[Tarrek]

It was requested of me to open a Wheel of Time thread for discussion and such, and as I love the series soo much, I did so.
So what do you think of the series? Who are your favorite characters and least favorite characters? Which books do you like best. What else do you want to talk about? Anything is welcome.

(May contain spoilers)

[Suzerain of Sheol]

Well, to begin with (not going to say everything in one post) I've read all of the books Jordan released but haven't read Sanderson's (waiting until he finishes).

I think Jordan suffered from something a lot of fantasy authors do -- finding success and letting his series run away from him as he suddenly had the editorial freedom to do whatever he wanted in later books. The plotting of books 7 through 10 is just abysmal. Everything of importance could have been put in a single book with room to spare. There is no reason the series had to be over 6 books long.

The 1,000 Aes Sedai and other characters who are totally extraneous to the plot just started to seem like a joke to me after a while. If he could have maintained his focus, and kept Rand, Mat, and Perrin int he center of attention (and you know, the secondary characters, too, obviously, like Egwene, Elayne, et al)he could have done something incredible.

As it stands, I'll always remember him as an author who had a really good idea, then blew it in the interest of stringing his fans along and emptying their wallets.

From what I've heard, Sanderson gets things back on track, so I'm looking forward to reading the last three books when they're all finished. And, I will say that Knife of Dreams did a lot so set up an actual conclusion to the series, so I'll give RJ credit for that.

It's been so long since I read them, I'm not sure I have favorite characters anymore. I always liked Mat, though. And Taim. I've forgotten all the people I don't like, so I can't comment there.

And take my opinion with a grain of salt, I'm a very critical reader and, well, TvTropes ruined my life. But, I'd be happy to hear arguments why I'm wrong on this.

[Tarrek]

I agree that books 7 through 10 do drag on a bit (might be an understatement), but I think one of the things that made Jordan different from other authors is the amount of depth he puts into each character, and the ability to do so with so many characters. In my opinion, if these characters were real, a fan could probably predict what they would do in a given situation.

About Sanderson, he is doing a very good job with the series. In his first one he got a couple characters off, but that was corrected in ToM. His style seems faster paced than Jordan's, which is probably a good thing for many fans.

My favorite character right now is Mat due to his actions in ToM, but it changes often. I have to say, up until ToM, Perrin was starting to become my least favorite main character, but his story arc finally improved.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

Jordan never really sold me on his characters. His females all seem like variations on the same theme. There have been essays written on the sexism in the books, but I won't get into it here.

The main characters are pretty solid (you know, Rand, Mat, Perrin, Thom, Egwene, et al) but beyond that, there's just so many side characters that they kind of get lost in the shuffle. Fleshing out that many characters is an insane task, and I don't really feel like Jordan lived up to it. And I think his books would have been better served if he didn't introduce so many and had just kept the plot focused on the characters everyone actually cares about -- the ones the audience has been following since book 1.

Out of curiosity, have you ever read the Malazan Book of the Fallen series? That one's kind of similar to WoT in that it has really high-powered magic, hundreds of characters, and is extremely long both page-wise and book-wise. It's my personal favorite series, but it's definitely not for everyone. You might like it, though.

[Tarrek]

I haven't read it, but I've heard of it. I might have to look into it.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

It's different from WoT in that it isn't about a chosen one, or even a central group of characters, but rather presents a broad panorama of the world, introducing characters from all walks of life, from slaves to incarnate gods, and it slowly builds a web of plot that masterfully ties itself together, despite spanning four different continents and hundreds of characters.

Plus, it's just cool. The mage-battles in it are breathtaking.

It does tend to be very military-focused; a lot of the characters are soldiers in various armies. Don't know if that's your thing or not. But one thing I like about it is the presence of alchemical grenades that allow the regular soldiers to match mages for firepower. And the fact that even gods and Ascendants aren't safe from a stray arrow to the throat.

But, yeah, maybe give it a shot. Sorry for getting off-topic.

And, you just totally killed me while I was writing this. Congratulations. :p

[Tarrek]

lol. yeah. I was there :P
Anyway, sounds interesting. I'll have to look into it.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

Oh, I should probably have mentioned, the first book is Gardens of the Moon, the author is Steven Erikson.

Anyway, I'm curious, do you actually enjoy the way the story in WoT meanders away from the main plot? Like the politics in the White Tower and all the diversions with the Aiel and the Sea Folk and the Seanchan, you know what I mean. Like, do you think the series would have been better if Jordan had kept it more tightly focused, or worse?

Also, how about the whole sexism debate? You think his females are symbols of empowerment, or caricatures of feminism?

[Tarrek]

I love all the diversion and such. I can see how that might bother someone though. It just makes it seem more realistic to me. I imagine that if there was this whole big battle against evil thing going on, there would be a myriad of other things from other people with different agendas or opinions on how to deal with the problems.

About the sexism thing, I don't think there is any kind of negative look towards women. In my opinion, Jordan is just one of the few authors who makes women a major part in his story, and that difference from other authors makes it stand out. They are just more characters to me.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

Right, I should probably mention I'm an English major, so I tend to look at things from a slightly different perspective.

And the way I see it, all those diversions do nothing but dilute the story that is being told. They make it look like the author (Jordan, or anyone else who succumbs to this *cough* George RR Martin *cough*) has lost focus on the reason he or she originally began to write the story. There has to be a balance when it comes to world-building. It has to serve the story, not the other way around. And I think Jordan got lost in his own setting around halfway through the series, started fleshing out *everything*, which just slowed the plot to a crawl. Again, though, he looked like he was getting back on track by Knife of Dreams.

And the sexism thing is more subtle than that. It's things like... the multitude of magical rituals that involve large numbers of nude women, and/or lesbian sex acts for no apparent reason beyond titillation. Or, alternatively, look at the way pretty every woman in the series treats males. They're a stereotype of militant feminists that paints the female characters in a negative light, rather than a positive one. Which seems sexist.

Like I said, there have been extensive essays written on the subject. It doesn't interest me that much, but I'm sure a quick Google search would find some, if you're interested.

Anyway, let's talk about RJ's writing style. I honestly can't even remember what his prose is like, it's been so long. What are your thoughts on it?

[Tarrek]

I like his style. To me it seems like a good balance between simple and complex. He doesn't use big words for the sake of sounding more intelligent, but also keeps things more than just "this guy did this, this guy said that, he said..." if that makes any sense. It is a style that, to me, seems to be able to hold the reader without forcing them to make sense of what they just read. Also, I don't feel any need to push through a section due to too much detail or unessessary writing.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

Yeah, I can't really comment, since it's been like 5 years since I last read those books. I wasn't as critical of a reader back then.

I do remember him having REALLY long chapters, though. Right? That was something that always got on my nerves.

[Tarrek]

Yeah. Some of the chapters are long. Doesn't really bother me too much unless I decide to try to read one before going to sleep or something.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

I think it was mostly his prologue's that annoyed me. Having to wade through 100+ pages about a side-character just to get to the story got on my nerves with some of the books.

And, was it Knife of Dreams that Rand doesn't appear for like 500 pages into the book?

Oh, and, your thoughts on RJ's borrowing from classical mythology? He certainly did a lot of it. I'm jaded enough to get annoyed by it now, but I thought it was cool back when I first read the books. (And by this I mean stuff like King Arthur references, the Celtic mythology stuff, sword-in-the-Stone, and so on).

[Tarrek]

The prologues aren't my favorite part of the books. There are a couple that are pretty good, but for the most part they aren't important. I belive I actually may have skipped one or just skimmed it on my first read through.

About the mythology stuff, I definately can't say that RJ is very origional. The amount of stuff he borrowed is huge. It doesn't bother me though. In fact, I like how it is integrated so that it doesn't stick out as obvious. If you think about it though (and not even very hard), than yeah, there is a lot of stuff.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

The thing about that, though, is that he (I believe) was very up-front about it. Never really claimed to have all these original ideas, but was rather playing in a massive mythological sandbox, which, especially for the time, was actually kind of novel in and of itself.