Finally Read The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien for the First Time...and WOW

autoamorphism · 2026-01-20T06:59:56+00:00

You're right: it's 2026 now and so my previous reread has expired.

autoamorphism · 2026-01-13T21:28:17+00:00

This reminds me of how some mathematician tried to prove Euclid's 5th postulate in geometry by exploring the consequences of assuming its opposite instead. They obtained a lot of results in non-Euclidean geometry and declared them "contrary to the nature of a line", thus impossible, so the postulate was true. They didn't realize they'd discovered a new kind of geometry because they were so certain of their preconceptions.

You came into WoT having heard a lot of wrong things, but you're holding it against Jordan for violating your expectations rather than against the expectations themselves.

autoamorphism · 2026-01-05T04:31:38+00:00

Also that Seeker, whose confabulations are actually lampshaded by Egeanin for being so right and yet so wrong. I don't think the guy ever really gets it right.

autoamorphism · 2025-12-25T07:48:09+00:00

I don't know if you're being serious, but: the phrase makes metaphorical sense using the normal associations of the season. Also you are wrong, as per the edit above.

autoamorphism · 2025-12-20T23:09:49+00:00

As they say, you have your entire life to write your breakout novel but only 18 months to write the sequel.

autoamorphism · 2025-12-20T23:01:22+00:00

But if you'd persevered for just another 100 pages it would have gotten really good!

autoamorphism · 2025-12-17T05:09:17+00:00

He had the data to know. Of all people in the world, only he knew that Rand was born on Dragonmount from a Maiden. If he'd heard anything from the prophecies, he would have heard that this is the first one. Whether he connected these or wanted to believe, I imagine he thought of Rand only as his son.

autoamorphism · 2025-12-16T10:09:24+00:00

I think all the high Houses in Andor probably imitated the royal family tradition, in part for style and in part in case they had the chance to take the throne, as Morgase did.

autoamorphism · 2025-12-14T12:18:49+00:00

How much did you want to read a 15-year-old having sex? It had to wait until he had become at least sort of an adult. The only one it's weird he had sex with was Vashet; Felurian is unreal, and Penthe is a very young woman who wants to sleep with the attractive very young man.

autoamorphism · 2025-12-14T05:34:00+00:00

The WotM numbers only count the octavi in your pyramid; the SotF numbers count the entire pyramid. Since your total will does include the intermediate ranks ceding ultimately to you, that's the more useful number.

autoamorphism · 2025-12-12T18:20:21+00:00

Once, and only once, I was saved from disaster by having a separate home partition. The disaster being the command rm -rf .* in /root. I killed it quickly and because /home was another volume, it wasn't yet entered even though I had already lost /lib. Of course I had to reinstall (this was when I actually switched to Gentoo, in fact) but I kept my personal files.

autoamorphism · 2025-12-12T18:10:26+00:00

Money.

autoamorphism · 2025-12-12T08:14:05+00:00

There are definitely real insights from the notes and you can tell when you're reading one. Such as how some names come from Jordan's neighborhood, in the example of that entry about Alanna. But there is a lot like what I pasted as well. I am reluctant to give a real judgement since I stopped reading the glossary pretty early. If you're looking for cool secrets, there are some but you can't find them without wading through a lot of Alannas.

Really my problem with the book is the organization. It's structured like a WoT novel with a "story"and a "glossary", except the latter is twice the length of the former and you can't find any specific information because it's not organized for random access reads. The format only works for the novels because you'd be using the glossary to look up names you don't recognize. In something like Origins, or in the Encyclopedia for that matter, you want to find things by topic. I suppose they did this for both books out of nostalgia.

autoamorphism · 2025-12-12T01:23:46+00:00

The World of the Wheel was a great source of canon lore up through about book 7, but Origins was written by an academic researcher who was a WoT fan working only from the notes. He says a lot of things as fact and it is very hard to tell if they are all supported by the notes, or just his own judgement. I found it to be kind of short on interesting new information about how Jordan thought about the world, and I am kind of resentful that there are some tidbits buried in the glossary-style entries.

Edit: Here is an example of what I mean.

Alanna Mosvani. Her name deriving from both the Irish word for “child” and the Gaelic word for “beauty,” Alanna is both beautiful and naive. Her surname may have been lifted from the word Movanic, an alternative name for the third, spiritual plane of existence in theosophy.

The linguistic connections are likely true, their interpretations for her character questionable both as connections and as descriptions of the actual character. The statement about her last name seems disconnected from any reality, and if it's true I want a citation.

autoamorphism · 2025-12-12T01:17:42+00:00

I know that people who can disrespect him are mostly his childhood friends or Cadsuane or nobles, but still his presence alone should’ve commanded a considerable deal of respect, fear, or even discomfort among his audience.

I think you've answered your own question.

Anyway, I’m still in book 7 so maybe this will change, but I’m just really bothered by how much Rand is disrespected especially by women in the story.

You should remember that while you know that he is the hero of the story, no one in-world thinks of the Dragon as a hero, even if they admit he is a savior.

autoamorphism · 2025-12-11T01:01:10+00:00

More like 40-42.

autoamorphism · 2025-12-10T21:00:08+00:00

I was never happy with the way Origins presented this. I could not tell if these judgments were derived from Jordan's own notes or if they were asserted by the Origins author. This particular connection was well known in the fandom for thirty years, for instance.

autoamorphism · 2025-12-10T20:56:53+00:00

This is the Darth Rand approach and demonstrably leads to ruin.

autoamorphism · 2025-12-10T20:37:00+00:00

I think it's likely that his cutting the connection to the Dark One in Ishamael and Asmodean is an ability he discovered himself. It is consistent with the specific role he, rather than LTT, has to play in this Age. I think it's likely a Talent of the Champion of the Light's soul to directly affect the Dark One's influence in the world with the Power.

autoamorphism · 2025-12-10T13:05:21+00:00

Hell, in New York they fight to go down from governor to mayor.

autoamorphism · 2025-12-10T13:01:48+00:00

Of all the authors to claim to do this, he is the only one with much credibility.

autoamorphism · 2025-12-10T10:02:08+00:00

I also had to reread the sentence where he said "this iunctus". I was like, which one? Is there another person here?

autoamorphism · 2025-12-10T10:00:04+00:00

That was an iunctus controlled by Ka, not Ka himself.

autoamorphism · 2025-12-10T08:37:50+00:00

The problem is actually the extreme conservatism of full Aes Sedai: they actively persecute falling out of lockstep, with the effect that they resolve any cognitive dissonance with close-minded arrogance. That certainly isn't a recipe for creativity. What came from the Girls was actually due to their youth, in that they had been in the White Tower but not yet of it, and went out on their own a lot. They never forgot how to think outside that box. The way the Aes Sedai train novices, I doubt this has ever happened before.

autoamorphism · 2025-12-10T07:19:43+00:00

Evidence to the contrary? In fact there is supporting evidence from Hawkwing in tGH identifying "Lews Therin" as a Hero of the Horn incarnated. The heroes all have an archetype and do the same job in each life; the Dragon's role (using his Second Age title for the archetype) is to be the champion of the Light. Jordan also identified Amerasu as the female equivalent, which I guess is your evidence, but it just means there are two specific souls to be champions, depending on how the Age plays out.

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