Don't get me wrong here, I'm very fond of this old story.

But time gives you perspective and an account at Audible.com, and now that I've decided to give the 'series' another go (my high-water mark the first time around was book 8), I've found myself feeling more critical than I was before.

I should point out that listening to Wot on audiobook is a very different ride than lugging around one of those TOR bricks for a month. First, it's always nice to have someone read to you. Second, with the right circumstances (driving to and from work) you have a wonderful opportunity to concentrate on the story. I'm only on book 5 but I'd like to drop a few thoughts here about WoT and the way it was built. I won't be chewing on inconsistencies (such as; how come Galad didn't have a problem with Elayne's dye-job in Sienda?) but rather generalities; the things that sorta bug me a bit.

1. All praise to Mr. Jordan for giving us a wealth of female characters, but could we have had a bit more dimension to the relationships between the male and female characters? I'm not talking about the fact that none of the love interests seem to have healthy relationships, I'm just saying it would be nice to hear someone like Nynaeve say: 'Wow Mat, well done. I don't give you enough credit sometimes'.

2. The luxuriant time (wordage) given to each storyline to develop slowly and at its own pace is wonderful, but it does get kind of pokey. When two of the storylines are similar (eg. Siuan/ Leanne/Min and Nynaeve/Elayne/Tom/Juilin in TFOH) it's enough to make you want to bite something.

3. Why are there no child characters in WoT? (remember, I only got to book 8 )

4.Those Darrell Sweet covers are truly awful.

That's it for now. I'll add more as I get deeper into the series. Feel free of course, to add your own observations or take exception to mine.

It being near midnight this is all I have time to comment on right now. But the Band of the Red Hand picks up Olver in book 6. ^_^

The rest will get comment tomorrow when I have more than ten minutes.

Right, Olver. Forgot about him. What can I say, it's been a few years since I read 6.

I'd like to say this is due to 3000 years of female dominance getting imprinted onto their genes. But to be honest, I've read a few of his non-WoT books, and the female characters there weren't the brightest ever. His lack of an editor(no...wives don't count) combined with his incessive need for shouting RAFO at everything means that he had literally no one to advise him on just how the female head works. Not that he really understood the male mind either.

Kudos to the 3000 years of dominance excuse though, at least he covered himself this time.

What can I say. Jordan isn't a writer. Or too much of one. I'm not totally sure which. More on this later.

The catch-22 here is that until the Shaido War there's never really been an oppurtunity for a child character. Everywhere the cast has gone until book 6 has been in (relatively) peaceful land, which they then mess up. And then leave. Lord of Chaos is the first book where they hang out in a place long enough to pick up on some consequences of huge battle and mass death and destruction, etc. Before then every child is with a family, and stuff either resolves itself semi-peacably(Perrin in Shadow Rising), or they're gone to other lands and tasks.


Don't mind if I do. ^^

I said before that Jordan is not a writer. I stand by that. He's a world builder and he's a plotter. When he starts writing one of two things, if not both, happens. Either the prose runs away from him and he ends up with a 1000 page book that could've been 500-700, covering all the same events and in a more entertaining or readable fashion. Or...the timeline runs away from him and he runs out of bookspace before he can really finish the story.

The first can be dealt with by a good editor. TOR decided not to make him have an editor and let his wife do that job. Good move TOR.

The second is just flat out Law of Unintended Consequences. Characters do Action A, now you need to send them to location B to do Action C. This is your plot. BUT WAIT! It logically and intuitively follows that for all you can get your character to location B, or die trying(oh god the bad jokes!), that people dealing with fallout from Action A will want to do something, and anything worth doing will impede your character. They're certainly not going to do something that's not worth the effort. Not if you want intelligent characters. CRAP. I DIDN'T CONSIDER THAT 'TIL NOW! Add a hundred odd pages...if you're not Robert Jordan. Double that if you are.

Back in the day when I was member of an organization that taught public speaking, they told me of the three most important rules of any presentation.

Rule 1: Stand up
Rule 2: Speak up
Rule 3: Shut up.

Robert Jordan just never learned Rule 3.

Or dies.
(ohohohoho I'm so witty.)

Ahhh ... debate, banter, chit-chatting ... I missed it. To go along with the wordage comment, he changes the mode through which he tells the story. If you have gone through Brian Sandersons Readthrough of WOT he points out how drastically the storytelling changes through the years. This is one of my old issues with the story. I am no longer reading the story that hooked me to WoT. This has always greatly frustrated me, and its nice to see that at least the current author can see the changes in the books.

As for the women, I think Jordan does a good job of portraying stubbornness and vanity. How many times have you gone out of your way to pull a person aside to say "You were right, I was wrong." Most people leave it to a quick passing "Okay lets do that way instead." Most people I have met have a hard time admitting they were wrong and other people were right, and even fewer people pull individuals aside and deliberately point it out, and even fewer people would do it in a massive crowd of people. People are vain, stubborn, and prideful. Most of these characters are teenagers, noblemen/noblewomen, or Aes Sedai ... can you think of a group of people more vain, subborn and prideful.

Asha'man?

*ducks and runs for cover*

And we are damn proud of it Saowynn!

Call me the 'epitome of arrogance'