New to WOT - Questions

[saket]

hey guys

my name is saket i am currently on book 3. I had a few questions. 

we finally have a mat pov and throughout the previous books I percieved mat as stupid, someone who does not know when to shut up and incredibly selfish and annoying (sorry if you like him) but in this book suddenly he is calculative and manipulative and measuring his chances which i find so antithetical to prev books he has always just opening his mouth when he should shut up and just getting himself and others into worst possible situations through entirely his own fault, so this change in book 3 is so different and out of the blue for me. can someone explain it if i am missing something? also please keep in mind i am only halfway through book 3 lol 

[DojoToad]

Many of the characters change over the course of the books.  This may be a bit jarring for you, but the man he becomes is much better than the boy that left Emond's Field.  You don't have to like him, but I liked him better as the books advanced.

[Bugglesley]

6 hours ago, saket said:

hey guys

my name is saket i am currently on book 3. I had a few questions. 

we finally have a mat pov and throughout the previous books I percieved mat as stupid, someone who does not know when to shut up and incredibly selfish and annoying (sorry if you like him) but in this book suddenly he is calculative and manipulative and measuring his chances which i find so antithetical to prev books he has always just opening his mouth when he should shut up and just getting himself and others into worst possible situations through entirely his own fault, so this change in book 3 is so different and out of the blue for me. can someone explain it if i am missing something? also please keep in mind i am only halfway through book 3 lol 

The biggest thing I'd argue you're missing is that for a lot of books 1-2 Mat is being mind controlled by the Magic Evil Dagger That Makes You A Prick.

 

Yes, it was his dumbass idea to grab and hide the thing in the first place, but by the time he's running and hiding with Rand the dagger is amping up his bad decisions, making him selfish and paranoid and generally not a good person. It's channeling all of the simmering thousand year old resentful, self-destructive evil of Shadar Logoth directly into his limbic system.

 

You're seeing him in Book 3 freshly freed of it and back to normal Mat--an impish troublemaker who's too smart for his own good, naturally resentful of authority and doing what he's told, and a natural-born shirker who would never be caught doing an honest day's work if he can avoid it. It's fine to dislike normal Mat too! He's charming to some and incredibly annoying to others, but he's definitely distinct from Evil Dagger Mat.

 

He will change more! But that's where he's at now and why.

[saket]

7 hours ago, Bugglesley said:

The biggest thing I'd argue you're missing is that for a lot of books 1-2 Mat is being mind controlled by the Magic Evil Dagger That Makes You A Prick.

 

Yes, it was his dumbass idea to grab and hide the thing in the first place, but by the time he's running and hiding with Rand the dagger is amping up his bad decisions, making him selfish and paranoid and generally not a good person. It's channeling all of the simmering thousand year old resentful, self-destructive evil of Shadar Logoth directly into his limbic system.

 

You're seeing him in Book 3 freshly freed of it and back to normal Mat--an impish troublemaker who's too smart for his own good, naturally resentful of authority and doing what he's told, and a natural-born shirker who would never be caught doing an honest day's work if he can avoid it. It's fine to dislike normal Mat too! He's charming to some and incredibly annoying to others, but he's definitely distinct from Evil Dagger Mat.

 

He will change more! But that's where he's at now and why.

that does make a lot of sense, i did not take the dagger into account that much, though i did realise it makes you kind of a prick lol. He does become a little hard to like because of the dagger and in general also as of now lol but really looking forward to how he fits into the pattern 

[books of Robert Jordan]

On 12/12/2023 at 8:09 AM, saket said:

percieved mat as stupid, someone who does not know when to shut up and incredibly selfish and annoying (sorry if you like him)

 

That's your opinion, and it's a free world, you can think anything about anything, but could you mention examples about these things?