The Wheel of Time

Yeah, they were called fool boxes in the old tongue. I was mainly getting across that he basically calls the aiel idiots directly to their faces without any kind of shame just because he was 100% confident the Aiel would be too "stupid" to realize he was doing it. Complete with Graendal probably slamming her head against the tree in frustration in the background.

That's always what I liked about Sammael. Scenes like that make him look like a reckless idiot, but then he had that scene where he genuinely gets the better of master manipulator Graendal and becomes immune to all her tricks, scaring the hell out of her. He genuinely has his moments of brilliance. He's just a bit too much of a dick to fully capitalize on it.

Edited by GNinja on Aug 16th 2019 at 2:24:04 PM

I'm gonna be honest, I'd forgotten about a lot of those. Jordan was the kind of dude that was glad writing is a one-handed activity, huh?

I remember speaking to someone who said "Oh, there's no sex in these books. It's nothing like Game Of Thrones."

I was just like "Are you out of your mind? They go at it like rabbits at certain points."

Jordan might actually be kinkier than GRRM. He's just more... euphemistic about it. He uses a lot of veiled language. But you know, you still have stuff like all the women of the White Tower getting topless so Egwene can wash their feet during her initiation ceremony.

That's the thing about fetishes, isn't it? A page-long description of raunchy sex can feel less sexual than just someone going way too into detail about a character's feet or whatever.

I have previously described Wheel of Time as one of those book series where you know exactly what the author is horny on main for.

The fantasy canon is full of 'em.

Yeah, I'm not big on trying to psychoanalyze authors by the fiction they write, but sometimes it's as subtle as a sledgehammer with neon signs on it.

Seconded on both points. Incidentally, it amuses me that no matter how much Weird Jordan Shit they clean up the girl-on-girl mind control leashes are just too plot-important to cut.

Re:Sammael, "too much of a dick to fully capitalize" is basically the subtitle of the Forsaken in general.

I have a laundry list full of issues with WOT seriously I have a lot but the way the Forsaken were written to be a dysfunctional bunch of backstabbing and ego-tripping Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond (of sorts) yet still be a legitimate threat was great.

As it turns out, Team Evil is mostly full of self-effacing assholes whose only quasi-unifying idea is the burning desire to be on top.

It's a very 'real' take on the banality of evil that fantasy often forgets in lieu of more overtly symbolic villains representing a particular evil. Usually sexual liberation, anti-authoritarianism, anti-classism or somesuch, because a lot of fantasy is mired in very reactionary ideas.

Well, from fantasy to power fantasy there's a small step. I'd say there's a bit of that in the Forsaken, even the most pathetic ones have some sort of Evil Virtues. Hell, arguably the smartest and one of if not the most successful (Ishamael is cheating) is Graendal, who could've been a very standard Evil Sexy Lady who Sexes Evilly if written slightly differently.

Honestly, the thing I'm most interested in for a Wheel of Time show is the fact that I feel like what the Wheel of Time novels really needed was one or two more aggressive editing passes. The story has so many narrative blind alleys and there are so many characters that seem important when they appear but turn out the be largely inconsequential in the big picture that it's hard to keep track of what's going on even if you're doing a straight binge read of the whole series and have everything fresh in mind (to say nothing of if you were reading the books as they came out, years apart). A TV series would have the chance to fix a lot of that by streamlining the story for a new format.

But then again, I'll admit to not actually much liking Wheel of Time, so actual fans of the series are presumably people who liked the fact that the story was complicated and narratively messy. (Which is valid — the fact that it doesn't tell a neat, linear story definitely makes the setting feel more true to life and... well, less like a story invented for the reader's benefit.)

I always loved the gimmick of Aginor. That while he's useless during the events of the series, that's only because his entire skillset is based around tools that physically don't exist anymore. I heard someone make the comparison: (it might have been Jordan himself) "He's a hacker dropped into a world without computer chips." And still, the legacy of Aginor exists in the monsters he created long ago like the Trollocs and the Gholam.

Yeah, I always liked that too.

It's a shame really we didn't get a bit more time inside his head really.

Those little tidbits the Forsaken drop on occasion about life in the AOL were always really interesting, and it would have been nice to learn more Shadowspawn details.

I'll still say that the Masema subplot was handled spectacularly poorly.

I never hated the Elayne subplot. I always liked her master of coin who doubled as her spymaster but steadfastly hated being considered such.

I think the big thing that I would want added to Wo T is a concrete example of the Dark One destroying a prophecy.

I loved this idea that was brought up before the Last Battle, where people are saying "Well, the Pattern says Rand is going to win, so why are we worried?" The Wise Ones counter with: "The Pattern cannot fathom it's own destruction, so of course any prophecy it lays out will assume that Rand will be victorious. In the face of the Dark One, prophecy ceases to exist, so we can only see futures where that doesn't happen."

I think, to really get across this idea, and this unique trait of the Dark One, there should've been a prophecy alongside the 3 main Ta'veren that fails completely because it's eroded by the Dark One. It would get across that just because the Pattern is trying to guide things into their "proper" places, that's not a guarentee that things can't go completely off the rails

Eh, it was nuked out by Balefire.

Honestly, Crossroads of Twilight isn't as bad as some people make it out to be. I'm on my first re-read and found myself enjoying all the different perspectives. I really like reading the Asha'man's reaction to the Saidin being cleansed. When the one with Perrin could stop grinning while channelling was a highlight for me.

I've gone through the slog at least three times, and ... yeah, people do overstate it. I mean, I'm 25% into Gardens of the Moon at the moment and finding it far, far harder than I ever found Wheel of Time.

Looking at the last couple of pages people really seemed to hate Gawyn. Why was that again? It was a while since I last read this series so I don't remember much I remember him taking some kind of deadly artifact and hiding said fact from Egwene, but not much else.

Having a giant hate-boner against Rand for kinda weak reasons didn't help very much.

Why did he hate Rand, again?

Because Elayne fancied him maybe? Or it could have been the stigma against male channelers in general. I forget the actual reason.

Edit: Looked up his entry - it was jealousy over this farmer's son becoming a big mover and shaker, while he, a prince, played a far smaller part in the world-shaping events going on around them.

Edited by GoldenKaos on Nov 19th 2019 at 5:32:42 PM

Also, some random details I remember finding really wierd back when I read these books:

Nynaeve healing the guy mad from Saidin. Like she's done similar achievements before, like healing Loghain so he could channel again. But that was something she tried doing for a long ass time before succeeding while healing madness was something she just kinda happened to stumble upon with no real effort. Wouldn't someone else have been able to do something similar if it was so easy?

The way the Children of the Light's enmity towards the Aes Sedai is resolved. It's established that they believe all channelers are darkfriends by default. It's explained later on in a really short aside that their scripture only really says that they're susceptible to corruption, but it's clear that pretty much all of them have interpreted it as all of them being evil. Then by like the final book Galad just says that they should stop being enemies with the Aes Sedai since they need to fight together in the Last Battle and everyone just agrees with him even though they should all believe that the Aes Sedai will fight on the opposite side. What?

Regarding Nynaeve, I think it was explained through basically that she not only had an affinity for healing, but she was also less constricted by inherited teachings and traditions and was really adept at thinking outside the box and trying new things as well as having the courage and/or confidence to attempt them when many Sisters stuck to what they knew and were (understandably) terrified of dipping their toe into the unknown because the ramifications could be so dire.