Tag: randland

“Tell me where you are put up, and I will bring word, or send it, as soon as I locate a suitable vessel.”

If Elayne was right, he could no more lie than could an Aes Sedai who had sworn the Three Oaths, but still she hesitated. A mistake here could be her last. She had a right to take risks for herself, but this risk involved Elayne too. And Thom and Juilin, for that matter; they were her responsibility, whatever they wanted to think. But she was here, and the decision had to be hers. Not that it might be any other way, frankly.

“Light, woman, what more do you want of me?” Galad growled, halfraising his hands as though to grab her shoulders. Uno’s blade was between them in a flash of bright steel, but Elayne’s brother actually brushed it aside like a twig, and paid it no more mind than one. “I mean no harm to you, now or ever; I swear it by my mother’s name. You say that you are what you are? I know what you are. And what you are not. Perhaps half the reason I wear this,” he touched an edge of his snowy cloak, “is because the Tower sent you out — you and Elayne and Egwene — for the Light knows what reason, when you are what you are. It was like sending a boy who has just learned to hold a sword into battle, and I will never forgive them. There is still time for both of you to turn aside; you do not have to carry that sword. The Tower is too dangerous for you or my sister, especially now. Half the world is become too dangerous for you! Let me help you to safety.” The tightness slid from his voice, though it took on a raw edge. “I beg you, Nynaeve. If anything happened to Elayne… I halfwish that Egwene were with you, so I could…” Scrubbing a hand through his hair, he looked left and right, searching for how to convince her. Uno and Ragan held their blades ready to drive through his body, but he did not appear to see them. “In the name of the Light, Nynaeve, please allow me to do what I can.”

It was a simple thing that finally tipped the balance in her mind. They were in Ghealdan. Amadicia was the only land that actually made a crime out of a woman being able to channel, and they were on the opposite bank of the river. That left only Galad’s oaths as a Child of the Light to battle against his duty to Elayne. She gave blood the edge in that struggle. Besides, he really was too gorgeous for her to let Uno and Ragan kill him. Not that that had anything to do with her decision, of course.

Robert Jordan, The Wheel of Time: The Fires of Heaven, Page 597 (via csi-middle-earth)

I cannot BELIEVE they just MADE EGWENE THE AMYRLIN, OUT OF NOWHERE, I AM SO EXCITED TO SEE HER TAKE CONTROL

YES! YOU’RE STARTING THIS ARC!

(Also isn’t Siuan and Leanne the best? And Gareth Bryne)

It’s a long arc, but damn if this political maneuvering and power isn’t WAY more interesting than what Rand and his learn to take control and not be a figurehead and rule – or later on the inevitable Elayne.

Like, no lie, Egwene with the Aiel bored me a bit, but I liked her so much more once she’s Amyrlin-in-Exile. Enjoy the ride 🙂

Tell me good things abouuuut Aes Sedai

A fantasy universe (mainstream, very popular, author is an old straight white dude btw) where the formal institutions of magic -until late in the plot- are solely women. All the Gandalf and Saruman figures are ladies. Often much other women. Often unmarried and have no regrets about that lack of husband or children. That they divided themselves into factions based on these qualities- what ambitions do I have: pure knowledge? using diplomacy? ambitious politics maneuvering? pure logic? (this one especially for a fuck you at women aren’t in STEM fields) war? fighting a little more narrowly focused on the #1 magic danger to the world (men w/ magic)? Based on goals more than personalities, and that these aren’t gender stereotype limited.

That all the most important political maneuvering – the stuff that would be the cardinals and popes in the equivalent pre-1700s European history when it was the scheming and influence of said cardinals that were as important if not moreso than the actual kings and princes- these are all held by women. And that the groups that come in conflict with them on the magically scale really aren’t the Black Tower male magic wielders but the other groups of women. The majority of the magical big guns are ladies. For all the bitching about gender issues in WoT, that this is the foundation and that the Aes Sedai are so central to multiple plots and so incredibly varied – aren’t just regulated to one narrative corner like Bene Gesserit or hedge witches. The political maneuvering inside their groups- the factional infighting, the schism, the Black Ajah conspiracy, the apprentice-journeyman-master parallel and how structured it is, the internal ranking via strength and how it is different in other non-Aes Sedai groups.

Yeah, especially the wide variety of characters for Aes Sedai .

WoT anon here, again. I’ve read past the fourth book, so I’m pretty sure I know what you’re talking about. :/ I sort of went in knowing, though–I’d also heard that the books approach to gender could be pretty weird, and that the later books drop off in quality until Sanderson picked them up. I’m hitting the part where that’s supposed to happen right around now. This actually stopped me from reading them for a while. It was slow going at first but after I hit book3 I couldn’t stop.

Hello, WoT anon! Happy to hear from you again! I’ve been informed via reblogs that yes, there is a Wheel of Time fandom and it’s uncommonly attractive or something like that ;p

Okay! The thing to know with books 5-10 is while people with -in some cases rightfully- complain about a drop in quality, personally they also had some of my favorite scenes and arcs as well. Like what a lot of various female characters get up to- Nynaeve, Elayne, Egwene, Siuan… Matt has fun adventures here. Perrin and Faile’s arc in around book nine if I remember correct … it does stretch out and a lot of readers found it too slow- I was okay with it but also I never disliked Faile.

The big one for plot pacing dragging that people gripe about is that book ten covers only a short time frame after book nine and has a quite a bit of characters that weren’t around for the really big climatic thing that happened at the end of book nine reacting to it. And that was a book where again there was almost no on-screen Rand (which I wasn’t complaining). 

The big thing is Rand. IDK if you are finding Rand’s chapters and arcs to be less enjoyable or not. I will say quite a lot of Rand’s chapters in Book Four are excellent – I loved the flashback sequences and you do get something similar later on. But I preferred him -ironically for our main protagonist- as he was in Book Three, as this off-screen figure whom the plot still revolved around. Vaguely how Sauron is in LotR. And there will be a book each where Perrin or Matt is almost completely absent. Readers did complain. Not I.

Yes, there will be plot stretches that are slow (and you can tell by what chapter icon image is at the start 😉 ) Bare with it if you still enjoy most of the series, though.

I’m not someone to go deep into analyzing fiction for gender issues, but I can say personally reading them as a teen and young adult -compared to other fantasy I read- it wasn’t any worse and in some ways better. Subjective tastes and all that- only you will know if it bothers you.

Also are you having fun with the mysteries like Min’s prophecies and catching all the myth and story references/nods (I especially liked the Arthurian and the Norse and tiny bit of Slavic mythology surrounding the main characters)?

Just remember – Bela is the Avatar of the Creator, and the Dark One is Narg. And you have to love Loial.

Oh man, I started reading the Wheel of Time books a couple years ago and got bored partway through the fifth one, but I remember them being really fun (as long as I could ignore the frustrating amount of sexism and racism…) I should go back and try to read them all

Yeah, I will say, okay old white dude writing a series when the first book was published in 1990 – but if I compare it to its contemporary/a series with an author of a similar-ish age and background coming only a few years later (A Song of Ice and Fire), then its brand of sexism and racism is way less offensive to me. The fandom denying that Eqwene, Elayne, and Nynaeve weren’t as much a main character as Rand, Matt, and Perrin pissed me off more. Are there problems with the Seanchan? hell yes. But the core world-building where women had the magical and thus also a hefty among of major political and social power was such a matter-of-fact revelation for me as a young reader – it wasn’t artificial inflated sexism that so many fantasy worlds fall prey to. That there’s very few sexual assaults across this sprawling plot (though the double-standard of one is pretty bad), especially nowadays it’s soothing.

The fifth book is especially I’d say that turning point where it starts to become painful to read Rand’s plot line, and there’s definitely the weakest books coming down through 5…10, at least for some of the plot threads. It really is a series where if you like Perrin or Matt and Egwene or Nynaeve or some of the villains, you read for them and for the other side character plots, and you force your way through the others. God knows I was grimacing through Rand’s chapters for almost all of the series.

But also the series is just great for ‘why being the Chosen One sucks, Fun with Prophesies (for the readers to piece together, also in-universe the fun with plot and characterization pressures of characters trying to operate with prophesies)’ and ‘better nuanced world-building, how to do it’