Getting back to the topic, I think the characterisation of Lanfear as evil is somewhat lacking because she doesn't twirl her moustache ...

Seriously, I thought RJ made Byar a monomaniac,which fitted his purpose in the series reasonably well. However, where he slipped up was failing to bring out the reason, unlike Muadh, whose one-line characterisation gives an excellent reason why he should hate Darkfriends. I suspect Byar's just one in a long line of fanatics, but it would've been better to have had some more detail.

I don't know if anyone's remarked on this before, but re-reading tDR, I realized that Padan Fain had used "Great Lord" in front of Pedron Niall, and Pedron Niall hadn't noticed. Admittedly he was using it as a term of address for Pedron Niall himself, but it leaped out at me that Padan Fain had betrayed himself, and the person he was speaking to, hadn't noticed. What do people think of this?

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.

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.

And then there's the reaction to the Myrdraal following them on the Quarry road in the first chapter.

Quote

As Rand watched his side of the road, the feeling grew in him that he was being watched. For a while he
tried to shrug it off. Nothing moved or made a sound among the trees, except the wind. But the feeling
not only persisted, it grew stronger. The hairs on his arms stirred; his skin prickled as if it itched on the
inside.

Then we get an explanation later either from Moiraine:

Quote

But I, or any Aes Sedai, can extend my protection to those close by me.
No Fade can harm them as long as they are as close to me as they are right now. No Trolloc can come
within a quarter of a mile without Lan knowing it, feeling the evil of it.

Which we see later, when Lan charges down the stairs after feeling a Myrdraal nearby, threatening Rand.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

Quote

‘I observe, my good Fangorn,’ said Gandalf, ‘that with great care you say dwelt, was, grew. What about is? Is he dead?’

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:

Quote

The dark-eyed girl had a tendency to twist her skirt and giggle whenever she looked at Rand.

Now, what if it had actually read:

Quote

The dark-eyed girl had a tendency to twist her skirt and gibber whenever she looked at Rand.

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!

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.

On 11/8/2023 at 6:31 PM, Samt said:

I think it's important to realize that while Rand having 3 beautiful women all in love with him is sort of a surface level horny teenage boy fantasy, it doesn't really play out that way.  It's not really at any point tawdry or lewd.  And Rand has a real relationship with all 3 women.  He has responsibilities and duties that he feels towards all 3 of them.  

 

In effect, the lesson is that good relationships take real work.  While Rand also benefits from the earnest efforts of all 3 women, it takes work for him to also build a relationship with each of them.  We can argue about exactly how much depth RJ succeeded in giving the relationships.  But the intention was that these aren't shallow sexual relationships.  In that way, RJ subverts the horny teenage boy expectation by showing that it isn't really about sex.

Sorry, just had to quote this:
 

Quote

 

Fools Circel 9wys:

Horny Boy rung Widders Bel
Stoal his Fathers Ham as wel
Bernt his Arse and Forkt a Stoan
Done It Over broak a boan
Out of Good Shoar vackt his wayt
Scratcht Sams Itch for No. 8
Gone to senter nex to see
Cambry coming 3 times 3
Sharna pax and get the poal
When the Ardship of Cambry comes out of the hoal

 

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.)

I've looked at both the Companion and the World of RJ's WOT. The Companion:

Quote

 There were female Trollocs, but they simply existed as breeders, birthing and protecting their young.

The World of RJ's WOT:

Quote

As in the Age of Legends, only male Trollocs fight or hunt. Female are cloistered, serving as little more than breeding machines. Fortunately female Trollocs enjoy being pregnant. Trollocs can inter-breed with humans, but apparently prefer humans as food. In any case even if the human mother survives to give birth, the resulting offspring are usually stillborn, and the few born live do not survive long.

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.

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.

That's consistent with the Aiel history ter'angreal; Rand sees Jonai talking to Someshta:

Quote

Jonai winced. That name had caused trouble, no less for not being true. But how many citizens now believed the Da’shain Aiel had once served the Dragon and no other Aes Sedai?

compared with Charn, Jonai's grandfather:

Quote

Today was his twenty-fifth naming day, and tonight he intended to accept Nalla’s latest offer of marriage. He wondered if she would be surprised; he had been putting her off for a year, not wanting to settle down. It would mean changing his service to Zorelle Sedai, whom Nalla served, but Mierin Sedai had already given her blessing.

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.

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:

Quote

"Useful, wouldn't you say? And it is nothing but Air." The Amyrlin spoke in a conversational tone, as if they were all chatting over tea. "Big man, with his muscles and his sword, and the sword does him as much good as the hair on his chest."

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. 😀

8 hours ago, Gary Again said:

I always thought the strangeness in the power had more to do with Elayne's unraveled gateway since that was more of an uncontrolled explosive blast of the power rather than the bowl of the winds which seemed fairly under control and was actually kind of anticlimactic in the immediate aftermath in that it didn't really change anything at first. It just always made more sense to me that it was the gateway that caused it.

 

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.

Well, Egwene recognizes it as balefire, and she seems quite definite on that.

Quote

“What . . . what was that?” Elayne asked.
Nynaeve shook her head; she looked as stunned as Elayne sounded. “I don’t know. I . . . I was so angry, so afraid, at what they wanted to . . . . I do not know what it was.”
Balefire, Egwene thought. She did not know how she knew, but she was certain of it. Reluctantly, she made herself release saidar; made it release her. She did not know which was harder.

So I think it is balefire.

On 7/30/2023 at 2:04 AM, seanchad said:

There has to be some Spanish Inquisition in there as well, no?

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition

😀

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.

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.

17 hours ago, Gypsum said:

I'm sure knife throwing is a thing in the real world. Probably takes some serious skill to get the knife to land point first, and even more to hit a moving target.

 

However, running around with a few seven-inch blades wedged up your sleeves seems like a good way to stab yourself in the arm, or the foot if it falls out. Does hiding knives in your sleeves really make sense?

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.

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.

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.🤣 )