Well, some THINGS anyway. 
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- Edit 2Before modification by Joel at 26/02/2017 03:02:52 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.
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.
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.
You have spent over a decade railing at length against all things Aes Sedai yet that is TRULY the best explanation you can find...?
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Actually he wasn't all that eager to get married.
View original postAt first he has no ambition beyond marrying his favorite village girl,
Actually he wasn't all that eager to get married.
He was eager to canoodle with Egwene; he just did not want to accept the concomitant duties. Because he was what, 16, 17?
View original postthen 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?)Standing behind the Aiel and in front of the Dragonsworn, I guess.
View original postWhere is his polygamous relationship
Well, first off, the comparison is with Leto II, not Paul, but:
View original postwith a desert shaman girl
She is standing next to the Wise One from the Aiel Waste—y'know, the people who have actually BEEN compared to the Fremen?
View original postand a princess trained by a secretive all-female order of manipulators?
She is on top of the Aes Sedai Queen of Andor.
View original postWell first Where is his twin son & daughter? Does he have children born with superhuman abilities?
Elayne has the twins; Aviendhas are quadruplets. And, come to think of it, their ability to channel from the womb is similar to Leto II, his aunt and his twin being "pre-born" with Other Memory from the moment of conception.
View original postGet your facts straight before making absurd comparisons to other works.
Uh... huh....
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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.
View original postMost 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.
Yeah, Mats assertion he always did his chores back home is less "proud" than "defensive." He is a born carouser and gambler, but his deep bonds of duty to friends, family and home ensure he meets his responsibilities to them—GRUDINGLY. "The extremes to which he is dragged on his quest in TDR" are the beginning of what changes him into more than the shifty and shiftless prevaricator so easily seduced by a gem encrusted blade despite KNOWING it was dripping with diabolic malice. "He always took care of his men and retainers" after galloping away from them before they even BECAME "his," only to be drawn back by the knowledge that meant abandoning them to certain excruciating death: Another GROWTH moment. Until then, and even some while after, Mat could not care less about the sterotypical nobles "failures at the obligations of their positions;" if anything, he was on the side of those resenting those duties. The difference is that he had enough "character" not to ignore duties simply because he resented them, which gradually transforms him from a carousing gambler and horse trader (the medieval equivalent of a used car salesman) to an honorable martial and civil leader of men.
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View original postPerrins 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.Perrin never articulates much of anything, all the more comical since he is the clearest analogue of the AUTHOR: His sense of honor and duty is so much a given it is tacit, so needs no more "articulation" in his mind than the number of fingers on his hand. And yes, his fixation on Faile to the exclusion of literally all else does warp that honor into a caricature of itself; as I said, just because characters or real people "change" does not necessarily mean that they GROW rather than SHRINK.
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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.
View original postBetween 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.
The finished product was a "product" of Jordans own obsession with writing "Epic" Fantasy in the literally largest sense. Halfway through the series my only question was whether he had predetermined its length "must" be a "symbolic" dozen books or as many as there were Forsaken, but the series cosmology always argued strongly for the latter. Hence Jordans deathbed vow that AMoL would be the thirteenth and final book "even if it needs its own baggage cart" or whatever his phrase was. That is NOT an author milking a series for greed, "only" milking one for ego.
As for Sanderson, he is not perfect, but had to satisfy not only himself but three other people, one them DEAD, another the dead authors editor-wife, and the last his own PUBLISHER. That practically ensured the final "product" would be FAR less than perfect, but the actual factual details he missed were few. The problem was that his style and treatment of several key characters just felt off, because it was: He was not Jordan, and could not possibly share the same intuitive understanding of the characters as their creator had.