The Wheel of Time Crosstalk: Did we enjoy reading The Eye of the World?

COREY: Okay, so I guess I undersold the similarities. But I will stress that as the series goes on, there are fewer and fewer similarities. But yeah, if you’re trying to hook people on your 14-book series, no small commitment, it makes sense that you’d want to hook readers with something familiar before you get seriously out there with the plot.

As to your question, five books in and The Eye of the World is probably still my favorite book. The second book, The Great Hunt, is also pretty solid, but as the series goes on the books have a tendency to drag. You mentioned wanting to hear more about the Aes Sedai and other aspects of “Randland,” and I can assure you, you’re going to get all the information you want. I thought Eye struck a nice balance between plot momentum and exposition. Further on in the series it becomes the opposite, so enjoy it while you can.

If I had to complain about one aspect of Eye, it was that basically everyone has a super power, which is sort of convenient. The odds of five friends from the same village all having super powers is pretty ludicrous to someone raised on stuff like the X-Men, where they manifest randomly. Still, Jordan is a clever enough writer to give himself an out, explaining that everything is a product of eponymous Wheel of Time; “the Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills,” after all. It’s a superb excuse for all number of plot coincidences, and Jordan relies on your belief in it to advance his story.

I’d also like to mention, new readers should pay attention to virtually everyone you meet. Most, if not all characters return at some point, with varying degrees of importance to the story later on. That farm girl that flirted with Rand over dinner one night on the road? She attempts to become an Aes Sedai. That random soldier Mat plays dice with? Well he just might end up being a powerful religious prophet. Everyone has a story to tell in Jordan’s world, and he spends a lot of time making sure those stories get told.

So what differences did you notice between Jordan’s world and Tolkien’s?

DAN: For one thing, Jordan’s story seems more cynical. I mean, it’s not that cynical — we’re not in George R.R. Martin territory — but there’s more moral ambiguity here than in Middle-earth, where the dividing line between good guy and bad guy is pretty clear, give or take Boromir.

Take Moiraine. She’s the Gandalf figure, but Gandalf was trusted by pretty much all of our heroes, and quickly slid into the role of protective magical grandpa. But even after she saves their lives I-don’t-know-how-many times, the lead characters are very hesitant to trust Moiraine, so deep do their prejudices against Aes Sedai run. That goes double, or maybe triple, for Nynaeve, who seems hostile to almost everyone she meets, Moiraine most of all.

Speaking of Moiraine and Nynaeve, another big difference is that The Wheel of Time has female characters. The Lord of the Rings had female characters, of course, but not many of real importance, and they’re mostly cordoned off in discrete sections of the story. But here, Moiraine, Nyaeneve and Egwene are all characters whose perspectives are valued or who drive the plot forward, or both, and I know there are more important female characters on the way (it feels like Jordan is setting up Elayne for a bigger role down the line). That seems like a deliberate response to LOTR, which has a boy adventurers vibe.

As for the characters themselves, I liked them. I don’t know if I fell in love with any of them; I think the most intriguing for me was Moiraine, who maintained a mysterious distance, and I got a huge kick out of Loial the Ogier, the Ent-ish creature I mentioned before. He was cracking me up, with his long stories and accidentally throwing shade at the human race. I want a Funko of him yesterday.

But by and large, the characters seemed a little…archetypal, is maybe the nice way of saying it? Rand has a case of Chosen One syndrome: he’s vital to the plot but kind of bland. Egwene is our ingénue, Mat our lovable rogue…my favorite of the Emond’s Fielders was probably Perrin; I liked the contrast between his intimidating exterior and thoughtful nature.

What do you think of the characters and the characterization? Who are your favorites?