A Memory of Light [FULL SPOILER DISCUSSION] Part 3

[Fossoway]

I don't see Ilyena reborn ever showing up. It just ... doesn't matter that much. Especially to the story of the series itself.

That was RJ's plan for the outrigger novels. As of right now, they aren't getting done. There's no information on them in RJ's notes at all.

I see -- Ilyena only mattered enough for Rand to have his big epiphany on Dragonmount, then he could forget all about her. Ah, well -- what's one more dropped plot thread?

You could be right about the outriggers -- but I think they will get done if a publisher can convince RJ's estate (and widow) to ease off their deathgrip on all of the WoT rights.

[Shryke]

I see -- Ilyena only mattered enough for Rand to have his big epiphany on Dragonmount, then he could forget all about her. Ah, well -- what's one more dropped plot thread?

It's not a dropped plot-thread. Ilyena matters in that she lives again, just like LTT lives again as Rand. It's not that they get another chance to be together, it's that they get another chance period. He never thinks of finding her specifically or anything, he's just happy that she's out there, somewhere, getting another chance to live a better life then last time.

You could be right about the outriggers -- but I think they will get done if a publisher can convince RJ's estate (and widow) to ease off their deathgrip on all of the WoT rights.

BS has said no to the outriggers too. This is what they've all actually said.

[awesome possum]

Easily.

WH and CoT may have had some bad pacing issues (CoT especially), but the prose was still as good as ever (your choice where that places on your general scale of prose-quality, but it was as good as any of the other parts of the series) and everything still tied together and made sense and was coherent and the characters were still consistent.

Meh, this is a YMMV moment. I had far fewer issues with the Sanderson books than I did the final several Jordan books.

[Rhom]

Meh, this is a YMMV moment. I had far fewer issues with the Sanderson books than I did the final several Jordan books.

The Gathering Storm was easily the best WoT book since Lord of Chaos. I can forgive Sanderson much inconsistency in the following two books merely for producing that. (Even if the excellent pacing of TGS actually came somewhat at the expense of ToM.)

[Guy Kilmore]

Out of the three books that Sanderson did, I enjoyed the first two as easily as anything else in the series. There are some done by Jordan that ranked higher, but at this point it is like saying I like rainbow sprinkles more than chocolate sprinkles or what have you. I think Sanderson, unfortunately, was weakest in the last book. I also do not think there was anything he could have really done about it. Jordan had the right tempo and experience writing battle scenes that Sanderson did not. Jordan's knowledge of his characters and whatnot, the effortlessness, was in his mind and something that Sanderson could never achieve. I always felt like the Last Battle would follow the structure of how the concluding battles of Shadow Rising and Lord of Chaos would have gone. Instead of nameless soldiers, it would be the named minor characters we have read about. Those deaths would have had more impact I think. I do think Sanderson did a good job with Rand verse the Dark One and I am glad I got to read it.

[ljkeane]

I also do not think there was anything he could have really done about it. Jordan had the right tempo and experience writing battle scenes that Sanderson did not. Jordan's knowledge of his characters and whatnot, the effortlessness, was in his mind and something that Sanderson could never achieve. I always felt like the Last Battle would follow the structure of how the concluding battles of Shadow Rising and Lord of Chaos would have gone.

I think that's true to a degree, for me Jordan was just better at writing battles than Sanderson and as this book was always going to feature a fair amount of those it was going to suffer from differing strengths that Sanderson couldn't do anything about. Having said that there were large swathes of dialogue in this book that just felt totally out of place in a Wheel of Time book and I found it jarring to read because of that. Honestly I can't help feeling that Sanderson could have done a better job on that front.

[Shryke]

The Gathering Storm was easily the best WoT book since Lord of Chaos. I can forgive Sanderson much inconsistency in the following two books merely for producing that. (Even if the excellent pacing of TGS actually came somewhat at the expense of ToM.)

I think the fact that it comes at the expense of the next book is rather a large mark against it. It's almost like cheating.

It had alot of strong points and is one of the best of the series imo. That said, it still displays the weaknesses of BS's handling of teh series. Some sloppy prose, jarring word choices (especially in dialogue), bad characterization (see - Mat) and lack of subtlety and over-repetition (Aviendha's story-line in the book is the worst for this).

There's excuses for some of it, what with it not being his work, and I'm glad he finished the series off so we at least get an ending, but the weakness are still there. Especially in TOM and AMOL, which in many ways just seem much more lazily written and rushed. Some shit he either should have done better or just lacks the talent as a writer to do better, which is bad either way.

[Fredward]

Easily.

WH and CoT may have had some bad pacing issues (CoT especially), but the prose was still as good as ever (your choice where that places on your general scale of prose-quality, but it was as good as any of the other parts of the series) and everything still tied together and made sense and was coherent and the characters were still consistent.

I never really had a problem with RJ's pacing. I realize that's an extremely rare opinion to have but it's true. As for how Sanderson The Hated ruined it... Firstly I read in an interview way back that he wasn't going to try and imitate RJ's writing style (like he could) so I let the incredibly jarring fact that every single new character now had a name totally outside the setting slide. What I couldn't let slide is that Sanderson seemed to have no intention of even trying to keep the characters recognizable. Who was Mat? What happened with Egwene and who was that ridiculous substitute? I got the distinct impression that Mat was getting slightly more serious after he killed that Aes Sedai, not a lot, but slightly. The something "withered" inside of him comment did it for me. Instead he becomes even more jokey but now there's this tinge of ridiculousness to him, like he was trying to be a clown. Mat wasn't like that. With Egwene initially I thought there was still a chance at redemption. But no. She became unrecognizable too. What was her reasoning that last night with Elaida? It went against EVERYTHING she had done up till that point. The Verin revelation was good, but I put all that on Jordan, Sanderson didn't do that scene nearly the justice it deserved. I SHOULD HAVE BEEN CRYING!

Anyway. Giving Cadsuane a POV was a massive mistake. She lost absolutely all her appeal/intrigue/ambiguity as soon as I was inside her head. Rand became a total illogical freak of nature instead of a dark, tormented hero sliding slowly towards darkness and insanity. Plus destroying an entire palace with balefire? That should have been like "WOW OHEMGEE RAND JUST DESTROYED AN ENTIRE PALACE WITH BALEFIRE!!! WHAT WAS HE THINKING?!?!" instead it was like "Kay. Guess another Forsaken is dead." And don't even get me started on how portrayed (or lack thereof) Arad Doman. I was soooooo looking forward to finally seeing that place. And when we finally do it's basically described as "that place with bamboo" and nothing else. OH! And lets not forget that mind numbingly stupid sequence where Faile appears, like a frickin action hero, to kill Masema. HOW was I suppose to take that seriously? Gah.

Now I never finished reading the series because after A Gathering Storm I refused to further ruin my memories of this series. I did, however, read the synopsis on the wiki. Now there are just so many things wrong here but lets start with the worst. Rand gets the Seanchan to support him by arguing reincarnation was somehow more valued than bloodline? And Tuon just goes with it? Unless there was some unholy ta'veren pattern bending that is the most utterly contrived thing I have ever heard. Hell even with the magic of the ta'veren wand it's still contrived. What else? Oh right. Aviendha manages to reverse the compulsion of the greatest compulsion weaver to ever live. Now I might be misremembering (I haven't read the books in years) but has Aviendha ever shown any real affinity to compulsion? Makes no sense. There was something else that was also incredibly stupid and deus ex machina-ee but I forget. I do applaud the amount of people who died. If I'd been reading RJ's version vast amounts of manly tears would have been shed that day. If I'd bothered to read Sanderson's version I probably would have cried too if for entirely less poignant reasons.

BUT. Sanderson's greatest crime? Was turning what should have been the greatest battle in the history of literary existence into that uninspired mess that was the Battle for the White Tower. The most foreshadowed and alluded battle in WoT history. I should have had chills through that entire thing. Instead I got like faint chilly like feelings when Egwene got that fancy wand and went partially bad ass. I should have felt the need to put my book down and pace to work off my ridiculous exictement. My imagination should have been aflame with saidar themed awesomeness. I have never been so disappointed over a book. I kept waiting for the fight to reach it's climax. To where I could sit back and go WOAH. And I just never got it.

Mein Gott that felt good. Now I just need to go stomp on the Mistborn series for the one-dimensional exercise in cliche that it is and I will finally have achieved full emotional catharsis. XD

[Rhom]

TL;DR

So, that little internet quip is literally your response to Sanderson's concluding effort?

Any validity your point may have had lost all basis the minute you said "If I'd bothered to read Sanderson's version." Way to go internet tough guy. Make sure you hit up Goodreads, Amazon, and every other book reviewing site known to man and give it a 1 star rating out of sheer nerd rage.

ETA: You know... I just checked. The Terry Goodkind thread here is up to its 52nd iteration; that's a lot of pent up rage over a book series, but at least most of the people writing to complain about that dreck have actually read the books!

[awesome possum]

Anyway. Giving Cadsuane a POV was a massive mistake.

You do realize she had her first POV in Winter's Heart, right?

Whether you do or not, this oversight combined with your insipid whining makes me feel pretty good in not even reading the rest of your complaints.

[Maithanet]

Yeah, I don't really see how you could read books 8-10 and say "great job!" only to read TGS and find it horrifically bad. The climax of TGS was pretty well executed. The Verin scene, the Battle in the Tower and Rand atop Dragonmount...I thought it was the best end of a WoT book since Dumai's Wells, and that was half the series ago. Sure, Sanderson had his flaws. Several of the characters (notably, Mat, Perrin and Nynaeve) always felt off, and it was distracting. The plotting of books 2-3 didn't work well, and many of the later climaxes were underwhelming - particularly the Tower of Ghenji, Perrin vs Slayer part 2 and P. Fain's cameo. But most of your criticism just sounds like you have put Jordan's writing up on a pedestal, and anything else is a complete disaster. With that kind of attitude, you should expect disappointment.

[Fredward]

So, that little internet quip is literally your response to Sanderson's concluding effort?

Any validity your point may have had lost all basis the minute you said "If I'd bothered to read Sanderson's version." Way to go internet tough guy. Make sure you hit up Goodreads, Amazon, and every other book reviewing site known to man and give it a 1 star rating out of sheer nerd rage.

ETA: You know... I just checked. The Terry Goodkind thread here is up to its 52nd iteration; that's a lot of pent up rage over a book series, but at least most of the people writing to complain about that dreck have actually read the books!

You do realize she had her first POV in Winter's Heart, right?

Whether you do or not, this oversight combined with your insipid whining makes me feel pretty good in not even reading the rest of your complaints.

Isn't it kiiiiiinda ironic that the people whining about me not finishing Sanderson's godawful rendition didn't finish reading my post? Also no I didn't remember Cadsuane's POV from Winter's Heart. Which is telling. Since it was short. And didn't reveal her motivations and innermost insecurities.

Yeah, I don't really see how you could read books 8-10 and say "great job!" only to read TGS and find it horrifically bad. The climax of TGS was pretty well executed. The Verin scene, the Battle in the Tower and Rand atop Dragonmount...I thought it was the best end of a WoT book since Dumai's Wells, and that was half the series ago. Sure, Sanderson had his flaws. Several of the characters (notably, Mat, Perrin and Nynaeve) always felt off, and it was distracting. The plotting of books 2-3 didn't work well, and many of the later climaxes were underwhelming - particularly the Tower of Ghenji, Perrin vs Slayer part 2 and P. Fain's cameo. But most of your criticism just sounds like you have put Jordan's writing up on a pedestal, and anything else is a complete disaster. With that kind of attitude, you should expect disappointment.

I have put RJ's work on a pedestal. This doesn't detract from the fact that Sanderson was definitely not the guy who should have finished WoT. Take the main complaint of RJ's most complained about books "it dragged" and compare it to that lovely and concise rendition you just mentioned. The series should have been left as is when RJ died.

[Rhom]

Isn't it kiiiiiinda ironic that the people whining about me not finishing Sanderson's godawful rendition didn't finish reading my post? Also no I didn't remember Cadsuane's POV from Winter's Heart. Which is telling. Since it was short. And didn't reveal her motivations and innermost insecurities.

No, I read the whole thing. What I was saying was that you essentially said that Sanderson's concluding two volumes were TL;DR. And I think its intellectually weak to say that a book is terrible when you didn't actually read said book. You read a synopsis online. Fair enough. Its like reading a research paper versus listening to Dr. Oz tell you what the research paper says. Sure you get the information, but you also get the slant of the person relating the information. YMMV.

I have put RJ's work on a pedestal. This doesn't detract from the fact that Sanderson was definitely not the guy who should have finished WoT. Take the main complaint of RJ's most complained about books "it dragged" and compare it to that lovely and concise rendition you just mentioned. The series should have been left as is when RJ died.

You're kidding, right? You think the appropriate conclusion to the series is where things stood at the end of Knife of Dreams?!!? :stunned: Even though he expressly wanted the series finished as pretty much his literal dieing wish? Fair enough.

I was a bit underwhelmed by much of the conclusion and I saw the flaws in the work, however I have great appreciation for the effort that Sanderson put in to deliver a mostly satisfying conclusion to a series that I enjoyed very much. I also have a hard time imagining any other author who could have taken on the task and delivered in such a relatively short period of time.

[Shryke]

I think he actually didn't want someone else to finish the series initially, but his wife convinced him otherwise towards the end.

[Maithanet]

You're kidding, right? You think the appropriate conclusion to the series is where things stood at the end of Knife of Dreams?!!? :stunned: Even though he expressly wanted the series finished as pretty much his literal dieing wish? Fair enough.

I was a bit underwhelmed by much of the conclusion and I saw the flaws in the work, however I have great appreciation for the effort that Sanderson put in to deliver a mostly satisfying conclusion to a series that I enjoyed very much. I also have a hard time imagining any other author who could have taken on the task and delivered in such a relatively short period of time.

Yeah, I totally agree. The only person who could really decide if it was appropriate for the story to end with Knife of Dreams is Robert Jordan. And he was very clear on this point.

As for Sanderson, I think he was handed a very tough job, and he did his best on it given the constraints he had. It could have been better, but what couldn't? It's done, WoT is over, and that's fine with me. Jordan's work had a lot of problems, and Sandersons had a bunch of different problems. Jordan at his best was pretty damn good, but at his worst, he was as bad as anything in the three Sanderson books.

And I would say that the main complaints about WoT fall into two categories:

1. Bloat/pacing/explosion of characters. This was at its worst in books 8-10, but is present in books 5-14 to some extent.

1a. Gender dynamics and unrealistic relationships. Most of his characters are pretty good in a vacuum, but the way the characters interact with one another is extremely frustrating.

When I was reading the series through, 1 was a bigger problem, but looking back 1a is more bothersome, because it is omnipresent throughout the entire story.

[Fredward]

No, I read the whole thing. What I was saying was that you essentially said that Sanderson's concluding two volumes were TL;DR. And I think its intellectually weak to say that a book is terrible when you didn't actually read said book. You read a synopsis online. Fair enough. Its like reading a research paper versus listening to Dr. Oz tell you what the research paper says. Sure you get the information, but you also get the slant of the person relating the information. YMMV.

You're kidding, right? You think the appropriate conclusion to the series is where things stood at the end of Knife of Dreams?!!? :stunned: Even though he expressly wanted the series finished as pretty much his literal dieing wish? Fair enough.

I was a bit underwhelmed by much of the conclusion and I saw the flaws in the work, however I have great appreciation for the effort that Sanderson put in to deliver a mostly satisfying conclusion to a series that I enjoyed very much. I also have a hard time imagining any other author who could have taken on the task and delivered in such a relatively short period of time.

Well if you did read my post and understood what was going on you'd have seen that the part where I whined about the book(s) I didn't read was a paragraph long. And really, feel free to enlighten me how the whole convincing Tuon thing wasn't the most contrived thing ever.

An appropriate conclusion? No. In fact I would probably have been pretty pissed if at that time they'd said the series would not be continued. But what Sanderson did was just so hardcore not up to par. People are hand waving things like "Oh Nynaeve, Mat and Perrin weren't at all the same but that's okay because Sanderson tried really hard" which is a joke. He should have dropped his butchering the moment he realized he couldn't grasp the frickin main characters.

And just for interest sake after I finished The Gathering Storm I thought that maybe it wasn't fair to judge Sanderson based on how well he handled another author's work, I mean that really can't be an easy thing to do, but slogging through the dreg that was the Mistborn series just totally obliterated any remaining hopes I had on his ability as a writer. I was not going to suffer through him mangling more of WoT. The only good thing about that series was the magic system. Which, admittedly, was pretty original.

As for writers that could have done a (much) better job. Scott Lynch and the Bakker dude come to mind. 'Specially Lynch, Bakker would have made the series ludicrously dark.

[Maithanet]

As for writers that could have done a (much) better job. Scott Lynch and the Bakker dude come to mind. 'Specially Lynch, Bakker would have made the series ludicrously dark.

And if Bakker and Lynch didn't want to put aside their own work to take on this thankless cash cow? Because while I'm sure Sanderson was (reasonably) well paid, he is inextricably linked to a work that isn't his own, and that he had very little control over. Not every author wants to do that, top flight authors especially.

[Rhom]

Well if you did read my post and understood what was going on you'd have seen that the part where I whined about the book(s) I didn't read was a paragraph long. And really, feel free to enlighten me how the whole convincing Tuon thing wasn't the most contrived thing ever.

An appropriate conclusion? No. In fact I would probably have been pretty pissed if at that time they'd said the series would not be continued. But what Sanderson did was just so hardcore not up to par. People are hand waving things like "Oh Nynaeve, Mat and Perrin weren't at all the same but that's okay because Sanderson tried really hard" which is a joke. He should have dropped his butchering the moment he realized he couldn't grasp the frickin main characters.

And just for interest sake after I finished The Gathering Storm I thought that maybe it wasn't fair to judge Sanderson based on how well he handled another author's work, I mean that really can't be an easy thing to do, but slogging through the dreg that was the Mistborn series just totally obliterated any remaining hopes I had on his ability as a writer. I was not going to suffer through him mangling more of WoT. The only good thing about that series was the magic system. Which, admittedly, was pretty original.

As for writers that could have done a (much) better job. Scott Lynch and the Bakker dude come to mind. 'Specially Lynch, Bakker would have made the series ludicrously dark.

Lynch... you mean the guy struggling to produce book three in his own series due to self admitted problems with crippling anxiety? Because taking on the thankless task of finishing the WoT wouldn't have added to that...

Bakker... you mean the guy who's work is so overlooked that there is serious thought he may have to resort to self-publishing his concluding trilogy/duology/whatever the hell else comes after TUC?

Look, I love both of those authors; but for varying reasons, neither one could have done as good a job as Sanderson. You have given me some great food for thought as I consider Shaidar Haran exploding black semen across Moghedian's face while Demandred goes around killing his friends just so he can remember more of his life from 5,000 years ago! :lol:

[Fredward]

And if Bakker and Lynch didn't want to put aside their own work to take on this thankless cash cow? Because while I'm sure Sanderson was (reasonably) well paid, he is inextricably linked to a work that isn't his own, and that he had very little control over. Not every author wants to do that, top flight authors especially.

Oh I'm sure they wouldn't have. But really if you have to go for second/third/fifth/60th best to finish a job just cuz he's available and you're desperate clearly you're doing something wrong.

[Maithanet]

Look, I love both of those authors; but for varying reasons, neither one could have done as good a job as Sanderson. You have given me some great food for thought as I consider Shaidar Haran exploding black semen across Moghedian's face while Demandred goes around killing his friends just so he can remember more of his life from 5,000 years ago! :lol:

Bakker attempting WoT would be worth it just for the lulz. Although I do imagine that the Forsaken/DO might take on a real sense of menace, instead of bumbling incompetence.

Oh I'm sure they wouldn't have. But really if you have to go for second/third/fifth/60th best to finish a job just cuz he's available and you're desperate clearly you're doing something wrong.

Or maybe you should just adjust your standards that nothing is perfect, and this is just the best WoT we are going to get.