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Pretty much... DomA Send a noteboard - 23/09/2010 09:16:26 PM
To be fair to BS, I think a lot of the information contained in that POV has more to do with the fact that RJ never got the chance to really give an in-depth statement regarding certain aspects of his worldbuilding so when BS does it, it comes across as a Dungeon Master explaining to a roleplayer why their character can or can't do something by reading straight out of the Dungeon Master's guide.


RJ used his abundant wordbuilding notes in one of three ways: as mini-infodumps, most of them rather off-handed, to set up (often way ahead of time) future plot developments, eg: reveal a "neat" OP trick because it will play out two-three books later. A second way was to throw WB details at us in support of a theme. A lot of the male/female details of the OP were thrown at us for that. They didn't really had a plot purpose (there's very little male/female OP interaction in the series) but to support the various gender complementarity/opposition themes. A third way he used his world building details were as "easter eggs". He knew a fair portion of his readers were very very interested in those, and when it made dramatic sense to include a chunk here or there, RJ indulged us, on occasion.

What RJ never did was the big infodumps "reveals". He always preferred to give us answers in Q&A than to clutter his scenes with contrived extraneous information.

Brandon seems to take the "it's too good to leave out" road. That might please the readers who are reading the last books in the hope of filling the holes in some imaginary "role playing" rulebook about the OP or other tricks (and historical details etc.), but so far it leads to rather clunky and unnatural scenes where the POV character spells out out of context (and character) information that is perfectly obvious to him/her and that they would never have spared a thought on, realistically. Indeed, that ends up sounding like excerpts from the big DM's guide. RJ stayed away from that sort of thing like the plague, even favoured starving us for info. It's very hard to believe he would have done otherwise just because it's the last book. To him these were details he might use if there was a dramatic purpose for, never things that needed to be revealed before the end... He had the Encyclopedia slated for that sort of thing.

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mistakes sanderson makes that bug you - 23/09/2010 05:38:52 PM 1834 Views
Please read the posting rules for ToM *NM* - 23/09/2010 05:41:12 PM 3794 Views
Bael mentioning the Aiel Waste; characters using words that are too sophisticated or techical - 23/09/2010 06:11:34 PM 1062 Views
I completely agree... - 23/09/2010 08:54:17 PM 917 Views
Re: I completely agree... - 24/09/2010 01:57:38 AM 842 Views
Re: I completely agree... - 24/09/2010 06:39:17 PM 795 Views
The entire Graendal scene - 23/09/2010 06:27:03 PM 961 Views
I think this is the type of info that RJ never got around to revealing. - 23/09/2010 08:46:51 PM 813 Views
Pretty much... - 23/09/2010 09:16:26 PM 916 Views
The writing in the Graendal scene surprised me - 24/09/2010 12:20:50 AM 821 Views
Re: The writing in the Graendal scene surprised me - 24/09/2010 06:03:17 PM 821 Views
Actually, didn't RJ do the Forsaken infodump thing too? - 24/09/2010 04:09:48 AM 815 Views
Re: Actually, didn't RJ do the Forsaken infodump thing too? - 24/09/2010 05:36:23 PM 902 Views
A lot of those are reasons why I always thought she was alive.. - 24/09/2010 06:10:35 PM 924 Views
Re: Actually, didn't RJ do the Forsaken infodump thing too? - 25/09/2010 10:02:02 AM 706 Views
hmm - 25/09/2010 02:43:09 PM 710 Views
How she knows its Balefire.. - 25/09/2010 02:54:58 PM 688 Views
Re: Actually, didn't RJ do the Forsaken infodump thing too? - 25/09/2010 08:30:59 PM 770 Views
Re: Actually, didn't RJ do the Forsaken infodump thing too? - 25/09/2010 08:48:05 PM 787 Views
Some things... - 25/09/2010 09:02:26 PM 689 Views
Speaking of Kerb - 25/09/2010 09:39:46 PM 686 Views
Mat - 24/09/2010 04:44:34 AM 733 Views
Not really a mistake, I guess - 25/09/2010 09:45:54 PM 718 Views
Well... - 26/09/2010 06:30:54 AM 817 Views
Thanks. I think I didn't notice it with RJ because - 26/09/2010 06:35:47 AM 703 Views
Re: Thanks. I think I didn't notice it with RJ because - 26/09/2010 06:51:07 AM 699 Views
You're welcome *NM* - 26/09/2010 07:17:36 AM 323 Views
Well... - 26/09/2010 07:37:39 AM 798 Views

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