First Time Reading the First Book

[trench]

Here is my take on the goverment structure in the Two Rivers, I could be wrong.

 

There are two power structure in the Two Rivers. One is the Village council headed by the Mayor. The other is the Woman's circle Headed by the Wisdom. The People of Edmounds Field select people they think are wise to join the respective groups. Neither group has full power. But both work for the good of the Village. My take is the Village Council make decisions and the Woman's Circle see that those decisions get done, or head them off if they think the Council is wrong. Both are even in terms of power but act separately.

[Agitel]

Women needing MEN in order to do anything in this series? That's hilarious.

 

Seriously, as you get further in, you'll see.

 

I would highly recommend reading The Great Hunt in addition to The Eye of the World. The POV characters branch out a bit more (and it will continue to do so throughout the series) and it may give you a different perspective, especially since EotW is lacking in female POVs (some books will seem to be entirely made up of them). EotW also plays it safe and doesn't stray far from the cliche, and that drops a lot in tGH and definitely pretty much entirely by tDR and beyond.

 

As for politics... Women have a very strong role in politics in WoT. This is NOT a gender-NEUTRAL series, but it was intended to be a gender-equal one (many readers think women hold more power than men overall). The Two Rivers tends to be a very chivalrous society, that's actually commented on and comes into play later. Some nations in this world are gender balanced, some put a stronger political hand with men, some with women. As for politics in the Two Rivers, each village has a Village Council (made of men) and a Women's Circle (made of women). Nynaeve is criticized for her age, the poster above was correct. She's only twenty-four and looks even younger, and her character in particular is somewhat of a bully (to her it seems to be the only way she can command any respect). The Women's Circle tends to handle internal affairs (and they have no problem butting men out of the picture) and the Village Council tends to handle external (which is why you've seen them be the ones trying to handle the situation with the strangers/peddler). You'll also notice a lot of competition between men and women going both ways.

 

Again, gender conflict, though not necessarily in the way we think about it today, is actually somewhat central to WoT society.

 

Happy reading, and if the series seems to have promise with you I highly suggest you at least give tGH a chance before deciding what to do with the series.

[Aquarius]

Again, gender conflict, though not necessarily in the way we think about it today, is actually somewhat central to WoT society.

indeed but it would be a shame to ONLY see that in the story. You would miss much by overthinking the plots & relationships using our world's prejudices, instead of just enjoying the whole thing.

[Erunion]

What Agitel said - Nynaeve, the Village Wisdom, isn't criticized because she's a girl, she's looked down on because she's about ten-twenty years too young for the job. She's 25, looks 20, and she's doing the job of village healer, political leader and weather predictor (a job that is usually done by someone 35+). The village Wisdom is equal in authority to the village Mayor in the Two Rivers, however, the Wisdom (and the Women's Circle) is in charge of internal affairs, while the Mayor (and the Village Council) is in charge of external affairs. As this sleepy, backwater village hardly has any external affairs at all, the Women's Circle/Wisdom actually has more real power than the Village Council/Mayor. The Mayor/Village Council, therefore, is extremely jealous of anything where it has clear jurisdiction, like the news from Outside.

 

On Trollocs. Hrmm... I can't really explain too much without spoiling stuff, but this I will tell you; the Age of Legends (which was ended by the breaking) was highly advanced. In fact, it was a more advanced society than our own society. The Trollocs were made at the end of the Age of Legends by some people working for the Dark One. While they would normally be looked on with pity, the Dark One had a hand in their making and they're pretty much evil.

 

The Eye of the World is a very good, very enjoyable book. However, Robert Jordan tried to keep his readers in relatively familiar territory for the first book of his series, so you'll see a few more tropes and cliches in the first book than you will, well, anywhere else in the series. By the Great Hunt, things take a radical step away from the Fantasy Norm. After that, everything is pure RJ.

Even if you're a little iffy by the end of the Eye of the World (Most of us were thoroughly hooked, but a few posters here said that they just barely decided to read the Great Hunt. I had only the first half of the Eye of the World, The Great Hunt and A New Spring to read, so my experience was different than just about everyone elses)

 

Final point to think on, Rand is lucky. Very, very, lucky. Strangely so.

But is it just chance?

 

EDIT: The first few chapters were supposed to be a 'going nowhere' style, to give you an idea that this is a normal village, leading normal village life.

Yeah, like that's gonna last.

[yoshinobu]

Gotta say I really enjoyed your thoughts, and i hope you continue reading the books. This was one of the highlights of my day, thank you.

[Pygmalion79]

But is the Aes Sedai that old? Has this organization lasted this entire time? On the one hand, that sounds stupid. What organization can last thousands of years? The Catholic Church of 200 CE is not the same Church in 2000 CE, you know? On the other hand, though, this is a fantasy novel. And if there are two things I know about fantasies they are that the institutions always last and the prophecies are always true.

. . . I want to say, "Read on," but I don't think you'll be situated to really appreciate this comment until you get to book 6 or so, and there is a exchange in Book 13 that really highlights the point.

[Sid]

I must say some parts of this are quite hilarious. I couldn't help but think of the quote from a later book: "What you say comes near truth, yet misses it completely."

 

I am thoroughly enjoying this blog so far. Keep it up!

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

it is a very funny blog. it reminds me a little of gulliver's travels.

[Thor]

Just read the appendix first.

 

It's the first thing I read when I first picked up tEotW. 99% of any questions could have been cleared up if new readers just read the appendix.

[Isgrimner]

Edited, as my point of view on the thread has changed dramatically.

[Always Sunny]

Here I am again. I'm a little further along with some more bloggy goodness for you.

 

I hope it's goodness, anyway.

 

This next blog post takes us to when the band of heroes leaves Emond's Field. I can only assume they come back because no one has mentioned the Women's Circle being a co-ruler of the town. I guess I'll find out more about it when people come home. And how can they not come home? They aren't five minutes out of town and I already miss Tam and Nynaeve. At least Egwene is tagging along. Yippie!

 

My opinion of Bran al'Vere has changed somewhat. I stopped seeing his as a real-world mob boss and more as a TV show mob boss. Less scary and more cool. Just read and find out. I'm still neutral on Thom, but leaning towards liking him. The same goes for Moiraine, even if I smell villainy all over her. Bad guys can be cool. Just look at Darth Vader!

 

I'm a little confused about the effects on the attack of Emond's Field but since everyone is leaving I'll just put it out of my mind for now. Just a little. 'Till they come back.

 

Thanks, again, to everyone for commenting. Both here and in the blog comments section. You all have been helpful and great about avoiding spoilers. Also, saying that I'm right about some things, way wrong about others, but not telling me which? Yeah, that's pretty fun. I'm always guessing! Oh, and don't think that those questions in my blog need to be answered, either. They are all rhetorical. They're just there to show what is in my head. No doubt they'll be answered sooner or later.

 

Anyway, the link to the next blog is below. I am sorry for it being so long, though. I just started writing and before I knew it I was five chapters in. I have become somewhat engrossed in this book.

 

From The Westwood to Leavetaking

[spoke]

Here I am again. I'm a little further along with some more bloggy goodness for you.

 

I hope it's goodness, anyway.

 

This next blog post takes us to when the band of heroes leaves Emond's Field. I can only assume they come back because no one has mentioned the Women's Circle being a co-ruler of the town. I guess I'll find out more about it when people come home. And how can they not come home? They aren't five minutes out of town and I already miss Tam and Nynaeve. At least Egwene is tagging along. Yippie!

 

My opinion of Bran al'Vere has changed somewhat. I stopped seeing his as a real-world mob boss and more as a TV show mob boss. Less scary and more cool. Just read and find out. I'm still neutral on Thom, but leaning towards liking him. The same goes for Moiraine, even if I smell villainy all over her. Bad guys can be cool. Just look at Darth Vader!

 

I'm a little confused about the effects on the attack of Emond's Field but since everyone is leaving I'll just put it out of my mind for now. Just a little. 'Till they come back.

 

Thanks, again, to everyone for commenting. Both here and in the blog comments section. You all have been helpful and great about avoiding spoilers. Also, saying that I'm right about some things, way wrong about others, but not telling me which? Yeah, that's pretty fun. I'm always guessing! Oh, and don't think that those questions in my blog need to be answered, either. They are all rhetorical. They're just there to show what is in my head. No doubt they'll be answered sooner or later.

 

Anyway, the link to the next blog is below. I am sorry for it being so long, though. I just started writing and before I knew it I was five chapters in. I have become somewhat engrossed in this book.

 

From The Westwood to Leavetaking

 

So now Moiraine, Lan, Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene, and Thom ride north. Also, Batman is following them.

That was hilarious.

[Erunion]

A Few Points: Trollocs... Hrmm... Trollocs are both scary and not-scary. On the one hand, they are really, really big (10-feet tall-ish) and really, really strong. On the other hand, they aren't particularly skilled or intelligent (Narg being the exception rather than the rule, and he was cursed by bad luck).

What they do have is numbers. There are lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots of Trollocs. Unfortunately, it's really hard for them to get to the back-end of nowhere without being seen.

Their are a couple of reasons the villager's are relatively unharmed - Both Moiraine and Lan can sense Trollocs within a certain radius, so they were able to warn the villagers. They got the villagers together before the Trollocs arrived. Then Moiraine showed us just how bad-ass she is (and trust me, both Lan and Moiraine are, if nothing else, singularly bad-ass). Something to keep in mind, having an Aes Sedai is like having close air support. If you ain't got SAM's, or enough people that you can just take the casualties, you're screwed.

Meanwhile, the Trollocs aren't there to kill people (they just do that for fun), they have specific task which they are trying to carry out. They only attacked Emond's field, Rand's farm and the (empty, because they were in town) farm of Perrin's family.

 

End result? Quite a few dead Trollocs, lots of property damage, but very few civilian casualties.

 

On Rand being missed by the Fade: Did I mention that Rand was lucky? Cuz he's, you know, really lucky.

 

 

 

On time: Time isn't literally circular, you will never again see Manetheren like it was during the Trolloc Wars (some 2000 years previous, BTW), however, thousands upon thousands upon tens of thousands of years later, a nation much like Manetheren will fight in a war very similar to the Trolloc wars. Time isn't literally circular, but it does follow a distinct 'pattern', so, while the exact same events will never occur again, similar ones will eventually occur when time swings around. (Just an FYI: There are seven 'ages', The Age of Legends was the Second Age, while the Wheel of Time is set in year 3000 (or so, it's not quite precise because of burnt records/etc) of the Third Age.

 

 

On Wars: Two thousand years ago we had the Trolloc Wars, where millions of Trollocs poured out of the Blight and invaded, well, everything. However, that was two thousand years ago. Very few people south of the Borderlands (the nations that are, coincidentally, on the border of The Blight) have ever seen a Trolloc. The further south you go, the less likely people are to even believe in the existence of Trollocs (a lot of people believe that they were all killed in the Trolloc Wars, or that they're too far away to bother them).

However, those people who live in the borderlands, or have traveled through them, deal with Trollocs quite regularly, as they have this annoying habit of raiding villages for Food and Fun. More on this as you read through the books.

The Aiel war, which Tam fought in, is essentially a cross between a World War (in that battles were huge and it was one coalition of nations against another) and the Vietnam war (in that most of the people fighting in it had nothing to do with the war, and really shouldn't have been there, but they didn't know that). With some other stuff thrown in. Suffice it to say, that the Aiel, while being a hugely different culture, don't look Vietnamese. You'll find out more if you keep reading.

 

 

I hope this answers some questions (and causes you to ask more.

[mop]

Anyway, the link to the next blog is below. I am sorry for it being so long, though. I just started writing and before I knew it I was five chapters in. I have become somewhat engrossed in this book.

 

From The Westwood to Leavetaking

 

:biggrin: That tends to happen, WOT just sucks you in to keep reading one more chapter.

[kanucha]

 

Spoilers don't bother me.

 

Okay. The women characters sniff.

 

Alot.

[AvroChris]

Osama Bin Moiraine made me laugh out loud. Excellent stuff :D

[Sleeper]

Loving these write-ups. It's incredibly fun to watch the mental processes of someone new the series.

[csarmi]

Just keep on readi9ng and commenting, its great.

[csarmi]

 

As for the women, it isn't just that they are (so far) just support for the men. That's a big thing. But it's that they don't seem to be able to do things on their own. Tam lives alone, right? He doesn't need a wife. But all the single ladies we see? They need a husband. That's why they're hitting on Tam. That's why Thom and Cenn are telling Nynaeve to stop being a Wisdom and start making babies (more or less). The menfolk of the Village Council don't need women when they interrogate the peddler, do they? I get this feeling that men do things alone while women need help (even the noblewoman Moiraine needs her bodyguard).

 

 

You have it backwards :)

Women believe men just can't take care of themselves. They need their 'guidance' :P

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

i think each gender believes that about the other. it's not an unusual belief, that people need each other. in an agrarian economy without any significant labor saving devices, it might be difficult for any one person to do everything necessary to have a decent life. a division of labor, and a mutual dependence, might stem naturally from the realities of this kind of life.

 

i also think a lot of what RJ has chartacters saying or thinking is probably meant in a loving way, the way people bicker with those they love, or think snippy things to themselves, sort of masking and protecting their true feelings.

[Dakota]

I'm amused by a lot of the thoughts of Bran the Innkeeper. Good observations, but a little off.

 

You mentioned about how the Inn could stay in business if there are so few visitors and why so many of the locals would be needing to stay there. In this series, keep in mind that Inns are every bit as much bars or taverns as they are hotels. If it can stay in business, it's not so much because people go there to stay, as it is they go there to drink and socialize. It's also probably the only building in the village that has rooms big enough for big meetings or gatherings, such as the Village Council and the Women's Circle. So it's not so much a hotel as it is combination hotel, bar, and meeting hall, and also the only one of all three in the village. Combine that with the fact that it's probably been in his family for generations and he doesn't seem quite so mob-boss to me.

 

As for why it wasn't attacked, something that becomes more apparent later on is that Trollocs are cowardly. They're big and strong, but not very brave. They attacked the village only because they thought they would be attacking a defenseless village by suprise. They're big and strong, but still rely on overwhelming numbers to get things done, as shown by the fact that Moiraine and Lan were able to almost singlehandedly drive them off. They'll only go into a stand-up fight if they have overwhelming numbers or have something that's forcing and driving them to attack, which will become more apparent as the series progresses. All the more reason why they didn't attack the inn directly, as being the biggest building it would also be the most heavily defended.

 

As far as the ages of the characters go, from what I remember, Rand, Mat, Perrin, and Egwyne are all in the neighborhood of 17 years old. Nynaeve is in her early 20s. And, as others here have pointed out, much of the disrespect that Nynaeve gets, from the villagers as well as Thom, isn't from the fact that she's a woman, as much as the fact that she's so young yet in a position of authority usually held by women with more age and experience. The village Wisdom and the Mayor have roughly equal authority, yet she has a position that's normally held by someone the same age as her Mother and Father.

 

All in all, I'm enjoying your writeups and how much you catch on to several notes and aspects of some characters' personalities that I myself didn't catch on until later. I'm glad you're enjoying the book, and it's defiantely entertaining for the rest of us to be hearing such astute observations from someone going through their first time. Looking forward to the next installment.

[MasterAblar]

I'm amused by a lot of the thoughts of Bran the Innkeeper. Good observations, but a little off.

 

You mentioned about how the Inn could stay in business if there are so few visitors and why so many of the locals would be needing to stay there. In this series, keep in mind that Inns are every bit as much bars or taverns as they are hotels. If it can stay in business, it's not so much because people go there to stay, as it is they go there to drink and socialize. It's also probably the only building in the village that has rooms big enough for big meetings or gatherings, such as the Village Council and the Women's Circle. So it's not so much a hotel as it is combination hotel, bar, and meeting hall, and also the only one of all three in the village. Combine that with the fact that it's probably been in his family for generations and he doesn't seem quite so mob-boss to me.

 

As for why it wasn't attacked, something that becomes more apparent later on is that Trollocs are cowardly. They're big and strong, but not very brave. They attacked the village only because they thought they would be attacking a defenseless village by suprise. They're big and strong, but still rely on overwhelming numbers to get things done, as shown by the fact that Moiraine and Lan were able to almost singlehandedly drive them off. They'll only go into a stand-up fight if they have overwhelming numbers or have something that's forcing and driving them to attack, which will become more apparent as the series progresses. All the more reason why they didn't attack the inn directly, as being the biggest building it would also be the most heavily defended.

 

As far as the ages of the characters go, from what I remember, Rand, Mat, Perrin, and Egwyne are all in the neighborhood of 17 years old. Nynaeve is in her early 20s. And, as others here have pointed out, much of the disrespect that Nynaeve gets, from the villagers as well as Thom, isn't from the fact that she's a woman, as much as the fact that she's so young yet in a position of authority usually held by women with more age and experience. The village Wisdom and the Mayor have roughly equal authority, yet she has a position that's normally held by someone the same age as her Mother and Father.

 

All in all, I'm enjoying your writeups and how much you catch on to several notes and aspects of some characters' personalities that I myself didn't catch on until later. I'm glad you're enjoying the book, and it's defiantely entertaining for the rest of us to be hearing such astute observations from someone going through their first time. Looking forward to the next installment.

 

I think Rand, Mat, and Perrin are like 20 at the beginning of the books as they are born at the end of the year. Egwene is 17 but not far from her birthday. I think she is born in Spring. Nynaeve would be 25.

[Dakota]

 

I think Rand, Mat, and Perrin are like 20 at the beginning of the books as they are born at the end of the year. Egwene is 17 but not far from her birthday. I think she is born in Spring. Nynaeve would be 25.

 

Huh. I could have sworn that Rand and Egwyne were the same age, with at most a year's difference, for the same reason that Sunny mentioned, that Rand realizes with a shock that Eggy is at marrying age, when he himself has already been there for three or four years. If I'm mistaken, well there you have it.

[dholm]

Women are of marriageable age earlier than men. Rand is two years Egwene's elder, therefore they reach marriageable age at more or less the same time.

[MasterAblar]

 

I think Rand, Mat, and Perrin are like 20 at the beginning of the books as they are born at the end of the year. Egwene is 17 but not far from her birthday. I think she is born in Spring. Nynaeve would be 25.

 

Huh. I could have sworn that Rand and Egwyne were the same age, with at most a year's difference, for the same reason that Sunny mentioned, that Rand realizes with a shock that Eggy is at marrying age, when he himself has already been there for three or four years. If I'm mistaken, well there you have it.

 

Rand is born in late 978, Egwene in early 981. The story begins in late 998. So a little more than 2 years difference. As Dholm said, it seems that women reach marriagable age earlier than men.