Martin is nuts! The characters... - Edit 2
Before modification by CatherineSedai at 08/07/2010 07:59:07 AM
What I wouldn't have given for a chief villain with Tywin Lannister's ruthlessnes and strategic pragmatism. Demandred would have been such a villain.
Instead, we got Mellisandre as the chief villain. A raving, frothing at the mouth fanatical lunatic.
Man, ol'George is a crazy ba$**** isn't he? I love his villains. RJ's villains still served their purpose though. I don't laugh at them...
Consider that the things Egwene, Elayne, Nynaeve, are doing - the AoL stuff.
Also consider: The Breaking happened 3500 years ago in WoT.
IRL, ALL of known human history is only 5000 years old.
This is more amazing than any of us give it credit for. Imagine if Magic were a real force and someone suddenly started doing things nobody had seen since 1500 years before Jesus Christ.
We got used to having Protagonists with way-above-average power and way out-there abilities. The Wheel wove these extraordinary people into a fairly close-knit web with it's ta'veren champion to, I assume, aid him. This is no coincidence, but it seems so commonplace to us that we don't think much about it. (I think it's noteworthy to point out that RJ brought the most powerful people in the World together so subtly that we DO take it for granted. Just like the Wheel would have wanted.)
Now, these many main characters we take for granted are able to rival individual Forsaken only because of their AoL powers and abilities with weaves. I think any one of the forsaken could decimate a linked circle of up to approx. 5 AS. ALL of our Wondergirls (as I've heard them called here) are hinted at being reborn and doing many strange things with the power by instinct. I haven't seen any evidence saying Nynaeve is anyone reborn, but I think the amount of raw power she has at her disposal hints at it nicely enough.
RJ had to still make the Forsaken HUMAN. His non-human evildoers are the Fades and Trollocs. Kinda like our demons. His completely supernatural force is the ultimate Evil, and all the magic people had to be...people. And if you're going to say they are just people, albeit powerful people from the most powerful and prosperous Age in recorded history, then they have to be fallible. And if you want people to believe all these protagonists are crazy-powerful and have abilities not seen since the AoL, then rival they must.