The reason I made the comparison to the middle was that I thought that people were acting like RJ never had any problems with pace and in doing so, were treating Mr. Sanderson unfairly. 

People have explicitly made clear that isn't the case throughout this thread.  On the flip you've offered nothing other in return aside from "it didn't bother me" which isn't exactly a compelling argument.

Regardless pace etc. can be discussed in the "quality thread", as Sabio noted we've gone rather far afield.

You say bloat and filler, but provide no examples.

Go back and read the quotes provided or go back and read through the old quality thread. It's been discussed in great detail.

 

 

 

 

Seeing as books are pretty subjective, saying that 'I didn't have a problem with the pace' is just fine.

 

And I already gave you an argument that you did not reply to. In short: The pacing in the last three books was nothing compared with the pace of the earlier books. It was MUCH faster. What you said was 'there are places in the story that will naturally slow down. So what? It doesn't change that the last three had a much faster pace. Much more happened in the last three than in the previous five books combined.

Subjective or not, "I didn't have a problem with it" just shuts down discussion. If people don't offer some basis for their opinions, what the hell do we talk about? Why didn't you have a problem with it? Other people did have a problem - is that not a valid stance?

 

Also, I did offer an argument - pointing out that the pace was slow at the point where you would expect the pace to be slowest (the middle), and that there were still significant pacing issues when you would expect the pace to be fastest (the end) is a response. Saying "more happened" is meaningless - more was able to happen because the previous books spent a lot of time setting everything up, but because the set up was already done, the pacing issues in the last books are less excusable.

Pacing was a problem compared to what though? RJ's pace over the majority of the previous 4-5 books? Don't make me laugh.

Literally no one has made that argument. It's like people should just start copy and pasting false equivalence ad infinitum.

It doesn't change that the last three had a much faster pace. Much more happened in the last three than in the previous five books combined. 

Why on earth would you compare the last book/climax of the series to a point in the narrative arc where there was a planned slow down and story lines are still expanding? The pace sure as hell better pick up. That doesn't change the fact that there was a ton of bloat and filler at a time in which there should have been none.

False equivalence.

Start a seperate thread if you wish. Happy to discuss the mid part of the series there. As for this lets stay on topic with pros/cons of a Mat spin off(for which the quality of Brandon's work is very much relevant.) As you well know I've discussed both topics in great detail and frequently source Dom, 13th depository, Theoryland etc. Anything that bolsters the case really. Interested to see your starting take on that section of RJ's work though. Cheers.

I don't think that the split of AMOL was 'artificial'.

Except the decision came from Tor, not from the author and not based on what would have been best for the story heck even Brandon has called the timeline and structural issues a "casualty" of the split. He wanted to release one book split into two volumes.

It's been discussed a number of times before but just a few of the issues that came from this were detailed here.

The way Brandon split the material totally undermined what RJ had in mind, with the four main stories becoming dark and bugged down together, piling up to great effect on the reader, the Shadow advancing and the Light totally stuck, in the ropes. Perrin's story and Mat's story, told after the reader knew the "knot" was split open by Rand's epiphany lost much interest and purpose. The whole thing read as "they're making time before Merrilor". That Moiraine might be needed in relation to Rand's darkness stopped working as the red herring it was intended to be (to hide the fact Mat's not coming to Merrilor either, possibly). Aviendha's vision stopped making much sense... Having the epiphany happen in TGS was bad enough (ideally the book wouldn't have been split, but the next best thing to stay closer to the intended dramatic effect was to end it on the Seanchan attack and Rand vanishing from Tear...) , but Brandon made it worse by opening TOM with the announcement of Merrilor and in a month. Again that was done to match the timelines Brandon had desynchronized, and to leave room for pretty useless (and even detrimental) Egwene episodes.

 

RJ's midbook, prior to Merrilor was to pack one hell of a punch. The built up frustration lead to an explosion...The Shadow invaded the Borderlands, Rand vanished after nearly killing his father...Egwene, just released, paid for Rand's failure at Falme and got attacked by the Seanchan, Perrin was about to face a stupid trial and wouldn't be there for Rand (another red herring, but foreshadowed), Mat destroyed the gholam and left for Ghenji, the expedition made bleaker by Birgitte's last minute revelation she found no way out and died in there. Egwene reunited the Tower, destroyed the BA but Mesaana remained and would strike soon.Then the avalanche... Mat in Ghenji, Elayne rising to the Sun Throne, Rand's epiphany, Egwene defeating Mesaana, Perrin witnessing Rand and forging his Hammer, fought to save Galad and his Asha'man able to channel again left for Andor.

 

A few chapters earlier, we were heading for a wall, the Light finished as the LB started, and suddenly we landed in a wholly different book. Time had run out, Rand was fully aware of the Light's weakeness and determined to put an end to dithering. He left himself but a few days to fix what urgently needed fixing... starting by a visit to Egwene, then the Bordermen, a brief visit to AD...

 

But painted in his corner, Brandon needed Rand to give Egwene a whole month to do what she had the resources to do in a week. A mere week before he broke the seals. The month is another thing that ended up diluting the little that was left of the feeling of urgency and the drama. Rand feels pulled to the break the seals and move for SG and yet he goes and gives Egwene a month before Merrilor. That's a month of useless side events with Bloodknives and scenes that suddenly turned a side player RJ used sparingly into a main player (Gawyn, of course), a month of Tuon doing nothing, a month of Rand doing not much.

 

Maybe but it was also appalling how many PoV's and pages it took to get from Book 7 to Book 11 as well.

Maybe it happened for different reasons but BS was far from the first author of this this series to run into bloating issues.

Indeed but I'm not sure why there is a need to bring up this false equivalence, which is why I specified in "climax" of the story. Personally I think RJ's slow down gamble failed and we have seen any number of talented authors(GRRM) get tripped up by that portion of a long series. Regardless the two are separate issues which is why it always comes across as somewhat baffling that you feel the need to fly in with the 'but RJ' angle every time it's brought up. Start a separate thread if you wish to discuss it.

nor do I remember any bloat that contrasted at all with the earlier books that were written by RJ. 

The key to this is where we are in the story arc. Granted the artifical split of AMoL without near enough material to fill it out accentuated the issue, but at the climax of the story things like Dom details below should not be happening:

It's appalling how many POVs and pages Brandon has needed to write that story. Typically, we might have gotten one Gawyn shortish POV in Dorlan (typically prologue stuff) where he learned Egwene's captive, and he is thorn, and then nothing until suddenly he interrupted a Siuan/Bryne scene with a sudden arrival, his growing frustration mentioned only via observations of Siuan from then on (we didn't need a Lelaine scene making completely irrelevant and stupid inquiries about orchards in Andor (!) we just needed a reference by Siuan that Lelaine was manipulating Gawyn, until as a last resort Siuan went to him for the rescue. For the rest, we needed one confrontation with Egwene, and one conversation with Elayne or Bryne or Siuan, not three scenes of the same whining and self-pity, with each of them in turn...

@jak

Forgot about this from earlier in thread. Care to add your thoughts?

Remember people, statements like these: 

 

'The quality already dropped towards the end and the last thing the WoT legacy needs is to turn into some shoddy "shared world" scenario.'

 

'Lastly just because RJ had a planned slowdown that became bloated during the mid-late part of the series, does not in anyway excuse the large amounts of bloat and filler BS had during the climax.'

 

 

 

Are opinions, so to pass them off as fact is... wrong. 

Of course it's an opinion, but regardless of that, one can objectively point out a number of  quality issues in the last three books such as timeline errors and the numerous mistakes. More so the breaking of the the third wall and unpolished prose(TJ literally changed BS's writing process and asked for more time to deal with the quality problem) are fairly easy to identify. The bloat is also easy to identify. In terms of Mat himself we have BS admitting how badly he botched the character.

I mean you do understand literary analysis is not entirely subjective yes? I guess the proper question would bbe what exactly do you object to in my statement? I can provide concrete examples for each.

I do not recall Mat becoming a court jester or he being dressed in motley.

mb you crack me up mate.

What were the exact words of Sanderson's admission?

 It's been quoted numerous times but once again:

However, in going back to Mr. Jordan's writing and delving into it, I realized I'd missed large parts of what made Mat into Mat—the tension between what he says and does, the constant little quips in narrative (which tend to be more clever than the actual things he says out loud), the complaining that isn't really complaining. I didn't understand Mat. I tried so hard to make him funny, I wrote the HIM out of him.

The problem is Mat became something less. He went from a rogue to a court jester prancing around in motley. Combine that with the various mistakes, Brandon's cringe worthy dialogue/attempt at jokes and per his own admission it didn't turn out well.

This is where a ghost writer would have come in handy should the decision have been made to do the outriggers and prequels.

There is not even remotely enough material for a ghost writer to write those books. Heck, there wasn't even enough material for a ghost writer to finish the main series.

o it was also daunting in that, yes there are two hundred pages written, which actually nice, because as I've said before, if the book had been 80% of the way done, they wouldn't have needed to hire me, they wouldn't have needed to bring me in. When a book is 80% of the way done, that's when you get a ghostwriter, or Harriet just does it herself. She really could have done it in-house herself and finished that and said "Look, here we're going to do a few patches and stuff, but the book is mostly done."

When I was handed this project by Harriet [Harriet McDougal, Robert Jordan's wife and editor], she handed it to me as a collaborator, not as a ghost writer. It's not like building a shelf from Ikea, which is good, because otherwise my creativity wouldn't have been engaged. She handed me full creative control for the first draft, and then we went into the editing phase where we really worked on it to make sure that it fit her vision and Robert Jordan's vision for the series. But going into it, nothing was off-limits. So I wrote them like I write any novel. Nothing is taken for granted, nothing is sacrosanct.

I do think I've been able to do some fun things with the series, as a fan, that I've been wanting to do, from reading it since I was a kid, but that's actually a weird things because, as a fan coming on, I had to be careful. You don't always want to do what the inner fan wants you to do; otherwise it just becomes like a sequence of cameos and inside jokes. So I had to be very careful, but there are some things that I've been wanting to have happen, and the notes left a lot of room for me to explore. I did get to have a lot of creative involvement in it; it wasn't just an outline, which has been awesome. You know, if it had been mostly done, they would have been able to hire like a ghostwriter to clean it up, and they didn't have that. They needed an actual writer, and so there are lots of plots I got to construct, and as a fan, that's awesome.

Brandon created a significant part of the story from scratch with zero guidance from the notes.

Remember people, statements like these: 

 

'The quality already dropped towards the end and the last thing the WoT legacy needs is to turn into some shoddy "shared world" scenario.'

 

'Lastly just because RJ had a planned slowdown that became bloated during the mid-late part of the series, does not in anyway excuse the large amounts of bloat and filler BS had during the climax.'

 

 

 

Are opinions, so to pass them off as fact is... wrong. 

Of course it's an opinion, but regardless of that, one can objectively point out a number of  quality issues in the last three books such as timeline errors and the numerous mistakes. More so the breaking of the the third wall and unpolished prose(TJ literally changed BS's writing process and asked for more time to deal with the quality problem) are fairly easy to identify. In terms of Mat himself we have BS admitting how badly he botched the character.

I mean you do understand literary analysis is not entirely subjective yes? I guess the proper question would but what exactly do you object to in my statement? I can provide concrete examples for each.

BS has his own career and I think he got more than enough grief for aMol, even though some of it belongs to RJ for overextending certain plotlines at the expense of others.

None of the above has a single thing to do with why the Outriggers are not being made. The fact is there was no source material and RJ was extremely uncomfortable with other authors writing in his world. It wasn't until the very end that he even allowed the main series to be finished. Based on that Harriet made the decision to not allow anything else to be written and it's the correct call. The quality already dropped towards the end and the last thing the WoT legacy needs is to turn into some shoddy "shared world" scenario.

As for any "grief" critical analysis(is there a single author anywhere that would expect to put a work out and not have it be judged on merit?) BS received in regards to his work, that is more than offset by the massive sales boost and career momentum he received from working on the series. Tor planned it almost perfectly n setting him up to be there next star. Lastly just because RJ had a planned slowdown that became bloated during the mid-late part of the series, does not in anyway excuse the large amounts of bloat and filler BS had during the climax. It's a pretty feeble excuse and once again has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

 

Yeah, Graendal always seemed the likely canidate but RJ never said it straight out. Thanks.

 

I thought RJ made a comment that the Sherlock Holmes/Watson discussion on the killer was pretty much on track.

 

He did. The Sherlock Holmes scenario hit the nail on the head per RJ.

Well things went off the rails in ToM and AMoL in relation to any sort of reliable timeline. All of the mix ups are one of the most frequent critiques one sees in terms of BS's work. Up until that point Steven Cooper did an excellent keeping track of things.

http://www.stevenac.net/wot/wotchron.htm

Remember how Mat's letters were described?

Ugghh why remind us. That was a Sandersonism, I wouldn't read anything into that.

Starting up with "The Son" by Phillip Meyer. Off to an amazing start, the scope and ambition of the work really stand out.

I thought it was excellent. I feel that Brandon Sanderson did battle scenes better than RJ did, and that's saying something.

One on one type duels? I can see the argument.

The battles on the other were riddled with errors, inane strategies and nerfed channeling numbers. There were quite literally thousands of channelers dropped from the story and it fundamentally changed the nature of the LB. RJ was a military veteran and historian, it clearly showed in his writing.

Thread for thoughts on finishing the series:

http://www.dragonmount.com/forums/topic/84112-the-omg-i-just-finished-thread/page-31

But I don't think people would of minded Goodkind borrowing ideas if he had simply said I drew inspiration from Jordan.  No one is saying authors don't borrow from each other but the good authors admit it while the others deny it and claim it was all their idea.

Indeed. Apparently The Yeard doesn't write "fantasy" either.

From USA Today 4 August 2003:

 

Haddonfield, NJ: Second Question - I've noticed similarities between your Sword of Truth series and Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series...(Black Sisterhood vs. Black Ajah; The Order vs. The Seanchan; Richard vs. Rand both discovering their powers, both have Nameless evil Gods...etc.) I've often voiced my suspicion that these two series might be occurring on the same world...how crazy am I?

 

Terry Goodkind: If you notice a similarity, then you probably aren't old enough to read my books.

From USA Today 5 January 2004:

 

Delmar, NY: Have you ever read or heard about the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind? After reading the series it is obvious many of the main ideas are copied from the WoT.

 

Robert Jordan: I'm aware of Mr. Goodkind.

Robert Jordan's blog 15 July 2006 - NO CHAMPAGNE YET

 

For Richard Scholten, I have never discussed anything whatsoever with Terry Goodkind. I suggest that you check the publication dates of his books and mine. Of course, he says he has never read me, or so I'm told, and I would never contradict a statement like that. Just check out the pub dates on his books, and the pub dates on mine, those that contain the similarities you speak of.

I thought it was because he could use Saa. I might be wrong but in that last scene doesn't it drift across his eyes?

Saa comes from using the TP.

I finished reading this long ago, and came up with a theory instantly, but I was baffled to find others didn't think in that same manner, so I figured I'd share my concepts.

What makes you think that? The most prevalent theory is post his fight with the DO Rand gained new abilities.

A perfect example is when he met up with the farm owner of apple trees and made the trees ripe with apples.  He told the farmer he believed he could hold off the dark one long enough for him to harvest and distribute the fruit.

The Dragon Reborn is one with the land. Much as his growing darkness was causing food to rot, plants to die etc., his epiphany on DM caused the opposite to happen.

I believe that at the end, the last battle, Rand mastered the ability to manipulate the pattern in any way he felt fit.  He in essence became a God.

While we did see a change, it's important to note that any claims of him being jesus rand or a god have been shot down.

BWS: Yeah, there’s the cup, …

(unintelligible interruption)

The thing is, he wanted one no one knew he had. Because he’s Sneaky Rand and in Towers of Midnight, he’s doing sneaky stuff with all of his memories and things like this. It’s not all sneakiness, but one of the big things that made Team Jordan uncomfortable was Jesus Rand. I told them “It’s gonna work, because when you get to…” Harriet was like, “We can’t make him a deity. He can’t be a deity: he’s a person.” I’m like, “Don’t worry. When you read the last book, it will all come together, that he’s human.” But I really wanted people to be uncomfortable, because I remember reading book 3, and being very uncomfortable, because that’s the one after Rand became a murderer, where he leaves and kind of goes a little crazy for a while, on his way to Tear. And I’m like “Oh, no, I’ve lost Rand forever. My Rand is gone.” Right?

MK: Well, and then you lose him for like seven more books!

BWS: Right, but no, he comes back. By book four he’s back, main viewpoint character. And yeah, he’s grown and changed, but he’s still my Rand. I wanted to do that to you again. I wanted you to read book eleven and say, “Oh, no, I’ve lost Rand. He’s become Gandalf or something now. He’s Jesus Rand. And then I wanted to have you read the last book and be like “Oh, no, he is my Rand. He’s different, he’s grown, but he’s still Rand.” I was trying to parallel that; I hope that I achieved it. But that was the goal with Jesus Rand: you were supposed to be uncomfortable by that, and then you were supposed to learn that half of it was just tricks he was pulling, from knowing stuff in the Age of Legends.

Here is one of the better breakdowns on Cads that I have seen from Dom over at Theoryland:

What I especially didn't like about the way Brandon handled Cadsuane is the post-epiphany scenes. I hated how Brandon didn't have Rand still get his emtions in the way, still resents her deep down, how he only grudgingly and only to himself admits she was right. It felt as if Brandon gave Rand his own personal feelings towards Cadsuane, and Brandon's reaction to Cadsuane is... a little immature, more like a teenager's vision of her that than of an adult who taught kids himself. Maybe he just had the wrong background, didn't met any Cadsuane, or never overcame his encounters with some. I was very rebellious whenever I bumped into Cadsuanes as a teen, but in adulthood I looked back and have come to understand what they really gave me.

It made perfect sense that their relationship totally spiraled down the drain during his darkness, that he did to her all he did, but after his epiphany he should have more than "forgiven" her, he should come to see her as another Nynaeve, see that all Cadsuane had done was aimed to help him, and proved how much she cared, and not just about saving the world, about him. He should also have come to admire Cadsuane, her courage to face him no matter what, the fact she never gave up on him, even cast out, even under threat of death.

Brandon has this irritating vision of Cadsuane as an arrogant woman who thinks no one can meet her standards and who despises nearly everyone. RJ presented this as her image to some outsiders (the younger they are, the more negative their perception), but through her POVs he rather presented her as a woman who cared a lot about others and was extremely keen to recognize their worth, but who wasn't patient and who easily became frustrated with lack of maturity, unrealized potential, bad habits etc.

But rather than despising people for that, Cadsuane made it her mission to help, and could be very grating with her "tough love". The best example of the real Cadsuane behind the façade was maybe with the Daigian arc (though how she did try to give gentled men reasons to live on was also a strong sign of how human and caring Cadsuane is).

To Aes Sedai, Daigian was someone to ignore, good just to serve tea, and not to speak, while whatever a woman like Cadsuane said was the next thing to an Amyrlin's order. But Cadsuane didn't care Daigian stood all the way down the hierarchy, little better than an Accepted in rank. She saw immediately the exceptionally fine analytic mind of Daigian, and relied on that. So much for her arrogance, that this woman who was formed in a culture where her strength was equaled to her capabilities and it's taken for granted she knows better than anyone about everything finds Daigian's analyses priceless to her... Cadsuane's arrogance is mostly a mask, inside she has no illusion about her flaws and blind spots and knows to avoid them, it's what Brandon didn't understand.

She didn't like the fact Daigian had no self-confidence and let herself be treated like that, and through the arc she subtly worked on trying to build up her confidence through respecting her, showing her she valued her a lot, trusted her to lead even, showing her how she could exploit the fact she was perceived as negligible. RJ sought to show Cadsuane was flexible, and bullying was far from the only weapon in her arsenal, that she could use positive methods, compliments and encouragements when it's what would work on someone. She could have just used Daigian like a tool and not give a damn for her, but that's not Cadsuane. Cadsuane cared for Daigian, and cared to see her potential realized. She was the same with everybody. She realized Nynaeve's potential immediately, Rand's.

It was okay to shake Cadsuane to the core and make her fear she doomed the world, to put her on the brink and make her doubt herself. But the counterpart, when she realized she actually did the right thing, and accepted the personal price she had to pay, didn't come.

Post-epiphany Rand has all the experience to have understood this, and to understand the way she treated him as a child was because he acted like a temperamental 5 y.o. and humiliating him, and alternating between the carrot and the staff was a way to make him see how he was acting, to shape him into what he's become.

The other thing Brandon didn't "get" is that Cadsuane didn't need an "eureka" moment with Semirhage. She didn't need this "how best to break myself? By destroy my image" reasoning, because she was always aware of this method, and was using it. Pre-TGS Cadsuane had a love-hate relationship with her own image to begin with. She didn't believe in it the way Brandon had her believe in it, first of all. She resisted that. She had a POV where she comes close to believing she's really that fearless woman nothing can shake, and immediately sees it and laughs at herself, admits she's so frightened and ruffled she's taken to wearing her paralis net to sleep. That's Cadsuane in a nuthshell.

And she found her "legendary status" as irritating to bear as it was useful to her. She didn't need an epiphany. First of all, she just spent months purposefully breaking Rand's image the same way she dealt with Semirhage. He had hidden himself behind an image of fearsome, temperamental tyrant who could explode in anger at even his closest allies any minute. He played on the terror he inspired to get obeyed, much like the Forsaken. Cadsuane's answer was to destroy this image, make him look like a temperamental child in serious need of a good spanking, all the while telling him : always be fair, respect your own words, don't blame others for your own mistakes or for your own decisions to delegate your authority, show respect and act so you gain theirs in return, it's how a real leader acts.

She had the same problems with Nynaeve, who also tend to rely on the fear she inspired, and lately on using her strength in the power to get obeyed. Cadsuane was trying to teach Nyaneve she had to earn her respect, that shows of strength for the gallery didn't impress her. Nynaeve is another whose image Cadsuane sought to undermine, not to destroy her, but to show Nynaeve what she had to do to become strong for real, realize her full potential and earn the rank in the Tower hierarchy she deserved. It irritates Cadsuane a lot that strong sisters think their potential in saidar is enough and they don't have to work on the rest - the lesson herself learned from the Wilder, and that she was passing to Nynaeve.

The "real" Cadsuane knew all along how to break Semirhage. The instant she saw her she knew. The way she reacted to Semirhage's "I am the almighty Semirhage, fear my wrath!" with "I'm Cadsuane Melaidrhin. I'm looking forward to long conversations with you" shows Cadsuane understood right away Semirhage's weakness was the same as Rand's or Nynaeve's, or her own long ago as a newly raised, powerful Aes Sedai. The rest was simply a matter of waiting for the right moment and angle to use to give Semirhage a good spanking the same way she broke Rand's image of tyrant in the Stone of Tear. Cadsuane shouldn't have gotten frustrated, just lie in wait in the corner for the right moment to become involved. The actions were right, the final spanking, letting the others deal with her in the meantime (and we know this came from RJ), but Cadsuane's thought process was wrong.

One thing people need to keep in mind is Cads "pride" was shut down very early by that wilder. The lesson learned there shaped her entire life.

And she [Nynaeve] had not been put through the lessons that what must be endured, could be endured. In truth, Cadsuane sympathized with her. Somewhat. It as a lesson not everyone could learn in the Tower. She herself, full of pride in her new shawl and her own strength, had been taught by a near toothless wilder at a farm in the heart of the Black Hills.

Winter’s Heart, The Humming Bird’s Secret

The thing people seem to miss about Egwene is while one can question her unwavering faith in what is essentially a fallen AS institution, but one can not question her motives. Her internal thoughts are all about working towards the greater good and facing the shadow at the LB. Time and again we see the pressure she puts on herself to achieve that goal. To say she is motivated by personal power clearly has no grounding in the text. She even states the WT needs to  give up power and reform their ways:
 

"The world as it was cannot be ours any longer," Egwene said softly...if we try to hold too tightly to all of this, we will either become tyrants or fools, depending upon how successful we are. I accept neither title."

 
Also important to note that we as readers have an outside view of how far the WT has fallen. That said they have still been the major force holding the Shadow at bay for thousands of years. They are the only reason most people even remember the DO exists so from an in world perspective Egwene's faith makes sense.
 

'TFOH 15, What Can Be Learned From Dreams'

Moiraine sighed, a soft sound. "Do you expect me to be happy that the White Tower has split apart? I am Aes Sedai, Egwene. I gave my life to the Tower long before I ever suspected the Dragon would be Reborn in my lifetime. The Tower has been a bulwark against the Shadow for three thousand years. It has guided rulers to wise decisions, stopped wars before they began, halted wars that did begin. That humankind even remembers that the Dark One waits to escape, that the Last Battle will come, is because of the Tower. The Tower, whole and united. I could almost wish that every sister had sworn to Elaida, whatever happened to Siuan."

 

Alright credit where credits due, she played a blinder with Rand, IMO some of her antics were unnecessary, but yeah she was brilliant at times, i didnt say i didnt like her, im not one of these Cads bashers, but i still think she went overboard and it all nearly went sour for her at the end.

But lets face it, you (Suttree) make a compelling argument for Cads' treatment of Rand, but she still treats everyone else like their a idiot, except the WO' of course, though she was more often than not in the right the woman had a ego with a capital E that took the shine off her a bit for me.

Actually, Cadsuane treats a number of different people in rather different ways - she offers praise and reinforcement to Samitsu, for example, and is respectful of Verin (and clearly sees through Verin's facade). Those people she does treat like idiots usually are, and those she treats with respect are those deserving of it.

 

Indeed, Cads adapts almost constantly. We see her use a variety of methods to accomplish goals based on the situation including making a pact as equals with Sorilea, a wary exchange of info with Verin, propping up confidence with Samitsu etc, and yes she can use strength as everyone knows when people step out of line or she is testing their character. All in all as RJ said, a "remarkably adaptable" woman. Below is an example and she states straight out that she uses what works in any given situation:

CoT

"I expect you to watch her, Samitsu. No more than that. I want to know what on eof these Dragonsworn sisters does when neither I nor the Wise Ones are looking over their shoulders and holding a switch. Youve always been very observant." Patience was not always her strongest trait, but sometimes it was required with Samitsu. The Yellow was observant, and intelligent, and strong willed most of the time, not to mention the best alive at Healing -- At least until the appearance of Damer Flinn -- but she could suffer the most astonishing collapses in confidence. The stick never worked with Samitsu, but pats on the back did, and it was ridiculous not to use what worked...

Another good example of this is with Daigian. To the other AS she was someone to ignore based on hierarchy. Cadsuane however didn't like that she had low self confidence and worked towards building it up. She valued Daigian's analytical mind and even showed her how to use the negative perception based on low strength to her advantage. One of Cad's defining characteristics is recognizing peoples worth despite strength or titles and working to better those around her. Granted it's often(but not always) through tough love. I always liked this quote from RJ:

She's the tough maiden aunt a lot of us have had. Not the one who tries to keep you a child your whole life. She's the one who began expecting at least some adult responses out of you at about age six, the one who was willing to hand you responsibilities that everyone else thought you were too young for. You probably had a more nerve-wracking time, and more excitement and adventure, with her than you did with any three or four other adults in your life.