The Androl Thread

[Gisli]

I have mixed feeling about him.

On one hand I enjoyed some of his interaction with Pevera (not the forced bonding!) and the creative use of the gateways. Furthermore it was a good move to show that a weaker channeller could also be a very good leader. Finally his arc was really interesting.

On the other hand he was a little bit Gary Sue and it was very annoying that he did practically everything worth mentioning related to the Ashaman in the last book. It meant that none of the earlier established character played any significant role in the book (except Logain). Furthermore only his Talent was exploited (I could mention dozen possible Talents which should have been similarly useful) thus it became too powerful.

In general for me he was introduced too late in the books to play a such big role, it was a little bit artificial now. I would have chosen Flinn, Grady, Narishma ( one of the most powerful according the KOD after Logain) etc. for at least some of his deeds.

 

In conclusion I can only repeat what Duskfire said:

"It would have been much better if he was just a weak channeler who was a good leader, a symbol so to speak to the Whitetower about how strength shouldnt determine leadership and respect. Him at the Blacktower was fine, and trying to help others escape, etc etc."

[stgermaine]

Yeah I totally was picturing Portal during all of that. Was thinking there was going to be some epic scene of him directing hundreds of different Gateway weaves so his friends could rain death from every direction. I guess the Dragons-In-The-Cave thing was kind of the same thing.

[Taura-Tierno]

I really liked the Androl scenes. They were well-written, balanced characters (as such things go in this series), he's a solid character, definitely not a Mary Sue.

 

I do agree that he was overused a bit. BS could've cut back on his scenes, and given other characters we didn't see much of more space. Those that he writes well. I felt that some characters should've had a bit more presence (Cadsuane felt very much in the background, which isn't really her personality), and I think that might be because he realised he doesn't write them very well? It makes sense that Androl is a character he developed mostly on his own. It shows. Which is good. So, a bit much screentime ... but it's understandable.

 

I liked what he did with the Gateways. It might've felt a bit extreme at some point ... but not so much that it annoyed me. It certainly didn't feel unnatural. It felt like a good development of the way Gateways are used. Afterall, that's all he's got, which gives him a good motivator for actually utilising Gateways in unconventional circumstances. Other people can use other weaves for battle, that don't require as much of the OP (for them).

 

Also, RJ was the one who introduced Deathgates. That's a good basis for doing fancy reworks on Gateways.

[probe907]

What I liked about Androl is that his arc was the most original and best written arc in the MoL (which makes sense considering Androl was Sanderson's adopted character). Link with Pevara - great (they should have, ahem, married). Gateways - cool (I always wondered why the characters didn't abuse gateways every which way; at least Mat killed the gholam with a gateway...). Lava - why not? - a Final Battle merits a reasonable miracle or two.

What I hated about him is that 1) he came off as a deus ex machina, a superman with no backstory. He's been everywhere, seen everything, done everything. He has more skill with the OP than do the Forsaken. He saves the day more times than do Mat and Perrin. Come on! And 2) too much Androl meant too little Rand, Perrin, Moiraine, Cadusane, Logain (!) etc. The WoT is about those guys, not about Androl.

[Vaelfor77]

I loved his arc, was apprehensive about it at the start, but wound up loving it.

[Joanna63]

Sorry for some reason Im not able to post below this quote....see below quote: I agree with you, I loved Androl and Pevara and thought they did a lot of interesting and creative this. I liked the interactions between them both as well.

 

 

I for one thought that Androl and Pevara turned out to be one of the better parts in the book when the Black Tower plot finally got rolling (when they assaulted the Turning chambers).

 

It could come off as Brandon imprinting his own thing there, and I understand if that may put people off, but for me - no matter what reason - it turned out to be one of the most interesting arcs in aMoL.

[Beer Rot]

after the mind rape, androl was meh.

 

the bonding scene was funny, but still.  meh

[Razumikhin]

I have similar thoughts as many who have posted here. One of the problems with aMoL in general is that very little happened with the characters - they did a lot, but most of their development came in the prior books. It struck me largely as 'the characters are in position, so let's now see how the events unfold from there.' Androl was the biggest exception. So on one hand, I liked him since he gave that sort of character development to the book, but on the other, he used up space that could have been better used developing main characters a bit more (e.g., more Nynaeve!).

 

I didn't find him "Mary sue"ish, largely because most of the main characters, in all the novels, strain credulity in terms of inventiveness and power. (One of RJ's most brilliant moves was to use the Pattern as an explanation for any surprising plot-driven awesomeness he needed!). I can, however, see the point of the charge though, as he is clearly tied to Sanderson in the same sort of way Mary Sue's exist in fan fiction. I just think the template had already been set by RJ in the earlier novels, and he's just continuing a trend (whether good or not) of the series.

[Isabel]

I didn't like Androl. The role he got didn't feel like a wot character, especially this late in the game. The use of the gateways was more a Brandon feel, than a Jordan feel. He also did way too much in the books.

 

Thankfully, i didn't get too annoyed while reading:) so i still loved to see the ending ;) and all the events RJ planned.

[Mitchell Shick]

I enjoyed the Androl arc, for the most part. I am glad that he took the "glory" from Logain and Narishma. The only point in the series that I actually liked Logain as a person was his redemption at the end. Narishma was a red herring, obviously. We were led to believe that he was in the prophecies and destined for greatness when they never referred to him at all. His lesser role was fitting, to me at least. But maybe that's because I always hated him and saw him as ungrateful.

[batcaver]

The only issue I have with Androl is that his scenes seemed to take over too much of the book.  In a way, he became a major character out of nowhere that almost dominated the book.  He was featured so prevalently, and was also so different than other WoT characters, that he kind of squashed a lot of the "WoT feel" from the book for me.  It felt like Brandon thought that with his character he had a free pass to write him how he wanted and do what he wanted with him so he let him hijack the story and we had major parts that felt very un-WoT-like.

 

That's about my only serious complaint with him, otherwise I felt like his role in the BT was great.  I really liked the idea of the weakest guy around becoming the leader in their time of need.  Not a fan of his usage of gateways really, but that is a minor complaint really in the grand scheme of things.

 

Exactly this.  His character was fine, but for god's sake, why are we spending so much time with this late introduction character when heavy weight favorites like Nynaeve and Morainne are barely in the final book?  This really got on my nerves more and more as the book went on.  So much of his stuff could have been condensed very easily.  Especially the relentless bad comedy.

[messiestobjects]

Exactly this.  His character was fine, but for god's sake, why are we spending so much time with this late introduction character when heavy weight favorites like Nynaeve and Morainne are barely in the final book?  This really got on my nerves more and more as the book went on.  So much of his stuff could have been condensed very easily.  Especially the relentless bad comedy.

 

 Brandon Sanderson is apparently the King of really bad fantasy comedy. Ugh. I mean, some of the moments in the book were very funny; I laughed at the Hinderstrap moment. That was pretty good, and seemed like something Mat would definitely think of. But rather than being satisfied with a few well thought out jokes, he tried pushing the envelope and he really shouldn't have. He seems to think that constant light banter is how all the WoT characters get along... did he read a different WoT series than I did? There is certainly a place for gallows humor, but I'm not sure that BS with his lily-white hands has ever heard a good gallows joke.

[Iroquois Pliskin]

I don't know why everyone feels like Androl was such an asspull ability. We've known from jump that there are Talents, we know that traveling was not a weave that people knew since the Forsaken. So nobody would have had the chance to discover it. Further look at the wonders from the age of legends, showings and standing weaves and windows that looked out on wherever you wanted them to. These kinds of weaves obviously existed during the AoL and using the power to do mundane things was status quo back then.

Pretty much using the OP effectively has been the one thing RJ was terrible at, or rather he made everyone in the Third Age terrible at it. The War of Power and the breaking made people much less likely to try new things or to deviate from the way things were done for fear of burning out or severing themselves or killing themselves. The differences between the Wise One's weaves, the Sea folk's weaves and the Aes Sedai's  weaves show that not only are there more than one way to achieve a similar affect, but potentially infinite weaves of the power that are totally undiscovered and have NEVER been discovered. Even the Forsaken are surprised they found a way to heal severing.

To me Androl served to show change, the fact a Red could work with a man that channeled, the fact that he wasn't strong in the power but could do great things. The fact that he took what power he had and examined it and explored it and tried new things. All of this shows the fact that the third age was one of perservation and trying to hold on, the Fourth Age is one of innovation and trying to become better.

[Mr. Micawber]

This is the last book of a series that has been going on for more than three decades and the centerpiece of a lot of the book is a guy who essentially did not exist until the replacement author decided he wanted to make his own fan fic? Yea, sorry, that's an asspull

[batcaver]

 

Exactly this.  His character was fine, but for god's sake, why are we spending so much time with this late introduction character when heavy weight favorites like Nynaeve and Morainne are barely in the final book?  This really got on my nerves more and more as the book went on.  So much of his stuff could have been condensed very easily.  Especially the relentless bad comedy.

 

 Brandon Sanderson is apparently the King of really bad fantasy comedy. Ugh. I mean, some of the moments in the book were very funny; I laughed at the Hinderstrap moment. That was pretty good, and seemed like something Mat would definitely think of. But rather than being satisfied with a few well thought out jokes, he tried pushing the envelope and he really shouldn't have. He seems to think that constant light banter is how all the WoT characters get along... did he read a different WoT series than I did? There is certainly a place for gallows humor, but I'm not sure that BS with his lily-white hands has ever heard a good gallows joke.

 

The trollocs with quarterstaffs joke was the only one in the book that I actually chuckled at, but yeah, that one was a little funny.

[probe907]

School_of_Seven_Bells, I was happy with Androl's inventive use of gateways. Like you say, Jordan had been deliberately holding back on OP overuse in order to preserve suspense - because had the Aes Sedai, Seanchan, Wise Ones, Kin, WIndfinder, and Asha'man channelers exchanged info and coordinated - even in a small scale to allow for the political alignments - there wouldn't have been a Last Battle, but just a ten minute long Trolloc massacre. And a bit of Trolloc massacre during the actual Last Battle was perfectly fine. Maybe it was an "asspull," but one expects a bit of that during the Last Battle, when all bets are off. Besides, the Horn and Perrin's wolfdreams may be canonical, but they are heavily incongruent with the rest of WoT. In the end, the WoT is a fantasy book with plenty of magic and artifacts - some funny gateways are hardly a cause of great concern. The only problem with Androl is that he was a nobody and yet he was given the dominant role in MoL. No other character did as much as Androl did. Rand and Perrin were in stasis half of the book, and Matt just stared at maps. Nynaeve was barely there, and Lan just kept charging despite being tired. But to be fair to Sanderson, he deserved to add his own touch to the book. After all, he wrote it.

[Wool-headed lummox]

Did Androl really just show up to oust Taim from the Black Tower, and fade back into the background?

[Guest DrSpockAU]

Not sure if this is the correct thread but I just started my second read through and noticed something I was unsure of.

 

During the sequence where they had knocked out the turned Asha'Man and were tricking him into revealing where Logain is, he asks Pevara "can he hear me", and she replies "no", even though she know's he can. How is she able to lie, is she not bound by the three oaths?

[Beer Rot]

They can think lies... I guess it still counts as thinking, even if someone else can 'hear' it.

[TNine]

Not sure if this is the correct thread but I just started my second read through and noticed something I was unsure of.

 

During the sequence where they had knocked out the turned Asha'Man and were tricking him into revealing where Logain is, he asks Pevara "can he hear me", and she replies "no", even though she know's he can. How is she able to lie, is she not bound by the three oaths?

The question is "He cannot hear what we say?", and the answer is "No, [he can hear what we say]."

 

It's a double negative and delightfully grammatically ambiguous. She can skirt by on that pretense.

[probe907]

Not sure if this is the correct thread but I just started my second read through and noticed something I was unsure of.

 

During the sequence where they had knocked out the turned Asha'Man and were tricking him into revealing where Logain is, he asks Pevara "can he hear me", and she replies "no", even though she know's he can. How is she able to lie, is she not bound by the three oaths?

 

The Theoryland people listed this as an error.

[Agitel]

I enjoyed his arc for what it was. On a more general note, if Brandon knew when to stop back-and-forth banter, I think it would work pretty well. He just takes it one or two lines too far, or has to explain the joke or whatever. If he shortened the exchanges but kept them otherwise the same, I think they'd be far more effective. After a certain point, I feel that it becomes a little redundant.

[Bluedust9]

The other thing that wierded me out was that Androl was Elayna Sedai, the Aes Sedai in the Legends Wheel of Time Game who could barely channel but could arm herself with ter'angreal. Insert 'arm himself with the manipulative use if Gateways' and you're on board.

 

I'm not even sure what this means, what are you weirded out over?

[Jeremy Fuller]

I'm re-reading New Spring, and I thought this was interesting. Meilyn has a warder named Andro. Here's a quote from page 89 of the hardbound edition:

 

 

Meilyn looked straight into her eyes. "No," she said softly, "I can't read his thoughts."

[Morsker]

Remember Androl's first PoV in ToM? He mentions something about a horrible-tasting drink, I think something with hard liquor and goat's milk.

 

Because of that, I always imagine that Androl smells terrible, has greasy hair, and never showers. The drink was so gross that I always picture Androl as gross.