Thisguy's Topic on Brandon's Work

[Suttree]

But were they so lacking in detail as to not say which Forsaken would go after Perrin? I really find it hard to believe that RJ would just say one of the Forsaken goes after Perrin and leave it at that, particularly when telling the story to his friends. You can criticize Brandon's execution of the storytelling if you need to, but can the decision to use Graendal, as opposed to Moghedion in this arc really be pinned on Brandon?

 

Yes they were. For instance in places it would say things such as "Character A is here" and he "ends up there", Brandon would have to invent everything in between. Another example is him adding another Egwene/Elaida confrontation so there was two instead of one despite it not being in the notes. The simple fact of the matter is there is a ton of filler in those two books, much of it totally created by Brandon.

[MarkDiLillo]

Just to rant real fast, one of the major problems I have with Brandon Sandersons contributions is his insistence to add new material and add his own little personal touches to things. There are 10 books of material to draw from with a fleshed out world full of detail...along with extensive notes that detail everything anyone could ever want to know about the WoT world. WHY on earth does he feel it so necessary to add things like dreamshard, dreadbane, and the weird Talmanes Fade poisoning? That is by far the most annoying thing to me that jars me out of my reading. It is so obvious when he adds his own creations because they don't mesh with the world whatsoever and legitimately cannot see a reason why he is doing this other than he is such an excited fan that he wants to add what he always wanted to add to the series.

 

Personally, I find the personal additions to be more annoying than his lack of ability to get the voice right on some characters.

[The Fisher King]

Mark. I could be wrong...but it is very much my understanding that the Elaida/Egwene scene / mostly written by Jordan - was SPLIT UP into two seperate chapters by Sanderson (where before ot had been one continuous scene) but that the content was mostly left alone.

 

 

Fish

[MarkDiLillo]

Fish, I dont know what you're talking about...your response to me seems unrelated to my last post. I dont think I referenced any Elaida/Egwene scene to my knowledge

[Suttree]

Mark. I could be wrong...but it is very much my understanding that the Elaida/Egwene scene / mostly written by Jordan - was SPLIT UP into two seperate chapters by Sanderson (where before ot had been one continuous scene) but that the content was mostly left alone.

 

 

Fish

 

I was the one that mentioned it and if I was confused on that point I stand corrected. Think people can get the gist of where I was going however.

[The Fisher King]

Sorry guys. I was indeed responding to Suttree and not Mark.

 

 

Fish

[The Fisher King]

I totally got what you were saying Sutt.

 

Another story: Chapter 17 in TGS was written by Brandon but it was firmly outlined by RJ. Rumor has it that when getting to the part where Cadsuane...spanks ...Semi, Brandon was appalled, lol, but Harriet made it clear that Jordan wanted that to happen so Brandon could have leeway but the spanking was to stay in no matter what.

 

 

Fish

[David Selig]

But were they so lacking in detail as to not say which Forsaken would go after Perrin? I really find it hard to believe that RJ would just say one of the Forsaken goes after Perrin and leave it at that, particularly when telling the story to his friends. You can criticize Brandon's execution of the storytelling if you need to, but can the decision to use Graendal, as opposed to Moghedion in this arc really be pinned on Brandon?

 

Yes they were. For instance in places it would say things such as "Character A is here" and he "ends up there", Brandon would have to invent everything in between. Another example is him adding another Egwene/Elaida confrontation so there was two instead of one despite it not being in the notes. The simple fact of the matter is there is a ton of filler in those two books, much of it totally created by Brandon.

Well, you guys all want Brandon to write as Jordan, and if there's one thing there's plenty of in WoT, it's filler. ;)

[The Fisher King]

No. I don't want Brandon to "write as Jordan." I wanted Brandon to seriously apply himself to doing the best job Brandon could do in correcting things that Brandon himself admitted were mistakes - by using resources readily available to him.

 

Big diff.

 

 

Fish

[Leopoled Boothe]

But were they so lacking in detail as to not say which Forsaken would go after Perrin? I really find it hard to believe that RJ would just say one of the Forsaken goes after Perrin and leave it at that, particularly when telling the story to his friends. You can criticize Brandon's execution of the storytelling if you need to, but can the decision to use Graendal, as opposed to Moghedion in this arc really be pinned on Brandon?

 

Yes they were. For instance in places it would say things such as "Character A is here" and he "ends up there", Brandon would have to invent everything in between. Another example is him adding another Egwene/Elaida confrontation so there was two instead of one despite it not being in the notes. The simple fact of the matter is there is a ton of filler in those two books, much of it totally created by Brandon.

 

I'm not saying I don't believe you but I would be interested to know where you are getting this information. Have you seen the notes? Talked to Team Jordan personally? Unless you happen to be a member of Team Jordan yourself I can't imagine how you would be privy to such info. And even if you are I can't imagine that the other members would be very happy about you sharing such info on a public forum. Such things are kept rather secretive after all. And what of the fireside chat? Did RJ sit by the hearth regaling his friends with tales of characters A through Z? I'm sure the telling by the fireside was rather basic but still I would imagine that the characters names were used.

[Suttree]

Well, you guys all want Brandon to write as Jordan, and if there's one thing there's plenty of in WoT, it's filler. ;)

 

LOL...classic David, good post.

 

Now as I have said, I don't need Brandon to be as good as RJ, I just need him to be as good as Brandon can be.

 

But were they so lacking in detail as to not say which Forsaken would go after Perrin? I really find it hard to believe that RJ would just say one of the Forsaken goes after Perrin and leave it at that, particularly when telling the story to his friends. You can criticize Brandon's execution of the storytelling if you need to, but can the decision to use Graendal, as opposed to Moghedion in this arc really be pinned on Brandon?

 

Yes they were. For instance in places it would say things such as "Character A is here" and he "ends up there", Brandon would have to invent everything in between. Another example is him adding another Egwene/Elaida confrontation so there was two instead of one despite it not being in the notes. The simple fact of the matter is there is a ton of filler in those two books, much of it totally created by Brandon.

 

I'm not saying I don't believe you but I would be interested to know where you are getting this information. Have you seen the notes? Talked to Team Jordan personally? Unless you happen to be a member of Team Jordan yourself I can't imagine how you would be privy to such info. And even if you are I can't imagine that the other members would be very happy about you sharing such info on a public forum. Such things are kept rather secretive after all. And what of the fireside chat? Did RJ sit by the hearth regaling his friends with tales of characters A through Z? I'm sure the telling by the fireside was rather basic but still I would imagine that the characters names were used.

 

Brandon told us that information. Check out the Q&A's when you have time. Lots of good stuff in there.

[fionwe1987]

Mark. I could be wrong...but it is very much my understanding that the Elaida/Egwene scene / mostly written by Jordan - was SPLIT UP into two seperate chapters by Sanderson (where before ot had been one continuous scene) but that the content was mostly left alone.

 

 

Fish

 

I was the one that mentioned it and if I was confused on that point I stand corrected. Think people can get the gist of where I was going however.

I do agree with Brandon's decision here, though. That first meeting was too soon for Egwene to challenge Elaide. Not because she didn't have it in her, but because we hadn't been shown enough her interactions with Sitters and Heads of Ajah to make her success in that instance as acceptable. RJ, I think, felt that the encounters in KoD were enough. I disagree, and think Brandon made the right call with regards to it. Especially given the need for Egwene to meet the BA hunters. I'm not sure at all how that would have happened in the original plan if Egwene got arrested and sent to the dungeons after her first meeting with Meidani.

 

On the other hand, words fail me when I want to describe how stupid and amateur some of those scenes were. To echo Talmanes, where's the subtlety?

[The Fisher King]

In fairness, fionwe ... we know that most of the "Egwene Parts" in TGS were written by Jordan.

 

 

Fish

[sleepinghour]

This isn't directed at anyone in particular, but if you're making any sort of argument based on RJ or Brandon having said something, please try to include the original quote. We've all read the books, but not all of us have read every interview. So if a poster comes along and says, "Well, Brandon said X," then other people will take his word for it. Which we probably shouldn't.

 

Taken out of context or paraphrased, many interview quotes can take on an different meaning—I've seen a lot of paraphrased quotes in this thread that were wrong or gave a very misleading impression. It isn't fair to either Brandon or other posters to misrepresent anyone's words, even by accident. We have a great interview database now with a search function, so it's relatively quick and easy find a quote.

[Leopoled Boothe]

Well, you guys all want Brandon to write as Jordan, and if there's one thing there's plenty of in WoT, it's filler. ;)

 

LOL...classic David, good post.

 

Now as I have said, I don't need Brandon to be as good as RJ, I just need him to be as good as Brandon can be.

 

But were they so lacking in detail as to not say which Forsaken would go after Perrin? I really find it hard to believe that RJ would just say one of the Forsaken goes after Perrin and leave it at that, particularly when telling the story to his friends. You can criticize Brandon's execution of the storytelling if you need to, but can the decision to use Graendal, as opposed to Moghedion in this arc really be pinned on Brandon?

 

Yes they were. For instance in places it would say things such as "Character A is here" and he "ends up there", Brandon would have to invent everything in between. Another example is him adding another Egwene/Elaida confrontation so there was two instead of one despite it not being in the notes. The simple fact of the matter is there is a ton of filler in those two books, much of it totally created by Brandon.

 

I'm not saying I don't believe you but I would be interested to know where you are getting this information. Have you seen the notes? Talked to Team Jordan personally? Unless you happen to be a member of Team Jordan yourself I can't imagine how you would be privy to such info. And even if you are I can't imagine that the other members would be very happy about you sharing such info on a public forum. Such things are kept rather secretive after all. And what of the fireside chat? Did RJ sit by the hearth regaling his friends with tales of characters A through Z? I'm sure the telling by the fireside was rather basic but still I would imagine that the characters names were used.

 

Brandon told us that information. Check out the Q&A's when you have time. Lots of good stuff in there.

 

I would love to, where can I find these Q&As.

[The Fisher King]

Leopoled. You ask a great question. Basically, those of us who "know" certain things know it because the Internet is a great research tool. Scour every interviews Brandon has ever done. ALL of them. Not just ones given to the usual places. Find some early Sanderson ones where I dont think Harriet had censored him yet, lol. Scour the interviews by Maria, Alan, Harriet, Peter etc....go back to the early 90s and read things RJ himself said in his old interviews. The reports from Signings and Tour Stops. The Q and As. Research it and you can find out so much about a lot of this. Ive done this to discover which parts of the last two books were written by Jordan and which by Brandon. Dragonmount, google and Terez and Co's Index are incredibly helpful and often the interviews they lead you to will lead you to OTHER informative places. Kinda a Six Degrees of Seperation deal.

 

 

Fish

[The Fisher King]

Leopoled. You ask a great question. Basically, those of us who "know" certain things know it because the Internet is a great research tool. Scour every interview Brandon has ever done. ALL of them. Not just ones given to the usual places. Find some early Sanderson ones where I dont think Harriet had censored him yet, lol.Scour the interviews by Maria, Alan, Harriet, Peter etc....go back to the early 90s and read things RJ himself said in his old interviews. Research it and you cannfind out so much about a lot of this. Ive done this to discover which parts of the last two books were written by Jordan and which by Brandon. Dragonmount, google and Terez and Co's Index are incredibly helpful and often the interviews they lead you to will lead you to OTHER informative places. Kinda a Six Degrees of Seperation deal.

 

 

Fish

[The Fisher King]

Sleepinghour...you make a great point. I only post something I *know* is 100% accurate. If I don't KNOW it then I SAY I don't know it for fact.

 

Also, the person READING the info has a bit of responsibility too. If I post something that I am CERTAIN of its accuracy but don't remember WHERE it came from or I don't have the time to go tracking down the source, well...I'm not gonna do your homework for you, you know? ;)

 

 

Fish

[The Fisher King]

Leopoled. There are two excellent Q and A threads on this website in the "General WOT Discussion" forum. One is pinned. One is not.

 

 

Fish

[dwn]

Yes, that was definitely a storm of silliness. And the worst could have been easily avoided by making it Moghedion's misguided plot. I think you (Luckers) posted ages back that it was likely Moghedion who was pulling Masema's strings, so the ToM Perrin arc could have been a continuation of that.

 

Ok, I'm new to this thread and I certainly have not researched the matter nearly as much as others on this site but I have to ask, is there any reason to believe that the Graendal/Perrin story arc was not what RJ' intended? Remember that just before RJ died he had a fireside chat with Harriet and some of the others of his inner circle during which he told them the rest of the story. It was also my understanding that this telling of the story was recorded. Granted Brandon certainly needed to flesh out the scenes quite a bit, but I would think based on this fireside chat that team Jordan would know if it was Grandael or Moghedion whom RJ intended to send Slayer after Perrin. Maybe you know something that I don't but I really see no reason to believe that the Graendal/Perrin arc was something that Brandon fabricated.

 

It doesn't really matter who wrote it; that story arc was just poorly thought out. Graendal's involvement was particularly jarring since she'd been solely focussed on Rand, and her plan to take down Perrin is convoluted at best. Also, she's supposed to be a brilliant schemer and manipulator, not... whatever she was in ToM.

 

As Luckers has mentioned before: Graendal was made dumb so that Perrin could look cool.

 

There are some other issues with the arc beyond Graendal, too. The scene where Morgase is revealed is extremely flat, Perrin's trial just felt weird, and the bubble of evil that put Grady and Neald out of commission seemed contrived. Perrin's ToM chapters are like a sweet drink with a bad aftertaste--they're (mostly) fun to read, but really fall apart upon even cursory analysis.

 

-- dwn

[Suttree]

Taken out of context or paraphrased, many interview quotes can take on an different meaning—I've seen a lot of paraphrased quotes in this thread that were wrong or gave a very misleading impression. It isn't fair to either Brandon or other posters to misrepresent anyone's words, even by accident. We have a great interview database now with a search function, so it's relatively quick and easy find a quote.

 

Such as?

 

I can say for myself(and everyone can attest to it) I am constantly posting Q&A's as support. Sometimes it's better to encourage research. It's a great resource after all.

 

I would love to, where can I find these Q&As.

 

http://www.theorylan...view-search.php

 

If you would like an example of the process here is one quote...

 

Jennifer Liang

 

You and Harriet had a great way of describing it at one of the book signings for The Gathering Storm. You said that you had a map of the United States and you knew that at the end of the book that Perrin ends up in Chicago, but he starts off in like Orlando, and you know that he has to go to Los Angeles before he can get to Chicago, but you don’t know all the other steps in between and why he’s going to Los Angeles, so they had to figure out all the in-between parts.

Brandon Sanderson

 

Yeah, there are great things where there’s just like a line from his notes. “And then Perrin is here doing this.” And you’re like “What? Perrin’s in Malden, how is he gonna get there? And he’s going to do what? And then he’s got to be up here to do what?” And then we know the ending, what he’s doing there. So, there was a lot of that. So, this all became the book, where I built an outline out of this, I took the scenes that he had said. The thing about the notes is that a lot of the notes were to him, and so he would say things like “I’m going to do this or this” and they’re polar opposites. And so there are sequences like that, where I decide what we’re going to do, and stuff like that. And this all is what became the trilogy that you’re now reading.

[MarkDiLillo]

The biggest "scene letdown" for me was Rand going to meet Egwene at the White Tower. That was just...so lame...

 

In contrast, I thought the Perrin forging his hammer scene was awesome. Minus that corny and a little too blunt statement about being a king at the end.

[The Fisher King]

Mark. I agree very deeply with your last two posts. The Dragon "knowing the Amyrlin's anger" WAS a huge letdown. I also deeply despise Brandons "personal touches." In fact I hate them. Its especially disappointing when early on he spoke of respecting Jordan's established world with such reverence.

 

Maybe I'm being too harsh. Without Brandon we wouldn't have things getting "saidered" or the "cool" BloodKnives and Dreamsshards - or the Zany Antics of Master Crimson and his ''clever'' disgusies and "funny" letters!!!

 

Bloody Ashes!!! :(

 

 

Fish

[sleepinghour]

Sleepinghour...you make a great point. I only post something I *know* is 100% accurate. If I don't KNOW it then I SAY I don't know it for fact.

 

You've also posted things that weren't accurate. For example,

 

People point to Harriet saying how Brandon got Mat right after TGS. Of COURSE she said that. What else COULD she say? You always defend your own team in PUBLIC. Brandon was HER GUY She was PROTECTING him.

 

I've only seen one quote from Harriet about this, so I'm guessing you were thinking of this quote:

 

Brandon: I worked on Mat like I worked on all the rest of the characters, and I feel as close to Mat as I feel to the rest of the characters. I asked Harriet, and she said, "You did Mat perfectly. Don't change him."

 

Harriet didn't say that to us; she said that to Brandon in private. Maybe she didn't want to put more pressure on Brandon, or maybe she really thought Mat was perfect, but either way, it was clearly not about "defending one's team in public." So unless you were thinking of some other interview (if you were, please correct me) where Harriet told fans that Brandon's Mat was perfect, your post gave a misleading impression.

 

Also, the person READING the info has a bit of responsibility too. If I post something that I am CERTAIN of its accuracy but don't remember WHERE it came from or I don't have the time to go tracking down the source, well...I'm not gonna do your homework for you, you know? ;)

 

If you want other people to take your arguments seriously, then yes. The poster is responsible for backing up his/her arguments. How should others know which particular interview you had in mind?

[The Fisher King]

You've got to be kidding me?

 

Go tell your professor on a term paper on your boss on a report he has assigned you exactly what you just said to me regarding whose responsibility the verification process is and then get back to me. Talk to me like I'm your boss or teacher.

 

You've REALLY got to be kidding me with your post about Harriet. It doesn't matter WHO it was said to, my point - that was clearly made - was that HARRIET DEFENDED BRANDON AND SAID HE GOT MAT ''RIGHT.'' ... Caps used for emphasis, not anger ...what is really hilarious is your exact quote STRENGHTENED the poit I made, lol - so I thank you for that ;-)

 

The issue isn't where the remark was made - or to who - but that Harriet said it.

 

If you disagree with that - then serious problems exist.

 

 

Fish