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Yes! fionwe1987 Send a noteboard - 29/09/2012 02:26:39 AM

Reading her PoV, one thing strikes me. The biggest flaw to Brandon's writing is that when characters start talking, we stop seeing their points of view.


It's funny, but I think I noticed something like that with tGS, namely, the Warder bonds. Where Jordan used that as a supplement to dialogue and body language, for Rand and Min to be noticing how the other felt, and their internal reactions to things (much like Perrin's scents), in tGS, they only noted the bonds when the other party was out of their presence. Aviendha is aware of Rand's bond, except when he is actually in front of her in the cover scene, and Min and Rand mostly only note the bond's input when the other one leaves the room. IIRC, the bond never comes up in the Dominion Bond scene, and that should have been a key factor in Rand's torment. Instead, he is often describing her emotions in terms of facial expressions "she looked shocked" or seemed amused or the like. I had thought he just was forgetting it, or missing its significance but maybe it's of a piece with this tendency to drop the stream of consciousness.

I noticed that too. I thought the Domination Band scene was where the bond would have been really significant. Wouldn't Semirhage the great torturer have mined this? Wouldn't her pleasure of controlling Rand have increased knowing that he could feel every bit of the pain he was forced to inflict on Min, and Min could feel his pain at doing this? Perhaps in Min's panic, her shining love for Rand which he always feels through the bond will be dimmed, and that will drive him over the edge to touching the True Power...

There was so much that could have been done to enhance the richness of that scene. But, as you said, Brandon missed it.

Even in this chapter. Rand feels Aviendha come to Merrilor. We know from the Prologue that she comes straight from Rhuidean, exhausted and depressed over what she saw. Rand didn't feel this? And he hasn't seen her since Arad Doman. How come he doesn't wonder about her after he feels her arrive? Why isn't he worried about how Elayne and Aviendha will receive the changes in him?

And why don't we get Egwene feeling the sorrow and anger and fear that obviously had to be coursing through Gawyn when he learned Caemlyn was burning?

All these opportunities to flesh out non-PoV characters in these scenes, and we get none of it. Presumably, Brandon will waste a paragraph or two detailing Gawyn's reaction when we first get his PoV, long after the event in question.
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If you have to call someone "my friend" three times in a couple of minutes, he isn't. - 28/09/2012 11:59:13 AM 5824 Views
John McCain has a similar proclivity. *NM* - 28/09/2012 12:26:29 PM 1187 Views
The only people I've ever heard say "my friend" are foreign street vendors - 28/09/2012 01:19:00 PM 1177 Views
Potential customer = best kind of friend *NM* - 28/09/2012 02:20:29 PM 739 Views
I agree in this particular instance. - 28/09/2012 03:38:15 PM 1519 Views
Maybe they have been Quakers all along? *NM* - 28/09/2012 03:39:24 PM 822 Views
Sanderson's handling of character interractions is pathetic.... - 28/09/2012 06:43:48 PM 1384 Views
Now see, here I don't fully agree, or at least think it's a matter of taste. - 28/09/2012 07:21:09 PM 2047 Views
Sorry, that's just not true... - 28/09/2012 11:33:59 PM 1217 Views
A few things. - 29/09/2012 02:40:47 AM 1481 Views
Great rebuttal! Fionwe got burned! *NM* - 29/09/2012 04:00:41 PM 885 Views
Re: A few things. - 30/09/2012 06:07:57 PM 1714 Views
I posted something very similar at DM. Reposting... - 28/09/2012 11:46:07 PM 1219 Views
Re: I posted something very similar at DM. Reposting... - 29/09/2012 01:51:20 AM 1439 Views
Yes! - 29/09/2012 02:26:39 AM 1366 Views
This is one of my biggest pet peeves as well - 29/09/2012 04:56:53 AM 1425 Views
There are people who say that? - 29/09/2012 05:16:58 AM 1222 Views
I complained about this regarding the Forsaken chapter - 28/09/2012 07:34:25 PM 1483 Views
I've long since accepted that Sanderson uses inaccurate terms like "powerful" - 29/09/2012 05:44:11 AM 1472 Views
To be fair, the last Moghedian PoV by RJ might have changed her a bit. - 29/09/2012 03:27:31 PM 1207 Views
Which is the question I brought up in another thread - 29/09/2012 05:29:01 PM 1100 Views
The burning question to me, after reading all of the comments above, is this... - 29/09/2012 08:50:50 AM 1405 Views
Piggybacking on someone else's established characters and near-climax-point plot? - 29/09/2012 03:04:03 PM 1450 Views
Both of you disgust me - 29/09/2012 04:13:16 PM 1381 Views
This is not jealousy, it's being upset - 29/09/2012 07:52:51 PM 1253 Views
They could have hired a ghost writer. They chose not to. *NM* - 29/09/2012 09:34:27 PM 9875 Views
Your crappy taste in books means nothing - 30/09/2012 09:23:51 PM 1766 Views
When did I ever say Eli Manning wasn't a good QB? - 01/10/2012 03:40:21 PM 1161 Views
To be fair... - 29/09/2012 04:36:52 PM 1258 Views
True ... He may not be perfect, and he certainly made some strange choices - 29/09/2012 05:37:29 PM 1162 Views
B-Sand is not a ghost writer - 29/09/2012 06:35:16 PM 2532 Views
Didn't say he should. - 29/09/2012 09:07:45 PM 1826 Views
I mostly agree with this. - 29/09/2012 09:36:38 PM 1455 Views
What is it you want? - 29/09/2012 09:39:36 PM 1413 Views
We want to bitch about an inferior product. Duh. - 29/09/2012 10:00:09 PM 2282 Views
Hmm that's true I guess. Sad though *NM* - 29/09/2012 10:07:25 PM 594 Views
It is what it is - 30/09/2012 12:52:20 AM 979 Views
Those are not remotely the same thing - 30/09/2012 09:14:49 PM 1260 Views
But they are the same in this instance - 30/09/2012 10:01:59 PM 1160 Views
It's fairly simple.... - 30/09/2012 09:55:52 PM 1411 Views
Thanks for that insightful response... - 30/09/2012 10:37:27 PM 1131 Views
Forgotten Realms is big on clever spells and magic systems? - 01/10/2012 05:27:05 AM 1093 Views
It's more... - 01/10/2012 01:05:18 PM 1852 Views
Did you read Way of Kings? - 03/10/2012 09:14:43 PM 1366 Views
No, nothing but the prologue - 04/10/2012 02:56:14 AM 1114 Views
Re: The burning question to me, after reading all of the comments above, is this... - 11/10/2012 08:22:27 PM 1009 Views

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