The trouble with comparing Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time series with our world is that, in our reality, the Forsaken are the nobility. Here they already won, already rule the world, and the Creator died a long time ago. The Blight is global and we all live there, and real heroes are always on the run from the Shadow and rarely know peace because the commoners obey the Trollocs and Myrddraal and believe it has always been so. There are dark forces, but they wear designer clothes, not hoodies.