Look lively there, Tor.com, for I have brought you: an argument.
Specifically, an argument about the Wheel of Time, one of our favorite tried-and-true sources of argumentation round these parts. And even more specifically, as a complement to my recently-posted Top Five Moments of WoT, this is an argument about which are (gasp) the Top Five Worst Moments of the Wheel of Time. Oooooooooooooh…
And don’t forget, once you’re done arguing, to go and check out Tor.com’s newest font of WOT Argumentating: Kelsey Jefferson Barrett’s Read (not Reread!) of the Wheel of Time. Good times!
But first, with great vengeance and furrrrious anger (but, you know, polite vengeance and anger, be nice, y’all), click on!
Once again the obligatory disclaimer: here be reborn Dragons, and also hella massive SPOILERS for the entire Wheel of Time series. If you haven’t read, best toddle off out of the tent now, tatty byes.
Are they gone? Good! Let’s begin.
This post, O My Peeps, was a fair bit more complicated to produce than my “Best Of WoT” post. Because deciding what constitutes a “best” moment is pretty straightforward, after all: I weighed all the available awesome in a range of bits, arranged those bits that I felt had the highest percentage of awesome in descending order, et voila. I’m not saying that was easy, because it wasn’t, but it wasn’t complicated, if you see what I mean.
Not so deciding on a “Worst Of WoT” list, because to start with I had to decide what, exactly, that even meant. Does that mean “the moments that made me feel the worst”? Because there were plenty of moments in WoT that upset or angered me, some of them greatly so. But if that’s how those moments were supposed to make me feel, can I really say they were the “worst”? Or does “worst” mean the moments I feel were the worst executed—i.e., moments that upset/angered/annoyed me that weren’t supposed to?
It’s probably the second one, let’s be honest. But that left me feeling a bit, uh, mean, confining myself thusly. I don’t think I’ve ever been afraid to call out when the Wheel of Time fell down on the job—and in a series this sprawling and complicated and fraught with external complexities, it was inevitably going to do so on at least a few occasions—but I’ve also always preferred to leaven these criticisms with acknowledgments of how much it didn’t fall down while I’m at it. So you see my dilemma, I hope.
But! It all ends well for you, my dears, seeing as the ultimate result turned out to be that you now get two—two, ah ha ha!—new lists for the price of one! You’re so lucky.
Yes, that means now I’ll have three lists: A Best List, a Worst List, and a… well, a Best Worst List. Or maybe a Worst Best List? Look, it makes sense in my head, okay, work with me here.
That last list, though, whatever it is, is for the future; first, let’s get the actual worst Worst stuff out the way, shall we?
We shall! Thus I present you: The Top Five Worst Moments in The Wheel of Time.
Worst Moment No. 5: Perrin spanks Faile (The Shadow Rising)
Well, it was her own fault. It was. [Perrin] had asked [Faile] not to hit him, told her. Her own fault. He was surprised she had not tried to pull one of her knives, though; she seemed to carry as many as Mat.
She had been furious, of course. Furious with Loial for trying to intervene; she could take care of herself, thank you very much. Furious with Bain and Chiad for not intervening; she had been taken aback when they said they did not think she would want them to interfere in a fight she had picked. When you choose the fight, Bain had said, you must take the consequences, win or lose. But she did not seem even the tiniest bit angry with him any longer. That made him nervous. She had only stared at him, her dark eyes glistening with unshed tears, which made him feel guilty, which in turn made him angry. Why should he be guilty? Was he supposed to stand there and let her hit him to her heart’s content? She had mounted Swallow and sat there, very stiff-backed, refusing to sit gingerly, staring at him with an unreadable expression. It made him very nervous. He almost wished she had pulled a knife. Almost.
This incident probably barely registered as a blip among the greater happenings of the Wheel of Time to casual readers (and in fact it is so obliquely written that many readers probably didn’t catch what had happened at all), but anyone who followed my Reread most likely vividly remembers the storm of controversy generated by my outraged reaction to the revelation that Perrin had spanked Faile. The uproar was pretty mild compared to your average modern-day Internet flame war (although what isn’t?), but at the time I was startled by it, to say the least.
My reasoning for including this on a list of Worst WoT moments is really quite well summed up by my commentary on it during the Redux Reread, which you can read here in its entirety, but I’ll quote the relevant bit:
Some of the sentiments expressed [in the comments], even when presented calmly, I found anywhere from lightly upsetting to deeply disturbing—mostly, in the latter case, because the commenters themselves seemed to have no idea of what it was they were implying.
The biggest one of these was the ‘you act like a child, you get spanked like a child’ comments. […] I found this disturbing because, among other things, it inherently implies the belief that (a) Perrin has every right to decide whether Faile deserves ‘punishment’ for ‘acting out’ and (b) he has the right to both decide what that punishment is and to mete it out himself.
And you know what, if he was her father, he would have that right (up to a point). But Perrin is most decidedly NOT her father. And to blithely assign Faile’s love interest—or any male in her life other than her actual father, in fact—the punitive power of a parental authority figure is, to put it baldly, some deeply messed up hyper-patriarchal bullshit, y’all.
That is in fact the textbook definition of patriarchy, equating women to children—reducing them to permanently immature weaker beings who must be protected and disciplined by the stronger more rational wiser male authority figure(s) in their lives. That so many of the comments advocating the ‘good punishment’ argument seemed to fail to even notice this connotation of their words was, in a word, unsettling.
This connotation of Perrin’s actions is just as implied in the story itself, and that is not cool, you guys. Not cool at all.
Worst Moment No. 4: Mat’s characterization in The Gathering Storm
“Women,” Mat declared as he rode Pips down the dusty, little-used road, “are like mules.” He frowned. “Wait. No. Goats. Women are like goats. Except every flaming one thinks she’s a horse instead, and a prize racing mare to boot. Do you understand me, Talmanes?”
“Pure poetry, Mat,” Talmanes said, tamping the tabac down into his pipe.
The Gathering Storm, as the transition novel between Robert Jordan’s sole ownership of his series and the point where Brandon Sanderson and Team Jordan by necessity took it over for him, perhaps inevitably had a few, hm, roadbumps that needed smoothing, stylistically. And Mat’s character is by far the most egregious pothole among them, in my opinion. His reintroduction to the narrative in TGS is, well, kind of painful, and what was supposed to be a humorously oblivious expression of his worry over Tuon instead came across as a bizarre, unfunny, and frankly offensive misogynistic rant.
And I know that some readers think that Mat has always been sexist in his views on women, but even if I agreed with that view (which I don’t), this would still have been out of character for him. It was just Not On, you guys.
Granted, I most definitely did not envy Brandon the thankless task of trying to balance Mat’s, as I put it, “delicate ratio of jerkishness to awesomeness” or reproduce Jordan’s unique brand of humor in general. And there is no denying Brandon got better at it—and at Mat—later on. But right at this particular point? Eesh.
Worst Moment No. 3: Faile is imprisoned by the Shaido Aiel (The Path of Daggers, Winter’s Heart, Crossroads of Twilight, Knife of Dreams)
Startled, Faile tripped over her own feet and caught herself on his arm. […] “I do have a husband, Rolan, and I love him very much. Very much. I can’t wait to return to him.”
“What happens while you are gai’shain cannot be held against you when you put off white,” he said calmly, “but perhaps you wetlanders do not see it that way. Still, it can be lonely when you are gai’shain. Perhaps we can talk sometimes.”
The man wanted to see her laugh, and she did not know whether to laugh or cry. He was announcing that he did not intend to give up trying to attract her interest. Aiel women admired perseverance in a man. Still, if Chiad and Bain would not, could not, help beyond giving her aid in reaching the trees, Rolan was her best hope. She thought she could convince him, given time. Of course she could; faint hearts never succeeded! He was a scorned outcast, accepted only because the Shaido needed his spear. But she was going to have to give him a reason to persist.
Ugh. That, plus the number of books I had to list in the caption above, should immediately tell you why this made the list. The Plotline of Doom (or PLOD), as it was unaffectionately known among fans, was not only gross and rapey (on Faile’s side) and sodden with mopetastic eyeroll-worthy emo (on Perrin’s side), it never ended. It just went on and on and on and on and
…And unlike the Energizer bunny, there was nothing either endearing or energizing about it. Brandon actually managed to redeem the whole mess to some extent with his coda to it in The Gathering Storm, much to my surprise, but man was I thrilled when this storyline was finally done with.
Worst Moment No. 2: Anything Gawyn did in the entire series (The Entire Series)
Okay, fine, this is more of a worst character than a worst moment, but whatever, this is my list and if I want to make a character a moment you can’t stop me, mwahahaha.
…Er, anyway, yeah, Gawyn. He sucked and I hated him.
No, seriously. At one point one of my lovely commenters toted up the number of *headdesks* I had granted any given topic over the course of the Reread, and if I recall correctly, Gawyn’s *headdesks* outnumbered the next highest headdesk-y subject by something like an order of magnitude.
Gawyn drove me batty, you guys. His ability to consistently make the most asinine decision possible in every last situation he was faced with, even unto the very end, would have been impressive had it not been so utterly exasperating. I suppose there are people—and characters—out there who are just like that, but wow did I wish we could have done without him in this story.
So there’s those. And Now, a couple of Honorable Mentions!
Worst Honorable Mention #1: Morgase’s torture and rape (A Crown of Swords)
I am specifically referring to what happens to her at Asunawa and Valda’s hands in Amador, but actually “torture and rape” describes about 95% of Morgase’s entire character arc through the entire series, and it’s not cool. Really, it’s only because it was mostly offscreen (and, honestly, that she was a fairly minor character) that it only rates an HM instead of a full slot on the Worst Of list. Ugh.
Worst Honorable Mention #2: The lack of a Superboys reunion in A Memory of Light
Yep, I am still going to be a grump about this. I just wanted the three of them in the same room, at the same time! For like five minutes! One scene! Come on! Is that so much to ask?
And yet, apparently it was. (She grumbled, sulkily.)
(As also was, apparently, a reunion between Moiraine and Siuan. Or Rand and his three bonded loves. Or even our entire Hero Starter Set™—i.e., the gang that started it all setting out from the Two Rivers in TEOTW, plus Elayne and Min. I just wanted them to, like, get a chance to hug or something! I JUST HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS OKAY)
Worst Honorable Mention #3: Alanna bonds Rand against his will (Lord of Chaos)
FLAMES. FLAMES, ON THE SIDE OF MY FACE. I was so mad about this, y’all. Still am, really. And though I guess I am a bit mollified that this thoroughly infuriating set-up got at least something of a plot-relevant payoff in AMOL, this remains one of my least favorite plot twists in the series.
Worst Honorable Mention #4 (sort of): The Taimandred ret-con
I wasn’t really sure whether to include this, since it’s more of a meta thing that one would almost certainly never be aware of if one wasn’t involved in the fandom, and additionally it is a theory the truth of which I believe has been denied by Jordan himself.
That said, there are a non-trivial number of fans who nevertheless still believe (and some who claim to have evidence proving) that when Robert Jordan originally introduced the character of Mazrim Taim in Lord of Chaos, he intended to eventually reveal that Taim was Demandred in disguise, but changed his mind at some later point for highly-speculated-about but ultimately unconfirmed reasons.
I am… on the fence about this, personally. On the one hand, there really are some unbelievably pointed clues in LOC and the following books that indicate Taim could not be the modern-day former false Dragon that he claimed; on the other, it’s really rude to basically accuse an author of lying about their own work.
But, if it is true, it does represent something of a fail, and it was a pretty big deal in the fandom for many years, so I include it for form’s sake. Up to you whether you buy it or not.
ETA: So, thanks to my intrepid commenters below, I have been reminded post-publication that I am a dummy, because I COMPLETELY FORGOT about one of my most-hated moments in all of WOT, and I cannot believe I left it out. I’m claiming repressed memory; yeah, that’s the ticket.
But now I must include it, and thus:
Worst Moment No. 1.5: Tylin rapes Mat (Crown of Swords)
“Now, lambkin.” She smiled.
It was too much. The woman hounded him, tried to starve him; now she locked them in together like… like he did not know what. Lambkin! Those bloody dice were bouncing around in his skull. Besides, he had important business to see to. The dice had never had anything to do with finding something, but… He reached her in two long strides, seized her arm, and began fumbling in her belt for the keys. “I don’t have bloody time for—” His breath froze as the sharp point of her dagger beneath his chin shut his mouth and drove him right up onto his toes.
“Remove your hand,” she said coldly. He managed to look down his nose at her face. She was not smiling now. He let go of her arm carefully. She did not lessen the pressure of her blade, though. She shook her head. “Tsk, tsk. I do try to make allowances for you being an outlander, gosling, but since you wish to play roughly… Hands at your sides. Move.” The knifepoint gave a direction. He shuffled backward on tiptoe rather than have his neck sliced.
[…] Why would she bring him…? His face was suddenly as crimson as the bedpost. No. She could not mean to… It was not decent! It was not possible!
“You can’t do this to me,” he mumbled at her, and if his voice was a touch breathy and shrill, he surely had cause.
“Watch and learn, my kitten,” Tylin said, and drew her marriage knife.
To say that this scene was a huge point of contention among the fandom would be to drastically understate the situation. It was also personally my least favorite WOT-related argument at the time, as it forced me to confront more than one unexamined assumption I had been holding about the nature of sexual assault, and the profoundly disturbing (and still extant) tendency in Western culture to regard male rape as a source of humor.
A tendency, it transpires, that Robert Jordan was just as subject to as the rest of us. Hence the terrible discomfort of rereading this scene, which I originally found just as funny as the author intended it to be, and which now makes me cringe just as much for the memory of my own initial reaction as for the fail it represents on the author’s part.
So that’s… ugly. But I’ll reiterate what I said in the Reread about it: “[But] you know, even the bad has its value – sometimes more than the good, even. Having this particular wall knocked down in my brain was not exactly fun, but I cannot regret the lessons I learned from having it happen, and I think it made me a better person in the long run – or at least a more thoughtful person. Certainly a much more aware person. As someone once said, all knowledge is worth having.”
Take that as you will. And now, having corrected my egregious oversight, the moment we’ve all been waiting for!
Worst Moment No. 1: Elayne and Aviendha Take A Bath (Crossroads of Twilight)
Two copper bathtubs sat on thick layers of toweling laid atop the rose-colored floor tiles where one of the carpets had been rolled up, evidence that word of Elayne’s arrival had flown ahead of her. Servants had a knack for learning what was happening that the Tower’s eyes-and-ears might envy. A good blaze in the fireplace and tight casements in the windows made the room warm after the corridors, and Essande waited only to see Elayne enter the room before sending Sephanie off at a run to fetch the men with the hot water. That would be brought up in double-walled pails with lids to keep it from getting cold on the way from the kitchens, though it might be delayed a little by Guardswomen checking to make sure there were no knives hidden in the water.
Aviendha eyed the second bathtub almost as doubtfully as Essande eyed Birgitte, the one still uneasy about actually stepping into water and the other still not accepting that anyone more than necessary should be present during a bath, but the white-haired woman wasted no time before quietly bustling Elayne and Aviendha both into the dressing room, where another fire on a wide marble hearth had taken the chill from the air. It was a great relief to have Essande help her out of her riding clothes, knowing that she had more ahead of her than a hasty wash and a show of ease while worrying about how quickly she could move on to her next destination. Other pretenses awaited, the Light help her, and other worries, but she was home, and that counted for much. She could almost forget about that beacon shining in the west. Almost. Well, not at all, really, but she could manage to stop fretting over it as long as she did not dwell on the thing.
Yeah, we would have liked to not dwell on the thing either, Elayne, but unfortunately we did not have much of a choice there.
The infamous five-page-long bath in Crossroads of Twilight, of course, despite being quite bad enough on its own, is really just emblematic of the much larger problem that the entire novel (arguably, the entire middle section of the series) suffered from: an inability to stop grinding in second gear and actually move the story forward. I love the series as a whole, but there is no doubt that the middle books (by which I mean The Path of Daggers, Winter’s Heart, and Crossroads of Twilight; some people include A Crown of Swords but I loved that book so nyah) turned into something of a slog at times, especially in regards to certain plotlines. The Faile/Perrin/Shaido PLOD mentioned above is definitely one of them, and the other was Elayne’s seemingly interminable war of succession for the Andoran crown, which, like the Shaido plotline, stretched over four books before finally being resolved.
The structure of COT in particular was almost unquestionably the single biggest mistake that Jordan made in writing the Wheel of Time. In retrospect you can see what he was trying to do, making all the disparate and by-then wildly out-of-sync storylines catch up to each other, by bringing them up level to the day of the Cleansing of the taint on saidin that happened at the end of Winter’s Heart, but the (likely unintended) result was 300+ pages of description of one day, and the ultimate effect was, in a word, stultifying.
This is not to say that the middle bits had no redeeming value whatsoever, of course. The Cleansing itself was amazing, and Winter’s Heart also had Rand’s triple bonding with Min, Elayne, and Aviendha, which despite not making the cut for my “Best Of” post is definitely one of my favorite scenes in the series. Plus, Jordan also thoroughly redeemed any sluggishness he may have succumbed to with Knife of Dreams, his followup to Crossroads of Twilight (as well as the last published WOT novel before his death), in which he most decidedly got the story back on track and moving (awesomely) forward.
That said, the bath in COT and what it represented was, structurally speaking at least, definitely a low point, and therefore my nominee for the No. 1 Worst Moment of the Wheel of Time.
Aaand that is… kind of a depressing place to stop, but it must be done—and never fear, redemption shall soon follow! Meanwhile, tell me your thoughts, and Watch This Space for the final installment of the (uninspiringly named) Leigh’s Lists About the Wheel of Time trilogy! Cheers!
Leigh Butler is a writer, blogger and critic, who feels humor and weirding of language is the best way to examine the impact of sociocultural issues on popular SF works (and vice versa). She has been a regular columnist for Tor.com since 2009, where she has conducted or is conducting three series: the now-retired Wheel of Time Reread and A Read of Ice and Fire, and the very much active Movie Rewatch of Great Nostalgia. She lives in New Orleans, and therefore advises you to let your good times roll, y’all.
I love that the Faile and the Shaido Plotline of Doom shortens perfectly to PLOD. Very fitting.
Worth mentioning that the “claim” that Taimandred was retconned actually came from RJ’s notes and was publicly confirmed by Brandon Sanderson on Reddit, so that’s 100% at this point.
Three dishonorable mentions:
1. Egwene, Elayne, and Min have that weird conversation about not letting Rand come between them and end up hugging when they’ve known each other for about five minutes. Mostly I love Jordan’s female characters, but this is Not. How. Women. Behave. Ever.
2. Or maybe this is 1b. The whole super awkward sequence where Egwene and Elayne plan to have the former dump Rand and then have the latter hit on him immediately after. Again, who does this? Maybe I just headdesk about pretty much every element leading up to Rand’s Happy Harem, which has just never felt like a remotely believeable poly relationship to me.
3. Mat telling Tylin he is going to miss her. Ugh, no. Just no.
(I actually hate all of these way worse than the PLOD. Just sayin’.)
No comment on the Mat/Tyelin storyline for this list? Not even an honorable mention? I suppose that was a deliberately “bad” plotline (even more anvilicious than most of RJ’s work) so maybe it doesn’t count for this list, but I would have had it up there nonetheless.
I’d like to add an honorable mention for every time Jordan used braid-tugging and skirt-smoothing/twitching in place of actual character growth and development in his female characters, most especially across those middle SLOG books. It was really amazing that the women managed to accomplish a single thing, so preoccupied were they with pulling their own hair and arranging their own skirts. One of the things I appreciate most about Sanderson taking over the series was the immediate downturn in the characterization of the women as a collection of nervous tics, which had become ever more marked as the Jordan books went on.
Stopped reading after the first. Sure, it’s okay that she hit him, but you’re outraged that he hit back? Yes she deserved it, and more besides. The worst part of the WoT series is Faile herself. I couldn’t stand her on first read and 10 more times through hasn’t made it any better.
@3, A serious discussion along the lines that the Dragon Reborn and the world need all of them, need them to work together, and that this is no time for personal jealousies would have been preferable. Save the world first. Decide who gets Rand after.
@6, Fail so deserved to be hit. And think about it, you want to hit somebody without hurting to much or the risk of doing real harm where is better than the gluteous maximus?
Fain’s plotline didn’t really go anywhere. If he was needed for the cleansing of saidin, he should have been killed off after setting that up (the fight where Rand got the second wound would be a good time).
RJ complained that people didn’t care about the death of the Amayar, but he failed to make us care about them.
WoT was originally planned as a trilogy, too. We should be able to come up with at least 14 topics for WoT lists.
Thom and Moiraine’s relationship should be No. 1-5 on this list, plus all the Honorable Mentions too. It was that bad.
I second that Perrin was not wrong to spank Faile. Not because she was a child in need of spanking, but because literally nothing got through to her. Perrin tried telling her “no” many times. She disregarded HIS autonomy, his wishes. She hit him. He tried to run away from her. Spanking her was smart, because it did her no real harm but sent a message that he draws a line with her abuse. And he didn’t like spanking her, it was a last resort.
Jaaxter @@.-@:
….Holy crap. Uh, you are completely correct, and the post has been edited accordingly. Thanks!
Before I comment, I want to say I really like Brandon Sanderson as an author and think he did an admirable job in finishing up WOT. That being said, there are a couple things that were done poorly. I think the extremely awkward way that Rand told Gawyn that Galad and he were brothers and then that information being passed on almost as awkwardly from Gawyn to Galad was a big Fail.
But the trial scene of Perrin was just the worst. I actually liked Morgawse until that trial, but for her and Elayne both to harp on the sovereignty of Andor repeatedly (to the point as to call Perrin a rebel for raising the flag of Manetherin), yet for her NOT to come down hard on the Children for accosting her citizens while traveling in her realm without her say so is appalling. If she wants her subjects to accede to her will, then she has to live up to her obligations to protect them as well. To allow the Children to accost/arrest and kidnap her subjects is horrible and, when given a chance to atone for her failings, to actually blame her subject for defending himself against said kidnapping, makes me really dislike her character.
I have to agree that a lot of the female characters that weren’t Aiel or Egwene came off as shallow, not in their personalities but that they didn’t have a lot of depth beyond huffing and puffing about men and just being angry all the time. The 4-way with Rand and his ladies seemed forced, because Min had a viewing that it would be so then we need to bend the script to make it happen? Didn’t seem organic at all, especially in Elayne’s case – I didn’t see any reason for them to have affection except “hey we’re both young and hot, we should make out in shadowed nooks in the stone of tear”, is this high school? Omg, WoT High School Musical – make it happen.
I had no problem with Mat’s behavior throughout the series because he has been and always will be an ass. The best part of Mat’s bigotry RJ ever did was introduce Talmanes to be the eye-rolling audience. He’s going to grow old and be that creepy uncle and then eventually that racist old man yelling at kids to get off his lawn…in his palace. Seriously the dude is going to be hitting on serving women and Tuon’s servants till the day he dies.
I’ll admit, I couldn’t get past three chapters of the first WoT book. I was bored to tears and hated the writing. Reading an article about the series that starts with a major character disciplining his wife through spanking does not really make me regret not finishing the first book. Honest question: is there any redeeming reason to read these books? I get it if there isn’t; I still read Terry Brooks’ books even though I outgrew them a long time ago–it’s just a habit, and a connection to when my mom got me interested in reading fantasy. No shame in just reading it because you always did.
Sevanna, Sevanna, SEVANNA! I take your Gawyn and raise you a thousandfold. What an annoying and utterly pointless plot! You could excise Sevanna and the whole idiotic Shaido Aiel storyline from the series and not miss a beat. SEVANNA!
Oh, and I think it is very obvious that Jordan intended Taimandred and then was put out that people caught on so easily. There’s some writing recovered from his estate that pretty much confirms this. Oh, and he also changed Asmodean’s killer from Demandred when he saw a well-reasoned fan theory that showed it could have been Grendy (can’t remember how to spell her name, so it’s Grendy).
I think the whole Tylin thing was supposed to be Mat’s comeuppance for being a sexist jerk. I also think his biggest problem with the situation was not being the partner in control. Which made it good preparation for Tuon.
@17, I think you have hit it on the head.
@leighdb Just out of curiosity if you were in Perrin’s place how would you have dealt with Faile? It’s been awhile since I read that scene but if I am correct (so feel free to correct me if I am wrong) he tries talking to her, it doesn’t work. They are being chased and because of this tieing her up would increase the danger for all parties. She has hit him first, and he is aware of his much larger size in relationship to her meaning that if he were to retaliate to her hit in a normal way she would take a lot more damage from his blow than he took from his.
I am aware that Perrin spanking Faile was problematic, but unless I am remembering things wrong or I am missing something it was the LEAST PROBLEMATIC of a bunch of options of which ALL were problematic. If you think of a better option I am open to it.
@13, my subconscious has already supplied your wishes: I will admit that I once had a completely insane dream that was a Rand/Elayne jukebox musical. Unfortunately I can’t remember what the songs were.
@17, perhaps that is authorial intent. But I can’t get over being horrifically frustrated that the exact same plot, developed sensitively and with a different ending, could have been a chilling example of the results of the mirror-image sexism in the worldbuilding, and the negative effects of the girls’ discounting of Mat’s misery as both deserved and funny. That would have been uncomfortable and worthwhile reading, and unlike Leigh’s experience, intentional rather than accidental confronting of assumptions.
@14, if you’re not a fan of the prose, then yes, there’s a whole lot of it. But I would argue that reading Jordan is still worthwhile where reading Brooks is mostly a habit (plus waiting around for his occasional actual good book at unpredictable intervals). Despite the semi-affectionate rundown of cringe-inducing moments by the fans here, we’re talking about maybe 10% of the total length–unless you count the PLOD, and I really don’t have a big problem with the PLOD though I’m in the minority. But I still love WoT for the scope, the audacious ambition, the philosophical complexity, and, yes, the characters, who will drive you nuts but aren’t stock or archetypes. And on the scene that everyone is now arguing about all over again. . .I’m not going to jump in there because I agree with Leigh so I have nothing further to add in terms of the ethics. But in terms of the writing process. . .isn’t it pretty obvious that we’re seeing a little too much of the author’s personal life here? Grimace, assume that whatever life experience is bleeding through here was between consenting adults, and the scene’s over in a flash anyway.
Simone @5, don’t forget folding her arms underneath her breasts! Because there’s no other possible way to describe that gesture!
To the ongoing debate about Perrin/Faile and the spanking in The Ways, I think it’s important to realize that there are two separate issues at play: did Faile deserve to get hit, and did she deserve to get hit like that. To the first question, as it is said, “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.” You can’t just go around slapping people and claiming immunity from repercussions. But to the latter question… well, the overtones of bending another adult over one’s knee and spanking them (assuming it’s non-consensual) are more than a little creepy, REGARDLESS of any other factors such as the genders involved. This is apparently one of RJ’s quirks, since there’s a LOT of female-on-female spanking in the series, and it always made me feel a little weird.
I hated the resolution of the Padan Fain story arc. Mashadar is like the measles? Once exposed, if you recover you are immune for life? Really? Plus calling himself Shaisam? What, Captain Marvel was taken?
@22 – I swear, it felt like Brandon got to the end and was like, “Oh crap! I forgot about Fain!” And then shoehorned in the bare minimum required of Fain. I wonder why RJ had in store for him.
Leigh,
Given your dislike of Perrin’s spanking Faile, I would have thought the other spanking scenes would be worthy of at least an honorable mention: Mat spanking Joline; Cadsuane spanking Semirhage; and Adelorna spanking Egwene.
My two worst scenes.
a) The resurrection of Aginor & Balthamel into Osan’gar and Aran’gar, respectively. I hate when authors apparently kill characters only to bring them back from the dead. I generally find that to be an unsatisfactory plot device. If he needed those characters so much, RJ should have had them be too weak at the Eye of the Word and have them make a hasty retreat.
b) I did not like the scene where Mat created the fictional backstories for the characters that he wanted Thom and others in the Band to assume when they went into the town looking for who was circulating pictures of Mat and Perrin. In my opinion, that was effort that Mat was not likely to undertake. He only does work if he cannot avoid it. I could have seen him creating a backstory if he had to enter the town, but not his men. In my opinion, this was the scene where Brandon’s efforts to write Mat fell most flat.
My honorable mention is the use of Tylee in the final battle. I thought it would have been more in character with Tylee (and what she learned about the value of the Randlanders during her campaign with Perrin) that she should have led a battalion of Seanchan troops into the last battle after Tuon ordered the Seanchan forces to retreat from the Last Battle. I thought that was a missed opportunity.
Speaking of missed opportunities, I would like Moghieden to have escaped after the last battle. Going forward, that would have better served a new purpose for the Red Ajah. Work with the Black Tower to chase down all the male and female Dreadlords who survived the Last Battle. A Forsaken on the loose would have been better than just a rogue Ashaman or member of the Black Ajah.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
I get that there are moments in Wheel of Time that can rub people the wrong way. A part of the point of reading is to be challenged, though. There is a sense of realism and truth to a character that behaves in a way we don’t approve of then we see them grow and get past it. Otherwise, we are just cheering for Mary Sue. Perrins story is probably most peoples least favorite, but it wasn’t until my second read through that I realized Perrins character grew more as a person than anyone else. I think the silly moments, like Perrin spanking Faile shouldn’t go over our heads as an offense to our ideology, or be an argument of women v men, but rather a low point by which to measure the growth of both characters later on. People are often dysfunctional in real life and through time and thought overcome. Perrin and Failes stories are mostly about two people who are madly in love with each other and must learn to not be obsessive so that they can function and be effective in their lives and accomplish. My first read it just really annoyed me, like I couldn’t stand Nynaeve the first time through, now she’s one of my favorites. Perspective is everything.
LOL – I kind of love that this exists. I haven’t read it yet, but I hope to goodness the whole Mat/Tylin clusterfuck is on here. And by clusterfuck I mean sexual assault. That was honestly the first thing that popped in my head as soon as I read the title.
And maybe some of the Faile/Perrin dynamic – I actually really, inexplicably love Faile, but the Saldaean relationship dynamic and expectations were just nutso.
@22 & 23 – i totally forgot how dissatisfying Fain’s resolution was. it was like, let’s spend an obscene amount of time with Perrin chasing down Isam, with Rand dealing with Ishamael, with Mat dealing with the Last Battle…..ERRR WAIT WE FORGOT ABOUT THE LONGEST RUNNING BAD GUY IN THE SERIES.
@24 Cadsuane spanking Semirhage was, in my opinion, the best way anyone has handled the forsaken in the series. This woman is a mass murdering torturer with plans for world domination that just blew off the mesiahs hand only because she missed his head. Do we torture her in return? Water board her? Bamboo under her nails? Slowly roast her over a fire? Nah, let’s just publicly shame her. AND IT WORKED! You know……..until she escaped
My favorite character in the whole series = Brigitte Silverbow! Awesomeness on top of awesomeness! Best worst = Captain Commander of the Whitecloaks. Not the old one, the Black friend one, can never remember his name! Back stabber, low life, piece of dung! Moridin was pretty creepy also! As far as the Spanking is considered, I agree with Bain & Chad, if you pick a fight you have to take the consequences, good or bad! Faile was acting like a spoiled brat for most of her POV ‘s ! But for the rest I like Auntie Leigh’s choices.
I can understand most of those on the list. I would really second the “Taimendred” one. This has been pretty much confirmed. I would add a couple more:
1) birgit @8 got it right. The whole tragedy of the Amayar was not handled well. We were supposed to really ‘feel’ how ‘horrible’ it was, when we really never got to know the people and only heard about it second hand.
2) The whole Morgase story arc really did not serve any purpose. I thought her showing up alive at the end would at least straighten out Gawyn and have some sort of pay off, but not really. She and her crew did not need to be a regularly occurring POV; it would have moved the story along so much more to just not have this portion. Or at least vastly reduce it.
3) This is a little more questionable, but still kindof superfluous. The whole Borderlanders meet in secret with their armies and try to track down Rand. It was built up in the Prologues as some secret meeting for who knows what nefarious purposes, but ended up being kind of lame in the culmination of the plot line. I guess this goes along with the “middle books syndrome” of not being that bad if it wasn’t dragged across so many books, and Elayne did use them in her plot for the throne, we did get to know the rulers a little bit as well; so it wasn’t a total loss.
4) The Black Ajah hunters and their plot line. I guess it did serve the to let the reader get to know some of the influential “good” Aes Sedai in the WT before Egwene’s WT story arc, so it did serve some purpose. But this whole arc had very little pay out in the end, due to Verin’s awesome reveal making it not strictly necessary. Or at lest not worth quite as much screen time as it got.
Edit:
5) Fain. The guy really had served his purpose after about book 8 or so. Maybe RJ had some grand plan in store for him, whether or not it was some Gollum like role, or something different; but he evidently did not have it worked out or did not leave enough notes. It feels like there’s some unfinished potential that just petered out.
Edit: I also really agree with the Mat part. And no, he really did not get much better. He had a soliloquy in ToM about ‘boots’ that was just as bad, if not worse. Or his whole “Back stories” bit when scouting out a city.
I got to the Mat calling women mules and had to stop. Is this a feminist article? This was not out of character for Mat. At. All. He’s been bullied, abused and raped by women the entire series, and the women have no qualms about speaking their minds on how they feel about him, or men, in general. This was a slight jest/ slight resignation, from a man who feels he cannot gain an equal ground in respect when it comes to the opposite sex.
Re: spanking, I feel like it’s Jordan’s biases showing through. Just like Joss Whedon loves to write “strong” women getting tortured, Jordan likes to write about strong women getting spanked. There’s already a lot of spanking in the series and non consensual physical punishment among couples is generally a bad idea.
@3 mutantalbinocrocodile I’m glad I’m not the only one who struggled to buy into the Happy Harem. Jordan tried to write feminist characters and often succeeded but he didn’t really write feminist plot lines. The farm boy hero lives happily ever after with the three beautiful straight women who inexplicably love him. Things that make you go hmmm.
@19 BenW I think the solution is that if your wife/girlfriend hits you and you don’t like it, you should leave her, not hit her back. If Perrin wants to be the “adult” in this scenario, he needs to act like one. Faile hitting Perrin and having ridiculous jealousy issues and them not being able to talk about it constructively is a sign that the relationship isn’t working. I get that couples therapy isn’t an option in most fantasy worlds, so this is my “least problematic” solution.
Jordan really wanted everyone to end up in a “happy” heterosexual relationship, so he forced it in some places. That’s how I felt when I read the books, which was more than a few years ago. All this talk of rereads makes me kind of want to join in, but I have so many other books on my read for the first time and reread lists…
I think the things that bother(ed) me most were unsolved plots, or thing that (in my opinion) weren’t explained well enough in the books.
In no particular order:
*) The fact that Graendal killed Asmodean. Like really?
*) The PLOD (that was boooring)
*) Moiraine and Thom – that came out of nowhere, it was never “sold” to us as readers, and completely out of character
*) Faile for like 90% of the stuff she’s in
*) The end where Rand leaves his pregnant wives and kids to go see the world or some nonsense. In my mind he’s a great dad.
My biggest problem with Leigh and those who have agreed with her in flipping out over the Perrin/Faile spanking scene is the Far Madding marriage culture. What Perrin did, however reprehensible, was a one-time thing. In Far Madding all women are given a heavy leather strap to use on their husbands as their most important wedding gift and are expected to use them. And apparently all do so. Also apparently the husbands are all cool with that. This is okay?
I cannot believe we are to Comment #32 (some with multiple mentions) and no one has yet to mention Circus People. Bad enough the first time around, much much worse the second time. I know I am in the minority, but I would much rather read the PLOD than Mat and Co. with circus people. Ugh!
@24, agreed on hunting down Black Ajah/Dreadlords. In fact, a cool set of short stories could be done using that very premise. In my mind the protagonists would be the the bounty hunting team of Pevara/Androl.
@31, 32, I really don’t see Rand’s future as some Happily Ever After. He isn’t going to spend much, if any time with his families. All 3 of his Harem have obligations to their peoples (in Min’s case a forced obligation which she isn’t all that happy about) that means that they have very little time for hanging out with a man wearing the face of a known Forsaken. I don’t see Rand as getting to spend any time in a rebuilt Caemlyn or with the Aiel, under those circumstances. And the Seanchan would be even more dangerous for him to visit.
@34 – You can skip the Nynaeve & The Traveling Circus plot in book 5 and not miss a thing. I do it on re-reads. I start up again when Nynaeve runs into Uno and they get out of the circus.
34. Brent “In fact, a cool set of short stories could be done using that very premise. In my mind the protagonists would be the the bounty hunting team of Pevara/Androl.”
I would read the crap out of this if it were a thing. Can we make it a thing?
@34 Brent: Neither do I, but it’s the principle of the thing.
@33, I don’t think that we’re supposed to be remotely comfortable with Far Madding culture, or the related but less extreme example of the marriage knife in its “typical” signification within the Ebou Dar marriage ceremony. But those are the warts that I don’t want to take out of the series: examples of disturbing sexism that cause us to think about our assumptions concerning power and gender because the more common direction of sexist culture is the opposite of the Earth norm.
There’s people who behave badly who don’t all get an explicit condemnation by a viewpoint character. And then there’s bad writing decisions. I was taking this thread to be about the latter, and I’d class your examples as the former, IMHO.
I agree with all your worst WOT moments, Leigh, but would like to add a few:
The Perrin-Faile-Berelain triangle (I am surprised that no one mentions this at all)
The wagon train from Tarabon to Amadicia with Nynaeve/Elayne/Thom/Juilin-I generally skip that sequence on re-reads
Any scenes with Valan Luca
@16: I’m not sure why people are treating this as “a claim” or a guess. It’s in Robert Jordan’s notes, which are publicly accessible, and Brandon Sanderson 100% confirmed it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/WoT/comments/3snjii/spoilers_allsignings_and_secrets_terez_reveals/
Fail. I mean, Faile. Almost every single thing about her or involving her.
Cadsuane. She had a few redeeming moments, but by and large every scene featuring her left me wishing for some appropriate and poetic comeuppance to be heading her way. I was perpetually disappointed.
Whitecloaks. After the (slightly) nuanced view of them that you get in the first two books, they quickly devolved into caricature. There is so much room for an admirable group of militant servants of the Light, and yet after the grand charge at Falme it took until Galad got involved for any hint of redemption for the group and there were no alternative versions of such a group on offer. The Aes Sedai had their Ajahs, Randland had the various kingdoms and polities and, within those, competing political factions. The Whitecloaks had nothing but mustache twirling and villainy.
Andor v. Manetheren. Andor had no rights nor sovereignty over the Two Rivers, but the persistent claims put forward by Elayne and her mother in the face of all reason and out of simple fear of the greater legitimacy of the rightful heirs of Manetheren was a constant irritation. Perrin’s unwillingness to stand up to Andor’s tyranny and his acceptance of the unjust claims and dictates of what amount to foreign usurpers simply made it worse.
The first third or so of The Gathering Storm. I rather wish that Brandon Sanderson had been able to do another writing pass on that once he found his stride with the characters. Mat is just the most notable example. Sanderson did excellent work once he gathered steam, but the early part of the first volume in the end trilogy really suffers for the learning curve.
@38 My comment was more directed at Leigh’s characterization of the Perrin/Faile scene as one of her five worst specifically because of the spanking involved. If you are a long time reader of both the books and this website, you are well aware that Perrin spanking Faile has been a point of contention for Leigh since her first read and write. Yet for Perrin it is a one-time thing and likely an aberration, while for Far Madding it is an institutionalized custom to the point of being a societal requirement. Likewise with, as you point out, the Ebou Dar marriage knife and the fact that all Ebou Dari men have knife scars. I understand very well the point behind the reversal of male/female power dynamics. I’m questioning calling out a single offense as a 13 book low point when we are speaking of a world where spousal abuse is a requirement as long as it is wife on husband.
Posted before reading others so as not to be influenced. Plenty of unresolved/dragged on items to be concerned about, but I’m going to try to focus on specific scenes I disliked.
5) Galad cuts through a sea of enemies (followers of the prophet) without being scratched. In reality, quantity has a quality all its own. That kind of thing always bothers me, and it’s not even necessary here. He has allies there and it’s just part of the escalating . . . untouchableness . . . of all the good swordsmen in the series.
4) Elaida as a damane. Because someone is evil, it’s ok for them to be horribly abused and tortured? Also, it seemed a case of “There isn’t a simple way to for the tower Aes Sedai to turn to Egwene while Elaida is there, so let’s get her out of the way somehow.”
3) Elayne is a natural tightrope walker.
2) The semi-reveal that Lan slept with his new Aes Sedai after Moirane as part of the healing process. Ick.
1) The spanking of . . . actually, no. That one never really bothered me though I’m sure it’s on Leigh’s list. The Maidens of the Spear covered my feelings on that. My number one is the death of Gawyn. After books of building him up (killed the Warder teacher one-on-one, invisible Seanchan assassins), they have him get killed just to convince us that this forsaken is a master swordsman. Which makes as much sense as someone used to voice activated computers their whole life typing at 150 words per minute.
What bothers me the most about this list is that some of the other truly horrific things aren’t even mentioned. The scene where Rand tries to revive the child in the stone of tear, the lines of people being lead into the smith for the black swords, trolloc cookpots, etc . What about when Isam sees the young urchin hiding in the streets surrounded by pure evil. Its just amazing that that stuff doesnt even make the list when atrocities just as ugly do happen in the world here. There aren’t trollocs but I’d hate to be a child living in Isis territory, Mesaana’s children weren’t real but Hitler Youths sure were.
I just can’t believe that no one read these books and stopped at any of the descriptions of some of the horrific events and had it leave enough of an impression that that would sit in your top 5.
@44 That depends on how you define worst. I did not define it as the five most horrific images from WOT, irrespective of how well they were or were not written. Nor did I view the question as what five things offended me the most. Personally I took it as which five parts, things, scenes, story arcs, whatever I found most unsatisfactory. Worst written. Least needed. Would have been best left on the editor’s floor. I think most of the replies were from the same perspective.
No one has yet mentioned my personal un-favorite WOT plotline: anything (and everything) to do with the Kin. That sequence in ACOS where Elayne and Nynaeve are investigating the incredibly uninteresting “mysterious” women in Ebou Dar, who then refuse to recognize them as Aes Sedai (gasp!), was an absolute low point in my enjoyment of the series. And sadly the Kin-related tedium goes on (and on) from there.
Isam, as usual, captures the essence:
As a latecomer to WOT, who never had to wait for any of the books to come out, I was never much bothered by the PLOD. A bit tedious, sure, but it felt quite refreshingly brisk and relevant when compared to the aforementioned Kin, or to the Andorran succession, and certainly to be preferred over anything to do with Padan Fain.
After reading, the death of Fain definitely would have supplanted Galad’s improbable charge through the mob for me.
And as for Tywin/Mat, like Leigh says, having your assumptions shattered isn’t necessarily a bad thing. From whatever perspective he meant to write that specific relationship, it’s pretty clear that whole culture was meant to show a mirror to rampant misogyny. And it did, very well.
I hated Tylin and her treatment of Mat.
If Perrin spanking Faile made you mad, I imagine Jamie Fraser sets your teeth on edge. She deserved it. A man would have been slugged.
I hadn’t heard about the retcon on Taim but it makes sense and irritated me. Taim’s opinion on Aiel and Aes Sedai are dead giveaways in LoC which I am currently rereading.
Gawyn does suck.
Mat isn’t misogynistic. Geez.
Now that I’ve had time to read the post in more detail in the comments.
5)Perrin Spanks Faile – hah, yes, I remember all that. I can see the point of others where he ended up in a pretty tight spot, and so perhaps physically defending himself wouldn’t have gone too askance, but I agree that the *spanking* part has connotations that make it more unpalatable. But the whole cultural dynamic where Faile (as a Saldeaean) expects her husband to yell/dominate her is kind of weird to start with. On the other hand, I can appreciate that Jordan was willing to show us cultures that are just totally different to our way of thinking, even if we disagree.
4)Mat’s Characterization – hm. I guess this one didn’t offend me too much (granted, I was NEVER a huge Mat fan to start with, so I wasn’t particular invested in his character) since, even if it’s a rude statement, he’s speaking from his own perspective and difficulties with the strong willed women of the series. That said, I’ve never really viewed Mat as *sexist* – he certainly likes to pursue women, but also seems to respect their wishes if they’re not interested. If he does hold to some stereotypical views (stubborn, woolheaded women, etc), it’s not that dissimilar to the way a lot of the women view men in his culture. So while I don’t agree with it, I don’t think he’s beyond the pale.
3)Faile’s imprisonment – while the dynamic with Rolan was so disturbing, I actually ‘enjoyed’ it in the sense that it’s actually a really interesting exploration of the options and “choices” women have available to them. While the plotting of the PLOD itself left something to desired, I think her struggle to escape for/to Perrin, but also to remain true to him, and the choices/compromises she (and the other women with her) had to make were compelling.
2)LOL. Hah, yes. I think I was pretty much done with Gawyn when he helped out in the coup.
HM1) Yeah, Morgase got a raw deal for sure.
HM2) This is basically how I feel about the lack of a Luke/Leia/Han reunionin the new Star Wars trilogy
HM3) OMG this should have been higher on the list.
HM4) Yeah, I agree authors shouldn’t be so…responsive to the fans. Just tell your story. (That said I was never clever enough to even guess the first theory…)
1.5) I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU FORGOT THAT ONE
1)Okay so…I don’t even remember this scenes, but was the bath scene your least favorite because it was boring/fluff? Or because it was another ‘the girls hang around naked’ scenes that he seems to write so much of?
Definitely agree with above that Berelain (and her eventual buddy buddy-ness with Rhuarc) should go on here.
re: Taimandred: what Werthead @2 said. It’s in RJ’s notes. I have seen them; Jason has seen them; Linda has seen them; Matt has seen them; Brandon has seen them; Werthead has seen them. Any of these people can confirm it, and all of them have publicly at one point or another. We do a panel on RJ’s notes every year at JordanCon now, and it’s always something we discuss.
Ha! I knew it about Taimandred. Not that RJ would change it out of spite, but because his fans figured out the surprise too soon (when the Internet was new).
Calling Asmodean’s killer “obvious” was kind of a dick move if Graendal. Demandred or Lanfear would be fine.
Winter’s Heart was a semi-slow book, but at least several essential and cool scenes took place (Swovan Night, the Cleansing, the events at Far Madding, the triple bonding).
My worst scene was probably the death of Perrin’s family. That is a terrible loss. It would have been worse if it had happened onscreen.
Maybe it doesn’t rank high enough, but I do wish the Song had turned up in some form. The TInkers deserved some payoff.
@45: “Personally I took it as which five parts, things, scenes, story arcs, whatever I found most unsatisfactory. Worst written. Least needed. Would have been best left on the editor’s floor. I think most of the replies were from the same perspective.
So that’s what Leigh meant by the “worst worst” focus for today’s list. I was unsure..
Hm. I never feel able to decide what parts of a book were poorly written or should have been omitted for a better story, with any degree of objectivity, because my likes and dislikes seem unusual. I find travelogues most interesting and battles especially boring and/or repulsive to read. WOT had a decent amount of traveling, but I would have liked it with fewer battles. For WOT specifically, I have a single-minded obsession with Shadowspawn, so I got impatient with the middle books for their lack of Shadowspawn — not their actual content, much of which I had few strong feelings about. Battles involving Shadowspawn offer the only post-TGH opportunities to glean any more tidbits of information about them, so are more valuable to me than human-only ones. I especially dislike Dumai’s Wells, for its then-unprecedented (?) level of carnage, and it’s a fan favorite.
In short, I have no flaming clue what’s “worst.”
That said, I agree with Leigh about the exceptional ugliness of most of the scenes and segments she listed. Except the bath. I’m fine with reading about one or more characters bathing, though I sometimes envy them if the bathtub(s) and surrounding environment are especially nice.
My list could be long, but I’ll just put this out there: killing off Egwene. Why? Just because it would be unlikely for all of the Emonds Fielders to survive? But, all of Rand’s sisterwives live? Or because that stupid Gawyn dies so she had to die too? Bah! Egwene had too many important things to do with bringing the Aes Sedai up to speed with the rest of the world. He should have killed off Cadsuane instead. She was the WORST person to put in charge of the remaining Aes Sedai, hide-bound old dinosaur that she was.
And, one more thing. Our original intro to the Atha’an Miere was positive, but in every subsequent scene they were the most disagreeable people in the series. Such a disappointment.
I’ve got more, of course, but I’ll have to ponder.
I feel like some of the comments about the Perrin/Faile thing are missing the point, which is that the situation was written with a view to have the reader with little choice but to cheer on the hero as he spanks a grown woman for acting out. And for that matter, that her slapping and undermining him and him responding by infantalising her is presented as a necessary rite of passage for their relationship. Arguing that Perrin was right to react the way he did treats the situation as if it really happened, when the issue here is that the scene is a ridiculous and embarassing piece of fiction – a no win situation in which all the characters involved come across as annoying or pathetic.
The only qualm I truly had this the books was the length and breadth of Elayne becoming Queen and the subsequent war. It felt like it went on for so long, I think I nearly stopped reading at one point.
The death of Egwene bothered me as well, @e.pdx, until I reread them the second time through and read the scene where Morrain told the history of Emond’s Field in EotW. She said she had hoped to see some memory of Eammon’s blood in the two Rivers, and Egwene showed us that, it felt like a full circle moment. But I felt the same way about her death, at first.
sps49@52 – RJ always admitted that “intuitively obvious to the casual observer” was tongue-in-cheek. It was something one of his math professors used to say about especially difficult problems, so it was a bit of a meme for him. That said, he did claim that all the evidence we needed to solve the mystery was included in the first five books, and according to his notes, he still had Taimandred in mind as the killer while he was writing LOC.
Wait a second. The scene that I would have bet huge dollars on would be no. 1 on this list didn’t make Leigh’s post and hasn’t been mentioned so far in the comments (as far as I can see – if I missed it, I’m sorry): Semirhage using the male a’dan to force Rand to torture Min, compelling him to use the True Power. Yikes. That was by far the most painful scene in all WOT.
Re Thom and Moiraine not being foretold – I disagree. On Thom’s side, I just re-read the early books and every time after EOTW one of our heroes meets Thom, Thom asks whether Moiraine is traveling with him and then comments something about her being a fine looking woman. On Moiraine’s side, it is not as clear but it would make sense that she would be interested in one of her few peers in playing the Game of Houses once she became disentangled from Lan and could look to her own happiness. Also, it pretty clear that she had a viewing from Min so she was aware of Thom as a marriage partner from way back.
@42: I missed that your point was Leigh’s opinion rather than the southern matriarchy worldbuilding. I am a long-term reader (though I came to the reread late so I wasn’t much of a poster), so I know the lengthy history of the spanking argument. I just missed that that was your referent with your post, as opposed to proposing new Top Five Worst. :)
@47: Your trans-universe typo of “Tywin” for “Tylin” is now opening up a whole new universe of awful. ; – /
P.S. I was totally emotionally wrecked by the death of the Amayar. There’s outliers in every group.
@54 e.pdx
I agree that Egwene had a great deal of work to do, but that doesn’t mean she’s immune to death.
The Last Battle is an apocalyptic conflict between Good and Evil. It wouldn’t make sense for none of the main characters to die.
@58 – That’s because “worst” means outside of the story, i.e. too much bloat, should have been edited, was in bad taste, etc. Not the actual bad moments that happened in the series.
@62 – I assume that was the reason but, boy, I expected a mention from Leigh or our WoT team.
Eleven books. Eleven Freaking Books! Seriously!!!! I love complex detailed settings but Eleven Books worth?
@60 mutantalbinocrocodile I had a satisfyingly strong reaction to the death of the Amayar, too. I assumed they were Aiel, followers of the Way of the Leaf, who asked for protection by the Sea Folk the same way they were protected by the Aes Sedai before the breaking, so all my FEELS about the story of the Aiel and what they went through during the war of power and the breaking and afterward, and the trauma of the modern Aiel learning about all of this, was transferred and related to what happened to the Amayar.
@59 RobMRobM I was surprised by Thom and Moraine when it happened, but had no problem with it even on first reading. Like you said, there were plenty of hints of Thom being attracted to Moraine in spite of how he feels about Aes Sedai from the very beginning, and her comments on knowing who she would marry, and of course that letter she wrote to Thom, I felt like she knew all about it because of Min and/or her trip through the rings, and she also could have believably had feelings for him the whole time, but would have never shown them or acted upon them while she was so focused on her mission of helping and protecting the Dragon Reborn to help save the world.
@63: Leigh explained that she’s doing two “worst” lists in the post! This one is “worst” as in writing fail, characterization weirdness, odd story choice, etc. the “worst” as in “oh that gives me all the sad/angry feels” is later. But yeah untangling those isn’t perfect for all.
I will second PLOD, bath scenes, faile/Perrin relationship characterization in general, traveling circus bits, morgase plotline, sevannah(seriously, why!!) , gaywn. Honestly toss in Galad too, and the children, they came off as far too much of a charicature. I will add the Matt/tuon dynamic, elaida machinations in the tower, at least, the length that they went on.
I agree the tylin thing was awful, and I don’t think that RJ saw the problem when he wrote it…but he wrote a world with flipped gender power dynamics on purpose, and that was an educational moment that arose as a result of having started down that path. So, problematic…heck yeah. but illuminating and thought provoking because of that problem? Yeah.
Cads is better suited than Eg to reform the Tower. Eg has become too much a prototypical AS to change things. She always adapted to the cultures she met, and becoming Amyrlin means she adopted the bad parts of AS culture, like defending the Oath Rod. Cads never cared about stupid rules and respected people for their abilities, not their official rank.
Rand, Min and Semi belongs on the other worst list.
@67 Completely agree about Cadsuane vs. Egwene as Amyrlin. Plus the comeuppance factor as being stuck in the Tower is the last thing Cadsuane wants.
Terez27 @57-
Not always. I may be still sensitive because some posters were rude or condescending about Taimandred after WH.
Agree with your second sentence.
Oh! I thought of another one! The Selene interlude in TGH. Now, TGH is one of my favorites, containing Falme which hooked me for good on the series and which would have been one of my top 5 best moments, and containing the whole “I win again, Lew’s Therin” romp through parallel universes which phrase still gives me all the good goosebumps…but arg, Selene/Lanfear, which her super cliche “impenetrable beautiful damsel in distress making eyes at our hero so he’ll be heroic” and Rand and his teenage hormones too dumb to see right through it…I guess I don’t blame Rand for not seeing through it, he is a teen, and not yet worldly, and how’s he supposed to guess this fantasy made reality is really a dreaded forsaken and lover from a past life he hasnt accepted was his yet who never Got Over It when his past self rejected her…rather I blame RJ as the whole thing is kind of nauseating and headdesky to read. Mostly because of the trope she is being.
@70, I always felt the same way about Selene (and Rand’s total idiocy) until I had a discussion of the chapters with a male friend who had been a virgin at 18 and said that Rand really could be that much of a blathering moron under those circumstances.
Taking that into consideration, and thinking that being ridiculously, insultingly trope-tastically obvious actually works quite well within Lanfear’s arc, I’m fine with it now. I see it as nauseating on first reading but a good expression of the way that she holds all other humans, including potential sexual partners, in utter contempt in hindsight or on repeat reading. I guess a bit like how the first few chapters feel too much like LOTR on first reading, until you realize what a smart and subversive twist on the tropes rather than repetition of the tropes they really are.
P.S. Since LOTR came up, there’s something interestingly similar in the lowest-common-denominator, How Obvious Can You Be About Your Evil between Lanfear and Morgoth. Join us over on the Silmarillion thread?
OK, worst in the sense of most annoying, with no. 1 being a clear winner and the rest tied for second:
1): the PLOD, encompassing Sevanna and the Shaido Wise Women being total annoying jerks at all times and especially Berelain holding to her Ogier’s oath to break up Perrin’s marriage with Faile even though he is her liege lord for the mission and her interference is causing him pain and anguish and degrading his reputation in the minds of all participants in the mission and thereby materially threatening the success of the entire mission * HEADDESK, HEADDESK, HEADDESK, HEADDESK *.
2) the Elayne offshoot of the PLOD re confirming the succession – which is not horrible in its own right and Elayne is generally good in this entire section – but is made intolerable by the annoying and reprehensible antics of the Sea Folk accompanying them to Camelyn and interpersonal whining among many of the Kin and the Aes Sedai accompanying Elayne. .
3) Elayne’s reprehensible interference with Mat’s command over the Band and his ownership of the ter’angreal all through the trip down to Ebou Dar and throughout most of the entire Ebou Dar stay.
4) Spanking and physical abuse of characters for “correction” wherever it appears (spanking of Faile; spanking of Jolene; Nyneave kicking Mat in Salidar; pretty much everything Cadsuane does to Rand, etc).
5) Mat being a total annoying d*ck and loser in EOTW and TGH until he is healed in the start of TDR; and
5) Tie – Gawyn treating Rand as implicitly guilty of killing Morgase based on no facts whatsoever throughout the middle books of the series and, to top it off, ignoring his obligations to Andor to help ensure that his sister will succeed to become Queen.
You lost me at hyper-patriarchal bullshit. He’s a kid from a remote village and has been around young children his entire life. If he was acting in that way around the Village Council, you can bet your ass they’d have been talking about a spanking. And don’t get me started about the Women’s Circle. They’d have taken a switch to him before the men figured out who they were talking about. Its what he knew from the experience he grew up with. My take is that she wanted to know how far he would go to earn her. I worked with an Ethiopian lady once. She had 7 wedding rings: one for each wedding ceremony. One of the wedding ceremonies had her at the alter and all of the male members of her family between the door and the alter. Her husband had to fight through all of them to get to her side. She said she’d have been disappointed if he wasn’t bleeding by the time he got to the alter. Ended up he got a tooth knocked out and she was very happy.
I’d add “The super girls chase a macguffin for like seven books”…i.e. the Bowl of Winds, which didn’t do anything that couldn’t be written around (couldn’t we have just had the Sea Folk chanellers do everything the bowl of winds did because they were super awesome or something?). The stakes never felt high in that story line and worse, just being black ajah hunters would have been way cooler/tense.
#5, I agree that Perrin’s treatment of Faile was inappropriate (and odd); but Faile is, without a doubt, my least favorite character in the entire series, so if she had been seized by a hoard of angry Myrdrall and subjected to their…gentle touches, I would have not shed a tear not after she saved Perrin in the two Rivers anyway. Oddly, I find it interesting that the OP doesn’t find Faile’s manipulative treatment of Perrin the majority of the way through the series worthy of even – at least – an honorable mention. Note: if Faile’s fate worked out my way, worst “moment” #3 wouldn’t exist.
#4 / #1 Mat is one of my favorite characters because, while certainly not without his flaws, Mat was very reliable and solid – on his own terms anyway. The Tylin plotline I found quite entertaining as Mat got a taste of his own medicine. I don’t know that I would call what happened to Matt “rape” anyway. He was furiously pursued by Tylin, but if Matt HAD NOT been interested the situation wouldnt have ended up the way it did. He was just the prey instead of the hunter for a change. Matt’s experiences with Aes Sedai/Tylin/Tuon are all part of the reason he reacts with his rant about women being goats etc and it’s in keeping with his character. Plus, in my opinion shouldn’t be taken 100% literally as how he felt, but more general feeling about his frustration of his situation. Also, complaining about Mat being so mysoginistic while avoiding harping on all the anti-male sentiment present in the series mentioned in several posts above seems very biased to me.
#3 see solution to the PLOD, shown above (see note)
#2 Gawyn was impetuous and irrational but I did enjoy his development up until the point where he made another bad decision and got himself killed. Still not worth a mention on this list. She’s entitled to her opinion though.
#1 lol that this even makes any list as it’s so unimportant; however, COT was a waste of paper from start to finish so I get where the author was coming from here.
Personally, my 5 worst “moments” are: Egwene dying (very G.R.R. Martinesque but not expected from Jordan/Sanderson), the Seanchan treatment of damane, all whitecloak rhetoric, the resolution of Rand’s storyline (very disappointing, I thought), and every mention of Faile Bashere that didn’t result in her death :)
Maybe calling this list “Top Five Most Headdesky Moments of WoT” would make it less confusing?
I tried to come up with a list of my own, but then I realized – I actually don´t hate any of those moments. Yes, some characters and plotlines are headdesky here and there, but just picture WoT without any of them. Thing is, I think the headdeskyness is part of what makes WoT feel so real sometimes. There are headdesky people in real life. And most of the really big Yikes moments (and the ensuing discussions about them) made me realize stuff and think about those things and… maybe that was the point? In short, I don´t think that Jordan wrote about spanking and raping and really long baths (what´s wrong with long baths anyway?) because he thought them to be cool. The more I think about it, the less I see the difference between “the most headdesky” and the upcoming “worst worst” list…
For the life of me I can’t understand why Jordan kept the Shaido around after Dumai Wells. That decision was what cost him his chance to finish the series himself IMHO.
How about Rand al’Thor’s incessant whining through the first two books. (“No! It’s not fair! You can’t make me!”) I’m not sure if he continues to do so beyond that because I couldn’t stand to read any more.
Chekov said, if you hang a shotgun on the wall in act one, you have to use it by act three, and all of my “worst moments” were all the things that were introduced as a BIG DEAL but were never used at the end. The two biggest failures in my view were:
1. The paradox of Lews Therin committing suicide with balefire in the prologue of Eye of the World. I presume this action had something to do with the seals breaking down, but it should have had a bigger impact on the story because it was the biggest damn beam of balefire ever produced, except maybe the beam that Taim was using to unmake the world and which Egwene countered. Anyhow, Therin destroying himself should have unmade every action he’d ever taken, including uncovering the one power in the first place. In the end, balefire’s side effect of rolling back time turned out to be just authorial convenience to undo certain deaths. Total fail in my view.
2. Nyneave’s super-special uncanny healing powers. At one point, she thinks she can heal Rand’s wound, and I fully expected her to do it during the final battle. The fact she used her nonmagical healing skills to keep stupid Alanna alive so Rand wouldn’t be distracted, and that WAS IT. It was basically, “I’m going to sit here in the corner and stay quiet and keep this other person quiet so you can concentrate, you BIG HERO.” I get what Jordan/Sanderson were TRYING to do by having something “real” and not power-related give the assist to Rand during his big moment, but it was still a FAIL.
I also felt Nyneave’s entire story arc was a big fat fail. She started off as one of the strongest, most awesome characters in the series and she devolved into a petty ninny who fulfilled none of her potential.
@79
This has been addressed before in the Re-read and in various FAQs. LTT did not use balefire, he just drew more of the True Source than he could survive. Way more :-)
==
We’re into the 80’s in the comments and no one has mentioned yet RJ’s decision to have Cadsuane witness Rand’s quiet departure (in Moridin’s body) instead of the immensely more satisfying option of Moraine. Sanderson has stated that RJ had written the ending and he left it alone, so this one is all on Jordan.
So what I here is that there is this great series of books on World building. And it introduced new cultures and ideas about men and women, but it mad you mad when put in our worlds terms. There was good and bad by our definitions in that world.
What I noticed in your rant of worst things and honorable mentions — you treat Matt being raped as horrible, but his characterizing of women was so bad as well. Despite the fact he is routinely disrespected, looked down upon, and flat out ignored until the last two books by the women in charge. BTW, I personally think the books are trying to point out that power when wielded by only one sex might lead to societal issues no matter which sex is in charge. Our would is male dominated and is terribly flawed and WoT is female dominated and is terribly flawed. And also ignored is the fact that while it is another traumatic instance where Matt is subdued because he is male, this would have been common in the culture where he planted himself. So much so that her son that it was normal and in due course. And furthermore he, Matt, looks back on it fondly later. Stop judging the world by our societal norms because it makes you uncomfortable when dealing with a real issue. ( This rant of mine is spurred on by a close friend of mine who went through that exact seen when an older female accosted him with a knife and raped him as a minor ) ( I also took his rape as an instance of real karma, { because Hindu karma happens over lifetimes } as he was a war general in so many lifetimes and lead his men to rape and plunder villages. So he gets to feel what it’s like in one lifetime. )
What I noticed in your rant of worst things and honorable mentions — Faile had no issue with being spanked not because she needed to be treated like a child, but because of the roles men and women play in her culture. When her parents are introduced and you see the roles men and women played that she would have grown up with, Perrin would have come off as down right feminine and it irked her that she loved this guy who was so masculine to the world but so much a woman by her standards at home. Faile had subtle context that made sense once you had her complete world view, and that took time to introduce.
What I noticed in your rant of worst things and honorable mentions — when talking about the bath you have 6 paragraphs of which the biggest three by far of the 404 words to describe the issue 364 words were spent talking about this PLOD. And much like the PLOD that was hated, instead of sticking to the plot, it was an aside used to further writers agenda of world building bashing.
— good article ;-)
i read through that post 4 times — then posted it and can’t bear the first four sentences. How did I miss those mistakes in sentence structure and grammar — FOR SHAME
I have to agree with all your worst moments as being some of the worst in the series. No need to ask what RJ’s view on polygamy was after reading his work, and although I’m sure there was lots of rape in the dark ages, he sure seemed to focus on that a lot. I have a few different moments myself…
1. Brando Sanderson takes over writing TWOT. While I like Brandon’s own work, he has serious fundamental flaws as a writer, some of the worst being his lack of a vocabulary, his total lack of understanding of the characters he was writing, and his stubborn unwillingness to put aside any of his own projects while taking over what was arguably one of the best fantasy epic sagas ever written. Brandon: using control f isn’t a crime. Maybe go through your work and replace a few of those “said”s with “exclaimed,” or cried,” or ANYTHING BUT “SAID.” The term he became so fond of in WoT was “channelers, ” a term I must say made me I’ll, especially when repeated 3 or 4 times on a page. You even apparently have an editing team, maybe get them to do this if you’r really so lazy/in a hurry to spit out another book.
The fact that he obviously labored far more intently on his own work than on WoT seemed pretty obvious to me at least. To GRR Martin: make sure you choose Joe Abercrombie to finish your epic series, if he wants to step in that mess you’ve made anyhow, as no other writer will do your work justice, not that I have read.
Well, it’s more of a 1 to 5 worst moments for me that Brandon Sanderson took over this series, and did such a hack to it. Between “the crew” in the Mistborn series to the “channellers ” in WoT, I sincerely hope you either buy a thesaurus or learn to use control f. Even if nobody else seems to care or even notice these things, I do, and it is your most glaring flaw.
One comment on the Perrin spanking moment…I agree, bad. That said, I give a slight break on it only because Bain and Chiad are basically quoted as saying she picked the fight and in their culture what happened was totally acceptable. But still bad…
I offer my five worst, meaning most horrific, gut-punch, gasp, sick to my stomach moments. And I probably am missing some I forgot.
5. Cabriana Mecandes and her warder tortured and killed by Semirhage.
4. Rand and Min captured by Aes Sedai and subsequent torture.
3. The stilling of Siuan and Leane.
2. The forced “conversion” of Aes Sedai and Asha’man to The Dark Side
Honorable Mention
A. Egwene’s death…would be in the top 5 but it was also a crowning moment of glory.
B. Egwene’s capture and time as damane.
C. Everything that happened to Morgase…if she was a major character would have been in top 5.
D. Fain’s “present” to the little boy and off-screen rape of the mother…even if they were darkfriends…just awful.
And #1…
Rand’s temporary capture and almost being forced to kill Min…then using the “True Power” to escape.
Block – very good list of the worst, meaning worst, items.
@83 – I’m not sure where you’re getting your information (maybe you’re just assuming?), but as someone who has followed Brandon on his website since the Wheel of Time announcement, I can definitely say Brandon worked his tail off to finish the series. Here’s just one example of the exhaustion he went through: https://brandonsanderson.com/today-i-got-up-and-i-did-not-have-a-wheel-of-time-book-to-work-on/
So I think you’re comment is very flawed. He didn’t short-shrift WOT in any way.
I remember waiting for each book to be released from about the 4th onwards. but as much as I loved them they were also as frustrating as hell from about that point on.
I think the worst thing about these books other than the superfluous characters, endless spanking etc etc is actually where the 3 main characters went in a development sense. Rand, Mat and Perrin started out so well but then all seemed to get bogged down.
Rand, endless chapters of “hardening up”, avoiding his friends, basically being a petulant brat, the whole harem thing – it just could have been better, it makes most non biased readers dislike him.
Mat, by far the character given the most potential for an interesting story line just seems to get bogged down in women and circuses for 9 books. The gambler / general / immune to weaves (through the foxhead amulet) side of him just seems to be forgotten. The Band of the Redhand, loads of potential, 10% fulfilled. Why have the worlds greatest general spend all his time doing everything but that…….
Perrin, one word for what went wrong with him, Faile. Not everyone needs a endlessly turbulent relationship with their ‘true love’
I really don’t understand what RJ had against these characters spending a book or two together later on, it could have led to a much more compact and interesting series.
That’s my 2 cents worth anyway
@87
Can’t really call those worst moments but I agree. My worst five;
5 – Gawyn, and any moment he appears in this series (probably include his mother post Caemlyn, most of Galad, and all of Elaynes pouting about rand).
4 – Padan Fain, served a purpose and then was made out to be something terrible and a massive looming threat before petering out like an afterthought.
3 – Faile, I agree with @87, Perrin needed her in this story about as much as the world needs Kim Kardashian. Everyone doesn’t need a happily ever after. I’m sure Egwene only died because Brandon Sanderson felt that one of the Emonds Fielders needed to bite the dust.
2 – Mat, the best and worst character in the series. Any moment involving circuses and Ebou Dar need to be erased from these books. Tuon could have been met in different circumstances if Jordan needed a plot to get them in the same general vicinity.
1 – The end of the series, I’m not sure I’m happy with Rand living and just wandering off lighting pipes with some form of power, with his Harem complicit in all this. I don’t quite know what I was expecting as an ending but it wasn’t that, I’d have been happier if he lived walked out in front of everybody, turned to his harem and said “You know what girls I’ve been through a lot lately but this foursome thing just isn’t working, I’m young and now evidently have power from a new source so I’m off to sow my wild oats in new pastures”.
Uuugghhh… this used to kill me during the re-reads too. You’re listing these things that you see as totally abhorrent according to your actual world view and the world that you actually live in. But guess what – this is a fictional fantasy land with a whole set of other fantastic world views! Even the views between the various societies within the book are extensively different to each other, let alone ours. I’m pretty sure there aren’t a group of women and men with magical powers living in our world (pretty sure) and trying to translate your world view into that of the story is not that helpful.
So let’s just say these are the top 5 worst moments from the WoT if and only if these characters actually lived in our patriarchal society, which they clearly don’t. The previous comments have listed plenty of problems with the story itself so I’ll leave it at that.
The worst moment, the best for me, was the middle of Winter’s Heart when I quit reading the series. Any author that is going to waste my time by going for maxiimum word count and to satisfy his/her own ego to write a mega series like WoT, is not worth my attention or money. I never looked back, too many other good authors out there. The characters and plot lines were too many and they got boring. The win for me was not having to worry about another author finishing the series because what’s name died before finishing. It is also the reason I will wait for George RR Martin to finish GoT before starting the first book. For anybody reading this post, this series is not worth it. Read Joe Abercrombie or Terry Goodkind instead.
@90 Abercrombie? Only if you want to end every book thinking everyone is horrible and this world needs to end. If there’s a worthwhile character he will 1) die, 2) be crapped on so much he turns evil, or 3) he was secretly an a***** the entire time. He fooled me with his first book. I stuck it out through the trilogy and even tried one more time with “Best Served Cold.” THAT was a mistake.
Goodkind has some decent stuff, if you want to skip over the 1/3 to 1/2 of each book that deals with someone being tortured, raped, or recovering from above. “Faith of the Fallen” is the best. Especially if you want a 750 page thesis on why socialism is evil.
However, I think the reason neither has the following of Jordan is that the heroes are not relatable. Abercrombie has nothing but people whose spirits are broken or are in the process of being broken. Goodkind has untouchable paragons, masters of everything, whose only limitation is their inexperience. Once Richard sees something he instantly masters it and teaches the former masters what they’ve been doing wrong.
Jordan’s heroes are good people, who though tempted, never fall into darkness, yet have faults. In other words, it’s real people put in extraordinary circumstances making mistakes, but coming through in the end. And that’s always been the most powerful theme of fantasy.
https://thoughtsonfantasy.com/2016/06/15/what-are-the-best-selling-fantasy-books-and-series-of-all-time/
First to Colin @14 The series of books is absolutely worth reading! Does it have bad moments? Sure but not enough to stop reading. It does start slow but it’s actually building a lot of ground work for what is to come. Read it all. You’ll be glad you did. I’ve read it all at least a dozen times.
Now to worst moments. I started reading this when only the first two books were out. So my second worst moments were the interminable waiting between each book! I often had to go back and re-read previous books just to remind me where we were whenever a new book came out. Much as I hate to say it I often worried that Jordan would die before it was ever finished.
The PLOD is what I referred to as entering the Book of Perrin. Enough has been said about that, but here’s something I could never figure out. I thought all of that plot line was to turn Perrin into the general he would need to be in the last battle. He brings a massive army to the fight. Then he spends the whole battle slipping in and out of Tel’aranrihod? Still scratch my head over that.
@@@@@ 91 – I agree on Abercrombie. I regretted every minute I spent reading the First Law trilogy. I spent WAY more time reading the Wheel of Time series, and while there are things I don’t enjoy (mostly Sevanna – I agree with many that she is SO much worse than Gawyn and could be removed from the book easily), I enjoy the series and will read it again and again. I will never even look at the First Law books again. If Chris enjoys that kind of book, then I am not surprised he doesn’t enjoy Jordan and Sanderson. We all have different tastes!
@79 huh???? What are you on about regarding Nynaeve? She cleanses saidin! She heals taint induced madness! She learns how to heal stilling! She’s a badass and then some.
Some of the worst Reading for me….
1. Faile and the Shaido. Dragged way too long.
2. Mat and the girls with the circus; Twice.
3. Perrin and Faile,s Courtship… ON and ON!
4. Egwen and Perrin with the Tinkers.
5. I hated going through the Ways… Umptine Times.
While I greatly enjoyed the world-building in the series (I’d look forward to which part of the map we would explore next), I saw the books as essentially telling the story of how the Dragon Reborn faced the Dark One in the Last Battle.
I’d divvy up the plot into three broad segments – (1) Rand realising who he is/ his potential, (2) Rand&Allies consolidating the forces of the light (and fighting the Forsaken), and (3) Rand&Allies eventually fighting the Dark One.
So with each new book, I grew increasingly impatient for the final reckoning, and, as a result, was bored/ disappointed with anything that didn’t seem to be working towards that end (at least in my mind). I found myself just waiting for Rand chapters because they were the ones where things necessarily got going (his actions…counted). So for me, some of the worst was:
a. Waiting eagerly for the book that came after Rand CLEANSES FREAKIN’ SAIDIN, only to find ONE (ONE?!!!) Rand chapter, and the rest dedicated to boring meandering pointless crap. I might have just ditched the series at that book, but I was in far too deep.
b. The resolution of the Seanchan plot – at the end, they are allowed to consolidate/ retain their brutal dictatorship built on a foundation of slavery on the basis of an argument that essentially boils down to justifying Nazi rule in Europe – sure they are horrible mass-murderers, but LOOK AT THE STABILITY. Some choice, huh? Having to choose between being ruled by the Forsaken vs. being ruled by a totalitarian regime that crushes any who do not conform.
c. Characters who, even three-quarters into the series, somehow persisted with their blinkered attitudes. I understand this shows nuance and ‘realism’, but I honestly fantasised about Rand just finally getting fed up and killing the lot of them.
Thanks for mentioning how Sanderson got Mat all wrong. This was the number one thing that bothered me about Sanderson’s novels. Mat was always my favorite character and I feel Sanderson ruined him. He changed from a charming rogue, a badass who was probably the greatest military mind alive at that time, into a buffoon. It’s been a while since I read, but I seem to remember a scene where Mat and crew are concocting a back-story in a town they’re visiting and I remember the scene being so, so bad. It seemed to be an attempt at humor, but I wasn’t laughing. I agree that Sanderson somewhat redeemed himself by doing Mat better toward the end, but I’ve always wondered how much of that was Jordan and how much was Sanderson.
So many of my own personal “best of” list would include Mat, and I’m glad his fight with Gawyn (you’re right; worst character in the series) and Galad made the cut on your list. I would have included the scenes with Mat and Tuon (I believe from KoD) where they reach Mat’s camp and she finds out just how much of a badass he truly is.
Chris @90 – you quit the series too soon. Knife of Dreams (Book 11) is a top 5 RJ book that resolves all of the meandering plot lines in excellent, satisfying fashion and is out and out fun. Pity that RJ died thereafter but he at least went out on a high point that allowed BS to come in and produce a solid resolution, even if not likely precisely in the way that RJ wrote or had envisioned.
Even by quitting in the middle of WH, you missed the very strong concluding chapters, including the Cleansing of Saidin (which made my top 5 best scenes in the series list) and the strongly written introduction to the Daughter of the Nine Moons – Mat’s future wife, as foretold back in TSR.
Interesting points and loved how the author used a quote from Clue, thats just how I feel about some of points in the books. “Flames, Flames on the side of my face, Breathing. Breathing heaving breaths.”
Grabbing the hunny. For all you veteran rereaders, you will know what this meant.
OK – So my top 5 worst:
#5) Like I said @80 – Having Cadsuane being the one to witness Rand’s departure
#4) Moiraine’s staff. Nuff said.
#3) The apparent retcon on Vora’s sa’angreal: This one would have been so easy to have gotten right (grrr). Just one sentence in TDR when Mat is being healed in the tower, would have sufficed to mention that it had no buffer (but was safe because a circle was being used.)
Instead, we got the reveal that it had no buffer shortly before Egwene goes full “Eldrene” on Taim and the Sharan channelers. And it felt “retconnish”.
#2) Failed timeline tricks
a) The whole flashback sequence in TEOTW with Rand and Mat on the road to Caemlyn. Didn’t work, confused people.
b) The COT premise (centering everything around the Cleansing from various character’s PoV). What extra vitriol could I produce about COT that hasn’t been adequately spewed already by all of you above?
#1) The (mis)handling of Callandor reveals. This is IMO the most botched up part of WOT precisely because Callandor is so central to the plot and to the final resolution. My first complaint is that RJ stated in interviews that there were no True Power angreals. Would’ve been much better if he’d RAFO’d that one.
Next part of the complaint: Min discovers the critical information offscreen (that Callandor can be taken from a male wielder by women channeling Saidar.) Then this nugget is casually presented in the run-up to the final confrontation. Big fail IMO.
Given that Callandor appears in one of the scenes in the Wayback machine, it would have been a perfect time to set up the clues for the key points about Callandor:
By all means make it subtle, but give us a thread to look back on where we could at least slap our head and say “Ah, now I get it!” (as was done with Verin.)
OK – Glad to get all that off my chest. On the whole, I’d rather think about all the mega-awesomeness vs. the stuff I didn’t like.
@100 Congrats on the hunny, Fork!
Way late, but mine (in no real particular order and excluding the PLOD because it would take the top five spots all by itself):
#5 – the list of Dead Women
#4 – Graendal’s descent from Most Dangerous But Least Expected to Jumping At Every Loud Noise
#3 – the Double Warder Bond Couple. I know that it was Brandon’s character and I don’t begrudge him the space to make part of WOT really his, but it just did not do it for me, especially since I really liked Pevara to start.
#2 – the overall failure of the Blue And Gold Aura to really manifest on screen
#1 – I was really disappointed with the resolution of Setalle Anan’s little mini story. It wasn’t necessarily done badly, I just didn’t like it.
Having read the Matt/Tylin story 7 times, I have never once found it funny or written in a way that insists it is supposed to be. It is predatory and calculating and, at it’s inception, the only time I ever feel sympathy for Matt. That being said, having not been through a similar situation, I cannot understand the way Matt’s view of Tylin changes over time, but I have heard it is fairly common.
As for Perrin hitting Faile, Perrin at no point likes the idea of it and spends a significant amount of time trying to justify his actions to himself, but how is it wrong for him to hit her and not for her to hit him? I’ll agree that there is an undercurrent of the infantilisation of women in the writing, but even when Perrin makes the argument, it comes across as feeling flat and unsatisfying, to Perrin as much as me.
Gawyn. Hmm. Funny how coincidences work. I have been re-reading the series for the past half-year or so, and I am just about to finish up. Up until 2 hours before reading this article, I hated Gawyn. But then I entered the tent with Egwene, Gawyn, Gareth, Siuan, and several other leaders at the Last Battle. As they watch (via gateway in the sky) Demandred kill thousands of people with each blow, Gawyn wonders why no one is doing anything. He slips on all of the Bloodknife rings and steals out of the tent to take on the most… well, I won’t go into how I feel about Demandred. My fist thought was, “Gawyn! Always an idiot, even to the end.” But this time I had a second thought. How long did Gawyn distract Demandred? How many thousands of people did Gawyn save by doing so? His decision may have been foolhardy. His method of trying to kill Demandred may have not been one to gain much ji in the eyes of the Aiel (initially an attempted stealthy assassination). But it made me feel a little respect for my onetime least favorite character.
But that isn’t all. Demandred catches Gawyn and accuses him of being sent by the Dragon Reborn to assassinate him. Gawyn says he came on his own. Demandred doesn’t believe him, saying that the weave Night’s Shade could only be known in this age by Lews Therin. He then adds that he was starting to wonder if the Dragon Reborn really was at the Last Battle, but that he was now certain that Rand was present, perhaps hiding by using the Mask of Mirrors. Now, if Gawyn hadn’t come against Demandred, Demandred might have continued to wonder until it occurred to him that perhaps Rand was at Shayol Ghul. I’ll finish by saying that if that had occurred…, well, Gawyn might have actually done something that saved humanity. Aviendha and her helpers may not have been able to stand against Demandred and Sakarne if he had gone to Thakan’dar.
That is supposed to say Sakarnen there at the end but it autocorrected and for some reason it won’t edit.
I like how people keep going on about Perrin spanking Faile, she did deserve it by the way, and how an adult putting another adult over their knee and whatnot. No one though is mentioning when Mat puts Joline over his knee when with Luca’s travelling show and just going crazy to the point he hurts his hand. I mean he went and wailed on her bottom, hit her like 50 times or more and promised more in the future if they didn’t correct themselves, then sauntered out past her warders.
I actually thought the Shaido bits of the PLOD were better than the Perrin bits – as a big fan of dystopian fiction, I saw the Shaido as an Aiel version of a dystopia, where all the rules had been twisted to suit the whims of a tyrant rather than uphold the honour of the society.
I also saw the whole Harem thing as a function of the Ta’veren-ness. Someone upthread mentioned that it amounted to a Shepard getting three beautiful women. I’d argue that it’s more like a living God getting three beautiful women. A little uncomfortable by Western standards maybe, but not entirely unexpected.
Mine bottom five (no order):
1) The sea folk and their utter pointlessness
2) Fain’s non-event of an ending
3) The sudden onset of Aes Sedai fainting in shock at surprising things happening – has anyone ever actually done this? In my work life I’ve had to break deeply shocking news to people on more than one occasion and fainting doesn’t seem to form part of the normal emotional response
4) I found Rand and Egwene’s relationship occasionally baffling – I don’t think they said or did one kind thing for each other in the entirety of the series, but still cared about each other like family
5) The ******g circus. I said no order. This is bottom. For sure.
@106 – Excellent point! I completely forgot that scene.
@31 I can agree that the relationship is probmlematic I was more referring to the that specific situation, not the relationship in general.
oquirhh@104 – You make some good points in favor of one of our favorite whipping boys. But if it really was a good idea for Gawyn to have run off and faced Demandred, it would have been an even better idea if he’d had Egwene unbind him first. The problem with being a Warder is that when you put yourself in mortal danger for something other than protecting your Aes Sedai, you are also putting her (in this case the Amyrlin!) in harm’s way.
Of course it serves the plot well that his death frees her to go all “Eldrene” and make her own death extremely valuable in saving the cause of the Light. He certainly didn’t know that in advance though, and so he still rates high on the bonehead scale IMO.
I do agree with you that Gawyn’s distraction of Demandred did save a bunch of lives, as did Galad’s and Logain’s attempts.
@14- Colin R- To clarify, Perrin and Faile were not married at the point where he spanked her. They weren’t even together. They were just traveling together, although they had feelings for each other.
The Wheel of Time continues to be my favorite fantasy series of all time. 2nd is probably A Song of Ice and Fire.
@107, 3) Presumably people have at sometime fainted upon hearing bad or shocking news or it wouldn’t be a trope but I’d assume said fainters were most probably already in precarious condition from long strain, suspense or physical privation.
I’ve at least skimmed all 112 comments, and I’m somewhat shocked that no-one else has mentioned what to me is hands down the worst scene in the entire series (shocked if only because I know it’s been discussed to death online).
That is the Egwene using her power over Nynaeve in TAR to threaten her with sexual assault – simply because she’s scared that Nyn might give her away to the wise ones. And then later, instead of feeling bad about it, she giggles!
It made it very difficult for me to root for Egwene later in the series, especially as she fell more and more into the standard AS role of thinking she knew better than everyone else and acting as though the White Tower belonged above the rest of the world – despite all evidence to the contrary. It’s a shame because I found it more difficult to enjoy her Crowning Moments of Awesome later in the series because my opinion of her was tainted.
Also, I’ve seen many people say that Mat being raped and Elayne’s later reaction to it was written to shine light on how women feel in the real world, but I’ve never bought it. Men are raped by women in the real world, and the reaction those men get is often very similar to the reaction Mat gets. You don’t need to see it as a gender flip – in fact I’d argue that although women are often disbelieved too, it’s usually done with a different tone and in a different way. Worse than the incident itself and the flippant tone with which it’s written, I find the audience reaction quite upsetting. A lot of people try to justify what is clearly rape (at knife-point FFS!) in a way that (I hope) they wouldn’t dream of doing if the genders were reversed – slut shaming and all. RJ does have women raped in the series, and it is always treated as a terrible, traumatizing thing. I thought Tylin and Mat was poorly done on his part.
The entire series would have been far better without any spanking, Shaido, PLOD, succession war, White Cloaks or Gawyn.
I wish I’d seen this a couple of weeks ago so I could have joined in the discussion, but I was too busy listening to Oathbringer. Oh well.
Does the prequel come into play here? If so I’d nominate every description of having dresses made. I like to sew and I still found these excessively detailed descriptions tedious and painful.
Fain – anything to do with him. Had potential at first but a waste of ink
Morgase – no purpose really. What did she contribute for the storyline?
The darn cirus – it went on and on and on
4 final battles with Demandred – really now..FOUR?? Two would been fine.
Im sorry but did Mats comment about women deserve to be on the top 5 list? Also Perrin spanking his wife? Please. Gawyn was spot on, but the bath should not have been number 1. Bad list
Bloody Ashes instead of Blood and Ashes.
Hello Auntie Leigh! Hello to all the old-timers!
At this point in my reading I’d nominate the Eye of the World. Bored now! Don’t want to go into the icky Blight and fight third string Forsaken! Couldn’t we have just picked up the horn and banner at a flea market or something? I didn’t even much appreciate meeting Randland’s sole, surviving Ent.
@@@@@ 119 – How funny; The Eye of the World is my favorite book of them all. As soon as the trollocs came to Emond’s Field, I was hooked.
No accounting for taste is there? Personally I found ‘Eye of the World’ a hard plod – though I DID like the Edmond’s Field chapters. ‘The Great Hunt’ wasn’t much better from my POV but I got through both and ‘Dragon Reborn’ is just rolling right along so I’ve gotten my stride now.
Jordan explores many dynamics of the male/female relationship. Relationships where women are dominant, men are dominate, partners are equal, 2 women for 1 man, 2 men for 1 women and I could go on. The relationship between Perrin and Faile are just one more unique combination of men and women and one which works for them, in this case one whihc has some mild BDSM. They are both consenting adults and Faile seems to more then enjoy the rough treatment Perrin gave her. It is repeatedly stressed Faile is a strong women and not weak and she would have skewered Perrin at anytime if she did not enjoy it.
Jordan’s works are enjoyable because he makes such detailed world building and the men and women of Saldea have a different way of behaving then you like. It’s not your lifestyle choice that is fine. But it works for Perrin and Faile and is no way a worst moment int he book. Basically, if Perrin and Faile are into a little BDSM that is there business as consenting adults.
Faile hit Perrin, more than once and hard. What the heck is he supposed to do? Sit and take it? On the other hand he is much stronger than Faile and hitting her back as she did him could do her real harm. The gluteus maximus is the perfect place to strike somebody if you don’t want to risk doing them real damage. The humiliations element in a spanking was in this case totally deserved.
Tylin: Mat’s problem here wasn’t the sex, he enjoyed that, it was the way Tylin treated him out of bed. It seems clear that she was taking advantage of Mat’s ignorance of the privileges and rights of a Pretty.On the other hand she was good training for coping with Tuon.
I am shocked that so much of this is about how various women are treated by men, with only one mention of the reverse added as an afterthought. The truth of the matter is that in RJ’s world, the men are treated far, far worse. Arad Doman? Far Madding? It is not so extreme in the rest of the world, but even places like the two rivers have a mildly misandrist culture, with women constantly threatening to switch men, calling them morons, and so on. The Aes Sedai and their attitudes toward men? There are zero examples of such misogynistic cultures in Randland–only a few very bad apples (shadar haran the freaking DO incarnate, mellar the darkfriend, etc) and some questionable/debatable choices (Perrin spanking his emotionally and physically abusive partner). There are even at least two nations (andor, seanchan) where a man explicitly cannot rise to lead, with zero examples of the opposite. Yet the treatment of women is what draws so much attention. Perhaps I should stop allowing myself to be surprised by this sort of biased perspective as it has become ubiquitous.
Far Madding is a horrible, horrible place. Domani women may be raised to manipulate men sexually but Domani men receive their own training in the opposite. There are indications that while some outlander men may get taken, more just make a deal that maybe is a little better for the lady and enjoy themselves thoroughly in the process.
I like Nynaeve but she is a very flawed character, short tempered and sometimes violent. There are times you just want to shake her and tell her to get some manners and some self control already!
I am becoming reconciled to the Rand + Three relationship. In ‘Lord of Chaos’ he makes it clear that while he loves all three women it is for very different reasons and in different ways. He talks about worshipping at Elayne’s feet but he also loves her intelligence and political knowledge. He enjoys the battle of wits with Aviendha accepting that they will never completely understand each other and that mystery is a turn on. He loves Min for her understanding and support. She understands him better than the other two and he her.
I know this is months later, and most likely no on will read this comment, but all of the worst moments for the entire series were all of the moments when any character would pretend that all men are exactly alike and 100% different from all women and vice versa. Basically every character is sexist and annoying. I read this series because, in truth, the whole story is pretty epic, and I love Brandon Sanderson’s books and wanted to see what his interpretations of the WoT series would be like.
But seriously, over the course of like 16 books, each character’s develop is diminutive. They all stay petty, selfish, and with only a pretense at humility. I wanted to slap them all and tell them to learn how to get along like normal people! It’s not hard to communicate with the opposite sex, become friends, and learn to understand each other. Ok, Brigitte wins the prize for being basically that way. But seriously, couldn’t everyone have learned how to be nice to the opposite sex and learn that they themselves didn’t actually know everything there is to know?
Also, the Mat rape scene was super horrible. And, Faile was abusive physically and verbally (most awfully jealous idiot of all time) and needed to learn not to be a jerk somehow. Although I don’t suggest spanking or hitting ever. That is all. Rant over.
Mat is definitely a bit off in ‘Gathering Storm’. It doesn’t bother me that much but it is noticeable. He gets more like himself though as the book progresses.
Speaking of Mat there is something very wrong with a relationship that leaves one partner feeling trapped, humiliated and helpless. It’s worse that NOBODY takes Mat’s feelings seriously; the Ebou Darans think he’s making a fuss over nothing and his so-called friends think he deserves it. Very bad. I gather however the structural reason for the Tylin plotline is to cause Tuon to totally underestimate the man she’s predestined to marry and slowly come to realize how awesome he is. It’s also good training for Mat. Having survived Tylin he no longer panics at not being the controlling partner in a relationship.
I just read this after my first time with the 13 books and all i can say is that it took lots of effort to finish. In the end just one thing stuck, how do they heal Galad when he is wearing the wolf amulet? he only takes it off after. Ok, there’s lots of holes but i feel that i need to love this because i spent so much time reading it XD
It’s pretty amusing to see that over half the complaints are about sexism, but nowhere is it mentioned how sexist women are to men in the series. You complain about Mat being “misogynistic” and then gloss over the fact that he was raped in Ebou Dar, a place where men are second class citizens lmao.
@127 princessroxana That sounds right to me now that I read your analysis.
There’s a lot I miss about this series; much of it from the early books. I started re-reading Eye a few years ago and it came off so…YA to me. The soap opera elements can I do entirely without and reading this makes me glad I gave up after Crown of Swords. I still want to know who the hell Bors was.
I couldn’t help thinking about Robert Sanderson and waiting to get to his books. I’m thankful for WOT but there is sooooo much dragging on about some issues it can be annoying…………….And Fail deserved to get her butt whipped!
Regarding Perrin spanking his future wife: would it have been more to your satisfaction if he had hit her back? Following your logic, he should have hit her as hard as he could. Why do I doubt you’d go for that? You can’t support your argument that it was Perrin who actually misbehaved in the instance in question to any degree of logical satisfaction. This is typical shallow thinking from those that try to squeeze an ought from an is.
Faile deserved that spanking and several more
As I keep saying, you want to hit somebody hard but with minimal chance of doing them any real harm beyond some temporary pain, the glutteous maximus is your spot. No doubt that’s why White Tower novices are beaten there.
@34
It’s 9 months later, but I just have to point this out:
Why in the world do so many people have that idea? Min spent her entire life — her entire life — with an ability that either made people afraid of her and ostracize her (and for most of her life, this was the only reaction she got) or where people loved her despite her viewings, or at the very best it’s someone like Rand or Elayne where they simply didn’t take what she could do into account at all regarding how they felt towards her. So the first question you need to ask yourself is: how do you think all that made Min feel? About what she can do? And about herself?
Then someone comes along ~ no, wait…. scratch that…. an entire Culture comes along ~ that deeply respects her not despite her talent, but because of it.
I ask you: why would Min feel anything other that absolute ELATED at the opportunity of being (For)Tuon(a)’s Truthspeaker?
Sorry, but it just really bothers me that people don’t seem to understand this.
A lot of people who hate Faile in these comments – and I agree! I mean, somehow, she makes Berelain seem like a good choice of mate! But I think hating her avoids a much bigger problem: Perrin is the actual worst character in these books. I suppose in the beginning RJ thought a Dances With Wolves fanfic would be pretty cool, but in reality Perrin is so much less powerful or interesting than any of the other main characters that he’s mostly just kinda there, hanging out and going to pup-play parties. The fact that RJ couldn’t retcon Perrin’s ta’veren status meant he had to be treated like a star. The Battle of the Two Rivers was great but . . . then came the Shaido, the Whitecloaks and Slayer, all of which were either boring, pointless or both. Perrin became the character on to which all the garbage plots could be tossed, because he was already so boring no one could possibly mind.
This may not be the worst part in the series, but still, I have to mention the death of Somestha. I was very sad how he died and upset about how little the adventurers seemed to care for him.
Sexist overtones? Really?? I could think of A LOT WORSE that still bugs me………..Cha Faile!!!!! God this was the point I wanted to just rip pages out. While I think Faile is the worst character in the story, although being what Perrin needed to get him moving, I still do not like her one bit. She has a head too big for her shoulders and all she does is complain.
One thing that bugged me is in books 2 – 3 it seemed like everyone treated Loial like crap!
I disagree with #4. In my opinion, Mat’s opening statement and the response he gets is one of my favorite moments because the two of them actually mean the opposite of what they are saying. You can hear this if you listen to Michael Kramer’s interpretation in the audiobook. In this moment, Mat is not a politician addressing a nation, which would require him to pick better words. No, he is in the presence of someone he trusts. His action (to borrow from acting teacher Sanford Meisner) would be Ranting in the most Flippant way. And what Talmanes does in return is absorb in the most sarcastic way. What I enjoy most about Jordan and Sanderson is that they boldly take the risk of slowing down plot for the purpose of highlighting human behaviors that we can all relate to taking place between extraordinary people with extraordinary powers in extraordinary circumstances. I can’t wait to see what Amazon does with this series.
Found a quote while doing a reread of the series…
“My mother always told me the best way to learn to deal with a man was to learn to ride a mule. She said they have about equal brains most of the time. Sometimes the mule is smarter.”
— Egwene al’Vere
Chapter 3 of The Great Hunt
They could have been bundled together but that would destroy a narrative, I think.
Some of the worst moments had to be whenever character XYZ was captured for the nth time. At what point do you pick up another plot device to create tension? It just seemed to be lazy and repetitive after a while. Like it’d be easier to list who didn’t end up captured (both good and evil characters) than to list the ones who were. Some of them multiple times. It was almost as bad as having every stitch of clothing in the series described to me anytime a character shows up on page.
I realize I’m very late to the party here (I only started reading the WOT a couple months ago) but I gotta point out a few things.
With regards to 5. are we just going to ignore how emotionally and physically abusive Faile was to Perrin? Him spanking her seems rather tame by comparison, and thats beside the fact that, according to what Jordan reveals about Saldeans, the women there apparently value men who are willing to stand up to them and a lot of Faile’s emotional and physical abuse is done because she feels that Perrin doesnt respect her because he’s unwilling to stand up to her (I.e. the more socially acceptable form of anti-feminism: seeing women as too delicate and needing special treatment compared to men)
With regards to 4. so? Pretty much every major male character in the series says something disparaging of women as a whole in the series and pretty much every female character says something disparaging of men as a whole. There are plenty of instances of Elayne or Nynaeve or anyone else saying something to the effect that “all men are idiots put on this earth to try women’s patience”.
With regards to everything else though, I prettyy much agree
There are a lot of frustrating things that I don’t like in this series. Most of them are small and obviously there to support the plot but that makes WoT just mediocre series. For example the death of The Green Man for nothing. Actually all those resurrections are frustrating. The endless seanchan supply of teranglreal like adam’s and those shadow rings. Forkroot wasn’t supposed to be so widely known to hinder channeling but in the end everyone is abusing it. Egeanin giving the male adam to Suroth. Bragging about the Great Generals but never really seeing their genius in action (apart from Ituralde and Maradon). There are more which I don’t remember but they added to my frustration with the series and I’m now rushing through the last third of the last book so I can be finally free to read something better. I would recommend The Dagger and the Coin series.
As many have probably mentioned, the scene with Mat’s rape by Tylin… In my opinion was not played for laughs. There is real terror and trauma in how Mat reacts afterwards, looking under the beds or closets in his irrational fear. Unable to come to terms that he was victimized, he internalizes it as he tries to come to grips with it. Two characters laugh about it – at first.
Jordan’s wife says that indeed, Jordan didn’t intent the scene for laughs.
Now about Taim and Damodred… I never bought into that. People believed it for sooo long that they simply refused to let it go. Jordan has said when her wrote book 5 that Damodred is not mentioned in the books yet.