THIS is the french cover of the second book in french version (from Whitebridge to the Eye, more or less), The Eye of the World. Don't be disgusted by your covers. We have the ugliest...

 

 

This one also, from the Dragon Reborn...

 

 

It looks like, with those two, someone just grabbed already existent art and slapped it on the front of the books. Possibly the first one as well, which is perfectly decent cover for an entirely different book.

Good US covers are tFoH, TSR (loved it), aCoS, tPoD, tEoTW, tGH, CoT.

tSR? Seriously? That's one of the worst. Especially Pseudo-Mat w/ Eighties Sweatband And Giant Unconcealable Dagger and Quite Possibly Deformed Egwene With Really Weird Hair playing housewife for the lads in the Waste in front of the wagon nobody in their group owned or used. Not to mention Rand toting a bow, something he's not done since tGH. What's more, it's not even a proper longbow: check out that recurve, baby! Oh, and Aiel in cadin'sor acting as servants and caring for the horses. And what looks like a couple trolloc dolls in the background.

And lets be honest right, you cannot dislike the front cover for tDR, stone of tear, sword that is not a sword?

Yes, you can: Callandor isn't supposed to look like that. It's a single-edged, slightly curved sword like nearly every other sword in the series. Mat also looks a little too "pretty boy" and his clothes aren't much better than what Perrin's sporting. Certainly not like what he was wearing at the time and looking pretty damn good after all the crawling on rooftops, blowing holes in the Stone, and fighting. Rand's clothes are similarly ridiculous, considering what he's up to throughout the book. I'm also not a fan of the dark-haired, dark-eyed, non-black-veiled "Aiel" wearing the giant impractical scarf (with tassels!) wrapped around his head and trailing down to his freakin' waist. The redstone columns are pretty nice, though. In fact, Sweet is actually pretty good in general when it comes to landscapes. Everything else? Not so much. "Error ridden" is about the most charitable one can be.

Unless I am mistaken, all swords in this series were made from steel. Steel melts from extreme heat.

Rand's sword was a Power-wrought weapon. They don't dull or break, so why should we expect them to react to heat like steel (whichever specific form of steel that happens to be)?

Maybe the inside of Ishamael's body was hot enough to melt the sword.

How does that work? We're talking temperatures of at least 1700K here, and that's for steel, not Power-wrought metal. The guy should have been insta-ash. It forces us to assume all sorts of things to explain how he could survive that, and with no real evidence in sight. If he were that physically tough, I don't even see how a mere sword would even inconvenience him.

End of Page 552-553

 

"Perrin hit first, swinging his hammer with a roar. Slayer actually sank into the ground, as if it were liquid, dropping beneath the AXE blow"

 

Notice the axe part. I don't know how that made it past but it did. He swung a hammer but Slayer dropped below a axe blow.

 

Not to mention that apparently Perrin didn't "hit"

i read the "axe blow" as being the type of swing the hammer had made

Er, no. That's nonsensical. It's not like axe swings are so unique that they set the standard for all other weapons that are handled similarly, and thus all such swings are metaphorically those of an axe. An axe blow is what you get when you swing an axe at something. Swing a hammer, and it's a hammer blow. There's no need to explain it away because it didn't connect. "Ducking a blow" is a standard, idiomatic way to describe when avoiding an attack.

P 530 "Now, you're sure you can't create gateways at all? Not even to other points nearby, inside the effected area?" Pretty sure that should be "affected", though people argue endlessly over usage.

Yeah, it should be 'affected' all right. There isn't really a usage dispute on this though. It's basically just a spelling error.

There are a litany of typos throughout this book. From misspelled words to words such as "a" or "the" missing which makes the sentence very odd. I'm about halfway through the book, and I've really grown tired of them all. Shouldn't the editing process for such a great series catch most of these?

 

lit·a·ny (ltn-)n. pl. lit·a·nies 1. A liturgical prayer consisting of a series of petitions recited by a leader alternating with fixed responses by the congregation.2. A repetitive or incantatory recital.

 

Also, it is singular, so if you really had intended to use this word (which I think you didn't), it would be 'There is a litany of typos...'

 

Just sayin.

Um...

litany, n. [2.] b. A succesion or catalogue of phenomena, esp. unfortunate events.

and:

lit·a·ny noun \ˈli-tə-nē, ˈlit-nē\ 2 c : a sizable series or set <a litany of problems>

What do I win?

But hey: good call on the verb agreement.

There are a litany of typos throughout this book.

This book? More like "Every WoT book ever." I think the ebook editions even added some new ones. But yeah, ToM has its fair share.

Perrin, as far as I know, has only ever known Tel'aran'rhiod as the wolf dream. Yet in ToM, part of the way into the book, it is being referenced as the World of Dreams and later as Tel'aran'rhiod when in Perrin's POV.

He does know the names "World of Dreams" and "Tel'aran'rhiod". Moraine told him about them at one point (tDR, Chapter 53) and suggested that the wolf dream was the same thing. He thinks about that again later in tSR, Chapter 28. And that book was actually the last time he did much wolf dreaming before ToM. He only had a few brief visits in the interim.

UK Edition, page 597

 

"She wove Earth, Spirit and Air into a Healing.."

 

Aes Sedai healing is Water, Spirit and Air. Given Egwene's lack of Talent for healing, she shouldn't be using Earth.

 

Also, how did Tam leave the camp (presumably with Nynaeve) when there was a dreamspike over it??? I was so confused about this.

 

She's seen Nyn's healing which uses all of the powers. Since she has an affinity for earth, this could be her own weak style of healing.

 

She's not good at Healing, and what you're saying, in effect, is that despite this lack of Talent, she managed to create a novel Healing weave. And that Brandon just decided not to point this out because it was intuitively obvious or something. Nope: it's an error until proven otherwise.

For another, I have a strong feeling that one can't channel the TP in a stedding

At one time, Jordan RAFOed this, though he may have started to say "Yes". But later, he decided to give a straight answer: no, you can't.

ok I realize this is not the best place to post this but the search wont work for me and i dont want to cycle through a potential few hundred pages of topics

 

the number 2000 that alviarin mentioned to elaida as a dangerous number, I believe she is referencing the last time the Black Ajah publicly moved. Moraine mentioned it in tGH at the end as rand was waking from his duel with ishy

 

sorry but i just made the connection, and couldnt remember if we came up with a good answer to what the 2000 meant (I think she said 2000 I am workin my way through a reread and I cant recall so please correct me)

2000? No, that's way, way, way too high. Twenty-four. And it referred to men being gentled extra-judicially during a period after the Aiel War. I.e., the Vileness that's occasionally mentioned. Summary severing if you will, with the men just abandoned to die and given no help afterwards, with a public announcement often being made that so-and-so was a channeling male before the Red Ajah "severing squad" moved on to another target. That's what happened to Thom's nephew Owyn.

As far as 2000 goes, that's how long ago the Black Ajah was founded.

but it is a simpler explanation than Thom channeling sheet lightning or a rogue male channeler saving the day or Rand channeling without a later reaction.

As far as Rand goes: what exactly, like in detail, happens after Whitebridge and before the Howal Gode incident? I don't know. Why? 'Cause it's not really covered when we finally come back to a Rand POV. It just sort of glosses over their initial days on the road by themselves, and the timeline is less than clear (and I'm not talking about the scarves thing, either. It's all very vague: "few days" this, "one afternoon" that, etc.) And what reaction was he supposed to have? Because there wasn't any great consistency: in Baerlon he got a headache and all foggy and detached, almost like he was drunk. On the river, he went a bit manic and was suicidally reckless. After Four Kings, he had a full on flu-like illness with fever and delerium. Point being, with all the Whitbridge craziness and post-Whitebridge fear and paranoia (on top of Mat's supernaturally-enhanced issues, that is), would Rand have necessarily noticed if he felt a bit off mentally, or even somewhat physically (i.e. something like that headache in Baerlon)? What's "off" in those circumstances anyway?

Oh yeah, BTW, we've all overlooked something rather obvious: Rand watched Thom attack the Fade. That chapter was his POV: there's absolutely no way to have the description of Thom crashing into it in that chapter unless Rand saw the whole thing. He just stands there frozen during all that, including when the flashes occurred, with Mat trying to drag him away. It wasn't until Thom's last scream of "RUN!" that he finally turned and fled the square. So, that really eliminates a lot of explanatory options. Basically, anything Rand should have been able to see is out. Unless we're talking something that could fit in his peripheral vision. It's easy to not notice that stuff if you're intent on something else in direct view.

Could it be that Thom used one of his flash-and-bang powders?

Uh, why? Everyone had already run the hell away, and I really doubt that would help with something that sees without eyes. Also: what are you talking about? What "powder"? I don't remember that at all.

do we have any clue how these blades are created?

Nope. Some secret Shadow recipe. Probably a good signing/chat/twitter/whatever question. I highly doubt they're plot-crucial, so an answer (assuming one exists) is likely. Personally, I think they're just there for evil flavor.

what I find really strange is the dagger that mat takes from the fox faced lady when rand cannot hold himself up due to using the power, it is a blade that feels cool to the touch but burns anything it is stabbed into, like when it gets stabbed into a piece of wood and it starts smoldering, then when tossed into a bucket the water starts hissing.

The blade did not feel cool to the touch. The hilt did. No one ever touched the blade in that scene. Also, some more appear in tSR, when a couple Gray Men make an attempt to kill "Ordeith":

Later Bornhald had buried the daggers deep. Those blades looked to be steel, but a touch seared like molten metal. The first earth thrown on them in the pit had hissed and steamed.

Rand channeling is probably the best explanation for the blue flashes at Whitebridge. When Moraine and Co. show up, people refuse to explain what happened, but everyone in town is completely freaked out. A bunch of random buildings are burnt down. People claim someone knocked over a lantern, but not a single burnt building stands next to another. A few women confide in Moiraine that, really, someone was meddling with the Power, and they think it might have been a man.

OK, so what about the "Rand couldn't see" thing? Well, look at what happened in aPoD when he didn't have adequate control of saidin: a bunch of lightning nailed a bunch of people behind him. Also, consider what happens just a little while after Whitebridge: Rand is desperate to escape from Howal Gode, and while watching the door begin to open, he calls lightning and it hits the bars of the window he isn't looking at and blows the wall behind him open. Mat had to tell him what had happened.

So, I say Rand called some lightning and it just randomly nailed the area he was running from, and set some buildings on fire. And yes, I know the blue flashes are associated with OP-wrought weapons and myrrddraal swords. But not exclusively. That also occurs with lightning, and far, far more often (especially when the Power is involved, though not always). Seriously, it happens a whole lot:

tSR:

Whirling it hilt uppermost, he drove it down. Into the stone floor. Bluish lightning arced wildly toward the dome above.

 

A bar of white-hot fire ten feet tall streaked between the pair in a blur surrounded by arcing blue lightning...

tFoH:

Stark silver-blue lightning struck into the Aiel...

 

Lightnings arched silver and blue around the ter'angreal...

LoC:

Thunder boomed again, and lightning sheeted blue across the sky.

aCoS:

All save Dashiva, who made blue lightnings crackle in a jagged web above the square.

aPoD:

On the horizon to the south lightning flashed,dozens of bolts vivid silver-blue against the afternoon sky...

 

Elayne screamed, falling backwards, out of sight of the farmyard, and silver-blue lightning shot through the gateway with a roar that filled her ears...

 

Thunder tolled repeatedly, and lightning writhed in silver-blue snakes...

 

Lightning flashes filled the entrance with blue-white light...

 

Lightning flashed out of the sky, blue-white bolts shattering earth and men alike.

 

Lightning streaked down into the forest not far from where the tall flames had bloomed, single slashes like jagged blue-white lances.

 

A hundred bolts at once, hundreds, forked blue-white shafts stabbing down as far as he could see.

WH:

Lightnings such as Cadsuane had never seen streaked down from the cloudless sky, not jagged bolts but lances of silver-blue that struck at the hilltop where she stood...

CoT:

...the black sky split with more lightning than any storm had ever birthed, silver-blue streaks stabbing down inside the walls.

 

Lightning lit up the wagon's windows with a blue flash...

 

Lightning forked silver-blue across the sky...

KoD:

That silver-blue lightning, three-tined, five-tined, was striking inside Caemlyn, causing damage and maybe deaths.

 

Lightning began flashing down out of a clear sky, silver-blue bolts that struck the ground...

 

Silver-blue bolts struck continuously so close to the house that the hair on Rand's arms and chest tried to lift, the hair on his head.

 

Silver-blue lightning bolts forked down, and most of those struck too.

 

Lightning began flashing down out of a clear sky, silver-blue bolts that struck the ground with thunderous crashes and threw men and horses like splashed mud.

And now look at one of the similes for the blue weapon flashes RJ used in tEotW:

...a flash of blue light filling the air like sheet lightning.

And again in tDR:

The night air flashed actinic blue, like sheet lightning...

In tSR:

...light flashed like sheet lightning in the room, a sharp bluish-white that hurt the eyes

 

...black blades meeting his raven-marked steel with flashes of blue light like sheet lightning...

tFoH:

...blue light flashed around them, a crackle of sheet lightning...

Like sheet lightning, eh?

Sheet lightning is an informally applied name to cloud-to-cloud lightning that exhibits a diffuse brightening of the surface of a cloud caused by the actual discharge path being hidden. Also it can be applied when the lightning itself cannot be seen by the spectator, so it appears as only a flash, or a sheet of light.

Now add in the fact that lightning is just about the most common offensive use of the OP throughout the entire series. Hell, it's the official symbol for sul'dam, and the Asha'man use it in their recruiting slogan ("Wield the lightnings"). So, someone either channeled lightning in Whitebridge, someone else besides Thom showed up with Power-wrought steel and started fighting the Fade, or something totally unknown happened for unknown reasons and it just so happened to mimic the flashes of OP-steel and lightning.

The best fit to the facts and the simplest explanation is that Rand did it.

A quote? Yeah: "Twice and twice shall he be marked." Past tense. Twice and twice he was marked, with the marks the prophecy required. The stuff the herons were for already happened anyway: set his path and named him true. The end. Heron no longer required.

I'm no linguist, and what little I do know is that native speakers determine what's right and wrong themselves, but couldn't the word "marked" also function as an adjective? Doesn't it here?

This is what wiki has to say on the matter:

Many languages have special verbal forms called participles can act as noun modifiers. In some languages, including English, there is a strong tendency for participles to evolve into adjectives.

Yeah, actually...you're right. Mostly. It's not an adjective here, but it is a participle. An adjectival form would be something like "Marked One". Obviously, I wasn't really paying attention. Still: the heron stuff is done, and that's the most significant bit. His path was set at the Eye, and he was named true at Falme. That hand was prophetically useless for almost eight books.

According to the prophecy, Rand will be marked twice to live, and twice to die. Since getting his hand cut off removed one of the marks, can this indicate that Rand is no longer marked to die?

No - the marking is what matters, not the marks themselves.

unless there is a specific quote reaffirming this, I don't think you can just claim it as fact. I happen to agree with you (too many other predictions of Rand's death) but it is still a good bit of speculation.

A quote? Yeah: "Twice and twice shall he be marked." Past tense. Twice and twice he was marked, with the marks the prophecy required. The stuff the herons were for already happened anyway: set his path and named him true. The end. Heron no longer required.

It's possible that another reason he ditched Avi's sword was all in the attempt to harden himself.

He just prefers wearing Hawkwing's sword.

He still has Laman's as well.

In technical terms, it could be as simple as Justice may be a bastard sword (can be used with a single hand or both hands) versus Laman's being a two-hander but his thoughts make it appear that there's more to it.

Could be hilarious if the Heroes arrive at TG and Hawkwing gets all het up "Oi Lews Therin!What you doing with that? Give it back then. It's mine!"

Alright, I forgot about this: he wears it because it "feels right", and there's obviously some odd "Wheel weaves" thingy going on. So, OK. I'm cool with that. The other stuff still bugs me though:

When did he get it exactly? Don't know. Sometime after dropping off the Seanchan chicks by Ebou Dar. Where did he get it? From some scholars. Who were they? Scholars, dude. Well, why did they do that? No clue. Ta'veren thing maybe. Where'd they find it? In some lake somewhere or other (admittedly, a cool detail, but still). What happened to Laman's blade? *shrug*

Oh, and also, it's not a bastard sword: "The weapon was long, slightly curved..." Ituralde doesn't bat an eye when he sees it or mentally qualify it as being like one of the Shienaran or Saldaean curvy things or whatever. Sound like another katana-in-all-but-name to me.

This also kinda bugs me, as tGH said "his great sword Justice", which implied it was not a standard-shaped sword, though to be fair, I suppose it could have just meant it was a really awesome sword. I'd say it could be basically an ōdachi, which would make sense given that the name means "great sword", but those are too long to wear at the waist. Then again, Rand is pretty tall and might be able to swing it, though that seems dubious. Or maybe it's a tachi. Oh, who knows. I need answers, damn it!

Speaking of Rand's swords, I forget: what the hell happened to the one he was using before?

 

The one that Avi gave him. Not sure, I think he lost it when he was stumbling round at the battle of Cairhien. But I dont really know,cant really remember.

Nah, he's used it since. He fought Toram with it in aCoS, took it to Far Madding, and was wearing it when Semi de-handed him as well (the hilt jabbed into his ribs after he fell to the ground). Then all of sudden, he's carrying Justice, which some people apparently just gave to him for some reason.

Speaking of Rand's swords, I forget: what the hell happened to the one he was using before?

If Cads had tried to apologize, in as much as Rand would have needed even a half coherent excuse to kill her, he would have seen it as her trying another angle to wiggle her way into his good graces.

Why would he have even needed any additional excuse, and one personally provided by Cadsuane from her own lips no less? What, he couldn't have just arbitrarily decided on his own that it was her fault and deserved to die? Given that he eventually decided that the EVERYONE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD AND ALL OF EXISTENCE should probably just be gotten rid of, without any assistance in the form of supposedly destabilizing apologies, I'm not buying this "An apology would have been the WORST MOVE EVAR! Why, that would crrrraaaaazzzzy!" argument.

might easily tip him into 'kill everyone' mode.

Which is basically what happened anyway.

Then it's not a problem with the characters but rather an issue with you and your tastes. Just because you believe Fantasy should be written in a particular style doesn't mean it should be or that things are WRONG when they go outside of the stock standard fantasy setting. I'm glad things go outside of what is considered the norm otherwise all we would have is Dragons, Elves and Dwarves Wizards for magic and only a handful of characters we would ever get to see.

 

It's not style that's the problem, it's substance.

 

But, I probably shouldn't be trying to discuss this with somebody who comes to a fantasy series looking for realism.

Woo-hoo! Dismissiveness for the win! Or not, 'cause that "looking for realism" characterization is completely (OK, largely) wrong. All I see is a reminder that there's not an Official Fantasy Novel ruleset, such that in Official Fantasy, certain things MUST NOT BE ALLOWED. "Looking for psychological realism" might be better, whether or not you personally think WOT succeeds in that regard. Then there's the whole thing where "realism" in current fiction doesn't actually mean "only stuff that happens in the real world, as it happens in the real world", as it once did. But, you know, whatever. And let's not even get into whether or not philosophical realism is involved, 'cause nobody wants that. Or I don't, anyway, which is close enough, because I've arbitrarily decided that everyone should be doing things the way I like them done, damn it all.

ETA: Oh, yeah, BTW...if WOT so regularly fails at giving you what you think fantasy should be, why do you keep reading it? I'm serious: you obviously get something out of it, but it sure doesn't sound that way.

could it be so easy as to those who dislike cadsuane are the same who like dark-rand and vice versa?

No. Gross oversimplifications regarding those who don't share our opinions like that rarely are. It's quite possible to be less than fond of both.

i for one love cadsuane and i hated dark-rand, she tries to help him so she is awesome

Being, or attempting to be, helpful doesn't mean you're likable much less awesome. Plenty of very useful folk have wretched personalities.

other ppl might see is it as "she tries to keep him from getting things done effiecently" or whatever :P

Maybe. I've yet to see anyone actually say that though (or I forgot that part of their post, anyway).