Lord Varys and the Wheel of Time (second attempt) #2

[Gertrude]

Quote

 

 the author is very well aware of that BS window dressing but he does it anyway which makes the work a snake oil business

 

Where is OsRavan when you need him?

[Lord Varys]

7 hours ago, Inkdaub said:

The above is exactly the point and the entire reason this thread, and many of the OP's posts, is offensive. No one cares if he or anyone else likes WoT. No one cares why and no one cares if he wants to start a thread about it. There are plenty of people who don't like WoT. 

 

The whole objectivity angle is a huge personal irritant but I shouldn't have mentioned it. I'll just add that subjectivity gets a bad rap and objectivity is far more rare than most of us will acknowledge.  

Every legitimately intelligent person I have ever known had at least one thing in common. None of them felt the need to constantly explain to others how intelligent they were. Not a single one.

LOL, sorry, I don't explain to anyone how intelligent I am. If you understand it that way, it is your problem. I express my bewilderment about the fact that people actually do like this stuff - which is perfectly normal if you discuss something you cannot really connect with I find deeply flawed on many levels.

This has nothing to do with 'intelligence'.

I never insulted anyone who likes WoT ... but you have to deal with the fact that I find it weird and strange that people actually do like those books (or rather: form an emotional connection with them - in the sense that I'm going through them and like to write about them, I obviously like them, too) as grown-ups when they might realize the obvious flaws in that

By the way - the only guy who is constantly 'gatekeeping' in this thread is our fellow poster fionwe1987. He is the one who more than one time basically told me to shut up and read the entire series before offering my opinion on anything because I'm not part of the elected few who have suffered through the entire series and I'm not sufficiently humbled by the great skills of the late Robert Jordan.

This is especially dishonest and repugnant behavior since I never even pretended to discuss this topic as 'a fan' or somebody who limits his judgment until he has read the entire series. So criticizing me for not knowing stuff the way 'a real fan'/'complete reader' might (if they have a good memory) or for reading up on certain plots in wiki articles is actually very bad form.

6 hours ago, sologdin said:

 good trash has simple, trashy characters (or rather: stereotypes) but they are not internally contradictory like those in WoT.

de gustibus aside, can't internal inconsistency be a marker of something real, something complex? consider for example how faust had two souls warring in his breast, or how hamlet's indecision is the result of contrary impulses. svejk comes across as a malingerer, but simultaneously as a moron. the literature of affairs is full of participants who have principles but act against them with regret; the protagonists in tolstoy, kundera, greene, wharton, flaubert, chopin each demonstrate that akrasia is always an inconsistency.  

I actually didn't start the meta-discussion about trash - I don't have issues with it because I actually do acknowledge the existence of trash and like various things I'd consider trash.

That said - I've no issue if we do away with that category. Even more so in this thread ;-).

I don't have problems with characters who don't know what they want ... or want different things at the same time.

The kind of internal inconsistency I'm (mostly) talking about here has to do with what I'd call the author's incompetence, not the fact that he creates characters who don't know what they want.

For instance, take most of the 'choices' the characters make early in TSR I complained about - Mat (and Rand) not caring enough about his family to go back home, Thom being forced by Moiraine to accomany Elayne, Nynaeve not wanting Lan to accompany her. All those 'decisions/outcomes' back sufficient motivators.

These characters aren't in a meaningful way conflicted, they just act like cold-hearted morons, basically. It goes to the point that nobody seems to realize that Perrin doesn't actually go to the Two Rivers to save everywhere - he doesn't have the means, after all - but rather to give himself up and allow the Whitecloaks to kill him.

6 hours ago, sologdin said:

am doubting that anything noted here is 'objective'--these are simply the metrics adopted by certain concepts from heuristic formalist analysis taught in introductory literature courses. there's nothing wrong with them, and many find them useful for literary assessment--but they are criteria subject to debate, and ticking them off a checklist need not be rationally related to a finding of quality by any particular reader. pyrrhonian skepticism identified this as the problem of the criterion--what is the warrant for how truth is to be measured? consider:

sextus empiricus, outlines of pyrrhonism, I.14. the thesis is thus that subjective determinations are made in the selection of a criterion and in the application of it. as wilfred sellars argued otherwise, any allegedly objective description of reality will rest upon a subjective normative decision--someone has to decide that the evidence is 'good enough' to support a conclusion.  all science is implicated in this form of judgment, a fortiori all art.  that's fine. people like ayers by contrast thought that statements about taste had no truth value at all and were meaningless--popper for all his disagreement thought that statements about taste simply aren't falsifiable.

Very basic concepts in 'what is a text' or 'what is a (working story' are effectively objective. If I gave you a book which didn't contain one actual word/sentence but looked like this: 'sgthvkb, fhgk kglrb fkghr?' then we would all agree that this is most likely neither a text nor a story.

It is most likely also broad consensus that folks would say the less obvious plotholes and retcons and the like a story has, the better it is on that level. Or does anybody actually have the opinion that the less narrative cohesion a literary work has the better it is?

In that sense I'd say that WoT would be much better if Rand's actions at the end of TEotW had actually not be retconned out of existence in the beginning of the next book - or if Padan Fain talking about Mordeth and behaving like Mordeth would have actually caused the people observing this - who happened to know who and what Mordeth was - to be greatly concerned.

A work where characters who are not supposed to be stupid blatantly ignore it when the author gives them information that should deeply concern them is, on that level, objectively flawed.

How important that is in assessing the general quality of a work of art is another matter entirely. But you cannot honestly insist that this isn't an 'objective' issue.

I would actually say that this kind of assessment is independent from taste. Seeing inconsistency in a work is independent from the question whether I actually do like the genre/work/art piece we are assessing.

[Lord Varys]

To continue on a more positive note:

I got through Rand's entire Rhuidean flashback scenes ... and, well, that was actually pretty good. I liked that part.

It is still a little bit far-fetched to assume that folks would rip out their eyes and whatnot just because their own cultural fictions about where they come from are wrong. Newsflash, moron: There was a Breaking and an Age of Legends before that. You know you didn't always live in that wasteland ... and common sense should have told you that back when you weren't living in the desert but in Earthly Paradise you wouldn't have had the kind of society you have these days.

Mat's trip to the other weirdo transdimensional plot devices was more cringy. How stupid can a character be? Seriously? They looked differently, they talked differently ... so perhaps whatever deal you make with them doesn't involve giving answers to questions?

And then he is brought back to life again and has a bunch of things - one of which actually has the likeness of the plot devices - and he still acts like an eight-year-old and says 'They only gave me shit but I'll keep it anyway!'

What is this?

Also, in reaction to the idea that we are to view the Aes Sedai as 'a flawed organization of women whose behavior is part of their general decadence':

Are the Aiel Wise Women supposed to be as decadent/flawed as the Aes Sedai? Because they treat Egwene pretty much in the same fashion, forcing her to mindlessly repeat everything she tells them. And if she were to fail at that she would be subjected to the same kind of stupid servitude the novices/Accepted have to go through most of the time.

Also - the manner in which the Wise Women are depicted isn't in any way different from the way the Aes Sedai are depicted. For instance, in the way they force Aviendha to go to Rhuidean.

Even the old Aes Sedai from the flashbacks don't appear to *much different* from those in the present day. The same goes for marriage practices/the relationship between the sexes.

Also, if you only have to apologize to a guy when you treated him like shit if he is some esteemed Aes Sedai servant ... then Earthly Paradise definitely sucks. And that was a scene from before the Bore, so everything should have been 'very fine'.

Quick question:

Is there any (good) explanation why the Aiel and other peoples didn't seem to produce (m)any male Dreamers? It is established that you don't have to be able to channel to be a Dreamer, so there should be technically both male and female Dreamers, especially among the Aiel.

[sologdin]

For instance, take most of the 'choices' the characters make early in TSR I complained about - Mat (and Rand) not caring enough about his family to go back home, Thom being forced by Moiraine to accompany Elayne, Nynaeve not wanting Lan to accompany her. All those 'decisions/outcomes' back sufficient motivators.

why does it need to be an authorial defect rather than an illustration of the character?

 

Very basic concepts in 'what is a text' or 'what is a working story' are effectively objective. If I gave you a book which didn't contain one actual word/sentence but looked like this: 'sgthvkb, fhgk kglrb fkghr?' then we would all agree that this is most likely neither a text nor a story.

we could have a debate on precisely these questions. to take the interrogative sentence you've quoted, i can't say whether it has narrative content or not because i don't know what language that is. it certainly is a text to the extent it is the object of our analysis.

It is most likely also broad consensus that folks would say the less obvious plotholes and retcons and the like a story has, the better it is on that level. Or does anybody actually have the opinion that the less narrative cohesion a literary work has the better it is?

why should we care about an argumentum ad populum? the identification of plotholes and retcons are matters of debate; there relationship to quality is normative; that may have some criteria involved in the judgment, but whether something is better or worse seems to stray very far from what is normally meant by objective.  we might identify any number of novels that lack narrative cohesion but are still well liked.  tristram shandy, james joyce, to the lighthouse, most of pynchon. it's a matter of taste, though, liking something or not, right? your paragraph that follows, regarding the end of the first volume, very plainly sets up an interpretation as a self-evident axiom (retcon? maybe.) and then uses that interpretation as a basis for a qualitative judgment. that's all fine--but it's not objective or apodictic.

A work where characters who are not supposed to be stupid blatantly ignore it when the author gives them information that should deeply concern them is, on that level, objectively flawed.

perhaps there's a charitable interpretation that preserves their non-stupidity but permits them to ignore whatever the information happens to be? these might include: momentary lapse of judgment, triage principles applied in a crisis, immaturity, akrasia, failure of attention, defect of memory, miscomprehension, ulterior motive, simulation, and so on. one must select an uncharitable interpretation first, which is by no means objective or necessary, and then use that as the basis of a qualitative judgment--still a matter of normative evaluation. again, that's all fine--but it's hardly necessary.

you cannot honestly insist that this isn't an 'objective' issue.

i totally can.

[Lord Varys]

1 hour ago, sologdin said:

why does it need to be an authorial defect rather than an illustration of the character?

Because then basically every character is equally stupid ... which then reflects badly on the author in a different since not all characters in a given story should suffer from the same problems.

And this is not a matter of interpretation. Interpretation requires vagueness, (intentional) uncertainty. In Jordan's work it is a recurring pattern that characters do not realize that they have just been given crucial information that should cause them to behave in a certain manner. It is pretty clear that those things are clues the reader should pick up on - e.g. the introduction of Lanfear as Selene and countless other examples like that.

You also have blatant discrepancy between what the author says he tries to depict with the so-called 'game of houses' - subtle and smart political scheming - and what he actually portrays.

In no possible definition/usage of the term 'subtle political plotting' equals 'sending messages to a youth who clearly is a shepherd's son with the bearing and behavior a shepherd's son to the public inn said youth is staying'.

We also are under no obligation to become the author's apologists, taking the view that just because something got published means the person writing it knew what they were doing and that something that looks like an error or a plot hole or something that doesn't make sense could still have 'a hidden or deeping meaning' we just have to discover.

1 hour ago, sologdin said:

we could have a debate on precisely these questions. to take the interrogative sentence you've quoted, i can't say whether it has narrative content or not because i don't know what language that is. it certainly is a text to the extent it is the object of our analysis.

Well, it is obviously no language, so it is neither a text nor a story.

1 hour ago, sologdin said:

why should we care about an argumentum ad populum? the identification of plotholes and retcons are matters of debate; there relationship to quality is normative; that may have some criteria involved in the judgment, but whether something is better or worse seems to stray very far from what is normally meant by objective.  we might identify any number of novels that lack narrative cohesion but are still well liked.  tristram shandy, james joyce, to the lighthouse, most of pynchon. it's a matter of taste, though, liking something or not, right? your paragraph that follows, regarding the end of the first volume, very plainly sets up an interpretation as a self-evident axiom (retcon? maybe.) and then uses that interpretation as a basis for a qualitative judgment. that's all fine--but it's not objective or apodictic.

We are not discussing the ontology of literature here ... we discuss genre fiction, so do have enough of an 'objective' or 'intersubjective' consensus as to what a fantasy book series is. It is conventional, plot-driven literature where things like narrative cohension, consistency of the fictional world, character development and reaction to plot developments are crucial features of the genre in question. If they are lacking in this regard then we can objectively determine that.

Our judgment whether that's relevant or not might differ ... but the idea we could be mistaken about what a plot hole or a retcon or the stupid action of a character is in context is something I cannot agree with.

If that were the case we would be unable to discuss literature in general ... much less concepts and things we haven't read about in the same books. It is actually much easier to discuss the minutiae of novels and stories than 'real things' since we are on common ground there. All the facts are known to both parties and the only authorities in question are published books which are identical insofar as content is concerned. We don't have to look anywhere else to discuss the aspects of literature I'm concerned with here.

Confusion may creep in when we start talking 'the meaning' of literature or art in a broader social-cultural contexts ... but as long as we just discuss what happens in what manner within the narrative framework of the story we should both be very sure that we are talking about the same thing in the same manner.

1 hour ago, sologdin said:

perhaps there's a charitable interpretation that preserves their non-stupidity but permits them to ignore whatever the information happens to be? these might include: momentary lapse of judgment, triage principles applied in a crisis, immaturity, akrasia, failure of attention, defect of memory, miscomprehension, ulterior motive, simulation, and so on. one must select an uncharitable interpretation first, which is by no means objective or necessary, and then use that as the basis of a qualitative judgment--still a matter of normative evaluation. again, that's all fine--but it's hardly necessary.

There you are treating fictional characters like real people. Real people can have all what you suggest there ... fictional characters only if the author makes it so. He or she has to directly or indirectly suggest that any of the above might be the case. We cannot read something and try to explain away something with 'Well, perhaps the character has early-onset Alzheimer's and that explains why he forgot to ask that question' when nothing indicates that this might be the case.

We are not entitled to put things into a fictional setting which aren't there, especially not in relation to important plot details. Especially not when we discuss literature with other people. Your 'head canon' - how you view a certain setting or character - is completely irrelevant when we discuss words on a page.

Good authors know when plot, setting, and character would suggest that a character react in a certain manner - ask a particular question, do a particular deed, etc. ... and then they come up with a convincing way to explain as to why this didn't happen. The characters can be interrupted, they can deceive themseves, they can be distracted to the point that they forget the issue at hand, too much time can pass between the event triggering a certain question and the opportunity to ask it, etc.

But Jordan never uses any of that.

We can compare George R. R. Martin here to Robert Jordan. Let's take Penny talking about the guy who hired her and Groat to perform at Joff's wedding. She didn't get the name right exactly, but we, the readers, knowing that the Kettleblack's dad works for Littlefinger connected the dots and realized that he was sent across the Narrow Sea to hire them. Tyrion could have picked up on that if he had had reason to connected the 'Os- name' to the Kettleblack brothers ... but he had no reason to do so, having no suspicions that Littlefinger was involved in any way in Joff's murder nor that the Kettleblack brothers are in any way connected to Littlefinger.

This is a great clue given for the reader's sake which even a highly intelligent in-universe character can - or perhaps even should - miss.

George also gives people clues via contradictions in narrative they could only reasonably use to connect crucial dots if they had a photographic memory (e.g. the various clues that Lysa had motive and opportunity to murder Jon Arryn Cat is given in AGoT).

Jordan, on the other hand, has a character behave and reference an abominable, unnatural monstrosity which could potentially destroy the entire world in the presence of some characters who knew all that, experienced said monstrosity firsthand, yet failed to connect any dots.

That is, objectively, much worse writing in 'the subtle clues' department than George used.

Which is why I'd most definitely say that George is a much better writer than Jordan was.

And that is just one example - if we consider the situation and dangers these characters find themselves - being chased by evil people of tremendous power they know are out and about - they would grew very suspicious meeting the Selene woman, especially considering her weirdo overall behavior. Somebody like Mat overhearing 'Lord Gaebril' being addressed as 'Great Master' and him eventually knowing that two other Forsaken - Be'lal and Sammael - rose to power in two other nations by means of influencing those in charge should at least consider the possibility that a similar thing happened in Caemlyn. But none of the characters in the story consider that possibility after they received Mat's report from his time with Morgase.

Basically, this is the same territory as the good guys in Star Wars forgetting that Darth Vader has weirdo magical powers and is evil or Merry and Pippin forgetting that Saruman is evil after they learned about that in the wake of the Council of Elrond.

[Gertrude]

9 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I got through Rand's entire Rhuidean flashback scenes ... and, well, that was actually pretty good. I liked that part.

It is still a little bit far-fetched to assume that folks would rip out their eyes and whatnot just because their own cultural fictions about where they come from are wrong.

Rhuidean was the first really powerful moment in the books for me. It's still my favorite moment in the books bar none. It's stuff like this that kept me interested through the bad times.

But you're right, I can't deny the eye gouging was ... a tad melodramatic? Yeah, I can see it would be traumatic to have your world and identity turned upside down, but let's cool it with the self-mutilation, ok? It's stuff like that that I glossed over in favor of enjoying the good moments.

[IFR]

@sologdin

 I see you've wisely turned from the debate.

I'm reminded of Portal 2 when GLaDOS tried to defeat Wheatley with a paradox, but its effects were nullified because he didn't get it.

At any rate, no force can conquer the inexhaustible series of word salad which you face otherwise.

[fionwe1987]

9 hours ago, Gertrude said:

Rhuidean was the first really powerful moment in the books for me. It's still my favorite moment in the books bar none. It's stuff like this that kept me interested through the bad times.

But you're right, I can't deny the eye gouging was ... a tad melodramatic? Yeah, I can see it would be traumatic to have your world and identity turned upside down, but let's cool it with the self-mutilation, ok? It's stuff like that that I glossed over in favor of enjoying the good moments.

You're aware the eye-gouging isn't about the world being turned upside down, but the repeated experiences of pain and death of various ancestors, right? Rand and Muradin are actually in their heads as they experience their family getting killed, or die themselves, and depending on the kind of pain and death their ancestors experience, I can totally see someone clawing their eyes out.

@Lord Varys, it isn't gatekeeping to ask you to actually read stuff before you critique.

Otherwise, all you're doing is claiming that there's an order in which you'd like information to be presented in the books, and claiming that not following that order is somehow an objective flaw of the series. 

[sologdin]

IFR--

we'll see.  am enjoying LV's colloquy.

 

Because then basically every character is equally stupid ... which then reflects badly on the author in a different since not all characters in a given story should suffer from the same problems.

but texts rest on a balance of irony and mystery, no? it's a difficult balance to get right--does austen balance it appropriately in emma? it's a matter of debate whether readerly appreciation of the churchill/fairfax mystery is definitionally diminished by dramatic irony of woodhouse's error that is obvious in a second reading, but perhaps not so much on a first. i'm not sure that we are consigned therefore to interpret a readerly superiority to characters in terms of plot knowledge to be an authorial defect, but rather a site for ironic development. i suspect it is likewise a matter of interpretation that the characters suffer from the same problem.

Interpretation requires vagueness, (intentional) uncertainty. In Jordan's work it is a recurring pattern that characters do not realize that they have just been given crucial information that should cause them to behave in a certain manner. 

does it require vagueness, though? we can likely find plausible alternate interpretations for anything. i understand what you mean--layers of abstraction tend to authorize wildly different readings. but there's a lively debate on plainly written concrete texts, such as hemingway or carlos williams, say.

We also are under no obligation to become the author's apologists, taking the view that just because something got published means the person writing it knew what they were doing and that something that looks like an error or a plot hole or something that doesn't make sense could still have 'a hidden or deeper meaning' we just have to discover.

agreed, no obligation. but we might recognize two lines of interpretation--charitable and uncharitable.  the former assumes that the text makes sense and works to produce that sense, whereas the latter assumes that a perceived nonsense is the author's drafting error rather than the reader's interpretive incompletion.

obviously no language

is it obvious though? perhaps to some, but not to others--an interpretation that works as an etymological decision, a 'cutting off' of the question while opening new ones.

not discussing the ontology of literature here

isn't that always the discussion?

an 'objective' or 'intersubjective' consensus as to what a fantasy book series

there's certainly a consensus on certain conventions and definitions, sure. we see disagreement, though, on those questions. we also see debate on how the concepts are applied. i'm not sure how the assessments go forward as the heuristic formalist items noted (plot, character, setting) except subjectively.  someone has to do the interpretive work, after all.  none of it is given. we might be able to 'objectively' determine how many words a text has; beyond that, am not thinking objectivity is a useful analytic.

the idea we could be mistaken about what a plot hole or a retcon or the stupid action of a character is in context is something I cannot agree with

it's not obvious why. one person argues that volume 2 of the series features a retroactive continuity amendment for the ending of volume 1, whereas another person argues that it's a matter of perspective discipline requiring differential descriptions and yet a third argues that it is merely the accumulation of additional detail not disclosed previously.  the best part here is no one need be mistaken about this.  we can have different readings and that's perfectly okay.

Confusion may creep in when we start talking 'the meaning' of literature

am not following the theoretical assumption here. there's no confusion just because people disagree.  everyone can be perfectly reasonable and lucid.  there's no one single interpretation, after all. the 'meaning' is always the issue, no matter what assumptions we have.

as long as we just discuss what happens in what manner within the narrative framework of the story we should both be very sure that we are talking about the same thing in the same manner.

the limit for me is that we can be certain we have the same edition. i don't need to be discussing the doctor faustus A text but you've got the B text--that's a disaster--beyond that, i suspect everyone brings interpretive assumptions that need not reconcile across the board.

 treating fictional characters like real people.

that's a virtue, surely.

Real people can have all what you suggest there ... fictional characters only if the author makes it so

why the author focus?

He or she has to directly or indirectly suggest that any of the above might be the case. 

is it insufficient that someone smart does a stupid thing to place the reader on notice that there's something else going?

We are not entitled to put things into a fictional setting which aren't there, especially not in relation to important plot details

is it a matter of rights and entitlements? am fairly sure however that every interpretive act interpolates things that 'aren't there,' assuming arguendo that this theory of reading is plausible (i don't think it is--texts aren't containers).

Your 'head canon' - how you view a certain setting or character - is completely irrelevant when we discuss words on a page.

wouldn't what is in someone's head be precisely the most relevant thing to their interpretation?  i understand the american formalist principle that 'the text itself' is what matters--but in practice this is an impossible principle.  (incidentally, isn't headcanon one of the worst critical terms since mary sue and the adapted usage of trope?)

i can't keep up with your specific book references--it's been 20 years since i read these.  it's cool that you're not impressed with jordan's texts.  i have certain nostalgia for them, but definitely get the notion of reading a series and then writing negatively about it--i did that to ayn rand and it was one of the most fun projects i've had.

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

22 hours ago, Gertrude said:

Where is OsRavan when you need him?

He’s hunting for “lying liars who lie!”

[Gertrude]

1 hour ago, fionwe1987 said:

You're aware the eye-gouging isn't about the world being turned upside down, but the repeated experiences of pain and death of various ancestors, right?

I guess not? Is that something explicitly spelled out that I missed or a comment from Jordan? What points to this in the text, because as far as I remember everyone just talks about those without a strong will not returning and specifically clawing out your eyes seems to me to be linked with not liking what you are seeing, not what you are feeling.

Basically, is this a failure of my understanding of the text or a failure of execution? I honestly don't know.

[fionwe1987]

26 minutes ago, Gertrude said:

I guess not? Is that something explicitly spelled out that I missed or a comment from Jordan? What points to this in the text, because as far as I remember everyone just talks about those without a strong will not returning and specifically clawing out your eyes seems to me to be linked with not liking what you are seeing, not what you are feeling.

Basically, is this a failure of my understanding of the text or a failure of execution? I honestly don't know.

Well, Rand says he can feel the pain in his chest as Jonai dies of a heart attack:

Quote

“I cannot help you,” Jonai said sadly. He felt a tightness in his chest. The land changed beyond knowing, changing still so the plain traveled last year might be mountains this. The Blighted Lands growing. Myrddraal and Trollocs still alive. People stealing, people with faces like animals, people who did not recognize Da’shain or know them. He could barely breathe. The Ogier, lost. The Aiel, lost. Everything lost. The tightness broke in pain, and he sank to his knees, doubled over, clutching his chest. A fist held his heart, squeezing.

...

Jonai managed to sieze his son’s frayed collar and pull his face close. “Take—the people—south.” He had to force the words out between spasms that seemed to be ripping his heart out. “Father, you are the one who—” “Listen. Listen! Take them—south. Take—the Aiel—to safety. Keep—the Covenant. Guard—what the Aes Sedai—gave us—until they—come for it. The Way—of the Leaf. You must—” He had tried. Solinda Sedai must understand that. He had tried. Alnora.

...

Alnora. The name faded, the pain in Rand’s chest loosened. No sense. It made no sense. How could these people be Aiel? The columns flashed in blinding pulses. The air stirred, swirling. Beside him, Muradin’s mouth stretched wide in an effort to scream. The Aiel clawed at his veil, clawed at his face, leaving deep bloody scratches.

And Rand explains what happens:

Quote

He rode behind a set of eyes, feeling but not controlling a body. The owner of those eyes crouched easily among boulders on a barren mountain-side, beneath a sun-blasted sky, peering down at strange half-made stone structures— No! Less than half-made. That’s Rhuidean, but without any fog, and only just begun —peering down contemptuously. He was Mandein, young for a sept chief at forty. Separateness faded; acceptance came. He was Mandein.

You become that person, experience what they experience. At least, Rand does. I wonder if that acceptance is different for everyone, but for certain, you aren't hearing stories about your ancestors, you're experiencing key moments in their lives, including their deaths, if that is what the columns show you. 

[Lord Varys]

The implication very much is that what destroys the weaker Aiel is that they cannot cope with the revelation about their true origins ... the fact that it is also physically intense and hard to get through might play a minor role but it is not the crucial thing.

Any Aiel should have more stamina than a soft Wetlander like Rand, never mind his super specialness.

Rand is as affected as the other guy by the physical stress ... but he is aloof/doesn't really care about who and what the Aiel once were so that revelation doesn't emotionally/mentally unhinge him. Unlike, apparently, most of the Aiel who go through this.

[fionwe1987]

17 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

The implication very much is that what destroys the weaker Aiel is that they cannot cope with the revelation about their true origins ... the fact that it is also physically intense and hard to get through might play a minor role but it is not the crucial thing.

Any Aiel should have more stamina than a soft Wetlander like Rand, never mind his super specialness.

Rand is as affected as the other guy by the physical stress ... but he is aloof/doesn't really care about who and what the Aiel once were so that revelation doesn't emotionally/mentally unhinge him. Unlike, apparently, most of the Aiel who go through this.

Well, all this is shitty interpretation not in the text. You're welcome to it, but this is far from an "objective" issue with the story. 

[Gertrude]

@fionwe1987 I remembered that they felt it and became these people. I don't think the text indicates that is what is causing the eye gouging. Essentially, I agree with Lord Varys.

[fionwe1987]

How would the text indicate this? Shift to Muradin's perspective? Have Rand speculate in the midst of his own experience? Have someone state it outright in an infodump?

I haven't taken any advance literary critique courses, so maybe someone who has can help me: is everything supposed to be plainly stated outright in literature? Or can you seed clues and let the reader make the inference? If the former, I'd say my personal preference very much runs in directly the opposite direction, so maybe that's the disconnect here.

[Gertrude]

That's why I asked if I missed anything that more clearly indicates what is causing the eye-gouging. I think the reader is supposed to make inferences, and we just came to different conclusions.

[sologdin]

i recall the eye gouging scene fairly plainly from when the book came out.  it seemed to me at the time that the scenes the gouger witnesses are so antithetical to his self-image as a desert warrior and to his desert warrior philosophy that had already unfolded in the setting that self-injurious behavior was his answer. it didn't come across as implausible to me then, not in a setting that features sorcerer bene gesserits, magic swords, teleportation, monsters, parallel worlds, prophecy, oneiric realism, and so on. the act summons the oedipus myth, so there's ancient authority for the proposition that self-blinding is a response to dreadfully bad news that implicates one's identity. i have no idea how i'd respond to it now; i don't think a negative response is any less plausible than my juvenile reaction, though.

[Fragile Bird]

I’ve been reading these threads with fascination, and I have to say my sympathies are with Lord Varys. A couple of years ago I decided I really had to make an effort to read the books. I think I got through 4 of them until I got so fed-up I stopped. I think I just found the portrayal of women seriously flawed. The books felt like they reflected the 50s or 60s, not the 80s (first book came out January, 1990). Ie dated.

I feel the same way about The Dragonbone Chair, which I know is deeply loved by many people on the board. I may have to try reading that again as well. The problem is, life is short and there are so many other interesting books out there.

[Lord Varys]

On 12/22/2021 at 4:40 PM, sologdin said:

but texts rest on a balance of irony and mystery, no? it's a difficult balance to get right--does austen balance it appropriately in emma? it's a matter of debate whether readerly appreciation of the churchill/fairfax mystery is definitionally diminished by dramatic irony of woodhouse's error that is obvious in a second reading, but perhaps not so much on a first. i'm not sure that we are consigned therefore to interpret a readerly superiority to characters in terms of plot knowledge to be an authorial defect, but rather a site for ironic development. i suspect it is likewise a matter of interpretation that the characters suffer from the same problem.

Sorry, never read anything from Jane Austen and I most likely never will ;-).

On 12/22/2021 at 4:40 PM, sologdin said:

does it require vagueness, though? we can likely find plausible alternate interpretations for anything. i understand what you mean--layers of abstraction tend to authorize wildly different readings. but there's a lively debate on plainly written concrete texts, such as hemingway or carlos williams, say.

If something is intentionally vague then it requires interpretation ... if it is pretty clear then you can interpret it anyway all day long but it is not really necessary. Neither an author nor a text can tell you what to do with it, after all.

I'd say that interpreting what actually happened on a page in genre fiction is rarely necessary. And if it is done it is most often something people can do in their spare spare time, i.e. when they *really* have nothing better to do.

On 12/22/2021 at 4:40 PM, sologdin said:

agreed, no obligation. but we might recognize two lines of interpretation--charitable and uncharitable.  the former assumes that the text makes sense and works to produce that sense, whereas the latter assumes that a perceived nonsense is the author's drafting error rather than the reader's interpretive incompletion.

Well, then make it concrete. Interpret away and tell me where my interpretation of some things in Jordan's works are 'incomplete'. That this is theoretically possible is irrelevant (to me, at least) as long as nobody does it.

If you give me an honest take - or something I think is might be intended to be an honest take - then, perhaps, I will be convinced that it makes sense that this or that plot hole/retcon wasn't a mistake.

On 12/22/2021 at 4:40 PM, sologdin said:

is it obvious though? perhaps to some, but not to others--an interpretation that works as an etymological decision, a 'cutting off' of the question while opening new ones.

You can, in this case, just ask me ;-).

On 12/22/2021 at 4:40 PM, sologdin said:

isn't that always the discussion?

I don't think, especially not when we discuss concrete literature.

On 12/22/2021 at 4:40 PM, sologdin said:

there's certainly a consensus on certain conventions and definitions, sure. we see disagreement, though, on those questions. we also see debate on how the concepts are applied. i'm not sure how the assessments go forward as the heuristic formalist items noted (plot, character, setting) except subjectively.  someone has to do the interpretive work, after all.  none of it is given. we might be able to 'objectively' determine how many words a text has; beyond that, am not thinking objectivity is a useful analytic.

Again, make it concrete. If you find examples where I think my heuristics are way off and I should adjust them I will do that. But for that I need input like a good little algorithm ;-).

On 12/22/2021 at 4:40 PM, sologdin said:

it's not obvious why. one person argues that volume 2 of the series features a retroactive continuity amendment for the ending of volume 1, whereas another person argues that it's a matter of perspective discipline requiring differential descriptions and yet a third argues that it is merely the accumulation of additional detail not disclosed previously.  the best part here is no one need be mistaken about this.  we can have different readings and that's perfectly okay.

I'd say all persons there are mistaken since the incident in question isn't *exactly retconned* in the sense that it is reinterpreted to be/mean something different ... but rather the entire incident is ignored and never mentioned again when it obviously was a plot point that would have had tremendous repercussions.

On 12/22/2021 at 4:40 PM, sologdin said:

am not following the theoretical assumption here. there's no confusion just because people disagree.  everyone can be perfectly reasonable and lucid.  there's no one single interpretation, after all. the 'meaning' is always the issue, no matter what assumptions we have.

If we don't agree what is said on the page then we might not even have a conversation. And then a continuation of said conversation would be pointless.

On 12/22/2021 at 4:40 PM, sologdin said:

the limit for me is that we can be certain we have the same edition. i don't need to be discussing the doctor faustus A text but you've got the B text--that's a disaster--beyond that, i suspect everyone brings interpretive assumptions that need not reconcile across the board.

We certainly carry all our biases and baggages. But we can tell each other what happens in any given paragraph and come to an understanding that way. Thereafter we can discuss how we interpret that ... or not.

On 12/22/2021 at 4:40 PM, sologdin said:

why the author focus?

Here, in context, because a big point is that I think Jordan is a bad writer.

But you can replace 'the author' with 'the text' and get the same result.

If the text doesn't actually say something then you cannot drag it in there and expect anyone to accept what you are doing. Why should they? It is not there.

On 12/22/2021 at 4:40 PM, sologdin said:

is it a matter of rights and entitlements? am fairly sure however that every interpretive act interpolates things that 'aren't there,' assuming arguendo that this theory of reading is plausible (i don't think it is--texts aren't containers).

Aren't we way beyond what I'm doing here when we 'interpret', 'look for meaning', etc.? I'm basically just talking about the story baseline. I keep things simple and to the heart of the matter. I don't want to look for deeper layers and meaning and stuff although I can do that - and sometimes did that in the past, although I must say that my take on literature and art is likely never going to be about any of that.

On 12/22/2021 at 4:40 PM, sologdin said:

wouldn't what is in someone's head be precisely the most relevant thing to their interpretation?  i understand the american formalist principle that 'the text itself' is what matters--but in practice this is an impossible principle.  (incidentally, isn't headcanon one of the worst critical terms since mary sue and the adapted usage of trope?)

By 'head canon' I meant how you view a given scene, character, event in literature with your own inner eye. Words evoke images and scenes in your mind and when we talk literature we talk as much - or more - about them than the words. But we should try to get away from that and really look at the words.

In Jordan's case here I could fill the gaps and overlook the errors and mistakes and flaws ... but I just don't want to do that.

23 hours ago, fionwe1987 said:

Well, all this is shitty interpretation not in the text. You're welcome to it, but this is far from an "objective" issue with the story. 

It certainly is the implication the text in the overall context, especially if you take the traditional meaning of blinding yourself in sight of an ugly/horrifying truth.

And thinking about that:

While we can swallow it that the Aiel might have forgotten/erased their own origins - although it doesn't actually make much sense that anyone in this world would identify so much with their fluid social constructs that it would be that horrible for them to learn the truth (as I said, they are aware that there was a Shadow War and a Breaking and that their desert wasn't there since time immemorial) - the idea that Aes Sedai could have basically forgotten about the Aiel completely makes no sense at all.

They dumped a lot of stuff on them ... and then they just forgot? How could that work? The Aes Sedai live longer than mundane humans, meaning even if we take the Worldbook at face value - that no Aes Sedai living at the beginning of the Breaking survived to the end - then we can expect that the Aes Sedai got through the Breaking in 2-3 generations. More than enough for the survivors to learn/not forget that they had a bunch of servants known as the Aiel. And if they didn't forget that during the Breaking they would have remembered it to the present. In fact, considering how much of the Age of Legends should have lived through the Breaking and to the Trolloc Wars they should have gotten back to the Aiel in the centuries before the Trolloc Wars. And if they had done that, then neither the Aiel nor the Aes Sedai would have ever forgotten the connection they once had.

I'm not sure if the Aes Sedai know what the Tinkers are ... but since they talk about the Way of the Leaf all day long the Aes Sedai should know what they are if they still remember that the Aiel followed the Way of the Leaf.

I'm also at a complete loss how the Aes Sedai and Aiel could have lost touch to the degree they did. That desert isn't that far away and 3,000 years past. That is a lot of time to not, you know, check out your most immediate neighbors.

Thom apparently first hears the name 'Shara' in TSR ... the land east of the Aiel Waste. Are we to believe that he never talked to any Sea Folk going east of the Aiel Waste before? That the people of Cairhien never told anyone who they were trading with back in the day, etc.?

19 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

I feel the same way about The Dragonbone Chair, which I know is deeply loved by many people on the board. I may have to try reading that again as well. The problem is, life is short and there are so many other interesting books out there.

I tried MST two times back when I was younger ... and got through it finally with the audiobooks.

But I must say I'm actually rereading the books now and enjoy them more than in the past. After I read the new 'Brothers of the Wind' I reread the two new books and now the old series. Somehow I actually start to like this slow development stuff and characters doing nothing for huge chunks of the book.