The Androl Thread

[Rhienne]

What the Black Tower portion of this book should have been was about

Logain showing that his worthy of leading the Asha'man that, he was

going to take control of the male channelers and forge them into a path

for good.  The simple fact is that we dont get that, Androl is the one

who shows his worthy of being the leader of the Asha'man, wereas Logain

shows us that his not like Taim (which we knew already).  We didnt need

Logain to have some huge battle were he defeats Taim and then throngs of

people chant his name but we at least needed to see that Logain was

capable of being the equal to Egwene.

Totally agree about this.  I enjoyed Androl's character and I didn't have a problem with his gateway weaves stealing the show during battle scenes.  For the BT to have meaning in the future, and for the struggles against Taim to be worth anything, the BT needs a competent leader to take them forwards.  The scenes with Logain largely showed the opposite of this: a man who was mostly broken and seeking personal glory.  More than one scene with him rescuing some women and children was required to make this last glimpse of him convincing.

[DrunkenWarder]

Androl and Pevara were jokers in the Light's deck.

[CanUFeelTheLove?]

 

What the Black Tower portion of this book should have been was about

Logain showing that his worthy of leading the Asha'man that, he was

going to take control of the male channelers and forge them into a path

for good.  The simple fact is that we dont get that, Androl is the one

who shows his worthy of being the leader of the Asha'man, wereas Logain

shows us that his not like Taim (which we knew already).  We didnt need

Logain to have some huge battle were he defeats Taim and then throngs of

people chant his name but we at least needed to see that Logain was

capable of being the equal to Egwene.

Totally agree about this.  I enjoyed Androl's character and I didn't have a problem with his gateway weaves stealing the show during battle scenes.  For the BT to have meaning in the future, and for the struggles against Taim to be worth anything, the BT needs a competent leader to take them forwards.  The scenes with Logain largely showed the opposite of this: a man who was mostly broken and seeking personal glory.  More than one scene with him rescuing some women and children was required to make this last glimpse of him convincing.

 

 

yeah, i blame this on the BT storyline being left for the end. if they had escaped in the last book, he could have started this book as bitter and come around by the middle instead of the very end. oh well....

[Julian Cook]

I liked Androl, of the last three books his arch was the best, sadly he had no point in being in the Wheel of time, he saved the black tower, hey did not Rand send Logain to do that, so in my view he was not needed, so why not tell the story that had been told in the last 1,000,000 books of the wheel of time

[XXX]

 

 

 

Androl and the Black Tower resolution was one of the hugest disappointments in this series that I've been reading for 20 years.  During all those years of waiting in anticipation for the next book, etc., during many re-reads, I came to fall in love with many of the primary and secondary characters.  Logain's glory had been foreshadowed for many (real life) years now.  Once the Black Tower arc started to develop, I was sure that it had to end with Logain facing Taim in an epic, epic showdown, with Logain coming out on top.  

 

What happened instead?  Logain gets captured then rescued by some guy -- Androl -- who I have very, very little invested in by comparison.  Then, once Logain is free, it's again Androl who outshines Logain during the Last Battle.  Sure, in the end, we see Logain -- basically, against his own instincts to go after the sa'angreal -- luck into being in a situation where the commoners start to like the Ashaman and we see that Logain will get his glory by being the Amrylin equivalent in the Black Tower.

 

Great, but that will happen off-screen in books that will not get written and I will not have the pleasure to read.

 

Androl is a character who steals Logain's thunder and I am really disappointed in that, despite having nothing against Androl's actual character per se -- he's a likeable and heroic enough guy, just in the wrong place at the wrong time for this series imo.  He took up waaaaay too much screen time in this last, pivotal book compared to other primary and secondary characters, many of whom are reduced to cameos.  

 

Very disappointed in this character arc.

 

 

Androl not only stole logain's thunder, he made characters like flinn and narishma completly forgotton.

 

It was basically sanderson putting his mark on the series and getting rid of established jordan characters.

 

pathetic

 

 

Androl didn't steal Logain's thunder - Logain's 'thunder' was (and will be) in the rehabilitation of male channelers with the rest of the Randland population, started with rescuing those refugees. 

 

Based on Q & A sessions, the majority of things that Androl did were ear-marked by RJ for one Ashaman or another to do (I doubt that he 'stole' the jobs from Logain, or that Harriet would have let him if he'd tried), and none of the Ashaman we saw would have fit into the story as well as a BT Ashaman - the Ashaman at the BT needed to rescue themselves and not be rescued, otherwise they were setting themselves up for a lifetime of second placeness.  As such, none of the Ashaman we spent time  with would have worked as well in the story as a BT Ashaman, of which other than the bad guys we had a few named, Androl was one, and BS developed him.  Nor am I convinced that another Ashaman (Flinn, Narishma, Grady) would have worked as well stealing back the seals, they have no connection to Logain, why would they take the seals back to him instead of their AS colleagues?  It's possible that Androl took the jobs of 2 or more other Ashaman (that RJ may have written), but I feel that trying to use an 'established' Ashaman would be trying to force them into the story.

 

The problem is that your basically lowering Logain's faction to being the 5 people that Sanderson wrote about, Logain had dozens of followers.  The only justification was to give him a ridiculous backstory of being some well traveled guy who saw it all a combination of Jain Farstrider and Guaire Amalasan.  When Sanderson got through with Logain he was a pathetic wretch who was flat out handed glory.  Imagine if Sanderson wrote the White Tower arc like that with some previously minor Aes Sedai all of a sudden mounting a rescue, holding off the Seanchan by herself without any help from anyone and then telling the Tower Aes Sedai that the only person who can be Amyrlin is Egwene.  The Egwene fans would throw down the book and tell Harriet to fire Sanderson and yet thats what we got in this book.  Some previously barely mentioned character is all of a sudden revealed to be the greatest Asha'man of them all better than both Taim and Logain, not only does he single handily win back the Black Tower, but he defeated two forsaken at the same time causing them to run.  The only reason his not the leader is because for some reason he wants Logain to be the leader despite being a complete loser.

 

I wanted to read about Logain not the Sanderson Reborn.

 

You cant write about how some character is going to do some great thing and then 15 years later you end the series with the character not having done the great thing you spent 10 books talking about.  

 

I literally laughed out loud when the seal breaking scene happened because the fact that Sanderson tried to make it some big deal was hilarious.  You might as well of had Almen Bunt destroy them with a shovel.  

 

[Vambram]

Do you guys really think that Taim's demise by Egwene's hand wasn't mandated by RJ? Yes, everybody expected Logain to have the honors, but wouldn't it have been very predictable and boring?

 

And as has been mentioned, Flinn and Narishma don't fit because they are not _in _ the Black Tower and don't know any of the recruits who arrived after Dumai's Wells! Not to mention that they had very little characterization and their AS even less.

 

RJ sent a fairly established character like Pevara to the BT for a reason, IMHO. She was always supposed to be heavily involved in this storyline. And since none of "established" Asha'man could be her partner(s), there was always supposed to be somebody new involved.

 

Re: Logain's faction, everybody who bonded an AS was assigned to tasks outside of the BT as of KoD, while remaining people were whittled down by the Turning. The 5 guys we saw most of were just the hard core of the conspiracy, and they were in the end saved by the unnamed mass of Logain's men. It was the arrival of these men that caused Taim to flee in the end, not Androl's gateways. Logain could have done more in this fight, maybe, even though it was realistic that he couldn't. Ditto Androl's group other than himself. I was expecting Pevara to link with him and maybe Emarin to give him the boost to overcome the ter'angreal.

 

IMHO, the main problem of the BT storyline is that it was put on the back-burner by RJ in favor of far more boring and in the end much less relevant plots... And Sanderson followed suit by cramming all of it into AMoL - for shock value? Instead of distributing it over 3 last volumes, which would have allowed for more organic developement.

+1000

[Centauri25]

The Black Tower was left on the back burner well before tGS. Let's not lay that entirely at Brandon's feet. Hell, the whole "fix the tower" stuff should have happened a long ass time ago. Then spend the last few books fighting Taim and the Dreadlords. Teaming with Black Ajah and some Forsaken, and you've got trouble with a capital T even worse than pool.

 

I agree that Logain was a letdown, but I also agree with those who suspect that was out of Brandon's hands to a great extent.

[BFG]

 

Androl is then a seperate issue, since he did not steal anything from Logain.  There are hundreds of Ashaman at the BT, but none of them had been developed by RJ, we know that there are lads from the 2R (recently arrived), the Lord bloke (forget the name) that resisted 2 attempts at turning, a few others that were named by RJ including Androl - but none have developed characters, so whoever BS chose would have become a BS creation.  The resolution of the BT arc (or at least as far as Logains rescue) had to use BT Ashaman, since the BT timeline is so far behind all the 'developed' (character wise) Ashaman are elsewhere.  There is then a seperate plot to do with retrieving the seals, which technically any Ashaman could have done, but I feel would be 'forced' as none have a reason to take the seals to Logain, whereas Androl and co do.  It could have been another random Ashaman from the BT, but then we have either 2 new characters with important roles developed by BS for the last few books, or 2 random characters with no character thrown in by BS in the last 2 books, I don't see how either of these are an improvement.

 

I also think that comments like "The only reason his not the leader is because for some reason he wants Logain to be the leader despite being a complete loser" completely underestimate the strength of character that Logain shows at multiple times throughout the story.  The reason he's head of the BT is because instead of chasing his own power when healed, he goes to the BT and becomes the Champion of the non-Taim forces (voluntarily takes a place as number 3 male channeler, until he realises there are problems with Taim), because despite being captured (which happens to most of the main characters throughout the series, so hardly something you can blame him for) and attempts made to turn him, he still chooses to defend those weaker than himself instead.  Does he have issues with saidin insanity, PTS after being gentled, attempted to turn, well yes - but this is precisely what makes him a believable character.

 

Except you dont have to choose anyone, you do the BT as a group.  When you have a cast of hundreds of people you dont have one guy do everything while the other hundreds of people wander off so the reader forgets they exist (this is a huge problem with the BT portion of the book were its hard to remember that there are still members of Logain's faction out there since they are never mentioned).  That was the problem I had with the end of the White Tower arc were the storyline simply came down to basically Egwene doing everything while the rest of the Aes Sedai came off like gawking morons.  Which came back to bite the series in its butt when they killed off Egwene leading to the next Amyrlin being revealed in a comedy segment because RJ and BS never made an adequate replacement.

 

Here's the thing if the plan all along was to make Logain this guy who gets glory by being the man destined to lead the Asha'man into the new era then the reader needs to feel like Logain is that leader.  Instead BS confuses leadership with being a nice guy and feels like adding "Sealbreaker" will have meaning when Logain didnt even do anything to get the seals back in the first place.  Yes Logain is a nice guy that was made clear in the previous books were he frequently comes off as a nice guy.  Sanderson added nothing that wasnt already there he just had Logain fall and then get back to were he was in Path of Daggers.

 

Logain needed to show leadership in this book but instead the guy whos shown leading the Asha'am is Androl, Logain is leader in name only, any scene were an Asha'man needs to rally the troops that person is always Androl.  Whenever someone defends Sanderson they always point to events that Jordan wrote like how Logain went to the Asha'man and rallied  a bunch of them to oppose Taim.  Sanderson on the other hand simply came off as a guy who was completely uninterested in Logain and the characters Jordan had created (outside of Pevara) so he wrote a replacement main character for the BT arc.

 

What the Black Tower portion of this book should have been was about Logain showing that his worthy of leading the Asha'man that, he was going to take control of the male channelers and forge them into a path for good.  The simple fact is that we dont get that, Androl is the one who shows his worthy of being the leader of the Asha'man, wereas Logain shows us that his not like Taim (which we knew already).  We didnt need Logain to have some huge battle were he defeats Taim and then throngs of people chant his name but we at least needed to see that Logain was capable of being the equal to Egwene.

 

 

To an extent I actually agree with a lot of this, Androl did too much in one book, but I feel a lot of this could be solved by spreading the story into 2 books as was originally planned instead of condensing it into 1.  But I disagree with the bolded part.  To an extent this is what happens with every group outside of the main cast of characters - we have 2(?) povs from the Sea Folk and are briefly (!) introduced to about 8 altogether and maybe 2 in (some level of) detail, our entire interaction with the Tinkers is through Raen (sp?) family, the BT although fascinating to readers has not been given any more significance through the story than either of these.  In fact considering the amount of time characters spend with the Aiel, we only see maybe 5 achieve anything and only have 1(?) recurring pov.   

 

I guess we're going to have to agree to disagree over Logain's arc - regardless of how far RJ intended to push it, I love the fact that the BT's redemption coincided with Logains own self-realisation.  I remain indifferent to Androl (in general), I think his character arc was well done, but I generally agree with the 'was he needed?' sentiment, having said all that, I don't think he interfered with Logains arc or glory.

[Celebel]

.  Whenever someone defends Sanderson they always point to events that Jordan wrote like how Logain went to the Asha'man and rallied  a bunch of them to oppose Taim.  Sanderson on the other hand simply came off as a guy who was completely uninterested in Logain and the characters Jordan had created (outside of Pevara) so he wrote a replacement main character for the BT arc.

You seem to forget that Jordan didn't deign to actually depict how and why Logain came to lead his own faction of Asha'man. He just went to BT offscreen and somehow acquired all those followers, also off-screen. It was quite a surprise for me at the time, because I expected Rand to send Flinn back, and Flinn, who was actually _shown_ as a kind of a leader of male channelers in the beginning, to lead opposition to Taim. Logain, in my eyes, was a Johnny-come-lately of the BT and I never understood why Taim didn't kill him straight-away (Min's vision, I know) or why trained Asha'man were so impressed with him, a wilder. OP strength, charsima, notoriety? RJ didn't consider it worth showing, so it is anybody's guess.

 

Nor do I agree that Logain was nice. He was depicted from the start as a self-aggrandizing jerk with better impulses. It always troubled me that he has shown no remorse for his False Dragoning, in the course of which he had killed thousands of people, as well as paved the way for Masema, and that he, apparently, intended to keep the 50 AS in Compulsion slavery forever.

 

  .

We didnt need Logain to have some huge battle were he defeats Taim and then throngs of people chant his name but we at least needed to see that Logain was capable of being the equal to Egwene.

Why would you expect a bit character to be equal to a main cast character? And Egwene is dead now anyway, so the issue is moot.

 

Frankly, I find Asha'man existing as an independent organization past the Last Battle implausible enough as it is. It would have made much more sense if integration of male channelers back into society followed the example of emancipation of disenfranchized groups iRL.

Nor is it clear to me what "Black Tower protects" could mean in a world where the _Aiel_ are guardians of the peace and the BT has no independent jurisdiction...

 

And l am speaking as somebody, who has been waiting for a BT storyline with bated breath since ACOS - I always found it very interesting and having a potential for great drama. Unfortunately, RJ just completely dropped the ball on it and Sanderson didn't improve the things as much as he might have. And yea, leaving it out of ToM and cramming the whole thing into AMoL was a bad, bad call. They should have delayed the book instead.

[Charred Knight]

 

.  Whenever someone defends Sanderson they always point to events that Jordan wrote like how Logain went to the Asha'man and rallied  a bunch of them to oppose Taim.  Sanderson on the other hand simply came off as a guy who was completely uninterested in Logain and the characters Jordan had created (outside of Pevara) so he wrote a replacement main character for the BT arc.

You seem to forget that Jordan didn't deign to actually depict how and why Logain came to lead his own faction of Asha'man. He just went to BT offscreen and somehow acquired all those followers, also off-screen. It was quite a surprise for me at the time, because I expected Rand to send Flinn back, and Flinn, who was actually _shown_ as a kind of a leader of male channelers in the beginning, to lead opposition to Taim. Logain, in my eyes, was a Johnny-come-lately of the BT and I never understood why Taim didn't kill him straight-away (Min's vision, I know) or why trained Asha'man were so impressed with him, a wilder. OP strength, charsima, notoriety? RJ didn't consider it worth showing, so it is anybody's guess.

 

Nor do I agree that Logain was nice. He was depicted from the start as a self-aggrandizing jerk with better impulses. It always troubled me that he has shown no remorse for his False Dragoning, in the course of which he had killed thousands of people, as well as paved the way for Masema, and that he, apparently, intended to keep the 50 AS in Compulsion slavery forever.

 

  .

>We didnt need Logain to have some huge battle were he defeats Taim and then throngs of people chant his name but we at least needed to see that Logain was capable of being the equal to Egwene.

Why would you expect a bit character to be equal to a main cast character? And Egwene is dead now anyway, so the issue is moot.

 

Frankly, I find Asha'man existing as an independent organization past the Last Battle implausible enough as it is. It would have made much more sense if integration of male channelers back into society followed the example of emancipation of disenfranchized groups iRL.

Nor is it clear to me what "Black Tower protects" could mean in a world where the _Aiel_ are guardians of the peace and the BT has no independent jurisdiction...

 

And l am speaking as somebody, who has been waiting for a BT storyline with bated breath since ACOS - I always found it very interesting and having a potential for great drama. Unfortunately, RJ just completely dropped the ball on it and Sanderson didn't improve the things as much as he might have. And yea, leaving it out of ToM and cramming the whole thing into AMoL was a bad, bad call. They should have delayed the book instead.

 

 

When was Logain ever a jerk?  When he rescued Suian and the others he made sure to make sure the guy he injured would be fine, he treated the women who came to gentle the Asha'man well (its not like he had much of choice considering the fact that without it he would have to keep 50 women shielded 24/7 with a small number of Asha'man), when he went to the Sea Folk he treated the Aes Sedai well, and he was shown to be loyal to Rand.

 

As for feeling sorry thinking he was the Dragon Reborn why should he?  Masema certainly took advantage of the problems Ghealdan had but Logain thought he was the Dragon Reborn and Ghealden wasnt going to let him walk to Tear on his own.  It wasnt like Logain was massacring people left and right he just defeated the Ghealdan army in combat.

 

The point I am trying to make is that the Black Tower needed to be more important since the plan was to have it be independent from the White Tower (in other words Equal).  That meant that Logain should have been more than a bit player (a criticism I have had for Jordan for a while).  His supposed to be setup to be one of the leaders of humanity at the end of the series and he barely has a role in the series.  

[XXX]

Logain cannot be blamed for thinking he was the dragon.As Taim explained to Rand,the prophecies are confusing and the interpretations are muddled.If he though himself the Dragon then he had to conquer nations,Rand did the same.

[Suttree]

Logain cannot be blamed for thinking he was the dragon.As Taim explained to Rand,the prophecies are confusing and the interpretations are muddled.If he though himself the Dragon then he had to conquer nations,Rand did the same.

Actually that isn't what was said by Taim. Both Logain and Taim knew they weren't born on the slopes of DM and that disqualified them from the start. It has become even more clear as the books went on that his motivations were fame and glory. Rand did not do the same until he was sure the prophecies applied to him, even then it was more a function of fighting the forsaken. As Moiraine said:

 

"Neither of them is the one, Siuan. The Pattern does not demand a Dragon, but the one true Dragon. Until he proclaims himself, the Pattern will continue to throw up false Dragons, but after that there will be no others. If Logain or the other were the one, there would be no others."

Also for whoever said all Logain ever did was fight Ghealdean's army that is false. He left a trail of death and destruction through Ghealdean, Altara and Murandy before he was stopped, there is a reason "half the known world had trembled at the name of Logain".

[Charred Knight]

 

Logain cannot be blamed for thinking he was the dragon.As Taim explained to Rand,the prophecies are confusing and the interpretations are muddled.If he though himself the Dragon then he had to conquer nations,Rand did the same.

Actually that isn't what was said by Taim. Both Logain and Taim knew they weren't born on the slopes of DM and that disqualified them from the start. It has become even more clear as the books went on that his motivations were fame and glory. Rand did not do the same until he was sure the prophecies applied to him, even then it was more a function of fighting the forsaken. As Moiraine said:

 

>"Neither of them is the one, Siuan. The Pattern does not demand a Dragon, but the one true Dragon. Until he proclaims himself, the Pattern will continue to throw up false Dragons, but after that there will be no others. If Logain or the other were the one, there would be no others."

Also for whoever said all Logain ever did was fight Ghealdean's army that is false. He left a trail of death and destruction through Ghealdean, Altara and Murandy before he was stopped, there is a reason "half the known world had trembled at the name of Logain".

 

The same thing could be said for Rand.  With what we know about Logain it would be completwely out of character for Logain to go around killing people for no reason.

[Suttree]

 

 

 

 

Logain cannot be blamed for thinking he was the dragon.As Taim explained to Rand,the prophecies are confusing and the interpretations are muddled.If he though himself the Dragon then he had to conquer nations,Rand did the same.

Actually that isn't what was said by Taim. Both Logain and Taim knew they weren't born on the slopes of DM and that disqualified them from the start. It has become even more clear as the books went on that his motivations were fame and glory. Rand did not do the same until he was sure the prophecies applied to him, even then it was more a function of fighting the forsaken. As Moiraine said:

 

>

"Neither of them is the one, Siuan. The Pattern does not demand a Dragon, but the one true Dragon. Until he proclaims himself, the Pattern will continue to throw up false Dragons, but after that there will be no others. If Logain or the other were the one, there would be no others."

>

Also for whoever said all Logain ever did was fight Ghealdean's army that is false. He left a trail of death and destruction through Ghealdean, Altara and Murandy before he was stopped, there is a reason "half the known world had trembled at the name of Logain".

The same thing could be said for Rand. With what we know about Logain it would be completwely out of character for Logain to go around killing people for no reason.

How so? I just clearly pointed out the differences. Everything we have been shown about Logain's character until his final decision highlights that he was initially motivated by power and glory.

[Charred Knight]

 

How so? I just clearly pointed out the differences. Everything we have been shown about Logain's character until his final decision highlights that he was initially motivated by power and glory.

 

Are Rand and Logain alike?  No, Rand was clearly a more altruitstic person thinking about others before him but I think there is a giant gulf between being a decent man who deep down cares about people, and mass murder.  If Logain was the type of person who could go around burning down villages killing women and children just for his own satisfaction then that would be one huge leap in character development that happens offscreen.

 

I mean if Jordan really wanted me to believe that Taim and Logain were the same guy at the start but Demandred got to Taim first then that would make me roll my eyes and think Jordan was mad.  What kind of character arc would that represent for Logain?

[mbuehner]

 

Actually that isn't what was said by Taim. Both Logain and Taim knew they weren't born on the slopes of DM and that disqualified them from the start.

 

Ehh... only really applies in retrospect, knowing how literal that prophecy was. Taim is right, for all he knew he already had or would in the future fulfill the prophecy. IE- perhaps he would be 'reborn' on the slopes at some point in some less literal manner. Heck, Elayne was reborn almost literally when she 1stied Aviendha. Look at the way Mat died- he was hung once and BF'd a second time... and it was the BF that took.

[Treemaster]

The concept of Androl was fine, but he was given way too much to do.  He all but singlehandedly brings down the Black Tower AND is responsible for the breaking of the seals?  I did not like having such important events carried out by a character that did not appear until Sanderson (I can't remember if he first appears in The Gathering Storm of Towers of Midnight.)

[Ananta]

Anyone else think Sanderson was playing a whole lot of Portal when he was writing the Androl chapters?

I, personally, kept banging my head against the wall because of the things they DIDN'T do with 'portals'.

 

I was very, very pleased when Androl showed them how shit is done. And it still left me thinking "DAWGS Y U NOT DO *insert random thing they could have done with Gateways*", and rather often, too.

 

 

At times it was really suspending my belief that Demandred or Mat didn't/hadn't figured those things out. Demandred was amazed by the window looking over the battlefield? Really? That's like the first thing that came to my mind when I was thinking of different battlestrategies with Gateways.

[Byzantine279]

 

Anyone else think Sanderson was playing a whole lot of Portal when he was writing the Androl chapters?

I, personally, kept banging my head against the wall because of the things they DIDN'T do with 'portals'.

 

I was very, very pleased when Androl showed them how shit is done. And it still left me thinking "DAWGS Y U NOT DO *insert random thing they could have done with Gateways*", and rather often, too.

 

 

At times it was really suspending my belief that Demandred or Mat didn't/hadn't figured those things out. Demandred was amazed by the window looking over the battlefield? Really? That's like the first thing that came to my mind when I was thinking of different battlestrategies with Gateways.

 in the AOL they appear to have been certain as to what was and what was not impossible.  Most likely at some point the idea of a horizontal gateway was dismissed as impossible or useless, and no one ever had the initiative to go back and see if that determination was correct.  Mat, understandably, has no knowledge of the OP at all, and most likely assumed if the Aes Sedai didn't suggest it they couldn't do it (and, they couldn't have until very recently, in fact).  He probably didn't want yet another lecture on why he was asking for the impossible and hence stuck to what he knew they could do and didn't bother to imagine beyond it.

[jwood01]

I liked Androl a lot. He was much better than Brandon's other creations, e.g., Naeff, Sleete, Jame, etc.

 

Flinn and Narishma have been short changed ever since Brandon took over. I am just glad he found his voice with Androl rather than giving us more Naeff.

[mike hunt's here]

I'm too lazy to look it up - but I dont recall any part of the book giving a really detailed description of Androl's appearance.

 

What did he look like?  

[Rhienne]

I'm too lazy to look it up - but I dont recall any part of the book giving a really detailed description of Androl's appearance.

 

What did he look like?  

He looks kind of weathered because of all the things he's seen and places he'd one.  Big shoulders and with thick eyebrows.  Shorter than average, long rounded face and long fingers.

[Tud]

I will grant all of the griping about him being Mr. Sanderson's creation and taking away too much screen time from Nynaeve, morraine, etc, but IMHO, of all the characters in AMOL, Androl was the most Jordanlike. When I was reading his POV's, it felt natural, like the way Mr. Jordan would develope a small character. On the other hand, many of the others (Mat, in particular) felt "forced", "off". Truthfully, I enjoyed his POVs (especially the way he and his merry band of black ops players lured Alviaran, Misrihaile et al into that trap and for all of you grumbling that all of these tricks were his, remember that using the Ogier grove was Pevara's).

[Charred Knight]

I will grant all of the griping about him being Mr. Sanderson's creation and taking away too much screen time from Nynaeve, morraine, etc, but IMHO, of all the characters in AMOL, Androl was the most Jordanlike. When I was reading his POV's, it felt natural, like the way Mr. Jordan would develope a small character. On the other hand, many of the others (Mat, in particular) felt "forced", "off". Truthfully, I enjoyed his POVs (especially the way he and his merry band of black ops players lured Alviaran, Misrihaile et al into that trap and for all of you grumbling that all of these tricks were his, remember that using the Ogier grove was Pevara's).

I never got that Androl was Jordanlike because Jordan didnt all of a sudden make characters really important and uber powerful. It would be like if during Lord of Chaos all of a sudden Vanin was introduced as this badass poacher who can outfight anymore despite being fat and immediatly forms an attraction with Birgitte, and all of Mat plans now revolved around Chel Vanin doing something awesome.

[Guest Nick]

I have just finished amol and I thought androl was well written. I don't get the 'uber powerful' comments as he wasn't as I as reading it. He didn't singlehanded lay bring down the black tower, if he did then I must be reading a completely different version of the book than what those commenting have read

 

All said, I cannot understand people berating the job Sanderson has done with a story that the original author passed sadly away before completing, leaving notes on how the story would conclude.

 

Surely the criticism should be directed at Robert and not Sanderson?? Going back to my point, androl was well written and has been in more than this final book so was not a character that appeared from nowhere. Androl passed the scrutiny of team jordon and as a result must have fitted in to the vision well enough to have not been edited out by team jordon.