How WoT and RJ stacks up against the competition

[Elend]

I generally prefer highly character driven fiction to event driven, so I kinda pick Ice and Fire. But that doesn't mean I have any issues with WoT- it, by far, has some of the most epic moments to be found in fantasy today. Both are very good at what they try to do.

[Ananta]

A few people have attacked WOT for what they perceive as inept forsaken when it comes to clashing with the Light side characters.

 

One thing readers should keep in mind is that the forsaken (with the possible exception of Ishy/Moridin) came to power and lived the majority of their lives in a peaceful and technologically advanced society where violent conflict appears to have been quite rare. While some of the forsaken (Sammael and Demandred mostly) have been noted as being close behind the Dragon in military ability, that's not really saying much as when the DO broke free and the War of Power began they were all essentially learning their military skills on the fly.

The War of Power lasted for three generations. I'd say the Forsaken had more than enough time to become awesome generals, and some of them way more experienced than the Great Captains of the third age. True, not all of them were war generals, but we haven't really had huge wars yet either. But I'm sure every Aes Sedai of Age of Legends learned weaves to kill and destroy quiiiite fast.

 

And don't they say that best way to learn something is by doing it? And they certainly did.

 

 

Compare that to Randland as it currently stands, where violent conflict is a daily occurence and it is virtually a technology free medieval society and the citizens are much more versed in violence and the military commanders in largescale warfare with the medieval weaponry (i.e. sword, bows and arrows etc. as opposed to shock lances and sho-wings, which I took to be guns and planes and it also appears that they had radio communications as well).

If I was sent to an age where they used swords and arrows, with my skills in One Power beyond anything the people of that age could fathom, I'm sure I'd do very well. And you're still talking about going to war in large scale. That's not really necessary. They could have taken the White Tower by surprise and kill all non-Black Ajah Aes Sedai right away. I'm sure if they'd have timed it right, they could have taken out most of the tower while everyone still slept.

 

And besides, the Forsaken had the ability to Travel. Something the current age folks didn't. They could level cities with that skill alone.

 

Now the way I see it is that, the forsaken being released into the current age in Randland is like taking today's top scientists and dropping them back in the 1500s and expecting them to continue their research at the same rate as they were in today's society with all their technology (e.g microscopes, computers etc.). It's not going to happen, the scientists may be able to adapt but it's going to take a fair bit of time.

That's what happened to Aginor. Aginor was the scientist whose research went to shit because he didn't have the equipment to work with.

 

Anyhow, you're somewhat right there. They did get sent back to the middle ages with only a little to work with on their own. But you have to remember that their biggest skillset is always with them. Their skill in One Power. That's something they'll never lose. So using your scientist reference, it's like they'd get sent to middle ages with their labs. xD

 

 

The second way to look at it is from a military perspective, is like taking a crew from one of the navy's destroyer's and dropping them on a 3 masted warship like you see on Pirates of the Carribean and expecting them to annihalate any other ship that goes up against them, again it's not going to happen as the sailors back in the medieval times have a hell of a lot more experience with that type of equipment and warfare strategy. Alternatively looking from an individual soldier perspective (i.e. sword fighters) those from the AoL would likely be like your fencers in our society, there are a number (i.e. olympians) who would likely do well in medieval times with certain types of blades, but on the whole most would not last very long due to lack of experience when compared to swordsmen in that age.

The thing you keep forgetting is that Forsaken are not only brilliant people from advanced age sent to medieval times. They are Aes Sedai. They have "magic". They could have teleported to each Kings/Queens chambers and compelled them all. They could have destroyed White Tower in one huge attack with BA. They could have leveled kingdoms. They could have done a whole lot of things before people even knew they existed.

 

Finally and most tellingly, directly in relation to the Forsaken their reputation as being ultra powerful and evil masterminds has had 3,000 years to grow. I mean legends have a tendency to grow and outstrip the facts of what actually happened over time (i.e. they are embellished and corrupted and the true facts are lost eventually) well at least that is the impression that I have in relation to the legends of the Forsaken in Randland. Rand and Moiraine are really the only 2 who have taken out any of the Forsaken properly and mostly by surprise/luck.

Yes. That's true. But the Forsaken were still the greatest of the Dreadlords. And that's saying a lot.

 

 

From what I can see most people's criticism of the forsaken stems from their apparent ineptness with a lot of their plans and not causing as much chaos as the legends would indicate they should have. IMO they are fairly dangerous in direct confrontations (at least what I would expect given where they originally came from), however when it comes to their other plans and the failing of same I think it comes down to lack of experience and understanding of the current society in Randland, I also interpreted from some of the Forsaken POV's in the books that they aren't really actively trying to adapt to their current situation and simply give orders to their subordinates and expect them to succeed. That's just my opinion anyway. In short I think the readers that have been most disappointed by the Forsaken are those that believe the Forsaken should be living up to the reputation and awe that the general Randland populace holds them, rather than viewing the Forsaken as coming from a society much like ours, but without the wars and fighting, and being worshipped as demigods despite being out of their depth and comfort zones.

If they Forsaken had half a brain, they could have done a lot more with their respective skillsets. Even in their current medieval times. But then again, I suppose if they would have had any brain, they'd have won already and the light side would have no chance at all. I mean they all could have just teleported to Rand's room and taken him where they wished, doing as they wished with him. Or even if that was impossible, they could have taken him when Elaida's folks took him and boxed him up.

 

My disappointment in Forsaken is mostly driven by their lack of logic. They do the most illogical things. As I said, with half a brain the world could have been theirs before anyone even knew the Forsaken were back in action. Mainly because of their skill in OP. And using the "they were confused cause they were sent to medieval times" thing just doesn't work for me. If I had powers to teleport and do the things they can with OP, I'm quite sure I could do a lot more than any of the Forsaken have. For example, to stay safe, I'd open portals high above the ground in the sky and use them as windows to throw down fire and death on the armies I face, while I'm hundred miles away from them sitting safely in my own room.

 

 

Of course this is based on my personal opinion and my interpretation of a number of comments I have seen on the forums.

As are mine. I'm not meaning to make this an arguement or anything. I just added my take on the things you mentioned.

[Mr Ares]

Continuity. One of the areas where you claimed WoT was objectively superior to ASoIaF. I disagree. There are entire websites devoted into trying to figure out the timeline in WoT. The lack of continuity is in fact a major failing of the series. Does Martin handle it well? Not really. But his approach of parallel novels, both set in the same chronological time period, was explained in advance and clear in the text(s).

A terrible example. People have tried to figure out the WoT timeline based on the evidence - and prior to the Sanderson books, they were able to do so successfully, as there was quite a lot of evidence there. Not everything can be nailed down to the day, but there are not many timeline problems in the series (at least when RJ was writing it). Martin, no the other hand, has a much more vague timeline. Things can't be dated as precisely. In terms of timelines, RJ is much better.

 

One thing readers should keep in mind is that the forsaken (with the possible exception of Ishy/Moridin) came to power and lived the majority of their lives in a peaceful and technologically advanced society where violent conflict appears to have been quite rare. While some of the forsaken (Sammael and Demandred mostly) have been noted as being close behind the Dragon in military ability, that's not really saying much as when the DO broke free and the War of Power began they were all essentially learning their military skills on the fly.

 

Compare that to Randland as it currently stands, where violent conflict is a daily occurence and it is virtually a technology free medieval society and the citizens are much more versed in violence and the military commanders in largescale warfare with the medieval weaponry (i.e. sword, bows and arrows etc. as opposed to shock lances and sho-wings, which I took to be guns and planes and it also appears that they had radio communications as well).

 

Now the way I see it is that, the forsaken being released into the current age in Randland is like taking today's top scientists and dropping them back in the 1500s and expecting them to continue their research at the same rate as they were in today's society with all their technology (e.g microscopes, computers etc.). It's not going to happen, the scientists may be able to adapt but it's going to take a fair bit of time.

 

The second way to look at it is from a military perspective, is like taking a crew from one of the navy's destroyer's and dropping them on a 3 masted warship like you see on Pirates of the Carribean and expecting them to annihalate any other ship that goes up against them, again it's not going to happen as the sailors back in the medieval times have a hell of a lot more experience with that type of equipment and warfare strategy. Alternatively looking from an individual soldier perspective (i.e. sword fighters) those from the AoL would likely be like your fencers in our society, there are a number (i.e. olympians) who would likely do well in medieval times with certain types of blades, but on the whole most would not last very long due to lack of experience when compared to swordsmen in that age.

 

Finally and most tellingly, directly in relation to the Forsaken their reputation as being ultra powerful and evil masterminds has had 3,000 years to grow. I mean legends have a tendency to grow and outstrip the facts of what actually happened over time (i.e. they are embellished and corrupted and the true facts are lost eventually) well at least that is the impression that I have in relation to the legends of the Forsaken in Randland. Rand and Moiraine are really the only 2 who have taken out any of the Forsaken properly and mostly by surprise/luck.

 

From what I can see most people's criticism of the forsaken stems from their apparent ineptness with a lot of their plans and not causing as much chaos as the legends would indicate they should have. IMO they are fairly dangerous in direct confrontations (at least what I would expect given where they originally came from), however when it comes to their other plans and the failing of same I think it comes down to lack of experience and understanding of the current society in Randland, I also interpreted from some of the Forsaken POV's in the books that they aren't really actively trying to adapt to their current situation and simply give orders to their subordinates and expect them to succeed. That's just my opinion anyway. In short I think the readers that have been most disappointed by the Forsaken are those that believe the Forsaken should be living up to the reputation and awe that the general Randland populace holds them, rather than viewing the Forsaken as coming from a society much like ours, but without the wars and fighting, and being worshipped as demigods despite being out of their depth and comfort zones.

The Chosen lived most of their lives in a peaceful society, and had to deal with the Collapse and a decade of warfare, during which time they started out with energy weapons and planes and ended up with swords and spears, much like their Thrid Age counterparts. But they had one weapon throughout: the Power. They Channeled their entire lives, and did so in war for years. The people of the Thrid Age have, for the most part, forgotten most of this - AS, WO and Kin all sit out wars. Male Channelers are virtually extinct, and only the damane are regularly in combat. Even outside of battle, so much knowledge has been lost. The Chosen are far more knowledgeable than their opposition. Yet we see them go against Rand and lose. A guy who has barely even begun using the Source, and they are beaten. Rand has less experience than his opponents, less knowledge, has spent less time on the battlefield. This is all new to him. That he wins so often, even by virtue of surprise and luck, does not speak well of the competence of those he faces. Yes, their reputations have been exaggerated over time - they were only human, not indestructible demi-gods, there were millions of Chosen, not thirteen (only thirteen were sealed). Some of them were not soldiers, and their skills might be useless in the modern day, or at least not give them a great advantage in a fight, but they should still have one up on Rand.

 

Some didn't do too badly - considering things like them not being fighters, and so out of their comfort zone, Rahvin put up a good fight and Osan'gar had a clear shot at Rand, so if Elza had delayed a little we'd have a dead Dragon. Moghedien avoids direct confrontation, so was not at her best when facing Nynaeve directly, and her extra skill didn't matter when she had all her strength tied up. But most of the others really didn't fare as well as they could. The biggest problem here, though, is that they managed just fine at offscreen villainy, it's only when faced with a main character that they truly fell apart, and that they were too busy squabbling and building power bases to really take the fight to the enemy. I think their cause would really be helped by a few instances of clear Chosen victories over the main good guys - non necessarily fatal ones, but having Rand face, say, Sammael on the battlefield and be forced to retreat with his army barely saved from routing would make the guy look much better. Hell, we have three Rand/Ishy fights and Rand wins all of them. How's a heel meant to maintain his credibility if he's never allowed to beat the face?

[Werthead]

I actually meant dropping the destroyer crew onto a 16th century ship and expecting them to be competitive with a 16th century crew. Of course if you drop a destroyer along with crew back into the 16th century they would annihalate any other ship that came against them. I have actually read a book with a similar premise except it was a warship from present being sent back to WW2 due to some scientific experiment being performed on a nearby cargo ship. Interesting book, it focused more on the clash of different societal values (e.g. equal opportunities for women vs the general view that women had no place on a battle ship in that era). It was titled World War 2.0 IIRC.

 

The Axis of Time Trilogy by John Birmingham. Pretty decent, though the first book is by far the best. The three books are Weapons of Choice, Designated Targets and Final Impact (subtitled World War 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3 respectively).

 

The War of Power lasted for three generations. I'd say the Forsaken had more than enough time to become awesome generals, and some of them way more experienced than the Great Captains of the third age. True, not all of them were war generals, but we haven't really had huge wars yet either. But I'm sure every Aes Sedai of Age of Legends learned weaves to kill and destroy quiiiite fast.

 

The War of Power lasted for ten years, or less than half of one generation. The Collapse lasted a lot longer, but widespread military action was not reported in that time, more things like societal collapse, riots and so on. The Forsaken really didn't have much time to learn military tactics and skills at all, especially since they simply steam-rollered the enemy with superior numbers of Trollocs and were mostly winning in the first few and last few years of the war.

[Guest Jet3240]

Ok, just my 2 cents worth...

 

The Wheel of Time = A great story, geared to those who can keep up with such a long convoluted arc, and a cast of what seems to be thousands.

 

A Song of Ice and Fire = A great story, geared to those who prefer a harder edged storyline.

 

Comparing the two is difficult at best, the authors are so different in how they approach a story as to almost seem to be writing in different genres. I get different things from each, for example-

 

Jordan tends to evoke a deeper awakening of my imagination with his in depth descriptions and interactions.

 

Martin has a tendency to stimulate my more vengeful and realistic self.

In the end it all comes down to personal choice on who you believe to be the better of the two.

 

Alas, RJ passed away, and Martin just does not care a whit about his book fans since he has just plain stopped writing. I do although want to thank Brandon Sanderson so much for agreeing to finish tWoT. Talk about your daunting projects (we need you to come in at the culmination of a 10+ books series and finish up for an author who has an admittedly rabid fan base who tend to pick apart any discrepancies or oddities in the story). I believe he has done an admirable job and I picked up a newer author I did not know about beforehand. (Lucky me)

 

A short list of authors who have had an immense impact on my life, in no particular order

Peirs Anthony

David Eddings

Robert Jordan

Terry Brooks

Hickman & Weiss

George R. R. Martin

L. Ron Hubbard

Stephen King

 

Stopping there, list in my mind is getting out of hand.

 

In the end tho, I choose Robert Jordan as my favorite.

[UGAShadow]

I like both but I've only read aSoIaF once. Read WoT too many times to count. Will reread it again when DoD comes out but it just doesn't capture my imagination like WoT does.

[Suttree]

Alas, RJ passed away, and Martin just does not care a whit about his book fans since he has just plain stopped writing.

 

He just finished Dance with Dragons, it's out July 12th...

[The Watcher and Wanderer]

Wheel of time for the simple reason that in the past few years RJ has but out more books posthumously that has GRRM who is quite alive and well. For all the complaining people have done about the length of WOT at least RJ got each volume out in a timely manner. Martin needs to get on with it!!

[Mr Ares]

Alas, RJ passed away, and Martin just does not care a whit about his book fans since he has just plain stopped writing.

He just finished Dance with Dragons, it's out July 12th...

Maybe ADWD got tired of the wait and wrote itself?

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

sometimes people get tired of working. if i could afford to stop, i would. i can't blame anyone for retiring, or just plain slowing down.

[Werthead]

Martin just does not care a whit about his book fans since he has just plain stopped writing.

 

Which is of course a lie.

 

It does raise a considerably more contentious question though. Which is more professional and respectful of your fans?

 

1) Write a bad book. Realise it's a bad book, but 'fixing it' will take another two years after you've just taken two years to write it, so you publish immediately and ride out the bad reviews and backlash to eventually - three years later - release a book which makes up (somewhat) for the failures of the previous volume.

 

2) Be in the middle of writing a bad book, realise it's a bad book but that 'fixing it' will require a near-page one rewrite from scratch and will likely delay the book for another three or more years even after you've already suggested that the book will be out in a matter of months. If you don't, however, the book still stink to high heaven (and a number of people think the previous volume in the series was weak already, so you are reluctant to release two 'bad' books in a row). So you rewrite what you have and write new material and the total amount of time that elapses from the last volume is six years, but, IF the new book gets a good reception that can to some extent be validated.

 

Both solutions have their pluses and minuses. I think Option 2 is considerably harder, as it will definitely invoke a negative reaction from your fanbase, whilst with Option 1 you will get at least some fans who are so happy to read new material in the series they'll even accept a sub-par book. However, on the flipside, with Option 1 the mistakes and problems you ran into will remain a problem for the rest of the time that the series remains popular and in print and people read it, long after the issue of publication times is long forgotten about. If Option 2 produces a superior novel, then ultimately no-one will care about the waiting time.

 

Or to put it more concisely, if A DANCE WITH DRAGONS is excellent, people will ultimately not care about how long it took to come out. Whilst CROSSROADS OF TWILIGHT will suck for all of eternity, and no-one will care at all it only took two years to come out.

[Terez]

Or to put it more concisely, if A DANCE WITH DRAGONS is excellent, people will ultimately not care about how long it took to come out. Whilst CROSSROADS OF TWILIGHT will suck for all of eternity, and no-one will care at all it only took two years to come out.

There is a well-documented phenomenon here that I should probably note. Most people who read WoT straight through don't have any real issues with COT. The book's reception was inspired both by the long wait for it and the cliffhanger ending. As a piece in the continuous series, even the notorious 7-10 slump doesn't really seem to faze people much at all. Some don't even notice it.

[Werthead]

There is a well-documented phenomenon here that I should probably note. Most people who read WoT straight through don't have any real issues with COT. The book's reception was inspired both by the long wait for it and the cliffhanger ending. As a piece in the continuous series, even the notorious 7-10 slump doesn't really seem to faze people much at all. Some don't even notice it.

 

I am aware of this POV (though the gap between WH and CoT was only 2 years, much shorter than the gap between either 7 and 8 or 10 and 11), but I think it is phenomenon experienced by people who enjoyed the first few books so much that they make allowances for RJ's mistakes at this point (and I would include myself back at that time when CoT came out as well). I am entirely sympathetic to the immense problems that Jordan faced in writing these books (the 8-11 'troubled period') and do not believe the notion that he or Tor dragged the series out for monetary purposes, but at the same time I think there are immense creative problems in this part of the story (though I actually think Book 7 is very good and well-paced and gets a lot of stuff done; I think the real problems kick in with 8 and are solved by halfway through 11). That the rest of the series is so strong means the problems in this part of the story can be borne, but I don't think dismissed (though perhaps it's a bigger issue for me at the moment due to the fact that I've been thinking about how to handle this part of the story for a TV adaptation for that blog entry we discussed previously).

 

The same thing is true to some extent for GRRM, of course, and I think it is inarguable that FEAST FOR CROWS is the weakest book in the series and he also faced immense problems in that part of the series. Though I don't believe that AFFC is as weak or as problematic as CoT (I'd equate it more to say PoD where the cracks in the story have first become noticeable but it's still possible to back up and fix them). But certainly later books could be if GRRM is not careful.

[Entreri]

He stacks up well. First 6 books of WoT is one of greatest fantasy series ever written.

 

 

 

Game of Thrones TV series = one of the best TV series ever.

[Suttree]

If Option 2 produces a superior novel, then ultimately no-one will care about the waiting time.

 

Or to put it more concisely, if A DANCE WITH DRAGONS is excellent, people will ultimately not care about how long it took to come out. Whilst CROSSROADS OF TWILIGHT will suck for all of eternity, and no-one will care at all it only took two years to come out.

 

Agreed, would also like to point out the second option takes big time guts. To me an author should stay true to himself and make the best book possible, which is what Martin is trying to do. It' his story and we as fans need to DEAL with that.

[Werthead]

Agreed, would also like to point out the second option takes big time guts. To me an author should stay true to himself and make the best book possible, which is what Martin is trying to do. It' his story and we as fans need to DEAL with that.

 

It helps that Martin worked on BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, which back in 1987-90 was getting 20 million viewers. When the production team controversially killed off one of the main stars, they got hated on at a level that makes the criticism over ADWD look like a drop of rain in the Atlantic, and GRRM bore the brunt of that as the most visible member of the team (since he was attending conventions and PR events at the time for his books).

[Terez]

There is a well-documented phenomenon here that I should probably note. Most people who read WoT straight through don't have any real issues with COT. The book's reception was inspired both by the long wait for it and the cliffhanger ending. As a piece in the continuous series, even the notorious 7-10 slump doesn't really seem to faze people much at all. Some don't even notice it.

 

I am aware of this POV (though the gap between WH and CoT was only 2 years, much shorter than the gap between either 7 and 8 or 10 and 11), but I think it is phenomenon experienced by people who enjoyed the first few books so much that they make allowances for RJ's mistakes at this point (and I would include myself back at that time when CoT came out as well).

Well, that's an entirely separate thing. Many people who are inclined to 'make allowances' such as yourself still noticed a drag there. Others don't notice it at all. I include myself among that group even though I don't fit the usual criteria - I was really surprised to find so much hate for COT when I found the online fandom. I think a lot of people really underestimate how much the wait affected their view of it. And it might have only been two years from WH to COT, but I think for many people it was a cumulative thing.

[Guest PiotrekS]

I have never had any problems with CoT.

 

But maybe that's because I'm a little weird and don't really care for plot resolutions too much in my reading. I prefer to savor well written moments and admire the world-building. And I enjoy Elayne chapters Yes, I'm quite a freak...

 

I guess many people were frustrated that the whole book didn't make the final resolution any nearer.

[PastorDeSemolaDeGranoDuro]

I'll reserve my judgment until I complete both series. I'll say this much, in my opinion both of them are numbers 1 and 2 with bugger all between them.

[Cybertrolloc]

Heh, most. How about we find someone with book sales info (industry sites have nice breakdowns) first :)

 

Personally:

 

AFfC: Coming down off the high of mid AGoT through SoS is a tough act to follow (think start of FoH or LoC depending on taste). Structurally similar to CoT in some ways: check in on a bunch of plot lines, etc... Have to wait for ADwD to see what specifically should be done, there's certainly some things that hit themes a bit heavily or do too much the same things, I suck at no spoiler criticism :)

 

-----

 

WoT: In general, there's just too much covering of the same ground, and certainly feels like there's a lot of copy/paste of whole pages books 8-11. Elayne, Perrin and Egwnene plots all have various amounts of deja vu throughout these books. Hurts that BS goes back and covers a bunch of the same ground yet again. Sure, we get to read RJ prose which is always nice, but the plots creep along and there's not much in the way of character growth (some nice subtle things, but usually only for the main cast).

 

-----

 

CoT specifically: Started rereading. Was so fantastically unmemorable for me I bought the paperback thinking it was new to me, took until the branding to realize that I had read it. Started reading again for lolz, so far:

 

Prologue--bit long in some of the pieces (Samitsu, tower AS especially since there's more later...also the worst thing is the names: Saerin, Saenin, there's another 2 or 3 ugly similar ones).

 

Next 9% of the book is 4 Mat chapters. Sets up the group dynamics which doesn't go too many places.

 

Karede/Mor chapter: great. Some Seanchan info dump + stuff set in motion all in one chapter.

 

Thick block of Perrin coming up, which I'm dreading. IIRC, a chapter's worth of interesting stuff spread over 5. Oh god, then the bath...what have I gotten into?

 

----

 

So back to post book 5/6/7/8 WoT (depending on what the wheels fell off of at which time): We need to know generally what needs to happen when and in what order before we can figure out how to consolidate and cut things.

[WhiskyJack]

Hood's balls and Togg's teats are my favorite curses...

[WhiskyJack]

I hear SoIaF series will be finished in 2025. And I hear 4th book in series is super good what with author taking 5 years to write that magnum opus!One can only hope for book 5 with 6 year time gap (I am guessing even better than 4!)

[jwood01]

I think having a discussion of which is better is pointless. Both are incredible series that I would recommend to anyone. IMO they both bring different things to the genre and thus IMO there is not much value in comparing them. I would compare something like the Belgariad to WoT, where WoT is hands down the superior work. And something like Acacia to aSoFaI, where aSoFaI is hands down the superior work.

 

IMO, RJ and GRRM both got bogged down by their series and ended up having difficulty with containing the size and breadth. Despite his series being 10 books I think Steven Erikson has avoided this expansion of size and breadth by writing more of a snapshot of his world. Many fans of the Malazan Book of the Fallen series will readily admit that Erikson leaves many threads untied with the resolution of the series, but IMO that is the only way he could've done it without writing a 15-20 book series.

 

My only complaints about Jordan are his unwillingness to kill off main characters and his characters' obsessions with what they are wearing or going to wear.

 

 

Bottomline: I would recommend WoT and aSoFaI to anyone. I would recommend LOTR and Malazan Book of the Fallen only to fantasy fans. I would recommend the Belgariad to teenagers, but not adults. I wouldn't recommend Acacia to anyone.

[NetSlider]

And I will actually go as far as say this (and most likely bring a storm on my head) but when it comes to Song, not only it does not rank with WOT but it belongs somewhere in a second half of top 100 list. God, I don't understand why people like it. I'd rather re-read Wizard's Rules and bleed from my eyes and ears in the process than read a story with author constantly looking to simply come out "original and different" and "controversial." Please, as an adult incest and sex, and killing off of major characters, does not make me thing of good drama - it makes me thinks of something.....I don't know, fake and manufactured to be specifically "controversial." :::breathing hard:::: anyways, go ahead and tell me why the Song is so great. I just think there are a lot better fantasies that people overlook. Personally, taking simple history and slapping some "magic" into it does not impress me even a bit.

 

As far as RJ not killing off characters - well, becuase it's a fairy tale at the end of the day. It suppose to make you feel hopeful and joyful and maybe a little bit sad, but at the end of the day, it should give you hope and well...heroes would be the word I guess.

[jwood01]

Heros can die too. IMO letting some heros die along the way either tragically or during a feat of heroic greatness adds significantly to the emotional reaction I have as a reader. It's just my personal preference. Maybe the problem is that we all know that the hero is going to die in the end (in some way), but here we are in book 12 and no other main heros have died yet. Probably not an issue for me if the series was complete or shorter.

 

And the only major hero characters to die so far actually weren't dead! Matrim and Aviendha came back through Rand balefiring Rahvin and Moraine was just trapped in an alternate universe for 6-7 books. IMO Moraine had to fake-die or else Rand would never have developed as a character into Rand Sedai; he needed someone close to him that he semi-trusted to die for him, and then he needed to deal with that as a person just like we all do when a loved one passes away too early.

 

Also, not that I think on it, I guess Matt would be dead right now if he didn't have his luck or his wife. In KoD it sounded like he had a serious infection after that street fight, and in times like the 3rd Age an infection is probably a sure way to die unless you go get the right herb mix or an Aes Sedai to heal you.

 

Note: Is Finnland an alternate universe?