[Terez]

I like RJ's descriptions - he describes clothes, surroundings, etc. in such detail that you can actually see it. Some people skim through his descriptions, and that's fine too, but I really don't understand why they bother people so much...

And Nynaeve is the only character that tugs her braid. It's a nervous habit of hers, like chewing your lip or something. I find it comical. And the skirt-smoothing thing...it's very true that when women are nervous or excitable, they have a tendency to adjust their clothing one way or another. I see it all the time.

[Gabriele]

Well, I'll see for myself. I'm on the sparse side when it comes to descriptions, but since I like Tolkien's lenghty descriptions of landscapes, it can well be I won't mind Jordan's style.

In fact, I described the dress of one of my female characters in a scene, but coming up with what they would wear for a tournament did give me some insight into the characters. Clothes can be quite telling, especially in a society that has certain rules and restrictions. No wasted time, for sue.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Terez;335481 said:

All this yammering about skirt-smoothing and braid-tugging...might as well bitch about Erikson's characters being drunk all the time. It's just inconsequential, and something to bitch about for some vague reason that no one is ever quite able to explain properly...

That's one minor character in Erikson where her drunkenness is a major character trait. And being drunk can be expressed in a variety of ways. With RJ, it's major characters, and you have to read the words "tugged her braid" or "smoothed her skirt" or "wished she was wearing stout Two Rivers woolens" over and over. And over and over. And over and over.

[Terez]

Raymond Luxury Yacht;335511 said:

you have to read the words "tugged her braid" or "smoothed her skirt" or "wished she was wearing stout Two Rivers woolens" over and over. And over and over. And over and over.

I think you're exaggerating a bit. And still...what's the big deal? I don't get it...

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

I have never been accused of exaggerating in my whole life. I guess it's not that big of a deal, it's just one of those things that once I became aware of, it annoys me more and more. It's like when you eat popcorn and get a little piece stuck in your teeth. Not a big deal, but as the nigh goes on and you keep working to get it loose, it eventually will drive you crazy.

[Terez]

I have all of the books in a search engine. So I searched the whole series including New Spring for "smooth skirts", "smoothing skirts", and "smoothed skirts" (you can search words out of order, cause the text is divided into paragraph-ish chunks) and got a total of 97 references for the whole series. Not bad, considering there are 12 books that average 300K words each. Total of 60 on the braid...

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

It seems like a lot more than that. I guess the problem is that all these little things are equally annoying to me, and get lumped together as "Oh shit, he said that again?" So, you add up all the skirt smoothing, braid tugging, hands hipping, foot stamping, sighing, glaring, stout woolen loving, and silly fishing jargon, it happens pretty frequently.

[caladanbrood]

What the actual count of times the phrase is used is much less significan thtan the impression you get while reading it. And that sort of stuff just seems to keep cropping up, like an annoying mouth ulser you can't get rid of.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

That's funny. I almost went with mouth ulcer instead of popcorn. I guess you know what I'm talking about!

[caladanbrood]

Apparently so

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Get out of my head!

~rummages for tinfoil hat

[Aimless]

http://en.wikipedia....ognitive_biases

Gabriele, after reading say books 1-4 or so, check out the novel New Spring. It's a prequel focusing on Moiraine and Lan, and the beginning of Moir's quest to find the Dragon Reborn, and it's a very good read features shadowspawn that are scary, and some great characterisation and back-story.

[caladanbrood]

That list doesn't have the WoT Fallacy. It fails;)

[Aimless]

http://en.wikipedia....ttentional_bias

http://en.wikipedia....tive_perception

http://en.wikipedia....Focusing_effect



Bliiinded by the Light

[Kulp Diet]

Terez;335481 said:

All this yammering about skirt-smoothing and braid-tugging...might as well bitch about Erikson's characters being drunk all the time. It's just inconsequential, and something to bitch about for some vague reason that no one is ever quite able to explain properly...

I enjoyed WoT. I'm not a hater. And you are right, the braid-tugging, and ambiguous "sniffing" are not that big a deal. However, they are the type of verbal crutch writers sometimes lean on that tend to stand out--otherwise there would not be the amazing coincidence of everyone mentioning the same quirky things.

The only reason I nitpick about stuff like that is because when I'm reading and I have to roll my eyes, it makes it harder to take the writer seriously. But its fantasy, so meh.

[Illuyankas]

Kulp Diet;335735 said:

it makes it harder to take the writer seriously. But its fantasy, so meh.

SO MUCH NERD RAGE

[Cougar]

Terez;335539 said:

I have all of the books in a search engine.

Ladies and gentlemen, I never thought it possible but Terez is actually a bigger nerd than Brood. Broody: If you airmail your Crown and Sceptre to Terez she can have it by Tuesday.

How the hell do you have all of them in a search engine!

[Gabriele]

Aimless;335628 said:

http://en.wikipedia....ognitive_biases

Gabriele, after reading say books 1-4 or so, check out the novel New Spring. It's a prequel focusing on Moiraine and Lan, and the beginning of Moir's quest to find the Dragon Reborn, and it's a very good read features shadowspawn that are scary, and some great characterisation and back-story.

If I like the first three, I will surely check out more books in that world.

Let's see how intrusive those little habits will turn out - I'm afraid I can't start with a clean slate here because the braid tugging comes up in every Jordan thread, not only here. But at least it won't make me hungry as Martin's food descriptions in ASOIAF do.

[Terez]

Cougar;335857 said:

Ladies and gentlemen, I never thought it possible but Terez is actually a bigger nerd than Brood. Broody: If you airmail your Crown and Sceptre to Terez she can have it by Tuesday.

How the hell do you have all of them in a search engine!

It was a Theoryland collaborative project. I did most of the work for Knife of Dreams, but the rest of it was done when I joined the place. I don't use the search engine very often, though, because I have all the books in html files, and usually when I'm looking for a quote, I know which book to look in, and the ctrl-f function makes it easy to find. I only use Theoryland's engine when I need to search the whole series at once, or words out of order.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

What kind of copright issues had to be dealt with in project like that? Did RJ know that his books were all on the internet? It would be sweeeet if anything like this ever got done for SE.