The Wheel of Time: The Wheel Weaves as Jeff Bezos Wills (Book Spoilers)

[Poobah]

8 minutes ago, Arakasi said:

Basically Rand is exceptional at everything and gets three beautiful women and basically wins every fight.

Even accepting this as true (which I don't think it is) I feel like by far the strongest narrative thread in Wheel of Time is "it really fucking sucks to be the chosen one" - all the shit Rand gets dragged through, his ongoing losing battle with the sheer weight of carrying the fate of the world on his shoulders and his declining mental health and PTSD (not to mention the magically induced madness from having to channel tainted Saidin), as he struggles onwards towards his prophesied death - that's a very strong core IMO.

(That said we're veering a bit off topic again, this is Entertainment not Literature)

[Arakasi]

Agreed that is the strongest part of his story and what makes me like him. But every time the story returns to the awful romances he is in (Min excepted) I hit fast forward. Jordan for how much he wrote about romances was pretty bad at writing them. Heck Jaime and Cersei are a more convincing couple than just about all of them.

[Slurktan]

11 minutes ago, Arakasi said:

Agreed that is the strongest part of his story and what makes me like him. But every time the story returns to the awful romances he is in (Min excepted) I hit fast forward. Jordan for how much he wrote about romances was pretty bad at writing them. Heck Jaime and Cersei are a more convincing couple than just about all of them.

I mean, that non Min Rand romance literally takes up 2 chapters in the last what... 8 books?

[Arakasi]

It dominates time when any of the girls together as they have to decide who gets rights to him and all. And then of course it jumps to the other wonderful romances. Lan and Nynaeve in the show feels better than the books so far.

[Trebla]

1 hour ago, Poobah said:

Even accepting this as true (which I don't think it is) I feel like by far the strongest narrative thread in Wheel of Time is "it really fucking sucks to be the chosen one" - all the shit Rand gets dragged through, his ongoing losing battle with the sheer weight of carrying the fate of the world on his shoulders and his declining mental health and PTSD (not to mention the magically induced madness from having to channel tainted Saidin), as he struggles onwards towards his prophesied death - that's a very strong core IMO.

(That said we're veering a bit off topic again, this is Entertainment not Literature)

Also agreed. As someone who deals with near constant pain daily and with PTSD, I can tell you that it must REALLY suck to be Rand al'Thor: A wound that never heals, that always hurts, and constantly bleeds. Yikes.

[Gertrude]

I just realized I was expecting something in the last episode that didn't happen. Min saw a golden ring for one of the girls. Of course that could mean the serpent rings, but I expect that it means Lan's ring. When he launched into the speech he gives Nyneave, I was expecting the ring to come out, but now that I'm thinking of it, that happens maybe in Tear?

[Ran]

2 minutes ago, Gertrude said:

I just realized I was expecting something in the last episode that didn't happen. Min saw a golden ring for one of the girls. Of course that could mean the serpent rings, but I expect that it means Lan's ring. When he launched into the speech he gives Nyneave, I was expecting the ring to come out, but now that I'm thinking of it, that happens maybe in Tear?

He gives it to her in TGH.

[karaddin]

1 hour ago, Trebla said:

Also agreed. As someone who deals with near constant pain daily and with PTSD, I can tell you that it must REALLY suck to be Rand al'Thor: A wound that never heals, that always hurts, and constantly bleeds. Yikes.

I hope our boy is taking some iron supplements or something because no amount of steak is staving off anaemia. No wonder he's always exhausted. He doesn't even have a bad pain management treatment either, his doctor probably told him to lose weight and try mindfulness. Explains being cranky too!

[IlyaP]

40 minutes ago, karaddin said:

I hope our boy is taking some iron supplements or something because no amount of steak is staving off anaemia. No wonder he's always exhausted. He doesn't even have a bad pain management treatment either, his doctor probably told him to lose weight and try mindfulness. Explains being cranky too!

And hopefully that friend of his, Matt Cauthon, learns to wear something other than bathrobes when going outside!

[Lord Varys]

2 hours ago, Poobah said:

Even accepting this as true (which I don't think it is) I feel like by far the strongest narrative thread in Wheel of Time is "it really fucking sucks to be the chosen one" - all the shit Rand gets dragged through, his ongoing losing battle with the sheer weight of carrying the fate of the world on his shoulders and his declining mental health and PTSD (not to mention the magically induced madness from having to channel tainted Saidin), as he struggles onwards towards his prophesied death - that's a very strong core IMO.

(That said we're veering a bit off topic again, this is Entertainment not Literature)

I guess this could be true for the later volumes - in books 1-4 this is most definitely not the case. You cannot even say that Rand is pressured by a lot of expectations and stuff, considering how little actual interactions he was with people. TGH has him walking around with a bunch of people, TDR has him walking around all by himself, and TSR also has him make mostly solitary decisions, etc.

It certainly sucks to be the guy who is supposed to save the world ... but the world is about to end and everybody has to fight, so Rand isn't necessarily in a much worse position than the other people. He has at least the prophetic 'guarantee' to live until the Last Battle ... while other people might be butchered long before that. It is no option to not fight against the Shadow since that means death for himself as well as all the others. And he will go mad no matter what he does, too.

But those are certainly things the show should play up and depict, possibly coming up with better ways to do it that Jordan.

[Arakasi]

There is a lot of good stuff in Rands character development. I think this is where Jordans background either the Vietnam war comes into play. Helps him tune into that PTSD. I think it also helps his character interactions for the one type of relationship he was good at writing. That being the mentor or veteran where they share or teach what they know. Rands relationships with Lan, Rhuarc and Davram are all highlights of character interaction in the series for me.

[Gertrude]

That is one thing I am missing in the show -the relationship between Rand and Lan. I was hoping for it in S2, but it doesn't look like they will be spending much time together if any.

[Scott_N]

7 hours ago, Arakasi said:

Yes Rand was the chosen one from the beginning. Even in book one Gareth goes on about how the sword fits him. Basically Rand is exceptional at everything and gets three beautiful women and basically wins every fight.

At book four the other two have been fairly limited although by end of book three they did start to develop. Eventually Mat becomes greatest general ever and can beat about anyone in a fight too. Also is the luckiest person to live. Perrin basically becomes god of fighting and Telanrhiod to the point of where he can stop balefire as a non channeller. All three of course are irresistible to women and each have multiple storylines of the most beautiful women stalking/pursuing them. I tend to skip over those parts to just get to the next big set action piece.

Mmm. Maybe the showrunners are onto something when trying to distribute the great deeds more evenly across the cast, after all. I would not want to watch some sort of Mary Sue* fantasy-fantasy.

* or whatever the male equivalent is.

[IlyaP]

1 hour ago, Scott_N said:

Mmm. Maybe the showrunners are onto something when trying to distribute the great deeds more evenly across the cast, after all. I would not want to watch some sort of Mary Sue* fantasy-fantasy.

* or whatever the male equivalent is.

Gary Stu. 

[Ran]

That "blocking Balefire" thing is from the Sanderson books, and almost certainly not something that Jordan would have written. 

Nyn and Egwene do lots of awesome stuff as well, so the idea that things need to be "spread out" is an artifact of trying to turn the novel that is pretty explicitly almost entirely about one character into an ensemble piece. They all get their moments to shine in the course of the books.

[UnplayableChar]

4 hours ago, Gertrude said:

That is one thing I am missing in the show -the relationship between Rand and Lan. I was hoping for it in S2, but it doesn't look like they will be spending much time together if any.

It's an underrated aspect of his development. The coolest guy he ever met told him to bottle up his emotions, do his duty and shut up, basically sending him on his way to becoming a psycho.

[Arakasi]

Don’t terribly agree on that either in comparison. Nearly all of Nyneaves stuff are in healing, typically a woman’s role. Egwene spends the early books being rescued by the boys and then later becomes Amyrlin and does some stuff in the tower and then goes out in the last battle. Compared to what each of the boys get it’s a pittance.
 

Of course Jordan explains that with T’avern where he can just use that as justification for why those 3 are so awesome. I actually think both the Emonds field Aes Sedai have good character growth in the series and both have some nice standout moments, it’s just the boys get so Stu’d that it’s silly.

[UnplayableChar]

7 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I guess this could be true for the later volumes - in books 1-4 this is most definitely not the case. You cannot even say that Rand is pressured by a lot of expectations and stuff, considering how little actual interactions he was with people. TGH has him walking around with a bunch of people, TDR has him walking around all by himself, and TSR also has him make mostly solitary decisions, etc.

It certainly sucks to be the guy who is supposed to save the world ... but the world is about to end and everybody has to fight, so Rand isn't necessarily in a much worse position than the other people. He has at least the prophetic 'guarantee' to live until the Last Battle ... while other people might be butchered long before that. It is no option to not fight against the Shadow since that means death for himself as well as all the others. And he will go mad no matter what he does, too.

But those are certainly things the show should play up and depict, possibly coming up with better ways to do it that Jordan.

I disagree. By book 2 it basically broke nearly all of his personal relationships.