who in this bitch reads robert jordan? -- The Wheel of Time thread

One big fuckin' soap opera, though the first few books were good.

or maybe it was someone who looked like him.

1/ the whole premise of the story - the cataclysm that had happened in the very distant past, and all the repercussions at the time the story was set in was very convincing, and strange as well.

2/ the way that the way the people from the distant past lived and the nature of their society is revealed in this piecemeal manner was really very well done I thought. There was this bit where the protagonist gets a brief flash from the memories of all his ancestors, one after the other, going back to before the cataclysm. That was amazing!

3/er....other stuff as well. My memory has just stopped working properly.

However, someone I know saw what I was reading, and lent me this set of 4 books that he said was much better. er...(googles) "The Book of the New Sun" by Gene Wolfe. That was really outstanding, I thought. Has anyone read that one?

Like books 5 - 9, it also is frustratingly slow until about the 2/3 mark, and just when you're about to give up and say "screw it, I gotta get out!" it starts getting good, building momentum, and you read the last third in 1 or 2 nights.

I'd really like to discuss some of the things in this one, but I'm afraid of spoilin' it for y'all.

i have been reading these books since junior high and i am now 24 - that is really depressing to realize.

I'm now 30 (going on 31). Eek.

i still have faith that the ending will (almost) redeem the series.

That said, the last two books have been the best since the first three or four, for my money -- but I didn't start reading until just before Path of Daggers came out, so I don't have the years of "what the fuck, when will you END IT, CONANBOY!" that a lot of folks have, so I might cut him more slack than I would otherwise.

(Peanut Gallery chimes in with plot outline of books 4-8.)

Yeah, but how much actually happens? He kept adding more and more subplots instead of resolving -- and sometimes instead of even addressing -- old ones.

LOOK OUT, SHOES!

if there is another book in the series where the main character BARELY FIGURES AT ALL then i may give up

SO TRUE.

I loyally read this series cos I started 13 years ago, but it's beginning to try my patience.

i need to muster up the energy to order the last one actually.

I caved in and started re-reading a few days ago. Already halfway through The Great Hunt. There's so much shit that I didn't even remember happening. It's better than TV at least.

(P.S. his Conan books suck in comparison to the Howard originals.)

does it bother anyone else when the characters speak without contractions? fuck, dude... his dialogue is v. unrealistic/wooden at times.

I NEVER GIVE UP ON BOOKS

Very true actually. I remember at the time this seemed really bold to me, (this was before I had read much at all admittedly), but it was also really emotionally affecting and vaguely tragic as well - kinda like a literal embodiment of post-colonial emphasis on lived experience, a "history" that is particular to the viewpoint of a certain group of people passed down through generations and cannot be translated. the slow abandonment of certain values being revealed in reverse was also super-effective, the dramatic irony of hearing Aiel say "we'll never give up the true way" (or whatever it was) when you've already read the scene where they give it up. The whole thing was immensely thoughtful.

There was lots of interesting alternate reality stuff like this in the earlier novels (like any time anyone stepped through a door/ring/touched a stone etc.) that is missing in the later stuff, and everything has increasingly been flattened out into an endless present tense that is almost suffocating.

I am almost done with book nine. :(

moral: never read a series that isn't finished!

oooh new book knife of dreams is out late 2005

...and I will wait quite a while it seems.

he's dead:

http://www.dragonmount.com/RobertJordan/?p=90

WTF

so wait, did he never outright finish the series? the first book came out in 1990 and now it's going to go unresolved? that. sucks.

I didn't dare write RIP or anything, I haven't read any of the books and people seemed to be so cheerfully talking about his death here :-/

i mean, obviously, RIP and all that. seemed like a nice guy, but WTF

rip

wtf

Indeed. :-/

A quick check at Wikipedia brings this up:

Final volume

On October 18, 2005, at a book signing in West Chester, Pennsylvania, Jordan gave the working title of the 12th book as A Memory of Light. As one of the attendees told Dragonmount.com, Jordan also warned that the final volume of the saga "could be a 1500-page monster" because he has so many dangling plot threads to wrap up in a single volume. He maintained that A Memory of Light would remain one volume "whether it is 1500 pages long, Tor has to invent a new binding system, or it comes with its own library cart". Due to his health problems, Jordan did not work at full force on the final installment, but blog entries confirmed that he continued work on it until his death, and he shared all of the significant plot details with his family not long before he died. [13]

So presumably there'll be an ending of some sort.

xpost

wtf is up with all yo's wtf's?

http://i18.tinypic.com/6apgw1w.gif

xpost
He had been ill for some time with some obscure form of cancer and received some treatment for it last year. He had been rushing through the final book as he knew his time was limited and his wife is apparently due to finish it off from his outline.

Some of us have read all 11 books and were awaiting the 12th with bated breath. Even thought others will finish off his plots for him, they won't have been written by him, hence "wtf".

oh! ok, thanks.

haha ned that's almost worse!

anyway, i'm not being very helpful here, i know. rip to the dude and sorry for his fans. but still... shit.

It's kinda interesting that when I started reading his books in my early 20s (and I'm nearly 40 now) I said to my friends "I hope he doesn't die before he finishes..."

wtf is right.

I only ever made it through the first four books, but RIP.

:-(

It really does seem like this very very sad cosmic punchline, I think as much for him as a writer as for his readers.

Wow. I was rooting for the guy to make it. I wonder how much of book 12 he did actually get written.

This is all going to be very Mystery of Edwin Drood. (More so than The Salmon of Doubt.)

It's interesting -- two hugely popular 'high church' American Anglican fantasy writers have passed within a couple of weeks of each other, L'Engle and now Jordan. This feels like a huge generational shift to me, due in part to my upbringing.

hey guys I know how it all ends

MAGIC IS BAD FOR YOU UNLESS YOU HAVE TITS!!! http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:HnYRljQTgTe5xM:http://www.wotmania.com/legacy/WoTSerpentB2SmCmpr.jpgMAGIC IS BAD FOR YOU UNLESS YOU HAVE TITS!!! MAGIC IS BAD FOR YOU UNLESS YOU HAVE TITS!!! MAGIC IS BAD FOR YOU UNLESS YOU HAVE TITS!!! http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:HnYRljQTgTe5xM:http://www.wotmania.com/legacy/WoTSerpentB2SmCmpr.jpg MAGIC IS BAD FOR YOU UNLESS YOU HAVE TITS!!! http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:HnYRljQTgTe5xM:http://www.wotmania.com/legacy/WoTSerpentB2SmCmpr.jpg MAGIC IS BAD FOR YOU UNLESS YOU HAVE TITS!!! MAGIC IS BAD FOR YOU UNLESS YOU HAVE TITS!!!MAGIC IS BAD FOR YOU UNLESS YOU HAVE TITS!!!

MAGIC IS BAD FOR YOU UNLESS YOU HAVE TITS!!! MAGIC IS BAD FOR YOU UNLESS YOU HAVE TITS!!!
MAGIC IS BAD FOR YOU UNLESS YOU HAVE TITS!!!

MAGIC IS BAD FOR YOU UNLESS YOU HAVE TITS!!!

oh man 3-img limit melted my art

this is sad, but not as tragic as it would have been if he'd wrapped it up after book six. he lost my interest (and any plot impetus) after that, basically starting a new story with different characters.

oh, and all the bits with female characters were just poor.

Some mutterings from my direction.

RIP. I couldn't make it past the first chapter of the first book, but was rooting for him to eventually finish it anyway. Quite saddening, actually, to think of him rushing to finish and failing.

(BTW Pash, did you ever end up reading those Gene Wolfe New Sun books your friend loaned you? They're my favorite post-LOTR fantasy novels.)

xpost

Ned, I can highly recommend the Prince of Nothing books as the most satisfyingly complete S&S work I've read in at leasta decade.

The fact that Steve Erikson praised them was a good sign. Will definitely be taking the plunge in the not-too-distant future.

Yeah I read those Gene Wolve books, I thought they were excellent, very vivid.

Anyway the longer the series gets and the longer the books get the whole shebang becomes more of a sick joke played on the nerds of the world--Jordan's gonna die and spawn a whole frightening genre of finish-WOT fanfic.

-- adam (adam), Friday, October 24, 2003 7:22 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark Link
My theory is that he's already written the last book and that he's just drawing the series out until he dies, and then when they mysteriously unearth the final book posthumously BINGO he's a legend.

-- nickalicious (nickalicious), Friday, October 24, 2003 7:26 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark Link

Finally got through the official blog site -- a peaceful passing with his family by his side, according to family member Wilson.

Meantime, the previous post to that, also from Wilson, said this a couple of weeks back regarding the final book:

Epilog: Yes he is continuing to work through all of this medical calamity. MOL is going into the word processor and onto audio tapes almost daily. Not every day mind you, because the medical fight takes first priority. But, he told you he’d finish and he will. Fact is that it has been finished in his head for years. During a recent family sit around, he became the Gleeman and told the bones of it ALL to Harriet and me. You read that right, I did say ALL. Don’t ask, ain’t telling. Two and a half hours of story telling by the Creator himself went by in the twinkling of an eye. Truly magical. All I can say is WOW! Best stuff he’s ever done. MOL is going to knock your socks off! That’s a promise.

There ya go.

It would kind of be perverse if 'A Memory of Light' ended up being the best WOT book in ages simply because there was no time to think up all of the internecine sub-plots about Aes Sedai tea ceremonies.

That said I did think the last one was his best in ages and ages.

Oh man I am a fucking asshole.

RIP big guy, I will treasure our moment together*. Also no matter what I posted on this thread about Mat + the dice he is still one of my favorite characters of any fantasy series ever. Well done.

*once I met him at a book signing and asked him what the initial spark of inspiration for the series was and he said something about imagining what it's like to be some random kid and get tapped on the shoulder and told 'guess what you are going to save the world, but you have to go crazy and die in the process'. I was surprised at the full minute+ he spent giving me this description.

"'guess what you are going to save the world, but you have to go crazy and die in the process'"

Who just randomly imagines this??

um

HAHAHA

How I Ruled The World and KILLED EVERYTHING, Pt. 4312431 -- The Dan P. Years

"'guess what you are going to save the world, but you have to go crazy and die in the process'"

Who just randomly imagines this??

guys who went to the citadel?

I once outlined a five-year arc for a superhero team comic book where, by year two, the character who was a stand-in for me had his powers severely maimed and, by the end of year five, he was killed saving the world from his best friend.

were any of the hastings crew in the superhero team?

The "evil" best friend was an amalgamation of one person who posts here and one person who doesn't. There was also a thinly-disguised version of a girl I had a massive crush on (who later went on to basically kick ass all over the place after my character's death). Everyone else was an original character.

i would buy ILX the comic book if u write it dan

I'm sad he's passed away, despite giving up on this series after CROWN OF SWORDS.

Re-reading from book one after finishing the latest.

Damn, these are good.

So Ms. Davies just got me a load of these in audiobook format for Xmas, something for the commute. Based on the fact that I like both Tolkien and Ice & Fire.

This is just crappy Tolkien rip-off, right? A couple of hours into the first audiobook and damned if this story of three young douchebags from the outback being hunted across country by shadowy shadow monsters and "Trollocs" on the advice of a magician doesn't seem familiar.

Self-centred request I know, but pls pls pls could someone who gets this stuff convince me that these are good and worth the time I'm inevitably going to have to pour into them? Would definitely be a good thing if I could convince the lady that I'm enjoying these wholeheartedly and not at all in a placating way. Shouldn't be too hard a sell, as noted above I'm a fan of certain key fantasy touchstones, but this seems like a bridge too far

It's better than ASOIAF

The magic system is really cool, and some of the mythology is decent. It does get much better than the opening - the first 50 pages kept me from reading the series for years and years - and the audiobook readers are solid. I realized the best way to listen (And I made it through all 400+ hours of the audiobooks) is not to worry about zoning out now and again; there is a lot of repetition and minutiae that is irrelevant. The main character is always a douche, but the supporting cast is decent and if you imagine it's the crew from That 70s Show it's much more enjoyable.

I think you had to be there

Ya i wouldnt recommend them now because you wont get it and you dont deserve it

Maybe peter jackson'll make u a movie someday bub

"won't get it don't deserve it" is like the party line directed at young people by auld curmudgeons like yourself deems, prepared to back myself in the task that lies before me. The tragic reality is that any advice or recommendations gained here don't make a whole world of difference because like it or not I'm more or less contractually obliged to listen to these things now, if only for the sake of a quiet life.

Thank you EZ Snappin for pointers, I find this extremely reassuring as my audiobook listening habits tend to involve a great deal of drifting in and out of the narrative. I have a four hour train journey to Wales tomorrow so I'm gonna try and pay attention and push on past the introductory section if poss.

EZ is right in that the first 50, maybe 100 pages are a slog

I tried to reread a few years ago but also couldn't quite get into it enough to continue

The opening prologue with Lews is more indicative of the type of grand sweep that RJ is going for

Once Rand dies (around pg 150 iirc) it picks up

Haaaaa

idk wd genuinely yeah id obv recommend the books as the best attempt at worldbuilding ive seen since tolkien ripd big man- but yknow ppl feel same way as that about grrrrmartin and his stuff left me dead cold.

First setup yeah, cliche after cliche. After four hours you'll know how it grabs you.

Let me know obv i'd take a 400 hr audiobook as a boon the way my new commutes looking

a decent chunk of 'the eye of the world' is a deliberate tolkien retread, partly as a way of nodding at or introducing important themes throughout the series (stories repeat themselves, 'echoes of legend') and partly because in the late 80s it was hard to sell publishers on multivolume fantasy epics and jordan thought basically retelling parts of the fellowship would help get his series published. i dont know if this makes it more appealing to listen to or not

the series has pretty much nothing to do with tolkien after the first two books, if you end up liking or caring about the series at all its sort of interesting how what seems 'important' in the first book shifts radically based on the way the rest of the series develops - theres all sorts of interesting groundwork being done that doesnt pay off for lots of time, solid world-building, &c. theres another jordan thread on ilx where the series gets discussed more seriously/in-depth but it has lots of spoilers. but generally whats worthwhile about 'the wheel of time' is how effectively jordan layers in all these minor mysteries and plotlines, how dense and detailed it is. the characters arent that great and the broad story loses its momentum because of his desire to expand it to include everything, its a little like someone in a borges short story writing epic fantasy so its definitely not for everyone. but its totally the sort of series that rewards for caring about the backstory and motivation of that one shifty innkeeper the characters meet in book one, because jordan does too. its also i think the most structurally/thematically interesting fantasy series ive ever read, it take some risks with its story and characters that dont always pay off but that i appreciate as a fan of the genre

Pashmina, iirc, posted about some of the past/alternative world thread setups that lend the series that just-over-the-horizon depth, but on phone so no help to you there.

Maybe yr either a jordan or a martin person idk

xp ya all that

It's better than ASOIAF

― 乒乓, Monday, December 30, 2013 10:43 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://www.bulletsnbabesdvd.com/forums/upload/Yi-Long/wrongcattext.jpg

i read a LOT of this in middle school. up through A CROWN OF SWORDS iirc. i got off the boat when things got reallllllly plodding.

Lamp starting to sell me on this. Either way, I've got at least 12 hours of train travelling to do in the next week or so, so I'm definitely going to try and devote as much of it as possible to getting through this first book and then I'll see where we are. Certainly heartened by news that it isn't just a LOTR retread and that the world building / depth of cast is a strength, that's the sorta thing I go in for usually. Nice 1 guys

lamp always makes me want to read these but i just

otoh, i did find the first nine in the bookcase at my local the other day

Lol ian I admit I was being a bit trolley

Just kinda sick of people saying ASOIAF is better because it's "mature" fantasy

being able to tell people they're better than martin is also a prime motivator for me reading these

in the cold light of the past couple books i think we can admit that ASOIAF is pretty lame and that GRRM is a rapey creep.

jordan ruled not only for all the grownup reasons that lamp was talking bout but also b/c dude occasionally demonstrated his mastery of awesome, thrilling, insane narrative prose in awesome, thrilling ways. i think at least once per book, which is worth it to me. they're long but it's not like they take a lot of effort to read.

average, i'd say a lot more often than once per book- just eeeeh not much at all there for two or three after book 6

The first book is actually the outlier in terms of the tone of the series

He's still getting his sea legs I think, or maybe it's due to the reasons Lamp mentioned above

Through book 6 it's straight fire...then it tapers off

I stopped at book 9 but am eager to restart and finish the series

wasted so much of my life on these, which is maybe why i couldn't bring myself to care at all about ASOIAF. i gave up after crossroads of twilight i think but get nostalgic every once in a while and go back to read the plot summaries on wikipedia

in the fifth grade i wrote part of a fantasy novel that was basically just a rip of WOT + dikuMUD and i am mortified by the thought that it might still exist somewhere

Yeahhh so 14 hours in and I’m predictably addicted. Still a tiny bit resistant to some of the most excessive world-building elements of it (when Moraine or the Gleeman get carried away and start reeling off lists of names of kings and kingdoms, blergh) though I think this is at least partially due to names really not seeming like Jordan’s forte. But there’s plenty here that I’m enjoying a lot. The occasional glimpses of Rand as reckless and a wee bit of a badass are fun.

At the moment I’m trying to puzzle out what’s going on in the dreams they all keep having. Is the guy they keep meeting actually the Dark One? The guy narrating is giving him the same voice as the baddie from the prologue, but I could have sworn that wasn’t actually the Dark One himself, just a lieutenant or something.

Anyhow, this has now stopped feeling like a direct retread of LOTR (though still soooo many broad similarities to Fellowship) and this is a good thing.

Attaboy

No spoilers btw get tae fuck

Can feel already that it's going to become the bane of my working days that I can't listen to this. Get in an hour through commuting, maybe a bit before bed, that's yer lot. Fucking sucks, this is gathering pace brilliantly.

lol

continually impressed by Jordan's ability to up the tension by bringing in new and viable threats. very enjoyable hunt narrative, this. also the narrator's doing a damn good job at voicing so many different characters

Even when he goes meandering off onto ridiculous tangents you ultimately don't care about, Jordan is pretty baller

"Remember your oaths, al'Lan Mandragoran, Lord of the Seven Towers! What of the oath of a Diademed Battle Lord of the Malkieri?"

ehhhhhh hate this shit

How dare u, listen to book 10 and say that again

makes me feel nauseous with guilt that I'm listening to sthing so nerdy, wish he'd rein it in a bit. It's fine though cuz it's still all really enjoyable, just that those sorta bits make me wince

I'm sure this will have been gone over in detail elsewhere (avoiding spoilers like the plague atm so don't wanna check) but like, did this guy actually know any women other than his mam? Every female character is basically fucking identical to all the others! And they're all total shrews! At first I was thinking "Oh matriarchal society, badass, kind of interesting inversion of Eve as cause of the Fall going on here" but the more I listen the more I'm beginning to feel that this is just Jordan's blind for the fact that they're all paper thin characters "Oh no it's cool guys, this isn't derogatory to women, can't you see they're in charge?". In spite of the fact that even supremo badass magician lady still needs a brooding, muscle-bound king-in-exile to take care of her, to take just one example. Like, all very well and good to create a world where women are on top of the heap, but then it seems like in loads of important ways (guards in the cities, village councils, business owners, travelling entertainers, you name it) it's all still just totally male-dominated.

No spoilers obv., but could someone who's finished these things indicate whether this central dynamic - male protagonists as a bunch of goons with nary a clue about what might be going on inside the heads of the women consistently get ticked off for being a bunch of goons by interchangeable feamle characters apparently modelled on a disliked primary school teacher - runs through the whole series? Not gonna influence me especially, y'understand, but forewarned is forearmed.

Idk why everything I post itt looks like a complaint, I'm having a great time with this, first book has been a rip-roaring tale

Idk why everything I post itt looks like a complaint, I'm having a great time with this

Jordan fandom in a nutshell

Came here to note what an A++ line "Death is lighter than a feather, duty is heavier than a mountain" was in the context of this story, espesh when considering that (so far) Jordan's prose has had to be carried along by the narrative. Cursory Google leaves me entirely unsurprised to find that this is an old Eastern proverb and not a Jordan original.

Which is not to say that I haven't enjoyed the second book, bcuz this is fucking aces

Picky enough imo

Avoiding spoilers for this shit is p. much a daily struggle at this point, particularly given the number of references to ppl and places that are flying over my head now. But fuckit, I refuse to be drawn, mostly out of fear that if I find out what's actually going to happen here then I'll just be robbing myself of hundreds of hours of listening pleasure. Jordan upsetting my expectations at almost every turn so far. Although even bearing in mind that most of my predictions to date have been dead wrong I would still bet my mortgage on this shady Selene character being a baddie of some import.

otoh this sorta shit - "men often mistake killing and revenge for justice. They seldom have the stomach for justice." or "My mother always told me the best way to learn to deal with a man was to learn to ride a mule. She said they have about equal brains most of the time. Sometimes the mule is smarter" or "Men! When you cannot win an argument, you either run away or resort to force" smdh at how this guy has created a nominally female-dominated society and yet still manages to have misogyny and condescension leaking from the pores of his prose

Ah jaysus so no confirmation but I think I just found out who Selene is !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://bookandborrow.com/UploadImage/Author/10242009105514PM.jpg

are you really surprised that a failed dr john stunt double finds solace in writing awkward, misogynistic, condescending fantasy? tho i think it is mitigated somewhat by the obvious terror jordan had of actually writing about sex.

branderson sanderson is a goofy mormon so his books are super super awkward too.

nb i love these books w all my heart.

ahh, a universal look (the beard! the hat! the glasses! the cane!). would be interested to know if there was anyone out there who didn't have a guy with this aesthetic at their school

i think somewhere on an other thread i half-heartedly tried to, if not defend, then at least contextualize the obvious "gender trouble" of the books as a pretty damning portrait of a society suffering from a kind of gender crisis. i think the idea was that Jordan's whole saga is basically about conflicts between the genders--albeit a totally flawed one still grounded in gender essentialism. i prefer to think of it all as jordan trying to imagine what its like to be a woman but sadly getting no farther than imagining how annoying men must be from the outside. so all his female characters become bad stereotypes--tho not always!

Assumed u thought selene was an ilxor tbh

Man if only I was a lady rather than woolly-headed male I would've been able to zing u so hard darraghmac

No spoilers obv., but could someone who's finished these things indicate whether this central dynamic - male protagonists as a bunch of goons with nary a clue about what might be going on inside the heads of the women consistently get ticked off for being a bunch of goons by interchangeable feamle characters apparently modelled on a disliked primary school teacher - runs through the whole series? Not gonna influence me especially, y'understand, but forewarned is forearmed.

i think this is fair comment and no, it p much sticks to this format

*pulls braid*

Moving through these at a fair old lick now, just polished off book 3. Ending sequence as all characters converge and the narrative jumps between the PsOV was very very good. From what I can gather it's a gradual but steady decline for quite a while now? So much enjoyable shit that I can already tell is to come (I hope) but definitely foremost among that is an encounter of some kind with all the Two Rivers village folk from the start of book 1. Gimme more Tam Al'Thor, dammit! Little aside in this book when Perrin just lost dropped out and lost himself in being a blacksmith again for a few days was satisfying. "Most improved" goes to Mat, fro transforming himself in the space of three POV chapters from a whiny little bitch who "snickers" at everything to a roving devil-may-care gambler figure. Bcuz being a lucky chancer who just about gets away with it is much cooler and more fun to read about than wolves or magic.

Flipside to this is that bit when out of nowhere he takes on the two princes with his quarterstaff and destroys them. Never shown the remotest aptitude for that kind of thing in the book before, these two are very nearly finished training to be warders who are apparently the supremo ultimo warriors in this world, wtfffff??!!
"no worries guys, I've just been playing at being a whiny douche for two and a half books, I'm actually a total badass with a quarterstaff cuz that's how farmers do" aaaaaaargh consistency

it is actually fucking admirable that this guy was so confident that his readers would care deeply enough about the potential payoff from the (admittedly enthralling) main story that he was happy to just level a constant barrage of bullshit in their direction pretty much from the word go

4-5-6 are the high point imo.

a post to brighten my day, thank you

It's 7-12 that are rough.

i'll worry about that in 3 weeks or so

It's the audio version of Villa's last three seasons.

If you know that theres gonba be 13 books from the start id imagine it changes yr pov a kot tbh

1 thru 6 arent challenged by much imo

ps rand, matt, egwene, nynaeve, perrin are all from manatheren its a 'thing' so yknow he kicked some guys asses its gonna happen btw town boys are p soft ime

Wish I could just get the remaining 10/11 condensed down to say, three books, really. Not even a quarter of the way through but I don't ever need to read another description of clothing / emotional state / scenery (be that urban or rural) / appearance by this guy ever again. Enough with this "writing" business, give me plot points and give me action, puhlease

It's gonna get rough for you, my friend. There is 1000 pages of "Men! How frustrating and stupid!" and "Women! WTF?!?!" interior monologues in your future.

I'd honestly advise you to quit after book 6

ive been travelling a lot for work so i decided to start rereading these, enjoyed the hell out of the first book but a big part of that was spotting all the easter eggs for whats still to come. but i thought it was fairly briskly paced with the exception of the nyaneve chapters during the middle third of the book. i remember that whole section being really boring but the stuff with perrin and egwene is genuinely tense and involving, particularly the part where they are being hunted by the ravens. i like how it emphasized the diminishing of the human race too which ends up being a reasonably important part of the series all those vast open spaces and abandoned places. the second book in contrast is a lot worse that i remember, rand doesnt so much progress as snap into place, which is maybe sort of true to life - you fight against the inevitable and then give in all at once but it makes for tedious reading. still lots of good parts and the lines of if sequence is so great, and theres lots of small moments that reverberate throughout the series but i wish it was better. one thing i do like is that these books still used the scatter everyone at the beginning and then draw them together for a big, climatic showdown structure to great effect

Nynaeve is just such a horrible character. By far the worst of the POVs

i've still been working away at my reread of the series when i got to book 8 - its been harder going than i expected it to be but book 8 is really not very good. however it was also the first book in the series that i read as it came out and when i opened the book again i was overcome with such a specific, powerful memory of the first time i read the book that it gave me a kind of vertigo. like, i can remember taking the bus into town after school to buy it the week it came out, with my own money, and sitting in the cafe attached to bookstore drinking sweet coffee drinks and just devouring the prologue. and obviously on the page for chapter one (something like 40 pages in) is a splatter of coffee stains left there by a much younger me. and i keep thinking about how deeply integrated these books are into the fabric of my life, how powerfully and certainly i can remember specific places i first read most of the books and the incredible distance btw the ideas i had about 'the wheel of time' and life and the mundanity and solidity of my life now, sitting in an airport lounge and working on powerpoint slides and fighting with my boyfriend about takeout and so ive decided to stop reading these, because theyre just kind of breaking my heart

haven't read it

Wow lamp

But tbrr that isnt an unfair reaction to book 8 neither

Gave up at 7. Might come back to it in a few months once I've had some time off, I did the first six books back to back.

About right, yeah.

sanderson to pen new twelve part WOT epilogue

Dunno what folks were talking about, books 8 and 9 of this were entirely acceptable imo, final chapter of the ninth is up there with Dumais Wells as a series high point thus far, even if it is a little bit disappointing to see these supposedly supremo-badass bad guys get bitched out by a bunch of non-characters like the putties in Power Rangers.

Bit where these dudes have got Rand imprisoned and are like, "Nah fuck you Cadsuane we're sending him to Tar Valon" and Cadsuane is like "Oh ok that's cool btw did I mention that these three dead-eyed murder-fops standing behind me dressed head-to-toe in black are actually FUCKING ASHA'MAN BITCHESSSSS WUT WUT" is p. thrilling stuff too, like any time the Asha'man are let off the leash you know that things are
gonna get heavy.

Apparently book 10 is where things get really shitty? But idk, people hated the 5th ASOIAF book and I pretty much didn't mind it, so maybe this won't be that bad? Knowing how many books there are in the series and that I can start the next one whenever I like and everything I think I can deal with the absence of major characters from this one without too much grizzling.

ive detailed my re-read in one of these threads but once you dont have to wait three years between them and you're prepared for the plots to slow and widen after book 6 there's none of them as bad as we moaned about at the time

book 10 is universally felt to be the weakest in the series. however, while i can remember nothing about it, i remember thinking book 11 (the last one jordan wrote) was really good.

Lamp's post above is great and this was exactly how i felt reading A Memory of Light last week:

and i keep thinking about how deeply integrated these books are into the fabric of my life, how powerfully and certainly i can remember specific places i first read most of the books and the incredible distance btw the ideas i had about 'the wheel of time' and life and the mundanity and solidity of my life now, sitting in an airport lounge and working on powerpoint slides and fighting with my boyfriend about takeout and so ive decided to stop reading these, because theyre just kind of breaking my heart

It's very true that the story flows better once you don't have to wait years between each installment of the story.

yeah re-reading that lamp post was a treat this morning

I wonder how the decades will treat the series. I've an idea we readers are more likely to end up an of-their-time collection of enthusiasts like fans of eg gene wolfe stuff as opposed to the lucky first generation of LOTR readers, if you get me.

i think that's probably right--jordan's work, with its clearly drawn moral lines and absence (mostly) of sexual violence and grimdark grimdarkery, feels outdated after the game of thrones tits-and-ambiguity arms race. i prefer the jordan style because i like my fantasy to be fantastical so i can spend some time in an exciting world without all the awful shit that would come along with a "realistic" medieval europe analogue.

only branderson sanderson is still carrying the family-friendly epic fantasy doorstop torch but he kinda sucks. still the ratio of GRRM readers to sanderson readers on the subway is at least 20:1 in my scientific observation.

xp

I'm inclined to agree--though I'm not well read enough in fantasy literature to compare it to anything other than ASOIAF, which for me is a lesser work. what is a better fantasy series of the last, let's say 30 years?

and yes i know that i am basically making a stupid starry eyed argument in favor of the gentle nature of a series of books that at one point features an army of half-insane wizards magically chewing another army of surely underpaid family-having working class men into a pulp. xp

i agree with you! my favorite aspect of martin's series is the King Arthur-esque backstory rather than the grim "realism."

I want to say farseer trilogy tbh and there's other series I like a lot but grrm and Jordan are the heavyweights and I hardly think that eg eddings compares

i'm not really interested in the game of thrones tv show but i appreciate how it exposes GRRM's "realism" and political machinations and stuff as just trashy cinemax thriller rehash.

and yeah the farseer trilogy is very good

i'm not really interested in the game of thrones tv show but i appreciate how it exposes GRRM's "realism" and political machinations and stuff as just trashy cinemax thriller rehash.

otm. although, i think there's something essentially "conservative" about a lot of the fantasy im familiar with in that it often posits a medieval society that doesn't seem all that bad. couldnt help but notice that in A Memory of Light how often something like benign leadership of monarchs, etc, is invoked. but somehow i dont think Martin's books are gonna amount to a defense of modernity...

Ned's always good for a rec or two in that other thread there's a few lighter trilogies or series in train at the moment that I'd put above the Sanderson ive read, patrick rothfuss certainly and the Locke lamora stuff but this isnt to say it goes toe-to-toe with Jordan for scope or anything

it's funny you mention gene wolfe. what happened to his reputation? i was gonna read that to scratch a post-WOT itch...

yeah tons of this stuff is at least in part super reactionary, especially from american writers, a lot of imagined harkening back to an albion ruled by benevolent kings and chaste maids etc, but i personally find some value in being presented a world with an inherent moral order to which its actors generally adhere. that the actors in service of good are generally the rich and well born (or the secretly well born with a heroes journey raising him to his proper station) is problematic but i only have so much energy.

sorry for "problematic"

ah no i was driving

i mentioned gene wolfe as a good example of idk you'll find people that are crazy enthusiastic for his stuff, happy to put it up against anything in the genre (pashmina and the late great of this parish for instance iirc). a pocket of very very strong enthusiasm kind of thing which i feel that, despite bestseller numbers in the past decade or two, the WOT is heading for- call it a disposability or lack of connection to the zeitgeist or w/e- it may simply be that there was other stuff that crossed over to tv better or that may even be fitting the events to the theory overmuch, that maybe every five or ten years has it's big fantasy series and only a very rare few break beyond the genre market, with tolkien the obvious example for fantasy.

i mean something's got to be top of the fantasy bestseller lists at any given time i guess

ive tried wolfe btw, didnt find it compelling but i might do now that im finished evening classes and can read guilt-free again

https://plus.google.com/103674399065634804648/posts/1aeEKJiqdeF

The following is a press statement that has been approved by the studio involved in contract negotiations:

Update: Wanted to share with you exciting news about The Wheel of Time. Legal issues have been resolved. The Wheel of Time will become a cutting edge TV series! I couldn’t be more pleased. Look for the official announcement coming soon from a major studio —Harriet 

this cannot be good

Google+, for a start.

So...Amazon's doing this *and* Tolkien?

https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-long-awaited-wheel-of-time-tv-series-is-heading-to-1829463189

Hm hm hm.

Please welcome Rosamund Pike to the Wheel of Time family. Say hello to Moiraine. #WoTWednesday pic.twitter.com/577Hffwy6Y

— Wheel of Time Writers' Room (@WoTWritersRoom) June 19, 2019

hope she likes wearing skirts divided for riding

That is some excellent casting.

is there going to be bathing in this

I'm wondering now who they're going to cast as Nynaeve

Actually, before she blew up in the Avengers movies I might have suggested Karen Gillan

good start that

nynaeve

and look i know the age aint right now, and maybe not even back in 96 or whenever

marcia gay harden

This is going to be stupid and terrible and I will watch all of it

Generally it’s best to cast one person people have heard about and a bunch of nobodies- if we get many more casting announcements like this with well known actors then it’s going to be really dumb and awful and I’ll still watch it

dont ask me why but never really saw any of em clearly while reading except for asmodean, who was macho man randy savage

that is a very goodlooking cast

obv they were all white kids in my head

lan was like Azerbaijani obv tho

The dude playing Rand looks a little too much like a generic movie Marine

Nynaeve otoh 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

I hope dude playing Perrin is tall

idnr if perrin was like, tall tall like rand

dude has to be heavy in the shoulders obv

I have this mental image of Perrin towering over Rand and Mat but that may have been my mind translating "broad shoulders" into "is built like Kingpin in Into the Spiderverse"

I mean Moraine is supposed to be like three-foot tall or something

but yeah, Perrin is definitely more broad than tall

just as long as lan moves like animated batman its ok

good posts itt

adams description of GRRM as tits-and-ambiguity killed me again

that is a very goodlooking cast

― phil neville jacket (darraghmac), Wednesday, 14 August 2019 18:07 (three weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

^^^^^

Although rationally speaking it doesn’t really make sense for the two rivers crew to be so ethnically diverse (other than to make Rand the sole obvious outlier, which would kill at least some of the dramatic tension early on), at some irrational feels level if I had been asked how to split them up I totally would have done it the same way.

Perhaps that’s just buying into some cliched conception of “white dudes = gormless and goofily hopeless” as Rand and Mat tend to be for much of the first few books, but if one upshot is the actors playing Nynaeve and Egwene looking ready to dominate absolutely everything in sight then I am totally here for it.

Somewhat relatedly, one wish I have for the show is that, in the course of streamlining things, they tone down some of Nynaeve’s quirks. Egwene on the other hand can remain exactly as she is in the books.

One change I'm expecting is that other people will constantly be tugging on Nynaeve's braid

lol

LAN:

https://oyster.ignimgs.com/wordpress/stg.ign.com/2019/09/lan-mandrogoran-daniel-henney-wheel-of-time-1567606534222_1280w-720x405.jpg?fit=bounds&width=640&height=480

About 200% less craggy than you'd expect tbh

jason momoa too buff but i think hed have stopped lifting if asked

Momoa already has what looks like a pretty baller series coming out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__6VUXvCykI

this is relevant to my interests

yeah it looks really, really interesting

I probably will never see it because fuck subscribing to yet another streaming service but it looks neat

uh yeah subscribing legally to the service yeah that's how ill watch it sure

How Many Times Does Braid-Tugging and Skirt-Smoothing Happen in The Wheel of Time?

At least as often as forehead knuckling, no?

Ha, I see the link addresses "mustache knuckling" but I thought for sure it was more often forehead knuckling.

divided skirts aka skirts divided for riding
smoothing skirts
moustaches
knuckling
'fortune prick me'
tugging on braid
stout (two rivers) woolens
blushing
'enough to make a tinker blush'
sniffed
necklines vis-a-vis bosoms
sawing at reins
eyes-and-ears
tucking gauntlets behind belt
blacksmith's puzzle
horse types (particularly geldings)
every inn/horse must have a name
arms folded under her breasts
thumbing a pipe with tabac

imo

Something tomorrow. Trailer?

Wednesday approaches 🗡

— The Wheel of Time (@WOTonPrime) December 2, 2020

Low hopes for this so not worried as such

black ajah

WASHINGTON — The official serving as President Donald Trump’s eyes and ears at the Justice Department has been banned from the building after trying to pressure staffers to give up sensitive information about election fraud and other matters she could relay to the White House, three people familiar with the matter tell The Associated Press.

Heidi Stirrup, an ally of top Trump adviser Stephen Miller, was quietly installed at the Justice Department as a White House liaison a few months ago. She was told within the last two weeks to vacate the building after top Justice officials learned of her efforts to collect insider information about ongoing cases and the department’s work on election fraud, the people said.

Hey, spoilers!

wait was the wednesday announcement just a picture of a sword with a bird on it

Eighth grade me, huddled in the corner of the library, with a battered copy of Eye of the World is extremely stoked for this. The current me, with decades of awful adaptations behind me, less so. But I will still be watching the hell out of this.

xpost - and, apparently, a short video about making the sword

i kinda wish they skip eye of the world and get straight to the madness. bring on the seanchan and mat's wisecracking fedora phase and the meat grinder scene from the end of lord of chaos. and the sea folk and their dialect.

Another teeny tiny bit

Where the Shadow waits. pic.twitter.com/Y1WS0HFwqr

— The Wheel of Time (@WOTonPrime) February 17, 2021

Really trickling stuff out slowly here, huh? But I'll take it.

About 1/3rd of the way through A Crown of Swords in my re-read right now.

Oh no matt is a cockney

everything they show is a fucking sword or dagger or whatever. it's not called wheel of swords you ding dongs. tug a braid or smooth a skirt or gtfo

lmao

I support this ire even I don't presently share it

ha

How many seasons is this thing gonna be?

so few years ago when ppl where doing dream casting for show i had thought of grant gustin as a potential mat - fit initial physical description (stork like legs etc), showed could be snarky on glee and the earnest side of mat on flash

eager to see show but feeling, esp with covid delays, that i will be old before this finishes which perfectly matches experience of reading books

At least the books are done this time, so we won't have another GoT on our hands. I'd be curious to see how this ends up being paced, because even a season per book seems aggressive, at least for the first handful of books.

we won't have another GoT on our hands

I suspect we won't in several ways.

Very true, I was more specifically talking about the show outpacing the source material.

i remember reading that they were going to 'blend' books into seasons so not trying to match each book up. WOT def had lots of pages to be cut and/or compressed so can work esp if know your ending

the expanse, obv with fewer books, has been doing a great job of streamlining for tv so def possible. so, i hope?

There are, and look we're all fans here, entire books that could be covered by one five minute montage of people noticing the weather got better so i think we might be ok

lol, that's exactly what I meant by the early books being the packed ones, some of the middle books can be covered in a scene or two

just take out perrin and faile completely imo

Ah here not perrin

Aw, I've always had a soft spot for Perrin. Always seemed like the most relatable one when I was 15 reading the first few books.

+1 to Perrin (no relation)

perrin was perfectly fine early on and the story of him initially getting together with faile was actually very sweet . . . and then they spent the next 10 books acting out jordan's shitty ideas about relationships, largely away from the main action

They'd have to do smell-o-vision for the Perrin scenes of course

and then they spent the next 10 books acting out jordan's shitty ideas about relationships, largely away from the main action

My podcast cohosts and I have been chatting about the TV series and we're kinda all in agreement that it's proooobably good that Jordan's not around to oversee or comment on it.

Already renewed for season 2, etc. etc.

https://io9.gizmodo.com/amazons-wheel-of-time-has-already-been-renewed-for-seas-1846935381

Thatll get us as far as whitebridge anyway

"Judkins previously revealed that while the book series is notably massive, these seasons wouldn’t be just 1:1 adaptations of book to season." well yeah because... you know... the pacing.

The episode where they cure the one power will make up for a lot of faffing alright

Season 1: Book 1
Season 2: Most everything else
Season 3: That one part
Season 4: Profit?

who killed asmodean?

The big sleep nod imo

Oh and one other bit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRygwxWvo3c

So, definitely some time this year

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxLKUSi7c8g

i started reading the first book recently! almost done with it and liking it quite a bit so far. there aren't any spoilers in this thread right? (;)

I just finished Winter's Heart, which was more of a slog at times than I remembered so I'm taking a little break before hitting book #10.

Wait, what?

https://gizmodo.com/the-wheel-of-time-is-getting-a-movie-trilogy-now-too-1847281197

#SixSeasonsAndAMovie

Interesting to see whether the other two planned movies are also prequels or what...

Gotta say, I didn't expect to someday see multiple adaptations to be in the works when I started reading these in high school.

I sense portends of a clusterfuck.

Starting to remind me of that Dark Tower 'oh yeah a movie and a TV series too, really' plan that went nowhere. Also two separate teams entirely?

Yeah, that's what seems the most clusterfuck-ish about the whole thing.

when is Vincent Gallo going to release his 2 hour montage of Egwene and Elayne bathing

Six episode arc about when Min, Elayne and Aviendha all finally meet up with Rand at the same time and consequent sexy time "bonding".

xp would watch tbf

Anyway it's all happening (soon)

https://ew.com/tv/the-wheel-of-time-amazon-series-adaptation-exclusive-first-look/

Judkins hopes to explore all those angles as his drama expands beyond Jordan's first WoT book. It helps that Amazon has already commissioned a second season — and that an unrelated WoT prequel movie in the works is sure to boost name recognition — but Judkins knows he must bring in more than the existing die-hard fan base for any chance of his series lasting long enough to cover Jordan's epilogue. To accomplish that goal, he's relying on the author's celebrated world-building.

"I try to stick to the spine and the heart of the books, and bring that to the screen," Judkins says of his philosophy as showrunner. "If I can successfully do that, the story and the characters will sell themselves."

GET READY FOR LOTS AND LOTS OF BATHING SCENES

Picked up one of these last night at random and read several thousand deaths worth until i got snoozy

IT'S HAPPENING etc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fus4Xb_TLg

looks watchable

all the aes sedai wearing entire outfits of their ajah color looks super stupid

Trailer is good! The myrdraal is A+.

I think the aes sedai clothing choice was probably practical necessity - without the benefit of the characters’ interior monologues it would be almost impossible for the viewer to keep track of ajah affiliation otherwise. In the books they were basically behaving like that towards the end anyway.

I'm faintly blown away by seeing a myrddraal onscreen. I have read and re-read the early books of this series and I always loved the idea of them. Never occurred to me that I'd see one in a TV show one day.

Yeah I actually really dig the look of the myrddraal.

Looks good

Not like in my head but still, good

Aes sedai gonna present lots of probs tbh so simplifying seems best

Are other trailers coming out foregrounding other characters or is this strongly pivoting to egwene

Flicking through these at random again, which doesnt help with keeping track of aforementioned aes sedai tbh, but nothing does

Theyre good, yknow. Obv the easy criticisms are there and once the worldbuilding became boxticking it loses elasticity and possibility but theres still a dozen easy all time characters here id read the parts of forever

maybe i should get into this

First six are a thrill, which is an achievement considering length alone

Worth finishing after that, in fact last three are great again rly

I’m in that middle dull zone right now and had to take a break, tbqh.

Like paddling between waves surely

Are other trailers coming out foregrounding other characters or is this strongly pivoting to egwene

It would kind of make sense for dramatic irony purposes for the first season to focus more on egwene (as well as moiraine) than rand, or at least for him to be no more distinguished than mat or perrin. If he wasn't the primary POV, he might not have seemed like a particularly important character for most of the first book.

Also, all the advance press implies that the world will be presented as more matriarchal than it is in the books. Given the difficulty of conveying the sense of the weight of history hanging over everything, presenting the world as one where male characters are typically limited to supporting roles might be an effective shortcut for explaining the broad sense of disgust (as opposed to just fear) that attaches to the entire notion of the dragon reborn. I think this would be thematically consistent with the books even if not literally faithful: one of the things I think a lot of readers struggle with is how reluctant pretty much everyone in the series is to ever accept that rand might have a clue what he is doing (even those who know him). Rebasing the entire social order to better align it with the typical red ajah aes sedai solves or simplifies a lot of these issues.

I strongly rep for Knife of Dreams btw, which I'd say is probably more enjoyable than the final three and tends to be underrated, perhaps because rand isn't in it much. A Memory of Light is a bit of a slog tbh, though for essentially opposite reasons to Crossroads of Twilight (the clear nadir).

I should reread these

skip all the perrin parts and it's fine

skip all the perrin gamestop assistant manager mat parts and it's fine

Perrin is my favorite character, though

Yes, I read these at an age where I'd gravitate towards characters similarly named to me, why are you asking?

I like Perrin too!

Is the name 'Perrin' a deliberate combination of 'Merry' and 'Pippin'?

I will come back to that after I stop giggling at "gamestop assistant manager mat"

No hes a slavic strength god with a magic hammer

Jordan spreads it around a bit

Tim- had pretty much similar thoughts, tjink its promising that they may have thought

i) how would it work for tv

ii) knowing how it went in the books and yknow what youd fix now its done, will we do that?

In Slavic mythology, Perun (Cyrillic: Перýн) is the highest god of the pantheon and the god of sky, thunder, lightning, storms, rain, law, war, fertility and oak trees. His other attributes were fire, mountains, wind, iris, eagle, firmament (in Indo-European languages, this was joined with the notion of the sky of stone), horses and carts, weapons (hammer, axe (Axe of Perun), and arrow), and war. He was first associated with weapons made of stone and later with those of metal.

A lot of angelic herald names in there too, etc etc

Speedreading through egwene captivity as seanchan attack at present, its where that character ascends to equal lead with rand i think

His parts in the same book felt like a bit of mood/watertreading at the time but theres a lot of it that sits excellently with how he resolves his role at the end of the book (if it its this book that happens?)

This time around i think a major specific issue jordan has is that rand's arc and actions narratively carry everything up til book six and i think the idea that after that other characters would take the weight as rand became an ever more difficult figure to write without moving things *too* quickly but too many of those characters simply weren't set up to hold that much water

Perrin gets there, egwene absolutely gets there, mat probably (tho i think sanderson never manages to nail him tbh)

Nynaeve doesnt, and a host of midrange characters simply fade out til you hear they died or whatever

I think I'd say perhaps that only Rand and Egwene's character arcs are big enough to really sustain across the series, though (and leading on from your point above) for both of them time slows down dramatically from book 7 onwards while RJ moves pieces into position around them. I think Sanderson making The Gathering Storm essentially about the two of them reflected a recognition of the importance of their central character arcs, as much as plot development, to creating a sense of narrative satisfaction. Egwene's passages in that book are some of the most satisfying to read of the whole series even though for most of it she's pruning gardens or shelling nuts, because there's a real sense that every exchange, every internal reflection, is driving the character forward, with her trips to silviana's study acting as "how tall are we today?" pitstop checks.

A lot of the issues for the other characters stem from not knowing what do with their narrative arcs. Perrin all but completes his in book 4 and then has essentially nothing to do until the final few books, so RJ just stalls and creates unnecessary, unresolved conflicts to keep him on a hamster wheel. People joke about nynaeve tugging her braid, but Perrin constantly wondering why women smell angry with him has to be the legit most annoying recurring motif in these books. A good change the show could make if it ever gets that far is to either have perrin actually sleep with berelain or dispense with that so-called love triangle completely.

Mat's arc is steadier, but I think that partly reflects a longer on-ramping time (his gormlessness is pretty shallow until... book 5 I think?). Unfortunately for Sanderson, he had the double problem of seemingly not being able to do humour without being heavy-handed, and picking up just at the point where Mat had had his best, most satisfying scenes: RJ's writing for Mat in Knife of Dreams is highly enjoyable and effectively completes his character arc. He obviously still has important work to do after that, but Sanderson fumbles any sense of productive tension between the demands of the plot and the character's internal world.

I tend to think Nynaeve does get there. Arguably she has a structural problem in that RJ made her character arc essentially about her working through her own unacknowledged emotional immaturity (as symbolised by her block); once she does that she essentially has nowhere to go, and suddenly the number of Nynaeve POVs drop off a cliff, though she's an enjoyable character to return to because her voice is so distinct. It seems clear that the intention was for her character to turn into a mediation-point between Rand and Egwene in the final few books, but by that point it's hard to really stand out with so much frenzied plot-completion box-ticking going on, not to mention Cadsuane sucking up all her narrative oxygen.

Essentially the opposite problem to Elayne, whose character arc is easy to explain, and write to, in broad terms, but not in terms of character development, and so she spends a lot of time idling in plot-devices with limited long-term significance, while her character development bounces around a lot in a manner that arguably is more realistic psychologically than for the other characters but not necessarily very satisfying for the reader.

In this regard, if Rand and Egwene's arcs have similar strengths and pitfalls, you can similarly match Nynaeve to Mat and Elayne to Perrin.

Maybe so

The stuff that is set up around the final confrontation is perhaps solidifed quite early which leaves some of the related strands in place and obviously so for a long lone time, nynaeve's relationship with rand is certainly one of those things and definitely agree that cadsuane hoovers up a lot of what would have been maybe the better development space for her there

Re-reading it i think more and more each time that cadsuane is a wholly unnecessary character

But these are probably very inevitable flaws in a work that set up so much, so well, before the sales and the scope creep kicked in

A mightily enjoyable post to read and ponder at any rate

You wouldnt think of doing a wheel of tim podcast no?

Aside from "who killed asmodean" the two main things i think are unresolved are, and the three are by no means of a type or anything:

- look i have to ask what exactly is a darkfriend like what are the mechanics of it like i dunno it seems to jump around a lot idk

(Lads this is how i talk in work meetings btw)

- for all the fuckin pondering and for all the arguing and for all the times he uses it as justification nobody once even tries to maybe convince ran that "his blood on the rocks of shayol gull" mightnt just call for like a drop or whatever? I mean plenty other of the prophecies that need fulfilling are at best poetic licence and at worst straight outve "will this do" nostradamus retrospective configuration idk seems like it wouldve been worth calling him on just once

Across the dozen odd books there may be one or two more i admit

Haha - I go for years at a time not thinking about these books but whenever something comes along to remind me (like a trailer!) it all comes back very vividly. They're not masterpiece books but I think the sheer scope of them kind of magnifies both the strengths and the weaknesses that make them really interesting to think about. But I'd probably be a bad choice for a podcast!

I agree cadsuane was probably an unnecessary character, though also one of the most sharply drawn, which kind of compounds the problem! Everyone except Rand and perhaps Min fades into the background of any scene she is in. I guess the extent to which she has to learn some humility in the final few books is somewhat satisfying (Rand telling her that he's several thousand years older than her

"Who killed asmodean" actually was resolved, but in a really underwhelming manner which makes it easy to forget, and in retrospect it would have been better if they had just shown that it was [redacted spoiler] at the time. A bit similar to how the obsession with whether Taim was Demandred meant that when Demandred finally does reveal himself it's a bit underwhelming.

Actually the most underwhelming plot resolution surely was the Perrin / Aram doom thing.

Not to turn it into a contest but the most underwhelming is the last three pages tbh

haha fair.

Endings is tough, we will make allowances

While we wait, a thing:

https://deadline.com/2021/09/the-wheel-of-time-donal-finn-to-play-mat-cauthon-in-recasting-on-amazon-series-as-barney-harris-not-returning-for-season-2-1234840887/

There's a new sheriff in town (or something)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIMkfP4JsxU

Well im psyched but plenty is being moved about- thats clear

We got main trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPAYuCt7Eco

Lovely, not watching til later

Still lightly skipping through last two books

It's been 20 years so I started at the beginning and I could barely slog through the first book. It's not looking good for me lads.

Plenty looks to have changed for the series

NB ....... imo you wouldnt be a million miles from a Nynaeve betimes tbh

loool

No hes an ogier

Trailers look very promising

Trailer looks great. None of the implied changes vis a vis the book look concerning to me, and seem largely driven by a need to compress the events a bit.

Fans are freaking out that the trailer suggests that Moiraine deliberately takes all 5 Emond's Fielders away with her (incl. Nynaeve) and appears to tell them that any of them (including Egwene and Nynave) could be "the one" the Dark Lord is after.

This is being treated by dumb idiots as the greatest piece of leftwing bastardry since whatever franchise entrant pissed them off last week, when the real explanation is probably more like, "let's give Egwene and Nynaeve slightly more than paper-thin motivations to leave their hometown and also save a boatload of time in the process."

Yeah i think we - you, tbf- covered this well upthread

Changes so far seem judicious to me

I realised recently that my default form of critique is “okay, I love this. From a place of love, how could it be improved?”

Turning these very flawed but charming books into a tv show would be such a difficult but enjoyable exercise. So I’m inclined to sympathise with the show runners and give them the benefit of the doubt until given a reason not to, because there is no way I would tell this story totally faithfully if I was in their position.

Yeah i think changes inevitable both for adaptation and improvement purposes and the moves that seem to have taken place to bring the story up to the current social moment would seem to work hand in hand with the above in any case, so no loss there

I was trying to see from the snippets how far the adaptation goes, end of book one seems obvious but with some events from laters books brought into chronological order (prophecies and moiraine backstory) sewn in

Is that thom merrilin telling us what aes sedai means? Too young looking and not salty enough imo

"You have fully lost your mind" was a bit jarring

I think that is a young sexy Thom yeah

Posh mat

Be grand

Showrunner interview

https://gizmodo.com/adapting-the-wheel-of-time-for-tv-is-an-epic-all-its-ow-1848026456

Looks like the first episodes are live...

One episode in, seems like they figured out how to get it going. Rosamund's doing some big 'Cate Blanchett at the start of Fellowship' energy in both the start and end narration but that was probably unavoidable.

i'm pretty impressed! not into the music tho

My one real objection there was the Mumford and Sons-style instrumental jam as the town parties but that is, how you say, interrupted.

I havent read the books but enjoyed the first episode

The one boy gives me Hayden Christensen vibes (maybe just a danish thing) but otherwise I’m into it

oh and the dancing was dumb. stand in a circle, jump clap … honestly

among the lads the best actor (imo) is the one who's apparently gonna get booted?

why has darragh not weighed in here tho

also i had to search online to make sure that perrin did the very bad thing as opposed to pulling short and simply watching her die from other wounds

Ive been busy, will catch these as and when

this was...consistently mediocre

I assume "best actor" is the guy who plays Mat? Everyone else had strong "these are the words in the script and I am reading them" energy.

It is a *long* time since I read any of the books and most of what I remember has already happened, so I'll enjoy the ride until it inevitably gets cancelled.

Crossposted from Ned's FB post, a few thoughts...

1. Rand and Mat both seem much less likable than than in the books, though, (SPOILERS) Rand obviously becomes more of a dick as things go along.

2. Hated Thom's song and the corny guitar theme they play when he's about to enter the frame. Music in general is not great but I guess it could be worse.

3. Myrddraal good and scary. very good job.

There are certainly some obvious fantasy cliches, as my wife who has never read the books pointed out, but there's not much the TV creators can do about that. I think it's really good tbh. Or at least a lot better than I thought it would be.

There are some things, I wonder how well telegraphed they were to an audience unfamiliar with the books? Does the casual viewer have any understanding of what happened to Mat at Shadar Logoth? Again, I haven't read the books in decades, and maybe the reader doesn't understand shit at his point either, but i dunno man.

Whitecloaks are good cuz I hate them.

I am enjoying this but also I’m furious about Perrin

lol. at least it will presumably save us hundreds of pages' worth of axe vs. hammer whining

Yeah I don't particularly like the Perrin plot change but I can see the reasoning behind it. So far it has only meant that the actor sits there looking like he is deeply constipated but things could improve from this point.

always love a maria doyle kennedy appearance

Good irish casting from what i can see overall

Okay, my thoughts generally:

1. So far, about as good as I reasonably expected. Pacing feels all over the place but that is kind of inevitable, as is the frequent clunkiness of dialogue and intermittent failure to explain what is actually going on.

2. The adjustments to the stories of various of the characters seem like logical responses to the clear challenge of how to make some of these characters interesting who otherwise don't really do much in the first book. Apart from finding the dagger, Mat is a non-entity in the first book; Perrin has a great POV stretch but you'd never know he was interesting without being in his head. I think the show has mixed success in responding to these difficulties: they've successfully transformed Mat from the least interesting character to the most (obviously in the books Mat starts to become excellent from about book 3 and especially book 5); Perrin so far is a bit wait-and-see but I can see what they're trying to do. In some ways the adjustments to Mat's character are more subtly dramatic which is perhaps why they work more effectively at least initially.

3. Rand and Egwene, despite having the most screen time initially, are perhaps the least developed, which kind of makes sense given the intention appears to be to set them up as, effectively, duelling protagonists who are at once connected and opposed and who probably each get less likeable and more complicated as they go along. Both actors seem fine.

4. Nynaeve's character and actor do a lot with a little so far. The way the Nynaeve / Lan relationship is being set up seems fun.

5. I'm a bit surprised by how clearly they have set up some of the cosmic/philosophical questions that only come into view in the final few books. The nihilist worldview expressed by the darkfriend in episode 3 was a big surprise but I cautiously approve - makes the question "what do the evil forces actually want" a much more interesting issue than it was for at least the first few books - whereas Tam's short speech on reincarnation in episode 1 is basically a foreshadowing of the books' effective moral resolution in The Gathering Storm (if the show ever gets that far, I'm sure it will flashback to Tam's speech at that point).

6. Conversely, I do not like the implied adjustment to Ishamael's backstory. This is a much bigger deal to me than the whole "anyone, male or female, can be the dragon" adjustment which the fanbase (predictably and depressingly) is more upset about.

7. We definitely need more Moiraine backstory or to see more from her POV (and I suspect we're going to get one or both soon). Her general air of mystery feels a bit unearned and generic-fantasy at this point.

8. Totally approve of the whitecloaks' beefed-up menace, though the distinction between Eamon and Geofram's attitudes to Aes Sedai isn't really explained.

There are some things, I wonder how well telegraphed they were to an audience unfamiliar with the books? Does the casual viewer have any understanding of what happened to Mat at Shadar Logoth? Again, I haven't read the books in decades, and maybe the reader doesn't understand shit at his point either, but i dunno man.

Yeah, in the books you don't know he has taken the dagger until a bit later, and then you don't know the consequences of him having done so until later still. In the books he just seems to become really bitter and twisted and suspicious for no particular reason (or alternatively, the best reason is just the reaction to being on the run and feeling lost and abandoned and thinking everyone else is probably dead).

I think they're following that arc reasonably closely, at least based on the character's behaviour in episode 3.

More problematic to my mind was the failure to even say briefly what mashadar even was, though maybe they'll add some retrospective exposition when the dagger plotline plays out.

Arah we hardly ever find that out anyway tbf

The question of what a darkfriend is and what they want is well and truly botched by the time we get to the last battle anyways

the fact that mashadar appeared the instant mat unsheathed the dagger would seem to be telling, but since i've read the books i have no idea how obvious that would be to a new viewer

man, liandrin's face is *wide*

The question of what a darkfriend is and what they want is well and truly botched by the time we get to the last battle anyways

― fix up luke shawp (darraghmac), Monday, 22 November 2021 00:36 (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Haha yeah well the last battle kind of abandons the notion of traditional darkfriends entirely - it's all shara channelers and vampire aiel and balefire destroying reality by that point.

But it was weird to hear a darkfriend in the show espouse a worldview basically limited to ishamael / moridin.

i read about half of the first book earlier this year, then abandoned it even though i was enjoying it well enough. i didn't having the commitment to reading all of them, and figured, why not just watch it on television instead!

which brings me here tonight. i don't really binge shows much but i watched all 3 in a row. not all the performances were great and i kind let out a little lol when the shadow was spreading in Shadar Logoth, not just because it looked like splatoon 3 but also the realization that the seemingly unstoppable evil force was going to be suddenly stymied at a border for at least the third time in three episodes. there was also the trollocs who can't swim, the trollocs who were afraid to enter Shadar Logoth (which, makes sense there I guess). it's not a big deal, it's just kind of funny.

the part where perrin and egwene meet the deadheads is around the time i abandoned the book. and also there was a cool dogwolfman - looking forward to that for sure

I like this. I have minor quibbles, but I'm mostly into it so far. Nynaeve is probably the best acting of the bunch so far, but I'm excited to see more of Padan Fain - feel like that actor is going to have fun with the role.

man, liandrin's face is *wide*

This was excellent casting and also this statement made me lol

My non reader brother’s favourite character: Nynaeve
Why: “she’s better than everybody else”

— ciara📖 (@emmacarstairsgf) November 21, 2021

Good to see some things translated well to the new medium

15 mins in and what the fuck is this

Look we'll get to the changes later, and the music on ilm, but whats with the terrible sound mix with the dialogue

Think the cleverness of "anyone might be the dragon" lasts ok at first glance but as a very specific contributor to the underlying gender/magic politics and history im not sure they havent screwed up things a bit with it

Perrin/Mat backstories might make it easier for this rafe lad to jump things forward quickly but it's significant disimprovement on the patience you'd have hoped for- part of the energy of the first few books is the slow reveal and the very open feel of what might be happening as the characters and situations emerge

In one way Im relaxed now because the divorce from the source material is so complete and strong already that theres no emotional heft to this after two episodes and i can just watch it until the surprisingly cheap FX get to me, if i get into it (and it has plenty of good points) then great if not then great, but a bit of a pity

Whatever about Perrin, whatever about sex scenes and swearing (bad indicators here as to whether our producers have a feel for or care about our books i feel) its a scandal how abell cauthon has been done so dirty

Mainly i want to go on holidays to slovenia

The books more or less ruined fantasy for me when I was twelve.

Early in the fourth volume I realized Robert Jordan had no plan for how to finish the story, and I lost my taste for the genre. Giving up on a novel has never felt better.

It was so unsurprising when Robert Jordan died with this shit incomplete, what was it... thirteen years later. But I did (and do) feel bad for everyone who had stuck with it only to be cheated out of an ending by the original author.

XP darrahmac have you been to Slovenia before? I was lucky enough to visit a few years back and it was well worth the trip.

The whole region is high on my list, never went further than landing in bratislava and immediately coaching to vienna (lol ryanair)

The books are worthy (better than this imo) through 6 and pick up again at *disputed book number here* but this os ofc a matter of personal taste

the western side of lake bohinj is one of the most beautiful places on Earth

(imo)

yeah the landscapes are magnificent, nice one slovenia 👌🏻

My non reader brother’s favourite character: Nynaeve
Why: “she’s better than everybody else”

— ciara📖 (@emmacarstairsgf) November 21, 2021

Episode three:

Matts a good actor, sells the somewhat grittier shorthand world/story they are giving us here

Darkfriend shouldnt have been asked the philosophy, it was hollow stuff and as discussed jordan himself wasnt much cop beyond "riches or threat" at that level.

Merrilins nick cave was as bad as feared but i like the rest of him

Getting into it

Herself likes it without having any investment in the books, she has enjoyed witcher and shadow and bone and i guess its in those wheelhouses (of time) pretty squarely, when i can remember not to wonder what (change x) will mean for (what i know about the books) im sure its simple, fast-paced enough fare

Arams irish accent is fucking nonsense

Which is impressive bad acting given hes irish

can already see that show vs darragh's reactions will be the real entertainment value here

that said i find it quite decent, and am taking bets on when orla brady will appear

Four eps in

This is good now, its own thing

They pronounce everything wrong, ofc

Maria Doyle Kennedy is, I think, trying for an irish traveller accent, i think thats a bit literal but a choice is a choice

Only just spotted merrillin as merlin whether thats just coincidence or jordan playing with names as is his wont or them pronouncing it that way (cf above) is hard to say

End of episode 4 - that didn't happen in the books right

Agree on MDK's accent it's definitely not her normal one but it's not a traveller either it's like "imagine you're still Irish but you have a different accent good luck"

The paving on this show is so strange.

The pacing too.

crazy

pic.twitter.com/hGCpcjVq1d

— Assmodean (@AsmodeanChosen) November 30, 2021

i dont see an issue, and the potential was there, because of the extensive and immediate changes

Its not the books, nobody can mistake it for the books, wonder what theyll do with it

I'm actually enjoying that while I'm reasonably confident as to the broad outline of where things will go (i.e. I think a one minute summary of the show's overall plot ultimately will basically match an equivalent summary of the books) I can't be sure of the specifics.

Yes, pretty much

Disappointment: various kingdoms and lands are just gonna be transposed eg spain

In my head while reading its a lot freer, and its important imo to have the national/ethnic/whatever entities not shorthanded to the familiar

Disappointment: various kingdoms and lands are just gonna be transposed eg spain

In my head while reading its a lot freer, and its important imo to have the national/ethnic/whatever entities not shorthanded to the familiar

episode 4 was v exciting!

rand seems like such a smoothbrained idiot, i really dont care for the character or the actor at all so far

everyone else v good, no complaints yet

i have to say, i really love the CGI scenes where moraine is doing some incredible spell and lan is tromping around the spell's area effect, kicking ass like it's Diablo II

The bad news is that this contravenes major elements of the magic and world as written in several serious and important ways the good news well the producers liked it too i guess

wait, why can't moraine charge up and do her cool magic spells?

Good new episode, I thought. Felt the last minutes were especially striking. Loial of course now the greatest character.

loial was really awkward/corny, but i suppose that's vmic

can only assume that making rand the least interesting person the wheel has ever spun out is being done on purpose? i guess it worked for star wars

Won't be watching until tonight, but wishing I hadn't already stumbled on photos of Loial on Twitter already. Would have been a nice surprise to see how he was rendered.

Bad episode furthered nothing corny ending changes served no purpose at all

Given that I've landed closer to Ned's opinion than darraghmac's on the previous episodes, I'm still excited.

That Chris Eubank wannabe mf character is getting on my nerves, annoyed that he wasn't seen to be killed, hope a wolf polished him off.

pvmic i cried my face off during that ending

I'm glad they made Perrin bad ass at the end of this last one, I was going to completely lose my shit if they decided to just have him cry through the entire series

I think the character is right i think the actor is fine i just think theyve given him nothing yet

Rand otoh given nothing yet and im still worried about the lad tbh

Mat and Nynaeve are clearly winning the series so far

serious Hayden Christensen vibes from your man playing Rand alright

Show is a dutiful slog so far. Wonder what the general public makes of it

I just don't feel like they've given Rand much chance to show off any kind of range at all yet.

Fwiw, my wife enjoys it and came to the show blind.

yeah I know nothing about the books and am enjoying the series thus far, it has done about the right amount of world-building and exposition as compared to actually advancing the plot. Agree that Rand is a bit of a charisma vacuum but the rest of the cast seems pretty good.

Liandrin, and i mean look ok its why she was cast and its a living, ok, has just a great hateful face and i hated her straight away more than i should and i looked up other roles and shes from les mis, where if anything her hateful face is put to even better use

it is an astonishing face. absolutely steals all its scenes

Shes good in the role too, i dont want to undermine that, but yeah

read a couple things about the series and found it exhausting. it's either
'this is not like the books' (don't care) or a representation scorecard (half the cast is people of color and half the characters in this world are evil -- there's gonna be some overlap, and also a lot of people are gonna get killed)

that said, making *both* eamon valda and padan fain black dudes seems . . . sketchy

i'm told the latter was in the crowd for logain's grand entrance, although i missed him

in the show it's not yet apparent that padan fain is evil - I doubt anyone who has not read the books would have even noticed or cared that he was in the crowd in tar valon. And the Eamon Valda character is so much more impressive and magnetic than any whitecloak that actually appeared in the books - he's probably the best character in the whole show so far.

Im not sure the performance fits at all tbh, its trying to do a lot shorthand

Just catching up now

Episode 5: Nothing happened

otm

I did enjoy the whitecloaks beating up the crusties tbf

Well I didn’t expect that.

Twists, turns (just finished watching it myself)

nice

Could be worth a listen!

#WheelOfTime fans - I interviewed Rosamund Pike (Moiraine) & @Hammedhamz (Loial) a few days ago for #TarValonOrBust & @TheNerdsofColor, and it was a delight! #TwitterOfTime

Apple Pods| https://t.co/bRGdkn0E8O
Spotify| https://t.co/Gt6SQMnBSf
ACast| https://t.co/Crf6voRr9j pic.twitter.com/gtpPWaK7je

— Preeti Chhibber (@runwithskizzers) December 14, 2021

The casting of Daniel Henney and Zoe Robins even more fully justified per this latest episode.

Just finished six, heading into seven, rattling along

Its very sexxxay

Whole lotta romance.

Too much maybe

I dont mind it

Theyve shorthanded a lot of the world so swearing and romance has to get modernised to translate

poor perrin

At this stage id be unsurprised he ends up shagging wolf

I’d be fine with the romance if it hadn’t taken 3/4 of the episode to drive home things the viewer already knows but tbh this was one of my main problems w the books too. More political intrigue and machin shin, less sexy Lan.

Min seems chill tho

i'm not sure a non-book reader would 'already know' lan was ready/willing/available

my only caveat is that nynaeve should have totally freaked out upon learning lan was a king but whatevs

min was always the best

#WoTShowSpoilers

Book Nynaeve: Tugs braid at Rand and Min getting jiggy outside marriage.

Show Nynaeve: pic.twitter.com/wpkPUBp1fq

— Fatimah (@_Meraxes__) December 17, 2021

Final episode seen. All I'll say is: the opening title card.

Pacing continues to be weird AF. I should watch it again when I’m less distracted by holiday preparations. “The dark one” is not very scary

One tie away from a business suit

Is this suitable and/or non-embarrassing for watching with one's mum?

Not that I'm stuck isolating with my family over Christmas

Well lads

Id have Rafe Judkins, if that is his real name, kneecapped for the lack of quality control across effects, sound mix, plotting, scripting and performances across that first season

Other than that it was mediocre with decent moments.

I've no idea how a major studio sends it out in 2021 having spent big money on it, whose nephew is this cunt anyway.

*checks*

Rafe Lee Judkins (born January 8, 1983, in Salt Lake City, Utah) is an American showrunner and television personality best known as the showrunner of the Amazon original show The Wheel of Time, based on Robert Jordan's book series of the same name and also for appearing as a contestant on the 11th season of Survivor, which took place in Guatemala. He is now a working TV and travel writer with credits on other shows such as My Own Worst Enemy, Chuck, and Marvel's Agents of SHIELD.

Early life

Judkins was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, to a large Mormon family that is said to include 60 first cousins. Rafe's childhood involved him spending time painting rocks and taking apart machines. This was probably because of his mother being an artist and father being an inventor. He moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at the age of five. His time was spent towards teaching English and science to inner city middle school students. He graduated in 2001 and was selected as the member of the senior class most likely to be on Survivor.

hesitate to disrespect a child of the #burgh but fuck sewickley

ned pls start a thread for mormon sci-fi

we've got original battlestar galactica, orson scott hatecrime, this guy

also brandon sanderson who finished the book series

lews darragh tottenham?

no wonder the world got broken

WoTtenham

FWIW

https://gizmodo.com/the-wheel-of-time-tv-series-works-because-of-the-change-1848281234

Cant be clicking into that given the link claims that the show works

My friend Mikey, meantime, on the very last scene of the final episode:

14addendum: oh oh oh word of the creator has it that the Seanchan have Texan accents and I fucking DARE Rafe and co to have it be that way in the show too.

— Mikey says hey (@erlking) December 29, 2021

I read the first two and a half books way back in high school so watching this series, the story was vaguely familiar, but it was basically like going in blind. This first season was solid, enjoyable, at times very good. I understand a lot of the criticisms thrown at the show but feel most are minor. Pacing is probably the biggest thing I hope they improve next season

Acting is what I hope they improve the most but I have little hope because of the casting.

hope they work on improving the being a good show part

dunno about that article but I feel this sentence

Despite the infinite things I dislike about the show, I somehow still like the show.

xp Yes thats where id have them focus

Now id also make them start over because that would be easier ito getting to the good show part at this stage

man...I could just never imagine this ever working on screen...and boy did this confirm my worst suspicions. something about making high fantasy like this so literal just brings out the ridiculousness of it for me. game of thrones overcame this through sheer violence and nudity i think.

Visually its too clear and bright, everyone is too clean, which is imo an awful start

From the Gizmodo article: Tossing aside the novels’ obstinate adherence to the gender binary is a welcome and inclusive update.

Not to repeat myself from a million years ago but the better path to take here is to portray a world (one not unlike our own!) that is suffering from its obstinate adherence to a gender binary!

I'm trying to figure out why the first two LOTR movies worked for me (I think the third one starts to become what the Hobbit movies would be...) and maybe it's simply just that Jackson had the budget and skills to go for actual grandeur and menace.

Starts to wilt halfway through two towers for me as jackson began to exercise his editorial brilliance with ever more confidence

The guy in charge of this started out in that mode alas

lmao at the sexposition being one of GoT's strengths, though

haha ok fair enough

what's funny is i'll definitely keep watching this as long as it goes despite my frustrations--deju vu all over again.

I enjoyed this. Even if it did feel like Merlin With a Budget.

I think I kinda liked this because of the slightly trying too hard, good budget but not quite BIG budget, also ran vibe. Watching it felt like no specific other show, but put me in the mind of all of the cheesy, really not all that great sci-fi/fantasy shows that would get aired on the early non-premium cable channels that I would absolutely eat up for lack of better options in the genre.

I don't if that makes sense, it just felt comfortable in an odd sort of way, even as I knew it wasn't great.

I know what you’re saying. I rather enjoyed the shannara show in a similar way to what you’re describing

Shannara was better than this. It embraced its cheesiness where this tries to pretend it isn't there.

I mean, I'm also going to keep watching it, especially to see how the diversions from the series play out. What surprises me is that my wife, who has no familiarity with the source material, likes it more than I do (though she doesn't love it).

I think thats been the way across the board tbh

Its been labelled as a reaction from nerdy bookreaders but is in fairness more of a clamour of "wait you changed it to that instead wtf that makes no sense"

put me in the mind of all of the cheesy, really not all that great sci-fi/fantasy shows that would get aired on the early non-premium cable channels that I would absolutely eat up for lack of better options in the genre

yes this is totally the feel of a lot of it! but unlike those shows it just seems to lack any real life to it or sense that anyone is having any fun at all. the actors are uniformly bad (imo--though possibly not entirely their fault) which is unfortunate since we are probably stuck with them but there is a *chance* this could go from bad to passably mediocre in future seasons.

still have not watched this aiside from first ep - combination of work and maybe fears that will be ultra disappointed

question though re above
- From the Gizmodo article: Tossing aside the novels’ obstinate adherence to the gender binary is a welcome and inclusive update.

Not to repeat myself from a million years ago but the better path to take here is to portray a world (one not unlike our own!) that is suffering from its obstinate adherence to a gender binary! -

My understanding was that the only major change was on the reincarnation aspect of souls so that Egwene for example could be a reincarnation of Dragon - not hat they changed the saidin/saidar separation (aside from automatic overall stat that men would generally be stronger in power than women. Is that correct or was there a larger switch?

In other news, while catching up on my Expanse related news saw that Shohreh Aghdashloo in very loose talks re joining WOT https://screenrant.com/expanse-shohreh-aghdashloo-wheel-time-season-2-role/

Your understanding is correct

Id say theres probably several large switches of plot and character from series one vs the equivalent period/events in the book, and dozens of more minor changes in knock on effects tbh

Forgive the thread spam, but I wanted to note that this show's 2021 season is nominated in the ILX TV poll, with voting ending this weekend:

ILX's Best Television of 2021 Poll / VOTING AND CAMPAIGNING THREAD / Voting Ends After January 31, 2022

If you like this show and you'd like to see it have a good showing in the poll (running in February) all you need to do is submit a ballot including it and your other favorites (3 minimum, 25 maximum, ranked by your favorite to least favorite) to forksclovetofu at gmail. It'll take five minutes; get to it!

Long fantasy series are very difficult to manage. As strong as I think The Malazan Book of the Fallen was, the tenth and final book was a disappointment. Jordan completely lost control of his narrative before he died. I couldn't even finish the ones he wrote.

xp who the fuck nominated this

nevermind the trollocs

oh yes

worst thing about this show is that now i'm almost done with book 4

you can stop at #6

then just read a wikipedia summary

Was wondering whether it was worth reading the entire series

I've just finished 3

it is, I know I'm repeating myself but the availability of the books rather than waiting years between each means that even the relative trudge from 7-11 (disputed) is worth yr time and it's not like there's no payoff- it delivers

I never read past book 7 or 8 back in the day. No idea if I’ll finish them this time.

checking in on readers' progress

mid book 5; starting to feel like a slog. i know (or remember) LoC was good but jfc the "men are like THIS and women are like THIS" really ramps up here. as well as endless scenes of traveling city to city.

I'm at almost the same spot. I finished book 4 last month, and I'm either stopping there or taking a very long break. I wanted to destroy my copy by the end. It was so fucking long, and yeah, the "UGH men! UGH women!" stuff was starting to dominate.

The first three books were enjoyable and felt like a fairly complete trilogy.

in fairness have ye not men/women?

pretty awful ime

women be channeling, amirite

never not at it

women tug at their braids and men fight tiger style or w/e

A perhaps relevant tweet or two

The SOUND OF DISGUST I made at realizing this prologue kicks off with Elaida uggfghhhhhhhh #TarValonOrBust #WheelOfTime pic.twitter.com/lf8IhYPXzE

— Preeti Chhibber (@runwithskizzers) February 21, 2022

lol Jordan really was like "Oh you waited a year for your favs to come back, HOPE YOU LIKE READING ABOUT LADY ALTEIMA" #TarValonOrBust

— Preeti Chhibber (@runwithskizzers) February 21, 2022

lol true, true

As a kid, I never picked up on the weird s&m/spanking/humiliation stuff tbh

im not sure that's necessarily there that much vs being a trope about yr boarding school experience or w/e

mid book 5; starting to feel like a slog. i know (or remember) LoC was good but jfc the "men are like THIS and women are like THIS" really ramps up here. as well as endless scenes of traveling city to city.

Urgh. Not started book 4 yet but book 3 seemed to be endless characters travelling without much actual plot advancement so thrilled to learn there's more to come.

lol if you're struggling now I'd get out while the going's good

secret of good fantasy games and books is that the travelling around is better than the intrigue, the battles and the good vs evil

It can be, but it depends on how well those aspects work together. In Tolkien, there’s a real sense of circumstances dictating where the characters have to go, and the geographical obstacles alone have a dramatic effect. He's also faster at moving his characters around than he’s given credit for. With Jordan on the other hand, it seems like he spends the first quarter of each volume establishing some new reasons to send his characters across the map somewhere. Then the traveling itself is a slow plod, or boat ride, or shortcut involving The Ways or something like that, and it’s hard not to feel that he’s just drawing it out because he wants to publish an 800-page volume.

It's not the worst stuff ever, just not enormously exciting.

def agree that its going to depend on a number of factors

for instance im v likely influenced by my own reading style of skipping paragraphs if nothing looks like happening

now this does mean i spend a lot of time later on presuming i should remember more names and events than i do bit this is v normal for me irl also so it helps me immersenif anything

Had to take a break after Winter's Heart, might pick back up again later this year when my "new to read" pile dwindles a little more.

While we all wait for whatever's next, a just-started thread on the costumes. (Natania's a good sort, she does these things for a variety of shows and movies and things.)

1 - Wheel, you know what time it is: it's #threadtalk. And, judging by my pun, you might have guessed we're talking #TheWheelOfTime series costuming.

What could be more appropriate than a world where magic *is* quite literally, thread. 🧵🪄

Let us go forth & adventure! pic.twitter.com/HYimEvXKSM

— Natania Barron (@NataniaBarron) March 15, 2022

Finished book 4 last week. First half was a real slog but picked up a bit in the second. Would echo all the eye rolling at Men! Women! though.

Just finished book 3 of The Witcher which was a breeze in comparison.

A little update

https://gizmodo.com/wheel-of-time-ayoola-smart-amazon-season-2-1848833256

During the show’s virtual JordanCon panel, the yearly celebration of Jordan’s many books, showrunner Rafe Judkins announced that Ayoola Smart would be joining the cast in a recurring role. She’ll be playing Aviendha, a character that Judkins called his personal favorite from the many in Jordan’s novels. Introduced in the third book, 1991's The Dragon Reborn, Aviendha is a Wise One, one of the three matriarchal leaders of the Aiel. Throughout the novels, she eventually becomes a main love interest of Rand al’Thor, played in the show by Joshua Stradowski. Judkins made the video in Morocco near where a fight scene involving Smart was being filmed, and he had nothing but praise for her portrayal of the character. “Start Googling her now!” Judkins teased. “This woman is gonna make you excited to see more of the world of the Aiel.”

Annnnd first peak of season two

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua4SU8oKjx8

Anyone know if we're likely to see season 2 this year?

No, next.

started in on s1

i have no idea what to expect

lotta bathing iirc

gosh

anyone considering starting the tv series or awaiting season 2 for any reason other than rubbernecking the disaster should really be turning their attention to shadow and bone instead

streets ahead ito production quality, cast are all better than competent (and are imo the most attractive ensemble ever put on screen) and suprisingly little of the plot or individual lines jar (which shouldnt be such a high bar but this is a fantasy adaptation we are talking about here)

seriously though watch it just for the cast being so hot its actually outrageous

I liked shadow and bone a lot.

Shadow and Boning

Returns Sep 1st

'The Wheel of Time' season 2 is almost here! Check in with Moiraine and meet some new faces in these first-look photos. https://t.co/tat4YDhYtR

— Entertainment Weekly (@EW) May 24, 2023

ok i’m two hours into shadow and bone and i like it and cannot dispute deems’s statements but

a) she and him should live in a yurt and have two kids by now, not wonder if holding hands was for realsies at age 10. b) cannot tell what the magyars are saying or if i’m even supposed to understand what theyre saying. c) don’t care about the criminals or their storylines or whether they live or die, honestly. d) the really badass criminal dude is so cool i’m almost rooting for him, but inevitably he’s gonna catch cheekbones criminal and torture him before the latter breaks free and slaughters everyone

And we got first full trailer for the new season

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-1OT1jxuQo

And we're back tomorrow!

jeez there's a whole bunch of them

I tried to read Lord of Chaos this summer, wound up deliberately spoiling myself on the ending to free myself of the need to finish it.

These books are not for me.

and that’s one of the better ones!

This is a series that most readers agree is not very good, but it remains very popular. It's kind of baffling.

most reader are, i think, frustrated but may not agree that it is not very good tbh

It's not very good.

Had no idea they'd recast Mat.

Reading about it seems to explain some of the changes in the later episodes of season one

not complaining, but didn't padan fain pretty explicitly kill loial/uno/etc. whilst stealing the horn at the end of last season? like staring at perrin and speechifying while twisting the knife?

anyway, having watched the first two new ones, it's decent. rand looks like less of a dork, at least. liandrin having a secret soft side is good stuff, and it's pretty much a race to see if her face can get wider faster than christopher pike's hair gets taller.

as for the series, i think the first several books are actually pretty good? like yes, dude was a grating writer with grating tics that he made no attempt to rein in, but the story was solid before he disappeared up his own ass and started writing 700pp books that covered 48 hours.

as to why it's popular (and i have no idea whether it is or not, having been out of bookstores for 20 years), i figure it's the logical result of the series-ization of fantasy. you can be patricia mckillip and periodically write small new things that get no attention, or you can extend your existing properties forever like brandon sanderson. there's probably a limit somewhere, as with the marvel universe, but i think fantasy fans would be the very last people to turn down More. and the wheel of time is Endlessly More

I thought the first three books were good, they're a decent B/B+.

It starts to lose me with the fourth book, which is weird because lots of people say that it's the best (source: /r/Fantasy). Lord of Chaos is the first one that I couldn't even finish - I got so tired of the repetitive scenes, shapeless plot, the constant introduction of new named characters with indistinguishable personalities. He must have doubled the length of the character list just in this book alone.

Sniff, tug on braid.
The books were great when I was 13; I tried to re-read them in the last few years and I think I got halfway through #4. They're a good example of how far world-building and likeable/hateable characters can get you when your ability to pace and plot a story is a complete fucking mess.

I'm still gonna watch this show.

Re Loial, yeah that definitely happened as I rewatched the season one finale before the first new one xps

Thought they might address it along the lines of "it takes more than a knife thrust to kill a sturdy ogre" but no, not mentioned at all.

i liked The Great Hunt a lot. tho it was frustrating because i wanted Rand to get it on with that hot evil chick.
― ryan (ryan), Tuesday, 1 June 2004 05:38 (nineteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

all things come to those who wait

for reasons I don't fully understand I picked up the books at book 3 and will see how far I get (currently finishing book 4) - last time (a long time ago) I got to 6 or 7 before I stopped caring

Who killed Asmodean?

mickey spillane knows

Maybe he should have finished the series.

i am enjoying this season, although egwene is approaching michael burnham levels of weepiness

the music is still awful, of course

i like jimbeaux's consistency I just finished book #10 of Robert Jordan's stupid series.

Pretty sure Graendal killed Asmodean but it was so ambiguously written as to be an unintentional mystery for years

no spoilers!

Oh brother

*tugs braid*

I wish it were consistency and not just inattention lol

Seriously, that's just the most prominent example of Jordan's careless storytelling.

I had an interesting conversation yesterday with my daughter about this series. She finished the whole thing. She thinks it's more a meta-fantasy or a sort of bricolage of various ideas and tropes than it is anything resembling a consistent narrative. Which is . . . giving it too much credit, I think. She is a pretty demanding reader, too; she called A Song of Ice and Fire "a hot mess."

pashmina i think in one of the threads put in a good argument for the first two books- possible mainly the second book - throwing in a lot of tropes but doing them very well

after book six is runs into "im due to finish but this is actually getting bigger" in real time writing to eagerly anticipated deadline but id say theres still amazing payoff sequences in each book after bar maybe one

definitely he writes too much to be able to control or tie off past that point, i mean theres an entire sea folk brought in that arent worth shite once he realised ah fuck these are just a wet aiel arent they

these are just a wet aiel

lol

I thought The Malazan Book of the Fallen was a good example of doing a huge, sprawling fantasy series right, although as I said upthread the final book even in that series was something of a misfire.

theres an entire sea folk brought in

Which supports my daughter's reading, I think. It's as though he thought to himself, "Oh, shit, every grand fantasy series needs a sea folk!"

Malazan had interesting characters and a sense of humour. WoT has probably a thousand pages of Rand/Perrin/Mat wishing they understood women like Perrin/Mat/Rand does xp

jimbeaux's daughter otm

i haven't touched these in a while but from my unposted (because it was supposed to say good things too) ilx posts dir:

he is just bewilderingly hit-or-miss with names. everybody knows the defining feature of the ur-text is how rooted it is in its invented languages, how the whole world is built up from them. this series is rooted in other things (geography, historical vertigo) so fair enough imo that it doesn't try, that all of its character names and all of its italicized inventions are the obvious result of jordan sitting back for thirty seconds like, hmmmmm. and fair enough that everyone in the world, including the nomadic desert people, and the people who migrated west two thousand years ago, all speak english, sprinkled with a dozen special nouns per continental plate. but my god do you have to be creating sindarin to be able to make a pass and put "mountain of dhoom" and "galadedrid damodred" aside while holding onto "bayle domon" and (my girlfriend) "siuan sanche" (pronounced like swan)? i'll accept "trollocs" because it's funny. but fuck forever the dark triad of egwene/elayne/elaida. took me three books to get used to that. here's a paragraph from the aftermath of a battle that had me genuinely gasping for breath-- the way it builds:

TSR876

People were streaming out of Emond's Field, Bran limping and using his spear for a staff, Marin smiling with an arm around him, Daise being hugged by her husband, Wit, and Gaul and Chiad hand in hand with their veils down. Loial's ears drooped wearily, and Tam had blood on his face, and Flann Lewin was standing only with the help of his wife, Adine; there was blood on nearly everyone, and hasty bandages. But they came out in a widening throng, Elam and Dav, Ewin and Aram, Eward Candwin and Buel Dowtry, Hu and Tad the stablemen from the Winespring Inn, Ban and Tell and the Companions riding with that banner still.

elam, ewin, and eward in one sentence! and all of them extras! imagined a whole parallel 15-book series where these boys (+ poss hu and tad the stablemen) all train as wizards and have late-night dorm conversations where you are constantly having to go back a page to confirm confused suspicions that it was ewin talking this whole time, not eward.

i like em tho

lol at how he insisted on naming all the horses

ah fuck these are just a wet aiel arent they

wet aiel is actually an indie band from the isle of wight

lol at how he insisted on naming all the horses

as katie holmes says in wonder boys, at times it's very detailed

whatever else happens, rosamund pike is perfect as moiraine

not looking forward to egwene's debasement but totally looking forward to her revenge

is mat even in this series

have to nix the malazan

i like the flow i like the anbition but once you realize hes stonedly writing it based on a tabletop card game it dies

yerman grimdark with the relentless misery that was good but

judge me or not i dont care

his not numbering the books made me get lost

started the malazan once but bailed when it seemed like i needed to know the names and/or numbers of certain military groups

yeah lads i cant sing the twelve days of christmas pls have mercy

Incidentally, the whole Malazan on ebook is pay what you want right now

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/steven-eriksons-malazan-book-fallen-tor-publishing-group-books

I could not finish book 1 last time I tried, and now I don't think I'll ever have time.

i worked up through maybe five or seven last winter and enjoyed myself grwatly but one night i got halfway through a third miraculous ascension or avoidance of certain universe ending disaster in ten mins and put it down for the night and well that was that for this pass

basically for all the justifiable criticisms of jordan, apart from tolkien nobody has offered me a satisfying scale of similar fantasy that doesnt fail at one hurdle or the other and none of them would hold me for the 13 books this one did nor have me go back to them for a lazy afternoons random hour

I dunno, I got as far as Winter's Heart, which I tried twice at and (figuratively) threw against the wall both times. So it's not as though I didn't give it a go, but I mean, I understand the man was ill, but fuck it, I don't have that many years left on this earth, you know?

Well we're halfway through the second season now and I appreciated how this episode ended with Lanfear living her best rich-goth-at-Burning-Man fantasy.

how many lights do you see, egwene?

Very much the comparison I was thinking!

it's been a billion years sine I read the books, but I appreciate the way this season has condensed and rearranged things - you can see they're trying to keep the plot coherent. I think it's been better than the first season for sure.

Yeah this season was much better. Finale has some great moments and Moghedien was perfect. Definitely bringing the creepy Bjork energy. Looking forward to seeing more Forsaken next season

wow mat must have tied the dagger to that staff *really* tight

oh fuc

Roffle. That DID cross my mind.

Big ol' interview with Judkins, spoilers obv

https://www.tor.com/2023/10/06/the-wheel-of-time-showrunner-rafe-judkins-talks-season-2-finale-among-other-things/

Plus a pre-SAG strike chat with Pike and Henney looking a bit ahead to Season 3

https://www.thewrap.com/wheel-of-time-season-3-filming-rosamund-pike-daniel-henney-interview/

i'm not bothered either way, but have we completely jettisoned thom merrilin? i mean there are *so* many characters, so it makes sense to dump any they lack the time to do justice to

this is not something i feel like i normally notice, but the outfits this season were *amazing*. although that one headpiece lanfear was wearing in the dream world was a bit much

i'm apparently the last person in the world to notice this, but the books' maps of tar valon are . . . suggestive

kinda feel like it's a really bad joek but dude obviously deserves no leeway whatsoever

80% of men cannot locate Northarbor

Not the last lol

wow that completely flew over my 11 year-old head

there's even a bad tshirt https://shopwheeloftime.com/products/tar-valon-harbor-master-1

uhmmmm that shirt is incredible.
Also can't say I ever noticed the gynecological implications of Tar Valon.

Another showrunner interview

https://www.vulture.com/article/wheel-of-time-season-2-showrunner-explains-adaptation-choices.html

Is anyone enjoying the show who has not read the books?

I watched the first season and didn't really like it much. By the time the second season came out I had mostly forgotten what happened in S1. The season recap didn't really help much, nor did the first episode of S2. Other than the fact that two of the young women are having difficulty training at Hogwarts and the one main lady and her helper are having relationship issues because she lost her magic, I couldn't really grasp what was going on or what the larger point of the show was. I haven't continued past that first episode of S2.

My wife has not read the books but likes the show, thinks season 2 is a marked improvement on season 1.
Another friend liked the first season enough to start reading the books.

i haven’t read the books & like it well enough! though I keep forgetting to watch it & the longer i leave it the less i understand what’s going on lol

you should read the books and moan in the threads about the books imo

i bought the books for mr veg but there’s too many lol

i rarely can ever commit to a series! lord of the rings & like, feist’s magician series are about the only ones i ever saw through to the end

Wait like ALL of the Feist books?? Like when we’re talking about like Arutha’s kids and shit? I loved original core trilogy when I was a youth but couldn’t get into the later books.

lol nooo just the the first three riftwars

king's buccaneer is good iirc

lads

i may have begun re-reading the books : /

ffs

Now I ain't a gamblin man but I'd give 2:1 odds you give up during or at the end of book 4.

cauthon vibes ^

also i back him for a full run

they are much easier reread ime

Pretty sure I gave up during book 3 last time I tried.

cauthon vibes

out of the core three stooges, i guess i'd rather be mat than mr crazy or the wolfman.

i have tried to submit a triplicate post

https://i.ibb.co/pK6nvpX/IMG-6379.jpg

if i can do it, you can do it! don't give up!

incredible that all those still have their covers intact; the copies i had when i was a kid had the absolute worst glue.

working my way through book 5

'Working' the correct word there

"Are you still working on that, or can I take it away?"

sanderson to corpse of r jordan

looool

Pretty sure I gave up during book 3 last time I tried.

book 3 is where he starts to get annoying. way more tugs of the braid than previously. like a dozen uses of 'round instead of around. a weird reticence to use contractions. egwene and nynaeve are in an endless spat for no particular reason. perrin is so feeble -- oh no, a hot and mysterious chick (with skirts divided for riding) likes me and i don't know what to do! kickass wolves want to be my best friends but i'd rather cry!

at least the aiel still rule. on to book four

(if i'm to get through this i may need to skip over a *lot* of perrin bits. i don't want to be a leader! i'm just a blacksmith! oh faile! fuck you perrin aybara)

also loial is cool but would be much cooler if he did anything but

- whoa, ta’veren
- hey do you like books? because i like books
- fingers like sausages
- oh no elder haman will think i’m putting a long handle on my axe
- oh no they’re gonna make me marry a cutie
- you ta’veren are so hasty amirite
- droopy tufted ears
- never anger an aes sedai!
- mmm ta’veren

Book three. Of fourteen.

you posting this was neither the beginning nor the end of our discussions of robert jordan's oeuvre. there are neither beginnings nor endings to discussions of the wheel of time

but it was a beginning

halfway through book five and this one rules because there's been no perrin at all yet

fortune prick me if i do no keep you abreast arms crossed below my breasts of my progress

like a dozen uses of 'round instead of around

this, happily, completely disappeared after book three

Just finished book five - things are still happening, though I understand that may not continue to be the case.

growing to appreciate Jordan's commitment to his bit, with the spankings and the obsession with women showing their legs and the random insertions like

Rand gazed upon the Forsaken and saw death. He grasped as much saidin as he could, filling himself up to the limit. If it ended here, he would never see Elayne's face again. He thought of the time he had offended her without knowing - women were mysterious like eels in a bucket, just as Bhob Cutlack always said back in the Two Rivers. The low-cut dress Elayne wore that day had made him see her as a woman. Balefire flashed in front of him, almost erasing him from the Pattern forever.

he knew what he was doing with this stuff, right?

just as Bhob Cutlack always said

On Bluesky Saeed Jones has discovered the series and it's kinda great, thus:

Now that I think about it, I want to have sex with Perrin too. He’s hiding a banging body underneath all the grief, depression and demonic nightmares.

jordan died from pulling the stomach outtve himself as he cryprayed

reached the part in which things are still kinda happening but nevertheless most of our time is spent with

• elayne and nynaeve wanting to box each other's ears
• everyone wanting to box mat's ears
• everyone obsessed with plunging necklines on dresses, then blushing
• faile refusing to talk to perrin and perrin endlessly freaking out about it
• lews therin gibbering
• elayne and min (and aviendha, slightly) moping about rand
• each of our main three complaining that the other two understand women
• men!
• women!

'kneel or you will be knelt' is a good line tho

also i have to ask -- since it's late and i'm not sober -- what is the upside of being a darkfriend?

first off it's horrible branding. there are lots of bad people around -- whitecloaks, seanchan, shaido -- but they don't *think* of themselves as evil; they've at least convinced themselves that they're doing the right thing.

there is, however, really no ambiguity about swearing unbreakable oaths to someone called The Dark One and/or Shaitan who has been imprisoned in a place called Shayol Ghul for 3000 years.

but what does anyone get out of it? if you're the head of a house competing for a vacant throne, i guess i can maybe see it?

if you're a random farmer or innkeeper, under regular circumstances, what are you getting to compensate for having a myrddraal periodically slobber on you/kill your extended family? some extra money maybe?

if you're an aes sedai, you can basically do whatever the fuck you want anywhere in the world. under normal circumstances maybe you get . . . i don't even know? but when the shit hits the fan the forsaken chosen will absolutely wreck you for their own purposes

everyone is just cannon-fodder for the chosen/forsaken. if the cute girl from four kings survives the end of the world, at best she lives forever as a slave to some really sadistic assholes. the perfect darkfriend future entails like a dozen people allowing you to torture everyone else who ever lived if you kiss their boots. it doesn't seem like a good bargain

the wheel of time promises *nothing*! it's not like if you live a good life, you'll come back as someone slightly higher in the hierarchy. apparently you just come back as yourself, again and again, forever.

maybe TV ishamael was otm

what and why darkfriends are is actually the biggest "ive no idea" of Jordan's entire effort tbh, you just have to handwave it away

by the time spoiler turns out to have been spoiler but spoiler spoiler im already just laughing and saying oh fuck off

yeah i know its two decades but spoilers is a srs business

i should box your ears

each of our main three complaining that the other two understand women

i didn't grok this as a kid so i found it funny when i reread

i guess i don't mind the men are from mars/women are from venus shtick, the only other epic fantasy i read the filler was a lot more boring (i'm talking about grrm's pages and pages of boiled leather outfits)

i do agree though that perrin's arc is the most unsatisfying of the three... i think there are a few books later that just skip him entirely?

theres good moments of payoff imo

he rescues his missus more than fuckin mario all the same

Wanna say thank you to mookieproof for being the hero this thread of the pattern really needs.

The Wheel crushes all beneath it.

reached the part in which things are still kinda happening but nevertheless most of our time is spent with

elayne and nynaeve wanting to box each other's ears
everyone wanting to box mat's ears
everyone obsessed with plunging necklines on dresses, then blushing
faile refusing to talk to perrin and perrin endlessly freaking out about it
lews therin gibbering
elayne and min (and aviendha, slightly) moping about rand
each of our main three complaining that the other two understand women
men!
women!
like, a little of this *might* be okay, but it's just fucking endless. half the characters (and all the aes sedai?) have reverted to acting like sullen teenagers even as the larger stakes get bigger. mat and perrin don't want to be bloody heroes, yes, we fucking get it. never have books screamed more loudly for an editor

trying to work out whether mookieproof is ahead of me or behind me, it's hard to tell!

there are neither etc etc