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DRAGONMOUNT

A WHEEL OF TIME COMMUNITY

Kalessin

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Everything posted by Kalessin

  1. It isn't sequential. RJ uses the flashback technique at least twice, and we only get back into sequential narrative when they get to Caemlyn. I hadn't thought of it in connection to the stress they were under, with Mat steadily losing ground to the Shadar Logoth dagger, and Rand experiencing the after-effects of touching the One Power. But it does make sense.
  2. I'm doing a re-read of the WoT, and am getting stuck into tEotW, tacking our dynamic duo Rand and Mat all the way into Caemlyn. In Ch 39, Weaving of the Web, Rand thinks "Hyam Kinch had talked about strange shapes, and surely enough there had been a Fade back there." Except that I've gone through all the mentions of Hyam Kinch in tEotW, and he never mentions strange shapes, The Fade they almost run into, is in the last town before Caemlyn, talking to an innkeeper called Raimun Holdwin, before Almen Bunt talks to Rand and offers them a ride during the night, all the way to Caemlyn. And he mentions strange shapes in the night. "Things creeping about in the night. [...] Fellows around like that friend of Holdwin, scaring people." I don't know if it's been mentioned before, but this is one case where Homer nods.
  3. And then there's the reaction to the Myrdraal following them on the Quarry road in the first chapter. Then we get an explanation later either from Moiraine: Which we see later, when Lan charges down the stairs after feeling a Myrdraal nearby, threatening Rand.
  4. apostrophes irritate me no end when I encounter them with no explanation. In Michael Moorcock's books they are a constant presence, thus we meet up with Saxif D’an, an interesting character, though hardly one you'd enjoy a meal with, who encounters Elric, prince of Ruins, on his way to R’lin K’Ren A’a, the origin city of the Melniboneans, now abandoned for ages since the Melniboneans sided with Chaos instead of Law and moved to Imryrr to force into being the Bright Empire which lasted ten thousand years. I figure that if they come between two vowels, they should be treated as glo''al stops; if between two consonants, as indicating that both consonants are haspirated; between a consonant and vowel, as indicating the consonant is followed by a glo''al stop; if between a vowel and a consonant, as indicating that the vowel is heavily haspirated. YMMV, those are my working rules. (Although, if the writer indicates they are clicks as in the Choi-san and some Bantu languages eg Xhosa, as Tad Williams does in the Memory Sorrow and Thorn four-book trilogy, I endeavour to click them as adequately as I can.)
  5. I think it would've been interesting, to say the least, to have had Tam al'Thor meet up with some of his old comrades from his days as a cog in the machinery of Illian's army. After Rand had become the King of Illian, natch.
  6. Kalessin

    Dune!

    I've just finished a re-read of the first three books. I do that every now and then. I've also watched the first movie time and again, trying to work out why it's so dreadful and yet so enjoyable. Likewise for the SyFy channel adaption of it. I haven't enjoyed the posthumous books at all. Some were positively dreadful, and some were just tolerable. I think that Dreadful Duo should've left Frank Herbert's legacy alone.
  7. Godley and Creme's Consequences, of course: Godley and Creme did this song in the late 70s and I spent most of the following years asking people whose song it was. They'd been in 10cc, and had split to make for themselves a duo career.
  8. After reading Warrior of the Altaii and reading Harriet's comment on a rushed draft of his for a romance novel which in the end he wasn't asked to write, I feel the greatest thing missing in all these romances, is the duck. (He'd written a draft love scene where a duck featured, for reasons best known to him. Ergo, if there's no duck, there's no romance.) That said, and the duck safely stuffed and roasted, I too felt the Thom - Moiraine romance was so threadbare neither could use it for a cloak of any kind. Elayne was too annoying for me to take seriously. Aviendha had more promise = she was in training to be a leader of her people, after all, and she'd had to do some serious growing up in the process, something which Rand didn't do until the very end. While Min was solid and reliable, and had a touch of humour and temper which the others didn't have, and that made her real to me. I never felt Tylin and Mat had any kind of romance, or perhaps only in the eyes of the duck. She was using him, treating a foreign emissary as her toyboy; he was hanging on, following orders, and trying to break free. Not enough balance between the pair to make it a romance. As far as Mat and Tuon - well, that's a strange case. She's trying to fit him into the rigidity of her society; he's realized she's the mysterious Daughter of the Nine Moons - fertility title - which he's been told he's to marry, and he's trying to work out who the heck she is, and in the process, tying himself in knots for her, falling so deeply in love with her he'll do anything to make her smile. While she's in the same predicament, though she's less willing to admit it.
  9. Time to dust off your inner Lovecraft? With knuckle-dusters? In The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, in the chapter Many Partings, we have Gandalf asking Treebeard: Ergo, the use of the correct word is vital. In The Wheel of Time, The Eye of the World, in the chapter Web of the Pattern, we find Rand al-Thor in this predicament: Now, what if it had actually read: What kind of a world would that be? What sort of people gibber when you expect them to giggle? The challenge is to come up with a believable world where that would happen, making a story from the two sentences quoted. Dust off your inner Lovecraft with your best knuckle-dusters, put on your best dancing trousers and get down to the utter king of rock and rool, Criff Lichyard!!! And show us what you can do!
  10. Now I understand! The Prof McGonigall of Hogwarts! For a moment there I thought you meant William McGonigall: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_McGonagall who is a poet to chew one's legs off to, during a reading of his poetry, particularly if one is a President of the Galactic Arts Nobbling Council.
  11. Sorry, just had to quote this: From Riddley Walker, by Russell Hoban. Mentioning horny teenage boys always brings that poem to mind. And the relevance to Rand and his three wives? I suppose you could say they aren't left widows; that they still are "married" to him after he "dies". In relation to spirfire4000's point about the lineages, it's also about the post-Last Battle balance of power. Andor allied to the peacekeeping force through a common lineage, the common father of the most prestigious Aiel and Andorian lineages, provides a balance to all other powers in Randland. While Min's foresight will give both an edge during the difficult transition period. (Transition periods are the most difficult times in politics. Just ask your local friendly ogre politician.)
  12. I've looked at both the Companion and the World of RJ's WOT. The Companion: The World of RJ's WOT: Still, they must be fed, and the articles say nothing to disprove that they regularly ate whoever was unlucky enough to not be eaten immediately by the raiding male trollocs.
  13. For me it's the female trollocs ... once you have them tied up in weaves of air, they don't even realize it's a Dreadlord and not a male trolloc who's turned up ... would I lie to you? 😉 Speaking facetiously, I think what really caught my attention the first time I read a book in the series was the way everything was plotted. I opened the series at book 6, Lord of Chaos, and had no idea of who the characters were. Mat amused me; Perrin puzzled me; I did worry that Rand was going to be another Thomas Covenant-type character, without the peculiar type of language that Stephen Donaldson used (sign of a bilingual who isn't completely at home in his official primary language). I had no idea who the Aiel were, not a clue who the supergirls were, and Nynaeve started off by grating me. It was the way the rescue mission was plotted that dragged me in. Everything was worked out that everything that happened, was set up for apparently different ends, except for the rescuers setting out from Cairhien. And once that had me hooked, I went out and bought the Eye of the World, and every following book, because I had to know how the Wheel of Time had been set up, and why these characters did these things and said these things, etc.
  14. That's consistent with the Aiel history ter'angreal; Rand sees Jonai talking to Someshta: compared with Charn, Jonai's grandfather: I would guess that the Aiel had incorporated a kind of Civil Defense into their overall service to Aes Sedai, but with the Tamyrlin, Lews Therin Telamon, the Dragon, as the Aes Sedai they served in that capacity.
  15. You're right. Siuan and the terrible twins from the Two Rivers are discussing the use of the One Power, and Siuan makes a point: It's when Nynaeve loses her temper and copies exactly what Siuan has done and picks her up - as Siuan has done to her - and pins her against a wall. Siuan is greatly amused by it. 😀
  16. FWVVLIW, I always thought the same. Also, since the gateway plugged into a location where there had been both saidin and saidar operating, though only saidar under conscious control, and huge amounts of saidin and saidar what's more, it seems that it had ridden on the vastness of that Bowl of the Winds work, to cover a significant area around Altara up to Andor.
  17. Well, Egwene recognizes it as balefire, and she seems quite definite on that. So I think it is balefire.
  18. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition 😀
  19. Rand's mysterioius new "power" did at the start puzzle me, but then, this re-read, I paid attention to what he's doing in the void with the Dark One. He gets his hands dirty, so to speak, directly fiddling with the Pattern, moving things around, just so he can put on a light show as good as the Dark One's horror show. So he's got experience once he's out of the Bore, out of Shayol Ghul, in directly handling the threads of the Pattern. He doesn't need to be Ta'veren any more, so he isn't. He doesn't need access to the One Power, so he doesn't. What he's got is his experience in handling the threads of the Pattern directly, and a disinclination to do that with any person's threads. So he just thinks his pipe should be lit, and it is.
  20. Every Ajah seems to take the tack that it alone is central to the White Tower. As a fan of the sciences and even mathematics and logic, I can see why the Aes Sedai who likewise find it fascinating, would gravitate to the company of fellow scholars of the abstract. Ergo, the White Ajah, dedicated to the study of numbers and syllogisms. The Brown Ajah is dedicated to the study of history and natural philosophy, the study of the natural world in all its messy, muddy, smelly muck. They appear to be treating them as aspects of the same science, the study of humans in the natural worlds, even aspects of it that existed a few hundred years ago. The Blue Ajah actually do have a mission. We see them primarily through Moiraine and Siuan, but we also see reflected, the success of Deane Aryman is extricating Tar Valon from the siege Artur Hawkwing had laid on it in response to Bonwhin Meraighdin's arrogant treatment of him.
  21. Knife-throwing is a hobby and apparently some people even manage to make a profession out of it. Like knife-juggling ... (disclaimer: I have managed ball juggling, and got started in juggling clubs, but never got as far as juggling firesticks or knives.) Google is your friend. Same for concealed weapons. I found this site, which appears to show just how Thom and Mat could manage with their concealed armouries: https://www.prepperssurvive.com/where-to-hide-blades/ and this little doozy from a fashionista: https://venuszine.com/the-history-and-use-of-hidden-sleeve-knives-from-samurai-to-self-defense-tool/ including a lot of legal stuff which as a non-resident of Texas, I don't need to know.
  22. I can't claim to know much more about knives in coat-sleeves or boot-tops or elsewhere. I do remember hearing an old man in about 1992 talking about his service in the North Africa campaign as part of the Eighth Army, mentioning throwing knives as a part of combat - presumably for infiltration patrols, where you sneak in behind the enemy's lines and work your mischief. The knives he mentioned were far from elaborate, being basically a long-enough blade, sharpened down one side, and a heavy-enough handle so that it spun as it flew, the object being to let the spin drive it into the target's body. I've always assumed that those were the sort Mat would've used, copying Thom, since we see Thom using his, and we know Mat has some from his disarming at Rhuidean. Though Thom also uses them in close combat, much to the amazement of one Myrdraal. Assuming that which I cannot prove, I figure the knives would've been about 7 inches in length, to fit up my sleeves, with three and a half inches of that for the handle. Rather smaller than a Bowie knife, but as a throwing weapon, it would not need the cross-guard to protect the fighter's hand. I don't know what Faile's knives were like, as she only mentions and attempts to use them in the Stone of Tear (that we know of). If she didn't use them as throwing weapons, I assume they were double-bladed, perhaps with serrations on the blade nearer the hilt, to make deep thrusts more painful.
  23. RJ does display some dialectal differences, particularly the Illianers' language. He mentions rather than shows the Seanchan differences, talking about them speaking slowly and slurring speech, while giving us the POV of Tuon and Egeanin finding the hurried speech of the Randlanders hard to understand. He could've put more effort into giving the Seanchan some dialectal differences; it could've been done on the American English versus the Scottish language model (taking Burns as the Scottish language sample) and I think most people would've accepted it. Or used a comparative dictionary of English versus American versus Australian versus South African slang (I came across one of gotchas in US versus New Zealand english in the 80s; at that time New Zealand (and Australian) slang used "randy" to mean what US slang meant by "horny" while in US English Randy was a perfectly acceptable nickname form of Randolph. While in ANZ slang at that time a student could ask for a rubber to erase pencil marks, and UK/US speakers would crack up laughing, because in UK/US slang, "rubber" meant "condom". RJ could've made some quite funny (and embarrassing) situations out of dialectal differences. Just think of Tuon's predicament when she asks for something and Mat gets all shocked, because nice girls don't ask for that in the Two Rivers.🤣 )
  24. Well, wasn't Rand following Baalzamon into Tel'Aran Rhiod at that moment, and - like Perrin in The Towers of Midnight, Ch 37, meeting Egwene in TAR during the battle for the White Tower against Mesaana - it was "just a weave", and Lews Therin knew how to deflect weaves in TAR. (He'd had a hundred or more years in learning how to manage TAR, and Baalzamon seems to have forgotton that.)
  25. The passage from TGH is when Renna, a Seanchan sul'dam, is explaining to her new Damane, Egwene soon to be known as Tuli, the history of the marath'damane, the a'dam, the sul'dam and the damane. Apparently the Trolloc Wars never touched Seanchan, or at least that is what I've managed to understand from hints dropped in the books. And that was because the Aes Sedai in that part of the world, have gone through the Portal Stones to bring back the grolm, the raken, and other such creatures, which made short work of the Trollocs and Myrdraal. So the people calling themselves Aes Sedai in Seanchan were every Aes Sedai for herself, and the Dark One take the hindmost. And they had not developed any central authority, much less bound themselves by any oaths. In effect, they are no longer Aes Sedai as understood before the War of Power; in no way "Servants of All". And as such, not bound by the Age of Legends' traditions of service, and not bound by any oaths to limit their use of the One Power, they seem to have gleefully used it in battle. https://wot.fandom.com/wiki/Three_Oaths goes into it. You might find it useful.
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