Pull your braids and smooth your skirts: Robert Jordan's 'Wheel of Time'

[Kankurette]

There's a thread about the Amazon series, so fuck it, might as well have one for the books. Anyone else on here into them? I've got The Great Hunt, The Dragon Reborn and The Shadow Rising (the best one so far that I've read) and also read A Crown of Swords (which is around the point where the series begins to drag) and Winter's Heart.

[MojoJojo]

I found your comments about Sanderson's ending interesting - only other comment I've heard was very positive. Think it was on here but can't find it now.

I find it amusing that after becoming well known for completing a very long running series, Sanderson now seems to be determined to die leaving something unfinished. But since he writes fast he's had to make it bigger. The cosmere is currently 14 books plus 6 novellas, with around 13 more definitely planned. He's started adding a novella between each of the main books. And he tends to have at least one non cosmere series on going at any particular time.

[MojoJojo]

That wasn't really about WoT was it. Sorry.

[Kankurette]

I do kind of want to read the Sanderson books, if only because of

Spoiler alert

the big reveal about Verin, Egwene becoming Amyrlin and showing Elaida up for the idiot she is, Rand going completely off the deep end after breaking his rule about not killing women, and the big fight at the end.

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I know about this from a recapper on Tumblr, who I would have liked more if they hadn't kept doing that obnoxious 'I CAN'T I JUST ADHGAIRHGJSKFK ALL THE FEELS' thing. Yes, hun, we get it, you like Lan and you think he needs a hug. We get it.

Did the comment say anything about how Mat was written?

[MojoJojo]

No, I don't think so. It wasn't about the details, more about what an amazing experience it was to be worried that the ending was going to be best up, to then read them and Sanderson not only not fucking it up but bringing in new stuff that made it brilliant in an unexpected way.

To be fair, I'm not familiar with the books so probably wouldn't remember any details they did include. Also, the fact I can't find it on here makes me a bit suspicious that it was about a different series of books - although I can't think of what other series it could be.

[BlodwynPig]

Eggwe, you say ?

[Nice Relaxing Poo]

Can't remember much about them but I think I got to book 5 before I realised that I didn't give enough of a shit about them to keep going. What happens in the end?

[Kankurette]

What I know from recaps (MASSIVE SPOILERS, DO NOT CLICK IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW THE ENDING OR SOME MAJOR PLOT TWISTS):

Spoiler alert

- Rand has three girlfriends, Elayne, Min and Aviendha. Elayne is pregnant with twins. Aviendha is also up the duff.
 - Verin is a double agent for the Black Ajah. She's been spending years plotting to take them down and compiling a book of names, important angreal etc. She tells Egwene this after taking poison that will kill her in an hour. Egwene later goes public with the information.
 - Egwene becomes Amyrlin after Elaida, the Jose Mourinho of the Aes Sedai, gets kidnapped by the Seanchan. Alviarin, the assistant manager, is actually Black Ajah. So is Sheriam. She gets executed.
 - Semirhage forces Rand to break his No Killing Women rule by putting a male a'dam (that leash thing the Seanchan use) on Rand and making him strangle Min while Lews Therin Telamon is going 'OH FUCK NOT AGAIN' in his head, and Rand snaps and vaporises Semirhage and a Black sister with Balefire. Rand then has a massive meltdown and nearly destroys the world.
 - Matt ends up leading the good guys and being chief strategist in the war. He ends up with Tuon. Damane are still a thing, unfortunately.
 - Rand and Moridin swap bodies. Moridin dies in Rand's body, Rand lives in Moridin's. Only Rand's harem, Cadsuane (this incredibly cranky Green Aes Sedai who shows up in book 7) and a minor character know about this, everyone else thinks Rand is dead.
 - Egwene dies by turning into a pillar of crystal and doing some kind of powerful weave that kills Mazrim Taim (who's actually a Forsaken) and a load of Dreadlords. Cadsuane replaces her as Amyrlin.
 - Nyaneve becomes Queen of Malkier. She and Lan get married in book 7. She also apparently loses her braid, so no more tugging.
 - Aviendha loses some toes but Graendal ends up becoming her bitch after trying to brainwash her and it going wrong.
 - Tuon employs Min as a Doomsayer, or words to that effect. She's a kind of prophet for the Seanchan.
 - I have no idea what happens to Perrin, other than he ends up with Faile after rescuing her from the Shaido. Berelain ends up with Galad, of all people.
 - Moirane isn't dead, she's just been captured by the Snakes and Foxes people. Mat rescues her with help from Olver and Thom, I think? She and Thom get together. She's also massively depowered.
 - Olver blows the Horn at the Last Battle and the heroes show up, and Jain Farstrider becomes a Hero of the Horn too. Birgitte, who is Elayne's warder, gets her head chopped off by Daved Hanlon, this dodgy bloke who's very into raping random women and tries to give Elayne a Caesarean so he can kidnap her babies and turn them to the dark side. She comes back to life and kills him.
 - Siuan carks it because she is an idiot. Gareth doesn't last much longer either.
 - Graendal brainwashes the generals into giving misleading orders, but one of them figures out what's going on and lets Elyas boink him on the head and capture him.
 - Demandred shows up at the Last Battle with the Sharans (he's their Chosen One) and kills a load of people, one of whom is Gawyn, Egwene's useless boyfriend. Lan chops Demandred's head off.
 - All the Forsaken are dead at the end except Mesaana (vegetable, she and Egwene have a big showdown in Tel'aran'rhiod), Graendal (brainwashed) and Moghedien (gets captured by the Seanchan).

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[purlieu]

Mat in the Sanderson books is an interesting one.

Spoiler alert

Basically he's the only character who changes dramatically under a different pen, and although I actually prefer Sanderson's more overtly funny incarnation, it's really jarring when he first appears in The Gathering Storm.

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.

It's been ages since I read them (eight years?!) so my memory isn't great on details, but I do recall the first three being excellent, then the next five being decent but lacking much needed pace. Winter's Heart and the appallingly named Crossroads of Twilight were a real step down after that, an awkward point where I realised I was two thirds of the way through this 12,000 page series and started to worry whether it would be ultimately worth it. Jordan's final completed book was a touch better, and Sanderson completed the series pretty well, although I still can't help thinking his three could have been edited to two or possibly even one book.

Spoiler alert

A Memory of Light itself basically just being a ludicrously detailed account of The Last Battle is ultimately a bit underwhelming as a final book.

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I think Jordan got so involved in the worldbuilding that he got carried away and ended up spending entire books on plots that could have been summed up in a few chapters and that's what makes it feel a bit bloated and puts some people off. If that time had been spend exploring more of

Spoiler alert

the glimpses of the previous, more technologically advanced age, that weird reality Mat ended up in where the view was same from every window, etc.

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I would have enjoyed it a lot more; characters are obviously hugely important, well-realised politics within the fictional world help flesh the stories out, but I do come to epic fantasy for more huge, imaginative concepts first and foremost, and I think they were perhaps played down a little more than they could have been at times.

Also, I think I really fancy Faile.

[Kankurette]

Is The Gathering Storm the one where

Spoiler alert

Mat makes this really embarrassing cringey speech about women?

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I didn't mind Winter's Heart if only because of

Spoiler alert

the Big Cleanse, and Mat accidentally marrying Tuon,

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but I found the Elayne chapters a bit hard to keep track of because I kept forgetting who was king/queen of where. At least they got the hell out of Ebou Dar.