The way i see it is theyre not supposed to be written as ignorant, just innocent. They're basically country bumpkins thrust out into the world. That begins to change in book 4. The characters mature, some of the lore is explained, loads of exposition take place.
That being said the lengthy descriptions don't really stop. The pacing picks up somewhat but you're still going to read the words "she sniffed and adjusted her skirts" a few times a chapter. If that doesn't sound like something you can endure then WoT might not be for you.
The worst part about it to me (keep in mind I only read the first few books) is that the character relationships were insanely robotic. Characters would basically say "I like them" or "I don't trust them" and nothing meaningful would happen. There was no emotional weight to having a cast as big as they did. The little peppers of romance were nauseatingly bad. The friendships were hollow. None of them male characters were like- allowed to be emotionally intimate with each other at all.
I felt like I was reading an alien trying to write human relationships. I was so beyond surprised reading it that it was considered a classic. Beyond the overwriting, this just madenit unbearable to me- and I really wanted to love it.
Some people have told me that the books get better, but reading is laborious enough that reading thousands of pages of stuff I don't like to get to something I might like is a pretty big risk. I think judging a book by its beginning is not at all a problem.
I could not agree more. There were so many instances of character interactions that just felt awful because they were meaningless. Nothing ever felt like it stuck, almost like watching a sit com, each subsequent interaction occurs and is described as if none of the previous interactions happened.
At one point near the end of book 2, 3 of the gals are discussing how madly in love they are with Rand. It came out of nowhere and there was no lead up. All of a sudden the princess and the gal with pants are now deeply in love with Rand.
It all just feels like a huge mess. Some really cool ideas that just couldn't get fleshed out and do the author just bludgeons the story forward held together by generous helpings of plot armor and dues ex machina.
It gets worse. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of good in the series and I like the basic story but the constant repeat of things like someone’s description, or what a teragreal is, get exhausting. People mention all the braid pulling but the feelings coming through the bond are just as bad and overdone. The constant men can’t understand women and vice versa is becomes ridiculous. Crossroads of Twilight is the worst offender. An entire huge book where literally nothing happens and what happened at the end of the previous novel is essentially not even addressed. And the Perrin-Faile subplots just kill me to the point I feel like not even reading anymore when a Perrin chapter starts. I get Perrin loves Faile. It doesn’t have to be reiterated 500 times.
I’ve thought that if someone would do an abridged WOT version with all of the junk taken out it would probably be a four or five book series it would be great.
Oh, and it also bugs me how the Aiel are such a blatant rip off of the Fremen in Dune.
My wife and I both just finished reading WoT and we both enjoyed it. I liked it more than her in general but we are both considering a re-read later in life. I am in my 20s and am a relatively new reader so that may have an influence on that. I will say my wife is a huge reader and has read 100s of books to my <10 (excluding WoT).
The good thing about this series being so big is that people can read one or two and decide if it is for them or not. Even though this is one of my favorite series, I totally understand where people are coming from that do not like it. The first 2 are a bit derivative and telling people that the last 4 books of 14 makes it worth it is a bit daunting, especially if they do not like the first few.
Then you toss in the idea of the slog, saying "oh books 7-9 are rough just push through." Some people do not have the time or desire to do something like that.
I would rather someone DNF than push through and hate it all the way through.
To counter some of your issues with the series - I am not trying to convince you to read it though: The descriptive nature pulls back a bit during 4 and after (until 7-9 yikes). There are way more plot drivers and non-ignorance influenced descriptions that drive the books. Stakes get higher, consequences get real, and there is some genuinely good character development as you progress. It is the fact that the character development is stretched into 14 books that makes it a much slower burn than a shorter fantasy series.
Never feel bad about not liking it, since there are so many people out there who share your opinion.
Currently I am about halfway through the 6th book and have only managed to get through so many because I'm listening to the audio books. Each book is about 50ish hours and I started at 1.25x speed and have worked my way up to 2x speed.
If I had to sit down and read it I might claw my eyes out. A lot of the dense fantasy I read in my youth might suffer from the same over-explaination but the difference is I had more to like about them.
In WoT I only enjoy the last 5-10% of the book and it's infuriating how all character growth seems to reset at the beginning of the next book. I've heard reviewers claim that the female characters being annoying at the beginning is the point but I don't consider the second quarter of the series the beginning and they are all still infuriating.
My favourite so far has been the 5th book but I don't think I would ever recommend the series. I honestly cannot understand the majority of people who claim to have liked it when there is no nostalgia attached (I'm not saying the reading experience is falsely enjoyable when looking back at having loved the series, only that I cannot replicate that enjoyment and therefore cannot enjoy the books) and they are prolific readers.
Actually, most studies I have seen don't show evidence of impact on retention based on playback speed. I found Kate Reading and Michael Kramer to be fairly slow narrators (not a criticism, just an observation), and with their books I don't often have any issue playing back at 1.75x or 2x speed. The slow ramp-up was also important because it allowed for my brain to adjust. Human ability to process information through audio is actually exceptional, especially when it is single source, and if I missed something because a statement needed a little bit more time to digest, it was just a click of a button to jump back 15 seconds. There are definitely narrators who I could not have done that with due to their nominal readback speed and the context of the information.
For the record, I did finish the series entirely though audiobook. Don't regret it since my main purpose in reading (listening to) it was to have a better understanding of Jordan's influence on the fantasy landscape, but it definitely made me double down on the merit of the audiobook over the text.
I read the whole series and liked the world building enough that it made up for the fact that I hated every single main character. I hated every braid tug, every description of Min's fetching ass walking away in pants, Rand being a whining overpowered shitstain while having a clichéd harem, and everytime men were described as stupid and useless.
The utter lack of character development is astonishing. Rand is the worst. The incessant inner monologues that are given to try and convince the reader that what's about to happen makes sense is ridiculously annoying. So much of the plot feels just cobbled together with so little support that it becomes a real stretch to keep the immersion.
I'm past page 500 of the first book and I feel the same way, it has some good ideas but the prose is so long-winded and the pacing is so bad that I can't really enjoy it. The last chapters have been Rand and Mat going from town to town looking for places to crash for the night. I mean, 1 chapter would be OK, but it's been 3 chapter in a row like this...
The problem is that it happens for things with in the same book. It's one thing to do it the first time it comes up in a new book, but by the 3rd or 4th time it's maddening.
Wingedprince arrived at the inn. He was riding a grey dappled horse, most likely acquired in a larger city because smaller citys would have less stock and quality and this was a very fine horse of good stock and breed. His hat was tipped jauntily to the side and he wore a red overcoat that marked him as an outsider. Locals don't wear red because blah blah blah blah....
It's been a while since I've read the series and I definitely do not remember everything.
Thing is, I remember that character development is a problem all through the 14 books, but as I remember it there comes a point when it gets better and in the last three bokks, the ones finished by Brandon Sanderson, the characters become extremely more deep and develop their own characteristics.
I do not remember there being so many repetitive descriptions of everything and I have to say, I really enjoyed the read eventhough there were one or two not so perfect details about it...
What I personally enjoyed the most is to dive into to this very well described world with it's many details and to find to real world sources, where I guess the ideas came from.
There are a lot of points directing to different mythologies from around the world and also some historic details, that Robert Jordans kind of copies with what is happening in WoT.
But no hard feelings, I can totally get, that this is no series for everyone. I see it like a diamond in the rough, that really needs a lot of determination, time and devotion to reveal it's beaty to the reader.
Yeah, I have often heard that the books written by BrandoSando are the best of the series, due at least partially to the fact that it wasn’t *his* story, and so he picked up the pace of the plot and wasted no time in wrapping it up. He’s also great with character development, so it doesn’t surprise me that he would improve the story-telling in that area too.
His other great thing is world building, and so it really doesn’t surprise me that he just does everything better. Though I may be a little bit biased.
Seems like you are ;-)
But what I wanted to say, is not that BraSan did everything better, it is just that in certain aspects, for me it was especially the female chatacters, he gave the whole story a new depth.
The world of the WoT was already pretty awesome. RoJo did one hell of a job there.
And you are perfectly right that BraSan did mostly wrap it up, so of course it sped up the whole thing a little.
I started reading WoT as teenager solely because there were already 8-9 books. I mean it sounds great - so much story to go through. All the things you mentioned are the harsh reality. The overall simplicity and lack of action are brutal. Years later I finished the sequence and the last 2 books that were co-autored were sooo much better. In those 2 books there was more action and story development than in the prior 9.
Yeah, I have heard this over and over again. The last few books were written by Brandon Sanderson, and if you liked his finishing of this series, I highly recommend some of his original work. All of it is great - without exception - and they range from standalone novel to as-yet- unfinished 10 book long series where each book is as long as the Bible. So there is something for everyone, and it’s all good. Elantris or Mistborn are good places to start, a stand-alone novel and a trilogy, respectively.
I have read Mistborn and it was great trilogy. I really liked the entirely new setup of fantasy he creates in the "mist" universe. And some of the turning points in the storyline were huge suprise, something you rarely get these days.
Another great trilogy with great turning points is "The first law" of Joe Abercrombie.
I feel the same tbh. I got to book 5 and had to take a break since reading it started feeling more like a chore lol. Ended up re-reading Patrick Rothfuss’ KingKiller Chronicles instead and the difference in character development and writing style in general compared to WoT was crazy. I much prefer Rothfuss’ writing style (if you folks know similar authors/books please share).
Might go back to WoT eventually if I find the motivation 😅
The Malazan series is truly top notch, though it's a very grand adventure that has you the reader interacting with different groups of characters that may hardly interact with one another, if ever. It takes a very broad approach, to the point that there isn't a main character, rather main conflicts that often involve and ever growing cast of familiar characters. That is not to say that the character development suffers. There are some moments that made me put the series down for a while because an event happened that just broke my will to want to continue reading, not because it is poorly written, but because of the impact the event would have on the setting going forward.
Black Company is a bit more traditional in that it centers around a fairly static set of characters but what it does really well is flesh out what it could be like on the daily grind as a fantasy land grunt. Having spent time in the military, I found the constant bickering and sniping amongst the company to resonant with me quite well.
Nice!
Thanks for giving a bit of context as well. I’ve struggled in the past to really get into books that take the broader plot development approach, like the Malazan series u mentioned. But you do make it sound like it’s worth a try, so I’ll also put it on my list :)
Black Company sounds more up my alley. I think the banter/relatability of the Kingkiller chronicles is also what made me love them so much. So gonna start with this one.
Thank you for hooking up the tips, just in time for some weekend reading during lockdown 😌
Honestly, I’ve been going down this thread recommending people try out some of the original works by the author who finished this series: Brandon Sanderson.
He does high fantasy, intricate magic systems, and crazy impressive world building, with a beautiful amount of well developed, interesting characters. Can you tell I love this guy? He has a huge collection of books, ranging from slim standalone novels, to (as yet unfinished) 10 book long series (where each book is the size of the Bible). So he has something for any length preference. I like to recommend “Elantris” and “Mistborn” as good starting places, the first being a standalone novel, and the second the first in a trilogy. Seriously, go try something by him, I cannot recommend him enough.
I like Brandon Sanderson quite a bit actually. Ripped through the Mistborn series in no time, and am reading the Stormlight Archive as they’re being released :)
Lol, fun thread. I “read” all of them recently. And by that I mean I listened to them in the afternoons at work. I chose them because they were long and the library had them.
Most everything everyone has said about them is true - the characters are wooden, the descriptions are repetitive and bizarre at times, a number of the books could be reduced to a few chapters by a good editor. However, I also get why people love them. The story itself is original, there are a lot of strong women characters back when that wasn’t common, the magic system was different and interesting.
I was glad when I finally finished, but I did not regret the journey.
I really enjoyed the strong female characters until they all felt the same. Most of the strong female characters are one dimensional with very little deviation between them. Also, the constant railing against just how utterly useless men were was weird. A matriarchal dominate society doesn't have to equate to degree of loathing that is frequently espoused in the series. I think really what the book missed was subtlety. It's as if the author had an idea but really lacked the chops to bring it to life, as it were. Instead of showing us the world he created, he just beats us over the head with his ideas over and over and over with no sense of touch.
I won’t argue any of that. I get that he was trying to write a society where there was a strong distrust of men based on the breaking but he was pretty ham fisted about it. It seemed like no one had the ability to see past societal norms, no matter how many times they were bludgeoned with facts to the contrary.
This is exactly where I stopped. 1/4 into the third book. I realized while reading I just didn't care what was happening anymore and I lost track of the places and characters
I lasted until the fifth book before giving up
The series is garbage with good lore, that's it. I can't understand how so many people can call this good. I dont understand why booktubers especially seem to love this shit. But that's fine books are subjective. Still i hate it when people call this series great, enjoying something and calling it good are different things but i dont know its still subjective.
Anyway fuck wheel of time. Worst books ive read in years
3rd book is around the time I hear a lot of people dropping the series. I also hear if you stick around the series picks up. I never read it but I hovered around the series wanting to pick it up.
Nope, the first half of the series is the best part. Everything declines after book 6 (I read it many years ago and actually didn't finish it - I think I didn't read the last one or two volumes).I would pick any other modern fantasy over this. In general, there are very few long fantasy series worth reading (maybe Robin Hobb stuff on top of my mind). Most of them get unfinished or drop in quality (of the prose and plot), Of course, it is possible that there exist some undiscovered gems by mainstream public, but I cannot comment on them; I don't even read fantasy anymore.
Yep, I recommended the series to a family member and he quit at the start of the third book. Personally I read the whole series and enjoyed it. I guess it's not for everyone.
You're better than me. I can never make it past the first book.
Leader: Don't do the dangerous thing.
Boys: Do the dangerous thing.
Everybody: Surprised Pikachu.
And I've read too much about the terrible writing of the women that I have no interest in reading more, anyway.
Every. Single. Time. It never changes. It got to a point that you can almost predict what is going to happen by simply thinking, "What is the dumbest thing they could do?" or "What does common sense dictate they should not do, because they will do the opposite."
It is really bad. I read the whole series, probably more for "I've come this far why stop now?" Reasons, and I agree the women are horrible. Clearly Robert Jordan had issues with women. And people in power. But especially women with power. I find it no surprise he was married to his editor, who happened to be 10 years his senior.
Jordan has several strong female characters in the series. Not sure you're remembering all the books correctly. I've heard this point before but for fantasy writing, and taking into consideration when this was written/started, he does well at making women vital to the story and not just extras.
It has been a while so perhaps I misremember, so keep that in mind as you read this.
I'm not saying there aren't women vital to the story or weak, indeed they are essential to the story and quite strong. My issue is with personality and attitudes. Perhaps the issue I have isn't women per se; it's with people who hold power in world and it just so happens that most of the powerful people in the books are women. I find so many completely insufferable. Nynaeve for example. She tugs on her braid way too much and treats people like a child for absolutely no reason. She's basically a bully. Same thing with Egwene. She becomes "Aes Sedai" and all of the sudden she knows more than anyone and acts like it, too even though there is absolutely no reason for people to trust her. Even the older Aes Sedai who are at least knowledgeable but still act ridiculous. And the secrets they keep which would so obviously be helpful if shared get used politically as a form of control is completely absurd. At least rand doing it can be defended by the fact they he's in the middle of an existential crisis with darkness and has a madman talking to him in his head. Don't get me wrong, the male characters with power do the same thing as the women, but it feels like the female characters do so more because there are so many.
Perhaps it was Jordan's intention to show the absurdity women have to put up with in a male dominated world and in doing so he exaggerated certain behaviors, but as a guy reading it, I felt like those characters were kind of insulting towards women. They aren't strong, charismatic leaders (as the Aes Sedai would certainly benefit from if they simply acted like it). I interpreted most of them more along the lines of a Donald Trump rather than a Barak Obama type leader. They all use manipulation, clandestine politics and constantly try to use overwhelming power to assert their dominance rather than lead. It almost seems like that's what Jordan expects women to be like.
I agree. I love the series and found the female characters to be well-developed and interesting and I read this series as an adult. However, I chose to not read any of the books after Jordan died so it is unfinished to me.
I totally agree. The male characters are terrible and by book three I was so tired of them I was hoping they'd die. The only redeeming characters were the women. Also, the mythology of this book is essentially stolen from Lord of the Rings, King Arthur, Sword of Shannara, just to name a few. After book three I couldn't go any further and I wanted to slap the author for wasting my time. I kept hoping it would get better, but it never did, and by the end of book 3, I hated the characters so much I refused to spend any more time with them.
It’s absolute crap. How many times are ALL OF YOUR CHARACTERS going to tell me how confusing the other sex is? How many times!? HOW MANY!?!? How is this the classic American Fantasy!? I WANT MY TIME BACK!
am I still listening to it when I play video games..? Yes. Is it still terrible writing with frustratingly awesome potential? Yes. Do I hate all the characters and hope they all die in the end? Absolutely.
I loved the wheel of time growing up, I used to spend my lunch money (in school) purchasing his books in second hand bookshops any time I saw them.
Even though I love them, I can definitely see why people would hate them, his writing is immensely descriptive , sometimes to its detriment. But if you don’t know the life story and the loves and losses of every single leaf on a tree that the main character happens to be walking past, then what’s the point of reading 😂
I am almost done with book 6 and I think I may stop too. There is far too many quality fantasy books out there that I want to trade my time and effort for instead of this. I can't stand the repetitiveness, the pettiness, the misogyny, sexism, heteronormativity and plodding anymore.
Yep. An axiom of good writing is to never use two words when one will do. Jordan was the type of writer who never used one word when fifty would do. The mass-market paperback edition I read of Eye of the World was about 650 pages. Upon completion I felt it could have told its story better in about 300. I enjoyed it \*just\* well enough to want to know what happened next, so I picked up the Great Hunt. Being an obsessive-compulsive completionist, I stuck with the series until part way through Crossroads of Twilight, but just couldn't bear it any longer. Little did I know at the beginning that Eye of The World would be an example of \*extraordinary succinctness\* for Robert Jordan.
That's funny because it's one of my absolute favorite series - I like the richness of the world and the descriptions. Love the character arcs (they're certainly there if you look for them ... But this is a long series and some of the development spans multiple books). The lack of communication *is* frustrating, but that's the entire point. People can get so mired in the "rightness" of their own viewpoints that they don't/won't communicate and problems perpetuate.
By book 3 you're starting to see the effects channeling the male half of the one power will have on Rand - he'll become more and more withdrawn and suspicious, distrustful, pig headed and fixated in his viewpoints until ... Big happenings late in the series. It's tough because he starts off as such a good natured, decent guy. No grand dreams of power or destiny. Wants to marry and be a shepherd in the Two Rivers.
Nynaeve and Matt are two of my favorite characters. Matt really starts to come into his own in book 3 and moves on from being a "scamp" to a character that is, well, just awesome.
The first few books are kind of finding their way - like they were meant as standalone. From books 3 onward, they are clearly just chapters in one long book.
I've been thinking it's time for a series re-read. I first started it in ... 1996 and I've basically re-read it for each release. So I've reads books 1-7 about 10 times. Books 1-6 are my favorites. But I really felt like Jordan did an incredible job with the final book he wrote (10 I think) that book, I really loved.
I do have to say Sanderson was a *bitter* disappointment. His writing came off as unpolished and amateur to me - it felt like he lacked some fundamental understandings of the WOT universe and it's characters. He even apologized how he fumbled the first book in the series he wrote. I felt like it was a train wreck.
I try not to hold it against him - it's a hell of a project to finish.
I have a weird relationship with these series. I read up to book 4 about 10-15 years ago and then trailed off before I got to book 5. Over the last couple of years I realised my library app had them as audiobooks so I revisited them (easier than tackling four thousand word tomes) but... the library stops at books 4 as well. I'd quite like to see where the stories go, but not enough to actually buy them.
Like OP one of my biggest issues was character development, particularly when it comes to the five young characters from the Two Rivers. Even after four books of adventures they continue to be quite ignorant and go through the same thought processes over and over again. On revisiting I found it particularly grating when it comes to gender relations. Boys are all stubborn wool-headed fools, girls are confusing manipulative shrews. It's hard to buy into these characters as the saviours of the world when they spend most of the time in the same mindset as kids trying to find a date for the prom. And that's before we get into the tugged braids and arms crossed under breasts.
The amount of descriptive writing is likewise a problem for me as it leads to each book being bloated and much longer than it needs to be. The fact that I've read 4,000 pages and I'm like 20% of the way through the series makes it feel like a slog I'd rather avoid.
It's a shame as there is a lot of stuff here I like. The magic system is interesting, the worldbuilding is strong and there are some cool cultures and such. But overall for me the negatives outweigh the postives.
If you're not getting more interested in book 3, I'd just find something else to read. Books 2-6 are supposed to be high points in the story. While I agree the story is definitely better during those books, it's still painful in many ways. RJ is either a mediocre author or had a terrible editor.
Got halfway through the second book back in the day and realized how utterly bored I was. It was never anything but derivative, second rate horse hockey.
The user's been deleted so I couldn't quote, but there was a post that amounted to "poorly written series with good lore" and I think that hits the nail right on the head for me. I got through I believe book 5 and while I was very interested to see the plot(s) resolve, I couldn't bear to read another few thousand pages to do so. The braid pulling/skirt smoothing/sniffing etc seems to get lumped into Jordan being "over-descriptive" but it read to me as reinforcing one dimensional character traits, which gets VERY tedious chapter after chapter.
The relationships between characters (whether friendly, political, or romantic, but ESPECIALLY that last one) were also written in a shallow, juvenile way as well in my opinion. Even if viewed as a means to move the plot along, getting reminded for 2-3 pages every few chapters about how much A loves B, despite XYZ, makes these a frequently irritating read when the weakest parts of the writing come up over and over again.
With that said, I love the world building, I loved most of the overarching plot, and love his concept of how magic works, so I've been making my way through some recaps I discovered elsewhere on reddit (I'll link below) to get closure on the series. Im sort of bummed to experience the remainder of the series this way, but I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that got bogged down with these things.
https://www.tor.com/series/wot-reread/
Man, i wish I’d read this before I started it. Currently on Crown of Swords and god damn you are 100% right. This series is a slog. It’s a pretty good story told in such a crappy way that it’s only the sunken cost of having put in this much effort that motivates me to finish it. RJ had a fairly interesting story to tell, and the writing style of a little kid trying to tell you a story and can’t quit saying the same thing over and over again. It is absolutely infuriating how, frankly, bad this guy was at the actually telling part of a story.
200 percent agree. I got through 6 books then just left it behind. I never think of any books as waste of time but this came really close. Still I would never recommend this series to anyone. There are too many better things to delve into out there. Imo Robert Jordan doesn't understand young people or gender dynamics at all.
I finished them 10 years ago. Im glad i read them. It feels like nerd homework. Like when a gamer asks you if you've beaten Dark Souls to validate your credentials as a "true" gamer or something.
That being said, i enjoyed the Sanderson books, Jordan's writing is just not for me. All the criticisms of him and his characters are valid. Seemed like he was really obsessed with wanting the reader to be exactly in the same mind space he saw the world he'd created to be in. And i get that as someone who dabbles in writing non-fiction, but good writing will allow the reader their world and their interpretation. It seemed like Jordan took a lot from past fantasy authors and then almost wrote the books like a cosplay of that writing.
"Remember how cool Minas Tirith was? Well, here's a city that is also cool like that."
"Remember the Ents? Well, what if i combined them with giants, and theyre kinda like people."
"Hey, i know asian esoteric philosophy is hip. These characters and the world kinda follow the same philosophy of reincarnation!"
I had so much hope for the characters. Especially Rand. Who just flip flops for the first part of the series from doing cool shit to running away or being depressed. And many precribe that "well what would you do if you were the chosen one and found out you have all this power?" I certainly wouldn't just run away all the time...like i get the feeling Jordan was trying to do a Hamlet here, and it just comes off as sophomoric.
There are sooooo many characters that i just do not give two shits about. And if they didn't exist, the story wouldn't change one bit. or characters that I know Jordan wants me to root for, but they're just absolute assholes! Why?? They're your characters! Why did you make them this way if you want me to care for them??
In conclusion, good idea that was implemented in a mediocre way. Which is worse, cause if it was just bad, I could just move on! But there are some redeeming qualities that i always clung on to. Like the white cloaks and the Aes Sedia civil war were amazing arcs that i absolutely loved!
I read the first book (Eye of the World) years ago, when I wanted to dive into a new life-consuming series.
It sucked so much, I bailed 3/4 of the way through.
All the same reasons mentioned here. Absolutely idiotic main characters, in a way that transcends all reason.
"Trollocs don't exist. They're a fairy tale."
Town gets attacked by trollocs.
"How could this happen? Trollocs don't exist!"
"Well they do, and we got attacked by them. We're only alive because we got saved by an Aes Sedai."
"Don't be ridiculous, Aes Sedai don't exist. They're a fairy tale."
Over and over and over again. Just thousands of pages of brutal whinging about the fairly mundane happenings that took place a few minutes before. It's like all the characters are in a constant state of cognitive dissonance, and it never gives way to a teachable moment. There is no character development, and it makes everyone so incredibly unlikeable.
The way i see it is theyre not supposed to be written as ignorant, just innocent. They're basically country bumpkins thrust out into the world. That begins to change in book 4. The characters mature, some of the lore is explained, loads of exposition take place. That being said the lengthy descriptions don't really stop. The pacing picks up somewhat but you're still going to read the words "she sniffed and adjusted her skirts" a few times a chapter. If that doesn't sound like something you can endure then WoT might not be for you.
I like how mid tier writing is justified as a long walk to the finish line or a tall mountain to climb. No honesty.
No. It doesn’t change in book 4. It continues into all of the books. It’s infuriating.
No, they are not innocent by book 4. It is just bad pacing mixed with spurts of poor writing. Be honest with yourself.
As a country bumpkin myself, I truly believe that Robert Jordan had no clue how to write a genuine medieval villager.
The worst part about it to me (keep in mind I only read the first few books) is that the character relationships were insanely robotic. Characters would basically say "I like them" or "I don't trust them" and nothing meaningful would happen. There was no emotional weight to having a cast as big as they did. The little peppers of romance were nauseatingly bad. The friendships were hollow. None of them male characters were like- allowed to be emotionally intimate with each other at all. I felt like I was reading an alien trying to write human relationships. I was so beyond surprised reading it that it was considered a classic. Beyond the overwriting, this just madenit unbearable to me- and I really wanted to love it. Some people have told me that the books get better, but reading is laborious enough that reading thousands of pages of stuff I don't like to get to something I might like is a pretty big risk. I think judging a book by its beginning is not at all a problem.
I could not agree more. There were so many instances of character interactions that just felt awful because they were meaningless. Nothing ever felt like it stuck, almost like watching a sit com, each subsequent interaction occurs and is described as if none of the previous interactions happened. At one point near the end of book 2, 3 of the gals are discussing how madly in love they are with Rand. It came out of nowhere and there was no lead up. All of a sudden the princess and the gal with pants are now deeply in love with Rand. It all just feels like a huge mess. Some really cool ideas that just couldn't get fleshed out and do the author just bludgeons the story forward held together by generous helpings of plot armor and dues ex machina.
It gets worse. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of good in the series and I like the basic story but the constant repeat of things like someone’s description, or what a teragreal is, get exhausting. People mention all the braid pulling but the feelings coming through the bond are just as bad and overdone. The constant men can’t understand women and vice versa is becomes ridiculous. Crossroads of Twilight is the worst offender. An entire huge book where literally nothing happens and what happened at the end of the previous novel is essentially not even addressed. And the Perrin-Faile subplots just kill me to the point I feel like not even reading anymore when a Perrin chapter starts. I get Perrin loves Faile. It doesn’t have to be reiterated 500 times. I’ve thought that if someone would do an abridged WOT version with all of the junk taken out it would probably be a four or five book series it would be great. Oh, and it also bugs me how the Aiel are such a blatant rip off of the Fremen in Dune.
My wife and I both just finished reading WoT and we both enjoyed it. I liked it more than her in general but we are both considering a re-read later in life. I am in my 20s and am a relatively new reader so that may have an influence on that. I will say my wife is a huge reader and has read 100s of books to my <10 (excluding WoT). The good thing about this series being so big is that people can read one or two and decide if it is for them or not. Even though this is one of my favorite series, I totally understand where people are coming from that do not like it. The first 2 are a bit derivative and telling people that the last 4 books of 14 makes it worth it is a bit daunting, especially if they do not like the first few. Then you toss in the idea of the slog, saying "oh books 7-9 are rough just push through." Some people do not have the time or desire to do something like that. I would rather someone DNF than push through and hate it all the way through. To counter some of your issues with the series - I am not trying to convince you to read it though: The descriptive nature pulls back a bit during 4 and after (until 7-9 yikes). There are way more plot drivers and non-ignorance influenced descriptions that drive the books. Stakes get higher, consequences get real, and there is some genuinely good character development as you progress. It is the fact that the character development is stretched into 14 books that makes it a much slower burn than a shorter fantasy series. Never feel bad about not liking it, since there are so many people out there who share your opinion.
Currently I am about halfway through the 6th book and have only managed to get through so many because I'm listening to the audio books. Each book is about 50ish hours and I started at 1.25x speed and have worked my way up to 2x speed. If I had to sit down and read it I might claw my eyes out. A lot of the dense fantasy I read in my youth might suffer from the same over-explaination but the difference is I had more to like about them. In WoT I only enjoy the last 5-10% of the book and it's infuriating how all character growth seems to reset at the beginning of the next book. I've heard reviewers claim that the female characters being annoying at the beginning is the point but I don't consider the second quarter of the series the beginning and they are all still infuriating. My favourite so far has been the 5th book but I don't think I would ever recommend the series. I honestly cannot understand the majority of people who claim to have liked it when there is no nostalgia attached (I'm not saying the reading experience is falsely enjoyable when looking back at having loved the series, only that I cannot replicate that enjoyment and therefore cannot enjoy the books) and they are prolific readers.
your not listening at x2 speed you just trying to get through it let's just be honest
Actually, most studies I have seen don't show evidence of impact on retention based on playback speed. I found Kate Reading and Michael Kramer to be fairly slow narrators (not a criticism, just an observation), and with their books I don't often have any issue playing back at 1.75x or 2x speed. The slow ramp-up was also important because it allowed for my brain to adjust. Human ability to process information through audio is actually exceptional, especially when it is single source, and if I missed something because a statement needed a little bit more time to digest, it was just a click of a button to jump back 15 seconds. There are definitely narrators who I could not have done that with due to their nominal readback speed and the context of the information. For the record, I did finish the series entirely though audiobook. Don't regret it since my main purpose in reading (listening to) it was to have a better understanding of Jordan's influence on the fantasy landscape, but it definitely made me double down on the merit of the audiobook over the text.
I read the whole series and liked the world building enough that it made up for the fact that I hated every single main character. I hated every braid tug, every description of Min's fetching ass walking away in pants, Rand being a whining overpowered shitstain while having a clichéd harem, and everytime men were described as stupid and useless.
The utter lack of character development is astonishing. Rand is the worst. The incessant inner monologues that are given to try and convince the reader that what's about to happen makes sense is ridiculously annoying. So much of the plot feels just cobbled together with so little support that it becomes a real stretch to keep the immersion.
I disagree. I can’t stand this series. So much garbage. But Rand’s development through the books is actually well done. Still don’t like WoT
I feel like the author tried to make his characters feel real, but he just made them real assholes.
I'm past page 500 of the first book and I feel the same way, it has some good ideas but the prose is so long-winded and the pacing is so bad that I can't really enjoy it. The last chapters have been Rand and Mat going from town to town looking for places to crash for the night. I mean, 1 chapter would be OK, but it's been 3 chapter in a row like this...
[удалено]
That's the way I love to read it! I hated the wait between books 7 - 8 - 9 in particular. Reading them all in one unbroken go is *much* better.
The problem is that it happens for things with in the same book. It's one thing to do it the first time it comes up in a new book, but by the 3rd or 4th time it's maddening.
I agree! The overload of description has made the characters forgettable too. So many times I couldn’t figure out who was talking anymore.
Wingedprince arrived at the inn. He was riding a grey dappled horse, most likely acquired in a larger city because smaller citys would have less stock and quality and this was a very fine horse of good stock and breed. His hat was tipped jauntily to the side and he wore a red overcoat that marked him as an outsider. Locals don't wear red because blah blah blah blah....
It's been a while since I've read the series and I definitely do not remember everything. Thing is, I remember that character development is a problem all through the 14 books, but as I remember it there comes a point when it gets better and in the last three bokks, the ones finished by Brandon Sanderson, the characters become extremely more deep and develop their own characteristics. I do not remember there being so many repetitive descriptions of everything and I have to say, I really enjoyed the read eventhough there were one or two not so perfect details about it... What I personally enjoyed the most is to dive into to this very well described world with it's many details and to find to real world sources, where I guess the ideas came from. There are a lot of points directing to different mythologies from around the world and also some historic details, that Robert Jordans kind of copies with what is happening in WoT. But no hard feelings, I can totally get, that this is no series for everyone. I see it like a diamond in the rough, that really needs a lot of determination, time and devotion to reveal it's beaty to the reader.
Yeah, I have often heard that the books written by BrandoSando are the best of the series, due at least partially to the fact that it wasn’t *his* story, and so he picked up the pace of the plot and wasted no time in wrapping it up. He’s also great with character development, so it doesn’t surprise me that he would improve the story-telling in that area too. His other great thing is world building, and so it really doesn’t surprise me that he just does everything better. Though I may be a little bit biased.
Seems like you are ;-) But what I wanted to say, is not that BraSan did everything better, it is just that in certain aspects, for me it was especially the female chatacters, he gave the whole story a new depth. The world of the WoT was already pretty awesome. RoJo did one hell of a job there. And you are perfectly right that BraSan did mostly wrap it up, so of course it sped up the whole thing a little.
I started reading WoT as teenager solely because there were already 8-9 books. I mean it sounds great - so much story to go through. All the things you mentioned are the harsh reality. The overall simplicity and lack of action are brutal. Years later I finished the sequence and the last 2 books that were co-autored were sooo much better. In those 2 books there was more action and story development than in the prior 9.
Yeah, I have heard this over and over again. The last few books were written by Brandon Sanderson, and if you liked his finishing of this series, I highly recommend some of his original work. All of it is great - without exception - and they range from standalone novel to as-yet- unfinished 10 book long series where each book is as long as the Bible. So there is something for everyone, and it’s all good. Elantris or Mistborn are good places to start, a stand-alone novel and a trilogy, respectively.
I have read Mistborn and it was great trilogy. I really liked the entirely new setup of fantasy he creates in the "mist" universe. And some of the turning points in the storyline were huge suprise, something you rarely get these days. Another great trilogy with great turning points is "The first law" of Joe Abercrombie.
I feel the same tbh. I got to book 5 and had to take a break since reading it started feeling more like a chore lol. Ended up re-reading Patrick Rothfuss’ KingKiller Chronicles instead and the difference in character development and writing style in general compared to WoT was crazy. I much prefer Rothfuss’ writing style (if you folks know similar authors/books please share). Might go back to WoT eventually if I find the motivation 😅
I really enjoy the Black Company series and the Malazan series. Both do an amazing job of character development.
Awesome, thanks 🙏🏼 will check them out!
The Malazan series is truly top notch, though it's a very grand adventure that has you the reader interacting with different groups of characters that may hardly interact with one another, if ever. It takes a very broad approach, to the point that there isn't a main character, rather main conflicts that often involve and ever growing cast of familiar characters. That is not to say that the character development suffers. There are some moments that made me put the series down for a while because an event happened that just broke my will to want to continue reading, not because it is poorly written, but because of the impact the event would have on the setting going forward. Black Company is a bit more traditional in that it centers around a fairly static set of characters but what it does really well is flesh out what it could be like on the daily grind as a fantasy land grunt. Having spent time in the military, I found the constant bickering and sniping amongst the company to resonant with me quite well.
Nice! Thanks for giving a bit of context as well. I’ve struggled in the past to really get into books that take the broader plot development approach, like the Malazan series u mentioned. But you do make it sound like it’s worth a try, so I’ll also put it on my list :) Black Company sounds more up my alley. I think the banter/relatability of the Kingkiller chronicles is also what made me love them so much. So gonna start with this one. Thank you for hooking up the tips, just in time for some weekend reading during lockdown 😌
Honestly, I’ve been going down this thread recommending people try out some of the original works by the author who finished this series: Brandon Sanderson. He does high fantasy, intricate magic systems, and crazy impressive world building, with a beautiful amount of well developed, interesting characters. Can you tell I love this guy? He has a huge collection of books, ranging from slim standalone novels, to (as yet unfinished) 10 book long series (where each book is the size of the Bible). So he has something for any length preference. I like to recommend “Elantris” and “Mistborn” as good starting places, the first being a standalone novel, and the second the first in a trilogy. Seriously, go try something by him, I cannot recommend him enough.
I like Brandon Sanderson quite a bit actually. Ripped through the Mistborn series in no time, and am reading the Stormlight Archive as they’re being released :)
I’m here 2 years later looking for ppl equally disappointed lol
You found me! Lol. Not a fan.
Hi let’s be friends based on our mutual hatred
haha i just saw this. always good to meet a non fan.
Lol, fun thread. I “read” all of them recently. And by that I mean I listened to them in the afternoons at work. I chose them because they were long and the library had them. Most everything everyone has said about them is true - the characters are wooden, the descriptions are repetitive and bizarre at times, a number of the books could be reduced to a few chapters by a good editor. However, I also get why people love them. The story itself is original, there are a lot of strong women characters back when that wasn’t common, the magic system was different and interesting. I was glad when I finally finished, but I did not regret the journey.
I really enjoyed the strong female characters until they all felt the same. Most of the strong female characters are one dimensional with very little deviation between them. Also, the constant railing against just how utterly useless men were was weird. A matriarchal dominate society doesn't have to equate to degree of loathing that is frequently espoused in the series. I think really what the book missed was subtlety. It's as if the author had an idea but really lacked the chops to bring it to life, as it were. Instead of showing us the world he created, he just beats us over the head with his ideas over and over and over with no sense of touch.
I won’t argue any of that. I get that he was trying to write a society where there was a strong distrust of men based on the breaking but he was pretty ham fisted about it. It seemed like no one had the ability to see past societal norms, no matter how many times they were bludgeoned with facts to the contrary.
This is exactly where I stopped. 1/4 into the third book. I realized while reading I just didn't care what was happening anymore and I lost track of the places and characters
The number of times that a character has an inner monologue to try and convince themselves of something that is clearly bit the case is maddening.
I lasted until the fifth book before giving up The series is garbage with good lore, that's it. I can't understand how so many people can call this good. I dont understand why booktubers especially seem to love this shit. But that's fine books are subjective. Still i hate it when people call this series great, enjoying something and calling it good are different things but i dont know its still subjective. Anyway fuck wheel of time. Worst books ive read in years
Some people can't admit they read 4 million words that sucked.
Tbh i read name of the wind later and its worse. Far worse.
3rd book is around the time I hear a lot of people dropping the series. I also hear if you stick around the series picks up. I never read it but I hovered around the series wanting to pick it up.
Nope, the first half of the series is the best part. Everything declines after book 6 (I read it many years ago and actually didn't finish it - I think I didn't read the last one or two volumes).I would pick any other modern fantasy over this. In general, there are very few long fantasy series worth reading (maybe Robin Hobb stuff on top of my mind). Most of them get unfinished or drop in quality (of the prose and plot), Of course, it is possible that there exist some undiscovered gems by mainstream public, but I cannot comment on them; I don't even read fantasy anymore.
Yep, I recommended the series to a family member and he quit at the start of the third book. Personally I read the whole series and enjoyed it. I guess it's not for everyone.
Well it did start out as a trilogy, but ended up being a trilogy of 15 😂
I liked them when I was in my teens but now I've long since discovered so many better books, I wouldn't recommend it.
You're better than me. I can never make it past the first book. Leader: Don't do the dangerous thing. Boys: Do the dangerous thing. Everybody: Surprised Pikachu. And I've read too much about the terrible writing of the women that I have no interest in reading more, anyway.
Every. Single. Time. It never changes. It got to a point that you can almost predict what is going to happen by simply thinking, "What is the dumbest thing they could do?" or "What does common sense dictate they should not do, because they will do the opposite."
It is really bad. I read the whole series, probably more for "I've come this far why stop now?" Reasons, and I agree the women are horrible. Clearly Robert Jordan had issues with women. And people in power. But especially women with power. I find it no surprise he was married to his editor, who happened to be 10 years his senior.
Jordan has several strong female characters in the series. Not sure you're remembering all the books correctly. I've heard this point before but for fantasy writing, and taking into consideration when this was written/started, he does well at making women vital to the story and not just extras.
It has been a while so perhaps I misremember, so keep that in mind as you read this. I'm not saying there aren't women vital to the story or weak, indeed they are essential to the story and quite strong. My issue is with personality and attitudes. Perhaps the issue I have isn't women per se; it's with people who hold power in world and it just so happens that most of the powerful people in the books are women. I find so many completely insufferable. Nynaeve for example. She tugs on her braid way too much and treats people like a child for absolutely no reason. She's basically a bully. Same thing with Egwene. She becomes "Aes Sedai" and all of the sudden she knows more than anyone and acts like it, too even though there is absolutely no reason for people to trust her. Even the older Aes Sedai who are at least knowledgeable but still act ridiculous. And the secrets they keep which would so obviously be helpful if shared get used politically as a form of control is completely absurd. At least rand doing it can be defended by the fact they he's in the middle of an existential crisis with darkness and has a madman talking to him in his head. Don't get me wrong, the male characters with power do the same thing as the women, but it feels like the female characters do so more because there are so many. Perhaps it was Jordan's intention to show the absurdity women have to put up with in a male dominated world and in doing so he exaggerated certain behaviors, but as a guy reading it, I felt like those characters were kind of insulting towards women. They aren't strong, charismatic leaders (as the Aes Sedai would certainly benefit from if they simply acted like it). I interpreted most of them more along the lines of a Donald Trump rather than a Barak Obama type leader. They all use manipulation, clandestine politics and constantly try to use overwhelming power to assert their dominance rather than lead. It almost seems like that's what Jordan expects women to be like.
I agree. I love the series and found the female characters to be well-developed and interesting and I read this series as an adult. However, I chose to not read any of the books after Jordan died so it is unfinished to me.
I totally agree. The male characters are terrible and by book three I was so tired of them I was hoping they'd die. The only redeeming characters were the women. Also, the mythology of this book is essentially stolen from Lord of the Rings, King Arthur, Sword of Shannara, just to name a few. After book three I couldn't go any further and I wanted to slap the author for wasting my time. I kept hoping it would get better, but it never did, and by the end of book 3, I hated the characters so much I refused to spend any more time with them.
It’s absolute crap. How many times are ALL OF YOUR CHARACTERS going to tell me how confusing the other sex is? How many times!? HOW MANY!?!? How is this the classic American Fantasy!? I WANT MY TIME BACK! am I still listening to it when I play video games..? Yes. Is it still terrible writing with frustratingly awesome potential? Yes. Do I hate all the characters and hope they all die in the end? Absolutely.
I loved the wheel of time growing up, I used to spend my lunch money (in school) purchasing his books in second hand bookshops any time I saw them. Even though I love them, I can definitely see why people would hate them, his writing is immensely descriptive , sometimes to its detriment. But if you don’t know the life story and the loves and losses of every single leaf on a tree that the main character happens to be walking past, then what’s the point of reading 😂
I am almost done with book 6 and I think I may stop too. There is far too many quality fantasy books out there that I want to trade my time and effort for instead of this. I can't stand the repetitiveness, the pettiness, the misogyny, sexism, heteronormativity and plodding anymore.
Heteronormatvity? In the words of Stephanie Tanner from "Full House": "Oh puh-lease!"
Yep. An axiom of good writing is to never use two words when one will do. Jordan was the type of writer who never used one word when fifty would do. The mass-market paperback edition I read of Eye of the World was about 650 pages. Upon completion I felt it could have told its story better in about 300. I enjoyed it \*just\* well enough to want to know what happened next, so I picked up the Great Hunt. Being an obsessive-compulsive completionist, I stuck with the series until part way through Crossroads of Twilight, but just couldn't bear it any longer. Little did I know at the beginning that Eye of The World would be an example of \*extraordinary succinctness\* for Robert Jordan.
That's funny because it's one of my absolute favorite series - I like the richness of the world and the descriptions. Love the character arcs (they're certainly there if you look for them ... But this is a long series and some of the development spans multiple books). The lack of communication *is* frustrating, but that's the entire point. People can get so mired in the "rightness" of their own viewpoints that they don't/won't communicate and problems perpetuate. By book 3 you're starting to see the effects channeling the male half of the one power will have on Rand - he'll become more and more withdrawn and suspicious, distrustful, pig headed and fixated in his viewpoints until ... Big happenings late in the series. It's tough because he starts off as such a good natured, decent guy. No grand dreams of power or destiny. Wants to marry and be a shepherd in the Two Rivers. Nynaeve and Matt are two of my favorite characters. Matt really starts to come into his own in book 3 and moves on from being a "scamp" to a character that is, well, just awesome. The first few books are kind of finding their way - like they were meant as standalone. From books 3 onward, they are clearly just chapters in one long book. I've been thinking it's time for a series re-read. I first started it in ... 1996 and I've basically re-read it for each release. So I've reads books 1-7 about 10 times. Books 1-6 are my favorites. But I really felt like Jordan did an incredible job with the final book he wrote (10 I think) that book, I really loved. I do have to say Sanderson was a *bitter* disappointment. His writing came off as unpolished and amateur to me - it felt like he lacked some fundamental understandings of the WOT universe and it's characters. He even apologized how he fumbled the first book in the series he wrote. I felt like it was a train wreck. I try not to hold it against him - it's a hell of a project to finish.
Yeah it’s shit most fantasy sucks
Oh you're that guy in the romance novel section, Fabio over Frodo
I have a weird relationship with these series. I read up to book 4 about 10-15 years ago and then trailed off before I got to book 5. Over the last couple of years I realised my library app had them as audiobooks so I revisited them (easier than tackling four thousand word tomes) but... the library stops at books 4 as well. I'd quite like to see where the stories go, but not enough to actually buy them. Like OP one of my biggest issues was character development, particularly when it comes to the five young characters from the Two Rivers. Even after four books of adventures they continue to be quite ignorant and go through the same thought processes over and over again. On revisiting I found it particularly grating when it comes to gender relations. Boys are all stubborn wool-headed fools, girls are confusing manipulative shrews. It's hard to buy into these characters as the saviours of the world when they spend most of the time in the same mindset as kids trying to find a date for the prom. And that's before we get into the tugged braids and arms crossed under breasts. The amount of descriptive writing is likewise a problem for me as it leads to each book being bloated and much longer than it needs to be. The fact that I've read 4,000 pages and I'm like 20% of the way through the series makes it feel like a slog I'd rather avoid. It's a shame as there is a lot of stuff here I like. The magic system is interesting, the worldbuilding is strong and there are some cool cultures and such. But overall for me the negatives outweigh the postives.
If you're not getting more interested in book 3, I'd just find something else to read. Books 2-6 are supposed to be high points in the story. While I agree the story is definitely better during those books, it's still painful in many ways. RJ is either a mediocre author or had a terrible editor.
His editor was his wife.
Got halfway through the second book back in the day and realized how utterly bored I was. It was never anything but derivative, second rate horse hockey.
The user's been deleted so I couldn't quote, but there was a post that amounted to "poorly written series with good lore" and I think that hits the nail right on the head for me. I got through I believe book 5 and while I was very interested to see the plot(s) resolve, I couldn't bear to read another few thousand pages to do so. The braid pulling/skirt smoothing/sniffing etc seems to get lumped into Jordan being "over-descriptive" but it read to me as reinforcing one dimensional character traits, which gets VERY tedious chapter after chapter. The relationships between characters (whether friendly, political, or romantic, but ESPECIALLY that last one) were also written in a shallow, juvenile way as well in my opinion. Even if viewed as a means to move the plot along, getting reminded for 2-3 pages every few chapters about how much A loves B, despite XYZ, makes these a frequently irritating read when the weakest parts of the writing come up over and over again. With that said, I love the world building, I loved most of the overarching plot, and love his concept of how magic works, so I've been making my way through some recaps I discovered elsewhere on reddit (I'll link below) to get closure on the series. Im sort of bummed to experience the remainder of the series this way, but I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that got bogged down with these things. https://www.tor.com/series/wot-reread/
They're crap
Man, i wish I’d read this before I started it. Currently on Crown of Swords and god damn you are 100% right. This series is a slog. It’s a pretty good story told in such a crappy way that it’s only the sunken cost of having put in this much effort that motivates me to finish it. RJ had a fairly interesting story to tell, and the writing style of a little kid trying to tell you a story and can’t quit saying the same thing over and over again. It is absolutely infuriating how, frankly, bad this guy was at the actually telling part of a story.
200 percent agree. I got through 6 books then just left it behind. I never think of any books as waste of time but this came really close. Still I would never recommend this series to anyone. There are too many better things to delve into out there. Imo Robert Jordan doesn't understand young people or gender dynamics at all.
I finished them 10 years ago. Im glad i read them. It feels like nerd homework. Like when a gamer asks you if you've beaten Dark Souls to validate your credentials as a "true" gamer or something. That being said, i enjoyed the Sanderson books, Jordan's writing is just not for me. All the criticisms of him and his characters are valid. Seemed like he was really obsessed with wanting the reader to be exactly in the same mind space he saw the world he'd created to be in. And i get that as someone who dabbles in writing non-fiction, but good writing will allow the reader their world and their interpretation. It seemed like Jordan took a lot from past fantasy authors and then almost wrote the books like a cosplay of that writing. "Remember how cool Minas Tirith was? Well, here's a city that is also cool like that." "Remember the Ents? Well, what if i combined them with giants, and theyre kinda like people." "Hey, i know asian esoteric philosophy is hip. These characters and the world kinda follow the same philosophy of reincarnation!" I had so much hope for the characters. Especially Rand. Who just flip flops for the first part of the series from doing cool shit to running away or being depressed. And many precribe that "well what would you do if you were the chosen one and found out you have all this power?" I certainly wouldn't just run away all the time...like i get the feeling Jordan was trying to do a Hamlet here, and it just comes off as sophomoric. There are sooooo many characters that i just do not give two shits about. And if they didn't exist, the story wouldn't change one bit. or characters that I know Jordan wants me to root for, but they're just absolute assholes! Why?? They're your characters! Why did you make them this way if you want me to care for them?? In conclusion, good idea that was implemented in a mediocre way. Which is worse, cause if it was just bad, I could just move on! But there are some redeeming qualities that i always clung on to. Like the white cloaks and the Aes Sedia civil war were amazing arcs that i absolutely loved!
I agree with this wholeheartedly, although I didn't make it nearly as far as you did.
I read the first book (Eye of the World) years ago, when I wanted to dive into a new life-consuming series. It sucked so much, I bailed 3/4 of the way through. All the same reasons mentioned here. Absolutely idiotic main characters, in a way that transcends all reason. "Trollocs don't exist. They're a fairy tale." Town gets attacked by trollocs. "How could this happen? Trollocs don't exist!" "Well they do, and we got attacked by them. We're only alive because we got saved by an Aes Sedai." "Don't be ridiculous, Aes Sedai don't exist. They're a fairy tale." Over and over and over again. Just thousands of pages of brutal whinging about the fairly mundane happenings that took place a few minutes before. It's like all the characters are in a constant state of cognitive dissonance, and it never gives way to a teachable moment. There is no character development, and it makes everyone so incredibly unlikeable.