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.
mistakes sanderson makes that bug you
23/09/2010 05:38:52 PM
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Bael mentioning the Aiel Waste; characters using words that are too sophisticated or techical
23/09/2010 06:11:34 PM
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I completely agree...
23/09/2010 08:54:17 PM
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Re: I completely agree...
24/09/2010 01:57:38 AM
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Re: I completely agree...
24/09/2010 06:39:17 PM
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Oh, sh**, Moiraine! I never thought about that! The comments about her in tGS suggest you're right
26/09/2010 03:23:56 AM
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The entire Graendal scene
23/09/2010 06:27:03 PM
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I think this is the type of info that RJ never got around to revealing.
23/09/2010 08:46:51 PM
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Pretty much...
23/09/2010 09:16:26 PM
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Particularly the way he described sex. It reeked of Mormon discomfort with the topic.
24/09/2010 02:04:08 AM
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Reeked? Great word. It seemed quite in line with RJ's own dealings with the topic. *NM*
24/09/2010 03:42:28 AM
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RJ had great sexual humor--he even went a little overboard sometimes IMO
24/09/2010 11:28:25 PM
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Re: RJ had great sexual humor--he even went a little overboard sometimes IMO
25/09/2010 08:56:47 PM
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RJ said breasts all the time, but in a more clinical manner - folding arms under breasts, etc
26/09/2010 03:33:09 AM
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Actually, didn't RJ do the Forsaken infodump thing too?
24/09/2010 04:09:48 AM
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Re: Actually, didn't RJ do the Forsaken infodump thing too?
24/09/2010 05:36:23 PM
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A lot of those are reasons why I always thought she was alive..
24/09/2010 06:10:35 PM
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Re: A lot of those are reasons why I always thought she was alive..
24/09/2010 07:54:54 PM
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Re: Actually, didn't RJ do the Forsaken infodump thing too?
25/09/2010 10:02:02 AM
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Re: Actually, didn't RJ do the Forsaken infodump thing too?
25/09/2010 08:48:05 PM
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Not really a mistake, I guess
25/09/2010 09:45:54 PM
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Well...
26/09/2010 06:30:54 AM
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Thanks. I think I didn't notice it with RJ because
26/09/2010 06:35:47 AM
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