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It's interesting that stopping Taimandred coincided with the drop in series quality. Tom Send a noteboard - 16/11/2015 05:02:38 AM

Taimandred was very clear to me. Asmodean got killed because Mazrim Taim had to appear in the next book. I also thought there was something odd about Bashere because of his reaction to Taim; he had seen him before, and there was something off about his reactions. It would have been a much better series if Jordan had stuck to it.

Of course, this was around the time he totally lost sight of the end of the series. It's like he axed Taimandred to completely switch the pacing and drag out things for five more books to explore some ideas, whereas the books through Lord of Chaos are very tight, move at an entertaining pace and continue to build to something great.

Everything after Book 6 is just a series of disappointments. Demandred is the gun that just refused to go off, and when he finally showed up, deus ex machina-style, in the last book, it was sort of too late to use him properly. The Last Battle was a bit too long and a bit too...conventional. Padan Fain had become too unwieldy and so he just has to get thrown in to wrap things up, the Forsaken continue to act in stupid ways and get themselves killed too easily, the Luc/Isam thing was just poorly finished...

Reading the reddit, it occurred to me that it would have been so much better not just if Taim were Demandred, but if Rand realized it (thanks to Lews Therin) and, instead of making Taim feel he was second best, continually praised him and made him feel as though he was not second, but first. Then, in the Last Battle, when everything is falling apart, Demandred can't bring himself to kill Rand, and his defection is all that saves the Light. THAT would be an interesting ending. Even more interesting, Rand realizes that he made the choice a long time ago and has been playing a double game, pretending to serve the Shadow but intentionally making mistakes to undermine plot after plot. And he's the one who helps Rand shift into a new body, a freshly killed nobody, and then he stays to help rebuild the world.

Instead we got three books talking about dresses and horses and "oh look over there, something just happened to the South" for an entire book, followed by a disappointingly conventional ending where everyone acted just like they were supposed to, and hardly anyone died until the end (keeping Graendal dead after Rand nuked her palace would have been better; killing one of the ta'veren in The Gathering Storm would have been even better - like Mat finding out that the dice/luck thing is actually a curse, and having ALL his luck run out all at once while he hears the Dark One laughing at him, or just killing Perrin because he and Epicfail were so damn irritating).

It was all so derivative, so predictable, so boring, ultimately. And it could have been so much better.

Political correctness is the pettiest form of casuistry.

ἡ δὲ κἀκ τριῶν τρυπημάτων ἐργαζομένη ἐνεκάλει τῇ φύσει, δυσφορουμένη, ὅτι δὴ μὴ καὶ τοὺς τιτθοὺς αὐτῇ εὐρύτερον ἢ νῦν εἰσι τρυπώη, ὅπως καὶ ἄλλην ἐνταῦθα μίξιν ἐπιτεχνᾶσθαι δυνατὴ εἴη. – Procopius

Ummaka qinnassa nīk!

*MySmiley*
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Demandred, Taim and Asmodean - 13/11/2015 05:22:36 PM 3148 Views
Holy...SHIT! - 13/11/2015 07:12:08 PM 1701 Views
Yup...shocked, but hardly surprised. - 13/11/2015 08:12:54 PM 1272 Views
Thank you so much for revealing it - 13/11/2015 08:57:32 PM 1381 Views
I agree... - 13/11/2015 09:03:21 PM 1217 Views
Re: Holy...SHIT! - 18/11/2015 05:21:26 PM 1069 Views
Re: Demandred, Taim and Asmodean - 13/11/2015 07:15:14 PM 1289 Views
There was bound to be changes of mind... - 13/11/2015 10:50:39 PM 1867 Views
Hmmm... - 13/11/2015 11:59:41 PM 1156 Views
I just can't believe he was that lazy/sloppy in editing LOC. - 14/11/2015 12:29:47 AM 1625 Views
I thought Shara was begging to be noticed as a last minute foe. - 14/11/2015 02:46:42 AM 1311 Views
So did a lot of people. But... - 14/11/2015 05:27:27 AM 1269 Views
I still tend to think Demandred in Shara was Sanderson's creation - 16/11/2015 09:07:28 PM 1460 Views
He has pretty much admitted as much publicly. - 17/11/2015 03:14:19 AM 1274 Views
Agreed. In fact.. - 17/11/2015 03:19:20 AM 1173 Views
Re: I still tend to think Demandred in Shara was Sanderson's creation - 17/11/2015 05:08:58 PM 1072 Views
One more comment on the timing - 21/11/2015 04:29:02 PM 1250 Views
I don't get the Nynaeve note - 14/11/2015 02:32:28 AM 1497 Views
There are a lot of inexplicable notes like this. - 14/11/2015 06:33:11 AM 1365 Views
Nynaeve was one of the few who met the original Balthamel and Aginor - 17/11/2015 08:46:43 PM 1094 Views
Re: Nynaeve was one of the few who met the original Balthamel and Aginor - 17/11/2015 09:33:34 PM 952 Views
It's interesting that stopping Taimandred coincided with the drop in series quality. - 16/11/2015 05:02:38 AM 1689 Views
Some of this could have been interesting - 16/11/2015 04:37:00 PM 1302 Views
It would take away from Verin though - 16/11/2015 05:05:41 PM 886 Views
That is a good point - 16/11/2015 08:52:37 PM 944 Views
For the record my suggestion was not that he was a mole - 17/11/2015 01:56:41 AM 1088 Views
that was clear in your post - 19/11/2015 05:36:02 PM 949 Views
Sanderson certainly did that - 20/11/2015 05:08:03 PM 1120 Views
I don't think I would have cared for that - 20/11/2015 06:05:19 PM 1059 Views
It didn't necessarily have to be "dark", just a bit less two-dimensional. - 20/11/2015 10:00:59 PM 1052 Views
I mostly agree - 21/11/2015 06:38:31 AM 941 Views
This I can agree with - 23/11/2015 04:12:19 PM 903 Views
I don't read a ton of fantasy anymore - 23/11/2015 04:29:47 PM 1238 Views

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