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  1. - Top - End - #61
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    Default Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time! *golf clap*

    I think we're more or less on the same page with that, Kris on a Stick.
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    Mat's rape is played off as awful, but subtext awful. He feels bad, but there's a general sense from everyone else that he should be okay with that. And isn't that the point...that in woman on man rape, the man should be okay with that, because it's hot, right? And that's the way everyone acts...except Mat. He only feels that way after he's been sufficiently traumatized. I guess Jordan could have spelled it out a little further, but the situation was pretty complex. What Mat was missing was a moment of clarity realizing that what happened to him was wrong, and realizing he's a survivor of abuse, which he never gets even when people are telling him that.

    Either that, or it's Jordan living out his own extreme dom/sub fantasy.


    And, yes, Bela is clearly the hero of the story.

  2. - Top - End - #62
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    Default Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time! *golf clap*

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    I think it's fairly heavily implied several that Mat actually did want to sleep with Tylin, he's just afraid that Beslan will try to murder him if he does. He stops protesting the relationship once Beslan tells him it's ok, although he continues to hate the fact that he's only viewed as a plaything instead of a person.

    None of that makes the actual rape that already happened any more acceptable, but it does somewhat explain Mat's changing attitude towards Tylin.

    Back on the topic of Nynaeve, she wasn't actually the one who made light of the situation with Mat and Tylin. That was Elayne who is a terrible excuse for a human being.

  3. - Top - End - #63
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    Default Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time! *golf clap*

    Chapter 6: The Westwood
    Very little happens in this chapter. Rand is pulling Tam on an improvised sled through the woods, avoiding the main road for fear of running into the trollocs or their Myrddraal boss.

    Tam's fever is getting worse, and he's deliriously mumbling to himself. He mumbles about how lovely Rand's mother Kari is, about a horrible war against the trollocs, a field of dead at Marath and burning towers at Cairhien, a tree called Avendesora that was cut down, somebody named Laman whose pride caused all this bad stuff.

    Most notably, he says this. "...battles are always hot, even in the snow. Sweat heat. Blood heat. Only death is cool. Slope of the mountain... only place didn't stink of death. Had to get away from smell of it... sight of it... heard a baby cry. Their women fight alongside the men, sometimes, but why they had let her come, I don't... gave birth there alone, before she died of her wounds... covered the child with her cloak, but the wind... blown the cloak away... child, blue with the cold. Should have been dead, too... crying there. Crying in the snow. I couldn't just leave a child ... no children of our own... always knew you wanted children. I knew you'd take it to your heart, Kari. Yes, lass. Rand is a good name. A good name."

    Tam is not Rand's father, and Kari is not his mother. Not surprising, really, but still important.

  4. - Top - End - #64
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    Default Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time! *golf clap*

    Fever dreams seem to be good vehicles for revealing the identities of mystery children.

  5. - Top - End - #65
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    Default Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time! *golf clap*

    Ugh, the Sounders have been just terrible lately. I don't even like soccer, why do I torture myself by watching them lose over and over? Sounders, Mariners, I can't wait for the Seahawks to start playing so I can finally watch an actual good team again. Oh well, might as well do another chapter.

    Chapter 7: Out of the Woods
    Rand finally reaches Emond's Field, and Tam is still alive! That's one point for Rand, and none for Eragon.

    Uh-oh, looks like the town got attacked too. Buildings are burned down and a lot of people are hurt. This is the second worst Bel Tine ever! Rand finds Nynaeve, but she looks at Tam and tells him there's nothing she can do to help him. Desperate to do something, and in a bit of a haze, Rand goes to the inn, hoping the Mayor will know what to do. They put Tam in a bed, but nobody knows how to help him.

    My suspicions about Moiraine were right. She revealed herself as an Aes Sedai and used lightning to kill trollocs while Lan rallied the villagers and fought them with his sword. The Mayor remembers that Aes Sedai have healing powers. Rand doesn't like the idea of having an Aes Sedai help Tam, but he has no other choice and goes to get her help. Lan is a bit of a grouch about it, but Moiraine agrees to help, for a price...

  6. - Top - End - #66
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    Default Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time! *golf clap*

    You've gotten far enough I think it's safe to say this now.

    Quote Originally Posted by An Enemy Spy View Post
    It seems we have our Luke Skywalker of the series. Farm boy with mysterious parentage about to go on a long journey. All he needs now are some companions and a magic sword.
    This comment amused me in light of my foreknowledge.
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  7. - Top - End - #67
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    Default Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time! *golf clap*

    Quote Originally Posted by JoshL View Post
    And, yes, Bela is clearly the hero of the story.
    I am being half serious when I say, I'm pretty sure Bela is ta'veren. Or bound to you know what.

    Damn, now I really want to read a book that is just the entire series but from Bela's perspective.

  8. - Top - End - #68
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    Default Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time! *golf clap*

    Replying to An Enemy Spy first, since it's your thread after all: This is an entertaining read! It's been a few years since I read these books and I'm enjoying your topic. I hope you keep this up. How are you enjoying the book so far?

    Quote Originally Posted by Traab View Post
    This is coming from a guy who never got past book 8. I truly disliked
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    the sheer number of stories being told all at once. I dont know, a part of it is likely because I started reading the series when book 2 was a new release, so that meant I had to keep track of everything and remember it for at least a year before the next installment, but I found myself quickly getting lost and confused and missing a lot because I had forgotten about a little foreshadowing that I read 3 years ago that was finally coming to a head. But when you have 6 stories of what the good guys are doing, another 6 of the various factions of bad guys, another several of the currently neutral but who knows which way they will go factions, and there are of course the prerequisite numerous very strange names that are sometimes fairly close to a couple other character names, its just really hard to keep straight. Especially when not all the books are as much fun to reread as the others.

    The stories were GOOD. I really did like most of them, some were chores to slog through, but mostly enjoyable. Its just, there were too dang many of them, and they took thousands of pages or more to tie back into each other. It was like I was reading a dozen different novels set in the same world instead of one series. If anyone is a mercedes lacky fan, it was like reading book 1 of each of her valdemar trilogies in order, then going back for book 2 of them all. Yeah eventually you will get a complete story, but until the end its just a hundred hanging plot threads and its hard to remember what was happening way back in the black gryphon story when you are currently reading owlsight.
    Spoiler: I agree
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    Yeah, I definitely felt the same way, though I did make it through the whole series. I liked most of the characters and found their developments interesting, but there were just too many of them. It felt like Jordan was checking in with so many characters that most of them barely got any "screen time" to advance their plots. I forget which book because the last half of the series all sort of blurs together in my mind,
    but at least once I finished one of those giant tomes and then realized that hardly anything had actually changed since the last book.

    I wonder if this series might have been one of the things that influenced George R.R. Martin to split up A Feast for Crows and A Dance With Dragons the way he did, rather than going chronologically.


    Quote Originally Posted by JoshL View Post
    I loved Nynaeve right from the beginning. At first as a counterpoint, but I got where she was coming from. That's what I loved about WOT; I got most of the characters and could relate to them. Even if I didn't agree with them...especially those I didn't agree with, I got where they were coming from. Even the plot-frustratingly awful decisions that people make, you understand why they made them.
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    In fact, that's where Sanderson drops the ball. He writes the characters as stereotypes, and spends more focus on exploiting the magic system than what the people are actually thinking/feeling about. Which is ironic, because the exact opposite of what he lectures about, but exactly what he is guilty of in all of his books. Great magic systems, shallow characters, and plots that only serve as excuses for the magic concepts. I have fun reading his books, but they're pretty awful, and I don't quite get the love. Other than his magic systems...they're pretty clever and awesome, and if he spent less time explaining the rules, they'd probably make for really good novels. Anyway, rant (almost) done. If Jordan had lived, that last book would have been three books. But they would have been three BETTER books. He could foreshadow. As opposed to Rand: "boy, I wonder how I'll win the last battle", next paragraph "the key to winning the last battle". URGH.
    Anyway, still love them.
    Spoiler: Re: Sanderson
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    I felt like Sanderson did a fairly decent job of blending his style in with Jordan's when finishing the series, but he definitely is better at designing magic systems than he is characters. Whether it's the metal-based casting of Mistborn, the colors from Warbreaker, the geometry-based magic of The Rithmatist, or the superpowers-that-turn-you-into-a-megalomaniacal-jerk thing in Steelheart, the magic is always a lot more memorable than the characters themselves. Heck, I can't even remember the names of any of his protagonists except for Vin.


    On the issue of whether the books are sexist/misogynist/etc...
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    Both sides have some good arguments. After all, how many times to Egwene, Nynaeve, and/or Elayne get rescued or bailed out of trouble by Mat, Rand, or Perrin? It seems pretty frequent. But at the same time, it's clear that Jordan was trying for some form of equality, and our society (and fantasy literature in particular) have come a long way since the 1990's in this regard. Remember that this series began in the same time period where you had Mario rescuing Princess Toadstool every game, Link rescuing Zelda all the time, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles rescuing April O'Neil... and so on.

    I think a lot of what we now perceive as sexism in the series is a reflection of changing attitudes over the last couple decades, and a lot more of it can be attributed to Robert Jordan simply having limited ability to write well from a female perspective.

  9. - Top - End - #69
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    Default Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time! *golf clap*

    Spoiler: On the subject of rescues
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    Rand gets saved or rescued by women at least half a dozen times over the course of the series. Probably more.

  10. - Top - End - #70
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    Default Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time! *golf clap*

    Well, it's not like Wheel of Time is Jupiter Ascending. The female characters do do things on their own strength and initiative that furthers their own arcs and progress the story as a whole. The guys do as well, obviously, and occasionally they intersect.

    Jordan just has some issues with leaking his fetishes occasionally into the story and is tone deaf on some matters.

  11. - Top - End - #71
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    Default Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time! *golf clap*

    Quote Originally Posted by Anteros View Post
    Spoiler: On the subject of rescues
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    Rand gets saved or rescued by women at least half a dozen times over the course of the series. Probably more.
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    Even n this chapter 7 he just covered Moiriane saved the entire village and she is about to heal Tam

  12. - Top - End - #72
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    Default Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time! *golf clap*

    Quote Originally Posted by Anteros View Post
    Spoiler: On the subject of rescues
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    Rand gets saved or rescued by women at least half a dozen times over the course of the series. Probably more.
    Of course,
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    He is also attacked, kidnapped, and or attempted to be seduced by women roughly ten times as much. :p At the very least women make plans to do these things an awful lot.
    Speaking of sexism in stories, anyone read the spellsong cycle and the spellsong war by L. E. Modesitt, Jr? It had a really interesting magic system imo, and I also liked the storyline a lot. The main character is female, and a large part of the series is devoted to her specifically having to deal with a misogynistic medieval society and the problems caused when the people in power refuse to admit that a woman can be strong, or have rights for that matter.
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  13. - Top - End - #73
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    Default Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time! *golf clap*

    Quote Originally Posted by Anteros View Post
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    I think it's fairly heavily implied several that Mat actually did want to sleep with Tylin, he's just afraid that Beslan will try to murder him if he does. He stops protesting the relationship once Beslan tells him it's ok, although he continues to hate the fact that he's only viewed as a plaything instead of a person.

    None of that makes the actual rape that already happened any more acceptable, but it does somewhat explain Mat's changing attitude towards Tylin.

    Back on the topic of Nynaeve, she wasn't actually the one who made light of the situation with Mat and Tylin. That was Elayne who is a terrible excuse for a human being.
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    Here's the thing everybody seems to miss. Nobody was giving Mat a hard time because "he deserved to be raped." Nobody realized the truth of what was going on. The other Altarans (except Beslan) thought it was play according to old custom, and the women believed that Mat was uncomfortable because (for once) he was the plaything instead of the player. Only Aviendha, who was able to look at things with a completely foreign viewpoint, recognized the situation.

  14. - Top - End - #74
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    Default Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time! *golf clap*

    Just stopping in to say keep up the good work An Enemy Spy.

    The novels are a little too long and need some editing. Plus all the women in the series are designed to annoy you so it's nice seeing things without all the negative light.
    Spoiler: It's not too much a plot spoiler
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    All through when you look back on the series you'll realize that women are terrible people because that's a side effect of what happened when the BBEG unbalanced the world.

    They become better people as the novels come closer to their ending.

  15. - Top - End - #75
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    Default Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time! *golf clap*

    It's a bit of a digression from this thread, so spoilering...

    Spoiler: Spellsong books
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    I've read the Spellsong Cycle and War, albeit it was about a decade ago. I enjoyed them, although from memory, I felt that they suffered a little from too-perfect protagonists - it's not that they never make mistakes, but they tend to be mistakes along the lines of "I relied too much on someone else and they failed me", not anything to do with their own weaknesses. Or if their own weaknesses do come into play, it's I Just Tried Too Hard / Was Too Nice And Caring. They also had a repeated pattern of escalation - Protagonist Invents Superweapon To Defeat Evil Empire, New Threat Arises, Protagonist Invents Even Bigger Superweapon To Defeat Even Bigger Evil Empire, rinse and repeat. Fun to read, but it got a little predictable. Again, though, this is based on memories from a decade ago


    With regard to gender issues:
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    With regard to WoT vs Song of Ice and Fire - I actually prefer WoT, from a women-in-fantasy-fiction perspective. I feel like GRRM is not immune to tone-deafness on gender issues, and he also chose to write in a setting that is very patriarchal. There's nothing wrong with that, as a stylistic choice, but it means that (a) every female character is someone who's been shaped by living in a world that considers her chattel (and GRRM does consider how this would play out, which is good, but it can get depressing), and (b) while the really major characters are fairly balanced gender-wise, the vast majority of characters we interact with are men, and the minor female characters we see are mostly defined by how they interact with men (mostly as either prostitutes or wives).

    Looking at the wiki, it claims there are 14 major POV characters, of which 8 are male and 6 female (with the women being Catelyn, Arya, Sansa, Daenerys, Cersei and Brienne), and 10 minor POV characters, of which 7 are male and 3 are female (with the women being Melisandre, Asha and Arianne). It's harder to find lists of minor characters, but I found a list of character names which looks reasonably complete (many of these are probably just mentioned off-hand) - there are just under 950 women's names, which is a lot, but it compares to over 4100 men's names. So... 80% male, maybe, rather than 90%, but in reality it would be 50%. The difference is in who gets noticed.

    This is kind of a pet peeve of mine in many fantasy series, the invisibility of women and the treatment of men as the default gender, with a handful of Exceptional Women who get to have voices and plotlines. And Wheel of Time doesn't do this, the random merchant or innkeeper or city councilor is as likely to be female as male, and yes that requires a pretty different kind of world-building - but I found it really refreshing.

    There is definitely stuff I dislike in there. Some of the characters express views about gender complementarity that I strongly disagree with, the descriptions of differences in channeling by men and women annoy me (so women invariably gain power by surrendering and men by dominating, do they? I see...), gay men are essentially invisible while lesbian relationships generally aren't treated as real romantic bonds, most of the women-dominated organizations seem to have nudity somewhere in their rituals, and as aforementioned there is That Plotline where it's not actually clear if Jordan was engaging in (female-perpetrator male-victim) rape apology or subtly satirizing rape apology.

    (Similarly, I like to think that the similarity between the internal monologues of men and women in Wheel of Time - especially as both mentally bemoan how the other gender is mysterious and makes no sense - are intended to make fun of the idea of deep-seated differences between the genders. That's certainly how I read it, the first time through. But I realize that may not have been what the author intended.)

    But I don't agree with the criticism some people have that all the female characters are unrealistic and/or horrible people - yes, they can be jerks, but the same women who are being childish or acting like jerks at one point will at other points behave with immense dignity and courage. This seems fully realistic to me (pretty much every awesome person I've ever known has also had their bad moments), the male characters have their moments of being unreasonable jerks as well, and in both cases they usually get called on it. I've had at least one close friend who was so eerily similar to Egwene that it was a running joke in our friendship group (at the time the series was up to about Book 7, I think, so calibrated to Egwene at that point). I don't find the female characters in WoT unlikeable in general, although there are certainly moments where they make me facepalm (and exactly the same sentence is true for the male characters). I think Perrin provoked more facepalms than any other character in the series, due to the Malden arc, but he definitely had some competition.

    Moving away from the major characters, yeah, most of the Aes Sedai are quite arrogant. But I don't read this as being a commentary on their gender, but as what happens if you isolate people from normal humanity for a few hundred years while telling them they're better and wiser than everyone else and giving them immense power to back it up.

    In terms of patriarchies/matriarchies in the setting... the setting as a whole is fairly egalitarian. There are professions that skew mostly male (soldiers, primarily) and professions that skew mostly female (midwives and herbalists), but those aren't universal rules and also don't seem to have the effect of excluding either gender from the public sphere. I would guess the most patriarchal society is probably Amadicia, which has a puppet king but is mostly run by the Whitecloaks, who are exclusively male, basically witch-hunters, and have some demonstrated tendencies to get violently suspicious of outspoken or knowledgeable women. There is one truly female-dominated society in Far Madding, in the sense that it's like the historical real world but with the genders flipped - men are expected to be quiet and "modest" in public, husband-beating is legal, the government is entirely run by women and I think all the businesses we see are run by women. But in most places, women and men seem to be viewed as fairly equal and equally capable.
    Last edited by Ifni; 2015-08-02 at 01:12 PM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by The_Snark View Post
    I must not argue on the Internet.
    Internet argument is the mind-killer.
    It is the little death that brings total aggravation.
    I will face my annoyance.
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    Where the irritation has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

  16. - Top - End - #76
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    Default Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time! *golf clap*

    Quote Originally Posted by Ifni View Post
    It's a bit of a digression from this thread, so spoilering...

    Spoiler: Spellsong books
    Show
    I've read the Spellsong Cycle and War, albeit it was about a decade ago. I enjoyed them, although from memory, I felt that they suffered a little from too-perfect protagonists - it's not that they never make mistakes, but they tend to be mistakes along the lines of "I relied too much on someone else and they failed me", not anything to do with their own weaknesses. Or if their own weaknesses do come into play, it's I Just Tried Too Hard / Was Too Nice And Caring. They also had a repeated pattern of escalation - Protagonist Invents Superweapon To Defeat Evil Empire, New Threat Arises, Protagonist Invents Even Bigger Superweapon To Defeat Even Bigger Evil Empire, rinse and repeat. Fun to read, but it got a little predictable. Again, though, this is based on memories from a decade ago


    With regard to gender issues:
    Spoiler
    Show
    With regard to WoT vs Song of Ice and Fire - I actually prefer WoT, from a women-in-fantasy-fiction perspective. I feel like GRRM is not immune to tone-deafness on gender issues, and he also chose to write in a setting that is very patriarchal. There's nothing wrong with that, as a stylistic choice, but it means that (a) every female character is someone who's been shaped by living in a world that considers her chattel (and GRRM does consider how this would play out, which is good, but it can get depressing), and (b) while the really major characters are fairly balanced gender-wise, the vast majority of characters we interact with are men, and the minor female characters we see are mostly defined by how they interact with men (mostly as either prostitutes or wives).

    Looking at the wiki, it claims there are 14 major POV characters, of which 8 are male and 6 female (with the women being Catelyn, Arya, Sansa, Daenerys, Cersei and Brienne), and 10 minor POV characters, of which 7 are male and 3 are female (with the women being Melisandre, Asha and Arianne). It's harder to find lists of minor characters, but I found a list of character names which looks reasonably complete (many of these are probably just mentioned off-hand) - there are just under 950 women's names, which is a lot, but it compares to over 4100 men's names. So... 80% male, maybe, rather than 90%, but in reality it would be 50%. The difference is in who gets noticed.

    This is kind of a pet peeve of mine in many fantasy series, the invisibility of women and the treatment of men as the default gender, with a handful of Exceptional Women who get to have voices and plotlines. And Wheel of Time doesn't do this, the random merchant or innkeeper or city councilor is as likely to be female as male, and yes that requires a pretty different kind of world-building - but I found it really refreshing.

    There is definitely stuff I dislike in there. Some of the characters express views about gender complementarity that I strongly disagree with, the descriptions of differences in channeling by men and women annoy me (so women invariably gain power by surrendering and men by dominating, do they? I see...), gay men are essentially invisible while lesbian relationships generally aren't treated as real romantic bonds, most of the women-dominated organizations seem to have nudity somewhere in their rituals, and as aforementioned there is That Plotline where it's not actually clear if Jordan was engaging in (female-perpetrator male-victim) rape apology or subtly satirizing rape apology.

    (Similarly, I like to think that the similarity between the internal monologues of men and women in Wheel of Time - especially as both mentally bemoan how the other gender is mysterious and makes no sense - are intended to make fun of the idea of deep-seated differences between the genders. That's certainly how I read it, the first time through. But I realize that may not have been what the author intended.)

    But I don't agree with the criticism some people have that all the female characters are unrealistic and/or horrible people - yes, they can be jerks, but the same women who are being childish or acting like jerks at one point will at other points behave with immense dignity and courage. This seems fully realistic to me (pretty much every awesome person I've ever known has also had their bad moments), the male characters have their moments of being unreasonable jerks as well, and in both cases they usually get called on it. I've had at least one close friend who was so eerily similar to Egwene that it was a running joke in our friendship group (at the time the series was up to about Book 7, I think, so calibrated to Egwene at that point). I don't find the female characters in WoT unlikeable in general, although there are certainly moments where they make me facepalm (and exactly the same sentence is true for the male characters). I think Perrin provoked more facepalms than any other character in the series, due to the Malden arc, but he definitely had some competition.

    Moving away from the major characters, yeah, most of the Aes Sedai are quite arrogant. But I don't read this as being a commentary on their gender, but as what happens if you isolate people from normal humanity for a few hundred years while telling them they're better and wiser than everyone else and giving them immense power to back it up.

    In terms of patriarchies/matriarchies in the setting... the setting as a whole is fairly egalitarian. There are professions that skew mostly male (soldiers, primarily) and professions that skew mostly female (midwives and herbalists), but those aren't universal rules and also don't seem to have the effect of excluding either gender from the public sphere. I would guess the most patriarchal society is probably Amadicia, which has a puppet king but is mostly run by the Whitecloaks, who are exclusively male, basically witch-hunters, and have some demonstrated tendencies to get violently suspicious of outspoken or knowledgeable women. There is one truly female-dominated society in Far Madding, in the sense that it's like the historical real world but with the genders flipped - men are expected to be quiet and "modest" in public, husband-beating is legal, the government is entirely run by women and I think all the businesses we see are run by women. But in most places, women and men seem to be viewed as fairly equal and equally capable.
    In regards to spellsong
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    the escalation cycle was actually an intentional focus of the second series. The original trilogy was less escalation and more, "How can I unleash my awesome spell of awesome awesomeness on THIS group of misogynists?" Where the main character tended to exhaust herself winning a fight, then recover in time to do it all over again. But she used mainly the same general spells. In the second series, the new main character found herself facing an ever increasing threat where she had to keep using nastier and nastier spells to counter the ones the enemy were using.


    As for your character comments on WoT,
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    The arrogance of the Aes Sedai makes sense. I mean, they are long lived sorceresses who hold a lot of political authority all over the place. Thats a lot of advantages to throw at a group of people, and trying to remain humble despite all those advantages would almost feel disingenuous. "Oh sure I am practically a living goddess in comparison to you, and could ruin or enrich your life at the slightest whim, but im not THAT special really!" Im not saying its a good thing, but it sure as heck is understandable. Because lets face it, they ARE "better" than the average person and have lived their entire lives from teen years knowing it.
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    I think my favorite thing about the Aes Sedai is the constant argument that all women with magic powers have to belong to a single organization. They assumed this was always the case, then they become devoted to bringing everyone into the fold (even though this cuts their lifespan in half).
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kris on a Stick View Post
    I'd say "misogynist" is a bit of a harsh evaluation.
    I chose "misogynist" rather than the arguably milder but also differently nuanced "sexist" for a lot of the reasons you mention below. As you say, Jordan didn't disregard, underdevelop, or generally fail to consider female characters or female roles in his society; the problem is with the attitudes reflected by the characters and roles he very consciously created and included.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kris on a Stick View Post
    [W]hereas Jordan is not nearly so conscientious or self-aware and lets his own prejudices bleed through on occasion, but considering the climate of science fiction and fantasy it was written in, it's progressive enough in intention and effort to deserve some merit.
    Do you mean the climate of science fiction and fantasy like decades after Samuel R. Delaney and Margaret Atwood? I don't know if Jordan can really be considered "progressive" in a post-New Wave genre. Even if you stick strictly to fantasy, which had less direct New Wave influence, there are tons of contemporaneous and prior examples of authors and series whose treatment of gender is considerably better. Even putting aside the question of whether "man of his time" arguments are really valid in the first place, c'mon, the dude's time was the 1990s.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ifni View Post
    With regard to gender issues:
    I think the main issue isn't that Jordan's female characters are, on the whole, more annoying or worse people than the male characters, but rather that the ways in which they're annoying or bad people tend to fall pretty much exactly in line with the same sets of fairly standard misogynist tropes, while the male characters are each annoying or bad people in their own ways. I think the way it reads is that men are flawed as individuals while women are flawed as a sex; in other words, "being a woman" is the primary flaw of basically all Jordan's female characters.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Zrak View Post
    I think the main issue isn't that Jordan's female characters are, on the whole, more annoying or worse people than the male characters, but rather that the ways in which they're annoying or bad people tend to fall pretty much exactly in line with the same sets of fairly standard misogynist tropes, while the male characters are each annoying or bad people in their own ways. I think the way it reads is that men are flawed as individuals while women are flawed as a sex; in other words, "being a woman" is the primary flaw of basically all Jordan's female characters.
    Is that really true? The male characters are pretty one note also. Also in pretty gender stereotypical ways. The characterization is just kind of awful across the board.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ifni View Post
    With regard to gender issues:
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    There is definitely stuff I dislike in there. Some of the characters express views about gender complementarity that I strongly disagree with, the descriptions of differences in channeling by men and women annoy me (so women invariably gain power by surrendering and men by dominating, do they? I see...), gay men are essentially invisible while lesbian relationships generally aren't treated as real romantic bonds, most of the women-dominated organizations seem to have nudity somewhere in their rituals, and as aforementioned there is That Plotline where it's not actually clear if Jordan was engaging in (female-perpetrator male-victim) rape apology or subtly satirizing rape apology.

    (Similarly, I like to think that the similarity between the internal monologues of men and women in Wheel of Time - especially as both mentally bemoan how the other gender is mysterious and makes no sense - are intended to make fun of the idea of deep-seated differences between the genders. That's certainly how I read it, the first time through. But I realize that may not have been what the author intended.)
    I kind of viewed it as
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    just more evidence that most of the characters are actually pretty much stupid, inane, self-centered people.


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    But I don't agree with the criticism some people have that all the female characters are unrealistic and/or horrible people - yes, they can be jerks, but the same women who are being childish or acting like jerks at one point will at other points behave with immense dignity and courage. This seems fully realistic to me (pretty much every awesome person I've ever known has also had their bad moments), the male characters have their moments of being unreasonable jerks as well, and in both cases they usually get called on it. I've had at least one close friend who was so eerily similar to Egwene that it was a running joke in our friendship group (at the time the series was up to about Book 7, I think, so calibrated to Egwene at that point). I don't find the female characters in WoT unlikeable in general, although there are certainly moments where they make me facepalm (and exactly the same sentence is true for the male characters). I think Perrin provoked more facepalms than any other character in the series, due to the Malden arc, but he definitely had some competition.
    Well,
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    speaking as one of those who thinks that almost all of the female characters are more-or-less horrible people, I'll point out that I hold that the same thing is true about almost all of the male characters. And even the ones that I don't find to be despicable I don't find relatable. In fact, the only character that I find even remotely relatable is Thom, and I'm pretty sure he's not supposed to be a character that the audience is supposed to particularly identify with--heck IIRC (it's been a while since I read them) he disappears from the story for several of the middle books.


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    Moving away from the major characters, yeah, most of the Aes Sedai are quite arrogant. But I don't read this as being a commentary on their gender, but as what happens if you isolate people from normal humanity for a few hundred years while telling them they're better and wiser than everyone else and giving them immense power to back it up.
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    Yes, I agree. It's actually pretty realistic that they are as arrogant as they are, but it doesn't make them any less unlikable for it. Nor does it help that while they do have the immense power, they certainly aren't any wiser than everybody else.
    Last edited by dps; 2015-08-02 at 08:19 PM.

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    If I remember correctly, aren't the three things on every woman's mind something like: "men are incomprehensible *****," "I want power," and "I want this hot guy" in something like that order?
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    Quote Originally Posted by HamHam View Post
    I am being half serious when I say, I'm pretty sure Bela is ta'veren. Or bound to you know what.

    Damn, now I really want to read a book that is just the entire series but from Bela's perspective.
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    Default Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time! *golf clap*

    I'll admit to being slightly baffled by the fact that every woman in Randland seems to have some obsession with calves. I guess having all the female protags staring at butts instead would have been too much?

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    Quote Originally Posted by HamHam View Post
    Is that really true? The male characters are pretty one note also. Also in pretty gender stereotypical ways. The characterization is just kind of awful across the board.
    I can't really speak to this as well as I could have a decade ago, but I feel like the men all had relatively personalized flaws and typically masculine merits, while the women got some unique merits and their flaw was basically having been born deceitful, nagging, irrational, lustful, power-hungry women. Even some of the men whose flaws do conform to a gender stereotype (contrast the women, whose flaws map to a whole set of them) typically have it presented in a considerably more positive manner, which, granted, is part of the trope history of things like stubbornness and womanizing, but still.
    Last edited by Zrak; 2015-08-02 at 11:43 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Kris on a Stick View Post
    I'll admit to being slightly baffled by the fact that every woman in Randland seems to have some obsession with calves. I guess having all the female protags staring at butts instead would have been too much?
    I think its a play on ye olde tymes talking about a "well turned ankle" on a girl. Because hem lines and such were a wee bit more restrictive back then.
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    I heard it rumored that Jordan did his "research on writing women" by inhaling women's magazines? As in, the stuff you see at the checkout line at supermarkets? I've not run across substantiation for this, but it fits with the text at least.
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    Default Re: An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time! *golf clap*

    Quote Originally Posted by Traab View Post
    In regards to spellsong
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    the escalation cycle was actually an intentional focus of the second series. The original trilogy was less escalation and more, "How can I unleash my awesome spell of awesome awesomeness on THIS group of misogynists?" Where the main character tended to exhaust herself winning a fight, then recover in time to do it all over again. But she used mainly the same general spells. In the second series, the new main character found herself facing an ever increasing threat where she had to keep using nastier and nastier spells to counter the ones the enemy were using.


    As for your character comments on WoT,
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    The arrogance of the Aes Sedai makes sense. I mean, they are long lived sorceresses who hold a lot of political authority all over the place. Thats a lot of advantages to throw at a group of people, and trying to remain humble despite all those advantages would almost feel disingenuous. "Oh sure I am practically a living goddess in comparison to you, and could ruin or enrich your life at the slightest whim, but im not THAT special really!" Im not saying its a good thing, but it sure as heck is understandable. Because lets face it, they ARE "better" than the average person and have lived their entire lives from teen years knowing it.
    The problem with the Aes Sedai is that it is UNJUSTIFIED arrogance.

    Somebody like Cadsuane being arrogant (or Morraine, though she was more self-assured rather than arrogant) is perfectly justified. She's powerful, has a wide array of knowledge, and a LOT of experience in applying that knowledge.

    Arrogant little ****s like
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    Egwene, Elayne or Nynaeve
    seem to think simply BEING an Aes Sedai (despite being the lowest class of Aes Sedai for less than a year) should grant them slavish obedience from any of the unwashed masses, have demonstrated absolutely NOTHING to earn any kind of respect or deference. Seriously, when the Two Rivers group encounters Mat again they act like he should get down on his knees and kiss their feet simply for being a part of the White Tower.

    At it's core, Aes Sedai arrogance grinds my teeth because the lot of them are criminally incompetent. Morraine is one of the few exceptions.

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    Seriously, nearly a quarter of the freaking Tower was serving the Dark One and nobody figured that out? Freaking ELAIDA was made the leader and nobody thought that maybe it was a bad idea?

    As a group, they seem to think the White Tower should effectively rule the world, that Kings and Queens are basically granted their thrones by the Tower, and yet NOBODY in the Tower leadership seems to have any kind of actual plan to deal with ANYTHING. They have slavish adherence to rules and doctrine with no thought to a better way or even WHY they have the rules in the first place.

    The Blight was allowed to flourish completely uncontested by any Aes Sedai, the Whitecloaks attained a rather unbelievable amount of power given their brutality and fanaticism, the Seanchan allowed to conquer half the continent with no opposition, and the Forsaken are ruling multiple major countries. Who do the Aes Sedai gather together and attack? The male channelers that Rand is grouping up. You know, the guy supposed to save the world. Yeah, THAT'S the group you should be worried about.

    Every one of them except Morraine spends most of the first few books running around trying to suppress or control every male channeler instead of paying any attention to very real and obvious Shadow threats from multiple quarters.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Zrak View Post
    I can't really speak to this as well as I could have a decade ago, but I feel like the men all had relatively personalized flaws and typically masculine merits, while the women got some unique merits and their flaw was basically having been born deceitful, nagging, irrational, lustful, power-hungry women. Even some of the men whose flaws do conform to a gender stereotype (contrast the women, whose flaws map to a whole set of them) typically have it presented in a considerably more positive manner, which, granted, is part of the trope history of things like stubbornness and womanizing, but still.
    The men are all stubborn, irrational, and chauvinistically over protective. Also socially and emotionally obtuse. Like, they are literally all 90s sitcom dad to one degree or another.

    I also honestly do not think the intent is to present the female characters less positively. If we perceive them that way it is more due to our own bias.

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    Most of this should probably be spoilered.
    Quote Originally Posted by Olinser View Post
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    The problem with the Aes Sedai is that it is UNJUSTIFIED arrogance.
    Absolutely agree.

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    Somebody like Cadsuane being arrogant (or Morraine, though she was more self-assured rather than arrogant) is perfectly justified. She's powerful, has a wide array of knowledge, and a LOT of experience in applying that knowledge.

    Arrogant little ****s like
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    Egwene, Elayne or Nynaeve
    seem to think simply BEING an Aes Sedai (despite being the lowest class of Aes Sedai for less than a year) should grant them slavish obedience from any of the unwashed masses, have demonstrated absolutely NOTHING to earn any kind of respect or deference. Seriously, when the Two Rivers group encounters Mat again they act like he should get down on his knees and kiss their feet simply for being a part of the White Tower.

    At it's core, Aes Sedai arrogance grinds my teeth because the lot of them are criminally incompetent. Morraine is one of the few exceptions.
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    Frankly, I don't see how Cadsuane's arrogance is all that justified. Granted, it's been awhile since I've read the series, but I don't recall her accomplishing all that much, at least not within the story itself. It is made clear that she had a lot of past accomplishments to point to.


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    Seriously, nearly a quarter of the freaking Tower was serving the Dark One and nobody figured that out? Freaking ELAIDA was made the leader and nobody thought that maybe it was a bad idea?

    As a group, they seem to think the White Tower should effectively rule the world, that Kings and Queens are basically granted their thrones by the Tower, and yet NOBODY in the Tower leadership seems to have any kind of actual plan to deal with ANYTHING. They have slavish adherence to rules and doctrine with no thought to a better way or even WHY they have the rules in the first place.

    The Blight was allowed to flourish completely uncontested by any Aes Sedai, the Whitecloaks attained a rather unbelievable amount of power given their brutality and fanaticism, the Seanchan allowed to conquer half the continent with no opposition, and the Forsaken are ruling multiple major countries. Who do the Aes Sedai gather together and attack? The male channelers that Rand is grouping up. You know, the guy supposed to save the world. Yeah, THAT'S the group you should be worried about.

    Every one of them except Morraine spends most of the first few books running around trying to suppress or control every male channeler instead of paying any attention to very real and obvious Shadow threats from multiple quarters.
    Mostly agree, but
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    it seems pretty clear that men who could channel were dangerous and needed to be tracked down.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Olinser View Post
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    Seriously, nearly a quarter of the freaking Tower was serving the Dark One and nobody figured that out? Freaking ELAIDA was made the leader and nobody thought that maybe it was a bad idea?

    As a group, they seem to think the White Tower should effectively rule the world, that Kings and Queens are basically granted their thrones by the Tower, and yet NOBODY in the Tower leadership seems to have any kind of actual plan to deal with ANYTHING. They have slavish adherence to rules and doctrine with no thought to a better way or even WHY they have the rules in the first place.

    The Blight was allowed to flourish completely uncontested by any Aes Sedai, the Whitecloaks attained a rather unbelievable amount of power given their brutality and fanaticism, the Seanchan allowed to conquer half the continent with no opposition, and the Forsaken are ruling multiple major countries. Who do the Aes Sedai gather together and attack? The male channelers that Rand is grouping up. You know, the guy supposed to save the world. Yeah, THAT'S the group you should be worried about.

    Every one of them except Morraine spends most of the first few books running around trying to suppress or control every male channeler instead of paying any attention to very real and obvious Shadow threats from multiple quarters.
    Spoiler
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    To be fair:
    1) The Whitecloaks were just a localized nuisance, really, and one best handled by long term subtlety.
    2) The Blight had been there practically forever, and hadn't done anything meaningfully active for a long time. The last time the Blight was an active problem was the fall of Malkier, and they DID send major aid for that, they just arrived too late.
    3) The Forsaken, Seanchan, and everything else was so incredibly unbelievable compared to everything the Aes Sedai have ever known that it was all easy to dismiss as wildly exaggerated rumor and difficult to accept as real. Siuan was the only one with good credible news sources and in a position to act on it, and Elaida sprang her coup right when Siuan was about to act.

    Men channeling was the only one of the major threats the White Tower faced that they were used to and ready to accept as real without overwhelming evidence, and the evidence available at their distance took a while to become overwhelming. The numerous shadow threats that are so obvious to us, the readers beyond the fourth wall, were a very great deal less obvious to the Aes Sedai who had to rely on distant informants who often either knew only rumor and hearsay or were behind enemy lines and unable to send word. With regard to the Forsaken in particular, informants who got too close were liable to get compromised by Compulsion. As I recall, there was an actual Aes Sedai in Caemlyn that Rahvin toyed with. Her information would have been considered absolutely reliable by the White Tower, and was actually dictated by Rahvin.
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