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Some points Cannoli Send a noteboard - 25/02/2017 11:54:50 PM

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How does a world replete with powerful magic never use it to improve anyones life? Because most peoples knowledge of that great power begins with the Breaking and ends with the machiavellian Aes Sedai. Imagine a world where everyone was a member of Earth First from birth: If someone offered them refineries that "poisoned the world for the profit of corporate conspiracies" how many would accept? Even the relatively "enlightened" Aes Sedai do not fully nor even MOSTLY understand the One Powers mechanics, regularly being crippled, killed or outright annihilated by the few limited experiments they still attempt. They DO understand and rightly fear their consistently catastrophic history of exploiting the One Power to gain temporal power. So Hogwarts was never on the table for anyone.
You might have accurately described the attitudes, but it's still bullshit, to such a degree I am not entirely sure that even the obvious and between-the-lines aspects of their brainwashing and group think explain the extreme degree to which they carry their caution. I kind of think people are GOING to gravitate towards more efficient or effective solutions when they are readily available for minimal tradeoffs. More than once in the latter books, the Aes Sedai themselves deal with issues of lack of light and conserving fuel for their lamps. But the most basic and fundamental skill they demonstrate as novices is making balls of light. Why are they straining their eyes peering over papers late at night in a tent by the light of oil lamps, when they could tie off globes of light that would last forever? Why are they selling cuendillar ornaments for the 1% instead of making a fortune in volume by selling eternal balls of light for pennies apiece? For that matter, given all the other ways they piss all over the spirit of their Oaths, why are they not having their unsworn initiates converting swords and pike- & arrowheads and armor plates into cuendillar in preparation for the last battle? Elaida says she could only make good weather in a single farm...but that's today. Why can't she tie it off and do a second farm tomorrow? This is not social justice, this is the source of the food she herself eats! Elaida wards rats away from the palace, and Moiraine from the Queen's Blessing, but again, why is she not doing a building a day? She indicates later in her own PoV that she is very much aware of the sanitation issues involved in large cities.

I really think the only explanation for this stuff is Jordan's failure of imagination. Maybe people would fear the Power that broke the world being used for their homes, but how are they going to know, or prevent it or undo it? Warding a home against vermin without people's knowledge or consent is far more justifiable from a public health perspective than mandatory "ring" vaccination programs.



At first he has no ambition beyond marrying his favorite village girl,

Actually he wasn't all that eager to get married.
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. )
Stop being so absurd. If he's the God Emperor of Dune, where are his hordes of fanatically loyal blue-eyed desert super-warriors? Where is his polygamous relationship with a desert shaman girl and a princess trained by a secretive all-female order of manipulators? Where is his twin son & daughter? Does he have children born with superhuman abilities? Get your facts straight before making absurd comparisons to other works.
Most other main characters grow to varying degrees. Mat is initially more rebellious and lazy than even Rand, but circumstances and friendship gradually evoke his sense of loyalty, which command in turn develops into a sense of responsibility; where Perrin disdains the prestige and luxury of nobility, Mat is fully comfortable with both and merely disdains nobilitys DUTIES, but eventually accepts those as well.

That was Sandersonian bullshit. Mat always had a sense of duty and personal obligation, from his proud assertion that he does his chores every day back in EotW, to his loyalty to Rand even under the influence of the Shadar Logoth dagger, and the extremes to which he is dragged on his quest in tDR. He always took care of his men and retainers, and placed himself in danger or took up leadership positions when necessary. He disdained nobles for their stereotypical sensibilities and behaviors, and probably for his perception of their failures at the obligations of their positions, as well as their abuse of their powers and privileges (see, for example, his sarcastic comments to his gambling companions regarding their loss of aristocratic immunity to prosecution). Perrin is the one who actually shirks the duties of a noble, though out of not understanding their significance, rather than reluctance to undertake them.
Perrins honor morphs into neuroses, and Egwenes loss of naivete comes at the cost of her innocence as well
Perrin's obsessive issues had nothing to do with honor, and everything to do with excessive concern for his wife. He freely admitted he would have done anything dishonorable if it could have restored Faile to him. He never really articulated his morals and values as honor or anything like that.
Between Jordans general outline, Sandersons conscientiousness, Harriets protectiveness and Dohertys loyalty, it may just be a case of too many cooks overcooking the broth.

I didn't see any of that. IDK what Harriet was protecting, because the finished product, especially the companion/dictionary thing, reeks of desperation to shove something onto the market to take advantage of a devoted fan base before it dissipates. However conscientious Sanderson might have been, his actual writing and command of the English language were appalling, from even a casual re-read, and he got many of the characters and details flat out wrong. I could understand not conveying the story properly, but making sure all the fact are just right, as an expression of conscientiousness, but that's not what we got.

Cannoli
“Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.” GK Chesteron
Inde muagdhe Aes Sedai misain ye!
Deus Vult!
*MySmiley*
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