A couple of weeks ago a Youtube video popped into my feed titled: Why I Will Not Finish Wheel of Time (WoT). I’ll embed it below so you can watch it, too.
I thought I’d riff on this, as it’s something that still, 25 years on, makes my blood boil.
This is the story of how an author destroyed the thing I loved.
A Quick Primer
I’m sure most epic fantasy readers have heard of the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. In case you haven’t, here’s a quick summary.
WoT spans 14 books (plus a prequel) and was written by US author, Robert Jordan. The final three books in the series were completed by Brandon Sanderson.
Jordan initially planned the series as a trilogy, but his vision expanded into a vast tale of prophecy, power, and destiny, set in a richly detailed world where time is cyclical, and the battle between good and evil endlessly repeats.
The first book was published in 1990, and by the late 90s, Jordan had stated to fans that it would be a 6, then a 7 book series.
WoT is renown for:
- detailed descriptions of everything from women’s clothing to doorways
- an enormous cast of point of view (POV) characters (144 in total)
- multiple plot lines (subplots out the wazoo!)
- a complex, gender-based magic system, politics and history.
Jordan’s death from a genetic heart condition in 2007 left the series unfinished. Fans rejoiced when Brandon Sanderson, a rising star in fantasy, was chosen to complete the saga using Jordan’s extensive notes and outlines.
While the series is beloved by many, even hard-core fans warn of “the slog”—a stretch in the middle books (7-10) where the pace slows nothing happens, and subplots multiply like cancer cells. Though these middle books deepen the world-building, loads of people find them less gripping than the earlier and later installments.
The final three books, written by Sanderson, are credited with being tighter, faster-moving and advancing the plot towards a cataclysmic and satisfying conclusion.
Start the Jaws theme now
In the video, Jeff Palermo discusses his reasons why he quit reading at book 6, Lord of Chaos, which is the same place I also quit reading…back in 2001.
Unlike Jeff, I haven’t tried to re-read the series.
Twenty-five years later, I’m still furious at Robert Jordan for destroying the thing I loved.
So what happened?
Blovatied Prose
Cue the Jaws theme.
By book 4, The Shadow Rising, Jordan’s prose was staring to get in the way of my enjoyment of the story. For example, there’s a scene in this book where Mat Cauthon (one of the main characters) walks around the outside of a tower.
And then…? I can hear you saying.
And then nothing happens except for a description of the tower that goes on for two-and-a-half pages. That’s approximately 1000 words describing the outside of a tower. For no apparent reason other than Mat sees it.
There is no need for this bloviated, poorly edited prose.
George RR Martin could do the same in 300 words. Tolkien would probably be similar, although he might just launch into an equally irritating poem or song!
Tolkien even created a race of beings, the Ents, whose culture was to bloviate! That a professor of English Literature managed to convey this without needing pages and pages of flowery dribble should tell you something about Jordan’s lazy and indulgent prose.
Anyway, by book 4 of the series, I was starting to get bored, annoyed and frustrated with Jordan’s writing. The story was slowing down and Jordan was dicking around with fluffy words, more words, and yet more words.
I probably should say that The Shadow Rising is a doorstop of a book, with the mass market paperback coming in at 1004 pages.
Many people blame this on the fact that his wife, Harriet McDougal, was Jordan’s editor. McDougal had a well-established career as an editor for various publishing houses, including the fantasy publisher, Ace Books.
So one can’t say that she didn’t know what she was doing.
However, it’s probably accurate to say that, given that WoT was the most popular fantasy series in the world by the end of the 1990s, McDougal wasn’t going to edit her husband in the same way she’d edit a stranger.
Also, more words with detailed descriptions seemed to be what the fans wanted.
So Jordan was indulged and, I assume, very lightly edited. Which is fine, but it’s not what every fan wanted. I know, because I was active in the forums back then.
Just as many fans wanted him to get on with it.
Jordan’s Sex Problem
If you were around the WoT or fantasy forums in the late 90s or early 2000s, you’ll know that a hot topic was the lack of sex or even hint of it in the first four books.
People usually blamed the lack of sex—hinted or otherwise—on Jordan living in the Bible Belt in the US South. Maybe this was true?
I’m an Aussie, so I can’t comment on the cultural influence of Bible thumping on Jordan’s work.
Let’s be clear here.
I’m not saying that people in the forums were asking for the romantasy-type, blow-by-blow explicit scenes you’d find in a Sarah J Maas novel. Rather, people were saying: you’ve got all these late teen and early 20-something characters, surely it’s normal to expect they’re going to be mashing their pink bits at least once or twice here, old chap?
One of the main characters, Perrin, basically got married so he could bonk his heart out with Faile —however, there was not even a HINT of sex in the first four books.
Instead, what Jordan did do in Book 3 and 4 was to have Min, a character I actually liked before Jordan ruined her, crawling into Rand’s lap (Rand is the bloody annoying main character of the entire series), being spanked and “dandled” on his knee.
Tell me that’s not a weird, creepy vibe!
Obviously, Jordan was lurking in the same forums I was, because everything changed in Book 5, The Fires of Heaven. Rand (seriously, I hated him more and more every book), gets it on with not one but two women, Min and Aviendha. There’s a pool scene, if my memory is correct.
From then on we have almost every woman, everywhere swooning over Rand, including another bloody annoying character, Elaine Trakand. Rand can’t figure out who he wants to marry/shag/partner with. Eventually, he goes for a triad marriage with Aviendha, Min and Elaine. As you do.
Oh, and in later books, he gets Elaine pregnant.
So we have Jordan apparently opting for an all-or-none strategy when it comes to sex. Surely he could have just subtly hinted at it, like a kiss and a closing door, or attempted something wholesome like: After their love-making, they admired the gilded dragon patterns on the ceiling…whose description will now occupy the next 1800 words.
But no.
Bitchy Women
One of the criticisms you’ve probably heard over and over is that Jordan can’t write female characters. Jeff mentions it the video, too.
I agree.
This is my memory of Jordan’s writing of female characters: jealous, bitching, whinging. Loads of braid tugging and crossing of arms beneath breasts. Stomping of feet, purposely misunderstanding and insulting men. Silence and huffs.
And with each book it gets WORSE.
Jordan ruined Min, who wasn’t like this when we first met her, and even the Aiel warrior, Aviendha, turns in to a whiny jealous dweeb. Honestly, every female character ends up as a clone of the same premenstrual 14-year-old mean girl.
And then there is Faile and Berelaine.
OMFG. Turn up the dial to 100 here.
Faile I really started out liking when she was introduced in Book 3. As Perrin was my favourite character, I approved of him falling in love with the fiesty falcon, Faile.
But by the end of Book 4, Faile morphs into the most vile, jealous, obnoxious character in the series, aided by the introduction of Berelaine whose entire wardrobe comprises a gauze shower curtain and her nipples sticking out.
Faile’s jealousy and huffs go on for BOOKS. And books.
I just got tired and bored of this bullshit.
Which brings me to my next bugbear and one that will really piss off the fans…
Anthropological Incoherence
WoT is often heralded by fans as THE best example of worldbuilding and culture-creation in the fantasy genre.
This is utter bullshit.
Largely, the myth of Jordan’s world/culture-building prowess is the creation of 15 year old obsessive fan-hards who haven’t read enough fantasy to compare WoT to anything else.
Jordan’s worldbuilding is lazy. People mistake bloated prose and infodumps about history as the be-all and end-all of fantasy worldbuilding. These are not the hallmarks of an author skilled in creating worlds and cultures.
Yes, I’m an anthropologist, so this is a subject dear to my heart. So it’s also the most disappointing part of WoT for me and I’m finely tuned to notice.
Here’s a few examples.
Jordan’s complex, multi-cultural world has one language.
One.
That’s just lazy.
Worse, his attempts to give the illusion of linguistic difference amongst disparate peoples amount one thing: the overuse of a punctuation mark —the apostrophe.
His political systems are largely copy-paste European monarchies.
His attempt at diversifying this, the Aiel clans, fails because he didn’t care to look at how clan systems work. If he had, he could have created something truly special and immersive. Unfortunately, the Aiel end up being another European political system from feudal times.
Finally, there was one thing that annoyed me so much, I slammed Book 4 down and stopped reading for several months.
The desert-dwelling Aiel have light Caucasian skin and red hair.
Again, this is LAZY.
The Aiel have been in the Waste for 2000-3000 years. In the real human world, this is enough time for skin to produce more melanin. And if that’s too science-y for a fantasy book, then Jordan could have at least dropped in some reason as to why the Aeil weren’t dying from skin cancer at rates higher than those of white Aussies.
But no. We get nothing.
And before you tell me that there are some desert people who have red hair, YES I FREAKING KNOW. But these people also have brown or black skin.
Unlike the Aeil.
Instead, Jordan and his fans point to thousands of pages of bloviated prose as evidence of his superior world and culture-building skills. A 1000-word description of a man’s coat IS NOT worldbuilding. It’s writing style.
A character participating in a physical trial IS NOT ground-breaking culture-creation. That’s the point of most adventure-type stories. Where are the linguistic differences? The different political, marriage and kinship systems?
Where are the differing phenotypes that humans are renown for in response to environment?
Honestly, I could have written a second PhD on Jordan’s lazy, shallow, unsophistated world and its culture.
And if you are an apologist for this, you need to go read a Kate Elliott book, a Robin Hobb, a Raymond Feist, or dare I say it, Tolkien.
Plot Repetition. Another Subplot. Another POV
The last thing I want to talk about is the repeating plots, the stupid number of unnecessary subplots and that there are over 140 POV characters. If you suspect that Jordan’s creation got away from him, you’d be correct.
Over the series Rand is kidnapped over and over again. Now, Rand is supposedly the Dragon Reborn and ends up being a pretty good swordsman/warrior. So he should be able to protect himself and not be stupid enough to fall for the same trick. Nope. After the third time, it gets BORING.
I remember being annoyed in Book 4 by the repetitive plots. By Book 6, I was exhuasted. All it told me was that the series should have been wound up at Book 6.
Same with subplots and the 100+ POVs from minor characters. For example, an unnamed character sat in the corner of an inn in Book 2, picking his nose. SUDDENLY in Book 5 old Nose Picker is back, and because it’s Robert fucking Jordan, we have to hear about Nose Picker’s clothes, his buttons, his great-grandmother’s chamber pot and the rat in rafters who was a Darkfriend.
If this sounds like I’m exaggerating here, trust me when I say I’m not.
Breaking my Fantasy Heart
I forced myself through Book 5 where Perrin was absent, in the hope that Book 6 might be better.
It wasn’t. By this time, I was about to start a full time job as an anthropologist in the Northern Territory, and decided I didn’t waste my time with Wheel of Time anymore. I never proceeded more than a few chapters into Book 6.
I was devastated.
If you’ve gleaned anything from this, I hope that it’s how invested I was in WoT at one stage. I was fangirling, I was in the forums. I was hanging with bated breath on all the rumours about what would happen next.
I’d given WoT about a year of my life.
Yep, I was pissed off. Still am.
However, there was something far more insidious that WoT did to me, and for this I have not forgiven Robert Jordan.
For years afterwards, WoT made me hate fantasy.
I was so burned, so betrayed and ANGRY with WoT, I did not read another fantasy book for years. I’d been a reader of fantasy since 1979. Across the span of the 80s and 90s, I read (and collected) hundred of fantasy books.
It was 2007 before I read another fantasy novel—Armageddon’s Children by Terry Brooks. Ironically, the Sword of Shannara that I read in 1981 as a 14-year-old, was the first truly adult epic fantasy book that I read.
The same year, I went on to read Lord of the Rings.
Since 2007, I’ve recovered and read many other fantasy series, some good, some so-so. However, my anger at WoT hasn’t dimmed and I really wanted to write about it.
I want to thank Jeff Palermo for his YouTube clip, and voicing exactly what I was feeling but hadn’t been able to say.
Your Turn:
Have you had a simliar experience with WoT? Was there something that really pissed you off that I haven’t covered?
I’d love to have that conversation, so leave a comment.
Thank you for reading! End of rant.