HeavyHalfMoonBlade

Got to love the tentacles. Says Japan, anyway.

Probs? Well, that is if it has a bottom...

And if we concentrate only on these "some" at either end of the spectrum, then we can have a lovely "social war" discussion full of hatred and vitriol. Or we could discuss the actual books and show on their merits. I dunno what you guys would prefer but I would prefer to discuss the Wheel of Time. It doesn't really help to preempt people's arguments (strawmen rarely fight back) or to reply that "your side is worse", but whatever floats your boat. Personally, my experience would point to fans of the book being divided in their enthusiasm for the show, depending on how much they liked the show, not by predisposed political views. So this tribalistic them and us mentality I don't get.

Yeah this is strange. The first three books suffer as they were not written as the start of a huge series. The need to come to a self contained climax, at least at the end of book 1 and 3, really hindered Jordan in telling the story he wanted to. The conscious mirroring of LOTR is also dropped. I have never been into LOTR due a strange and pathological hatred of hobbits (hairy footed little ****ers) and I never realised until recently that Ingtar is not an original character but a reworking of Boromir. Jordan was obviously also still working on his ideas. He rarely contradicts himself (such as where Yurien recognises Verin by her ageless face as a Wise One) but definitely things change such as Mat's character or the plot with Moirraine, her husband and her helping Thom find the Red Ajah. Book 4 is where all this drops away. He knew he had the pages now to tell the story he wanted and Rhuidean is where the truly vast epic starts - quite different from the we have to travel about looking for a arbitrary magical item while being chased by monsters of the previous books. Books 1-3 were always going to be problematic, not because they were badly written, but because they were episodic in a continuous series. I don't know the criticism of Jordan that is mentioned here, but criticising a book hardly amounts to disrespect to the author. Is someone saying they prefer a softer magic system, or a harder, a slap on the face to Jordan? I don't see how.

Awesome, thank you, thank you, Ithillian Sedai. That is so cool. I'll proudly put it with my Boopsy Sedai original.

*clears throat impatiently* Just because we have a pretty frock that doesn't mean we don't have chores, Novice Andy. *sniffs and crosses his arms under his, er, well, they're just crossed OK? We weren't all blessed as Nynaeve now, were we?* Don't be distracted by these drunken Algai about the place, despite alcohol for Novices and Algai is strictly forbidden. Especially since those rumours of an illegal still in House Mantheren that allegedly led to Mother burning down the Mother's Skirts. Which I know absolutely nothing about. Filthy unsubstantiated rumours that they are.

Looking good, Andy. *surreptiously wipes away a tear* They grow up so fast.

Pretty cool? No? Meh. I is unappreciated round here, lol.

May I add my congratulations, Leala? Pretty cool being a White Sitter (pun intended). That is something we should have; a pun based Ajah. They could make Shadowspawn take their own lives with bad jokes. I'd join that. No wait, that sounds like the Yellow Ajah...

A bic biro was great as the pen wouldn't go all the way through and you could spin it around like a rectangular hula hoop as long as the tape wasn't twisted. Granny's Life Hacks. We could start a YouTube channel.

Pretty much just a blink of an eye for me. Kids will never know the fun of trying to wind a gnarled up tape back onto the spool with a ballpoint pen.

I don't think the new aspies have been introduced. Eirik and I are quite intimate with Bob and their family. I had stuck all my CDs in a folder which made emigrating with them a lot easier. I ripped them all to mp3 (what fun that was) but changing PCs seemed to lose my entire music collection. Though seeing as it must have several years before I noticed maybe it would not have such a great loss. I recently realized I still have it all on my old iPod which was just breathtaking when it came out. It had three times the storage of my PC at the time. You could even play silly little games with the large screen and dial. This will never catch on, who wants to use it for anything else than play music, I thought to myself. New fangled nonsense. Nowadays I just use Spotify because I'm lazy. Though of course that tends to focus your tastes as opposed to expand them if you are not careful.

*does the backstroke through the moat* Yeet? Don't know that one. I'm so cool I say bad when I mean good. Just like that happening youngster Michael Jackson. Surely popular culture hasn't moved on from this? *channels a flick of air to turn on MC Hammer on his stereo cassette player*

Surely you can only retire a phrase once it has been replaced. What could replace yolo?

Never noticed how that sounds like a rocking band before...

I'm getting Feast of Fools vibes here. Things go very wrong when Aes Sedai let slip their decorum. This is why the Accepted should be in charge at all times.

Lol, the Moiraine and Thom thing always seemed like something Jordan forgot about. Right near the beginning there is the comment "I know my future husbands face better than you do" then nothing. His subplot of revenge on his nephews killers was dropped. I kinda think like Padan Fain was missing from Jordan's notes, he probably left something like Moiraine and Thom written in a heart in the margins but nothing else. It is one of things that just makes no sense at the end. I'm not sure it is fair to blame Sanderson for anything he hasn't owned up to personally as there was obviously heavy editing going on above his head. Jordan I think is on record as saying "what do you think would happen amongst a whole bunch of teenage girls?" (or words to that effect) but I've never seen any indication of teenage boys or men in the story acting similarly. Also the way it is presented in the most part as a phase is off putting. Though again that could have been to make it more acceptable to society, or perhaps Jordan was bisexual and thought it normal that everyone needed to suppress homosexual feelings that could get out of hand. And don't even get me started on the spanking or female nudity...

It is true that the Suian-Moiraine relationship does not further the dragon plot any, but it does deepen Moiraine's character. Given that this is obviously one of the goals of the show, along with her relationship with Lan, and her elderly little sister, etc, and casting the headline actress and producer in the role, it does fit the vision of the series, and definitely goes some way to correct Jordan's near fetishism over pillow friends. I've never quite known if it was a case of Jordan wanting to be inclusive but male homosexuality was taboo in those days, or if he really thought women are just sex mad at their core, or it was just his heterosexual perspective that women are objectively attractive while men are not. One thing I definitely agree with is how cheap some of the scenes appeared, especially in the first series. One possibility for this is I read they were deliberately using Asian influenced visuals to increase the popularity there, which tends towards more bright colours than the more natural grubbiness we favour in the West. So when in nature, I think that kind of clashed for me. The scenes travelling through the forest felt like some amateur LARP scene, though it is difficult to say exactly how when they are literally just travelling through a forest.

Welcome, Ithillian Sedai. Don't worry about the dust, we have Novices for that. No need to get your weaves dirty. Nothing ever goes wrong when Novices are cleaning Aes Sedai quarters. Nothing. Ever. I may not have held the Oath Rod, but you can trust me on that.

You are making the Milky Bar Kid sad. Interesting to hear that the advertisers are ignoring the accent on the "e" of Nestlé, and giving it a British phonetic pronunciation.

I was Born to Love You - Freddie Mercury Never noticed Freddie wasn't spelt with a y before. Curse you, autocorrect, you win this time.

Very enticing 🙂 And educational. Ganache has been added to my vocabulary. Sounds like we have a Brown in the making here, using all fancy-dancy words and everything, lol.

Youtube is telling me the video has been removed for violating YouTube's terms of service. How far do you need to go to offend Google o.O

Very interesting post 🙂 You may find though that the question is a rather emotive one around these parts, with rumours of past aspirants being thoroughly toasted for even suggesting that white chocolate is chocolate... but still it is all part of the White Tower experience. I don't think chocolate is for sharing, I mean, I'm all for unconditional love but let's be realistic here. Also chocolate is really expensive in these parts now. Prices have easily quadrupled in the last few years thanks to Tony's Chocolonely and its multitude of flavours, plain chocolate is actually getting difficult to get a hold of. I prefer milk chocolate (Cadbury's is the best, don't care what anyone says about the cocoa content). White chocolate is a bit sickly, but I do like it in small quantities. Never used to like dark chocolate but I had a period of not eating dairy, and if that is the only option, it is quite good actually. Also the higher % of the cocoa mass does mean there is less room for sugar or other nastiness. Though again, only in small quantities. So if you are a buying me a kilogram bar, only milk please.

French Kissing in the USA - Deborah Harry