I guess as a writer- especially of a story as long as the Wheel of Time seems to be, it's hard not to make a mistake. It's commendable how much Robert Jordan accomplished with it. The way it reads from start to present, it seemed like just a small story he had made that grew and grew and grew into something far more. The best part about his books- I think- is his characterization. His world seems filled with people and the world itself seems like a world of distance and dimensions. But I couldn't get passed the biggest plot hole that seems to be in a lot of fantasy books like this. What prevent's the uber-powerful bad guys from just killing everyone in the beginning? The Forsaken are powerful. Several times as powerful as the average channeler. Why can't they just weave gateways all over the place and allow thousands of trollocs to poor through the cities all at once- everywhere and anywhere. Weave Gateways and kill the Amyrlin Seat over and over again. It would have taken probably a year or so, but a group of male Forsaken who could not be sensed doing guerrilla attacks against Aes Sedai- killing them outside the Tower as well as in- they would have killed almost every Sister in the world in short order. He probably would not get all of them, but it would shut them down considerably and the ones that are left and the untrained could be recruited or killed off systematically. Later. By virtue of the Gateways alone, the could create tremendous Chaos and unravel order from the start- creating a post-apocalytic world so to speak. With the Dark Friends and Black Ajah still hidden as covert spies even in all this disarray like silent assassins and secret police, and never- themselves- appearing out in the open to give Aes Sedai an open target to attack, why couldn't they just do all this in the beginning?
I stopped reading the series midway through the 4th book (i don't know why it got a little dry) but I think there were 2 reasons for this. One, were that the Forsaken didn't like working with each other. And two, they were all released from their prisons at different times.
