The Wheel of Time turns...

I started reading the wheel of time for 1 reason, the cover blurb: “Robert Jordan has come to dominate the world Tolkien began to reveal”. I was in 5th grade, LoTR was far and away my favorite series, and I was young/naïve enough to not realize that just about every fantasy book (especially epic fantasy) has a blurb somewhere in there that compares it to LoTR. However, I am happy for that naivety, as it led me on a very enjoyable 13-year journey.

What is there to say about WoT aside from: Epic. This series has defined epic fantasy in a way that any other would be hard pressed to match. Weighing in at almost 4.5 Million words, across 14 books plus 1 prequel, with 147 different POV characters (and god knows how many named, non-POV characters) across 705 chapters. We see just about every corner of a sizable continent, with a multitude of different cultures and settings. And the plot is literally a fight against what amounts to the devil for the soul of “Randland’s” future. WoT ticks just about every box on the epicness checklist.

I started when book 9 had just recently come out, so I had 9 books and thousands of pages in front of me, which was both daunting and exciting. The scope of the world is massive, but RJ’s writing is detailed enough to match. The setting and creatures are familiar enough that we know where we are, but it isn’t a carbon copy of LoTR with the title crossed out and changed. If it tried to be LoTR, it would have failed and been worse off for it (I hated Shanarra for this very reason). Instead, WoT builds on the foundation of LoTR to take its own direction. I love that even at the beginning, we aren’t following just 1 story, but multiple. And while we may see the shape of it, there is enough mystery to allow for suspense. The action is frequent and tense, and the plot moves quickly. By the time we start to get bogged down in the vast number of characters and plots, I’d already been hooked by so many of them that even the less interesting side-journeys were but a blip on the radar. WoT is not perfect. I wish RJ had lived another 20 years and had not only finished the books, but then used the completed story to craft a director’s cut/re-write of the first 2-3 books, which could have pushed the boundary of perfect when it comes to epic fantasy.

As with most things that take place over so many pages and take so many years to write, there are notable differences across the books as you move through the series, leading to almost groupings of books like each was a different era of WoT (from a writing/reading perspective, not actual eras in the books). The first 3 are perhaps the most recognizable as traditional epic fantasy. Considering the series was originally planned as a trilogy, and slowly but surely grew in the telling, this isn’t unexpected. Jordan did not anticipate having thousands upon thousands of pages with which to expound upon his world and its nuances. So, the first couple of books are a little bit vaguer with the magical aspect as far as what is possible and what isn’t. The magical sequences at the end of The Eye of the World and The Great Hunt (in my opinion) don’t really jive with how we come to understand channeling and Randland by even the 4th or 5th book in the series, let alone by the end. The epic climaxes use the magic to look epic and cool, and don’t quite reflect the more "scientific" feel of channeling that is developed over the remaining books. Character development for some of the side characters is also less polished early on. Elayne, Min, and Egwene becoming girlfriends at the White Tower is almost cringe worthy. I don’t know if this is because Jordan hadn’t envisioned Elayne and Min as fully-fledged primary characters at this stage, or if he simply hadn’t quite developed his craft enough at that point in his career to really capture a teenage girl’s POV. Additionally, the bad guys might be a bit over-hyped and under-developed early on in comparison to where we eventually get. I think all of this points to some growing pains as a writer learns to master his craft, along with a series that didn’t quite have the full direction or outline plotted in the way it needed to be. However, the first 3 books have great pace and action and really encapsulate most of what is great about epic fantasy. They are gripping and exciting, the story is fun and larger-than-life, and the main characters are truly excellent. Brandon Sanderson even describes Mat, Perrin, and Rand as among his friends while growing up. I honestly think books 1-3 would have been perfect had RJ had the chance to go back and re-edit/tweak them after having completed the series to make the tone and internal logic/rules match the rest of the series. Books 4-6 are often listed among the best of the series. I think this is where Jordan really hit his stride. He started to have a better picture of the actual scope of what he wanted to accomplish, the pacing still feels fast, but now it feels like there is a greater purpose and direction to the plot points. Similarly, now that I think he had a sense of the true epicness of the work, we start getting more time dedicated to developing the magic and the characters to make everything feel just as fleshed out as the real world. This is also the beginning of Rand’s rise to pre-eminence where he stops being a destined future messiah and starts acting the part in reality. Additionally, we are starting to really get into the meat of Mat’s character arc, and considering Mat rivals Rand for most people’s favorite character, this development is a welcome one.

Then we come to “the slog”. Where the slog begins is up for debate, where it ends (Knife of Dreams) is fairly standard. The slog is, simply put, where the epicness of this drama starts to impact the pacing of the overall plot. “Side-characters” have grown to critical mass and have started to blend in with main characters, and the plot-lines of the Emond’s Fielders no longer dominate the story. For some, these side-plots are boring or distracting; for me, they add to the epicness and completeness of the overall story. They add color and nuance and allow for more foreshadowing and information that makes the larger plot more coherent. However, I do completely understand how some of the spark or excitement struggles in this setting. On my first read-through, during the slog, I found myself putting the book down more frequently (I still read them very quickly) and often would glance ahead to figure out how many pages more I needed to get through before I got back to Rand or Mat. These books are critical to establishing the grander scheme of WoT, but I understand and sympathize with those who struggled to work their way through this part. I actually think it has an interesting parallel in ASoIaF with book 4 and the first 2/3 of book 5. The plot has been stretched perhaps a bit too much between various characters and story arcs; to quote Bilbo Baggins, “like butter scraped over too much bread”. On re-reads, I think the slog is much less of an issue. I actually liked book 10 (Crossroads of Twilight) significantly more on my 2nd go around. The books in the slog tend to get lost in the backstreets and alleys of the city that is WoT. When you are a first time tourist, you’re less interested in the more hidden wonders of the city, you want to see the major attractions. You want to walk down the Champs-Elysees and go up the Eiffel Tower, visit the Louvre and Notre Dame. As a more experienced tourist, you get how those less well-known treasures are equally, if not more, important, but you just didn’t have the time or the patience to visit them before. WoT is similar. The slog doesn’t move the main plot forward at a fast enough pace to satisfy you on a first read, especially for those readers who had waited multiple years in between books for few events of consequence to take place. When we get into KoD, we start to see the pace pick back up, where the plot of the book feels like it is actually advancing the plot of the series. Additionally, the story-arcs within KoD actually feel self-contained within the book, and story arcs that started in previous books actually get an end, whereas the slog provided a cascade of story-arcs that took 2-3 books to resolve.

At this point, we must unfortunately turn to the final era in the WoT writing, the post-RJ era (otherwise known as the Brandon Sanderson era). Robert Jordan passed away before he had a chance to tackle what he hoped would be the final book in the series. I agree with team Jordan’s assessment that 1 final book was likely impossible, and the final 3 books felt appropriate in length and plot covered. It is worth noting that Brandon Sanderson was both the perfect, and the wrong man for the job at the same time. Had RJ been able to really finalize a fully detailed and complete plot outline with sporadic points of writing, a ghost writer could have come in and likely managed a better ending mainly because the books would have felt more like RJ’s style. However, Sanderson is nothing if not a master at capturing and securing the threads of a story. Considering how many loose ends RJ had left, and my assumption at how much work was left to do, Sanderson was the perfect candidate to take the up the needles and wrestle the tapestry into its final shape. Sanderson never pretended to be Jordan and never attempted to copy his style. He wrote the final 3 WoT books as if they were his own, with the caveat that he tried his best to match the character’s voices and personalities. For the most part, I think he did an excellent job. He failed with 2 characters for me: Mat and Aviendha. Aviendha never really worked for me with Sanderson, but it was Mat who bothered me more. Partly because he is perhaps the most compelling character in the series, but more so because Sanderson’s Mat didn’t feel like an entirely different character, it felt like a replacement actor trying desperately to mimic the original and failing. It felt like an imposter. Mat’s humor and brashness felt intentional rather than natural. What Sanderson did do remarkably well was bring this epic series to a fitting conclusion. The one thing I struggled with, and I will cede that it could be considered a major issue, is that all of the plotting and scheming across thousands of characters and hundreds of armies/groups/interests felt like they lost some of their import in the last battle. The Trolloc Army wasn’t a vast horde from the Trolloc Wars plus dreadlords and Black Ajah, it was a video game auto spawn army that couldn’t run out. The Black Ajah didn’t feel like infiltrators in the ranks of Aes Sedai, but like an equal force in numbers and strength. The Black Tower’s division at least made sense as Taim was literally recruiting people and grooming them to be dark friends from day 1, but for the White Tower it felt like too much. The battle ended up feeling like a façade for the real battle between Rand (plus support team) and the Dark One (plus Ishamael/Moridin). I get that Tarmon Gai’don really was about Rand vs. Shai’tan, but it felt like all of the work done in the previous 13 books that wasn’t purely about Rand’s development were wasted. The Last Battle felt like it was more of a WWE royal rumble where everyone is just thrown into the ring with little sense of cohesion or actual plot. I know there are pieces where Sanderson shows specific triumphs for each side, but, with the exception of Lan’s and Egwene’s moments, all the other detailed looks at the fighting felt pointless. And I mean pointless not in the sense of despair, but pointless as in they literally didn’t matter one way or another. This was a little disappointing, but I was so wrapped up in finally seeing a conclusion that I blew right past these objections to enjoy the end of an epic story.

Overall, I think WOT is well worth the ride. They are some of my favorite books, and I will re-read them multiple times in the future, I am sure. I do understand some people's skepticism at points in the early books, and frustration at points in "the slog", but WOT defined an era of fantasy for a reason.

Unfortunately, I have low expectations for the TV show. I feel like WOT is going to go the route of the later GoT seasons, but right from the get go. If you cannot faithfully adapt a work, then I'd prefer it not be adapted at all. Feel free to make a show set in the same world, but don't pretend to follow the plot of the books when that isn't actually possible. Not that WoT is literally unfilmable, it would just take such an immense financial commitment, time commitment, and audience commitment that I don't think it could (or will) ever be done justice.