Quality Discussion Thread

[Matthew79]

 

 

 

The most likely reason, in actuality, for the access keys would be so that you could use the Choedan Kal without having to lug around 2390724906724906724906 tons of statue.

Yes. This.

Not forgetting that it's also not safe to use them without the keys.

[Mats Spare Hat]

 

 

 

 

The most likely reason, in actuality, for the access keys would be so that you could use the Choedan Kal without having to lug around 2390724906724906724906 tons of statue.

Yes. This.

Not forgetting that it's also not safe to use them without the keys.

 

 

Prove it. Via from the text, or via quoted source.

[Elan Tedronai]

read the strike at shayol ghul for your sources.

 

the kal will burn the strongest of channellers if they tried accessing the power through anything other than the keys

[Finnssss22]

 

 

 

 

 

The most likely reason, in actuality, for the access keys would be so that you could use the Choedan Kal without having to lug around 2390724906724906724906 tons of statue.

Yes. This.

Not forgetting that it's also not safe to use them without the keys.

 

 

Prove it. Via from the text, or via quoted source.

 

Re-read the last couple of pages from tGH-20

It isn't stated completely outright but you are definitely left with the impression that accessing the statue sa'angreal directly is extremely dangerous.

You then get more info about it from Verin in tGH-31

[Mats Spare Hat]

'ppreciate it feellasss

[mrhumble1]

Forgive me elitists but, I liked the last three books. After 12 years

of semi poor storytelling and stagnant plot we finally get closure. Only to be lambasted by self important fanboys bitching about the end; or the prose or whatever.

 

Closure??  CLOSURE??  Are you f'n kidding me???

 

I have resisted posting in this thread but feel I must respond to this.

 

I won't go on about all the inconsistencies, plot holes, completely out-of -character interactions, errors, never-ending (and poorly paced) battle scenes, and way-too-convenient developments.  The book is full of awful for those reasons and they have been pretty well documented here.

 

That being said, I think I could forgive all that if the book provided what we all really wanted from this book, CLOSURE.  It's safe to say we all knew the Light was gonna win TG.  What we didn't know as how that was gonna happen and who would be left afterwards.  However for a series that is so very heavily dependent on prophecy and visions of the future I expected, and I believe we all deserved, an extensive epilogue.  I truly was most looking forward to learning what happened after TG.  We knew Elayne and Avi were going to survive because it was foretold (I am gonna include Min's viewings as foretellings).  We knew the Aiel would be broken by Rand, so some of them were going to survive as well. Here are just a few other things (off the top of my head) I expected to be touched upon in the epilogue:

 

- is it confirmed that the big three are all no longer ta'veren, and how is that possible since they have the same threads in the pattern?

- Lan's rule and how Malkier rises and fits into the Borderlands

- details about how Seanchan society chances under Mat/Fortuna and the future of damane (and if damane can choose to be freed, will Moggy get lose and try to contact the DO??)

- what happens to Perrin and Faile now that she's Queen.

- what happens to the Two Rivers, especially if Perrin decides to live with Faile in Saldaea

- the names of Elayne's kids (and if they can channel)

- the names of Avi's kids (and if they can channel)

- will Randadin ever see his kids??

- Will Avi make Graendal tell her all the secrets of weaving saidar?? 

- I very much wanted to know what happened to the Aiel

- where do Moiraine and Thom go

- what happens in Shara and is it completely ruled by darkfriends

- speaking of, what happens to the remaining darkfriends now that the DO is sealed again 

 

Those could all be covered in just a few chapters, and some in just a few sentences.  I don't expect all the answers, but maybe just a touch on those topics.  The book should have had 100 fewer pages of incomprehensible battle gibberish and added that space to the epilogue.  

 

So what did we get instead of any of that??  NOTHING.  We got an insultingly minuscule "ending" consisting of either just a few sentences (Mat's wrap up, which was disgustingly inadequate) or nothing at all.  After all the foretellings/prophecies, all the hundreds of characters we were introduced to, and all the cities/nations/cultures we've experienced over thousands of pages, we get a few pages letting us know some people gathered for Rand's funeral, and that Rand's soul lives on.  That is that, and that makes me so sad and disappointed.

 

I don't care whose fault it is.  I guess it is remotely possible that RJ had absolutely zero notes about what happened after TG but I doubt that.  Regardless, it's not at all constructive at this point to place blame.  The book is out and what's canon is canon.  That makes this all the more sad.  That's it.  It's over, and I have none of what I was looking for.

 

Closure??  HARDLY.

[Stormcrown]

It would be best to leave the Choedan Kal out of this discussion since they are unique.  We know more about their construction than any of the others and they were on a level of power so far above anything else that they are could almost be considered a sa'sa'angreal.  I mean, could Rand have used Callendor to destroy the world as he could have with the Choedan Kal?  Could Egwene have used Vora's wand to do so?  It's unlikely (although I am speculating, and I admit that).

 

But here's the thing: We KNOW for a FACT that angreal have buffers.  They are standard.  That means that a lack of one is not the norm.  Logically, one would have to ask why something that is mass-manufactured would intentionally be set up to lack the buffer.  In essence, you'd be industrializing the flaw. 

 

What Sut is saying is that even if we have 3 that don't have the buffer, you can't say that all sa'angreal don't.  That's a sample size issue.  I don't accept that the three were supposed to lack a buffer, as I don't think RJ would have left it to the last minute to tell us.  He was a bit more subtle. 

 

First of all, You are pursuing this buffer argument like it makes or breaks the entire last books plot. The responses you are getting from some of the more avid fans is because of this. Every flaw you guys speak about is like it ruins the entire book for you. 

 

You also make a lot of assumptions, the first being is you are equating Angreal to Sa'angreal. They are not the same. They have different names, among other things.

 

You also make another LARGE assumption "Even if we have 3 that don't have the buffer, you can't say that all sa'angreal dont" - You can't say either way. We only KNOW of 5 Sa'angreal. The only time a buffer was even mentioned was with Vora's wand, among any Sa'angreal.

 

Jordan always did a lot of "RAFO" and Brandon mentioned a lot of his notes were "I'm going to do this or that" RJ probably didn't even think about it a whole lot. Overall the fact that Callandor is mentioned as being soooo unique for not having a buffer doesn't make sense throughout the ENTIRE series, as all Sa'angreal up to the point either dont have buffers or don't make sense to have them (Chokal). Up until Demandred's we only knew of 4.

 

For Callandor to be known, even in the 3rd age, for not having a buffer....we would need an example of other Sa'angreal that HAVE buffers, and we don't.

 

So....i'm rambling, but my point is that we don't know enough here to have a conversation.

[Stormcrown]

@mrhumble: Your complaints about closure are really pointless.

 

Robert Jordan WROTE the epilogue, Sanderson was then UNABLE to write anything after Rand. 

 

He also left many parts of the plot clearly open for the outrigger trilogy he had planned. 

 

I enjoy RPing, so I absolutely LOVE the open ending. It truly symbolizes the "this AN ending, but it is not THE ending" - To wrap up all of the characters it would have taken a whole nother book at minimum, to simply do it justice. Admittedly for a good 3-4 days I was super agitated about not having more closure or what they will do. It took me a week to come to terms with the ending.

 

Did you really want to read a paragraph of "And Mat goes on to rule the Seanchan after doing this, lives to be 50, has a bunch of kids, oh one of them can channel and takes over after him" - No. The style of epilogue you desire wouldn't fit in the WoT. That much content, detail, would take books, as RJ planned, but died and did not have notes to complete. 

[mrhumble1]

@mrhumble: Your complaints about closure are really pointless.

 

Robert Jordan WROTE the epilogue, Sanderson was then UNABLE to write anything after Rand. 

 

No, my comments are not pointless.  In 100 pages all that I mentioned could have been easily addressed.  Again I say I am not expecting another book's worth of material, but something as opposed to nothing.  

 

I get that you like the idea that we have EVERYTHING left open and thus that's an appropriate ending, but I completely disagree.  We got an ending to TG, but NOT an ending to the story.  The story of WOT is not only about TG and I expected the "end" to be more than just "Battle's over, so everyone go home!!".  

[Stormcrown]

 

@mrhumble: Your complaints about closure are really pointless.

 

Robert Jordan WROTE the epilogue, Sanderson was then UNABLE to write anything after Rand. 

 

No, my comments are not pointless.  In 100 pages all that I mentioned could have been easily addressed.  Again I say I am not expecting another book's worth of material, but something as opposed to nothing.  

 

I get that you like the idea that we have EVERYTHING left open and thus that's an appropriate ending, but I completely disagree.  We got an ending to TG, but NOT an ending to the story.  The story of WOT is not only about TG and I expected the "end" to be more than just "Battle's over, so everyone go home!!".  

 

In a perfect world Jordan wouldn't have died. In a perfect world he would be alive to write the trilogy to address your concerns.

 

But I suppose Harriet didn't feel comfortable with anyone trying to "guess" what RJ would have decided. 

 

It sucks, it really does suck, but it was out of anyone's hands. 

 

Jordan said multiple times he doesn't want anyone writing in his world, and even finishing the series was a near thing.

 

I get that you are upset, but it's pretty much a pointless thing to talk about because most people already know.

 

Jordan wrote the Epilogue, and Sanderson even adding the things he did was a little more than he wanted to do. The fact the epilogue was pre-written limited what BS could do.

 

On top of that, even if RJ had notes for what happened after, they wouldn't be complete. Maybe we COULD have had one character's post-TG journey, but it wouldn't be right unless it was complete. That was impossible, thus we got what we got.

 

I had the exact same emotions after I finished the series and I'm still a little bitter about it. But in the same regard if my own father died. In both situations you will end up accepting it.

[Barid Bel Medar]

Alright, I am temporarily locking this thread, things are getting out of hand. Take a day to cool off guys. 

[Barid Bel Medar]

re-opened for business 

[nitavonne]

I am not sure; but I remember reading in the past that Mr. Jordan was going to write the Last Battle early in the last book. I think that was changed by Sanderson and /or Team Jordan. I also feel the quality of the history was left to hang by the time that T.O.M. was published without a serious attempt to correct the writting and the history lines . The glaring mistakes about Mat and Min interactions, etc, could and should been corrected. And Androl! His lines etc. should have been given to another known Ashaman.  And  the underwriting of major characters . Nynaeve and Moiraine for example, was a let down in the quality of the books.

[Stormcrown]

I disagree on pretty much every point you just made, Nitavonne. Androl and Pevara was a much needed interaction and the dialogue was fine.

 

"Another known Asha'man"???

The lack of Moraine+Siuan/Lan/Others was very glaring. I felt Nyneave's position wasn't that bad. Could have been more...yes...but its a hard balance.

 

Glaring mistakes about Mat/Min? Like what?

 

And I dont know idea what you mean by "Quality of the history" - History lines. 

[Sid]

Mat and Min treated each other like old friends, when they barely knew each other at all.  We as fans knew both of them quite well, but they as characters had very little interaction with each other.

 

Why pick Emarin/Algarin as one of the 'prefers men' characters if they had to be picked?  He had a wife(that passed away) and kids(that moved out).

 

Androl and Pevara's dialogue was fine if you're 12.  Chapter 2 was so clunky I could barely get through it, and that clunkyness/bluntness kept showing up throughout AMoL.  I would never have finished the first book of WoT or any series if this was how characters interacted with each other.  Characters are so devoid of inner thoughts that it's like reading a screenplay, and the ones we do get are pretty juvenile most of the time.

 

Is there any redeeming attribute that makes AMoL worth re-reading other than a few nods to the earliest books I might have missed?

[Suttree]

I disagree on pretty much every point you just made, Nitavonne. Androl and Pevara was a much needed interaction and the dialogue was fine.

The interaction and dialog both were awkwardly painful. That was not the Pevara from the previous books.

Glaring mistakes about Mat/Min? Like what?

Well for starters all the below...

 

Dom

 

Short of Brandon rewriting the whole episodes I guess there isn't much Maria can do to fix the fact that Min and Mat have been given the sort of relationship that she's rather developed with Perrin over the months spent in the mountains (while she barely ever met Mat, who got carried away by Verin right after the events of Falme, but some of the bigger continuity errors in the scenes might perhaps be smoothed out, e.g:

 

- "I don't see anything new around you," she said, "though I assume the eye on a balance scale finally makes sense to you."

 

Min never discussed that Viewing with Mat, nor any of her Viewings of him, actually. She only talked to Rand (and off-screen presumably to Moiraine) about this one, in TEOTW. It's Perrin she discussed her ability with, never Mat.

 

Mat shouldn't know much at all about Min's Talent (Rand kept it all to himself originally, Moiraine went and told Egwene and Nynaeve about her in Caemlyn. Perrin learned from hanging around Min off-screen for months in TDR), but since the resolution is built around that, there isn't much helping it now.

 

Page 490:

 

Min POV again: "Mat wore silken Seanchan clothing—she had heard he was in this camp—but he topped it with his familiar hat."

 

The hat shouldn't be familiar to Min as she's not crossed Mat's path since the end of TGH. She rejoins Rand in LOC, when Mat has already left Cairhien for Maerone.

 

----

 

Mat POV: "More and more, he was thinking that battle maps were about as useful as a heavy coat in Tear."

 

"Looking back at the maps, Mat felt like cursing again. Maps, maps and more maps. Pieces of paper. Most of them had been sketched by Tuon's clerks in the fading light of the previous evening. How could he know they were accurate?"

 

The scene also has mere "clerks" draw hasty maps of the area etc. We know from TPOD and KOD that in fact the Seanchan have excellent mapmakers and lieutenants and scout lieutenants (morat'raken) keep the battle maps up to date as a battle goes on:

 

(POD 24): " From his seat on the dais he could see the map tableclearly, where helmetless under-lieutenants checked the reports and placed markers to represent the forces in the field. A small paper banner stood above each marker, inked symbols giving the size and composition of the force. Finding decent maps in these lands was next to impossible, but the map copied atop the large table was sufficient. And worrying, in what it told him. Black discs for outposts overrun or dispersed. Far too many of those, dotting the whole eastern half of the

Venir range. Red wedges, for commands on the move, marked the western end as thickly, all pointed back toward Ebou Dar. And scattered among the black discs, seventeen stark white. As he watched, a young officer in the brown-and-black of a morat’torm carefully placed an eighteenth. Enemy forces. A few might be the same group seen twice, but for the most

part they were much too far apart, the timing of the sightings wrong."

 

The whole sudden annoyance with maps is quite out of character for Mat and his military memories. He should be amazed by Bryne's new tricks and such - and it's okay he wished to see the battlefield for himself, but he's always valued battle maps massively before (TFOH episodes and the most telling: the episode with Talmanes mentioning the Band's new mapmaker Master Roidelle in KOD. Not only was Mat quite happy with maps, but he asked immediately for the new mapmaker to be brought to him so he could question him directly. In that scene Tuon considers those maps as invaluable as the new weapon designs.

 

Mat should actually have been impressed and pleased by the Seanchan extremely well-oiled command posts, with everyone knowing their jobs and doing them well, the speed they get updated from the frontlines by rakens. This is much better than anything Mat has got to work with in the series before.

 

In those AMOL scenes in Kandor and Altara, he's way, way too contemptuous of the Seanchan military. His assessment of their skills, discipline and tactics from what he's witnessed since their taking of Altara used to be... knowledgeably and professionally respectful. In AMOL he suddenly treats them all like a bunch of bumbling fools who know nothing to nothing "except Tylee". Galgan's gone from an ultra-competent and very politically cunning to a near complete fool Mat treats condescendingly.

 

It's very weird no Seanchan even suggested if Mat wanted to survey the battlefield himself so badly Yulan could arrange a ride with a morat'raken.

 

---

 

Mat: "He had to be careful around Min. He was certain that a smile in the wrong place would earn him a knifing not only from her, but from Tuon"

 

Min picked up her knife skills after she's last met Mat. He shouldn't know how much of threat she can be.

 

Mat on Min: "How much relief do you think it would bring Rand if he knew that someone he trusted had Tuon's ear"

 

Mat knows Rand and Min have sex from the colour swirls, he suddenly speaks as if he knew how really close they are and how much Rand relied on her.

[nitavonne]

Thanks Suttre!That is exactly what I meant.  And I did not catch everything that Dom caught!!!!It just that I have read the books so many times that I feel the wrongness of the dialog. 

[Stormcrown]

Oh god, that Min/mat stuff is quite bad...

[Guest benrea]

Hi.  Used to post a lot years ago, as benr.  Loved the 'who killed Asmodean' thread (that one had to be more or less revealed), the 'is Verin Black?' discussion (nailed that one, more or less), and countless other discussions.

 

One thing I said back then was that if this whole thing was written just to get back to the start I'd be disappointed.  I'm disappointed.  Whether the prison was sealed better or not, the situation remains the same.  That was the easy way out.

 

In Rand's confrontation with the Dark One, he  is faced with repeated scenarios of what will/might happen if he takes certain paths.  Rand repeatedly concludes that he can't trust the Father of Lies' visions.  Except when he is viewing what will happen if he kills the Dark One.  Then, he just accepts the vision that humans will become vacuous automatons without evil to balance things out.  Why does he accept that the Father of Lies is telling the truth?  I find it absurd that humans can't produce evil on their own; or good.  Perhaps it's the atheist or agnostic in me, but that seemed a cop-out.  That's a major sticking point in reaching the end of a series of books that I have thouroughly enjoyed for two plus decades.

 

Perrin remained rather peripheral.  Avi regressed.  Elayne got more and more annoying.  Man, there were a lot of trollocs.  As has been repeatedly pointed out, the number of off-screen deaths were disappointing.

 

The good:  I enjoyed the continued Mat/Fortuona arc.  I liked Egwene right up to the end, and her passing had deep meaning.  Made sense, too, with Gawyn's (wimpy) end costing her her warder.

 

A battle is chaotic, so the choppy back and forth of that seemed appropriate.  Brandon does like his battle scenes. 

 

Thanks to Luckers et al for keeping this site viable, and improving it as time went by.  And to everyone for increasing my enjoyment of the series by discussing it.  Thanks to Robert Jordan, and to Brandon Sanderson.  And Harriet.  And Tor.

[flinn]

Mat and Min treated each other like old friends, when they barely knew each other at all.  We as fans knew both of them quite well, but they as characters had very little interaction with each other.

 

Why pick Emarin/Algarin as one of the 'prefers men' characters if they had to be picked?  He had a wife(that passed away) and kids(that moved out).

 

Androl and Pevara's dialogue was fine if you're 12.  Chapter 2 was so clunky I could barely get through it, and that clunkyness/bluntness kept showing up throughout AMoL.  I would never have finished the first book of WoT or any series if this was how characters interacted with each other.  Characters are so devoid of inner thoughts that it's like reading a screenplay, and the ones we do get are pretty juvenile most of the time.

 

Is there any redeeming attribute that makes AMoL worth re-reading other than a few nods to the earliest books I might have missed?

 

 Yeah I am really disappointed in how Harriet and Team Jordan dropped the ball. Considering their lives have been invested in Wheel of Time almost as long as Jordan was, you would think atleast Harriet had a better grasp on what in the world was going on in Randland. There are several chapters for certain I would have sent back with a message saying "not even close".

[mrhumble1]

Yeah I am really disappointed in how Harriet and Team Jordan dropped the ball. Considering their lives have been invested in Wheel of Time almost as long as Jordan was, you would think atleast Harriet had a better grasp on what in the world was going on in Randland. There are several chapters for certain I would have sent back with a message saying "not even close".

 

This, and the points Dom documented so well,  can't be overstated.  

 

Several times as I was reading I would shake my head and wonder how some scenes/events made it into the book.  I saw these things with out even trying to and that shows they were pretty obvious.

 

How all these inconsistencies and errors could make it into what's probably the most important book Harriet has ever edited is incomprehensible. They had plenty of time and resources so there's no excuse.  If we can pick out all this then they should have known many of the scenes were way off in tone and character. 

[MarkDiLillo]

It's pretty simple guys:  When literally the entire book is filled with this...how do you edit it?  Where does she start?  She has a deadline to make.  How can she possibly send it back to Brandon and say "rewrite the whole book"?  Furthermore, when he gets so much wrong...even if he tries again...will it be any better?  It's simply a case where it's obvious that she screwed up and chose the wrong author.

 

What we're reading is after she had done her best already.  Imagine what the first draft looked like.

[Suttree]

They quite literally pushed back the release and asked for more time after the mistakes of ToM in order to get AMoL "right".

[Azrael Maravaile]

The biggest problem that I had with these books (I have no idea if it has already been mentioned because i didn't go through all 70ish pages of this thread) is the sudden loss of useful knowledge by the Aes Sedai in this book. Both the Light and the Shadow knew how to mask the ability to channel, but never used it. Also inverting weaves would have been a very effective tool in battle, again never used. I kept wondering as I read, why wouldn't they mask their ability so as not to be sensed.

[TristanWebb]

My biggest issue with aMoL isn't with it, it is with ToM. aMoL was so cramped, wrapping up plotlines in single lines and everything felt so rushed, when pretty much everything in ToM was filler just added to fill 2/3rds of a book. Why the Black Tower arc couldn't of been fleshed out and finished in ToM is beyond me. Move the Fields of Merrilor to 2/3rds of the way through ToM, remove alot of the Perrin vs Slayer crap to make room and end it with the Light losing, maybe a cliffhanger with the Great Captains being compelled. It then frees up space for Demandred in aMoL and to resolve plotlines with a bit of space.

 

This is an editorial problem, it seems like Harriet (and perhaps the rest of Team Jordan) needed to pull in even RJ at the end of the series and didn't do anywhere near enough with BS. Prose quality, misunderstanding characters are problems sure, but saying you need 3 books to finish something that was supposed to be finished in one and still running out of space is unforgivable IMO, especially when you waste so much space in the second.