Let's Read: The Wheel of Time discussion

Beware of Spoilers. This post is for discussing the whole book once you've finished.

Mostly Characters...

Lan is probably my favorite character. General bad ass with mysterious past and potential due to him being the king of the Malkieri. A few cool / interesting quotes. Layered like a onion.


Loial is probably number 2. I've always been a fan of the scholar / recorder types in these sort of books.

I'm a fan of Moiraine, Nyneave, and Perrin.


The chapters with the Green Man were overall badass. Killing the forsaken and then sprouting up as a huge oak after dying were some cool passages.


Mat being the trickster should be good for later books but him being cursed was a bit annoying. I like Thom as well but don't feel he is as interesting after a 2nd reading of book 1. Like he should have known more.

Rand is a good blank slate type character with some good potential. They mention it in the later chapters (him healing Bella) but there a few more times throughout the book that he got lucky (and eventually sick and better real fast)

Delving into the Lord of the Rings or the hero's journey parallels might have been a good report back in the days.

(Padan Fain = gollum, the ways or shadar logoth = moria, fades = nazgul. Ogier = Ents, etc)



I can semi see why people might complain about this. A billion pages to tell a story that is overall not super original seems like too much effort.

But besides some character traits, and metaphors seeming to be forced, I thought it was a well built world and story. (i am semi cheating though by listening to the audio book and supplementing that with rereading sections that interest me).

I like Lan as well. He's another lotr parallel. Like Strider he's a ranger with incredible skill, uncrowned king, sort of a doomed/bittersweet romance w Nyneve set-up. Perhaps we'll see him become King and their relationship work out because I could see Nyneve as a Queen.

Loial is tied with Perrin for my favorite characters so far. Loial because he's just sort of refreshing and he likes books and boardgames. I love how he's always talking about how he's so rambunctious for an Ogier but seems so tame.

At the start, I liked Perrin because his character description reminded me of Caden. His wolf story seems like it will interesting.

The fights with the Green man were some of my favorite moments. I'll have to go back and find the quote but he like literally exploded the earth through the dude. It was pretty cool.

I also loved the chapter where they were in The Ways. That held my interest. Reminded me of something from a Gaiman book a bit.

I agree with your comment on Rand. I feel about him about they same as I felt about Harry in the Potter books. Also, I enjoyed how every girl he met was just the prettiest thing ever to him. That said, there's something about the women characters that I find unappealing but I can't quite put my finger on it. It's feels like they are all kind of gruff/too serious or something but maybe that's a symptom of the world they live in. Also, it could be that I'm not a fan of the woman narrator of the audio book. I wish it was just narrated by one person.

I did a combination of reading the book and listening to audiobook.

Sometimes it's difficult for me to follow the huge history dumps that he gives all of a sudden and I'll have to reread them. I noticed he spends a lot of time describing little minute details (like down to the threading in someones clothes) but I kinda liked it.

More later..

Also, in the beginning, I was reeeally excited for Beltine or whatever the festival was called. It took me back to reading I really thought we were going to experience some festival and then the action would break out there. So I was pretty upset it didnt happen. I'll never forgive the dark one for ruining my first Belltine.

I liked the book, it feels like a journey. At this point I'm a little annoyed by most of the characters at least slightly. I like Lan, Loial, and Perrin the most so far because they seem to be the most capable and rationale. Lan is just a general badass so far. Loial reminds me a lot of Sazed from the Mistborn series, I like how he's reserved, booky, how the elders would not approve of his so far very reasonable actions. I think it's going to be really really funny or awesome when he finally does something that makes everyone stand there mouths agape (plus cats). Perrins got to be my favorite, because of how he outwardly handles himself despite his inward ability to process things at times. His wolf powers are kind of great, and interesting, like how they are some sort of ancient power. Rand's got potential, I'm sure he'll pan out and be a favorite.

The women character thing is understandable.

But i semi feel that most of RJ's characters (in the first book) are 2D, which isn't that big of a deal but sort of is for what you are investing into. Most of the characters remind me of an interesting but generic role playing archetypes.

He also has this weird, (bad) repetitive, not value added, way of describing certain character traits (perrin and rand always saying the other is better with women, women hair tugging, boys vs girls type discussion, etc)

It's like RJ wanted to flesh out the women side of fantasy but over did it.



I did find it interesting when perrin and egwene were hanging out with the tinkers. It reminded me of past experiences with friends dating the "wrong" type. A bit 1 sided since we don't see egwene's side of things.

Yea, story/history dumps can be jarring to the story flow.

I've always had this idea where I wanted to create an electronic book set up like a wiki page. If you had interests in something, it would link to a page with basic background which might have links for deeper reading. (you could have bookmarks for later as well so that it would not interrupt the primary story).


Ha, on the belltine experience. This reminds me of the first time we roleplayed. The festival leading to the goblin invasion.

Rand being compared to Harry is a good comparison.

Blank slate, "chosen one", sometimes bad ass, sometimes a big baby, generally lucky or very fortunate on the way events pan out, etc.


I suppose making a main character/narrator for a series can be tough to get just right especially in a expansive world that you are trying to develop naturally through the eyes of a character also experiencing these new things.


Probably another more in depth book report you could do on what makes a good main character. What traits are bad (and annoying) and what traits help progress the overall story and character development.

About the electronic book thing, my Kindle Paperwhite kind of does that. If I'm connected to wifi I can press down on a word and it will take me to a book description or wiki summary. It helped me keep characters straight when reading the last Game of Thrones book.