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Oh god I've read up to the 9th book before wandering away twice but now I think I'm about to start over a third time to try and finish.
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Mar 19, 2020 04:11
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Ungratek posted:I started my re-read beginning of November. Cleared the first eight books by Christmas. See that's the only reason I'm making this attempt. 1-5 was probably the best fantasy I've ever read. I don't remember 6-8 though it was readable, but 9 was just unbearable. Figured a time of plague isn't a bad time to start
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Mar 19, 2020 14:15
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started the first book again and getting all nostalgic for when I read it was a kid, getting that same sense of wonder and adventure right now  . I like how it eases you in to the universe by superficially aping LOTR. Only part that kind of bugs me, is that early on it very strongly reads like a DND campaign that got transcribed and rewritten
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Apr 18, 2020 17:44
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COOL CORN posted:Finally finished The Dragon Reborn. I took a long break in April since I was working through a movie marathon, so I need to go back and read a plot summary since I'm sure I've forgotten some threads. I'm on book 2 of this reread, and I'm getting the same feeling. Just... hold on to that, because while the next 4-5 get pretty jaw-dropping sometimes, those lovable character moments do start to vanish speaking of, I'm book 2 and no braid has been pulled nor dress smoothed down. am I reading the right series? 
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May 13, 2020 02:59
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Comrade Blyatlov posted:It's like how one of the Heroes of the Horn, Birgitte Silverbow, is KIND OF Robin Hood if you squint pretty hard. or, how there is an in-universe story about a magical man named "Lenn" who travels to the Moon, who had a daughter "Salya" who "walked amongst the stars" pretty clearly meant to be John Glenn, famous astronaut and Sally Ride, the first female astronaut in space
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May 13, 2020 21:02
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silvergoose posted:Yes, and then he explains it in more detail to Elayne who chortles "taste of his own medicine". his characterizations of the female characters gets more and more unhinged, but Elayne stands out as the worst. it's a shame too. I'm enjoying the early character arcs of all the characters in the first few novels. especially egwene and perrin after meeting the tinkers.
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Jun 1, 2020 21:45
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I also suspect Jordan was putting in an Easter egg for HEMA and reenactment nerds (iirc, Jordan was in that community), because historically swords were basically fancy sidearms that didn't take part in battle too often because of their limited reach, high expense, and next to zero usefulness against armor. A staff, or spear, would pretty easily destroy a guy with a sword.
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Jun 2, 2020 22:11
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Democratic Pirate posted:I always wondered how long a sword could last in a battle hitting shields and armor until it changes from something that effortlessly glides through a grown man’s leg to a blunt metal stick with a sharp point. most swords did not have particularly sharp edges. if they did, my understanding is that one side was edged. i think poking people was generally the way to go.
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Jun 2, 2020 22:43
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DarkHorse posted:Yup. oh ohhhhh I'm on book 4 in my reread and just realized who Gyldin is. I was wracking my brain trying to remember who this sneaky rude person is.
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Jun 19, 2020 16:48
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Shageletic posted:Catching up with the thread and reading the last couple of pages I'm struck at the similarity of the Tower's faults and the morass, cruelty, and incompetence of any elite political institution, most especially the one centered around D.C. (pre Trump of course). moiraine is hillary lan is bill rand is trumop
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Jul 20, 2020 15:09
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hurin is bernie siuan is putin masema is kanye west
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Jul 21, 2020 16:12
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Prairie Bus posted:A cool thing I noticed on this read relating to an earlier tossed off thing and the big final moment from TGS: I don't think that RJ would have wrote Moiraine sleeping with Rand. that would be strange considering Siuan and Moiraine, as well as possibly Thom and Moiraine? were lovers at the time. rather, I think that was probably just a comment about how much power the love triangle would have over him. if he did, it'd be a "drop the book forever" kind of dealbreaker. related, it really sucks on reread that while Jordan has lesbian relationships in his books, it seems to still be written as bored teenagers experimenting, rather then as bi or lesbian. I wish he did more to explore Siuan and Moiraine's relationship.
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Jul 27, 2020 06:27
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RC Cola posted:Are you telling me Ben Shapiro is a forsaken? a forsaken who got compressed under piles of rock the joke is he's short.
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Jul 28, 2020 20:13
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silvergoose posted:That would be sammael. lol yeah that's right. went to the dark side because he was a manlet.
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Jul 29, 2020 02:23
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the most annoying part of 6 is how Jordan realized the dream world is too hard to write secrets around, so he finagled it so no one could actually use it once it was revealed.
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Aug 2, 2020 09:06
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UltraRed posted:it’s this. the issue, mainly, is that he tends to err on the side of humans being super myopic and rigid more often then he does flexible and able to learn new things. most people are able to adopt a growth mindset in the real world. it's pessimism being peddled as reality and it's hard to buy. for example, there is no way that the Aiel would stay so rigid on their beliefs after spending so much time in the "wetlands" and around new belief systems. after the hundredth "thats not honorable!!" it gets pretty old.
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Aug 3, 2020 17:25
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GlassEye-Boy posted:Seems pretty realistic actually. People tend to be a lot more rigid and stubborn especially when they have a superiority complex. DarkHorse posted:That, and the Shaido actively accepted and changed a lot of things: forcing wetlanders to be gai'shain, abusing the interpretations of taking the fifth, and a willingness to overlook Sevanna just completely breaking all the rules as a weird Clan Chief, Roofmistress, and Wise One hybrid. They also had Aiel join them from Rand's forces and vice-versa, depending on what they as individuals could stomach Old Kentucky Shark posted:Also, the Aiel change a lot over the course of the books. but see, all of these changes are viewed as a corruption or outright a bad thing. very few characters, outside of the main cast, have a positive interaction with a different "normal" that is integrated into how they view the world. where are the aiel characters who aren't evil or "cowardly" befriending a random cairhenian and learning from one another through cultural exchange? Jordan could have built some real emotional resonance in this way and just doesn't. don't get me wrong, I overall liked how Jordan presented the "iron law of institutions" when it came to the White Tower and Whitecloaks since it felt very real, but the way he treated individual human characters as being mostly flawed and rigid, gets pretty wearing.
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Aug 3, 2020 18:41
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rndmnmbr posted:MZB was a confirmed pedophile and child abuser. It's pretty well tainted her work beyond salvation. I read Mists of Avalon a few years back without knowing about this, and this is shockingly true upon review. The weird attitudes towards children and sexuality really stand-out. I typically prefer to seperate art and artist...but this is pretty relevant to her writing. edit: also....there is no doubt in my mind Jordan took influence from the book, and not just arthurian legend. the female/male gender wars especially stands out. Famethrowa fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Aug 13, 2020 |
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Aug 13, 2020 22:33
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Prairie Bus posted:
I've made the same observation. It's so bleak and misanthrophic with such little joy so constantly. It's almost as bad as Game of Thrones. I might need a break after 6. I think Jordan has some issues concerning male and female relationships that are really coming across in this book specifically. I get that the central core of this series is Male vs. Female, but the entirety of Altara is really 
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Aug 14, 2020 20:59
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silvergoose posted:I'm...gonna pay close attention to my current reread because I don't have the impression of complete lack of joy you all seem to. It's not that its not there, it's that the few flashes of humor are usually at someone's expense or pain. The number of times Jordan tries to play off some horrible spanking and the pain afterwards as humor is kinda disturbing. CainsDescendant posted:Rand and Mat's little exchange over who had done the most impressively heroic things was probably the high point of the series for me, I wish there had been a lot more bro moments like that. yeah exactly. I want more of this.
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Aug 14, 2020 22:05
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Does Min ever become bearable? The manic pixie tomboy stuff is getting old.
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Aug 15, 2020 03:14
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Gnoman posted:Hard disagree. To compare to the LOTR films, we'd lose a ton if you just showed Pippin and Gandalf lighting one beacon fire. Instead we get that amazing span shot of beacon after beacon alighting until Rohan sees it and Theoden declares he will ride. Sanderson shows Nyneave lighting the beacon by declaring that the Golden Crane rides for the Last Battle, but we don't get the full impact until we see the entire thing. Just skipping to Lan having an army cheapens it. Books aren't movies man. That would not have worked like you hoped.
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Aug 15, 2020 05:32
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Old Kentucky Shark posted:Man, prologues really got out of hand as the series went on. The prologue for Knife of Dreams is almost 1/7th of the book. just had that happen in book 7. was really confused that after Pedron ate poo poo the book seemed to be starting. hot take....maybe there is no need for prologues if an important tertiary character is gonna die.
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Aug 19, 2020 15:30
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UltraRed posted:Being able to tell where someone is from based on how they look is an undercurrent for the entire setting. It puts an otherness to all of the other cultures, and in addition to making the Seanchan more distinct because they are a unified multi-ethnic empire. that's one of the most outdated, and slightly racist, parts of the whole series. most cosmopolitan medieval cities (like Caemelyn and Tear are portrayed) were pretty ethnically mixed unless some major geographical barrier would have prevented people from migrating there. Randland is way too small and flat for this to be the case. the "she was from Arad Domani therefore she was tan" way of thinking wasn't great. the way fantasy from that era tends to fit people in narrow racial molds is a pretty unfortunate byproduct of Lord of the Rings. edit: other people mentioned using clothing to distinguish, and I think that is a much more accurate way to culturally signify Famethrowa fucked around with this message at 18:58 on Aug 20, 2020 |
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Aug 20, 2020 18:56
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Data Graham posted:My favorite image of the Forsaken is still the first time they show up in that vision where they're all walking around like drat, a hotlink message in tyool 2020. brings me back to when I read the books first. Famethrowa fucked around with this message at 22:30 on Aug 28, 2020 |
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Aug 28, 2020 22:15
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RC Cola posted:Once I'm done with my reread of Stormlight Archive I'm coming back to do my bianual reread of the wheel of time. If they can tolerate my whiny reread about how much I'm disappointed with large chunks of the characterization, they can tolerate yours I'm sure. Finally got to book 8, which I think is the furthest I've ever read in the past? I'm starting to see the dragging. Like, why did we need an entire chapter of Aes Sedai, Windfinders, and the Kin riding up to Elayne to complain about "who manages this POW"? Why did we have this entire chapter, when the very next scene is the Aes Sedai taking over the POW within 2 pages?!? What are you doing RJ??? Which is a shame, because I actually find this point in the story to be very interesting. And at least RJ isn't still repeatedly having Matt be raped
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Sep 14, 2020 16:25
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RC Cola posted:What is the worst possible choice that this character could make right now -> submit chapter -> repeat. Honestly, I'd take anything over manic pixie visions girl. Everyone complains about Elayne, but Min is the dark horse contender for most useless secondary character in the entire series. Famethrowa fucked around with this message at 17:46 on Sep 14, 2020 |
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Sep 14, 2020 17:44
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Johnny Joestar posted:given how ready and willing some people are with that poo poo i'm surprised they haven't already jumped in constantly with how much they simultaneously hate characters who do things and those that don't do as much to be clear--it's a critique of RJ writing painfully sexist and 1d characters. I actually find Elayne to be fairly well-fleshed out so far, but I can already see her being reduced to a lovely sketch of a person.
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Sep 14, 2020 18:36
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Johnny Joestar posted:imo min is mostly just a victim of being one of the few relatively 'normal' characters when everyone else can blow poo poo up with their mind or is a highly trained warrior or has some special gimmick that's actually an active thing and not just 'sees things about other people' which would be fine, except RJ writes her as a harem character. a more interesting choice, would be to let Min travel with the Aes Sedai, and offer an everyman perspective on what's going on. instead she's locked into a room with moody emo protag, and exists essentially to stroke his arm and have sex with him.
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Sep 14, 2020 19:19
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Libluini posted:Never understood where the "manic pixie" is supposed to come from. Min is basically your normal, down-to-earth girl. Nothing manic or pixie-like. Posts like this confuse me to no end. cute, quirky (woolhead farmboy!), tomboy, whose purpose in the story is to serve as reality-check and salvation for the brooding male lead. that's pretty much definition MPDG. quote:It's an archetype, I realized, that taps into a particular male fantasy: of being saved from depression and ennui by a fantasy woman who sweeps in like a glittery breeze to save you from yourself, then disappears once her work is done. https://www.salon.com/2014/07/15/im_sorry_for_coining_the_phrase_manic_pixie_dream_girl/ Granted, the article is talking about how the term is misused...but I think Min is a thin enough character in this case that it applies pretty well. e. perhaps, given the fantasy setting, she's an inside-out MPDG? Johnny Joestar posted:
Aviendha being a Wise Woman with the power could have easily been combined with Min. She was fleshed out enough thanks to her interesting belief system that she could have done very well in Min's role in keeping Rand down the earth. Hell, even could have given her auras so we could have stupid scenes of the Aes Sedai going "whaaaaa...??" still Famethrowa fucked around with this message at 23:10 on Sep 14, 2020 |
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Sep 14, 2020 23:00
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I think what bugs me the most is how close RJ gets to something great, like, constantly... but then completely misses Queer characters who aren't treated as titillating or super unusual... but then their relationships don't really get developed Polyamory treated as a fairly normal and healthy situation by the characters, if culturally restrained... but then it turns into a harem because of flat characterization Reversal of power dynamics and exploration of gender roles... except that apparently means a man must get raped Overall, super interesting and progressive for a mid 90s fantasy writer, but definitely limited by the authors age.
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Sep 15, 2020 16:46
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Old Kentucky Shark posted:It's pretty clear that Jordan hadn't quite nailed down how he wanted Aes Sedai to work in the first book; Moiraine is depicted as being a lot closer to Gandalf in the EotW than any of the channellers who come after her. The things she does in the first book look a lot more like wizard spells than the more functional magic system that he builds on later. At one point in the Two Rivers she picks up a stick and uses it like a magic wand to smite Trollocs, which, while certainly not an impossible use of the one Power, doesn't really come into play ever again. On reread I thought that was a shame, too. I love the more witchy version of magic, turning the elements of an object into a spell.
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Sep 21, 2020 17:20
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Test Pattern posted:"It's OK to be wrong, as long as you acknowledge you were wrong and fix it" is a HUGE part of the story. Half the big dramatic moments we all remember are characters either realizing they'd been wrong, admitting they'd been wrong, or being called out on being wrong (and admitting it). with this in mind, the series really reads as "Robert Jordan's guide to his and his wife's relationship"
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Sep 23, 2020 19:34
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Invalid Validation posted:Which relationship? There’s at least three wives to ask. considering the nature of most of the advice he gives... 
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Sep 23, 2020 21:16
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Seeing that, I wonder how much they'll ape GoT aesthetics. That fantasy armor looks like it was sold as surplus from the GoT set.
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Oct 29, 2020 04:40
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Libluini posted:That picture on the right reminds me of Korean armor I've seen shown in the ancient history thread. Maybe they got the armor as surplus from one of the many Asian period dramas? lol I wouldn't doubt. it was super novel and cool when GoT brought in asian and middle eastern influences to their looks, so I'm not complaining too much if it looks similar. that visual flair definitively kept me watching past the series' date of expiration.
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Oct 29, 2020 14:32
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Syncopated posted:I’ve forgotten a lot of the books, are the Lannisters using asian-looking armor there as well? Because Shienar has that samurai style to it in the book, which happened to come out six years before Game of Thrones did. So who’s stealing from who? Or they were both inspired by the same stuff. I meant the TV series. The look of armor wasn't super defined in the books, but the TV series had a mix of middle eastern and "asian" looking scalemail, alongside more traditional fantasy plate.
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Oct 29, 2020 19:09
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What's funny, is if you condensed and cut the fluff it'd probably be a 6 book series. The number of actual story beats.... is not actually that many throughout. Yes I'm on book 10 why do you ask 
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Oct 31, 2020 16:23
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Think I just got peak Jordan in book 10. Entire chapter with Matt spent loving about the circus, when suddenly someone bursts in saying they detected a disturbance in the Cut to some new pov of a never before seen seachan schmuck, as he fucks around doing his taxes and pondering the strange actions of --his vaguely racist-- "savage" servant. gently caress you, RJ.
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Nov 16, 2020 08:42
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Invalid Validation posted:I don’t know whether I like the fact nobody gives a poo poo/believes the taint has been cleansed or not. On one hand it subverts expectations, on the other it’s exhausting after dealing with it for two books. 
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Nov 16, 2020 17:27
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