Quality Discussion Thread

[jjstraka34]

I don't know how anyone could think this book had a lack of new ways to use gateways. There was a whole character of whom gateway innovation was his sole purpose.

[mbuehner]

I don't know how anyone could think this book had a lack of new ways to use gateways. There was a whole character of whom gateway innovation was his sole purpose.

 

Agreed. The Lava gateway practically begs to be made, and it was. Of course the water gateway would have all kinds of applications... especially given that the river being damned was such an issue. Open a gateway to the bottom of an ocean, it will explode like an atom bomb. Still, I dont mind that... its the forgetting established and obvious ways of using gateways that kills me. You can argue that moving armies exhausts channelers. True... but you know what is REALLY hard on channelers? Getting killed in battles of attrition that shouldn't really be fought in the first place. Or even just warn out fighting for days on end. Much better to stretch and win decisively on day 1 than fight day after day after day until the channelers are too tired to get your army out.

[probe907]

Look, RJ and BS simply cheated and broke the rules regarding the OP and Gateways. The OP (one power) is OP (overpowered), and Gateways completely invalidate real-world conventional strategy. Demandred should have been able to vaporize the Allied Forces in about 10 minutes, and the Dreadlords should have been able to organize vast circles and just teleport around the world balefiring cities undefended by channelers of the Light. On the other hand, Androl backed by circles should have been able to wash away entire Trolloc armies by linking Gateways to the ocean. Gateways give a general instant transportation, instant communication, instant resupply, and full knowledge of the battlefield. This leads not to Napoleonic or WW2-type warfare, but to modern-style Shock&Awe.

 

Here's what the LB could have been, given established WoT rules:

- To separate regular forces from the channelers, the authors could have used Steddings. What's to stop Aviendha from sauntering into one of the many ter'angreal stashes, and exclaiming: "OMG! I have found a Stedding generator!" And then Elayne could have said: "OMG ORLY? I shall make copies of these generators right now!" And then the good guys plant Steddings at a few choke points such as Tairen's Gap, and let the non-channeler super-heroes such as Gawyn, Galad, Lan, the generals, Tam, etc etc wave their swords about with gusto against bazillions of hungry Trollocs. Aludra's artillery would have translated to a real advantage for the Light in such circumstances. As it is, the cannons were just cumbersome mechanical quasi-channelers.

- Meanwhile, the channelers of both sides would organize in large circles lead by majors such as Eg, Nyn, Avi, Cadsuane, Siuane, Moiraine, Logain, etc on the Light's side, and the various Forsaken/ major Dreadlords on the Shadow's side. The forces of the Shadow would want to cause as much damage and destruction as possible, and the forces of the Light would try to protect the major cities of Randland. OP duels galore, cities destroyed, action, whatever you want. Constant teleportation, endless repositioning, strikes at supply dumps, millions of dead Trollocs, and so on.

- A parallel battle could have been set-up in T'A'R, between the Wise Ones/ Perrin/ the wolves, and dreamwalking Dreadlords/ Slayer.

- This could have gone on for the last two books, to give us a true sense of WAR, rather than the mild sense of battle (which is not nearly the same as war) we got from the ~500 page conflict of MoL.

- Instead of boring charges, we could have gotten some more accurate figures in regard to army sizes, supplies, wounded, etc. I realize this is nerdyness for armchair generals, but then, doesn't it beat swordporn?

 

That's what I imagine given WoT's canonical rules. But RJ and BS broke the rules and gave us a Minas Tirith/ Austerlitz with a giant deathrobot and duels written on the level of fan-fiction. Well, Minas Tirith and Austerlitz are both classics, and some fan-fiction isn't that bad - but we could have used something better...

[jjstraka34]

I'm actually surprised that stedding generator idea didn't make it into the book, since it's only marginally more ridiculous than some of the stuff that got on.

 

The problem is that gateways became the solution to EVERYTHING, and while in way that makes sense since everyone can now use them, it's also a tempting, and frankly, lazy plot device that only served to quicken a already asinine pace even further.

[jjstraka34]

The best gateway scene in the entire series?? "Path of Daggers", Aviendha unraveling the weave. Even Moridin, the second most powerful channeler who ever lived, was shocked this was possible. Fast forward a few months and we have them being used en masse for every conceivable reason under the sun.

[probe907]

Man, what pissed me off about the Gateways is that they weren't used enough. I kept hoping Rand would just make a Gateway and teleport to the "swirling colors" of Perrin along with 50 Asha'man and 50,000 Tairen, and just finish the Shaido once and forever, unfortunately causing Faile's death in the process... And then he would teleport to Matt, grab Matt's party, teleport everybody to the tower of Ghenjei, tie off a Gateway to Caemlyn, and let Matt do his business. And then in Caemlyn Rand would inadvertently disembowel the unpregnant Elayne with a Gateway... "Sorry, Elayne, I lost concentration for a while! Didn't see you stepping there, heh heh. Oh my God... I guess that means Oh Me, doesn't it, Elayne, dear, heh heh? What is I to do now? I know, I'll make a Gateway and go have a threesome with Min and Aviendha! And if Aviendha keeps bitching, I might lose concentration again, you know how I am. You are some kind of sisters, after all, aren't you? Goodbye, now."

 

And at the same time the Gateways were used too much. I've lost count of how many times I'd think we have a Forsaken in the bag, only to have the Forsaken teleport away.

 

The introduction of Gateways changed the entire WoT ruleset. The Ways were bad enough, but with Gateways, the structure of the plot had to change. But it didn't, not fully, though we did see an increase in large-scale Gateway-driven political intrigue. Instead of slicker, quicker, more dialogue-heavy, the plot became slower and full of weird observations and maddening side-plots. Jordan managed to close off the Ways, and was smart enough to introduce the Dreamspike, but that still wasn't enough. As you say, the Gateways were both a convenient plot device and a plot whole nightmare. Perhaps limiting Gateway use to the 20-30 most powerful channelers could have done the job. We'll never know.

 

Hah, and to top everything off Perrin ended up commanding an OP-free personal use instant teleporter... And Matt got a flyer mount, which, I guess, was semi-tolerable.

[Isabel]

 

 

 

 

 

 

The ending was typical Jordan, in a way. Look at all the Wheel of Time books. MASSIVE CLIMAX followed by an itty bitty resolution. Resolutions weren't his strong suit. In a way, I do like the epilogue. On another note, MAN, this is the end of a fourteen book long series I need to wind down. Give me a hundred pages of resolution or so. I don't need to know everything will be okay. I don't need to know that Avi's vision has changed or that the Dragon's Peace will last. I don't need to know what all the main characters do for the rest of their lives. I would like to see them start to heal, though. Or not heal. But I'd like to know a little more.

 

I nearly teared up at Perrin in the epilogue though, before he found Faile. I so wanted to just weep for him.

 

 

Exactly how I was thinking.  Kind of surprised more people haven' t complained about it.  It just felt so incomplete.  

If you had been following RJ, than you knew that he would never had written a huge epilogue with everything tied up. He wanted the world to be alive and he succeded in that. There are still a lot of things to discuss.

 

We know he wouldn't have. That doesn't make it right. And again, I think it should be clear from our posts that we aren't aching for a Harry Potter-type epilogue where we know everything's okay and all questions are answered. A proper resolution winds you down out of the climax. I don't need to see Elayne's kids being born. I don't need to know Perrin and Faile go back to the Two Rivers or how the succession in Saldaea goes. That's different than what we're asking for. A little reflection by the characters now, that might be nice.

Its what you would have wanted. Not what everyone wanted or even RJ.

[batcaver]

 

 

 

 

 

 

The ending was typical Jordan, in a way. Look at all the Wheel of Time books. MASSIVE CLIMAX followed by an itty bitty resolution. Resolutions weren't his strong suit. In a way, I do like the epilogue. On another note, MAN, this is the end of a fourteen book long series I need to wind down. Give me a hundred pages of resolution or so. I don't need to know everything will be okay. I don't need to know that Avi's vision has changed or that the Dragon's Peace will last. I don't need to know what all the main characters do for the rest of their lives. I would like to see them start to heal, though. Or not heal. But I'd like to know a little more.

 

I nearly teared up at Perrin in the epilogue though, before he found Faile. I so wanted to just weep for him.

 

Exactly how I was thinking.  Kind of surprised more people haven' t complained about it.  It just felt so incomplete.  

If you had been following RJ, than you knew that he would never had written a huge epilogue with everything tied up. He wanted the world to be alive and he succeded in that. There are still a lot of things to discuss.

 

We know he wouldn't have. That doesn't make it right. And again, I think it should be clear from our posts that we aren't aching for a Harry Potter-type epilogue where we know everything's okay and all questions are answered. A proper resolution winds you down out of the climax. I don't need to see Elayne's kids being born. I don't need to know Perrin and Faile go back to the Two Rivers or how the succession in Saldaea goes. That's different than what we're asking for. A little reflection by the characters now, that might be nice.

Its what you would have wanted. Not what everyone wanted or even RJ.

 

Isn't what we thought about the quality personally what we're here to talk about?   I don't think we can know for certain that Jordan would have finally ended the book exactly with this epilogue, but if he had I'd have been disappointed.  I'll need to ruminate on it more since I'd been pretty hyped up about reading the Jordan-written last scene but right now I don't think even my raised expectations can account for this meager epilogue.

 

For me, this is the thing - This whole book was one big war.  It was action almost from the beginning straight to the very end, but action alone is what WoT has been about.  The characters had depth.  I like the military stuff well enough but if WoT was nothing but that it wouldn't move me any more than Mario jumping on a goomba.  Their reflections, their changes, their reactions, etc.-  This is the stuff of which stories are made.  I enjoyed a lot of parts of this book, but the passion that I've so often felt for these characters just wasn't there through most of it.  And it should have been.  Veins of Gold was great, so I know Sanderson could do it if he tried hard enough.  

 

Jordan did it over and over again, so I can't understand why the epilogue sucked.  It was almost completely devoid of the emotional gravity that the story deserved at this point. Just waaay too thin given what just came before it.  Like Agitel said, as soon as I started feeling that sympathy for Perrin the tiny scene was over.  Part of the problem stemmed from earlier in the book.  I'd feel far less cheated about Egwene's death being given only a token mentioning in the epilogue if characters had reacted to it more appropriately earlier.  I doubt Sanderson could have fixed all of it's superficiality if he was really having to play it as it lied but he definitely could have spared us a few trolloc fights to give us a more in depth Aes Sedai reaction to Egwene's fall, or some POV putting things in a little more perspective.  As it is, we got almost hundreds of pages of battle followed by 17 pages of aftermath to wrap up the whole 14 book series!  We'd been warned not to expect every little thread to be attended to, but this is something else.  There was never any danger of fans having nothing to speculate over; WoT is far, far too big for that.  Even considering the atonality of a lot of the prose or the characters who felt off repeatedly, I find this so much more disappointing.

[Barid Bel Medar]

 

Let's steer away from the "cash cow" thing. 

 

Again, as understandable as the feeling is, for the sake of respect and the CoC, let's not go too far with this accusation. (Again, it is fine to express that opinion, just not go overboard with it.) 

 

Out of respect - whether it is felt it is deserved or undeserved, we are respectful people anyway - lets not go too far with this until Brandon and Harriet have the chance to respond to these questions. 

I would be interested in YOUR honest opinion on the book, straight up. if your willing to give it.

 

 

Sure, no problem. 

 

My honest opinion on aMoL: There was a lot that I felt wrong, a lot wasted and a lot done poorly. I question some of things that made it through to publication. In various posts I have expressed my concern over various things in the book. 

 

That said, I liked it. Much better than ToM. Re-reading the book, after I got over the emotions of reading the story's end, and paying more attention to details, I believe that there is a lot of improvement in quality - for all that is still wrong. 

 

I know in my case, much of my displeasure at the book came from some things barely being touched on, or seeming like Team Jordan had a checklist and simply crammed all that needed to happen in without thought - while other things were drawn out at length that were less important, like Perrin wandering round in TAR, or the hack-and-slash scenes that became monotonous. 

 

Getting over that for a re-read, and knowing that these things would unfortunately happen, allowed me to read the book in a different light. It let me focus on different aspects. And those aspects I liked. It was much more subtle in some areas. There is more depth  - although certainly not up to standard with RJ's depth - which was lacking in ToM and to an extent tGS. 

 

That's my overall opinion of the book so far. I have not yet finished re-reading, so it may change over time, but I have passed what I thought were the worst parts in aMoL and found it much more tolerable on the second read. 

 

For all that was wrong in aMoL, I liked the book, and it was a fitting end to the Wheel of Time. 

[gregweum]

 

 

 

 

 

 

The ending was typical Jordan, in a way. Look at all the Wheel of Time books. MASSIVE CLIMAX followed by an itty bitty resolution. Resolutions weren't his strong suit. In a way, I do like the epilogue. On another note, MAN, this is the end of a fourteen book long series I need to wind down. Give me a hundred pages of resolution or so. I don't need to know everything will be okay. I don't need to know that Avi's vision has changed or that the Dragon's Peace will last. I don't need to know what all the main characters do for the rest of their lives. I would like to see them start to heal, though. Or not heal. But I'd like to know a little more.

 

I nearly teared up at Perrin in the epilogue though, before he found Faile. I so wanted to just weep for him.

 

Exactly how I was thinking.  Kind of surprised more people haven' t complained about it.  It just felt so incomplete.  

If you had been following RJ, than you knew that he would never had written a huge epilogue with everything tied up. He wanted the world to be alive and he succeded in that. There are still a lot of things to discuss.

 

We know he wouldn't have. That doesn't make it right. And again, I think it should be clear from our posts that we aren't aching for a Harry Potter-type epilogue where we know everything's okay and all questions are answered. A proper resolution winds you down out of the climax. I don't need to see Elayne's kids being born. I don't need to know Perrin and Faile go back to the Two Rivers or how the succession in Saldaea goes. That's different than what we're asking for. A little reflection by the characters now, that might be nice.

Its what you would have wanted. Not what everyone wanted or even RJ.

 

I've been pretty critical of this last book.  That being said, we're in SO MUCH of a better place than if the series had ended with KOD.  Perhaps I and others like me would have just preferred to go straight from KOD to a release of RJ's notes, but at least there's now AN ending.  It may not be the ending we want or the ending we feel like we deserve, but at least we have an ending.

 

I don't mind the lack of resolution.

[Allenbird]

I am only on chapter 1.

 

I love the writing and the story, been a fan and read the whole series a dozen times. I really am enjoying the story.

 

One thing that is bothering me as I read is the lack of detail given to the actual act of channeling. That is one of the things I love about the story in a whole is the fact that RJ made the One Power so very complicated in it's uses and how Aes Sedai use it like knitting, using threads of this and that element.

 

I know that page space is used for other things to fit the story into these pages. Maybe the extreme details are not needed for that.

 

Though then I read a conversation between Nyneave and Egwene where she tells Nyneave..."I am still Aes Sedai, servant of all" like Nyneave didn't know that Aes Sedai meant servant of all trying to explain why she was helping with healing. I would think given their extensive past it would be an after thought. This line in particular seems to be added just as an explaination to the reader.

 

Also the liberal use of the terms, One power, true source and true power. When it mentions Elayne opening herself to the true Power I'm like wait a minute...she doesn't channel the true power.

 

Like I said, I am only on chapter 1. It has my attention, good story so far but inconsistencies have been bothering me.

[Trevor Wilson]

Hope you dont mind a newbie popping in?

 

Ive been a quiet fan for- about 20 years now, ive read all the books (aside from amol which i finished last night) about 7 or 8 times. I have never been one for theory forums until now.

 

However i popped on here to see if fans loved the last three books as much as me, and was surprised to see negativity towards sanderson

 

Personally, i adored the first 6 or 7 books of jordans- but at some point it started to become a slog for me, i can remember thinking 'i will scream if i read about another hair braid being pulled or about the female characters going around doing loud sniffs'

 

For me sanderson was a breath of fresh air, and revived the series. He also got me reading his other work, and although it may be sacrilegious to say so here- i loved 'the way of kings' even more than wot.

 

I am sad that the story is over myself but was very happy with the quality of the book.

[Allenbird]

I loved the last 2 books. I am still reading this last one but I'm sure I'll love it too. I was just pointing out little things. I am really dreading reading about padan fain though. For me Fain has been iconic in the book series from the very first book so i wanted him to have a big part in the end seeing how he got the ball rolling in The Eye of the World. With all his powers that are not in the one power, I felt it was a good balance with something other than the one power.

 

To me it made his parts so much more intriguing.

[mbuehner]

The fact that Fain got the "Dick Hallorann from The Shining" treatment was just piss-poor.

 

"I'm here! Now the Last Battle can really begin.*Thunk*." Great job Padan, way to contribute.

[Trevor Wilson]

I actually found fains ending funny...

 

I think i need to reread more slowly though, i literally flew through the book and probably missed some nuances.

 

 

[Agitel]

I didn't feel AMOL had the same problems TOM had. I think it will stand up better for some in a series reread. The nonstop action doesn't work as well when read as a single novel.

[pmtang]

I was kind of surprised The Black Wind didn't make an appearance.  We were starting to get the impression that it had a mind of its own and it was very nearly possible to break out of the Waygates.  At first I thought that's what the mist was.

[garryowen]

The phrase "her lips drew to a line" was grossly overused. I'm not even sure what that means or what sort of facial expression it is supposed to represent, especially without any description of what the eyes are doing. I feel like Rand responding to the dark one in all-caps off and on looked silly. I also felt like some of the logic in Rand's confrontation against Shai'tan was really flimsy without further plot development. If killing Shai'tan would remove free will because nobody would have the choice to do evil, then it needed to somehow be elaborated that Shai'tan is, in fact, the one and only force that can influence men to do evil and that men are inherently incapable of doing evil. The resolution of Rand's conflict was solid though, despite the fact that Rand could've killed Shai'tan and didn't with very weak reasoning. Overall I liked the ending, and the book as a whole but those things were very noticeable weaknesses.

[garryowen]

The fact that Fain got the "Dick Hallorann from The Shining" treatment was just piss-poor.

 

"I'm here! Now the Last Battle can really begin.*Thunk*." Great job Padan, way to contribute.

 

Yeah so true. At first I did a triumphant fist-pump for Mat, but then I realized Fain was actually dead and done with just like that and was like "really?". Couldn't there at least have been a fight? That was just a 1 hit KO without any real buildup whatsoever. I think Mat should've had a harder time killing Fain than Perrin had with Slayer.

[Guest twotonekarma]

Hey all,

 

I hope you don't mind a newbie posting in here too much.

I felt compelled to post on here, and I had a big, long post ready in my mind to do so, but I will try and keep it short instead.

I was first put onto tWoT around 1 (yes, one!!) year ago, by a friend in work.  I devoured all the books in around 8 weeks.  I had fallen in love with the depth of the world, the backstory, the development of character, the level of detail etc.  It was the first time I'd felt like that since my first reading of the Tolkien world.  Having read (and enjoyed!) many of BS's books in the past, I was excited to hear that it was he who had written the last two and would be finishing the story off.

 

Well, I'm glad I wasn't one of the poor souls who waited twenty years for this.

 

I don't mind action scenes, or battle scenes.  I just don't want the entire book to be made up of them.

I enjoyed dialogue between characters in the past.  I enjoyed the insight into their minds, and the predictability in some cases as to how a person would react to a given situation.  I felt that this book let me down in that respect.

I enjoyed understanding motivations behind certain acts, and being left guessing in others.  This book didn't deliver on that for me.

I enjoyed immersing myself in a non-time-specific language, with colloquialisms such as "Light!" and "Blood and Ashes" - but was disappointed when words like "punk" (seriously, a recent addition to the language?) were used, or when bloody was used by characters every third word (yes, there is too much of a good thing)

I had many ideas as to various characters' involvements, story arcs and how they would play out.  I expected to be wrong or surprised by most of them.  What we got with this novel (if you can call it that), was actually more like a 10 year old's resolution of a complex story - either too neat (Faile), too quick (Fain) or off-scene completely.(Siuan, seriously!?).  There was no reader "payoff" at all in time respects.

 

I was annoyed by some of the deaths being ordinary (though expected) and others (Lan, Galad, Faile, Perrin, Aviendha) seemingly overcoming insane odds to stay alive.  I was hoping that Galad actually would accidentally die because people didn't realise that he had an angreal that prevented him being healed with a weave but then we had Lan take it and fight the greatest forsaken of them all, second only really to Lews Therin himself in terms of cunning, knowledge and One Power, in his THIRD mano-a-mano swordfight of the day.  COME ON!

 

I could go on all day about this but I won't.  I will just finish by saying that Egwene's death and the Tam/Rand swordfight aside, I was severely underwhelmed by not only the finish, but the writing style and lack of immersion throughout this book.

I would rather have waited another 2 years for a well-polished, well thought out and flowing story than have read this nonsense.

 

I will of course still read Sanderson's books, and look forward to the Stormlight Archive continuing, but he has let RJ and himself down here because I know he could have done SO much better.

 

 

I didn't feel AMOL had the same problems TOM had. I think it will stand up better for some in a series reread. The nonstop action doesn't work as well when read as a single novel.

(post) mark of the beast!

[MoonBeams]

After 20 + years reading this series, I felt totally cheated that the book would be wrapped up in such an abrupt manner.  Too many threads were left hanging loose: Malkieri? Elayne's babies?  Tuon and Hawkwing's conversation? the Aiel? and really? Rand goes off to see the world? Egwene killed off and not Cadsuane?  Loial? After all the build-up of Padan Fain, he just gets killed off like that *snap*?  Perrin is "compulsed" by Lanfear of all people? c'monnnnnnn

 

On the positive side, I loved the Androl storyline and there were some moments that touched me but overall I'm just so disappointed that it ended like this.

 

 

I felt that they just wanted to hurry up and wrap it up and for those of us who have been reading these series for over a decade expected and deserved better.

[garryowen]

I felt that they just wanted to hurry up and wrap it up and for those of us who have been reading these series for over a decade expected and deserved better.

 

Yeah it was definitely hurried in several ways, though I definitely disagree with some of the things you considered to be faults. I feel like Lanfear's compulsion of Perrin was actually done pretty well from Perrin's point of view. I wasn't expecting to see anything happen with the Malkieri other than maybe seeing Lan and Nynaeve make out at the end. Tuon and Hawkwing's conversation wasn't that important; it wouldn't have done anything to advance the plot, and I'd rather have seen a final conversation between Rand, Mat and Perrin before the Last Battle than read about Tuon gaping at Hawkwing for a page and a half. I totally feel you with the Fain thing though that was way cheap.

[MountaineerWV]

B.S. was handed a dogs dinner - though he did accept it. I cannot be thankful enough that he finished the series. It's unfortunate that people will always wonder how Robert Jordan would have written the final books. Fans will ALWAYS be second guessing Brandon. Stephen Donaldson said that an author that writes in another author's world is a hack. [Removed]

 

Overall I'm happy with the quality of the book. Nyneave was great. Demandred was awesome. I am happy with who lives and dies. While we don't see exactly what happens post Last Battle, there is enough information that we can continue to speculate and discuss ideas for years to come. What happens to the Aiel? The Seanchan? Rand? His kids? etc etc

 

It's human nature to complain, so here are my complaints. The dialogue seemed juvenile and many of the characters sounded the same. Mat, one of the coolest characters ever, was ruined. I think it's probably because that B.S. just cannot relate to Mat. Mat is so far outside Brandon's experience, that he just doesn't understand him.

 

**Sorry about the language. I don't like Dondaldson.

[Suttree]

B.S. was handed a dogs dinner - though he did accept it. I cannot be thankful enough that he finished the series. It's unfortunate that people will always wonder how Robert Jordan would have written the final books. Fans will ALWAYS be second guessing Brandon. Stephen Donaldson said that an author that writes in another author's world is a hack. [Removed]

On the contrary, Brandon was handed a series sped up, with the story arc pointed in the right direction after KoD. Then the split(which Brandon was against) caused major structural issues. The dogs dinner was ToM, a book that should never habe been allowed to be published in the form that it was. Mistakes, timeline issues, and a rough draft writing quality were far too common.

[Mr. Micawber]

B.S. was handed a dogs dinner - though he did accept it. I cannot be thankful enough that he finished the series. It's unfortunate that people will always wonder how Robert Jordan would have written the final books. Fans will ALWAYS be second guessing Brandon. Stephen Donaldson said that an author that writes in another author's world is a hack. 

On the contrary, Brandon was handed a series sped up, with the story arc pointed in the right direction after KoD. Then the split(which Brandon was against) caused major structural issues. The dogs dinner was ToM, a book that should never habe been allowed to be published in the form that it was. Mistakes, timeline issues, and a rough draft writing quality were far too common.

 

The only part of TOM I liked was the Rescue. Probably not coincidentally, it's the main Jordan contribution to TOM