Why I HATE the Wheel of Time

The Exam 

Please note, I applied this to another author's work, and not my own, so the answers may seem a little...off.

1.      Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages? Nope, nothing that I can recall.

2.      Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage? Yes.

3.      Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn't know it? Yes, on several levels. Hellllo past life!

4.      Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy? Yes.

5.      Is your story about a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world? No, but most of the sub-plots are.

6.      How about one that will destroy it? Well, things that can help destroy it abound...

7.      Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about "The One" who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good? ARE YOU FRIGGAN KIDDING ME???

8.      Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information? Lets see...MIN. She calls herself out on this if I'm not mistaken.

9.      Does your novel contain a character that is really a god in disguise? Do evil gods count?

10.  Is the evil supreme badguy secretly the father of your main character? Nope, this is averted, at least in THIS life.

11.  Is the king of your world a kindly king duped by an evil magician? There is a Queen that falls under this trope.

12.  Does "a forgetful wizard" describe any of the characters in your novel? The brown ajah is this to a tee.

13.  How about "a powerful but slow and kind-hearted warrior"? Perrin.

14.  How about "a wise, mystical sage who refuses to give away plot details for his own personal, mysterious reasons"? MORRAIN I HATE HER FACE.

15.  Do the female characters in your novel spend a lot of time worrying about how they look, especially when the male main character is around? There was a bit of this, but not a ton, unless you count hairstyles and nudity.

16.  Do any of your female characters exist solely to be captured and rescued? Seems like all of them do, thank you Mr. Jordan.

17.  Do any of your female characters exist solely to embody feminist ideals? All of them, at one time or another when they're bitching about not wanting to be in love.

18.  Would "a clumsy cooking wench more comfortable with a frying pan than a sword" aptly describe any of your female characters? Minn.

19.  Would "a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan" aptly describe any of your female characters? Bridgette.

20.  Is any character in your novel best described as "a dour dwarf"? Not by book 5.

21.  How about "a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage"? Not by book 5.

22.  Did you make the elves and the dwarves great friends, just to be different? Not by book 5.

23.  Does everybody under four feet tall exist solely for comic relief? Not by book 5.

24.  Do you think that the only two uses for ships are fishing and piracy? Averted, there are actual warships

25.  Do you not know when the hay baler was invented? Nope.

26.  Did you draw a map for your novel which includes places named things like "The Blasted Lands" or "The Forest of Fear" or "The Desert of Desolation" or absolutely anything "of Doom"? SOOO YES

27.  Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you've read the entire book, if even then? EVERY ONE

28.  Is this the first book in a planned trilogy? Originally...

29.  How about a quintet or a decalogue? BUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAAAA

30.  Is your novel thicker than a New York City phone book? I want to cry.

31.  Did absolutely nothing happen in the previous book you wrote, yet you figure you're still many sequels away from finishing your "story"? Stuff happens, but it doesn't seem to move the plot ahead.

32.  Are you writing prequels to your as-yet-unfinished series of books? HAHAHA!

33.  Is your name Robert Jordan and you lied like a dog to get this far? Okay, now I'm smiling.

34.  Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group? I don't think so.

35.  Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm? Nope.

36.  Do any of your main characters have apostrophes or dashes in their names? Yes

37.  Do any of your main characters have names longer than three syllables? Yes

38.  Do you see nothing wrong with having two characters from the same small isolated village being named "Tim Umber" and "Belthusalanthalus al'Grinsok"? YES

39.  Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings? Seems to be averted.

40.  How about "orken" or "dwerrows"? Yep.

41.  Do you have a race prefixed by "half-"? Not by book 5.

42.  At any point in your novel, do the main characters take a shortcut through ancient dwarven mines? Not by book 5.

43.  Do you write your battle scenes by playing them out in your favorite RPG?  No idea

44.  Have you done up game statistics for all of your main characters in your favorite RPG? No idea

45.  Are you writing a work-for-hire for Wizards of the Coast? Nope

46.  Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls? Seems like it.

47.  Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don't? Seems like it.

48.  Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place? BUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHAAAAA--

49.  Could one of your main characters tell the other characters something that would really help them in their quest but refuses to do so just so it won't break the plot? Seems like it.

50.  Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"? Yep

51.  Do you ever use the term "mana" in your novel? Not by book 5.

52.  Do you ever use the term "plate mail" in your novel?  Not by book 5.

53.  Heaven help you, do you ever use the term "hit points" in your novel? Not by book 5.

54.  Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs? No idea.

55.  Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest? Yep.

56.  Does anybody in your novel fight for two hours straight in full plate armor, then ride a horse for four hours, then delicately make love to a willing barmaid all in the same day? This seems to be averted up to book 5.

57.  Does your main character have a magic axe, hammer, spear, or other weapon that returns to him when he throws it? Hilariously averted with Perrin's axe. Metaphorical with Mat's Dagger.

58.  Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar? Yep.

59.  Does anybody in your novel stab anybody straight through plate armor? Not sure.

60.  Do you think swords weigh ten pounds or more? Not sure

61.  Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains? BUAHAHAAHAH

62.  Does a large portion of the humor in your novel consist of puns? Humor? Well, there's one stupid joke about X character understanding women that gets repeated EVERY BOOK.

63.  Is your hero able to withstand multiple blows from the fantasy equivalent of a ten pound sledge but is still threatened by a small woman with a dagger? Rand can't act against women, so yes.

64.  Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man? Yep.

65.  Do you not realize it takes hours to make a good stew, making it a poor choice for an "on the road" meal? Seems to be averted.

66.  Do you have nomadic barbarians living on the tundra and consuming barrels and barrels of mead? Does Perrin's wolf mentor count?

67.  Do you think that "mead" is just a fancy name for "beer"? Seems like it.

68.  Does your story involve a number of different races, each of which has exactly one country, one ruler, and one religion? YES

69.  Is the best organized and most numerous group of people in your world the thieves' guild? Honestly can't remember.

70.  Does your main villain punish insignificant mistakes with death? Not by book 5.

71.  Is your story about a crack team of warriors that take along a bard who is useless in a fight, though he plays a mean lute? Averted: the bard is the badass and the heroes are useless. Until he dies. But not really.

72.  Is "common" the official language of your world? Yep.

73.  Is the countryside in your novel littered with tombs and gravesites filled with ancient magical loot that nobody thought to steal centuries before? Not littered, and they do try to take stuff...

74.  Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings? WHAT DO YOU THINK?

75.  Read that question again and answer truthfully. See my previous answers.