scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/3d27wf.md

## Rational takes on Wheel of Time?

* Author: u/luminarium *
* URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3d27wf/rational_takes_on_wheel_of_time/
* Score: 20

* Created: 2015-07-12T22:51:13

### Post:

I'd come across [a story called Ta-veren](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7628608/2/Ta-veren) which does this nicely. Anyone have any suggestions of other such stories?

**Edit**: I didn't mean to fixate on this story in particular (it just happens to be the only WoT rational fic that I know of). I'm interested in discovering *other* WoT rational fics, any suggestions?

### Comments:

> **u/blazinghand** [+8]  *Chaos Undivided* (19 hours later)
> 
> Rational Wheel of Time might be cool. 
> 
> That story, although it's fun to read, is deeply unsatisfying. It doesn't seem like the characters are challenged in a significant way, and their interactions with Moraine and Lan are too "easy".
> 
> Usually, a fic that centers around time travel, memories getting passed, or some kind of "main character knows a lot more than he should about the plot or about the world in general" are tough to write well. A lot of what makes plots in general, and Wheel of Time in particular enjoyable is that the main character is learning about the world and him/herself. You can still have a character be confident and competent in his domain, but there should be encounters where the outcome isn't clear or the character isn't in a position of strength.
> 
> A good example from this would be The Metropolitan Man. Lex is rich, he has well-managed criminal connections, and he is smart, handsome, and charismatic. You might think Lex is a Gary Stu because outside of supernatural powers he has everything he needs. A lot of what makes the plot interesting, though, is that Lex lacks information. He doesn't know what Superman can do. He doesn't know how Superman thinks, or if/when Superman will go mad and destroy the world. He is able to do some stuff very well, like get information from Lois, make money, and fund the bomber. Things outside of his domain are difficult for him, though, like putting agents in Smallville or any sort of physical confrontation with Superman (which he tries and fails to avoid). Also, he's really really restricted by the constant threat of Superman's information gathering powers. 
> 
> When you read The Metropolitan Man, you're excited because the main character is competent, but you're always a little bit afraid because you don't think it will be enough. Lex is brilliant, charismatic, fabulously wealthy, and above suspicion, and when I read the story I kept on wondering how he could possibly stand a chance against the Man of Steel. 
> 
> Watching Rand-with-Lews-Knowledge build a perfect kingdom and yank Moraine's chain is fun, sure. But I won't be bookmarking this fic.

>> **u/ancientcampus** [+6]  *juggling kittens* (20 hours later)
>> 
>> Much as I try to avoid over-quoting him, I still think EW said it the best: "You can't make Frodo a Jedi unless you give Sauron the Death Star".

>>> **u/ancientcampus** [+5]  *juggling kittens* (20 hours later)
>>> 
>>> Fun fact: when I first read that as his "rule #1 of fanfiction" I initially scoffed - it's far too specific to be "rule #1". At the time, I'd been reading fanfiction pretty much everywhere except fanfiction.net - HPMOR was my first. Then I branched out, and saw just how *many* stories broke that rule on ffn, and finally realized why he gave it that place of honor.

>>>> **u/blazinghand** [+3]  *Chaos Undivided* (a day later)
>>>> 
>>>> It's not that I didn't enjoy reading the fic, it's just that it was not terribly satisfying. I think that you can have a fic with an overpowered main character because maybe it IS fun to watch Harry Potter effortlessly crush every enemy! It just won't leave you feeling like something has been resolved. An example of this done well is [Seventh Horcrux](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10677106/1/Seventh-Horcrux) which is possibly my favorite fanfiction.

>>>>> **u/ancientcampus** [+3]  *juggling kittens* (2 days later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Okay, I just started reading Seventh Horcrux. First chapter had me laughing out loud.

>>>>>> **u/blazinghand** [+1]  *Chaos Undivided* (2 days later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I actually think of the first couple of chapters as a little choppy (though still hilarious)-- the author gets a LOT better as it goes on. By the end of Year 2 I knew I'd read the whole thing basically in one or two sittings.

> **u/None** [+2]  (19 hours later)
> 
> That story is crack fiction. Rand sets up a dictatorship for himself, the USSR writ small (and with capitalism rather than communism). It's even got a People's Palace and secret police. The whole thing with Lews Therin and cigarettes was the first clue.
> 
> And then...misogyny.
> 
> > "Compared to some mothers-in-law I've seen, Trolloc is a sweetheart."
> 
> Nope. Ain't nobody got time for that.

>> **u/ancientcampus** [+2]  *juggling kittens* (20 hours later)
>> 
>> You know, people compliment Robert Jordan for being feminist, but I honestly never saw it. In book 1, Rand has an actual harem following after him, and literally the only useful thing Egwene does all book is make Perrin dinner.

>>> **u/Anderkent** [+1]  (22 hours later)
>>> 
>>> > You know, people compliment Robert Jordan for being feminist
>>> 
>>> Really?? I've never seen that. I definitely remember someone pointing out how... non-agenty and cliche WoT female leads look.

>>>> **u/alexanderwales** [+10]  *Time flies like an arrow* (22 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> The argument for WoT being feminist is largely that it's a gender-flipped society. It's a matriarchy instead of a patriarchy, and the gender roles have the women in a mostly dominant position. Most of the criticisms of women in WoT are along the lines of "women treat men like they're little boys", but this is part of the point that Jordan was making; a paternalistic society becomes a maternalistic society, and that's a comment-by-comparison on patriarchy more than it's a comment on women. If you wrote a gender-flipped version of WoT, it would be really hard to read it as anything other than a critique of gender roles.
>>>> 
>>>> But a lot of people miss all that, and think that Jordan was just writing bitchy, domineering women as a critique of women. (Sanderson has explicitly said that women in WoT have female privilege in the same way that men in our world have male privilege, so I'm not just blowing smoke when I say that this is intentional.)
>>>> 
>>>> I mean, there are arguments to be made about characterization, etc. But at its core, I do think it's trying to be feminist, even if it has some failures.

>>>>> **u/mynoduesp** [+2]  (6 days later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> That female privilege thing used to bug me immensely, made me open my eyes to the gender power struggle that people go on about.

>>>>> **u/Anderkent** [+1]  (23 hours later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Thanks. That's an interesting point and yeah I missed that while reading the series.

>>>>> **u/None** [+1]  (a day later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> > The argument for WoT being feminist is largely that it's a gender-flipped society.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Gender-flipped? Really? Men are more excused in gallivanting off to the ends of the earth, as we see in the first few chapters of the first book. In that same interlude, we see Rand &co trying to order Egwene not to join them -- they seem to expect to be obeyed. The Two Rivers standard is that men can order their wives around, and women must connive and manipulate to get out of those orders or to get their husbands to do their will. Women aren't allowed to fight in the Two Rivers or indeed most armies, the Seanchan and the Aiel being the exceptions. Even among the Aiel, men can have children and still go off to war, while women have to choose between children and war. Family names are patrilineal in the Two Rivers and probably most of the WoTverse. I'm pretty sure most of the itinerant traders and crafters we see are men, and the times we see women who are crafters, they tend to be weavers or seamstresses. Taverns tend to have women minding the tables, but they're there to be fondled more often than not.
>>>>> 
>>>>> No, it's not sexism reversed. It's the sexism of 1950s nostalgia, toned down slightly, then made slightly gritty. It scares me that you think that that is a gender-flipped society. How sexist against men would you view a society with actual equality, I wonder? Or do you simply not remember the books well enough?

>>>>>> **u/CaptainBooshi** [+3]  (a day later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Yes, Two Rivers is not gender-flipped in any way. In fact, it's pretty much a default fantasy setting, I suspect because it's literally the first place you see in the series. However, there's a reason that the first place they visit after leaving Two Rivers is Cairhien, where a Queen rules, the line of rule is matrilineal, and kings are selected for political reasons. That is explicitly the gender-flipped version of how kingdoms worked in our history. The most powerful people in the people in the world? The Aes Sedai, all female. In fact, the White Tower seems to be directly inspired by the Catholic Church in Medieval Europe in terms of power and organization, so another case of gender-flipping history there. 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I would not say the entire world is gender-flipped, but Robert Jordan intentionally messes around with gender politics the entire series. Every culture seems to be different, from the familiar Two Rivers, to that one city where men are treated no better than slaves and are expected to obey women or be beaten. He is not perfect, and I can think of several problem areas, but he was definitely trying different things, and deserves credit for that. Saying that it's just 1950's sexism is blatant misrepresentation, in my opinion.

>>>>>>> **u/None** [+2]  (2 days later)
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> To me, it sounds like he had good large-scale ideas, but still kind of sucked at writing female characters.

>>>>>>> **u/None** [+1]  (a day later)
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> > the first place they visit after leaving Two Rivers is Cairhien, where a Queen rules
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> *Caemlyn

>>> **u/Iconochasm** [+1]  (22 hours later)
>>> 
>>> That's some major stretching.  He has three positive interactions with theoretical romantic interactions compared to Egwene having one (she gets her other two in later books, while Rand adds another).
>>> 
>>> I don't know that I'd call WoT specifically "feminist", but it definitely has non-standard gender issues that strike me as designed to make young men realize how damn annoying they can be.

>>> **u/None** [+0]  (a day later)
>>> 
>>> To be fair, that's about all Edwene is good for at that point in the story.
>>> 
>>> I would argue that she was not a good character, but rather a useful "baggage handler" character. A side NPC, so to speak.

>>>> **u/ancientcampus** [+1]  *juggling kittens* (2 days later)
>>>> 
>>>> She definitely grew in later books, and at times holds the title for "most interesting character" in my book. However, her arc doesn't really *begin* for several books, so at the start, yes, she's very much an NPC to fill out the fellowship.

> **u/ancientcampus** [+2]  *juggling kittens* (20 hours later)
> 
> So, there's been enough negative discussion of this fic by now that more would just become bashing. Instead, let's ask how would *you* make a rational WoT?
> 
> I'd want to write it from Matt's perspective. He's got the right genre-savviness-to-power ratio. He could figure out the whole Ta-veren thing and manipulate it to his advantage, and curse his luck when it bites him in the tail. Come to think, though, that's pretty much just how he acts in canon already.
> 
> If you want to write "ambitious, knowledgeable character seizes power and saves the world with an iron fist" story like most rationalist fics, Moiraine would be a good pick. You could start before she meets Rand. She gets frustrated with her inability to find [](#s "you know who"), and starts manipulating the world to prepare for the last battle. Bonus round: maybe this causes Rand & Co to not have her present, so they whether the trolloc raid on their own, causing further divergence.

>> **u/JackStargazer** [+1]  *Primordial Apologist* (23 hours later)
>> 
>> I've only read up to book 3 or so, and honestly I enjoyed book 0 more than the other two where Moiraine was the protagonist. 
>> 
>> I'm not sure i could get through the rest of the series, it just seems to drag on.

>>> **u/cae_jones** [+2]  (a day later)
>>> 
>>> if you are finding it drags horribly by the end of book 3, you probably shouldn't continue. Books 1-4 are the most solid, until Sanderson picks up and makes the last 3 more active. I hardly remember anything about books 7-9, other than that they could have been just one book and still would have felt like nothing happened.
>>> 
>>> someone really needs to make a the Abridged Series for WoT. Isam's summaries are a decent start, but I'm imagining something more in the vein of how DBZ Abridged manages to fit at least 90% of the important details of a 10 hour anime season into a 2 hour parody.

>>>> **u/None** [+1]  (a day later)
>>>> 
>>>> > I hardly remember anything about books 7-9
>>>> 
>>>> I mostly remember Elayne taking a lot of baths. Egwene was on an extended camping trip with a bunch of other Aes Sedai. Umm... yeah, that's all I remember. I've read this series twice.

>>> **u/mynoduesp** [+1]  (6 days later)
>>> 
>>> Book 4 is my favourite, mat really comes into his own.

> **u/TheStevenZubinator** [+1]  *Chaos Legion* (5 hours later)
> 
> Without having read the linked story, I'm very excited about this. I'm currently on book 9 of Wheel of Time and I've enjoyed playing short rational versions in my head. Thanks for the post!

>> **u/None** [+4]  (8 hours later)
>> 
>> I found 9 and 10 a little dull, but 11 onwards more than make up for it. :)

> **u/ancientcampus** [+1]  *juggling kittens* (16 hours later)
> 
> I have not yet read that fanfic, so I'd be interested to learn people's thoughts. Rand is a *massive* Gary-Stu as it is, and giving him a book-1 powerup is the last thing he needs. Does the story have other redeeming factors?
> 
> (I know that this kind of fanfic is a popular genre, so it's okay if it's a don't-like-don't-read sort of thing)

>> **u/Anderkent** [+6]  (17 hours later)
>> 
>> Nope. I read to chapter 4 and skimmed later ones; while the initial premise was promising (more in themes of 1632 than WoT) it really does seem the point of this fanfic is Rand showing Moiraine how it's done:
>> 
>> >"Still feels earthshattering, doesn't it?" Rand asked her.
>> 
>> >"Yes," she nodded, then smiled. "It's just that I can't…" she shook her head. "All these revelations are making it so that everything is different. Nothing is as it was, anymore, and I find my head throbbing with all of these new… ideas."
>> 
>> >"Hmm," he smirked. "I know that feeling. That's a good thing. Your brain is like a muscle. It needs to be worked in order to grow, but it too has its daily limits, even if there is a ter'angreal as powerful as Lavanth, giving you the motivation. There's so much more that you need to receive today, and I'm not sure that it would be within anyone's limits."
>> 
>> *groan* I was willing to forgive Rand&company turning their village into an economic powerhouse & fortress in 7 years if there was some 1632 action coming, but it doesn't seem so; and the treatment of Moraine in particular is just shabby.

>>> **u/None** [+2]  (18 hours later)
>>> 
>>> No, no! Not the smirk!

>>>> **u/Anderkent** [+5]  (18 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> *smirk* good, you're learning to think. Cherish that feeling. - said a 20 year old to the well traveled and educated woman.

>>>>> **u/ancientcampus** [+2]  *juggling kittens* (20 hours later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> *pounds head on desk*
>>>>> 
>>>>> Thanks for the warning.

> **u/rumblestiltsken** [+0]  (30 days later)
> 
> The problem here is that until the very end, the series is rational. Everything that people would do if they were intelligent and had the knowledge and skills they have ... is done. There are clever plots, there is a whole lot of game playing, there is heavy threat to protagonists. It may not *feel* rational, because the world is literally a narrative that follows something of a predetermined path and revolves around a single hero. But once the setting is laid down, the story makes all kinds of sense.
> 
> The one place that totally makes sense for a rational remake is the end, but it would be a short one. So short I can't even be bothered one-shotting it. 
> 
> [Spoiler](#s "Rand makes the right choice because he actually learnt his lessons throughout the books and doesn't actually think suffering is good for people anymore.")
> 
> [Spoiler] (#s "Although I guess you could potentially take away from the ending that the story is hyper-rational, and the dark one set him up all along to fall for a long-con.")

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