Thing is, Renna's a minor character. If she'd gotten away, it could have changed the course of the narrative; she would have told the Seanchan army where Tuon is (since Mat kidnapped Tuon at the end of the previous book), and that would -- eventually; at this pace it would have happened in the next novel -- have meant much more severe problems for him and his getaway plans. (Though even then, it really would only have sped up the timetable for the trouble he's in already.) As it stands, after her death Mat is still running away, just with one less prisoner to look after, and a bit more angst about having had a woman shot.
Horribly verbose: yes. There's lots of stuff I don't list, mind you; to use that chapter as an example, it starts with Mat taking Tuon and Selucia (Tuon's maid) into town so they can go shopping for dress fabrics (no, I'm not kidding), since the stuff provided to them by the people they're hiding out with is pretty crappy, and Tuon, being a high-and-mighty noble, isn't okay with that. And Mat sees people who aren't there (but this happens once and stops, and is never explained), and then he briefly loses sight of the two of them, but finds them in a store, and then they go back and find out that Egeanin's been stabbed, and one of the other people with them Heals Egeanin, before Mat and a few others chase off after Renna. But there's no point in listing most of that, because it isn't actually important. Or Mat's first chapter: it spends a chunk of time filling in details of his escape that were cooler when they weren't specified, but also includes lengthy descriptions of the aftermath of a riot in Ebou Dar, and then all the people in the traveling circus they're hiding out with, and how these people don't like those people and Mat's paying the circus leader lots of money to not run away just yet (since that would attract the eyes of the searchers), etc, etc, etc; but ultimately, all that is just exposition, that doesn't move the story forward in the least.
Actually, it reminds me of an incident from one of the first RPGs I played in. Our characters were going to go talk to somebody elsewhere in the city. The GM said, "Okay, you go downstairs" -- and we all tensed up, because the only reason for her to start detailing the steps of the journey was if something was going to interrupt it (probably something bad). As it turns out, it was just a random error on her part; she didn't mean to do that. But it illustrates the principle that unless something's going to interfere, it's almost never worth your time to fill in all the middle bits of routine narrative.
This book, however, is wall-to-wall middle bits, without any exciting interruptions to justify it.
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yati
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Date: 2011-07-19 06:41 pm (UTC)Horribly verbose: yes. There's lots of stuff I don't list, mind you; to use that chapter as an example, it starts with Mat taking Tuon and Selucia (Tuon's maid) into town so they can go shopping for dress fabrics (no, I'm not kidding), since the stuff provided to them by the people they're hiding out with is pretty crappy, and Tuon, being a high-and-mighty noble, isn't okay with that. And Mat sees people who aren't there (but this happens once and stops, and is never explained), and then he briefly loses sight of the two of them, but finds them in a store, and then they go back and find out that Egeanin's been stabbed, and one of the other people with them Heals Egeanin, before Mat and a few others chase off after Renna. But there's no point in listing most of that, because it isn't actually important. Or Mat's first chapter: it spends a chunk of time filling in details of his escape that were cooler when they weren't specified, but also includes lengthy descriptions of the aftermath of a riot in Ebou Dar, and then all the people in the traveling circus they're hiding out with, and how these people don't like those people and Mat's paying the circus leader lots of money to not run away just yet (since that would attract the eyes of the searchers), etc, etc, etc; but ultimately, all that is just exposition, that doesn't move the story forward in the least.
Actually, it reminds me of an incident from one of the first RPGs I played in. Our characters were going to go talk to somebody elsewhere in the city. The GM said, "Okay, you go downstairs" -- and we all tensed up, because the only reason for her to start detailing the steps of the journey was if something was going to interrupt it (probably something bad). As it turns out, it was just a random error on her part; she didn't mean to do that. But it illustrates the principle that unless something's going to interfere, it's almost never worth your time to fill in all the middle bits of routine narrative.
This book, however, is wall-to-wall middle bits, without any exciting interruptions to justify it.