Cheesy explanations / situations.....

[bigdoug1971]

For example...

 

Cadsuane sets all of those traps and alarms on the box containing the domination band / male a'dam and Elza is able to take them, free Semirghage, then trap Rand and not alert even one of the webs Cadsuane had placed on it for protection. This is one of those scenes that makes me say "C'mon, man!". The explanation is pretty thin for that happening.

 

Compulsion is forbidden, but in New Spring when Moiraine tells the innkeeper to drink the wine she was trying to drug her with and she cannot resist drinking it....I've heard several weak explanations for this.....but it's compulsion no matter what anybody wants to call it. She used the Power to make someone do what they would not have done on their own. Let's call a spade a spade here!

 

All of the fighting in Randland.......battles, armies gathering, skirmishes........No word or rumor comes from Murandy about armies gathering there? Of all the intelligent people, including people from that land such as Aes Sedai, traders, and the Seanchan looking for land to conquer, and not a word about the place aside from the King hiring the Band to keep people from entering their country for a short time? When we find out Demandred has staged everything from that land when the Last Battle starts and nobody noticed anything until they come and take everyone in the rear.......I'm sure the excuse will be pretty lame for how that happened too.

 

Thom fought the Fade in the square so Mat and Rand could run for it on thier way to Camelyn. When he attacked there was sheet lightning when he met the Fade just like with Lan fought them with his sword. The first explanation for this event was that "Thom has very special daggers indeed!". After it's all said and done, his daggers are not power-wrought and the lightning occured before he collided with the Fade. SO what happened then?

 

 

 

It's late, but I'm sure I can think of several more places, problems, and cheesy excuses to make the story fit. Don't get me wrong, I love the books and consider them the best story ever told IMHO. These are just a few of the little things that annoy me when everything else is so tightly put together and then lame excuses cover up smaller parts of the story. I kind of like being told RAFO becuase it hints there is more to come or at the very least and explanation will soon be forthcoming.

Anyway, long post tonight, maybe people will have opinions or list more cheesy situations they can think of too.

[Orderofolde]

For example...

 

Cadsuane sets all of those traps and alarms on the box containing the domination band / male a'dam and Elza is able to take them, free Semirghage, then trap Rand and not alert even one of the webs Cadsuane had placed on it for protection. This is one of those scenes that makes me say "C'mon, man!". The explanation is pretty thin for that happening.

 

Compulsion is forbidden, but in New Spring when Moiraine tells the innkeeper to drink the wine she was trying to drug her with and she cannot resist drinking it....I've heard several weak explanations for this.....but it's compulsion no matter what anybody wants to call it. She used the Power to make someone do what they would not have done on their own. Let's call a spade a spade here!

 

All of the fighting in Randland.......battles, armies gathering, skirmishes........No word or rumor comes from Murandy about armies gathering there? Of all the intelligent people, including people from that land such as Aes Sedai, traders, and the Seanchan looking for land to conquer, and not a word about the place aside from the King hiring the Band to keep people from entering their country for a short time? When we find out Demandred has staged everything from that land when the Last Battle starts and nobody noticed anything until they come and take everyone in the rear.......I'm sure the excuse will be pretty lame for how that happened too.

 

Thom fought the Fade in the square so Mat and Rand could run for it on thier way to Camelyn. When he attacked there was sheet lightning when he met the Fade just like with Lan fought them with his sword. The first explanation for this event was that "Thom has very special daggers indeed!". After it's all said and done, his daggers are not power-wrought and the lightning occured before he collided with the Fade. SO what happened then?

 

 

 

It's late, but I'm sure I can think of several more places, problems, and cheesy excuses to make the story fit. Don't get me wrong, I love the books and consider them the best story ever told IMHO. These are just a few of the little things that annoy me when everything else is so tightly put together and then lame excuses cover up smaller parts of the story. I kind of like being told RAFO becuase it hints there is more to come or at the very least and explanation will soon be forthcoming.

Anyway, long post tonight, maybe people will have opinions or list more cheesy situations they can think of too.

As far as Thom goes, and as far as I know, RJ and Brandon never said that the daggers were not power-wrought. This tends to get a little confusing as this was a rework in later printings of the book, "Knives" getting traded for "Daggers" or the other way around, can't remember specifically, I just know that the lightning was also made clear that it happened before Thom collided with the Fade. Changes were made because earlier Thom laments on the loss of his best knives/daggers he used to kill the two trollocs when running for it outside of Shadar Logoth. RJ confirmed that Thom's "Second Best" knives/daggers are special indeed. We can only tie this to Lan's explanation to Rand of their blades at the start of The Great Hunt. Lan alludes to his being a plain soldier's sword, and Rand's being better than his given to a Blademaster, but comments that special power wrought weapons were made for lords and generals/officers that are better off lost to the current age.

 

There is great speculation that Thom's "Second Best" knives/daggers are either a matched set of Ter'angreal as we see Rj's penchant for Ter'angreal knives of curious function, or more believably, a matched set of fighting knives that are power-wrought and imbued so that they have a secondary function as weapons that use the power, much like we see much later with Perrin's power-wrought hammer burning a wolf stamp into the faces of Trollocs when he hits them. Reasoning for this is also supported by lords and Generals not wanting the hassle of carrying huge weapons around and wanting to keep them close as there was little trust in the shifting of times and the constant battle with many Generals like Sammael and Demandred going over to the shadow. We also see the whole "big things little packages" all over with angreal and sa'angreal, small access keys to giant sa'angreal. That it was carefully revised and Basil Gill being so sure Thom was alive, we know the Gleeman had the power and influence to get his hands on something like that and was crafty enough to use it. Thom also did not gain his limp from shadowman steel, not unless he possesses a powerful healing Ter'angreal and we've seen nothing like that from RJ. So he kills or chased the fade away, and is hurt likely when they crash to the ground. One last note, I saw some talk months back about Brandon mentioning that shock lances came in different sizes, and people were wondering just how small they came, though shock lance for me falls into Ter'angreal category.

[Durinax]

VoG was a very cheesy situation to me

[RickyRicardo]

For me the chessiest thing in the books was the way Egwene beat Messana.

[Yosarian]

Compulsion is forbidden, but in New Spring when Moiraine tells the innkeeper to drink the wine she was trying to drug her with and she cannot resist drinking it....I've heard several weak explanations for this.....but it's compulsion no matter what anybody wants to call it. She used the Power to make someone do what they would not have done on their own. Let's call a spade a spade here!

 

Mmm. it's possible. I mean, balefire is forbidden too, and Moiraine was willing to do that. Although if she could do that, I would think she did it in other situations.

[Wool-headed lummox]

Rand's obsession with women who died for him is incredibly cheesy. What about all the men who died for you, is that perfectly okay? This gender bias make Rand's struggles seem less genuine, and more a propaganda of "women are intelligent, beautiful and powerful, men are expendable physical labor" Mars/Venus thematic.

[spoke]

For example...

 

Cadsuane sets all of those traps and alarms on the box containing the domination band / male a'dam and Elza is able to take them, free Semirghage, then trap Rand and not alert even one of the webs Cadsuane had placed on it for protection. This is one of those scenes that makes me say "C'mon, man!". The explanation is pretty thin for that happening.

This may seem cheesy, but it indicates that one of the wise ones who observed cadsuane provided the info to Elza - aka suggests that one of the wise ones is a darkfriend (Sorila or Amys).

 

All of the fighting in Randland.......battles, armies gathering, skirmishes........No word or rumor comes from Murandy about armies gathering there? Of all the intelligent people, including people from that land such as Aes Sedai, traders, and the Seanchan looking for land to conquer, and not a word about the place aside from the King hiring the Band to keep people from entering their country for a short time? When we find out Demandred has staged everything from that land when the Last Battle starts and nobody noticed anything until they come and take everyone in the rear.......I'm sure the excuse will be pretty lame for how that happened too.

Again you are assuming that Demandred is in Murandy, I prefer the theory that was proposed a little while ago that he is in charge of the Sea Folk.

 

Thom fought the Fade in the square so Mat and Rand could run for it on thier way to Camelyn. When he attacked there was sheet lightning when he met the Fade just like with Lan fought them with his sword. The first explanation for this event was that "Thom has very special daggers indeed!". After it's all said and done, his daggers are not power-wrought and the lightning occured before he collided with the Fade. SO what happened then?

This is a combination of two things - one person asked if his knives were power-wrought. RJ said that they weren't. But he did state that his daggers "Thom has very special daggers indeed!" -- conclusion knives are not daggers. Thom lost his best set of knives while fleeing downriver, but when he attacked the fade he used the daggers. This was very subtle misdirection that RJ loved to use.

 

It's late, but I'm sure I can think of several more places, problems, and cheesy excuses to make the story fit. Don't get me wrong, I love the books and consider them the best story ever told IMHO. These are just a few of the little things that annoy me when everything else is so tightly put together and then lame excuses cover up smaller parts of the story. I kind of like being told RAFO becuase it hints there is more to come or at the very least and explanation will soon be forthcoming.

Anyway, long post tonight, maybe people will have opinions or list more cheesy situations they can think of too.

 

I agree the entire idea of Taver'en is a cheesy excuse.

[Barid Bel Medar]

For me the chessiest thing in the books was the way Egwene beat Messana.

 

Definitely. She was out-arrogance-d, it was amusing.

[David Selig]

Egwene saying to Elayne two minutes after meeting her for the first time - “I like you, Elayne. I think we’re going to be friends.” Such a cheesy line.

[BladeofGoldnight]

The way relationships spring up out of nowhere in the series tend to get under my skin... with a series this long, you would think it would be something a little more lengthy as opposed to multiple instances of "I met you for five minutes half a year ago, so now I am in love with you". Not every relationship is this way I suppose, as Min and Rand seem to have a reasonable buildup compared to other relationships in the series. Nynaeve/Lan had me more confused than the two rivers boys at the end of the eye of the world... Elayne/Rand and Egwene/Gawyn were even worse imo.

 

I suppose the main thing that sustains my suspension of disbelief is the fact that it is consistent. I've just accepted that in Randland, people fall in love like that.

[Suttree]

All of the fighting in Randland.......battles, armies gathering, skirmishes........No word or rumor comes from Murandy about armies gathering there? Of all the intelligent people, including people from that land such as Aes Sedai, traders, and the Seanchan looking for land to conquer, and not a word about the place aside from the King hiring the Band to keep people from entering their country for a short time? When we find out Demandred has staged everything from that land when the Last Battle starts and nobody noticed anything until they come and take everyone in the rear.......I'm sure the excuse will be pretty lame for how that happened too.

 

Not sure what you have been reading but there has been quite a bit more dropped in terms of things going on in Murandy. There are all the bits about Roedran all of a sudden going from "dissolute" and "unambitious" to all of sudden being a great tactician and pulling of brilliant plans. Here is one of the mentions...

 

TITLE - Winter's Heart

CHAPTER: 9 - A Cup of Tear

 

In Lugard, King Roedran was gathering every noble who would bring armsmen, and a city already worried about two great armies camped near the border with Andor, one full of Aes Sedai and the other full of Andorans, now also worried about what a dissolute wastrel like Roedran intended.

[Danjaman]

Agree with some of the above, disagree with others. Here's a minor one:

Min learning to use daggers from Thom.

It feels like an afterthought on how to make Min less defenseless - one that's brought up quite often for something that (IIRC) happens off-screen.

[Aver]

I always thought that was her showing her protectiveness of Rand, besides the maidens disarm her pretty easily so apparently Thom didn't teach her well enough.

 

Learning new talents randomly/abruptly, healing stilling/gentling, unraveling weaves, sensing ter angreal, making cuendillar. They explain why Rand makes discoveries(LTT's memories) but not the others.

[Leyrann]

End of the age...

 

Oh yeah, and you know that thread Luckers made 2 years ago and is for some reason still hanging around? That also gives a decent explanation to it.

[Leopard]

They do not, in fact, explain in a way similar to LTT's memories, but it's the time of the Dragon Reborn, in effect the time in which everything from the AoL comes back. The return of talents like dreaming, seeing, noticing ta'veren, healing etc. is only to be expected. That they all occur with our protagonists is a happy coincidence, but also explainable because of the strong ta'veren nature of the wonderboys.