Reviews with content warning for Violence - The Eye of the World

Reviews tagging 'Violence'

The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan

47 reviews

maiagaia's review against another edition

medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

2.5

This is a perfectly average book. There were some parts I really enjoyed and others I either didn't care about or actively disliked. The climax was anti-climactic, but the actual ending (I'm talking about the last line) saved it for me. I will definitely continue in the series because there was enough good stuff going on for me to be interested in the world and characters.

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rwalker101's review against another edition

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adventurous dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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mal_eficent's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

If you enjoy the writing style and tropes of classic fantasy, I'd definitely recommend that you pick this up - and if you're looking to get into some older fantasy, this is a good place to start.

I went into this with middling expectations, partly due to the hype but also the fact that even big fans of the series give a lot of 'warnings' to people going in. I found that none of them were really necessary. The prose is...classic prose. It's nowhere near as dry as Tolkien, or as formal as R.R. Martin, and even though it is description heavy I found it really engaging. Plus, I preferred those descriptions to having a character's wealth or nervousness spelled out for me every time – though I get how people who focus more on writing style could find it annoying.

Speaking of characters, for me this wasn't a story that I found myself liking because of the characters. The book splits its focus fairly well between plot and character, and the changes in perspective were well placed enough that I didn't find myself disliking anyone's perspective, but I just...didn't care about most of them. I thought they were cool, and the tropes used to create them were all interesting, but I didn't exactly care about them being threatened. Part of it might be that there's just so much mystery about who each person actually is, which frustrated me more than intrigued. I enjoyed the book because I enjoyed the type of story it is and the way the plot was built.

It did completely lack my biggest pet peeve in classic fantasy, though: there's no shoe horning of gender into the reason a character does something. (If you've read a lot of Eddings or McAffrey, you might know what I mean here.) Jordan doesn't (barring one throw away comment at the end about women reading minds) say that women are just more emotional, spiritual and maternal, or men more suited to violence and sex, or the multitude of things that a lot of older stories say are innate to being a man or a woman. Considering this world has some very gendered roles/cultures, I was worried about it going in. I'm not denying that gender identity plays a part in a person's identity and character, and Jordan does go a little into how societal expectations of gender roles effects the characters, just that I'm glad a lot of classic gender tropes were not shoved down my throat every page.

While I'm still not sure the series deserves the pedestal status is gets within the fantasy community, it was really fun to read and I'm looking forward to the next one.

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