The Wheel of Time

Much like some of the later books, most of Lord of Chaos is spent waiting for Rand to do something (cough cough Winter's Heart). But when he does... the battle at Dumai's Wells may be one of my favourite moments in the series. We get to see the Asha'man in action for the first time and it's brutal.

edited 14th Oct '14 2:37:17 PM by JimmyTMalice

Yeah, that was pretty fucking awesome.

So, recently been doing a reread of Wot. I have a bit of a question and I was wondering if those here more proficient in wot lore fu could help me out. The Seanchan and their Empress, I believe I remember reading that they haven't had an Emperor in quite some time (the one who got slapped by his truthsayer) and that they have had a long string of Empress for a while now. Is it stated that the succession laws now favor women due to something this Emperor did? If Tuon has no girls would the throne pass to her closest female kin?

Also had a bit of a theory, In the Aiel back story visions in book 4, the Soldiers of the forces of the light were wearing armor that sounded a lot like Seanchan Armor. I don't recall Mat ever mentioning that Hawkwing's troops wore these armors so I can only assume that Luthair copied them from the supposed Armies of the Night he fought in Seanchan. These were led by Aes Sedai who knew how to access portal stones and make ter'angreals so it can be safe to assume that the Breaking did not screw up the Seanchan as much as it did the Randlands.

edited 23rd Oct '14 1:33:20 PM by GrieverVIII

Seanchan might have been helped by the Hundred Companions all being off in the Westlands where Shayol Ghul is now when saiden got tainted.

I guess it all depends on how much the breaking actually rearranged the world. Was the Aryth Ocean there before? If not perhaps it was created early on during the breaking and the people on the other side were spared from most of the actual stuff going down. On the other hand, they must had experienced enough of the breaking to screw most of civilization up or else Tuon would be going around riding Jo-cars and Sho-Wings.

Edit: Wiki says Aes Sedai were 3% of the population. Since the population of the Age of Legends was probably even or even higher than our own that would make 210,000,000 channelers if the population was 7 billion. Half of that number going mad and blowing stuff up...All things considered I am surprised things went as well as they did.

edited 23rd Oct '14 6:10:17 PM by GrieverVIII

So Mat just got raped at knifepoint by the queen of the nation where men are second-class citizens. What the fuck, Jordan.

Ah. Yes. That part. I try to avoid thinking about it.

To be fair, he does not see it that way. That part still annoys me though.

Mat, or Jordan?

In either case, that kind of makes it... worse?

edited 31st Oct '14 12:40:34 PM by kegisak

He did not want to have sex. She threatened his life to coerce him to. There's really not much wiggle room. I've disliked Jordan's stances on gender relations from the first book, but damn.

The gender relations stuff generally doesn't bug me (mostly because I really fucking hate the gender relations status quo in most fantasy,) but yeah, that scene really sucks.

Though the worst part is the way it gets resolved.

At least it's mostly compensated for by the fact that by my metrics you're on book 7, otherwise known as "Mat Cauthon goes to town on ALL the people."

edited 31st Oct '14 12:54:51 PM by math792d

Have you been raped if you don't consider yourself to have been raped? The gender relations are annoying I agree, but its thematic and stuff. Men and woman can't work together or communicate and things are crappy as opposed to the age of legends when they did and things were peachy.

Yes. Yes you can, in fact.

Well, they can work together and communicate, it's just that there's a big institutionalized gender contrast built in to the very fabric of the universe through the divide between saidar and saidin. The fact that, in the Wheel of Time universe, men were responsible for the 'original sin' event also contributes to the reason why shit dun be fucked up.

edited 31st Oct '14 1:02:12 PM by math792d

The I guess its possible to consider your rape to not be that big a deal or else be only mildly annoyed that you have been raped.

Saidin and Saidar are two parts of one whole. I agree about the original sin aspect and highly suspect that men and women in the Age of Legends did not interact the way the people of the third age do.

edited 31st Oct '14 1:06:23 PM by GrieverVIII

Maybe it's a gender bias of my own, I dunno, but I find the women really frustrating, but the men more sympathetic. Because the women's stance seems to be universally "Men are morons and I can do better", while the men's stance is "Women are crazy". Which given the circumstances? Yeah, they kind of are.

Then again, the feamle cast is: The all-wise kidnapper Moiraine, the Can-do-no-wrong-n-matter-how-much-of-an-abusive-know-it-all-bitch-she-is Egwene, and the Potentially interesting character who spiraled into a ball of rage and hypocrisy and got her character arc crippled by it Nynaeve. So it might just be that I take issue with the women represented, rather than the women as a whole.

I'm still trying to work up the motivation to start on book 5. Or 6? I can't recall anymore. The last one I read ended with the first major Battle scene against Couladin's army.

I agree.

I honestly don't know what kind of women Jordan knew, but at least I've met a few who don't think of men as oblivious idiots, and for that matter I hardly know any men that view women as an unsolvable puzzle. Seriously, I don't think there's a single female POV that doesn't go over how incomprehensible men are and how they never know what's good for themselves, and the opposite also holds true to a certain extent. It's one of the greatest gripes I have with this series. (Others being the padding, excessive amount of characters, and like I've said before, how fucking immature everyone is.)

The whole joke is that everyone thinks the 'opposite sex' is confusing and makes no sense. It is a failure of communication, but that's intentional.

And I think their immaturity is deliberate. This is a coming of age story, and I think that's a part of what makes it compelling in the first place, especially since it manifests in different ways.

edited 31st Oct '14 1:20:18 PM by math792d

For my self, I generally liked the female characters but each had a book where they drove me nuts. Egwene had book 5 where she bullies others to cover her own wrong doings, Nyneave and Moraine had book 4, although Nyneave makes up for it at the very end. Elayne pretty much any time she interacts with Mat. Its funny, at the beginning, I liked Elayne the most yet by the end she is pretty much my least favorite. The only important female character that never annoyed me is Min.

Yes, remember that all the main characters are around 18-20 years old.

edited 31st Oct '14 1:26:51 PM by GrieverVIII

Oh, I'm not talking just about the young adult main characters. I'm talking about how every damn discussion with everyone seems to be a dick-waving contest. Force of personality is the only thing that matters. Half the conversations are trying to bully the other person into agreeing with you, one way or another.

I think that may be due to the prevalence of the Aes Sedai, who hold dick-measuring contests as a way of life.

Which may be some kind of deconstruction of Wizard Races. I mean, if you consider the thing that sets you above or apart from other people magic, it does kind of make sense you're going to judge your status among your own by magic too.

But yeah. I got that the whole idea of both genders finding the other silly while displaying the qualities they claim not to understand was a joke, but that doesn't really make it not annoying at times. It wouldn't be so bad if it happened less often, but...

That is true, one my only few complaints about the series is how the characters never just have a pleasant chat. It's mainly arguments. Although I suppose that has to do with the whole theme of "lack of communication is screwing stuff up". If you notice whenever the characters don't try to bully each other or serenely hide some secret, it usually turns out well.

edited 31st Oct '14 1:36:59 PM by GrieverVIII

Yeah, the whole point is that the "forceful conversation and force of personality" thing...very rarely works out. Personal charisma only goes so far.

They get more into that in book...8 or 9, I can't remember which one, especially with Rand, and a lot of Rand's character arc from here on out is basically making him less of a giant jerk.

Does he get really bad? Because so far he's been as much of a jerk as the situation calls for, most of the time.

I'd disagree with that notion (i.e that Rand's general 'might makes right' policy is really justified,) but yeah, he does get worse, especially in his isolationism, believing that the weight of the world is on his shoulders, mostly because he keeps underestimating people around him and their ability to change the world.

What I've seen so far is less "Might makes right" and more "I'm in charge and I may as well act like it, and if I'm in charge I expect people to treat me like it".

The only shows of force I've seen have been against, well, scheming nobility and whatnot. So I can't blame him for that, especially since he hasn't had to follow through on any threats yet.

But again, only on book 4-5.