Character Immortality

[Muad Cheade]

It's why RJ is inferior to Tolkien. At least Tolkien killed off main characters. The Silmarillion is as a result a fairly interesting read once you can force yourself past the first 50-70 boring pages.

RJ is inferior because he didn't kill off characters? That's illogical to say the least. I'm guessing G.R.R. Martin is the greatest literary mind ever then.

 

In the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I believe only one person died, Boromir, and he was just in the first book. That definitely didn't subtract from the greatness of the series.

[RembrandtQ.Einstein]

It's why RJ is inferior to Tolkien. At least Tolkien killed off main characters. The Silmarillion is as a result a fairly interesting read once you can force yourself past the first 50-70 boring pages.

RJ is inferior because he didn't kill off characters? That's illogical to say the least. I'm guessing G.R.R. Martin is the greatest literary mind ever then.

 

In the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I believe only one person died, Boromir, and he was just in the first book. That definitely didn't subtract from the greatness of the series.

 

 

I was referencing the Silmarillion. I'm sorry if it bothers you that I prefer having a book where actions actually have consequences. Where I am not sure of the ending nor am I aware of who will perish along the way. Considering the propensity to violence in the literary universes in question I hardly find it exaggerated that individuals end up drawing the short end of the straw.

[Elan Tedronai]

It is why the wheel of time for all it's richness in story telling and character depth will never be able to surpass other epic series such as ASOIF.

 

I mean after 13 books not one single important light character has died. The dread that was in 1-3 books has long been vanished. Such as a shame really.

[RembrandtQ.Einstein]

It is why the wheel of time for all it's richness in story telling and character depth will never be able to surpass other epic series such as ASOIF.

 

I mean after 13 books not one single important light has died. The dread that was in 1-3 books has long been vanished. Such as a shame really.

 

 

Precisely. There is a distinct lack of suspense or even expectation. It is de-facto known that every single battle or engagement which occurs will result in the light's characters surviving. For me this debases the entire series a bit.

[Ashandarei]

I wish Faile would have died. That would have made Perin snap, turning him into the hardened wolfmaster General warlord badass he needs to be for the Last Battle.

More likely:

“You can have her back, Kinslayer. The Great Lord of the Dark can make her live again, if you will serve him. If you will serve me.”

“Burn the Pattern,” Perrin growled. “It can all burn, if it keeps her safe.”

Now that would have been an entertaining twist.

 

This would've made for an incredibly interesting twist(I realize you were joking but I think it really would be entertaining/intriguing). If Faile had died and Perrin, one of the three *central* figures/leaders of the Light turned to the Shadow, and for a non-evil reason to boot? WoT would've ramped up another few notches on the amazing fantasy series list. This character who's been on the good side for so long working for the Shadow with all the power/force of a ta'veren behind him? Amazing.

 

See that's the kind of complexity I want to see in the series. It shouldn't be known by all from the beginning that the good guys always live and bad guys always die, the readers should be gripping their seats till the end of every plot arc hoping that the good guys do in fact end up alright. Otherwise you get a fairy-tale scenario where everything's perfect and the good side will always win with no real losses. Deaths off screen really don't mean much to a reader, we can be told all the Amayar died, but what'll bring a tear to the eye(or simply true heartfelt feeling to the moment) is if someone who's very PoV we've read who we've come to love end up losing his/her life in the battle for the Light, that makes the whole thing WORTH something. Otherwise if you're just handed every victory on a silver platter with no real(main character) losses, there's no depth to it, it's just a perfect little fairy tale where all goes well.

 

That's exactly why a death like Verin's was heart-wrenching and one of the most memorable moments in the book and series. It meant something.

[David Selig]

The main problems for me is not the immortality of the main character in itself, it's that they keep constantly getting into really dangerous situations and somehow surviving time and time again against all odds. It really kills the sense of danger and the tension for me since I long got used to all main and second tier characters getting away from anything every time. It also really stretches my suspension of disbelief at times. All the prophesies about the main characters, which give them a plot armour, don't help either.

 

I don't really mind that the six main PoV characters had survived until now, too much space was given to their development to waste it halfway. But several more of the second tier lightside characters dying would've helped a lot to restore at least some sense of danger and unpredictability. All we have for 13 books are Ingthar, Verin and Hopper, which is way too few for 13 thick volumes.

[blazetheearth]

 

I don't really mind that the six main PoV characters had survived until now, too much space was given to their development to waste it halfway. But several more of the second tier lightside characters dying would've helped a lot to restore at least some sense of danger and unpredictability. All we have for 13 books are Ingthar, Verin and Hopper, which is way too few for 13 thick volumes.

 

 

Anyone else notice that 2 of the 3 'lightside' characters listed here were by definition darkfriends? Lightside 2nd tier characters dead include

 

What are you reading that hasn't had a single death? Just among Light-side characters who have had a known impact on the plot, we have Geofram Bornhald, Aram, Ingtar, Verin, Masema, Pedron Niall, Eamon Valda, Carlinya, Anaiya, Adeleas, Vandene, Turak, Renna, Asmodean, Meilan, Couladin, Nalesean, Colavaere, Nicola, Eben, Asunawa, Morr, Toram Riatin, Herid Fel, Lopin, Tylin, Reanne Corly, Jain Farstrider, Sareitha, Nesta din Reas, Daigian, Rolan, and Mishima. And I'm sure that all of them had their own hopes and dreams and ambitions and plans and full lives, but that simply doesn't matter because they're dead. And unless their death has a highly unusual role to play in the story, as Verin's did, that's reason enough to scrub them out of the way retroactively.

[MattTaz]

For me the main light characters were from Book 1 plus Avi and Faile

And yes I found it really irritating that the Forsaken would die one by one but nobody major for the light would die.

Someone counted that by book 9 or 10 (cant remember) the Light characters had gone through 70+ life threatening

experiences and survived. The Bad Guys would have 1 and die.

It removed any suspense I had for the series completely.

However now I kinda like it. I have George RR Martin and Stephen King for that sort of thing.

In fact if Perrin did die i'd be really pissed off.

However if Egwene and Gawyn did die I would be doing a victory dance :)

[Crael123]

I agree with the majority of people. I am disapointed RJ didnt kill off more when we actually thought it would happen. I mean i was really hoping for a dead Moraine or a failed rescue. how epic would that have been?? but no. Jain Farstrider dies, mat loses his eye JUST LIKE WE PREDICTED like forever ago. The only thing we dont have figured out is how rand will seal the DO and how who specifically will die. but heck we all know that all of the mains will make it out fine. sadly. i mean after reading ToM i honestly stopped caring. TGS was epically awesome to say the least, but like ToM was a... letdown. I will read AMOL of course obviously but i mean. its no fun reading something you know what will happen at the end

[Mulk]

if I want more death in my life, I turn on CNN. Or read the obituaries. Or visit a hospital. Or call up my cousin whose father is slowly dying after a nearly decade long battle with leukemia. Etc. Or I discuss death with those around me for whom it is currently a very present reality, or for whom it is a thing or fear they are struggling with. The whole point for me of reading a work like WoT is to lose myself in a good story that fires my imagination and lets me not have to think on real life for a bit. More character death doesn't improve the story for me; doesn't necessarily ruin it either, but I'm perfectly content to suffer through a mortal character or group of them that keeps surviving some how. :)

[killdawabbit]

Here's the thing. In the majority of stories, main characters almost have to have "plot armor", at least up to the end of the book(s). Otherwise there is no story to tell. The way around this is to have the occasional major support character buy it (obviously there are exceptions such as ASoIaF. However, I would argue that none of the truly main characters have died off in that series - but that would be for another thread...).

 

You can usually tell the main characters by who the primary point of view or focus in the various chapters is. There are rarely more than a couple. Often just one. However, with the scope of RJ's work and the peculiar writing style he uses (many POVs from a variety of characters both major and minor, as well as chapters focusing on events "away" from the main characters or storyline) who exactly the "main" characters are can be considered somewhat up for debate.

 

Since the last book is upcoming though, the story has reached terminal velocity and the "plot armor" for the majority of the "main" characters should thin out considerably. This is where it begins to become "ok" to eliminate some "main" characters due to the nearness of (or more likely during)the climax.

[Guest Emu on the Loose]

Here's the thing. In the majority of stories, main characters almost have to have "plot armor", at least up to the end of the book(s). Otherwise there is no story to tell. ...

 

Since the last book is upcoming though, the story has reached terminal velocity and the "plot armor" for the majority of the "main" characters should thin out considerably. This is where it begins to become "ok" to eliminate some "main" characters due to the nearness of (or more likely during)the climax.

 

I think that mindset is similar to what RJ himself held. And that's problematic.

 

First, assertions aside, it simply isn't the case that, in order for there to be a good story to tell, the main protagonists have to survive time and again against improbably outlandish odds. That's an intellectually lazy position to take; it implies that, because WoT didn't do better, no story can. What if Perrin had been killed? Or Nynaeve? Do you really think the Dark One's victory would have been guaranteed? More to the point, do you really think the Wheel could not have fudged the Pattern a little bit so that the Dark One's victory would not have been guaranteed? Would there truly have been no story to tell if Moiraine had been dead for good, and Perrin, and Nyn? On the contrary, because those characters are so crucial to the storyline, their deaths would have opened up a whole new world of dramatic possibilities for the story, without necessarily spoiling the master plot.

 

But there's a subtler and even more important point here, which somebody mentioned upthread. The fact that the main good guys have all lived so far is troublesome because it is unrealistic, not because the thing itself (main characters living) is bad. If RJ had really, truly wanted or needed all of them to stay alive, he could have done it a lot better than the way he actually did do it. There were plenty of opportunities to improve the story, to improve the realism of the main characters' survival, and yet still let them all survive to this point. But it would have to have been a different story; none of these huge gambits relying on massive strokes of luck to save the day. Mat died in TFoH; his resurrection was a deus ex machina. If RJ had wanted Mat to live, RJ shouldn't have constructed that confrontation in the first place. See where I'm going with this?

 

Lastly, it's not okay to force all the main protags to implausibly survive till the end of the story, only to start throwing them out with the garbage in a mass kill-off at the endgame. If such a thing were done in a story under the rationale you cite, it would be completely unliterary. I'm actually hoping we don't get a bloodbath among the top-level good guys in AMoL, because it would be so unrealistic compared to the WoT up to this point. It would make AMoL feel disjointed from the rest of the series. For better or worse, we've been stuck with invincible protagonists, and that's what WoT is. Can't change it now without making things even worse. One of the elements of good storytelling is predictability. No, not that kind of predictability, where we're all taking bets on which Forsaken is going to be iced by whom, and how the Bore will be resealed. Rather, the kind of predictability that shows thematic consistency throughout the series. Think of it as the kind of predictability that doesn't tell you what the future holds, but, rather, the kind of predictability which causes you, when the future does arrive, to say, "Oh, that makes sense. It fits appropriately. It follows from what we learned earlier." With all of the main protagonists having survived this far, we've been set up for them to largely survive the finale. If they don't--if there turns out to be a Last Battle Blood Bath Bonanza--it won't be consistent with the themes painted so far.

[rsahae]

I don't see why it matters that characters surviving danger again and again is unrealistic. Trollocs are unrealistic. The One Power is unrealistic. Ogier are unrealistic (and steddings too). This is *fantasy*...what in the word fantasy indicates that it's real? I certainly don't require my fantasy books to be like the real world in order to pass muster.

 

So courageous and heroic protagonists digging down deep and overcoming odds is nonsense, but a honest and righteous man can forget every sense of right and wrong he has, turn "evil" in every way and dedicate his life to bringing misery and pain on everyone including little children and old women, etc., because his wife dies, and THAT would be good writing? Only if you're writing for pro wrestling does someone "turn heel" that abruptly and completely.

 

It's like Star Wars or Star Trek. It's sci-fi fantasy. It's not supposed to be real. It can take a form where main characters die, like with GRRMartin, or it can take a form where they never die. What's important isn't *which* form is used, it's *how* the form is used.

 

Look, after14 books of 600+ pages, yes everyone is waiting for the last chapter but everything is not only about that chapter. I mean if it is, we've wasted a lot of time reading those unimportant pages. With RJ, it's all about the journey the characters, our friends and family, take. How they grow and change and learn. That's the point of the story, so it wouldn't make sense to kill off the characters

 

And if killing all your characters is such a good writing tactic...GRRM would have finished the next book by now. Turns out that when you kill all your characters, it's tough to write a story about them!

[MattTaz]

Star Wars killed Chewbacca :P

[Zentari]

I don't see why it matters that characters surviving danger again and again is unrealistic. Trollocs are unrealistic. The One Power is unrealistic. Ogier are unrealistic (and steddings too). This is *fantasy*...what in the word fantasy indicates that it's real? I certainly don't require my fantasy books to be like the real world in order to pass muster.

 

Read this.

All those things you mentioned are based on universal laws that apply in the WoT universe.Heck , you can say that taveren pretty much guarantees survival but what about characters other than the big three ? Even if you say that taveren nature can extend and protect other people in the general vicinity it doesn't explain how they are still alive instead of deader than dead.

[Lord D]

I think you can add Morgase to characters that came back from the dead, since everyone in Andor thought she was dead, and she probably should have died.

 

On the broader point, you really need a bit of unpredictability to get the reader involved. The Malazan Tale of the Fallen by Steven Erikson does have this unpredictability where main characters and genuine heroes die. WoT doesn't have this kind of unpredictability, and in fact we know from the 4th Age writings that the Light triumphs. If some of the major goodies had died earlier, it would have been more moving.

 

You can see by my signature that I'm a fan of Brian Lumley, and some of the major support characters in his books do get vampirised, and thus become evil. It looks like the 13/13 trick is similar to vampirisation.

[Guest Emu on the Loose]

I don't see why it matters that characters surviving danger again and again is unrealistic. Trollocs are unrealistic. The One Power is unrealistic. Ogier are unrealistic (and steddings too). This is *fantasy*...what in the word fantasy indicates that it's real? I certainly don't require my fantasy books to be like the real world in order to pass muster.

What you are saying is that the complaint about the lack of realism inherent in the improbable survival of all the main protagonists up to this point is unimportant or wrong because there are other unrealistic elements in the story. However, this objection is invalid because it uses a fallacious comparison. Specifically, you and I are talking about two different kinds of realism: You're talking about in-character conceptual realism, and I'm talking about the out-of-character realism of consistency between cause and effect.

 

WoT is filled with fanciful elements that do not exist in the real world, such as the Trollocs and Ogier that you mentioned. Here, realism isn't necessary, and fantasy tends to deviate from realism by introducing concepts that are, indeed, quite fanciful. That's a hallmark of the genre.

 

But once an element is introduced into the story, the story itself must continue to be told in a logical, coherent way. When the story introduces a cause, there must be a consistent effect. When a character is placed in grave mortal danger, we can expect that character to sometimes die. Indeed, that's what happens with antagonists and with the supporting cast. But it doesn't happen with the top-level and second-level protagonists. That's an inconsistency. Essentially, these characters are "cheating death" somehow in a way that cannot be explained within the story itself, but only by inconsistency from the author.

 

To give you a different example, WoT may have Trollocs and Ogier, but it also has things like gravity and biological mortality which bind the workings of the world of WoT to our own. Ogier aren't going to suddenly start flying, because Ogier don't have wings and gravity won't allow it. If they were to start flying without an apparent reason, we'd ask, "What's up?" And the answer would either be that RJ has something special in store for us, or he got sloppy and did something unrealistic, aka, illogical. That's what's happening with the main protagonists. They're all "flying" in that they never get killed in situations of grave mortal danger, and there's no deliberate reason for it. It's simply an artifact of bad writing on RJ's part.

 

See the difference? Fantasy is by no means exempted from the obligations of logical storytelling. A completely unrealistic story would be incomprehensible to us. A moderately unrealistic story would simply be riddled with annoyances, like this one is here.

 

Also, a comment: I hope people can appreciate the value of critiquing a story. It seems as though some of the people commenting here are upset that anyone would speak the slightest ill of WoT. Folks! It doesn't have to be the case that one either loves WoT unquestioningly or else hates it utterly. It's a good work, but it's got problems, and what better place to discuss them than here? Unless you think of WoT as pure entertainment with no artistic value, eventually we have to discuss stuff like this, because it's begging to be discussed. Why? Because readers notice when irregular patterns stand out. Sometimes these are deliberate patterns introduced by the author for a purpose, and sometimes they are flaws in the work, as in this case.

[Adamdidit]

I think that far more major 2nd teir characters tend to die around Egwene and Mat than anyone else, whereas the others almost never see it...and Perrin's few experiences are so laboriously heart wrenching for him that a few is all we need or want.

 

But to suggest that no or almost no major 2nd teir characters have died is also stretching it. People who've had a major presence in multiple books have bought it, including Niall, Verin, Aram, Noal, Hopper, Asmodean, and Nicola. Not to mention a lot of strong one or two book supporting characters like Someshtra, Bornhold, Nealsean, Adelas, Vandene and Ingtar.

 

These weren't 3rd teir or below characters. These were solid supporting characters, some of whom bordered on major character at times. Hell, several of them had multiple povs that people seem to be forgetting. Which is not to say he couldn't have killed off a few more to keep us more on our toes. But the concept that he's killed no one and everyone's been safe is out there.

 

 

 

also, I would say it was one of the few really good things that TERRY!! did all throughout his series. People you'd grown attached to would simply die unexpectedly, and even offscreen once or twice.

[rsahae]

but my point is, the in-character realism and the out-of-character realism can also be seen as the same thing, which I guess people assign the word ta'veren, but I think it's broader than that. So you say,

 

"It's impossible to be placed in these dangerous situations and no one from top-level of importance ever dies."

"Well, those people of top-level importance are also extremely skilled and lucky at surviving those situations."

"But no one with that great a combination of skill and luck exists, and certainly not several such people."

"But Ogier and Trollocs exist; therefore, such people can also exist."

 

See? Without mentioning the word ta'veren once. It's the (similarly legitimate as gravity) real-world attributes of skill and luck. Throw bravery and a few else in there too.

 

And again, I say that this is an exercise in a form of fantasy where the main characters do not die, and therefore it's almost apples and oranges to compare to GRRM. The two series are very different and are not trying to do the same thing. The question is, how well did RJ execute this type of story. A sonnet and a dardanelle (?) are both poetry but take two drastically different *forms*.

[Morsker]

On the broader point, you really need a bit of unpredictability to get the reader involved. The Malazan Tale of the Fallen by Steven Erikson does have this unpredictability where main characters and genuine heroes die. WoT doesn't have this kind of unpredictability, and in fact we know from the 4th Age writings that the Light triumphs. If some of the major goodies had died earlier, it would have been more moving.

I disagree with the contrast to Malazan. Malazan resurrects an awful lot of characters; flip a coin whenever a major character dies, and you have an even chance there's a resurrection. Often the resurrection is an "ascension" into a more powerful form.

 

WoT just expresses tragedy differently. WoT never scares me that a main character will randomly die. But it scares me that no man will ever earn a woman's respect, an Age of Seanchen tyranny is the price the world might pay to defeat the Dark One, organizations of channelers will continue to practice brutal hazing, and there's no place for love or peace in the world, only Cadsuanes and Tuons staring down their noses at each other. Plus sometimes WoT deliberately gives an unsatisfying ending, like Mat killing Couladin off camera, Sammael's meh death, or Cadsuane calling the Cleansing nothing.

[Mr Ares]

Character death does not add anything to a work, in and of itself. It is important we all understand this. It can be used well, to add to a work, or badly, to subtract from it, but is itself neither good nor bad. It doesn't demonstrate that actions have consequences (although it can be used for that), and that point can be made in other ways. It doesn't generate tension or pathos or any other feeling (although it can be used to generate them), and those feelings can be generated in other ways. Furthermore, some people find any case of major characters dying to be off-putting. If we look at, for example, George R.R. Martin, he has used character deaths well in his books. Major characters have died, partly as a result of their own actions. I do not see the orgy of death in this series that some people do - there is a fair bit of killing, and a few major characters do shuffle off their mortal coil, but the reputation of the series exaggerates this to an absurd degree - never get attached to anyone, they all die! Actually, six of the eight POVs from the first book are still alive. Only one POV introduced since then has died. That's about 3 out of 20. Steven Erikson has killed an awful lot of characters as well, but as many of them are not especially well characterised and a lot of them benefit from the revolving door afterlife it doesn't have the same impact. Dying three times hasn't stopped Toc the Younger playing a part in proceedings.

 

I'm not sure I would agree that the lack of death in WOT indicates that RJ was too attached to his characters. Rather, I would say it was a matter of planning. RJ sat down and started planning out his series, initially pitched to Tor as a trilogy. Now, the series turned out to be longer than that, far longer than he ever anticipated when he was making those early plans. Now, I'm sure most of us would not consider it absurd if, over the course of a trilogy, most of the main characters survived until late in the third book. But this is fourteen books, and so the characters have had more screen time, been seen in more dangerous situations, and while it is not implausible for someone to surive many dangerous situations, the number of characters who manage to survive a large number of dangerous situations, compared to the comparatively minor ones who bear the brunt of the casualties, starts to stretch credulity for many readers. There might be interesting stories to be told of Nynaeve dying in EotW, Perrin going evil after the Shaido kill his wife in PoD, and so on, but these changes would necessitate RJ altering the planned course of the story, diverting him from the story he wanted to tell. Sure, it could be done, but RJ could decide against it for reasons other than being too attached to his characters.

 

It would not automatically be bad writing for the series to start killing off characters this late in the day, nor thematically inconsistent.

 

One last thing: Mat's death and resurrection was not deus ex machina. We were already familiar with the mechanics of balefire by the time it happened.

[Elan Tedronai]

I remember when i read for the first time the part where Rahvin blasted mat, avi and asmo i went 'Holy shit' and even when he got balefired by rand i was still stunned. For the first time i had a new measure of respect for a forsaken.

 

By the end of the book i felt cheated and from then on i realised no one of worth is going to die.

[Ashandarei]

I'm not sure I would agree that the lack of death in WOT indicates that RJ was too attached to his characters. Rather, I would say it was a matter of planning. RJ sat down and started planning out his series, initially pitched to Tor as a trilogy. Now, the series turned out to be longer than that, far longer than he ever anticipated when he was making those early plans. Now, I'm sure most of us would not consider it absurd if, over the course of a trilogy, most of the main characters survived until late in the third book. But this is fourteen books, and so the characters have had more screen time, been seen in more dangerous situations, and while it is not implausible for someone to surive many dangerous situations, the number of characters who manage to survive a large number of dangerous situations, compared to the comparatively minor ones who bear the brunt of the casualties, starts to stretch credulity for many readers. There might be interesting stories to be told of Nynaeve dying in EotW, Perrin going evil after the Shaido kill his wife in PoD, and so on, but these changes would necessitate RJ altering the planned course of the story, diverting him from the story he wanted to tell. Sure, it could be done, but RJ could decide against it for reasons other than being too attached to his characters.

 

You make a good point. But at the same time I feel that over the course of 17 years('90-'07) since the series began it's not unreasonable to expect RJ to adapt his plot(armor) to better suit a 12 book series(as it was originally intended before he died).

[Crael123]

I still would have liked a failed rescue mission for moraine honestly lol

[Mr Ares]

I'm not sure I would agree that the lack of death in WOT indicates that RJ was too attached to his characters. Rather, I would say it was a matter of planning. RJ sat down and started planning out his series, initially pitched to Tor as a trilogy. Now, the series turned out to be longer than that, far longer than he ever anticipated when he was making those early plans. Now, I'm sure most of us would not consider it absurd if, over the course of a trilogy, most of the main characters survived until late in the third book. But this is fourteen books, and so the characters have had more screen time, been seen in more dangerous situations, and while it is not implausible for someone to surive many dangerous situations, the number of characters who manage to survive a large number of dangerous situations, compared to the comparatively minor ones who bear the brunt of the casualties, starts to stretch credulity for many readers. There might be interesting stories to be told of Nynaeve dying in EotW, Perrin going evil after the Shaido kill his wife in PoD, and so on, but these changes would necessitate RJ altering the planned course of the story, diverting him from the story he wanted to tell. Sure, it could be done, but RJ could decide against it for reasons other than being too attached to his characters.

 

You make a good point. But at the same time I feel that over the course of 17 years('90-'07) since the series began it's not unreasonable to expect RJ to adapt his plot(armor) to better suit a 12 book series(as it was originally intended before he died).

Those sorts of changes present problems to the author. Killing off some characters will not necessarily result in any improvement in the narrative, it takes away from the story RJ wanted to tell, and roles that he had to fulfill now have to be carried by others. What with all the foreshadowing, it might make some changes essentially impossible without making a nonsense of his story. The story he told works. That is the story he planned. I see no reason to make such arbitrary changes. While it is lamentable that he didn't have better foresight for how big his series would be, how much story he had to tell, I have to say that this is not a major problem. The bloat and poor pacing of the later books, these are bigger problems that we would have been better able to deal with.