Your honest first opinions of the early series (books 1-3).

[KakitaOCU]

On 2/21/2023 at 8:50 AM, Stedding Tofu said:

But the Seanchan are not an unknown and how they treat channeleres is not an unknown.  The fact that they absorb every captive channeler into their army, break them and use them against their former friends and allies is well established.

Yes, it is well established that the Seanchan are really scummy and slavers. 

It's really well established that they are so potent and powerful military wise that it is unlikely anyone else can win against them in open conflict, which means diplomacy, politics and changing them from the inside are the approach.

It's also really well established that the last battle is going on with another army of potent channelers running around in full circles and devastating everyone along with the swarms of Shadowspawn.   

So... We have a scenario where there is a bad thing going on that can't really be dealt with without your full attention, but there's a LETHAL bad thing going on at the same time and you can't ignore it.
 

On 2/21/2023 at 8:50 AM, Stedding Tofu said:

I don't think it's unrealistic to expect to see Mat wrestle with this more.  I'm pretty sure he knocked her out and took her prisoner himself.

Again, we flat out KNOW Mat is against the damane and has taken actions to push back against it.

 

On 2/21/2023 at 8:50 AM, Stedding Tofu said:

If Mat truly believed it was he would be on the hunt for her from that moment on because if the world ends so does he. 

No, that is how you feel YOU would react in the scenario.  Not the same as how someone MUST act.  

 

[Stedding Tofu]

2 hours ago, KakitaOCU said:

Yes, it is well established that the Seanchan are really scummy and slavers. 

It's really well established that they are so potent and powerful military wise that it is unlikely anyone else can win against them in open conflict, which means diplomacy, politics and changing them from the inside are the approach.

It's also really well established that the last battle is going on with another army of potent channelers running around in full circles and devastating everyone along with the swarms of Shadowspawn.   

So... We have a scenario where there is a bad thing going on that can't really be dealt with without your full attention, but there's a LETHAL bad thing going on at the same time and you can't ignore it.
 

Again, we flat out KNOW Mat is against the damane and has taken actions to push back against it.

 

No, that is how you feel YOU would react in the scenario.  Not the same as how someone MUST act.  
 

 

Irony is dead.  It's rather sad that someone who claims to have gained maturity can't stand to see someone else hold a different opinion.  As you have become a considerable nuisance I am going to ignore you.

[KakitaOCU]

Tofu, I'm disagreeing with your opinion in a forum built to discuss things.  If at the end of the day your opinion on Mat stays the way it is, that's your opinion on a piece of fictional work.

You posted it here, in a forum, where discussion is expected.  I am thus engaging in that discussion.  At the end of the day, swaying you to change your mind isn't a specific goal, it's just a fun discussion.  

If you're not having fun, by all means, ignore away, but please don't act as if someone disagreeing with your opinion is something more significant than just that, a disagreement.

[DojoToad]

29 minutes ago, Stedding Tofu said:

 

Irony is dead.  It's rather sad that someone who claims to have gained maturity can't stand to see someone else hold a different opinion.  As you have become a considerable nuisance I am going to ignore you.

As @KakitaOCU said, this is a place for discussion.  And discussion can lead to disagreements.  She will try to sway you and you will try to sway her.  If neither of you move it can be frustrating, but that doesn't mean either one of you is more right, wrong, obstinate, agreeable, ignorant, brilliant, or whatever...

 

You've both read the same books, watched the same show, and came to different conclusions.  That's totally cool.  Check out of the discussion or engage further.  Your choice, but that is what DM is here for.

[SinisterDeath]

[Blackbyrd]

Books 1-3 through could likely be called the 'mythic cycle' of WoT. Ending with Dragon Reborn where Rand -as the pied piper- is able to pull the sword from the stone. It's the end of a certain style of storytelling by Jordan. SO yes- i heartily would tell fantasy reader to read books 1-3 and stop after 3 if so needs be

 

 

[SusanHowell]

On 2/22/2023 at 9:35 PM, KakitaOCU said:

Yes, it is well established that the Seanchan are really scummy and slavers. 

It's really well established that they are so potent and powerful military wise that it is unlikely anyone else can win against them in open conflict, which means diplomacy, politics and changing them from the inside are the approach.

It's also really well established that the last battle is going on with another army of potent channelers running around in full circles and devastating everyone along with the swarms of Shadowspawn.   

So... We have a scenario where there is a bad thing going on that can't really be dealt with without your full attention, but there's a LETHAL bad thing going on at the same time and you can't ignore it.
 

Again, we flat out KNOW Mat is against the damane and has taken actions to push back against it.

 

No, that is how you feel YOU would react in the scenario.  Not the same as how someone MUST act.  

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Edited March 2, 2023 by SusanHowell

[slynese]

I like the early books, often more than the later books. I think they are interesting to read!

[Jima]

I enjoyed all three parts, although the second part was particularly good

[nsmallw]

On 12/27/2022 at 1:08 AM, VooDooNut said:

It gets better as RJ progresses but EOTW has a lot of redundant tropes from LOTR et al.

As a fan of classic fantasy, those "redundant tropes" are to me comforting. In many ways in the attempt to "modernize" fantasy, I feel that we've lost our way a bit but i realize I'm a probably an outlier and not really representative of modern readers with my perspective and I'm fine with that 😄

[VooDooNut]

On 7/17/2023 at 2:12 PM, nsmallw said:

As a fan of classic fantasy, those "redundant tropes" are to me comforting. In many ways in the attempt to "modernize" fantasy, I feel that we've lost our way a bit but i realize I'm a probably an outlier and not really representative of modern readers with my perspective and I'm fine with that 😄

*risen from the dead*

You're not wrong. They are quite comfortable. I do wonder why we fixate on LOTR in this genre as much as we do. Perhaps that's just my ignorance of other fantasy works showing.

*fades into the ether*

[Samt]

7 hours ago, VooDooNut said:

*risen from the dead*

You're not wrong. They are quite comfortable. I do wonder why we fixate on LOTR in this genre as much as we do. Perhaps that's just my ignorance of other fantasy works showing.

*fades into the ether*

LOTR very much created the genre as we know it.  So many things that we consider to be part of “fantasy” are from the imagination of Tolkien. 
 

Fantasy races such as dwarves and elves got their present form mostly from Tolkien. Orcs are a wholesale invention of Tolkien. Of course, those things don’t really exist in WoT, but that is just an example of how much Tolkien defined what the fantasy genre is.  
 

That doesn’t mean that everything Tolkien did is best.  But he is still the original against which others will often be measured.

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

It was the first books that caught me, and I still find them very satisfying. Though admittedly now they are old friends, and I cannot really compare books that I can almost recite with a new book anymore. 

 

Interestingly, my experience is quite different from everything else posted here. Personally I think that if you are reading a book and thinking "this is like xxx book", something is going wrong. For me, the first book was engaging enough that I was not thinking as literary critic, but I was living the story.

 

The defining quality of the early books is how RJ gives you the background without it seeming like plot. In your standard fantasy novel, when you hear about the evil wizard that holds the princess captive, you can see the whole plot roll out in front of you. A lost sword that can kill the wizard? Will appear in the next scene. For me, tEotW, did not need any poetic license to accept the myths and stories as that, and then when the story starts to evolve, I felt the same amazement that the characters did as they met Aes Sedai and warders and found the fecking Horn of Valere. Maybe I'm just stupid and gullible, but no book ever has done that as well, no book's world has ever felt so real, Myrddraal were scary, the One Power was believable. It has always made me scratch my head when people hold up a story about Hobbits as the gold standard of fantasy. Not worth discussing here but I hate Hobbits and cannot understand how I am meant to relate to them. [Aside, but my favourite Fighting Fantasy was Creature of Havoc, where you wake up as a monster and at first cannot control your actions so have to roll a dice to decide everything, you gain more control quite quickly and go on to find out who you are etc,. but one thing you never gain control of is that you eat Hobbits on sight, even when they are about to tell you the way out of the dungeon. So satisfying.]

 

Back to the early books, I thought they were just awesome. Even with their forced endings for each book to feel not to unfinished, with their channelers just doing things by instinct and feel and randomly succeeding against people with hundreds of years of experience. Even with continuity errors, like Myrddraal having powers that can overcome weak Aes Sedai, that only warders have protection from, and then, nah, every main character can take care of them easily. None of that mattered, because I was actually in that world, as dumb as it could be, rather than outside of it considering parallels with other books. And just weird that some many other people could barely finish them, but love the parts of the story where the characters are like,

 

"Hey, we need to travel really far. The fate of the world is at stake!"

"Will we Travel?"

"No, I'll get a really slow wagon, and a bunch of people I find really irritating, and I'll make sure that they all think they should be in command, so we can argue about it every single day."

"Great idea. Wait, would it not cool if you travelled three months in wrong direction just to see their faces when you tell them you need to turn around?"

"Oh man, you kill me. Definitely."

"And I'll make sure not to send you any messages, so you won't find out for months that the reason you are leaving is solved the after you leave, and you won't find out that your mother is not dead, is actually looking for you and may well be dead by the time you arrive where you are going, or who the bad guys are or where they are."

"You think of everything. This is going to be awesome."

 

And most of the conversations are about beans. Guess it would be boring if we all liked the same things.

Edited September 15, 2023 by HeavyHalfMoonBlade

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

Another point just occurred to me. One of the things I really enjoy about the books is interaction of the characters. ("Who is Elayne, Rand?" said Egwene totally not jealous, and not in anyway threatening Rand's health if he answers wrong. "Elayne is the Daughter-Heir of Andor." Was there another way I could have phrased that? "If you cannot be serious for one second!" I knew he was seeing someone!) And that interaction is much better with more of them together, as they all have their own dynamic and the more of them there are, the less likely they are to reach an impasse or go over the same situation again and again. And not that I have scientifically tested this, I think they are more often together in the early books... I think, though I am getting less certain of this as type... 

[Vartija]

I pretty much loved them from the start. I actually have a diary marking from when I started reading TEOTW and it says I read the first 100 pages in one evening and was basically hooked. I finished the book in about five days and couldn't wait to borrow the second book from the library so I bought my very first e-book. The pace only got faster after that and it took me only five days to finish both TGH and TDR. Kind of insane in retrospect. 

 

I wish I'd kept a more detailed diary of my feelings and first impressions. One funny thing I remember is that I kept shipping for Rand & Egwene way longer than RJ probably intended. I remember when Min was introduced and I was really angry with her for ruining the Greatest Love Story Ever Told with her "she's not for you"-prediction. That hurt the first time I read it because I was so invested in Rand + Egwene. I was also completely sold on Rand as the main character so when the pov shifted to Perrin I was actually a bit disappointed. That was probably my only moment of doubt with the first book and that didn't last long. I don't remember being disappointed or too confused by the ending, I guess I just took it in stride and didn't try to overthink it. Clearly it was enough of a hook to keep me interested.

 

I was quite new to fantasy with only ASOIAF (and Harry Potter) as comparables so I wasn't bothered by the similarities to LOTR for example. In fact, I don't remember drawing any parallelles between them on my first read, which feels strange in retrospect. I had read LOTR as a kid and seen the movies a dozen times but as a book it didn't capture me anywhere near as much as WoT did. 

Edited September 23, 2023 by Vartija

[Angydragon]

I loved the first books. only the book 1 finale left me so "WTF" that I re-read it multiple times and went to WoT Encyclopedia to be sure I had not missed something. I had not, unfortunately.

but what comes after is pure gold and I agree with another user who said that after book 3 the writing and the overall atmosphere changes.

it's around book 5 or 6 that I began to let the book on the self from time to time. I wasn't as catched as I was with the first books, couldn't even tell exactly why!

for me the single element which convinced me to go on is the whole magic system. the saidin/saidar system literally blow my mind and it's what kept me glued to the series until now (i have not finisched it yet)

Edited September 25, 2023 by Angydragon

[fra85uk]

I really love the early books, probably TGH more among them.

 

 

[Yamezt]

On 12/27/2022 at 9:37 AM, Scarloc99 said:

I will be honest, Eye of the world was a struggle

 

haha! I hate the eotw so so much. I bought the series when RJ was up to book 6. And the ONLY reason went past book 1 was because I already bought more than 1 book (i think I bought the first 3 at least). I was around 14 or 15 at that time, and buying books from my pocket money wasn't cheap. So I gritted my teeth through book 1.

 

I started to enjoyed book 2 onwards.

 

I've done a few re-reads when new books were released but I usually either skip eotw or speed read through it. I've not re-read since amol though. Not sure if I will - I don't think i can stomach reading book 1 without jumping to book 2.

[Ioulaum]

Luckily, the first book I read was the 5th - where RJ had conveniently added enough of an intro for newcomers that you didn't need to read the earlier ones.

 

Around Book 5, the story was seriously moving!

 

I'm not sure I'd have liked the series as much if I'd started from Book 1... Which seemed heavily influenced by Lord of the Rings.

 

IMO, it's not a bad idea to just read Books 4-6 and then stop reading. lol

[DavideRo]

Every time I re-read the same book, I perceive it in a completely different way

 

[Aan-Alone]

On 11/6/2023 at 3:21 AM, DavideRo said:

Every time I re-read the same book, I perceive it in a completely different way

 

This is me, except with the entirety of the series and/or the characters. I reread and gain new perspectives. Either I see things differently, pickup on stuff I'd missed, make connections I haven't previously, or I myself am not the same as during a previous read. This all seems to combine and add to the magic.

 

I was fully invested in the series after only the first half of TEoTW. Got it for free from a local bookseller. These first three are very old, very dear, friends.