Some questions and thoughts about... (currently reading LoC)

[Guest Owl Mechanic]

Gonna list some things I'm musing about as I read this series for the first time (questions/complaints/confusion) I'm sorry if the majority of this seems negative I'm taking it more on a humorous note but sometimes tone doesn't follow through text, after all I AM reading it.

 

1.) Perrin is travels with the wolves in the same telahranriod as the girls have been using right? I think that was confirmed... and if so he has become quite adept at it even if he doesn't understand the over arching principles behind the plane. --- So why then does he never interact with anyone during the last 3 Books? (Books 5 - beg of 6 are VERY focused on telahranriod) It just seems like an enormous waste of potential, which kind of sums up how I've been feeling about Perrin as a character so far.

 

-- also  Egwene traveled with Perrin briefly, was there when perrin met up with Elias. -> Has no idea anything about him, is confused when she sees wolves with him in the dreams and tells no one else anything about it. IMO it seems like a pretty big deal for her not to mention it to ANYONE. Did RJ just totally forget about that happening?

 

2.) While I'm on the topic of them, how did Perrin/Faile get so boring following The Great Hunt. It seemed like a Very tough and straightforward dude and a badass chick (I mean she was one of the Hunters of the Horn as chosen lifestyle over being queen of... Saldea? (hard to remember, they havent been mentioned except for some pages on them complaining to eachother, and another addendum that says umm... honeymoon? They're gone please stop thinking about them). Now Perrin just seems kind of dumb, and Faile overly jealous/whiny about the guy she chose to be with.

 

3.) Male/Female interactions period. This seems really alien to me, I can understand in some relationships/individuals but it's like WoT exists in a realm where the genders are entirely different species from eachother. Both totally normal/capable with eachother and beyond ridiculous/childish/useless when interacting. It reminds me of when boys were learning (and getting confused) about how girls are back in K-3rd grade. Heck it's EXACTLY like that. Only it's always. And it's everyone. And they're all adults. Unfortunately this is bad enough that it's often so jarring how idiotic the characters become that I can't take it seriously, it's kind of like mixing random scenes of the Naked Gun in the middle of a season of The Wire.

 

4.) Loial - The Ogier -> Are they just remnants of a forgotten time? (The time when WoT was almost copy/paste Tolkien - Looking at you Book One) Do they have more importance really? There are no other non-humanoid races I can think of in the series so far except the trollocs... and what are the trollocs/what have they been doing in their off time. There clearly are a lot of them, and they eat a lot. I know they have been fighting skirmishes along the waste but do they have like.. cities/villages/encampments/structure of any sort... do they even think? (It seems more people would have encountered them regularly if that many were out just roaming around in the wild like animals surviving until the Wheel brought them back to organization). Does the earth just spew them out? I just don't get it, kind of like the orcs in LoTR, just there because "they bad". And the dark one needs some sort of grunt army so they're spawned out of convenience?.

 

Basically 4 TL:DR - Does any of this get explained later

 

5.) Lol Mat at the end of last book - Oh yea. Couladin the guy Rand was after for about 1.5 books. Killed em. Didn't even wake up to let Rand know himself. Basically just walked away from an explosion without looking back. I'm hoping for some more Die Hard activity from him (the every man badass) but I get the feeling he will deliver. That's actually partially why I was upset about the role of Perrin so far, he just seems forgotten, given a ton of potential and left to obscurity in comparison to the other Ta'Varen.

 

 

[mb]

about telaranrhiod, the next on-screen time Perrin visits I think is Winter's Heart; after that I think the Sanderson books.

 

Faile, she was in Saldaea's royal line; not its queen.  She was a cousin to Saldaea's queen.

 

humanoids, there are also these::

-myrddraal, trolloc offspring; first appearance in book 1

-draghkar, made from human stock; first appearance in book 1

-gray men, were formerly humans; first appearance in book 3

-forgers, make the weapons trollocs carry; first appearance in book 6, I think only appearance.

and several other types appear in later books

I recall somewhere telling that the ogier came to the world sometime during the Age of Legends.

I recall somewhere telling that female trollocs live at Shayol Ghul; and I take myrddraal & male trollocs are nomads.  Books 1 & 4 reveal that trollocs & myrddraal use the Ways.

 

edit::

humanoids; one other type appears in book 2 and gets named in later books.

the Aelfinn & Eelfinn are also humanoids; first appearance for both are book 4.

[Cosmic Champion]

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The three major male characters get a one book vacation during the series, as you will see with both Mat and Rand later on. Book #5 and the first half of #6 were the perfect time to give Perrin about a 3 month break for his honeymoon. That's why he disappeared for a while. They sure deserved it after all that they just went through.

 

As for Faile, If you were hoping for her to be a Xena warrior princess, or a Red Sonja type where they will both be fighting enemies with their backs to each other for the rest of the series like the battle in the Stone of Tear, I feel that you will be disappointed. Jordan chose a different rout to go with her as you noticed in LoC, where she is a behind the scenes wife taking care of issues that he cannot. Kind of like 'behind every successful man is a wife' adage. I am very grateful that Mr Jordan chose to go this path as the other warrior babe type is just way too cliche at this point in time. To me she has now become a far more fascinating and interesting character. Perrin is a 'babe in woods' as he enters this strange new world of his as you will see regarding important issues that will arise, and she will be able to help him out with her special Saldaea training. Faile still is a 'badass chick' throughout the books as you just saw in LoC: with her threatening to kill an Aes Sedai ....right to her face!  And with her Warder nearby none the less!  And also.....see gets away with it too!!!  Nobody else in the series does this, or even seriously considers doing it.  Not a non-channeler anyway. She will hang on to that fierce edge of hers throughout the story.

 

As to her jealousy and both of their communication breakdown problems that arises with each other near the end of LoC, this will resolve itself(with a minor payoff) and go away in less than two more books, thankfully! During the main storyline Jordan gives our happy couple many side plots of their own to resolve along with some great payoffs. And this just one of them with more to come. BTW, this particular point for them at the end of LoC was the most difficult part for me to get through as I just got so frustrated at these three characters absurd stupidity(Faile/Perrin/Berelain) that I just wanted to walk out into my backyard and hurl my book across the neighborhood. Not only do you have two lovebirds fresh off of their honeymoon behaving...over the top stupid, but how in the world does Berelain expect to escape assassination in this part of the world(where here it is very ripe) after the crap she pulls. This is the ONLY part(falcon/hawk/wolf triangle at the end of LoC) in the twelve Wheel of Time books that he wrote that I feel that Mr Jordan stumbled in his story telling. I really wish that he would have went back and re-written and cleaned this part up.

 

The Perrin/Faile storyline ended up being my favorite part in the series, with Rand's being a very close second.

 

And if you think Perrin's wife is a weird, just wait until you find out who the Daughter of the Nine Moons turns out to be. Woooooooooh!

 

You do make some good points about characters not communicating like Egwene not bringing up Perrin's Wolfbother situation. Also from LoC, Rand mentions how Perrin all of a sudden has golden eyes and has become depressed, but Moiraine refuses to tell Rand anything about it despite her noticing that these three ta'veren growing up together is unprecedented, and while she just witnessed one of Mat's gifts as being a fantastic general, she ignores Perrin's obvious gift that the Pattern gave to him to help the Dragon get to and win the Final Battle.  This lack of communication is one of many themes that Jordan shows us throughout the series that the heroes have to overcome. And also just like the Male/Female interactions that you brought up(however, you have to admit that some of this is very hilarious. Mr Jordan has a fantastic sense of humour). The evil Forsaken are going through very similar issues too as you should have noticed by now. So, which of these two groups will be able to prevail in the end? Yea, it does get frustrating at times, but just do like I did; accept it and move along. Kind of like watching Star Wars and conceding that there is sound and explosions in that universe's vacuum of space.

 

This is Mr Jordan's style of writing and characterization for his unique fantasy universe. I feel once you can accept this, you will enjoy this story immensely like I and so many others do.

 

After finishing this series for the first time this past year, I ended up loving it so much that I re-bought the much larger paperback versions and I am now in the middle of my first complete re-read, because I just missed enjoying this fantastic story while reading it nightly from after a long day at work.

 

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[BFG]

Welcome to the boards :)

 

I think with Perrin in TAR it's important to remember that he runs with the wolves and the wolves avoid other people - Vern says in her notes that some Dreamwalkers have seen wolves, the Wise One's never mention it. Perrin, also sticks to places close to his physical location most of the time, whereas the Wise One's stick to the Waste, and Egwwne and friends to Shalimar, the Stone and the WT. I don't remember the Eg stuff, so I'll have to read up

 

I loved Perrin and Faile in Shadow Rising, not sure how far through you are, so I'll avoid mentíoning any more.

 

I'm off out, but I'll read and respond to the rest when I can :) good thoughts

[mb]

to Cosmic Champion::

Rand is on-screen in each book of the main series.  The only book he is off-screen is the prequel.

 

to BFG::

Shalimar? do you mean "Salidar"?

And the parentheses in the thread title tell where the original poster was.

[Guest geomu]

I'm also currently reading LoC. I'm about a third of the way in.

 

I also find it rather annoying how men and women are so incapable of understanding and communicating with each other. ALL women think ALL men are wool headed idiot and ALL men think ALL women or incomprehensible. They don't even TRY to communicate.

 

Also, does it bother anyone else that Jordan writes in 3rd person limited point a view but then slips into 3rd person omniscient on occasion? Like how Chapter 12 is written from Nynaeve's point of view. We only see what she sees and think what she thinks. and then BAM: "Neither saw the woman watching them from the second-story window." WTF? This is tagged on to the end of the chapter. This is so unnecessary. How did this not get removed in editing? This is basic stuff.

[Aniere]

The lack of communication between EVERYONE is constantly frustrating, it never ends. Though, I tried my best to make myself realize a single word in the wrong ear could get a lot of people killed. At times you realize their guarded words are for the best. Many times the characters take the same precautions in different situations and only come out on top some of the time. As the reader, we are like JUST TELL THEM ALREADY but the characters honestly think they are doing it right. Of course, I can't remember any examples, only the sheer rage I felt during reading.

I hated Faile at the beginning as well, like most of the female characters when they first enter. Egwene in Eye of the World? She should have been left in a ditch for Emonds Field to find the next day. However, as the story progressed I found myself upset when the story would switch to someone other than Egwene. All of Crossroads of Twilight I wanted to read about EGWENE and was angry by the end when she didn't show. The same with Faile, she should have been thrown off that boat in the town Perrin met her, but by the end she was pivotal to Perrin's success as a leader and pretty awesome by herself. Personally, I find this to be the same with most plots/characters in the series.

As for the Ogier being the only real non-human humanoids save for shadowspawn, there is a character who appears later on who tells about his adventures to Shara (this isn't necessarily a spoiler, it's mentioned very briefly) and says he had met giants. Despite the huge world we read about in WoT we have to realize it's only a sliver of what is actually there (if Tear is warm all year round and is the Southern most place, then there is an entire sea or continent south of the equator). We do not even read about Shara or Seanchan in depth, so the world we know exists is still not entirely explained.

[mb]

giants; there might have been a chance of those actually being channelers (temporarily increasing their height with the One Power) or that the character made them up.  and from what I skimmed of the last book, they do not appear on screen; nor do other characters claim of seeing them.

all humanoids that appear on-screen::

-ogier

-all shadowspawn except darkhounds; darkhounds are not humaniods

-Aelfinn

-Eelfinn

[Aniere]

I don't think Noal would mistake a channeler for a race of people. I could be wrong, but I remember Mat talking about how ridiculous his stories were. You know, before he found out who the man really was. I don't see why the Sharans would mention them if they did exist. *shrug* It's all speculation anyhow.