Figuring Out the End of The Wheel of Time

January 30, 2026 — Pat Bertram

Yesterday I wrote about parts of the Wheel of Time that should have been edited out or at least shortened considerably.

One of those story lines involved the hero rescuing a nation from an evil king who’d usurped the throne while the daughter heir was off doing other things. In addition, the hero twice conquered another nation. He intended both countries to be ruled by the daughter heir who would have been the rightful heir under normal circumstances. But because he said he was “giving” her those thrones, there was a huge furor since she claimed they were hers by right. Except they weren’t hers by right any longer. He’d conquered both nations. He could have put anyone in charge as he did with other nations where he defeated the evil rulers. But she was angry at him because of that word: give. Sure, she didn’t want people to think she was his puppet and so she needed to gain the crown on her own by having the ladies and lords vote for her. But there they were, on the brink of a cosmic catastrophe, and she worried about them thinking she was a puppet? It seems to me that if all existence were at stake, that would be a minor issue. Certainly not one worth tens of thousands of words.

What makes the whole thing even sillier is that the city, Caemlyn, was a Camelot equivalent. (In the King Arthur Legend, The Battle of Camlaan was the climax to his rule.) So it might have made sense, perhaps, to waste time on a plotline that went nowhere if only to establish the importance of that city, except that the very first casualty of the cosmic battle was Caemlyn. So at that point it mattered not who ruled.

It surprises me that I ever bothered to read these books in the first place, and I probably never would have if I hadn’t been laid up at the time and desperately needed something to read. Then, when I realized what the books were with all their real-world references, not just homages to previous series, like The Lord of the Rings, but a retelling of the King Arthur tale as well as dozens of other myths and legends from around the world, I got interested in finding all the subtext. Then, when I found out how terrible the ending was, I decided to try to figure out the real ending. Which is where I am now. But sheesh. All that verbiage! Luckily, I know how to skim, and I am not at all adverse to skipping huge sections. (The seventh book took me two or three days to read. The eighth took me two or three hours.)

I am finding bits, though, that would have made the ending more interesting. The most obvious would be to have accepted that most of the characters had already reached the end of their arc and were ready for the last battle. In one case, the substitute author repeated an entire character arc. In another case, he simply undid the arc, erased the character’s growth and his acceptance of responsibility, and returned him back to his immature ways with no further development.

Another thing that should have been addressed is that at one point, the kings and queens of the northern nations all decided to head south with their armies. They did not like what the hero was doing to the southern nations, not realizing he was rescuing those nations from the forces of the Dark One, and they didn’t want the same thing to happen to them. So they decided to do something about it. The subtext (and even Robert Jordan alluded to it) was that this displacement was part of the dark side’s plan, and was helping to further disrupt the forces of the light. This coalition was going after the hero, and the whole thing was so hush-hush, that they were ready to kill anyone who found out or who got in their way. Not exactly a peaceful mission. By this time in the books, it’s obvious that nothing happens by coincidence, and yet combined, this northern coalition ended up with thirteen Aes Sedai (the women power wielders, who some called witches). And thirteen Aes Sedai, when linked could destroy the hero, no matter how strong he was against them individually.

And yet, despite this, the rather weak reason given during the substitute ending was that they were there to test the hero to see if it was okay for him to fight the Last Battle. Um, yeah. If this were true, all they’d have to do was send an envoy, asking for an audience. Instead, they took a force of 200,000 as well as all those Aes Sedai to deal with him. And if they found him unworthy and killed him, they would have doomed the entire cosmos to the dark side. Definitely sounds like a plan made by the evil ones.

Even sillier, they were acting on a so-called prophesy that had been handed down by word of mouth for 3,000 years, negating one of Robert Jordan’s themes, which is based on the game of Whisper, or Telephone, or Gossip, whatever it was called in your part of the country. In the game, someone passes a secret to the next person, who passes on what they heard to the next person, and in the end, what results is generally nothing much like what was originally said. His point was that things change over the centuries, that stories change, that names change. So the chance that this prophesy, passed down orally through the millennium, would be the same at the end as at the beginning isn’t that great.

Even worse, though this army that had been manipulated by the dark side to leave their lands could have become a great disrupter at the last battle, instead the substitute author brought in a devil-ex-machina — an entire hitherto unknown army of dark friends.

I’m thinking I’ll eventually give up my idea of figuring out the real ending (for me just to decipher, not to write). Until then, it is rather an interesting puzzle. If I can get through all the scenes that should have been edited out, that is.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

Posted in books, fiction, history/myth, life, writing. Tags: , , , , , . 2 Comments »

When Editors Don’t Edit

January 29, 2026 — Pat Bertram

Too often, novels that start out good and end with a satisfying twist, lose traction somewhere in the second half. The best that can be said of those parts is that “stuff happens.” Nothing important to the story, nothing important about the character, nothing that propels the plot forward. Just stuff happening. Ho hum. This seems especially true of authors who are extremely profitable. I don’t know if the editors just give a cursory look before passing the manuscript on to be published, if they are too intimidated to ask for rewrites, if deadlines proscribe rewrites, or if it’s simply that no one cares because no matter how good or bad the book is, it will still make a fortune.

The Wheel of Time books are a good example of this. The first seven are generally good, sometimes great, and sometimes truly brilliant, but after those books, the brilliance fades, the lovely writing gets lost in the muddle, and the best that can be said is that “stuff happens.” There are still remarkable parts, but those parts are surrounded by hundreds of pages where things happen, but they don’t seem to have anything to do with the thrust of the book, don’t seem to move anyone closer to the last cosmic battle that will determine if life and even the universe will continue as it is.

I understand that Robert Jordan liked turning fantasy tropes on their end, for example, making women major players (in most fantasy written before him, women had bit parts if that). He also was playing against the lone hero concept, not just with three interconnected heroes, but also with the idea that the entire world had to cooperate to make it possible for the forces of light to win against the darkness. But, as I pointed out before, what an author intends and what ends up in readers minds is not always the same thing.

Some people like those parts, where tens of thousands of words are devoted to the women characters setting up their power bases, and I sort of understand the necessity, but not the huge portions of books devoted to their power grabs. A lot could be simply skipped, later showing that they achieved their goals, because as the books stand, two of major heroes mostly disappeared, one for an entire book. The third one’s story could be vastly truncated, especially since the same basic story (his fight with himself about whether or not he is a leader) plays out again and again. Even after he accepts leadership, there is a whole other book that repeats that entire character arc. Admittedly, this repeated arc is not Jordan’s fault, but the fault of the author who finished the series, since the substitute apparently didn’t pay attention to the fact that the characters had almost all become who they needed to be to go to battle, and so made a hash of it.

Still, I can understand why people don’t care that those final books didn’t make sense. His editor didn’t care. Since she was also Jordan’s wife, I imagine ending the series in any way possible was her way of honoring him and his last wishes. The publisher certainly didn’t care. A barrelful of money rested on those books. And most readers didn’t care because there was an ending to a series they had lived with for most of their lives. Besides, after all those books where stuff just happened without any sense that the story was moving forward, people were thrilled that the story finally pushed toward to an ending. (Not THE ending, but an ending.)

In the last books that Jordan wrote, there are still flashes of brilliance, still parts where exciting events took place, but yikes. The rest of it should have cut considerably by a few hundred thousand words or more, but apparently no one dared suggest such a thing to such a popular author.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

Posted in books, fiction, writing. Tags: , , , , , . 2 Comments »

Would-Be Fantasy Writer

January 28, 2026 — Pat Bertram

The Wheel of Time book series has apparently inspired as well as created a couple of generations of fantasy writers. Although I have never been able to get into any of those other stories (the books may have been inspired by Robert Jordan, but their worlds and their writing styles fall vastly short of his example), I can understand the urge to create one’s own world. I’ve thought about it myself, perhaps continuing the story I began in Bob: The Right Hand of God. Although Bob: The Right Hand of God is a stand-alone novel, it does seem to lend itself to a sequel since anyone born into that re-made world would have to start developing a new civilization (or not), but I don’t have any interest in writing the sequel. To me, the interesting part of the story was the de-creation of life on Earth as we know it. Anything further seems as if it would be just a ho-hum book. A been there, read that sort of thing.

So, if not Bob: The Right Hand of God, then what? Create a whole new world and culture as so many fantasy writers do? I considered that possibility, thinking a world of my own would be a place to escape to in my own head if not in fact but, though I hate to admit any failing, I don’t have the imagination for such an undertaking. (Although I’ve written two novels that could be considered fantasy, both took place more or less in our own world.) Nor do I need to live any more in my head than I already do. Besides, the truth is, so-called real life is fantasy enough for me.

There are theories that all time exists at once, so we are living our past and our future at the same time we are living in the present. My very first book, the terribly written one that no one will ever see (mostly because a few months ago, in a fit of decluttering, I threw away the only copy of the manuscript), was the story of two people who meet and fall instantly into if not love, then an incredibly deep connection, only to find out that they are reincarnations of each other. My question (and hence the premise of the book) was that if everything exists at once and if there is any validity to reincarnation, could this happen? There is an obscure theory that we are all reincarnations of one another. That not only is there a single electron that moves so fast and through so many dimensions and quantum processes that it creates the entire universe (or even multiple universes), but that there is also a single soul that we are all part of. (Yeah, I read weird stuff, which is inevitable when one reads almost anything almost all the time.)

Other theories say we are creating the world as we live it, that nothing exists yet but possibilities we haven’t yet encountered or envisioned. Other theories suggest that everything exists in our thoughts, that we are thinking into reality the world we live in. The reason we are such a mess is that everyone is thinking of different things and wanting different things. If everyone thought of the same thing at the same time, then that thing would come into fruition. Of course, the chances of that happening are nil since whenever you have even just three people together, one will always be thinking of something else, daydreaming or disagreeing or whatever goes on in people’s heads, and the other two will be saying they are thinking of the same thing, but that thing could be completely different for each of them. (For example, if they are trying to envision an apple, one might see a green apple, another red.)

Am I getting too silly here? Well, not too silly for a fantasy writer, but except for Bob: The Right Hand of God and Light Bringer, I probably will never be a fantasy writer. Probably will never write another book, either, but who knows. I could get bored with the books that currently exist and need to occupy my mind another way.

 

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

 

Posted in books, fiction, life, writing. Tags: , , , , , , , . 5 Comments »

Point of View

January 27, 2026 — Pat Bertram

The Wheel of Time culture shows me exactly why people can’t agree politically on . . . well, on anything.

By Wheel of Time culture, I don’t mean the various cultures in the books, though there are many, but the real-life culture surrounding the books. There are hundreds of websites devoted to discussions of the books, many websites that offer encyclopedias of Jordan’s world, other sites that offer snippets from Robert Jordan’s notes showing the development of his ideas and that sometimes include answers to questions fans ask (his answer most often is, “read and find out,” though sometimes he does elucidate). There are also companion books to the series that offer more information on characters, motivations, glossaries, a dictionary of his made-up language, explanations of things that don’t show up in the books like outlying cultures that have little to do with the story and things that Jordan never wanted people to know.

His subtlety (which it seems he prided himself on) is such that often there is no way to find the truth in the books themselves. In one case, we don’t find out who killed a particular bad guy until we see it in the glossary of the following book. I understand that he wants people to think about the issues and the happenings in the books, tries to get them involved in his world, and accords them the intelligence to be able to fill in vague lines. (The person who finished the series after the death of Jordan had no subtlety, no granting readers a modicum of intelligence, and explained every little detail.) I can also understand an author wanting people to figure things out on their own, such as Frank R. Stockton did in his 1882 story, “The Lady or the Tiger,” but at times it also feels a bit like a cheat. If it’s important, it should be in the books somewhere. If it’s not important, it shouldn’t be treated as if it’s some sort of mystery. (Though as Jordan admitted once in an interview, he was surprised when these — to him — throwaway incidents garnered much discussion.)

Still, as long as I can find out the information I want by checking online sources, I don’t really care that much if such particulars aren’t in the books since I certainly can’t remember every single detail of a 4,000,000 word story. I often end up checking on characters who showed up again after 1,000,000 words and I needed a refresher on who they were and what they had done. Sometimes if I can’t find an explanation for a certain minor point in any of the encyclopedias, I end up reading various discussions to see if any reader had figured it out.

All this to explain why I get caught up in other people’s opinions of the various aspects of the books.

It makes sense, of course, that people would have disparate opinions about the unsaid bits, but what’s really interesting to me is even when the story is explicitly laid out, when the characters’ actions are visible to everyone, when the motivations are obvious, that readers all see something different and are vocal about defending their point of view.

And this is just a story. The words are static. There are no edited versions of the sentences making them seem to say what they didn’t say, no edited videos making us see a different version of the action. It’s all right there in the books. And yet, the interpretations are wildly different. Some people hate a couple of the characters because their plot line goes on and on and seems to accomplish nothing. Other people love those characters and hate other characters. That makes sense to me. Some people even hate the main hero while loving the books, which doesn’t make sense to me, but it doesn’t have to make sense. It’s about preference.

But misinterpreting the story? Seeing what isn’t there? Not seeing what is there? That doesn’t make sense to me since we all have access to the exact same words. I suppose it’s possible that it is I who is misinterpreting the story, since after all, I am totally the wrong demographic (older by decades!) but even that would prove my point, which is . . .

Hmm. What is my point? I suppose it’s that if people can’t even agree on what they are seeing in a book series, can’t agree on what is right and what is wrong when it matters little, it’s easy to see why there is no agreement about what is best for us individually and ultimately the country.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

Posted in books, fiction, life, writing. Tags: , , , , , , . 2 Comments »

A Sort of Apology

January 25, 2026 — Pat Bertram

I feel as if I should apologize for all these Wheel of Time posts, and yet, here I still am.

In an effort to find an alternative to posting here, I looked for book discussions, thinking it would be fun to talk about the story, characters, and implications of the various events with other students of the work, but the discussions fell into a few distinct categories:

Discussions during the long years while fans waited for a new book to be published, most centering on where they thought the story was going, and which are now defunct because the series of books is finished and the ending, or at least an ending, is known.

Discussions centered on who loved what character, and how foolish were those who didn’t like said character. That sort of non-discussion gets old, especially if you hold a minority opinion and don’t want to be lambasted.

Discussions about the end of the book, and how wonderful the ending was, or if not how wonderful the ending was, how wonderful the substitute writer was for writing it (ignoring the fact that he got paid, and even more importantly, that the project catapulted him into fantasy superstardom).

None of those discussions fit with anything I wanted to discuss, and anyway, most were many years old. Any newer discussions revolved around the now cancelled television series, and how terrible/wonderful the show was. (Terrible because it turned the story into something completely different from the books, wonderful because . . .  well, because it was the Wheel of Time.)

I tried starting my own discussion, but only got the usual fan-type comments such as “I liked character A, I hated character B.”

I considered resurrecting one of my dormant blogs and doing a chapter-by-chapter discussion, but that didn’t appeal to me. I like the puzzle the books present, and I like that in some ways it is (was?) a cultural phenomenon, with many more millions of words written about the books than were actually in the books (the first book was published right around the time the internet, discussion boards, and social sites were just beginning, and the story happened to be geared to the age group that first embraced the online world). To be honest, I didn’t want to spend that much effort on what is really just a way for me to pass mental time. (Physical time, too, but I like having something to occupy my mind, more than the issues of the day or . . . whatever.) Besides, however much I determine that upon this rereading, for sure, I will read every word, I never do. I find myself skimming or even skipping the characters I find annoying and the parts that include too much torture, both mental and physical.

I make sure, however, that I never skim or skip some of the most lyrical of Jordan’s writing. At one point, a character got lost in thoughts of the past, remembering that “They danced beneath the great crystal dome at the court of Shaemal, when all the world envied Coremanda’s splendor and might.” That’s pretty much all we ever find out about the lost nation of Coremanda, but that one sentence is haunting, conjuring in just a few words a long-forgotten time.

And then there’s a song that the same character remembers from long ago, a song that seems to be a theme of the books (NB: the Aes Sedai are the women power wielders):

Give me your trust, said the Aes Sedai.
On my shoulders I support the sky.
Trust me to know and to do what is best,
And I will take care of the rest.
But trust is the color of a dark seed growing.
Trust is the color of a heart’s blood flowing.
Trust is the color of a soul’s last breath.
Trust is the color of death.

Anyway, that lyricism is beside the point . . . actually, no — it’s not beside the point, it is the point of my rereading the books. It’s just not the point of this blog post and my feeling I should apologize for dumping my thoughts on the books here.

So, if you want an apology, you got it, but it’s not truly an apology because a sincere apology connotes a promise of not repeating the offense, and perhaps unfortunately for you, I will continue posting my thoughts until I’ve finished this reread or until I’ve given up blogging again.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

Posted in writing, blogging, culture, internet, photography. Tags: , , , , , , , , , . 2 Comments »

The Lord of Chaos

January 24, 2026 — Pat Bertram

In the Wheel of Time book I’m reading now, the story starts off with one of the bad guys being summoned before the head bad guy (not a guy, exactly, but a cosmic dark force that’s the opposite of the Light). The head guy gives his minion many directions, which we are not privy to, except for the last: “Let the Lord of Chaos Rule.” At the end of the book, this same bad guy again goes before dark force and asked if he did good. The Dark One lets out a loud laugh.

All through numerous rereads, I never could understand what the bad guy did because except for the beginning and very end, he’s practically invisible throughout the book.

But then, I never paid attention to the reason things happened in the book but the obvious since they seemed to be isolated actions taken by various characters. This time, I’m looking at the things that happen, thinking perhaps they are the result of the dark side’s behind-the-word machinations. And now it’s obvious.

The “lord of chaos” comes from the real Medieval and Renaissance New Year’s tradition of upsetting the class system, where the peasants become the rulers and rulers pretend to be peasants. The person chosen to be the “lord” of this celebration was called the Lord of Misrule or the Lord of Chaos, and was often the least competent person around, adding to the hilarity. (Perhaps that’s why the Dark One laughed at the end of the book? Finding the chaos his edict created hilarious?)

During the book, a shepherd (the hero who is meant to fight the dark force during the last battle) leads nations. (He doesn’t become king for another 500,000 words or so.) A blacksmith and a gambler command vast armies, a juggler becomes a wise mentor, queens become maids, an untried girl is chosen to lead the women wielders of power. (She was chosen as a puppet, and the only reason this particular chaotic bit doesn’t have the desired effect is that the dark minions completely underestimated her lust for power. Once she gets it, she grabs hold, and never lets go until it finally kills her.)

Often the bad guys play both sides. For example, it’s minions of the dark that have the hero kidnapped and tortured, but also, minions of the dark that save him. Chaos, indeed! (Create chaos, but in the end be sure to let the Lord of Chaos live so he can rule!) We don’t find out until later that some of the people that are supposed to be on the side of the light are actually on the other side, which adds to the chaos. These people might have their own orders, or they might be victims of compulsion, or they could simply be incompetent, all of which adds to the chaos.

Besides, no one knows the truth, though all characters, all factions, believe they do know what is true. The hero is the devil. The hero will destroy them. The hero needs to be killed. The hero needs to be controlled. The hero needs to be protected until he is delivered up to the Dark One at the Last Battle. The hero needs to be put in prison. Very few people ever stop to realize that the hero is doing what he must, that if he’s imprisoned, he will never grow into what he needs to become in order to win (which could be what the dark side wants, but the light also wants the imprisonment because they don’t believe he will voluntarily do his duty), and despite the very large disparities of belief, they all act with utter conviction.

Do you see where I am going with this post? (Minus the hero bit, that is.) Although the book was written thirty years ago, it seems (spookily) as if I am reading an allegory of our times. In a world of short-form content and edited video clips, it seem as if very few people take the time to delve deeper into the background (or foreground) of events to try to find out the truth. Everyone sees what they believe is true and they act on it because for them, it is the truth. It’s as if we’re living in two distinct worlds where there is no overlapping, so while both sides can be saying the same thing (“the opposition is ignorant,” for example) and both can be acting according to their honest beliefs, they both mean completely different things and have completely different results.

Let the lord of chaos rule, indeed.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

Posted in books, fiction, life. Tags: , , , , , , , , . 3 Comments »

Intentions and Unintentions

January 15, 2026 — Pat Bertram

So far most of my New Year’s resolutions are on track, both the intentional ones and the unintentional ones. My plan of taking a walk every day was pretty much buried in the snow a few days ago. Although the snow is melting, there is too much slush to for me to want to be out there; also I’m fighting some sort of allergy or early cold symptom, which gives me even more of an excuse to remain inside. I am doing well staying away from the news, though occasionally the news comes calling with an email or an inadvertent glimpse when I let my attention wander. I’m also staying with the no sugar/no wheat thing, though I am looking forward to some sort of treat when the month is over. (This resolution was only for a month, though the intention of sticking with real food is an ongoing one.)

My unintentional resolution of blogging every day is still on track. Fifteen days and counting! I never really planned to blog every day . . . I just started, and now here I am. It feels good to be back blogging. An additional benefit is that it’s getting me away from playing games on the computer, which is just as well. The hidden object game I play is getting tiresome, though I still log in and play a bit every day just to keep my hand in, but any sense of wanting to work toward game goals has dissipated.

One unvoiced intention this year was to reread The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan and try to pick out clues to the real ending, not the ending we ended up with, which I am trying to do. Jordan, the one who created his world out of a mosaic of our history, culture, myths, and legends, died before he could finish, and the author chosen to finish the series did an execrable job. Not only was he at best a serviceable writer, he dumped characters that played a role through Jordan’s writings, ignored many characters’ development and regressed them to the beginning, traded established subplots for new subplots of his own that added nothing to the story, destroyed his own timeline so that things happened in no order (even seemingly having one character in two places at a time and two characters meeting where their timelines couldn’t have intersected).

[What astonishes me about those ersatz books is how protective everyone is of that substitute author. There are no one- and two-star ratings of his offerings, though there are plenty of low ratings when it comes to Jordan’s books. (Admittedly, some of those are deserved. Although much of Jordan’s story is brilliant and shows the ten years he spent researching, and his writing seems epic at times, it could do with a serious editing, including slashing huge sections of a couple of books.) I did find one review that was an honest critique of the last three books, yet the overwhelming response to the thoughtful piece was that the review was “overwrought drivel” written by an angry fan. (Even though the reviewer admitted he wasn’t a fan.)]

I read this series multiple times because after volume 6, I could no long remember what had happened in volume one. Most of the brilliance in the series comes from foreshadowing, and it’s hard to tell when a foreshadowed event occurs when you can’t remember the foreshadowing. So now I am able to remember the story going both ways — what I’ve read and what I’m going to read. Unfortunately, now I can’t forget those last three mishmash books by the substitute author in order to come up with my own ending as foreshadowed by Jordan’s writings.

I am not a fan of these books so much as a student, which is why I want to puzzle out the real ending. (Something to occupy my mind, if nothing else.) Perhaps as I find more of the clues to the ending Jordan intended, I’ll be able to override in my mind the bad ending with one of my own concoction.

Meantime, the year progresses. Already halfway through January! And my intentions (and unintentions) are still holding strong.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

Posted in blogging, books, life. Tags: , , , , , , , , . 6 Comments »

Subverting Stereotypes in The Wheel of Time

March 24, 2025 — Pat Bertram

Last night, I spent a considerable amount of what should have been sleeping time looking for bad reviews of the last three books of The Wheel of Time series. After the death of the real author, the series was finished by a stand-in author, who did an execrable job, and I wondered why none of those books rated less than a three-star review on Amazon.

One reason, I discovered, is that a lot of people give him kudos for doing a thankless job, but it wasn’t thankless. He got paid for his work, and those books helped catapult him into the fantasy-writer stratosphere.

Another reason is that he writes in a simplistic style that appeals to today’s readers — short sentences; quick scene changes; lots of action; little real character development; not a lot of depth, emotional or otherwise. All of which is antithetical to Robert Jordan’s writing.

I also tend to think a lot of the acclaim he gets for his Wheel of Time books is because they are in direct contrast to Jordan’s books. There is no doubt that Jordan’s last few books could have used some heavy editing (though oddly, one of the substitute author’s acclaimed books is more or less a replay of the Jordan book that people tend to hate) but much of what people seem to object to in Jordan’s writing are things that shouldn’t be an issue.

For example, when Jordan started writing The Wheel of Time books, there were few female protagonists in that genre. This lack makes sense in a way because the writers of high fantasy tended to be male. Also, the genre seemed to attract more males than females in the beginning (or at least it was assumed to be so). Writing a male protagonist was safe — females will read books written by and for males more often than the reverse.

Jordan tried to turn this assumption on its head, writing both male and female protagonists. He tried to balance the power between males and females, and he tried to subvert stereotypes. It surprised me to discover that so many people think his writing is sexist, though in a world of his own making, with sexual dynamics of his own making in that world , how can he possibly be considered sexist?

One of the problems is that his readers are so young. (I have yet to discover a group of readers my age, online or off, who have any interest in reading the books let alone discussing them in any depth.) These younger generations don’t realize there was a time not that long ago when women were considered gossipy, flighty, unable to handle finances, and needed to be looked after as if they were children. In fact, it wasn’t until 1974 that women could obtain credit cards in their own name without a male co-signer. At the same time, it became illegal for mortgage companies to refuse loans to unmarried women as had been common.

It was only a handful of years after these major real-world changes that Jordan started thinking about his series. In his attempt to subvert stereotypes, he reversed things — women in his series consider men to be gossipy children who don’t have any sense, so the women think nothing of bullying the men to get them to do what the women think is right. Making things more complicated, in Jordan’s world, men are raised to be chivalrous, putting women’s safety first, and protecting them even if they don’t want the protection. This leads to an underlying theme of the story — men don’t understand women, though they try to. Women don’t understand men, though they think they do.

Adding further to this complicated dynamic, the “magic” system had become one-sided. It used to be that both men and women could tap into the power that drove the universe, so they were equals. But during the time of the story, only women were able to use the power, so it threw the balance off.

And yet readers try to fit today’s mores into Jordan’s world.

What really made me stop and think during my research last night is that most of the people in the United States today became adults after those life-changing laws governing women’s financial autonomy came into play. If only 20% of people were born before 1964, then that means 80% never had to deal with (and probably never had to learn about) a fairly recent time when things were so terribly unbalanced in the real world. No wonder so many Wheel of Time readers haven’t a clue what that particular theme of Jordan’s was all about.

In the end, I suppose it doesn’t really matter why the substitute author gets lauded for his awful writing. In my world, those books no longer exist, so unless I can come up with my own ending, the series ends with the real author’s death.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

Posted in culture, fiction, life. Tags: , , , , , , . Leave a Comment »

Saving the World

May 30, 2020 — Pat Bertram

I finished rereading The Wheel of Time, and since the library isn’t open yet, I’ve begun re-rereading the series. It’s not that it’s such great writing — with over four million words spread out over fifteen books, there really should have been a huge amount of culling to make it less of a sprawl. Some of the meanderings off the main track are unimportant and inane and downright aggravating — a reader does not need to see every savage side of the lesser antagonists to get the point that they have sold their souls to The Dark One. Nor does a reader need to see certain characters doing the same thing over and over and over again. Nor does a reader need to see author mistakes, such as his forgetting what his characters are like and have them acting brainless for no reason whatsoever.

The series was originally proposed as a trilogy, though the scope of the story demands more than that. TOR Books, knowing how wordy Robert Jordan was, turned it into a six-book deal, which they should have enforced. The Wheel of Time is a perfect example of an author falling in love with his creation. He spent ten years planning the work, doing research, and taking copious notes before he started writing, and apparently, he couldn’t bear to give up any bit of his creation even if it would have made a much stronger story to do so. As to why his publisher didn’t rein him in — there is a whole lot more money to be made by fifteen bestselling books (fourteen plus a prequel) than six. Since the fantasy market is predominately younger folk, I guess they figured they had a non-critical readership, and every time a new book came out, a new crop of readers came of age, which prompted sales of the earlier books in the series.

Luckily, it’s easy enough to skip over the many sidetracks and dead ends to keep to the essence of the work, though that doesn’t help dealing with the parts of the story that aren’t there. Jordan delighted in writing ad nauseum about trivial matters but mentioned important points almost as an aside and brought in mysterious characters for cameo spots without any elucidation of who they were or why they were important. Despite myriad interviews, he refused to explain some of his seemingly pointless points, saying he wanted people to think about them. A bit of a god complex, there, but then, I guess that’s understandable when one has created such a massive world to play with.

There is also too much war for my taste, but after all, Jordan is a military historian, and ultimately, this series is about the battle between the forces of light and dark, so all the military hoopla has a place.

Despite the many drawbacks of the series, it’s compelling because of the eternal themes of honor and duty, loyalty and integrity, steadfastness and kindness and friendship, doing what’s right no matter the cost, standing by one’s word, rising above the baseness of one’s life to grasp nobility, accepting one’s fate and becoming a hero. Those are the nuggets of purity that drive the (sometimes appalling) story. And it’s those same nuggets that perhaps make the work worth reading and even rereading.

It’s funny — each time I reread the series, I tell myself that this time I will read every word, and each time I get bored by the trivial chapters and inane characters and become aghast (re-aghast?) at the sadism, and end up skipping vast sections to get to better parts. Some of the horror is necessary, of course, to help forge the rather ordinary characters into the heroes (reluctant or not) they will become. I mean, you don’t simply wake up one morning with the power and resolve and ability to fight the overwhelming darkness that might be threatening to consume us all.

Jordon has created an incredibly complex kaleidoscope of a world, taking all the bits and pieces of our cultures, customs, costumes, mythologies, legends, religions, histories, and shaken them up and spread them out in a new and vibrant pattern. One of the fun things about rereading the book is picking up elements that one missed the first time through. (Despite that, there are whole storylines that add nothing to the whole — the Seanchans, Slayer, Perrin and Faile to name just a few.)

Since this is the quintessential hero’s journey, with each character on his or her own path to greatness, there is homage to the legend of King Arthur as well as to lesser known legends.

There are the archetypal characters, such as shapeshifters and tricksters, mentors and allies. And underlying it all is the savior tale, both the Christian story and the pre-Christian ones.

What would you do if you’re going about your ordinary life, doing what you’ve always done, and then discover you’ve been chosen to save mankind, chosen to give up your life to save the world?

I wonder — as I sit in safe isolation while many folks around the world are dying of a novel virus — if I would have the courage, the stamina, the will, to undertake such a task. In my heart of hearts, though I would wish I did have such a heroic character, I know I would not be able to do it. Could not do it — I’m too old, too tired, too powerless. But when I immerse myself in this legendary world, I think . . . maybe.

Just maybe . . .

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Posted in books, culture, life. Tags: , , , , , , . 8 Comments »

The Wheel of Time

May 4, 2020 — Pat Bertram

Since I finished reading all my emergency books, I’m reduced to reading the books in my Nook, books I’ve already read. Although I don’t generally like rereading books, Robert Jordan’s massive Wheel of Time series seems to be the perfect place to go to hide from The Bob.

The books in the series are not stand alone books — you cannot understand one book without the previous books — which means that in effect the WOT series is single novel of over four million words broken up into fifteen parts. In fact, the series itself is not stand alone — there are all sorts of books, blogs, discussion forums comprising billions of words where readers try to figure out the truth of the story.

Not only is the scope of WOT almost impossible to fathom, but Jordan had a bad habit of putting in bits of deus ex machina that he refused to elucidate in the work itself, companion books, or even interviews. Perhaps he himself did not know what those bits meant or maybe he simply wanted to be mysterious for mysterious’s sake, to create a legacy of people debating worthless points. Which they do. Ad infinitum. Jordan also refused to explain what to him were obvious story points, such as who killed a certain bad-guy-turned-maybe-good-guy, but again, dozens of forums present various theories because that obvious point was obvious only to he who created it. At least in this particular case, the murderer was revealed in an appendix several books after the fact. Jordan also spent thousands upon thousands of words on red herrings and subplots that go nowhere, but sometimes used a single sentence buried in huge blocks of description to bring out a major point. Yikes.

And wow, is there description. Tons of description. Whenever food is mentioned, I find myself skipping a paragraph or two. When clothes are mentioned, I skip a couple of pages. And sometimes, when there is zero action or character development, such as in a few very clean bathing scenes, I skip the whole dang chapter.

I also tend to skip over some of the women’s parts. Although Jordan mostly develops his three main male characters into individual heroes, each with his own mythic journey, he turns his three main women characters into insufferable caricatures, indistinguishable from one another except for a few annoying character tics. At first I thought he had a problem with women, but his secondary and tertiary female characters are often well-defined or at least not brats and prigs who believe, without giving a single shred of thought to the forces the other characters face, that they know the best for everyone.

Even after investing so much time in reading and rereading the books, I’m still not sure I like the series — although the theme seems to be about the importance of having choices, most of the characters, both good and evil, go out of their way to force others to their will. Too much torture and punishment for my taste. It seems to me that in a world where everyone is free to choose (or at least what the pattern created by the wheel of time allows them to choose), it’s just as easy to find someone to willingly do your bidding as to waste the effort forcing someone to do it. (Oddly, the three main males do turn others to their will, but without wanting to or without even trying.)

But despite my ambivalence, I keep rereading. The scope of the story is utterly astounding. In the story, during the so-called age of legends, people wielding the power that turns the wheel of time, broke the world. Mountains grew where no mountains had been, waters flooded lands, green spaces became deserts. And humans started over. Again.

Interestingly, breaking the world is exactly what Robert Jordon did when he wrote his series — he smashed our world into bits, mixed it all up — legends and traditions; countries and races, clothes and customs; myths and mysteries, religions and philosophies — and put it all back together into his own creation.

I wonder what it would be like to create such a massive fiction world, a world that reflects our world but not. A world that reflects our values but not. A world that exists only in our minds but not. Or, rather, maybe not. If it exists in our minds, it’s possible Jordan’s world exists for real, sort of dream world we all created together, just as philosophers and physicists say we do with the real world.

Assuming there is a real world.

Maybe we’re all writing the story of our world as we live it, creating with our hive mind the very fact of our existence. If we all stopped believing in it, would it disappear as if we were closing the cover of a novel? Would we disappear if we stopped believing all the things we see and hear except with our own eyes or ears? Would we be different if we simply refused to accept the role that has been forced on us?

Maybe, as I study Jordan’s world, I’ll learn how to help build a better version of our own — how to write it or right it, either one.

Meanwhile, the wheels of time keeps turning . . .

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Posted in books, fiction, writing. Tags: , , , , , , . 6 Comments »
« Older posts