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jackBad things #1. Blah blah blah infinite evil blah blah.
The more screen time ultimate evils get, the worse they work, because people who are evil "just because" make good antagonists if you want an arbitrary threat, but don't have really interesting character if you actually talk about them, rather than just about the people opposing them.
Bad things #2. Lifelong sleeper agents of ultimate evil.
Long-term deep cover agents can actually be really interesting, because they're living too different lives: friends with people while simultaneously plotting to destroy them, and you have to wait and see which will prevail. But as with unfortunately many books, this is just not addressed.
It's not really explained what the process for joining the dark is, or what specifically you're offered, and how they have apparently perfect world-wide communication for the purposes of suborning and threatening people, but not for doing directly useful stuff. It just comes across as arbitrary: some nice people and some complete bastards are agents of the dark. Some of them actually do evil things, some of them don't, except for that.
Jordan does give some hints about how this works, for instance people being contacted in dreams. But if he's actually worked it all out, then he needs to actually SHOW some of that in the first ten books, because having it all worked out but LOOKING arbitrary and inconsistent isn't actually much better than being made up as you go along.
Bad things #3. Clunky "how character A sees character B" dialogue.
Some books do this incredibly well. I'd recommend Anthony Price and George Martin. But so many people TRY to do this, and it just comes off as forced, and I want to KILL IT WITH FIRE!
"It was almost" thought [main character], "as if she [thing author wants to convey main character just doesn't get]. But that couldn't be!"
Agh. I see why you do it, but it stretches belief. If main character ACTUALLY doesn't think that, then they wouldn't think "it looks like blah but I don't think that", they'd think SOMETHING ELSE. And if you're subtle enough, you can convey that to the reader without the main character, just by coincidence, EVERY SINGLE TIME, thinking what the author wants to convey, but not believing it.
Or, alternatively, the character would notice X, but X is so culturally alien to them, they would keep forgetting that the other character ACTUALLY does X, and automatically acts according to X.
To be fair, Jordan does make a creditable effort to do this sort of thing. In fact, often, if might arguably be realistic, but that doesn't make it less annoying to read 1000s of pages of non-seamless heavy-handed cognitive dissonance.
Bad things #4. Characters not talking to each other
OK, this is again possibly realistic. Leigh Butler makes the point that in the books, essentially 100% of the time, characters being secretive, even for apparently good reasons, works out badly, and characters being open, even optimistically, works out well. So the message of the books, if any, is not that the characters SHOULD be secretive.
But honestly, almost everything in the entire series, both saving-the-world and romantic-entanglements, could be sorted out if people who supposedly loved and trusted each other SPOKE to each other, instead of assuming the other person knew all along but was ignoring it because they were stubborn/stupid/evil etc.
"I shouldn't have to explain, if you really cared, you'd know" may work 70% of the time. (I'm not that fond of it, but I understand.) But it's TOTALLY TOTALLY DOOM the other 30% of the time. If you hate someone because they did something that accidentally looked like something they shouldn't have done, you COULD say "they should have known". But if someone else says they did something they shouldn't have done, deliberately or coincidentally, saying "You did this unforgiveable thing, right? If so, [blah]" goes a long way!
OK, I can see why you often wouldn't want to, but honestly, even if you think you're so clever you'll never get it wrong, SOMETIMES it WILL be wrong. Sometimes this is a personality thing; person A assumes that people are irrationally angry 30% of the time and expects to be forgiven for it; person B expects that if you're angry to SAY what's wrong, just in case there IS a solution to fix it.
Again, this is probably realistic, but I don't want to read 1000s of pages of it.
Bad things #5. Teleportation
This always goes wrong. Someone invents teleportation, and then every book thereafter is 90% blundering around giving author-fiat rationales why the problem can't be solved with teleportation, and then the last 10% dramatic climax of getting mad and fixing stuff with teleportation, damn the consequences, which never appear.
Again, I understand why this happens, but honestly a dramatic climax of "suddenly ignoring the arbitrary author fiats" is a lot less cool than "suddenly realising what's going on in a way that makes sense, and coming up with a brilliant and coherent plan"
Bad things #6. Arbitrary hurdles
Very similar to the previous. The main character actually has a reasonable progression of overcoming genuine obstacles -- obstacles that were there from the start, that overcoming gives genuine progress.
Most of the other characters, however, especially the three women, have a tendency to be presented by Jordan with a "oh look, evil plot X, must thwart", which they do, at which point everything returns to the status quo. This is unfortunate, because in theory those are just as necessary to do, but thematically, it doesn't FEEL necessary, it feels like an arbitrary hurdle the author introduced in order to give them something to do for six books.
Also, there's a lot of swift cutting between scale: someone goes from trying to rule a kingdom to trying to travel ten miles, etc. This is always a problem if you want to give your characters interesting things to do. But too much of it starts looking forced. "If they faced down all those ancient evils in the last book, why are the small-time bandits such a challenge?" It's possible for this to be entirely plausible, but often comes out feeling contrived, as for no particular reason, the plot-restriction of the week gives people a challenge they can JUST overcome.
Unfortunately, this makes a lot of the characters look like idiots.
It's a shame, because some of the material is actually quite good, but I think the series would possibly be better if 2/3 of it were ripped out to give a much tighter narrative, with much less "OK, now the NEXT villain of the week is..."
The main character gets this a bit too: a lot of the most interesting moments are when he's struggling to rule people suspicious of him, but Jordan overdoes the answer to this by giving him half a nation of people fanatically loyal to him, and thereafter a lot of the hurdles in ruling seem a bit arbitrary, whereas to begin with there was nothing BUT that. The Aeil are awesome, but the books might actually be more interesting if Rand really had to rely ONLY on the cooperation he could extract from nobles of conquered nations.
Bad things #7. Gender relations
A bit like Piers Anthony, but in a different way, I think Jordan is TRYING to make several positive points about the drawbacks of making questionable gender-generalisations. But the way he DOES it involves spending a lot of time making questionable gender-generalisations, and embracing their sexuality in a heavy-handed simplistic way, which are very annoying to read about.
There's also a large amount of spanking, which while nothing compared to the (questionable) Sword of Truth series and the (imho excellent) Kushiel's Dart series, and something could be very entertaining in principle, has very unpleasant overtones.
Bad things #9. The forsaken
Some of the time, the highest servants of the Lord of the Dark are written very well. For several books they are very creepy, and are very creepy at other moments as well. Unfortunately they're supposed to be powerful magicians and consummate plotters, and generally fearsome, which makes repeatedly defeating them seem contrived. The first time you see any of them they're incredibly scary, and the main characters escape by the skin of their teeth.
But then as more forsaken continue to wake up, they do the same thing three more times, and it feels a bit contrived, and then the main characters FINALLY start learning enough they can battle them with some sort of even ground, it feels contrived they go through lots of plot-shenanigans rather than just teleporting in somewhere and magic-napalming a forsaken.
Also, the forsaken are supposed to be fiendish, but also corrupted by power-seeking, so they're full of jostling for position. Which gives a good reason the heroes can sometimes get one past them. However, an ideal characterisation would be that they are machiavellian schemers alleviated by being untrustworthy and selfish. Unfortunately it seems more like they randomly switch between being formidable and being childish.
There is some accuracy in the "childish" characterisation. But it unfortunately comes across more as them being goofy than them being "machiavellian but..."
The more screen time ultimate evils get, the worse they work, because people who are evil "just because" make good antagonists if you want an arbitrary threat, but don't have really interesting character if you actually talk about them, rather than just about the people opposing them.
Bad things #2. Lifelong sleeper agents of ultimate evil.
Long-term deep cover agents can actually be really interesting, because they're living too different lives: friends with people while simultaneously plotting to destroy them, and you have to wait and see which will prevail. But as with unfortunately many books, this is just not addressed.
It's not really explained what the process for joining the dark is, or what specifically you're offered, and how they have apparently perfect world-wide communication for the purposes of suborning and threatening people, but not for doing directly useful stuff. It just comes across as arbitrary: some nice people and some complete bastards are agents of the dark. Some of them actually do evil things, some of them don't, except for that.
Jordan does give some hints about how this works, for instance people being contacted in dreams. But if he's actually worked it all out, then he needs to actually SHOW some of that in the first ten books, because having it all worked out but LOOKING arbitrary and inconsistent isn't actually much better than being made up as you go along.
Bad things #3. Clunky "how character A sees character B" dialogue.
Some books do this incredibly well. I'd recommend Anthony Price and George Martin. But so many people TRY to do this, and it just comes off as forced, and I want to KILL IT WITH FIRE!
"It was almost" thought [main character], "as if she [thing author wants to convey main character just doesn't get]. But that couldn't be!"
Agh. I see why you do it, but it stretches belief. If main character ACTUALLY doesn't think that, then they wouldn't think "it looks like blah but I don't think that", they'd think SOMETHING ELSE. And if you're subtle enough, you can convey that to the reader without the main character, just by coincidence, EVERY SINGLE TIME, thinking what the author wants to convey, but not believing it.
Or, alternatively, the character would notice X, but X is so culturally alien to them, they would keep forgetting that the other character ACTUALLY does X, and automatically acts according to X.
To be fair, Jordan does make a creditable effort to do this sort of thing. In fact, often, if might arguably be realistic, but that doesn't make it less annoying to read 1000s of pages of non-seamless heavy-handed cognitive dissonance.
Bad things #4. Characters not talking to each other
OK, this is again possibly realistic. Leigh Butler makes the point that in the books, essentially 100% of the time, characters being secretive, even for apparently good reasons, works out badly, and characters being open, even optimistically, works out well. So the message of the books, if any, is not that the characters SHOULD be secretive.
But honestly, almost everything in the entire series, both saving-the-world and romantic-entanglements, could be sorted out if people who supposedly loved and trusted each other SPOKE to each other, instead of assuming the other person knew all along but was ignoring it because they were stubborn/stupid/evil etc.
"I shouldn't have to explain, if you really cared, you'd know" may work 70% of the time. (I'm not that fond of it, but I understand.) But it's TOTALLY TOTALLY DOOM the other 30% of the time. If you hate someone because they did something that accidentally looked like something they shouldn't have done, you COULD say "they should have known". But if someone else says they did something they shouldn't have done, deliberately or coincidentally, saying "You did this unforgiveable thing, right? If so, [blah]" goes a long way!
OK, I can see why you often wouldn't want to, but honestly, even if you think you're so clever you'll never get it wrong, SOMETIMES it WILL be wrong. Sometimes this is a personality thing; person A assumes that people are irrationally angry 30% of the time and expects to be forgiven for it; person B expects that if you're angry to SAY what's wrong, just in case there IS a solution to fix it.
Again, this is probably realistic, but I don't want to read 1000s of pages of it.
Bad things #5. Teleportation
This always goes wrong. Someone invents teleportation, and then every book thereafter is 90% blundering around giving author-fiat rationales why the problem can't be solved with teleportation, and then the last 10% dramatic climax of getting mad and fixing stuff with teleportation, damn the consequences, which never appear.
Again, I understand why this happens, but honestly a dramatic climax of "suddenly ignoring the arbitrary author fiats" is a lot less cool than "suddenly realising what's going on in a way that makes sense, and coming up with a brilliant and coherent plan"
Bad things #6. Arbitrary hurdles
Very similar to the previous. The main character actually has a reasonable progression of overcoming genuine obstacles -- obstacles that were there from the start, that overcoming gives genuine progress.
Most of the other characters, however, especially the three women, have a tendency to be presented by Jordan with a "oh look, evil plot X, must thwart", which they do, at which point everything returns to the status quo. This is unfortunate, because in theory those are just as necessary to do, but thematically, it doesn't FEEL necessary, it feels like an arbitrary hurdle the author introduced in order to give them something to do for six books.
Also, there's a lot of swift cutting between scale: someone goes from trying to rule a kingdom to trying to travel ten miles, etc. This is always a problem if you want to give your characters interesting things to do. But too much of it starts looking forced. "If they faced down all those ancient evils in the last book, why are the small-time bandits such a challenge?" It's possible for this to be entirely plausible, but often comes out feeling contrived, as for no particular reason, the plot-restriction of the week gives people a challenge they can JUST overcome.
Unfortunately, this makes a lot of the characters look like idiots.
It's a shame, because some of the material is actually quite good, but I think the series would possibly be better if 2/3 of it were ripped out to give a much tighter narrative, with much less "OK, now the NEXT villain of the week is..."
The main character gets this a bit too: a lot of the most interesting moments are when he's struggling to rule people suspicious of him, but Jordan overdoes the answer to this by giving him half a nation of people fanatically loyal to him, and thereafter a lot of the hurdles in ruling seem a bit arbitrary, whereas to begin with there was nothing BUT that. The Aeil are awesome, but the books might actually be more interesting if Rand really had to rely ONLY on the cooperation he could extract from nobles of conquered nations.
Bad things #7. Gender relations
A bit like Piers Anthony, but in a different way, I think Jordan is TRYING to make several positive points about the drawbacks of making questionable gender-generalisations. But the way he DOES it involves spending a lot of time making questionable gender-generalisations, and embracing their sexuality in a heavy-handed simplistic way, which are very annoying to read about.
There's also a large amount of spanking, which while nothing compared to the (questionable) Sword of Truth series and the (imho excellent) Kushiel's Dart series, and something could be very entertaining in principle, has very unpleasant overtones.
Bad things #9. The forsaken
Some of the time, the highest servants of the Lord of the Dark are written very well. For several books they are very creepy, and are very creepy at other moments as well. Unfortunately they're supposed to be powerful magicians and consummate plotters, and generally fearsome, which makes repeatedly defeating them seem contrived. The first time you see any of them they're incredibly scary, and the main characters escape by the skin of their teeth.
But then as more forsaken continue to wake up, they do the same thing three more times, and it feels a bit contrived, and then the main characters FINALLY start learning enough they can battle them with some sort of even ground, it feels contrived they go through lots of plot-shenanigans rather than just teleporting in somewhere and magic-napalming a forsaken.
Also, the forsaken are supposed to be fiendish, but also corrupted by power-seeking, so they're full of jostling for position. Which gives a good reason the heroes can sometimes get one past them. However, an ideal characterisation would be that they are machiavellian schemers alleviated by being untrustworthy and selfish. Unfortunately it seems more like they randomly switch between being formidable and being childish.
There is some accuracy in the "childish" characterisation. But it unfortunately comes across more as them being goofy than them being "machiavellian but..."