In the early books, prologues and vignettes of minor characters notwithstanding, most chapters contained a single point of view, or, perhaps two within the same setting. In more recent books, however, we start to see completely unrelated scenes contained within the same chapter. This first jumped out at me in KoD, Attending Elaida; the chapter begins with a PoV from Tarna yet ends with the continuation of Mat's story arc. If such a thing happened once, I'd call it an editorial oversight, but TGS and ToM routinely mix different plot arcs within the same chapter.

 

At the same time we also see the reality of Randland start to come apart at the seams--ghosts, shifting corridors, more frequent bubbles of evil, etc. It seems to me that the weakening chapter structure was done purposefully to give the reader some sense of the uncertainty and discontinuity that the characters are facing.

 

Thoughts?

 

-- dwn

In the early books, prologues and vignettes of minor characters notwithstanding, most chapters contained a single point of view, or, perhaps two within the same setting. In more recent books, however, we start to see completely unrelated scenes contained within the same chapter. This first jumped out at me in KoD, Attending Elaida; the chapter begins with a PoV from Tarna yet ends with the continuation of Mat's story arc. If such a thing happened once, I'd call it an editorial oversight, but TGS and ToM routinely mix different plot arcs within the same chapter.

 

At the same time we also see the reality of Randland start to come apart at the seams--ghosts, shifting corridors, more frequent bubbles of evil, etc. It seems to me that the weakening chapter structure was done purposefully to give the reader some sense of the uncertainty and discontinuity that the characters are facing.

 

Thoughts?

 

-- dwn

 

 

Maybe as simple as the last two books being written by Brandon Sanderson rather than Robert Jordan?

Maybe as simple as the last two books being written by Brandon Sanderson rather than Robert Jordan?

 

Except that the different structure started--at the latest--in KoD.

 

-- dwn

I think this simply has to do with the fact that the story needs to really hurry along after being seriously bogged down for a few books. with so many characters to take care of multiple POV changes are inevitable.

I don't think that the idea is far-fetched. It's not uncommon for a writer to make the writing's form reflect its content. That said, it would be hard to verify that this is the reason (as opposed to other factors like hurrying up to get done, boredom with the old way of doing things, etc.), now that Jordan is gone.

I would guess that its there is so much going on in the world its showing how busy it is, like most of the stroylines of the latest books take place over a very short time, and there is also alot of them at once. Whereas some of the others books went over long time periods or had very few stroylines happening at once.

I think the almost chaotic structure is intentional. It gives the reader a sense of the frenzied atmosphere that dominates Randland in the rush to prepare for T'G in the 11th hour.

Edited February 14, 201115 yr by Xader