Fair warning the next 3-4 books are the biggest slog, almost enough to kill your interest in the series.
It has one of the most, I'm not sure if intentional, accurate representations of women I've ever read in a book series.
Yes and no. One of my biggest complaints for the series is that every single woman is exactly the same, with perhaps a minor exception for Min and Bridget. It's like every other woman is just based on his nagging wife.
In that sense, it's probably pretty accurate just because he had such a detailed study. But none of the characters are anything at all like any of the women in my family, or some of my friends. My old boss? Absolutely spot on. 95% of all waitresses I've ever worked with? Also pretty accurate. However, they still had a lot more variability and differences than the women in WoT.
The closest to an actual strong (emotionally stable and capable) woman is probably Bridget. But the women spend most of the time trying to get her to act more like them, lol. Again, accurate for how those type of women are. But I'm pretty sure he was just writing Bridget as a man.
The few women I've known who behave pretty much exactly like his wife I mean the characters in the books, were rarely very capable at all. Usually so overloaded with gossip that there was no chance they could actually accomplish something, or playing queen of the universe with someone else's money. If you put a group of those women in charge of something it would fail within the year, not last a few thousand.
My vote for most accurate representation of women would probably go to the Dragon's of Pern series. Since the author was a woman, she portrays a lot of different women pretty accurately, and still managed to create strong capable men, in a meritocracy, who had to deal with conniving women and their schemes and fix their problems. Personality and character interaction isn't nearly as much focus as it is in WoT though. Even the books which focus on female protagonists, their primary adversarial issues always seem to be other conniving women. It's also pretty clear with it's representation of both "strong" (emotionally stable and capable) women, and morally upstanding men, being rare and uncommon.
It gets better again after that, and once you get to the Brandon Sanderson books, it's really the highlight of the series. But yeah, I ended up putting down book 10 for a long time as well.
I forget exactly which one, but one of the books in that stretch has virtually nothing at all happen until the last couple of pages. As boring as it was to get through that, looking back I marvel at Jordan's ability to write that many coherent pages without, even accidentally, moving the plot forwards one single bit.
The closest is Birgitte, but there's another, somewhat unpalatable dimension to that which is only really hinted at.
Some of the female villains, especially the female Forsaken, don't have that attitude towards men specifically, but that's only because they all have that attitude towards literally everyone else, women included.
Avhienda shows respect to Rand, and Elayne is an insufferable twit, but because she's sort of naive and silly rather than because she treats men poorly.
Even better. Once Brandon Sanderson takes over, the story gets much more streamlined and wraps up towards a conclusion instead of just meandering around endless characters and plotlines.
I'd argue that Jordan did Mat dirty first. Marrying him to the person he ended up married to was always going to reduce his independence and his importance in the story. There was no way he couldn't end up being second fiddle to her.
Dumai's Wells will always be the peak of the series
"Asha'man, kill!" may be the only part of this cluster fuck I look up if they make it that far and I'm fully expecting it to be a damp squib at this point.
Fair warning the next 3-4 books are the biggest slog, almost enough to kill your interest in the series.
Yes and no. One of my biggest complaints for the series is that every single woman is exactly the same, with perhaps a minor exception for Min and Bridget. It's like every other woman is just based on his nagging wife.
In that sense, it's probably pretty accurate just because he had such a detailed study. But none of the characters are anything at all like any of the women in my family, or some of my friends. My old boss? Absolutely spot on. 95% of all waitresses I've ever worked with? Also pretty accurate. However, they still had a lot more variability and differences than the women in WoT.
The closest to an actual strong (emotionally stable and capable) woman is probably Bridget. But the women spend most of the time trying to get her to act more like them, lol. Again, accurate for how those type of women are. But I'm pretty sure he was just writing Bridget as a man.
The few women I've known who behave pretty much exactly like
his wifeI mean the characters in the books, were rarely very capable at all. Usually so overloaded with gossip that there was no chance they could actually accomplish something, or playing queen of the universe with someone else's money. If you put a group of those women in charge of something it would fail within the year, not last a few thousand.My vote for most accurate representation of women would probably go to the Dragon's of Pern series. Since the author was a woman, she portrays a lot of different women pretty accurately, and still managed to create strong capable men, in a meritocracy, who had to deal with conniving women and their schemes and fix their problems. Personality and character interaction isn't nearly as much focus as it is in WoT though. Even the books which focus on female protagonists, their primary adversarial issues always seem to be other conniving women. It's also pretty clear with it's representation of both "strong" (emotionally stable and capable) women, and morally upstanding men, being rare and uncommon.
Well I've heard that's the best way to write a "strong capable woman".
Almost? I got 2 chapters into book 10 and realized that I could just no longer bring myself to give even half a damn anymore.
Too. Many. Fucking. Characters. I swear to Christ it felt like each book just doubled the amount of characters I was expected to keep track of.
EDIT: Replied to the wrong comment before. Sorry Jack.
It gets better again after that, and once you get to the Brandon Sanderson books, it's really the highlight of the series. But yeah, I ended up putting down book 10 for a long time as well.
I forget exactly which one, but one of the books in that stretch has virtually nothing at all happen until the last couple of pages. As boring as it was to get through that, looking back I marvel at Jordan's ability to write that many coherent pages without, even accidentally, moving the plot forwards one single bit.
Yes, Nynaeve. I won't spoil how or when
The closest is Birgitte, but there's another, somewhat unpalatable dimension to that which is only really hinted at.
Some of the female villains, especially the female Forsaken, don't have that attitude towards men specifically, but that's only because they all have that attitude towards literally everyone else, women included.
Avhienda shows respect to Rand, and Elayne is an insufferable twit, but because she's sort of naive and silly rather than because she treats men poorly.
Egwene is pure evil, though.
Accurate. Dumb enough to assume a vision showing her children alive and well automatically means she will be too.
and then it gets better? As good as 1-5, less so or even better?
Even better. Once Brandon Sanderson takes over, the story gets much more streamlined and wraps up towards a conclusion instead of just meandering around endless characters and plotlines.
Sanderson does Mat dirty. He clearly doesn't grok the character.
Other than that pretty good at finishing someone else's work
I'd argue that Jordan did Mat dirty first. Marrying him to the person he ended up married to was always going to reduce his independence and his importance in the story. There was no way he couldn't end up being second fiddle to her.
I wouldn't say it gets as good or better than books 1-6.
Dumai's Wells will always be the peak of the series, and it never gets as good as that ever again.
But he most definitely recovers it from the chore it is by book 10. You can kind of speed read 7-10 and not miss much.
"Asha'man, kill!" may be the only part of this cluster fuck I look up if they make it that far and I'm fully expecting it to be a damp squib at this point.
There is no way that scene will translate into any semblance of awesome. Can you see the current wokefest making women seem impotent?
Probably some co-op nonsense or the other at best.
Besides I can't get into emo looking Rand, never mind the women with beards into yesterday, and fat cojones in every scene.