Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time book series is widely known for its detailed, well-planned, well-paced storytelling. Over the course of 14 works epic fantasy, he does a fantastic job of developing his characters and the world they live in slowly, without too many big, unexplained jumps. It is all quite masterful.
As good as these books are, there are some flaws. Jordan can be overly descriptive at times. Although I don't personally subscribe to this line of critique, some think that the story is too long and takes too much time to tell; there's a whole section fans have dubbed "the slog" which runs roughly from books 7 through 10.
But probably the biggest issue with these books is the sexism, which is almost constant until author Brandon Sanderson takes over authorship of the series will Book 11, after Jordan's death in 2007. It's not necessarily a prejudicial or discriminatory type of sexism; it's more like persistent stereotyping of both men and women characters, but it's definitely a running theme through The Wheel of Time books.
Sexism and the part it plays in The Wheel of Time books
Robert Jordan's sexism isn't cruel or nasty. The story has just as many female heroes as males and as many female villains as men. The Aes Sedai are an organization of powerful, strong-willed women who are the only ones who can safely use magic. There are as many women rulers as men in the world Jordan created. In this aspect, Jordan was very progressive for the time when the first Wheel of Time books were published in the early '90s.
In 1992, John Gray published the books Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. It discusses the fundamentally different ways men and women look at everything in life. Though the first four books in The Wheel of Time series were published before Gray's, it's as if Jordan had already read that book and taken it to heart.
Jordan's characters often exaggerate their thoughts about the opposite sex. It seems as if all men think all women are bullheaded and have to be steered toward the direction they need to take. Men find women confusing and stubborn and think they interfere too much. In those chapters told from the perspective of the male characters, you always feel like they're right on the edge of thinking, "Women: you can't live with them, you can't live without them."
The three main male characters — Rand, Mat, and Perrin — all wish they had the same ease with women as the other two, even though none of them are particularly bad or good at interacting with women. And the same thoughts flicker through the heads of the female characters. Men consider the women unreadable and manipulative, and the women think largely the same thing about the men. You get the point. It all becomes tiresome and repetitive as you make your way through the books. I've read them numerous times, and I've learned to skim over those parts quickly.
Other flaws include how childish many of the characters act for too long. The main characters are all childhood friends from the remote Two Rivers region, and in the books, most are in their late teens. Nynaeve is the exception, as she is in her early-to-mid twenties and holds a position of responsibility and authority in the village, but her actions and thoughts are often the most childish of all of the characters.
There is also an underlying 19th-century rural prudishness about the characters, especially those from the Two Rivers. While they tend to outgrow that mindset as the series progresses, mentally, they are uncomfortable even after they've seen much of the world outside the small village in which they were raised.
Amazon's The Wheel of Time TV show eliminates almost all of these issues. The young characters are aged up a few years and don't hold to as many outdated social standards regarding gender and the differences between the sexes. The show is modern in these areas, and it was a smart and needed change.
There is so much good about these books that readers shouldn't allow some annoying stereotyping regarding the differences between men and women to interfere with their enjoyment. The journey of reading this series is incredible and should be savored.
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