My Questions regarding AMOL(Please don't read if you have not read the book already)

[Prasanna]

Hi Everyone,

Just completed AMOL and thought I would share my views on the same and I wanted to know your thoughts about my questions.

First and foremost , kudos to Brandon Sanderson for the job well done. Please note, my question may sound prickly but they stem from the highest regard I have for Sanderson and the epic scale that Robert Jordan created.

1) My only question is this. How could have Robert Jordan or Brandon Sanderson or any one else could not have seen this. The climax is 90% similar to David Eddings Belgariad Series.I have been keeping tabs on amazon for some reader to point it out in his reviews but no one has said anything. Am I imagining things or AWOT has finally confounded me ? In AMOL, The war was never about the Dark one but about the choice the dragon reborn takes. That much is made clear in the end. The Dark Lord also is incapable of defending himself once the Dragon Reborn makes the choice. This is what Belgarion(Belgariad Series) goes through. He has to make a choice whether to accept Torak(The Evil God) or not. It is all about choice. The only difference I see in the ending between the two series , is the epic scale that Robert Jordan involved(and more characters naturally).

To tell the truth, I kind of feel cheated. The Dark Lord is compared to Darkness while The Creator is compared to Light. So the true power must equal to the one power. They should each balance each other out. Its again all about choice. So the only way to bind the true power(and hence the dark one) is to balance it with the one power which is distributed across humans. So the dragon Reborn should have been able to stem the true power(Dark Lord) by flowing the one power towards it and balancing it, thereby removing the ability to channel among humans. Also if the book is to end the way I said, then the climax will be similar to the Mistborn Series where the preservance and Ruin are fought, the way preservance is outmatched by Ruin because Preservance has weakened itself by spreading among humans to give them the ability to make a choice. May be I am really confused. Either way I feel cheated by the ending. Or may be I have read too many books. Please let me know your thoughts on this or where I went wrong.

Please note, I am asking this question after being awake the entire night and completing AMOL for straight 12 hours. I am sure I am not coherent and I am rambling. If so, please bear with me. I hope you guys could get my point though. I have to tell you that The Last Battle was amazing and I accept that It was very well thought out and written in an awesome way, but it is the ending that troubles me. And finally I am happy the AWOT is done.

PS: Waiting for backlash from you guys.

[Voidus]

Belgariad was about Polgara's choice, not Belgarion and it was more about willpower than choice as I saw it. Obviously when enough fiction exists there are bound to be similarities between some of them but I found AMoL to be quite good actually, turning the TP against the DO was nice, but it was a bit predictable.

[Prasanna]

Sorry for the late reply,

Yes, it was also Polgara's choice. I forgot that part. The more I think about, I believe its like you said. Fantasy stories are always not about the end but about the imagination and the parts It can take us through,though it always leads to a predictable end.

[happyman]

So far, it's been less backlash, more discussion.

One thing I would have to say is that in WoT, they made it pretty clear that the decision to fight the Dark One was not just Rand's. He was the point man, as it were, but the decisions made by all the other people mattered as well. Egwene, Mat, Galad, everybody who fought and continued to fight and refused to let the Dark One control them, even to death, kept the pattern intact and the Dark One at bay. Rand represented them, but he did not make the decision for them, and I suspect he drew a large part of his strength from their decisions.

I like this difference, because in so much fiction, it's only the heroes choices that matter in the end. Not in WoT. Every two rivers archer who continued to fight, every Ashaman who didn't give in, every peasant who slowed down a trolloc, every borderlander who spit in the dark ones eye---they all brought order and strength which strengthened the pattern.

[Morsk]

I've never read Belgariad, but in WoT I think the real message is about characters who are jerks like Cadsuane and the Sea Folk, or just plain cruel like most of Seanchen culture, or Alanna forcibly bonding Rand, and so on. I always thought it was a bit creepy how cozy WoT gets with wanton cruelty by supposedly good characters, and the ending finally gives us a reason: the Dark One's evil is normal, it's in everyone, and part of what makes us human. It's nice when someone, temporarily, chooses to be a little good. But being too good too often is just unnatural. Apparently.

I'm not saying I like this. (I think it fits the series, and helps explain a lot of how senselessly cruel characters are to each other. But just as an idea, I think it's awful.) But I'm asking if this is really the same message as Belgariad, or if you're focusing on the "choice" part, and not other details of it.

[Dros]

I think happyman has it right. The choice, of course, is important, but the resistance and defense of the Pattern itself must be effective. I've never read the books you're referring to either, so it would be difficult to say how that might effect my opinion of it all. However, I think, all in all, the struggle is about choice, insofar as it allows one to resist even when hope seems lost, which seems to be somewhat different than what you're describing. The Turned wish to quit when they realize they have lost. Seems like such a simple concept for such a large epic, eh?

I will say I wasn't very surprised by the ending, but I was...very satisfied. Which is good enough for me.

Morsk, what you describe is actually what I like about the series. It's also what I like about George RR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire...the folks you pull for aren't always the nicest guys around, and they're never, ever perfect. RJ was a bit nicer to his characters, of course, but they weren't boy scouts or girl scouts either. It's almost like pulling for you're favorite football team.

[happyman]

I've never read Belgariad, but in WoT I think the real message is about characters who are jerks like Cadsuane and the Sea Folk, or just plain cruel like most of Seanchen culture, or Alanna forcibly bonding Rand, and so on. I always thought it was a bit creepy how cozy WoT gets with wanton cruelty by supposedly good characters, and the ending finally gives us a reason: the Dark One's evil is normal, it's in everyone, and part of what makes us human. It's nice when someone, temporarily, chooses to be a little good. But being too good too often is just unnatural. Apparently.

Choosing to be good is very clearly a good thing, in WoT. I think the point is more philosophical: If the possibility of evil does not exist, does the concept of good even mean anything? If Rand killed the Dark One, which was apparently philosophically possible, then apparently even the metaphysical idea of evil would cease to exist. People literally would have no choice about what they made themselves to be, any more than the Turned have no choice to be evil.

I think that, just like the bore needed to be sealed to stop evil from overwhelming the world, so it is better to choose good than evil. Having that choice is important, though.

[tipbruley]

Not trying to be rude here, but could we keep this discussion to WoT spoilers only (or update the title!). I haven't read Belgariad, but I might in the future. I'm not even sure if these are spoilers or known from the beginning.

RJ had this series made up in his mind 23 years ago so I doubt that he copied anyone. Also, I think BS probably had 0% input on what the confrontation of Rand and the Dark One truly was as that was probably all RJ.

I do think the thing that unsettled me the most was that the whole series was about choice, but then there were things like Compulsion and turning channelers to the dark side against their will that kind of negates that.

[happyman]

I do think the thing that unsettled me the most was that the whole series was about choice, but then there were things like Compulsion and turning channelers to the dark side against their will that kind of negates that.

The turning bit is subtle. I actually suspect it is foreshadowing. As far as I can tell, there is essentially torture involved to make the person turn, and I suspect, by analogy with the DO winning, that you don't actually turn until you "agree" to it. Nobody said the choice was always easy.

As for Compulsion, I would note that only the most subtle bits of compulsion leave you yourself. The kind that gets rid of all choice essentially kills you (e.g. if the weave is removed, you are dead). If you get hit with compulsion, either you are effectively dead or you are faced with much narrower set of choices. This is morally equivalent to many other non-magical situations in which I still consider choice important.

Choices are not absolute. Others choices can limit yours, sometimes quite extraordinarily.

[Prasanna]

@Morsk,@happyman are right.

Now that I had time to think about it , your guys comments make me realise of the narrow view that I had about some characters in the WOT. I wrote the post as soon as I read the book. Another thing, it has always deeply disturbed me, I mean the characterization of women in the books. And note, I read the books soon out of school and it took a long time to get over my prejudice of women. I thought it was only me who was disturbed by the people in wheel of time.

However, inspite of it, I read through all the 11 books in a single stretch. It really screwed my semester GPA though.

I need a help though guys. The books I read were small indian editions and they were really a pain for the eye. I am not sure which hardcover edition to buy for my library. There is a 1990 edition, 2011 edition and then there is some graphic novel editions, Which editions do you guys think I should go with. The problem is all the bookshops have only the small edition that I read for the first 11 books. There is also some library binding edition. Which one should I go with.Please refer me a big book atleast 8" height.

Please help guys.

Edited January 26, 2013 by Prasanna

[Aethling]

I have pointed out here a few times that Jordan and Sanderson both remind me of Eddings. The timeline even fits fairly well with Eddings finishing up the Belgariad about the time that the first WoT book comes out.