Quality Discussion Thread

[Trevor Wilson]

I must be the only one who found The Way of Kings too silly.  I couldn't finish it. 

 

 

Storm you! 

 

Well we all have different tastes i guess

 

for me - ive read a lot of fantasy lately (i read a lot of books) 

 

I loved patrick rothfuss- not much seems to happen, but its so well written that i read them very quickly

Enjoyed codex alera (butcher)

Enjoyed night angel trilogy (brent weeks)

But didnt really love GRRM and hated chronicles of thomas covenant

 

and adored TWOK

 

So the point is we all want different things and i can respect that ;)

[BFG]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

@mik, markD

 

Regarding dropped plot points... The 2 that MarkD seems most upset by (as a result of them being introduced in Towers by BS) are Verins letters and Alanna. Verin's letters (based on interviews) was purposefully left out so you can agree/disagree with the decision but it wasn't forgotten. About this I agree with you, it would have been better to either leave out the letters or say something of what they contained.

 

However I completely disagree with you about the Alanna one. For me that was resolved to the exact degree it needed to be. Knowing earlier that Moridin had captured her or not would have ruined the suspense. Once she was already there, her last actions answered the question of whether or not she was a Darkfriend (at least it was sufficient for me)... The only way I can see that she could have been involved more and to not ruin the suspense would be to maybe see a scene of her fighting in Kandor, which would have answered where she was, given a suggestion of what was in her letter from Verin, but would also answer if she was a DF or not (at this stage fighting for the Light would suggest that you're not) and ruin that tension. Additionally either she's shown to be fine although fighting at which stage she's forgotten about or she's captured and their goes the tension (personal preference, but I always find the unknown more suspenseful than the known), it also gives us more fighting (and I've only read a few people that say they wanted that). Maybe I've missed options here?

 

Moiraine is another one.

 

And Verin's letters was not intentionally left out.  Brandon is acting like that was his intention so he doesn't look like a total fool in front of people during signings.  He forgot them.  Or else we would have had one sentence somewhere in the 900-some page book that referenced them at least once.

 

As for Alanna - I disagree with you.  The way her plot was handled felt like "oh crap I forgot about Alanna...brb gimme 5 min and ill fix it."

I appreciate that their are more - as others have said on the Moiraine pages - her necessity was at FoM, she was the only person that could have salvaged that meeting as she was the only 1 that both Eg and Rand trusted enough. Eg didn't trust Cads and in fact believed that anybody that spent time with him got caught up in his taveran affect, Rand didn't trust the WT or their machinations that ruled out everybody that hadn't been 'dead' for the past several books. This is highlighted when Eg thinks that Cads relationship with Rand is a 'problem that needs looking at' and her thoughts re Elayne & Nyn. The legend that's been built around Moiraine allowed everyone else to respect her as well, witness Grady(? one of the Ashaman, not personally connected with her (that I remember)) to 'defend' her against glib comments.

 

Don't get me wrong, the FoM scene was a mess, with both Eg and Rand backtracking on several points re seals and armies and generally reads very poorly, but Moiraines role was 'solid' (not sure that's the right word). The reason I left it out was because it wasn't a situation that BS set up and thus didn't seem as 'personally insulting' (again, appreciate I may be overstating your reaction somewhat) to you.

 

Additionally I don't believe that we were ever going to get the Finns responses to all the questions/requests, but I don't know the database well enough to pull out a quote. Either way, if they were in RJs notes to be included in the book they would have been, so I have to conclude that they aren't important to the narrative *shrugs* (I know that BS and Harriet had to invent an awful lot, but you're going to have to provide a lot of evidence for me to believe that they left stuff out that he wanted included.

 

 

The letters is entirely your own thought. BS has openly admitted to forgetting characters like Dobraine, so I see no reason to disbelieve him about this. As I said, I think it fails, but I don't think it's fair to say he's forgotten about them.

 

 

I can understand that other people feel that Alanna was poorly handled. I can't think of a way that it would work better, and regardless it worked for me. It's another thing that's come full circle - Alanna has been a ticking bomb ever since she bonded Rand, it went off (in a big way). Nyn's revert to herbs is another 'throw-back'/'nod' to tEotW, specifically that they proved value in front of Moiraine, who has been Nyn's guide?ideal?competition? (really not sure of teh word to describe their relationship) since they met. What information do you want here, or perhaps what information is needed and why? How should it have been portrayed, when? As I said, I can't think of a better way.

 

If we were never going to get answers regarding Moiraine's (or Lanfear's) wishes, and we were never going to hear again about Verin's letters...then why put them in the last book?  Why show Alanna vanishing after having just opened Verin's letter?  Why show an Aes Sedai give Rand a letter during his meeting at the WT?  Why mention that there were others?  Why even have a whole section of dialogue with Moiraine mentioning her wishes when nobody really expected her to receive any?

 

If all of that was just random filler then it could have been easily wrapped up with literally two sentences in this last book.  Those sentences aren't there and therefor the multitude of unanswered questions remains.  They are not just open ended plots left alive to show the world will be alive; these were issues that were strongly hinted as being important to the conclusion somehow.

 

 

You're 100% right - those resolutions aren't there, yet we have chapters full of Androl's simultaneously pointless and underwhelming storyline (any Light friendly and familiar Asha'man could have been the device to free Logain and leave Logain to do all the glorious things we've been MADE TO EXPECT this whole time like, I don't know, seriously putting the smack down on Taim and uniting with Egwene to lay waste during TG?), the inexplicable (and unexplained) rise of Taim to Chosen-hood, all of the ridiculousness that is the sudden appearance of Shara (hadn't Rand visited Shara at least once during his sort of insane series of Travels around TGS?), Talmanes sudden center stage escaping from Caemlyn (wouldn't someone think to leave behind at least one Kinswoman who can gateway with the dragons for this very reason?  WTF are the dragons doing there in the first place?), Thom's out-of-character SG musings about "exquisite" (just ugh, appalling - deserves a whole series of posts on its own), disturbingly repetitive and pointlessly excessive battle porn, Perrin's redundant (and bloated - Gaul?  really?) rematch with Slayer, Rand's boring back-and-forth with DO (additionally:  so, we're supposed to be freaked out about Alanna dying and Rand going insane, but both Nynaeve and Moiraine are also bonded to people who are at serious and imminent risk of death at any moment and evidently didn't think to temporarily pass their bond to someone else), the awkward sideshow that was the triple duels against Demandred (who's conniving enough to take over all of Shara but apparently has forgotten what Rand looks like), the cynically cruel, twisted and pointless death of Bela (hurts even more and makes you hate Brandon even more when you start re-reading EOTW as I've done), the disrespectful failure that was the deaths of Siuan and Bryne, Graendal's out-of-character failure to Mask of Mirrors and stupid use of Compulsion as an offensive weave, the reappearance of Lanfear without a soultrap, Moghedien's LOL I'm a Seanchan craziness, the inexplicable TP-ness of Callandor, the reappearance of Hinderstap and the needless detail about sabotaging the dam (wouldn't the "dry" riverbed be basically quicksand that's impossible for anything to cross without being opened up to arrows, OP, etc.), I could go on but it's all too upsetting at this point.

 

Ah, that felt good.  That's what's so infuriating and disappointing.  We don't get what we've been waiting for for 13 books (MOIRAINE + RAND, any deep insight into any character's OMG we're at the LB reactions, more resolution for Verin, views on the rest of the Mainlands during TG, resolutions for the soultraps, more action for Moridin vs. Rand, Moridin's cache of angreal, more action for Rand vs. DO, ANYONE'S REACTION TO THE RE-SEALING, the Shaido, etc, etc, etc....) but we have all of this pointless fluff that I've touched on above.  It's sloppy storytelling that's pretty inexcusable for an author who has been selected to complete one of the most important works of fantasy ever.

ALL of this.  Exactly.  And it goes to my point that this story doesn't have the feel of a legend. 

 

And once again, because I feel this is important: the most damning criticism I can give of the book is that I have read better, deeper, more moving, more SATISFYING conclusions to WOT on the Speculation threads on this board than the actual ending was.

I doubt that Logain was ever supposed to accomplish any of those things within the scope of the book. 2 reasons, first his eventual 'glory' relating to the rehabilitation of male channleres the start of which we see in this book. So he was never going to have a 'smackdown' with Taim. This was also something I was expecting, but I prefer the glory shown in the book to my own theory. Secondly according to BS, RJs notes had most of Androls actions attributed to 'random Ashaman' if they'd been meant for Logain, his name would have been by them. I can appreciate that you may not like the fact that Androl did so much while Logain so 'little' but this appears to have been in the notes. In fact Logains arc was one of the most enjoyable of the book.

 

Taim is responsible for bringing/turning ~100 Ashaman (have to assume they're all relatively powerful) to the Shadow, compared to what the other FS have accomplished (prior to this book), it's actually not bad, and Taim is very powerful!

 

I agree Shara does seem to come out of nowhere, particularly if you haven't read the BWB, it's mentioned in the main books, but barely - nonetheles it's been theorised about on here so the clues were enough for some people and their is no way this wasn't in RJs notes. I'll be interested in River of Souls when it comes out to see what's included and why it was left out of aMoL.

 

I agree Elayne's actions don't make much logical sense, but apparantly she's been reinforcing her Border in preperation for an invasion there - she genuinely believed that the WayGate was secure (which goes on Rand/Elayne communication as each believe the other did it), and is apparantly an anti-taveran for how unlucky she gets. The dragons are there because she owns them, why move them to FoM then to whereever frontline is, instead of moving them directly to the frontline?

 

I agree Thom's bit was terrible (but was a very small section of the last bit of the book, which was overall good).

 

I enjoyed the nod to so many characters that we'd already met in the 'battle porn'.

 

I semi-agree that Perrin's repetitive battle against Slayer was annoying, but I'd take the battle out of Towers instead of here. The only problem with this is that we then get another character whose miraculously good at something (although inkeeping with WoT), I actually enjoyed his section in Towers precisely because he had to practice to get good at something, but it does create issues here.

 

If Thom died, chances are that the 3 in the cave were in serious trouble anyway. But that's an excellent point about Nyn and Lan, on the other hand Rand is in control of the circle, he can carry on using Nyns power even if she's collapsed on the floor with grief.

 

Mask of mirrors? Dem, at the end, failed to realise the differences between Rand and LTT, LTT would likely have been at the forefront of the battle. Indeed, without Moiraine Rand may well have been anyway.

 

Bela appears to have been due to Harriets insistance (BS wanted her alive so 'hating' BS for this is 'unfair'.

 

I was a little disappointed by Siuan's death, but felt Brynes worked really well, it was one where we actually got a characters emotional reaction to it.

 

Graendal apparantly only used compulsion on non-channelers or channelers that were weak - Sarene at full strength is weak compared to Graendal and Avi was literally struggling to maintain her grasp on the source. If Graendal had killed her it loses the Light side one channeler, compulsed you gain the Dark side one channeler and hit morale of the Light side (Avi's reaction to killing Rhuarc)

 

The soultrap thing in general was underused.

 

Moggy was forced into the position of being the only FS left and tried to take control (and thus) Power.

 

The TP-ness of Callandor has likely been planned from the start as has the forced linkness, could argue that the similarities between Callandor and the male a'dam (1 male, 2 female channelers, the female takes control...) is foreshadowing for this. Again there have been enough clues for people to theorise on this, so it hasn't come out of nowhere.

 

Hinderstap (not even going to touch it, was a cool use of a village of non-dead dead people, but just uurrgghh) (But the quicksand depends on what the riverbed's made of - otherwise you'd never be able to 'ford' a river)

 

 

Very glad you feel better tho! :) There are problems with the way the story has been written, and some (apparantly for me far fewer) issues around plotwork. And the lack of character interaction is disappointing, but overall the plot makes sense.

 

I agree it is an important landmark in Fantasy, but the ending doesn't detract from the impact that it's had. It's possible that a few people studying literature at university may end up a bit bemused by it, but..?

 

 

@treeberad - I mostly agree with the google translated version of what you said (unfortunately given the success I generally have with online translation that may have no bearing on what you actually said)

[Tsukibana]

@Suttree:

Agreed on seeing how well Sandrol does when his opus reaching a length I call "Daaammmmnnnn" long.

Personal Note: If you don't mind, toss a PM with a few of the series you've enjoyed. I'd enjoy seeing and

comparing, given the quality of your posts. Regardless of whether I agree or not, they are well written.

[MarkDiLillo]

Bregah,

 

This is why I hate Tor books or perhaps the nature of the publishing business: they milked Jordan for all he was worth regardless of the quality of his work. In fact, it was in their interest to let RJ meander. 

 

Tor indulged him at every turn because EVERY book, no matter how bad it was, still hit the Bestseller's List as a direct result of the quality present in the first 4 books. Tor knew readers were hooked, and would have had no problem letting the series go 20 books, since we'd still show up to RAFO.

 

Tor's gotten us to buy around 50 million books; if the series had been properly edited that number would be cut to 30 million, tops.

 

This is why someone needs to put together an abridged version; can't let them cheat us or any potential fans by forcing them to sit through Luca's circus or Faile's captivity.

 

I want to call it the 4th Age edition.

 

This is actually entirely untrue.  It was by far in Tor's best interests for Jordan to write faster.  Faster writing = more money sooner = succuss.  Furthermore, Jordan wrote 1 book every couple years...yes, it was very successful, but it doesn't make up for the fact that its just a single book every few years.  Other authors, like Brandon Sanderson, write at a much faster pace and therefor it results in more money for the publisher.

 

Bottom line is that Jordan was not doing the publishing company any favors by extending his series out and writing slowly.  If he were cranking out a best seller every year then you'd have a point.

[KakitaOCU]

Mark's entirely correct there. Jordan was a flagship series, but he makes them far less money than some other authors who are less famous but who work faster and with just as much talent as Mr. Jordan. Also, from watching other authors in their work with TOR it's very apparent that TOR does not care about a specific series so much as they care about work from authors they know are good and will sell. An example of this is with L.E. Modesitt Jr. The man puts out 2-4 books a year usually, but they bounce all over the place and rarely stay in one series of his for more than 3-4 books at a time. (His Main saga, Recluce, has 16 books in it so far with no sign of slowing down.) Despite the fact that it is very clear that his Recluce books would net more money than most of his other work and that his fantasy books net more than his sci-fi, TOR doesn't push him to focus on those, or to keep one series going. They know he's a good author and so are happy to publish what he writes based on what he wants to write.

 

Also, as Mark said, from a money perspective it would have been better for Mr. Jordan to have finished TWoT in 8-9 books and then moved to the new series he had in mind but never got to start. His pausing to write a prequel, his idea to keep pausing to write two more prequels is further proof that TOR was letting him do what he wanted for the mos tpart.

[David Selig]

This is actually entirely untrue.  It was by far in Tor's best interests for Jordan to write faster. 

Yeah, so? Nobody claimed otherwise. Sure, writing the individual books faster would've been better for ToR, but keeping the series going for as long as possible was great for them.

 

Furthermore, Jordan wrote 1 book every couple years...yes, it was very successful, but it doesn't make up for the fact that its just a single book every few years. Other authors, like Brandon Sanderson, write at a much faster pace and therefor it results in more money for the publisher.

Not really, since those who write faster, usually sell way less per book than Jordan. Jordan's sales are simply in a whole different league than those of any other Tor fantasy author.

 

Also, as Mark said, from a money perspective it would have been better for Mr. Jordan to have finished TWoT in 8-9 books and then moved to the new series he had in mind but never got to start.

Why do you think so? A new series is always much more risky in terms of commercial success than continuing an old hugely successful one. That's why the publishers love series and sequels so much. Besides, a lot of readers were getting disillusioned with Jordan but kept buying WoT to see what happens and how it ends. I doubt most of those would've bought a new Jordan series.

[KakitaOCU]

David, a new series from an untested author is risky. That's not what was coming. Jordan pretty much said it was a new series in a new setting but very like Seanchan. This has no risk of "New series" failure, this is a well respect, best seller author offering a new set of books with a similarity to part of his old books.

 

Also, using Modesitt again, TOR happily embraces new series. Through his main series' run (Which still isn't over) he stopped and has spun off three other stand alone series on their own worlds. each of which has run at least 5 books. TOR never stopped him or told him they'd prefer him back on Recluce.

 

Or to use a different example, Sanderson. Letting him start his own WOT sized epic when he hadn't even finished WoT or really established himself was incredibly risky.

 

As for people being unhappy with Jordan, I think you're assuming that based on comments made, which come from a vocal minority (As do almost all comments really). The reason you see so much of "I got tired of the series at X" right now is because they came back to finish it, I don't really know that I've seen any evidence of people actively buying each book new despite being unhappy. That's like implying that I was supporting Goodkind because I got sick of his work around the middle but finished the series. I didn't just keep buying, I dropped him entirely and then when I found out Confessor finished the story I went out and got them together because I was curious how it ended.

 

Edit: Seriously, why will the posts not recognize line breaks unless I edit?

[Sarlic]

Edit: Seriously, why will the posts not recognize line breaks unless I edit?

 

I know, WTF?  Having to edit each of my posts, otherwise it looks like word vomit.  (Not that it isn't anyway!)

[David Selig]

Sure, a new series by an someone well know like Jordan is not a big risk. But it's still more risky than extending WoT. The new series wouldn't fail completely, of course, but chances are it wouldn't sale as well as WoT. WoT's sales were simply huge and stayed huge for a long time. Who knows whether a new series would've had nearly as big success commercially. Especially given that Jordan's other works beside WoT weren't much of a success.

 

I am not saying Tor insisted Jordan kept writing WoT for as long as possible, or that Jordan was milking the series (from the reports of people who've met him, it certainly seemed he was looking forward to finishing WoT and starting work on his new series). But for both him and Tor strictly commercially speaking, extending WoT for as long as possible was the best choice.

[KakitaOCU]

Except the past evidence as well as your own comments suggest otherwise. You were of the opinion that people were becoming unhappy with Jordan for the series continuing on. We have seen people who stopped reading because of it. A finish to this and a new beginning would have been a breath of fresh air.

 

And again, we have the case of Recluce/Spellsong/Imager/Corean where in an author drops one to work on another randomly, not to mention doing multiple stand alone books. And he's one of TOR's favorates and probably one of their most published authors.

 

Your logic isn't off, generally the safe bet is the good one, but TOR clearly doesn't follow this path as they know it leads to stagnation.

[LuisTherin]

I understand Brandon Sanderson is not Robert Jordan, and he didnt really try to imitate his style (just as he said he wouldnt) but that made me feel many characters werent really themselves.

 

First of all, he didnt really understand most of the females, Egwene and Elayne most of all. They were randomly heros or brats in his books. It shocked me to read chapters of Brandon's brat Elayne in Tom (I think Elayne was everything but a brat in RJ's books, he cared for her) and then suddenly find her in a legendary Queen role in AMoL. Needless to mention the weird twist in Egwene's plot, by far the best character in TGS and then suddenly becomes crazy and distrusts everybody during ToM and AMOL.

 

 

He also artificially forced Mat to be lustful when he looked at women, but just him, in a try to put some of the spicy love for women RJ had in his books. The word that keeps coming to my mind is artificial. And this are just some of the examples I can think of, i wont go further. 

 

Of course I think we have to thank him anyway. He is a fine author, I enjoyed Mistborn as well. And we needed an ending. But he is just not Robert Jordan :_(

 

 

I wish I could have a peak at the notes he left.

[Drakkon]

I understand Brandon Sanderson is not Robert Jordan, and he didnt really try to imitate his style (just as he said he wouldnt) but that made me feel many characters werent really themselves.

First of all, he didnt really understand most of the females, Egwene and Elayne most of all. 

I wish I could have a peak at the notes he left.

 

I find female characters (with a few exceptions) to be one of Robert Jordan's biggest weaknesses as a writer.  Although I would love to see the notes he left.

[papertiger]

I'm sure I read somewhere that he based his female characters on various aspects of Harriet, so I suppose his notes reflected a % or series of traits that were similar to her.

 

And yes, unfortunately that method lead to a fairly weak gallery of female characters.

 

Whenever Leigh Butler or whomever starts to complain about Tuon, I like to gently remind them of Faile, Romanda, etc.

[papertiger]

The one thing I will say about Jordan's world was that it necessarily made women active agents and neatly avoided the fantasy trope of treating them as mere objects in danger or of desire. 

[flinn]

I actually liked Tuon.

 

One of my favorite chapters begins with "Toy"

[papertiger]

I liked Tuon as well! Didn't know there was another person out there who felt the same.

 

Anyone who can hold out against Semirhage (I believe Semi referred to Tuon as obdurate) gets my lifetime respect.

[Finnssss22]

I actually liked Tuon.

 

One of my favorite chapters begins with "Toy"

 

 

Toy set a fast pace...;)

[Lord Matt]

This is my first time ever posting. I have been a lurker on these forums for years, because I have LOVED the Wheel of Time series from the time I was 13 years old until now (I'm currently 28). As much as this pains me to say it, it's not a good thing that gave me a sudden desire to post here. It was the utter disappointment and sadness that overwhelmed me after finishing this book. Allow me to explain (I'll try to not let this turn into a ramble).

 

I have been waiting for 15 years to read this book. I have followed the series through the good times and the bad times. Although I haven't spent a fortune on these books, I still have used my own hard earned money to purchase every single book. I have read the series numerous times, maybe not as many times as some people have that belong to these forums, but I have put MUCH time into these books. Having said that, I can't help but to feel incredibly let down by this final book. Is it ALL Brandon's fault? Absolutely not. Is MOST of it Brandon's fault? Absolutely. Contrary to what many others may think, I believe that each of the three books written by him have been worse than the previous. I actually enjoyed TGS. ToM was okay, nothing special. aMoL is awful. It reads as if it is written by a high school student as an end of the year English project. The flow of the plot is terrible, there is NO character development (although I understand that at this point in the series most characters should be fully developed, there is NO individual characterization). Take a page that has a lot of dialogue in it (which in this book is most of them, unfortunately) and try replacing the names of the speaker with someone else. You CAN do that, because every single character in this book is one dimensional, and there are NO individual characteristics separating, say, Min from Elayne, for example. Every single character, it seems, lost their soul, lost what made them SPECIAL. I understand that it's probably very, very difficult to 100% accurately get inside a character's head that you, as an author, did not create. But the characters in this book are written lazily. Aside from a very few select words that separate a character's culture from another (for example, the way that the Aiel speak as opposed to the way an Illianer speaks), every person in this story is the same exact character. It is appaling. (I have so much more to say on that matter, but this is already getting longer than I'd like it to).

 

Not only the characters, but the prose, the plot, the development of everything, the word choice...It is written lazily. It is written as if Brandon saw the oppurtunity to finish one of the greatest fantasy stories ever created as nothing more than a big pay day and a way to get some name recognition. Example.. the word "Light". It is used on almost EVERY SINGLE PAGE. MULTIPLE times. Sometimes more than once in the same sentence and dialogue branch. "Light, the Trollocs continued to advance up the hill. He had sent every able body to stop them, but they still kept coming. Light, what could they do? There was no stopping them. It was time for one final toss of the dice. Light, if this didn't work..." I know that quote isn't completely accurate, as I didn't take it verbatum from the story, but I guarantee that you can find almost that exact quote in this book. Multiple times. The word tempest... EVERYTHING was a tempest in this book, from the sky, to the Trolloc armies, to some random woman's hair.. Professional authors are expected to do better than this. That's why they are professionals. For somebody who teaches his own creative writing course in a legit college, Brandon was anything but creative in his word choice.

 

As I read the book, I felt as though every single page was the same as the one before it. More than a few times, I found myself turning back in the book to check if the page I was currently on had perhaps been printed twice by mistake. The same battle raged for 700 pages. The exact same descriptions were used on each battle front. It didn't matter if Elayne was fighting at battle front #1, because Egwene was fighting the EXACT same battle on battle front #3.

 

One last point, although I wish I could type so much more, but this is getting far longer than I wanted it to.. the deaths of my favorite characters ever, in any story I've ever read. Siuan, Gareth, Egwene, Davram....Siuan's death had ONE short paragraph dedicated to it. A character who, for much of the first half of the series, perhaps longer, was an integral part of the story, had ONE short paragraph, and then she was simply forgotten. Gareth had ONE sentence, Davram happened OFFSCREEN and was given ONE SHORT SENTENCE, when earlier in THIS book we were told that Davram was the one person Rand trusted when he was paranoid of all others. Egwene's death....I am appalled. I am at a loss for words. The main female character of 14 books that I have spent more than half of my life reading was given the shoddiest, most non-important death that I think I have ever read. She dies taking out Taim, who until this book, and this is highly debatable, did VERY little in the grand scheme of things. He took over the Black Tower, and Turned a few people, who ended up doing nothing of importance. That's it. She died for that. She died taking HIM out, when she should have a death on the grandest scale possible..maybe taking out Demandred, maybe saving Rand's or Mat's or Perrin's (who once the Last Battle started, did nothing for 90% of it). She died for no reason other than to provoke an emotional reaction, which failed miserably. If you consider major disappointment and anger the emotional response you were looking for, then Brandon, kudos.

 

I wish this book had never been written. I wish that some fans on this site, who are truly far more dedicated to this story than Brandon ever was, had collaborated to write a final book to do this, my favorite story of all time, justice. I wish that nothing, no ending, had been written, because anything that I could have imagined in my mind would have been better than this filth. It is not just the worst book in this series by far, it is one of the worst books I have ever read. And that, everyone, is truly a shame, because this series got me through some terrible times in my life. This story, that I grew up with, that when I was little I imagined being a part of, [removed]. I am so sad, disappointed, angry, upset....God bless you Robert Jordan. The only thing I can take solace in is knowing that he doesn't know how terribly someone else ruined the final parts of his masterpiece, his Mona Lisa.

[papertiger]

Times captured:

 

-Egwene 5x (Whitecloaks, Liandrin, Bandits, BA, WT)

-Tuon 1x (Ta'veren)

 

 

[flinn]

@Lord Matt 

 

 As a long time lurker you should know alot of the theories made by fans on this site were absolutely off the charts.

 

I do think they should have been edited better.

[Razumikhin]

One quick thought in reply to Lord Matt - Egwene's death is not just about killing Taim, nor even about killing all the Sharan channelers who are with him. It is about repairing the fractures in reality caused by the over use of balefire. Whatever one thinks about the scene and the writing of it, there are pretty monumental stakes and consequences of her actions and demise.

[Vambram]

Concerning Lord Matt's post at #1068, I completely, totally, and absolutely disagree with each and everyone of his opinions in that post.

 

[papertiger]

Razumikhin

 

Yeah, Egwene's crowning achievement was discovering anti-balefire, but she's sold short by being unable to contribute to the imprisonment of the DO.

 

Lord Matt,

 

Brandon Sanderson was a hired gun, so we couldn't expect him to give us all those lovely details on each character's death. He gets credit for finishing it, though; what an impossible project this must have been for him.

[papertiger]

God this formatting is killing me

[rqstnnlitnmnt]

One quick thought in reply to Lord Matt - Egwene's death is not just about killing Taim, nor even about killing all the Sharan channelers who are with him. It is about repairing the fractures in reality caused by the over use of balefire. Whatever one thinks about the scene and the writing of it, there are pretty monumental stakes and consequences of her actions and demise.

 

Aside from her use of the OP to heal the fractures in the pattern (I thought that actually worked on a general level), I thought the mechanics of it were clunky, and it missed the mark for me.  We've seen crystal in connection with Age of Legends wonders throughout the series, but it's always appeared as some form of angreal (like Callandor) or structure (like AOL city flashbacks).  As it appears alongside the Flame, it feels out of place.  We haven't seen it created by the OP before, but when it has appeared we are led to associate it with an idea that AS used the OP to modify ordinary materials in a way that makes some extra-perfect new material.  The OP doesn't create something from nothing.  But that's the sense that we get from its appearance as the effects of the Flame.  What's more is that it somehow seeks out and encases all of the Sharan channellers, but the only time we've seen something like this is when Rand makes the lightning construct with Callandar, something even supercharged Egwene couldn't pull off.  The whole thing just doesn't fit on a number of levels.

 

Why didn't Brandon (and/or RJ, depending on the extent of the notes) use this opportunity to weave cuendillar back into the story?  It's Egwene.  The ground - which is full of iron that can be instantly brought to the surface as lightning rods, evidently - is cracking apart.  Cuendillar is indestructible.

 

It's baffling why the storyteller(s) chose to go this way, but there it is.