The Wheel of Time

So, anyone else here reading this series. I am currently on page 138 of the sixth book. I am really enjoying it so far, the world and characters are interesting. I have spoiled the heck out of myself on this series so I already know a lot of important plot points from the later books.

I find I like Mat and Perrin better than Rand though. Rand just seems so, I dunno, angsty. I know he has a lot to deal with, I just miss Rand from The Eye of the World who was much less angsty.

I've gotten to the end of book 10. I have a love/hate relationship with Wo T. Part of me loves the implied impending Thirty Xanatos Pileup and the Loads And Loads Of Characters. Part of me wishes that the plot would just get a move on already.

Edit: If you think you know a lot of the important future plot points, you probably know almost all of the important plot points. Let's just say that things start slowing down right about where you are.

edited Fri, 23 Jan 2009 17:00:59 by Ironeye

They're doing a reread blog on tor.com right now, which might be good to read along if you're doing a reread yourself. Probably not recommended for first-timers because there may be spoilers for later, though.

Hmmm, I am on The Path of Daggers now. It seems to me like Verin could be considered The Chessmaster for the good guys.

...or the bad guys. We still don't know which side she's on. I'm personally a fan of Verin being one of the good guys, but there's certainly some evidence that she might not be.

I have to wonder if Jordan had some sort of fetish for blue eyes. He always notes when a character has them(And a lot do) and they are always described as "Startling".

edited 29th Apr '09 2:49:18 PM by Galeros

I got all the way up to about the last third of Crossroads of Twilight and stopped.

The big thing that sticks out in my memory about Wheel Of Time is that it's a lovely exercise in comparative mythology when you think about it.

I recall liking Mat the most.

How so Zephid? I am curious.

Leigh Butler has a theory that Americans like Mat so much because he's the one quintessentially "American" hero of the bunch. (Full details here in her Wheel Of Time reread blog.)

edited 29th Apr '09 4:04:01 PM by Ironeye

Ironeye: Yeah, I can definitely see that.

The bit Leigh brought up about the Aiel is also something I was wondering about. I thought that a people who live in the desert would have a darker skin tone and eye coloration. I know they are not native to the desert, and I do not know how long it would take for them to start become darker, for all I know 3,000 years may not be enough time. I still found it very odd though.

Red hair being a distinctive trait of the Aiel is downright silly, seeing as in real life, it occurs almost exclusively among the pastiest, most easily sunburned races on earth. It's actually directly associated with a mutation that increases sensitivity to ultraviolet.

Here is what I posed at another forum about how I am feeling about the series currently.

"Well, I am currently reading the Prequel New Spring in the Wo T series. On the main book series I am on Winter's Heart. I am enjoying the series, but like a lot of people I feel that it gets bogged down in descriptions of clothing and gestures the characters make. I mean, I know there IS a good story in there somewhere, it just gets hidden at times. The amount of plots going on at once, some of which are kind of boring also make the series difficult to read.

I feel that Jordan should have put more time into describing the setting at times, I find I know what the characters look like, but I am left wondering exactly what kind of environment they are in beyond just a City or a Forest. I also feel that a lot of the books feel sort of drab and gray, and lacking in something. I find that the first four or so books had much more description of the enviornment. I think things went sort of downhill for enviornment description once they got into the Aiel Waste.

The characters are great for the most part. I do not really like Rand though, but Mat and Perrin are two of my favorite characters in Fantasy Literature. I find the Aiel in general insufferable in their smug sense of superiority to everyone. This could just be certain characters though, as I find I like the character of Gaul.

Overall, I like the world and the characters, I just wish that Jordan had cut out a lot of the unecessary descriptions of clothing and all of the unecessary plots. I imagine 400 pages(I am basing this off of the paperback versions, I know that the hardcovers have a smaller page count due to being bigger) could be taken off of each book and there would still be a good story there."

EDIT: Desertopa:Yeah, I imagine they would tend to get sunburned easily. I know they mostly keep covered up, but there are still descriptions about how they walk around naked.

edited 29th Apr '09 5:55:07 PM by Galeros

Just before I started my dissertation, I read it up to A Crown of Swords, then, unsurprisingly, decided to give it a rest, because doorstoppers and massive workloads mix poorly.

I started re-reading it about two months ago, and am now up to Knife of Dreams (Book 11). I think my main problem with the series is that it seems progressively less happens in each book, after about book 6. It may just be me, but it seems that the plot is almost artifically being stretched out by this point.

My main interest is in seeing what happens to Logain, now. That's been developing for quite a while, and as one of the few characters who doesn't seem to be a complete Jerkass, I'd like to know where that is going.

edited 30th Apr '09 5:37:34 AM by Kaliayev

I like Logain, too. He's a cool character and should get more screentime. My favourite is Perrin, about whom I have similar feelings. Oh, and Faile needs to die, slowly and painfully. If Faile were to become dead, it would have the added bonus of spurring Perrin into righteous wolf rage.

Yeah, people have been complaining about padding since book 5. Unfortunately, this does make sense for a writer as popular as Jordan. Books 9 - 11 could have been condensed into one without too much pain, but why sell a single book for about €11.50 per copy when you can sell three for the same price each?

Even so, I'm going to get the last one/three, because dammit I've come this far and I want to see how it ends.

I think I am one of the few people who like Faile. I just have to wonder why Jordan named her that, it is like asking people to hate her.

Yeah, I know it means "Falcon"(I think) in their language, but still...

@Vampire Buddha

Yeah, Perin's not bad either. I actually like Mat from about the second book on as well, though he has his annoying moments. Generally when he's doing something badass or crazy > when he's wondering why he's still following Rand, or complaining he just wants a dance and to throw some dice.

As for padding, yeah. I don't begrudge the man for milking the series, but I'm sure with a bit of effort he could have gone about it in a better way. Maybe like focussing on a minor character more, or perhaps introducing one off characters to show a sort of ordinary person reaction to the events of the series. Something like that might've worked out better.

@Galeros

I don't think Faile is necessarily worse than many of the other characters in the series, though she is nowhere near a favourite of mine. Her name does make me laugh for all the wrong reasons though, I will admit. No, if there is one who really rubs me up the wrong way, its Egwegne.

From Page 242 of "New Spring"

"Cadsuane was a legend, a most uncomfortable thing to have alive and staring at you. Half the tales about her came close to impossibility, while the rest were beyond it, even among those that had proof."

So, Cadsuane can go Beyond the Impossible?

edited 2nd May '09 5:19:21 PM by Galeros

I have started rereading the series recently and while I got through both Eye of the World and Great Hunt in a week, I struggled with The Dragon Reborn for the rest of the month. I really wonder why this book isn't mentioned more when it comes to riffing the series. Sure, Crossroads of Twilight is a major practice in futility but The Dragon Reborn is just so much worse in my eyes.

Mat is getting some decent screentime, while Rand only shows up for the Deus ex Machina ending (despite the name of the book, mind you) and Perrin gets this stone named Faile chained to his leg. Don't get me wrong, at least in this book she is only mildly annoying. 90% of the book however is centered around Egwene, Nynaeve and Elayne. And oh my god, this is the point where the female character rot really has kicked in.

Egwene never had much depth to her until much much later and I utterly despised Elayne from the go as I do the real life snobby bitch cliche she is supposed to represent but ... what the hell happened to Nynaeve? She was pricky in the first books but I could get behind her motivation as some kind of older sister with responsibilities for her younger siblings who are being idiots most of the time. And now? A flat character defined by being angry all the time and ripping her hair out constantly. Oh. My. God. Worst case I've seen of Character Derailment ever.

And I really worry about anyone who still has a shred of sympathy left for them after they bully their way to Tear, get captured by the Black Ajah right away and when freed by Mat (Egwene might have avoided the worst but they were still going to rot in the prison without him) berate and use the one power on him because he has the audacity to race all the way from Caemlyn to Tear to save their hides? Any man OR woman would at this time denounce these people who are supposed to be friends as the petty self-important and helpless bitches they are.

Well, Jordan mixed a lot of mythologies into the cultures in Wheel Of Time. Watching them all interact is intriguing enough, to say the least. It's like Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, only it has action and suspense and romance instead of nonfictiony, scholarly diddering around.

edited 5th May '09 12:25:49 PM by Zephid

@Ana: Agreed. That's why it was so sweet when Birgitte called them on this in a later book.

Vampire: It was Aviendha who called them on it I think. Unless Birgitte did too. I can not remember. Of course, Aviendha is obnoxious in her own way.

Birgitte is about the only major female character in those books that didn't annoy the hell out of me... well, I guess Min wasn't horribly offensive either. Still, in such a large cast that's not a good track record.

Yeah, I actually liked Min. Of course, she also was in one of the biggest WTH moments of the series. "A brother's kiss"? The mind boggles.

I don't remember that part. Would you mind elaborating?

Rand's first kiss with Min (after she has had a bit of a breakdown) starts out as a "brother's kiss"—a comforting kiss—before it transitions to a passionate kiss. I want to know which guys out there would kiss their sisters on the lips to calm them down.