Kevin's Watch

characters.

I mean, seriously. This has been my biggest turn off of the Wheel of Time so far. Jordan seems obsessed with introducing a hundred new characters in every book, and yet NEVER kills any of them! As a result we end up a billion characters and it's impossible to keep track of them because they all have similar names (RJ: "Duh, I'll name one character 'Siuan' and another 'Suian" and another 'Saiun' and another...")

For the love of God, kill someone!

And even when he DOES kill someone, they FRIGGEN COME BACK TO LIFE!

Stop ressurecting the Forsaken already!

And it's just so obvious that Moraine is coming back. Even a six year old can tell that Jordan is going to bring her back.

Grr!

So yeah, I'm kinda mad no one ever dies in these books. I mean, come on, who actually has died? Maybe a couple forsaken and a handful of minor characters?

Thank goodness for the realisitically kill-happy SRD.-jay

Don't forget the convoluted ways characters are brought back together - which are sorely needed now that Jordan finds himself with a thousand subplots and his main characters scattered in several locations... Traveling is a wondrous excuse he cooked up to cover this, probably

Oh, and as to your question: he can't kill the characters, my God, of course he can't... they must calcify first Think Nynaeve and her braid tugging, as mentioned elsewhere...

I wish he'd just kill Nynaeve....only that would mean killing Lan, which I don't want. Siuan could go, too...

Part of the reason may be that the entire story is so heavily vested in those main characters that to kill one is tantamount to saying "You've wasted your time with this one".

Just a thought

There have been some killed, though. At first he was doing well - in the first three books he killed Aginor, Balthamel, Ingtar, Be'lal, and Ishamael - but then in book six he brought three of those back to life.
He does kill some permanently, though - Sammael, Asmodean, Rahvin and Be'lal died in one go. Ingtar, as I mentioned, had a rather heroic death (and calling him just 'a minor character' isn't fair - he was a fairly important character in that particular book). Aginor did die eventually (as Dashiva).

I agree about all the Forsaken coming back, but apart from that you can't really expect him to kill off half the cast. The sort of writing he does, they usually let the, ahem, 'good guys' survive.

Quite right, especially about Ingtar. Although his appearance was brief, he certainly played an important role.

Couldn't help but sympathise with his predicament. Thought he was a great character!

--A

I just wish he could keep from telling the life stories of every little person who just happens to appear in the story to do *one* thing and then disappear... I mean, that isn't interesting. I hardly need to know their names. Gh.

Murrin wrote:There have been some killed, though. At first he was doing well - in the first three books he killed Aginor, Balthamel, Ingtar, Be'lal, and Ishamael - but then in book six he brought three of those back to life.
He does kill some permanently, though - Sammael, Asmodean, Rahvin and Be'lal died in one go. Ingtar, as I mentioned, had a rather heroic death (and calling him just 'a minor character' isn't fair - he was a fairly important character in that particular book). Aginor did die eventually (as Dashiva).

I agree about all the Forsaken coming back, but apart from that you can't really expect him to kill off half the cast. The sort of writing he does, they usually let the, ahem, 'good guys' survive.

Come on. So he's killed one character who had any purpose (this Ingtar person you say, athough I've completely forgotten about him) and he's killed a few stupid forsaken. That's it. Sometimes you really do need to just kill some people. It can make the story better, more interesting. It gets rid of the characters who simply have no purpose or meaning anymore, instead of just dragging them along for the ride.

Personally, I was just completely annoyed at the whole stupid ressurection of forsaken thing. I mean, come on Jordan, you really can't come up with anything better then to just bring back to life the stupid bad guys you've already killed?

And yeah, I don't even remember that Ingtar person. What book was he in/killed? So that's one character with any meaning who's died? Come on. Give death some meaning. It happens. Kill off one of the minor characters already. Heh. Oh well. Just a rant.-jay

Ingtar died in.. the second book, I believe.

Ingtar was the leader of the Shienarans who went with Rand on the Great Hunt. He died fighting the Seanchan, after revealing it was he who opened the gate to allow an assassin into Fal Dara (the one that tried to kill Rand (or Siuan)).
This was back in the days when RJ finished off each volume of his series in the right way, wrapping up the events of that particular volume satisfactorily (If he'd written tGH the way he writes now, it'd take him three books to reveal Padan Fain was Mordeth, he'd let us try and work out for ourselves that Ingtar was a Darkfriend, and the book itself would actually be three books, all twice as long as the original).

Murrin wrote:This was back in the days when RJ finished off each volume of his series in the right way, wrapping up the events of that particular volume satisfactorily (If he'd written tGH the way he writes now, it'd take him three books to reveal Padan Fain was Mordeth, he'd let us try and work out for ourselves that Ingtar was a Darkfriend, and the book itself would actually be three books, all twice as long as the original).

Ugh, just the thought of that is enough to make a person sick...I'm getting really tired of these crappy endings, actually...at least before, if a part of the book was bad, I knew I had an exciting ending to look forward to. Now I'm just looking forward to the end of the series

I know what you mean. But If I recall correctly, aren't the story-lines in the last couple, 9&10, running simultaneously? In other words, Crossroads is happening at the same time as Winters Heart?

Not sure how relevant it is to the topic, but it suggests to me that 11 will be the culmination (or exciting ending (we hope) ) of 9&10 together.

--A

Yeah, that's right. In CoT everything happens while Rand's doing that thing that happens in the end of WH. *nods* Which is muchly disturbing, since one kind of looked forward to finding out how that thing would affect the world. *grumbles*

Yeah, Crossroads pissed me off to no end.

The fact that the story is already going so slowly as it is, that RJ has to go BACK in time to talk more about stuff we don't need to know, is just stupid.

"I sense a great use of the One Power!"

"I sense a great use of the One Power!"

"I sense a great use of the One Power!"

"I sense a great use of the One Power!"

"I sense a great use of the One Power!"

"I sense a great use of the One Power!"

Me: SHUT UP ALREADY!!!!!!!!!

It's funny to read the customer reviews of Crossroads on Amazon or something. It's hilarious. Everyone hates it so much.-jay

I can't stand this series. I started it and enjoyed the first four books, but now I cannot keep track of who is who anymore (and I am a Tolkien-Silmarillion fan so it's not that I've got ADD). It takes too long time between the books and I have grown from being 18 to 33 in the meantime and quite frankly I don't think the characters are that believable anymore. Not because they changed (god forbid anything changed in Rand land) but because I grew up and got bored. All the women are the same, cursing the silly men out - and all the men are the same, not understanding the women. Stupid...

Doesn't he kill the bad guy in all the 5 first books the same bloody way? Only it turns out that "Damn... It wasn't REALLY the bad guy, just a pesky Forsaken" (who comes back as some other lame ass "mysterious" character later.

Can you hear the ball crashing down to the bottom of the black abyss?

Robert Jordan dropped it six books ago and it has been plummeting to the ground ever since.

I am rooting for the Forsaken to blast all these braid yankers and woolheads to kingdom come.

The One Power... pffft. All of a sudden everybody and his mother can challenge, and they are all more powerful than the next. How exciting... Zzzzz...

kevinswatch wrote:Yeah, Crossroads pissed me off to no end.

The fact that the story is already going so slowly as it is, that RJ has to go BACK in time to talk more about stuff we don't need to know, is just stupid.

"I sense a great use of the One Power!"

"I sense a great use of the One Power!"

"I sense a great use of the One Power!"

"I sense a great use of the One Power!"

"I sense a great use of the One Power!"

"I sense a great use of the One Power!"

Me: SHUT UP ALREADY!!!!!!!!!

It's funny to read the customer reviews of Crossroads on Amazon or something. It's hilarious. Everyone hates it so much.-jay

I sense a disturbance in the Force!