Towers of Midnight

It’s been almost a week since I got the book and after the initial excitement of getting Moiraine back, I have to say the book wasn’t really anything to write home about.

Rand: Zen Buddha Rand is very…distant. At least crazy Rand was someone you could relate to and feel something about what he was or wasn’t doing right. New Rand is so untouchable and “perfect” it can be a bit boring. Thankfully he is barely in this book otherwise it would have been overkill.

Nynaeve: Another character barely in the book. Her Aes Sedai test lacked the emotional investment we had with Moiraine’s in New Spring. First off, Nynaeve’s took too long: we didn’t need to see her go through that many trials especially since it was the same motif over and over. With Moiraine we saw her as Accepted struggling to practice the weaves and doubt her abilities. Nynaeve had no such struggle or any doubts. It felt like Nynaeve’s Accepted Test Redux. She didn’t follow the rules or seem to learn anything from it. If the only point was to show her telling the Aes Sedai how wrong they were for doing things a certain way, I would have preferred her test being done off screen. Waste of paper.

Egwene: Egwene is Egwene and seems back to her old self. Whatever good she did in the previous book in readers’ eyes is pretty much negated by her returning to the norm.

Perrin: This was a Perrin novel and it didn’t need to be. Far too much time was spent on his training with Hopper and his inner confusion. His confronting the Whitecloaks and finally doing away with that part of his past was a very nice touch indeed, he seems to have finally obtained an adult relationship with his teenage wife, and he has found balance with the wolf inside him. But it still took way too long to get there. Not to mention he suffers from the same “this is my playground!” as Egwene when it comes to the World of Dreams. They both need a wake-up call.

Elayne: I have tried to like Elayne. She is going to be a part of Moiraine’s life thanks to Thom (and well, being Moiraine’s niece and all) and she reminded me of a young (albeit annoying) Moiraine. However, she frankly disturbed me in the novel. Her power hungry nature has come out and she has all the makings of a future tyrant, if a well-intentioned one. She has roped the Kin in to be her personal channeling service, arm wrestles to make the Band of the Red Hand Andor’s own personal army, her eyes light up at the thought of being the only nation with dragons, and she only seems to want Cairhien to solidify her throne in Andor and to act as a buffer for any bad guys.

Even if I wasn’t a Moiraine fan I would still dislike Elayne as Queen of Cairhien. I was willing to accept it once I realized how late in the book Moiraine returns to the fold, but after reading Elayne’s ideas about the country and its people I have changed my mind. Moiraine needs to be queen to save them from the redhead.

Mat: Even though it was slow going at first by the end I actually became a Mat fan. Of course as it turns out those last Mat chapters were written by the late Jordan so I wonder if I’ll still like Mat when I read Sanderson’s take on him next book. For me the kicker was him finally seeing Moiraine as a human being and realizing he didn’t hate her after all. His whole banter with her was just awesome and wonderfully written. Good job, RJ!

Moiraine: She’s back and she’s naked. Not really much to say. I hope she cuts back on the smiling. Freaky.

Thom: I already ranted on Moiraine’s World about Thom, but I’m going to do so again!

Thom the Gleeman

I am honestly baffled at his whole hesitation. Not just with the marriage proposal but even before when she just wanted to hold hands. He has been mooning over her letter for probably close to a year, made it clear that he was going with or without Mat even though that meant certain death, was eager as a beaver to get going once Mat agreed, dug high and low for any information on the Tower of Ghenjei and the Eelfinn and Aelfinn, according Perrin he smelled “excited” when Mat said they were going to go to the Tower, scolds his hands and burns his clothes digging her out of steam blanket, runs himself half to death carrying her around, and then HESITATES when she wants to hold hands.

Now, I can see how he might have fallen in love with the idea of Moiraine and having the real thing is something else all together. Except, after Moiraine offers up her grand sacrifice Thom no longer seems to care about her channeling abilities and declares he’ll marry her then and there. So if deep down you didn’t care, why all this drama? Moiraine is just as guilty: he said he wouldn’t rob her of anything but then she has to double check. Both of them are drama queens and deserve each other.

Other points: Galad becoming human was interesting, his falling in love at first sight tiring. I get so tired of characters doing that. I’m starting to think it a Damodred trait because Morgase seems to at least wait a few months. Speaking of, her reunions with her three children were so anti-climatic. Galad didn’t seem all that moved, but it is Galad. Gawyn who has spent Lord knows how many books obsessing over his mother’s death…we don’t even get his point-of-view. It might as well have been off-screen. Elayne! Elayne seemed more concerned with whether or not her mother not being dead would be an issue with her own hold on the crown. God forbid Elayne has to give up her power! Mat had a more emotional experience with Moiraine than these three with their formally dead mother.

The Black Tower plot bored me. Tarna being turned is sad, but we saw her from the point-of-view of characters I couldn’t care less about. I couldn’t make myself read them all the way to be honest.

Tuon is a bitch and I hate her.

Oh, Aviendha. Her vision of the future is, well, not a very emotional issue for me as some others. I hate the Seanchan but I also hate the Aiel. So do I want to see the Seanchan take over the world? No. But do I like the idea of the Aiel finally get the smack handed to them? YES. Also, it was nice how Elayne’s granddaughter isn’t some OH MY GOD awesome beauty.

Olver. Um. I saw nothing of anything really important in his part of the novel. It didn’t break my heart in the least and he seems like an annoying ten year old kid. Just like always. So he wants revenge on his family’s killers? How is this some shocking revelation? I was hoping he died, to be honest.

Lan is not happy

Lan’s scenes were the most painful and awkward writing I have ever read in the Wheel of Time series.

In the end I’d probably give this book seven out of ten stars, and most of that is because of Mat and Moiraine. It’s right down there with The Path of Daggers and Crossroads of Twilight. Lots of things happen that I just don’t care about and all the good stuff is saved until the very, very end.

Case in point, here is a gem from 2002, which would be near the sites genesis. Although thankfully the actual first layout is filled with X’s.

Moiraine and Thom...love bubble?

Back then, whatever the header image was I made sure the site matched. So all that lovely orange-red font/scrollbar/links would change. How exciting! I was surprised to discover how much more personal site updates were back then. Another aspect I blocked out, I guess.

My god that banner! I suppose back then everyone had ugly websites so I can forgive myself, but I can remember being so damn proud of my Paint Shop Pro 7 “skills”. Ah, the good ol’ days.

The most recent and functioning site snapshot in the Archive is from 2005.

How pale and...there.

I don’t have anything really against this layout. I think it does highlight how static the front page was for a good long time. Not to mention, the actual site description at some point vanished. Which reminded me Kate was suppose to help with that!

Anyway, after a brief break I started up my workout routine again only this time in the high intensity. Eh, yeah, needless to say my body is very tired. But it feels so good to be back to exercising. That’s about all I have to say about that.

But WOT! Oh WOT! Sweet has once again graced us with a wonderful cover, although at least you can tell who’s who unlike most works. Except his ever changing vision of bodybuilding Rand. But there is a comment over on Dragonmount that I just love to pieces!

Well, none of the characters look like the love child of Fabio and Timothy Dalton, posing for a romance novel. That’s a start. Also it doesn’t appear that any of the characters are in the middle of busting out The Robot on the dance floor. That’s good. He seems to have grown the characters from hobbit to normal human size, also an improvement. No impossible arm angles that remind me of things I drew in 4th grade.

I think secretly Darryl K. Sweet is a true genius artist. How does the man manage to create art, from scratch, that perfectly captures the awkwardness of a live photo shoot featuring models that have absolutely no idea how to look good for the camera? I would have to go through a lot of trouble finding people off the street, dressing them in funny clothes, and telling them to pose for me in some strange scene, in order to perfectly capture that “I have no idea what to do with my hands, eyes or face” look. Sweet can just draw it up freehand. I mean check out the Ben Kingsley/Captain Picard looking guy guarding the back of the line. I can almost hear the artistic director on the photo shoot telling him “Ok, we need this to be a candid shot, do NOT look at the camera!”. I can almost see in real motion Mr. Kingsley-Picard trying his damnedest not to look at the camera, and failing.

I never would have thought to make the Tower of Ghenjei out of that blue river rock I have on my back porch, but it looks pretty classy. I like how the roots of all three of the prominent trees in the background look like the legs of overweight women straddling camels headed in the same direction. And evidently Thom lately finds himself opting for a gleeman’s cloak with a European cut.

CK

I am very, very excited about this next book. But I swear on the baby Jesus there better not be a Moiraine cliffhanger. I do not even know what I would do.

Below are the New Spring versions of Moiraine, from three different artists. Different styles but you can tell they are all the same woman.

Moiraine in New Spring

However, in Eye of the World girl is looking demented and not at all like the little hot Cairhienin old man Thom lusts after.

Moiraine?!

At least Rand looks decent.

The other day I was walking out to lunch, eating some popcorn, when this guy behind me says something along the lines of “did you know they say popcorn is healthy?” But I wasn’t 100% sure he had said “healthy” or “unhealthy” so I just replied with a “I just know it tastes good, hahaha”. He went on about how I was smart, blah blah, and they should put me on Wisdom magazine (obviously a made-up mag, but I thought of Nynaeve just the same), and I just wanted the convo to end, so I said “Have a nice day! ” His response was “You too, baby girl” and I was like “wtf?” I ran into him again on the way to my car, and I’m just like jeez….

My WOT reread is finally moving along. And *gasp* I am enjoying myself! I am finding myself getting all caught up in the action and drama and whatnot. It’s just such a fun series-for now-it won’t be too much fun once I get past book five. I’m just sad because there is no one reading along with me so I can’t be all “let us discuss chapter two, now”. But guess what, bitches? That is going to change in the next books, so get your asses in gear! Yeah, I’m looking at you, Red. And I might even force Nik to listen along if he gets me a crappy Xmas gift, because than I’ll feel evil. Unless my gift to him sucks, then I’ll make him listen along just out of spite.

Also, I am now using a key chain that says “Niklas”.

I haven’t been working on my Civilization mod for awhile, mostly because I’m trying to become better at the Warlords difficulty setting. Not that I have been playing all too much either recently.

I have begun my WOT reread. It’s not going too fast, or as fast as usual, but that might be because a) I’m not reading every day and b) when I do read I’m doing a more close-reading a là college cramming. The other problem might be out of the whole series New Spring and Eye of the World are books I’ve read more than the others.

Changed hosts. My new host uses DirectAdmin instead of cPanel, which might take some getting used to, but so far it is fine. One thing I really like is that each domain gets its own folder. With cPanel you needed WHM to do that, which usually cost more than regular cPanel. Even so, I still need to have a moiraine.meandraine.net subdomain for now, otherwise my redirect rule via .htaccess won’t work: it’ll just show an error page.

For some reason my vBulletin database is larger on this host than the last one. Don’t know why. Also, my disk usage meter has close to 40mb of data I can’t account for. I’ve waited a couple of days before sending in a ticket to ask about that. My other tickets (one for sales, others for transfer) have gotten answered nice and fast, so hopefully the same will be true here. So far, I am very happy with new host.

Also, MW forums aren’t down every 30 minutes. This is a nice change.

I’m kind of rambling here….

I need to find boxers for Elnore for two reasons: 1) It’s a part of her character, and 2) They’ll help keep her pants up. Caraline needs a new wig, and there is one girl who makes fur wigs that I like, but of course she is closed!

I want to go to Europe.

OK. That was a rant I made like, a week ago. I still agree with it, mind you, but I don’t care as much anymore. More important things like, food. I need to do my dishes so I can have some apple jacks. I hate dorm life! I like having a house with a kitchen right there when you need it. I have stolen plastic bowls from my roomie when I was too lazy to get dressed. *not ashamed*

This past weekend I went to my aunt’s wedding reception. Not much to say about that really. Jennifer got drunk and danced the night away; I was stressed out about work; dad didn’t understand why Mom didn’t want to come. Normal family affair. I think it’s safe to say CC is my fave cousin on my dad’s side. You just have to meet her to understand. Of course, she’s also my dad’s favorite, so it’s possible he just passed it down to me.

I walked seven miles to Target on Thrusday to get Knife of Dreams. It was worth it! So, I guess I’ll share my thoughts:

Siuan: I don’t really like her anymore, and haven’t for some time. She’s acting childish, which is something I dislike.

Thom: Well…I like Thom now. Just a little.

Aes Sedai in general: Acting like fools, and I can see why some fans dislike them as much as they do. The pillow friendship was a bit overkill, RJ.

Tarna: Likes boys?!

That’s about all I feel like writing. Other than I hope Min DIES.

Oh, and I bought Nightlife. Let the Sims drama begin!

I downloaded fireFTP and HATED it. I like the interface, but the transfer speed was just far too slow. Why do I need this program you ask? Well because I don’t have any FTP programs installed on my new laptop, and I needed to update WordPress to 1.5.2. Ah yes, my new laptop. It’s a Toshiba Satellite and I loves it. It’s taken awhile to get used to the different keyboard layout (there’s only one Ctrl key, and the Windows key is in the top right instead of the bottom left).

Dropping that tangent, I spent a good part of yesterday working on MW new guestbook for the new layout that is not done yet so don’t ask! I finally got the guestbook working, although not quite how I originally wanted. It looks best on 1028+, but ok on 800. If anyone uses a smaller resolution, they’ll just have to deal. So, basically the only thing left is to make the banners for the site, forum, guestbook. As soon as I get ahold of the art I’ll get on that ASAP.

Finally, there was a minor scare over Niklas’ site. We wanted posts to appear in word bubbles and quickly realized neither of us knew how to do that. For now the posts will appear in bubbles sans the little pointy part that points to the user’s avatar.

In more random news, I’ve finally began season two of camwalt. The first episode is going to take awhile because of timeline issues. I’ve noticed the series is getting a tad more serious, and I’m nost sure I like that. For some reason whenever I think of camwalt I think of Kate who is IGNORING me, but I’m not mad. It might have to do with me still having to make her a CD. I’m almost done with it, Kate, really I am.

I had a blast with ice cream last Wednesday night. Bunch of people (mostly girls) and I went to Penguins. Tonight I’m going to see Mr. & Mrs. Smith again. I don’t know what time I’m going just yet. I’m hoping for the 7 o’clock show to avoid the date crowd. I’ll have to see when Ngoc Bich wants to go. *rambles*

For the most part things are going rather well, and Marie Girlie is rather pleased.

The New Spring comic is coming out in July. :sec: Whitney is suppose to order it for me (and pay for it, but that’s a minor detail). I’ve actually thought of doing it myself because I don’t want anyone in her family touching my copy. I want to be the only one! I’m such a loser nerd, but I don’t like finger prints on my stuff.

I need to stop surfing the web and study for my last final. Not to mention finish packing.

Man, I’m kind of sleepy ( it’s ten to 1 in the morning), but I don’t want to go to bed just yet. The chances of Whitty coming on are slim to none, but this is the first night I’m able to stay up late since last Sunday. And might be the last one until next week too. I’m going to make it last, baby! Although, I’m a bit tired of being online. I was going to take a nap today around three, but Niklas came on and, well, here I am. Between him and Lynny I get no peace. In fact, thanks to Lynn I did lord knows how many quizzes for my livejournal.

I called my mother today, and she said I received a package. That could only be the New Spring comic. Too bad it didn’t arrive on time. >>; Then I could have actually read it. Oh well, something to look forward to. I doubt I got #1 tho. Oh well. I’ll survive…somehow.

Whenever I listen to some old favorite songs of mine, I all of a sudden get inspired to work on something; be it graphics or fiction. Tonight it was a new forum avatar and signature. I ended up redoing the SIG to better match the avatar. Not that anyone cares.