How big is The Last Battle?

[Michael]

Is it like the biggest battle ever written in fantasy? Better then the Lord of the rings? How big were the armies?

[Peter]

The Last Battle was fairly small. Essentially between Rand and the Dark One. Even if you count the ancilliary forces, most had been decimated many times over before the Last Battle occurred.

The biggest battle was probably the one between Sauron and Elendil. Or possibly the one between Morgoth and everybody else.

[Michael]

That's not the last battle is it,the last battle is when mat leads the armies right?

[Joel]

I felt that the last battle was huge. I was blown away with how well it was done. I would probably say it is comparable with Lord of the Rings, about the same as far as scale-wise. As far as the amount of detail, the number of POVs involved, and the shear number of pages dedicated to the Last Battle, I would probably say it is the biggest battle ever written in fantasy.

[Shawn]

What do you mean by 'biggest'?

Do you mean most pages devoted to it? Do you mean within the books themselves the number of armies fighting? Do you mean battles that actively are fleshed out in the pages of the books?

Just talking wheel of time vs LotR... wheel of time wins hands down. There are dozens of wars going on all the time. Just the seanchan vs the mainland is a bigger battle than anything that happens in LotR. The original wars when they broke the seal were bigger.. (and I won't go into wars like the Trolloc Wars or the war of 4 kings.. etc) it just depends upon what you are looking for specifically.

As far as the Last Battle itself.. considering the entire known world basically was involved in the Last Battle... meaning even men and women and children came to stand for the Light.. I will give it to Memory of Light.

As for 'better' that is completely subjective.

[infael]

I think Michael means "Was the Last Battle a huge, earth shattering fight with a lot of power being thrown around"?

It wasn't. As Shawn said, it was more like LOTR - there were armies fighting, while the main battle was considerably low-key. In LOTR, Man won the war when the One Ring was tossed in Orodruin's gut. Rand's battle seemed mostly mental. He did get support from Moraine and Nynaeve.

For a literal earth-shaking battle, the last Midkemia book, whose title I forget, had a battle that literally reshaped Midkemia.

[Shawn]

Well... no. The Last Battle did have a butt ton of power being thrown around.. that literally was shattering the earth.. lol. A lot more so than anything that happens in LotR.

But yes, the 'real' fighting was mental in both books. As you said.. tossing the ring in the volcano vs Rand basically fighting in his head.

[Michael]

I just meant armies and soldiers that kind of thing.

[Peter]

As I said - Morgoth versus everything else.

[infael]

Oh, armies. Yes. Mat vs. the Seanchan; Perrin vs a Forsaken.