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DRAGONMOUNT

A WHEEL OF TIME COMMUNITY

damandred

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Posts posted by damandred

  1. hahaha *thumbs up*

     

     

    annnnnnnnnd rand's pouty mcpout face.... but hey at least there's been like what? three chapters in a row of perrin. pleasant surprise.

     

    Hi Cross, if you like Perrin you'll really enjoy the next book, in tDR you start to see Mat in a better light from this book he goes on in leaps and bounds in his development. From a moany little whinger in the first two books to my fav in the series, until Sanderson get a hold of him at least, but thats another story. Anyway hope you enjoy the Wot, if you liked the first two books then your in for a treat. Im a little envious! btw the Dresden files are awesome, love jim butcher, have you tried his furies series yet?

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    If she's Jenn, its absolutely theory fodder. There was nothing in the books that would lead down that road, absolutely deus ex machina. If its an avatar, she makes RJ a liar and is literally deus ex machina.

     

    I like the Tigraine theory though. If that's it (or something else with some thread of foreshadowing in hindsight), I'll gladly eat my words on hating the mystery.

    Unfortunately she doesn't physically seem a good match.

    Why theory fodder if shes jenn, imo going by the books her being jenn is the ONLY theory that makes sense.
    Because it drops out of the sky. It only makes sense because of how its dressed up- ie, she is dressed like an Aiel and has mysterious powers. Lets put it this way- if this scene happened in Egwene in Tar Valon with Nakomni dressed as an AS, the only logical thing would be that she was an ancient AS. There's nothing previous to her appearance that explains her appearance, aside from her appearance itself.
    It makes sense because we know the jenn had some knowlage of the future and the motive for wanting to save the Aiel, now we know it happened while Avi was asleep adds more weight to Nakomi being a jenn dreamwalker.
    We know AS had some knowledge of the future, motive for wanting to save AS, and ability to dreamwalk.
    Yeah but the meeting didnt happen in the tower and wasnt significant to the future if the AS. It happened in the waste were the future of the Aiel was at stake. Your senario was hypaphetical while mine happened.
    Yeah but thats my point- your argument is circular. It happened because it happened, not because anything we've read made it necessary or predictable that it would happen. Thats exactly my point.
    Sorry mate , forgive my stupidity but not sure what this means.

    Was Nakomi necessary whatever she was? Who wants any story to be predictabe?

    Oops, just saw this. Anyway, while nobody wants a story to be too predictable, most people definitely dont want things to have no logical connection to things happening previously (particularly when they would seem to have been ruled out by the authors off camera words). Dumping something in at the end of a story that you cant go 'aha! this makes perfect sense based on what i know from previous actions' is a bad practice in general. For instance, it was a big surprise and pretty unpredictable how Rand laid the trap for Ishmael and used Calandor with the TP, but enough evidence had been previously displayed to make it logically entirely acceptable. It was foreshadowed (and foretold) that this would happen, but how it actually happened was still surprising and novel. In fact if it didn't happen, we'd feel cheated.

    Nakomi is different. She drops out of thin air in the Waste for a minute, and then pops back up at the climax of 14 books. Its not quite Deus Ex Machina given that Nakomi didn't actually save the day, but otherwise all the objections to deus ex machina are present with her. If those two scenes were stripped out, we'd be none the wiser that this character ever existed, would exist, or should exist.

    i agree, i always thought of nakomi as theory fodder serving no real purpose other than fan speculation. But be that as it may, she must have been SOMEONE.

     

    Her being Jenn would be the only posible theory with a hint of foreshadowing, still fodder yes, but less so than other explanations.

     

    ps. sorry for late reply.

  3. just finished Red Seas under Red Skies the second book in Scott Lynch' Gentleman bastard sequence, not as good as The Lies of Locke Lamora but still pretty good. Gonna get started on the third, The Republic of Thieves tomorrow.

  4. I always thought the pipe lighting power came because of his fight with the DO. He wove that posible future, so in essance he was the creator for that age in that it played out according to his vision of it. Dont know why he wasnt able to channel always thought it a thing of the soul whether you could channel or not might be the body burnt itself out in the LB.

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    If she's Jenn, its absolutely theory fodder. There was nothing in the books that would lead down that road, absolutely deus ex machina. If its an avatar, she makes RJ a liar and is literally deus ex machina.

     

    I like the Tigraine theory though. If that's it (or something else with some thread of foreshadowing in hindsight), I'll gladly eat my words on hating the mystery.

    Unfortunately she doesn't physically seem a good match.

    Why theory fodder if shes jenn, imo going by the books her being jenn is the ONLY theory that makes sense.
    Because it drops out of the sky. It only makes sense because of how its dressed up- ie, she is dressed like an Aiel and has mysterious powers. Lets put it this way- if this scene happened in Egwene in Tar Valon with Nakomni dressed as an AS, the only logical thing would be that she was an ancient AS. There's nothing previous to her appearance that explains her appearance, aside from her appearance itself.
    It makes sense because we know the jenn had some knowlage of the future and the motive for wanting to save the Aiel, now we know it happened while Avi was asleep adds more weight to Nakomi being a jenn dreamwalker.
    We know AS had some knowledge of the future, motive for wanting to save AS, and ability to dreamwalk.
    Yeah but the meeting didnt happen in the tower and wasnt significant to the future if the AS. It happened in the waste were the future of the Aiel was at stake. Your senario was hypaphetical while mine happened.

    Yeah but thats my point- your argument is circular. It happened because it happened, not because anything we've read made it necessary or predictable that it would happen. Thats exactly my point.
    Sorry mate , forgive my stupidity but not sure what this means.

    Was Nakomi necessary whatever she was? Who wants any story to be predictabe?

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    If she's Jenn, its absolutely theory fodder. There was nothing in the books that would lead down that road, absolutely deus ex machina. If its an avatar, she makes RJ a liar and is literally deus ex machina.

     

    I like the Tigraine theory though. If that's it (or something else with some thread of foreshadowing in hindsight), I'll gladly eat my words on hating the mystery.

    Unfortunately she doesn't physically seem a good match.

    Why theory fodder if shes jenn, imo going by the books her being jenn is the ONLY theory that makes sense.
    Because it drops out of the sky. It only makes sense because of how its dressed up- ie, she is dressed like an Aiel and has mysterious powers. Lets put it this way- if this scene happened in Egwene in Tar Valon with Nakomni dressed as an AS, the only logical thing would be that she was an ancient AS. There's nothing previous to her appearance that explains her appearance, aside from her appearance itself.
    It makes sense because we know the jenn had some knowlage of the future and the motive for wanting to save the Aiel, now we know it happened while Avi was asleep adds more weight to Nakomi being a jenn dreamwalker.

    We know AS had some knowledge of the future, motive for wanting to save AS, and ability to dreamwalk.

    Yeah but the meeting didnt happen in the tower and wasnt significant to the future if the AS. It happened in the waste were the future of the Aiel was at stake. Your senario was hypaphetical while mine happened.

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    If she's Jenn, its absolutely theory fodder. There was nothing in the books that would lead down that road, absolutely deus ex machina. If its an avatar, she makes RJ a liar and is literally deus ex machina.

     

    I like the Tigraine theory though. If that's it (or something else with some thread of foreshadowing in hindsight), I'll gladly eat my words on hating the mystery.

    Unfortunately she doesn't physically seem a good match.

    Why theory fodder if shes jenn, imo going by the books her being jenn is the ONLY theory that makes sense.

    Because it drops out of the sky. It only makes sense because of how its dressed up- ie, she is dressed like an Aiel and has mysterious powers. Lets put it this way- if this scene happened in Egwene in Tar Valon with Nakomni dressed as an AS, the only logical thing would be that she was an ancient AS. There's nothing previous to her appearance that explains her appearance, aside from her appearance itself.

    It makes sense because we know the jenn had some knowlage of the future and the motive for wanting to save the Aiel, now we know it happened while Avi was asleep adds more weight to Nakomi being a jenn dreamwalker.

  8. If she's Jenn, its absolutely theory fodder. There was nothing in the books that would lead down that road, absolutely deus ex machina. If its an avatar, she makes RJ a liar and is literally deus ex machina.

     

    I like the Tigraine theory though. If that's it (or something else with some thread of foreshadowing in hindsight), I'll gladly eat my words on hating the mystery.

    Unfortunately she doesn't physically seem a good match.

     

    Why theory fodder if shes jenn, imo going by the books her being jenn is the ONLY theory that makes sense.

  9. 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.

  10. I'm probably on my dozenth relisten (Audible) of the series and realize that as much as I love the series, I'm coming to hate most of the characters - particularly the women. I expect to dislike and hate the baddies but it applies equally to the light characters. There are like five characters I don't utterly despise - Rand, Mat, Moraine, Min and Verin.

    Let's start with the women. How can anyone like any of them or think them "strong" as if that word excuses their appalling personal characteristics. They are all shown as arrogant, shrewish, self centered, hypocritical, petty, vain, cruel bullies heavily into BDSM. Their base emotion towards everyone else seems to be contempt. Everyone they meet is assumed to be an idiot who needs to be bullied and bludgeoned onto the right path - unless, course of, they instantly fall into the properly obsequious attitude in which case they will be treated with the contempt due any lickspittle. This applies not only to men - for whom every women appears to hold both utter and bottomless contempt - but to every other women as well including their so called friends. As to their feelings about men - can anyone point me to a single POV passage in 14 books where a woman thinking about a man doesn't reflect on how stupid men are in general and what a moron the particular man she's contemplating is? Even when she's supposedly thinking about how much she loves said man!

    The Aes Sedai are the worst, of course. The oaths they swear against lying and using the Power as a weapon except in self defense are a hypocritical farce. They lie - through omission, misinformation and misdirection - so often that there are folk sayings against believing a word they say. They constantly use the Power to physically punish people for doing something they don't like or saying something they don't like or for not cringing sufficiently when they are given a "look". Their training in the tower seems to mainly consist of instilling overweening arrogance, an unfailing sense of infallibility, a sense of entitlement and a taste for BDSM games in the initiates. The extortion racket they run to support themselves seems to have convinced them that Tower law supersedes all other and gives them authority over all other channellers and objects of magic no matter what land they reside in as well as the right to tell anyone, noble or peasant, what to do. They all regard anyone not a "servant of all" as dirt and most treat everyone they meet exactly as that. The Wise Ones and Windfinders share most or all of these traits, too.

    I've had a hard time deciding which female character I loathe the most - Egwene or Cadsuane. Egwene wants exactly the same things that Elaida wants - unquestioning, instantaneous, blind obedience, White tower rule of the world (under her absolute rule of the Tower, of course), and Rand on a leash as her trained attack dog without any stupid plans of his own. The chief difference between them is that while both are megalomaniacs, Elaida wants both the absolute power and worship while Egwene simply wants absolute power while pretending to be first among equals. Cadsuane I hate because she is so stupid. Her stated purpose is to make Rand laugh and cry again - in other words to reclaim humanity. Her brilliant plan? Offer him a little sympathy, a bit of respect, a modicum of trust and maybe a smidgen of gratitude for the sacrifice of his life? Why, no! I'll berate and belittle, embarrass and humiliate, insult, manipulate and deride him and occasionally physically assault him. In public whenever possible. And I'll always derisively call him "boy" rather than use his name or title. Yeah, that'll restore his humanity and help him win Tarmon Gaidon. At the end of the day, I hate Egwene the most. Probably because she does have one massively admirable quality when under duress - her sheer, almost Hitlerian will. Which is also her most abominable trait when not under duress.

    As to the men, what can you say, at least in regard to their interactions with women? Pathetic, stupid and completely petrified of all women unless they are a darkfriend, in which case they are usually wannabe serial murderers/rapists. There's not a single man who gets more than the sheerest shred of respect from any women. Think of all the male characters, including the main ones, who have backed up in fear just because some women gave him a hard look. Think about how the women always think of the men as mentioned above. Now think of how the men think of women - almost always "boy, those women sure are unknowable and mysterious but I've got to protect them even though they tell me every single time that I'm an idiot and they don't need my damned protection no matter how many times I do save them". My biggest question is why every single good guy male in this universe feels compelled to be willing to lay down his life for every woman and bigger yet, why isn't every dude gay?

    As to the male character who I hate most? Easy - Perrin. He was easily my favorite character in Eye but was totally ruined by his obsession with Fail. He went from the everyman determined to do what he could to save the world even though he had no special powers to whiny wolfboy (even though any other guy would be "Wow, cool! I can talk to wolves!") to completely whipped scumbag willing to sell the world to the DO for Fail. What a douche he became although he was working to redeem himself in Memory.

     

    Well, enough ranting. And don't worry - got my flame suit on:)

    Exaggerated a wee bit but, have to agree with the spirit of the point. Supose we cant blame the women too much as it seems like they were taught at mothers knee that all men are fools, even the female characters i like, and theres many there not all bad.

    While i understand where Mr Ares is coming from about cads i have to say i disagree, its one thing to stand up for ones self and not to back down in a contest of wills with the DR, quite another to constantly goad and try to humiliate him in front of his men, i think just seeing how the others treated her convinced him she wasnt just another AS, she tried to get him to respect her or at least fear her, all she ended up doing was getting him to hate her and see her as just another arrogant manipulater.

     

    And the same with the men, while not as bad as the women there is far to little respect for the intelligence of others for my liking, except for the forsaken, so when its there its misplaced.

  11. For me, i think she was a jenn time traveler. We know the jenn and the AS who were with them had some clues about what was going to happen, and not just in the dreamer/foretelling sense. Rands aiel ancestor knows himself marked, that seems that they knew rand was going to come from his line. They also built or at least erected the glass pillar ter, angreal, but the biggest pointer for me is, the jenn had the welfare of the aiel at heart, they wanted thier race to survive the last battle. Why would the creator get involved in saving one race?

     

    Maybe not a time traveler in a physical way, maybe some sort of astral projection, sent into the future to put avi on the right path.

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    Been away from these boards since forever, but this is one topic that really burned me. The problem isn't with Perrin himself (even though he is written rather stupidly) but the fact that the entire plot is one big, big Idiot Plot. I'd have been happy to read much more of Perrin, even his pointless side-show, if it was written in a fashion that made sense. I love these books, don't get me wrong-I don't mean to be overly critical. But this side plot should never have been written.

     

    To recap:

     

    It really starts when Queen Alliandre of Ghealdan writes Rand a letter, asking him to come and deal with the Prophet, and she's willing to swear fealty to his cause if he can help restore a bit of order to her country. It's a completely legitimate request, too, since the Prophet is a person who knows Rand personally, and all the people who are rioting and creating this chaos are people who ostensibly call themselves his followers. That's not to say they're necessarily all that interested in following, or that it's his fault the country is in chaos, but since she's willing to swear fealty in exchange for helping him solve a problem that is related to him, it's a very fair deal.

     

    So what is Rand's solution to this? Remember, he's shown himself completely willing to occupy Tear, Illian (later), Cairhein, and Caemlyn at this point (though he's not personally attempting to rule Andor in general, just hold it and restore order for a while). Rand may not like the idea of taking Asha'Man into a volatile situation, but then, he's already crossed that bridge repeatedly. We're never given a reason he doesn't take himself with a dozen Asha'Man, a few of his loyal Aes Sedai, and a portion of his army to deal with this. All he really needed to do was show up and speak to Alliandre-that's essentially all Perrin did before she swore fealty to HIM-and then tell Masema that it was time to go. Obviously it's problematic for Rand himself to risk walking through areas where there's perhaps active rioting, but that's hardly crazier than some stuff he's already done sucessfully, and the fact that some Aes Sedai have sworn oaths of obedience, and the fact that he has Asha'Man willing to obey his orders should be enough to protect him. Dealing with a rioting crowd instead of an army of Aiel should be fairly simple. If they're willing to follow him, he'd be smart to divide them up so they can cause fewer issues, and send them to be trained into an army as he's done with other segments of his followers.

     

    But okay, perhaps he thinks it would take too much time and he has other important things to be doing (we'll ignore the fact that, in the same book, he spends several days literally moping about in his room doing nothing). So he sends Perrin, along with a few loyal Aes Sedai and a couple of Asha'Man, along with a force sufficient to subdue any rioting, should it come to it. I might be misremebering the strength of Perrin's forces, but really, two Asha'Man ought to be able to cut a swath through these people if necessary. For some reason that still makes no sense to me, they stage a fight in order to hide Perrin's purpose. To this day, I've never understood why this was a big secret. He was fully willing to have Perrin openly lead his armies attacking Illian to use him as a diversion; perhaps he was afraid of Sammael attacking Perrin if he turned up someplace else while doing work for Rand. Again, this makes no sense in context with other actions-he let Mat march his band without any channeler support quite openly while moving to meet up with the rest of his army, practically begging for HIM to be attacked. And naturally, Sammael did attack, but, being a big fat idiot like the rest of the Forsaken, instead of squashing Mat's tent by ripping open the earth and crushing, he instead launched a very survivable surprise attack using Aiel. So I'm still not sold on that being Rand's motive.

     

    Regardless, Perrin actuallly underook this secret mission while openly displaying banners that said, "Hey, Perrin Aybara is right here!" and succeeded. He pretty much had accomplished his mission. Masema, of course, refused to use the OP to Travel, but he agrees that he will go to meet Rand. At this point, Faile is captured by the Shaido. The next bits are perfectly reasonable, if you give Perrrin a pass for panicking and making stupid mistakes as a result of panicking. He doesn't know the strength of the Shaido, so he thinks he can intercept them and catch up with Faile and rescue her. If they'd caught the raiding party itself before it hooked back up with the Shaido, it's quite likely, since they had no channelers. But he screws this up, and ends up taking quite a while before catching up with her. I'll give him a pass for this-people screw up, it makes for good literature. Also, he's still essentially following Rand's directions, since he was sent specifically to secure Queen Alliandre's allegiance, and she ended up kidnapped along with Faile, so rescuing her is an acceptable part of this mission. If we accept the premise of Perrin's mission, we're quite, quite fine with everything that happens in his side plot through Winter's Heart.

     

    Then came Crossroads of Twilight. This is where good plotting went to die. The entire plot hinges on Perrin's inability to quickly resolve a problem in order for the rest of the plot to work, so in a world where you can instantly Travel from anywhere to anywhere else, we're forced to endure filler. This is so full of stupid crap I can barely tolerate it. Perrin no longer gets a pass for being stupid since he's no longer panicking or behaving irrationally. It's almost as if RJ knows how idiotic Perrin is being and seeks to drive this home, despite the fact that Perrin has no excuse anymore. Perrin finds the Shaido encampment, he sees that it's way too big and well defended to defeat, and he learns that there's something like 200 channelers in the town. He's literally thinking about how he's ever supposed to defeat this force when an image of Rand is shoved into his brain. It's like an epiphany is trying to shove itself down his throat. At this point, there's no reason he's not saying, "Hey, I should get Rand's help-as soon as he's finished with what sounds like a very dangerous task, as it's creeping out all the channelers I have with me." He doesn't though. I guess he's still under whatever secret oath of secrecy he took, or something, but honestly, there's four major reasons he should be seeking Rand here.

     

    1) He's on the same side as Perrin and has a force indisputably strong enough to crack open the Shaido camp like an egg.

    2) Rand had already expressed a desire to find the rest of the Shaido and stop them from causing more havoc.

    3) Rand also told him specifically to bring back Masema, who is present and creating problems that Rand can readily solve with his mere presence.

    4) Perrin cannot complete the mission Rand sent him on without defeating the Shaido, since Alliandre is a prisoner.

     

    There are certainly a few problems for Perrin to overcome. That is, immediately after the battle at Shadar Logoth, Rand goes missing. Of course, three different factions, each searching for Rand, ALL managed to track him down by the end of this book (Logain, Bashere, and Loial/Karldin). If Perrin had had the decency to look for him, he'd probably have stumbled on the same method of tracking him down. He also has another advantage none of them had-a freaking psychic connection that allows him to see where Rand is and what he's doing. He has zero excuse for not trying, especially given his singular focus on rescuing Faile. The most obvious method to her salvation is completely ignored by him, as well as any responsibility he feels toward Rand's mission being thrown out the window-he jeopardizes it by leaving Alliandre in bondage longer than necessary.

     

    It gets worse. He has the ability to travel anywhere in the known world to purchase grain. Instead of going to Tear, Illian, or Cairhien (remember how Tear had all this extra grain that they sent to Illian and Cairhein?) he travels to a small town nearby where the grain is completely infested with weevils. He ignores this obvious health hazard, refuses to allow anyone to try to help these townspeople, and continues on his way. RJ was toying with us by creating this So Harber sideplot (a sideplot of a sideplot) that screamed: OBVIOUS FILLER.

     

    Perrin continued to be idiotic. He continues to get reminds of where Rand is and what he's doing, even learning that Rand loses a hand through his psychic connection, and never tries to contact him. He thinks that he'll make a deal with the Dark One himself if it will get Faile back. Better to make a deal with the Dark One than call your best friend, right? Also, Rand at this point stops obviously hiding from the whole world, which means Perrin might have a chance to find him. Perrin's clearly thinking about using some of his actual friends to help him out, since he sends Grady to the Two Rivers and brings Tam al'Thor with a legion of bowmen. Hey Tam, I know you'd like to see your son and all, and I know we can create magic holes in the air that can take you anywhere in the world, but sorry, we're not taking you to see your son. There's obviously no reason Perrin shoudln't have thought of this, and using his psychic connection to track him down. What he opts instead is to make an alliance with a second powerful force, one completely opposed to Rand, and making a proposition that will make them considerably stronger by consigning 200 women to slavery. He was upset about Rand mistreating the women who threw him in a box and tortured him, but he's completely okay with forcing slavery onto Aiel women. It gets disgusting at this point, since, despite making common cause with the Seanchan, he's still taking an ENORMOUS gamble because he's relying on his ability to poison the Aiel water supply. He just barely has enough strength to pull off his victory thanks to a great deal of luck, rather than taking the relatively easy method of asking his best friend for help.

     

    So we've had two books full of idiot plot at this point just for the payoff, stuffed with filler. People might have started to forgive Perrin if his idiot plot had had the decency to die, at this point. It did not. It's gone on for two more books-he rescued Faile, but the Sideplot of Doom refuses to die. He's accomplished what Rand asked of him. He has too many people to logistically move at once since he has only two channelers who can create Gateways. Common sense dictates, since he's achieved what Rand asked of him and just needs to get back and report, he send someone to track down Rand, using a combination of his psychic connection, the ability to Travel anywhere instantly, and a tiny bit of detective work. Let's keep in mind that, while it's nice to point out that Gateways have some logistical problems with using them, the more pressing issue of how he's keeping 100,000 refugees (plus his own army) fed is tidily ignored. He can feel Rand pulling him to rejoin him, so he's marching slowly with this big press of refugees instead of trying to find him. The only reason for this contrivance is so that Tam al'Thor can avoid showing up until the end of the book.

     

    The side plot didn't end there, but it should have. Perrin has all these refugees, keeping them fed has got to be a major pain, and he should have told Tam to ask Rand for some channelers to Travel his people, or he should have gone with Rand himself. He knows he needs to be reuniting with Rand. This side-plot continues to go on through Towers of Midnight, with no one from either Rand's or Perrin's camp attempting to contact the other, and Tam not asking Rand to send people to collect them (even though he has friends from the Two Rivers with Perrin).

     

    Perrin is likeable. His sideplot is written so stupidly that it is not.

    BEST. POST. EVER

    This board definitely needs posters and post like this.

     

    The only reason i can think for Rand not going is, he might of thought it could be a trap by the forsaken.

    For everything else, spot on.

    I think Perrin was a good enough charecter, just completely overshadowed by Rand and Mat.

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