I just finished book #10 of Robert Jordan's stupid series.

i read brandon sanderson's book elantris, it was pretty good. solid and unpredictable.

Wasn't nynaeve completely, totally annoying? Or was that some other character, I can't remember, it's been a few years since I read these daft books? I think I got as far as #7.

she was one of the annoying ones, yes.

lol "one of"

i walked over to the used bookstore in hopes they had a copy of the eye of the world ;_;

hoping sanderson has good enough sense to keep nynaeve's braid-tugging to a once-per-chapter max, otherwise she is one of my favs. she is at the very least one of the most important characters to the overall plot (between cleansing saidin and learning to heal stilled/gentled people also battling forsaken and shit).

really thinking sanderson is a great choice to finish the series, hoping he unlike jordan is capable of making it through an entire book without referencing the heavingness of every aes sedai's bosoms.

hey guys POO ta'veren: rand, perrin, mat

There's some point around book... 5? I think where the series really falls into "I am wsnking as I write this" territory that really made me roll my eyes (while wsnking).

Anyone else pissed that Jordan took time to write Siuan/Moiraine slash instead of finishing his series?

xp: Perrin without hesitation.

I mean, look at the evidence:

1. Awesome feral beast powers
2. Best wife of anyone in the series
3. Not crazy
4. Not a gigantic whiny pussy
5. duh his name

I tried to read the first book when it came out, but after fifty or a hundred pages of nothing happening I never gave it a second thought. However, on some perverse whim I decided to check out the audiobook of it from the library and now find myself on book 5. Book 1 was a bit of a rough slog, but 2-4 were pretty gripping. So far, 5 is dull and the padding is getting a bit absurd.

Perrin is by far the most "realized" character at this point, and thus my pick as well.

Mat sort of doesn't turn into a person until... book 7 I think? Whatever point it is when he actively starts leading soldiers.

Mat seems a shorthand sketch at this point - trying to get laid, trying to get money, and trying to get away from those who use the power, in that order. He and Nynaeve (had to copy that from upthread - I don't know any of the spelling!) have the worst internal monologues. I swear they are just cut and pasted from book to book.

Yeah, later on he turns into a human being but he is so obviously a placeholder at the beginning of the series it's kind of comical.

(At least Nynaeve had Lan to humanize her somewhat early on.)

The Lan thing is good so far, but her "pull braid, I don't snore, in the dreamworld I can't control myself" shtick is poor characterization. Of course, I'm listening to them because I like the world, the way the power works, and the plot, not for the mostly wooden protagonists.

A slight peeve: by book 5, is anyone reading it that hasn't read the first 4? Do you need to continue to recap each characters quirks and foibles? You could cut hundreds of pages from this series just by doing that little bit of editing.

mat is great, his development as a character wasn't entirely out of nowhere (it is hinted at early on - his visit with the aelfin was in book 1, wasn't it? also his struggle with the cursed dagger [although at the time it seemed a really blatant frodo/the one ring ripoff]), but especially in the last half of the series he has become one of the more interesting characters, and at least one of the most fun to read being the only character besides maybe thom merillin to have a sense of humor whatsoever.

rand losing his hand is exactly the WOT equivalent of fonzi jumping the shark though imo

I'm not disputing that the seeds for Mat's characterization aren't sown early on; I'm saying Jordan put them there and then said "now let me spend 7000 pages writing about everyone else before going back and making Mat tolerable".

absolutely...one of the reasons perrin has been such an interesting character is that his story has developed at a fair pace (except book 6 or 7? which left him out entirely), unlike pretty much anyone else in the series; the wolfbrother stuff earlier in the series, his return to the two rivers (highlight of wot for me), his marriage to faile, also didn't he make some kind of deal with the seanchan in 11?

matt didnt fuck w/ the door ter'angreal until book 4 ~~~ first two books dude is just a plot contrivance just a way to get rand doing shit. matt didnt even get a pov until book 3 and hes not really interesting until he starts sleepen with that queen in like book 7

Rand is pretty great but I like Lews Therin more. I see this as a big flaw with Rand.

no way, the turnaround in the mat storyline was definitely when he came out of the eelfin ter'angreal with all those old dead dude's memories

xpost i was sort of under the impression that rand's 'relationship' with lews therin would change when he cleansed saidin but i guess that didn't happen did it

rand is the inverse of matt he starts out reasonably interesting and slowly become more and more of a total joke and non-entity

nick yah i guess the battle where he 1st shows off his skillz as a general is a big turning point he has to face being tied to rand and the pattern no matter what he does but that not until the end of book 5 and hes not really in book 6 much

They're hinting that the Rand/Lews Therin thing is more related to whatever the deep ancient power that saidir and saidin are pale reflections of.

Mat didn't start getting interesting until after he met Tuon; there were all of these things that should have been interesting about him but the character was too busy going "LOOK AT ME, I AM A MASSIVE TOOL" to capitalize on them.

mat will always be more compelling than rand imho.

rand is the inverse of matt he starts out reasonably interesting and slowly become more and more of a total joke and non-entity

This is pretty OTM.

Perrin got pretty annoying in the last few books i thought, the storyline with him chasing the Shaido seemed to go on forever

tell me you guys are talking about dennis perrin

while its true that dennis perrin is a werewolf no we r not

best ta'veren is probably egwene as mentioned upthread

oh shit forgot she's also ta'veren...is nynaeve also?

OH big question here: can't remember for sure but isn't thom merilin actually elayne's father??

implied but not confirmed iirc

i dont think its verified but thats the cw xp

egwene isnt really ta'veren shes just my favorite EF character. of the three mat's probably my pick

do u guys have a favorite angreal in the story i am partial to the weird doorway (obvs) and the balefire rod but i am curious as to your more invested opinions.

not really angreal but the whole portal stone thing was a++++ and one of my favorite things in the series

the protective get-ups the nynaeve and the other powerful AS has are pretty cool

protective get ups? maybe i didn't read that far or have forgotten. i liked the rings that make them go to the dreamworld too cuz dream worlds are A++

foxhead medallion pretty punk too.

cadsuane! thats the other one. have u got the cleansing yet? i think thats really the first time they're mentioned

nynaeves is a set of rings connected to a bracelet and a belt i think that has a well and can null the power like mat's foxhead and detect channeling and is also an angreal. might do other things.

cadsuanes is a set of charms connected to like a headband and each of the charms does something similar to nynaeve's jewelery

bowl of the winds!

dreamworld rings
the Seanchan collars
the bowl(?) they used to change the weather

ha i could c+p that to the taco hot dog thread and it would be relavent.

xp

holy shit i forgot all about the collars!!!!!

seanchan collars are fuuuccccked. like when the darkfriends have them on people and they just fuckin em up. bowl of the winds was awesome yes.

i did get to the cleansing but srsly haven't picked up these books for years and years so i'm forgetting things.

i keep poking around for a copy of the eye of the world. i always see it at thrift stores around here. must.. begin.. re-read..

those collars made the largest impression on me of all of them tbh

bowl of winds was ~shrug~ but when elayne unravels a gateway and basically napalms the seanchan was sick

Who (besides Rand) has killed the most people?

Padan Fain likes the odd massacre doesn't he?

Yeah, but a whole bunch of them (heroes and villains) are pretty bloodthirsty.

didn't mat blowing the horn result in like thousands of dead seanchan?

elayne killed a few thousand seanchan + all those soliders died @ caemlyn on her behalf (dont know if that counts)