawyn's mind.

That's possible, but I distinctly remember one of the girls reacting as though it was obvious and they already knew.

In hindsight, it could have been from one of the guys POV and the woman in question was hiding her surprise

 

[trueseeker]

Egwene released Leilwinn from the bond just before she did that. Thus it didn't break.

Ahhh... Must have missed that, probably since I was so engrossed in one of the many epic moments of that book.

-TS

 

[trueseeker]

That's possible, but I distinctly remember one of the girls reacting as though it was obvious and they already knew.

In hindsight, it could have been from one of the guys POV and the woman in question was hiding her surprise

I think Gawyn brings it up with Elayne shortly after that and she pretty much goes, 'Duh, he already told me'. So you might be right on that aspect.

-TS

 

[Ashaman]

Maybe I only saw the "Duh" part and missed the "He already told me" part

 

[seitora]

Other random stuff in A Memory of Light...

I noticed in one of Demandred's POVs that he noted Asmodean had a great talent with the sword. Shoot, too bad the guy was posing as a gleeman or we might've seen some awesome fighting scenes.

 

[Archanon]

Egwene released Leilwinn from the bond just before she did that. Thus it didn't break.

Ahhh... Must have missed that, probably since I was so engrossed in one of the many epic moments of that book.

-TS

It was all of one sentence and that sentence also included Egwene throwing her through the gateway to safety so it's perfectly understandable.