“The Eye of the World” by Robert Jordan

This is the first book in a celebrated fantasy series (there’s twelve books total). If I remember correctly, Jordan died before the series was finished and one of his proteges had to take over. Which is really not a job that I would ever want. But to discuss this first installment.

My main issue with most fantasy series is they tend to fall into the same sexist tropes that they supposedly get from medieval history. The women are damsels in distress who need protecting. They’re healers if anything. The men have to act honorably and fight for justice. The main character is nearly always some young boy from a farm who is chosen for greatness and at first is really excited but then realizes that the stories are false and death is real or whatever. You get the gist.

And the thing is that this book does fall into a lot of these tropes. But it has a ton of redeeming factors to it as well. We know the tropes, I’ll just get into the good stuff.

First of all, this world is elaborate to the extreme. It maintains this perfect balance of giving you enough information so that you can follow it while still dropping hints about other aspects of its lore to lose you at points. Which makes for a really effective immersion in this universe that you are put in.

Just seeing the amount of thought and care that Jordan put into the book makes up for some of it, but he also has put in the effort to combat some of this sexism with his interpretation of the magic in this world.

The main wielders of magic are known as the Aes Sendai, a group of women who have the ability to control the One Power. Now there’s also a lot of shit where everyone hates the Aes Sendai (OF COURSE they’re female and you can’t have likeable powerful females [/sarcasm]) but I think they’re really cool. All of the Aes Sendai that the characters come into contact with are cool and even most of the male characters who help the adventurers like them. And honestly I can get behind a gang of magic-wielding women.

Then there’s also the characters. Each character has such a tightly woven arc to them. All of the original characters from the small farm go on completely separate journeys that are all crucial to getting them to their end destination. And since the point of view jumps around, you can see each transformation as it happens. It is all very well-written, with no extra events and nothing missing.

So yes, this is a fantasy series filled with bad tropes. But it’s the best version of them that I have read yet.