View original post
I am generally a positive person, albeit something of a contrarian, which means I find it easier or more satisfying to express criticism of elements of a work that engage me, rather than regurgitate bland praise or examine WHY I like something. Figuring out why I like something is like a movie spoiler, or an explanation of a magician's trick before it happens. Much easier to go after things you don't like, such as the occasional awful person in the story. I like WoT. I don't care whether or not it is well-written or objectively good, because it entertained me, and that's all that matters. I don't care if Batman v Superman was not well-made, because I had a good time every time I went to the movies to see it. I am eating a dinner of Cheetos and Mountain Dew because they are portable and I am at work for the rest of the night and I like how they taste. Their nutritional and dietary value are irrelevant to me, and I will cut you if you try to take them away from me. That's how I feel about WoT. I don't care whether or not it fails to meet some objective standard; I enjoyed it, and thus I will defend it from criticism the way I would if someone criticized my wife for being overweight: its the very least a someone can do, especially if the criticism is irrelevant to appreciation of the subject. And if your enjoyment is curtailed by WoT's falling short of certain standards that's fine, because the world needs poopheads, too.

However, WoT is, like all human endeavors, far from perfect, and just as loving your spouse does not mean you won't take note of certain flaws if the bitch ever takes you to court, there are ways in which I felt WoT could have been better, specifically, aspects of the story that interested me, but were under-served or did not pan out. And with my primary forum of WoT or genre discussion in general going away soon, I feel like I should get this stuff out there, I suppose as a kind of balance for all the pro-WoT stuff I have said over the years (I would count Egwene's Evil as pro-WoT, btw, since I am not calling for her excision from the story, but rather am tacitly admitting the degree to which said story has engaged me).

I am not going to be talking much about Jordan's writing style (and with my aforementioned diet, it is probably best for my coronary health if I do not start getting detailed about someone else's writing style), or citing dress descriptions. The dress descriptions were important! They tell you what the characters are thinking about, what they are noticing, what is important to them. I don't care what the Aes Sedai in a group are wearing either, but I like knowing what is important to the PoV characters. Of course the absence or errors in descriptions in later books only undermines my ability to appreciate those books, but that's the breaks. I didn't hold a gun to anyone's head to get them to take the paycheck and recognition boost from getting his name on a WoT cover so I don't feel bad about calling him a fucktard when he has Egwene both pointlessly and incorrectly describe a walnut looking like the brain of a small animal. Unless you are trying to make her look like a psychotic who dismembers small animals for fun, why would you have her think that?

Anyway, I'm not going to talk about how WoT was written, or what should or shouldn't have been in there, but rather about things in the story that didn't have the degree of payoff I expected or anticipated from their introduction (as opposed to the kind of payoff - you might be disappointed that Egwene died or Lan did not, but you cannot argue that either was not developed or used as much as you might have expected when they showed up).

Magic
I mean this as distinct from the One Power, of course, because I agree with Robert Jordan's own perspective on the matter. WoT, where the OP is concerned is actually more like science fiction, in that there is an element to the story that does not exist in reality, but operates normally, under understandable rules. Like made-up technology or psychic abilities or physical enhancements in science fiction. The flip-side would be that most of the technology in Star Wars is actually magic. There is no understandable principle or science to explain lightsabers or droids, and no one even pretends to explain how the term "interstellar" has about as much significance as "interstate". ANYWAY, in WoT, there are all sorts of seemingly magic elements that appeared in the early books, some of which were then put into perspective as workings of the One Power, and others of which...kind of went nowhere.

For examples of the former, we have the Power itself, which became much less mysterious and magical once they started actually using it themselves, around tDR. There are also ter'angreal, power-wrought devices like the swords or fancloth or AoL structures and artifacts. The Green Man and Avendesora were legendary background in the early books, and soon discovered to be constructs of the Power used for agriculture in the AoL.

In the other category we have things like the new abilities that were appearing as a sign of the old order breaking down at the end of an age. Things like Min's viewings, the wolfbrothers, the sniffers and probably more to come. And in the end, we got...nothing. Maybe Rand's pipe powers. Hurin was the only sniffer we ever saw, and the last Wolfbrother was introduced in book 3. When Perrin got more into that aspect of his nature, Elyas showed up again, and he started talking with his first ever wolf-buddy. And the wolf-stuff pretty much was shunted aside to make him nothing more than a Dreamwalker with an unusual tutor. Even Elyas turned into something of a letdown, seeming originally to be practically a wolf himself, and almost as alien to Perrin & Egwene. When he returned, he was just an ordinary guy, whose demeanor had changed significantly, and didn't even seem to have come away from his first sojourn with Perrin with the same experiences we thought we read about.

Even normal Dreamers, whose talents had nothing to do with the Power, could not really be categorized with the others, since it is all but stated outright that the Aiel have been using the talent continuously throughout the Third Age, and both of the non-channeling Dreamwalkers have gray hair, while the youngest, bar Egwene, is at least in her forties.

Even Min's ability, and Min herself, lost something by continued exposure. Once the limits and aspects of her gift were established, she turned out not to be nearly as useful as one might think, or even she seemed to claim. That talent was more of a narrative device for the enlightenment of the readers, and in some ways, an authorial bailout mechanism. For instance, looking solely at the events of Dumai's Wells, one might be tempted to think that there are no stakes for Perrin's part, in hindsight, since Rand did everything without any real help from Perrin, and with the events that afforded him the opportunities seeming far more likely to have resulted from everything else that was going on, than from Perrin's little addition to the chaos. It was only Min's somewhat slipshod revelation that Rand would have failed somehow without him that made Perrin's efforts relevant to the plot. The few times she did offer a viewing with a mutable outcome, it didn't affect anyone's actions. Siuan & Gareth Bryne ultimately failed to heed her warnings, and Rand & Perrin worked things out without giving her viewing any consideration. The one character who actually did make use of Min's viewings to any effect, Elayne, passed mostly unnoticed, except for readers who erroneously criticized her for assuming she was invincible. That was the sum total of the effect Min's power had on the story, aside from the fact of her possessing the power granting her access at times and places she might not otherwise have been; she enabled one other character to argue against excessive protection.

The last type of magic that cropped up early was the Horn of Valere, which with all the attention given to Tel'Aran'Rhiod makes it seem more and more like some sort of special access doohickey to smudge the boundaries between the World of Dreams and the material world.

I suppose that stuff might be part of the general theme Jordan asserted, whereby mystery and magic become less mysterious and magical from the perspective of characters and readers who know how they work, but it's just as likely that this stuff fell victim to the pacing problems as Jordan lost control of the series.*

Apocalypse
Rand was supposed to Break the World again, and that was one of the most interesting things I felt were in the early books, that he was some sort of necessary medicine the world had to take for lack of any alternatives, and that Rand himself might have to figuratively break the world's metaphorical jaw to get said medicine down its throat. As it turned out, all he really inflicted on the world for its own good was a shakeup among the 1%. In one instance of what I tend to write off as ghostwriter incompetence, Gawyn complains about Rand "casting down thrones" which is patently absurd, but fits in with the expectations of the opening trilogy. Yet, Rand did nothing that could be considered "casting down thrones." He dethroned a usurper who had held it for a week, and that's it. He accepted a crown offered by the rightful authorities, and created a monarchial office in Tear, but aside from that, all the thrones that existed on Winternight were still there, and for the most part, the differing occupants were people who might have expected to come to them in due course. Lots of bad stuff happened to lots of people, but that is pretty much explained as side effects from the malicious deity trying to break into their plane of existence. Rand isn't responsible for most (maybe any) of the wars, even if his existence was the motivation for some hysterical overreactions that led to off-screen fighting, and he really only fought one deliberate and planned military campaign, against Illian and Sammael.

In WoT, Breaking the World refers to continental rearrangement. Rand made some plants happen. There might have been some people moving around, but again, due to nothing he did, with little bearing on the plot. Rand's patronage of schools and founding of the Black Tower might have enormous ramifications in the coming Age, but it has nothing to do with the actual story, aside from adding a couple of pieces to the board in the case of the Asha'man. Even the potential disaster of Taim's treason didn't amount to much, with the purging of the Black Tower having little effect beyond its walls, and happening mostly off-camera, at that. Even with Egwene and the White Tower, where normally the imposition of a very young leader with unprecedented power and associations with all sorts of vectors for major changes might be expected to bring on an institutional revolution, she doesn't really effect much change beyond securing her power base, and then dies, cutting off any potential for bringing it about in the future. The last thing we see concerning the fate of the White Tower suggests it's going right back to business as usual.

All in all, the destruction Rand seemed destined to bring didn't match the hype, and the tragedy and turmoil of the end times was no more consequential than maybe a world war and pandemic. This might have been a problem of the final writer, with Jordan maybe intending to really hammer the reader with horror and misery in aMoL to enhance the atmosphere of doom and devastation before Rand pulls out of the dive. One the one hand, I have no problem giving credibility to someone's incompetence at properly portraying the important details in the setting or establishing the right mood, but on the other, RJ's Gasp Moment was underwhelming, too, and I speak as the winner of the prediction contest on wotmania.

Prophecies
This feels strange to be disappointed in, since there are so many viewings, Dreams, Foretellings, quotes from prophesies and even allusions from the Fourth Age, most of which were fulfilled or explained. But that might be one of the problems. While most seemed really interesting, hopeful or ominous and did its part to create suspense or raise the stakes at the time of its introduction, by the time 11 books had come out, we were drowning in future hints, which kind of seemed to dilute the significance of the Prophecies, specifically about Rand and his role in the Last Battle and the end of an Age. Instead of the unique figure he actually was, often he seemed more like just the biggest or most important figure in a category. That actually seemed to happen a few times in the series, and might have played a part in one of the fan-discussion areas I always found the most inexplicable in their popularity, the debates about who was the best or most powerful in a particular sphere of activity. It wasn't like normal discussions about real world stuff or the arguments alluded to in the series about what was the best or most beautiful city; the fan discussions were argued as if these were things that could be determined objectively, with an absolutely true universal answer, rather than a subjective or conditional one. I think that might have been inspired by the ways the books sometimes talked about various individuals being the best or biggest in some way, such as the importance given to strength in the Power, or the relative power of the Forsaken. That these rankings seemed less clear-cut as the series progressed did not help the controversies among the fans either, IMO. The hierarchy of ability in the White Tower seemed fairly set by the halfway point, and suddenly various Aiel Wise Ones are stated to be stronger, Windfinders are popping up who surpass the prior top dogs, and Cadusane comes in as the ultimate Aes Sedai, who can treat the elite the way other Aes Sedai treat regular folks, and who seems to embody the narrative ideal of these characters, just when it seemed the group's collective feet of clay had been exposed.

Once again, that seems to have been a product of the structural issues with the series, and bad planning (though I would argue a necessary course correction, however unpleasant to the readers who had begun to identify with the main characters) or pacing, but I think we never really got a sense of how much Rand mattered, other than his being the person inexplicably designated to take point on the major threat to the world. The news that he is the Dragon Reborn seemed to have as much of an effect on how people acted or reacted than anything he actually did or any effect of his nature or being. Jordan stated that the concepts which inspired WoT include the idea of the indispensable man, and that stuff about perception of events and how it changes the understanding and thus peoples' reactions. When it came to Rand's place in the story, it seems like one of those two notions might have obfuscated the other.

It also didn't seem like the Sea Folk or Aiel prophecies of the Coramoor and the Car'a'carn didn't really pan out or mean much, but that could also have been deliberate, rather than RJ running out of room or things to say about them. Those could have been more of a case of them not really being relevant to Rand and the main characters, except as the prophecies motivated the actions of those peoples, which did affect Rand, et al.

The Shadow
I don't have a problem with the Forsaken turning out to be as ineffectual as they did. It fits with the character of the Shadow, and counters any idea that the Shadow is just a distasteful equivalent to the Light. As far as their failing to provide a legitimate threat, the good guys didn't move past them until relatively late in the series, and from the very beginning, it was always explicitly stated that ultimately Rand would be going up against the one being with sufficient power and malice to fully cow them. Additionally, it was becoming more clear that Rand was potentially his own worst enemy, and the Forsaken were sort of cautionary tales of how this sympathetic and decent man could, in the Dark One's hands, become a monster and a danger to all he loved and sought to save.

My problem with the Shadow is everywhere else. In the beginning, they were the omnipresent threat who could come after the good guys at anytime, from anywhere. The Darkfriend Social in the prologue to book 2 highlighted and emphasized that, especially with the build-up of Bors. Even the Black Ajah didn't mean much with their threat mainly coming from the shortcomings of the good guys who had to worry about them. After Tanchico, the Darkfriend status of various sisters was only relevant as regards their motivations for acting in the Tower intrigue. Their biggest win in the late books, the capture of Elayne, was squashed as soon as the good guys knew what they were up to.

The Shadowspawn were another thing. They were cool and made an excellent menace in the beginning, and the all-or-nothing warfare described in the Borderlands and the legends of Manethren gave a really great picture of the struggle with the Shadow, that pretty much never really manifested. It's like Jordan built this really neat house for the characters to live in, and they grew out of it right away, leaping right up to a level where that stuff was kind of beneath their notice. And given how things slowed down later, looking back, it's kind of amazing they skipped through that level so fast.

I don't think this is really a problem with WoT, I think it's more of a case of not stopping as long as I'd like to look at particular exhibit on the tour. And even the shortcomings of the Darkfriends fits, with the Forsaken, with the Shadowpawn quickly becoming minor threats, and with comments like Mother Guenna's, that they are fools. Bors starts out all cool and capable and mysterious, who seems like a threat that could really get to the good guys if they ever cross his path, only to see in his reappearances, how his service to the Shadow destroys him, the horrors inflicted on random people just because they are related to him, and in particular, how the deaths of his family only concern him as a countdown to his own end. And he really turned out not to matter at all. The good guys even discovered he was a Darkfriend, but it was too much bother to deal with him with not enough to gain by his removal. Other such examples include Sheriam, whose incompetence I had written about well before even the last RJ book, where her successor gave such a damning verdict on the performance of her specific job, and Daved Hanlon, whose ruse and cover didn't fool Elayne and company for a moment, who was so obvious that they didn't even feel the need to comment on it, and who was so blinkered that he didn't even realize that what he took to be the surest sign of his success in his infiltration, was actually something of a practical joke with potentially lethal consequences.

All in all, RJ seems to have really intended to make the point that the Shadow sucks, and can only succeed by occupying a vacuum left by the absence of decent people or action. But I'm a shallow person. I LIKE good guys kicking ass on hordes of disposable and worthless bad guys. I like physical danger and moral threats, not grappling with the proper discharge of power, since at the heart, that just comes down to doing what is right instead of what is best for yourself. The right or wrong choice is obvious in such a circumstance, whereas the proper tactic for surviving an attack by Darkfriend assassins or betrayers much less so.

I know that sounds like the arguments of Sanderson fans, but IMO, he sucks at delivering that stuff too. Just because I'd rather read about a character's reaction to, or experience of, fighting a bunch of Trollocs than his experience of, or reaction to, the tedium and frustration of high level politics, does not mean I want inept descriptions of politics or clinical depictions of military maneuvers semi-literate generals commanding military maneuvers.

Ironically, while I have often defended WoT against charges of being a LotR rip-off, it seems in the end, I, A. was right, B. would probably have preferred a LotR rip-off. I enjoyed what I got, up until I started getting it from the wrong source, but it wasn't what I hoped I would get when I started.

If anyone's still here, how did you feel about the topic or the specific issues I raised?

*Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed all his books, and don't regret the extraneous tangents and diversions in the least, but in hindsight, it is obvious from some plot elements, like Perrin's crash course in Dreamwalking in the aMoL trilogy, that the literature nerds are right.