{"id":368,"date":"2025-06-29T23:46:57","date_gmt":"2025-06-30T03:46:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/?p=368"},"modified":"2025-10-08T11:36:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T15:36:18","slug":"a-note-on-the-characters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/?p=368","title":{"rendered":"Preliminary Notes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m excited to be starting on the proper series of books now! I managed to get partway through <em>Lord of Chaos<\/em> during the 1990s before I finally ended up putting it down for too long and never figuring out how to pick it back up again. After all, you lose your way in a series this long, and reading it turns into a chore. So why did I put it down? Maybe I used to be more OCD. Maybe I used to be a less skilled reader. Maybe I used to think that you needed to process every fucking word that Mr. Jordan wrote.<\/p>\n<p>But here&#8217;s what I realized &#8212; you <em>can&#8217;t<\/em> do that and maintain your sanity at the same time. It&#8217;s kind of like trying to open yourself to <em>saidin<\/em> &#8212; just don&#8217;t do it, because otherwise you&#8217;ll go nuts. Some of the longer description-heavy paragraphs can easily be skimmed. I don&#8217;t need to hang on every word.<\/p>\n<p>Which leads me to the other thing I realized: Mr. Jordan overused certain words and phrases. Whether it&#8217;s about knuckling backs, women derisively &#8220;sniffing&#8221; the air, Nynaeve tugging her braid, any female character folding her arms beneath her breasts, or probably a whole host of other common Jordanisms &#8212; these phrasing stuck in my head and gave my brain a BSOD every time I read them, seriously hampering my progress. Now? I&#8217;m prepared to have as much fun with them as possible.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s really what this journal is about, having fun. And note taking. If I have a forum for writing down all of the sarcastic thoughts that run through my mind when I&#8217;m reading these books, I will have something to motivate me when the action gets slow or the characters start behaving stupidly. Plus the notes can help get me back on track when I take a break to read something else.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t want to make it sound like I hated the books or the story or the characters. I didn&#8217;t. But I didn&#8217;t used to have anything to keep me afloat when I got bogged down &#8212; and now I very much do. I will kick this main series reading off by saying that I am excited to get to know these characters again, especially after seeing this artist&#8217;s rendition of some of them. They are so close to how I pictured them. Especially Mat with the hat, the dice and that shit-eating grin on is face; Perrin with his curly hair and golden eyes; and Naynaeve tugging on that fucking braid.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s read\u00a0<em>The Eye of the World<\/em>!<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-369 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/no1emfcj1ac51.webp?resize=1080%2C1080&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"1080\" height=\"1080\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m excited to be starting on the proper series of books now! I managed to get partway through Lord of Chaos during the 1990s before I finally ended up putting it down for too long and never figuring out how to pick it back up again. After all, you lose your way in a series [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-eye-of-the-world","book-the-eye-of-the-world"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=368"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2636,"href":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368\/revisions\/2636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}