An honest assessment of WOT?

[Jacen]

Here come's the fatty wall of text. You hath been warned.

On top of that his female characters are flat, annoying and badly written.

Indeed. In Martin's books I look forward to all of his female POV's... yet in WoT seeing Egwene's, or Elayne's, or Nynaeve's name at the start of the chapter instilled in me a deep and abiding terror for what I was about to inflict upon myself.

Anyway, I'll try to be objective as I can about this series. I stopped reading the books around the time of Crown of Swords, I think? It's been so long. I started to realize then (even before the horrors of Crossroads of Twilight) I disliked WoT - without reading better fantasy (asoiaf) or dissecting books like we do on this forum. This puts me firmly in the jilted former-WoT lover category.

Ultimately, this series comes so close to being truly great that it's flaws are all the more annoying/infuriating. And that is the tragedy of it all- the almost greatness.

If these two things had occured I'd be the series biggest fan:

IF, Jordan had a better, firmer, and more forceful editor to trim the fluff and keep the narrative moving

&

IF, Jordan either learned how to write female characters or eliminated their POV's entirely.

Some positive aspects of the series:

- When it first came out, it DID seem like the best fantasy series since Tolkien. And it is still quite good, compared to TSR and Forgotten realms stuff. Perhaps the series served as a wake up call to other fantasy writers. But in the end, I think several authors have surpassed Jordan lately. If Martin or Bakker never cranked out their stuff, Jordan would still be the top dog.

- Truly epic in scale, both in what you read on the page, and in the goals of the stories. There are lots of end of the world/save the world fantasy books but nobody has really tried to give the reader a big picture, ambitiously multi-facted chronicle, of such an event. Even though he fails somewhat in the delivery, the ambition and scope of the books has to be admired.

- The prologue chapter in the first book is still awesome, as is the content of it- the Age of Legends or whatever when Lews Therin Telamon was alive and kicking is all great stuff, great backstory.

- Mat Cauthon. Seriously, as the books went on he became the sole reason to read the books (except when Jordan foolishly keep his absent for an entire book!).

- Jordan does a great job at dropping little intriguing bits of history. His world was one I always wanted to know more about. His world building wasn't great but it wasn't bad either. It was for example, better than Abercrombie's by far.

- Padar Fain, those shadow gates, traveling with their portals, Shadar Logoth, Moridin (what happened with that guy, anyway?), some of the Forsaken were all interesting and cool characters/places/things.

- The One Power is a very cool and interesting magic system. I hate when magic in books requires memorizing spells (which they forget after casting) and using ingredients, crap like that. I need to rub bat guano and witch's hair to make a fireball? WTF? Oddly, it makes more sense to me to think the power is innate as in these books. The Taint was also a great idea.

A few negatives, that weren't mentioned before (shockingly :P)

-Besides the tedium, annoying female characters, and general lack of events in later books, one thing that bothered me was that the books have a somewhat childish tone compared to other modern fantasy. So yeah, I'm going to use everyone's most hated buzzword: gritty. WoT is not gritty in the great way ASOAIF is. When you read gritty, warts and all, darkly realistic fantasy it kind of takes the thrill out of the other types, at least for me.

-Anytime Rand has a sword fight. I hated his descriptions of these. R.A. Salvatore may write light-weight fluffy fantasy, but at least give him some credit- he does an outstanding job describing sword fights. With Jordan it is :

"Rand went into the Crane on the Mountain stance. The thug attacked with a low thrust, and Rand countered with Squirrel-Running-Up-Tree. After that he smoothly progressed into the Wind-over-the-Lake kata, his blade moving in a blur. The brute fell dead, curiously caught in the final movements of Bear-Shitting-in-the-Woods. He must have been a true blademaster- Rand had gotten lucky. Rand turned towards the others, with a scowl of fury on his face. Ninenteen dark-friends and allies of the thug had him cornered in a dark alley in Tear. He was alone. The wall behind him was old- built up and up for many turns of the wheel- with all sorts of different colored bricks. Red, blue, green, white, and orange. Some came all the way from Kandor, Rand could tell by the way they cut the stone. In the Two Rivers they did not do much stone work, so he had to admire the polish and precise cut of the stone. Stone reminded him of Elayne. She was as hard and cold as Shienarian river rock! He wished Mat was here. He would know what to do with her. The blue bricks were oddly enough the same exact color as Rand's embroidered jacket, another twist in the pattern. Sky blue with gold epaulets and fine stitching from Cairhein. Rand thought with some embarrassment that the coat must have cost at least a year's wages in the Two Rivers. Where was Tam, anyway? Rand turned towards his foes, and he killed them all with his limit break, the Crazy Train".

-Finally, I read for pleasure. I do not want to read and feel like I'm doing a job. That is the problem with WoT. There are way too many sections you have to just suffer through to get to the good parts.

_________________________________________________________________

The OP is asking about reading them now, in 2009. I assume he/she has read ASOIAF and liked it. A few points on this:

1. If you've waited this long to read them, might as well wait till the whole thing is out. That way you can slog through it all in one massive undertaking (or torture session, depends on your view)

2. I think I'm a pretty fast reader, but apparently I am not, if some of you guys can rip through a Jordan sized doorstopper book in the span of a day. I also don't have the time or inclination to read a book for ten hours a day. So, reading Jordan's books is a major time and effort investment for me. To the OP, do you have the time to go through this series?

3. I'm a completist. I hate skipping or skimming sections of books. I feel like I have to read the whole damn thing. Problem is, with WoT you almost have to skip and skim, just to survive. Can the OP do that?

4. If you've read Martin and Bakker and Abercrombie, these books will not seem... that great at times, to put it mildly. I've reached the point where I have no time to read stuff that isn't excellent or at least good. Can you suffer through the lows?

Last word: While I kinda do want to know what happens in the end and all that, I would have to start over from the beginning to do that, it's been so long since I read them. The thought of that task gives me nightmares. :P

[Zach H]

EDIT: I think to some degree it depends on what you expect.

Yeah, I think that's a key part to enjoying (or not enjoying) Jordan. Someone up above said that Jordan failed to investigate what it might really mean to live in a matriarchal society. I'd agree, and add that in terms of any theme Jordan offered no profound investigation. He simply wasn't that type of writer. I think that's one of the reasons I'm actually still able to get a reasonable amount of enjoyment out of his books. I came to WoT later in the game than many other readers. I already read Martin and Stover before I got to Jordan, so I think reading the more involved stuff actually helped me to recognize and accept what Jordan's all about. If I want depth of theme and a stunning degree of characterization, I'll read Wolfe. If I want dreamlike prose, I'll read Peake. If I want weirdness that leans toward the litearary side, I'll go with VanderMeer or Mieville. If I want a hard hitting sword and sorcery-style that plays with theme as much as it kicks ass, I'll look toward the aforementioned Stover or Erikson.

Jordan isn't any of that. What he is, though, (to me at least) is a storyteller who pretty much mastered a "lazy river" style. If you're looking for verisimilitude, even in a fantastic sense, I can understand why you'd consider Jordan to be a very poor writer. If you can handle (or even appreciate) a semi-cartoonish yet comfortable and sometimes even charming world, countryside descriptions that take time to show you a field, a farm, or a group of girls and their dresses in lieu of any psychological exploration, and an all too often anti-adventure style where the emphasis is on Mat kicking his feet up on a bar stool or Egwene waiting for her tea before attending to her daily duties, then WoT may have something to offer you. If you're looking for grit, capital L literature, or even a gripping yarn that blazes by, do yourself a favor and ignore the WoT.

[MaesterLuwin]

A mere mention of the series on this forum never fails to illicit pages upon pages of responses. For that reason alone, you might consider reading them just to join in on what is always a fun conversation. :P

[Wastrel]

I wouldn't classify Jordan's society as matriarchal, but it is put as much more equal than any (that I know of) comparative historical society.

Not really relevent, but in case you're interested: you're likely to get "equality" where either having babies is incredibly important (ie. land prices are low relative to labour prices) (e.g. some west african societies) (in which case you're likely to get a highly-segregated society where men and women have distinct zones of power, with women having influence in and through families, and sometimes religion, and men having influence through craft societies and the political superstructure) OR where having babies isn't that important at all (ie women don't lose out by foregoing childbirth for other careers) and men are otherwise distracted (eg by war or heavy industry). You're likely to get least equality where a society is transitioning from one structure to another - most famously, overpopulation and the mechanisation of labour in the 19th and early 20th centuries meant that the importance of having children fell, giving women less power and influence in that sphere, yet at the same time society's ethical system demanded that women not be allowed power outside that sphere - indeed, in typically insertial fashion, society responded to the change by actually reducing women's rights, in a desperate attempt to cling on to the old system. Eventually, however, economics prevailed.

For high-labour-price "equal" societies, I'd look at west africa and at some austronesian fishing-dependent societies. For low-labour-price "equal" societies, I'd look at the modern West, or at the Sarmatians (where there were female warriors and politicians).

Of course, the easiest way to get a proper matriarchy is just to tilt the sex proportions dramatically enough. On that note, the most matriarchal society attested is probably 19th century Paraguay - the War of the Triple Alliance exterminated 90% of the male population, leaving around 190,000 women and around 30,000 men. Most land had to be transfered to female control to avoid the extinction of linneages, and for the next couple of generations society was mostly matriarchal. [Though not at the top level - the national government was controlled originally by the victors and their imported puppets, and later by the surviving war heroes - even if rich women had sought political power, these heroes had far too much popular support to be overcome by anybody inexperienced]

I'd disagree. Martin beats Jordan in just about every category *except* worldbuilding. (incidentally I think he's actually far more exoticising, both with the Beyond-the-Wall and the areas Daenrys travels through, than Jordan is)

This is probably true, yes - certainly about Qarth and the Slavers. On the other hand, I find that acceptable because we see these places so strongly through the single eyes of Dany, who naturally will find them exotic - we can ascribe some of their sins to her eyes, as it were. In Jordan, exotic places have a lot more independent existence, so I expect them to be better fleshed out.

but I think Jordan is actually the better worldbuilder. Flaws and all. (Not that Jordan doesen't have his flaws, but they are smaller than Martin's)

I think it depends what you want: depth or breadth. For depth, I can't see how somebody could think Tear (for example) was a more fully fleshed and immersive and believable society than King's Landing. Of course, for breadth Jordan wins. And once we introduce history and the passage of time, obviously both their worlds explode in a fireball of implausibility.

I was the same, except I hated Dragonlance with a passion. I kind of like the FR as a setting for RPG's *precisely* because it is so Fantasy-kitchen sink (which I realize makes it absolutely bonkers for any other purpose :P), and therefore I tend to use it for my "basic" D&D campaigns (When I don't play Planescape or Ravenloft).

I think your error there is in having campaigns that AREN'T Planescape or Ravenloft! [Dark Sun and Spelljammer are also acceptable]

That said, FR and Greyhawk are better campaign settings than Dragonlance - Dragonlance feels quite cramped, without the feeling of freedom that the others have. I've played a few games there, and it's hard to know what to do... [Fifth Age felt better, if you ignore the weird system they introduced for it]

Not that I've played for about ten years....

EDIT: I think to some degree it depends on what you expect. I came to WOT expecting the standard clich� fantasy and found, for the first time, something that was *not*. It's not a radical deconstruction, but it is starting to play around with the genr� a bit.

I agree completely. I adored WoT when I came to it because (as I said in my first post) it does have many good characteristics that were not shared by the sort of fantasy I was reading then. Unfortunately, ASOIAF does everything WOT does, and better.

[Except, I think, the mystery side. Martin doesn't do mysteries well (this drawn-out fiasco with the knife, for instance). And I'll admit Jordan's world is more inherently intriguing, even if it is wasted]

[Werthead]

If I want a hard hitting sword and sorcery-style that plays with theme as much as it kicks ass, I'll look toward the aforementioned Stover or Erikson.

I was kind of with you up to this point. Erikson's "deeping and meaningful themes," amount to "War is bad," (Memories of Ice), "Arrogant ultra-capitalism is not so cool," (Midnight Tides) and "Families are nice, (Toll the Hounds). Stunning insights, indeed. I actually prefer it when Erikson just drops the pretension and goes crazy:

SPOILER: Erikson

"Let's blow up the fucking Moon!" (Toll the Hounds), "Let's move 50,000 refugees 1500 miles under constant attacks by religious nutters!" (Deadhouse Gates)

I think Jordan handles the 'themes' stuff a bit better. It's not stunningly insightful, but the problems with lines of communication and information-dispersal in a pre-technological society are very well depicted throughout, as is the interrelationship between myth, history and legend, such as how our history has been corrupted into a mythological past for the WoT world, and how legend makes the Forsaken out to be uberbadasses when they were basically some nasty criminals who had the luck to survive where others didn't.

As for the psychology thing, again it's done better by many other authors, but Jordan at least aims for complexity as Rand's humanity crumbles in the later volumes, Mat evolves (sort of) and Nynaeve and Egwene both reach interesting places psychologically in Book 11 which show their evolution as characters (albeit far too drawn out over way too long a period of time).

I think these examples do show WoT's problem. It's batting at a higher level than a lot of the 'basic' modern epic fantasies - a long way ahead of Eddings, Paolini, Brooks, Newcombe, Goodkind, Greenwood, Salvatore, Feist, Lackey and others - and aspires (qualitively, not chronologically since the better series mostly came after it) to be in the same league as GRRM, Bakker and a few others, but it's sort of in the middle. Its coolest moments rival those of the top-tier authors, its worst moments are comparable to those below. It shares these same problems with Erikson's Malazan series, as a matter of fact.

[Galactus]

Yeah, I think that's a key part to enjoying (or not enjoying) Jordan. Someone up above said that Jordan failed to investigate what it might really mean to live in a matriarchal society. I'd agree, and add that in terms of any theme Jordan offered no profound investigation. He simply wasn't that type of writer. I think that's one of the reasons I'm actually still able to get a reasonable amount of enjoyment out of his books. I came to WoT later in the game than many other readers. I already read Martin and Stover before I got to Jordan, so I think reading the more involved stuff actually helped me to recognize and accept what Jordan's all about. If I want depth of theme and a stunning degree of characterization, I'll read Wolfe. If I want dreamlike prose, I'll read Peake. If I want weirdness that leans toward the litearary side, I'll go with VanderMeer or Mieville. If I want a hard hitting sword and sorcery-style that plays with theme as much as it kicks ass, I'll look toward the aforementioned Stover or Erikson.

Agreed.

If it might make sense, this is also why I get annoyed at Bakker. Bakker *tries* to do "important human themes" but botches it. Jordan tries to tell a decent story, and by and large succeeds.

Mind, I still think Jordan is (or was I guess) among the top: Martin is better, of course, Hobb too. But I think Jordan overall is more satisfying than Bakker (who just bugs me) Eriksson (who I seriously lost interest in) and most others.

I think these examples do show WoT's problem. It's batting at a higher level than a lot of the 'basic' modern epic fantasies - a long way ahead of Eddings, Paolini, Brooks, Newcombe, Goodkind, Greenwood, Salvatore, Feist, Lackey and others - and aspires (qualitively, not chronologically since the better series mostly came after it) to be in the same league as GRRM, Bakker and a few others, but it's sort of in the middle. Its coolest moments rival those of the top-tier authors, its worst moments are comparable to those below. It shares these same problems with Erikson's Malazan series, as a matter of fact

I think one problem of Jordan's is that he keeps "checking in" on characters without meaningful things to do. (the entire circus thing is a good example) he has problems with letting characters disappear for a book or two when they've got nothing interesting going on.

most famously, overpopulation and the mechanisation of labour in the 19th and early 20th centuries meant that the importance of having children fell, giving women less power and influence in that sphere, yet at the same time society's ethical system demanded that women not be allowed power outside that sphere - indeed, in typically insertial fashion, society responded to the change by actually reducing women's rights, in a desperate attempt to cling on to the old system. Eventually, however, economics prevailed.

To be honest, your point of departure is a bit too late. A better transitional point would probably be the end of the middle-ages, or even the post-plague society. (which both saw some serious regression in equality and also saw some important structural changes in marriage patterns that ended up undermining said regression)

I think it depends what you want: depth or breadth. For depth, I can't see how somebody could think Tear (for example) was a more fully fleshed and immersive and believable society than King's Landing. Of course, for breadth Jordan wins. And once we introduce history and the passage of time, obviously both their worlds explode in a fireball of implausibility.

I think the issue is that King's Landing is, essentially, GenericMedievalCity. It's well-described as such, but that doesen't really qualify for world-building IMHO, which I think requires at least some sense of originality.

I think the point is that at no point can I point to a Jordan-society and say "This is a fantasy counterpart of X". As said, Andor comes closest, but even they aren't medieval england the way Westeros is. The Seanchan are sort-of China and Sort-of the Ottoman Empire but not really anything close to either. King's Landing is... A medieval city. There's not much in it that require the building of worlds, neh?

[wolverine]

:agree:

Don't know about Bakker, but I otherwise agree with many of your points above.

[Zach H]

I was kind of with you up to this point. Erikson's "deeping and meaningful themes," amount to "War is bad," (Memories of Ice), "Arrogant ultra-capitalism is not so cool," (Midnight Tides) and "Families are nice, (Toll the Hounds). Stunning insights, indeed.

Eh, you could play that game with a lot of genuinely great authors. Wolfe = follow the real path of God. Conrad = people are crazy. McCarthy = the world is dangerous. Stunning!

True, though, all of those authors are more accomplished, more "literary" than Erikson, but at the same time I've never read a Jordan book that can carry a self-contained motif like House of Chains, for instance, with it's constant probing of identity (both in terms of immediate name recognition and deeper ideological beliefs) as a means or hindrance to a better life. So yes, compared to Jordan, I'd say that I'm more likely to find a "stunning insight" in a Malazan volume than I am in one belonging to WoT. Or at the very least, Erikson gives me the feeling he's intentionally making a focused exploration of his themes, while with Jordan it all too often seems like he stumbles upon something interesting only to avoid or dance around the idea in favor of his more-pressing desire to tour some inns, or describe the weather, or provide a wide shot that details what a group of soldiers are doing on their downtime, etc.

[Galactus]

True, though, all of those authors are more accomplished, more "literary" than Erikson, but at the same time I've never read a Jordan book that can carry a self-contained motif like House of Chains, for instance, with it's constant probing of identity (both in terms of immediate name recognition and deeper ideological beliefs) as a means or hindrance to a better life. So yes, compared to Jordan, I'd say that I'm more likely to find a "stunning insight" in a Malazan volume than I am in one belonging to WoT. Or at the very least, Erikson gives me the feeling he's intentionally making a focused exploration of his themes, while with Jordan it all too often seems like he stumbles upon something interesting only to avoid or dance around the idea in favor of his more-pressing desire to tour some inns, or describe the weather, or provide a wide shot that details what a group of soldiers are doing on their downtime, etc.

Oh, I agree totally. To a certain extent I think that's not a bad thing though: Jordan recognizes he's probably not that good with the big thematic stuff. Eriksson tries and ends up failing horribly.

[Werthead]

Oh, I agree totally. To a certain extent I think that's not a bad thing though: Jordan recognizes he's probably not that good with the big thematic stuff. Eriksson tries and ends up failing horribly.

Agreed. When discussing what he wanted to do with the series, Jordan specifically mentions the communication and mythology/history interface, and those are things he does quite well. Other than that, he doesn't try to delve too deeply into 'deep human themes' (if only other Tor 10+ book series authors had done the same...). When Erikson does it, it tends to spectacularly fail. The main exception is his musings on the ethical use of military power to assist a humanitarian cause (exemplified by a conversation between Caladan Brood and Anomander Rake in Memories of Ice), which was vaguely interesting since he didn't harp on and on about it for the whole bloody book. By the end of Midnight Tides the reader is fairly ready to throttle the next character (usually an illiterate and uneducated peasent) to launch into a three-page monologue on the evils of mercantile capitalism. Some of the Malazan books (particularly the later ones) do feel like that Erikson has come up with the idea first, wrapped a brick-sized book around it and then not done very much with it.

Personally I prefer GRRM's approach to both. Come up with a story and then study the themes that come up as a result of that story, in ASoIaF's case the pursuit of power comes across as the big one which is explored pretty much in depth.

I think one problem of Jordan's is that he keeps "checking in" on characters without meaningful things to do. (the entire circus thing is a good example) he has problems with letting characters disappear for a book or two when they've got nothing interesting going on.

You mean like this?

;)

I think it depends what you want: depth or breadth. For depth, I can't see how somebody could think Tear (for example) was a more fully fleshed and immersive and believable society than King's Landing. Of course, for breadth Jordan wins. And once we introduce history and the passage of time, obviously both their worlds explode in a fireball of implausibility.

This example is slightly problematic since we spend the majority of four large novels in KL and about ten minutes (comparatively) in Tear. Ebou Dar would be a better fit, since we spend two and a half whole books there.

[irriadin]

The Wheel of Time is my favorite fantasy series, along with A Song of Ice and Fire.

...

*ducks several thrown hardcover copies of Crossroads of Twilight*

No really! Hear me out.

It's my opinion that Jordan is rather unfairly criticized these days. By both writers (Scott Lynch, I think, was the one) & readers alike. Rather than address these criticisms directly, let me tell you why I like him so much. Way easier and more constructive that way ;)

1. The characters - Mat bloody Cauthon. Perrin, pre-Fail days (that misspelling is intentional). Rand al'Thor. Three backwoods kids let loose in a world far bigger and deadlier than they could have imagined. Yes, the premise is derivative, but Jordan does it with such style. The female POV's aren't as bad as people say, with the possible exception of Egwene and Elayne (as of late). Nynaeve and Siuan, in particular, are very enjoyable to read. Why? Because a great deal of their perspective involves misconception and dubious foresight. Jordan plays upon this constantly by having other characters in the scene roll their eyes, laugh, guffaw, etc. Nothing groundbreaking in terms of character development, but it does make for very entertaining reading. In most scenes, thinking about what other POV characters would think about Nynaeve's stupidity (such as Mat during Crown of Swords) is amusing.

2. Prophecy & Foreshadowing - Jordan is really good at this. Really, really good. I'm a big one for implied awesomeness and Jordan pulls if off amazingly well. It's sad that the duty for delivering on the prophecies and foreshadowing has fallen largely to Brandon Sanderson. I think he'll do a great job, but I was really interested to see if RJ could deliver on the sheer amount of awesomeness he has alluded to during the course of the past 11 books. Looking forward to plot-points

SPOILER: General WoT

(such as the cleansing, various Rand vs Forsaken showdowns, Seanchan sacking the White Tower, Moiraine's rescue, etc.)

makes reading (and re-reading) Jordan's books a great deal of fun.

3. The World & the Wheel Archetype - One of the defining moments of Wheel of Time for me was a part of The Shadow Rising. The part where

SPOILER: TSR

Rand goes through the pillars in Rhuidean. This is one of the portions of his writing that can be considered truly literary . Seeing Rand's lineage traced back through his ancestors to pre-Breaking times is both fascinating and tragic. The tone is markedly different from the rest of the series, reminding me of parts of the Silmarillion in its sense of grandeur and mythos.

As for the Wheel archetype… yes, it’s not as if Jordan fashioned this concept on his own. Yet,

SPOILER: pretty minor WoT spoilers

Ishamael’s philosophical ranting about the battle between the Dark One and the Dragon being replayed thousands upon thousands of times is a staggering thing to conceptualize. It makes one wonder if this particular iteration is any special, or just the one Jordan decided to write about. Does every age replay the same events? Or is it just the DO vs Dragon template that is followed? It’s fascinating to think about.

Ok, I think that’s enough for now. I’ll probably come back and write some more eventually.

[Werthead]

The Wheel of Time is my favorite fantasy series, along with A Song of Ice and Fire.

Fair enough comment. It had slipped down my personal epic fantasy series rankings quite a lot but during the last re-read I was re-impressed by many of the series' elements, and it's shot back up again (leapfrogging Malazan in the process) to sit comfortably behind GRRM, Tolkien, Bakker and Abercrombie.

Wheel of Time discussions turn into a balancing act of scales. Everyone has a different tipping point where the good worldbuilding, excellent backstory, reasonably decent employment of standard fantasy archetypes (WoT has kind of killed the 'farmboy saves the world' cliche stone dead), excellent magic system (only Bakker's competes with it) and occasional moments of genuine awesomeness get cancelled out by annoying re-uses of stock phrases, the bath-and-garment obsession, the extreme length and, most crippling of all, the Oh God Not Another Circus Chapter Please Shoot Me Now phenomenon.

If Sanderson kills off Valan Luca in the finale, the book will automatically get an extra star in my review :)

[Tears of Lys]

I think the problem is that those who came to Jordan when he just started have a bit of a rose-colored view of him (since, well, he WAS awesome compared to what was there) and those coming later having a large amount of Hype Backlash.

The end result is probably that he's not half as good as his fans claim, but not one tenth as horrible as his detractors say :P

I continue to think WoT is at once the best and the worst fantasy series I've read. It has such promise that sadly remained unfulfilled. I love the idea of the Seanchan AND the Aes Sedai and the Shades, and the male and female powers and how they're evoked, plus lots and lots of other plot points. Gods, I wished I could have been the editor. It would have been a far different series.

It also struck me as a strange blending of some really gritty, violent scenes, combined with a cast of characters that were bland and juvenile - an odd juxtaposition.

I'll unthird this, or something like that, by agreeing with Galactus here :

It is not better when you read the serie back to back, unless you have read it or started reading it before it was possible. A new reader nowadays is not in the same context as he could have been when the serie started, and has chances to see it as another run of the mill average fantasy with a few crippling flaws.

I read the books back to back in sort of the scenario you outline above, in that I was NOT a reader of a lot of fantasy, therefore, did not see all the cliches that others mention. However, I did read it well out of my youth, so just life experience alone colored my impressions of the story. The childishness of the characters struck me immediately.

Here come's the fatty wall of text. You hath been warned.

Indeed. In Martin's books I look forward to all of his female POV's... yet in WoT seeing Egwene's, or Elayne's, or Nynaeve's name at the start of the chapter instilled in me a deep and abiding terror for what I was about to inflict upon myself.

Anyway, I'll try to be objective as I can about this series. I stopped reading the books around the time of Crown of Swords, I think? It's been so long. I started to realize then (even before the horrors of Crossroads of Twilight) I disliked WoT - without reading better fantasy (asoiaf) or dissecting books like we do on this forum. This puts me firmly in the jilted former-WoT lover category.

Ultimately, this series comes so close to being truly great that it's flaws are all the more annoying/infuriating. And that is the tragedy of it all- the almost greatness.

If these two things had occured I'd be the series biggest fan:

IF, Jordan had a better, firmer, and more forceful editor to trim the fluff and keep the narrative moving

&

IF, Jordan either learned how to write female characters or eliminated their POV's entirely.

Jacen, you've managed to enunciate perfectly my feelings w/regard to WoT.

I must say that Jordan's treatment of the female characters in his story trouble me much more than Bakker's in PoN. A more brainless set of twits I've seldom encountered, even if they AREN'T prostitutes.

[TheEvilKing]

Let's not getting into a discussion of Bakker and women - there are, what, ten other threads about that subject?

"Rand went into the Crane on the Mountain stance. The thug attacked with a low thrust, and Rand countered with Squirrel-Running-Up-Tree. After that he smoothly progressed into the Wind-over-the-Lake kata, his blade moving in a blur. The brute fell dead, curiously caught in the final movements of Bear-Shitting-in-the-Woods. He must have been a true blademaster- Rand had gotten lucky. Rand turned towards the others, with a scowl of fury on his face. Ninenteen dark-friends and allies of the thug had him cornered in a dark alley in Tear. He was alone. The wall behind him was old- built up and up for many turns of the wheel- with all sorts of different colored bricks. Red, blue, green, white, and orange. Some came all the way from Kandor, Rand could tell by the way they cut the stone. In the Two Rivers they did not do much stone work, so he had to admire the polish and precise cut of the stone. Stone reminded him of Elayne. She was as hard and cold as Shienarian river rock! He wished Mat was here. He would know what to do with her. The blue bricks were oddly enough the same exact color as Rand's embroidered jacket, another twist in the pattern. Sky blue with gold epaulets and fine stitching from Cairhein. Rand thought with some embarrassment that the coat must have cost at least a year's wages in the Two Rivers. Where was Tam, anyway? Rand turned towards his foes, and he killed them all with his limit break, the Crazy Train

Hahaha brilliant stuff.

[ljkeane]

Fair enough comment. It had slipped down my personal epic fantasy series rankings quite a lot but during the last re-read I was re-impressed by many of the series' elements, and it's shot back up again (leapfrogging Malazan in the process) to sit comfortably behind GRRM, Tolkien, Bakker and Abercrombie.

I pretty much agree with this, in particular with Abercrombie I think the way he managed to complete his series in a succinct fashion is a strength.

[Lyanna Stark]

The female POV's aren't as bad as people say, with the possible exception of Egwene and Elayne (as of late). Nynaeve and Siuan, in particular, are very enjoyable to read.

No, really, they are that bad. Like Jacen, I started finding them positively painful to read after book 3.

And don't even get me started on the "bonding" between Rand and his three women, which is a stupid vehicle for teenage boy titillation. It's not even mentioned obliquely like Dany's handmaid scene, but harped on and on and on about, to maximise exposure (and also maximise irritation to anyone who doesn't like pointless titillation for male readers).

So we don't only have flat, annoying female characters; we also have a patriarchal society despite women having power plus we have polygamy for pure titillation purposes. In short: dreadful.

[ljkeane]

So we don't only have flat, annoying female characters; we also have a patriarchal society despite women having power plus we have polygamy for pure titillation purposes. In short: dreadful.

I don't disagree with your points about the flat female characters or the somewhat unnecessary polygamy but I wouldn't describe the society as particularly patriarchal.

I wouldn't describe it as matriarchal either but in the books the two most powerful political positions have been consistently held by women the rest of the rulers are about evenly split and we have a group of plausable (at least within the context of the story) female warriors. On top of this in the society described there is no assumptions about female inferiority or any expectation that women should be subservient to men whereas the opposite is sometimes the case in the books.

[TheEvilKing]

So we don't only have flat, annoying female characters; we also have a patriarchal society despite women having power plus we have polygamy for pure titillation purposes. In short: dreadful.

Maybe this is intentional by Jordan. All the women in his world are complete idiots, so depsite having dominion over pretty much all magic they have only managed to carve themselves a relatively small niche of power.

Mayhaps Jordan's books are really the biggest anti-feminist propaganda in fantasy. He's basically saying 'look, women have all the natural advantages but still the dudes are in charge, whilst the broads all fret about whether they are showing the appropriate amount of cleavage.'

I think the very worst thing about the female characters is how pathetic and stupid they assume all the male characters are, whilst simultaneously worrying over whether they're being too slutty/not slutty enough. Coming from a male reader, this was totally brutal and made these chicks completely unsympathetic.

I'm pretty intrigued as to how Brandon Sanderson writes the female characters. It's virtually imposisble to do a worse job, but writing them more realistically may be considered by fans as disrespectful to Jordan's style, or something. Basically I'm wondering if he will do an intentionally crap job of the women to honour and continue Jordan's legacy.

[Galactus]

Somewhat agree I don't think Jordan's soceity is patriarchal as much as it is still heavily gendered. Men are less dominant in Jordan's world than, arguably, they are in ours, but there are still definite gender-roles. The question of whether or not these could exist without the patriarchy per se existing is I think an interesting issue: I'd still have to say "Yes". Just because society is not patriarchal per se (whether or not it is patrilinear and what follows from that seems to depend on the particular culture no? The Two Rivers seem clearly patrilinear while the rest of Andoran society is not?) doesen't neccessarily mean there won't be gender-roles. Patriarchy is just *one form* of gendered society. Not the only one. (arguably it's even more specific than a male-dominated gendered society, but it's usually used as that)

EDIT: To be honest, I don't think Jordan's female characters are that bad, mainly becuase apart from Rand, Jordan's characters are *all* one-note. The problem is that his female characters all have the same note. I still like Verin though.

I just don't think Jordan is good enough with characterization that his female characters stand out as especially bad: They're ALL bad, pretty much. (But then, I don't read Jordan for characterization)

[Perin Stone]

Jordan did a lot of things right with this series. The characters, the world building and history, the magic system are all really well done. There are a lot of really awesome scenes through out the series. The problem is that between those awesome moments are lots of crap. And as the series goes on, there's more crap to wade through.

This is a huge story that could have been better if the last half was condensed and more focused.