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The Lord Bude posted:I'm confused. You guys act as if these are all bad things. The pacing of WoT is one of the best things about it, the in depth descriptions and stuff is what makes it such an immersive world. You know it's strange, I hated LOTR for similar reasons, I thought the balance of descriptive text, songs, and poetry and god drat genealogies were way out of balance compared to story, but I actually like a lot of the descriptive work done in WoT and even the Game of Thrones series. Sure I skipped a few lists of heraldry appearing on the field in GoT and a few descriptions of ladies clothes in WoT but never at the level that LOTR made me want to skip pages and skim, and also not until I was in my second read-through.
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Oct 22, 2014 18:53
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Of course some of the digressions will be a matter of taste. Like I always found the blacksmithing trivia interesting but I can see where someone might not. You at least have to give RJ credit for his research though. Did anybody else catch that time when Sanderson didn't know how to use "vintage" in a sentence? The dude couldn't write one paragraph about wine without loving up.
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Oct 22, 2014 19:10
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McNerd posted:Of course some of the digressions will be a matter of taste. Like I always found the blacksmithing trivia interesting but I can see where someone might not. Sanderson's prose is serviceable, but it isn't at Jordan's level. It's too...mechanical for want of a better word. And there are plenty of places where he uses very awkward words and phrases that sound like something a contemporary person would say and not a WoT character. They stand out like a sore thumb. He uses the word 'politics' constantly, whereas Jordan would use terms like scheming, or refer to the game of houses. The Jordan written books contain the word politics IIRC twice (I counted during my first reread after reading a Sanderson WoT book.)
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Oct 23, 2014 03:23
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nucleicmaxid posted:It is, unless you glance at summaries now and then. However, it is a wonderful way to re-read a book. During those dark middle school/early high school days when I'd cleared out the local library of any worthwhile scifi/fantasy (when I hit Piers Anthony I finally gave up) I basically ended up endlessly rereading my Pratchett/Jordan/Asimov/Clarke and I basically would do books 7->10 (maybe 11? The latest one that had come out) readning only the Mat sections 'cause that was the endless depths of mopey Rand who, while interesting as an arc, is basically as boring as protagonist Rand, only with a harem. Nynaeve might be annoying but I shared her desire to grab a chair and beat him over the head saying "You are not being productive," "Taim is a Darkfriend holy poo poo you dumb gently caress," and "Your hangups with females deaths are weird."
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Oct 23, 2014 18:56
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I'm glad I'm not the only one who wanted him to stop reciting every female who ever died in his near vicinity's names. Like, dude. I get, and more importantly, you get that you're basically Spellsword Jesus, but you don't have to be THAT hung up on it. People die. Everything dies, that's a fact, but you live in a universe where everything that dies, someday comes back.
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Oct 26, 2014 04:38
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Really he should of met with Tam earlier in the series, it really annoyed me how a group of main characters with teleportation powers never met and talked for like 5-6 books at a time.
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Oct 26, 2014 05:05
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Gologle posted:I'm glad I'm not the only one who wanted him to stop reciting every female who ever died in his near vicinity's names. Like, dude. I get, and more importantly, you get that you're basically Spellsword Jesus, but you don't have to be THAT hung up on it. People die. Everything dies, that's a fact, but you live in a universe where everything that dies, someday comes back. I get Mat's hang ups a lot more since he started with personally knifing (not causing the death of by way of, as you say, proximity) a woman he'd thought of, until about 5 minutes before, as his lover, then went straight to accidentally getting Tylin killed because he left her tied up and easy prey. Then when it comes to 'order a woman killed or have the whole group discovered' he sucks it up and tells his guys to shoot. Yay! That was fine. But yeah, Rand's issue was obviously Lews Therin, whose last memory was 'oh poo poo I killed my wife what the fuckkkkkkkkkkkk' leaking through. It's justified. I see it. It's not pointless. It's just doesn't make Rand super interesting, esp. in the draggy bits.
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Oct 26, 2014 06:49
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Zephyrine posted:I'll give it 4-5 books to draw my interest but this generic goody-two-shoes protagonist is wearing me down. My opinions: - Books 1 and 2 are basically "Adventures of Rand & Friends" establishing their personalities relationships etc. - Book 3 is interesting in that you hardly see Rand yet he shows up in the end and does something big that I suspect could have originally been the end of the series at some point in time when it was contracted to just three books (maybe someone can verify this). - Book 4 is I think often considered the best in the series - Book 4/5 and onward is where it stops being about Rand & Friends and more about what's going on in this world at this time in history for pretty much the rest of the series If you get through Book 5 and are in love with it then keep going. The bad bits are much more tolerable when you don't have to wait years for the next book to come out.
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Oct 27, 2014 03:59
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It was pitched as a trilogy. Books 1-3 were originally one book, culminating in the events of book 3.
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Oct 27, 2014 18:45
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Blind Melon posted:It was pitched as a trilogy. Books 1-3 were originally one book, culminating in the events of book 3. I could be wrong but I thought it was a little more complex than that -- pitched as a series of three to six books, they gave him a contract for one, then a contract for three, then a contract of as many as he wanted.
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Oct 27, 2014 18:55
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Okay I'm 2/3 through book 2 and I'm really getting into the series. Though things are really branching off into a lot of small stories. I'm going to have to keep at this or it could easily be a week between switches from one story until I get back to it again.
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Oct 27, 2014 19:19
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Zephyrine posted:Okay I'm 2/3 through book 2 and I'm really getting into the series. Though things are really branching off into a lot of small stories. I'm going to have to keep at this or it could easily be a week between switches from one story until I get back to it again. Glad to hear you're getting more into it, as others have said the series really comes into its own after the first book. If the separate stories aren't doin it for you (I'm assuming you mean separate chapters for Rand, Perrin, etc.), I've got bad news - the whole series is set up like that. I'm on book 12 currently and I can't even recall the last time Rand and Mat were in the same location, for example.
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Oct 27, 2014 19:37
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Xenochrist posted:Glad to hear you're getting more into it, as others have said the series really comes into its own after the first book. I'm fine with it. I just got surprised for a while in book two when all of a sudden I came back to Perrin and the soldiers just after Rand vanished and I thought "But he vanished like... Last Thursday. What has Perrin been up to all this time?" After a certain number of chapters. It gets hard to accept that something I read a week ago "just happened"
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Oct 27, 2014 19:52
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Oh boy are you gonna love Crossroads of Twilight!
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Oct 27, 2014 20:01
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I always thought the Matt and Tylin thing was dark as gently caress, even leaving out the weird rapeyness. One of the few times I was shocked in this series was when they revealed her fate. Oh and I thought Rahvin killed Aviendha, well, I guess he did, but I was pretty smashed by that for the next few pages.
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Oct 27, 2014 20:14
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I had to look this up since I honestly have never been able to follow his story in the books, but can I just say how loving dumb Osan'gar's storyline is? I mean, you bring back one of your foresaken from death, and rather than have him make new types of Shadowspawn or more Gholams, he just pals around with Rand? Was his original goal to turn the Black Tower to the shadow? He just seems like the most useless of all of the foresaken, which really is saying something
The Glumslinger fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Oct 27, 2014 |
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Oct 27, 2014 20:24
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The Glumslinger posted:I had to look this up since I honestly have never been able to follow his story in the books, but can I just say how loving dumb Osan'gar's storyline is? I mean, you bring back one of your foresaken from death, and rather than have him make new types of Shadowspawn or more Gholams, he just pals around with Rand? Was his original goal to turn the Black Tower to the shadow? He just seems like the most useless of all of the foresaken, which really is saying something Having a spy at Rand's side is a pretty good idea even if he doesn't wind up taking any overt action. Also and more importantly, I think that Aginor's biological knowledge was not really all that useful without 2nd Age tools to go with it. I guess Mesaana's and Semirhage's abilities transferred pretty well to the new primitive age, but it seems plausible that genetic engineering and radical modification of biological organisms is a much more complex problem. Do we ever actually see a weave that would, say, give a human being hoofs, let alone supernatural powers? Anyway I'm not too clear on timelines but I think Osan'gar was probably resurrected less than a year prior to the Final Battle? That doesn't leave much time for a breeding program. In the Second Age he'd have had decades, maybe a century or more, with cloning tanks or whatever and possibly even time-altering technology. (Of course the Bore alters time but in the wrong direction.) McNerd fucked around with this message at 21:38 on Oct 27, 2014 |
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Oct 27, 2014 21:34
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The Glumslinger posted:I had to look this up since I honestly have never been able to follow his story in the books, but can I just say how loving dumb Osan'gar's storyline is? I mean, you bring back one of your foresaken from death, and rather than have him make new types of Shadowspawn or more Gholams, he just pals around with Rand? Was his original goal to turn the Black Tower to the shadow? He just seems like the most useless of all of the foresaken, which really is saying something This is a running theme with the Forsaken in general. Sure they are all powerful and knowledgeable people, but they lack the support and infrastructure they had back in the day. Osan'gar suffers the most from this since he was basically a mad scientist with a buttload of prisoners and labs and breeding camps and what have you which all helped to facilitate his Shadowspawn projects, but in the present time none of that exists. He simply doesn't have the facilities and technical support he did during the War of Power, so he's reduced to being just Some Dude.
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Oct 27, 2014 21:36
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Any number of darkfriends could have done spying just fine though, so his whole task felt a little diffuse. If it had been Asmodean tasked with getting the Dragon all emo I'd understand it, or Demandred trying to nab the Supreme Commander role/the Black Tower, but our boy here did jack poo poo and didn't look like there was any grander "plan" in action either (At least the other Gar was up to mindfuckery with a pretty clear purpose). I'm not sure Jordan needed to bring Aginor back just to run the "out of their depth" concept into the ground. They might be notNazi analogues, but they aren't *just some dudes* either, they are top tier wizards who you could probably find a dozen better things to do with than have them do what amounts to frontal assaults with fireballs. Maybe the Dark One just wanted all these fuckers dead after 3000 years of spooning together with them 
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Oct 28, 2014 22:15
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Pimpmust posted:Any number of darkfriends could have done spying just fine though, so his whole task felt a little diffuse. I'll agree it was diffuse, but I don't think that makes it bad. Definitely he's capable of more than your average Darkfriend. There is always a concern that Rand would devise some crazy plan with the Power that nobody expected, like cleansing saidin or trapping Moridin with Callandor or what have you. This is a huge part of the war, and the only real way to preempt such tricks is a spy with the background to pick up the most occult clues: obscure ter'angreal that look like mundane objects, weaves nobody else would understand, arcane metaphysics books written in the Old Tongue, stuff like that. And honestly if Rand had not been absolutely paranoid at that time, he probably would have dropped a clue or two along the way. As for who else could have filled this position, let's assume they have to at least be a trustworthy male channeler who can remain undercover, isn't Turned or insane. Such people are in short supply. There might have been an attempt to insert Mazrim Taim in such a position but if so it failed miserably. McNerd fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Oct 29, 2014 |
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Oct 29, 2014 16:03
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Hey, how'd the Forsaken learn to speak Common so quickly if the world was still on Old Tongue when they got trapped in the Bore?
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Oct 29, 2014 17:06
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I think the explanation was that they picked it up while "asleep" because they could sorta dream/observe the world? That or Common is just really close and simplified version of the Old Tongue. Language in general doesn't seem to change much over the years (due to printing press surviving / Aes Sedai).
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Oct 29, 2014 17:43
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Huh? Old Tongue is gibberish compared to Common (English). It's noted many times that people think Mat is spouting nonsense when he unconsciously lapses into Old Tongue.
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Oct 29, 2014 18:02
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Hmm, thought that one of the Forsaken mentioned it (Common) being pretty simple to learn/understand? Maybe it doesn't work in reverse 
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Oct 30, 2014 06:48
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Pimpmust posted:Hmm, thought that one of the Forsaken mentioned it (Common) being pretty simple to learn/understand? Maybe it doesn't work in reverse That was specifically for writing, I believe. Either Graendal or Mesaana was writing a letter to someone and thought to herself that this quaint written alphabet they had in this day and age was so primitive and simple.
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Oct 30, 2014 15:21
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I could be wrong but I thought it was a little more complex than that -- pitched as a series of three to six books, they gave him a contract for one, then a contract for three, then a contract of as many as he wanted. You can dig up the quotes if you want. Jordan pitched 3, publisher countered with an offer for 6 knowing Jordan liked to snowball (and it could be a mix of WOT and stand atones), and then at some point it became a different deal. Original contract was for 6, Jordan had a relationship with TOR before WOT. Blind Melon fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Oct 31, 2014 |
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Oct 31, 2014 06:11
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The Glumslinger posted:I had to look this up since I honestly have never been able to follow his story in the books, but can I just say how loving dumb Osan'gar's storyline is? I mean, you bring back one of your foresaken from death, and rather than have him make new types of Shadowspawn or more Gholams, he just pals around with Rand? Was his original goal to turn the Black Tower to the shadow? He just seems like the most useless of all of the foresaken, which really is saying something He can't. There was a question of the week on this and Jordan compared him to a microbiologist sent back in time 2000 years. He doesn't have the tools to make the tools to make the tools... Apparently it was a fusion of science and magic that enabled his accomplishments.
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Oct 31, 2014 06:17
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Rereading Towers of Midnight... Mat's letter to Elayne is the single best page in the entire series. I wonder if Jordan wrote that; it's funnier than anything in Sanderson's vast body of work.
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Oct 31, 2014 16:33
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Eric the Mauve posted:Rereading Towers of Midnight... Mat's letter to Elayne is the single best page in the entire series. I wonder if Jordan wrote that; it's funnier than anything in Sanderson's vast body of work. My gut feel is that Jordan basically never quotes an entire letter in the series. I haven't looked to make sure, though. Based on that I feel it's Sanderson's work.
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Oct 31, 2014 17:54
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api call girl posted:My gut feel is that Jordan basically never quotes an entire letter in the series. I haven't looked to make sure, though. He quoted Moiraine's entire (much longer) letter to Rand in TFoH, so there is a precedent at least.
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Oct 31, 2014 19:32
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Maybe Verin's letter to Egwene?
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Oct 31, 2014 19:38
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Maybe Verin's letter to Egwene? Also possibly Sanderson's work. Verin's letter to Mat would also be in that category. It is certainly true that we see more letters in the last three books than we did in the previous ten.
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Oct 31, 2014 21:30
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It's possible (but unlikely) Jordan might have shown the full text of a letter from Mat to Elayne, but there is no way in hell he would have done the gag of it having terrible spelling and grammar - at least not by outright having it like that on the page. At best he might have had Elayne mention to someone in the room that it was terrible spelling.
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Nov 1, 2014 12:56
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To be fair, I think Mat would deliberately do that just to bother Elayne.
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Nov 2, 2014 17:39
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Mad Hamish posted:To be fair, I think Mat would deliberately do that just to bother Elayne. It's not Jordan's writing style. Sanderson never really 'got' Matt - probably because Matt was the character that was most closely based on Jordan himself. Sanderson turned him into a generic wisecracking character torn from a modern sitcom.
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Nov 3, 2014 12:06
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The Lord Bude posted:It's not Jordan's writing style. Sanderson never really 'got' Matt - probably because Matt was the character that was most closely based on Jordan himself. Sanderson turned him into a generic wisecracking character torn from a modern sitcom. Which is sad, because mat was the best main character.
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Nov 3, 2014 19:24
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Robert Jordan was every character. Except the female ones. Those were all his wife.
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Nov 3, 2014 20:23
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The Lord Bude posted:It's not Jordan's writing style. Sanderson never really 'got' Matt - probably because Matt was the character that was most closely based on Jordan himself. Sanderson turned him into a generic wisecracking character torn from a modern sitcom. Oh so I guess I don't have to worry about Matt being killed off in any of the Jordan books then 
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Nov 3, 2014 20:46
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He's got Ta'veren armor, son.
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Nov 3, 2014 22:00
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Arrath posted:He's got Ta'veren armor, son. Oh but he's so very much Ta'veren. At least 120% more Ta'veren than the other leading brands of Ta'veren.
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Nov 3, 2014 22:27
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