It's amazing how much that makes me not to want to read this series, instantly.
Which is entirely fair. I remember being annoyed by the gender relations when I first read it in high school; by the time I had the perspective to see what was being said thematically, I had enough attachment to the story overall that it didn't make me stop reading. But when people ask me now whether they should pick it up, I generally say no.
Having said that: I'm cautiously optimistic about the TV series, because any adaptation is a chance to improve things. Or screw them up -- but since they're apparently positioning Moiraine, the story's (female) Gandalf figure, as the main character in the first season, they're already making a change that could be quite positive.
re: Eddings -- I let him get away with a lot because his characters were snarky in ways I found amusing. And I'll also grant that he occasionally has manipulative men, as well, which Jordan tends to lack. But yes: in general, that dynamic is obnoxious.
re: the link -- yeah, many of my interal links died when I moved the blog. I went back and fixed the links in the index post (and ditto for my DWJ re-read); that was about all I could motivate myself to do.
Did this series start in any way as Arthuriana?
Yes and no. You get a number of Arthuriana echoes in the names -- Rand al'Thor echoes "Arthur;" his mother was named Tigraine; there's also an Elayne and a Morgase and so forth, and the center of power for female magic users is Tar Valon -- but the story itself is mostly not Arthurian. What's really going on is the idea of the Wheel of Time itself, where things come around again and again in different forms, so you get lots of fragmentary mythological references floating around in the setting. Mat has a lot of Odinic imagery, for example, and other characters echo some Judeo-Christian demonology, and there's a character named Birgitte who's an archer (riffing off the folk etymology for "Brigit" as "fiery arrow"). Fans used to play "spot the reference" while waiting for the next book. :-P Nearly all of it was European or Near Eastern references, though, because Jordan seems to have not had much familiarity with non-western mythology.
Out of curiosity, what led you to this post today? I've suddenly had a rush of comments here, which is odd on a post this old.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
yati
no subject
Date: 2019-03-07 09:17 pm (UTC)Which is entirely fair. I remember being annoyed by the gender relations when I first read it in high school; by the time I had the perspective to see what was being said thematically, I had enough attachment to the story overall that it didn't make me stop reading. But when people ask me now whether they should pick it up, I generally say no.
Having said that: I'm cautiously optimistic about the TV series, because any adaptation is a chance to improve things. Or screw them up -- but since they're apparently positioning Moiraine, the story's (female) Gandalf figure, as the main character in the first season, they're already making a change that could be quite positive.
re: Eddings -- I let him get away with a lot because his characters were snarky in ways I found amusing. And I'll also grant that he occasionally has manipulative men, as well, which Jordan tends to lack. But yes: in general, that dynamic is obnoxious.
re: the link -- yeah, many of my interal links died when I moved the blog. I went back and fixed the links in the index post (and ditto for my DWJ re-read); that was about all I could motivate myself to do.
Did this series start in any way as Arthuriana?
Yes and no. You get a number of Arthuriana echoes in the names -- Rand al'Thor echoes "Arthur;" his mother was named Tigraine; there's also an Elayne and a Morgase and so forth, and the center of power for female magic users is Tar Valon -- but the story itself is mostly not Arthurian. What's really going on is the idea of the Wheel of Time itself, where things come around again and again in different forms, so you get lots of fragmentary mythological references floating around in the setting. Mat has a lot of Odinic imagery, for example, and other characters echo some Judeo-Christian demonology, and there's a character named Birgitte who's an archer (riffing off the folk etymology for "Brigit" as "fiery arrow"). Fans used to play "spot the reference" while waiting for the next book. :-P Nearly all of it was European or Near Eastern references, though, because Jordan seems to have not had much familiarity with non-western mythology.
Out of curiosity, what led you to this post today? I've suddenly had a rush of comments here, which is odd on a post this old.