shadowsong26 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shadowsong26) wrote2011-09-04 09:32 pm
shadowsong26) wrote2011-09-04 09:32 pm
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on robert jordan's wheel of time series and why i like it as much as i do.
i'm putting this up because i was talking about this series with some friends of mine, and they raised some very valid points that made me honestly wonder why i keep coming back when jordan repeats the same mistakes over and over again (sanderson has cleaned up some of them, but he is trying to keep the books in the same mold, so).
i will admit straight-up that there's genuinely a lot more to dislike about this series than there is to like. there are parts/details of the world that are confusing/don't make sense, there are about three characters expanded into the requisite cast of thousands by little verbal/physical tics so you don't have to keep looking up their names, two of the three main characters have romances that are entirely too easy, jordan's bastardized first-wave-feminism morality/theme is poorly handled, there's that really really really severely squicky mat/tylin subplot, with one exception the books follow an extremely rigid formula...all of these, together, should really outweigh the parts i like, when, looking at it overall, there's thousands and thousands of pages of indistinguishable characters fighting a fairly standard epic high fantasy war of Good V. Evil Take Umptybillion with poorly-handled first-wave-feminism being a large part of what the author is working out, versus the much smaller things that i love about this series, but...honestly, i can't imagine not finishing it. i don't know if i'll go back and reread the whole thing (there's pacing issues on top of everything else, and i don't really have the time to sit down and reread an eventually-fourteen-book (only published through book 13 at this point), poorly paced, 800+-pages-per-book epic fantasy), but i can't imagine not finishing it.
part of it is almost certainly the fact that i'm so freaking close to the end to not find out how it all works out (beyond what i know is going to happen).
part of it is some seriously thick nostalgia goggles. i read this before tolkien, flist. this was my first epic fantasy. and i borrow the books from my dad as they come out, and i read the first four and a half books by my mom reading them to me when i was like eight (then i started reading ahead because there were too many nights in a row when she couldn't come in and read to me before i was supposed to be asleep). so, yeah. serious nostalgia goggles for this series.
part of it is that the things jordan did do right are as major for me, personally, as the things he got epically, disastrously wrong.
first, while the world doesn't quite add up in some places...well, the real world doesn't, tbh (and i'm not talking just cultural barriers, there are things about american society that i have to headtiltsquint at in order to make sense of on occasion). anyway, while it doesn't quite add up, each of the national cultures are distinct. and, of all the monarchs in the world at series start, most of them are women, and only one of them i would call evil (tylin). besides, it's a modern epic quasi-medieval fantasy world that isn't a tolkien ripoff. (don't get me wrong, i have nothing but respect for tolkein's worldbuilding abilities, but so much modern fantasy in this particular subgenre takes way too much from him. it's refreshing to see something much more distinct)
second, i like the way they handle self-taught magic users in this world. some of them can do amazing things on instinct because they've never been told it's impossible. some of them develop major blocks to their abilities because they've lacked the proper training in how to channel.
third, i like the way several of the romantic subplots are handled. aviendha and rand (which i'll get to below as to why), mat and tuon (self-fullfilling prophecy and accidental marriage), gareth and egwene (they have problems due to shifting ranks and perception of what each other needs and gareth being overly protective and while talking it out doesn't always happen, they acknowledge these issues and are working to try and correct them. not necessarily in the ways the other partner thinks would solve it best, but they are acknowledging and working and at least egwene is refusing to let the relationship progress farther until they've fixed the above-mentioned issues), and lan and nynaeve (may-december romance done beautifully, at least in the first couple books).
third, i like the way several of the romantic subplots are handled. aviendha and rand (which i'll get to below as to why), mat and tuon (self-fullfilling prophecy and accidental marriage), gareth and egwene (they have problems due to shifting ranks and perception of what each other needs and gareth being overly protective and while talking it out doesn't always happen, they acknowledge these issues and are working to try and correct them. not necessarily in the ways the other partner thinks would solve it best, but they are acknowledging and working and at least egwene is refusing to let the relationship progress farther until they've fixed the above-mentioned issues), and lan and nynaeve (may-december romance done beautifully, at least in the first couple books).
fourth, and most important, despite jordan shoving it down our throats, these books aren't about first-wave feminism. they're about identity. changing/maintaining/losing/regaining one's identity, and coping with how that happens. whether it's from dying/nearly dying (mat, moiraine), losing everything (morgase, thom) and/or regaining it (elayne, galad), having voice(s) in your head of varying degrees of sanity (rand, mat), having another species in your head (perrin), dealing with the complications of opposing goals and loving someone from a radically different culture (aviendha), increasing levels of power and responsibility (egwene, mat, perrin, rand), losing someone important (elayne, lan, rand)...the list goes on. ironically, for someone who's really bad at writing distinct characters, jordan has given a novel with a core (and probably unintentional) theme of shifting identity and how to maintain yourself when that self isn't always in the place you thought it was.
or maybe it's just the freaking nostalgia goggles and i'm talking a big game and trying to justify liking a fantasy epic that's probably a lot more terribler than i think it is. either way, i'm sticking with it 'til the end, despite its major flaws. and i kind of needed to get the reasons down for all to see.
also, i kind of get a kick out of chapter 1 of each book starting with the exact same paragraph with just the place where the wind originates changing. formulae like that are kind of cool ^_^
i will admit straight-up that there's genuinely a lot more to dislike about this series than there is to like. there are parts/details of the world that are confusing/don't make sense, there are about three characters expanded into the requisite cast of thousands by little verbal/physical tics so you don't have to keep looking up their names, two of the three main characters have romances that are entirely too easy, jordan's bastardized first-wave-feminism morality/theme is poorly handled, there's that really really really severely squicky mat/tylin subplot, with one exception the books follow an extremely rigid formula...all of these, together, should really outweigh the parts i like, when, looking at it overall, there's thousands and thousands of pages of indistinguishable characters fighting a fairly standard epic high fantasy war of Good V. Evil Take Umptybillion with poorly-handled first-wave-feminism being a large part of what the author is working out, versus the much smaller things that i love about this series, but...honestly, i can't imagine not finishing it. i don't know if i'll go back and reread the whole thing (there's pacing issues on top of everything else, and i don't really have the time to sit down and reread an eventually-fourteen-book (only published through book 13 at this point), poorly paced, 800+-pages-per-book epic fantasy), but i can't imagine not finishing it.
part of it is almost certainly the fact that i'm so freaking close to the end to not find out how it all works out (beyond what i know is going to happen).
part of it is some seriously thick nostalgia goggles. i read this before tolkien, flist. this was my first epic fantasy. and i borrow the books from my dad as they come out, and i read the first four and a half books by my mom reading them to me when i was like eight (then i started reading ahead because there were too many nights in a row when she couldn't come in and read to me before i was supposed to be asleep). so, yeah. serious nostalgia goggles for this series.
part of it is that the things jordan did do right are as major for me, personally, as the things he got epically, disastrously wrong.
first, while the world doesn't quite add up in some places...well, the real world doesn't, tbh (and i'm not talking just cultural barriers, there are things about american society that i have to headtiltsquint at in order to make sense of on occasion). anyway, while it doesn't quite add up, each of the national cultures are distinct. and, of all the monarchs in the world at series start, most of them are women, and only one of them i would call evil (tylin). besides, it's a modern epic quasi-medieval fantasy world that isn't a tolkien ripoff. (don't get me wrong, i have nothing but respect for tolkein's worldbuilding abilities, but so much modern fantasy in this particular subgenre takes way too much from him. it's refreshing to see something much more distinct)
second, i like the way they handle self-taught magic users in this world. some of them can do amazing things on instinct because they've never been told it's impossible. some of them develop major blocks to their abilities because they've lacked the proper training in how to channel.
third, i like the way several of the romantic subplots are handled. aviendha and rand (which i'll get to below as to why), mat and tuon (self-fullfilling prophecy and accidental marriage), gareth and egwene (they have problems due to shifting ranks and perception of what each other needs and gareth being overly protective and while talking it out doesn't always happen, they acknowledge these issues and are working to try and correct them. not necessarily in the ways the other partner thinks would solve it best, but they are acknowledging and working and at least egwene is refusing to let the relationship progress farther until they've fixed the above-mentioned issues), and lan and nynaeve (may-december romance done beautifully, at least in the first couple books).
third, i like the way several of the romantic subplots are handled. aviendha and rand (which i'll get to below as to why), mat and tuon (self-fullfilling prophecy and accidental marriage), gareth and egwene (they have problems due to shifting ranks and perception of what each other needs and gareth being overly protective and while talking it out doesn't always happen, they acknowledge these issues and are working to try and correct them. not necessarily in the ways the other partner thinks would solve it best, but they are acknowledging and working and at least egwene is refusing to let the relationship progress farther until they've fixed the above-mentioned issues), and lan and nynaeve (may-december romance done beautifully, at least in the first couple books).
fourth, and most important, despite jordan shoving it down our throats, these books aren't about first-wave feminism. they're about identity. changing/maintaining/losing/regaining one's identity, and coping with how that happens. whether it's from dying/nearly dying (mat, moiraine), losing everything (morgase, thom) and/or regaining it (elayne, galad), having voice(s) in your head of varying degrees of sanity (rand, mat), having another species in your head (perrin), dealing with the complications of opposing goals and loving someone from a radically different culture (aviendha), increasing levels of power and responsibility (egwene, mat, perrin, rand), losing someone important (elayne, lan, rand)...the list goes on. ironically, for someone who's really bad at writing distinct characters, jordan has given a novel with a core (and probably unintentional) theme of shifting identity and how to maintain yourself when that self isn't always in the place you thought it was.
or maybe it's just the freaking nostalgia goggles and i'm talking a big game and trying to justify liking a fantasy epic that's probably a lot more terribler than i think it is. either way, i'm sticking with it 'til the end, despite its major flaws. and i kind of needed to get the reasons down for all to see.
also, i kind of get a kick out of chapter 1 of each book starting with the exact same paragraph with just the place where the wind originates changing. formulae like that are kind of cool ^_^