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.

Kinda the standard ones, I guess. Jordan got too lost in the weeds before he could wrap it up, the gender binary stuff gets even more wearying with time, etc., let's all tug our braids. And yet: I admire the ambition, figuring out a way to work with the then-expected Tolkien tropes by exploding and expanding things in all kinds of directions, a whole bunch of vivid characters, it's a crazy ride. (Also still some of the best opening two pages to a whole damn series out there -- like, you read that, you like it, you're in.) I still remember when the first book came out and looking with interest at the cover at the UCLA bookstore, since I knew his name, just, and recognized Darrell Sweet's art. Of course these days I also consider that image of Lan being twice the size of Moiraine and think "Yeahhhhh far better to have Rosamund and Daniel just be, you know, them," and for all that the show has to reduce/simplify/etc things and I get where dmac and others will rightly have issues, I'll take Judkins' aim for a queer-friendly revamp and casting for the whole thing as a core central part as good showrunner input over what those two goddamn dorks are doing over at The Rings of Power, though admittedly I'm more invested in Tolkien adaptations by default.

wonderful; thank you

I enjoyed this last episode; can't help but think the finale will feel anticlimactic, but I'd like to be pleasantly surprised.

creepy pyro kids were a highlight

on the other hand, more singing

alanna has hella hit points

That final episode packed in a hell of a lot! New spoiler-heavy Judkins interview.

RIP Moiraine's hat - or not?

Episode very much about rushing through the itinerary of required plot points...I found myself leaning heavily on book knowledge to fill in the gaps, to the point where I guess a non-book person saw a very different story. What is a Panarch's Palace other than an abandoned Indiana Jones set? There were...two clans at Alcair Dal?

Other gaps I'd need to have a lot of trust in the showrunners to sign off on...did Liandrin choke on killing Nynaeve or did she forget her instaheadshot weave? What was Moiraine doing while waiting for Lanfear to turn up - clearly not setting any useful defences...

Still fun of course! Hope we get another season.

There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But in that it takes them two years to make eight episodes everyone will long be dead before anyone gets near Shayol Ghul

lol at how sassy nynaeve is to moraine

“You’ll still need my herbs, Aes Sedai, unless you’ve suddenly gained some ability I don’t know about”.

Not sure when I’ll get around to the second book but Eye of the World is indeed a fun ride.

There are 2787 named characters in the series

Yes but how many braid tuggers?

I started re-reading the books a while back but stalled after book 5 - thanks to the Tar Valon or Bust close-reading podcast, I have been able to follow the plot through the final book and not have to read them. Good podcast.

Yeah Preeti's a good sort in general too!

Yes but how many braid tuggers?

Only the ones who aren't forehead knucklers.

series cancelled

FEH. But I wasn't getting the feeling it'd get the nod.

what? nooooooo

of course right as it's getting into a great groove and more people are picking up on it, dumb decision. but I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Ridiculous!!!

sucks :(

You've axed the wrong fantasy show Amazon

moiraine + thom was absurd

the…. gleeman? wtaf

him pulling at her braid

we know RJ was into s/m

and then logain made [a red aes sedai] orgasm when he bonded her

and then the other sister logain bonded waxed poetic about how hot it was to be overpowered by him

tbf i'd (almost) take straight-up orgies over the whole thing in which aes sedai are supposed to be eternally composed and supremely unflappable yet vomit/blush/collapse in shame when faced with someone 'stern'

is absurd and just fucking endless. someone sniffed; someone's eyes were lowered; come on.

yes i'm reading it again

you cannot possibly shame me for it more than i shame myself (i was bored)

the whole thing in which aes sedai are supposed to be eternally composed and supremely unflappable yet vomit/blush/collapse in shame when faced with someone 'stern' is absurd and just fucking endless. someone sniffed; someone's eyes were lowered; come on

only started re-reading it because i was struggling with beginning other things

ffs

there are no beginnings

"The wheel turns, man."

cant spell beginnings without beg

it was *a* beginning

theres an extent to which the potential in my head of what this might have been somewhat crosses over emotionally with Tottenham in the same period and readers i just get sad and angry and beat when i think of the imagined optimism of a redcheeked 32 year old me told that special effects could make anything happen and the richest company in the world was going to adapt this in a long running season format at the same time that the great fallen general mourinho then the crazed warrior conte would lead my team in successive campaigns in a new shining structure designed to awe and dismay the world and lads the big bad world is an adventure but it also takes from us and the world of dreams isnt a mirror but it isnt a liar neither joail out

tottenham probably had better music

https://i.postimg.cc/8P19Pd0V/HAw-JTw-Va-AAQlqp-C.png

death is lighter than a feather iirc

Meantime:

https://variety.com/2026/gaming/news/wheel-of-time-animated-series-movies-video-game-thomas-vu-1236693410/

mat's inbox:

https://i.postimg.cc/TPhcwDZK/rand-and-mats-mailbox.png

rand's:

https://i.postimg.cc/Kj7PVrMX/rand-and-mats-mailbox2.jpg

Hauntingly accurate.

can only imagine that perrin's would be like 15 iterations of

@neilhimself: @amandapalmer I am coming home to you.

plus other boring stuff because he sucks

It is wild how much I latched on to Perrin mostly due to his name

I don’t get why everyone else hates him he’s my avatar in book form perfectly fine

this bluesky thread (via tom e. & ned) is so great that i had to compile it

So you have Boy Magic and Girl Magic, okay, and only boys can do Boy Magic and girls can do Girl Magic. For most of the series, Boy Magic smells like poop so bad that using it will inevitably turn you into a living 9/11. This requires a specific sect of girls who do Girl Magic to castrate you.

I am not making the poop thing up by the way, Robert Jordan takes special effort to tell you how bad Boy Magic smells to the main character almost every time he has to use it.

If Girl Magic users stand in a circle, they can do more powerful Girl Magic, but only up to 13 of them, after which the vibes are off and you need at least one Boy Magic grungler. There always has to be more Girl Magic than Boy Magic in a circle unless you're in a threesome or a double power couple.

Holding a cool figurine makes you better at Girl Magic but only if it's a figurine of a girl. There are also cool figurines for Boy Magic but they're all on back order. Holding a cool sword will make you WAY better at Boy Magic but only if it's transparent.

Due to religious reasons, there's one figurine that will cause Jonestown to happen if you use it. You will never be informed of this.

There's also Actual For Real Totally Legit Magic that doesn't care whether you're a boy or a girl but it fucks up your eyesight. You can only get this magic by going to the Epstein Volcano and using the cosmic lathe accident to talk to Satan, or by watching someone who did that cast one (1) spell.

As previously stated, Boy Magic is strictly only ever for Boys, and Girl Magic is strictly only ever for Girls. Boys cannot teach Girls how to use Boy Magic, or vice versa. Except there's one character who is a girl who can do Boy Magic, because her previous incarnation was a rapist.

Regardless of gender, if you drink too much tea, you lose your magic until you have a nap.

I have not even gotten into the partially-separate Elemental system that Wheel of Time's magic also has, but:

a. that would take a long time to explain

b. anything Wheel of Time tells you about the elemental system in any given book turns out to be wrong by the middle of the next one

There's a main character whose whole deal is she does magic "wrong" by using the "wrong" elements, but she's a more effective magic user than 99% of magic users who have ever existed. Almost all of the remaining 1% are either the main villains or other main characters, who also do magic "wrong."

Girl Magic is fiercely guarded by a pseudoreligious order of lesbian warrior monk MILFs who are under a supernatural prohibition from telling falsehoods. All of them lie constantly and are wrong about everything, unless - and I must stress the importance of this - they wear the colour blue.

A vast section of the story involves a civil war in which the order is seized by radfem fascists from the Castration Sect, opposed by a rebel faction led by the only competent members of the order. The rebels would still have failed if the fascists weren't constantly tripping over their own dicks.

Meanwhile, the main character makes a Boy Magic order and they all get katanas and black leather coats and dragon tattoos.

Oh I forgot, one of the most important factors of the Lesbian MILF Warrior Monk Girl Magic order is that unless you're a radfem or a nerd, you get telepathically bonded to a simp sword guy who always wears camo. You can actually have multiple simps, but only if you wear green.

There is an entire continental empire from fantasy America that's also fantasy Persia and fantasy Imperial China that force all of their Girl Magic users into nonconsensual lesbian BDSM relationships. The dommes in these relationships are - unknowingly - also Girl Magic users.

The Fremen from Dune are also here, except they're Irish. They have their own cadre of Girl Magic MILFs, except they're bisexual. They are better than the Girl Magic religious order at literally everything, except having simps, which they never learned to do.

Except for fantasy Persiamerica, Fantasy Jamaicans are the only people who know how boats work. Their Girl Magic users can use it to alter the weather, a thing nobody from the Girl Magic religious order even knew was possible. Together, they use it to fix global warming.

I cannot stress how bizarre Wheel of Time was.

Oh oh oh! I forgot! If your telepathic simp dies, you take a small debuff to your Girl Magic for a few weeks.

If YOU die, your telepathic simp immediately turns into the Punisher and departs for Canada to kill demons, unless you left him to another Girl Magic user in your will.

Part way through the series it turns out that Boy Magic users can actually turn women into telepathic simps as well. If these women happen to be Girl Magic users, they can reciprocally turn the Boy Magic user into their telepathic simp. This canonically increases both of their power levels.

You may be wondering if you can have same-gender telepathic simps, and I'm delighted to announce that you indeed can! Specifically, one of the main characters does this with the physically incarnated tulpa of her favourite storybook character, MILF Robin Hood.

"Do you recommend Wheel of Time?"

This is kind of like asking whether I recommend doing LSD.

What kind of person are you? How do your thought processes work? Are you mentally prepared to deal with the anti-magic goo monster that can only be killed by the anti-magic medal shaped like a fox?

The three male main characters are:

- The fated reincarnation of the most powerful Boy Magic user to ever exist, destined to kill Satan or die trying

- A werewolf blacksmith who can kill people in dreams, forge masterwork weapons with an amateur's tools and inspire armies

- Guy who gambles good

The three female main characters are:

- Best Girl Magic user ever, smart, polite, fixes everything, never gets respect

- Second best Girl Magic user ever, bad bitch, party medic, AMAZING hair

- MILF who loves being enigmatic and mysterious, fucks up everything by refusing to explain herself, dies

I should note that all three of the male main characters canonically have Main Character Syndrome. This is an actual diagnosis. This is an actual condition you can have in the world of Wheel of Time and it can be empirically measured. It's likely two of the female main characters have it as well.

There are two materials in Wheel of Time that display a level of strength and durability only possible via magic, one of which is Cuendillar. The other is whatever the fuck Nynaeve's hair is made of.

I realize it sounds like I'm just ripping the piss out of a book series, and... yeah, I am, but I also want to make it clear that I basically have nothing but good memories of this book series. They were there for me at a very isolated and painful time in my life. I think about them a lot.

Despite its incredible cosmic weirdness about gender, I actually think the series was in some ways progressive for epic high fantasy of its era. It featured lesbian and bisexual characters without too much leering and a positive, heroic depiction of polyamory. It called imperialism an explicit evil.

There's a repeating plot point about a kingdom claiming dominion over an isolated region but never providing any help or assistance to it. War is always depicted, at its absolute best, as being a necessary evil when all other options have been tried and failed.

The final "boss fight" of the series isn't just some epic swordfight. It's a very long philosophical argument between the main character and an entity that is essentially the incarnation of all selfishness, hatred and misery, which the main character wins by accepting he cannot control everything.

Oh also, if you use magic to mix Fire and Air and fuck up you make Time Poison, which kills you yesterday and minutely weakens the strong nuclear force every time you use it. Time Poison is very important because it's the only* way to stop Satan from savescumming his strongest warriors back to life.

You can also stop Satan from savescumming by taking his strongest warriors to the Backrooms or Centralia, which are both filled with talkative black fogs that vore people. These two identical talkative black fogs that vore people may or may not be in way related to each other.

I do think it's cool that the Girl Magic order suck for very believable and realistic reasons, like arrogance, hierarchies of knowledge, petty politics, institutional privilege, seniority bias, and allowing radfems to speak ever.

If you get magically castrated, you can get fully healed from it, but only if it's hetero. If you do gay magic uncastration, you get magic back but at a permanent nerf to your overall stats.

This also happens: "In defense of the person who learned Satan Magic by seeing it once, he got spiritually quantum entangled with an actual Satan Magic-user because the two of them accidentally touched tips while shooting their Retcon Erasure Lasers at The Evil Bongcloud."

Says it all!

Is this book series suitable for young teens and older?

I think a lot of us probably started reading it in our teens

that's how they get ya

good to see tumblr living on in bluesky

oh literally the third bleet is a screenshot of their tumblr hah