About this in particular:
View original postWhy does every nation speak the same language but in its own unique accent? Please; Tolkien lampshaded that more than adequately with his conceit of "translating" ME "records" from the ancient "Red Book of Westmarch," whose "Westron" was "actually" closer to Old English or Norse than his modern English version. If anything, that was LESS excusable because he also "transliterated" the language of Rohan AS Old English.
Tolkien wrote such that the humans and hobbits in Western Middle Earth spoke a single language (which made sense since they all lived in the remnants of one kingdom). He also, however, created a dwarven language, two elven languages, a few words of orcish, made it clear the Ents had a language of their own, and also stated that other races of men spoke other languages that were not the same as the single language of the West. Not only that, but as a linguist he made it clear there had been many languages. Even attempting to compare Tolkien to Jordan is just insulting to Tolkien.
View original postAs for character development, I cannot agree it is nonexistent. Many of the characters do fail to grow any more than superficially, but that lack of growth IS the fatal flaw, not in their characterization, but in their character itself: They are Greek tragic heroes, but that is no more an indictment of Jordan than of Aeschylus. Yet many major characters DO grow, a lot.
Again, comparing Jordan to Aeschylus is quite insulting. Aeschylus he was not. I wonder if you even understand the notion of Greek tragedy based on these asinine comments.
View original postRand begins as a petty farmboy whose largest concern is evading chores, but his reaction to a greater destiny warps him into a defiant and then cold tyrant, then a final epiphany forges a firm but compassionately benevolent leader. At first he has no ambition beyond marrying his favorite village girl, then his goal is bitterly sacrificing himself for an ungrateful world, and at last he is eager both to save the world AND survive doing so before vanishing to avert that worlds permanent dependence on him (one alternate realities Rand witnesses while battling the DO surely includes his existence as God Emperor of Dune.
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I suppose he ages a couple of years, too, but that's not character growth. These so-called heroes are just cardboard cutouts of people.
As for the pacing and story line, it was milking the money angle that killed it all. Exhibit 1 for the prosecution: that hideous piece of shit put out as a reference work to the Wheel of Shit Time.
Political correctness is the pettiest form of casuistry.
ἡ δὲ κἀκ τριῶν τρυπημάτων ἐργαζομένη ἐνεκάλει τῇ φύσει, δυσφορουμένη, ὅτι δὴ μὴ καὶ τοὺς τιτθοὺς αὐτῇ εὐρύτερον ἢ νῦν εἰσι τρυπώη, ὅπως καὶ ἄλλην ἐνταῦθα μίξιν ἐπιτεχνᾶσθαι δυνατὴ εἴη. – Procopius
Ummaka qinnassa nīk!
*MySmiley*