[BOOK SPOILERS] Robert Jordan's Waste of Time -- so cheesy but so good

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > [BOOK SPOILERS] Robert Jordan's Waste of Time -- so cheesy but so good

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Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

And yet even him is a useful idiot lmao

# ? Feb 4, 2021 00:39

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# ? Jun 3, 2024 20:57

Gnoman: Feb 12, 2014; Come, all you fair and tender maids
Who flourish in your pri-ime
Beware, take care, keep your garden fair
Let Gnoman steal your thy-y-me
Le-et Gnoman steal your thyme

It isn't even a given that Moridin actually wants the same thing Shai'tan wants. This is implied to Rand, who was increasingly pushed toward wanting the same thing, but there's no guarantee that Shai'tan wasn't just doing the same thing with them as he was with every other Chosen.

# ? Feb 4, 2021 02:24

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

No it was pretty much explicit

# ? Feb 4, 2021 02:36

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Vroom vroom, BEEP BEEP!; Nap Ghost

My favorite crackpot theory was that Shaitan and the Creator are one and the same. Creator made the universe and the wheel and tied himself up in the process and regretted it ever since and just wanted to burn it all down, but was trapped by the weaves of his creation

Or that it was on purpose, set up so that it only lasted as long as people wanted it to continue, and would unravel once the captives in the weave (via the Dragon) decided it should end

# ? Feb 4, 2021 02:52

bio347: Oct 29, 2012

Gwaihir posted:

That does bring to mind one of my (many) all time favorite scenes, that isn't really a large one in the scheme of the series, but it's the bit after re-integrating his memories as Lews Therin when Rand meets with Cadsuane and Min to talk about going to visit the Borderlanders at Far Madding. She calls him boy, as usual, and he just sorta quietly chuckles and goes 'Really now, cmon, I'm over 450, and I'm the only properly raised male Aes Sedai in existence, and you're still going to do that bit?' It's just such a funny dramatic shift from everything that had happened up until that point in previous books.

And then he tries it on Moiraine and she goes "really now, does that actually work on people?" :allears:

# ? Feb 4, 2021 03:38

Johnny Joestar: Oct 21, 2010; Don't shoot him?

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Comrade Blyatlov posted:

No it was pretty much explicit

yeah, unless i'm misremembering things wildly literally his entire motivation is 'well according to my reasoning the dark one only has to win once for existence to be obliterated and that should reasonably happen eventually so i might as well help it to happen and get it over with'

everyone else is operating under the idea that there's going to be some magical reality made to serve them or whatever the hell else, while he's just outright helping the dark one to achieve the thing it actually desires

# ? Feb 4, 2021 04:35

eke out: Feb 24, 2013

Johnny Joestar posted:

yeah, unless i'm misremembering things wildly literally his entire motivation is 'well according to my reasoning the dark one only has to win once for existence to be obliterated and that should reasonably happen eventually so i might as well help it to happen and get it over with'

everyone else is operating under the idea that there's going to be some magical reality made to serve them or whatever the hell else, while he's just outright helping the dark one to achieve the thing it actually desires

yeah moridin is quite clear that the reward he seeks is nonexistence and anyone that thinks the dark one winning will mean anything else is an idiot

# ? Feb 4, 2021 04:43

Gnoman: Feb 12, 2014; Come, all you fair and tender maids
Who flourish in your pri-ime
Beware, take care, keep your garden fair
Let Gnoman steal your thy-y-me
Le-et Gnoman steal your thyme

My point is that it is pretty iffy about if that's what The Dark One really wants. It is what he promises to those that crave it and the person he's trying to break with dispair, but he also promises a lot of other poo poo to his other followers.

# ? Feb 4, 2021 04:49

Drone Jett: Feb 21, 2017; by Fluffdaddy; College Slice

th3t00t posted:

So I was way wrong on how long Logain had been channeling. 6 years and no madness? drat!

We knew in the first book that there were years between the corruption of Saidin and the creation of TEOTW by surviving male Aes Sedai after other methods of halting the madness had failed.

The Hundred Companions went mad instantly but everyone else had a variable tolerance that could be weeks or many years. Doesn�t someone mention a theory that the breaking was made worse by this gradual madness rather than having them all blow at once?

# ? Feb 4, 2021 15:00

Ani: Jun 15, 2001; illum non populi fasces, non purpura regum / flexit et infidos agitans discordia fratres

Drone Jett posted:

The Hundred Companions went mad instantly but everyone else had a variable tolerance that could be weeks or many years. Doesn�t someone mention a theory that the breaking was made worse by this gradual madness rather than having them all blow at once?

Moiraine talks about something similar, though I believe it was in the context of some male Aes Sedai sheltering in the steddings to stop the progress of their madness, then left the stedding later on (and subsequently went nuts). She said that the Blue Ajah believes spacing out the madness that way prolonged the breaking but made it actually survivable vs. the alternative of all male channelers going mad over a short timeframe, while the Red believed that the steddings made it worse.

# ? Feb 4, 2021 15:07

Mat Cauthon: Jan 2, 2006; The more tragic things get,
the more I feel like laughing.

Gwaihir posted:

I think the rod, specifically, only works on people who can channel.

True but we know that there have been rulers who could channel or were even full Aes Sedai themselves. Given the gradual winnowing over the years I imagine that would've been even more prevalent in the earlier eras of the Third Age.

# ? Feb 4, 2021 15:13

Libluini: May 18, 2012; I gravitated towards the Greens, eventually even joining the party itself.

The Linke is a party I grudgingly accept exists, but I've learned enough about DDR-history I can't bring myself to trust a party that was once the SED, a party leading the corrupt state apparatus ...; Grimey Drawer

Eh! Frank posted:

The WOT tabletop RPG rulebooks had some cool art, they used multiple artists (I think the same ones that did the illustrations for D&D 3e)

I was disappointed, though, to see that myrddraal had hair, I always pictured them as being bald/hairless. And Google shows I'm not the only one, there's some fan-art that's a lot closer to how I pictured them in my head.

edit: for example, art from the RPG

The bowl haircut makes it look like a huge dork (almost literally), takes away from it's aura of fear

This fan-art, for example, is quite a bit scarier and closer to how I pictured them (except possibly the mouth):

I disagree, that fanart looks dumb and boring. At least for me, the horror of a Myrddral comes from looking almost Human, but not quite.

This thing looks like a reject from Doom. I'm sorry, but I cannot take something seriously which looks like something the Doom Marine would eat for breakfast.

# ? Feb 4, 2021 15:35

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

Setting aside whether it looks boring or menacing enough, the fanart looks a lot closer to the image I was picturing from the text alone.

# ? Feb 4, 2021 15:41

Brolander: Oct 20, 2008; i am but a vessel

we must consult the Big Book of Very Accurate and High Quality Art. They have Pete Wentz hair

# ? Feb 4, 2021 16:32

Johnny Joestar: Oct 21, 2010; Don't shoot him?

...
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no wonder they were so unnerving

# ? Feb 4, 2021 16:48

Eh! Frank: Mar 28, 2006; Doctor gave me these, I said what are these?
He said that they'll cure an existential type disease

Libluini posted:

I disagree, that fanart looks dumb and boring. At least for me, the horror of a Myrddral comes from looking almost Human, but not quite.

This thing looks like a reject from Doom. I'm sorry, but I cannot take something seriously which looks like something the Doom Marine would eat for breakfast.

You know, the more I look at that particular fan-art, the more I agree with you. There's probably better examples of hairless myrddraal, something more human looking, I'm too lazy to look at the moment. But I'm sticking with my main point, myrddraal look dumb with hair, especially with bowl haircuts/bangs.

Brolander posted:

we must consult the Big Book of Very Accurate and High Quality Art. They have Pete Wentz hair

Further evidence.

# ? Feb 4, 2021 17:11

Gnoman: Feb 12, 2014; Come, all you fair and tender maids
Who flourish in your pri-ime
Beware, take care, keep your garden fair
Let Gnoman steal your thy-y-me
Le-et Gnoman steal your thyme

I'm seeing citations to The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time as saying that all Fades have greasy black hair with no shine.

# ? Feb 4, 2021 17:41

ChickenWing: Jul 22, 2010

Yeah in my mental image it's more Snape-hair than anything

# ? Feb 4, 2021 20:37

Brolander: Oct 20, 2008; i am but a vessel

Unnervingly, the dark rider's perfectly combed bangs did not move in the cold, bitter wind. Rand shuddered. He must use product.

# ? Feb 4, 2021 21:03

VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE: Aug 1, 2004; whoa, what just happened here?; College Slice

My impression of fades was always similar to the pale man from Pan's Labyrinth, so, hairless.

# ? Feb 4, 2021 22:21

Submarine Sandpaper: May 27, 2007

It never once occurred to me. I always assumed they were hooded in retrospect. I guess I was subliminally lotr'inged.

# ? Feb 4, 2021 23:31

Zore: Sep 21, 2010; willfully illiterate, aggressively miserable sourpuss whose sole raison d�etre is to put other people down for liking the wrong things

Submarine Sandpaper posted:

It never once occurred to me. I always assumed they were hooded in retrospect. I guess I was subliminally lotr'inged.

They do usually go around hooded, especially in the early books when they're infiltrating various settlements.

# ? Feb 4, 2021 23:45

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

and looking for shire and baggins

# ? Feb 5, 2021 00:40

Gambor: Oct 24, 2005

Zore posted:

They do usually go around hooded, especially in the early books when they're infiltrating various settlements.

This is kind of an important point. They can pass for humans if they have their hoods up, to the point where there are laws in the Borderlands requiring people not to wear hoods.

If they have alien jaws or whatever, those laws wouldn't exist.

# ? Feb 5, 2021 01:17

Brolander: Oct 20, 2008; i am but a vessel

I definitely always pictured them as bald. When I imagine a hooded fetch I don't see its face at all, just blackness.

# ? Feb 5, 2021 18:02

Eh! Frank: Mar 28, 2006; Doctor gave me these, I said what are these?
He said that they'll cure an existential type disease

I thought about it some more, and I don't really like the fan-art I posted, not a very good example of how I imagine them. For some reason, a bunch of fan-art give them hosed up mouths so I'm having troubles finding one I like.

VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE posted:

My impression of fades was always similar to the pale man from Pan's Labyrinth, so, hairless.

The way I picture them is if you took Voldemort, swapped out the eyes for a nose, and added a Ring Wraith cloak (though I started reading WoT before reading/watching either of those)

edit: Or take Gordon from Agents of Shield and give him a bald cap and some makeup to male him pale

Eh! Frank fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Feb 5, 2021

# ? Feb 5, 2021 18:15

How are u: May 19, 2005; by Azathoth

Bald Fades are my headcannon, they look like dorks with hair.

# ? Feb 5, 2021 19:05

buffalo all day: Mar 13, 2019

in crossroads of twilight there's a chapter where they turn hairdressers to the shadow through a 12x12 circle so that lil myrdraal can get their haircuts

# ? Feb 5, 2021 19:36

Rosalie_A: Oct 30, 2011

buffalo all day posted:

in crossroads of twilight there's a chapter where they turn hairdressers to the shadow through a 12x12 circle so that lil myrdraal can get their haircuts

This can't be true. That would involve something interesting happening in CoT.

# ? Feb 5, 2021 20:15

Torrannor: Apr 27, 2013; ---FAGNER---
TEAM-MATE

# ? Feb 5, 2021 21:57

Invalid Validation: Jan 13, 2008

It�s impressive how lovely the art that has been produced for Wheel of Time is. You have to actively try to be so bad.

# ? Feb 5, 2021 22:10

uPen: Jan 25, 2010; Zu Rodina!

Invalid Validation posted:

It�s impressive how lovely the art that has been produced for Wheel of Time is. You have to actively try to be so bad.

I love the airport romance novel cover art and you can't stop me.

# ? Feb 5, 2021 22:12

Johnny Joestar: Oct 21, 2010; Don't shoot him?

...
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i like how in most of them they have heads that are like 20-30% larger than they should be. i actually kinda mean that, too. it's bizarre and endearing. also i kinda dig that they liked one artist enough to keep contacting them for the books, not gonna lie.

# ? Feb 5, 2021 22:17

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Vroom vroom, BEEP BEEP!; Nap Ghost

Johnny Joestar posted:

i like how in most of them they have heads that are like 20-30% larger than they should be. i actually kinda mean that, too. it's bizarre and endearing. also i kinda dig that they liked one artist enough to keep contacting them for the books, not gonna lie.

Darrel K Sweet was obviously getting worse and worse as he aged but it's nice that they stayed loyal to him, even as it resulted in thalidomide proportions by the end.

# ? Feb 5, 2021 22:25

Invalid Validation: Jan 13, 2008

I appreciate that he made all the characters as ugly as they most certainly would be from a very rural inbred village.

# ? Feb 5, 2021 22:37

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

I mean, in his heyday Sweet was a really well respected artist. The cover for Eye of the World won awards and probably was a lot of the reason the book sold so well initially.

He just, yeah, got old and lost it. Happens.

# ? Feb 5, 2021 22:44