Let's strip it all down to what would be the absolute "bare bones" of the story.
- Light vs. Dark (good vs. evil)
- The prophesied hero of the Light side is the only one who can stop the Dark from their inevitable win. The downside is that he will destroy the world as it is currently known in the process.
- Light side hero is a small town kid with questions about his past. He's naive about the world, and eventually even about what he can do.
- Light side hero has a group of friends who get swept up in their own journey of self-discovery and how they are an integral part of the Hero's journey and victory.
- The Dark side hero range from near mythic figures with incredible powers, to random people who've chosen the Dark. You never know who may be evil.
- The world is divided among itself with conflicts between countries and even within the same country....with nobles and commonfolk alike all trying to make their way in a land which is less than 20 years past a "world war".
Now up to this point....pretty standard story. Your differentiation point is going to be the Power. A "gift/curse" that an individual is born with that will either manifest on their own, or must be discovered. For women, this is a "Gift" that will propel them into a completely different strata of society...where even nobles will note them. For men, this is a "Curse" that will cause them to bring suffering to loved ones & strangers alike, before they eventually go completely mad and eventually die.
There ya go....told in that context....its not wot, so much as it is generic fantasy series.
~Jeordam
What do I mean by that title for it sounds like gibberish. I meant the power of narrative and stories and how we can create binary stories that are true, but not the best way to describe the truth.
Hegelian Dialectic comprises three stages of development:
1st) a thesis or statement of an idea (this is the side of the Good, the Light), which gives rise to a second step,
2nd) a reaction or antithesis that contradicts or negates the thesis (this is the side of Shai'tan, the Dark One),
3rd) the synthesis, a statement through which the differences between the two points are resolved. (it is resolved via one side obliterating the other, or via a new formulation that is seperate from A and B.)
That is what we are sold in the first book, the Eye of the World. This is going to be a battle between Good and Evil and once side will win, and the world may be destroyed in the process, but then a new order will be created after the world surviving or being destroyed in the process.
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But what we learn through the books, is what side is the Light and what side the Dark is a narrative created by society and it becomes the dominant narrative for it is a self reinforcing story in a binary fashion. It is only two ways to look at the world the Thesis point of view and the Antithesis point of view.
But there are dozens of other ways, lots of "grey" ways as well.
And in the end it is only through the union of opposites, but creating a new union that is different than the A and B we were presented in the first 6 or so books that victory is obtained.
And the victory is not the type of victory that we expected in Book 1.
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Pretty much the Wheel of Time deals with Naivety and how Naivety is both a function of the individual growing up for Naivety is a lack of experience.
But Naivety is also caused by a false experience being foisted upon you that is not the best way of navigating the present, these false experiences are given to us by our elders, our sages, our teachers, our society and they honestly think they know best, it is experience they think is helpful that is bound out of self truth, truth even compelled by oaths yet this truth may not be helpful.
It is about forming a way of rebellion yet the rebellion is not a complete rejection of the false experiences that people try to force upon you. It is about finding the middle way, the third way, whatever you want to call it that creates a new synthesis separate from the first two presented.
This is the main theme of the books. But there are also dozens upon minor themes to the point they are so many it is impossible to list them all.
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Who knows if the TV show will have a satisfying experience no matter what they do, no matter if they stay true to the dozens of the themes in the book. If you were to ask 11 other RAFOites and Dragonmount people (Is Dragonmount still a thing?) what the main themes of the book are you will get completely different answers.
At least 2 of them were pure writting nonsense 
*NM*
- 15/08/2019 09:46:26 PM
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