Thisguy's Topic on Brandon's Work

[Bluedust9]

WRONG. Lots of things in WOT ''completely satisfied'' me. They include (but are not limited to):

 

1 The Eye of the world

 

2 The Great Hunt

 

3 The Shadow Rising

 

4 Fires of Heaven

 

5 Knife of Dreams

 

 

Fish

 

Okay so, first of all you type like a crazy person.

 

Anyways.

 

So RJ's books completely satisfied you but non-RJ written books didn't. What a revelation?

[The Fisher King]

I think that nobody wanted Sanderson to be as good as Jordan. I also don't think anyone wanted Sanderson to write like Jordan. What people wanted was Sanderson to take this seriously and control things he COULD control...double check his notes to avoid silly continuity errors. To keep promises he made with regards to things. To NOT say he was ''done'' and wouldn't be pouring anymore of himself into it even though almost a year remained before the AMOL publication date so he could go back to writing his own novels.

 

 

Fish

[Bluedust9]

I think that nobody wanted Sanderson to be as good as Jordan. I also don't think anyone wanted Sanderson to write like Jordan. What people wanted was Sanderson to take this seriously and control things he COULD control...double check his notes to avoid silly continuity errors. To keep promises he made with regards to things. To NOT say he was ''done'' and wouldn't be pouring anymore of himself into it even though almost a year remained before the AMOL publication date so he could go back to writing his own novels.

 

 

Fish

 

Can you please cite anything you just said? Thanks in advance,

 

Edit: And I won't accept forum poster comments as a citation, thanks.

[The Fisher King]

Okay so, first of all you type like a crazy person. - How so?

 

So RJ's books completely satisfied you but non-RJ written books didn't. . Maybe you should think about WHY that is ;)

 

 

Fish

[The Fisher King]

Can you please cite anything you just said? Thanks in advance - There are quotes and links to every reference I made previously in this very thread. I'm sure doing your own bactracking for them isn't asking too much of you.

 

 

Fish

[Bluedust9]

Can you please cite anything you just said? Thanks in advance - There are quotes and links to every reference I made previously in this very thread. I'm sure doing your own bactracking for them isn't asking too much of you.

 

 

Fish

 

Okay so you have nothing to add? Alright.

[Bluedust9]

Okay so, first of all you type like a crazy person. - How so?

 

So RJ's books completely satisfied you but non-RJ written books didn't. . Maybe you should think about WHY that is ;)

 

 

Fish

 

The crazy person thing.. that I'll explain.

I have learned from crazy conversative family members that they type like:

 

"Did YOU know Barrack HUSSEIGN Obumber wants to DESTROY ARE COUNTRY cause SOCIALISM.." etc

 

Basically, most people that type long posts with many ellipses and random capital words are nuts. And your posts are really hard to read because it's like I'm reading a conspiracy post.

[The Fisher King]

You can't read through the thread for yourself. If you read all my posts in this thread on this subject you will see Ive had plenty to add. So have Sid, Luckers, Suttree and many, many others. You'd also find SEVRAL of the very things you asked me to cite if you went back through. But, be honest, you don't really want to do that, do you? You want to get in, get your shots off, make your point and get out. You seem offended by people seeing and discussing differences in the handling of WOT post-Jordan and unwilling to understand why coompletely NON-hateful constructive criticism has been good-naturedly levelled at Sanderson from time to time so we probably would just be butting heads trying to discuss it. Good luck.

 

 

Fish

[The Fisher King]

LoL - you MUST be a troll. Oh, well - Im done feeding ya.

 

 

Fish

[Bluedust9]

You can't read through the thread for yourself. If you read all my posts in this thread on this subject you will see Ive had plenty to add. So have Sid, Luckers, Suttree and many, many others. You'd also find SEVRAL of the very things you asked me to cite if you went back through. But, be honest, you don't really want to do that, do you? You want to get in, get your shots off, make your point and get out. You seem offended by people seeing and discussing differences in the handling of WOT post-Jordan and unwilling to understand why coompletely NON-hateful constructive criticism has been good-naturedly levelled at Sanderson from time to time so we probably would just be butting heads trying to discuss it. Good luck.

 

 

Fish

 

Look I'm sorry but it's 2am and it's just too much effort to try and understand what you just typed. Seriously all I'm saying is some spelling and grammar goes a long way.

 

edit: Like you bitch at BS, but you capitalize SEVERAL and still spell it SEVRAL, you're a joke, and not to be taken seriously.

[The Fisher King]

It might be worth getting banned to say what you remind me of, lol.

 

 

Fish

[Bluedust9]

It might be worth getting banned to say what you remind me of, lol.

 

 

Fish

 

And that is? What have I said that's wrong? You can't even spell your own posts right yet you critisize Brandon. And trust me I have the same issues with the books. I miss all the details in between the characters talking, but that is something RJ did well, not Brandon.

[The Fisher King]

Its your party. Cheers!

 

 

Fish

[Bluedust9]

Its your party. Cheers!

 

 

Fish

 

Okay so no response then? I said nothing wrong? Good to know thanks chief.

[TyphoonBlade]

Its your party. Cheers!

 

 

Fish

 

Okay so no response then? I said nothing wrong? Good to know thanks chief.

 

 

So far in this thread all you've done is called those criticizing BS "babies" and said that RJ is dead therefore the criticisms being made are dumb.

 

How does this defend BS's work so far with the series? You disagree that he's done a bad job, that's perfectly fine. Just back it up with something other then name calling or by dismissing those criticisms because the original author is deceased.

 

Neither of those things furthered your point and trolling Fish about his grammar (when that doesn't have anything to do with Brandon's work on WOT) is seriously...childish.

[Bluedust9]

Its your party. Cheers!

 

 

Fish

 

Okay so no response then? I said nothing wrong? Good to know thanks chief.

 

 

So far in this thread all you've done is called those criticizing BS "babies" and said that RJ is dead therefore the criticisms being made are dumb.

 

How does this defend BS's work so far with the series? You disagree that he's done a bad job, that's perfectly fine. Just back it up with something other then name calling or by dismissing those criticisms because the original author is deceased.

 

Neither of those things furthered your point and trolling Fish about his grammar (when that doesn't have anything to do with Brandon's work on WOT) is seriously...childish.

 

I personally don't feel Brandon did a good job at all. I'm not defending him. I just think some people are giving Brandon way too much hate when he said from the beginning he would write in his own style, and if you read his books you'd see how he has a very blunt style.

 

Edit: To clarify, people expected Brandon to come into a lifetime masterpiece and do everything they expected. His WoT books read like Mistborn and Way of Kings to me, it's his style. He's not a war vet, he's a mormon Magic card dork. Shit happens.

 

Edit 2: I just want to say again, I understand how awful the Mormon church has been to homosexuals, funding for laws in California, etc. To know someone feels you will burn in Hell just for the way you are born is fucking awful, and so I understand why Luckers is so negative.

[csarmi]

LoL - you MUST be a troll. Oh, well - Im done feeding ya.

 

 

Fish

 

No he's not, I've got the exact same problem with your forum posts, but he pointed them out better.

I don't mean to insult you. it's just very annoying and takes away from teh (otherwise usually good) quality of your posts.

[fionwe1987]

But Jordan is dead.

And your point is?

Thank you for putting into words my criticisms against people bitching about Brandon though, you said it best. The man is dead, not everyone can write like him, we all have our perfect version of WoT but this is what we got. Thumbs up.

Okay, that's a lot of twisting of what I said there. Obviously, no one can write like any other. Why don't you go find someone who sand Brandon should write like Jordan and troll at him?

[fionwe1987]

@ fionwe

 

I think some of it has to do with the characters he's created. Much of the story is told from the perspective of young people from a country village in the middle of nowhere. Even though they've grown a lot in the last few years on their journey, they're still rooted in the place where they began. If they all thought like this, it wouldn't quite seem realistic.

 

Some of the other characters with different backgrounds do have a different tone to them, and you can tell when you're reading someone from that different background. Perhaps not as flowery as the examples you've shown, fionwe, but I guess my stance is if Jordan's style of prose is wrong, I don't want to be right. I find it very entertaining to read, and even more the second time.

I think you're confusing content and prose. You can absolutely use word choice and sentence structure to communicate the innocence of characters. I don't think anyone is arguing that decision of Jordan's. But his clunky prose has nothing to do with that choice. You can use good prose and write someone who's not wise to the world. They don't have to philosophize and muse on the deeper meaning of life for the prose to be good. That is the content of the writing, and its perfectly fine for such things to not be in the PoV of villagers.

And of course Jordan is entertaining. I've said that many times. But "entertaining writing" and "good prose" are not the same thing. Does Jordan have to write that kind of prose? No. The only point some of us are making is that while its okay to criticize Brandon for his flaws, lets not pretend that Jordan had great prose.

@ Charlie

 

thanks for your recent contributions to the thread. I think we've had enough of them for now.

Amen to that.

[Stevros]

Can I just state, that whilst Brandon might not have done the best job, I don't think he's done a great job, but I don't agree its that bad. My reasoning being:

 

1. I'd much rather the series was finished off poorly than not at all. I needed to know what happened.

 

2. There are many authors that may have been more capable of finishing the story better, but I don't know that many that would have put aside there own work to do someone else's work. Most major fantasy authors are busy writing there own works. Yes I do feel BS may have rushed these books so he can get back to his own works, but I doubt many writers would have done this without at least a subconscious desire to get back to their own books.

 

3. Continuity errors was something I always expected. Even RJ had some, not anywhere near as many as BS but a few none the less. However if you look at the breadth and depth of the WoT universe that RJ created and even with notes that is hard to get exactly right. RJ knew his world inside out, knew the insides of his characters inside out, knew the plotlines inside out AND had his notes to refer to. Without going through every set of notes for each chapter you can never expect quite the same level of detail and that would have taken an eternity. I know from writing my dissertation that even my project supervisor who was beside me for the entire year did not fully understand some of the specifics of what I was doing, this is because I immersed myself and despite putting the time and effort in to understand it and working alongside me for large parts of it (and he did have a very good understanding of it) that didn't mean he could have written it even with my extensive notes.

 

4. The limited time he had to complete was not just his desire to get back to his own work but also there were significant pressures from the publishers and and many fans who were desperate to see the book books out quickly if not perfectly. (The person who first introduced me into the series was on the verge of abandoning the series completely due to the time it was taking and he wanted them just to publish the raw notes rather than a book so he could find out the eventual outcome without waiting for too long.)

 

5. With such a large fanbase there was always going to be a significant number who didn't like the change and lets face it, it was always going to be at least a section of the hardcore fans, and unfortunately for those who don't lie him you've been unlucky, if someone else had been chosen, say a bigger fan but not a professional writer then the continuity may have been more correct but the story wouldn't flow as well or the opposite if a more experienced writer had been chosen but had less awareness of the storyline.

 

 

 

 

These points being said I fully appreciate the need for many fans to vent there anger and annoyance, they should be allowed to do so. And these threads discussing his work are the perfect place to do so I have no time for the people that are saying loyal fans for twenty years should shut up and keep their criticisms to themselves. This is a free society and if people have given as much of their lives to this series as I have (most people on here may well have given more) they are perfectly entitled to rant and rave.

 

What does annoy me is people on this thread that seem content to assume that others with the opposing view are wrong because they have that view. The thing about reading stories is that it is a very personal thing we all take different things out of the series (As I've aged each time I read the series I find myself getting different things out of it, which gives me all the more respect for RJ). Therefore everyone is entitled to their own opinion on BS. My personal feelings are somewhere in the middle I feel that there are many people who could have done a better job (whether they would or not I don't know) yet I also know there are many people (professional writers included) who would have made a MUCH worse job.

[David Selig]

A perfect example of the difference between some of what you quoted and the style of writing that RJ used:

 

In the writings that you quoted, the major message conveyed is the atmosphere and the scene. The goal of the text is to make sure the scene is painted in the readers mind. In WoT, the focus and the goal of the writing is not to paint the scenes to the reader...but it is instead character oriented. The goal is to put you in the shoes of the characters PoV and to connect the reader with the character. The sense of atmosphere and realism that your quotes provide put the reader in the environment and lets them envision the scene as if they were standing there. In WoT, the writing doesn't put you in that persons shoes as much as it connects you with that character as if you're standing over their shoulders and are in their head. I'm probably doing a poor job of explaining this, but I feel like its an important difference that is overlooked.

 

The beautiful and poetic prose you quoted connects the reader with the scene and environment, but it doesn't connect the reader with the character as much as WoT-style writing does.

But Jordan wrote long descriptions which have nothing to do with the characters development and connecting us with the characters, all the time. He simply wasn't very good at them IMO.

 

And there's really no reason why a writer can't use a beautiful and poetic prose to establish a strong connection between the reader and the characters. Even if we stick only to the fantasy genre, there are plenty of writers who do it very successfully - Guy Kay, Patricia McKillip, Cat Valente, Ursula Le Guin, etc.

[Agitel]

This topic just reminds me of how important it is to get off of this fansite now and then. I feel like I need a long shower.

[Luckers]

Edit 2: I just want to say again, I understand how awful the Mormon church has been to homosexuals, funding for laws in California, etc. To know someone feels you will burn in Hell just for the way you are born is fucking awful, and so I understand why Luckers is so negative.

 

Actually, Brandon and I (and Terez) had an amazing conversation about homosexuality. He was thoroughly lovely, and I don't transfer any blame in the slightest for the position his church takes (or has taken) on the issue onto him. I even made a comment about it at the end of the discussion: "Lol. A gay, a feminist and a Mormon walk into a bar—whereupon they have a deep and meaningful conversation about sexuality in WoT. #NoJokes"

 

Inferring that my criticism stems from personal hatred is wrong. In fact, to the opposite, I like and respect Brandon as a person to a very great extent. It is what he has done as a writer that I have issues with.

[MarkDiLillo]

and thread is derailed by a troll. a terrible troll at that. must be some 16 year old kid just learning how to troll

[Stevros]

and thread is derailed by a troll. a terrible troll at that. must be some 16 year old kid just learning how to troll

 

Your being a bit kind, I can't believe the average mental age of most trolls is even into double figures.