Sorry it’s been so long.

Anyways, as I said before, in the Wheel of Time, Jordan just sneaks under plagiarism of Tolkien. But he did do something original. The Aes Sedai.

I’m going to try to do this so that people who haven’t read the book will appreciate it. All right, here goes. (But you’ll have to have read or at least watched LOTR)

Instead of Gandalf, an almost elf-like woman leads around Jordan’s fellowship.  In LOTR, an old wise man with a big beard and a long staff did the leading, but here it’s a woman. Not being sexist, but it is a change. This Aes Sedai isn’t trusted, isn’t loved, and is actually quite brutally logical, which gets on everybody’s nerves.

There’s a little description. Being who I am, I want to go into the philosophical implications of this difference. Here it is (not so very much of a spoiler, I like Tolkien better):

First, let’s review the similarities. Gandalf and Moiraine (the name of the Aes Sedai) rely more on magic and wisdom than strength of arms for their power and leadership. They are also both morally good.

HOWEVER, Gandalf will try to be as helpful and explanatory as he can. In fairness, Moiraine thinks she’s got to keep everything all hidden, but she really doesn’t. If she’d just be more open and friendly like Gandalf, then Rand wouldn’t mind getting not so great news from her. (In fairness again, he already had a bad feeling about her because all the Aes Sedai had a bad name, but again, Aes Sedai shouldn't act so they come across as being creepy and unhelpful)

On the other hand, Gandalf had visited the Shire before, (I just cut my index finger and now it's bleeding but I’m too lazy to get a band-aid, so I wrapped a paper towel around it and am now having quite the experience typing FYI) he smoked pipes with the hobbits, he made fireworks for them, and he was generally well-known and slightly tolerated at the worst.

Basically, I think that leaders should be more up close and personal like Gandalf instead of distant, supreme, and all that nonsense like Moiraine. Anyway, just what I think. It worked better in the story too for Frodo with Gandalf being nice as opposed to Rand being all frustrated and worried about what Moiraine was up to.

Reading the Wheel of Time has been like reading someone explain LOTR with more magic, more strong women, and more pages. Light, are there more pages. (Some of you may get that)

Anyway, I will make fun of it sometimes for how much it is blatantly ripping off of LOTR, but mostly I will say good things about its philosophical background.

This is my first article about Wheel of Time, so why don’t we inspect the first part of the first paragraph of the series?

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend.  Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.  In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist.  

This sounds exactly like a mix of Galadriel’s beginning of the LOTR movies as well as actual Tolkien stuff in there. Third Age? Mountains of Mist? Really? Are you going to make the guy with the One Ring on his neck read this? Come on!

Anyway, aside from that monstrosity, there’s also the regular beginning to deal with. How does it start? Wait for it. It starts out with a party. That doesn’t sound familiar at all.

Now, I won’t give Robert Jordan too much of a hard time for this. I actually like it that he starts it out with a party. It makes me realize just how smart it was of Tolkien to start out LOTR with a party.

See, when both Wheel of Time (WoT from now on) and LOTR start out, life’s happy. There’s a party going on, people are dancing, fireworks are going off (or should at least), children are being mischievous, and a whole assortment of good stuff.

But both parties get crashed with no type of closure. In LOTR, Bilbo puts on the Ring and leaves, and nobody likes his party anymore. In WoT, it’s a bit more dramatic, Trollocs (basically orcs) and a Fade (basically a Nazgul – a black rider with no face for crying out loud!) attack but are stopped by the Warder Lan (basically Aragorn) and an Aes Sedai.

I’ve got two things to talk about, but I’ll only talk about one. I’ll bring up Aes Sedai in the next article.

So both parties crash and the story begins. See what happened there? We started out with how life should be, and now the heroes are going to fix the problems that stopped or corrupted the party (the Ring and the Dark One) so that life can continue in its party like it should. Because parties are awesome. Except political parties. Bleah.

And you should apply that logic to your life. Have a blast – make a party of life. But just make sure nothing corrupts it so your party crashes, and if something does spring up, stop it.

Not since Princess Bride have I read such an adventure-filled book as To Have and To Hold. It’s about a man who, quite by accident, marries an English noblewoman escaping a lord who wishes to marry her against her will. Now, this man will escape a king’s edict, captain a pirate ship, and be captured by Indians for this woman, who he grows to love.

It’s pretty basic, but the characters make you forget how basic it is. And the best part about this whole thing is that the book was written in 1900. Yeah, ikr?

Anyway, after reading this book, you sort of wan to go and randomly kiss a girl or something. (One of the characters actually did that. He was going to be executed, so he randomly kissed a girl) It’s amazing how words can describe characters who fill you with such drive to do something grand.

The one thing about it is that, well, two actually. The two things about it are: The main character is sort of racist and the very end part is SO overly predictable not even the characters can clout that one predictability. But aside from that, it was a very solid work.

I’m finding that it’s difficult to say anything bad about adventure stories. Because, these adventure stories aren’t trying to make you think in a certain philosophical way. No, they’re just wanting you to enjoy life for what it is. Why isn’t everything about enjoyment of life?

Anyway, if you want pure adventure (and if you don’t mind a bit of hard reading (the wording actually adds a lot if you can get over how dumbed down we’ve mad the English language)) and don’t mind a little racism or predictability, read To Haven and To Hold. I’m not sure why it’s not more of a classic, because this shows people living life to the full, for what matters. 

Hazel just doesn’t seem to understand what maturity is all about. Just saying.

Even though her parents are trying to do all they can for her, she’s pretty ungrateful. I understand that she wants them to live their own lives, but she crossed a line by the amount of ingratitude she showed towards them.

Also, there were two times Gus vomited when only Hazel was there to see. The first time, he was in the basement, and she called for his parents to clean it up. The logic was that she didn’t want him to know that she had seen him vomit and all that. If he was really that egotistic, then I don’t know why she even thought it was a good idea to date him in the first place.

Second time Gus vomited, it was just those two at a gas station. She called 9-1-1. There was never any mention of her cleaning up his mess. WHAT? So you’re going to date a guy and not help him? I mean, John should have at least mentioned something about it. That just aggravates me.

And the way she just says stuff and whatever. Just like that. Like whatever she’s talking about doesn’t really matter or whatever. You know, it’s all good or whatever. Grow up already or whatever, Hazel. You sound so mature when you talk like that, so certain.

But that’s just it. With a  book like TFiOS, you can’t be certain. That’d be bad to be certain of anything. I mean, if all we’re facing is Oblivion, then all manner of craziness could occur. The farthest stretch of the imagination was Gus’s Something that he looked forward to.

I guess this is all excusable. It’s all right if Hazel, other teenagers, or heck, even the President himself is an immature brat. Hazel wasn’t a brat, I just want to make a point here. Anyone can act however they like because, the fault isn’t in us, is it? No, we can blame our unlucky stars. That’s it, the fault is in our stars, so stop blaming us for our immaturity and stupidity and inaction. Why on earth should we be blamed if it’s not our fault?

So, this story aggravated me. It had good character development and a unique writing style, but it was nevertheless just depressing and futile, encouraging self-pity and defeatism. But let’s not call it defeatism, shall we? Let’s call it realism. Because that makes sense. Oh well, I’m reading this one really awesome book called To Have and To Hold, so I’ll get back to showing the awesomeness in stories soon.

The statement "Forever is an incorrect concept" in and of itself is a fallacy. Just saying. Hazel said it, but she didn’t think it all the way through. First of all, will forever always be an incorrect concept? Just a thought.

Is John Green instead saying that at some point, everything will just stop? Okay, I guess… How long will everything stop for?

Both Hazel and Gus believed in either Oblivion or Something. How long will those occur for?

I sort of expected this to be longer, but the refutation is so simple.

TFiOS also claims that pain does not bring out joy. I honestly don’t know why this is such a big issue, or why John Green thinks there needs to be a universal answer. No, pain brings out joy in some people, but not all people. Don’t make a universal assumption like that on something so trivial.

For myself, sometimes pain brings out joy, and sometimes it doesn’t. Usually for things like ice cream, Doctor Who, and LOTR, I can see the joy in them easily. However, that may be just because I’ve experienced Brussels sprouts, reality TV, and Twilight. I think it’s a mixture.

I wish that I could see everything for the awesomeness that it is, but I can’t. Not unless I have some type of perspective. See, I know that sometimes, the littlest and stupidest things can make me purely giddy. And other times, not even a day at Disney World could lift my spirits. (But a Doctor Who marathon probably could) I really wish every day I could get joy out of the littlest things. Unfortunately, having been raised in such a privileged society, I oftentimes get too used to them.

So, that’s just how I work, but it’s different for everybody and I don’t see why John Green is so adamant about this.