An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time III: Something's Fishy in the White Tower

[Sapphire Guard]

Spoiler: ASOIAF

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You forgot he killed Jon Snow also

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I'm not counting him until it's confirmed (Note: I don't watch the show.)

POVs or lack thereof isn't a mark of quality, I was just responding to the idea that Martin needs so many POVs to replace those he's killed, when he actually hasn't killed very many at all.

[Wookieetank]

Spoiler: Book the 14th first half

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Made it a bit past the halfway mark at this point. Rather liking the faster pace overall.

Idrool saves the day, twice even . The Black Tower is free of M'hael, all hail Logain. And Elayne's army is saved by weaponized lava through a gateway. Hamstringing Logain for this tool of a DMPC is not sitting well with me.

Mat is officially Seanchan nobility and in charge of their armies. Need more of him on the battle field and less of him waffling around. As entertaining as Assassin Creed: Ebou Dar was, it felt very much early series Mat shenanigans, and out of place with the final battle going on in the before and after bits.

Elayne and Gawyn are still competing for most incompetent Trakand. So far Gawyn is in the lead with his using the cursed assassin's ring, but Elayne is pretty close behind with leading from the front line while preggers. Galahad seems permanently off-screen, which is just fine by me, keeps the head desking to a semi-reasonable minimum.

Graendal has been seriously mucking about in the 4 great leader/tactician/whatevers heads and causing the good guys to be losing Hard. They've getting found out at just the last possible moment to prevent complete and utter disaster, but I'm expecting the named character death toll to start rising very soon.

Rand has entered mount doom and is facing off against Gollum Ishamael. Time flows differently inside than out, making it so Rand's fight can be put on hold while everyone else's battles can take place. #iseewhatyoudidhere

Perrin is hanging out in the Matrix wolf dream, getting chummy with Lanfear and having a Brotrip with Gaul. After stealing the dreamspike from the Dark Tower and then placing it in Mount Doom, Perrin has accomplished a whole lot of jack and squat. At least he has wolfnet setup to let him know when slayer attempts to gank Rand.

Egwene is being terribly willfully ignorant of Bryne's compromised nature. You'd think the leader of the Aes Sedai would have thought to place wards upon your highest military leaders to prevent tampering, or at least warn of tampering having taken place. This is the fight for the survival of the world, why are you not treating it as such? Your enemy is not going to play fair or nice, you shouldn't be either.

Min gets press-ganged into service to her royal highness Tuon as her truth/doomspeaker.

Think that covers most of the main points at this juncture. Only 80ish pages away from reaching "The Last Battle" which is equal parts exciting and terrifying in the length of that chapter.

Re: ASoIF

I actually like the approach that every point of view you get to see isn't going to be a MC. For some of the characters, what they see happening/what is happening in the background is far more important than the character who is witnessing the event. Much as I'm a fan of Tyrion, the things he's been witness to seem far more important than the things he's actually accomplished (outside of taking out daddy Lannister).

[InvisibleBison]

Re: ASoIF

I actually like the approach that every point of view you get to see isn't going to be a MC. For some of the characters, what they see happening/what is happening in the background is far more important than the character who is witnessing the event. Much as I'm a fan of Tyrion, the things he's been witness to seem far more important than the things he's actually accomplished (outside of taking out daddy Lannister).

Given that Stannis probably would have won the Battle of the Blackwater without Tyrion's preparations, I'm going to have to disagree with the notion that Tyrion didn't do anything important.

[Traab]

Why exactly does it matter? WoT may have many POVs but not at the same time and most outside of the main cast, say the Emond's fielders, we don't see that much of them really. Consider that we are into book2 or 3 before Mat really gets anything from behind his eyes. It's really an interesting style which gives WoT depth to see stuff from other's perspectives. Somehow I guess that Sword of Truth series don't do that? I don't really see the problem, it's not like it's 13 books each with 13+ POVs in each.

Too me it mattered because I was reading these books since I had to wait for book 3 to come out, so having 50 different characters to keep track of with a year or so in between new books meant I had to reread thousands of pages worth of books just so I could remember who [SPOILER]Gorgonzoplat the Unliving was and why I cared he was in upper lower middle Illillanillia having beer with shadowy figure #12. Turns out two books earlier there was a 3 paragraph blurb revealing his plot to kill rand through his secret lactose intolerance. /SPOILER]

[snowblizz]

Too me it mattered because I was reading these books since I had to wait for book 3 to come out, so having 50 different characters to keep track of with a year or so in between new books meant I had to reread thousands of pages worth of books just so I could remember who

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Gorgonzoplat the Unliving was and why I cared he was in upper lower middle Illillanillia having beer with shadowy figure #12. Turns out two books earlier there was a 3 paragraph blurb revealing his plot to kill rand through his secret lactose intolerance.

I reread the entire series every time a new book came out. With the only exception being for 12 13 and 14. And a couple of times inbetween just because. I never really got the feeling that I needed to know what the sidecharacters did to understand the overarching plot. They'd add other viewpoints and asides showing there was more to the world than what the main characters thought. WoT that is. I've only read 2 or 3 ASoIF books because the sewries grated on me fierce and I already had onw AWOL author I was reading.

For me WoT essentially boiled down to the more reading there was the better.

[Traab]

I reread the entire series every time a new book came out. With the only exception being for 12 13 and 14. And a couple of times inbetween just because. I never really got the feeling that I needed to know what the sidecharacters did to understand the overarching plot. They'd add other viewpoints and asides showing there was more to the world than what the main characters thought. WoT that is. I've only read 2 or 3 ASoIF books because the sewries grated on me fierce and I already had onw AWOL author I was reading.

For me WoT essentially boiled down to the more reading there was the better.

Yeah I was exaggerating for effect, but my point was just that, with so many pov things going on, it was easy to lose track UNLESS you reread the stories several times to have it mainly memorized. And I will be honest, I think I only actually enjoyed rereading 4-6.

[An Enemy Spy]

Chapter 29: A Trap to Spring

Our chapter begins with Nynaeve working in the kitchens and glaring angrily at the spit dog, because in case you haven't noticed yet, Nynaeve is always angry and has no problem directing it at those who have done her no wrong, like an innocent animal. I actually had to look up what a spit dog is. It's a dog that would run on a track in the kitchen back in the day to keep the spit turning in the fire place so that the meat would cook evenly.



Nynaeve is mad that she has to do his work. It's called punishment, Nynaeve, and he's a dog. You agreed to join the Aes Sedai but you still think you're above their rules. It's the lack of any accountability that really turns me off to these characters. They never admit culpability for anything, feel sorry for themselves when their own actions get them in trouble, and go right back to being haughty the instant they get out of trouble. Characters like this work when they're played for comedy, but I'm expected to sympathize with these people and they frustrate me to no end.

Leave the dog alone.

Cleaning the kitchen sucks and they whine about it for a couple pages before the Amyrlin comes down and tells the rest of the kitchen staff and starts intimidating them and acting angry at Elayne as a smokescreen to get everyone but Nynaeve and Egwene out of the room so she can speak to them privately. Nynaeve recognizes this but Egwene talks back at her and leaves the Amyrlin no choice but to have the head cook drag her out along with Elayne. Because Egwene is a moron.

She delivers the news. Another dead Grey Man was found by Sheriam(funny how she's always around when a Grey Man dies mysteriously, isn't it?). This one was a woman and she was laid out neatly on Sheriam's bed. Weird. Siuan thinks the suspects who could be involved in this include Sheriam, Elaida, and Alanna, but my money is on Verin. Sheriam is awfually suspicious and Elaida is so obviously a villain that I almost wonder if she's meant to be red herring. I would be genuinely surprised if it's Alanna and if you guys know it's her you may now feel free to make fun of me in the spoilers.

Nynaeve mentions that she doesn't know why the Amyrlin would trust Else in this conspiracy and the Amyrlin drops the bombshell. Else was sent home ten days ago.



You morons.

Nynaeve tells the Amyrlin about their plan to walk right into the Black Ajah's trap and the Amyrlin agrees to give them gold for the journey and to send them out under the pretext that they're being sent to hoe a cabbage field as punishment. And after Nynaeve's massive, horrible failure regarding Else, she somehow still has the chutzpah to talk down Laras, the head of the kitchen staff and the Amyrlin thankfully puts her in her place, noting what an appalling lack of character judgement she has and that Laras has actually spoken up for them and wanted to let them do easier work. Not that this has any effect on Nynaeve of course, because... you know, I hesitate to use the B-word on her as that word is often used to put down assertive women, but what else is there to say about Nynaeve? She's horrible.

Siuan's Nautical Analogy Counter: 23

[Ninja_Prawn]

I hesitate to use the B-word on her as that word is often used to put down assertive women, but what else is there to say about Nynaeve? She's horrible.

Story telling voice so, we did one of those personality test things at work a few weeks ago. It assigned us varying amounts of 'colour energy' based on our cognitive processes - red for bold and assertive, yellow for sociable and gregarious, green for caring and principled, blue for precise and analytical. Nynaeve would have scored very high on the red energy, if she were alive today.

The thing is, everyone hates people with a lot of red, but it's no coincidence that 7 out of 8 of our senior management team had red as their strongest suit. Without red 'energy', nothing gets done. And indeed, there are several points in the story where people would have gotten completely stuck if it weren't for Nynaeve shaking them out of their torpor. That's gotta be a good thing, right?

I'm equal parts blue and green, with hardly any red or yellow, fwiw.

[An Enemy Spy]

Nynaeve goes beyond assertive. She's vindictive and she has contempt for everyone that isn't one of her close friends and she's unwilling to adjust her way of thinking even after she's been proven wrong.

[Saph]

(Sort of a spoiler but not really, since it's opinion as much as anything else)

While I agree that Nynaeve is a thoroughly unpleasant person in the early books (and no, it's not a matter of being 'assertive' – she just behaves horribly over and over again with no justification at all) she's one of the characters who does genuinely improve and learn to be a better person as the series progresses, to the point where she was probably my favourite of the female channellers by the end of the series. That's not because I had a soft spot towards her, either – like you, back at this point in the series, I couldn't stand her.

Spoiler: Actual spoiler

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It's not a coincidence that out of all the Aes Sedai and other channellers, Nynaeve is the one that Rand picks to cleanse saidin at the Battle of Shadar Logoth. Yes, part of it is raw power, but it's also because he actually trusts her.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Nynaeve goes beyond assertive. She's vindictive and she has contempt for everyone that isn't one of her close friends and she's unwilling to adjust her way of thinking even after she's been proven wrong.

To be fair, those are exactly the traits that people with lots of red energy exhibit when they're stressed. At least according to a pseudo-scientific mangling of some thoroughly outdated philosophy, repackaged as corporate team-building...

[Traab]

Nynaeve goes beyond assertive. She's vindictive and she has contempt for everyone that isn't one of her close friends and she's unwilling to adjust her way of thinking even after she's been proven wrong.

The thing is, all three are guilty of the same thing, they just tend to display it in different ways. Its a serious, major character flaw and MAN does it just keep on causing problems. These girls are slow, untutored in everything they will need to survive, make endless series of mistakes they forever seem to brush off, and treat everyone around them like crap in various differing ways. I honestly cant recall who learns their lesson first and actually improves long term as a person.

[Seerow]

The thing is, all three are guilty of the same thing, they just tend to display it in different ways. Its a serious, major character flaw and MAN does it just keep on causing problems. These girls are slow, untutored in everything they will need to survive, make endless series of mistakes they forever seem to brush off, and treat everyone around them like crap in various differing ways. I honestly cant recall who learns their lesson first and actually improves long term as a person.

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I am not sure who learns their lesson first, but I can say with confidence it is not Elayne, who still manages to avoid learning anything in 14 books.

[Gnoman]

Nynaeve goes beyond assertive. She's vindictive and she has contempt for everyone that isn't one of her close friends and she's unwilling to adjust her way of thinking even after she's been proven wrong.

On the other hand, she at least has a logical reason to act the way she does. She was made Wisdom of Emond's Field (essentially running half of the town's government, while also acting as a doctor) at an incredibly young age. Evolving the behavior patterns she has was almost certainly vital to performing her job, unless you think Two Rivers elders are likely to just meekly accept correction from a teenager.

[snowblizz]

On the other hand, she at least has a logical reason to act the way she does. She was made Wisdom of Emond's Field (essentially running half of the town's government, while also acting as a doctor) at an incredibly young age. Evolving the behavior patterns she has was almost certainly vital to performing her job, unless you think Two Rivers elders are likely to just meekly accept correction from a teenager.

Doesn't she state as much at various points right from the start of the series? I seem to recall many times she mention having to wrangle people who keep on about her age as she tries to fill a role she has been given for ability but doesn't have the "social standing" to really fill.

I think part of what I like in WoT is that there are unlikeable characters (you have no idea of the people you have yet to meet AES No Idea at all. Dun-dun-DUUNH), the characters aren't trying to endear us to them, they act (mostly AFAICT) in ways consistent with their upbringing and circumstances so far. It's no surprise Elayne has a hard time adjusting since she has been groomed to be the one in command. Similarly Nynaeve has had to fight in her role as Wisdom since she became one so will have adopted a fight-back mentality. Egwene, well she has a hero complex. She started out as being subservient to Nynaeve as her apprentice, but in a way has been elevated to her equal. She kinda reacts like I think most would, she thinks she has all the answers, very Miko-like really (who also was eleveated form nowhere into somewhere), and especially fights with Nynaeve who naturally can't let go of the role as superior and more knowledgeable.

The funny part here is we all harp on about Team Magicarp. But keep in mind we all think Aes Sedai are kinda nuts right? Can we honestly say we wouldn't baulk at all the stupidity? At least from our current position of semi-omniscience we can see some of the points of why Aes Sedai are the way they are.

[Wookieetank]

Spoiler: Book 14 The last: Finished

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So finished out the book in a 5.5 hour straight read-a-thon. Like seriously, who isn't going to read from The Last Battle to the end of the book in one go, there are no good stopping points. Thankfully I did this nonsense on a Friday night XD Was quite amused that the chapter after The Last Battle was only 4 pages long.

Idrool solved way too many things for how little screen time he got. Logain would've been a Much better use of pagespace.

The Trakands lived up to their family legacy quite well, ending up dead, maimed or causing the death of actually useful characters.

Very much appreciated Lan being the one to take out Demandred. Badass normal at its finest (that and I'm a huge fan of Lan).

Nynaeve's lack of POV was a bit jarring, particularly with how much screen time she got in books 12 & 13. Kinda sad she got reduced to windowdressing for the most part. Moiraine also fell into this a bit, and after the effort that went into getting her back, felt she should've been better utilized.

Using Callandor to trick and trap Ishamael was a lovely bit of trolling. Rand body-swapping him as well was a nice bit of work too.

Perrin was overall great, up until the fake out Emo Perrin Mk2.0 bit. Faile being dead off page felt extraordinarily false, especially when every other major named character who died did so explicitly on page. Not to mention how much of the series was about rescuing kidnapped Faile, just wasn't buying it.

Overall very happy with how things wrapped up, and the intensity of the ending was very well done.

[Sivarias]

Spoiler: Book 14 The last: Finished

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So finished out the book in a 5.5 hour straight read-a-thon. Like seriously, who isn't going to read from The Last Battle to the end of the book in one go, there are no good stopping points. Thankfully I did this nonsense on a Friday night XD Was quite amused that the chapter after The Last Battle was only 4 pages long.

Idrool solved way too many things for how little screen time he got. Logain would've been a Much better use of pagespace.

The Trakands lived up to their family legacy quite well, ending up dead, maimed or causing the death of actually useful characters.

Very much appreciated Lan being the one to take out Demandred. Badass normal at its finest (that and I'm a huge fan of Lan).

Nynaeve's lack of POV was a bit jarring, particularly with how much screen time she got in books 12 & 13. Kinda sad she got reduced to windowdressing for the most part. Moiraine also fell into this a bit, and after the effort that went into getting her back, felt she should've been better utilized.

Using Callandor to trick and trap Ishamael was a lovely bit of trolling. Rand body-swapping him as well was a nice bit of work too.

Perrin was overall great, up until the fake out Emo Perrin Mk2.0 bit. Faile being dead off page felt extraordinarily false, especially when every other major named character who died did so explicitly on page. Not to mention how much of the series was about rescuing kidnapped Faile, just wasn't buying it.

Overall very happy with how things wrapped up, and the intensity of the ending was very well done.

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That was most people's primary complaint with Androl. It felt like he took up Logain' s screen time. Stole his halo of glory viewing if you will. Some felt cheated out of Moraine POV there at the end. That being said, Jordan wrote the epilogue before he died, and IIRC it was printed unedited except for grammer.

[Seppl]

Spoiler: Book 14 The last: Finished

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So finished out the book in a 5.5 hour straight read-a-thon. Like seriously, who isn't going to read from The Last Battle to the end of the book in one go, there are no good stopping points.

Spoiler: On chapter length

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This is quite intentional. Sanderson wanted the readers to also feel how exhausting those events were.

[Wookieetank]

Spoiler: On chapter length

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This is quite intentional. Sanderson wanted the readers to also feel how exhausting those events were.

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I figured. It was just amusing to have the worlds longest chapter followed by the shortest one. Much as I gripe about Idrool, Sanderson did a fantastic job of conveying the odds, intensity, and desperation to a fantastic degree.

[Douglas]

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I figured. It was just amusing to have the worlds longest chapter followed by the shortest one. Much as I gripe about Idrool, Sanderson did a fantastic job of conveying the odds, intensity, and desperation to a fantastic degree.

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I also found it quite amusing how Demandred was so thoroughly convinced that the opposing general was Rand, because obviously no one else could possibly be doing such a good job of it.

[Wookieetank]

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I also found it quite amusing how Demandred was so thoroughly convinced that the opposing general was Rand, because obviously no one else could possibly be doing such a good job of it.

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Yeah, I loved how Rand battlefield hopping incognito earlier on helped feed into Demandred's illusions of what he was against. And the whole Idrool cloaked as someone and then himself on top of it was amusing. Having the agents of darkness just as failable and human as the MCs was a nice touch.

[The New Bruceski]

Yeah, the Sanderson Avalanche is a thing and it gets worse when it's a whole series's buildup instead of a book's. He just loves to have everything come together in one massive clump at the end and while that works great in many ways, it definitely means you don't want to get into the last third or so of one of his books just before dinner or bed.

[Feytalist]

Spoiler: Book 14 The last: Finished

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So finished out the book in a 5.5 hour straight read-a-thon. Like seriously, who isn't going to read from The Last Battle to the end of the book in one go, there are no good stopping points.

Spoiler

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Fun fact: I read about halfway through the chapter (up til around Galad faces off against Damodred, if I recall), put the book down and then didn't pick it up for about 2 years after that. Not because I had anything against the book, I just got caught reading Malazan. And once you're in that trap, it's not a load you can share

Picked it up exactly where I left off without much issue, though. As big as that chapter is, there isn't all that much happening in terms of plot moving forward, actually. Mainly just the body count rising.

[lord_khaine]

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I think Galad was the Trakand who got the biggest character redemption. He actually became likeable in the last books.

And i also liked that Sanderson actually allowed the forsaken to become competent and scary again. Demandred were a pure beast, outchanneling and outfighting who came after him from the side of light. In particular i liked the callback to how Lan, famed as the greatest swordsman around, had to defeat him.

[Ashen Lilies]

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Galad is beast because he's a Damodred, not a Trakand.

[Sapphire Guard]

Spoiler: Trakands

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Gawyn's okay, he's just a bit stressed from having to spend all his time making sure Elayne survives to adulthood. He could be in the support group with Birgitte and Mat

[Sivarias]

Spoiler: Trakands

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Gawyn's okay, he's just a bit stressed from having to spend all his time making sure Elayne survives to adulthood. He could be in the support group with Birgitte and Mat

Spoiler: Trakands

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No. Just No. He chooses to believe a rumor over his flesh and blood sister. Consistently breaks all of his oaths based on his current emotional state at the time, and refuses to believe in the competence of others. He's honestly one of my most hated characters. Completely believable as a person, and a applaud Jordan for that. But I honestly don't know if I despise him or Elaida more.

[Douglas]

Spoiler: Trakands

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No. Just No. He chooses to believe a rumor over his flesh and blood sister. Consistently breaks all of his oaths based on his current emotional state at the time, and refuses to believe in the competence of others. He's honestly one of my most hated characters. Completely believable as a person, and a applaud Jordan for that. But I honestly don't know if I despise him or Elaida more.

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What, exactly, did Elayne ever actually tell him? For most of the series, rumor is almost the only information source he has.

I think I vaguely remember something about Elayne, or maybe it was Egwene, telling him at one point that Rand did not kill Morgase. If that's the rumor vs sister incident you're referring to, I don't really blame him very much - "I don't know what really happened but it wasn't him, honest!" is not very convincing.

[Sivarias]

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What, exactly, did Elayne ever actually tell him? For most of the series, rumor is almost the only information source he has.

I think I vaguely remember something about Elayne, or maybe it was Egwene, telling him at one point that Rand did not kill Morgase. If that's the rumor vs sister incident you're referring to, I don't really blame him very much - "I don't know what really happened but it wasn't him, honest!" is not very convincing.

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There's that incident. Where you belief you're own sister who simply repeats what your girlfriend said (You know, the two people who you trust most in the world?) Or the farmer who lives almost a month away from the incident by buggy.

His actions don't reflect his words. (I protect my sister. I trust Egwene. I support Elaida. I'm not in this for my own glory. Etc.)

[lord_khaine]

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Well, i do think Gawayn is more dumb than a sack of bricks. He is the moron who though his bit of sharp metal would actually allow himself to get revenge at a channeler. One who was strong enough to claim the title of dragon/false dragon.
I think the rumor bit was fair enough though. He had 2 people claiming the opposite of what everyone else were saying, despite not having any other arguments than "because i say it" and still allowed it to sway him back into a neutral stance on the subject.