Sanderson is done with WoT part 2

[ljkeane]

Mat doesn't like doing it but to be fair because he's had to he seems to have moulded the band into a very professional force, that takes a fair amount of leadership skill. He seems to actually be very good at delegating which it's less clear Perrin's particularly good at (he seems to have just got lucky with Tam and Faile doing a lot of the work).

[David Selig]

Perrin would be a mediocre leader without the ta'veren effect blatantly helping him every step of the way. He has almost no useful education or training, he's reasonably smart but nothing special, and few people like to follow a guy who whines all the time how much he hates being a leader and how much he sucks at it. His wolfbrother powers aren't particularly useful either, especially compared to Mat's luck and Finn memories. He's lucky he got Faile to do must of the actual work for him and she knows what she's doing.

Mat is far more competent due to the memories and stopped whining far more quickly.

[awesome possum]

Perrin would be a mediocre leader without the ta'veren effect blatantly helping him every step of the way. He has almost no useful education or training, he's reasonably smart but nothing special, and few people like to follow a guy who whines all the time how much he hates being a leader and how much he sucks at it. His wolfbrother powers aren't particularly useful either, especially compared to Mat's luck and Finn memories. He's lucky he got Faile to do must of the actual work for him and she knows what she's doing.

Mat is far more competent due to the memories and stopped whining far more quickly.

How is one attributable to ta'veren and dismissed but the other is not? Mat wouldn't have his luck or his memories without being ta'veren either.

[Shryke]

Perrin's ta'vereness basically fills in the holes for his leadership while he gets his shit together. (they even point out a few blatant incidents of pure coincidence in the story) He's a good leader on his own once he stops fucking whinging.

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

To be fair, although we see almost nothing of Mat with his troops, he spends a lot of offscreen time with them (marching from Carhien to Maredo, time in the camp in Caemlyn, etc). Everyone who encounters the Band comments on how professional they are, especially in comparison to other mercenary outfits, and on how the soldiers are devoted to Mat.

Mat is a lot like Gareth Bryne. He builds a powerful military organization but he delegates. At the same time, he's clearly the driving force, and he isn't afraid to fight beside his men (at least, from their point of view).

Mat trying to avoid battle is all well and good, but to some extent he's lying to himself. He doesn't identify himself as a responsible guy, so he's unwilling to admit to himself that he's become one. Kind of like his admittedly annoying obtuseness on where Olver is picking up his habits - since Mat doesn't consider himself responsible, he doesn't believe that he's the one really raising Olver.

Btw, how awesome will Olver be? Learning to fight and to general from Mat, learning politics and music from Thom, hearing Noal's life stories firsthand, and getting lessons in flirtation from Mat? He's basically going to be Indiana Jones.

[Poobah]

Oliver is a psychopath.

[instantdeath999]

Olver is too ugly to be Indiana Jones :cool4:

[Frey Pie]

To be fair, although we see almost nothing of Mat with his troops, he spends a lot of offscreen time with them (marching from Carhien to Maredo, time in the camp in Caemlyn, etc). Everyone who encounters the Band comments on how professional they are, especially in comparison to other mercenary outfits, and on how the soldiers are devoted to Mat.

Mat is a lot like Gareth Bryne. He builds a powerful military organization but he delegates. At the same time, he's clearly the driving force, and he isn't afraid to fight beside his men (at least, from their point of view).

Mat trying to avoid battle is all well and good, but to some extent he's lying to himself. He doesn't identify himself as a responsible guy, so he's unwilling to admit to himself that he's become one. Kind of like his admittedly annoying obtuseness on where Olver is picking up his habits - since Mat doesn't consider himself responsible, he doesn't believe that he's the one really raising Olver.

Btw, how awesome will Olver be? Learning to fight and to general from Mat, learning politics and music from Thom, hearing Noal's life stories firsthand, and getting lessons in flirtation from Mat? He's basically going to be Indiana Jones.

Hey thats definately not Mat. He says over and over again when he finds out which one of Olvers uncles is teaching him to treat women like that hel have a strong word with them ;) :P

[awesome possum]

Reading a couple Perrin chapters last night sort of closed the book (for me) on the argument of better leader. It's Perrin. Part of a chapter sees him going among the Two Rivers men and he takes time to say a few words to every single one of them, and there are 300+ men in the camp. He does something similar in the Mayener's camp in that he walks through every foot of it, and at the end has some words of encouragement for the whole regiment.

As someone said above, Mat is the type who lets others do that for him. He's more likely to be drinking and dicing with his men, but when it comes to personally overseeing them I don't recall him ever being that specific. And I think it shows in that Perrin's men follow him personally whereas Mat's men, for the most part, follow his Luck.

Also upon reading the Perrin chapters (which I am trying to enjoy as they're the last of his chapters before the Plotline of Doom) I noticed another reason I think the series dragged a bit: Morgase. What the hell is she doing as a POV character? She's done nothing important so far in the series and yet she continuously is treated as an important secondary character by having her own chapters or the majority of shared chapters. She doesn't have a lot of chapters - 2 or 3 a book I think - but she really is pointless. Unless I'm forgetting something she's done in the next few books, I just don't see the point of her.

[Poobah]

No. Morgase had a purpose as a POV character way back when but she should have been dropped as a POV character up until ToM where she serves a useful function again, or at least used a hell of a lot more sparingly than she is. I like her as a character because she seems to be the sanest noble in the world by a country mile and she packs in a great deal more focused and useful introspection into a much smaller space than any other character as her role and position change, but yeah there are quite a few incredibly pointless Morgase sections too.

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

Well, she does save Faile and the Queen of Ghealdan's (along with some others) lives in KoD with her channeling. But yeah, she has been more or less pointless.

I just finished rereading New Spring and realized something that was always there in the text but that I'd never thought about: Moiraine is Elayne's aunt. Taringil was her half-brother.

[Lightning Lord]

I hope Baby Elayne called her Auntie Mo Mo. If I had an aunt with the name Moiraine, I would have called her Auntie Mo Mo.

[fionwe1987]

I just finished rereading New Spring and realized something that was always there in the text but that I'd never thought about: Moiraine is Elayne's aunt. Taringil was her half-brother.

It doesn't end there. When Rand goes through the glass columns of Rhuidean and sees through his ancestors eyes, he sees that the sister of one of them is kidnapped by a Westlander. Someone asked Harried (Jordan's wife) if the Aiel coloring in the Andoran Royal line is due to remnants of her blood, and got an affirmative. So, if one goes back three thousand years, even Elayne and Aviendha are related. And Elayne is very (very very very) distantly related to Rand not just from his mom's side but his dad's side as well.

As for who's a better leader... Perrin, of course. Mat's a great general, but he has never lead non-soldiers. I don't even see why this is a discussion.

[awesome possum]

Aren't Rand and Elayne second cousins or something? His mother Tigraine was a Damodred too wasn't she? Which would also make him related to Moraine.

Unless I'm wrong and she wasn't a Damodred.

Eta: looked it up and she married a Damodred. Still kind of weird in that she and Rand both share a half-brother in Galad.

[Usotsuki]

That Galad isn't the High Seat of House Mantear has always irritated me.

He's the only known descendant of Queen Mordrellen but somehow his house is headed by some twig from a collateral branch because Morgase adopted him, that seems reasonable.

[Maia]

Heh, neither Mat nor Perrin would be leaders at this point of time, if not for their excessive ta'verenness. Ignorant Whiners and shirkers of responsibility, both of them.

Heck, Mat wouldn't even be in _the story_ after the first couple of books if the Pattern (cough -cough) didn't stop him from slinking off with an iron fist on more occasions than I can count. Leave alone, have any useful skills for the purpose.

The only one of the superboys with the true leadership potential was Rand, IMHO.

Re: Morgase - she should have either been given something important to do after... Book 5, was it? Where she provided us with a view of Seanchan taking Amador and what's her name Darkfriend High Lady? Or killed off.

[David Selig]

The thing about mat is that while he was certainly someone who did his bes to shirk any responsibility before he found himself in charge of the Band, once this happened, he always gave his best effort as a leader and didn't run away from his duties. Perrin, on the other hand hand, spent months in Two Rivers literally hiding from his leadership duties, as we learned in the LoC prologue. That's why I prefer Mat as a leader. He also doesn't spend half his onscreen time whining how he really doesn't want to be a leader and how much he sucks at the job, unlike Perrin.

But yeah, without the blatant ta'veren influence, none of them would've ever been a leader.

That Galad isn't the High Seat of House Mantear has always irritated me.

He's the only known descendant of Queen Mordrellen but somehow his house is headed by some twig from a collateral branch because Morgase adopted him, that seems reasonable.

My explanation for it that the Taringail and Tigraine had made a deal that their first born male child would be considered a Damodred, not a Mantear, so he could have an easier time gaining the Sun Throne one day. This was Taringail's dream IIRC, to have his daughter on the Lion Throne and his son on the Sun Throne.

[Usotsuki]

Sure, we can construct any number of rationalisations for it, but that will not unfortunately remove the main source of my irritation which is that Mr Jordan should have justified it in the text rather than force the readers to make some rather courageous assumptions to explain it.

[Frey Pie]

The thing about mat is that while he was certainly someone who did his bes to shirk any responsibility before he found himself in charge of the Band, once this happened, he always gave his best effort as a leader and didn't run away from his duties. Perrin, on the other hand hand, spent months in Two Rivers literally hiding from his leadership duties, as we learned in the LoC prologue. That's why I prefer Mat as a leader. He also doesn't spend half his onscreen time whining how he really doesn't want to be a leader and how much he sucks at the job, unlike Perrin.

But yeah, without the blatant ta'veren influence, none of them would've ever been a leader.

I agree. Perrin goes into it in detail in his thoughts how bad a leader he was while Faile was away in addition to what you pointed out, in the Gathering Storm. He was so bad hes actually ashamed of it. Neither are anywhere near perfect though

[Werthead]

Aren't Rand and Elayne second cousins or something? His mother Tigraine was a Damodred too wasn't she? Which would also make him related to Moraine.

Rand's mother Tigraine was a member of House Mantear in Andor. His father was Janduin of the Taardad Aiel. Tigraine was formerly married to Taringail of House Damodred, but Rand has no blood connection to House Damodred at all.

That Galad isn't the High Seat of House Mantear has always irritated me.

He's the only known descendant of Queen Mordrellen but somehow his house is headed by some twig from a collateral branch because Morgase adopted him, that seems reasonable.

We know that Morgase adopted him into House Trakand, thus severing his ties with Mantear. We don't quite know why (the aforementioned deal, or Morgase simply wanted to be a mother figure for him after his real mother disappeared etc), but that is the only explanation we have so far.