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Tithin Melias posted:I've been Audiobooking the series in anticipation of the latest book being released, I'm up to book seven and I think I've realized the exact moment the plot goes off the rails - right when RJ starts describing how Aes Sedai rank themselves in priority because half of this book so far had just been "NUH UH I outrank YOU" so far. Giving serious consideration to just skipping to book 11 which is a shame because the audio performance has gotten very very good since its shaky start. I wouldn't suggest that, a lot of poo poo goes down in books 7-9, and there are a few cool things that happen in 10. Feel free to skim Elayne sections, however. I still read them completely but even then I don't like most of her PoV's.
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Sep 28, 2012 17:05
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Haraksha posted:See: Elaida. Strength in the power has a close correlation with strength of will, so it's not as completely blind as it seems. And to actually get elected requires sizable political skill. Of course, it doesn't test for any leadership skills, so all you get are a mob of ultra stubborn, politically conniving, hundred year old traditionalist women.
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Sep 28, 2012 18:27
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And, as much as it might seem a tad idiotic, the training the White Tower gives all the potentials does somewhat set them up to play adviser in a pretty good capacity. It's one of the things I did somewhat like about the series on a re-read, how Egwene went from a teenage girl that hadn't seen any of the world and was your usual overwhelmed and wild-eyed kid on through to the most powerful woman in the world. The tower trains hard, and each Aes Sedai learns history and mediation... coupled with the way they carry themselves, most any Aes Sedai can probably do at least a bit of advisement without looking the fool. Which is the flip side of what I liked about Egwene's trip - aside from the Wonder Girls and other heavy face-time Aes Sedai (Moiraine, Siuan, etc), the vast majority of on screen Aes Sedai are interchangeable in personality and tone. It sorta makes sense, in context of the story how they all get the same training, I suppose, but you can be assured that just about any new Aes Sedai that shows up on page is going to act in the exact same way as the rest. They're all so interchangeable, that it doesn't matter which one advises. You'll get the same haughty disdain and superiority complex anyway. Also, I really hope there's something more about the Blight Aiel than "They're like normal Aiel, but backwards!" (beyond channeling). It's too gimmicky for me. The Anti-Aiel.
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Sep 28, 2012 18:55
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All the Blight Aiel appeared to be turned male Channelers? They were all hanging around that lovely town (okay, a few running around killing people by the end of the last book) so there can't be that many of them - I can only imagine how many actually survive the trip / living there. so I dunno, might not be that much more to it. I doubt it's a Shaido 2.0 situation.
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Sep 28, 2012 19:02
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When I was a kid, I read everything I could lay my hands on. At some point after I’d worked through The Hobbit but before I’d moved up to The Lord of the Rings -- so, maybe third grade? -- I found a bunch of my brother’s old Conan the Barbarian comic books and read them over and over again till they came apart. My brother wasn’t too happy about that, obviously, but my dad took the opportunity to tell me “you know, you’ve got a cousin who writes those things.” It took me a little while to realize that “your crazy cousin who writes Conan novels” was the same guy who’d completely blown my little-kid mind at a party a few years previously by taking the time to explain what a Mobius strip was and even making me one to play with out of a bit of torn napkin. I don’t think I saw or heard of said crazy cousin till a few years more had passed and some friends of ours loaned us a VCR for a few weeks. We knew the cousin in question had a “huge” library of VHS tapes, and somehow or other it got arranged that we could borrow some, so we went over for the evening and they let me pick over the tape library; I remember grabbing a complete set of Rocky and Bullwinkle. While we were there, I remembered and asked if I could read any of his Conan novels. They told me I was too young for them but then he started telling me about the book he was working on right then. He said it was about a world where all the male wizards had gone crazy and blown up everything, so only female wizards could handle magic safely. I went back and forth a few more times borrowing different videos and asked more questions about the book. I remember one time he said something about the idea of ages repeating and the same stories getting told over again, slightly differently each time; I remember asking if each version was different like a funhouse mirror and he said, no, more like looking at two tapestries next to each other, and thinking they were the same, but the longer you look, the more details you’d pick out that were different, and more differences with each new version of the tapestry. One time I was talking with his wife about Zork and she told me about how she was editing the new book and putting in a passage where a main character gets a second cloak, because he lost his cloak once crossing a river and once at another point later on. One time he showed me the map and explained how the mountains up near the top go down into the ocean and how he’d put that in deliberately because it was something that couldn’t happen naturally. Anyway, y’all know where all that was going. A year or two later (this would be 1989, over summer break; I guess I was twelve?) that same crazy cousin called me up and said come on over to his house; I walked the few blocks over and he gave me an Advance Reading Copy of Eye of the World. I walked home holding the book up in front of me and reading my way down the street, sat down, and kept going straight through till I finished it. I’ve been waiting for the next book ever since. When the last one comes out, that’s gonna be weird. Anyway, just had to get the above out of my system, and this seemed as good a place as any. Not trying to go emo or one-up or anything (and no, I don’t get advance copies any more, that basically all stopped when the internet came along and they had to start really worrying about leaks). It’s just . . .twenty-three years of my life ago, this series. So strange thinking of it as something that’s going to come to an actual end. I’m thirty-five years old now and I can barely even remember a time when I wasn’t looking forward to the next book.
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Sep 28, 2012 19:10
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I'd like an actual explanation for WHY using the one power affects the appearance of women and aging like it does. Has it ever gone into that?
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Sep 28, 2012 19:10
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AlternateAccount posted:I'd like an actual explanation for WHY using the one power affects the appearance of women and aging like it does. Has it ever gone into that? Yes. In short: It doesn't. Long: It's a side-effect of the Oath Rod. Or maybe it was supposed to work like such so anyone could recognize the dicks who had to take an oath back then (criminals). And we know you had to be a pretty big dick to be forced to take an oath because not even Balthamel qualified and he was like, a woman-beating rapist. A pretty big deal if even a guy like him made the old Aes Sedai go "Maybe he'll get better after a warning?" before applying that tool. Unrelated: The 13x13 thing is one of those big things we've heard a lot about and I'm still curious about the details. It appears to be a sort of taint/true power compulsion weave (if a lot less random than the taint), Unlike the taint it doesn't appear to make people crazy - just EVIL and as stated, draws out all the worst in people (so kinda like the dark ones slow touch that started the decay of the old civilization). Everyone turned instantly goes full darkfriend, either from their "new perspective on life" or from some other mechanism. Makes you wonder what's the point of a mindtrap too, unless that is somehow more reliable (or just to fill the evil quota). But if that is all there was too it you'd think that there would be some Chosen like that - what's not to like from the Shadow's perspective? You instantly get people that are everything the Dark One wants them to be without any of those triffling loyalty issues (i.e Lanfear, Graendal, Mogheiden etc). Get a strong enough dude/experienced and he should be more than a match for any of the Chosen on all levels. Unless... it got some limitation? Is it unreliable? Does it lower their capabilities in some way? (Like making it very difficult for them to chew their vegetables  ), does it make people TOO dickish so that loyalty issues are even more of a concern? And the obvious one: Can it be reversed? Or maybe they only turn a bunch of chumps? (Well, now maybe - dunno about during the Age of Legends) Seems like a poor infiltration tool, what with people being able to see the EVIL IN THEIR EYES and the almost equally obvious personality changes. You'd think people would pay more attention if that kind secretary suddenly turned into Mr Burns, but apparently it fools plenty of people. So many questions from a (simple, scary) plot device! Pimpmust fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Sep 28, 2012 |
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Sep 28, 2012 19:19
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Pimpmust posted:Unrelated: I imagine it affects the personality of the one turned in some way. Makes them inhuman, makes them into something that can't even reason the way a human can. I hope we get more information on it in the book because its really interesting.
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Sep 28, 2012 19:29
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Pimpmust posted:Yes. In short: It doesn't. Ah, yeah I guess the whole business with the Kin got into that somewhat, but I wasn't entirely clear. That's still a pretty drat weird side effect.
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Sep 28, 2012 19:56
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Pimpmust posted:Yes. In short: It doesn't. You didn't have to be that big of a dick to be forced to swear on a binder. Semirhage turned to the Shadow specifically because the AOLAS were going to make her swear not to cause pain to the people she was Healing, and Balthamel was threatened with binding because he couldn't control his temper.
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Sep 28, 2012 19:58
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Pimpmust posted:Yes. In short: It doesn't. Jedit posted:You didn't have to be that big of a dick to be forced to swear on a binder. Semirhage turned to the Shadow specifically because the AOLAS were going to make her swear not to cause pain to the people she was Healing, and Balthamel was threatened with binding because he couldn't control his temper. It seems something like any major mis-use of the Power in a capacity of "Servants of All" can result in Binding, or at least that's what I get from it. Semirhage has a POV on it at some point, like, "to see the end approaching". It seems like un-bound strong channellers can live for at least twice or maybe 3 times as long as bound channellers of similar strength, so Binding is also partially viewed as a death sentence. AlternateAccount posted:Ah, yeah I guess the whole business with the Kin got into that somewhat, but I wasn't entirely clear. That's still a pretty drat weird side effect. Un-bound channellers age (in terms of looks), but at a FAR slower rate. I don't think they ever get the "ageless" look. With effective Delving and Healing they probably never get sick sick. So as long as they don't suffer violence or accidents they probably live out to the end of their full natural life span. VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Sep 28, 2012 |
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Sep 28, 2012 20:04
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Calenth posted:When I was a kid Curious, but did you get to "ARC" for TSR, TFoH, LoC, etc? If so, what was that like?
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Sep 28, 2012 20:12
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api call girl posted:It seems something like any major mis-use of the Power in a capacity of "Servants of All" can result in Binding, or at least that's what I get from it. Probably twice as long. Cadsuane with three Oaths is expected to be dead at less than 300 years old, but Moghedien was over 200 and considered to be young for an Aes Sedai in the AOL. One of the other Forsaken is also described as being over 400 when the Bore was drilled and barely considered into her middle years - I think it was Mesaana, but I don't recall for certain. So we're looking at 600-700 year life expectancy for a strong channeller. quote:Un-bound channellers age (in terms of looks), but at a FAR slower rate. I don't think they ever get the "ageless" look. They don't. The Aes Sedai Facelift is explicitly an effect of the Oath Rod; when someone takes the Oaths, it's described as feeling as if the skin all over their body is tightening.
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Sep 28, 2012 20:21
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api call girl posted:Curious, but did you get to "ARC" for TSR, TFoH, LoC, etc? If so, what was that like? He gave me an early galley proof of Dragon Reborn (which unfortunately got water damaged a few years later) and a promotional wall map of the map from The Great Hunt (the fancy one with the heavily illustrated border). That was all pre-internet, though, at least for me (having not discovered usenet) and my brother had moved away so I didn't know anyone else who was into reading that kind of thing. It was more "oh, fun, new book to read," not "early book" -- Cousin Jim's new book just came out when he called me, not when I saw it in stores. In retrospect I'm actually kinda amazed that he took the time to remember and call the neighbor kid who liked maps and fantasy books. Once the series hit NYT bestseller with tDR and the internet took off, though, they really had to lock down security, and they also sped up the "turnover" time from manuscript to publication pretty dramatically (like down to a single month for some books), so what with being off at school and so forth I usually didn't manage to get advance access after that. I do remember that whatever book the name "Moridin" first shows up in, I read a borrowed copy of that a week or two early, which I only remember because I kicked myself afterwards for not immediately registering the nick in every online game and forum I could think of.
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Sep 28, 2012 20:43
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Affi posted:I imagine it affects the personality of the one turned in some way. Makes them inhuman, makes them into something that can't even reason the way a human can. I hope we get more information on it in the book because its really interesting. I'm put in mind of the Reavers from Firefly... The characters are talking about them and saying they aren't men, not anymore, and one of them says that he thinks they got out to the edge of space and saw something so awful that it completely broke their minds. They show throughout the series they're capable of normal tasks (flying a ship, setting traps), but are consumed by this uncontrollable rage that forces them to attack everything around them. NB: I am talking about before Serenity revealed them to be chemically created, that plot twist sucked  This strikes me as being pretty similar, the turned ones are forced to stare into the abyss, and it consumes them. Also I got the impression that not all of the evil Aiel were Turned? Isam notes that the two given him are turned...
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Sep 28, 2012 21:42
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Everyone's forgetting about Fain. I reckon that Rand will actually destroy the Dark One, but then Fain show's up with his enormous army of zombie Trollocs. Rand is unable to beat Fain, but luckily enough there's an extradimensional prison now with a free place that he throws him into. Where he gets more and more pissed off and eviller, until the Wheel turns a bit and a bunch of those crazy Aes Sedai unintentionally bore a hole into the prison... Would explain why the Dark One doesn't just learn exactly what he should do to free himself by trial and error - every turn of the wheel has a new Dark One.
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Sep 28, 2012 21:52
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Democratic Pirate posted:gently caress yeah Talmanes gently caress yeah.
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Sep 28, 2012 23:16
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steevee posted:Everyone's forgetting about Fain. Reasonable theory. That being said, the person everybody's really forgetting about Loial. He's about to show up in TEotW (I'm taking a week to read each book). So excited. 
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Sep 29, 2012 01:14
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So what's with the single fly that shows up when Rand goes into T'AR in the flesh in TDR & TFoH? Was that ever explained?Calenth posted:Cousin Jim Holy poo poo. Any more stories you can think of about him, even if they don't have anything to do with WoT, I'd love to hear them. If he was my cousin, he would have hated me. I'd have literally never ever ever stopped asking him questions.
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Sep 29, 2012 01:46
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steevee posted:Everyone's forgetting about Fain. I've been nursing a near identical theory for a while now, yeah. Certainly explains why the Dark One never seems to learn from the infinity of previous attempts at this whole Third Age buisness
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Sep 29, 2012 03:41
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steevee posted:Everyone's forgetting about Fain. http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=142 (question 22 on that page) From a 2002 interview, Jordan stated that Fain was unique to this age. Specifically that he had in some ways side-stepped the pattern. Of course, that doesn't preclude him from having a role in a more permanent ending to the DO. Calenth: I don't know if I'm jealous, since I likely would have bugged the everloving poo poo out of him and I would have been strangled by the time FoH came out. It struck me at the release of the last book that my copy of EoTW was almost old enough to have a drink. Hexaemeron fucked around with this message at 04:45 on Sep 29, 2012 |
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Sep 29, 2012 04:34
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Prison Warden posted:I've been nursing a near identical theory for a while now, yeah. Certainly explains why the Dark One never seems to learn from the infinity of previous attempts at this whole Third Age buisness But maybe he is learning. We don't know how close he's come in previous attempts. Maybe they're getting worse bit by bit. I've never been a fan of the "Fain becoming a new Dark One" theory, though.
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Sep 29, 2012 05:03
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During Faile's captivity (and one other POV that I'm forgetting), we see three reality ripples that sound in retrospect a lot like balescreams. Did we ever get a further explanation for what they were?
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Sep 30, 2012 06:52
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I remember reading somewhere that a lot of the "bubbles of evil" were actually reality breaking because of the overuse of balefire. Like the one in Tear happened immediately after Moiraine balefired the Forsaken in the Stone. Is this a running theory or were they really just "bubbles of evil"?
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Sep 30, 2012 07:12
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I'm betting Fain is going to have something to do with killing the DO instead. I base this on Fain hating the DO, evil hate city being part of the means to cleanse the taint, and the omens that I've discerned from the entrails of frogs that have been mauled by ravens.
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Sep 30, 2012 07:15
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Prison Warden posted:I've been nursing a near identical theory for a while now, yeah. Certainly explains why the Dark One never seems to learn from the infinity of previous attempts at this whole Third Age buisness I had been under the impression that the Dark One's prison being broken into and him nearly breaking free is a new thing that had never happened in all the turnings of the wheel before - or if it had, never to this extent. After all, the wheel itself is about to break apart, which doesn't seem like the kind of thing that would happen regularly, so it probably went somewhat off the beaten trail here.
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Sep 30, 2012 09:14
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paragon1 posted:I'm betting Fain is going to have something to do with killing the DO instead. I base this on Fain hating the DO, evil hate city being part of the means to cleanse the taint, and the omens that I've discerned from the entrails of frogs that have been mauled by ravens. Remember, Eye of the World was a bit of a homage to Lord of the Rings, with Fain as a bit of a Gollum character. Would not surprise me if he was always planned to be instrumental in the final battle.
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Sep 30, 2012 09:49
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Wolpertinger posted:I had been under the impression that the Dark One's prison being broken into and him nearly breaking free is a new thing that had never happened in all the turnings of the wheel before - or if it had, never to this extent. After all, the wheel itself is about to break apart, which doesn't seem like the kind of thing that would happen regularly, so it probably went somewhat off the beaten trail here. RJ had mentioned before that there is nothing particularly special about this turning of the Wheel. The details may vary but the broad strokes remain constant.
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Sep 30, 2012 12:33
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Pimpmust posted:Yes. In short: It doesn't. Jedit posted:You didn't have to be that big of a dick to be forced to swear on a binder. Semirhage turned to the Shadow specifically because the AOLAS were going to make her swear not to cause pain to the people she was Healing, and Balthamel was threatened with binding because he couldn't control his temper. RembrandtQEinstein posted:Reasonable theory.
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Sep 30, 2012 16:01
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Algid posted:It's a bit different for men since the oath rod varients can only be used on females. Cite, please. I don't recall anything that says Binders only work on women. You may be getting muddled with a'dams and the Sad Bracelets, both of which were developed after the Breaking.
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Sep 30, 2012 16:20
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Sammael, who certainly had no reason to lie said so, but it would also have been a really easy thing to Test once th Shaido had Rand captured. It's unconfirmed as nobody has tried to use an Oath Rod on a male channeler. A popular idea is that the odd numbered binders work on women and the even numbered ones, which we haven't encountered, work on men. Of course if it did work on men then the white tower is a bunch of assholes for not trying to have captured men swear not to channel instead of severing them.
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Sep 30, 2012 16:40
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Jedit posted:Cite, please. I don't recall anything that says Binders only work on women. You may be getting muddled with a'dams and the Sad Bracelets, both of which were developed after the Breaking. When the Shaido Wise Ones got their binder they were told it does nothing to men who can channel, or non-channelers. It specifically works through the Saidar connection.
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Sep 30, 2012 16:41
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Blind Melon posted:Of course if it did work on men then the white tower is a bunch of assholes for not trying to have captured men swear not to channel instead of severing them. Aes Sedai didn't start swearing the Oaths until at least 1000 years after the Breaking. It's entirely possible that they simply do not know that the Oath Rod can be used on men. And as the man would have to channel to swear the Oath, they would have to unshield him to make the attempt. This does not sound wise. It may also be the case that as you can't stop channelling once you have started, swearing an oath not to do so would ultimately have as bad an effect as severing.
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Sep 30, 2012 17:38
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Haraksha posted:I remember reading somewhere that a lot of the "bubbles of evil" were actually reality breaking because of the overuse of balefire. Like the one in Tear happened immediately after Moiraine balefired the Forsaken in the Stone. That's a running theory, and I think Brandon actually teased this at some point by pointing to a Demandred UNLEASH THE BALEFIRE theory and saying it was "close".
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Sep 30, 2012 18:03
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Jedit posted:Aes Sedai didn't start swearing the Oaths until at least 1000 years after the Breaking. It's entirely possible that they simply do not know that the Oath Rod can be used on men. And as the man would have to channel to swear the Oath, they would have to unshield him to make the attempt. This does not sound wise. Could always swear to stop using the power after a set amount of time... ? Granted, this is as mentioned on the condition that the unshielded guy doesn't fry everyone in the room. As for Demandred, my new pet theory is that the Dark One commanded him to UNLEASH THE MERCHANDISING; the Shadow need to fund that war effort and I'm not seeing any other forsaken collecting the cash needed  Obviously the blight grown tobacco is a tough sell that only a man like Demandred can pull off "Come here good people, have a taste! It got KICK like no other! Second finest tobacco in the land! (gently caress you Isam for not securing that good stuff)" Pimpmust fucked around with this message at 20:04 on Sep 30, 2012 |
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Sep 30, 2012 20:00
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Pimpmust posted:Could always swear to stop using the power after a set amount of time... ?  Obviously you can stop holding the Power, everybody in the books does that at some point. What I meant was what Moiraine tells Nynaeve in the first book - after having touched the One Power, it is impossible to give it up completely.
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Sep 30, 2012 20:48
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OK, wait, I thought Tylin getting her throat torn out was pretty bad, but now I remember that I am coming up on where Rolan gets his head unceremoniously smashed in by Perrin and Faile is just kinda like... welp. If I remember right anyway.
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Oct 1, 2012 01:56
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Grundulum posted:During Faile's captivity (and one other POV that I'm forgetting), we see three reality ripples that sound in retrospect a lot like balescreams. Did we ever get a further explanation for what they were? Nope, and its not really needed. That particular balescream with its one-more-tremor-and-we'll-all-blow-away feel is kind of a synchronizing moment for all the ta'veren characters, with each of them (or people close to them at that point in time) experiencing it in the seconds after Rand obliterates Graendal, iirc, which helps reconcile some of the seriously messed up chronology in the divergent plot lines Jedit posted:It may also be the case that as you can't stop channelling once you have started, swearing an oath not to do so would ultimately have as bad an effect as severing. Not really, Therava prevents Galina from channeling with a binder and she's no worse off than she'd be under the care of Therava anyway. The problems of using (an) Oath Rod even if it worked on men are more that it allows behavior if the individual earnestly believes they're keeping the letter of their vow. This gets a little dicey when the subject in question is a paranoid, hallucinating wreck whose body will necrotize in a few years if they somehow manage to not get killed for any number of reasons related to being an irrational, unpredictable psychopath who can channel. Even if it did work, gentling would just be a quicker way around the barn with the added bonus of staving off the physical rotting of saiidin pre-cleansing. Willie Tomg fucked around with this message at 02:55 on Oct 1, 2012 |
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Oct 1, 2012 02:53
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Willie Tomg posted:Nope, and its not really needed. That particular balescream with its one-more-tremor-and-we'll-all-blow-away feel is kind of a synchronizing moment for all the ta'veren characters, with each of them (or people close to them at that point in time) experiencing it in the seconds after Rand obliterates Graendal, iirc, which helps reconcile some of the seriously messed up chronology in the divergent plot lines. Thanks. That's what I was looking for.
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Oct 1, 2012 04:57
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Willie Tomg posted:Not really, Therava prevents Galina from channeling with a binder and she's no worse off than she'd be under the care of Therava anyway. She's no worse yet. The psychological effects of genuine severing can take weeks to catch up on a person. Galina can still feel the Source and even channel if given permission, so she has both hope and a means of feeding her "addiction" - it would surely take longer for her to be affected. You do make a good point about vows being twistable, though. Rand spends a lot of time channelling without knowing he's doing it; that would get around a vow not to channel because you think you've kept it. It's possible that a channeller who holds out long enough will also start channelling subconsciously. More to the point, you can still hold the Power without channelling it, so you'd still suffer the rotting and madness from touching saidin. Thinking about it, the real reason severed men die so fast is probably because they're kept in the Tower. It's possible to avoid the fatal depression, but you have to put the Power behind you and get busy with something else. The severed men can't forget because they're surrounded by the Power every day, and they can't find something else to do because they're kept captive.
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Oct 1, 2012 08:25
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