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Originally Posted by C Of K  Interesting take on Jordan. I'd actually attribute many of the different facets of his characters to the location they lived in on the map. If you really think about it, most of his characters are cookie-cutter. Almost any 100 men from the same village/city/town will basically be the same guy. 99% of the Aiel are still indistinguishable, even though they've been around since "The Great Hunt" It is more of a credit to him that he has so many different locations than actual characters.
Someone I've read who seems to be able to handle a lot of characters, give them all different identities, and still make them interesting is George RR Martin. His characters are a whole lot more believable than Robert Jordan's, as well. His locations have little to do with how characters act (neither does gender, for that matter) beyond what is necessary, and the childish bickering is almost non-existent. |
The sheer number of characters that get mentioned on one page is staggering sometimes with GRRM. But as the book goes on those characters really do spring to life. I swear he's got a ten foot tall stack of character bios written out, because the majority of the characters feel unique to me even if they're only given a few lines.