Emphasis mine:
Question: In Winters Heart, you mention that back in the Age of Legends, there were several other Forsaken that the Dark One had killed because he suspected they would betray him. What's their story?
Robert Jordan Answers: Forsaken was the name given to Aes Sedai who went over to the Shadow in the War of the Shadow at the end of the Age of Legends, though of course, they called themselves the Chosen, and despite the tales of the "current” Age, there were many more than a few of them. Since they occupied all sorts of levels, you might say that many were equivalent to some of the lesser Dreadlords, but it would be incorrect to call them so. At the time, they were all Forsaken—or Chosen—from the greatest to the least.
Some of those Forsaken the Dark One killed were every bit as high-ranking as the thirteen who were remembered, and who you might say constituted a large part of the Dark One's General Staff at the time of the sealing. With the Forsaken, where treachery and backstabbing were an acceptable way of getting ahead, the turnover in the upper ranks was fairly high, though Ishamael, Demandred, Lanfear, Graendal, Semirhage, and later Sammael, were always at the top end of the pyramid. They were very skilled at personal survival, politically and physically.
In large part the thirteen were remembered because they were trapped at Shayol Ghul, and so their names became part of that story, though it turned out that details of them, stories of them, survived wide-spread knowledge of the tale of the actual sealing itself. Just that they had been sealed away. Other Forsaken were left behind, so to speak, free but in a world that was rapidly sliding down the tube. The men eventually went mad and died from the same taint that killed off the other male Aes Sedai. They had no access to the Dark One's protective filters. The women died, too, though from age or in battle or from natural disasters created by insane male Aes Sedai or from diseases that could no longer be controlled because civilization itself had been destroyed and access to those who were skilled in Healing was all but gone. And soon after their deaths, their names were forgotten, except for what might possibly be discovered in some ancient manuscript fragment that survived the Breaking. A bleak story of people who deserved no better, and not worth telling in any detail.
- TOR Question of the Week
Question: In Winters Heart, you mention that back in the Age of Legends, there were several other Forsaken that the Dark One had killed because he suspected they would betray him. What's their story?
Robert Jordan Answers: Forsaken was the name given to Aes Sedai who went over to the Shadow in the War of the Shadow at the end of the Age of Legends, though of course, they called themselves the Chosen, and despite the tales of the "current” Age, there were many more than a few of them. Since they occupied all sorts of levels, you might say that many were equivalent to some of the lesser Dreadlords, but it would be incorrect to call them so. At the time, they were all Forsaken—or Chosen—from the greatest to the least.
Some of those Forsaken the Dark One killed were every bit as high-ranking as the thirteen who were remembered, and who you might say constituted a large part of the Dark One's General Staff at the time of the sealing. With the Forsaken, where treachery and backstabbing were an acceptable way of getting ahead, the turnover in the upper ranks was fairly high, though Ishamael, Demandred, Lanfear, Graendal, Semirhage, and later Sammael, were always at the top end of the pyramid. They were very skilled at personal survival, politically and physically.
In large part the thirteen were remembered because they were trapped at Shayol Ghul, and so their names became part of that story, though it turned out that details of them, stories of them, survived wide-spread knowledge of the tale of the actual sealing itself. Just that they had been sealed away. Other Forsaken were left behind, so to speak, free but in a world that was rapidly sliding down the tube. The men eventually went mad and died from the same taint that killed off the other male Aes Sedai. They had no access to the Dark One's protective filters. The women died, too, though from age or in battle or from natural disasters created by insane male Aes Sedai or from diseases that could no longer be controlled because civilization itself had been destroyed and access to those who were skilled in Healing was all but gone. And soon after their deaths, their names were forgotten, except for what might possibly be discovered in some ancient manuscript fragment that survived the Breaking. A bleak story of people who deserved no better, and not worth telling in any detail.
- TOR Question of the Week
I was Phelix on wotmania, I will always be Phelix in the "real" world, and now I am Phelix on RAFO.
You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous and true and also fierce you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her.- Churchill
*MySmiley*
You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous and true and also fierce you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her.- Churchill
*MySmiley*
DEATHMATCH - Rand VS LTT
22/08/2010 08:38:19 PM
- 805 Views
Puppies! *NM*
22/08/2010 08:41:42 PM
- 461 Views
Re: I beg to differ.
22/08/2010 08:47:39 PM
- 562 Views
Beg all you like, I'm still right.
22/08/2010 08:51:01 PM
- 607 Views
Re: Ok i won't beg to differ, I'll just disagree flat out
22/08/2010 08:54:37 PM
- 632 Views
Again, you're wrong.
22/08/2010 09:13:37 PM
- 546 Views
Re: No you're wrong
23/08/2010 02:33:42 AM
- 519 Views
Again, no. RJ himself agrees with me.
23/08/2010 02:43:48 AM
- 486 Views
Re: No, if anything RJ and you proved my point
23/08/2010 02:50:53 AM
- 554 Views
Only because your point keeps changing.
23/08/2010 02:55:46 AM
- 457 Views
Those six weren't the absolute best, they were among the best.
25/08/2010 01:59:49 AM
- 481 Views
Re: Those six weren't the absolute best, they were among the best.
27/08/2010 06:29:54 AM
- 477 Views
Re: Those six weren't the absolute best, they were among the best.
27/08/2010 11:45:48 AM
- 405 Views
Ishmael's only died once.
27/08/2010 07:07:53 PM
- 590 Views
That's Ishamael *NM*
29/08/2010 06:15:59 AM
- 580 Views
Yeah, my bad. I kept looking at it, knowing I was using the biblical one. *NM*
30/08/2010 05:36:15 AM
- 238 Views
I don't see this great prowess of LTT
23/08/2010 02:41:58 AM
- 443 Views
Who survived centuries of the collapse?
23/08/2010 02:46:25 AM
- 439 Views
Re: Who survived centuries of the collapse?
23/08/2010 02:55:23 AM
- 509 Views
If by failed, you mean that
23/08/2010 03:15:26 AM
- 474 Views