Wheel of Time: Worth it or not?

The outriders aren't gonna happen. RJ basically left nothing about them.

Well its not so much as unrealistic as just to realistic and more of the same we see in Real Life. For example (Spoilers upcoming) If you compare the fates of the Forsaken All but one of the men are defeated in combat while the Women all under go long, drawn out humiliations and suffer before being defeated. The subtext of the stories is that women being in charge is a bad thing and "balance" needs to be restored with men regaining power and authority over women.

edited 14th Feb '13 6:42:47 PM by ToasterDustV3

That's ridiculous- it's stated at the very start that the reason the Age Of Legends was so great was because men and women worked together as equals to build as never before, and the idea of "men should be in power over women" was a true theme, the competent female rulers like Elyane, Egwene, Berlain, Morgouse, and so on wouldn't be in power, and shown repeatedly to be not only good, but excellent leaders.

edited 15th Feb '13 2:12:28 PM by LMage

I don't doubt that that message of equality and so on was the one that Robert Jordan wanted to present but the story is just filled with unequal subtext. For starters the Dragon is always a man, so the world can only be saved by the actions of a man, it doesn't matter how powerful a woman may be, destiny ensures that it all comes down to the actions of the chosen male. Then there is the differing natures of Saidar and Saidin. Men have to struggle with and master Saidin, while women have to submit to Saidar and by surrendering to it they can control over it. This analogy is frequently brought up by female characters as the way to control other, male, characters such as Rand. Also why is it that there are polygynous cultures but no polyandrous ones. Gender roles still exist in this world.

That is not to say that Wheel of Time is unique in this regard, merely a bloated and poorly crafted example of this sort of thinking. So to reiterate, Wheel of Time is not worth it.

Quite apart from all that gender guff, the books are also very, very long-winded and boring.

I think you are imagining subtext where non exists- yes the Dragon is always male, but Brigitte Silverbow is always female, as our many heroes of the Horn. In this Age, at this time, the world hinges on the actions of the Dragon, but how many other hundreds of stories of legend and awe does the Author take great pains to point out not only exist, but have shaped and changed the world? Yes- the Dragon is on whom the Pattern currently depends, but don't forget the only reason he is saving the world now is because he screwed it up last time.

As for the Power- your forgetting another intense symbolism that Jordan outlines constantly. Saidin's primary purpose is to destroy, to battle, to war, while saidar builds and orders and improves. The two sides of the one power are about more then just surrender and struggle, they are about balance and duality- saidar is about temperance, peace, and wisdom, while saidin is about destruction, war, and battle. And even that is a gross oversimplification of the themes that run behind the One Power. To break it down into "Oh the implication is women are weaker because they have to surrender to saidar and men are stronger because they have to fight with saidin" is completely missing the point Jordan was trying to make.

And on the subject of polyandry- did you completely miss the Green Ajah? The Aes Sedai famous for A) Having more then one Warder and B) Marrying their Warders? In fact it's explicitly said the Myrelle married all of her Warders (of which she had three).

I can't say if the series is worth it or not to the OP. Their is no denying that the books run at a very high level that many people will not have the patience for, and that their are times they drag and move slowly, but I think that is countered more then enough by their gripping realism, their sprawling and intricate plot, and most of all their expansive, in depth, deeply moving character development. The books are real in a way few F Antasy series can manage- everyone, villain heroes and in between is flawed and challenged, and every character grows over the series in a undeniable fashion, and grows in such a way that not only can I believe it, my breath is taken away by how true it rings.

The series is beautiful, moving, epic, if you can truly allow yourself the patience to take it bit by bit. It's certainly not an easy read, but it is most defiantly a rewarding one. It is- to me- without among the best fantasy ever written, and is my own personal favorite. I would recommend everyone at least give it a fair try.

Disagree. Fundamentally.

edited 19th Feb '13 8:13:03 AM by LMage

I think the series gets a bad reputation for unfair reasons. The gender politics are 100% intentional and are done to highlight what a society would be like if all the male magic users caused an apocalypse and the resulting sexism and matriarchal-leaning social groups having to deal with the Dragon Reborn. It's not perfect and many chunks could have really used more edits, but none of it feels too indulgent or out of place. It is without a doubt the most complex and scientific magic system to ever feature in literature.

It takes a farmboy, a gambler, and a blacksmith and slowly but surely developes them from clueless protagonists who barely survive by the skin of their teeth and makes them into heroes you'd genuinely root for if you could meet them. And I will say without a doubt Mat is the single most Genre Savvy protagonist I have ever come across and is probably one of the top five most Crazy Awesome characters in fiction.

On the subject of "the world depends solely on the Dragon" - I'd say that entirely contradicts the message of the books. Rand begins to crack because he thinks everything depends on him (which is an easy trap to fall into, given the prophecies and how other people treat him). It takes him most of the series to realise that there are others he has to share the burden with, who have roles which are as vital to the Pattern as his prophesied one. The Last Battle would have been lost without him, yes, but it also would have been lost without Moiraine, Nynaeve, Faile or Egwene.

And what pray tell is the deeper meaning that I am missing in this series. I won't deny that there are some interesting ideas in the series but good intentions alone are worth nothing. And as to the books being "real" I found them anything but. In the parts that I read the characters were fairly indistinguishable and perhaps they do get better in the second half of the series but it shouldn't take "real" people thousands of pages worth of story to get better. The bloat of the series more than counteracts any good that comes from it.

Even in the Green Ajah it is not usual for them sedai to marry more than one of their warders, and the character recounting the rumor about Merille says something to the affect of "she is rumored to have married all three, and that must be unheard of even where she is from." Her decision to possibly have married all three isn't connected to being a Green, and is only speculated as being to where she is from, but that is dismissed even given the rumors about her homeland.

And the idea of conquering versus submission doesn't mean that women are weaker, but it does play on the gender stereotype of women as the nurturing class. Just because it is not a stereotype that implies weakness or inferiority doesn't mean it isn't a gender stereotype that typifies women as fundamentally one way and men as fundamentally another. This is especially grating in a series that otherwise shows a wide range of ways to be feminine or masculine with both men and women as warriors, cooks, merchants, sailors, scholars, etc.

The Dragon is always a man because, like That Forsaken who was reincarnated by the Shadow into a woman the source of magic remains the same. The Dragon uses Saidin, so must be brought back as a man every time to use Saidin.

I have a lot of problems with the Wheel of Time.

A lot of them are with the characters themselves, a lot of them are with the writing style of Robert Jordan, a lot are with the pacing problems of the story as a whole. I won't go into them in detail.

But I have read this series through three times. All fourteen books, thrice, in some order or other.

So I think it's fair to say that I think the faults of the series (which are not always minor faults) are FAR outweighed by its strengths.

(Edit: Only just realised how hard this thread has been necro'd - yeeeesh)

edited 20th Dec '17 7:29:47 AM by GoldenKaos

I have several friends who speak highly of the series, so I tried it. I made it to the opening of book 10 (or maybe it was book 11 - I don't really remember anymore), then realized I didn't remember who most of these characters in that opening were and didn't care. I had already found the last few books to be something of a slog, so I moved on to other things. I might go back to it one day, since I rather like Brandon Sanderson's work.

My conclusion is that there are some good ideas in the books (along with many, many ideas I've seen before and a few really bad ones), but most of the characters are just names, several of the villains are cartoonishly Stupid Evil (I'm looking at you, Elaida), and the sheer mass of the thing is simply too much. Robert Jordan desperately needed an editor that would have kept him under control, rather than his wife.

But then, he did sell books, didn't he?

The books were flawed, but did get better. In the beginning, the books are fun to read and have good characters. I really liked The Dragon Reborn. However, in the middle, the books just dragged. So. MUCH. The Aes Sedai Civil War lasted 8 books. The Crossroads of Twilight were the lowest point int he franchise, but from Knife of Dreams onward the book is back to its former glory, with the addition of Sanderson making them awesome. The series has faults, but is still and excellent read.

Also, I am the Necromancer!