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Eighties ZomCom
Sep 10, 2008




Torrannor posted:

When Gawyn is dying and is found by Galad (thanks Demandred, you did the world a favor, gently caress Gawyn), Galad says something to the effect "I can't lose my brother!", and Gawyn replies with "you have another brother... born of the mountain... born of a maiden..." with all dramatic like ellipses (because he's dying), so Gawyn at least figured it out, and Galad knows then, too.

I think Rand told Gawyn about it just before the Last Battle. I only remember because Gawyn was momentarily grossed out at the thought of Rand and Elayne being siblings before Rand reassures him that they're not related.
Edit: Also I vaguely recall Egwene being all "took them long enough to figure it out :smug:" at one point.

Eighties ZomCom fucked around with this message at 09:28 on Aug 5, 2020

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Khizan
Jul 30, 2013


Prairie Bus posted:

I’ll also go on record as saying I liked what Sanderson did with Androl and Pevara.


I liked the characters, but I hated Androl’s gimmick as the Amazing Portal Boy. It reeked of Sanderson being unable to end the series without doing stupid magic system exploits. I half figured he’d end up needing to use gateways to move a companion cube around with physics.

th3t00t
Aug 14, 2007

GOOD CLEAN FOOTBALL

Khizan posted:

I liked the characters, but I hated Androl’s gimmick as the Amazing Portal Boy. It reeked of Sanderson being unable to end the series without doing stupid magic system exploits. I half figured he’d end up needing to use gateways to move a companion cube around with physics.
Agreed.

And I can't also help feel that Androl stole Logain's narrative purpose and almost all of his screen time.

Soonmot
Dec 19, 2002

Entrapta fucking loves robots




Grimey Drawer

th3t00t posted:

Agreed.

And I can't also help feel that Androl stole Logain's narrative purpose and almost all of his screen time.

That's the only thing I didn't like about Androl, his sudden importance took time away from Logain.

SSJ_naruto_2003
Oct 12, 2012



Counterpoint the pro wrestling 1v1s owned

silvergoose
Mar 18, 2006

IT IS SAID THE TEARS OF THE BWEENIX CAN HEAL ALL WOUNDS




SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:

Counterpoint the pro wrestling 1v1s owned

Yeah I honestly do not get the dislike for how he finished the series. I didn't find anything particularly out of place, and could totally imagine RJ deciding "hey I bet with enough thought, people could do wackass things with portals".

The making tea scene is honestly pretty sweet.

Cavelcade
Dec 9, 2015

I'm actually a boy!



silvergoose posted:

Yeah I honestly do not get the dislike for how he finished the series. I didn't find anything particularly out of place, and could totally imagine RJ deciding "hey I bet with enough thought, people could do wackass things with portals".

The making tea scene is honestly pretty sweet.

The kinds of cool things he did were grounded in a sense of battle realism - like the Deathgates and the way their effects are described are done in a visceral way where the effect is what's deemed important. With Androl's lava portal, what I remember is the mechanism and the cool idea of a lava portal. I dunno, like I've said, it comes down to I don't like how he does fights, if that doesn't bother you then, yeah, I can see how that specific example would be fine.

Gwaihir
Dec 8, 2009
Hair Elf

silvergoose posted:

Yeah I honestly do not get the dislike for how he finished the series. I didn't find anything particularly out of place, and could totally imagine RJ deciding "hey I bet with enough thought, people could do wackass things with portals".

The making tea scene is honestly pretty sweet.

A running theme throughout the third age even is that people are constantly surprising the poo poo out of the Forsaken with things that were unheard of or thought to be impossible in their time, despite being relative "primitives." So I think it fits well in that sense. Androl isn't even the only person shown to be innovating with Gateways, the whole use of them to survey the battlefield and for recon was started by one of the Grey Ajah AS working with Gareth Bryne.

I also like the actual time spent on Androl and Pevara, especially because it brought a really long overdue perspective of Aes Sedai being forced in to spending time with/interacting more like normal people, but at the same time showing that, yeah, after so long spent being shown as an overall sorta feckless group that fucks up everything it gets involved with, there is a ton of built up good knowledge, experience, and expertise vs the extremely (relatively) newbie channelers at the Black Tower, minus Taim + cronies who've presumably been getting tutored by Demandred since he recruited Taim in the first place.

Logain really missed out but the place for him to show up a lot more was really in earlier books where he's healed from stilling->vanishes for (LONG TIME) then finally reappears in one scene in the Black Tower, captures some Aes Sedai, and then vanishes for a while again before showing up at Algarin's manor. That would have been an ideal perspective to show what was going on at the black tower, and going from one group-> mirroring the split in the White Tower as Logain's faction and Taim's faction of willing and turned Asha'man coalesce. I guess in some way it would ruin the suspense of what's really happening at the tower, but it would feel better than like, 3 books of Rand muttering "Man I really need to deal with the Black Tower at some point there is something wrong there but I don't have time right now Oh wellllllllllllllllll."

Mat Cauthon
Jan 2, 2006

The more tragic things get,
the more I feel like laughing.



Yeah Logain going missing for like...4 books?... was kind a missed opportunity. I assume that RJ didn't want to use him as a POV because that would give away some stuff but something from one of the people traveling with Logain to give some context and an update here and there.

Logain serving the guy who has the actual grand destiny that he thought was his and rather than turning to the Shadow deciding to try and be better is an interesting idea and a character path that we don't get to see much of.

VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE
Aug 1, 2004

whoa, what just happened here?







College Slice

Mat Cauthon posted:

Logain serving the guy who has the actual grand destiny that he thought was his and rather than turning to the Shadow deciding to try and be better is an interesting idea and a character path that we don't get to see much of.

And then deciding that his glory came from serving and protecting others, thus restoring a measure of what was lost with the Age of Legends Aes Sedai.

Comrade Blyatlov
Aug 4, 2007


should have picked four fingers





I really liked his last scene

Old Kentucky Shark
May 25, 2012

If you think you're gonna get sympathy from the shark, well then, you won't.


I kind of wonder if Logain wasn't a victim of the Taimandred purge after book six. If a Forsaken (or two!) hiding in the Black Tower was supposed to be a major plot thread, then maybe Logain would have been the POV the same way Egwene was in the White Tower.

Also, it's my sincere regret that in Crossroads, when RJ backtracks in time to show all the reactions to the cleansing of the true source, he doesn't go a little further back to show us what Cadsuane thought when Rand announced what he was going to do, because I bet she nearly shat herself.

Gwaihir
Dec 8, 2009
Hair Elf
I will it's have loved to see a few more pov reactions to that, absolutely.

DarkHorse
Dec 13, 2006

Vroom Vroom, BEEP BEEP!
Nap Ghost

Mat Cauthon posted:

Logain serving the guy who has the actual grand destiny that he thought was his and rather than turning to the Shadow deciding to try and be better is an interesting idea and a character path that we don't get to see much of.

This is a really neat perspective I hadn't thought of

silvergoose
Mar 18, 2006

IT IS SAID THE TEARS OF THE BWEENIX CAN HEAL ALL WOUNDS




Complete opposite of Taim and Demandred yeah. And Sammael. And...

Mat Cauthon
Jan 2, 2006

The more tragic things get,
the more I feel like laughing.



Old Kentucky Shark posted:

I kind of wonder if Logain wasn't a victim of the Taimandred purge after book six. If a Forsaken (or two!) hiding in the Black Tower was supposed to be a major plot thread, then maybe Logain would have been the POV the same way Egwene was in the White Tower.

I think the Taimandred pivot definitely affected how the various characters positioned to interact with the Black Tower got treated but Logain just going back to his home planet for a while just feels like a whiff. There's a lot of space in books 7-10 that could've benefited from that POV instead of Rand's usual "did I leave the oven on?" musings about the Black Tower.

DarkHorse posted:

This is a really neat perspective I hadn't thought of

Honestly I did not appreciate Logain as a character when I was a teenager because he didn't really get to do any :krad: stuff and also lol why would anyone want to read about some loser False Dragon, but as I got older the storyline resonated with me a lot more.

He's also a direct refutation of the motivations of pretty much all of the Forsaken who sold their souls because LTT was better than them at something.

Drone Jett
Feb 21, 2017

by Fluffdaddy
College Slice
Moiraine and Thom (1005 NE)

https://twitter.com/ldrinkh20/status/1290827547907952640

Sab669
Sep 24, 2009

Khizan posted:

I liked the characters, but I hated Androl’s gimmick as the Amazing Portal Boy. It reeked of Sanderson being unable to end the series without doing stupid magic system exploits. I half figured he’d end up needing to use gateways to move a companion cube around with physics.

I was a Sanderson fan before I picked up WoT, so honestly I really liked this. I always felt like the whole magic system was rather "under-explored" in this series, at least for my tastes anyways.

Although Portaling into the sky for a birds-eye-view felt kinda meta-gaming / lame though :v:

Prairie Bus
Sep 22, 2006




It bugs me to pretend people wouldn’t reach those conclusions. Like, in the world of WoT before the series begins, magic is only commonly used for healing and in the borderlands. There’s no mentions of hospitals, there’s no mention of Aes Sedai involved in commerce. It’s not until KoD that Jordan even mentions how Egwene’s faction pays for itself (with cuendilar manufacturing).

In the real world people would’ve come up with a ton of practical applications beyond “intimidating people into taking our advice.”

Data Graham
Dec 28, 2009

📈📊🍪😋



In the real world we do things like "the filibuster"

Prairie Bus
Sep 22, 2006




Data Graham posted:

In the real world we do things like "the filibuster"

Jordan certainly wasn’t afraid of putting grinding institutional intransigence into his fantastical magic world lol

Gnoman
Feb 12, 2014

Come, all you fair and tender maids
Who flourish in your pri-ime
Beware, take care, keep your garden fair
Let Gnoman steal your thy-y-me
Le-et Gnoman steal your thyme




One thing that strikes me in the early books is the number of times that "being chased by Trollocs" is given as reason for suspicion. Ignoring the entire "my enemy is hunting this guy, therefore he must be working with my enemy" logic bomb, Trollocs eat people, so them chasing someone could easily just mean the Trollocs are hungry.

Invalid Validation
Jan 13, 2008




I didn’t mind the Androl stuff either, it’s just at that point if you’re gonna do that with portals, he could just win the The Last Battle himself. That’s the real problem I had with it. Well that and it should have been Taim like everyone has said already.

Zore
Sep 21, 2010
willfully illiterate, aggressively miserable sourpuss whose sole raison d’etre is to put other people down for liking the wrong things

Gnoman posted:

One thing that strikes me in the early books is the number of times that "being chased by Trollocs" is given as reason for suspicion. Ignoring the entire "my enemy is hunting this guy, therefore he must be working with my enemy" logic bomb, Trollocs eat people, so them chasing someone could easily just mean the Trollocs are hungry.

I mean, most of the time its treated as suspicious its when its in Andor and other areas that haven't seen a Trolloc in a thousand years. People mostly think they're myths.

Imagine some people are getting chased by honest to god zombies or another horror monster irl and drag you into it. You'd probably be suspicious as gently caress about them too.

Gnoman
Feb 12, 2014

Come, all you fair and tender maids
Who flourish in your pri-ime
Beware, take care, keep your garden fair
Let Gnoman steal your thy-y-me
Le-et Gnoman steal your thyme




True, but it specifically comes up with the Children of The Light, who know full well that Trollocs are real. It is what led to Perrin being declared a Darkfriend in the first book.

awesmoe
Nov 30, 2005

Pillbug

Gnoman posted:

One thing that strikes me in the early books is the number of times that "being chased by Trollocs" is given as reason for suspicion. Ignoring the entire "my enemy is hunting this guy, therefore he must be working with my enemy" logic bomb, Trollocs eat people, so them chasing someone could easily just mean the Trollocs are hungry.
same but wolves
its as if the whitecloaks are just looking for an excuse to lynch people

Gnoman
Feb 12, 2014

Come, all you fair and tender maids
Who flourish in your pri-ime
Beware, take care, keep your garden fair
Let Gnoman steal your thy-y-me
Le-et Gnoman steal your thyme




It still feels off. To use the zombie analogy, it is like having the military unit that purged Willamette in the first Dead Rising deciding that some random person running from a zombie was a threat.

Zore
Sep 21, 2010
willfully illiterate, aggressively miserable sourpuss whose sole raison d’etre is to put other people down for liking the wrong things

Gnoman posted:

True, but it specifically comes up with the Children of The Light, who know full well that Trollocs are real. It is what led to Perrin being declared a Darkfriend in the first book.

I mean institutionally they know they're real but in practice they're basically banned from the borderlands and most of them have never actually seen one per the conversation they have around Perrin's capture. They're also specifically a hosed up inquisition who are basically looking for any excuse to call someone a darkfriend.

The entire thing is set up to show how rotten the Whitecloaks are and really drive home the parallels with Aridhol

Atlas Hugged
Mar 12, 2007


Put your arms around me,
fiddly digits, itchy britches
I love you all
Not to defend the Children, but Perrin did kill two of them and had what appeared to be a demonic mutation. It's at least implied that if Egwene "confessed" they'd let her live out her days in servitude of the Children, but Perrin had to be hanged for murder.

rndmnmbr
Jul 3, 2012

The thing that got me about the Whitecloaks was, here is this heavy cavalry that is basically the standing military force of Amadicia, let's let them conduct military operations in Andor! Instead of Gareth Bryne meeting them at the border with his own heavy cavalry plus pike formations and inform them they can disarm themselves, ride back the way they came, or violate Andor's borders in an act of warfare and meet the Lion in battle.

Gnoman
Feb 12, 2014

Come, all you fair and tender maids
Who flourish in your pri-ime
Beware, take care, keep your garden fair
Let Gnoman steal your thy-y-me
Le-et Gnoman steal your thyme




Darkfriends are provably real, and accusations of being one carry a lot of weight no matter who is making the accusation. Stand against the Children, and they'll loudly proclaim to every nation that the only possible reason for you to do so is that you have thrown in with Shai'tan. Not only does this mean you risk a wider war (particularly when you are a rich land that your neighbors would very much like to plunder if they can get away with it), but your own people will be restless and uncertain. That's a recipe for a lost war.

VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE
Aug 1, 2004

whoa, what just happened here?







College Slice
Yeah, what's actually neat here is that it really is about power balances--that Pedron Niall, as much as Whitecloaks are declared against Aes Sedai, would pretty much have to answer a summons from the Amyrlin Seat. That in a weakened position, Morgase allows the Whitecloaks to fan the flames of a house war against her. That they run Amadicia in all but name.

Ponsonby Britt
Mar 13, 2006
I think you mean, why is there silverware in the pancake drawer? Wassup?

rndmnmbr posted:

The thing that got me about the Whitecloaks was, here is this heavy cavalry that is basically the standing military force of Amadicia, let's let them conduct military operations in Andor! Instead of Gareth Bryne meeting them at the border with his own heavy cavalry plus pike formations and inform them they can disarm themselves, ride back the way they came, or violate Andor's borders in an act of warfare and meet the Lion in battle.

Well the Two Rivers is nominally within Andor's claimed borders, but in practice the early books have a lot of POV bits from the kids about how they didn't know they were part of Andor, they don't pay taxes, they don't have a lord who's a part of Andoran feudal structures, etc. If they're not even important enough for Morgase to collect taxes from, they're definitely not important enough to pay an army to defend. At the start of the series, the Two Rivers isn't really in an organized state, it's just a collection of autonomous villages.

One thing I really like about Perrin's story is how he doesn't understand this. He's just like "I'm a simple blacksmith or at best an Andoran lord" and Faile is quietly assembling a confederation of low to medium-powered states behind him to build into something strong enough to gobble up a chunk of Elayne's country and resurrect a former empire on her doorstep. And Faile assumes that he totally does understand all that and is just dissembling about being a loyal Andoran subject for political reasons; and in turn that political misunderstanding contributes to their personal conflict.

rndmnmbr
Jul 3, 2012

Ponsonby Britt posted:

Well the Two Rivers is nominally within Andor's claimed borders, but in practice the early books have a lot of POV bits from the kids about how they didn't know they were part of Andor, they don't pay taxes, they don't have a lord who's a part of Andoran feudal structures, etc. If they're not even important enough for Morgase to collect taxes from, they're definitely not important enough to pay an army to defend. At the start of the series, the Two Rivers isn't really in an organized state, it's just a collection of autonomous villages.

The Two Rivers is one thing, but in EotW Perrin met the Whitecloaks between Whitebridge and Camelyn. That's uncomfortably close, even if you're trying not to antagonize them it still warrants having your own army mobilized and doing "training exercises" between them and the capital. Letting a foreign army do as it pleases on your home turf with no response is a quick way to lose a surprise war, say if they suddenly declare Morgase a darkfriend and ride hellbent for Camelyn to depose her.

Comrade Blyatlov
Aug 4, 2007


should have picked four fingers





Yes, but in EOTW Morgase was on the verge of a civil uprising in the capital itself. It's fair to say she probably didn't want to risk sending her troops away.

Prairie Bus
Sep 22, 2006




It fits well with what Jordan kept saying - before Rand, all the states were holding on by their fingernails, able to claim real jurisdiction over their capitals and little else. Just a lot of dead brush for the fires of the Dragon to burn away ahead of the last battle.

Johnny Joestar
Oct 21, 2010

Don't shoot him?

...
...



it still amazes me how similar to lord of the rings the first book is, because it solidly dashes away from that the moment you get into book 2

TURTLE SLUT
Dec 12, 2005

In other news, I'm about one third into Crossroads of Twilight, and I'm kinda into it. Do I have brainworms?

Honestly it's kind of cool reading all this Tower intrigue and whatnot when I know exactly what's going on by remembering it from last read-throughs. The first time through - for sure I don't give a gently caress about some Arad Doman general, but the second time through I'm excited as hell to read all of this. It's great stuff, just paced for the reader that has already decided they're all in instead of trying maintain any active tension for the first time reader.

Johnny Joestar
Oct 21, 2010

Don't shoot him?

...
...



i didn't know what to expect when revisiting crossroads of twilight, but i think it's helped a lot when people have the whole series in front of them and aren't waiting for each book to release. i really enjoyed getting all the weird bits of background info thrown in there and, honestly, taking a bit of a breather from rand was fine with me since he gets so much time otherwise.

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CainsDescendant
Dec 6, 2007

Human nature




Crossroads is book ten, right? I just finished my sprint through the books so I'm a little fuzzy on which is which but I remembered liking 10 waaaay more than 9, generally, despite everyone saying 10 is the worst of the series. Maybe it's the low expectations that salvaged it for me.

Also, I found that I mostly really enjoyed Faile this time through which shocked me. Mostly I hated Perrin moping about her getting captured but even that didn't last for the three books that I vaguely remembered it taking to resolve. Low expectations saving the actual experience again, I guess.

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