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

lol, Egwene as Obama analogue is kind of hilarious (and... a little scary)

elaida is gwb cmon we all know it

with Alviarin as Cheney...

eek

w....s?

DUDE NO

tbrr, i cant remember which aes sedai are good, bad, dead or just somewhere else at this stage.

But i dont think that sprawling complexity is a bad thing, in itself, as long as we keep trundling towards a kickass setpiece every couple hundred pages

pillowmate don cheney killed thread rip

haaaaaaaa

thats what you get for dallying with GOP ajah

I can't believe Rand's going to break the seals and let Ronald Reagan return to the world.

ayn rand al'thor

It's amazing how much obsessive egwene hate there is on the interwebs though. Even before this book, but especially now.

yah the dudes that are really ~furious~ w/egwene for not idk staring dewy eyed @ rand and apologizing for ever doubting him or w/e are p creepy. not sure where it comes from but shes been consistently one of the best characters in the books so f them

i dunno, i mean aes sedai man, y'know? need to read again, but not convinced that most of them don't do more harm than good in terms of getting to the end goal throughout this whole series. not sure it's all *crepey*, if you had a gang of dude-only professional obstructors stopping rand getting shit done, they'd have ben balefired off the face of the earth in prob book 4.

also, internal aes sedai political stuff is almost as bad as emo perrin, and a lot more common. should let the wise women in there for smackdown.

egwene and nynaeve easily the best of em, but the former is srsly reverting to annoying, counterproductive type so far in this book.

but yeah i guess there's prob a fair % of hate because she should obviously have married rand in bk 3 or w/e too, cos that's what women are for in fantasy. and egwene is more kickass than anyone else every now and then.

lol Rand has already gotten 3 of the main female characters of the series, I don't think he needs any more

yeah but one of them is elayne, tbf. PITA #1, if you could shift her over to the dark then they'd all quit within a week.

I don't think it's necessarily a sexist thing (may be giving your average fantasy fan too much credit) i just think the whole Aes Sedai know best thing rankles with people. He's The Dragon Reborn ffs. How exactly is Egwene more qualified on what to do Last Battle wise?

lol, no one can beat the Trakand children in the PITA stakes

poor Morgase

also yes, you are giving your average fantasy fan too much credit

eh i've been tryin to avoid the 'sexist' word cos i'm ilx's no 1 example, tbh. but yeah, exactly that- dude's got to get his dark one contest on, maybe you should be tryin to lend a hand?

tho tbf 3000 years of mad sorceror males maybe contextualise it a bit.

wait, morgase is actually #1 PITA, gawain kinda rules

galad is aight, i guess

i just think the whole Aes Sedai know best thing rankles with people. He's The Dragon Reborn ffs. How exactly is Egwene more qualified on what to do Last Battle wise?

until like two weeks ago in book time rand was clearly mentally unstable & kinda terrible at everything, ever. i mean its sorta a moot qn in some respects bcuz the pattern basically runs things anyways but its hard to argue that egwene isnt p much better at being a leader/making decisions/motivating ppl than rand imo

^^^ OTM

Basically, if this had been Perrin rather than Rand, the conversation would have been markedly different; Perrin would have explained WHY he wants to undo the seals to Egwene for starters rather than just going "hey I'm going to open the Dark One's prison, are you in?"

HE IS THE DRAGON REBORN. Nah, you're right though. Can i help it if i empathize with Rand's fast-track attitude after all these books? Dude just wants to get shit done.

nah, i disagree

rand is unstable, but dude's got a lot on his plate. he's not been responsible for anything like the number of major fuckups the aes sedai have been throughout the series. not sure he owes them anything, if it comes down to explanations or co-operation.

perrin's main problem is that he doesn't want to do anything, ever. couldn't really afford that attitude in rand's place

number none OTM, i think most of it is just 'well at least rand's as impatient as i am fo this bullshit 3 book negotiation to be fucking OVER'

He has major trust issues also. Locked in a box and all that.

he had to learn to think outside the box, what what

its hard to argue that egwene isnt p much better at being a leader/making decisions/motivating ppl than rand imo

i cant believe this, but yes i would argue this with you on the internet.

Egwene != the rest of the Aes Sedai, as evidenced by their inability to steamroll her

rand is unstable, but dude's got a lot on his plate. he's not been responsible for anything like the number of major fuckups the aes sedai have been throughout the series.

Did you not read the same series I read, where Rand not only started going batshit insane but almost killed his father and left multiple countries in anarchy and chaos out of a misguided attempt to "stay strong"?

Basically every major character has had triumphs and failures; Egwene nad (surprisingly) Mat come out as the most reliably successful of the Two Rivers cru

eh he nearly did that to his father in one paragraph, yeah sure. those countries are in anarchy and chaos cos the lords/aes sedai keep working at cross-purposes whenever he goes somewhere else for two days. and cos of end times etc.

egwene is kick ass, no doubt. but i think as a reader i get p frustrated by all the characters who're prioritising shit like their magic cults or kingdoms other than defeating the final boss.

mat's had it a bit soft, every time he gets in a scrape some dice roll and a dinosaur eats his enemies or w/e

eh he nearly did that to his father in one paragraph, yeah sure. those countries are in anarchy and chaos cos the lords/aes sedai keep working at cross-purposes whenever he goes somewhere else for two days. and cos of end times etc.

Well also because he kept marching across the countryside going "I am the Dragon Reborn, join me or be crushed", plus his grim crazy megalomania repelled Tuon and prolonged the fight with the Seanchan; you really can't frame all of these reactions completely divorced from the personality who instigated them.

The last two books could have been retitled Rand Finally Stops Fucking Up

WINTER'S BONE sounds liek a WOT book and i keep wanting to click that thread instead

i think he's tried to minimise fighting by offering the 'join me or be crushed', particularly since being locked in a box and the torture and etc, not sure how receptive the seanchan, for one instance, would have been to any other offer?

He's gone all chill bro now. Which is refreshing

tbh, 'join me or be crushed' is a solid POV to take when you've got the 'it's up to you to prevent the end of the world' mantle. as i said, rand's had to deal with a lot of people that aren't really treating that as a priority, and those that do are always trying to wheedle in other concerns as part of their package. don't think he was as ruthless early on, but y'know a couple of years of that + unlimited power + certain death + not too many people sympathising hugely with that as a burden, i usually find myself on rand's side side of any face-off

^ brings me back to the line someone quoted from jordan above at a book signing - 'what would you do if you were told only you could save the world, but would have to die to do it?'. i guess i'd want to be allowed to milk it a little in the interim myself, tbh, rather than listen to yerwan cadsuane going on about my table manners

Actually for several books I was way more on Cadsuane's side because Rand seemed to be doing everything possible to guarantee he wouldn't even make it to the final battle.

xp: lol

i would be a hugely self pitying messiah, i think

its easy to be sympathetic to all the difficulties that rand has faced but he also gets a p tremendous helping hand by being ta'veren. i mean depsite being a self-obsessed d-bag most of the time ppl are still falling all over themselves to do what he needs, even if he doesnt know he needs it. hes made some great tactical decisions and The Cleansing is a real triumph but a lot of the marginal success hes had can be put done to the fact the fate itself is basically guiding things~~

whereas egwene had to run all that shit herself, w/o any supernatural force making ppl do what she wants or give in to her demands or protecting her from harm

nah egwene's coasting on being the popular boy's gf waay back when, know so many girls like that you know she should try to be her ownself maybe then she could be someone i could give my RESPECT to word

anyway egwene is the most powerful aes sedai, or near it, since whenever and her best mate's a queen and she's been dragged up through the tower by the previous but one amyrlin, and there aren't whole armies tryin to kill her ALL the time and she doesnt have to take on ba'alzamon 1-2-1 nor unify the world to do it.

think she has it pretty easy, tbph, tho she's not doing a bad job.

Dunno, Egwene's been physically beaten and even tortured more than probably any main character:

- Seanchan
- Black ajah in Tear
- Wise Ones when she admitted to dreamwalking on the sly
- White Tower when she was a prisoner

I'm not saying she's had it as bad as Rand but she's probably second on the list when it comes to putting up with shit. She's very different in that regard to Elayne who pretty much blithely walks into danger at all times in reliance on her aura of invincibility.

Also I think that people overstate the extent to which the Aes Sedai are unusual for being wrapped up in their own affairs. All of the leaders or would-be leaders of all the countries do this.

e.g. I think readers tend to compare the White Tower unfavourably to the Aiel and especially the Wise Ones. But the Aiel have very self-interested reasons for following Rand, and also their prophecy is much more explicit w/r/t their direct dependence on him for personal survival. Moreover Aiel culture generally just has less intrigue. And it's not like the Wise Ones don't spend a great deal of time scheming how to control Rand.

Aside from the Aiel, everyone else's prophecy relationship with Rand is that he has to turn up at Shayol Ghul eventually, and maybe win or maybe lose, that's all. This leaves them free to strategise w/r/t everything else, including The Last Battle. The attitudes of Elaida and Tuon towards Rand (both effectively being that they need to control the world in order to restrain him and then unleash him at the right moment) are only the most extreme versions of this.

Rand's assumption that he has to unite the world, forge peace, beat the DO at his own game strategically etc. is pretty much his own version of (or gloss on) the prophecy which has very little to do with how the rest of the world sees things.

Pretty much the only people who agree with him on this are Moiraine (who of course implanted these ideas in the first place) and people who are Dragonsworn either literally or effectively (i.e. within Rand's immediate sphere of influence - such as Nynaeve at the moment).

This is one reason why Moiraine's reemergence is so crucial: she synthesises the AS mission with an understanding of Rand's essential purpose, and in a manner much more pro-active and nuanced than Cadsuane or Nynaeve.

At any rate I expect the entire Rand/Egwene scene was effectively Rand manipulating Egwene into arranging for everyone important in the world to be in the one place so he can throw the book at them w/r/t world peace. "It's all cool bro" Rand would have actually conversed with Egwene on the whys and wherefores of breaking the seals if that was the genuine reason for the courtesy visit.

The attitudes of Elaida and Tuon towards Rand (both effectively being that they need to control the world in order to restrain him and then unleash him at the right moment)

aes sedai in general, rather than elaida? tho she took it to the guantanamax, obv

agree that rand is on a wind-up with his visit to tar valon, it's cool bro dragon would definitely have chatted it out

as for the rest, yeah egwene got her ass slapped a lot while accepted/novice, pfft

the latter half of this seemed pretty rushed, dont think sanderson got the balance right between synopsis and narrative.

Also, matt used the word 'gonna'. That jarred me for about two chapters.

Not as hopeful for final book as i was after finishing the first sanderson reworking.

this was just getting interesting cmon ppl

re-reading, am maybe third into bk2 atm- man this series was all-time for the first few books, it dropped off so hard ;_;

Aviendha's visions of the future are surprisingly grim. I especially liked how they kept up with the them, present even from the earliest books, of an encroaching technological modernity...but this was almost the depiction of a genocide.

I've always felt that somehow Jordan would find a way to pull a happy ending out of all this, despite what all the "prophecies" say...but now i dont know, especially since I can't really see how what is supposed to happen can work with "happily ever after." Especially regarding the Seanchean.

it's a great credit to the series that i have zero idea what is gonna happen in the last book.

Sanderson on the sexism topic discussed above:

Warning: Long update on this topic. As a nod to those who truly know feminist literary theory, I'll make a less "Twitter friendly" argument. Robert Jordan, by creating a world where the women and men are very aware of gender roles, spent a lot of time delving into these topics. I'm convinced he was aware of male privilege, and though biased--as all of us are--sought very hard to overcome his own biases by creating evocative female characters with plot lines that do not center around the obtaining of favor or romantic interest from male characters. He also sought to create a world where women were not defined by how they were viewed by men, but were instead defined by their intelligence, determination, and accomplishments. In this way, though he exposes some small masculine biases in various areas, he was extremely progressive as a dominant male writer of his era, and should be regarded as anything other than "sexist" for his efforts. /Scholarly Brandon

also, let's not forget, MAGIC IS BAD FOR YOU UNLESS YOU HAVE TITS!!!