Re: I completely agree... - Edit 2
Before modification by DomA at 24/09/2010 06:48:04 PM
I agree that trying to mimic RJ would have been a mistake, but as you say, the vocabulary could have been better matched. I am kind of ambiguous about the Mat humor in tGS, and I suppose that is another case of it being just as well that B-Sand went his own way rather than try to handle it in RJ's style.
Perhaps. The problem I have with Mat is that humor was such a defining trait of his character that if you change it he no longer seems himself.
My "feelings" pre-TGS have turned out more or less right so far. I thought Brandon would "do" an acceptable Perrin and an acceptable Egwene, that his Rand would be bearable. I had predicted he would struggle massively with Mat and also with Nynaeve, Tuon and Elayne, and that his handling of minor players, that he would not invest as much in as the main characters, would be very uneven.
That's not too far from my post-TGS opinions. Egwene was a bit more uneven than expected, Cadsuane was worse than expected, Nynaeve a very mixed-bag. Perrin and Faile were OK, perhaps the best of the lot. Rand was a little better than expected (especially later in the book,Egwene was more off and on again - though it appears Egwene was so uneven largely because Jordan had written some of her story line), though I wonder from what you were saying earlier if you agree with me it feels as if Brandon just couldn't wait from the dark-Rand parts to have been over and in his "relief" he might well overdo the post DM/laughter and tears Rand, because it's the lighter, more heroic Rand he likes (I found the half-mad, dark character more interesting to read about than the more naive early version of Rand, for myself. I don't like early Mat and early Egwene much at all either. Perrin remains my favourite of the early POV).
However, as you point out, other characters are funny, too. He seems to have labeled Mat as the Comic Relief, and made a conscious effort to write humor into his storyline, and completely neglect the potential humor elsewhere. For example, some of the funniest things have come out of Nynaeve's mouth, albeit unconsciously, but then Mat was not really one for wisecracking either. The humor in his PoV, IMO, came more from his askance perspective on things other characters took seriously than his dialogue. Thom was better at the ironic asides in RJ's books too. He is more of a straight man with B-Sand.
Exactly. I'm not really surprised. Whatever his flaws or weaknesses, there's no denying Jordan mastered the POV routine. I always liked how much attention to detail he put to build up unique POV "voices" for each character, even the secondary ones.
The subtleties of these we're familiar from a great deal of re reading (and too much time on our hands to analyze) - and we would probably not highlight all the same aspects of each character that define us for us. Some we find crucial, some we remain unaware of consciously.
I'm not that surprised this proved beyond the capacity of Brandon (and even Harriet) to fully master. To Jordan, this was probably for the most part natural. I doubt he had notes to remind him Nynaeve comments on trees and plants she sees, and Rand won't etc. For Brandon it's just too many details to juggle with, and he couldn't write and return to Jordan's books all the time - he probably had to rely on notes he took during his speedy reread (he concentrated mostly on the "voices"
. What escaped him during this reading is probably what isn't in TGS. He wrote the novel in the time Jordan might have done it, or close. With a year for in-depth POV analyzing, he probably would have been closer. Same for Harriet, I guess. I think she relied mostly on her memory, didn't have time to return to the books to immerse herself in each character's voice before editing. As for Maria, she seems to have had her hands full with factual continuity. As you say about Elayne, there was a lot of humor in her PoV too. She was kind of a very subtle Margaret Dumont for WoT as the one who keeps encountering myriad inconveniences. Getting hit by problems, instead of pies, as it were. I guess we'll see how that goes.
I find her even funnier than Mat often enough, and the funniest of all in my book is Nynaeve (that aspect is now gone). I bet Elayne is gonna be very hard to pull off.The other I find worrying is Moiraine. I have a really bad feeling that Brandon will be a lot more sympathetic to that character than Jordan himself was. Jordan to TFOH walked the very fine line between antagonist and protagonist. A lot of his earlier uses of Moiraine, especially her POVs, was very unforgiving yet not judgmental (he used Siuan a bit the same way - giving us enough to understand her thinking and her actions, but never shying from her flaws and negative aspects either). I would really hate (but fear) to see her return as a "bleached" Moiraine, without any of her grating or grey aspects remaining.