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

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!!!

haha tim's long post upthread is p otm but:

Pretty much the only people who agree with him on this are Moiraine (who of course implanted these ideas in the first place)

shoulda gone w/ 'incepted'

just refinished book five

Jesus, it's hard to imagine how he gets another 6 books out of this with only 2 or 3 actual events worth noting until bk 11

Is there a particular reason you're rereading them?

anticipation for last book next year.

You're a braver man than I. I have done a couple of rereads, but that was when i was a lot less jaded and the series was lot shorter. Don't think i could face tackling some of the later ones now.

dont overcongratulate just yet i'm really not looking fwd to 7-11

halfway through ten.

I was wrong about egwene, she's fairly awesome alright. Nynaeve and elayne quite a bit more grating this time around tho. All maguffin.

It's a lot easier to take books 7-10 when you don't have to wait 18 months between them, tho i still can't remember wtf anyone is (especially non-prominent aes sedai)

Aes sedai still rubbish fwiw.

perrin and faile quite annoying too tbh.

They improve drastically IMO once they get back together.

jesus really? They just fight and dont talk over the most nonsensical shit

Lol i'm typing this in the other room cos my gf exploded over my bitchin about how shit 'the big c' is. Maybe that jordan dude's onto something

someday me and you will have to swap our versions of WOT dan :)

Perrin and Faile do not improve after they get back together. Their relationship sums up everything bad about Robert Jordan's writing.

Boo I love Perrin and Faile YOU'RE everything wrong with Jordan's writing style

that's a sanderson level comeback at best

bump

literally just finished #10 of this stupid series.

That last three book slog, and oh boy especially book ten, really was the backbreaker.

All plain sailing from here, looking fwd to it

Wouldn't have been better to time this to coincide with the release of the last book?

it's been a quicker task than i figured tbh. Kindle has helped.

Sure you can always fit another re-read in between now and then. I guess i'll have a skim through the Saunderson books before the last one but i long ago lost the stomach for extended revisits.

Just checked his website and Saunderson is only at 33% on his WOT time re-read and 21% on his first draft for AMOL and yet he's still blathering on about writing his own books. The gall of the man!

It's also pretty weird that he measures those things in percentages

opta goin too far imo

wait i thought he finuished this already what's going on

yeah thought this was a done ting tbh