[Captain Beardface]

I'm in a similar situation, first read through of WoT and what not. I noticed the similarities and took them for a homage to Tolkien. I currently just started book 5 The Fires of Heaven and I've enjoyed the series so far, yes there are things I don't like but overall I've enjoyed it. But the Rand = Frodo thing disappears rather quickly as Frodo was just an ordinary person doing great things who went back to his manor when finished, for Rand there is no going back.

Just my 2 cents.

[acesn8s]

There's really no going back for any of the Two River kids.

[Orlion]

McLovin, on 30 January 2012 - 06:52 PM, said:

I was more polarized when the failure of book 10 and the pointless release of New Spring were still fresh. It felt like a personal betrayal after having hung with the series for 15 years.

Now I can be more objective. RJ really did have some good ideas. Lots of them, actually.

Agreed completely. I read books 1-8 in about six months and waited for book 9 which was actually pretty good, I thought. The ending was epic, anyway, to my 14- year old mind. Then Crossroads of Twilight came out. Then New Spring came out. Then, I stopped caring. I received each installment as a Christmas present, but I haven't read books 11-13 yet. But a couple months ago, I read about half of The Eye of the World before I was distracted by other books and school. It was a very enjoyable read, and one could see that Jordan did have an end game in mind while writing The Eye of the World. He knew where he was going, what needed to happen, and so forth. He just didn't know how long it would take him.
Eventually, probably sooner than later, I'll re-read all of these (except New Spring. That worthless volume never happened), and I think I'll ultimately judge them as being enjoyable novels. Not every book needs to be some Joycian revolution of literature, sometimes just a good read is all that's needed.

As it stands, I'd call WoT a aSoIaF Lite.

[Terez]

Orlion, on 13 February 2012 - 06:40 PM, said:

McLovin, on 30 January 2012 - 06:52 PM, said:

I was more polarized when the failure of book 10 and the pointless release of New Spring were still fresh. It felt like a personal betrayal after having hung with the series for 15 years.

Now I can be more objective. RJ really did have some good ideas. Lots of them, actually.

Agreed completely. I read books 1-8 in about six months and waited for book 9 which was actually pretty good, I thought. The ending was epic, anyway, to my 14- year old mind. Then Crossroads of Twilight came out. Then New Spring came out. Then, I stopped caring.

This is about when I started reading WoT. Or rather, I started reading it when book 9 was not yet out in paperback. It didn't bother me at all because it gave me plenty of time to reread the series a few times, so by the time it picked up again I was fairly well-versed. I had just started reading fantasy so there was plenty of other stuff to read in the meantime.

Quote

Eventually, probably sooner than later, I'll re-read all of these (except New Spring. That worthless volume never happened), and I think I'll ultimately judge them as being enjoyable novels. Not every book needs to be some Joycian revolution of literature, sometimes just a good read is all that's needed.

As it stands, I'd call WoT a aSoIaF Lite.

I think that WoT surpasses aSoIaF on many levels. Depends on what you're looking for.

[Terez]

Aptorius, on 27 January 2012 - 07:54 PM, said:

Hoods Breath, on 27 January 2012 - 07:21 PM, said:

Is this worth investing the time and effort to delve into this series? I've heard it gets slow and digresses.... yikes!

I gave up at book 4 where, 200 pages in, nothing had yet happened of interest and everyone was still busy having internal monologues where everything that happened in the last book was being regurgitated for those readers too dimwitted to remember what happened yesterday.

Sorry for spamming, but I just reread this and wanted to point out that this is what happens when people read the series for the first time after having been put through the mill of bitter fans who are still pissed about Mat not having been in TPOD. (Even though many of those same fans are back to loving the series again at this point and will gladly admit it's one of the best.) 200 pages into the hardback is just when everything was setting off plotwise, but the first 200 pages were hardly regurgitations.

Spoiler

Mat had already been through the first doorway at that point (along with Rand and Moiraine). All three ta'veren started the book with the strange bubble of evil, where Perrin fought his axe, Mat fought his luck, and Rand fought reflections of himself. Then Lanfear revealed herself to Rand, he spouted his first Lews Therin memory, and the Stone was attacked by Shadowspawn and Rand used Callandor to kill all of them in one blow. In those 200 pages, Moiraine and Thom see each other for the last time, and RJ drops some pretty strong hints of the budding romance. Moiraine reveals that Thom assassinated her half-brother Taringail Damodred (father of Elayne, Gawyn, and Galad). There's a lot of good stuff going on in those pages...and of course, all that was only the beginning of the awesomeness of TSR.

It just seems strange for a Malazan fan to complain about action being slow in the opening pages of a book, seeing as how most Malazan books don't really get going till about page 500.

[Orlion]

Terez, on 16 February 2012 - 09:17 PM, said:

Quote

Eventually, probably sooner than later, I'll re-read all of these (except New Spring. That worthless volume never happened), and I think I'll ultimately judge them as being enjoyable novels. Not every book needs to be some Joycian revolution of literature, sometimes just a good read is all that's needed.

As it stands, I'd call WoT a aSoIaF Lite.

I think that WoT surpasses aSoIaF on many levels. Depends on what you're looking for.

Like good characterization?

I'm semi serious, I don't understand people's pining over how great the characterization in aSoIaF is.

[Terez]

Orlion, on 17 February 2012 - 01:17 AM, said:

Terez, on 16 February 2012 - 09:17 PM, said:

Quote

Eventually, probably sooner than later, I'll re-read all of these (except New Spring. That worthless volume never happened), and I think I'll ultimately judge them as being enjoyable novels. Not every book needs to be some Joycian revolution of literature, sometimes just a good read is all that's needed.

As it stands, I'd call WoT a aSoIaF Lite.

I think that WoT surpasses aSoIaF on many levels. Depends on what you're looking for.

Like good characterization?

I'm semi serious, I don't understand people's pining over how great the characterization in aSoIaF is.

Well, I do get it. It's not easy to make a character like Cersei sympathetic, and GRRM managed it. What I don't understand is why so many people get stuck on the caricaturish nature of the WoT characters. If that was all they are, I would get it, but it's not. I mean, I can understand that some people don't relate to them as characters. I just don't understand why some people think that it's somehow objectively bad characterization. Most WoT fans are self-described character readers. And the reaction to Mat's absence in TPOD is in itself rather telling.

[Macros]

wot characters have three distinct categories
tolerable/midly engaging, this includes min lan thom matt and possibly morraine
annoying bitches, this includes all females, rand, perrin and many others
last but not least is the irrelevant/pointless reappearance. this covers about 50% of the series characters.

im being serious

[QuickTidal]

Terez, on 28 January 2012 - 12:49 AM, said:

including Tolkien (which is derivative of Arthurian legend itself).

I just came across this and wonder how you came to this conclusion. While it's definitely influenced by Norse mythology, and various other mythologies, but Tolkien himself even said that he created it because Britain had no real Mythology and he mostly dismisses the Arthurian Legends (in his letters) in fact. Other than there being a wizard involved (who's not really a wizard anyways) I fail to see how it's a derivative of the Arthurian legend. There is no young boy who has a destiny to be king (Aragorn is around 87 by the events of LOTR, not exactly the boy who would be king), no round table, no knights, no lady of the lake, no three-way love story, no Camelot type city, No Nimueh...hell even the Merlin paradigm can't be held up to Gandalf.

Not meaning to start a row...I'm just quite curious how you came to this conclusion, since it seems rather baseless is all.

[Macros]

wasnt the aurthurian legend stolen from the french anyway?

[QuickTidal]

Macros, on 26 May 2012 - 11:50 AM, said:

wasnt the aurthurian legend stolen from the french anyway?

Partially. Malory's original text is an amalgamation of stories about these figures from both English and French...so things like Merlyn and Nimueh are decidedly English (technically Celt), and Lancelot (or Clothar) is definitely Frankish of origin.

[Terez]

The first mention we have of King Arthur is, I believe, in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Brittaniae, but even Malory's rendition was mostly derived from Celtic mythology.

QT—See "J.R.R. Tolkien and the Matter of Britain" by Verlyn Flieger, among other writings.

This post has been edited by Terez: 27 May 2012 - 03:50 AM

[QuickTidal]

Terez, on 27 May 2012 - 03:48 AM, said:

QT—See "J.R.R. Tolkien and the Matter of Britain" by Verlyn Flieger, among other writings.

I've read the essay. Her argument's are weak at best. She broadly paints people like Aragorn and Frodo with the Arthur brush (I should not have to tell you how that argument falls apart under even the mildest scrutiny). Hell, the thesis for the essay is to challenge Tolkien's dismissal of the legend. She set's out to argue with things he said, and doesn't really achieve it. Her parallels are subjective AT BEST, and the tone is one of..."I know he said this but...he was wrong"...meanwhile, NO, she merely interpreted things in her own way, and that was her opinion. The essay is what we call "reaching", she wanted to find those links so badly, she did...even though they aren't really links. If they were then there would be more than one Tolkien scholar who believed that...but there aren't.

Also, if your defense is one person's interpretation of an author's writings, that's fairly weak grounds for calling something "a derivative of" IMNSHO.

Tolkien's Middle-Earth is not a King Arthur derivative...one only needs read the books to know that.

If that's your personal belief, I'm quite alright with that. I only mentioned this because your statement seemed to imply this was the going "belief" about his work across the study of Middle-Earth. And it's certainly not, and I wanted clarification is all.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 27 May 2012 - 12:43 PM

[Terez]

You said it was 'baseless'; I gave a basis. You've actually read the essay before? And you still pretended to have no idea what I was talking about? Clear marks of a troll there, bud. If you're going to make an argument, at least make an honest one.

Dr. Michael Livingston of The Citadel also gave a lecture on the subject this past JordanCon, and he made it pretty clear through this example and others that Tolkien sometimes didn't seem to know his own mind. His explanation for the genesis of the series, and the word 'hobbit', for example.

[D'rek]

Terez, on 27 May 2012 - 01:13 PM, said:

Dr. Michael Livingston of The Citadel also gave a lecture on the subject this past JordanCon

They brought in a Dr to JordanCon so he could speak about Tolkien? Shouldn't he be talking about Jordan at JordanCon?

[Terez]

He was, actually. He argued that Jordan is the true heir of Tolkien when it comes to reverse-engineering myth and legend to tell the 'one story'; Tolkien did it with a focus on stories from the British Isles, but RJ branched out much further.

[Silk]

but surely Tolkien's true heir is of his blood? *ducks and runs*