|
The problem with donaldson is that his protgonist is also a monster, and not in the "npt my fault i'm crazy" way Rand is, either.
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2013 15:48
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 10, 2024 19:31 |
|
|
Maybe I need a refresher on the Thomas Covenant series but I don't really see any major distinctions between Lord Foul and the Dark One. I guess I'm asking you to explain what you found so compelling about Lord Foul and his motivations, because otherwise I don't really understand the point you're trying to make.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2013 15:54
|
|
|
Levitate posted:Maybe I need a refresher on the Thomas Covenant series but I don't really see any major distinctions between Lord Foul and the Dark One. I guess I'm asking you to explain what you found so compelling about Lord Foul and his motivations, because otherwise I don't really understand the point you're trying to make. I feel like you're getting a bit hung up on the dumb name, which I agree is distracting. But anyway, here goes, although it's been a while since I last read them. At first glance they (the Dark One and Foul) are quite similar. The backstory in Foul's case is he is trapped in The Land by the Arch of Time, locked in by the Creator who locked himself out at the same time. Sounds familiar, and the motivation of getting out being destructive to everything else is also effectively the same. All well and good. What matters to me is their nature and motivation. From what we know of the DO, he chills out in the prison, magically sends out bad vibes that make Elayne be more interesting (or whose absence, at least, makes her ambiguously more boring) gets drilled out periodically, and then gets sealed back up. Repeatedly. He appears to not have any real personality or character, he motivates his servants by promising eternal life but seems to be very hands off and disintetested in anything. Think of it this way - this is supposedly iteration number 52729X of the Wheel turning, and the diabolical scheming is both poorly done and ineffective pretty much the whole way through. Part of the hook, for me, in the Covenant series is the way Foul embodies the loathing, self- and for others, that Covenant feels as a leper. Covenant lives alone, hated or feared by the few people he encounters, abandoned by his family and forced to constantly obsess over his condition for his own self preservation. With one of the central conceits being that the Land might just be a hallucination of Covenant, it gives Foul a strong basis for the sadism and desire to not destroy, but break everything else. Foul wants to escape, but he wants to prolong it and draw if out, to make it a fall from greater heights when he finally does win. At the start of the first book, he explicitly tells Covenant what he needs to do to help the Land survive, knowing that this both helps his own plans in the long run and makes for a better time. He thrives on instilling doubt and self loathing into both the protagonists and his own servants; in fact, Foul himself seems to have no actual power, but by breaking down and manipulating others achieves his goals. And that shows up throughout the series, where he works as much to keep his own servants from claiming the same power he wants as he does to destroy the protagonists. And in the end what I, personally, find satisfying is that Foul isn't a bumbler, and his plans actually work. If he loses, in the end, it's not just the last in a seemingly never ending series of defeats for Team Evil, but rather because he misunderstands or underestimates the character of the protagonists.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2013 16:55
|
|
|
I find the Forsaken's fall from "Cool Villains with Potential" is a pet peeve of mine. It's kinda hard to put a finger on when their decline starts, in some way it's in book 1 where not One, but Two of the big 13 shows up and gets stomped by the bumbling team of misfits that the Wheel has assembled, so it starts early and whenever RJ builds them up to be intimidating (Sammaels first "appearance" in tDR) he quickly pulls them down again (Be'lal, in the same book). At first you can go "Well, the circumstances weren't in their favour..." but when RJ starts bringing them back from the dead just so they can fail at Villainy again it veers over into laughable. Really, 99% of the Forsakens incompetence can be blamed on RJ, great at building them up with one hand and tearing them down with the other at nearly the same time. Sure his "theme" with them is THE BANALITY OF EVIL, but when he also decides to use them for Main Antagonist stand ins in the climaxes to many books the theme becomes as subtle as a brick through a porcelain store (and RJ is rather subtle otherwise in his writing). The Forsaken, unlike the Nazis, are people who have lived for hundreds of years and are practically walking nukes. Using "Banality of evil" with those guys is such a mismatch. Interesting idea in theory, but in a High Fantasy series this long he could have saved most of that for the lesser Darkfriends/Dreadlords and have the books come out better at the whole. BS managed to elevate a good chunk of the Forsaken that showed up in aMoL (Even if he couldn't get them all up to "good") so he deserves some credit, but the rough prose messes up a lot of the potential there. Anyone got any actual good example from other series with a similar set up for "Large team of Baddies"? All that comes to mind is the Ten that were Taken (Glen Cook kinda cocks it up whenever he goes for this though) and maybe some of Joe Abercrombies stuff (haven't gotten far enough to able to tell though). I'm such a sucker for this tropé but I rarely seen it done well/at all. Tossing in a big number of such Bad Guys might look cool on paper, but it seems writers are nearly always overwhelmed by that same "large number" and starts treating them as very much disposable grunts just to get (most of) them out of the way in time for the big finale.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2013 18:12
|
|
|
Velius posted:What matters to me is their nature and motivation. From what we know of the DO, he chills out in the prison, magically sends out bad vibes that make Elayne be more interesting (or whose absence, at least, makes her ambiguously more boring) gets drilled out periodically, and then gets sealed back up. Repeatedly. He appears to not have any real personality or character, he motivates his servants by promising eternal life but seems to be very hands off and disintetested in anything. Think of it this way - this is supposedly iteration number 52729X of the Wheel turning, and the diabolical scheming is both poorly done and ineffective pretty much the whole way through. The difference is that the Dark One is nothing more or less than the literal root of evil. He plays an important part in the Wheel's turning, but like any primal force, direct access is not good for the continued health of the world. He is there just as the One Power is there. He is not really imprisoned in the Pattern so much as a critical part of it. He is no more and no less threatening than the worst of humanity, given immense power. Why SHOULD he scheme? It is in his nature to corrupt and to try to break the world, just as it is human nature to resist him and through the struggle, become more.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2013 18:12
|
|
|
wellwhoopdedooo posted:Dude. I get that you didn't like the book, that came through, but you could at least not be a douche about it and use spoiler tags like literally every other person in this thread managed to do. Yeah seriously, It's like Dragonmount migrated over here or something.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2013 18:21
|
|
|
OAquinas posted:"A Memory of Light, by Robert Jordan and Kevin J. Anderson" "A Memory of Light, by Robert Jordan and Piers Anthony"
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2013 18:41
|
|
|
Pimpmust posted:I find the Forsaken's fall from "Cool Villains with Potential" is a pet peeve of mine. Cook was where I was going to suggest you start. The trouble is that you tend to have the two fantasy trends at odds - gritty, dark fantasy tends to also be low fantasy (and thus lacking in embodiment of evil supernatural stuff), while high fantasy tends to stick to the traditional plucky heroes vs evil and inept antagonists. The Malazan book of the Fallen is both gritty and high fantasy, (and indebted to Cook). Otherwise I need to think a bit more about it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2013 18:46
|
|
|
Pimpmust posted:It's kinda hard to put a finger on when their decline starts, in some way it's in book 1 where not One, but Two of the big 13 shows up and gets stomped by the bumbling team of misfits To be fair on the first pair, they weren't exactly in the best of shape. One of them was pretty much falling apart as he walked.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2013 19:02
|
|
|
We've got Jordan, who explicitly wrote the final scene of the book; portions of the final three books (including portions that fans complained that Sanderson couldn't get right, like with Mat); Jordan's meticulous notes about the series before his illness; Jordan's meticulous notes once he knew his death was impending; Jordan's verbally narrated notes toward the end of his life as he rushed to get as much of his vision down as he could; His wife - and editor - known for being a mediocre editor; 4 to 5 books of the series, written by Jordan himself, that most fans agree were bland or mediocre and recommend just reading Wiki entries on re-reads... But let's poo poo on Sanderson for bungling the end of the series? Sanderson obviously had some very rough bits and clunky parts, but that's all prose. I really, strongly doubt he had a lot of decision making to do with this based on his comments. Reading over his tweets, it doesn't seem like he was given a lot of places where he had to make actual plot decisions, and it was more about lining up the disparate points of an outline that was provided to him. If you thought the final story was weak, blame falls on Jordan's shoulders posthumously. He outlined it all for handing to a follow up author, and had 2 or 3 years to do so - it's not like his outline was a single page of bullet point items to pick up.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2013 20:09
|
|
|
Mortanis posted:We've got Jordan, who explicitly wrote the final scene of the book; portions of the final three books (including portions that fans complained that Sanderson couldn't get right, like with Mat); Jordan's meticulous notes about the series before his illness; Jordan's meticulous notes once he knew his death was impending; Jordan's verbally narrated notes toward the end of his life as he rushed to get as much of his vision down as he could; His wife - and editor - known for being a mediocre editor; 4 to 5 books of the series, written by Jordan himself, that most fans agree were bland or mediocre and recommend just reading Wiki entries on re-reads... On the other hand, 200 pages of notes/stuff written by Jordan stretched over 3 books with what, 3000 pages? Leaving a note saying "X dies doing Y" isn't gonna help much if the execution isn't up to par/fits. RJs best, as with all good works, always depended on the details. Yeah, most of the climaxes were probably written by RJ, to some degree, but there's plenty of interviews now that show that even those scenes weren't really all that set in stone/finished and BS had to decide which path to take (and of course, how to tie it all together). To be fair to Brandon I think his other work is way better than aMoL, including TGS and ToM (others may disagree). Tying them all together was always gonna be hard as hell.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2013 20:21
|
|
|
Troll Bridgington posted:If Goodkind finished the series, Rand would've Gone Galt way before the last battle, and eventually defeated the dark one by sculpting a statue of himself. We would have gotten an 18 page description of Graendal's rape, torture, murder, resurrection, and re-rape. Though the bit where whatever that dude's name was, the former captain of the White Lions, was going to cut out Elayne's babies seemed chillingly close to a Goodkind special.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2013 22:15
|
|
|
Two Finger posted:We would have gotten an 18 page description of Graendal's rape, torture, murder, resurrection, and re-rape. Also all of the female characters would be "almost raped" every third page. loving Goodkind. He's still cranking out books about prophecy or some poo poo, saw another one online.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2013 22:19
|
|
|
subx posted:To be fair on the first pair, they weren't exactly in the best of shape. One of them was pretty much falling apart as he walked. It would probably have helped their air of competence if it had only been one of the Forsaken, with a Dreadlord or Black Ajah toady- but the first 3 books went through Forsaken at a really high pace compared to later books, and especially the 6> books. Probably because RJ had some notion of finishing the series with fewer books then. And yeah, Glen Cooks (first) book in the Black Company series is really good for this trope, that whole world is a lot less thought out than WoT perhaps but the powerful Bad Guys feel well integrated (if rarely personified much beyond a set few. Howler, you little bundle of joy  ).Looking outside books there's Myth, but that series only had like 5-6 powerful Sorcerers (and cribbed from Glen Cook for style anyhow). Maybe Sacrifice rates too, certainly got "the end of the world" down even better than WoT. Getting these sort of antagonists down right seems like an interesting challenge, avoiding both turning them into cartoonish evil or bumbling incompetence just so the good guys stand a chance. The Sacrifice approach where there aren't any teenage "chosen one" running around would avoid that whole issue, and the first idea for WoT RJ had was pretty much Tam taking Rands part (for more Vietnam allegories).
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2013 22:28
|
|
|
Mortanis posted:We've got Jordan, who explicitly wrote the final scene of the book; portions of the final three books (including portions that fans complained that Sanderson couldn't get right, like with Mat); Jordan's meticulous notes about the series before his illness; Jordan's meticulous notes once he knew his death was impending; Jordan's verbally narrated notes toward the end of his life as he rushed to get as much of his vision down as he could; His wife - and editor - known for being a mediocre editor; 4 to 5 books of the series, written by Jordan himself, that most fans agree were bland or mediocre and recommend just reading Wiki entries on re-reads... Blame Agent Orange. http://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/conditions/al_amyloidosis.asp
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2013 22:57
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:Blame Agent Orange. "I win again, Robert Jordan" In bad taste? 
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2013 23:05
|
|
|
A Memory of Light, Oh spoilers... What the actual gently caress did I just waste my time reading. I feel like a complete douche idiot for having a back-patting conversation with a group of friends just the other day about how Brandon Sanderson didn't completely ruin this series, and he actually ended ToM pretty damned well. But then... AMoL happened. I knew people were going to die. But I also knew that RJ loved to give Plot Armor™ to every 'important character'. I knew that the story was going to suck due to the speed with which BS had to clean everything up and end the poo poo. I knew that Demandred was going to be poorly done, because we have been through thirteen books already, and he has been in <0.01% of the series. I knew that Shara would probably make a super surprise appearance, because... because Shara. But what I didn't know is that approx. 99.5% of the strength of the "Light Armies" would be vaporized, off-screen, by the Dark One's black hole attack (BLACK HOLE WAS SUPER EFFECTIVE! AIEL FAINTED!) Good god Brandon Sanderson, did you really need to throw Legions of Trollocs™ at a tiny army? Couldn't you come up with an inventive way to deal with the enormous amount of missing troops/channelers, rather than simply leaving them out of the book entirely? My suspension of disbelief was shattered once I totaled up the numbers in my head and said to myself "Hey, Oxybeles, that poo poo doesn't compute". Slayer was a boring story arc for Perrin. He had a lot more to give to the story/book. Tel'aran'rhiod was a completely untapped resource in AMoL, other than Perrin. What happened to Egwene the Master Dreamer™. What happened to the fearless Aiel Dreamwalkers, who say gently caress you to emaciation and thirst... but gently caress them if a storm is coming in Little Nemo's Dreamland. Mat did a complete 180. "Hurr I don't know if I love this psycho Tuon, and gently caress the last battle, and my band of the red hand is in trouble, and I am badass now so die Gholam and Snakes/Foxes, and and and..." This was stupid. But, Mat was well done, other than that glaring inconsistency. Rand was Rand. I haven't cared for Randchapters since loving book 6 or so, so the less the better. The end battle was boring. No plot twists, but this was all Robert Jordan's work, so I can't really bitch BS out about it. Overall, I am severely disappointed in what just occurred, and very thankful that I downloaded the ebook rather than spending 40 bucks on a hardcover.
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2013 04:07
|
|
|
I enjoyed AMoL and thought Sanderson brought a level of quality that the series hasn't reached since TFoH 
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2013 04:29
|
|
|
Oxybeles posted:Overall, I am severely disappointed in what just occurred, and very thankful that I downloaded the ebook rather than spending 40 bucks on a hardcover. Well, congratulations on stealing something you didn't like, I guess. When I was a kid, I stole a clock from a convenience store. Then I was like, what the gently caress am I going to do with this? We didn't have the internet back then, so I had no one to complain about the clock to.
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2013 04:31
|
|
|
Rarity posted:I enjoyed AMoL and thought Sanderson brought a level of quality that the series hasn't reached since TFoH Eh, I'd put Knife of Dreams above Towers of Midnight and A Memory of Light. I'll need to re-read A Gathering Storm to see if it still holds up as well as I've remembered, but after re-reading the other two Sanderson books I'm not really looking forward to it. I really liked the subtle politicking that went on in the background of a lot of the books, pulling clues together etc. and Brandon's books don't really have a lot of that. They're so focused on the in-your-face climaxes that its exhausting to read, and re-reading doesn't really add anything to the experience unlike every other book in the series. They were still miles better than Crossroads of Twilight and A Path of Daggers though.
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2013 06:10
|
|
|
For all the critiquing that is going on about aMoL, I am just SO THANKFUL these last books were written. I don't know what I would have done if they weren't. Sanderson is not a good writer, his strength lies in telling interesting ideas and flashy stories. I kind of expected the books to be of this nature after I read some of his other work, they are just full of badass characters doing badass stuff chapter after chapter. I find it cheap, but if that's the price we have to pay to have these books, I am fine with it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2013 09:01
|
|
|
basx posted:Well, congratulations on stealing something you didn't like, I guess. When I was a kid, I stole a clock from a convenience store. Then I was like, what the gently caress am I going to do with this? I love the way he complains that thirteen books of building up to the Last Battle were ruined when he got to AMOL and the author put a big battle in it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2013 10:56
|
|
|
Jedit posted:I love the way he complains that thirteen books of building up to the Last Battle were ruined when he got to AMOL and the author put a big battle in it. What I find more amusing is that people actually care how big the armies are. You see, the Aiel clans... But being irked by how much of the book was spent on battle, while ignoring almost completely every non male character? In the last material we're going to see in 20 year story? There are plenty of legitimate things to be disappointed with.
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2013 14:10
|
|
|
Been meaning to read this series for the last 3 years, but others have got in the way. Just finished the first one, and I'd say it was pretty good. My only question is I don't really see how much more can happen in 13 books. I've heard they drag a lot. Is that true?
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2013 18:33
|
|
|
Sriracha posted:Been meaning to read this series for the last 3 years, but others have got in the way. Just finished the first one, and I'd say it was pretty good. My only question is I don't really see how much more can happen in 13 books. I've heard they drag a lot. Is that true? It's true. The upside is that when it's good it's really, really good. I'd only advise tackling the Wheel of Time if you 1) like fantasy, and 2) are a fast reader. If it's going to take you more than a month to read a thousand page book, it'll take you over a year to read these, and at that pace it really drags. If you're a fast reader you can blaze through the slow parts. EDIT: The real strength of the Wheel of Time is immensely detailed worldbuilding. If you like that sort of thing the slow parts are just more worldbuilding and it's all good. If you're reading for straight up plot there are whole books where nothing happens at all. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Feb 2, 2013 |
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2013 19:03
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:It's true. The upside is that when it's good it's really, really good. I also find that the slower books really aren't that bad when you've got the next one ready to read instead of waiting a few years for it to be finished. I never skip them when I re-read at least.
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2013 19:07
|
|
|
It irks me (and pretty much anyone else that has reviewed it - check for yourself) that a great deal of the world was whisked away for dramatic effect. If it didn't bother you, great. If you felt like AMoL was a great read, instead of reading the notes from an MMO battle, then great as well. Nobody is stopping you from enjoying it, I am simply pointing out the glaring inconsistencies that ruined it for me. I expected there to be a Big Battle™, obviously. You missed the point. The strength of WoT has never been in protracted battle scenes, but rather in the character development, plot twists, and consequences of what has come to pass. Sometimes this culminates in a battle (Dumai's Wells), sometimes it ends in a gross misuse and massacre (A Path of Daggers). This book was just endless hordes being thrown at humans with the only characterizations being death scenes, flashes of Mat's brilliance, and a few realization moments. This felt... robotic. Not to say that I didn't enjoy any of the book. I was quite entranced during the prologue and well into the 4-armies ordeal, right up until the 150 page battle. I thought the plot twists and story was well done in the beginning third, or half. Bad endings have a way of drowning out the good parts of the book, even if substantial portions of it were good.
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2013 19:18
|
|
|
PastaSky posted:For all the critiquing that is going on about aMoL, I am just SO THANKFUL these last books were written. Honestly.... and I am thinking hard to make sure I am not just overreacting.... I wish.... they hadn't. At least not AMoL. Really, the complete deflating of all these big plot lines and how none of the resolutions felt well done at all makes it a giant waste of effort. I mean for me, not a single thing in AMoL even APPROACHES the jawdropping moment of "That dress is green." And that's pretty lame.
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2013 19:27
|
|
|
AlternateAccount posted:Honestly.... and I am thinking hard to make sure I am not just overreacting.... I wish.... they hadn't. At least not AMoL. Really, the complete deflating of all these big plot lines and how none of the resolutions felt well done at all makes it a giant waste of effort. Just think of it as being more about the journey than the destination.
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2013 19:32
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:Just think of it as being more about the journey than the destination. Oh, sure, I mean that's legitimate, but I'd rather just have the possibilities bounce around in my imagination 'til I die rather than finishing this and going "Oh... well ok then...."
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2013 19:36
|
|
|
My impression was I'd gladly take 2-3 more books from Jordan with his scenery and embroidery than what was, for the most part, 900 pages of dialogue. Sanderson doesn't seem to handle internal monologue and deliberation as well as Jordan did either. I'm going to second the stuff about world building and it being one of WoT's greatest strengths. We lost the world with its world builder. We got some fleshed out notes for closure, but it wasn't ever going to be the same ]without the guy who strung it together, infused bits of cultural details, etc. Like the scene where the Sharans pop out into battle, and Sanderson is kind of hamfistedly including all of these details about their back tattoos, special clothing to display them and the male channelers tattooing captives, and then... nothing else about the Sharan's. Sanderson obviously had some cultural notes he felt obligated to use to paint the Sharans, but hes just nowhere near as good at that as Jordan was.
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2013 20:50
|
|
|
Hopefully the River of Souls chapter(s) will have more of the Sharans, I mean I can kinda see how it would be hard to flesh them out in the same book as the last battle without entirely deflating any sense of tension/momentum in the battle (which is why the RoS part was cut). It's all the fault of the whole "twist" involving them, they were never gonna come across as well as the rest of the cultures that have had like 10+ books of world building dedicated to them. Same goes for Demandred. Pimpmust fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Feb 3, 2013 |
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2013 00:07
|
|
|
I understand a lot of the criticisms of the last book. Yeah it was a departure from most of Jordan's stuff in that it wasn't terribly character oriented and felt rather rushed and like it was trying to tie up as many loose ends as possible, but I still ultimately enjoyed it and am glad the series was wrapped up. I guess that even though nothing crazy happened in terms of how it resolved (we could have guessed how it ended), I still prefer this to just having no resolution at all. There's plenty of flaws and I wish Jordan could have finished it, but I'll take this
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2013 01:56
|
|
|
The one thing that was nice about A Memory of Light was that there was actual some competency with the Forsaken compared to the prior books. Prior to AMoL, Asmodean, "the Weakest One," I think probably had the most competent plan & execution. His meddling caused six books or so of dealing with the Shaido Aiel, and he almost nabbed the male sa'angreal which he could have blown up everyone with. Demandred's plan probably would have worked if he hadn't been insane from using the True Power for who knows how long. Unless the Sharan's "Dragon Reborn" that can do magic without weaves is all just a prophecy that actually called for a forsaken like Demandred to fulfill it and then fail, as he might have been too dangerous doing something else.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2013 05:40
|
|
|
Zarfol posted:Demandred's plan probably would have worked if he hadn't been insane from using the True Power for who knows how long. Unless the Sharan's "Dragon Reborn" that can do magic without weaves is all just a prophecy that actually called for a forsaken like Demandred to fulfill it and then fail, as he might have been too dangerous doing something else. As far as prophecies go, it's almost-certainly got to have meant a Forsaken or a fallen/corrupt Dragon, because Rand only got the ability to do weave-like things without weaves or the TP after the Last Battle was already over, unless you count the general "things grow and food unspoils" effect, which I don't think would be specific enough to fulfill the Bao prophecies. I guess we'll see when the short story about Demandred comes out?
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2013 08:22
|
|
|
How come we haven't see the Saa in Demandred's eyes before now if he's been using the True Power so much? Makes me tend to think that he only got access to it recently, and before that he was using some tricks like concealing his weaves, and his insanity towards Rand is just plain old insanity, since he's been absolutely obsessed with Rand forever. Or it's a plot hole
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2013 15:08
|
|
|
Levitate posted:How come we haven't see the Saa in Demandred's eyes before now if he's been using the True Power so much? Makes me tend to think that he only got access to it recently, and before that he was using some tricks like concealing his weaves, and his insanity towards Rand is just plain old insanity, since he's been absolutely obsessed with Rand forever. Or it's a plot hole Well, Demandred was only on-camera around other Forsaken until this book - that's how some of us could be convinved he was Roedran - and they're so self-obsessed that they might not have seen them if he wasn't using the TP around them. That said, I do think he only got access recently, perhaps only in time to convince the Sharans that he was fulfilling their prophecies before he had to take them to Merillor.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2013 19:48
|
|
|
Levitate posted:How come we haven't see the Saa in Demandred's eyes before now if he's been using the True Power so much? Makes me tend to think that he only got access to it recently, and before that he was using some tricks like concealing his weaves, and his insanity towards Rand is just plain old insanity, since he's been absolutely obsessed with Rand forever. Or it's a plot hole It takes years to get the saa built up as much as Moridin had, I think the insanity could happen much faster. It's also possible that he was using a tiny illusion weave over his eyes to cover it up when he was channeling. Even though the True Power is a secret the Forsaken like to be pretty careful sometimes.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2013 20:18
|
|
|
Finally finished the book. Overall I am quite satisfied. Nice to have closure for something you first encountered at age 16. I really, really thought Logain would kill Demandred. It would be so perfect for the jealous-of-the-Dragon Forsaken to get killed by the Dragon impostor. But nope, Lan out of nowhere because he rolls that way. Demandred himself was kind of hilarious, stomping around bellowing about LEWS THERIN for days. I like Sanderson's hit-everything-on-the-checklist-and-finish-the-drat-thing style, and his willingness to take Jordan's concepts places Jordan never did, i.e. creative use of gateways and skimming spaces, matrix battles in the world of dreams. But his prose continues to bug me - Jordan kept language and dialogue a bit old-fashioned to keep up the ye-olde-fantasyland feel, but Sanderson has everyone sound like 21st century kids. And the places where it's obvious a fan is writing pull me out of the narrative. Rand and Mat's dick waving contest was funny, but really on-the-nose. Sad about the stuff that didn't really go anywhere - Moirane was checked out for the second half of the book, Nynaeve never healed the dead, and, ugh, Padan Fain. If there's ever an adaptation of this I'd hope they'd patch this stuff up knowing how it ends. Like, kill off Fain/Mordeth at the cleansing when Shadar Logoth gets destroyed. Saddest death was definitely Bela. Andol and Pevara are adorable. Though I expected a little more follow-up or explanation about Pevara opening a gateway while he controlled their circle. Really what I want is the fourth age history of this world. Not a whole novel, but a Lord of the Rings style appendix would be nice.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2013 09:04
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 10, 2024 19:31 |
|
|
I'm guessing with regards to Andol and Pevara now that they've bonded each other, their souls are connected in such a way that anything Power related can be fully accessed by the other while in a Circle. The normal rules won't apply. I bet Pevara would be able to channel normally when Andol was leading the Circle and wouldn't just be limited to Gateways. But the Gateways were easier because she had access to Andol's Talent at the same time. I wonder though if this only works when women bond men and if there'd be different effects were two men who cold channel bonded or two women did. As far as language goes, I feel like this was the first book where characters openly discussed people being gay. It's been hinted at in other books, but I can't think of other examples where it was outright stated. Hell, a lot of the "pillow friends" talk in the Tower seems like it was more about available choice than all of the girls actually being gay.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2013 15:04
|
|
