Thus Spoketh Terje

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1. Terje Phlegmont Mendoza

   Sigh.

   All that wasted potential.

   It almost makes me wanna cry.

   17. July 2007 @ 19:46 ( Permalink )

2. Loki

   What?

   17. July 2007 @ 21:33 ( Permalink )

3. Terje Phlegmont Mendoza

   WoT. Whenever I read WoT (as I’m doing these days), I’m almost overwhelmed by the feeling that this is a story and a world that deserved a better author. :\

   17. July 2007 @ 22:01 ( Permalink )

4. Loki

   Ah, right. Well, Jordan isn’t that bad, he’s just a little, hm, shall we say aimless. The world, though, not that horribly impressed, actually. It’s rich and well constructed, very much so, but the only real piece of originality is the mathriarcy of the Aes Sedai and the cursed male source of magic. So I’d actually say the world is pretty uninteresting but MADE interesting by Jordan’s skill as a writer, and an author who’d do a better job than him on it could indubitably make a better world of his own anyway.

   20. July 2007 @ 11:59 ( Permalink )

5. Terje Phlegmont Mendoza

   Aimless, indeed. He does seem unable to compose a plot — in that his aimlessness of plot hinders plot progression. As for the plot themselves, I usually think they’re quite good, even though he has enough of them in there to fill another couple dozen volumes.

   As for the world, sure, it might not be too original, but it is solid craftmanship and deep enough for the requirements of the story. It’s not Arda, for sure, nor Urth, but beyond the lack of originality, I don’t have any beef with it. (And, as should be known, I usually don’t care to much about originality, mainly because what one person considers to be “original” depends too much on what that person has previously read.) Naturally, his extensive borrowing from our world can be a tad transparent from time to time, too, but for the most part, I think it works fine.

   When it comes to Jordan’s general skill as a writer, I think his greatest weakness — beyond the plot progression thing (or a lack of such) — lies in his prose and his characterisations. The way he describes epecially interior design and (as has been pointed out so many times it feels redundant to do so again) women’s clothing and uniforms feelspointless as times (expect, of course, when what people wear actually matters; such as it often does with the Black Ajah or the Forsaken). He seems to have had a good idea here — that how people dress and how they see things say a lot about that person — but his execution of said idea, unfortunately, is for the most part less good.

   Related to this is the way he describes characters. His use of similies is so clichéed even I get annoyed, his descriptions of appearances get repetetive FAST, and the manners he ascribes to people — the infamous snorting, sniffing, hairtail-tugging, straightening of dresses, etc. — feels both repetetive and unnatural.

   Also, he has a tendency to ruin characters with great potential. Such as Nynaeve. Here he has a young woman, who’s used to wielding almost absolute authority, but who is unsure of herself because of her age, and who is suddenly thrown out into the world where she has to fight to keep her dignity and at least an illusion of her authority, as she meets other women who surpasses her on both counts. And he has to ruin her by exaggerating everything. Her insecurities and the way she uses unreasonably much anger to try to hide these, along with a whole set of ridiculous manners, and how she is almost unable to show even the slightest amount of humility unless she’s forced to it — these are some of the things that ruin the character for me.

   Much of the same can probably be said of most of the other characters, too, but Nynaeve is the most obvious example.

   But hey, I’ve read some 400 pages of “The Dragon Reborn” in the last week, so he can’t be all bad.

   21. July 2007 @ 02:08 ( Permalink )

6. Loki

   I think, honest to God, that if not for Nynaeve, I’d still be reading the series. (No, I’ve not finally given it up, but let’s be honest, I haven’t read a book in the regular series (I did read the extended edition of New Spring) in the last almost five years, so, whenever I do get around to reading it again, probably three-to-four-years after the final book is published at my current speed, really can’t be counted as “keep reading it”, I’ll have to start over.)

   21. July 2007 @ 15:03 ( Permalink )