Choba

[androlf]

Howdy, I'm Andrew, a software engineer who specializes in writing security-related application code for networking and cryptographic products.

 

I'm a massive WoT fan. As of 2026-3-11, I have:

1. Discovered WoT by virtue of picking up Crossroads of Twilight in a bookstore circa 2005 or so.
2. Read all of the main series and New Spring twice.
3. Listened to the main series audio books about six or seven times.
4. Converted The Complete Wheel of Time and TWOTC into markdown↗ and JSON↗ files for my own use.
5. Started getting meaningfully involved in online WoT discussion during the 2020 pandemic.
6. Founded The Band of the Red Hand↗ in 2021.
7. Read the Big White Book twice.
8. Skimmed much of The Wheel of Time Companion.
9. Read Origins of the Wheel of Time and given a 2-hour review↗ of it.
10. Made a "pilgrimage" to Charleston, including the library at The Citadel, Ogier Street, and the sidewalk in front of the property where Robert Jordan wrote The Wheel of Time. On the way back, I stopped by a suburban neighborhood with street names like "Farshaw" and "Cauthon". Incidentally, the Farshaw street sign was very askew↗, as though it had been hit by a dump truck or some such.
11. A future such trip will involve perusing Jordan's notes.
12. Recruited both of my sisters into reading WoT. The younger has finished the series and is fairly active in my Discord. The older has great difficulty liking any of the significant female characters except Moiraine and Nynaeve and bailed on the series after Birgitte was ripped from Tel'aran'rhiod in The Fires of Heaven.
13. Assembled a Mat Cauthon costume. I'm still working on procuring the ring, the foxhead medallion, and the throwing knives. He's not my favorite character, but he's probably the most entertaining character. He's also the character whose physical description I most closely match. Also, as founder of a Discord called The Band of the Red Hand↗, I've gone by the alias Mat Cauthon frequently.
    1. An Ashandarei (or close enough)
    2. A wide-brimmed black hat.
    3. A green "coat," brown pants, roughly "period"-compatible boots
    4. A dice cup
    5. A black scarf.
14. Obtained a license plate named after a WoT character.
15. Acquired the following WoT items:
    1. Hardcovers of the whole series, The Wheel of Time Companion, TWORJTWOT, Origins of the Wheel of Time, Unfettered (A Fire Within the Ways), Unfettered III (River of Souls), Legends: Stories By The Masters of Modern Fantasy (New Spring short story) (both hardcover and paperback versions), and A Fire in the Cradle↗.
    2. Mass market paperbacks of From the Two Rivers, To the Blight, The Hunt Begins, and New Threads in the Pattern.
    3. Mass market paperbacks of books 1 through 9. I've since given most of these away.
    4. A first edition paperback of The Eye of the World via an auction of Robert Jordan's estate.
    5. An advance review copy of Crossroads of Twilight via an auction of Robert Jordan's estate.
    6. An uncorrected proof of TWORJTWOT via an auction of Robert Jordan's estate.
    7. All the graphic novels (New Spring, The Eye of the World, The Great Hunt)
    8. A large number of the The Wheel of Time Collectible Card Game cards.
    9. The books and a poster for The Wheel of Time Roleplaying Game.
    10. The Patterns of the Wheel coloring book
    11. The demo for The Wheel of Time (video game); don't have it any more.
    12. The "remaster" for The Wheel of Time (video game)

Username

Androl isn't a favorite character of mine (and I absolutely believe it's a shame Logain's story suffered to give us Androl), but he's an interesting character and I happen to love the leatherworking excerpt despite having no knowledge of the subject myself. He also happens to match the regex↗ string ^Andr[e-w]{2}$ just as my first name does, so there's that.

Personal life

I'm married to an ESL↗ Guatemalan and together we're raising my son (born circa Covid-19) and my daughter (three years younger).

Two cents

• Loial - Excellent character, excellent person. I'll fight anyone who says otherwise.
• Egwene al'Vere - Good character, pretty bad person. Not a Mary Sue.
• Perrin Aybara - Excellent character, superb person, held back by his storyline. Would never kill his wife or get married while pining after his friend's girl.
• Faile Bashere - Occasionally annoying, but I don't hate her.
• Mat Cauthon - Excellent character, good person, some terrible traits. Not a thief!
• Moiraine Damodred - One of the best female characters in fiction. Not a fool who couldn't selectively truth-tell out of a paper bag.
• Nynaeve al'Meara - Not a fan of early Nynaeve, but I don't hate her. Big fan of late Nynaeve. Would never try to kill someone on impulse, especially when she needs said someone.
• Lan Mandragoran - Excellent character, superb person. Absolutely had something "to die for" before meeting Moiraine.
• Androl Genhald - Don't love him, don't hate him. Very interesting, but I think it was a mistake to curtail Logain Ablar for his sake.
• Elayne Trakand - I like early Elayne. I dislike her more and more as the series progresses. Making her the overall commander of the Light was silly. The books give no solid reason to conclude she and Aviendha were ever romantically involved, and the baths are not remotely evidence to the contrary.
• Bela - Awesome, but not the Creator.
• Lanfear - Dead.
• Brandon Sanderson - Good author, excellent worldbuilder. Lots of shortcomings in TGS-AMOL, but did better than I ever expected or would reasonably have thought possible.
• WoT Romance - Conforms very well to my preferences. I don't care to read much romance, so the frequent "off-screen" development works well. Honestly, I could have done with a little less of the "on-screen" stuff.
• The Comics - I own a copy of the first volume of New Spring, but I'm not really a fan of the medium.
• The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time - Fun, interesting. Unreliable and often subtly wrong in its wording. Perfectly fine as an "in-universe" document.
• The Wheel of Time Companion - Good and useful, but with (understandably) so little novel information that I've had a hard time working through it and have yet to finish it as of 2026-03-28.
• Favorite Quotes

WoT books ranked

Rating is from 0 (no redeeming value at all) to 49 (barely dislike overall) to 50 (neutral overall) to 51 (barely like overall) to 100 (perfect).

Title	Enjoyment	Quality
Origins of the Wheel of Time	51	55
New Spring	59	65
Crossroads of Twilight	60	59
The Wheel of Time Companion	60	99
A Crown of Swords	68	70
The Path of Daggers	68	68
Winter's Heart	70	75
A Memory of Light	70	88
The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time	75	80
Towers of Midnight	78	80
The Dragon Reborn	80	75
Lord of Chaos	80	76
The Gathering Storm	80	90
River of Souls	80	85
Knife of Dreams	83	90
The Fires of Heaven	85	78
A Fire Within the Ways	85	85
The Eye of the World	89	85
The Great Hunt	90	90
The Shadow Rising	95	95

Original content

• The Cardplayers by Mat Cauthon↗, parody of The Cardplayers by Corb Lund
• The Land of the Rising Sun by Thom Merrilin, parody of House of the Rising Sun as popularized by The Animals
• A Limerick by Matrim Cauthon Concerning the Band of the Red Hand
• Much Too Hasty, parody of Ridin' by Chamillionaire and White & Nerdy by Weird Al Yankovic
• Shepherd's Paradise↗, parody of Amish Paradise by Weird Al Yankovic and Gangsta Paradise by Coolio.
• Void of Colours↗, parody of Hoist the Colours by Hans Zimmer et al as popularized by Bobby Bass et al
• Winternight↗, parody of Silent Night by Joseph Mohr

[Gudrean]

Welcome Home! Geeze that is an extensive list, very impressive. and thorough! I'm glad to meet you and look forward to seeing you around more.

[Ithillian Turambar]

Wow. Welcome to DM. That is a lot of history! Here you will find social groups, if you just want to hang out. There's also the tv show and book discussion groups. I general, if you can see it, you can post in it. Only Necro a Thread if it's relevant. 

 

You will see more Boards if you join an org. The White Tower, Band and maybe Shayol Ghul are active

 

The Black Tower is inactive because we lost our One Power roller game... it was left on a website that got deleted. So boo.

 

But hopefully we see you bouncing about the Boards?

 

Ithi 🙂