...including many aspects of the books themselves, and also WOT-fandom.

 

Nathan Heller's column today had a line so good I just had to steal it:

 

"a kingdom ruled by moody young folks who have read Rousseau but never seen the inside of a tax return."

Well, any fantasy has elements of ... well, fantasy, but I don't think there's a tremendous amount in common, in terms of philosophy, worldview, or artistic approach, between Sofia Coppola and Robert Jordan.

No, and that's not what I am implying.

 

But the WOT world is certainly dominated by people who are, or act, young. And it does seem to me that WOT fandom is dominated by smart people with little in the way of real-life experience.

It's the easy way to effect character development, since there's the general presumption that grown adults don't really change much. As for not having seen the inside of a tax return, theoretically pretty much all the main characters are training or working in a rather arduous line of work: Elayne to govern a country, Perrin as a blacksmith, Rand as a farmer, Nynaeve does her Wisdom thing, Mat seemed to be involved in his father's business. Egwene is probably the least grounded of them, really... I'm sure someone could take that and run with it. Though the point is well-taken that most of the adults in the story are rather juvenile by modern standards. Practically none of them qualify for the "reading Rousseau" jibe, though; philosophy, optimistic or otherwise, is not an object of interest for anyone I can think of in WOT (except Ishamael, who found the traditional way out).

I would argue that the entire White and Brown ajahs, and probably the Blue as well, qualify for the Rousseau jibe. It isn't really a jibe about philosophy; it is a jibe about earnest naivete versus the lessons of experience.

Min is of a philosophical slant.

 

Just look at the way she has attempted to recreate Fel's work, and he seemed to have figured out how to seal the Bore, for Light's sake!