Back to annoying characters:))

[wa1w]

Child Jaret Byar is driving me crazy.....listening to audiotapes (2nd time through).  At least many of the other characters show growth throughout the series.  You could re-name the Children of the Light, the Children of not going Anywhere, until Galadedrid shows up.

[Asthereal]

To be fair, the Children of the Light are actually (ironically) infested with darkfriends, so we shouldn't really expect them to make much progress towards the good cause. 😉

But yeah, many characters in the Children of the Light are extremely frustrating to read about.

[Samt]

3 hours ago, Asthereal said:

To be fair, the Children of the Light are actually (ironically) infested with darkfriends, so we shouldn't really expect them to make much progress towards the good cause. 😉

But yeah, many characters in the Children of the Light are extremely frustrating to read about.

In fairness, every power structure in the whole world is infested with dark friends.  I find it helpful to just remind myself that most of the characters aren't supposed to be likable.  

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

It is one of the failings of the books that the "evil" characters are so two dimensional. 

 

The bad guys are just bad. Jaichim Carridin and Hadnan Kadere both had apparent family ties, but these were wholly subservient to being bad. Liandrin is just spiteful and greedy. They nearly are always blinded by greed or hatred or both. 

 

I assume this was an attempt to have a clear contrast between evil and good. A powerful vision of good and evil, as Orson Scott Card proclaimed. Also I cannot overlook that most of them had sold their souls, or were being manipulated by the One Power, that I cannot deny would help remove nuance.

 

But for Byar, who could have been a very interesting character with his conflicting loyalty and cruelty, a strong sense of honour and total lack of empathy, instead was sold down the "bad guy" route, that made him very unsatisfying for a character that features nearly through the entire story.

[Figs and Mice]

I guess the Children of the Light are pretty much a bunch of religious fanatics (plenty such around in our own modern world , alas !) who are not prepared to listen to anything that conflicts with their rigid beliefs. But yes , Byar is annoying in his stubborn and never changing hatreds...  Dain Bornhald on the other hand has more nuance - and ends up doing a good thing for one of our heroes : so they aren't quite all black and white...

[Bugglesley]

On 4/5/2024 at 2:09 PM, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

It is one of the failings of the books that the "evil" characters are so two dimensional. 

 

The bad guys are just bad. Jaichim Carridin and Hadnan Kadere both had apparent family ties, but these were wholly subservient to being bad. Liandrin is just spiteful and greedy. They nearly are always blinded by greed or hatred or both. 

 

I assume this was an attempt to have a clear contrast between evil and good. A powerful vision of good and evil, as Orson Scott Card proclaimed. Also I cannot overlook that most of them had sold their souls, or were being manipulated by the One Power, that I cannot deny would help remove nuance.

 

But for Byar, who could have been a very interesting character with his conflicting loyalty and cruelty, a strong sense of honour and total lack of empathy, instead was sold down the "bad guy" route, that made him very unsatisfying for a character that features nearly through the entire story.

 

That's what someone with a "strong sense of honour and a total lack of empathy is." A bad guy. It's not until the Brando books, sure, but you see Galad realize this in real time; as he sees the people most like him from the outside, and realizes that when you don't live inside a palace 'just always do the right thing' isn't quite so simple, and can have some ironic consequences.

 

Honor without empathy describes most people who commit crimes against humanity. The natural human impulse is to dismiss such examples and say "well they weren't really honorable, duh"; yet in doing so, it reveals why it's evil in the first place. Honor is not objective. Their honor was not objective, and our honor is not objective. However, it lets us think it is. If our judgement of what to do is some abstract, self-serving "code" (that we, of course, are free to interpret as our motivated reasoning defines) and not the actual, living humans we interact with, we too are bad guys. We are laundering our regular, base, human desires through "honor" and it comes out the other side looking like the Objective Truth Of The Light.

 

And along those lines, I think RJ does a good job of highlighting something about evil that I think is fundamentally real: the beginning is complicated, but the now is extremely simple. People have all kinds of reasons for getting into a criminal enterprise, for starting to embezzle, for signing on to the job at that investment firm. But the now, the moment when you're hurting someone for your own gain, is extremely simple. Carridin had all kinds of reasons for becoming a darkfriend, but now what he does is hurt people and try to get ahead. The magic isn't even required: as Verin shows, the process for becoming a Darkfriend isn't like being turned; you're linked to the dark one but it doesn't excise your original personality in the same way.

 

RJ's doing "Just say no" to moral absolutism and evil. Even then, I think the villain writing in WoT is a strength and not a weakness. The evil in WoT is incredibly complicated! Sure, there's no dumb Thanos "wah wah I had to sacrifice my own daughter in order to do semi-omnicide" :C moments. On the other hand, the good guys repeatedly win because the Forsaken are competing with one another and their schemes overlap and clash. The darkfriends are all selfish, petty monsters, but they are each selfish and petty in their own peculiar ways, bouncing off each other and our heroes. Fain offers us an evil that itself hates and seeks to destroy the categorical, mystical evil of the world. I think all of this works better than having villains that monologue about how they deserve to do evil things because their dad was mean to them or whatever.

Edited April 8 by Bugglesley

[Samt]

3 hours ago, Bugglesley said:

 

That's what someone with a "strong sense of honour and a total lack of empathy is." A bad guy. It's not until the Brando books, sure, but you see Galad realize this in real time; as he sees the people most like him from the outside, and realizes that when you don't live inside a palace 'just always do the right thing' isn't quite so simple, and can have some ironic consequences.

 

Honor without empathy describes most people who commit crimes against humanity. The natural human impulse is to dismiss such examples and say "well they weren't really honorable, duh"; yet in doing so, it reveals why it's evil in the first place. Honor is not objective. Their honor was not objective, and our honor is not objective. However, it lets us think it is. If our judgement of what to do is some abstract, self-serving "code" (that we, of course, are free to interpret as our motivated reasoning defines) and not the actual, living humans we interact with, we too are bad guys. We are laundering our regular, base, human desires through "honor" and it comes out the other side looking like the Objective Truth Of The Light.

 

And along those lines, I think RJ does a good job of highlighting something about evil that I think is fundamentally real: the beginning is complicated, but the now is extremely simple. People have all kinds of reasons for getting into a criminal enterprise, for starting to embezzle, for signing on to the job at that investment firm. But the now, the moment when you're hurting someone for your own gain, is extremely simple. Carridin had all kinds of reasons for becoming a darkfriend, but now what he does is hurt people and try to get ahead. The magic isn't even required: as Verin shows, the process for becoming a Darkfriend isn't like being turned; you're linked to the dark one but it doesn't excise your original personality in the same way.

 

RJ's doing "Just say no" to moral absolutism and evil. Even then, I think the villain writing in WoT is a strength and not a weakness. The evil in WoT is incredibly complicated! Sure, there's no dumb Thanos "wah wah I had to sacrifice my own daughter in order to do semi-omnicide" :C moments. On the other hand, the good guys repeatedly win because the Forsaken are competing with one another and their schemes overlap and clash. The darkfriends are all selfish, petty monsters, but they are each selfish and petty in their own peculiar ways, bouncing off each other and our heroes. Fain offers us an evil that itself hates and seeks to destroy the categorical, mystical evil of the world. I think all of this works better than having villains that monologue about how they deserve to do evil things because their dad was mean to them or whatever.

I completely agree.  I have been confused by the criticism that WoT doesn't have complicated villains, because there are lots of villains with good diversity and many of them are complicated.  Of course, some of them are simple or don't get explored, but that doesn't equate to not having complicated villains.

 

I will say that WoT doesn't have sympathetic villains.  There is a modern fashion in writing where villains should be sympathetic and make good points.  And that can be interesting sometimes, but it's very overdone at this point.  WoT has great villains.  And a lot of times evil people are evil because they are selfish and callous.  They don't all need deep philosophy or trauma.

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

They are two dimensional and childish. No one is evil for evil's sake - everyone thinks that they are right and morally correct. Ishamael is interesting because of his motivation. Daved Hanlon you could say was a classic sadistic psychopath. But bad guy after bad guy were motivated by lust for power, greed, and hatred, self recognised and chosen because they were just bad to the core. They had no motivations beyond personal enrichment even though it was obvious what they were involved in was more likely to end up in painful, humiliating death in the short term, yet they were convinced by vague promises of life eternal and power and some later and vague date. 

 

However much you may not agree with the criticism, denying that most of the bad guys were cardboard cutouts compared to characters like Ingtar or Verin, that were evil and acted evil because they were evil only shows that you weren't paying a lot of attention when you were reading the books. It's totally fine that you like the way the book is written, totally fine that you wished they had flourished capes and twirled mustaches more, but trying to claim they were believable rounded characters with human motivations is just false, no matter what your opinion is. 

[Samt]

51 minutes ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

They are two dimensional and childish. No one is evil for evil's sake - everyone thinks that they are right and morally correct. Ishamael is interesting because of his motivation. Daved Hanlon you could say was a classic sadistic psychopath. But bad guy after bad guy were motivated by lust for power, greed, and hatred, self recognised and chosen because they were just bad to the core. They had no motivations beyond personal enrichment even though it was obvious what they were involved in was more likely to end up in painful, humiliating death in the short term, yet they were convinced by vague promises of life eternal and power and some later and vague date. 

 

However much you may not agree with the criticism, denying that most of the bad guys were cardboard cutouts compared to characters like Ingtar or Verin, that were evil and acted evil because they were evil only shows that you weren't paying a lot of attention when you were reading the books. It's totally fine that you like the way the book is written, totally fine that you wished they had flourished capes and twirled mustaches more, but trying to claim they were believable rounded characters with human motivations is just false, no matter what your opinion is. 

Good talk.  Glad you're here to tell me I'm wrong because you say so.  

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

No you are wrong because you saying that the motivations of a character are somehow matters of opinion rather than fact. That you think they are well written is quite different from them having rounded motivations.

 

It is not about a degree of complexity - it is a degree of how they are defined as being bad. They are petty and shortsighted, and are bad for being bad in and of itself, even though they have to make huge sacrifices for it personally.

 

Saying you are confused by the criticism does not refute that criticism, nor does it mean that your opinions are somehow given more weight. You not understanding the criticisms on reflects on your ability to understand the issue, and not favourably on your ability to pass judgement upon it.

[Kalessin]

Getting back to the topic, I think the characterisation of Lanfear as evil is somewhat lacking because she doesn't twirl her moustache ...

 

Seriously, I thought RJ made Byar a monomaniac,which fitted his purpose in the series reasonably well. However, where he slipped up was failing to bring out the reason, unlike Muadh, whose one-line characterisation gives an excellent reason why he should hate Darkfriends. I suspect Byar's just one in a long line of fanatics, but it would've been better to have had some more detail.

[mogi68]

I don't think it's unrealistic that there would be people who are evil for evil's sake considering the cosmology of the universe. If we had a primal force of chaos that was manifested in our world, it would likely have many followers.

[Taimandred]

The most frustrating thing for me is that, it just seems like the bad guys were born bad. I cannot remember a single character being recruited or converted to the dark side. We hear how each Forsaken converted purely because they came from an era of peace and tranquility. All others seem to just be born into it. I know some obscure characters rethink their path to the dark, but all were insidious to start with.

 

As far as I can tell, since the first book, no named character who was not a dark friend becomes a dark friend aside from Taim's forced conversions in the appropriately named Black Tower (Rand was completely insane by then, I'm sure).

[Bugglesley]

On 4/8/2024 at 4:26 PM, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

No you are wrong because you saying that the motivations of a character are somehow matters of opinion rather than fact. That you think they are well written is quite different from them having rounded motivations.

 

It is not about a degree of complexity - it is a degree of how they are defined as being bad. They are petty and shortsighted, and are bad for being bad in and of itself, even though they have to make huge sacrifices for it personally.

 

Saying you are confused by the criticism does not refute that criticism, nor does it mean that your opinions are somehow given more weight. You not understanding the criticisms on reflects on your ability to understand the issue, and not favourably on your ability to pass judgement upon it.

 

Let's dig in. Just the Forsaken, who probably get developed the most:

 

Sammael: Wants to be safe. Wants to set up his own place away from everything else and dig in. Hates Lews Therin (a theme will develop).

Demandred: Hates Lews Therin. Is Jealous of Lews Therin. Wants to prove he's better than Lews Therin.

Ishy: Has mathematically determined that he doesn't understand cyclical cosmology. Logically reasons that evil will win in the end and resistance is futile. Wants to die so bad.

Lanfear: Wants to beat her romantic rival from 3000 years ago, also next steps kill and replace God.

Rahvin: Pervert, political manipulator; reflexively cannot take no for an answer.

Moghedien: Wants to maintain her personal safety at all costs

Graendal: Pervert, connoisseur of all pleasures of the flesh in every possible way. Wants to experience them all forever.

Semirhage: Mad scientist, wants to experiment with the absolute limits of human perception (specifically along the axis of pain). True-blue psychopath and sadist.

Asmodean: Wants to be on the winning side

Aginor: Pervert and mad scientist, wants freedom to experiment with other bodies to his hearts content

Balthamel: Pervert

Bel'al: Literally who idk he's like Demandred lite

 

Like yeah, they're all bad people, I'll give you that. All of these motivations can be boiled down to selfishness and cowardice. Then again, those things feel like they would have have some venn diagram overlap with "people who would sign up with the Ancient Evil." Within that diagram, we've got some real range! From aesthetes to psychopaths to megolomaniacs to schemers, there's a real gamut of personality flaws here that, within the story, meaningfully interact. Lanfear's clashing motivations cause her to.. just do a lot, Asmodean's and Moghediens' cowardice are so strong that they, respectively, end up being windows into the AoL for Rand and The Wonder Girls, Ishmael's refusal to let anyone else kill Rand so that he can be turned to the Shadow and end the cycle vs, say,  Bel'al's off-script jumping in the Stone of Tear. You've got packs of Trollocs fighting each other more than once.

 

When it comes to third-age darkfriends, this is a true fact without an argumentative purpose. They are, for the most part, plot devices and not characters. They exist to raise the tension and stakes and make you second-guess any character you don't have direct PoV of working for the Light (and even then Verin gets the double twisty triple cross treatment). I think it's a little wild that you say they are categorically uninteresting and then name immediately two interesting ones.

 

On the other hand, we are eating good when it comes to non-darkfriend antagonists; many Aes Sedai fit the bill, from the Hall generally to Lelaine and Romanda specifically and of course, Queen Tyrant herself Elaida. You have the Seanchan as a psuedo-totalitarian magic-slaveocracy that nevertheless winds up fighting on the side of "good." You have the Shaido, who are, for sure, manipulated by Darkfriends--but who, by and large, are just assholes. You have the Prophet and the Whitecloaks, who are both ostensibly on the side of the Light but are also such assholes about it that it loops right back around to counterproductivity.

 

The story would not be improved in any way if we had more Marvel or Legend of Korra-style "he wants something that's arguably good but he went too far" antagonists, nor "he had to do it because Lews Therin was mean to him :C" and as mentioned, we already examples of both! One is an entire major faction!

 

The series is replete with antagonists who are under no circumstances "cardboard cutouts." In general, I find that an inability to identify with or understand a character whose actions "make no sense" or "are just evil to the core and are therefore boring" can be either a failure of characterization (on the author) or of imagination (on the reader). There is significant textual evidence that your claims demonstrate the latter.

 

As I said previously in this thread, I think there is a real failure here to have a theory of mind of how radicalization and membership in real-life atrocities and violent groups operates. Nobody woke up and said "hey I'm going to join the Khmer Rouge so I can do some mass murder, oh boy." They were sold a bill of goods; by the time they're driving the bulldozer over the people buried alive, their biggest concern is not being under the bulldozer. An extreme example; in WoT terms, our friend is like hey bro cool story you can get power and wealth for free it's not super legal but just like hang out with our friends what has the "Light" ever done for you, and before you know it you have the Black Ajah's finest threatening you with a Trolloc stewpot unless you locate the shephard in the picture before the day is done. This is not "petty and shortsighted." How does the average person know how Darkfriends lives are? The only way to know is to be one! Unreliable narration, including in-universe unreliable narration, is at the core of the story; how many people become Darkfriends because someone makes them grand promises, and when you try to say "yeah but.." they come back with "who told you that? A damn Whitecloak?" How is this not "believable" or "human"? What do you think a "3d" antagonist looks like?

 

RJ was in Southeast Asia and it very clearly affected him, and a lot of the Wheel of Time can be credibly read to be him honestly asking himself, and the world, "how can someone do this--how could somebody have done this." And it is not opinion to say he comes up with a variety of textured, realistic, three dimensional answers to these questions. If all you can see of them is the shadows on the wall while you screech and wail that it's an objective fact that shadows are colorless and 2d and everyone who noticed things you did not "weren't paying a lot of attention when reading the books...."

 

On 4/21/2024 at 1:14 AM, Taimandred said:

The most frustrating thing for me is that, it just seems like the bad guys were born bad. I cannot remember a single character being recruited or converted to the dark side. We hear how each Forsaken converted purely because they came from an era of peace and tranquility. All others seem to just be born into it. I know some obscure characters rethink their path to the dark, but all were insidious to start with.

 

As far as I can tell, since the first book, no named character who was not a dark friend becomes a dark friend aside from Taim's forced conversions in the appropriately named Black Tower (Rand was completely insane by then, I'm sure).

 

I find it really frustrating that we never see the characters wiping their ass. It seems like they always have found the time to use the toilet, but we never see it on-screen. I cannot remember a single time when it's described to us what kind of toilet paper it was, or whether they wiped front-to-back or back-to-front.

 

Who gives a crap! We see all the characters in media res doing their thing, their motivations are all out there. Would it really have added anything to have a random darkfriend's spiral into swearing the oaths laid out for us in detail before they loom up in a random inn? Do we need a full flashback for Ingtar? Do you want one of the main PoV characters to fall to the darkness in a morality play fantasy epic? Did you really come onto a forum for the Wheel of Light-blasted Time books and say with your entire chest you wished there had been more redundant detail!?