The Way I See It: Jordan's Universe

The Wheel of Time is a 12 volume fantasy series by Robert Jordan. For the uninitiated, it is set in a world that is based on cycles that stretch across millenia. For example, the series is set in the Third Age. There have been other Third Ages in the history of the world, and all of them had certain events happen and certain people born (again). While other ages have seen the world "advance" to motored transport and advanced weaponry, the Third Age is your classic horses and swords type of situation. There is a source of power, called the True Source or the One Power, that can be tapped into by those born with the skill, called channelers. There are male and female halves of the Power, and the force of evil, called the Dark One, touched the male half as he was being sealed into his prison. This was enough to taint the male half of the power, and all of its works, and allowed the Dark One to go on affecting the world. The channeler who ended up repairing the final seal in the Dark One's prison was known as the Dragon. All of the male channelers eventually went insane and began destroying the world with earthquakes and floods until they were brought under the control of the female channelers. Thus, when this story begins, only females are permitted to channel, and any males who display the talent are cut off from the source. There's one big problem with this: in the Third Age, the Dragon (and a small cast of other characters) must be reborn to defeat the Dark One in an analogue of Armageddon, as part of an endless cycle. There is always the threat, however, that the Dark One could prevail, breaking the cycle and destroying Creation. It's a fun series and I recommend it, minus the complaints listed below in my "review".
Caveat: Jordan has amyloidosis, a life-threatening disease, and is still working on book 12, but he seems to indicate that we can expect it next year. If he can't finish it, his wife has all of the details on how the series should end.


Spoiler alert: If you are planning to read the series, or are reading an early book, go away now. I'm on book 11 right now.


The Wheel of Time is a fine story, and Jordan is a fine storyteller, but these are not, in themselves, fine books. Many people point to the first 3-4 books as being the best in the series. I'm not going to argue with that, although I don't think that any of the books are necessarily better or worse. The first few books have some 'intangibles' going for them that, I think, generate a fonder memory.

1) The titles make sense
In "The Eye of The World", we encounter the Eye of the World near the I end of the book. In "The Great Hunt", the hunt for and discovery of the Horn of Valere figures prominently. In "The Dragon Reborn", Rand acknowledges his destiny. After that, the titles are drawn from the Prophecies of the Dragon, and rarely have any direct tie to the story, which lends them a generic feel.

2) The concepts are new
We are introduced to Jordan's world through the dialogue and ruminations of its inhabitants. All of their general knowledge and myths, customs and prejudices are laid out. For some reason, Jordan assumes that he has to explain these ideas in each new book, as if readers pick up the series at some point other than the beginning. You know what? Screw 'em! Let them play catch as catch can, and spare your regular readers the repetition. I asked my wife recently what was happening in book 8 as she was reading it. Her response, paraphrased, follows:

Perrin is stomping around the camp. Someone refers to him as Lord Perrin.
"Light! Why do they call me Lord Perrin? I wish they wouldn't do that. Although, Faile seems to think that they should, and it makes them uncomfortable to just call me Perrin. I guess I should get used to it".
He encounters a soldier, who refers to him as Lord Perrin.
"Light! Why do they call me Lord Perrin? I wish they wouldn't do that. Although, Faile seems to think that they should, and it makes them uncomfortable to just call me Perrin. I guess I should get used to it."
Etc.

This kind of overexplaining and repetition is really tedious. After the first few books, there is often only one or two lines per page, if that, that actually advances the plot. The rest is either descriptions of scenery, detailed descriptions of what everyone is wearing, or "reminders" of the most basic stuff. All that I want for repetition is to remind me who the secondary and tertiary characters are when they're reintroduced in subsequent volumes for their short, usually unimportant scenes. Which brings us to point 3.

3) Too many new characters, societies, other groupings of people emerge in the later books
We learn about the one Power, the Dark One, the Forsaken, darkspawn, Aes Sedai, and the concept of taver'en, not to mention the customs and myths of a variety of societies in the early books. Then, it seems as if a new nasty must appear in every book, such as the Seanchan host of domesticated critters, the giant Myrdraal, and Moridin, making me wonder if Jordan overreached in the first few books by having one Forsaken eliminated every book. Also, whole societies spring out of nowhere, like the Kin, with their own hierarchies and haircuts. Jordan begins adding little vignettes at the start of the books to set the scene, using the POV of characters we've never met. It all gets to be too much, too many. Plus Jordan likes to be "stylish" and make you read someone's internal dialogue for a page or two before he gives you useable context. Here's a sample.

"Marandille shook her head with a mirthless smile and watched Gamadole retreat from her chambers. How long had it been? Two months? Four? Still, one good thing had come of her liaisons with the son of the Autarch. The assembled armies of the Light-cursed Ghaldoran menace had not advanced one step toward Borleine. True, they had also not retreated, but the cost of maintaining a large, non-fighting force would surely take its toll on the coffers of Rialtain. Sleepily, Marandille shrugged on a fine, silk pink robe, hemmed in purple that was almost black, and lightly stepped toward the window. She always stepped lightly, as if hunting boar as she used to do with her father in the Murkwillow.
The great city of Borleine lay arrayed before her from her high tower room. She had once occupied rooms in her private palace nearly ten miles across the city, but now this sumptuous tower room was her home, and her prison. She was free to travel through the city, but never beyond its walls, and her life depended upon Gamadole or his men finding her in the room when the bells chimed eight every night.
Borleine, the City of Tears, rose up in towers and spires..."

Now, anyone who knows the series at all will know that I made all of that up. The point is that we will have to find out about the politics of Borleine, Marandille's childhood, her attitudes toward Dragonsworn, and one hundred other useless factoids before Jordan lets us know how she interacts with the main characters. Then, she might play a bit role in a climactic scene in this book, and then become detritus in the story. And Jordan never throws anything away. The clumsy Kin and Sea Folk are brought up almost obligatorily in later books, as are the Aiel/Tinkers, because Jordan doesn't want you to forget about them, even though he seems to have no current plans for them.

I get that to show that the whole world is affected by the events leading to Armageddon, you're going to have messy storylines. The problem with all of these additions is that they detract from the main story.

4) Not much happens in the later books
Granted, the early books get to lay out the big picture, so everything feels important. But this only makes the contrast in books 8 and 9 that much more evident. In Anne Rice's Vampire series, every book redrew the boundaries of what we understood about her universe to include the new revelations--it was peeling an onion in reverse. The only revelations in some of the later books of The Wheel of Time are character-based, which doesn't seem to be worth the effort. The 8th book was a total placeholder. Only two things happened in the ninth book. Everything else was filler. The 10th book got much better, and this is so far true of the 11th, but mostly because we're beginning to see the resolution of some storylines that were dragged out for much too long, and not due to a revelatory shift in our understanding of the Jordan universe.

On to things that generally bug/amuse me about the series

1) Despite the disparities of appearance and custom of the various regions of the world, everyone seems to agree that spanking is the best way of handling any situation. The Wheel of Time series has enough incidences of spanking, strapping, flogging, switching, birching, and caning to rival "The Taking of Sleeping Beauty". It is generally accepted that reasonable leadership within societies that are controlled by women (Aes Sedai, the Kin, Aiel, Sea Folk, all small villages, and the Empress-ruled Seanchan) consists exclusively of Headmistress/Dominitrix types who reward any perceived slight or sass with punishment that makes it hard to sit down, ride a horse, or that leaves one with welts from "the small of the back to the backs of the knee". Sure, occasionally people are tortured, beheaded, hung, cooked by trollocs, etc., but almost every (adult) character is the recipient of at least one thorough spanking or similar sort of sustained beating at some point. Wheeee!

2) People often point to the series as having more strong female characters than most fantasy writing. This is true, but the majority of these characters are not what you would call role models. Most are petty, power-hungry, and extremely catty, and end up having their asses saved by males. The male characters are either purely evil, mischievous but good-hearted, or the silent soldier type, bound to duty and honor. So perhaps the female characters are written with more complexity than many of the male characters, but often they are shades of the same flawed character, while the males have a greater variety of distinct personalities.

3) Pecking order and power lust. It's essential for the advancement of soap opera plots, but here it strains credibility. Everyone is concerned with rank to a pathological degree, and everyone seems to have an innate sense of how it works. In an actual collection of twenty people, only a few would have any idea how to effectively manipulate other people, and the rest would become sheep. Here, everyone is ready to step into the breach. Excepting Lord Perrin, of course.

4) No one dies. I haven't seen Moiraine come back yet, but I'm reasonably confident that the balefire that was used following her trip into the ter'angreal negated her death. Also, by book 6, you reach a point where the horrible shadowspawn, in any number or combination, is no match for a small band of main characters. There's no tension in it for the reader, because you know that Rand , Mat, and Perrin, at least, are going to make it.

In conclusion

I have enjoyed the series thus far, minus these complaints. It's an old-fashioned Good versus Evil yarn, with not much room for middle ground. Despite its flaws, there are a lot of cool concepts introduced. The world of Dreams, the weaving of flows, the relationship between saidar and saidin and the dark source, some of the military strategy, and the fulfillment of various prophecies make for exciting reading, as does the classic Luke Skywalker storyline. I look forward to the eventual end, if Jordan ever gets around to it, but I hope that he finds a way to trim the fat along the way.