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For ages 13 and up. And up, drat it.
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Jun 11, 2016 23:33
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Hogge Wild posted:well it's a fantasy book for teens I don't know if you're being sarcastic or not but this is the laziest defense of criticism outside of "just turn your brain off". Just because something is for children or teens or whoever doesn't mean it can't also be good. See: Pixar.
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Jun 12, 2016 04:49
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Nihilarian posted:Rand never becomes anything resembling a competent general and he leaves most of the military poo poo up to his military people, he even mentions that it all sounds like gibberish to him. IIRC, Rand's major military experience as a general consists of leading one battle where he over-extends and gets badly beaten, at which point he indiscriminately blasts own his troops with lightning when he uses Callandor in attempt to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. And, yeah. The pressures of being the Chosen One break him. Farmboy Rand turns into bitter paranoid wreck of a man with the power to lay waste to the world. There is no point where you should be going "Ah, yes, this is a well-balanced and capable individual who will lead the world to a brighter future, being the Chosen One must be awesome.".
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Jun 12, 2016 06:01
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Nihilarian posted:Rand never becomes anything resembling a competent general and he leaves most of the military poo poo up to his military people, he even mentions that it all sounds like gibberish to him. Being the chosen one sucks and drives him loving insane, literally, and whatever good his "do everything myself" approach did is offset by the times he failed or made things worse. At no point in the story are you supposed to be going "hm, Rand's bitterness, paranoia and rage make him a good leader, I'm glad he's already ready to fight Satan". He's barely human by the time he has his epiphany and is brought back from the brink of cracking the world like an egg and it's posited a few times that if he'd actually beat the Dark One in that state things might have gotten worse. Yeah, Rand is never a particularly competent general or ruler* at any point in the series. Rand is good at basically 4 things: 1) using a sword, 2) seeing things from an outsider's perspective, 3) killing everything up to and including continental land masses with the One Power, and 4) scaring the absolute poo poo out of everyone else because of point three. 2 in combination with 3 and 4 is enough to let him turn both Tear and the Aiel on their heads and he has a good political and military advisors in the persons of Morraine, Bashere, and Ruarc, and that's let him come out the other side of his initial attempts at empire-building intact, but everything after that is a long down-hill slide and an object lesson in the limits of personal power. Rand doesn't so-much have a personality change between books 3 and 4 as he has a change in objectives, and that's only pushed on him because he literally closets himself in a library and reads the literal future history of the rest of his short life, and then says "Well, gently caress it; if I can't outrun the tiger, I guess I'll have to ride it." And it's not a particularly good decision, but it is justified by the events of his life up to that point. *until he becomes Jesus in the last two books, obviously.
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Jun 12, 2016 06:04
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Old Kentucky Shark posted:*until he becomes Jesus in the last two books, obviously. I did a let's read thread of my own elsewhere, and someone commented that it seemed in Sanderson I and II he went from  to 
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Jun 12, 2016 06:10
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Old Kentucky Shark posted:*until he becomes Jesus in the last two books, obviously. he's a worse ruler after this
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Jun 12, 2016 08:50
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Nihilarian posted:Rand never becomes anything resembling a competent general and he leaves most of the military poo poo up to his military people, he even mentions that it all sounds like gibberish to him. Being the chosen one sucks and drives him loving insane, literally, and whatever good his "do everything myself" approach did is offset by the times he failed or made things worse. At no point in the story are you supposed to be going "hm, Rand's bitterness, paranoia and rage make him a good leader, I'm glad he's already ready to fight Satan". He's barely human by the time he has his epiphany and is brought back from the brink of cracking the world like an egg and it's posited a few times that if he'd actually beat the Dark One in that state things might have gotten worse. Yeah, this. If authorial intent matters, one thing that's clear from interviews is that Jordan was attempting to write a more psychologically realistic version of the standard "chosen one" fantasy novel, one where being the Chosen One is really loving stressful and drives you crazy and you probably gently caress it up. In early drafts, Rand doesn't exist; originally the protagonist was Tam (an long-retired war veteran). One reading of WoT is that it's basically "war veterans have PTSD: the fantasy novel". Of course people are free to argue over how much or little Jordan succeeded in those goals. Data Graham posted:On that note though, it really wasn't until the Sanderson books that WoT became emotionally engaging at all for me; it was honestly a real hard slog, not just for the usually cited dark swamps of books 7-10, but pretty much the whole thing. Dude why did you let this other dude browbeat you into reading a million and a half words you didn't like How much other pulp fantasy have you read? Because the core of most defenses of WoT is that for all it's flaws it's still better than 90% of the other crap out there. So your tolerance for & enjoyment of it is kinda dependent on your tolerance for crap fantasy. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 11:04 on Jun 12, 2016 |
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Jun 12, 2016 10:47
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If what you took out of this is that he's an infallible superhero, you're projecting a lot and missing even more. He's portrayed as a broken psycho with occasional flashes of brilliance before the Dragonmount scene, and even then the best things he does comes from accepting others' advice. Read it again. e: RJ explicitly said this is a story about how much it would suck to be the chosen one. Maybe he missed here and there, but I think he did a pretty good job of portraying that. wellwhoopdedooo fucked around with this message at 12:17 on Jun 12, 2016 |
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Jun 12, 2016 12:15
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Your friend would probably enjoy the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. You should recommend that to him.
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Jun 12, 2016 15:09
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Data Graham posted:And what's funny is that I was told to read WoT because if I had illusions about writing some fiction of my own, well boy howdy I sure don't know a drat thing about character development until and unless I come to know Rand and his quest from quiet obscurity to be elected Pope-President. If what you got out of the whole series was "Rand went from farmboy to heroic general and it must be awesome to be the Chosen One" then you may indeed have problems with character development.
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Jun 12, 2016 15:59
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Data Graham posted:
Egwene's the Pope-President, not Rand.
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Jun 12, 2016 16:21
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EvilTaytoMan posted:Egwene's the Pope-President, not Rand. Yeah, the criticism applies much more strongly to Egwene, who, unlike Rand, is actually supposed to be taken as a political success story. Even there it's a lot less about Egwene's acute political genius and more about her steadfastly sticking to a superior moral code while everyone around her was losing their loving minds and haring off stupidly in every direction at once.
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Jun 12, 2016 18:18
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I'm actually slightly confused about the characterisation of Egwene. Every other character gets a few traits that more or less last throughout the entire series, and maybe get stronger if anything. Egwene started out as 'little girl who wants adventure and minorly to be powerful', turned into 'wants to be powerful and also keeps mentioning that she wants to learn everything despite not actually doing that much learning', then into just 'wants to be powerful and hates black sisters/seanchan a whole lot', then suddenly 'political genius who doesn't really do any learning any more, can't feel pain and cares only about keeping the community together'. I'm seeing no consistent threads there at all, and it always jarred me when there'd be a major event like becoming an apprentice or being made head honcho of the witches and suddenly I just couldn't recognise the character any more. Hell, Rand's the insane one and yet at least he's consistent (if not truthful in dia/monologue) about what he's supposed to be caring about. e: basically it really feels like someone else was meant to be amyrlin and become ..well a fanfic character in the last third of the series initially
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Jun 12, 2016 19:32
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Egwene is worse than Elayne. There, I said it.
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Jun 12, 2016 20:31
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Post-Amyrlin Egwene is worse than pre-pregnancy Elayne, but nothing in the series is worse than post-pregnancy Elayne.
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Jun 12, 2016 21:41
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Old Kentucky Shark posted:Post-Amyrlin Egwene is worse than pre-pregnancy Elayne, but nothing in the series is worse than post-pregnancy Elayne. Perrin's "MUST FIND FAILE ONLY FAILE MATTERS MUST FIND FAILE ONLY FAILE MATTERS MUST FIND FAILE ONLY FAILE MATTERS MUST FIND FAILE ONLY FAILE MATTERS MUST FIND FAILE ONLY FAILE MATTERS MUST FIND FAILE ONLY FAILE MATTERS MUST FIND FAILE ONLY FAILE MATTERS MUST FIND FAILE ONLY FAILE MATTERS MUST FIND FAILE ONLY FAILE MATTERS MUST FIND FAILE ONLY FAILE MATTERS MUST FIND FAILE ONLY FAILE MATTERS MUST FIND FAILE ONLY FAILE MATTERS " break is easily the worst thing in the books. At least Elayne has Birgitte.
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Jun 12, 2016 22:03
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wellwhoopdedooo posted:Read it again. haha no No seriously, I don't mean to say I didn't get that Rand was loving up his grand planning and grander execution of everything; that's all pretty obvious. Yet even so, what you see is a guy who you'd see on a list of famous fictional people on the ENTJ page of some pop-psychology website, along with other flawed and hated and forcefully charismatic figures like Napoleon and Trump and Jobs. People who can take one look at the world and pronounce judgment and start issuing orders for how to bring about their vision; whether those orders are stupid or not, that's kind of beside the point. These aren't people who nurture or who follow or who build communities. They're people who command. I don't want to get too E/N about this, but this friend's theory is that anyone can be made into a Napoleon, you just need to give them the right series of whacks in the head, and getting to that goal is more important (to him) than whether the resulting person is really a good leader or not. And "X person just isn't cut out for playing that kind of role" is just not on the radar. From my reading of the text, it seems like even though Rand's journey is clearly a path through a time when he's gone far in the wrong direction and is doing more harm than good, on another and more macro level it seems like it's trying to say that everyone still is a potential leader. Everyone follows the same path and ends up leading armies across the land, whether they emotionally accept the responsibility that's been thrust upon them or not (Mat's and Perrin's "stop calling me Lord, I'm not a lord" phases last almost all the way to the end, whereas Rand's peters out after like two books). You don't get anybody saying "I'm just not cut out to be a leader" without circumstances conspiring to prove that yes, actually you are, look at all these battles you're accidentally winning just by having common sense and inspiring people. Data Graham fucked around with this message at 22:18 on Jun 12, 2016 |
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Jun 12, 2016 22:15
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Khizan posted:Perrin's "MUST FIND FAILE ONLY FAILE MATTERS MUST FIND FAILE ONLY FAILE MATTERS MUST FIND FAILE ONLY FAILE MATTERS MUST FIND FAILE ONLY FAILE MATTERS MUST FIND FAILE ONLY FAILE MATTERS MUST FIND FAILE ONLY FAILE MATTERS MUST FIND FAILE ONLY FAILE MATTERS MUST FIND FAILE ONLY FAILE MATTERS MUST FIND FAILE ONLY FAILE MATTERS MUST FIND FAILE ONLY FAILE MATTERS MUST FIND FAILE ONLY FAILE MATTERS MUST FIND FAILE ONLY FAILE MATTERS " break is easily the worst thing in the books. At least Elayne has Birgitte. Pregnancy Elayne ruins Birgitte. Pregnancy Elayne almost ruins cannons. At least Perrin never made me read twelve pages about him being carried in a bed up a tower.
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Jun 12, 2016 22:19
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Data Graham posted:haha no Rand is not everybody. He's one of the strongest magicians around, and destiny basically has already decided on how his life will unfold, at least in rough terms. He's can't even deviate from the plan, the Pattern will force him back onto it if he tries. That has nothing to do with "everybody can be a leader". Post-Dragonmount Rand also got the memories of a several hundred years old military leader from a few thousand years ago. Anyway, Rand's whole deal is that it sucks to be the chosen one. Your friend doesn't understand the books. Like, how did he even get out of Dumai's Wells in books 6? The Pattern basically told Perrin to save him months in advance! You also cannot truly appreciate the series if you only read it once. There's a ton of foreshadowing, offhand comments about things that turn out to be relevant later, etc. that you will only see in a reread. But based on what you wrote, you would probably not enjoy looking for these small things in the books, so there's no reason for you to reread the books.
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Jun 12, 2016 22:35
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Torrannor posted:Rand is not everybody. He's one of the strongest magicians around, and destiny basically has already decided on how his life will unfold, at least in rough terms. He's can't even deviate from the plan, the Pattern will force him back onto it if he tries. That has nothing to do with "everybody can be a leader". Post-Dragonmount Rand also got the memories of a several hundred years old military leader from a few thousand years ago. Anyway, Rand's whole deal is that it sucks to be the chosen one. Your friend doesn't understand the books. Absolutely. Rand is slowly but surely going insane (the books are interesting if you read them in reverse order to see him regain sanity), which is made super obvious if you pay attention to what everybody else is doing during his PoV's. He thinks he's sane, but dude is loving nuts. Being tortured and trapped in a box twice didn't help. Data Graham posted:Yet even so, what you see is a guy who you'd see on a list of famous fictional people on the ENTJ page of some pop-psychology website, along with other flawed and hated and forcefully charismatic figures like Napoleon and Trump and Jobs. People who can take one look at the world and pronounce judgment and start issuing orders for how to bring about their vision; whether those orders are stupid or not, that's kind of beside the point. These aren't people who nurture or who follow or who build communities. They're people who command. Rand is shown as a literal crazy person. Also, unlike Napoleon and etc he didn't want to be the big fancy leader, it was forced upon him and he just learned that he had to roll with it after trying to get out of being chosen to go mad and die. Data Graham posted:I don't want to get too E/N about this, but this friend's theory is that anyone can be made into a Napoleon, you just need to give them the right series of whacks in the head, and getting to that goal is more important (to him) than whether the resulting person is really a good leader or not. And "X person just isn't cut out for playing that kind of role" is just not on the radar. Not to be rude, but your friend sounds like a doofus who is comically misinterpreting the books.
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Jun 12, 2016 23:12
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Data Graham posted:
This gets back to the general "how much pulp fantasy have you read" -- this is a core message of the whole fantasy chosen-one-epic subgenre, whether you're Harry Potter or Taran Pigkeeper or even Frodo Baggins. It's always ordinary-person-just-like-you-then-magic-happens. So that's the basic trope yeah. I think the question worth asking is how much WoT subverts the trope. Tolkien did it by making the chosen one a humble middle class dude who just wanted to get home safely and didn't want power or fame or riches after all. WoT does it by giving the Chosen One PTSD. Nihilarian posted:Your friend would probably enjoy the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. You should recommend that to him. Yeah, this. And that is not a recommendation. Goodkind is a wingnut Randian who basically stole whole chunks of Star Wars,the Prydain Chronicles, and Wheel of Time (one book is literally titled "The Stone of Tears") and remixed them into an absurdly bad Randian . . thing (I hesitate to call it a "narrative"). Your friend will probably love it and never perceive the irony that a supposedly Randian author concocted such a giant ripoff. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 23:55 on Jun 12, 2016 |
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Jun 12, 2016 23:49
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None of the 3 boys are "everybody". There have been prophecies about all 3 since before living memory. The universe conspires to drag them to greatness, granting them new skills, faithful and talented allies, twisting reality so that the best possible outcome is placed directly in their hands, whether they like it or not. They achieve things that are just flat impossible because they need it to be possible and reality goes "I got you fam". Not just anybody can do that!
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Jun 12, 2016 23:51
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Yeah, this. And that is not a recommendation. Goodkind is a wingnut Randian who basically stole whole chunks of Star Wars,the Prydain Chronicles, and Wheel of Time (one book is literally titled "The Stone of Tears") and remixed them into an absurdly bad Randian . . thing (I hesitate to call it a "narrative"). Your friend will probably love it and never perceive the irony that a supposedly Randian author concocted such a giant ripoff. There is a Let's Read of those books posted over in TG if anybody is fortunately enough not to have read them and wants to see what they are like. 
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Jun 13, 2016 00:03
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Dude why did you let this other dude browbeat you into reading a million and a half words you didn't like I recommended the Malazan series to a friend after reading the first two books. I bounced off the series around the sixth book, but I discovered a year later that my friend, despite not liking the books, had hate-read THE ENTIRE THING. Some people just can't stop once they start I guess haha.
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Jun 13, 2016 00:22
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Nihilarian posted:Your friend would probably enjoy the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. You should recommend that to him. lol
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Jun 13, 2016 00:24
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:This gets back to the general "how much pulp fantasy have you read" -- this is a core message of the whole fantasy chosen-one-epic subgenre, whether you're Harry Potter or Taran Pigkeeper or even Frodo Baggins. It's always ordinary-person-just-like-you-then-magic-happens. So that's the basic trope yeah. Yeah, I can't say I've seen a lot of this world, at least the "pulp" subset specifically. I was gifted the Sword of Shannara when I was like 15 and I was so disgusted by it that it put me off exploring the rest of the genre unless coerced. But like you point out, sure there's always the hero's journey and we've all memorized Plinkett, but LotR was pretty subversive in its own day in that it didn't feature the guy becoming a leader and a champion, just as it wasn't about going to find a magic talisman as in all the classic tales, but to get rid of one. Tolkien had his own set of then-current tropes to parody and to rebel against, like Sam listening at the window like an Austen villain and Gandalf calling bullshit on him. Everything's always a reaction to something, and WoT seems like its founding conceit (aside from "fantasy doesn't have any women in it") must have been "let's have our chosen one become a bigger badass than Neo and Harry Potter and Luke Skywalker put together, and for good measure let's have everyone he knows also become immortal heroes with superpowers of their own". As though if most chosen-one narratives are wish-fulfillment vehicles for the reader to imagine himself as the protagonist, this one lets you pretty much take your pick of anyone in the primary cast and you'll end up relating to a mover and/or shaker. Because that's what everyone secretly wants, right? I don't know, this is all incoherent because I've taken an hour to write this post while trying to watch Preacher and see how this particular hero's journey gets adapted to a new medium.  Have some sarcastic fanart I did after book 2:
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Jun 13, 2016 03:10
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Data Graham posted:Yeah, I can't say I've seen a lot of this world, at least the "pulp" subset specifically. I was gifted the Sword of Shannara when I was like 15 and I was so disgusted by it that it put me off exploring the rest of the genre unless coerced. If you feel that is central theme of WoT, then I think you severely misread the entire thing. Its about how power breaks us, robs us of ourselves, and only rarely improves people. Also, anime harems and sword fights
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Jun 13, 2016 05:00
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The Wheel of Time is not anime. Anime is for losers, while The Wheel of Time is for Cool Guys who are also Buff and get Women.
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Jun 13, 2016 05:01
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If you still think the books are about how awesome it would be to be the chosen one then I don't think your friend is the problem anymore Cool art tho Nihilarian fucked around with this message at 05:21 on Jun 13, 2016 |
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Jun 13, 2016 05:17
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The Glumslinger posted:If you feel that is central theme of WoT, then I think you severely misread the entire thing. Its about how power breaks us, robs us of ourselves, and only rarely improves people. Also, anime harems and sword fights Well I mean, everyone except Rand comes out of it pretty well self-actualized, right? I'm not arguing that it wouldn't suck to be Rand. But everyone else gets to be a war hero whether anyone would have pegged them for one beforehand or not. I dunno, I always seem to manage to corner myself into an untenable argument when I talk about poo poo here. This why I wouldn't make a good Chosen One, that's kind of what I'm saying (Or maybe anyone would, and it actually is just me)
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Jun 13, 2016 05:49
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The Glumslinger posted:If you feel that is central theme of WoT, then I think you severely misread the entire thing. Its about how power breaks us, robs us of ourselves, and only rarely improves people. Also, anime harems and sword fights If there's one scribbled image that encapsulates all of WoT, we all know it's this one:  Data Graham posted:
What you might be picking up on there is that WoT is very "American", in the same sense that Tolkien's Middle-Earth is very British (and even very Anglish). Where Tolkien was basically writing in reaction to World War 1 and 2, and idealizing a sort of bucolic british-bourgeoisie lifestyle, Jordan was writing in reaction to Vietnam (where he served as a helicopter door gunner). Tolkien's heroes are never in doubt at all that they're the heroes, and the central struggle they face is remaining humble and renouncing dominion and power. Conversely, Jordan's protagonist -- like a lot of vietnam soldiers! -- starts out day one chapter one being told he's the bad guy, have to deal with insanity, ptsd, etc., the horrors of causing collateral damage, etc. They don't have the option of renouncing power; they have to use it and live with the consequences. Of course it's a fantasy novel so ultimately Jordan's protagonists ARE the good guys. But they're still American good guys. And in America, winners don't go home and retire; they get famous. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 06:59 on Jun 13, 2016 |
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Jun 13, 2016 06:35
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Is there another Chosen One series that has the premise that the Chosen One prophecy is generally interpreted as that he is not Christ but the Antichrist? I'm not as familiar with the field.
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Jun 13, 2016 06:45
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broken clock opsec posted:Is there another Chosen One series that has the premise that the Chosen One prophecy is generally interpreted as that he is not Christ but the Antichrist? I'm not as familiar with the field. Probably somewhere -- maybe the star wars prequels? -- but I'm not aware of anyone who used that angle on the idea in a fantasy novel before Eye of the World was published. The idea of the Chosen One's appearance being a really bad thing that absolutely noone was looking forward to was, as far as I'm aware, a new conceit with Jordan. If there's an earlier use of that angle I'd be interested to see it though. edit: there's michael moorcock's Elric stories, but those are different; everyone including Elric knows from the start that Elric is a bad person from a bad lineage and fore-doomed to do horrible things, and they're right. He's not so much a Chosen One as he is One Whose Doom is Fore-Ordained, if that makes sense. In all the Elric stories I've read, Elric is Elric and we know his full history -- there's never that "Who will save us? Can anyone pull the Sword from the Stone?" anticipatory doubt with Elric. Elric is Lancelot (in the sense that Guinevere dooms Lancelot), not Arthur. Elric isn't there to save anyone, and he isn't misunderstood. There is a sort of parallel though in that Elric's struggle is arguably the opposite of Rand's. Rand is a basically good Nobody Special who has been Chosen to save the world and is struggling to not become or do evil in the process of getting the job done. Elric is lord of an Evil Empire, beset with evil magics and appointed to an evil fate, and is trying to salvage something good out of the whole mess to salve his conscience. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 07:20 on Jun 13, 2016 |
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Jun 13, 2016 06:49
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broken clock opsec posted:Is there another Chosen One series that has the premise that the Chosen One prophecy is generally interpreted as that he is not Christ but the Antichrist? I'm not as familiar with the field. R. Scott Bakker, The Second Apocalypse.
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Jun 13, 2016 07:18
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Data Graham posted:One of the other things that stood out to me while I read it was the huge emphasis on self-determination and nurture vs nature. Isn't it kind of the exact opposite? All the characters who come to power do so because fate pulls their strings or they are gifted/born with power (or both).
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Jun 13, 2016 10:15
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:What you might be picking up on there is that WoT is very "American", in the same sense that Tolkien's Middle-Earth is very British (and even very Anglish). Where Tolkien was basically writing in reaction to World War 1 and 2, and idealizing a sort of bucolic british-bourgeoisie lifestyle, Jordan was writing in reaction to Vietnam (where he served as a helicopter door gunner). Tolkien's heroes are never in doubt at all that they're the heroes, and the central struggle they face is remaining humble and renouncing dominion and power. Conversely, Jordan's protagonist -- like a lot of vietnam soldiers! -- starts out day one chapter one being told he's the bad guy, have to deal with insanity, ptsd, etc., the horrors of causing collateral damage, etc. They don't have the option of renouncing power; they have to use it and live with the consequences. I see Is that how I'm also supposed to read stuff like the cleansing of saidin where nobody seems to believe him/give a poo poo? "Hay guys we saved the world from communism, why aren't you giving us ticker tape parades???" I mean probably, but the way the text is structured an awful lot of things are shoved into the background or take a really long time to develop into emergent themes; like if he was making a point about the saidin thing, it wasn't for like 2-3 more books before that world-changing event really started to make a difference to anyone, and even then it was a gradual making-peace-with-it kind of thing rather than a big flashpoint upheaval immediately after the event like I might have expected if he were trying to Say Something.
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Jun 13, 2016 14:02
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Data Graham posted:I see You're forgetting the following: 1. The books don't present a linear sequence of events (ie, just because something is later in a book, doesn't mean it happens later in time) Book 10 takes place at the same time as book 9 - you'll notice that each PoV character in book 10 has a moment where they react to the massive amount of the power being channelled. Also, the chronology of each PoV character is separate - for example one book might have a Rand chapter, before switching back to what Mat is doing, but the events described in the Mat chapter might be taking place earlier than the events in the Rand chapter. Even afterwards, there isn't as much time passing by as you would think - people need time to process such a massive change, and many would naturally be suspicious of a bunch of men claiming that the taint is gone. Books 7-11 take place over the span of 4 months. 2. One of the major themes of WoT is an examination of the way information changes over time and distance. The entire series is full of people doing stupid things because they don't have all the facts.
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Jun 13, 2016 14:23
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The Lord Bude posted:You're forgetting the following: Oh sure, I get all that. Believe me, one becomes acutely aware of how little time is passing when one is trying to calculate how far Egwene's army has progressed over the course of 4000 pages and multiple volumes I'm just saying that if the authorial intent was to make a statement or an allusion about a big event like that, whatever that allusion is tends to get buried under all the day-to-day happenstance. Like how in real life you can't really put together the pieces of all the news happening throughout the world into a coherent narrative in real time; but if you're a (biased) history book writer, you can emphasize certain events, pick and choose which other ones to omit, massage timelines, play with POVs, etc. If you could point to the plot of, say, book 10 and say "Okay, so the story of this book is about the aftermath of the cleansing and how everyone reacts to it", like if all or most of the major plotlines revolved around which people were responding positively and which people were skeptical and which people didn't know about it and so on, then it would be a lot more obvious that that's what he was going for, this event is a Big Deal that you can frame in modern-day terms if you want, but even if you don't, at least you can say "This Is What This Particular Book Is About". But I'm notoriously bad at knowing when I'm supposed to interpret authorial intent and when I'm supposed to let the author be dead, so I'm just shooting from the hip here and running out of feet.
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Jun 13, 2016 15:53
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I wouldn't argue that authorial intent matters in the sense of there being a single reading you're "supposed" to ascribe to. But I think some aspects of WoT can be explained -- which is not necessarily the same thing as justified -- by the fact that Jordan was an American Vietnam vet. Whether or not you think that matters for purposes of your own reading is ultimately a personal question I think.
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Jun 13, 2016 16:10
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This resurgence in WoT chat makes me realize I haven't touched WoT since AMOL came out. It's high time I read it again.
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Jun 13, 2016 16:19
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