The Great Reread - General Discussion Thread

[Lance Alvein]

Well - I managed to finish my reread last night. I ended up reading The Gathering Storm and Towers of Midnight within 2.5 days overall... I guess I got a bit sucked in near the end

Edited October 16, 2012 by Lance Alvein

[Joe ST]

Well - I managed to finish my reread last night. I ended up reading The Gathering Storm and Towers of Midnight within 2.5 days overall... I guess I got a bit sucked in near the end

aye to that sentiment XD

[Riddlesinthedark]

There was a good example of the oaths in the first scenes with the Seanchan and damane. If I remember right, one of the captured Aes Sedai was commanded to say a dress was a wrong color but was unable to do so. I don't recall her body forcing her to keep trying to say the false word, she just tried and was unable to do so.

I don't think the binders will compell you to keep trying to do something if you fail at it. It will just keep you from doing it, or will make you try to do it that time.

Also, remember that the agelessness comes from the oath's settling down onto the skin.

But do differentiate "slowing*", like what Nynaeve (and Rand?) have already hit, with the agelessness.

[frozndevl]

But do differentiate "slowing*", like what Nynaeve (and Rand?) have already hit, with the agelessness.

To me, "slowing" is just the process of starting to appear younger than you are with an extended life span. Aka, I could be 80 but only look 40 since I have "slowed". The agelessness resulting from the Binder (aka Oath Rod) doesn't stop the slowing, but adds the ageless look due to the tightened skin, and will artificially reduce a channelers lifespan from say upper limit of 600, to upper limit 400.

[dj26792]

Well I'm pretty sure I can't keep this up but on the morning of day 2 I'm now in the early parts of The Great Hunt.

This is a surprisingly hard slog I think I've read them a touch too recently to really do another re-read but at the same time I really need to do it. I also only have very little time, which makes the reading harder.

[Aethling]

Finished. The Sanderson books do read much, much more quickly than the others.

[Telcontar]

Not finished yet, about halfway through ToM. Did anyone else ever have the feeling in all those books that you hoped for the characters to act differently although knowing exactly what they were going to do?

One example is all that information they don't share with each other...

[Lady_Yasha]

There's at least one example of an Oath breaking when conditions changed

Verin swore to "serve the Great Lord until the hour of her death." One hour before dying, the Oath broke and she could tell Egwene everything.

On a related note, what do you think happens when an Oath requires you to do something impossible. For example, if Thevara had commanded Lina to fly, what would have happened?

As we've seen Aes Sedai held by the Three Oaths can still lie if it is a lie they believe as truth. I imagine if someone knows an act is impossible they can supersede the Oath because they believe flying is impossible.

"To serve the Great Lord" - Thevara is not the Dark One, and Lina would know this. Maybe if Thevara had said, "The Dark One commanded you to do this..." she could still use the loophole of believing that Thevara ordered her to do it and not the Dark One.

The Oaths, as far as I've gathered, work on subjective rationale rather than objective fact.

Edited January 5, 2013 by Lyrebon

[Lady_Yasha]

I'll allow all of you to bask in its glory a day early:

[frozndevl]

I'll allow all of you to bask in its glory a day early:

Very cool. Only reason I'm not jealous is I don't have time to read it until this weekend.

Also, I have officially finished my reread with New Spring!

[Telcontar]

Yesterday I went to bed and I had no Wheel-of-Time-book to read. Well, I still had New Spring" but I didn't count that as essential to the Reread. I had already started it because AMoL was sold out in Germany on Wednesday, and I had to wait for amazon to deliver it. So I'm halfway through, but in my mind, the Reread was finished yesterday afternoon, with the last words of AMoL.

I loved this Reread.

I started at the beginning of July, intending to read about two books per month, and it worked out pretty well. During half a year I travelled along Rand, Mat and Perrin, often hoping things would turn out differently even though I knew what was going to happen. I'm not one of those long-time fans, I only took up EotW in 2008. But still I grew quickly to love the books (probably including even CoT) and since 2008 I've read them three times (except for AMoL of course). But this Reread was special, because I eventually got to know how everything ended.

I was sad that it was over, I was impressed by the last book, which turned out really well, I was glad that BS took his time and spent five years to give us that ending and I was thankful to Robert Jordan who gave us these wonderful books in the first place.

I'm already wondering when to do the next Reread. Because it will be quite a different experience, with the actual end in mind.

[dj26792]

Well just before dinner yesterday I finished my reread and immediately after dinner dove into aMoL which I finished before I got any sleep at a time early this morning. (... this is all Australian time, and I don't know how long it took me to finish because I had no way to check the time in my room my phone having been left at the other end of the house.)

Good reread, good book, slightly disappointed that volunteering on a childrens camp kept me from finishing my reread on time, but it was worth it, real life aside, it was an incredibly experience to read all of the books so close together, and finally get an ending, even if I haven't been into the series as long as many others. (barely 2 years)