|
SirSamVimes posted:Wasn't 9 good? I remember 9 being good. Not enough to justify 10 being entirely people reacting to the events of 9 though Path of Daggers was great. It's just a more contemplative character based thing than the fantastic first six books, but there is a purposeful shift starting in Crown of Swords towards disparate threads unraveling at different paces as Rand at the center of it becomes more and more mercurial, which is directly reflected in the number of chapters he has a PoV as he turns more into something that initates and closes books instead of being normal protagonist. Finally finished KoD, and though I still have New Spring to read, I can say it's been a really interesting time reading Robert Jordan's work 15 yrs after the last time I did it. The first huge surprise I had was that it was still engaging to me, when I have trouble finishing other fiction due to competing time demands, work, and other things that crop up as you almost hit middle age. I blazed thru the books reading them for hours at a time, and it took me back to a childhood place. I don't know if Robert Jordan is my favorite author, but looking at how much time I e spent reading him and how it's threaded thru my life, he might be my most important one. As an older adult, I am able to notice things I didn't notice earlier. Like how Jordan embeds his theme of fractured narratives and tainted points of views created thru lack of communication and remembering the past properly, and instead of just stating it out loud he has the writing reflect that. The first few books are more traditionally plotted with the cast of characters meeting for a rising climax dashing one or two evil bosses per a book ending. To a more murky and less satisfying world of confusing battles and uncertain victories unacknlowdged by the world as a whole (coughcleansingsaidincough). The themes are shown in the writing. Like how Rand's insanity, which is constantly referred in the world as it falls into chaos and constant storms, is never shown in a straight forward manner. It even can convince you that it's just Rand smarting up, that his increasing paranoia, anger, fatalism, and absolute despair is just him becoming what he needs to be, with Lews Therin's voice being some outside crazy person, instead of what it is, Rand's true thoughts he's walled off because he can't, in his hosed up mind, afford to have feelings anymore. This is dense poo poo, and the lack of trustworthy PoVs demands work on the behalf of the reader, and that was my fav thing to discover again. That, and the pace of the plotting. One thing that I found over and over again is that whenever a plotline and a character found themselves in a frustrating hold pattern, that was just the lull before a major breakthru/climax. From Nynaeve healing Severing, to Rand sitting around Cairhein before Dumai's well, and more, the story never really slowed down. It pauses, in anticipation. Maybe that's why these books are the easiest series to read I've ever found. So yeah I'm a fan. But that's not to say that everything Jordan has done was perfect. I think I've been pretty vocal on stuff that didn't work/problematic, mostly stemming from his retro views on sexuality/gender, which is a universe better than alot of his fantasy/sci fi peers (old man Sci-fi fi brain is real), but is regrettably noticeable in our present landscape. And some plotlines/povs/characters just don't work or get anything close to a satisfying plot compared to how much words are devoted to them. Obviously, Perron/Faile stuff slots in here, as well Mat's time in Ebou Dar, there's also Elayne's succession plot (which was won by her being extremely foolish, which feels like it really needed rewrote or something), and goddamit, where's my loving Black Tower plots/pov? That last one seems like an especially big whiff. But altogether that Jordan managed to juggle everything over 11 doorstoppers and a few decades, and things didn't devolve into poo poo, and everything felt so purposefully and in tune with itself....I think that's an amazing achievement. Really glad I got into this series when I was younger and I picked it up again. It's an extremely easy recommendation.
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 15:30
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 16:45 |
|
|
Flowing Thot posted:My new head canon is that Ishamael is ace because all he cares about is ending the world and he has no time for love. I hope they get into his rational that it's only sensible to be on the DO's side because the Dragon Reborn needs to win every battle to keep the world going and the DO only has to win once.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 15:34
|
|
|
Flowing Thot posted:My new head canon is that Ishamael is ace because all he cares about is ending the world and he has no time for love. I don't know, those TAR scenes sure seem to imply that he's rand sexual
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 15:40
|
|
|
Shageletic posted:Path of Daggers was great. It's just a more contemplative character based thing than the fantastic first six books, but there is a purposeful shift starting in Crown of Swords towards disparate threads unraveling at different paces as Rand at the center of it becomes more and more mercurial, which is directly reflected in the number of chapters he has a PoV as he turns more into something that initates and closes books instead of being normal protagonist. I'm very excited for you to finally get to experience Towers of Midnight and The Gathering Storm because ho boy there is just absolute non stop incredible payoff after payoff in those books.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 15:42
|
|
|
Shageletic posted:I hope they get into his rational that it's only sensible to be on the DO's side because the Dragon Reborn needs to win every battle to keep the world going and the DO only has to win once. The DO winning wouldn't even make him happy is such a cruel irony. The DO wanting to remake the pattern and not destroy is just trading one unhappy existence for another to him.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 15:44
|
|
|
The DO is the ultimate evil, pure apathy. He don’t give a poo poo what happens.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 15:46
|
|
|
Invalid Validation posted:The DO is the ultimate evil, pure apathy. He don’t give a poo poo what happens. Nah I mean Ishamael wouldn't be happy.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 15:51
|
|
|
Gwaihir posted:I'm very excited for you to finally get to experience Towers of Midnight and The Gathering Storm because ho boy there is just absolute non stop incredible payoff after payoff in those books. Gathering Storm was the last one I read! I remember getting whiplash from the change of the writing style. Excited to see if that changes.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 15:52
|
|
|
Shageletic posted:Gathering Storm was the last one I read! I remember getting whiplash from the change of the writing style. Excited to see if that changes. It won’t unless you skip the mat chapters! Still lots of fun though.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 16:00
|
|
|
The Mat bit that everyone talks about was written by Jordan 
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 16:10
|
|
|
Rarity posted:The Mat bit that everyone talks about was written by Jordan Which bit? Is it the character backstory thing
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 16:21
|
|
|
Rarity posted:The Mat bit that everyone talks about was written by Jordan i don’t know if it’s BS or a Jordan first draft that wasn’t revised in his usual way, all I know is it reads differently!
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 16:26
|
|
|
The thing that always kind of bothered me about Ishy's whole "the DO only has to win once" thing is that it's entirely philosophical for him. It's not like he experienced all these uncountable other cycles of the wheel. He's not weary of it when he joins the dark, he can't be.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 16:57
|
|
|
buffalo all day posted:i don’t know if it’s BS or a Jordan first draft that wasn’t revised in his usual way, all I know is it reads differently! I've heard (on the WoT Spoilers podcast, I think) RJ's process was to write the plot first, then revise into character voice. So he may have written it out, but didn't give it a good "Mat" pass to make it sound like the Mat we know. If that's the case, I'm guessing no one wanted to edit RJ's words significantly. Which is why TGS Mat feels off. Then later we get Sanderson doing a full write and edit in the later books based off outlines and general concepts. enigma105 fucked around with this message at 17:13 on Sep 19, 2023 |
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 17:10
|
|
|
Final Mat always did sound a bit like distilled au de mat
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 17:31
|
|
|
It's always fun to see how skewed everything is if you just take his words as the basis of what's happening. Jordan was really great at that. I do feel Jordan fell a little too much into the trap of where Mat is the only intelligent/capable person in a situation, reducing everyone, especially women, to pretty much children. That might or might not need a spanking.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 17:41
|
|
|
CainFortea posted:The thing that always kind of bothered me about Ishy's whole "the DO only has to win once" thing is that it's entirely philosophical for him. It's not like he experienced all these uncountable other cycles of the wheel. He's not weary of it when he joins the dark, he can't be. As Rand says, "your logic destroyed you."
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 18:28
|
|
|
Huh I thought Sanderson talked openly about how he felt he hadn't got Matt's character right in TGS? Or is that just community legend (that has faded to myth...) On another note did we ever get an explanation in the books for why Elan M Tedronai turned to the dark? I genuinely can't remember lol.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 19:01
|
|
|
CainFortea posted:I don't know, those TAR scenes sure seem to imply that he's rand sexual Both Ishamael and Lanfear both want to hatefuck Rand as a proxy for hatefucking Lews Therin, so I assume just all the Forsaken are gonna be like this. They have unfinished sexual business with Lews and Rand is just the receptacle for their hatred-based bodily fluids, whether he's wants to be or not. Rarity posted:The Mat bit that everyone talks about was written by Jordan CainFortea posted:Which bit? Is it the character backstory thing I know Sanderson used to say on one of his podcasts quite a bit that he'd get a chuckle out of people on various WoT forums losing their over something "he" wrote in the last two books and then revealing that it was something Jordan wrote years and years earlier. And how people would quote passages they thought were Jordan's work as the "superior product", only for it to turn out that it was something Sanderson had written instead.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 19:03
|
|
|
El Grillo posted:Huh I thought Sanderson talked openly about how he felt he hadn't got Matt's character right in TGS? Or is that just community legend (that has faded to myth...) He read too many philosophy books and decided he needed to feel existential ennui about being reborn in a cycle even though it didn't actually affect him at all.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 19:04
|
|
|
Ishamael is a little weird because he exists mostly as a foil to Lews Therin, and later Moridin as a foil to Rand. Even his edgy omnicidal nihilism is just a contrast to Rand's mountaintop epiphany.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 19:13
|
|
|
Ish's "reasoning" about the DO only needing to win once always sounded a bit tacked on / ex post facto to me. The dude obviously got off on being an evil prick and always struck me as a Calm Hitler type.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 19:21
|
|
|
FLIPADELPHIA posted:Ish's "reasoning" about the DO only needing to win once always sounded a bit tacked on / ex post facto to me. The dude obviously got off on being an evil prick and always struck me as a Calm Hitler type. Early ishy, yes. Back half of the series he seems to be more in line with a true believer concept. This might be Jordan course correcting, but early ishy was quite nuts cause he was only partly in the seal. He actually thought he was the DO
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 19:27
|
|
|
FLIPADELPHIA posted:Ish's "reasoning" about the DO only needing to win once always sounded a bit tacked on / ex post facto to me. The dude obviously got off on being an evil prick and always struck me as a Calm Hitler type. It's almost word for word the reasoning used by the IRA after they almost got Thatcher in the 80s - "you need to get lucky every time, we only need to get lucky once".
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 19:34
|
|
|
If you wanted you could probably look at the fact that Elan Morin Tedronai was a philosopher, and Jordan was a Vietnam vet and make some kind of conclusion from that too
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 19:36
|
|
|
Here's Sanderson's explanation for the Matt writing being 'off' in TGS: https://www.brandonsanderson.com/the-wheel-of-time-retrospective-the-gathering-storm-what-i-learned/ Sounds like he wrote most or all of Matt in that book but there might be more info on the RJ/Sanderson split of those chapters, elsewhere.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 19:45
|
|
|
That's really interesting: thst he was writing Book 1 or 2 Mat. As a person who has recently read those books, Mat's...just scummy? Like untrustworthy, unlikable, etc, and that's before he got the dagger lol. E: well before the dagger supposedly really effected him. Him saying he didn't want to be Rands friend after finding out who he was felt very true to his then character
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 20:23
|
|
|
CainFortea posted:Early ishy, yes.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 20:24
|
|
|
JOHN SKELETON posted:Early Ishy was also nuts as hell because of all the True Power he's been tripping on for years and years. Apparently with enough of it the black dots in your eyes turn to fiery chasms, too, like he has in the first three books. Or maybe I'm just remembering someone's fan theory. It's been a year since I last re-read it but iirc early ishy was nuts as hell because he was only partially sealed, so he was getting "Ground by the wheel" or something. It was only after his resurrection as Moridin do we get a much more reasonable version.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 20:26
|
|
|
Shageletic posted:That's really interesting: thst he was writing Book 1 or 2 Mat. As a person who has recently read those books, Mat's...just scummy? Like untrustworthy, unlikable, etc, and that's before he got the dagger lol. Mat always says he wants to do something selfish and then ends up doing the right thing. That's a part of his character from the very beginning when he turns down Rand's offer to let him go badger some girls in favor of helping Rand carry cider barrels like Tam told him to.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 22:18
|
|
|
CainFortea posted:It's been a year since I last re-read it but iirc early ishy was nuts as hell because he was only partially sealed, so he was getting "Ground by the wheel" or something. Wasn't it one of the other Forsaken who said he thought he literally was the Dark One at that point?
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 22:52
|
|
|
Killer robot posted:Wasn't it one of the other Forsaken who said he thought he literally was the Dark One at that point? I definitely remember that happening. I just forget who it was who said it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 22:56
|
|
|
Early Ishamael had only been partially sealed, if I remember correct, and got released on thousand year or so cycles to do stuff like the Trolloc Wars and mess around with Artur Hawkwing. He was also tripping balls on the True Power so that his eyes weren't just flecked with black, but turned into the glowing firey pits that characterized Baalzamon. How much of his persona was an act and how much was him being crazy I don't remember. He definitely put it on for the Trollocs and the lesser darkfriends and was happy with them conflating him with the Dark One. Why DO, possibly ego incarnate, tolerated someone impersonating him is up in the air. Maybe he recognized that Ishy had more freedom of action than him and allowed it out of necessity. (The real explanation is that Jordan wrote him as the real DO early and later decided to make DO into a nonanthromorphic personification of evil). Ishamael's resurrection as Moridin can also be interpreted as a punishment since the thing the dude wants to do more than anything else is die.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 23:00
|
|
|
It isn't an interpretation, it's outright text. He says as much to Rand.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 23:07
|
|
|
Shageletic posted:That's really interesting: thst he was writing Book 1 or 2 Mat. As a person who has recently read those books, Mat's...just scummy? Like untrustworthy, unlikable, etc, and that's before he got the dagger lol.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 23:11
|
|
|
RandomReader posted:Mat basically says, out loud, "charity is for morons, gently caress the poor," in the midst of a refugee crisis. And then immediately gives money to a starving family 
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 23:13
|
|
|
Rarity posted:And then immediately gives money to a starving family
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 23:17
|
|
|
I've always thought there's a strong parallel between Mat and Nynaeve's levels of self-deception.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2023 23:53
|
|
|
Mat complaining constantly and then doing the right thing anyway is one of his best traits.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2023 00:13
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 16:45 |
|
|
thrawn527 posted:I definitely remember that happening. I just forget who it was who said it. theoryland never lets me down https://www.theoryland.com/theories.php?func=5&rec=132&theo=2659 Moghedien posted:
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2023 06:40
|
|
