Quality Discussion Thread

[Vambram]

As per Barid's request, I am continuing a discussion from the Demandred thread. Honestly, this is the same discussion which Sut and I have had ad nauseum  in this thread. Yes, Suttree, I have acknowledged your quotes and your criticisms of Sanderson's writings in AMOL. Yes, Suttree, I have read your criticisms which you yourself claim are objective opinions. However, just because you and others believe that y'alls critical opinions are objective does NOT make it so. By definition, critical opinions are subjective. What one person likes, another may dislike. What one person finds to be good, another person may find to be not good. What one person says feels "off" in characterization, another person may find the characterization to be acceptable and understandable.

 

Now, if you believe that the above is NOT the definition of subjective opinions, then I might as well stop responding to your posts and you may as well stop responding to mine because that is the crux of the disagreement on this thread between you and I. 

[Suttree]

Ok, I am going to take a deep breath and try this one more time. I have to ask you to please stop making a straw man argument and look at what I am actually saying. I have never once in any of these arguments claimed the things you list above as objective.

"Vam, I'm sorry but the things I mentioned above (unpolished prose, timeline, mistakes, consistency) are objective.That is just stating the facts. "

That is vastly different from claiming "most critical discussions" are objective. There is no need to agree on your part. Again those are the facts.

Now as I said clearly in my last post.
 

Lastly I have read a few of Sanderson's books including Elantris and the Mistborn series. Elantris came across as very juvenile although somewhat entertaining. Mistborn started out strong but quickly lost steam culminating in what many have called a very contrived ending. Now those are subjective opinions, I haven't studied the books closely enough to really do a proper analysis. The things I mentioned above in relation to AMoL are objective however, not sure how I can explain it to you anymore clearly than I have in the past. It feels like that old "lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink" proverb.

Contrary to what you state above not all critique is subjective. Please tell me you see the difference between the two sets of issues I present here. One is my subjective opinion. The other is technical flaws in the writing/mistakes that exist whether one notices them or not. I have given you concrete examples already in this thread but for clarity I will do so again.
 

Take for instance when Brandon says that Elayne rallied her troops behind the "Red Lion" of Andor. Or when the miniscule hamlet of Darlun gets described as a town, village and city in different chapters. How about Brandon flip flopping the old city and the new in terms of which is tight alleys and broad thoroughfares in Caemlyn. Just to add another "Elayne gives the order to burn several cities in Shienar which were in the path of the Trollocs as Lan retreated, incl. Medo, Ankor Dal and Fal Moran. That's not a list of the cities in the Trollocs's path, it's just a lazy list of known cities of Shienar..."

Now please before you respond read through my post twice to be clear on what I am saying. I don't want this discussion to keep going in circles. To quote Mr Ares again:
 

Well, good arguments are, at least in theory, capable of swaying a person from one side to the other. So if it is the case that someone cannot be swayed from one side to the other, it is because they are either deaf to reason, or the other side has no reasoned arguments to offer.

You yourself indicated that:
 

Yes, most of your opinions are well presented

So where does that leave us in terms of someone being willing to change their mind on this particular topic? Lastly I get that people look for different things in their fantasy. I have stated that a number of times. If the problems don't bother you more power to you. It says nothing about the validity of anyone's subjective opinions if those issues don't get in the way of their enjoyment of the work. I hope this post has finally cleared things up. Cheers.

[Vambram]

Most of your arguments are well presented, but your points of view are still subjective opinions, not objective facts.

 

What you believe are technical flaws in the writings/mistakes are subjective opinions. I do not agree with those opinions of yours. But  I am not disagreeing with objective facts.

 

This is the crux of the disagreement between you and I, Suttree. Therefore, lets just agree to disagree agreeably, and move on to other subjects, shall we?

[NitroS]

The dragonmount forums remind me alot of the star wars forums. The hate on the last 3 books from the fans from earlier on in the series is overly excessive and a funny example of this is when TGS came out people were knocking certain scenes in the book saying he got the character all wrong to eventually find out that that scene was actually written by Robert Jordan which i think summarises it quite well. Not going to turn this into a brandon vs RJ debate though and i know the later books have there flaws. But as i said exactly like the star wars forums, have the blind original trilogy fan boys that wont accept any critiscism about the OT and bash the Prequels even though they are rated as top movies and well accepted by those that arent die hard fanboys (which i think is the same with the sanderson books my friend who got me into WOT but isnt a forum goer or into it as much as me has been reading since like book 5 said that aMOL was one of his favourites in the series because he doesnt look at the tiny tidbits or know about them such as that there was 1000 wiseones in the shaido army and no where to be seen in aMOL).

 

For the record im not a Brandon fanboy i hate elantris and thought warbreaker was generally boring while interesting in certain spots and the last 2 mistborn books to drag a bit, but im also not a RJ fanboy due to the way he treated some fans in his Q/A and wanting to destroy and burn all his notes on the WOT so no one could finish the series until he changed it at the last minute, which just says that he is a complete opposite person to the one i am. I think where you start the series can be a directive of what books you like. I saw alot of people hated on New Spring because they waited so long after COT to get a prequel and the fans wanted KOD which would explain some of the bad reviews about new spring out there. While alot of people say Shadow Rising is there favourite book while i dont even have it in my top 5. if you have to do rereads of the same book overtime you develop nostalgia from early in your life when you read those books and your waiting for a finish that wont live up to the hype. It would be interesting to find out what someone who wasnt told the last 3 books were by a different author to read through from books 1-14 and rate them based off a first read, which is what a book is suppose to be rated on.

[jjp]

You just equated the last three WoT books to the Star Wars prequels.

 

As a defense of them!

[NitroS]

You just equated the last three WoT books to the Star Wars prequels.

 

As a defense of them!

Sure did the Reception of them, not content of them (but i do think they are all really good. Go wipe your memory of everything star wars then watch 1-6 tell me which one was your favourite)

[Mr Ares]

Most of your arguments are well presented, but your points of view are still subjective opinions, not objective facts.

 

What you believe are technical flaws in the writings/mistakes are subjective opinions. I do not agree with those opinions of yours. But  I am not disagreeing with objective facts.

 

This is the crux of the disagreement between you and I, Suttree. Therefore, lets just agree to disagree agreeably, and move on to other subjects, shall we?

Some of the flaws he points out are objectively mistakes. The timeline, for instance - if a coherent timeline is impossible due to the various contradictions, is that a matter of opinion or is it a matter of fact?

 

The dragonmount forums remind me alot of the star wars forums. The hate on the last 3 books from the fans from earlier on in the series is overly excessive and a funny example of this is when TGS came out people were knocking certain scenes in the book saying he got the character all wrong to eventually find out that that scene was actually written by Robert Jordan which i think summarises it quite well. Not going to turn this into a brandon vs RJ debate though and i know the later books have there flaws. But as i said exactly like the star wars forums, have the blind original trilogy fan boys that wont accept any critiscism about the OT and bash the Prequels even though they are rated as top movies and well accepted by those that arent die hard fanboys (which i think is the same with the sanderson books my friend who got me into WOT but isnt a forum goer or into it as much as me has been reading since like book 5 said that aMOL was one of his favourites in the series because he doesnt look at the tiny tidbits or know about them such as that there was 1000 wiseones in the shaido army and no where to be seen in aMOL).

Blind fanboys? Nice way to add to a reasoned discussion, that. One difference between the Star Wars fans you mention is that many people are willing to offer quite a lot of criticism of the earlier WoT books, pre-Brandon. It is not a case of RJ gets a pass, BS gets crapped on. People who don't look at the tiny tidbits? Well, I'm sure that if you don't have a good enough knowledge to pick up on the mistakes you won't pick up on mistakes, but that doesn't mean that the mistakes aren't there. They are there, and they are most visible to those who are most invested in and knowledgeable of the series - the less you care, the less of a problem it is. As for people misidentifying the author, yes, that did happen, and yes, it was amusing. Of course, it is worth bearing in mind that the RJ portions we got were not finished, final drafts, they were still a work in progress.

It would be interesting to find out what someone who wasn't told the last 3 books were by a different author to read through from books 1-14 and rate them based off a first read, which is what a book is suppose to be rated on.

Utter nonsense.

 

 

You just equated the last three WoT books to the Star Wars prequels.

 

As a defense of them!

Sure did the Reception of them, not content of them (but i do think they are all really good. Go wipe your memory of everything star wars then watch 1-6 tell me which one was your favourite)

Empire Strikes Back, of course.

[rane008]

 

You just equated the last three WoT books to the Star Wars prequels.

 

As a defense of them!

Sure did the Reception of them, not content of them (but i do think they are all really good. Go wipe your memory of everything star wars then watch 1-6 tell me which one was your favourite)

Have you even checked on IMDB or Metacritic for the weighted reviews of the Prequels?  In plagiarizing Mr. Ares, I say of your argument, Utter Nonsense. 

[Suttree]

The hate on the last 3 books from the fans from earlier on in the series is overly excessive and a funny example of this is when TGS came out people were knocking certain scenes in the book saying he got the character all wrong to eventually find out that that scene was actually written by Robert Jordan which i think summarises it quite well.

Actually when TGS came out it was widely praised(Mat being an acception of which Brandon fully admitted he botched the character.) They went for a home run with that book and at least structurally the rest of the series suffered. It wasn't until after the ToM release when people started going back and really studying the book during rereads that posters started really calling out the mistakes, timeline issues, unpolished writing etc. Team Jordan at that point addressed the problems. They changed Brandon's writing approach trying to add more polish and requested more time so they could get AmoL "right".

 

Curious as to what scene you are referring to in TGS? The most famous of course is those who knocked the ToG sequence. That was pretty funny.

 

But as i said exactly like the star wars forums, have the blind original trilogy fan boys that wont accept any critiscism about the OT and bash the Prequels

 

Man, you really don't mind fabricating things in an effort to bolster your opinion do you? This is like three consecutive posts now(including the one that got edited) where you have just made things up. The mood was very critical of RJ post the CoT release and the faults of that book were discussed in similar detail as those in AMoL. I can count on one hand the number of people who have put RJ up on a pedestal here over the years. Your claim above is quite simply not true. For instance:

 

Mr Ares

RJ is hardly venerated as a legend. It's simply the case that, for all his flaws, he was a more polished author than BS. He was, perhaps, admitted indulgences that BS wouldn't be, and therefore BS might never have been able to get away with what RJ did, and so would not produce anything as reviled as CoT. Then again, RJ wasn't entirely satisfied with CoT, it was published as it was due to a desire to get something out rather than rewrite from scratch - could the less successful BS manage the delays inherent in starting the entire book again? KoD is seldom acknowledged as the greatest book in the series - its flaws are well known and well noted, but it has a great deal of merit in its own right, not purely as the best book after a string of bad ones. KoD was a book that was held up as good, but not the best the series had ever been. TGS and ToM were hailed at first, but then it really sank in what people had, an it became clear that it was not all that it could be. Sometimes you have to take a step back from the work. It took time for people to take that step back from TGS and ToM, and to see the flaws. People aren't seeing RJ as better than he was, they're not revising their opinions of him upwards, merely their views on Sanderson downwards, in response to a renewed appreciation of what, exactly, he brings to the table.

It really doesn't help your argument when you constantly misrepresent the other side of the discussion and create facts out of thin air.

 

which i think is the same with the sanderson books my friend who got me into WOT but isnt a forum goer or into it as much as me has been reading since like book 5 said that aMOL was one of his favourites in the series because he doesnt look at the tiny tidbits or know about them such as that there was 1000 wiseones in the shaido army and no where to be seen in aMOL).

Which has been our point all along. Just because the flaws don't bother you doesn't mean they don't exist. The more casual fan is certainly more likely to enjoy Brandon's work as many of the problems go unnoticed.

 

It would be interesting to find out what someone who wasnt told the last 3 books were by a different author to read through from books 1-14 and rate them based off a first read, which is what a book is suppose to be rated on.

Errmmm...what? How do you even come up with this stuff?

[rane008]

Vambram,

 

I'm gonna be really short and clear here.  Let's say I have a car, a Pinto perhaps.  Due to a flaw in the wiring, the car explodes.  Objective fact.  My not liking the shape of the fireball that the car made is an opinion.  Subjective. 

[liza]

I think I also agree that it was a little hard to connect with the characters compared to the rest of the books.

 

But then I think the reason for this is that the whole book is covering just one battle over the span of a very very short time.

 

Add to that the fact that you want to give a chance for so many characters to show themselves.

 

There were 13 flaming books ;) before this! So we had the time and space to make a connection with an awful

lot of people. Each of which became as important as the other for one reader or another. Giving anyone more space would just mean you had to take from others.

 

I'm not sure I can see a solution to this. Even writing an extra book wouldn't help. One solution I guess would be to kill

a bunch people off and only leave a handful to deal with in the end.

 

Personally I'm not sure I'd like that. Even the few deaths were too much for me.

 

Someone was mentioning in another thread that some details of the battles could have been eliminated in favour of

showing more of the interplay between the characters.

 

I suspect that maybe this was partly intentional since this version is more suitable for the big screen. Don't know maybe I'm wrong

but just a guess.

[Rhienne]

There were 13 flaming books ;) before this! So we had the time and space to make a connection with an awful

lot of people. Each of which became as important as the other for one

reader or another. Giving anyone more space would just mean you had to

take from others.

I think some people (myself included) would argue that the space wasn't allocated that sensibly, particularly in relation to Androl and Pevara who had more chapters and POVs than established characters, e.g. Nynaeve, Moiraine, Loial, that had very little space in the final book.

[Ishy_Reborn]

I really liked TGS I feel like the diction was off from RJ but I felt that things were starting to come together.

 

I enjoyed TOM and while not overly impressed I was very excited for AMOL after finishing it. I was at peace with BS's work.

 

I hated AMOL. It was jarring. I don't understand the decisions that were made on the content. The battle scenes were terrible. I could not allow myself to immerse myself in the book and have a suspension of disbelief. After finishing it I felt like three more books were needed because there were soo many plot lines I felt were completely ignored or resolved in an insufficient fashion. To name a few:

 

Fain 2 pages ?

 

Rand vs the DO (wtf so who is the really "enemy"? Is it human nature and if so why would killing the DO result in the removal of the freedom of choice?) horseshit. We've been looking forward to Rand's fight with the DO for 20 years and we get a not thought out nonsensical stab at existentialism ? Seriously man

 

Knoti? Who is this dude

 

Demandred ? He reminded me of some 5 year old yelling for his toy.

 

BT / Logain / Taim? Uhh I don't even know where to begin?

 

Moridin fighting rand in a sword battle ?

 

Nakomi??

 

I could go on but it's been said a thousand times.

 

I'm not sure how this was written or approved but I'm disappointed in everyone involved. I wonder if the lack of an epilogue is just a money grab for us to get some sort of resolution through the encyclopedia.

 

At this point I just don't know I almost think that the powers that b had given BS the notes and left it to him to write all 3 books with no supervision and had someone other than harriett edit it. That of done that with another author

[Vambram]

 

Most of your arguments are well presented, but your points of view are still subjective opinions, not objective facts.

 

What you believe are technical flaws in the writings/mistakes are subjective opinions. I do not agree with those opinions of yours. But  I am not disagreeing with objective facts.

 

This is the crux of the disagreement between you and I, Suttree. Therefore, lets just agree to disagree agreeably, and move on to other subjects, shall we?

Some of the flaws he points out are objectively mistakes. The timeline, for instance - if a coherent timeline is impossible due to the various contradictions, is that a matter of opinion or is it a matter of fact?

 

When us readers were warned before TGS and TOM were published that the POV's in TGS focused mainly on Rand and Egwene, and that the POV's in TOM focused mainly on Perrin and Mat, then we knew before hand that we would not get a straight up chronological timeline in those two books. Whatever contradictions of timeline that those two books had are easily understood and explained. I know that I had absolutely no problem at all... NONE in following the timeline of TGS, TOM, and also AMOL. Therefore, the problems with the timeline that critics keep harping on about are purely subjective problems, in my opinion, and NOT objective issues.

 

Vambram,

 

I'm gonna be really short and clear here.  Let's say I have a car, a Pinto perhaps.  Due to a flaw in the wiring, the car explodes.  Objective fact.  My not liking the shape of the fireball that the car made is an opinion.  Subjective. 

 I'm going to be really short and clear here. What you are comparing is like comparing apples to gasoline. There really is extremely little in common there for a honest comparison to be made. If you want to attempt to try a rebuttal against my opinions, please do so with a better comparison.

 

I really liked TGS I feel like the diction was off from RJ but I felt that things were starting to come together.

 

I enjoyed TOM and while not overly impressed I was very excited for AMOL after finishing it. I was at peace with BS's work.

 

I hated AMOL. It was jarring. I don't understand the decisions that were made on the content. The battle scenes were terrible. I could not allow myself to immerse myself in the book and have a suspension of disbelief. After finishing it I felt like three more books were needed because there were soo many plot lines I felt were completely ignored or resolved in an insufficient fashion. To name a few:

 

Fain 2 pages ?

 

Rand vs the DO (wtf so who is the really "enemy"? Is it human nature and if so why would killing the DO result in the removal of the freedom of choice?) horseshit. We've been looking forward to Rand's fight with the DO for 20 years and we get a not thought out nonsensical stab at existentialism ? Seriously man

 

Knoti? Who is this dude

 

Demandred ? He reminded me of some 5 year old yelling for his toy.

 

BT / Logain / Taim? Uhh I don't even know where to begin?

 

Moridin fighting rand in a sword battle ?

 

Nakomi??

 

I could go on but it's been said a thousand times.

 

I'm not sure how this was written or approved but I'm disappointed in everyone involved. I wonder if the lack of an epilogue is just a money grab for us to get some sort of resolution through the encyclopedia.

 

At this point I just don't know I almost think that the powers that b had given BS the notes and left it to him to write all 3 books with no supervision and had someone other than harriett edit it. That of done that with another author

 

 

I Loved AMOL.  It was an epic ending to the greatest series of fantasy novels ever written.

 

Fain?  The desire for a long, and epic conclusion to his story line was mostly driven by hard core fans, but in the grand scheme of things within the 14 books of the WOT, Fain consistently played a relatively minor, but important role. However, compared to other plot lines like those involving Ishy/Moridin, Graendal, Moggy, and Lanfear, the importance of Mr. Fain seen objectively in the previous 13 books was relatively minor.

 

Rand vs. The Dark One?  I thought it was very well written, and most of that was probably written or dictated by Robert Jordan in such a way that Brandon Sanderson probably did not have to add or change much of that. I'm sorry that you did not like it, but I thought it was perfect.

 

Knotai? Well, perhaps you weren't paying attention, but Tuon renamed Mat with a Seanchan name. However, throughout the vast majority of AMOL, Mat was consistently referred to as either Mat, or Matrim, or Cauthon.

 

The BT/Logain/Taim? I was not a big fan of that story line either and wished that we could have seen MORE of the BT in previous books. But for the most part, I have no qualms with how Logain received his glory as prophesied by Min. Also, the build up for something huge for Taim was done mostly in the minds of some fans of WOT, but for the vast majority of the series, RJ delegated Taim to a minor role, so why should we have expected something a lot different in AMOL?

 

Moridin vs Rand a sword battle??  Perhaps you were not playing attention, but there really was a LOT MORE to the confrontation between those two. I suggest that you re-read that section, as the amount of sword play between them was really not much at all. Also, as Rand told Moridin/Ishy more than once, Rand's focus was on defeating the Dark One.

 

Nakomi?  Well, according to Brandon Sanderson, she was "something found deep within Robert Jordan's notes." Apparently you did not like the two brief encounters with Nakomi in the final two books, but I thought that she was just perfect and added an appropriate amount of mystery to a series in which RJ himself said would not answer all of the questions of the fans.

 

As for your final couple of paragraphs, information and answers for your questions there are found in more than a few places on the internet. 

[Charred Knight]

Taim was the one person from the third age chosen to be a member of the Foresaken.  He was the leader of over a hundred Dreadlords and was one of the best assets that the shadow had.  Yeah Jordan might not have given him massive amounts of discussion but he was certainly important to the series and Jordan treated Taim with respect.  He didnt need to be a character whose death is simply to have Egwene's death kill a foresaken especially when Sanderson wrote him as something of a loser.

[NitroS]

 

 

Most of your arguments are well presented, but your points of view are still subjective opinions, not objective facts.

 

What you believe are technical flaws in the writings/mistakes are subjective opinions. I do not agree with those opinions of yours. But  I am not disagreeing with objective facts.

 

This is the crux of the disagreement between you and I, Suttree. Therefore, lets just agree to disagree agreeably, and move on to other subjects, shall we?

Some of the flaws he points out are objectively mistakes. The timeline, for instance - if a coherent timeline is impossible due to the various contradictions, is that a matter of opinion or is it a matter of fact?

 

When us readers were warned before TGS and TOM were published that the POV's in TGS focused mainly on Rand and Egwene, and that the POV's in TOM focused mainly on Perrin and Mat, then we knew before hand that we would not get a straight up chronological timeline in those two books. Whatever contradictions of timeline that those two books had are easily understood and explained. I know that I had absolutely no problem at all... NONE in following the timeline of TGS, TOM, and also AMOL. Therefore, the problems with the timeline that critics keep harping on about are purely subjective problems, in my opinion, and NOT objective issues.

 

>Vambram,

 

I'm gonna be really short and clear here.  Let's say I have a car, a Pinto perhaps.  Due to a flaw in the wiring, the car explodes.  Objective fact.  My not liking the shape of the fireball that the car made is an opinion.  Subjective. 

 I'm going to be really short and clear here. What you are comparing is like comparing apples to gasoline. There really is extremely little in common there for a honest comparison to be made. If you want to attempt to try a rebuttal against my opinions, please do so with a better comparison.

 

I really liked TGS I feel like the diction was off from RJ but I felt that things were starting to come together.

 

I enjoyed TOM and while not overly impressed I was very excited for AMOL after finishing it. I was at peace with BS's work.

 

I hated AMOL. It was jarring. I don't understand the decisions that were made on the content. The battle scenes were terrible. I could not allow myself to immerse myself in the book and have a suspension of disbelief. After finishing it I felt like three more books were needed because there were soo many plot lines I felt were completely ignored or resolved in an insufficient fashion. To name a few:

 

Fain 2 pages ?

 

Rand vs the DO (wtf so who is the really "enemy"? Is it human nature and if so why would killing the DO result in the removal of the freedom of choice?) horseshit. We've been looking forward to Rand's fight with the DO for 20 years and we get a not thought out nonsensical stab at existentialism ? Seriously man

 

Knoti? Who is this dude

 

Demandred ? He reminded me of some 5 year old yelling for his toy.

 

BT / Logain / Taim? Uhh I don't even know where to begin?

 

Moridin fighting rand in a sword battle ?

 

Nakomi??

 

I could go on but it's been said a thousand times.

 

I'm not sure how this was written or approved but I'm disappointed in everyone involved. I wonder if the lack of an epilogue is just a money grab for us to get some sort of resolution through the encyclopedia.

 

At this point I just don't know I almost think that the powers that b had given BS the notes and left it to him to write all 3 books with no supervision and had someone other than harriett edit it. That of done that with another author

 

 

I Loved AMOL.  It was an epic ending to the greatest series of fantasy novels ever written.

 

Fain?  The desire for a long, and epic conclusion to his story line was mostly driven by hard core fans, but in the grand scheme of things within the 14 books of the WOT, Fain consistently played a relatively minor, but important role. However, compared to other plot lines like those involving Ishy/Moridin, Graendal, Moggy, and Lanfear, the importance of Mr. Fain seen objectively in the previous 13 books was relatively minor.

 

Rand vs. The Dark One?  I thought it was very well written, and most of that was probably written or dictated by Robert Jordan in such a way that Brandon Sanderson probably did not have to add or change much of that. I'm sorry that you did not like it, but I thought it was perfect.

 

Knotai? Well, perhaps you weren't paying attention, but Tuon renamed Mat with a Seanchan name. However, throughout the vast majority of AMOL, Mat was consistently referred to as either Mat, or Matrim, or Cauthon.

 

The BT/Logain/Taim? I was not a big fan of that story line either and wished that we could have seen MORE of the BT in previous books. But for the most part, I have no qualms with how Logain received his glory as prophesied by Min. Also, the build up for something huge for Taim was done mostly in the minds of some fans of WOT, but for the vast majority of the series, RJ delegated Taim to a minor role, so why should we have expected something a lot different in AMOL?

 

Moridin vs Rand a sword battle??  Perhaps you were not playing attention, but there really was a LOT MORE to the confrontation between those two. I suggest that you re-read that section, as the amount of sword play between them was really not much at all. Also, as Rand told Moridin/Ishy more than once, Rand's focus was on defeating the Dark One.

 

Nakomi?  Well, according to Brandon Sanderson, she was "something found deep within Robert Jordan's notes." Apparently you did not like the two brief encounters with Nakomi in the final two books, but I thought that she was just perfect and added an appropriate amount of mystery to a series in which RJ himself said would not answer all of the questions of the fans.

 

As for your final couple of paragraphs, information and answers for your questions there are found in more than a few places on the internet. 

 

+1 i also wished we got more black tower it was interesting in TOM and earlier books when rand actually had some interest there, but at the rate that RJ had expected a last book we werent going to get much black tower even if he lived. My favourite part of the series if how everyone theorycrafted on here on how logain was going to get his glory for over 10 years and not one person that i saw was able to guess how his glory was to come. The Demandred proxy, Roedran red herring, Moridin in a circle with rand nyneave and moirane, lan killing Demandred, the remaining forsakens fate, the horn of valeer passing on from mat. Weve had so many books and years to theorycraft and analyse the foreshadowing of robert jordan and from the things i mentioned i dont think anyone predicted at all which is what makes aMOL so good for me.

 

I would have been dissapointed if we had all the logain kills taim, reodran is demandred, lan dies at tarwins gap bandwagon theories come true.

 

I dont know how he missed who knotai was it was mentioned and referenced to mat several times. its like saying who is mordeth.

 

You were happy for rand to fight ishy in a sword battle in tgh? but not moridin? it fit perfectly from their previous encounter.

 

Brandon had to finish the book with robert jordans epilogue so its hard to fit in all these goodbyes when you have little time after last battle and RJ's epilogue, we have been warned since the start alot of things wouldnt be wrapped up.

[Ishy_Reborn]

I know who knotai was Matt I meant who is this guy being written as Matt... I was being facetious...

 

Rand vs ishy as a sword fight was appropriate in the early stages of the book for rand. Clearly ishy could have and should have just one power nuked him but well then there wouldn't be a book. That being said this is the last book, we have the champion of light fight the champion of darkness in a half ass sword fight ? As they say on espn c'mon man. This is followed up by another let down in rand'a battle with the DO.

 

This is course is all subjective and purely my opinion. I just wanted better....I wanted someone to put some effort into making a cohesive thoughtful plot line that doesnt leave you scratching your head going. Wtf

[Vambram]

The plot line was very cohesive and thoughtful to me and did not leave me scratching my head trying to figure it out. I'm sorry that you had an opposite reaction, Ishy_Reborn. 

 

Oh, and the final battle between Rand and Moridin was much, much more than a sword fight. Read that scene again, and you will also be able to see that.

[amolcomments]

sheesh there is reaching and then there is reaching.

 

 

'just a sword fight'

 

the subtext was obvious, and reading this guy's posts it seems obvious that his not his point. his entire post was written in a facetious tone. when he says 'just a sword fight'? he's saying 'that was it?' not 'was it really all a sword fight?'. when he says 'scratching his head' he's not saying 'i found this difficult to figure out', he's saying 'i couldn't believe that was all there was'.

 

it is sort of obvious by this stage that you two aren't able to make more than the most superficial of interpretations on anything you read...which sort of explains your defence of amol, i guess.

 

and just writing 'objective' in your argument doesn't actually make it objective. fain had a minor role in the whole series is an objective viewpoint? only if by minor you mean 'word count percentage' i suppose.

[Vambram]

Its more than obvious that your assumptions about me and my interpretation abilities are about as far off the mark as 12 noon would be from 12 midnight.

 

Can you demonstrate that Fain had a more than comparatively minor role in the entire Wheel of Time series when Fain is compared to those characters with whom I compared him?

[liza]

I think some people (myself included) would argue that the space wasn't

allocated that sensibly, particularly in relation to Androl and Pevara

who had more chapters and POVs than established characters, e.g.

Nynaeve, Moiraine, Loial, that had very little space in the final book.

 

I agree, totally, with regards to Nynaeve and Moiraine and Loial. I don't have a problem with the extended role of Androl and Pevara, it gave

the Black Tower life. But I also don't think that it would have taken a whole lot of pages to give a little more room to those characters. And

in this instance I think a little would have gone a long way.

 

But then I think this is just too obvious. So my only guess is that the pressure, effort or whatever to stay true to what RJ had already

written forced Sanderson to write as he did.

 

I just wonder if it would have been possible to expand on the plot before the three of them entered the cave, maybe that would have helped.

[Suttree]

I agree, totally, with regards to Nynaeve and Moiraine and Loial. I don't have a problem with the extended role of Androl and Pevara, it gave

the Black Tower life. But I also don't think that it would have taken a whole lot of pages to give a little more room to those characters. And

in this instance I think a little would have gone a long way.

 

But then I think this is just too obvious. So my only guess is that the pressure, effort or whatever to stay true to what RJ had already

written forced Sanderson to write as he did.

 

Not in the slightest in relation to trying to stay true, the notes were notbthat detailed. In fact Androl's role was hugely expanded, as was Perrin's for instance. It has been stated elsewhere but Brandon created over 50% of the material from scratch. No guidance from the notes whatsoever on that. Space was not used wisely as evidenced by the amount of bloat and filler in these three books. There was more than enough room after the split(which clearly now should not have been more than 1 book split into two volumes as Brandon argued for).

[UncleButcher1980]

Is that 50% for AMOL or all three? I haven't heard that mentioned before.

[Suttree]

Is that 50% for AMOL or all three? I haven't heard that mentioned before.

All three.

 

Question: Did you have to invent any of it yourself, or did Jordan leave a lot of it for you?

Brandon: He left some of it for me, and then I had to make the rest. As you’re reading through the books, probably about half and half. Half will be stuff that he wrote notes on, half will be stuff that I wrote.

Also keep in mind the notes were not totally clear.

 

Brandon

The thing about the notes is that a lot of the notes were to him, and so he would say things like “I’m going to do this or this” and they’re polar opposites. And so there are sequences like that, where I decide what we’re going to do, and stuff like that. And this all is what became the trilogy that you’re now reading.

Many people seem to be operating on the false assumption that RJ had spelled out every detail which is false.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Most of your arguments are well presented, but your points of view are still subjective opinions, not objective facts.

 

What you believe are technical flaws in the writings/mistakes are subjective opinions. I do not agree with those opinions of yours. But I am not disagreeing with objective facts.

 

This is the crux of the disagreement between you and I, Suttree. Therefore, lets just agree to disagree agreeably, and move on to other subjects, shall we?

Some of the flaws he points out are objectively mistakes. The timeline, for instance - if a coherent timeline is impossible due to the various contradictions, is that a matter of opinion or is it a matter of fact?

When us readers were warned before TGS and TOM were published that the POV's in TGS focused mainly on Rand and Egwene, and that the POV's in TOM focused mainly on Perrin and Mat, then we knew before hand that we would not get a straight up chronological timeline in those two books.

Ok was going to let this drop but this is becoming beyond ridiculous. Are you seriously trying to say that the mistakes in the timeline such as in ToM that numerous reviews highlighted and Team Jordan admitted to were not actually mistakes but a conscious decision?!?! Just stop it man. Even Steven Cooper who dedicated years to charting the chronology over at Seven Spokes threw up his hands in disgust and gave up because of how bad it was.

 

Further how can a technical flaws in the writing such grammar, continuity etc be subjective?

 

This novel, one of the most anticipated and talked about of the year, is riddled with grammatical errors. And not just one or two, but one approximately every twenty pages of a 850+ page book. Misplaced punctuation, sentence fragments, missing and repeated words are common. It’s like taking a Van Gogh masterwork and shooting holes in it.

How can calling the "Red Lion" of Andor or geography mistakes be subjective? How can huge numbers of missing characters be subjective? How can the lack of polish that once again Team Jordan admitted and worked to change be subjective? Just take off the fan shades for a second and look at the argument you are trying to make. It is patently absurd. Your only argument keeps coming back to the fact that these mistakes didn't bother your enjoyment of the book. That DOES NOT make the mistakes subjective, it just means you don't mind the quality issues. You already admitted this so I have no idea why you are trying to argue the opposite.

 

You are arguing about small little nitpicking details within a 900 page novel, in my opinion.

[Mr Ares]

 

 

Most of your arguments are well presented, but your points of view are still subjective opinions, not objective facts.

 

What you believe are technical flaws in the writings/mistakes are subjective opinions. I do not agree with those opinions of yours. But  I am not disagreeing with objective facts.

 

This is the crux of the disagreement between you and I, Suttree. Therefore, lets just agree to disagree agreeably, and move on to other subjects, shall we?

Some of the flaws he points out are objectively mistakes. The timeline, for instance - if a coherent timeline is impossible due to the various contradictions, is that a matter of opinion or is it a matter of fact?

 

 

When us readers were warned before TGS and TOM were published that the POV's in TGS focused mainly on Rand and Egwene, and that the POV's in TOM focused mainly on Perrin and Mat, then we knew before hand that we would not get a straight up chronological timeline in those two books. Whatever contradictions of timeline that those two books had are easily understood and explained. I know that I had absolutely no problem at all... NONE in following the timeline of TGS, TOM, and also AMOL. Therefore, the problems with the timeline that critics keep harping on about are purely subjective problems, in my opinion, and NOT objective issues.

And you're wrong. That's not an opinion, it's a fact. The problem has nothing to do with the timeline overlaps of TGS and TOM (although the Tam thing did cause a lot of unnecessary confusion - well, that it caused confusion is objective, given the number of threads from people who were confused. You might try to argue that it was a necessary confusion. In fact, please do, because I'd like to see that). A large part of the problem  stems from, to use Stephen Coopoer's own words "Sanderson's tendency to use approximate descriptions of time passing (e.g. "several days" and "a few weeks") rather than giving precise periods". The timeline he constructed has periods of vagueness, where the placement of an even may be off by a few days in the first few books - but then from book four onwards he was able to create a timeline that was consistent with regards to the days events happened on, and was able to place everything. When he tried to do the same for TGS, he had the problem mentioned above. When it came to TOM, he discovered that some things just could not be made to work - events happened before the thing that triggered them, things like that. If event A causes event B, but event B happens first then either you have timeline issues, or you have time travel. And I don't see any police boxes lying around in the series. These things aren't necessarily obvious, showing up only under the most intense scrutiny, and therefore most casual fans are likely to be unaware of them, and only the most hardcore and obsessive are aware of the extent of them. While it might seem nitpicky, while it might not ruin your enjoyment of the series, timeline impossibilities are mistakes, objectively so unless they are done by design, and this is coming from a series which was notable for not having these problems before Brandon took over. Now, I'll grant you, if you can construct a timeline for TGS/ToM/AMoL that places every event on the correct day with no contradictions when Stephen Cooper couldn't, I will admit that it was not an objective flaw. If you can explain away the problems he couldn't, please do. But simply saying "I understood it all" isn't helping your case in the slightest. You're not explaining away any problem, you're just sticking your fingers in your ears and saying "lalala I'm not listening".

 

Would you like Suttree, myself, or anyone else to drag up some of these objective problems - specific examples, not generalisations? We can if you want. You will have to either explain how it is not a problem or concede that it is, though.

 

I really liked TGS I feel like the diction was off from RJ but I felt that things were starting to come together.

 

I enjoyed TOM and while not overly impressed I was very excited for AMOL after finishing it. I was at peace with BS's work.

 

I hated AMOL. It was jarring. I don't understand the decisions that were made on the content. The battle scenes were terrible. I could not allow myself to immerse myself in the book and have a suspension of disbelief. After finishing it I felt like three more books were needed because there were soo many plot lines I felt were completely ignored or resolved in an insufficient fashion. To name a few:

 

Fain 2 pages ?

 

Rand vs the DO (wtf so who is the really "enemy"? Is it human nature and if so why would killing the DO result in the removal of the freedom of choice?) horseshit. We've been looking forward to Rand's fight with the DO for 20 years and we get a not thought out nonsensical stab at existentialism ? Seriously man

 

Knoti? Who is this dude

 

Demandred ? He reminded me of some 5 year old yelling for his toy.

 

BT / Logain / Taim? Uhh I don't even know where to begin?

 

Moridin fighting rand in a sword battle ?

 

Nakomi??

 

I could go on but it's been said a thousand times.

 

I'm not sure how this was written or approved but I'm disappointed in everyone involved. I wonder if the lack of an epilogue is just a money grab for us to get some sort of resolution through the encyclopedia.

 

At this point I just don't know I almost think that the powers that b had given BS the notes and left it to him to write all 3 books with no supervision and had someone other than harriett edit it. That of done that with another author

 

 

I Loved AMOL.  It was an epic ending to the greatest series of fantasy novels ever written.

 

Fain?  The desire for a long, and epic conclusion to his story line was mostly driven by hard core fans, but in the grand scheme of things within the 14 books of the WOT, Fain consistently played a relatively minor, but important role. However, compared to other plot lines like those involving Ishy/Moridin, Graendal, Moggy, and Lanfear, the importance of Mr. Fain seen objectively in the previous 13 books was relatively minor.

Sanderson was the one who set up a cliffhanger for Fain at the end of ToM. If Fain had so little left to do, why not omit his bit at the end? Why not add a few scenes just to "check in" on Fain, even if they didn't do much to advance the plot - similar to what he did with March in the third Mistborn book, after complaints at how marsh had disappeared in the second. Fain didn't need a long and epic conclusion, but there is this concept of a middle ground, somewhere between too much and not enough. You see, you don't do yourself any favours by putting forward strawmen, which is what the "long and epic" conclusion to Fain is.