Albeit more than a year ago. Ehehehe. You can read the first part here.
At first I intended this to be my concluding entry on the Wheel of Time, covering the many ways it inspired and captivated me over the years. But then I realized this post would probably dwarf the first one. There are just too many things I want to say. So once again, I'm splitting it in two. This will be the second of three parts.
What? I'll have you know that the Wheel of Time was originally planned as a mere six books. It's in the finest tradition of the series to announce I'm making mine even longer.
Now, I actually meant this for people who've never read the series and don't know what I'm talking about. Spoilers follow. If you have read the books, great! High fives all around. But if you simply haven't read them yet -
Stop here. Go read the books. I'd hate to ruin them for you.
Having said that: I did not read the series in order. I was lucky enough to get the first book first, but after that I read solely on the basis of availability. My own order, if memory serves, was one, eight, five, six, seven, nine, eleven, three, four, two, ten, twelve, thirteen, fourteen. The final three were in order simply because I'd caught up and had to wait for release dates with everyone else.
And I still loved the series - despite, more often than not, knowing what would happen next. Maybe you would too. If you'd like to chance it, read on. Don't say I didn't warn you.
First, some further thoughts on the final book.
'If you have grudges, put them behind you. If you have plots, bring them to completion. Make your final plays, for this...this is the end.'
- Moridin to the surviving Forsaken, A Memory of Light
I'll usually wait at least a year before rereading books, so the experience retains a semblance of freshness. I've read a lot of good books in the meantime - I strongly recommend Guy Gavriel Kay's Under Heaven - and it's only now that I've gotten around to rereading the final book in the Wheel of Time sequence, A Memory of Light.
Maybe my expectations were too high the first time. The flaws I mentioned haven't changed. But I should still emphasize: the end is awesome. Now, with the apocalypse nigh, the various factions, nations and races of humanity (and others) finally put aside their politics and age-old hatreds and unite for what is essentially a world war against the invading forces of Shadow.
Multiple fronts across the main continent convey a satisfying sense of scale. And the fact that the many characters and the peoples they represent are all fighting together both calls to mind the comic book fan's ecstasy over superhero crossovers, and drives home the fact that it's the end of days. There are only two sides now: everyone not on the dark side, and the dark side. Light and Shadow. Us and them. The sense of finality starts on page one, and never lets up until the climactic final battle.
Yes, the ending is vague. But intentionally so. Robert Jordan believed that readers aren't stupid - an opinion I share - and sometimes left only the barest hints of an explanation, trusting the fans to figure it out for themselves.
He also admitted he enjoyed doing so. He was kind of evil that way.
But the fact that he kept people talking about the books after they were over probably goes a long way towards cementing his legacy. May he rest in peace.
It's still hard to believe the series has finally come to an end. But now let's look back over the ground it covered - in this post, the world and the magic, which are inextricably entwined.
1. The One Power.
Actually, the word 'magic' is almost never used.*
Instead we have the One Power, the driving force of all creation, which turns the Wheel of Time. (A central concept meaning that souls are reincarnated throughout Ages which eventually repeat themselves.) The Power is split into male and female halves - saidin and saidar. Though the two are opposites in many ways, the greatest works are accomplished when both sides work together.
This was one of my earliest lessons in the power of language.
Up until reading the first book - I was eleven, if you recall - I'd mainly encountered magic of the Tolkienesque sort: wands and waving, flowing robes and long beards. That's not a bad thing. Some books - read: Harry Potter - do it incredibly well. But there's a fine line between archetype and cliché.
In The Wheel of Time, magic was different. The term was different. Arcane tools existed, but were not strictly necessary. Gestures during spells were often behavioural quirks linked to flawed learning. All one truly needed was the ability.
It was pretty, too.
Channeling the One Power was a vivid experience, weaving elemental threads into glowing patterns in the air. Simply holding the Power enhanced the senses, gave you endurance, and made you feel more alive. The differences between saidin and saidar intrigued me, and as a whole, I found the One Power fascinating. I don't deny that this magic inspired my own.
Which is not to say it's the most singular in fantasy fiction. But it did make an impression, almost certainly because it played such a major role in shaping the sociopolitical reality of the world - a world in which the male half is corrupted, and the Power is dominated by women. It had its own history, its own place in the story. Its own name.
Names, as we all know, have power.
2. Randland.
Which is not to say there aren't some that are tongue-in-cheek.
The main landmass of the Wheel of Time has no official name. In lieu of one, the fans dubbed it 'Randland', after the hero, Rand al'Thor.
People have complained about the series' pacing. But there's no denying that the worldbuilding is top notch. A large part of why I was so enthralled by The Eye of the World was the detail that breathed it to life. Fresh out of their backwater village, the main characters find people in another town speak with a different accent. Forgotten statues rot in the wilderness. Many doubt the Shadow even exists.
The first book mostly takes place in one kingdom. More and more are introduced as the scope expands. And of course, they all clash. Tear and Illian hate each other. The rulers of Tarabon and Altara can barely control their own capitals. The Borderlands, with their constant war against the Shadow, see southern politics as a waste of time. Cairhien fears the desert-dwelling Aiel, who laid waste to their realm over an insult.
And over it all looms the spectre of the White Tower. Sworn to use the Power as a weapon against the Shadow only, it is nevertheless widely believed that the female Aes Sedai - 'servants of all' - manipulate half the world with their schemes. And of course, they actively hunt down male channelers.
This was by far the most complex story I read in my teens. It seemed so original. Yet at the same time, much was obviously inspired by various religions and folklores.
The ideas of reincarnation, time being cyclical and of burning away emotion to achieve detachment are all tenets of Buddhist philosophy. The ancient symbol of the Aes Sedai is a variant of yin and yang - white for women, black for men. A conqueror who once unified Randland is named Artur Paendrag. The proof of Rand being the prophesied saviour is his taking the Sword That Cannot Be Touched from a fortress called the Stone of Tear. Get it?
Those are just a few examples. There are many more.
Though I didn't realize it at first, this is a lesson regarding something many new writers fear - I know I did. The fear of unoriginality, because your story involves elements of others.
The truth is that all stories contain pieces of what came before. The difference is in how you use them. E.g., there's a big difference between 'boy who casts spells with a wand at a school for wizards because magic is hidden from regular folk' and 'boy who casts spells with a wand in his basement at midnight because magic is illegal and the secret police will murder his family if they find out'.
I just made that up. You get the idea.
The whole is far greater than the sum of its parts.
3. The Black Tower.
The second book I read in the Wheel of Time was the eighth. In a house where no one else read fantasy, I found it in my grandfather's bookshelf. This still amazes me. How's that for coincidence?
Comprehension-wise, it wasn't the best choice. Seven books makes a big difference. I found half of it confusing, and the rest shocking. Rand was a king now, he was fighting an empire, the White Tower was caught up in its own civil war, and so on.
But perhaps the biggest change was the violence. Rand had gone from a frightened village boy to a battle-hardened veteran, and the deadliest of the many forces under his control were the Asha'man - 'defenders of the Light' - the direct opposite of the Aes Sedai. An army of black-clad male channelers, trained specifically to use the One Power as a weapon.
"I piled the bodies in a hollow. The horses, everything. I burned it all to ash. White ash that floated in the wind like snow. It didn't bother me at all."
- Eben Hopwil, age sixteen, The Path of Daggers
Understand that at the beginning of the Wheel of Time, under the White Tower, using the Power as a weapon was unheard of. With the rise of the Black Tower - and the invading Seanchan Empire, with its enslaved female channelers - it was now commonplace. Add to that the fact that many Asha'man were young boys, still in their teens, and the horror of war hung around them like a shroud.
That impressed me. In crafting my own soldier-mages, I admit to emphasizing that the potential for mass destruction should be feared - as the Asha'man were.
Particularly since many of them were going insane.
4. The taint.
The backstory of the Wheel of Time goes like this. Three thousand years ago, humanity lived in the Age of Legends, a futuristic utopia built on the One Power. The end began when man found evidence of another Power, completely forgotten in the Wheel's turning. In their ignorance, they bored a hole into the prison of the Dark One, antithesis to the Creator, and unleashed the Shadow upon the world.
The hero of the war that followed was Lews Therin Tellamon, called the Dragon. He led the resealing of the Dark One. However, his solution was flawed; he used only men. The Dark One was able to unleash a backlash that tainted the entire male half of the One Power. This drove every male Aes Sedai mad. In their madness, they annihilated modern civilization and reshaped the very face of the earth.
People remember because the taint is still there. Sooner or later, every male channeler goes insane - which is why the White Tower hunts them down.
Power corrupts - literally.
The long-lost golden age has become a cliché in itself. But note that, unlike other ancient civilizations, the Age of Legends did not fall to some external enemy. Not directly. It fell from within; they destroyed themselves. The irony of that appealed to me.
That and the Power that caused it.
5. The True Power.
Though seen from the very beginning, the Shadow's powers were left unexplained for some time. Only in the seventh book are we given a full concept. The Dark One's magic, in direct opposition to the Creator's, is called the True Power.
Admit it. It's a cool name.
I found the contrast between the One Power and the True Power particularly interesting. How the latter would eventually kill the user, but could do things that broke the rules - like levitation. I was disappointed that it didn't play nearly as much of a role in the story.
Well, technically it explained how the Shadow operated, from the
But unlike the One Power, the True Power could only be used with the direct permission of the Dark One. This was a major limitation. A handful of Forsaken - the Shadow's puppeteers and generals, who Rand spends much of the series fighting - are seen to use it in the latter half of the series.
Yet the only person to channel it consistently was the Shadow's equivalent of Rand. Ishamael - 'betrayer of hope' - first of the original Forsaken, and the Dragon's rival in the Age of Legends, reincarnated by the Dark One as Moridin - 'death' - to rival the Dragon Reborn. Fitting enough that the anti-messiah would use the dark side exclusively.
I wanted more than that. I started thinking, what if the dark side was every bit as important to the story as the light? What if the golden age fell not because a war left the light side corrupted, but because during the war, good people used the dark side themselves?
What if they used it and won?
And then those good people turned on the rest - because the dark side should corrupt, after all - and the legend was born. But the knowledge was lost.
What if a central theme of the story is people using the dark side again?
I think I mentioned before that I like dark heroes.
After all. In the Wheel of Time, besides the Forsaken, the only other person to use the True Power is Rand himself.
Yes, all self-respecting second acts need a shocking climax.
This second post examined how the world and backstory inspired elements of my own. The third and final - yes, final - part will focus on what truly stays with you from all good stories: the characters.
*At first I said the word was never used at all. But then I found an instance where it is, by a member of a fallen people who have lost all knowledge of the One Power. It's the exception that proves the rule.
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