The Wheel of Time

My one overwhelming beef with the Sanderson-era books is that he somehow managed to:

1) Dramatically miss the point re: Rand's development as a character (going so far as to, in my opinion, put two very vital sequences in the wrong order.)

2) Completely misunderstand Mat's entire character and making him the hypercompetent, snarky sidekick who knows he's the hypercompetent, snarky sidekick instead of the hypercompetent, snarky sidekick who is himself a joke. It turned him from a likable, slightly bumbling figure into a colossal ass.

Also Taim might be a Darkfriend, but that doesn't mean the Black Tower is evil

edited 7th Mar '16 7:37:38 AM by math792d

I'm not sure what you mean regarding Rand (his character development never felt particularly coherent to me — which is understandable to an extent, given that he spends most of the series some variety of crazy), but I actually preferred late-series Mat to early-series Mat. The only thing Mat ever wanted was the freedom to make his own decisions. That's why he ends up gambling in random taverns whenever he got the chance; it provides a ready source of cash (which provides some independence on its own), and he's unlikely to be interrupted by Aes Sedai, nobles, or bossy women. By the end of the series, when he's gathered his own personal army, he doesn't have to avoid people who try to manipulate, bully, or shame him into doing what they want instead of what he wants, he can deal with them as equals, which usually means telling them to shut up, he doesn't have time for their bullshit. I guess that might make him seem like more of an asshole, but I guess I just found it refreshing given how much the main trio is steered around by other characters who are generally themselves assholes.

But the joke is that the reason Mat is denied that freedom is because he's got a part to play in saving the world, even if he very clearly doesn't want to.

And he demonstrated the power to get people to screw off much earlier than when he suddenly became this snarky, devil-may-care (frankly) jackass that he becomes later - look at how he tells of Elayne in (I believe) Crown of Swords, when she keeps acting like an ungrateful git after he pretty much saves her bacon.

His whole shtick was that he was simultaneously a person who was underestimated by others and who underestimated himself at the same time. In that way, he became the Light's ace in the hole - while the Darkfriends were off chasing the two people who seemed important (Rand and Perrin, who basically drew great back 'SHOOT ME' signs on their backs), ultimately Mat (against his own wishes) became one of their most dangerous enemies because they couldn't really predict him.

You could make the argument that late-series Mat has realized this (and that this is the source of all his new confidence) but honestly, sometimes it became more a case of 'I really want to use Mat as a mouthpiece to make fun of X character' when previously Mat was the butt of the joke. It's situational humor, not stand-up comedy.

Concerning the spoilered text at the end of Ninety's post: The White Tower is full of assholes and was run by a megalomaniac, but that doesn't mean it's an edifice of evil. An edifice of smug, sure, but that's a different matter.

On the subject of evil people who aren't Darkfriends, Whitecloaks, yo. They got professional torturers and shit and they haven't sold out to the Shadow. Even Valda, rapist prick that he is. Arguably Elaida, depending on whether you think she counts as evil. Arguably not Fain, since half of him was a Darkfriend at some point. In general, I think it makes sense for your basic selfish sort of evildoer to become a Darkfriend, given the way the cosmology's set up. If you're already going to be doing dirty deeds, why not make one little oath if it could benefit you?

I'm not sure this all needs to be spoiled, honestly. Isn't Ninety the only one here still reading through the books?

edited 8th Mar '16 1:46:49 AM by rikalous

I mean, I've only made it to book five but I wouldn't say I'm reading the books.

Which begs the question of why I'm still in this thread, but eh.

I'll be arsed if I can remember the ten billion names, but I seem to recall at least some of the Whitecloaks were Darkfriends, no?

I'm almost certain Usurper Boss Whitecloak wasn't a Darkfriend, just a terrible person. Who worked with Mordred-ified Padan Fain.

And I think what I was really getting at by bringing up the Questioners is that there's a fair bit of institutional evil where the Shadow doesn't enter into it. Just people doing their day jobs of torturing people into saying what you want them to or capturing and enslaving people or beating a farmer into the ground because he splashed mud on m'lord's cloak. Which might be orthogonal to your point, I dunno.

I dunno. Whitecloaks aside (I'm still waiting for them to be anything more than completely one-dimensional Inquisition analogues, by the way), we hear about stuff like Tairen nobles being legally allowed to kill peasants before Rand Randed it up in Tear, but we don't see it. There's not really much focus on that kind of stuff. Maybe I'm just jaded, but it seems like nine times out of ten, whenever a chapter starts with a new character being evil in their internal narration, it'll end with them thinking of the Great Lord or reporting to one of the Forsaken or something of the sort.

Hm. Yeah, that I'll give you. The ones who actually get focus are predominantly Darkfriends, yeah.

Part of that might be that I'm not sure whether to count everybody kicking puppies for justice (Elaida, say), because I'm not sure whether to call them actively evil or just really shit at being good. Swearing allegiance to not!Satan is great about cutting out that ambiguity, as a rule.

I mean, the Seanchan are perfectly capable of being cruel bastards with a relative minimum of Darkfriends.

Heck, Couladin let his entire clan into a civil war because he was a petty spiteful bastard. Also not a Darkfriend. His replacements might be a different story, but he was just hella mad.

Oh, and the Aes Sedai who locked Rand in a box to be shipped to the White Tower to repent his evil ways? Also just bastards without the involvement of the Dark One

edited 10th Mar '16 1:16:35 AM by math792d

Couladin was working with the local Forsaken in some capacity, as I recall. 'S how he got the fake tats.

While the Aes Sedai involved in the Box Plot weren't all Darkfriends, Galina was. Which was why she was pushing the whole torture thing as hard as she could.

Just remembered Mastema as another example of non-Darkfriend nastiness.

The guy who wants to be Rand's prophet? Oh yeah.

What a tool.

Also the guy who travels with Perrin I guess. The one who left his peacehugging tribe.

One of the major themes of the series is in fact that people don't need the ultimate evil to be giant raging dick bags- it just helps.

(We also see the Cairhien nobles being giant jerks without being Darkfriends.)

I believe some of Elayne's enemies in the civil war are also plain ol' dicks. Sure, they're not POV antagonists, but they're still dicks.

Oh, I forgot to mention my impression of Aram — specifically, what a waste of a character. What was the point of him again?

If not for SOMEONE deciding to die up and die (that's sarcasm), there would have been more on Aram I'm pretty sure.

The whole thing with Perrin got cut down short in order to compact everything down into three-book-ending.

The thought of Perrin's Shaido arc being the cut down version of what could have been fills me with terror.

Aram's part of Perrin's running theme of creation vs. destruction, shown most symbolically in his choice between the hammer and the axe.

Perrin's the guy who's uncomfortable committing violence, who has to keep telling himself that he's slashing apart brambles instead of people. He's the boy who had to learn to be slow and careful because otherwise he'd hurt people by accident and the man tempted by the Way of the Leaf. And the reason it's a temptation and not a welcome lifestyle change is that he feels that it's unrealistic, that like it or not sometimes combat has to happen. All he really wants is to be a blacksmith, to make things instead of breaking them, but the Pattern and the Age just won't play along. If Rand's story is the reluctant messiah and Mat's story is the reluctant hero, Perrin's story is the reluctant warrior.

So he comes back home to find that his family's been slaughtered by, so he thinks, Trollocs. He's at possibly his lowest point in the long-ass story. And here's his Tinker acquaintance Aram, who just like Perrin wants to kill some Trollocs to avenge his mother. And, hey, they're fucking Trollocs. If any sapient being deserves to be stabbed to death it's the soldiers of the Shadow. So Perrin takes him in, has him taught how to kill people, and earns his loyalty. And of course this means wonderful things for Aram, by which I mean it turns him into a creepy fanatic who eventually tries to kill Perrin. Because while for Rand or Mat or Egwene battles are just part and parcel of their new responsibilities, Perrin's story is one in which violence fucking sucks.

edited 11th Mar '16 11:03:06 AM by rikalous

That is a good analysis.

"The iron may be grateful to the fire, but it will never love it" (or words to that effect). One of my favorite quotes from WOT. Says a lot about it, and life in general.

So this is a thing.

Awesome

And now to recite the adaptation prayer:

please don't suck please don't suck please don't suck please don't suck

I will be very very very happy if this is a good adaption. no idea how it's gonna work with how long the series is though.

Time to make some sacrifices to some sort of deity? If we all chip in we might get a group discount!

edited 28th Apr '16 8:28:16 PM by 32ndfreeze

Alas, the Creator and the Light don't go in for that sort of thing. The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills.

My love for this series aside - and I've been with it since before Great Hunt hit shelves - I'm very curious to see how they pull this off, since younger me was certain it was unfilmable. There are crazy amounts of important sensory information that's explicitly not seen or heard, like Perrin's supernose and the emotions shared across the Warder bond and basically everything to do with using the Power. Nowadays I figure that someone good enough doing could totally pull that off, and I'm really curious to see how.