This series just keeps getting better

anons here warned me about a drop off in quality but so far its straight FIYAH. lets discuss the best fantasy series on the planet ITT stay litty my nitties.

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Ok, you start. Or is this thead advertisement?

Is it really that good? He lived and died in my town

I like fantasy and I stopped reading during the 2nd book. I can't imagine how bad it gets if the quality continues to drop. I never understood why this series is so popular. I don't like Harry Potter but I can at least see why that is popular, The Wheel of Time just felt like the generic fantasy that I usually like but of lower quality.

Im really enjoying it it started out as a feminist LOTR clone but then the characters grow more powerful and the story branches out. Im 5 books in and so far its great.
how do you think the quality dropped? IMO book one was the weakest and it got better after that.

Why do you call it a LOTR clone?

the first book reads like a complete LOTR ripoff
>idyllic remote village thats isolated from happenings in the bigger fantasy world
>mage comes and tells them bad shits to go down
>assembles party who reluctantly leave their little farm paradise for the first time in their life
>on their travels to the next big city they get hunted by shadowy evil creatures
I mean one of the main characters is named perrin so even the names sound kinda similar. but it opens up a lot after book 1 and the story comes into its own.

that title belongs to harry potter

> I stopped reading during the 2nd book
The ending of the 2nd book is the best part. If you don't get interested, nothing more of this series will.

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looking to start this series is it really feminist?

This is the most superficial shit ever. I hope that's not all you think the LOTR is.

no not really feminist. the women are always bitching about how stupid and useless the men are and the men are bitching about how crazy the women are. I think the characters are really charming and its one of the points I really like about the series so far. the women all go crazy over some dude or the other and there is even a sloot-section of the mages. I would really recommend it.
the first book of WoT reads like a carbon copy of the beginning of LOTR. you could change out "the shire" for "two rivers" and "hobbits" for "farmers" and it would read very similar. but it changes a lot after book 1. and fwiw LOTR is my fav fantasy book of all times but the parallels are undeniable IMO.

Again, this is superficial shit. Try looking at the substance of the story, the underlying philosophy. They couldn't be any more different. You could say every single fantasy in existence is a copy of LOTR with your standard. It starts in a village and one of the characters name starts with P. What a fucking ripoff.

I'm convinced people only call it a Lord of the Rings ripoff because they've heard other people say it. There's no thinking involved.

the substance of the story and underlying philosophy come into play later in both series. the beginning is ridiculously similar in WoT and LOTR. and no not every fantasy book starts out in a remote village, with mage showing up, warning about bad shit about to go down and a bunch of reluctant heroes forming a party to travel to the next big town where they get attacked by shadowy evil creatures along the way.

I am listening to it on audiobook and it is fine to have on in the background like an episodic radio play. I can't imagine dedicating the time to sit down and read 14 1000 page books of this stuff though.

i have never read anything about WoT before I started reading it so I wasnt even aware that this is a common criticism. its just painfully obvious when you read those books that book 1 of WoT is a complete LOTR ripoff. not sure what else to tell you.

I enjoy it, it's mad comfy, has interesting lore, lots of neat foreshadowing, nice references here and there, some characters you love, some characters you love to see die etc. It's a big investment but it's my favourite fantasy series

I agree with the other user, the first fourth of the Eye of the World was a LOTR clone, and it was on purpose done so by Jordan. If you look at what kind of fantasy was published around that time, you'll know why he start it off like that. I get your point and I agree, but at least the imagery and starting scenes were copying the Fellowship on purpose. The Two Rivers, the Shire, the festival, Bilbo's party, Gandalf the Grey sending Frodo on a quest with his friends following him, Moiraine taking Rand on a quest with his friends, Bree, Camelyn, getting chased by Nazgul, getting chased by Murdraal etc etc. After Caemlyn, the similarities end, and the series starts coming into its own.

I'm not saying every fantasy starts out in a remote village, I'm saying your standard of telling what constitutes similarity involves superficial or surface level details like the fact the a story starts out in a village or that a group of people get attacked by evil beings. You're looking at a generic settings like a house or village and a call to adventure as if that constitutes a ripoff and you're ignoring significant differences when they don't support your conclusion.

Madam Bovary is practically a Anna Karenina ripoff. They both contain a female main character and they cheat on their husband and end up killing themselves.

>significant differences
like what?
as this user points out the similarities are a lot stronger than just overall "call to adventure" story structure stuff.

I never said it's a ripoff, can you read? And of course the similarities will be superficial, when we're talking about the opening scene and the first 100 pages of a 12k page series. This doesn't mean that he didn't start similarly to LOTR, and he had to if he wanted to get published. Jordan himself said, essentially, that that he purposely started the series in "familiar" territory to make people feel at home before he took it off in his own direction. We're not talking about the series compared to the Lord of the Rings, we're talking about the beginning of the Eye of the World compared to the start of the Fellowship. You won't see these comparisons mentioned by people who've read the Wheel of Time, but they exist in the Eye of the World (which is the starting and ending point of many readers.)

yeah this we're talking about book 1 in a 14 book series. obviously WoT is completely different from LOTR (duh) but the beginnings are extremely similar.

Moraine isn't an old man and Gandalf doesn't have a warder. The magic in general is completely different and non of the characters are acquainted with Moraine prior to their meeting at the inn. Pippen isn't a blacksmith, none of the characters in the LOTR own an inn, and Bilbo isn't a master swordsman. Nyneave has no equivalent character in LORD and the black riders in LOTR don't attack anyone in the Shire and they don't have faces. I could go on.

You called it a "LOTR clone" and then walked that back and started talking about how only the beginning is similar or a ripoff but even that's not true.

Exactly, and not by accident. Jordan didn't have some multi-book deal or something, if the Eye flopped it was game over. You can tell that he was prepared for that as well, with how he ended it. Dune might be a better comparison for the Wheel of Time, but I can't say that with confidence. I really like WoT and how it's written. Even the slower parts (which are mostly slow because they deal with storylines that get resolved over the course of multiple books, which didn't happen before Crown of Swords.) are nice and comfy to me. For others they feel like a chore, understandably.
By "then" you mean in the very next sentence when I clarified that I was referring to the beginning of it, and how it was done in order to actually get published instead of of a lack of talent and creativity? I wasn't the user you were arguing with earlier and I don't know what he meant by LOTR clone so I said that yes, I get that, and I specify that imo you can only say that for the beginning. Like I said, Jordan himself was quoted admitting the same thing. And yeah, it's totally true. We listed the similarities. You're talking about the philosophy of a book but that develops over the course of the series. There wasn't any such philosophy in the first 100 pages.

>Moraine isn't an old man and Gandalf doesn't have a warder. The magic in general is completely different and non of the characters are acquainted with Moraine prior to their meeting at the inn. Pippen isn't a blacksmith, none of the characters in the LOTR own an inn, and Bilbo isn't a master swordsman. Nyneave has no equivalent character in LORD and the black riders in LOTR don't attack anyone in the Shire and they don't have faces. I could go on.
Now these are superficial differences.

I'm glad you agree because as I said, you're ignoring a plethora of evidence which meets your own standard when it doesn't support your conclusion.

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>Bilbo isn't a master swordsman
bilbo and tam are literally the only ones who ever left their remote villages to adventure and come back with awesome loot, if anything youre making those parallels seem more stronger by pointing out really superficial differences lol

But apparently you know better than the authors.

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And a last one.

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This doesn't even support what you're saying. He said he likes to take a theme and twist or subvert it. How do you twist and subvert something that in the end remains a similarity? You can stop spamming me with irrelevant quotes now. Sanderson didn't write the first book.

ur a retard

Fantasy is actually for people who don’t get laid.

Not even joking. If a Chad with 10/10 facial characteristics was into fantasy a woman wouldn’t fuck him :3

Sperg-tastic response. Sanderson finished the series, for all his flaws and how he sucks at writing dialogue and kinda butchered some characters (Mat in the Gathering Storm, although he was better with him later, Aviendha was like a totally different character, and he wrote Nynaeve and Moiraine out of the series) he still had a good understanding of what Jordan wanted to write. I'm out.

Chads really missing out on some top tier escapsim though

>He said he likes to take a theme and twist or subvert it
Yeah, which he did once they left Caemlyn and the series started coming into its own.

>contrarian user argues about a common criticism of WoT and how its really not true
>gets BTFO
>keeps arguing
>gets BTFO with quote from the author who admits he copy pasted LOTR in the beginning
>keeps arguing
>keeps getting BTFO
what is with some anons that they just have to be contrarian and argue the most retarde shit over and over again? seriously dont get it.

there isn't enough braid-tugging in this thread

>tfw ywn have a cute overpowered sorceress smooth her skirt and call you a wool-headed lummox
why even live senpai?

It wasn't even intended as a criticism of Jordan's creativity or a knock against the whole series (we're talking about 100-200 pages out of 12000.) It's just what was getting published in the late 80's - early 90's, he minimised the risk of not getting a 2nd deal by starting the book like that. I don't blame user though, because most of the time you get some guy that read the first book or the first half of it (the Eye has been released as 2 separate volumes as well) and write off the entire series. There's legitimate criticisms you can make and in the end not many people will be kind to a 14 book fantasy series, as it's a big investment in time as well as money for some, so hearing about how it's just a worse version of LOTR but 10 times longe can get old. That's not what me and a few other anons were talking about though. Anyway. Looking forward to rereading the series, it's been 4 years now. The Fires of Heaven is my favourite book I think, Nynaeve and Moiraine my favourite characters, along with Mat after his horrendous start (he was the most annoing dude during the Eye and the Hunt.)