fuzzybluemonkeys | The Great "Wheel of Time" [Re-]Read Progresses... (Reply)

7 books read, 8 more to go, and I have some Issues...

Queen Tylin of Ebou Dar is a rapist. And the whole thing is played off as "Ha ha Mat the womanizer gets a taste of his own medicine," but he literally says no multiple times and she cuts his clothes off with a knife, and he resists, so she has her servants carry him into her bedchambers. And I don't care about Ebou Dari cultural differences or she's royalty so she can do whatever she wants nonsense, he Did. Not. Consent. He repeatedly continues to not consent and it's treated as a joke and I'm super angry about it.

Speaking of "jokes", there's a repeated attempt at humor that was maybe heh-worthy the first time it showed up in the first book, but seven books in, it's like okay, we get it, you can stop now. (Basically each of the three childhood friends thinks the other two are better with/understand women and as it cycles through their narrative perspectives each one will think "I don't understand women, other two friends are better at that.")

I keep trying to remind myself that most of the main characters are teenagers, and that's why they're so unbelievably dense, but the adults do it too? Like nobody believes people when they say things except when someone tells them a lie, and then they wholeheartedly believe it? The most egregious example is an embassy of supposedly skilled negotiators, and one of them gets stabbed by someone who's all, "This is for Rand!" And they believe him? None of them even bring up the possibility that stabby guy is a liar as well as a stabber? Just the unrelenting arrogance of so many characters thinking they know best is really annoying me.

Also it looks like it took me a year to read 6 books, so another year+ before I finish.