The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan

[L'Sana]

[quote name='Galactus' post='1536779' date='Sep 30 2008, 04.11']Mmmm, not certain this is true. There are comments along the lines that what the prophecy does is simply make the end result *maybe* happen. There is always room for chance to play havoc. (remember the "What-if?" worlds during the Portal Stone episode?)

That's for the Prophecy at least. Min's viewings seems to always happen though, and the same seems to be true of Foretellings. The Dreamings though... Those people seem to be able to manipulate. (if I'm reading what "Halima" says in KoD correctly)[/quote]

Yeah. As I recall, pretty much all the prophesies say is that the Dragon Reborn must fight the shadow. There is a bunch of other stuff in there, but it is more signs to recognize that this guy who claims to be the Dragon actually is. It's true that the heroes are not going to lose and seem unlikely to suffer any major casualties, but I think that's more because they are Gary Stus and their villainous counterparts have the IQ of Swiss Cheese rather than because of the prophesy.

I will admit that there are places where I find Jordans use of prophesy a real pain, though, and that's where he uses prophesy in place of motivation. The whole, "Prophesy said this, and therefore we will do it, despite the fact that it makes no sense whatsoever." Primarily here, I'm thinking of Moiraine's letter, though Mat and Tuon's marriage also qualifies.

Min's viewings, though, I do find obnoxious. I thought the whole "Min is never wrong" thing got old long before Knife of Dreams, and Elayne and her goddamn immortal babies pushed me over the edge. The things Min sees always come to pass. Min never interprets them incorrectly. If it were used sparingly, that would be one thing, but the fact that channelers, warders, and ta'verean always give her visions, and channelers, warders, and ta'verean are 95% of the characters in the book, means that she's constantly prattling on about something. I actually want her dead more than any other female character, despite the fact that she's somewhat less nasty, just because I want her infailable visions to stop.

[Ouroboros]

Its not about whether the prophecies are right or wrong, its about how they can be interpreted. Yes they are always correct, in a sense, but much like Jojen's dreams in Asoiaf they rarely come about in a way anyone is expecting. A major theme in the book is misinterpretation, and the prophecies are a way to high light this theme.

[L'Sana]

[quote name='Ouroboros' post='1537087' date='Sep 30 2008, 09.40']Its not about whether the prophecies are right or wrong, its about how they can be interpreted. Yes they are always correct, in a sense, but much like Jojen's dreams in Asoiaf they rarely come about in a way anyone is expecting. A major theme in the book is misinterpretation, and the prophecies are a way to high light this theme.[/quote]

Except that that doesn't really apply with Min's viewings. Not only do they always come true, she is never wrong in her interpretation of them.

[Ouroboros]

No, she's been wrong, sometimes she knows with a certainty but usually she has no idea what they mean.

[Galactus]

[quote]Yeah. As I recall, pretty much all the prophesies say is that the Dragon Reborn must fight the shadow. There is a bunch of other stuff in there, but it is more signs to recognize that this guy who claims to be the Dragon actually is. It's true that the heroes are not going to lose and seem unlikely to suffer any major casualties, but I think that's more because they are Gary Stus and their villainous counterparts have the IQ of Swiss Cheese rather than because of the prophesy.[/quote]

Mmmhhmmm, I think it's not so much that the Forsaken are stupid (although there is a kind of thread that basically hints that the people who turned to the Shadow weren't exactly the cream of the crop, generally) but they *are* constantly being badgered with (often contradictory) orders from the Dark One. (and of course, we don't know what the Shadow's motivation or plans really is)

[quote]I will admit that there are places where I find Jordans use of prophesy a real pain, though, and that's where he uses prophesy in place of motivation. The whole, "Prophesy said this, and therefore we will do it, despite the fact that it makes no sense whatsoever." Primarily here, I'm thinking of Moiraine's letter, though Mat and Tuon's marriage also qualifies.[/quote]

I actually think that makes a certain kind of sense, for Moraine I think it wasn't prophecy per se, but rather that she had a kind of glimpse of the future, and is now trying to make that future come true, and for Mat I found it kind of refreshing in an odd way.

[HammerOfGod]

[quote name='Werthead' post='1518874' date='Sep 15 2008, 15.42']If I'm stretching, so are a [i]lot[/i] of other people. These similarities have been pointed out, repeatedly, plenty of times before in the last decade that I've been looking at WoT fansites.

There's even strong odds being laid on Fain inadvertantly 'helping' Rand win the Last Battle somehow, a la Gollum grabbing the Ring and falling into Ororduin.[/quote]

I have always seen it as a three way battle between Rand, Moridin and Fain...Fain as the spoiler for both Rand and Moridin....

[Ouroboros]

[quote name='Galactus' post='1537609' date='Sep 30 2008, 16.53']I actually think that makes a certain kind of sense, for Moraine I think it wasn't prophecy per se, but rather that she had a kind of glimpse of the future, and is now trying to make that future come true, and for Mat I found it kind of refreshing in an odd way.[/quote]
I just love the fact that its Mat, the one Moraine distrusts and dislikes the most of all the ta'veren, whose feelings are mutual in that respect, that has to save her from a fate worse than death. Certainly he's the one that likes to try and screw destiny as much as possible, the fact that he has to do such things is no doubt very grating for him.

[HammerOfGod]

[quote name='L'Sana' post='1537276' date='Sep 30 2008, 13.24']Except that that doesn't really apply with Min's viewings. Not only do they always come true, she is never wrong in her interpretation of them.[/quote]

Min thinks Moraine is dead...so sometimes reality is clouded...everyone on the dock thought that Moraine was killed...she wasn't and this could be considered a failing of prophecy...sometimes what you see is not real...and Min is starting to have some problems with her viewings...she is not sure of what will happen to Bashere... I do prefer a little uncertainty in what is going to happen in the future...

[Ouroboros]

Also Min can hardly tell diddly squat about any Aes Sedai, Warder or Ashaman, though that's more of a sensory overload thing. She gets bits and pieces but there's still plenty she can miss.

[Miryana Storm]

[quote name='L'Sana' post='1536995' date='Sep 30 2008, 17.51']I will admit that there are places where I find Jordans use of prophesy a real pain, though, and that's where he uses prophesy in place of motivation. The whole, "Prophesy said this, and therefore we will do it, despite the fact that it makes no sense whatsoever." Primarily here, I'm thinking of Moiraine's letter, though Mat and Tuon's marriage also qualifies.[/quote]

Prophecy as a motivation for duty, as in Rand's case, I can understand, but for whatever reason prophecy as a reason for choosing your partner for life annoys me a great deal. Moiraine and Thom traveled together for what, two weeks? They had one shared scene together from Thom's POV, not from Rand's or anyone else's. What is there to root for? What should convince me that are interested in each other and can have a life together? Thom thinks Moiraine is a fine-looking woman, mutters the same a few times over the books, and that's it. I just can't buy it, but I have to because of prophecy.

And there's also Min's viewing of Rand's three women. Min talking of her love for him when they'd only been in the same place for a few minutes together, and proper Andoran Elayne (who'd been in the same place with him for only a couple of weeks) adjusting to having to share her husband instead of thinking of Rand as a crush she needs to get over since he's found another, all based on a vision. Maybe it was there to get readers used to the idea, but I'd rather have seen it come about naturally. I don't know how exactly Jordan would have written that, but I think I'd have preferred something like Aviendha falling in love and being OK with it since her culture is polygamous, Min falling in love and being OK with it since she was already somewhat unconventional, and Elayne falling in love and ultimately learning to be OK with it despite how much it goes against her land's customs [i]without [/i]the viewing being used to bludgeon her into that decision. The prophecy makes it feel so forced to me, and I have a problem especially with Elayne's part. Rand spent time with Aviendha and Min, but he and Elayne are only casually acquainted. It's pretty ridiculous to think of them having long-term compatibility based on a few days spent kissing. Mat/Tuon is based on prophecy, but unlike Moiraine/Thom the relationship been developed onscreen after her appearance and unlike Rand/Elayne they didn't start making babies despite only having spent a few days together. If Mat/Tuon had been the only couple getting together because of prophecy it wouldn't have annoyed me, but there's too much of it and too unconvincingly developed.

[quote]Min's viewings, though, I do find obnoxious. I thought the whole "Min is never wrong" thing got old long before Knife of Dreams, and Elayne and her goddamn immortal babies pushed me over the edge. The things Min sees always come to pass. Min never interprets them incorrectly. If it were used sparingly, that would be one thing, but the fact that channelers, warders, and ta'verean always give her visions, and channelers, warders, and ta'verean are 95% of the characters in the book, means that she's constantly prattling on about something. I actually want her dead more than any other female character, despite the fact that she's somewhat less nasty, just because I want her infailable visions to stop.[/quote]

Yes! There's already the dreams (Egwene, Perrin, Aiel women), Foretellings and the Prophecies of the Dragon. Is Min's ability that vital to the books? She's always seeing visions, if she can interpret them she does it in a way she knows is right and that happens most of the time. It's a major crutch that the [i]characters [/i]lean on when making decisions. That's what makes Min's visions more troublesome than the other options. Readers could interpret some dreams/prophecies pretty easily, but that wasn't the case for the characters involved. I remember Egwene making a big deal out of only managing to interpret one dream, about Gawyn becoming her Warder, and she doesn't really discuss her dreams with others. Min's infallible visions? Lead to stuff like Elayne's immortal babies that the characters are [i]aware [/i]of and allow to influence their decisions. Especially in Elayne's case, I found that a mind-boggling tension-killer. "Captured by the Black Ajah? No need to be afraid, I'll live to have my babies!"

Doesn't Min think she was only ever wrong about Moiraine? And in the last book she'll find out she was actually right about whatever she saw that was related to Moiraine, since she lives.

[Galactus]

[quote]And there's also Min's viewing of Rand's three women. Min talking of her love for him when they'd only been in the same place for a few minutes together, and proper Andoran Elayne (who'd been in the same place with him for only a couple of weeks) adjusting to having to share her husband instead of thinking of Rand as a crush she needs to get over since he's found another, all based on a vision. Maybe it was there to get readers used to the idea, but I'd rather have seen it come about naturally. I don't know how exactly Jordan would have written that, but I think I'd have preferred something like Aviendha falling in love and being OK with it since her culture is polygamous, Min falling in love and being OK with it since she was already somewhat unconventional, and Elayne falling in love and ultimately learning to be OK with it despite how much it goes against her land's customs without the viewing being used to bludgeon her into that decision. The prophecy makes it feel so forced to me, and I have a problem especially with Elayne's part. Rand spent time with Aviendha and Min, but he and Elayne are only casually acquainted. It's pretty ridiculous to think of them having long-term compatibility based on a few days spent kissing. Mat/Tuon is based on prophecy, but unlike Moiraine/Thom the relationship been developed onscreen after her appearance and unlike Rand/Elayne they didn't start making babies despite only having spent a few days together. If Mat/Tuon had been the only couple getting together because of prophecy it wouldn't have annoyed me, but there's too much of it and too unconvincingly developed.[/quote]

Yeah, I think Elayne too was handled rather badly. I can see Min accepting it, just not for being unconventional but because *she* knows (or believes at least) that her visions are 100% exact, but I think Elayne taking it so easily is annoying, she has far less reason to be fatalistic than Min.

[Ouroboros]

Growing up with Elaida's influence would have made her more susceptible to accepting the inevitability of prophecy or foretelling though, wouldn't it?

[Werthead]

[quote name='HammerOfGod' post='1539120' date='Oct 1 2008, 22.04']I have always seen it as a three way battle between Rand, Moridin and Fain...Fain as the spoiler for both Rand and Moridin....[/quote]

Yes, like the way Gollum was the spoiler for both Sauron and Frodo, right? He's a third force with no allegiances to either side.

[quote]Growing up with Elaida's influence would have made her more susceptible to accepting the inevitability of prophecy or foretelling though, wouldn't it?[/quote]

I call this an EotWism. It's suggested in the first book that Elaida has the Foretelling every other week (Morgase seems to automatically expect it from her), but in TSR this is retconned and Elaida only has a Foretelling very rarely (a handful of times in twenty years).

[Slurktan]

Wert,

I wouldn't say her Foretelling was retconned, I'd say most of her foretellings to Morgase weren't [i]Foretellings[/i] if you catch my drift. She was making predictions to get what she wanted, not actual prophecy which comes very scarcely.

Miryana Storm,

Moiraine and Thom were around and working together alot during the months in the Stone of Tear. This is where their working relationship is based off of, not the travelling in EoTW.

[Miryana Storm]

[quote name='Slurktan' post='1539954' date='Oct 2 2008, 17.19']Miryana Storm,

Moiraine and Thom were around and working together alot during the months in the Stone of Tear. This is where their working relationship is based off of, not the travelling in EoTW.[/quote]

I remember the times pretty well because of past Rand/Elayne discussions. When the book begins it's been two weeks since the end of TDR, Egwene and Elayne have what seems like the first proper meeting where they've really had time to talk with Rand, then Elayne and Rand spend three days kissing before the attack on the Stone and all the main characters heading off in different directions. I browsed through the Thom and Moiraine POVs to refresh my memory. There's no clear mention of a meeting before their talk about Tanchico that I could come across. Thom has found ways to keep Rand informed of what the nobles are up to but trying to avoid drawing unwelcome attention to a "simple" gleeman. If he'd been meeting an Aes Sedai, that would have risked being speculated about. After he leaves, Moiraine thinks of how she wasn't happy that he was getting Rand settled down in Tear but that she'll have to more about the nobles now that Thom's no longer around. I think that while she was aware of what the nobles were up, unlike Thom she wasn't actually doing anything about it and they didn't share a goal of what should be done while in Tear. Though they were both in the Stone, I don't get the feeling that they're supposed to have been seeing a lot of each other.

I actually just completed my first full reread of WOT in order of publication. I thought I should do it at least once; before I've reread bits here and there and the book that was last published. Even though I find things to criticise in the first four books, the story flows pretty well and there's plenty of things that capture my interest. The fifth book brought the first snag in the form of Elayne and Nynaeve in the circus. I didn't remember the story being that bad, but Elayne and Nynaeve seemed like such ridiculously exaggerated caricatures of the character traits mentioned in the past books. Now I just want to forget that section of TFOH exists. The sixth book was when I noticed my overall patience with the characters and their moments of stupidity starting to falter. The seventh was a pretty clear turning point, and featured a significantly larger number of chapters that I wanted to skip but ultimately sped through in an effort to get to something less annoying.

The last half of the series is such a disappointment that it can be pretty hard for me to discuss WOT without drawing attention to the dip in quality. And I do believe that there is one. At least as far as my enjoyment of the series is concerned, there is a definite sense of characterisation and story beginning to go off the rails in a bad way. But while I wouldn't call the first five books a perfect reading experience, they still had such charm and got me hooked on the world of WOT to the degree that I am going to keep reading the series. I'm not quite sure I'd recommend WOT overall, but I'm still interested in it (the opposite of love isn't hate, and so on). I just greatly prefer the world and conflicts present during the first half.

[fionwe1987]

[quote name='Miryana Storm' post='1540186' date='Oct 2 2008, 11.20'][/quote]
On the Moiraine Thom thing:
This is a pretty poorly done relationship. One can see why they would be attracted to each other, maybe, but the books provide few instances of interactions to back this up. But while Moiraine might have known early on about how things might be with Thom (due to Min), Thom himself has no idea that they are "fated" to be together.
Their longest period of interaction was in EotW, of course. I think Thom realized for the first time that not all AS are jerks. How this translated to attraction though...

As for the comparison between the first and second halves of the series, you're right that its slower and more tedious, but I think the politicking, the atmosphere and the thematic depth is far greater here. As is the quality of the prose. The first three books are entirely too adventure based. TSR is an excellent transition. tFoH onwards, adventure is tempered with powerplay. While aspects like the circus can be a real pain, they are offset by the political intrigues among the Aes Sedai, Rand's descent into hardness and Mat's increasing maturity, which is thankfully not accompanied by a reduction in the humor that fills his storyline.
It might be a mixed blessing, but I think the second half of the series enriched it, overall.

[L'Sana]

[quote name='Galactus' post='1537609' date='Sep 30 2008, 14.53']I actually think that makes a certain kind of sense, for Moraine I think it wasn't prophecy per se, but rather that she had a kind of glimpse of the future, and is now trying to make that future come true, and for Mat I found it kind of refreshing in an odd way.[/quote]

To each his own, I suppose, but I found the whole, "You have to do exactly the following things, you have to bring exactly the following list of people, and you can't tell anyone about this until the following arbitrary condition is met" to be the most heavy handed case of an author saying, "We're going to do it this way because I said so" that I've ever encountered.

I also don't believe that was what was supposed to be in the letter. In Moiraine's letter to Rand, she specifically said that she knew nothing of the future past that day on the docks. I think they letter was changed to a deus ex machina once Jordan realized he didn't have enough time to finish all of the threads he'd started, so decided to tie some of them up by fiat. Understandably, perhaps, but annoying none the less.

[quote]Moiraine and Thom were around and working together alot during the months in the Stone of Tear. This is where their working relationship is based off of, not the travelling in EoTW.[/quote]

I don't think so. In the scene where Moiraine convinces Thom to follow Elayne and Nynaeve, she has to bribe him into going. He is still suspicious of her and doesn't want to leave Rand in her care. There's no hint in that scene that they have any sort of working relationship or even a temporary alliance, much less a budding romance.

These two seem like a classic case of "strangled by the red string." (And yes, TVtropes will indeed ruin your life).

[Krafus]

[quote name='fionwe1987' post='1540338' date='Oct 2 2008, 13.59']The first three books are entirely too adventure based. TSR is an excellent transition. tFoH onwards, adventure is tempered with powerplay. While aspects like the circus can be a real pain, they are offset by the political intrigues among the Aes Sedai, Rand's descent into hardness and Mat's increasing maturity, which is thankfully not accompanied by a reduction in the humor that fills his storyline.
It might be a mixed blessing, but I think the second half of the series enriched it, overall.[/quote]

Unfortunately, from LoC and on, pacing is increasingly hampered by filler. Some people seem to appreciate it, and say it gives more depth to the world and the characters. For me, it just felt extraneous and gave me the distinct, increasingly disagreeable impression of slogging and then crawling through mud (especially PoD).

[Rhom]

[quote name='Miryana Storm' post='1539664' date='Oct 2 2008, 03.10']And there's also Min's viewing of Rand's three women. Min talking of her love for him when they'd only been in the same place for a few minutes together, and proper Andoran Elayne (who'd been in the same place with him for only a couple of weeks) adjusting to having to share her husband instead of thinking of Rand as a crush she needs to get over since he's found another, all based on a vision.[/quote]

Well we can always play that off as a side effect of Rand being an extremely strong Ta'veren.

[Slurktan]

Miryana Storm,

Fair enough, I thought they were in the Stone longer than they were and worked more or less together. i need to reread that one its been years.