My Re-Read has arrived at Winters Heart

[WoTwasThat]

Here we go. Ten chapters in or so. Honestly, the Perrin stuff so far has been ok. I’d say at least mildly interesting. Faile’s intro to gai’shain life, Galina’s machinations, Perrin starting the hunt. Not as bad as I remembered.

 

Then the Elayne chapters. Sigh… I’m just not ever gonna find this interesting. So. Many. Names. Rando Kin, Wavefinders, Aes Sedai. This is worse than the Salidar plotline.

 

But all in all this is not as bad as I remember and I just got to a Rand chapter!

[Figs and Mice]

You are a few chapters ahead of me...

 

Yeah it isn't that awful.  My only real gripe with the Faile in Captivity thing is it just went on a bit too long. And I know I have that coming 🙄

 

I guess Jordan had to do something with his other main characters while working his way through Rand's battle with madness and his belief that he had to become hard as rock against his own nature. One of the drawbacks of creating a story with so many interlocking plots and multiple leading characters ( as George M has found !)

 

 Some good stuff coming with Mat as I recall - and a good finish to the book ; but I doubt it is ever going to become one of my favourites ...

[WoTwasThat]

Agree it was the length of the Faile captivity that was the problem. It ain’t bad so far I just know I’m in for a super long slog.

 

The Rand chapters… ugh. Some things are growing on me during the re-read. Some are getting worse. The Rand love quadrangle is definitely the latter. This whole thing is so stupid and cringe. “I love all of you!” And “That’s totally awesome we love you too and… each other! Now you and Elayne go bang it out and we’ll just get to know each other.” Oh and Avi is gonna have quadruplets. Hope they’ve got a good neonatal intensive care unit in that day and age.

 

At least Nynaeve is not being a pill. And I had forgotten the setup for Cleansing which was cool. Also Rand and Nyn are actually sharing information about the Aes Sedai, but frustratingly little. I realize that Elayne and Egwene and Rand needed to work independently for outward appearances, but it’s inexcusable that they weren’t coordinating more behind the scenes. Even the forsaken are having monthly staff meetings and they’re totally incompetent. Good little sub chapter on that, btw. 

 

The Cadsuane stuff is boring. Back to too many names I can’t keep up with.

 

Alright on to Mat…

[WoTwasThat]

Man these Mat Ebou Dar chapters stink. They just drag and drag. I had forgotten. I thought all the Ebou Dar stuff ended in Crown of Swords, but here we are in WH and it’s just chapter after chapter of Mat, Tylin, Tuon. Bleh.

 

Mat trying to rescue a damane and Aes Sedai is kind of interesting. But the things with Tuon, and Eaganin/Bayle, and the Seeker… sigh. Not great.

 

But now comes some Rand chapters. 

Edited October 8 by WoTwasThat

[WoTwasThat]

The first couple Far Madding chapters are interesting. I had forgotten most of the details here. Nice to see Lan and Rand teaming up again, sort of. And while RJ gives a few mentions to Far Madding in earlier books - I think basically as Cadsuane’s home town - I don’t think it is ever revealed until mid-way through WH that you can’t channel there! That’s a pretty cool reveal, and sets up some interesting drama.

 

Luc/Isam is back. And one of the Forsaken has hired him as a hitman to pop into Far Madding using his ability to step in and out of TAR - which evidently doesn’t require channeling. Clever. Also apparently he’s the guy who killed the gray man in the WT all the way back in TGH. Not that that’s a mystery that was exactly begging to be solved. And why use the gray man to take a shot at the Super Girlz when you could have just used Slayer? Odd. And he also killed a couple of Aes Sedai in the Stone? I don’t even remember that happening. 

 

Anyway… now I’m back to Cadsuane and… the dang Sea Folk. And the Sea Folk are pissed and scheming again. And by again I mean always. What a surprise. I think I would have cut them completely out of my show adaptation - they do almost nothing useful and just waste pages.

Edited October 8 by WoTwasThat

[WoTwasThat]

More Elayne chapters. Oh she’s pregnant now. Dragon stuff must be potent. So now we get to hear at least 15 times about “she must protect her babe!” She must. So apparently pretending that her creep of a Guard Captain is the daddy… why? Oh, but then she’s traipsing off to meet the borderland armies. Still not sure any of these morons decided to bring half their armies off the border to… look for Rand?? Elayne then masterfully “manipulates” them into using their armies to help her secure her claim - where have we heard this plot line before? - and the borderlanders tell Elayne “we know exactly what you’re doing, and we’re cool with that.”

 

And now we’re back to Mat. Who is being “hunted” by the most incompetent gholam in history given that Mat’s not exactly hard to find. But the rescue plot finally provides a decent payoff to the Ebou Dar storyline. This might be a controversial opinion, but I’m anti- a’dam so it’s always nice to see some damane freeing.

 

Then we’re back to Rand in Far Madding. I’m not complaining per se - look this is 1000x more interesting than… literally anything involving Elayne or Egwene - but “Blue Carp Street” is kinda weird, right? First, Nynaeve literally knows the Guardian can detect channeling, and she does it anyway?? Just to lift two dudes into a roof? Find a ladder. And then… Fain is back. Teamed up with Toram for some reason? And Fain can now conjure images from the recent past or something?

 

At least Cadsuane does something useful and rescues Rand in less than one chapter. That’s about the time it took Perrin to put his boots on before heading after Faile. Almost makes you wonder how motivated Perrin really is…

[WoTwasThat]

The cleansing! One of the single best chapters in the whole series. I love how matter of fact Rand is when he leaves Far Madding. “K, now I’m gonna cleanse Saidin” lol. I love that Nynaeve is working with Rand instead of against him. I wish the mechanics of the cleansing were a bit better explained… basically using Mashadar as a siphon?

 

And with that I’m onto Crossroads. Just like with Crown and POD, I think I way misremembered and unfairly maligned Winters Heart. I thought this book was mostly Perrin/Faile with the Cleansing at the end. In truth, the Faile chapters weren’t that bad, the Mat chapters in Ebou Dar dragged a bit but had a satisfying payoff, and there’s quite a bit of Rand between the awesome cleansing and Far Madding. The downside of this book wasn’t Faile - it was the terrible Elayne chapters.

[Figs and Mice]

You are going a lot faster than me on this re-read , WotwasThat...

 

My impression of this book hasn't changed all that much yet. To be honest , I don't hate the Elayne succession stuff in itself : it is the relentless fussing and fighting about between Aes Sedai/Wise Ones/Kin/Sea Folk (in all parts of the story , not just this volume) that has me glazing over : basically it is surely just filler and could be cut down drastically with no impact on the narrative.

 

Looking forward to the cleansing : not so much to Far Madding though I may like it better this time around. We will see...