#wot 14 amol

[birgittesilverbae]

[foxingpeculiar]

This is about the WoT show—Verin, specifically—but I’m gonna take a minute to get there.

I read WoT for the first time around ‘98 or ‘99. I remember the year specifically because I remember having… it was either tFoH or LoC on my desk in freshman history and this dude looked at me with… impressed surprise? and said “you READ all that?” And in my head, that was one of those moments you have as a teenager when you start to realize not everyone thinks like you do.

Anyway, I stopped reading, I think in the middle of aCoS, because that was the last one I had (I think tPoD had come out but wasn’t in paperback yet). And like, that’s kind of a sloggy bit, especially if you don’t know how long it’s going to go on. So I was like “screw it, I’ll read it when it’s done.”

Cut to 14-15 years later, aMoL is out and my roommate is actively devouring it, which reminded me what I told myself back then, so I tell him I’m gonna start in on it. He offers me a few pieces of advice (eg: read New Spring after tFOH; it’s a nice breather and it’ll mean more).

But he also says he’s going to spoil one important thing for me. Because the series is so long and dense, and there’s SO much to pay attention to, he says, this particular bit is very subtle and too easy to miss, to not remember enough about it when the reveal comes to appreciate the genius of how well it’s done.

*spoilers to follow for show-only fans or anyone who has not completed… I forget which of the last books it happens in (I think aMOL, but maybe ToM) but it’s endgame stuff—obviously*

He tells me to watch Verin and spoils that she is, in fact, Black Ajah. (He does not, however, explain that there’s more to it than that, which left some surprise in it—I appreciate the way he did that; it was artful. I am obviously not being so elegant here). And that was one of my favorite threads in the books, watching that, which I would absolutely have missed otherwise (cos fuck man, 2787 characters!)

So I was excited to see Verin in the show. And this episode tells me I’m gonna get what I want out of that. I enjoyed her coming in with the very-carefully-calculated “fun auntie” vibe. I really enjoyed her iykyk conversation with Sheriam (*cough*), but the scene that really got me on board was Verin and Yassicca after spying on Sheriam’s log.

Cos like, Verin already absolutely knows what’s going on: where the girls are, who took them, and why. That’s the whole reason she’s doing what she’s doing, is to know things like that (or at least have very solid theories about them, as I believe the case is here). But she can’t tell anyone without explaining how she knows, so she has to put on this innocent face and guide the people around her toward what she wants them to know without them realizing she’s doing that. This includes both people in the light AND other black ajah.

And these are Aes Sedai, the craftiest, sneakiest, most manipulative people around (with the possible exception of the Cairhiens, but the Aes Sedai have a more widespread and visceral reputation). The point being that the standards for the kind of 3D chess she’s playing are particularly high, and yet NO ONE has a clue what she’s up to until she decides to tell Egwene.

So, with that in mind, I am struck by the kindness of the character in that scene—how gentle she is with this earnest little rabbit of a girl. When she brings up compulsion, you can almost feel her regret at having to mess with a naif’s whole worldview. (But only almost. It’s just beneath the surface.) She’s lying and manipulating with the worst of them, but she’s not a cruel or selfish person. And Meera Syal is doing a great job at loading all of that in there, which is a fine line to walk.

Anyway, that’s my fan ramble for today.

[inappropriate-metaphor]

I’m…I’m done with my WoT reread. The last one I did was right before AMOL came out, so yes, I’ve only read that one twice now.

But mostly I’m over here, having made it through the 14 book marathon again, slightly blitzed at having read 14 books in a little over a month like…okay? What do I do with my time now?

[highladyluck]

99% sure I followed you because of good WoT opinions

I can't remember what about, possibly Mat/Tuon opinions

I remember this! Did you ever finish book 14? I got better at tagging for AMOL specifically for you 😅

[alectology-archive]

what are all of your least favourite moments from the sanderson wot books

I mean I read a bunch today after a week-long break from AMoL and I still find myself hating every next paragraph I read so. nearly everything I read??? which is why I’m having such a not-fun time? I will say that I had a far easier time with TGS than ToM or AMoL even if the character voices are just as bad in it. I think I finished book 12 in just 4 days and book 13 in 5 days so the reason I’m especially struggling with book 14 is probably because it’s chock-full of war and violence.

Specific stuff I do dislike are:

all of mat’s non-existent plot in book 12

siuan turning into a ornamental sidepiece for bryne in books 13/14

moiraine and lan treating each other like strangers. moiraine and siuan not meeting.

mat romanticising his own abuse in his head and wishing tylin had been... more possessive and controlling? (sanderson specifically writes as if he’s aware that tylin assaulted him but that mat liked it anyway. RJ isn’t aware that men being assaulted counts as assault, unfortunately, but he *mostly* sticks with the thread that mat disliked the way tylin treated him)

veins of gold, since it pretends that the issue rand needs to fix is his inability to bring himself to accept that he needs to die when his POV has mostly always involved a great degree of suicidal ideation. his mental health is the one that needs fixing.

gawyn’s POVs and his insufferable need to convince egwene that she’s arrogant just because she doesn’t listen to his advice

Perrin. 

Perrin teaching Egwene stuff about tel’aran’rhiod in Towers of Midnight.  tbh no one can talk me down from hating this specific thing, no matter what logic anybody comes up with (no, I will not listen to the arguments that egwene just needs a new perspective, wolves are naturally more attuned to tel’aran’rhiod and could teach perrin more quickly, etc). 

re: the above. book 13 is also when the power dynamic flips and we have more women being told they’re unreasonable/emotional/reckless/not strong enough/lacking sufficient skills whereas up to this point... it’s mostly powerful women who’ve been driving a lot of the plot.

aviendha’s rhuidean visions (not for I’m Sad reasons. I think they just don’t work). 

androl

[far-dareis-me]

Show is dropping very soon here (!!!), and I’ve been getting some new folks, so a quick summary of how I’ll be tagging spoilers:

also see UAF taglist here

#wot on prime - catchall show tag, will be added to any show spoilers from any episode (or stuff about the show in general)

#wot s1e_ spoilers - tag for episode specific spoilers (will use the most recent episode if it applies to multiple) - now also tagged as #wot prime spoilers

#wot spoilers - tag for any major book spoilers that the show has not yet covered (once/if the show covers it I’ll only tag as episode spoilers) - now also tagged as #wot book spoilers

#AMOL spoilers - an attempt to tag spoilers for the final book (I can’t promise this will always be tagged accurately but it will be on any big spoilers from the end of the series)

I won’t be tagging for each book (mostly because there are 14 and I cannot keep what happens in which straight in my head), so if you are reading the books for the first time and want to be fully safe, you can block the #wot spoilers or #wot book spoilers tag. If you’re only worried about big end-of-series stuff, block #AMOL spoilers.

[platinumdragonchaos]

So I’ve decided to reread WoT again.  Mostly because I’ve read every other book I have and several I’ve borrowed but it’s been a couple years or more so why not?  I’m going to do a little blog thing I saw someone else do once and break each book down chapter by chapter as I read it and write a bit about it.  It’s hard to keep track of a lot of things since, let’s face it, each book is pretty epic in itself and with 14 books (15 if you count New Spring) it’s even harder to look at it as a whole.  I will also be using the online encyclopedia as I go along because I feel that adds to the experience as a whole and since there are no more spoilers to worry about, it makes sense to me.

Besides that, I don’t really use this anymore except to to be sarcastic and to bitch and moan and perhaps this will help me get back into my own story that’s been gathering dust for far too long.

Writing just this little bit here shows me I need to do a copy and paste though because there is a nasty lag when typing on here now for some reason.  I may do it on my wordpress and just post it from there if I can.

Regardless, this should be fun even though it will probably take the better part of a year or more to get through them all again.  We shall see.  I’ll probably do at least five chapters at a time instead of trying to do one entry for each chapter (that would be hundreds and hundreds) and I just began reading the other day so I’ll likely get around to the first entry sometime this weekend if I don’t get too wasted, lol.

I’m also hoping I can get some other people to talk about the books with.  The last time I tried to have a convo about it with someone, namely AMoL they were all about it and we had some dialogue for awhile then suddenly were like “Uh, it’s been so long since I read it, I don’t know” which I thought was pretty rude but rudeness is rampant with most people these days so I’m not too surprised.

[birgittesilverbae]

whats your #1 issue with the sanderson books?

Androl. My (non-exhaustive) list of reasons for that is as follows:

1. He parachutes onto the scene in Chapter 46 of Towers of Midnight. Prior to this, there are two name drops. From his first POV onwards, he has the seventh highest POV wordcount. More than Nynaeve, Min, Moiraine, Faile, Lan, Siuan, and a whole host of other POV characters who've been there since the beginning. Including his appearances in Pevara and Logain POVs, he's on page a whopping 9% of the time following his introduction. For what should be a minor character in an established ensemble cast as large as WoT, that's nuts.

Did you crack open aMoL hoping for an EF5 reunion, a Moiraine and Lan reunion, a Siuan and Moiraine reunion, or any of eight billion other dynamics? Sorry, not gonna happen, you've tuned in to the Androl & Pevara Show.

2. Hmm, I've got this whole Black Tower plot to assign to someone. Do I give it to the character who's been foreshadowed as important since tEotW? Hahaha nope. Sorry Logain but it's all Androl's now.

Like if you simply must grab a random briefly mentioned Asha'man to build your OC, pick a Two Rivers lad that maybe the audience will give the slightest fuck about

3. His arc is bottled as fuck. Outside of Pevara and Logain, there are only brief appearances of secondary and tertiary characters the reader has met previously. A couple plot edits and he could be excised completely.

4. He was intended as Sanderson's self-insert to "push the boundaries of the magical system", but instead violated previously established rules of the system. so that's neat.

5. He's a Gary Stu.

6. He's gotta be the biggest pathological liar. He's approximately 30, but claims to have apprenticed in a dozen crafts, in locations across the continent. To hear him say it, these aren't short-term apprenticeships, as he's supposedly spent the time necessary to acquire high-level skills. Forgive me if I doubt his ability to inveigle his way into traveling with the Sea Folk and convincing a Wise Woman to apprentice him, or his ability to travel as broadly as he claims while still finding the time for his dozen apprenticeships in the space of about a decade.

Just off the top of my head he's supposedly active in Tarabon, Mayene, Cairhien, Murandy, Andor (Mountains of Mist), and random islands far off-shore that even the Sea Folk rarely visit. Pretty sure that's not physically possible within a decade or so given the constraints of the pre-traveling world.

7. Super Special Unique Telepathic Warder Bond

8. I loathe the tea scene

[birgittesilverbae]

head empty these teotw-amol parallels only

Egwene, standing firm against overwhelming odds as she faces one of the Forsaken for the first time and the last

Rand, powerless to protect her no matter how much he's learned

[birgittesilverbae]

[birgittesilverbae]

the feminine urge to pack for a daytrip like you're an Aes Sedai heading to Tarmon Gai'don

[birgittesilverbae]

😏

[birgittesilverbae]

@cozcat I need to scream at someone about an author having the temerity to publish an eighty thousand word chapter titled "The Last Battle" that does not, in fact, encapsulate the entirety of Tarmon Gai'don.