Quality Discussion Thread

[papertiger]

Atheose, did you get Elayne flashbacks when Dany was dealing with all those nobles in Mereen? I was like, NNNOOOO!!!! Then the mercenaries showed up, and I was like NNNOOO!!!!

[Barid Bel Medar]

Guys, this isn't the place to discuss ASOIAF or any others. It's all good when making comparisons and such, but it shouldn't hijack the thread completely

[papertiger]

Fair enough, Demandred.

 

Did anybody else think the openly gay characters was a touch pandering?

[papertiger]

I also was displeased with Rand just happening to find the fat-man angreal that we'd been obsessing over for a decade. I know he's a ta'veren but come on!

[papertiger]

I also wondered why Rand thought he could rid the world of evil by killing the DO, since Padan Fain and Mashadar had been a thorn in his side since Day 1.

[Trevor Wilson]

One question

 

Sharans...should the aes sedai have been able to directly attack them?

[Atheose]

Fair enough, Demandred.

 

Did anybody else think the openly gay characters was a touch pandering?

 

I thought so. I'm all for having gay characters in books, but the way it was done, both times as a minor aside ("Besides, he prefers men.") was kind of pointless. 

[jwillis7]

One question Sharans...should the aes sedai have been able to directly attack them?

they were fighting alongside trollocs in the last battle, i think any reasonable person could make the decision they are Dark Friends.  And the Aes Sedai were being attacked so they could fight back.

[flinn]

 

 

Two of the most admired fantasy series at the moment, though this one just ended were meant to be trilogies. I don't see GRRM getting to 14 books, but probably 7 or 8.

Humans don't have the life span that would be needed for GRRM to write that many books.

 As old as GRRM is in, and as in bad shape he is in, I cant believe for 1 second he will make it to the end.

 

I am glad HBO will be able to finish it.

[flinn]

 

It took a pretty girl at a bar in Long Beach to convince me that I should start another epic fantasy series. Heard the show was coming out so I decided to do what I've done for other films and read the book in order to gauge the adaptation, despite my misgivings.

 

Book 3, Storm of Swords, was fantastic; GRRM's merciless when it comes to characters and there is always a latent threat to any scene. That book honestly had 3 RJ books' worth of plot in the last 1/3 of the text alone! As a worn-out WOT fan, I just binged on it without restraint.

 

Book 4 brought me flashbacks of Crown of Swords, I think. You could feel the air seeping out of the series. I wasn't nearly as invested in the characters, but I believe GRRM's character arcs are far more ambitious than RJ's. I mean, Perrin barely just learned how to be comfortable with the wolf. In the 14th book.

 

Book 5 seemed to bring things back into focus, but I'm not worried like I was with the WOT because the show is so popular that I'm sure the story will end, one way or another, by the end of the decade. That certainty, more than anything else, has made me enjoy ASOIAF much more. There are even a few parts of it that struck me as deeply as my favorite scenes in WOT.

 

Also, I'm a fairly cynical person with a twisted sense of humor so GRRM fits my tone more cleanly.

 

This is pretty much spot-on. Awesome first 3 books, then Feast for Crows is terrible and goes in a direction nobody cares about, then he starts getting back on track with Dance of Dragons. Thankfully having HBO catching up to him should light a fire under him to finish the last two books quickly.

 I actually enjoyed Feast (which wasnt good) more than Dance. I thought Dance was the worst of the series yet.

[Mr Ares]

 

 

 

/..:/ And so the books became more bloated under the latter than they would have done under RJ.

could we begin using " probably" or some other word that dose´t specifies that RJ per automatic would write it ( amol ) in the way we would expect  ( not that i am doubting that but all they same ) . it would save us some very irritating and endlessly repeating discussions

 

No. To overqualify ones opinions is an indicator they've been poorly phrased (even if not as bad as the utterly worthless turn of phrase "IMO" - if you have to tell people what's opinion and what isn't, you need to improve your writing, not stick in an acronym). If anything, I've already thrown around too many probablys.

 

could you clearify that please ? ( I have some problem to understand what in my post you are critizasing )

When a topic is clearly speculative in nature, such as "what RJ would have done", then probably can be taken as read. It doesn't need to be forced in. Using probably too often is a sign that you should probably change how you word things. Much like Brandon overusing "tempest", the mere us of the word isn't the problem, it is the frequency of use, especially where redundant. I take care with how I phrase my opinions, usually (and others should take the same care - definitely). It would not help to say probably too often - it would weaken what I am trying to convey. I disdain phrases like IMO for the same reason - they weaken what one is trying to convey, and are a sign of poor phrasing, and thus not to be encouraged.

 

Do people seriously believe that the books could have been combined into one? No possible way. The books were all fast paced, despite what criticism of them there are. In TGS and ToM there are maybe a handful of chapters in each that didnt need to be there. And this is after people have spent the last couple of days pointing out how so and so character could have gotten more pagetime.

 

Sanderson didnt want three books. He has his own series to write, his own thing to do. Why would he convince others to spread out the project? The conspiracy theories and accusations are getting pretty ridiculous here.

RJ's stated reason for wanting one more book was structural - he didn't think what was left would work as two books. While TGS worked well, ToM didn't, and AMoL also didn't work on that level. It felt like he was trying to stretch out a climax over 900 pages at times. A huge amount of the information here could have been conveyed more concisely. For example, consider stripping out a lot of the times spent on battle, and instead skip to near the end, fill in the details with some flashbacks, then bring that battle to a head. We don't need the umpteenth charge of this formation, we don't need hundreds of pages of battle. Look at the Mat v Couladin fight, or the Windfinder jailbreak - both skipped over, neither given an actual scene. One book might have been a stretch, but it should have been written as one, rather than trying to split it three ways. Even if the final work ended up in three books, it should have been structured as one book, and trying to make it three different books helped TGS but harmed the others.

 

Oh, and you know what that sound is on this board? It's the incredibly deafening silence of the regulars, the guys who've been into this series almost professionally. Where are they? They certainly commented when KOD and TGS and TOM came out. I wonder where they are now. Could it possibly be that they're a bit, hmm, disappointed? Nah, that's probably just crazy talk

Well, given that those same regulars have been willing to offer unvarnished opinions on the other books before, their silence on this matter shouldn't be taken as indicative of anything. They might just be too busy with other things to be able to engage with discussion here. Let people speak for themselves. They might have decided not to say anything for the reverse reason - they think it's good and they don't need to add anything.

 

The Quality of the book would have been much better if Team Jordan would have added one more single sentence, and then if so, the book's ending would have been much more satisfying.

 

... and the missing sentence from the final chapter is ... 

 

                                                                                       "Rand thought that he would visit the Tinkers first to teach them the song"

 

without this missing sentence, we really don't know if he ever teaches the song to any one!

 

and thus the overall quality is impacted

Why should he teach the Song to anyone? Aside from what others have said already, consider that if he did convince them that the song he knows is indeed the Song they seek, how do you think they will react to knowing that everything they've sought for for the last few thousand years is a lie? The Song won't bring back the AoL. Even if any do still have the Talent, they weren't looking for a song that grows crops.

 

Did anybody else think the openly gay characters was a touch pandering?

Given that we've had openly gay female characters, if anything something of this nature was needed for balance. The lack of gay men was something commented on before as an oddity, and RJ did note that they were there (NS has a similarly offhand reference, but doesn't attach it to any particular character).

 

 

Mr Ares

Part of the problem is that RJ, while he did have plenty of scenes which could have been a bit shorter, could also convey information far more concisely, without losing anything. As I said, RJ took one chapter of KoD and made significant progress with Egwene. Brandon took a lot more to finish off her storyline - under him, it became more bloated. RJ could, at times, do things with great efficiency

Although I agree with this, the problem becomes (with this specific example), Eg spends 4 books trying to become a real Amrylin to the rebel AS, and 1 chapter that covers at best 2 weeks is supposed to be enough for the Tower AS to choose her? The extra stuff was needed here, and still barely made it believable (imo)

One chapter laid most of the groundwork. Part of the problem in Salidar was getting them to accept her as a real Amyrlin, not a puppet. It only really took one chapter to shift the balance of power - the meeting with the nobles in Murandy. When she was captured, she was already accepted as Amyrlin, she already had down the attitude, Elaida was demonstrably a bad choice. That one chapter in KoD then had her win the acceptance of novices, Accepted and AS, and showing that she could be seen as a leader by all levels of the WT. Some of the stuff TGS added actually undermined that believability - for example, Egwene being asked for her advice on Warders is frequently cited as coming across as silly, given that it is being asked by an experienced AS to a girl who has never had a Warder. Really, after KoD what needed to happen? Elaida needed to go, the Seanchan needed to attack, the BA needed to be purged, the WT to be unified.

[sleepinghour]

Some interesting comments on Reddit:

 

Brandon: You're right on the Black Tower structural weakness. I actually plotted that sequence to go all in Towers of Midnight, but ran up against deadlines and only did a few chapters of it. It would work far better moved earlier.

 

I agree with Brandon that the BT sequence would have worked better in ToM. I also appreciate that he's willing to discuss these things with fans and admit mistakes, but finding out how badly everything was planned is depressing. Deadlines should not have decided where the BT sequence ended up.

[Suttree]

@sleeping

 

I've touched on that BT structural issue in my critique. Hearing about the deadline just hurts and really highlights how much of a mess ToM was. It should have never been published in the state that it was.

[flinn]

Some interesting comments on Reddit:

 

Brandon: You're right on the Black Tower structural weakness. I actually plotted that sequence to go all in Towers of Midnight, but ran up against deadlines and only did a few chapters of it. It would work far better moved earlier.

 

I agree with Brandon that the BT sequence would have worked better in ToM. I also appreciate that he's willing to discuss these things with fans and admit mistakes, but finding out how badly everything was planned is depressing. Deadlines should not have decided where the BT sequence ended up.

 Yeah, while no doubt Brandon could have made some improvements, 99% of the problems with the last 3 books seem to be laid at the feet of Team Jordan IMO.

 

 I have actually caught myself wondering if Harriet ever actually read the series or if she just skimmed through correcting grammatical errors.

[Suttree]

 

 

Some interesting comments on Reddit:

 

 

Brandon: You're right on the Black Tower structural weakness. I actually plotted that sequence to go all in Towers of Midnight, but ran up against deadlines and only did a few chapters of it. It would work far better moved earlier.

I agree with Brandon that the BT sequence would have worked better in ToM. I also appreciate that he's willing to discuss these things with fans and admit mistakes, but finding out how badly everything was planned is depressing. Deadlines should not have decided where the BT sequence ended up.

Yeah, while no doubt Brandon could have made some improvements, 99% of the problems with the last 3 books seem to be laid at the feet of Team Jordan IMO.

 

I have actually caught myself wondering if Harriet ever actually read the series or if she just skimmed through correcting grammatical errors.

99% is of course hyperbole. Not to mention it is up to the author to put his foot down on material doesn't feel is ready to be published. You also have to recall Brandon by his own admission "slaps word down on a page" resulting in very rough first drafts. RJ for example was more careful and would so 5-7 drafts before anyone saw anything. Brandon with his rougher style would do 2-3. Then there are the things he said he wasn't good at and so passed on to Team Jordan. Yes they bear responsibility but 99%? Come on man.

[flinn]

 Yep, I will put the blame on inconsistencies on Team Jordan. 

They definitely dropped the ball in this.

[BFG]

 

 

 

Mr Ares

 

 

Part of the problem is that RJ, while he did have plenty of scenes which could have been a bit shorter, could also convey information far more concisely, without losing anything. As I said, RJ took one chapter of KoD and made significant progress with Egwene. Brandon took a lot more to finish off her storyline - under him, it became more bloated. RJ could, at times, do things with great efficiency

Although I agree with this, the problem becomes (with this specific example), Eg spends 4 books trying to become a real Amrylin to the rebel AS, and 1 chapter that covers at best 2 weeks is supposed to be enough for the Tower AS to choose her? The extra stuff was needed here, and still barely made it believable (imo)

One chapter laid most of the groundwork. Part of the problem in Salidar was getting them to accept her as a real Amyrlin, not a puppet. It only really took one chapter to shift the balance of power - the meeting with the nobles in Murandy. When she was captured, she was already accepted as Amyrlin, she already had down the attitude, Elaida was demonstrably a bad choice. That one chapter in KoD then had her win the acceptance of novices, Accepted and AS, and showing that she could be seen as a leader by all levels of the WT. Some of the stuff TGS added actually undermined that believability - for example, Egwene being asked for her advice on Warders is frequently cited as coming across as silly, given that it is being asked by an experienced AS to a girl who has never had a Warder. Really, after KoD what needed to happen? Elaida needed to go, the Seanchan needed to attack, the BA needed to be purged, the WT to be unified.

I agree the Warder bit seems ridiculous, although I now want to reread it to see if their's any bearing on how she acted when Gawyn died.

 

I would suggest that the structure of tGS in terms of interplaying Rand and Egs leadership arcs works well and doesn't need that much altering, in an ideal world I'd move Perrins leadership issues into the same area, chronologically it's at much the same time and also Avi's leadership arc. This would create some problems with the Perrin/Eg meet in TAR (which has been referenced several times in MoL so can't be cut altogether), but I'm sure it could be worked out.

 

This bit in the Tower also has Eg understand the Aiel acceptance of pain which also mirrored Rands journey, although both had regressed a little by aMoL.

[Suttree]

Yep, I will put the blame on inconsistencies on Team Jordan.

They definitely dropped the ball in this.

Well now you are hedging. The inconsistencies are of course just one sliver of the overall issues. There is also this on that count that we now know from interviews.

 

JL

So, @BrandSanderson gave up on trying to read Jordan's notes after two months, instead relying on Maria and Alan. Sadly, this shows.

 

Comparatively he has been working on the Wheel for 60 months. Maybe a larger stint than 1.2% of his time might have been effective.

I am fully aware that there are 1 or 2 people here who go overboard with their critique btw. Team Jordan does certainly bear responsibility.

 

@BFG

 

Regressed a little?! ;p

[flinn]

 

Yep, I will put the blame on inconsistencies on Team Jordan.

They definitely dropped the ball in this.

Well now you are hedging. The inconsistencies are of course just one sliver of the overall issues. There is also this on that count that we now k ow from interviews.

 

>So, @BrandSanderson gave up on trying to read Jordan's notes after two months, instead relying on Maria and Alan. Sadly, this shows.

 

Comparatively he has been working on the Wheel for 60 months. Maybe a larger stint than 1.2% of his time might have been effective.

I am fully aware that there are 1 or 2 people here who go overboard with their critique btw. Team Jordan does certainly bear responsibility.

 

@BFG

 

Regressed a little?! ;p

 

 Yep because if he had spent the time necessary to learn the things he needed to know, he would need a good 10 years of study before he ever started writing.

 

Team Jordan has spent most of the last 20 years doing NOTHING BUT WHEEL OF TIME. 

 

 

 Hell, think about it like this, do you think Brandon has spent 1/100th the amount of time in the Wheel of Time world that YOU HAVE?

 

I would bet 1000 dollars right now, I have spent 10x more time reading Wheel of Time than Brandon has and there is no way I could have enough information to write the series. Jordan's notes were nothing. So he had to make it up with the only Team Jordan to help with all the information. Team Jordan couldnt do it. 

[Suttree]

Sure if by 99% you mean the inconsistencies that made it into the book a fair amount of that is on Team Jordan. That isn't what you said originally however and is certainly far from the biggest issue with these books.

[flinn]

Man I dont know Suttree.

 

 If I am Harriet and Brandon sent me the "final draft" I would have sent it right back to him and said Mat is terrible, re-read the last 2 Jordan books and try to match Mat's maturity at the end of the series instead of trying to make Mat the child he was in EoTW.

 

 If he sent it back to me, similar to what I read, I would send it right back. If after a few attempts he couldnt get it. I would look for a new writer.

 

Once Team Jordan approved it, it is all on them.

 

 

 

 On a side note: I have to give Brandon credit for this.... Throughout this entire series, from book 1 through the end, the ONLY time I felt any real dread or concern whatsoever for the characters actually having something really bad happen was the Andol chapter.

 At no point, ever, during the RJ written books did I feel like any real character was even in a little bit of real danger.

[BFG]

@Suttree - *stubbornly stamps foot* I still don't like Eg, as a person. I strongly doubt we'd be friends (at least not after about tSR onwards, before that Eg was one of my favourite characters), but she is a good leader, it's many of the things that make her a good leader that make me doubt we'd be friends - I think RJ and BS have taken the lonely at the top thing extremely literally (just to clarify ;), I still don't like Cads either. I don't doubt that she had Rands best interests at heart, but I still think she was pretty ineffective at accomplishing them)).

 

Honestly, I struggle with the book split argument. I think I agree that RJ could have done it in 2, I think that when I looked up book lengths, if the 2 books were the same length as the longest you'd actually only need to cut about 1/2 of 1 of them for BS to do the same and structurally this would work better, it might also have helped solve some of the flip-flopping Rand and Eg demonstrate in FoM *shrugs*.

 

The problem with cutting significant amounts from the books that we have, is that the bits that you (and others) have identified as filler are some of the best written bits of the last 3 books, some rival best bits in series. Off the top of my head the 4 bits that are commonly stated as filler (feel free to say if their are more) are Perrin in ToM, Nyns testing, Avis Rhuidean and Mats Hinderstrapp (sometimes Eg in tGS, although that argument disappeared when it turned out that a lot of that was RJ :) I guess Eg in ToM could be included, although the Mesanna thing was set up by Verin in GS so..?). With the exception of Hinderstrap they represent some of the best writing that BS has done in these 3 books. I 'liked' Perrin and Faile as characters for the first time since tSR, I think the epilogue suggests that Nyn has developed more as a person than RJ would have taken the time to do (in and of themselves they weren't bad things to happen, but takes stuff out of the book he'd have had to write about).

 

 

I appear to be in the minority (at least on DM) about how much I enjoyed Ch37. I loved the fact that we got so many viewpoints from people we'd met during the series, so I wouldn't want to cut much out of here. The 4 Battlefronts has clearly been set-up from whenever we found out their were 5 great Captains and 1 died, as was Mat's being absent for that part of the battle.

 

 

EDIT: for some reason this posted while I was still working on it

[MarkDiLillo]

Man I dont know Suttree.

 

 If I am Harriet and Brandon sent me the "final draft" I would have sent it right back to him and said Mat is terrible, re-read the last 2 Jordan books and try to match Mat's maturity at the end of the series instead of trying to make Mat the child he was in EoTW.

 

 If he sent it back to me, similar to what I read, I would send it right back. If after a few attempts he couldnt get it. I would look for a new writer.

 

Once Team Jordan approved it, it is all on them.

 

Real life isn't that easy.

 

A likely scenario is that she sent it back and said to work on Mat, and Brandon said OK and still got it all wrong.  She sent it back again and said work on Mat, and he did the same.  The deadline is looming, and lots of money is on the line.  You can't just drop an author and restart the clock again.  Especially since it is likely that Brandon received money up front for this work so changing authors is out of the question really at this point.

 

Or what happens when the book is done and the draft submitted and Harriet sends it back to Brandon only to receive a frustrated "I've spent months on this, I feel like I got it right.  Go with it."

 

Eventually you get to the point where you realize that you can nitpick the guy all you want, but he can't do the job that you wanted and you have to just deal with it.  To assume she could just say that they are finding another author is completely unrealistic.

 

Some of the blame falls on Team Jordan, but like I said earlier....it is Brandon Sanderon's name on this thing.  He is responsible for the quality of his work and for the final product.  On the job in real life, when a project manager quits at the end of the project and you hire another to replace him...do you expect that the new guy is going to do crap work because it wasn't his project from the start?  No.  You expect the same quality work from him; just with some slightly different details at the end.

[MarkDiLillo]

@Suttree - *stubbornly stamps foot* I still don't like Eg, as a person. I strongly doubt we'd be friends (at least not after about tSR onwards, before that Eg was one of my favourite characters), but she is a good leader, it's many of the things that make her a good leader that make me doubt we'd be friends - I think RJ and BS have taken the lonely at the top thing extremely literally (just to clarify ;), I still don't like Cads either. I don't doubt that she had Rands best interests at heart, but I still think she was pretty ineffective at accomplishing them)).

 

Honestly, I struggle with the book split argument. I think I agree that RJ could have done it in 2, I think that when I looked up book lengths, if the 2 books were the same length as the longest you'd actually only need to cut about 1/2 of 1 of them for BS to do the same and structurally this would work better, it might also have helped solve some of the flip-flopping Rand and Eg demonstrate in FoM *shrugs*.

 

The problem with cutting significant amounts from the books that we have, is that the bits that you (and others) have identified as filler are some of the best written bits of the last 3 books, some rival best bits in series. Off the top of my head the 4 bits that are commonly stated as filler (feel free to say if their are more) are Perrin in ToM, Nyns testing, Avis Rhuidean and Mats Hinderstrapp (sometimes Eg in tGS, although that argument disappeared when it turned out that a lot of that was RJ :) I guess Eg in ToM could be included, although the Mesanna thing was set up by Verin in GS so..?). With the exception of Hinderstrap they represent some of the best writing that BS has done in these 3 books. I 'liked' Perrin and Faile as characters for the first time since tSR, I think the epilogue suggests that Nyn has developed more as a person than RJ would have taken the time to do (in and of themselves they weren't bad things to happen, but takes stuff out of the book he'd have had to write about).

 

 

I appear to be in the minority (at least on DM) about how much I enjoyed Ch37. I loved the fact that we got so many viewpoints from people we'd met during the series, so I wouldn't want to cut much out of here. The 4 Battlefronts has clearly been set-up from whenever we found out their were 5 great Captains and 1 died, as was Mat's being absent for that part of the battle.

 

I also liked chapter 37 a great deal.  I can pick out a lot that was messed up in the chapter or poorly written, but I also felt like it was a good read and it finally sucked me in and immersed me in the book.  IMO, it is very clear that the majority of Brandon's time was spent on chapter 37 and the couple chapters directly after.  And it shows.

[flinn]

Then you fire him. How much is that money worth for an inferior product? You make a mistake, you correct the mistake. If Team Jordan made a mistake, they didnt correct it, same as they didnt correct the books. 

 

 Same as if you hire a contractor to remodel your house. He takes 1/3 down and then screws it all up. You have to fire him, you dont say well I already paid money so I will just let him do what he wants to my house. You fire him, you hire a new contractor and then you sue the original contractor for the money back.

 

 No, Team Jordan simply dropped the ball. It makes me think Harriet was more concerned with the money coming in, instead of making sure her husband's work was finished properly.