[Books] Just finished the Wheel of Time series...

[Zoma]

Elayne and Egwene... I hated those two so damn much after book 4.

I hated them before Book 4, but I thought Egwene started improving after Book 6. From Book 11 onwards, I thought her chapters were some of the best.

Mat, Perrin, and Nynaeve were my favorites.

I loved Mat and Perrin, though I didn't like Mat that much in Books 1 + 2, but I felt Nynaeve wasn't much better than Elayne a lot of the time. She did have some good moments here and there, though.

[AceofHarts]

The final book was pretty decent. The end of it was a big let down. Rand taking over Moridin's body and walking off into the sunset was the stupidest thing I have ever read. Elayne and Egwene... I hated those two so damn much after book 4. Mat, Perrin, and Nynaeve were my favorites. Rand became a whiny bitch when he learned he could channel. I had been reading this series since about 1996 or 1997, and stopped for many years after Crossroads of Twilight released. Up until then, I was enjoying my time reading. Then that book happened, and I lost interest. When I found out that the final book was finally being released, I bit the bullet and read through that book, and managed to read the book before the final one, finishing back in October. Read the last book in middle February.

I loved the series, as I found many of the characters to be fun to read (mostly Mat's chapters), and groaned when I saw certain chapter indicators (lanfear, seanchan, elayne). My gripe with Jordan's writing was this: He spent an entire page describing a room. The wall was a single long paragraph, the table and chairs were its own long paragraph, etc. So I got in the habit of skipping over many paragraphs because I just didn't care to read the description of Rand al'Thor or what the novice rooms in the White Tower for the 5th time. 20 years ago, the first book was published. This series is older than a number of people on this board. It is a good series, and (I think) would make a decent tv series on HBO. Game of Thrones is a good tv series, but the book series is boring as all fuck. And honestly, I think it is loved so much because of the porn. Just like 50 shades of gray.

I need to reread (and finish reading) Malazan Book of the Fallen. Read the first 2 books, and local library is a piece of shit as it had book 1, 2, 5, 7 of that series.

im sorry, but how you can hate egwene, but like NYNAEVE is beyond me. egwene, especially when she starts doing shit as the leader of the aes sedai, is the best female in the series. Nynaeve on the other hand...braid tugging, ear boxxing...and her always snapping when she doesnt get her own way? screw that.

[Pachycrocuta]

im sorry, but how you can hate egwene, but like NYNAEVE is beyond me. egwene, especially when she starts doing shit as the leader of the aes sedai, is the best female in the series. Nynaeve on the other hand...braid tugging, ear boxxing...and her always snapping when she doesnt get her own way? screw that.

I mostly liked Nynaeve's exchanges with Mat, and her focus on the healing aspects of the Power. Her overall attitude was pretty bad, I will admit. And the fact that most of the other Aes Sedai thought of her as inferior for being a wilder, just made me like her more. As for Egwene, she was alright starting out, but my beef with her was her "I know better than others" attitude that I couldn't stand. She was a lot better in the final book. Of course, Perrin was quite the whiney bitch, but his wolfbrother-ness redeemed him (in my eyes).

[AceofHarts]

I mostly liked Nynaeve's exchanges with Mat, and her focus on the healing aspects of the Power. Her overall attitude was pretty bad, I will admit. And the fact that most of the other Aes Sedai thought of her as inferior for being a wilder, just made me like her more. As for Egwene, she was alright starting out, but my beef with her was her "I know better than others" attitude that I couldn't stand. She was a lot better in the final book. Of course, Perrin was quite the whiney bitch, but his wolfbrother-ness redeemed him (in my eyes).

if Egwene's "i know better than others" attitude made you hate her, how the hell do you like nynaeve? she is above and beyond all the others with that aspect of her.

---------- Post added 2013-04-04 at 08:24 AM ----------

OMG...are you saying it actually FINISHED? I think I read to book 5 when book 6 came out and stopped then because it seemed to go nowhere....crazy....

books 7-11 can get quite dull but it picks up again after that

[Gallahadd]

Aye I really don't get why so many people hate Egwene... She was one of my favourite characters (probably second behind Mat), true she has a bad patch in the midde (funny that...) but all the stuff she does towards the end, taking over the White Tower etc. And ALL the stuff she does in the final battle is fucking boss. She had one of the best exits in the series.

I liked all of the three Ta'varen (it always made me laugh how whenever any of them had to deal with a lady, they would invariable think to themselve "Gah, why am I not as good with women as the other two" made my chuckle) But Perrin's chapters did drag a bit, with the whole stupid "Perrin>Faile>Berelain" thing, as it was so stupidly one sided, not sure why anyone felt the need to drag it on as long as they did. And of course Rand's chapters did start to get a bit much in the middle, when he was building up for his big emo freak-out on Dragonmount.

I fucking hate Elayne though, she had no redeeming feature IMO

[ColbaneX]

I won't disagree, but that doesn't make it an exciting series. I'd rather read Crossroads of Twilight three times in a row than the LotR trilogy. I've only read two fantasy series that I would place below LotR.

---------- Post added 2013-04-03 at 06:31 PM ----------



Supposedly Robert Jordan was planning other standalone books similar to "New Spring", but I doubt Sanderson plans on writing those.

Wow...just...no. That statement is so wrong (even for an opinion) that I can't even...

[Dasffion]

Supposedly Robert Jordan was planning other standalone books similar to "New Spring", but I doubt Sanderson plans on writing those.

Harriet said no way no how to any books past AMOL. This doesn't include the WOT Encyclopedia they're working on but that's not the same as another story. Sanderson agrees with this decision. WoT doesn't need to turn into another Dune.

[Pachycrocuta]

if Egwene's "i know better than others" attitude made you hate her, how the hell do you like nynaeve? she is above and beyond all the others with that aspect of her.

Oh, I agree that Nynaeve had an overbearing aspect of herself, and thought she knew better than the "stupid men". But like I said, her focus on the healing portion of the Power, and being thought of as inferior because she was a wilder, made me like her enough to not care about the bad parts. But Egwene... She was alright to begin with, but her superiority complex that began to happen when she started training in Tar Valon got really annoying. And then it got to horrible levels when she was made Amyrlin. For the most part, I seriously abhor characters with massive superiority complexes, whether male or female. What I really disliked about all of Jordan's female characters was their constant attitude of "Males are stupid, they would be drooling masses if women weren't around, and they wouldn't be able to wipe their own asses and nothing else would get done in the world if not for women." And I felt exactly the same as Mat towards the female channelers (Though Verin was pretty cool, mainly because she wasn't completely overbearing). Of course, I was really drawn to Mat because of that attitude, and we share the same shortened version of our names.

Not saying Nynaeve was the best character, but she was one of the few that I could stand to read about for the reasons I mentioned earlier. Aviendha wasn't too bad either.

[Dasffion]

The only place I think Egwene had a superiority complex where it wasn't deserved was in dealing with Rand after she became Amyrlin. Especially the deal with the Seals.

[rhandric]

Dasffion, I would disagree with you there. While she certainly had some issues in ToM, her argument wrt the Seals is correct -- the details that lead her to that conclusion, however, are mostly off-screen, with a brief mention at the start of AMoL ("Wait upon the Light"...so true, yet so easy to miss the first time). However, she doesn't realize that while she's right, Rand is also right -- the Seals must be broken, but he can't be the one to do it because he has other tasks, and the timing has to be right.

[Dasffion]

Dasffion, I would disagree with you there. While she certainly had some issues in ToM, her argument wrt the Seals is correct -- the details that lead her to that conclusion, however, are mostly off-screen, with a brief mention at the start of AMoL ("Wait upon the Light"...so true, yet so easy to miss the first time). However, she doesn't realize that while she's right, Rand is also right -- the Seals must be broken, but he can't be the one to do it because he has other tasks, and the timing has to be right.

She was wrong until Rand convinced her. She said the seals can't be broken, not that he can't break them or whatever semantics you're trying to argue there. Rand had to force her into it. She was wrong. Period.

EDIT: Also Moriane was the one who said that Egwene had to be the one to break the seals.

[Skallfraktur]

NOONE should argue with the Dragon Fucking Reborn. I'd do whatever he told me, he's a badass. I have to agree with people claiming Egwene had a supriority complex. It was super annoying at times, especially when she was dealing with Rand. Though to be fair, we (as readers) knew more about what was going on than she did, but still super annoying. Some times I just wished for a super massive show of awesome power (like the one at Maradon) from Rand to convince everyone to just shut the fuck up and follow his lead.

[rhandric]

She was wrong until Rand convinced her. She said the seals can't be broken, not that he can't break them or whatever semantics you're trying to argue there. Rand had to force her into it. She was wrong. Period.

EDIT: Also Moriane was the one who said that Egwene had to be the one to break the seals.

Well that's the thing, both of them were half right and half wrong. She was right that a) Rand shouldn't break them, and b) that if they were to be broken, it must be as late as possible. Rand was right in that they needed to be broken to clear the way. Egwene didn't get that they needed to be broken, and Rand didn't get that timing mattered.

[Dasffion]

Well that's the thing, both of them were half right and half wrong. She was right that a) Rand shouldn't break them, and b) that if they were to be broken, it must be as late as possible. Rand was right in that they needed to be broken to clear the way. Egwene didn't get that they needed to be broken, and Rand didn't get that timing mattered.

Again, her argument wasn't that Rand shouldn't break them. Her argument was that they shouldn't be broken. She wasn't half right. She was all wrong. Rand was half right. I'll agree with you on that.

[Skallfraktur]

Again, her argument wasn't that Rand shouldn't break them. Her argument was that they shouldn't be broken. She wasn't half right. She was all wrong. Rand was half right. I'll agree with you on that.

Indeed, she argued that they should seal the bore by patching over the already existing prison. Rand said that they would just end up with an imperfect prison and like last time and he would be free even faster this time. She said that was better than risking the world falling under the shadow all together. She was wrong, stupid women who never listen.

[rhandric]

Again, her argument wasn't that Rand shouldn't break them. Her argument was that they shouldn't be broken. She wasn't half right. She was all wrong. Rand was half right. I'll agree with you on that.

I know what her argument is, I have the text in front of me: "If it is to be done--and I still don't know that it has to be--we should wait until the last possible moment." And if you read, I even stated that Egwene didn't think they needed to be broken -- which includes the point that Rand shouldn't break them (and goes beyond that).

[Dasffion]

I know what her argument is, I have the text in front of me: "If it is to be done--and I still don't know that it has to be--we should wait until the last possible moment." And if you read, I even stated that Egwene didn't think they needed to be broken -- which includes the point that Rand shouldn't break them (and goes beyond that).

That quote is pretty far into the argument, after Rand had beat her down pretty hard about it. You never said that she didn't think they need to be broken though, your whole argument has been that she was partially right and that Rand wasn't the one who should break them, which means she though that they needed to be broken by someone. Her whole thing from TTOM when Rand first told her that he was going to break him was trying to get the rulers of the world to unite and convince him that the seals cannot be broken.

[rhandric]

That quote is pretty far into the argument, after Rand had beat her down pretty hard about it. You never said that she didn't think they need to be broken though, your whole argument has been that she was partially right and that Rand wasn't the one who should break them, which means she though that they needed to be broken by someone. Her whole thing from TTOM when Rand first told her that he was going to break him was trying to get the rulers of the world to unite and convince him that the seals cannot be broken.

Actually that quote is from before the meeting, when she's talking with Elayne. And yes, I did argue that Egwene didn't think they needed to be broken:

Egwene didn't get that they needed to be broken, and Rand didn't get that timing mattered.

Yes, and I even stated that in ToM she was portrayed as being single-minded against Rand, in AMoL they put in a (small) bit of details about her having the Brown Ajah search the libraries for information.

[Brakthir]

Let's be 100% completely honest. RJ was a great world builder (much like Tolkien) but a TERRIBLE character writer (much like Tolkien!). I was young when I started reading WoT and by book 7, I was so sick of his elongated, useless descriptions of every single mundane detail, along with 8 billion sideplots that almost never got resolved. The books were stretching, tired and boring.

Sanderson revitalized the series for me. The last few books were exciting, on pace and with more characterization than I had ever seen before. Great end to a once good series.

[leafs43]

Egwene was not only wrong, she was pig headed about it and thought it was her duty to control Rand....which makes people hate her even more.