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

like a dozen uses of 'round instead of around

this, happily, completely disappeared after book three

Just finished book five - things are still happening, though I understand that may not continue to be the case.

growing to appreciate Jordan's commitment to his bit, with the spankings and the obsession with women showing their legs and the random insertions like

Rand gazed upon the Forsaken and saw death. He grasped as much saidin as he could, filling himself up to the limit. If it ended here, he would never see Elayne's face again. He thought of the time he had offended her without knowing - women were mysterious like eels in a bucket, just as Bhob Cutlack always said back in the Two Rivers. The low-cut dress Elayne wore that day had made him see her as a woman. Balefire flashed in front of him, almost erasing him from the Pattern forever.

he knew what he was doing with this stuff, right?

just as Bhob Cutlack always said

On Bluesky Saeed Jones has discovered the series and it's kinda great, thus:

Now that I think about it, I want to have sex with Perrin too. He’s hiding a banging body underneath all the grief, depression and demonic nightmares.

jordan died from pulling the stomach outtve himself as he cryprayed

reached the part in which things are still kinda happening but nevertheless most of our time is spent with

• elayne and nynaeve wanting to box each other's ears
• everyone wanting to box mat's ears
• everyone obsessed with plunging necklines on dresses, then blushing
• faile refusing to talk to perrin and perrin endlessly freaking out about it
• lews therin gibbering
• elayne and min (and aviendha, slightly) moping about rand
• each of our main three complaining that the other two understand women
• men!
• women!

'kneel or you will be knelt' is a good line tho

also i have to ask -- since it's late and i'm not sober -- what is the upside of being a darkfriend?

first off it's horrible branding. there are lots of bad people around -- whitecloaks, seanchan, shaido -- but they don't *think* of themselves as evil; they've at least convinced themselves that they're doing the right thing.

there is, however, really no ambiguity about swearing unbreakable oaths to someone called The Dark One and/or Shaitan who has been imprisoned in a place called Shayol Ghul for 3000 years.

but what does anyone get out of it? if you're the head of a house competing for a vacant throne, i guess i can maybe see it?

if you're a random farmer or innkeeper, under regular circumstances, what are you getting to compensate for having a myrddraal periodically slobber on you/kill your extended family? some extra money maybe?

if you're an aes sedai, you can basically do whatever the fuck you want anywhere in the world. under normal circumstances maybe you get . . . i don't even know? but when the shit hits the fan the forsaken chosen will absolutely wreck you for their own purposes

everyone is just cannon-fodder for the chosen/forsaken. if the cute girl from four kings survives the end of the world, at best she lives forever as a slave to some really sadistic assholes. the perfect darkfriend future entails like a dozen people allowing you to torture everyone else who ever lived if you kiss their boots. it doesn't seem like a good bargain

the wheel of time promises *nothing*! it's not like if you live a good life, you'll come back as someone slightly higher in the hierarchy. apparently you just come back as yourself, again and again, forever.

maybe TV ishamael was otm

what and why darkfriends are is actually the biggest "ive no idea" of Jordan's entire effort tbh, you just have to handwave it away

by the time spoiler turns out to have been spoiler but spoiler spoiler im already just laughing and saying oh fuck off

yeah i know its two decades but spoilers is a srs business

i should box your ears

each of our main three complaining that the other two understand women

i didn't grok this as a kid so i found it funny when i reread

i guess i don't mind the men are from mars/women are from venus shtick, the only other epic fantasy i read the filler was a lot more boring (i'm talking about grrm's pages and pages of boiled leather outfits)

i do agree though that perrin's arc is the most unsatisfying of the three... i think there are a few books later that just skip him entirely?

theres good moments of payoff imo

he rescues his missus more than fuckin mario all the same

Wanna say thank you to mookieproof for being the hero this thread of the pattern really needs.

The Wheel crushes all beneath it.

reached the part in which things are still kinda happening but nevertheless most of our time is spent with

elayne and nynaeve wanting to box each other's ears
everyone wanting to box mat's ears
everyone obsessed with plunging necklines on dresses, then blushing
faile refusing to talk to perrin and perrin endlessly freaking out about it
lews therin gibbering
elayne and min (and aviendha, slightly) moping about rand
each of our main three complaining that the other two understand women
men!
women!
like, a little of this *might* be okay, but it's just fucking endless. half the characters (and all the aes sedai?) have reverted to acting like sullen teenagers even as the larger stakes get bigger. mat and perrin don't want to be bloody heroes, yes, we fucking get it. never have books screamed more loudly for an editor

trying to work out whether mookieproof is ahead of me or behind me, it's hard to tell!

there are neither etc etc

I am still surprised by this borad's embrace of Jordan and its dislike of Donaldson.

jordan has quirks but can write

Not really, no.

There are writers, and then there are bosoms and braids.

There are writers, and then there are bosoms and braids.

there are 45 instances of the word ‘gelding’ in the volume i’m currently reading

i'm with dmac here - the switch to sanderson is jarring and bad

I do appreciate the (re)introduction of the quaint term "flipskirt."

no, Donaldson!

i took that as the thomas covenant guy?

Yeah, that guy. The Covenant series certainly has issues, and the final four books he cranked out some 10 years ago were completely unnecessary, but he's a much better writer than Jordan. The middle trilogy in particular is outstanding.

lotr are about walking

cotc are about hiking

wot are about ppl management

wot: lews therin

cotc: thews leerin’

wot: bits lopped off

cotc: bits dropped off

lotr: hobbits popped off

there are 45 instances of the word ‘gelding’ in the volume i’m currently reading

that's one 'gelding' every 13.4 pages

nothing really happens in book 8. even less in book 9 so far

also there are like 500 named female characters and i neither know nor care any longer to bother sorting out which are:

-aes sedai siding with elaida
-aes sedai siding with the rebels/egwene
-aes sedai from the latter spying on the former
-aes sedai who have sworn fealty to egwene
-aes sedai who have sworn fealty to rand
-aes sedai who have *not* sworn fealty to rand but still hang around him
-aes sedai who have sworn fealty to perrin ffs
-aes sedai trapped at the black tower
-black ajah
-aes sedai in the white tower hunting black ajah
-channelers of any sort who are leashed
-wavefinders/windmistresses
-kin/knitting circle/other wilders
-claimants to the lion throne of andor
-random female nobility from cairhien/tear
-women who are more handsome than pretty
-wise ones who like rand
-wise ones who, for no reason that makes any sense, prefer sevanna
-part of faile's personal militia of cairhienin cosplaying as aiel

lol, however, at hard woman inflation. at first moiraine was the hardest woman in the world, but then came siuan, and then amys, and then bair, and then sorrilea, and then alise, and then cadsuane, and . . .

ffs sorry seandalai

you've forgotten the ones who keep mat as a pet

The ones who wear knives between their breasts?

yes, the widows!

there's also like 500 aiel women and the list of women in refrigerators that rand chants in his head.

God I had forgotten soooo much of this. Great work mookie.

the aiel maidens (with one major and two minor exceptions) do be pretty much interchangeable, no? and there's really just the one woman who do be keeping mat as a pet, yes? her it do no be hard to remember, fortune prick me

uncanny, burn me if it isnt

yeah they're pretty interchangeable except rand is always impugning their toh by not letting them protect him and traveling away and all that. oh and getting killed so rand can remember their name. i found a list and none of the names except one or two jumped out at me. but then the first one i clicked i found had like 25 appearances in the books.

i think you're right only one keeps mat as a pet but i remember she may have had a few followers and there's this whole thing about how they wear marriage knives in that town.

when you said seandalai did you mean seanchan? haha

https://i.ibb.co/mqn2jr2/image.png

;_;

it is clearly time for ian to do a re-read

I can try again! I tried 2021 and got to book 5? I can start from there but there is just too much I actually WANT to read, and tbh I'm not a masochist.

Fuck it, I'm gonna keep going. I have nothing else to read right now.

question for those who cant get through the slog books (esp first time round) of 5, 7-10 (11?)

do ye sense check paragraphs before reading them?

it doesnt help me in a lot of my reading (which consequently is not a lot) but in this case its an absolute boon, you can cover an aes sedai chapter in seconds

now admittedly this does lead to questions when a character callback occurs as if you are meant to remember one braid from another but look from reading the thread thats actually just a feature anyway

I read everything, but probably a bit faster than normal. I'm aiming to get to the next line of dialogue, not to linger on Jordan's very essential details about how many lamps are on the mantel, etc.

skimming was actually a forgotten skill until i made asmodean teach it me

^^ lol

I skim! But I resent writing that makes me skim. If if it's not important don't fuckin' write it.