The Wheel of Time

The show turned Matt from a hedonistic prankster into a man from a dysfunctional family with the odd moment of being a Sad Clown. And Thom was barely in the show. I actually like the show on the whole, but I do wish it would lighten up a bit.

I admit I never warmed to Matt. My impression of him was formed by corrupted dagger Matt so I never considered the Han Solo version of him to be "real." My head version of Matt was set as an unrepentant jerkass.

I like show Matt more because he has his reasons to be and is doing his best in a bad situation.

I remember the dagger being one of my biggest disappointments in book1. I really liked how Matt showed that this is not some happy adventure and what happens when the stress and hopelessnes of such a situation sinks in, only to have it caused by a magical dagger... I felt robbed of a big charactermoment, for him to regain hope. People kept telling me Matts character gets better over time, but honestly for me Matt was my favourite of the three in book1, annoying in book2 (but he was dying so i can forgive him here) and peaked in 3. Then i just liked him less with each passing book.

Mat's biggest appeal is that he's the only one of the main three who's actually enjoying the whole "go on an epic adventure, see the world, do wild shit" thing at all. Rand is busy going insane and being crushed under the weight of expectations. Perrin is a homebody at heart and mostly just wants to be left in peace. Mat is out there at least trying to have a good time when he can, even if he keeps getting pulled into deadly danger and situations of world-changing importance because of the whole ta'veren thing.

Mat's also got the most relatable powers of the three. Rand is the most powerful wizard ever, Perrin has his weird not-werewolf thing going on, but Mat's just got insane luck and memories of strategic genius that are explicitly not his. In other words, he's a normal guy whose powers are essentially borrowed from other people, which makes it easier to put yourself in his shoes.

Edited by NativeJovian on Jan 31st 2022 at 10:49:47 AM

He's also just more entertaining in general. Always feels like he's pulling insane shit off by the skin of his teeth and falling ass-backwards into ever-increasing duty and glory, compared to Perrin's Very Serious Quests and Rand's mental illness bingo night.

I really enjoyed Mat (though I felt like the bit in Ebou Dar went on too long), until Sanderson got hold of him. I really liked the moment where Rand told him the only way he was going to have any kind of control over his life was if he just did what the Wheel clearly wanted him to do.

I'm probably misremembering the books, but I don't remember Mat ever enjoying any of the adventuring he had to do, even after being cured of the dagger's influence. I always got the sense that he was begrudgingly dragged kicking and screaming into every situation he found himself in, and his comedy more came from how he would complain every step of the way or bemoan the ridiculous circumstances he would be faced with. He never struck me as a particularly optimistic character. He liked gambling, and he liked sleeping around, but he was ultimately a surly bastard even at his sunniest.

Edited by GNinja on Feb 7th 2022 at 4:39:19 PM

I always got the impression that his irritation at finding himself at the center of so many things was meant to be funny more than anything else. I mean, he wasn't the clown Sanderson kinda turned him into, but I imagine the audience was intended to find humor more humor in what was happening to Mat than what was going on with Rand or Perrin.

Mat was constantly gambling and getting laid so he was seemingly having a better time than most.

Well, until he wasn't.

I'm 2/3s of the way through The Fires of Heaven, and I'm enjoying it more than the previous book.

I'm up to The Lord of Chaos. Pedron Niles is hilarious; the man is so thoroughly convinced that he is the one who knows everything. And he's wrong about basically everything.

I just finished Lord Of Chaos. It was mostly good, but I've got some mixed feelings.

This is one of the longest books in the series, and it doesn't really feel like it needs to be that long. Rand spends most of the book politicking and the Supergirls spend most of it hanging around Salidar. There are some major plot developments, but the book somehow feels less eventful than The Eye of the World.

And the writing for some of the characters is... frustrating. Faile sees another woman flirting with Perrin, and her response is to get mad at Perrin about it, physical harm him over it, and refuse to actually discuss her feelings with him. Even when Perrin's literally screaming at the other woman to leave him alone, Faile's jealous. Is this part of her whole "yelling at somebody is the only sincere sign of affection" thing she has going on? Does she want Perrin to scream at her instead? I hear she gets abducted in a later book and I think I'm looking forward to that.

And the way the Supergirls deal with Mat doesn't really make any of them look good. It's understandable they'd be frustrated that Mat doesn't believe that Egwene is really the Amyrlin Seat, but in the course of their first conversation with him Nynaeve kicks him in the leg hard enough to leave him limping afterward and Egwene jokes about having him killed. They insist he and the Band are some of the "Dragonsworn" who are going around killing indiscriminately even when Mat denies it. Nynaeve runs from actually talking with Mat, but keeps experimenting with ways she can hurt him with the Power despite his medallion. Thom makes a whole speech to Mat about how the latter needs to learn not to judge until he has all the facts, which is a good point but I don't understand why Mat and only Mat needs to learn that lesson when the Supergirls treat Mat like shit based on assumptions.

...I'm also not entirely sure what the title is referring to.

The title is about a Darkfriend saying about "let the Lord of Chaos rule" mentioned at the start and sporadically throughout the book, sort of a "Hail Hydra" thing. As for the rest... yeah. It be like that.

Why do I suspect it's something Jordan threw in so he could have a cool sounding title?

Many such cases!

I'll give the man credit; he was very good at coming up with cool titles. Though at this point I just assume they're all cool-sounding nonsense.

A Crown of Swords actually does make perfect sense in context; it's even part of a prophecy twist. But yeah, every title after that has basically nothing to do with the actual plot.

-tugs braid-

I'm still kind of disappointed that Jordan couldn't work phrases like Winter's Heart or Towers of Midnight into the narrative in a meaningful way.

*sniffs* also comes up a lot, and it annoys me. Especially because it seems like it should be *snorts derisively* for how it's actually used. It honestly threw me off one time he said a male character sniffed and I realized it really did mean he was smelling something.

I feel if you have any issues with the way women treat men and men treat women in The Wheel of Time, the best way to rectify it in your head is do not think of it in live action but an anime.

And all of the women are Asuka with magic and all the men are dorky high school students.

I suspect that the "sniffing" is supposed to be a little more passive-aggressive, or perhaps simply more understated, than a direct derisive snort.

In retrospect, The Path of Daggers would have worked better as the title of the book called Crossroads of Twilight or Knife of Dreams, since political intrigue makes up a significant chunk of those books, and there's a whole subplot about Elayne trying to avert a succession civil war through diplomacy.

Edited by VampireBuddha on Sep 25th 2022 at 12:53:21 PM

One argument for taking a break between reading the books is that otherwise you'll start to feel like an inordinate amount of space is given over to female characters sniffing, adjusting their skirts, or tugging their braids.

A note on "sniffing:" it's a little old fashioned now, but there was a time when to "sniff" at something, depending on the context it was used, was meant to mean "to regard something derisively." It did not always mean the person in question was actually physically sniffing. I imagine it comes from that little sneer some people do that involves the curl of the lip and the lifting of one nostril; no actual sniffing is done, but it looks like that's what the person is doing, in particular it makes you look like you're smelling something unpleasant.

I'm well aware that when going into certain types of genre fiction one has to mentally realign themselves to the tropes and mores of said genre — I'm not usually gonna expect deeply nuanced relationahip writing in a harem manga or accurate depictions of medieval European agricultural practices in heroic fantasy —, but I feel that having to go into WOT with the mentality of "every woman is a 2000s tsundere and every man is an oblivious romcom MC" is a bit of an indictment of the books.

On the other hand, actual sniffing, specifically of a short, sharp sort, can be an expression of either mild or understated derision, I do believe.