Is Jordan really that bad?

[Sarth]

I never read a WoT book before about 2000 and I have re-read the series to time up with the last two releases. So I might have had a different POV if I have to chew on some subpar volumes in the 8-10 range while still waiting for the next volume.

To me...the wait helped ingrain negative opinion as the pace shifted from 7 volumes in 6 years for the first half to 4 volumes in 9 years for the last half. (And 5 volumes in 14 years assuming the expected AMOL date is true)

I would agree that 8-10 are subpar but that is based on what your definition of subpar is and what amount of patience you have. In a four act work, the third act is very often a tough one to pull off well. Act One gives an exposition, Act Two gives you an expansion and maturation of the narrative. Act Four in theory gives you the resolutions. Act Three is the bridge...often requiring slowdowns of certain threads and speeding up of others in order to meet your wrap-up timeline.

The variation in opinion as the series has progressed seems overblown to me. A popular POV is that 1-6 are among the greatest books ever written then 7-10 are the worst books ever published, then 11 was a dramatic improvement over the prior books. I like to see the entire cycle as more even than others tend to. Like I said earlier...depends on what you consider "subpar"...the lull was subpar in comparison to the series, but it is still pretty good and doesn't drop down to Fiest levels of garbage or anything.

Edit -

Dammit...this post totally trumped my point while I was typing:

"After reading this thread my opinion is that he's given both too much and too little credit, at the same time. I don't think the early books were quite as great as they're made out to be and I don't think the latter books are quite as bad as they're made out to be either."

[Muttering Bill]

The main problem is the series has taken what 20+ years to write. The Wheel of Time series simply must be read consecutively. Every time a new book comes out I read the series from Eye of the World to the new book without stopping to read anything else. Yes it takes a long time and yes it seems repetative, but the newer volumes do not tend to be as bad when read in context.

No, I can't agree to this. Let me explain with a brief history of my experineces with the series.

I picked up WoT shortly after the release of book 7. At that time I read the series all the way through. I liked it so much that a year later I re-read it. After that, I just took the new volumes as they came around. And I liked them all. Except book 10 - but that doesn't really need any more detail.

I wasn't bored per se, but I got to a point in one of the books where I realized that I couldn't remember what had happened two books before, at which point I kind of gave up.

Exactly the problem I ran into. Maybe because of the way I had been reading them, spaced out as it were. After KoD last year, I realized that the whole series needed a re-read. The whole re-read project took me a year. I breezed through the first 7 - taking a week or two, at most, per book. Hell, there was a lot of material that I'd been bored with the first, and second, time through but didn't mind so much this time.

Then came PoD. I thought there was an immediately recognizable drop-off in quality. The pacing slowed considerably, the sub-plots became too abundant (really, that happened in LoC - but it wasn't annoying yet at that point), and he forgot to actually do anything with the Forsaken. And it got noticeably worse form there. It took months to get through the rest of my re-read. I didn't even finish it, I stopped halfway through Crossroads. Still, I don't think I'd call them bad books exactly.

In summary, reading them (the later books) spaced out, as they were released they were all (except 10) good. But reading them all straight through, the quality of the earlier books in recent memory, really pulls down any enjoyment that can be found in the latter half of the seires. (I suppose I could have just said that in the first place, but long posts make me feel smart. )

[Rhaegon Targaryen]

The abbreviated version:

Books one to six, very good.

Books seven to ten, absolute garbage, punctuated by about four good chapters.

Book eleven, return to form, though not up to standard of first six. Serious damge done by seven to ten, seems impossible to tie it up in one more book

[Gerold Hightower]

The first books are a mixed bag. Some people focus on what they like and ignore the rest, some focus on what they don't like. Thus the controversy. Once the plot slows down to the speed of tectonic plates you can't overlook the bad things anymore because the good isn't there anymore. I wouldn't say Knife of Dreams was a return to form BTW. While Jordan finally got some things resolved the execution was poor, especially the Rand thread. With that ridiculous Trolloc battle he obviously threw those fans a bone who had been complaining about their absence.

Oh, and I never got why people complain so much about Path of Daggers. While not one of Jordan's best I still think it's better than any of the books that came after it.

[betrayer of hope]

!!! !!!

The Forsaken are some of the worst villains of all time, on par with Dr. Evil or Wily E. Coyote. Their constant bungling, feuding, and general incompetence is only saved by Jordan's bizarre decision to bring them back to life again and again. If one were to write a parody of WOT, the Forsaken parts could be left alone and still serve as parody.

I still think they were pretty cool in the first 7 books, even though they were obviously getting defeated most of the time. There was still a level of respect being given to them. Its only in the later books that they seem to become even more incompetent, and thats basically because they've lost just too many times.

[Krafus]

Like others, I believe the series' quality has steadily declined in the latter half of the series. The first five books were and still are some of the most enjoyable fantasy I've read. After that, it goes downhill. Mind you, I've only read up to book 9.

I can still remember the first time I read book 8, and the disappointment I felt when the book ended. "That's it? That's all?" I felt like I'd been cheated of at least a third the number of words I should have been getting, especially with the larger font. I can also remember wanting to yell at Elayne and Aviendha and their train of annoying women "Get on with it, you dumb bitches!" when it took them a whole chapter - or was it two? - to get through a magical gateway.

Still, I kept hoping that book 9 would mark a return to the glory days of the series. Unfortunately for WoT, I picked up ASoS at the same time as Winter's Heart, and read them back-to-back. That was the end of any desire I had to read further WoT books. I'd lost all attachment to the WoT characters - it was like boringly watching a group of perfect strangers going about their dull lives instead of being thrilled by the adventures of people I cared about. The opinions and comments of this forum's denizens, and Amazon reviews, only comfort me in my decision not to read more of Jordan.

Oh, and I recall reading that Jordan changed editors around book 6, and that his new and, AFAIK, current editor was his wife. If that's true, then either she's incompetent or she couldn't find the courage to cut off the excess fat her husband put into his drafts.

[Muttering Bill]

I still think they were pretty cool in the first 7 books, even though they were obviously getting defeated most of the time. There was still a level of respect being given to them. Its only in the later books that they seem to become even more incompetent, and thats basically because they've lost just too many times.

I'm not sure that the Forsaken themselves have really changed, only the perception of them.

Our first exposure to them paints them as somewhat scary villains. Stories passed down to scare children, the were the Randland versions of the Boogeyman. Only real. Ish with his flame eyes stalking the boys' in their dreams... They started off strong. But, as the heroes gain experience, and defeat a few of them, they become less of a nightmare. Their presentation goes from immortal to mortal. They become just a bunch of mean-spirited bumbling fools*. The heroes just now have the power to fight them. Their coming off as ineffective villains is an unfortunate side effect.

*And they wer always bumbling fools; Aginor and Balthamel had the most pathetic death scenes.

[Gerold Hightower]

The Forsaken have changed, more precisely their position has. With Moridin's elevation and the appearance of Shaidar Haran they have been effectively demoted. Two of them even mindtrapped, and Mesaana raped for not coming to the Forsaken meeting in Book 9. It's actually an important theme in the books. The Forsaken were never more than pawns and Rand's strategie to hunt them down futile. (Jordan underlines that by having the Dark One resurrect them.) Rand realizes that at the end of PoD, after the attack at his living quarters in Cairhien.

People tend to forget that it's (to be) Rand vs. the Dark One, not the Forsaken.

As for their incompetence, they couldn't win. The Dark One himself has been protecting Rand. Besides, the pattern requires him at the Last Battle. Only there can he be defeated, just like the Dark One.

[From that One Book]

*And they wer always bumbling fools; Aginor and Balthamel had the most pathetic death scenes.

True. Although, I have to say, the scene where they first meet Aginor and Balthamel is one of my favorite in all of fantasy.

Whatever other faults Eye of the World had (too derivative of Tolkien, too much wandering through farmlands) it was very effective at affording the villains the proper amount of menace and gravitas. Myrdraal and Trollocs were, at that point in the series, fairly scary bad guys. How much worse, then, must these legendary Forsaken be? By the time we wound our way to the end of the book, we knew the Forsaken must be some serious badasses.

Going back to the scene: Aginor and Balthamel appear and introduce themselves. Somebody starts muttering the usual line about "The Forsaken are bound in Shayol Guul" or whatever. Aginor just smirks and says "were bound." And then all hell breaks loose. Every time I read that part (and I've read it quite a few times, now) it gives me a little shiver of apprehension. In the first few books, Jordan was very good at making the reader feel the same clutching horror the characters feel whenever reminded that these uber dark lords of legend are popping up in reality.

And then of course it all goes to crap. As someone mentioned previously, the Forsaken cease to be scary. We become too familiar with them, and what's more, we realize they're just a whiny bunch of gits. Chapters dealing with the Forsaken read like "OC: The Evil Years." And Trollocs and Myrdraal? Don't make me laugh. If the Forsaken can't penetrate the protective bubble that seems to surround all, and I mean all the characters, those chumps certainly won't be able to.

This post has kind of gone far afield from what I originally intended it to be, much like WoT (how appropriate), but it has lead me to some conclusions about the flaws evident in Jordan's work, and perhaps in other epic fantasies as well. I'll collect my thoughts and post them in a bit.

[Muttering Bill]

The Forsaken have changed, more precisely their position has. With Moridin's elevation and the appearance of Shaidar Haran they have been effectively demoted. Two of them even mindtrapped, and Mesaana raped for not coming to the Forsaken meeting in Book 9. It's actually an important theme in the books. The Forsaken were never more than pawns and Rand's strategie to hunt them down futile. (Jordan underlines that by having the Dark One resurrect them.) Rand realizes that at the end of PoD, after the attack at his living quarters in Cairhien.

People tend to forget that it's (to be) Rand vs. the Dark One, not the Forsaken.

As for their incompetence, they couldn't win. The Dark One himself has been protecting Rand. Besides, the pattern requires him at the Last Battle. Only there can he be defeated, just like the Dark One.

I think that I've done a poor job of making my argument. I shall try it another way.

In the first few books, Jordan was very good at making the reader feel the same clutching horror the characters feel whenever reminded that these uber dark lords of legend are popping up in reality.

This is what I was getting at. That the characters reactions to them influence our own interpretation.

We first meet them as legendary evil figures out of scary bedtime stories about. They come out beating up on Rand and co., and their natural reaction is fear. And that fear made them SEEM formidable. As the story progresses, Rand gains in power and kicks a few of their asses. The result of which: Rand loses his fear. Without that to color the readers perceptions, we can then see them for the innept villains that they really are. That they have been all along, only now it's more apparent.

Sure, the positions have been switched around, but I doubt that would have been a problem were they still able to intimidate the heroes.

I don't think that it was ever Jordan's intentions, though, to portray the Forsaken as lousy villains, but for Rand to come off as a great hero. But they'd been so misused that it it came across to the reader the other way round.

[From that One Book]

I don't think that it was ever Jordan's intentions, though, to portray the Forsaken as lousy villains, but for Rand to come off as a great hero. But they'd been so misused that it it came across to the reader the other way round.

Exactly.

I can see Hightower's point that the Forsaken aren't the real villains, that the title of "true bad guy" belongs to the Dark One and that Rand has, for all intents and purposes, been wasting his time with the Forsaken. Makes sense. I think we can all agree, though, that Jordan shouldn't have spent books, and books and books getting us to that point. Rand could have battled the Forsaken and realized they aren't the real enemy in one book, three books max. That's part of what makes WoT so infuriating to me - the knowledge that Rand has spent eight books fighting villains who not only don't die, but don't really matter in the end, anyway.

[L'Sana]

We first meet them as legendary evil figures out of scary bedtime stories about. They come out beating up on Rand and co., and their natural reaction is fear. And that fear made them SEEM formidable. As the story progresses, Rand gains in power and kicks a few of their asses. The result of which: Rand loses his fear. Without that to color the readers perceptions, we can then see them for the innept villains that they really are. That they have been all along, only now it's more apparent.

Sure, the positions have been switched around, but I doubt that would have been a problem were they still able to intimidate the heroes.

I don't think that it was ever Jordan's intentions, though, to portray the Forsaken as lousy villains, but for Rand to come off as a great hero. But they'd been so misused that it it came across to the reader the other way round.

I don't know if it was Rand losing his fear of them so much as us starting to see from the Forsakens' perspective. I think that was what really ruined it for us. They could have remained some what scary, at least in an unpredictable way, if only we weren't getting every single plan of theirs described in detail before it was put into action. Plans, I hardly need add, which had not been run by the 5-year-old child adviser. Between getting their stupid plans ahead of time and hearing them squabble like a bunch of sorority girls, they kind of lost their edge.

I also think 13 was too many Forsaken. Five might have been a better number. Yes, we have all kinds of significance to 13 in the series, but after a while, you just get tired of seeing Rand defeat yet another ultimately, evil, terrifyingly scary Forsaken whose names have all started to blur together in my mind. Ishmael was good, Lanfear had some personality, we could keep around a handful of others to keep them company, but I think the numbers should have been way down.

[Deornoth]

Book eleven, return to form, though not up to standard of first six. Serious damge done by seven to ten, seems impossible to tie it up in one more book

I wonder if 'A memory of light' (or whatever it's called) will be released as one huge book or if the publishers will bs and say 'we had to split the book into two. Here's the first part to be going on with, you might have to wait a bit for part two though...'

[Muttering Bill]

I don't know if it was Rand losing his fear of them so much as us starting to see from the Forsakens' perspective. I think that was what really ruined it for us. They could have remained some what scary, at least in an unpredictable way, if only we weren't getting every single plan of theirs described in detail before it was put into action. Plans, I hardly need add, which had not been run by the 5-year-old child adviser. Between getting their stupid plans ahead of time and hearing them squabble like a bunch of sorority girls, they kind of lost their edge.

I also think 13 was too many Forsaken. Five might have been a better number. Yes, we have all kinds of significance to 13 in the series, but after a while, you just get tired of seeing Rand defeat yet another ultimately, evil, terrifyingly scary Forsaken whose names have all started to blur together in my mind. Ishmael was good, Lanfear had some personality, we could keep around a handful of others to keep them company, but I think the numbers should have been way down.

True, having POV detailing all of their plans does hurt them a bit as well. We'd never notice how miserably ineffective they are if he didn't show us their plans - so that we eventually see how badly they failed.

I don't necessarily think that there were too many. Originally. I loved Ish and Lanfear and all, but they should have stayed dead. Along with all the others that I wasn't so attached to. And how about killing off some of the female Forsaken? He threw us a bone by almost killing Lanfear. Not good enough. He probably started resurrecting them after he realized that he had only 1 male left and the rest were women. He couldn't handle killing off a few of the girl, so he brought the guys back instead.

My biggest problem with them though, is that they were never used to their potential. He set them up as beasts from the AoL. They commanded armies, captured cities, mutilated citizens. They were 13 Hitlers running around making hell. Now they're free to run amok again and what do they do? Sit around squabling over who gets to be Nae Blis(?), and whether or not it's Ok to (attempt to) kill Rand.

[BrainFireBob]

I'd agree with the Act III assessment.

Quite a bit of the complaints about books 7-10 are, essentially, that "Jordan forgot his plot was about the three ta'veren."

That's never really been my impression of Wheel of Time. I always saw it as a writer who disliked that heroes gained knowledge and did their deeds in a vacuum. Jordan's out to create a system where things happen because of causality, not because they're convenient. It's not perfect- and he has the ta'veren mechanism in place to explain the odd moment of fiat- but y'know, he at least has an explanation aside from "it just happened that way" for his fiats that is systemic!

People felt bogged down. My opinion is that his plots became out of synch, so Mat and Tuon wasn't where Perrin and Faile or Rand and saidin were, so he had to play catchup to prepare for the final movement. Mat and Tuon are no more slow, bogged down, or detailed than Rand and Aviendha, or Perrin and Faile, it's just that by book 10 people feel the "story" should have moved beyond that "phase."

I see Jordan as a systemic writer, if that's your boat, you'll enjoy the books. If it's not, you'll feel he's failing to "step up" as he gets closer to the climax and is "dragging things out."

A corollary to that has already been implied- Jordan's later books require an active reader who's paid attention to the "minor" plot threads, or things start seeming to come out of left field, or their significance is completely overlooked and it seems like he's wasting time on them. You can say he's a failure as a writer for you because he didn't interest you enough in them to follow them, but they are there, and if you don't follow them, you're not following everything that's going on, which *of course* makes the books seem padded and bloated. They're not- if you actively follow everything. Thing is, most people don't want to have to remember things from six books earlier for reference.

[Altherion]

I'd agree with the Act III assessment.

Quite a bit of the complaints about books 7-10 are, essentially, that "Jordan forgot his plot was about the three ta'veren."

That's never really been my impression of Wheel of Time. I always saw it as a writer who disliked that heroes gained knowledge and did their deeds in a vacuum. Jordan's out to create a system where things happen because of causality, not because they're convenient. It's not perfect- and he has the ta'veren mechanism in place to explain the odd moment of fiat- but y'know, he at least has an explanation aside from "it just happened that way" for his fiats that is systemic!

I think you're missing the main problem of the later books. It is not that he has forgotten what he main plot is about and it is not that he has expanded upon minor plot points from previous books and it is not even that the pace of the story in books 7-10 was glacial at best. It is a failure of synthesis -- he has been unable to forge all of these plots into a coherent whole. A good book is like a symphony: every plot has its proper place, all plots are interrelated and the number of pages dedicated to each plot is proportional to its complexity and its importance to the story as a whole.

The later books of WoT fail at practically all of these. The extraneous descriptions of various things in the world are just that: extraneous. They are only weakly connected to the central events of the story and the inherent complexity of most is at about the level of a "fetch" or "rescue" quest from an average computer role-playing game. The fact that he spent hundreds of pages on them does not help; it just makes the sub-plots more and more tedious and more and more difficult to properly integrate until he realized (Book 11) that he is best off cutting his losses and just killing them rather than plowing ahead in the hope that they'll unify at some later point.

Now, all of this can be forgiven if he had interesting characters (people are willing to let the plot waffle about in order to observe them). But his characters were never that great and he defeated any attempt at describing character development (which they kind do have if you look really closely) by associating with each character certain things that he keeps repeating over and over and over and over and over again.

[BrainFireBob]

To some extent I agree, but I also think that with any series that size you must look at the series as one very large, episodic story, in place of a book series. Viewed as a set, 7-10 aren't really lacking, it's when considered by themselves that they seem so terrible.

For instance, if you read the jacket covers, Crown of Swords- or most of it- should have been part of Lord of Chaos, and Path of Daggers and Winter's Heart one giant book, with about half to two thirds of Crossroads tossed in. It was just too damn large.

It's the kind of thing Martin is falling into with Feast and Dance on a larger, longer scale. Martin might need to do the same with his next planned book or two, then it'll be the exact same division issue: The series as a set are a fine single story, but the individual books suffer from how they were partitioned.

[AverageGuy]

Yeah, that's one thing that really annoyed me, which is why I don't think KoD was as good a book as everyone else did. It's why I hate impatient people, as I'd rather give the author a chance to tell the story without rushing them. Of course, in this case I believe it's the fact that he's tired of writing WOT and also dying that's rushing him a bit.

Are you criticising Jordan rushing KoD at the same time you're saying people shouldn't dictate how an author writes a book?

My opinion, given many times before: the series isn't horrible, but it started off so much better that the latter half, which I would for the most part just call subpar, suffers considerably in comparison. I think there was always a little bloat, but then the plot became so big and relatively minor storylines took such precedence that the pace slowed to a crawl, which hit its lowpoint at Crossroads. We'll see if the same thing happens to Martin.

[oneeye]

I only made it to the 4th book but have read all 10 goodkinds!

how's that for an answer

[word]

I only made it to the 4th book but have read all 10 goodkinds!

how's that for an answer

That's a terrible answer, because Jordan is 100X better than Tairy.