Yes, I said it. Two things y'all should know before we get started in earnest; I have a degree in English Lit, and I've spent the past year-ish reading every word on every page of the entire Wheel of Time series. I began this slightly insane project because the books have been a huge part of my life since randomly seeing the cover of The Fires of Heaven in a bookstore fifteen years ago. When I was about sixteen, having devoured all the novels that had then been published, I was convinced they were the greatest thing ever. Now, at the cynical age of 25 and after much study, I'm….. mildly dissapointed. Here's why:
The Wheel of Time didn't reinvent any wheels (nerdy pun completely intended). Instead, it's an extraordinarily well and complexly executed example of a familiar type. Rand Al'Thor is, to put it mildly, archetypal. He's young, has mysterious powers, messianic destiny, and is attractively brooding / troubled. In the early stages of the story, he is presented with a problem. In the last book, he solves that problem. He follows the same basic journey arc as is found in LOTR, Dune, Foundation, and pretty much every other example of what might be considered "classic" genre literature. And therein lies my disappointment.
Finishing The Eye of the World all those years ago, I quite honestly couldn't imagine the power and scope of the journey on which I was embarking with so many other readers. Jordan seemed to have created an entire world, fully imagined, richly characterized, filled with people whose lives carried the heft of genuine experience. True, nothing really world-shattering happened in that first book, but it didn't need to. This was shaping up to be an enormous story, one that would fill many books, and such a story doesn't kill its best characters too early. Consequences come at the end, all debts called due.
And now I ask; Of the characters we meet in that first book, which of them doesn't get exactly what they want in the last? Anyone? I'll wait…. Ok, yes, one of them dies. I didn't forget. May even have had something in my eye when first reading that particular passage. It is a heroic, profoundly felt sacrifice. Which she gives happily, to protect the people and institution she has come to love. It's a good death, made better because she's going to join…. Well, y'all know. I'm trying to tread around spoilers here.
In that last book, the culminating book, a loooooot of people die. This is as it should be. A Memory of Light is a war novel, and war has casualties. If Jordan, and his sucessor Brandon Sanderson, had allowed the entire main cast to survive, readers would have correctly lambasted it as a copout ending. But really, is what we got so different? Yes, there are plenty of deaths. How many, at least of the non-redshirt variety, are anything other than exactly how the character would have wanted to go, given the choice?
It is unfair, and inevitable, that the ending of a story overshadows all that has come before. But this is the function of a novel, even what is probably the single longest novel in the English language. The ending is where debts are called, where we see that to which the author has chosen to build, to focus energy and time and intention, to hold in the back of the mind as a goal. Jordan and Sanderson reveal their goal as one of massive wish-fulfillment for many beloved friends.
I can't blame them for it. Jordan was defined, professionally and to some extent personally, by the Wheel. Sanderson is an admitted fanatic from childhood on. They wanted a happy ending, and so moved pieces into place to achieve it. The problem is, much of that ending rings false. After so many years and so many miles, few of the characters are truly forced to make hard choices and sacrifices. There is some suggestion, even, of a happy afterlife in this particular cosmos. Now, I'm not saying that the journey is invalidated by a weak ending. But consider that the greatest criticism of WOT ha always been that Jordan lost control of the story, allowed it to get too big and too wheel-spinny. For a long time, I hoped that he had a grand endgame in mind, and that all the deux-ex-machina would lead to something extraordinary. The ending we got is just a little too…. neat, too perfect. Jordan built the most complex world in all of fantasy literature, and at the end revealed that it really only followed the whim of its creator. And that can't help but be a little disappointing.
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