who in this bitch reads robert jordan? -- The Wheel of Time thread

theres an entire sea folk brought in

Which supports my daughter's reading, I think. It's as though he thought to himself, "Oh, shit, every grand fantasy series needs a sea folk!"

Malazan had interesting characters and a sense of humour. WoT has probably a thousand pages of Rand/Perrin/Mat wishing they understood women like Perrin/Mat/Rand does xp

jimbeaux's daughter otm

i haven't touched these in a while but from my unposted (because it was supposed to say good things too) ilx posts dir:

he is just bewilderingly hit-or-miss with names. everybody knows the defining feature of the ur-text is how rooted it is in its invented languages, how the whole world is built up from them. this series is rooted in other things (geography, historical vertigo) so fair enough imo that it doesn't try, that all of its character names and all of its italicized inventions are the obvious result of jordan sitting back for thirty seconds like, hmmmmm. and fair enough that everyone in the world, including the nomadic desert people, and the people who migrated west two thousand years ago, all speak english, sprinkled with a dozen special nouns per continental plate. but my god do you have to be creating sindarin to be able to make a pass and put "mountain of dhoom" and "galadedrid damodred" aside while holding onto "bayle domon" and (my girlfriend) "siuan sanche" (pronounced like swan)? i'll accept "trollocs" because it's funny. but fuck forever the dark triad of egwene/elayne/elaida. took me three books to get used to that. here's a paragraph from the aftermath of a battle that had me genuinely gasping for breath-- the way it builds:

TSR876

People were streaming out of Emond's Field, Bran limping and using his spear for a staff, Marin smiling with an arm around him, Daise being hugged by her husband, Wit, and Gaul and Chiad hand in hand with their veils down. Loial's ears drooped wearily, and Tam had blood on his face, and Flann Lewin was standing only with the help of his wife, Adine; there was blood on nearly everyone, and hasty bandages. But they came out in a widening throng, Elam and Dav, Ewin and Aram, Eward Candwin and Buel Dowtry, Hu and Tad the stablemen from the Winespring Inn, Ban and Tell and the Companions riding with that banner still.

elam, ewin, and eward in one sentence! and all of them extras! imagined a whole parallel 15-book series where these boys (+ poss hu and tad the stablemen) all train as wizards and have late-night dorm conversations where you are constantly having to go back a page to confirm confused suspicions that it was ewin talking this whole time, not eward.

i like em tho

lol at how he insisted on naming all the horses

ah fuck these are just a wet aiel arent they

wet aiel is actually an indie band from the isle of wight

lol at how he insisted on naming all the horses

as katie holmes says in wonder boys, at times it's very detailed

whatever else happens, rosamund pike is perfect as moiraine

not looking forward to egwene's debasement but totally looking forward to her revenge

is mat even in this series

have to nix the malazan

i like the flow i like the anbition but once you realize hes stonedly writing it based on a tabletop card game it dies

yerman grimdark with the relentless misery that was good but

judge me or not i dont care

his not numbering the books made me get lost

started the malazan once but bailed when it seemed like i needed to know the names and/or numbers of certain military groups

yeah lads i cant sing the twelve days of christmas pls have mercy

Incidentally, the whole Malazan on ebook is pay what you want right now

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/steven-eriksons-malazan-book-fallen-tor-publishing-group-books

I could not finish book 1 last time I tried, and now I don't think I'll ever have time.

i worked up through maybe five or seven last winter and enjoyed myself grwatly but one night i got halfway through a third miraculous ascension or avoidance of certain universe ending disaster in ten mins and put it down for the night and well that was that for this pass

basically for all the justifiable criticisms of jordan, apart from tolkien nobody has offered me a satisfying scale of similar fantasy that doesnt fail at one hurdle or the other and none of them would hold me for the 13 books this one did nor have me go back to them for a lazy afternoons random hour

I dunno, I got as far as Winter's Heart, which I tried twice at and (figuratively) threw against the wall both times. So it's not as though I didn't give it a go, but I mean, I understand the man was ill, but fuck it, I don't have that many years left on this earth, you know?

Well we're halfway through the second season now and I appreciated how this episode ended with Lanfear living her best rich-goth-at-Burning-Man fantasy.

how many lights do you see, egwene?

Very much the comparison I was thinking!

it's been a billion years sine I read the books, but I appreciate the way this season has condensed and rearranged things - you can see they're trying to keep the plot coherent. I think it's been better than the first season for sure.

Yeah this season was much better. Finale has some great moments and Moghedien was perfect. Definitely bringing the creepy Bjork energy. Looking forward to seeing more Forsaken next season

wow mat must have tied the dagger to that staff *really* tight

oh fuc

Roffle. That DID cross my mind.

Big ol' interview with Judkins, spoilers obv

https://www.tor.com/2023/10/06/the-wheel-of-time-showrunner-rafe-judkins-talks-season-2-finale-among-other-things/

Plus a pre-SAG strike chat with Pike and Henney looking a bit ahead to Season 3

https://www.thewrap.com/wheel-of-time-season-3-filming-rosamund-pike-daniel-henney-interview/

i'm not bothered either way, but have we completely jettisoned thom merrilin? i mean there are *so* many characters, so it makes sense to dump any they lack the time to do justice to

this is not something i feel like i normally notice, but the outfits this season were *amazing*. although that one headpiece lanfear was wearing in the dream world was a bit much

i'm apparently the last person in the world to notice this, but the books' maps of tar valon are . . . suggestive

kinda feel like it's a really bad joek but dude obviously deserves no leeway whatsoever

80% of men cannot locate Northarbor

Not the last lol

wow that completely flew over my 11 year-old head

there's even a bad tshirt https://shopwheeloftime.com/products/tar-valon-harbor-master-1

uhmmmm that shirt is incredible.
Also can't say I ever noticed the gynecological implications of Tar Valon.

Another showrunner interview

https://www.vulture.com/article/wheel-of-time-season-2-showrunner-explains-adaptation-choices.html

Is anyone enjoying the show who has not read the books?

I watched the first season and didn't really like it much. By the time the second season came out I had mostly forgotten what happened in S1. The season recap didn't really help much, nor did the first episode of S2. Other than the fact that two of the young women are having difficulty training at Hogwarts and the one main lady and her helper are having relationship issues because she lost her magic, I couldn't really grasp what was going on or what the larger point of the show was. I haven't continued past that first episode of S2.

My wife has not read the books but likes the show, thinks season 2 is a marked improvement on season 1.
Another friend liked the first season enough to start reading the books.

i haven’t read the books & like it well enough! though I keep forgetting to watch it & the longer i leave it the less i understand what’s going on lol

you should read the books and moan in the threads about the books imo

i bought the books for mr veg but there’s too many lol

i rarely can ever commit to a series! lord of the rings & like, feist’s magician series are about the only ones i ever saw through to the end

Wait like ALL of the Feist books?? Like when we’re talking about like Arutha’s kids and shit? I loved original core trilogy when I was a youth but couldn’t get into the later books.

lol nooo just the the first three riftwars

king's buccaneer is good iirc

lads

i may have begun re-reading the books : /

ffs

Now I ain't a gamblin man but I'd give 2:1 odds you give up during or at the end of book 4.

cauthon vibes ^

also i back him for a full run

they are much easier reread ime

Pretty sure I gave up during book 3 last time I tried.

cauthon vibes

out of the core three stooges, i guess i'd rather be mat than mr crazy or the wolfman.

i have tried to submit a triplicate post

https://i.ibb.co/pK6nvpX/IMG-6379.jpg

if i can do it, you can do it! don't give up!