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

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

theres still one book to come titled 'a memory of light' its tentatively scheduled for fall 2012

i know there's one more, i just thought it was more finished than that tbh.

Motherfucker better not die

I heard George RR Martin is the Sanderson back-up plan.

i heard david eddings has his pens sharpened

took me til now to finish 11 but i been busy tbf

too much elayne, everything else p quick to get things done

Knife of Dreams? IIRC Elayne isn't even in the one after that.

Ending of Knife was pretty rockin from memory.

well, of necessity from 10 onwards there's a good bit of resolution in each book (particularly in comparison to #7-9 where they find a bowl and introduce the sea folk to use the bowl, and eh that's it) so yeah. Was surprised how much rand/mat there was compared to what i remember, actually

yeah of the three perrin is really the one gets the least page time during that middle stretch

elayne is probably at her absolute worst in 'knife of dreams' tho

elayne's plenty bad throughout, but the huge focus on andor's succession when, tbph, it's a fairly minor event (imo) at this stage of affairs is a misstep by jordan.

throw in an entire book of faile/perrin kidnapping emo (again) and yeah there's a lot could have been lost in 11- but it does all go on at a good pace and at least wraps up quite a lot re: whitecloaks, seanchan

egwene has a small part in this one, but it's obviously significant

knocked through twelve pretty quickly. It's good!

twelve is the most recent?

scratch that then, i'm a few chapters into towers of midnight atm

i am impressed with your perseverence, darragh.

Eager to hear Darragh's thoughts on the end of Towers of Midnight

tbh, reading them through isn't comparable to doing it with a delay btwn books as a test of stamina- but the lines btwn what happened in which book do become blurred.

Outlook on characters has changed a lot on this re-read. Right now i think perrin's parts are plodding, most of it the dreaded interior monologue, elayne's even worse than i remember, nynaeve is v up and down.

Mat's still a good mix of 'getting shit done' while keeping linked to the wider events (and history)

Fuck the haters, i *still* think rand puts up with too much petty shit from just about everyone for most of this series :)

Egwene is p much the best character upon rereading.

The likes of thom, lan etc are in it much less than i seem to recall?

Gawyn is a knobend, in fact the trakands are all painful

Kinda want to see a forsaken spinoff, there's some good characters there tbh

finished this last week. I think, at this stage, i could recommend it to ppl again.