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Attempting Wheel of Time series...


Lady Noble

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13 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

Oh come now, one thing you can't say about the witcher is it's underhyped.

The books were translated a decade or so after they were originally written. Nobody reads translated Polish novels... at least not before the Witcher. It was completely off the radar of main-stream fantasy.

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1 hour ago, Darth Richard II said:

Key word. Was. I mean, if you really think The Witcher is underhyped, I dunno, I want to come live were you do.

 

Nobel Prize winner Salman Rushdie once said Game of Thrones was a piece of trash. I strongly disagree. I will also disagree with anyone who thinks The Wheel of Time and/or The Witcher series are trash. 

I really wonder if Salman Rushdie actually read A Game of Thrones. Incidently, have you actually read any of the Witcher books?

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Oh come now, one thing you can't say about the witcher is it's underhyped.

The first short story collection and the first novel were translated into English ten years ago and then there was a massive pause for the rest of the series, which was then published out of order (the second short story collection, which leads directly into the novels, was published between Books 3 and 4 of the novel series, which is weird and confusing). The books have sold very modestly, even with the much-vaunted "European superstar" reputation of the author (which translates roughly as "Joe Abercrombie had outsold him within five years of his first book coming out").

Pretty much all of The Witcher hype comes from the video games, particularly the third one (the first two being pretty mediocre, to be honest, but at least different in terms of structure and stakes). Apparently it really annoys Sapkowski if people mention that the video games have outsold the books by something like 20-1.

I do need to read the rest of the books, but I was holding out to see if they were going to retranslate the first two with the guy they recruited later on (who reportedly did a much better job than the person who did The Last Wish and Blood of Elves).

 

Quote

 

Nobel Prize winner Salman Rushdie once said Game of Thrones was a piece of trash. I strongly disagree. I will also disagree with anyone who thinks The Wheel of Time and/or The Witcher series are trash. 

 

Rushdie was talking about the TV series. He added that the books had a much stronger reputation and he'd been recommended them by friends, but had not gotten round to reading them.

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3 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Random fact: This thread caused me to start a reread, and I'm currently on book two. In the paperback edition I have, Maradon is misspelled Marabon on page 158. 

Huh, mine too.

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Edit: Blah, that was a dumb question.

Something that does bother me (and it probably shouldn't) is how Jordan completely ignores things from his first book like they never happened. Specifically when Moraine uses a plain wooden staff as a conduit for the One Power. 

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"Book 1isms". There's a few of these in WoT, just as there's quite a few in Gardens of the Moon (for Malazan). Authors develop their ideas as they go along and sometimes things that seem like a good idea in the flush of writing Book 1 seem to be a bit dumb five years later and quietly get dropped. AGoT has a few as well (like Tyrion's implausible tumbling antics).

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  • 2 weeks later...

So, I've just finished Book 1.

It did get better for me in that things happened I actually found interesting. 

My biggest issue is how all of the characters just seem to be so f-ing special. It's annoying. I'd just like to read about some basic character that's NOT able to channel the One Power. If this ever became a TV series, they'd group Egwene and Nynaeve together the way they did Euron and Victarion because they seem like the same character: They're both head strong stubborn and tough women.

I guess I just wished there were very different characters.

I already need a break from teh second book, though, lol.

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25 minutes ago, Lady Noble said:

So, I've just finished Book 1.

It did get better for me in that things happened I actually found interesting. 

My biggest issue is how all of the characters just seem to be so f-ing special. It's annoying. I'd just like to read about some basic character that's NOT able to channel the One Power. If this ever became a TV series, they'd group Egwene and Nynaeve together the way they did Euron and Victarion because they seem like the same character: They're both head strong stubborn and tough women.

I guess I just wished there were very different characters.

I already need a break from teh second book, though, lol.

Doubtful; you're right that they are very similar, as are at least 90% of the female characters in the series, (probably this series' biggest flaw) but their journeys take different roads as the series progresses.

And it doesn't seem to me that show Euron has any Victarion in him. They just took out Victarion because they decided to cut short a number of story-lines.

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On 10/26/2017 at 9:39 AM, Corvinus said:

Doubtful; you're right that they are very similar, as are at least 90% of the female characters in the series, (probably this series' biggest flaw) but their journeys take different roads as the series progresses.

sniff

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On 2017/10/14 at 0:04 AM, A True Kaniggit said:

Edit: Blah, that was a dumb question.

Something that does bother me (and it probably shouldn't) is how Jordan completely ignores things from his first book like they never happened. Specifically when Moraine uses a plain wooden staff as a conduit for the One Power. 

The One Power in particular seems to have evolved throughout the series to become more structured, scientific and rule bound. (And then of course when Sanderson took over all the rules flew out the window and it became just random magic with no inherent logic anymore).

But yes, the difference in style associated with the One Power is also evident in the confrontation at the actual Eye of the World, where the type of feats used - like Aginor opening a chasm in the ground beneath one of the protagonists' feet, instead of just blasting them with a simple fireball or slicing them with a blade of Air, or blowing them apart with a a head-exploding head weave,  seems awefully clumsy, indirect and kind of LoTR type of symbolic magic, rather than the more direct and scientific One Power mechanical type of force from the later books.

The One Power is most impressive and internally consistent during The Shadow Rising, Fires of Heaven and Lord of Chaos, in my view. After which it seems to start going off in weird directions again and begins contradicting its own formerly well established logic and structure. And that's before Sanderson comes and messes it all up at the very end.

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On 28/10/2017 at 1:20 PM, Free Northman Reborn said:

The One Power in particular seems to have evolved throughout the series to become more structured, scientific and rule bound. (And then of course when Sanderson took over all the rules flew out the window and it became just random magic with no inherent logic anymore).

But yes, the difference in style associated with the One Power is also evident in the confrontation at the actual Eye of the World, where the type of feats used - like Aginor opening a chasm in the ground beneath one of the protagonists' feet, instead of just blasting them with a simple fireball or slicing them with a blade of Air, or blowing them apart with a a head-exploding head weave,  seems awefully clumsy, indirect and kind of LoTR type of symbolic magic, rather than the more direct and scientific One Power mechanical type of force from the later books.

The One Power is most impressive and internally consistent during The Shadow Rising, Fires of Heaven and Lord of Chaos, in my view. After which it seems to start going off in weird directions again and begins contradicting its own formerly well established logic and structure. And that's before Sanderson comes and messes it all up at the very end.

How does Sanderson mess up the One Power? He uses it in unorthodox ways, but not in a way that contradicts Jordan's rules that I remember.

From what I recall, Sanderson had to talk Harriet into being allowed to use the Power in certain ways that were logical but Harriet had issues that RJ wouldn't have used it in that way

(the cannon "windows" for example).

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11 hours ago, Werthead said:

How does Sanderson mess up the One Power? He uses it in unorthodox ways, but not in a way that contradicts Jordan's rules that I remember.

From what I recall, Sanderson had to talk Harriet into being allowed to use the Power in certain ways that were logical but Harriet had issues that RJ wouldn't have used it in that way (the cannon "windows" for example).

Apart from the change in style, the main issue that struck me -from distant memory - is how he loses the context of scale related to different levels of the Power. And he seems to link feats of the One Power to willpower and ingenuity to a greater extent than was allowed in Jordan's highly structured system from before.

I'm not talking about the oft quoted issue of Androl and his gateway tricks. That's a quirk we can let Sanderson have. He likes gimmicks like that.

No, there is far worse. For example. Vora's sa'angreal was never stated to be even close to Callandor's level of power. In fact, it was roughly hinted to magnify strength around 10 fold or so in Book 2.  And yet in the final book you have Egwene facing Taim, who is wielding Sakarnen (which is even more powerful than Callandor), and holding her own against him. We are talking about different orders of magnitude of power here, and no willpower or determination on Egwene's side is going to make an ounce of difference in such an uneven confrontation.

Previously we learn that even a weak angreal makes Graendal more than capable of handlings Moghedien and Cyndane at the same time. Well, with even Callandor being multiple times Vora's sa'angreal in strength, Sakernen would put Taim an order of magnitude above Egwene's power level while wielding Vora's Sa'angreal. but Sanderson, always in love with his gimmicky, character and ingenuity based magic, somehow has her matching Taim. Preposterous.

Simlarly Logain supposedly attacking Demandred who is also wielding Sakarnen - a sa'angreal that probably enhances his power a thousand fold, second only to the Choedan Kal in strength - and Logain is not instantly obliterated because of ingenuity and "grit", or whatever. In reality, it should be no contest. Instant disintegration at the atomic level.

Anyway, Sanderson brings more room for "willpower" and "character based ingenuity" to the Power, where in reality Jordan made it quite clear that if you are outmatched by a signficant margin in sheer power, there is no room for doubt. The rules are the rules and you are outmatched.

It simply fits with Sanderson's general style, but the fact is that he didn't understand the nature of the One Power even to the extent of us long time fans who debated it for years on the likes of Wotmania and Read and Find Out and would spot his mistakes a mile away. There was more, that I recall feeling repulsed at when reading it, but time has dimmed my memory and all I am left with is the vivid recollection of the feelings of disgust, rather than the memory of the actual examples that caused it.

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Just a reminder this is a non-spoiler thread.

I find it extraordinarily unlikely that what you claim is the case. Jordan had a substantial list ranking the relative Power levels of all the characters, including how they were bolstered by

angreal and sa'angreal, and Sanderson not only worked from this list but with the same assistants and editor who kept these levels all straight. There was considerable debate on some of the ways Sanderson employed the Power, but this was down to Jordan being unlikely to come up with such ideas due to his conservative approach to writing rather than it being impossible.

It might be interesting to raise this point with Sanderson to see how thoroughly they worked out which channellers could handle which other ones in the Last Battle.

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7 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

Some people will never be happy with the Sanderson stuff no matter what, and if you point out some of the stuff that made it into those was actually written by Jordan they just cover there ears and go la la la.

Yeah, none of that bothers me.  Primarily because I’m at least halfway convinced that were Rigney to be alive today, we still wouldn’t have a complete series.

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Not specifically spoilerish, but comments on the above spoiled conversation

All the talk about power levels and angreals and sa'angreals and who could take who in a fight makes my head spin and I don't care one single bit about it. I might if Jordan hadn't loaded the books with it instead of just mentioning it now and again when it was actually important to do so. And some people might say each mention is important, but I would disagree. I like that his magic has structure and 'science' behind it, but when it becomes about power scales and magnitudes of amplification I just hear midiclorians blah blah.

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