thepunktheory
Written on Mar 9, 2023
Wow, we’re still moving ever so slowly. How is this even possible? Where was Robert Jordan’s editor? Why did nobody sit down and have a little chat with him?
I understand that in a long book series, you might come across a book that is just a filler. Only setting things up for the future. That is okay, but a) there shouldn’t be 2 filler books back-to-back and b) filler books shouldn’t be 700+ pages long. Please. For my sanity. Don’t do that.
At least this time we get to see more perspectives. I’ve mentioned this before but Robert Jordan has the tendency to obsess over a certain character or group in a book and then completely forget about them for the next 5. A good example is Perrin. We hadn’t heard about him in a while, so at least he’s back in this novel. That doesn’t mean that his storyline is creeping along at more than an absolutely glacial pace, but it’s nice to know that Jordan remembered Perrin exists.
One reason why the story is moving so slowly is because Jordan keeps introducing more and more characters, more and more detail, more and more worldbuilding. While I normally appreciate a well-fleshed-out world, I am now beyond caring. I honestly wouldn’t care to even know this much about the real world, let alone a fantasy world from a book. Moreover, while we keep getting more detail about different characters/places, it’s always the same details. There are some things Jordan seems to be slightly obsessed with. Tropes or phrases he keeps using and reusing to the point of abuse. This is not just the case for newly introduced characters, but also for those we already know. Let me give you a few examples:
1) Mat and his dice. I actually really like this idea, it’s a very smart concept. But – for the love of god – there is no need to keep repeating it 5 times on every page. I promise the audience won’t forget about the dice if you don’t mention them for a page or two.
2) It’s the exact same thing with Perrin and his sense of smell. He can detect someone’s emotions (e.g. fear, anger, etc.) based on their smell, but Jordan also overuses this grossly. Another cool concept that has become annoying by too much repetition.
3) For every character we meet, Jordan mentions how tall/short they are. Usually in relation to Aiel. Okay? Why do I need t know that about literally everybody? Along the same lines, so many women are “handsome rather than pretty”. Sure. Whatever. I wonder how many times he used that phrase over the course of all the books. He also likes to make general statements about the other sex (e.g. Mat saying something like “All women like abc”) which made me roll my eyes so many times. I get that it’s meant to underline a character’s personality when they make these statements but it happens so many times and is mostly so cringy, I wish Jordan would stop with that.
4) Sticking with appearances for another moment! Min wearing trousers (shock horror). This has been well, established, and further (especially slightly outraged) reminders just feel like beating a dead horse. Same goes for Aviendha wearing anything that might not 100% be traditional Aiel garb. Considering how many times Robert Jordan has a woman “smoothing her skirts” all the fabric in these novels must be worn thing by the end of the series.
Yes, some of these things are important to the narrative but I somehow have the impression that Jordan keeps repeating them because he thinks the audience will forget that something matters and to counteract that he goes completely overboard.
Speaking of going overboard. There are so many characters, especially Aes Sedai. It is impossible to keep all of them straight. I feel like at this point we’ve met more Aes Sedai than there are supposed to even exist. It’s just a blur of Adja colors to me by now. Furthermore, with this number of characters, it becomes very hard to care about any of them. Somebody might sound interesting but then you don’t hear about them for 1500 pages. There is only so much depth you can give a character if that’s how you’re working.
I’ve talked in detail about how Jordan managed to turn many of his characters unlikeable or incessantly annoying by this point, so there’s no point in highlighting once again that Mat is a broken record that irritates me to no end. Same goes for pretty much everybody else.
It’s wild to think that there are another four books. I just really hope there will be significant improvement once we reach the point where Sanderson took over. At least the last two books set up a great many things (big things!), so maybe we can finally start moving the plot along in the next novel?! So many pivotal things are in place now, the story can and should move faster but I’m hesitant to get my hopes up.
