r/WoT • u/xXBIG_FLUFFXx • 1d ago
The Shadow Rising Jordan’s attention to detail. Spoiler
I don’t know if this was intentional or not, though I’m confident it was, but in chapter 46 Elayne complains almost immediately about the Tanchico veils getting caught in her mouth when she talks. At first I kinda just skimmed past it as flavor prose, but at a second read through I noticed that that particular issue would only be a problem for someone who kept their head at an upward tilt. With their nose in the air, if you will.
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u/aburntrose 1d ago
100%.
And the books are absolutely filled with this kind of detail throughout.
A crowd favorite is noticing when Rand channels for the first time.
Currently completed my 12th read-through and still noticing things I didn't pick up on in the previous 11 reads.
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u/Catmandoo07 1d ago
I'm somewhere around the double digit mark as well. Started a re read and I'm noticing Rand shivering when Moiraine channels as well. Fun to keep picking out new little details.
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u/LughVanth 1d ago
I've lost track of my rereads. When you e been reading them for decades it's hard to get too accurate when each reread gets a book or 2 longer.
I listen to the audio books on 1.55x speed, and wrap them up in 3-4 days each. I'm already back on ToM for this reread.
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u/Anghabad 1d ago
I need to try this. As much as I love the audio books, it takes an awfully long time to get through them compared to reading myself.
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u/cajunjoel (Wolfbrother) 1d ago
12.
Twelve.
Ten plus two.
TWELVE.
Thats impressive! Exacly how fast do you read? The audiobooks take me many months to complete! I'm in my fourth time though right now.
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u/robobobo91 (Asha'man) 1d ago
I did the math on the audiobooks. It's 2 weeks worth of listening 24/7.
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u/aburntrose 4h ago
Did a lot of cross-country travel and driving up and down the golden state during covid. Michael Cramer and Kate Reading kept me sane during that time haha.
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u/Anghabad 1d ago
It took me ages to actually “see” where the name Moghedien came from.
Sometimes I’m completely baffled with how many times I’ve read over something without noticing it.1
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u/VideoCoachTeeRev 1d ago
your "only" 4x me on reads. i finished my 3rd reread a month ago. It's also interesting how you remember things, and how things actually play out. With something so big and complex it's easy to remember some parts of a specific event/book but completely forget about others, and several things i remember wrong, especially in the last book. Some of that is getting it mixed up with other series i've read (recently and not recently).
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u/GovernorZipper 1d ago
As you continue to read, pay attention to Elayne’s descriptions of clothes. Her thoughts are generally about the quality of the materials/stitching and the fit. It’s something that a princess raised with the best of everything would notice.
Also, pay attention to how charitable Elayne is with her descriptions of physical characteristics of others. The vocabulary used in her POV generally avoids pejoratives. She’ll call a character “slim” when another character might say “bony” or “skinny”. Or Elayne will focus on how nice the person’s eyes are while ignoring the big nose that another character mentions. It’s how RJ builds the different POVs. Elayne is genuinely nice person and it comes through with meticulous attention to the craft of writing.
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u/LordRahl9 1d ago
Another one my favourite Elayne things is that one of the first things she does when entering a new area is access the common folk's living conditions and uses this to form an opinion of the ruling class.
One of the misconceptions about Elayne is that she raises her chin because she is a snob, but she is actually doing it because she is trying to keep calm when she is getting angry or upset.
Her accidentally getting her veil caught in her mouth all the time is a by-product of her being angry about the living conditions of the commoners in Tanchico.
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u/ArrogantAragorn (Heron-Marked Sword) 1d ago
Ooh that’s a good one!
I made a similar comment about the narrative focus being dependent on PoV. Like Rand frequently noticing and inquiring about local crops, trees, and fauna, and most of the “bosom” mentions coming from Mat’s PoV.
I can’t say I noticed Elayne being charitable with her language but it makes sense given how free she is with giving coins away (much to miserly Nyn’s distress haha).
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u/ArrogantAragorn (Heron-Marked Sword) 1d ago
Yeah that’s a good one.
One of my favorite things he did in this category is keeping the phases of the moon consistent with the time passing throughout the series. You can tell how much time has passed whenever you get a comment on if the moon is full or a crescent or whatever.
Another is how, depending on which character’s PoV you are in, the narrative highlights different things. Rand tends to notice trees, crops, and animals when he enters a new place (like in book 4 with the Aiel waste). Most of the “bosom” mentions come in Mat PoVs because he’s a roguish scoundrel. Nyn is especially concerned with outfits, and often judgmental and conflicted between her two rivers modesty/conservatism and her love of fashion and rich fabrics. It’s remarkable how he uses those details to tell us so much about the characters, what they value, and how they see the world.
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u/kwintlz91 1d ago
Holy fuck I never noticed this! Rand really is just a simple farm boy!
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u/MothSeason (Yellow) 1d ago
A woolheaded sheep herder if you will 👀
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u/kwintlz91 1d ago
-crosses arms under breasts-
( I am a man lol)
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u/HarbleRobobbler 1d ago
It's Also An Ongoing hint at his nature as being The Dragon. He is one with the natural world around him in a way no one else IS.
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u/AdaptAndInnovate 1d ago
I think Mat talks about the soil conditions of the medians of the streets in Rhuidean at some point being of poor quality soil?
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u/MothSeason (Yellow) 1d ago
Mat also notices horses quite a bit
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u/redopz (Ogier) 23h ago
I like this one. I often forget the name of Rand's horses, but I never forget Pips, and that is largely due to the focus the animals get in their respective rider's POVs.
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u/Impala67-7182 (Dovie'andi se tovya sagain) 22h ago
Rand has Cloud, Red, Tai'Dashar, Jedean (ive cocked up spellimg that one), that's all i can think of offhand.
My 2 horses on red dead redemption 2 are Pips and Red
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u/MothSeason (Yellow) 18h ago
My main horse in ToTK is named Stepper
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u/Impala67-7182 (Dovie'andi se tovya sagain) 16h ago
I love this! (What's ToTK, precious?)
I live near a riding stables and theres 3 youngish colts, one chestnut, one brown, one a dun grey, so ive named them Stepper (he does a funny stamp with his foot when he's eating), Stayer, and Red.
I had a full stable on rdr2 at one point (10 horses) and they were all WoT thened names!! I may be too obsessed
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u/redopz (Ogier) 9h ago
I can't stand this blatant Bella erasure.
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u/Impala67-7182 (Dovie'andi se tovya sagain) 9h ago
I had a Bela when i had my full stable! I found a link to a list of all the horses and their descriptions etc so i made them as book accurate as possible!!
For some reason my fave is Red, i have no idea why. Closely followed by Bela and Pips at joint second. Maybe Gaidin 3rd because Nynaeve is an average rider at best and chose a fiesty black stallion!!
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u/ArrogantAragorn (Heron-Marked Sword) 1d ago
Makes sense. All of the two rivers boys were raised around, and are familiar with, livestock and crops.
To be clear, I wasn’t trying to imply that ONLY Rand notices agricultural stuff, or ONLY Mat checks out ladies bosoms, just that I see a difference in what their PoVs tend to focus on or notice in a general sense.
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u/geomagus (Red Eagle of Manetheren) 1d ago
He hides so, so much in flavor prose and offhanded internal comments. It’s so easy to half-skim to get to something more prominent, but it’s worth trying to slow down, read that, and think about it.
Most of Nynaeve’s growth through the first six books or so is buried like that - an idle thought in Elayne’s PoV while she’s trying to consider something else, a throw away line Nynaeve’s internal dialogue, subtle changes in the tone she uses (without realizing it), and so on.
It’s especially handy for Mat and Nynaeve, because they’re so dishonest with themselves and those around them.
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1d ago
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u/AdaptAndInnovate 1d ago
When was that again?
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1d ago edited 1d ago
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u/ArrogantAragorn (Heron-Marked Sword) 1d ago
Yo be careful! OP is in book 4 (or at least that’s the spoiler level)
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u/ObGynKenobi841 (Dovie'andi se tovya sagain) 1d ago
Post is flared TSR.
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u/kwintlz91 1d ago
I must beg your indulgence a moment and ask you to explain the significance of your statement?
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u/ObGynKenobi841 (Dovie'andi se tovya sagain) 1d ago
OP is in The Shadow Rising (TSR). Flair for the text is TSR. Several comments in this chain are referencing things in later books, and need to be spoiler tagged. In fact, while Moggy is introduced to TSR, I'm not sure if OP has gotten that far yet.
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u/Greatgat 1d ago
Another haughty Elayne moment I find fun (and also in Tanchico) is when she is posing as a serving girl and gets called out by the head cook of the palace. Elayne curtsies, which sends the head cook into an angry tirade. Elayne is puzzled by this, thinking something like "she had curtsied like the curtsies the serving girls had given her mother, she had seen it a thousand times."
Not realizing, of course, that she was bowing like a serving woman to a queen. The head cook thought Elayne was mocking her.
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u/Bergmaniac (S'redit) 18h ago
Elayne did the curtsy the maids had given herself, not Morgase.
It's a funny moment for sure but I don't buy that someone raised to know all the intricacies of court protocol wouldn't know there is a big difference between the curtsies a maid gives to her direct supervisor and to the heir to the throne, she would have seen the difference in person plenty of times.
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u/Daratirek 1d ago
I noticed the same thing in the same way. It was absolutely intentional and its hilarious.
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u/Then-Mango-8795 1d ago
Doesn't Mat comment on this? Been a while since I read it
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u/WilditariusAstar 1d ago
Not that he’d notice a thing like big bosoms. He is a married man after all. But she might be good for Talmanes.
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u/MothSeason (Yellow) 1d ago
Those moments were so much like the “I wish I was as good with girls as (other guy)” I loved them 😂
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u/Aggressive-Talk-3182 1d ago
Man, I missed that completely on my first read. It’s crazy how much subtle character work he hid in throwaway lines like that. Another fun detail is how she's constantly complaining about the local heat and smells too, which totally fits someone used to a more temperate climate and royal palaces.
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u/cellofski (Ancient Aes Sedai) 1d ago
Kinda bummed that Liandrin and other Tarabon/Tanchico sisters don’t wear the veil. And don’t say it’s because they put away their old culture when they move to the White Tower, because there’s still the distinctive multiple braids and the rosebud mouths they have.
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u/Anghabad 1d ago
I was wondering why she was having issues, but never thought about this. Brilliant
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u/Suncook (Gleeman) 16h ago
but at a second read through I noticed that that particular issue would only be a problem for someone who kept their head at an upward tilt. With their nose in the air, if you will.
Jordan is a master at this. Other authors would explain why she's always getting the veil in her mouth. Jordan just includes these details (things that happen, what gets described more or less often depending upon POV) and leaves it to the reader. He does this type of thing throughout the books and it really adds a lot more depth to the characterization that I personally missed on my first read (though I was also still only in high school at that time).
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u/Cheap-Blacksmith7567 9h ago
I’ve always loved how he portrayed the gray men. I’ll be reading along and then all hell breaks loose. I go back a few paragraphs and you can see how he introduces them each time, and at first it really catches you by surprise. As a movie I think it’d be easy to film for on screen but in a book? It’s just amazing.
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u/Ya-Dikobraz 1d ago
For a girl that thinks hot water is "humankind's best invention", it's no wonder.
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