9 hours ago, Lightfriendsocialmistress said:

Maybe it’s just me, but a big reason why I love WOT is exactly because the characters are so unlikable and immature. It makes me relate more easily. I’m not perfect, on a journey of becoming more than I am today. When I read or watch characters who are supposed to be these perfect people with no human flaws, I check out a bit.

One of my favorite protagonists is Rahl from Natural Ordermage and Mage Guard of Hamor (by L.E. Modesitt Jr.).

By the end he is one of the most polite, competent, solid, GOOD people I've encountered in Modesitt's writing.  At the beginning he is a self entitled whiner complaining incessantly about how unfair everything is based not on if it's actually wrong or not but on how it interferes with his life specifically.  His organic and slow transformation from having a chip on his shoulder and blaming everyone else for how unfair things are to taking quiet responsibility and being a rock others can depend on is incredibly lovely.

1 hour ago, Stedding Tofu said:

I have to admit I remember her bossing all the sisters around in Caemlyn and I don't remember her  deferring to any weaker sisters.  I also remember how Egwene had to trick her into acknowledging that she owed obedience to Egwene as The Amyrlin Seat and that acceptance was given grudgingly. 

Again, her experience and path have put her in a position where she should NOT be deferring to these people.  But she makes it quite clear she thinks a power based hierarchy is dumb in her conversations with Daigian.  Using what is there to accomplish things is not the same as approving of it or accepting it.  

I think using Gas is stupid and harmful to the environment, but until I can afford an electric I still go to work, buy groceries.  I kind of don't have a choice but to use what's there until I can do better.  I'm just talking about my need to continue to live and support my family, Nynaeve's stakes are the world's continued existence here.

1 hour ago, Stedding Tofu said:

As long as you recognise that Nynaeve expects to be the one giving the orders and can't handle it when she isn't.  The chapters after leaving Ebou Dar when Alise Tenjile organises The Kin / red belts from The Farm, usurping what Nynaeve sees as her rightful role and leaving her flummoxed, are hilarious.  And her interactions with Cadsuane are telling as, despite her superior strength in the power, she realises she has come up against a similar character who won't bend to anyone else.

And from these experiences she learns and gets better.  No one said she's never problematic, only that it's a character arc she evolves from.   You mentioned Book 1 Nynaeve at one point.  I'd despise Book 1 Nynaeve, but would love and respect Book 6+ Nynaeve.

1 hour ago, Stedding Tofu said:

But my criticism is that he doesn't think anything of what it means to become a slave owner or how any of his friends, family and associates would react to this. 

He is, in the middle, of the Last Battle.   He doesn't have the time or luxury to stop and consider the moral and ethical problems this rises, he has a moment to be horrified by the idea then it's back to dealing with the giant army of nightmare monsters trying to murder everyone.  We don't have the book go on long enough after to see if he does or doesn't put thought into this.  But we DO have how he acts overall, which is to save Aes Sdai from damane colllars and then encourage Sul'Dam to LEARN to channel to help him fix the empire.
 

1 hour ago, Stedding Tofu said:

Is it on his mind?  I don't remember him having anything to do with the captive sul'dam or the Aes Sedai unless he had to.  Any more than he has anything to do with his captive damane or thinks about her as a person.  Learning how to keep away from Aes Sedai was of course why he stepped through the ter'angreal in Tear and, Mat being Mat, and RJ being RJ, is why he ends up married to a sul'dam and owning a damane. 

Yes, it is clearly on his mind.  When he sees the fear in Jolene's eyes over the presence of a Seanchan accent.  When he frees Teslyn, when he puts his neck on the line far beyond his own needs to get those three sisters out of Ebou Dar.  When he regrets killing Renna.  When he tells Seta and Bethamin to learn to channel and help him save the empire from itself.  

He constantly shows how much he hates this and wants it different.  You're holding him accountable because he doesn't immediately think about this during a life and death struggle for all of creation.  
 

1 hour ago, Stedding Tofu said:

The Aes Sedai with Mat intend to teach the sul'dam how to channel only because one of the sul'dam manages to grasp the source and does something that hurts everyone nearby so, like with any other untrained woman, they plan to teach her enough not to hurt herself or others around them. 

I understand that my random habit of just remembering everything is weird, but maybe double check what people say if you think it sounds off.  Yes, the sisters agree because of that reason, to start.  Teslyn is already changing her way of thinking by the time she parts with Mat and Mat SPECIFICALLY says to Seta and Bethamin  to learn as much as they can so they can to help him sway Tuon and stop the Damane process.  He wants things to change.

1 hour ago, Stedding Tofu said:

But if you think Mat has some plan to work on Tuon and reform the Seanchan from the inside then I admire your optimism but think it's wishful thinking. 

Again, he explicitly shares this to Seta and Bethamin.  Beyond that, if you HONESTLY think he doesn't see the issue with his wife wanting to collar his sister you're woefully misunderstanding Mat as a character from the get go.  
 

1 hour ago, Stedding Tofu said:

But Perrin and Faile's relationship still reads like pulling teeth.

I thought so too when I read it as a 15-20 year old "boy" trying to fit exactly how a man was supposed to be.  Reading it as a 30 something woman and rereading it now at 40+?...  Not so much, it just reads as a combination of youthful stupidity and grave misunderstandings of what the requirements should be for masculinity and femininity. 

1 hour ago, Stedding Tofu said:

I'm genuinely well-disposed towards Nynaeve but I would not want to spend time around her because she has a temper and an expectation that she would give orders and they would be obeyed.  Ditto Faile.

One, I think you're missing a key point, because Nynaeve admits the system is flawed and defers to a Sister so weak she barely made the Shawl.  There's a difference between using what you have and thinking it's the right way to leave things.

But beyond all that, what, exactly, is the issue with someone giving orders and expecting to be obeyed?  If the orders are bad, question, but realistically, these are intelligent, highly trained and competent people.

 

1 hour ago, Stedding Tofu said:

Undoubtedly but owning a damane while your sister trains to be Aes Sedai is about as thoughtless as it can get.

Except he doesn't actively go purchase a damane, he captures an enemy channeler in the middle the last battle.  We have no idea how he'll react to this or what steps he'll take next and we KNOW the idea is on his mind because he encourages the Sul'Dam that were with him to learn to channel and help him convince Tuon to change things.    

 

1 hour ago, Stedding Tofu said:

And marrying the Seanchan Empress when she sees everyone as traitors owing her obedience and has already conquered a third of Randland, only being restrained by a precarious truce, kind of avoids looking at the big picture.

Two aspects.  One, love is funny and you can't always control who you love.  Two, there is a very strong argument to make about changing things from the inside.  We know attacking the Seanchan from the outside is bloody, dangerous and might fail.  But Mat slowly influencing Tuon, applying his own political leverage and ability to start moving the needle?  These are things that come with maturity.  It's easy to stand and say "Be defiant no matter what."  It's a harder thing in reality and practice.  A young person would dash themselves on the rocks of the Seanchan empire trying to force the issue.  A smarter person realizes if they're in control they can effect change.
 

1 hour ago, Stedding Tofu said:

I'm talking about when Perrin cuts the hand of the Shaido captive in order to force him to say where Faile is and thinks (rather tediously and repetitively) "only Faile matters", "the world could burn as long as Faile was safe". 

Again, human flaws and not uncommon at that.  I pride myself on being analytical and making sound judgements and if you hurt my wife there would be significant issues and while I keep calm in bad situations my focus becomes very much zeroed in on the issue of my family hurting.

It's not an immature young person thing, it's a vulnerability and humans are flawed thing.
 

7 hours ago, Sir_Charrid said:

Are we certain RJ made that change as opposed to Brandon Sanderson (I can’t remember which book it is that it becomes clear they can’t be the same person). 

And two second Sinister, we know the RJ notes are from during his writing of LOC.  And we know in Winter's Heart Demandred specifically does not recognize Damer Flinn, all before Sanderson's involvement.

I think the main Teen Romance issue is Perrin and Faile honestly.

Their relationship is not super healthy and will break Perrin or end unless Faile can do some major shifts.  This idea that he needs to just psychically know exactly when to teeter between meek and dominant, the idea that she can't be her full strength unless he is stronger than that, and the fact that she often holds things against him he can't know he did or didn't even have anything to do with.

Let's say if I acted that way my spouse would not be happy with me and I wouldn't blame them.

Honestly, I think he deliberately wrote characters at different levels of maturity.  I know my appreciation and favorites have changed over the years as I went from a 15 year old reading the first 5 books to the occasional re-read now at 42.

In the early days it was Rand's power fantasy and Mat's cleverness and defiance that made me the most amused.  

Now for the main trio I like Perrin the most and my favorite characters are probably Moraine and Cadsuane with Verrin taking the top spot.

Yeah, I don't know why RJ changed that, but it leaves a few weird gaps.   Although it makes sense that Shai'Tan would be developing new agents.

Let's not jump onto that debate.  For what it's worth I don't think it's much of a secret that I'm transgender.  I also know Dojo and I have talked about it in the past and I haven't found her to be rude, dismissive or attacking over the matter.

To be clear, yes, transgender and nonbinary people have been around forever, not just hundreds but thousands of years.  Summeria and Akkadia have references dating 4500 years.

In the same note, while perhaps a better phrasing would have been "Common belief is that gender was locked in a binary until recently" I don't believe Dojo was trying to be dismissive or offensive.  Jordan was very progressive and I'd imagine very pro women and equality, he simply had a very different and as we know now, outdated view of things.  Mistakes and genuine lack of knowledge aren't something we judge on, I hope.

Dojo, if you ever care it gets better after book 2,  Book 1 and 2 basically clone other works (Including Wheel).  Book 3+ goes a different route.

BUT, right around book 5/6 Goodkind discovered Ayn Rand, went overboard with it and started shifting the series.  He also started dismissing fantasy as a genre and fantasy fans, telling off people who asked if he'd bring back dragons and the like and saying he didn't write fantasy.

As said, I don't hold any judgements or dismissiveness of the work objectively.  That doesn't mean I don't end up subjectively being unhappy with something.

I will 100% always argue separating the art from the artist.  I enjoyed Sword of Truth, but once Goodkind started being scummy to his fanbase I started enjoying it less and now I won't even re-read them, despite them being on the shelf next to Recluce and Wheel of Time growing up.

Possibly, and also, we don't know when he changed his mind, the time frame I put is the extreme.   We know from his notes that during the writing of LOC Demandred was Taim and killed Asmodean.

We know in The Cleansing during Winter's Heart that Demandred clearly has no idea who Finn is, meaning he can't be Taim since Taim personally tested and trained Finn at the start.

There's no telling when during that stretch RJ made the change, just that he did.

I mean for you personally?  Sure.   Same way I am 100% on board with Fain being set up to be the new DO if Rand chose wrong.

Nothing wrong with Fan Canon so long as it's acknowledged as such.

Heck, WAY back in the 90's there was a Wheel of Time based Chatroom Role Play on AOL.  I randomly came up with an idea that if you could channel opposite sides of the sources AND they had created artificial life, why not both?

Had a whole convoluted lore set up for creatures that were made that wielded the opposite power of their presenting gender that were old, like the Golam.   Was very well developed.  Never existed in the real book, but in my imagination they're still there, one of them as an Asha'Man serving Rand directly. 🙂 

It's all fun and imagination in the end.  

To be clear, that's a theory, we don't know for sure.  

But I'd point out this is very like your DM example.  These weren't things written into the actual story and then ret-conned, these were his personal notes.  Akin to something like when I ran Wild Beyond the Witchlight I added in two grandchildren of Zybilna based on Gwydion and Arianrhod of Welsh Mythology.  If you read the notes of the book they don't exist, but my changing things to put them in isn't retconning, it's establishing Canon in my universe.

2 hours ago, Sir_Charrid said:

The writing style hasn't aged well as I have aged and those little things I used to call quirks grate slightly more with each re read. I am fully accepting I may reach the point where I may just put the series aside and decide to never reread it again. 

Similarly I find it hard subjectively and emotionally to separate art from the times so certain things end up grating on me.  The fact that Gender is so binary locked and Halima is treated as a weird automatically off thing pushes a bit on my sensibilities each time I read.  

Objectively I understand and don't mind, I'd never critique or complain, but subjectively I do think I'll hit the same point your worried about.  Specially as Modesitt and Sanderson continue to write the type of fantasy I like and there continues to be more and more of it.  (Ashamed to admit I haven't read the last Mistborn or Modesitt's new Isolate series yet, they're just sitting on my shelf until I have time.)

Official Canon is that Graendal killed Asmodean.  That's the end result.

The above quote is from RJ's personal notes, which were labyrinthine and jumbled in a way that he understood but precious few others did.  The notes I quoted were all written while he was working on Lord of Chaos.   At that time Demandred showed up in Caemlyn, killed Asmodean, introduced himself to Rand as Mazrim Taim and began infiltrating the Black Tower (Then the Farm).

Sometime between then and when he was writing Winter's Heart this changed.  Don't know why, some think he felt we (the fandom) figured it out too easy, some that he just rewrote for other reasons. 

  

1 hour ago, SinisterDeath said:

Similar to the notes that talk about a 6th Emmond fielder that fled with Moiraine.

Ah, poor Dannil.

I always assumed the second.  The Ogier off the steading had it bad, but I doubt the entire population was conveniently away from home when things went bad.   

Not so much a pet Theory, but something I was really convinced was RJ's plan but due to lack of detail didn't work that way.

I felt like Graendal should have died to Rand, come back for the last battle, done.  Because the entire issue with Perrin doesn't really fit Graendal.  She is doing her own thing, then all of a sudden, no wait, I have this master plan for Perrin with various pieces in place for most of the series... 

Meanwhile there is a Forsaken who's an expert dream walker, making her someone Perrin could fight, a master of subterfuge and indirect plans, and perfectly suited to be in that area and go after Perrin.

But because Graendal escapes, fights Perrin and then dies/reborn anyway we just have this giant gap of "Where's Mogedhien?"

Terez over at Theoryland found it in the notes a while back.  Here's the actual quotes from RJ's notes and then the link where Terez talks about it.  It also reveals who originally killed Asmodean.

Regarding the section called "People" in Box 55
"Taim/Demandred showed up, not so much because his party wants Rand free -- though that might be a point in their plans; on the other hand, Rand in the hands of the White Tower, and thus within Mesaana's power, could still cause one hell of a lot of chaos -- but because of learning that the Shaido were moving in. They could not be sure the Aes Sedai could drive off the Shaido, nor that the Shaido would not kill Rand. And a rescued Rand, pissed at the Aes Sedai will [U]really[/U] be a source of chaos and disunity."

Then in the same box about what Nynaeve does or doesn't know at the time of writing.
 

"She does not know that Aginor (Osan'gar) and Balthamel (Aran'gar) were resurrected, the latter as a woman who is now masquerading as Halima, Delana's secretary/companion.

She knows that Moghedien was prisoner, of course. Until she is/was informed by Egwene, Siuan or Leane, she thinks Moghedien is still a prisoner.

She does not know that Asmodean was a prisoner of Rand, nor, of course, that he was killed by Demandred."

http://www.theoryland.com/forums/discussion/8767

No one knows exactly when he changed his mind, but pretty sure him deliberately having Demandred not recognize Finn during the Cleansing was a purposeful "Hey, Demandred isn't in the Black Tower." piece.

Less specific evidence and more just fitting.  Remember, at the time of writing LOC Demandred was not in Shara, he was Mazrim Taim sent to sew chaos in the westlands.   So when I originally read it I assume it was him behind it.  Because I didn't have clear answers but in the end Demandred asks Shai'Tan if he is pleased.

Then later when RJ changed Demandred's story I never thought back to realize that caused a gap.

14 hours ago, Stedding Tofu said:

I thought it took several generations for the drift to War in Aviendha's visions.  My impression was that Tuon and Mat and all the others like Perrin had died naturally. 

Aviendha's vision of Padra, her daughter, has them reflect that there had almost been peace with the Empress but then she died.  It doesn't 100% spell out, but it does seem they fell to assasins or a coupe.  It kind of makes sense, no matter how hard headed she is about it, Fortuona had hints of not being a monster and Mat likely wouldn't have let all out war push forward if he could stop it.  But if they're both removed...

I apologize if I conflated two points.  I 100% think Aviendha is working to change the Aiel's future and that it is possible to change.

I'm simply saying that we need SOMETHING to lead to magic disappearing from the world.  An state of people being afraid of magic users for their individual power and as a scapegoat for other problems combined with weapons that equalize the battlefield is going to come.

It doesn't by any means need to be the Seanchan smashing the Aiel as an inevitability.  Aviendha and others can fix things and maybe everything goes peaceful for a while and then three thousand years from now whatever Kingdom comes after Seanchan has the war.  

To go to my original point someone else could get the idea.  Aiel are shown to have non channeling Wise Ones.  Wise One seniority seems to be due to wisdom, experience and force of will.  Because of Channeler's slow aging they always end up on top.  But that could be noticed, or down the line the Aiel as the peace keepers have the strongest military and grow tired of other channeling orders interfering and the war starts that way.

In general the advent of simpler to use weaponry means the end of individually powerful beings.  In real life as an example Firearms and even before that the crossbow ended the armored knight.  Not because a Knight couldn't still be devastating but because the money to outfit and train a knight could outfit and train 10 Crossbowmen.  

8 minutes ago, Sir_Charrid said:

You have what I guess are lasers and fire canons etc

Do we have actual evidence that they were lasers of some sort?  I know we all assumed because shocklance sounds high tech or magical.  But the Shock could be the soundwave from the bullet.

Kind of like in Fall of Angels we have the locals all describing the angels wielding "Thunder Throwers" that devastate at a distance.  Jump to the PoV of said angels and they're standard side arms and they're worried about what happens when they run out of rounds.

I think everyone is failing to take into account one guns and mass production will do for the Seanchan.   Seanchan have cannon.  It's clear in the Bad for Aiel future that Tuon is killed early on, probably Mat too.  Which means whoever takes over has Cannon without any ties to the rest of the world.

It's only a matter of time and stray thoughts to take cannon and go "What if smaller?"  And from there it begins.  Now a random soldier is as powerful as a weaker channeler, but there's 100 soldiers for every channeler, a 1000.  Some would be individually powerful and able to hold, but no one is invisible or infallible and the Seanchan aren't just throwing rifles and cannon against channelers, they have their own Damane too, trained up with the secrets taken from the captured and from Moghedien...

It's honestly inevitable and probably what leads to the One Power being lost and forgotten.  Once the Seanchan have all channelers dead or collared, less and less will be born over generations, not to mention it will become something that is not worth pursuing and so fades.

Tragic as it is, what Aviendha saw is what will happen, if not with the Seanchan vs the Aiel than with whatever the Seanchan evolve into or maybe the Seanchan turn things around but someone else gets the idea...  

I still don't like book 1 and I initially didn't like book 2.  I had the advantage of having books 1-5 in my home already, having my parent force me to read LotR first, which meant book 1 seemed better by default and had the advantage that my OCD generally doesn't let me NOT know how a story continues or finishes, so once I read book 1 I had to read all we had.   

Book 3 is what got me going and kept my attention.  Mat and Perrin becoming more complex characters and getting more center stage brought me over.  

On 2/7/2023 at 4:01 AM, Stedding Tofu said:

Mind-reading is too intrusive so I'm glad this has not been established as a rule or inevitable consequence of channelers boding each other.

It leads to it's own interesting quirks.  If you're ever Curious several of the Recluce novels by L.E. Modesitt Jr deal with it.  Specifically Towers of the Sunset, The Order War and The Death of Chaos.   

Essentially it does force a super level of trust because suddenly there really are no secrets, causes immense stress, takes forever for people to come to terms with it, and results in having both sides die if one does since if you think just taking the Warder's death in is hard, imagine doing it while having their every thought too.

If it's already been mentioned, apologies, but the 3.5 Wheel of Time Official Role Play set the groundwork for a lot of how 5e's spellcasting works in general.

Weaves were essential individual spells with ranges.  Fireball, for example, was originally a level 1-9 spell that did more damage and a bigger explosion the higher a spellslot you put in.   It also gave ranges for higher than 9th level to account for strengths and Angreal/Sa'Angreal.

Following that, Wheel handled Strengths and weaknesses artificially adjusted levels.  So someone strong in Fire would cast a 6th level Fireball with only a 5th level slot.  While someone weak in Fire would require a 7th level slot to get the same effect.

Then with Angreal/Sa'Angreal they had a rating.  1-3 for Angreal, 4+ for Sa'Angreal.  Using one added that number of levels.  So a +1 Angreal made your 1st level Cure Wounds cast as a 2nd Level.  A +7 Sa'angreal (Like Vora's) meant that a level 2 Fireball was a 9th level.