Quality Discussion Thread

[MarkDiLillo]

^^Perhaps your anger should be at Team jordan and not so much BS?

 

You best believe I hold them partially responsible as well!  However, ultimately it is the authors responsibility.  It's his name on the book and his work we're reading so the buck stops with him.  I do definitely agree that there are parts of the book that should have never made it past the editing room though.

[Sarlic]

Sarlic, let me ask you this:

 

Two of the major cliffhangers at the end of ToM were written in my Brandon.  1 - Moiraine's rescue and her importance for the last battle.  2 - Alanna's disappearance after having just opened Verin's letter.

 

Why do you think Verin's letters, what happened to Alanna, and what happened to Moiraine and what she learned (her 2 other wishes?) were totally excluded from this book?  Do you feel like it was the author's intentional decision to exclude these items entirely and not even mention them after they were written in as major cliffhangers to the previous book?

 

Well, first and foremost -- I don't know.  I don't know what happened behind the scenes here, I don't know if things were mistakenly or intentionally excluded.  I have very strong opinions as to who would be to blame for either though, and again, I can't put that on Brandon.  At least, not entirely.

 

That being said, I was disappointed in Moiraine's story arc; but only because I wanted more.  I wish she had more screen time that involved more personal interactions.  (I purposesly didn't say that I wished she had "more to do" or "more screen time in general" because she played a pivotal role in this book, even if most of it was in the background.)  Unlike most, I enjoyed her role at Merrilor -- I liked that she schooled everyone by quoting the Prophecies.  I wish we'd seen her reunion with Lan.  But....  We didn't.

 

As far as her questions for the 'Finn.....  It didn't really bother me.  There was so much else to focus on in this book, that I spent no time thinking about Moiraine's questions, or Verin's letters.  Not until I read the critique on here.

 

Alanna -- while the story might have been fleshed out more, again, I was fine with it.  She served the purpose she was meant to serve - to be a point of leverage against Rand.  I think she was kidnapped by Moridin, who traveled using the TP, so no one felt it -- and that was that.  Would it have been nice to have an extra scene?  Sure.  Again -- it just didn't bother me.

 

Verin's letters.....

 

Well, I remember an interview (can't pull exact quotes or say exactly when it happened) that RJ didn't envision every element of the story being wrapped up.  (I remember this vividly because it bothered me when I read it.)  Maybe this is one of those plot points.  (I never considered Verin's letters, beside Mat's, to be pivotal to the story.  I never focused on them, because, again, there was so much else I could focus on.

 

Maybe all of this is a result of me being a poor reader - I never considered these to be major cliffhangers, either.  But, I just didn't feel like these plot elements were necessary to the story, so I wasn't bothered by the omission.

 

Again -- that's just me.

[MarkDiLillo]

And I look at this as a manager who needs a project done by a deadline, when suddenly the project lead who's been heading the project dies with less than a week to go. You need the project finished by the date, and you can't reasonably expect the next guy in line to be entirely up to speed by the time period. Expectations for the project are lowered. It's not that you don't have any, mind, but you're willing to accept some sacrifices to get it done. If it was the original project lead you'd have expected better. If you had more time left you'd expect something better. But if the next guy can finish the project in a reasonable manner, then you're okay with that, considering the circumstances.

 

Some continuity errors are expected. Jordan made a few himself. I'm not sure I saw any major plot holes. People misuse that term a lot, anyway.

 

See, I dont think that there is any excuse for it not being done properly.  The new author will certainly have his style and may change some things, but that doesn't mean you should expect anything less professional, polished, or finished.  In real life, if a project lead changes I expect him to complete the thing with the same degree of the completion and quality as the last guy.  The new guy will certainly have his own flare and style, but that is entirely separate from quality and completion.

[Suttree]

The idea that Brandon gave such a poor effort in finishing this thing is just too much for me. ToM needed more revisions, I certainly agree. But the idea that this wasn't a tremendous effort on everyone's part and Brandon just slap-dashed this together as easily as he could . . . 

 

I would have loved it if, in preparation for this book, Brandon had spent half a decade rereading through the series, checking his notes, reviewing Jordan's notes, outlining and re-outlining the end before even starting to draft the manuscript. He of course did this on a much shorter time frame. But if he could have spent longer, participating anonymously in discussions here and on theoryland (though that risks contamination) to familiarize himself with everything on the same level as the dedicated who've reread the series a few times over the past ten or twenty years and spent nearly as long discussing every detail. In some ways, the series did deserve that. I feel that is the only way that Brandon could have written this "as well as he could have" and up to the standards many are asking (again, there are some things, like further revision of ToM, that definitely could have been done, but that isn't just Brandon). But I feel that would be unreasonable to ask of any author. The series suffered some for the lack of such involvement, but I don't think it's fair to call it a "poor effort." I'm not saying that Brandon has crafted the most wonderful end to the series ever, but I do feel that what he's done is an accomplishment given the timeframe. Perhaps I didn't set my expectations as high as some. There's no hard way to judge what the "right" expectations were. I made my own based on my understanding of what was being done. They'd have been higher if the project had been delayed longer.

 

I know others either don't feel that such an extended time frame should have been necessary or that they should be faulted for not taking as much time as it needed. I disagree with both.

 

*shrugs*

To be clear there were some things that Brandon did well. I think when it came to things he enjoyed doing he worked very hard. When it came to work on things he didn't like or claimed to not be good at such as prose and timeline...by his own admission not so much. He passed those things on to Team Jordan. I was also very shocked to read something like this on Twitter:

 

JL

Expand Collapse Reply RetweetedRetweet

So, @BrandSanderson gave up on trying to read Jordan's notes after two months, instead relying on Maria and Alan. Sadly, this shows.

 

JL

Comparatively he has been working on the Wheel for 60 months. Maybe a larger stint than 1.2% of his time might have been effective.

 

Now to be honest when a poster like Fel chimes in it is equally bad as those few people claiming "worst thing to paper". They are flip sides of the extremist coin. For the most part the critique has been well reasoned and thought out, much as the supporters have voiced good counter opinions. Unfortunately it's posts like Fel's attacking the critics, or the small handful going over the top with Brandon that take away from rational discourse on the topic.

[Sarlic]

 

^^Perhaps your anger should be at Team jordan and not so much BS?

 

You best believe I hold them partially responsible as well!  However, ultimately it is the authors responsibility.  It's his name on the book and his work we're reading so the buck stops with him.  I do definitely agree that there are parts of the book that should have never made it past the editing room though.

I agree with this to an extent, but I think that as far as substantive mistakes -- inconsistencies, etc -- I have to blame that kind of thing on the editing, ESPECIALLY when it's an author taking over someone else's work.  Granted, Brandon has primary responsibility for certain elements, but some of the complaints I've read on here (specifically, the use of Gateways, the interaction between Rand and Mat in front of Tuon, etc) -- that's editing.  I really can't blame Brandon for that; sure, it was his idea.  But the "experts" on the series, the people in charge of continuity, are the editors.

[MarkDiLillo]

 

Sarlic, let me ask you this:

 

Two of the major cliffhangers at the end of ToM were written in my Brandon.  1 - Moiraine's rescue and her importance for the last battle.  2 - Alanna's disappearance after having just opened Verin's letter.

 

Why do you think Verin's letters, what happened to Alanna, and what happened to Moiraine and what she learned (her 2 other wishes?) were totally excluded from this book?  Do you feel like it was the author's intentional decision to exclude these items entirely and not even mention them after they were written in as major cliffhangers to the previous book?

 

Well, first and foremost -- I don't know.  I don't know what happened behind the scenes here, I don't know if things were mistakenly or intentionally excluded.  I have very strong opinions as to who would be to blame for either though, and again, I can't put that on Brandon.  At least, not entirely.

 

That being said, I was disappointed in Moiraine's story arc; but only because I wanted more.  I wish she had more screen time that involved more personal interactions.  (I purposesly didn't say that I wished she had "more to do" or "more screen time in general" because she played a pivotal role in this book, even if most of it was in the background.)  Unlike most, I enjoyed her role at Merrilor -- I liked that she schooled everyone by quoting the Prophecies.  I wish we'd seen her reunion with Lan.  But....  We didn't.

 

As far as her questions for the 'Finn.....  It didn't really bother me.  There was so much else to focus on in this book, that I spent no time thinking about Moiraine's questions, or Verin's letters.  Not until I read the critique on here.

 

Alanna -- while the story might have been fleshed out more, again, I was fine with it.  She served the purpose she was meant to serve - to be a point of leverage against Rand.  I think she was kidnapped by Moridin, who traveled using the TP, so no one felt it -- and that was that.  Would it have been nice to have an extra scene?  Sure.  Again -- it just didn't bother me.

 

Verin's letters.....

 

Well, I remember an interview (can't pull exact quotes or say exactly when it happened) that RJ didn't envision every element of the story being wrapped up.  (I remember this vividly because it bothered me when I read it.)  Maybe this is one of those plot points.  (I never considered Verin's letters, beside Mat's, to be pivotal to the story.  I never focused on them, because, again, there was so much else I could focus on.

 

Maybe all of this is a result of me being a poor reader - I never considered these to be major cliffhangers, either.  But, I just didn't feel like these plot elements were necessary to the story, so I wasn't bothered by the omission.

 

Again -- that's just me.

 

See, I had similar feelings right after I finished.  There is so much going on that I didn't think about it very much and just enjoyed the ride.  I ended the book feeling good.  It wasn't until I let it sink in for a couple days that I started to analyze everything and realized how much was missing...and that's when it started to turn sour for me.

 

I can speculate as much as you can about the fate of Alanna, Moiraine, Verin's letters, etc.  The problem is that we are forced to speculate.  Why?  Why weren't a few sentences thrown in to either explain those story arcs or to lead us towards forming our own conclusions?  The only answer that makes sense to me is because Brandon Sanderson simply forgot to include this stuff in the book.  And that is inexcusable in my eyes.

 

I feel kind of bad because I feel like the more I discuss this stuff with a lot of you guys who had a good impression of the books the more I'm stomping on your enjoyment.  I don't want to do that - like I said, I enjoyed parts of the book myself.

[papertiger]

In the end, this is really Tor's fault; they indulged Jordan because he was cranking out best sellers when they should have put the clamps on him after Lord of Chaos. Instead of hiring an editor that could rein him in, they just let him putter through CoT without any restraint whatsoever.

[MarkDiLillo]

In the end, this is really Tor's fault; they indulged Jordan because he was cranking out best sellers when they should have put the clamps on him after Lord of Chaos. Instead of hiring an editor that could rein him in, they just let him putter through CoT without any restraint whatsoever.

 

This probably has some degree of truth to it.  Even Harriet, in a recent interview, admits that he had learned all he could from her and she was not changing very much at all in his later books.  I couldn't help but wonder if maybe the opposite was true and Harriet just wasn't editing him as strictly as in the past.  There is definitely a lot of needless description that RJ went overboard on in the later books that did not exist in the earlier books.

 

It's hard to put the clamps on a guy who pumps out #1 sellers though.

[Atheose]

I can speculate as much as you can about the fate of Alanna, Moiraine, Verin's letters, etc.  The problem is that we are forced to speculate.  Why?  Why weren't a few sentences thrown in to either explain those story arcs or to lead us towards forming our own conclusions?  The only answer that makes sense to me is because Brandon Sanderson simply forgot to include this stuff in the book.  And that is inexcusable in my eyes.

 

Jordan himself said (many, many times) that he didn't want to reveal everything because he wanted people to discuss and speculate long after the books were released. Hell, he wasn't even going to release definitive information on Asmodean's killer either.

[Agitel]

I can speculate as much as you can about the fate of Alanna, Moiraine, Verin's letters, etc.  The problem is that we are forced to speculate.  Why?  Why weren't a few sentences thrown in to either explain those story arcs or to lead us towards forming our own conclusions?  The only answer that makes sense to me is because Brandon Sanderson simply forgot to include this stuff in the book.  And that is inexcusable in my eyes.

 

I honestly don't think Jordan intended to answer those questions. This isn't just me trying to defend the quality of Sanderson's work here. On many levels, I think a lot of the more negative critics and I see a lot of the same things, we just respond to them differently. This . . . I wouldn't be surprised if Jordan didn't answer a lot of those things himself.

[Suttree]

 

 

I can speculate as much as you can about the fate of Alanna, Moiraine, Verin's letters, etc.  The problem is that we are forced to speculate.  Why?  Why weren't a few sentences thrown in to either explain those story arcs or to lead us towards forming our own conclusions?  The only answer that makes sense to me is because Brandon Sanderson simply forgot to include this stuff in the book.  And that is inexcusable in my eyes.

 

Jordan himself said (many, many times) that he didn't want to reveal everything because he wanted people to discuss and speculate long after the books were released. Hell, he wasn't even going to release definitive information on Asmodean's killer either.

On the flip side of that there is a difference between every thread being tied up at the end(to give the illusion of the characters living on, which is what RJ said) and plot pieces simply dropped into a hole.

[Sarlic]

 

Now to be honest when a poster like Fel chimes in it is equally bad as those few people claiming "worst thing to paper". They are flip sides of the extremist coin. For the most part the critique has been well reasoned and thought out, much as the supporters have voiced good counter opinions. Unfortunately it's posts like Fel's attacking the critics, or the small handful going over the top with Brandon that take away from rational discourse on the topic.

Not that I disagree with Fel's sentiment (I think there's some unfair bashing going on) but you hit the nail right on the head.

 

I think part of the problem, even the non-extreme opinions are passionate (like mine) and I just have a hard time reading some of them.  But those are my faults, readily admitted.

 

I think most of my issue stems from the fact that I just wish everyone enjoyed as much of the book as I did (which is weird, I know.)

[MarkDiLillo]

 

I can speculate as much as you can about the fate of Alanna, Moiraine, Verin's letters, etc.  The problem is that we are forced to speculate.  Why?  Why weren't a few sentences thrown in to either explain those story arcs or to lead us towards forming our own conclusions?  The only answer that makes sense to me is because Brandon Sanderson simply forgot to include this stuff in the book.  And that is inexcusable in my eyes.

 

Jordan himself said (many, many times) that he didn't want to reveal everything because he wanted people to discuss and speculate long after the books were released. Hell, he wasn't even going to release definitive information on Asmodean's killer either.

 

Yes, I know, but I think you are confusing this issue.  For example, RJ clearly didnt intend for the damane and Seanchan plots to be resolved.  He also clearly did not want to resolve any of the "what happens to Elayne after," etc. plots.  He wanted to leave the world wide open.  But the parts regarding Verin's letters, Moiraine's involvement and her wishes, are things that were supposed to play a major part in the end of the story.  Is it fair to say that maybe we won't ever discover all of Moiraine's wishes?  Yes, certainly it is possible that RJ wanted it that way.  However...we didn't even discover why Rand would "almost certainly fail" without Moiraine's help.  And Verin's letters were left as a cliffhanger by BS in the last book....and then just never mentioned again?  You think that is per RJ's express wishes?

[papertiger]

I think we can all agree that Rand's going to cross the ocean and hook up with Min. He kinda has to; she's the only mortal "wife" of his.

[Sarlic]

See, I had similar feelings right after I finished.  There is so much going on that I didn't think about it very much and just enjoyed the ride.  I ended the book feeling good.  It wasn't until I let it sink in for a couple days that I started to analyze everything and realized how much was missing...and that's when it started to turn sour for me.

 

I can speculate as much as you can about the fate of Alanna, Moiraine, Verin's letters, etc.  The problem is that we are forced to speculate.  Why?  Why weren't a few sentences thrown in to either explain those story arcs or to lead us towards forming our own conclusions?  The only answer that makes sense to me is because Brandon Sanderson simply forgot to include this stuff in the book.  And that is inexcusable in my eyes.

 

I feel kind of bad because I feel like the more I discuss this stuff with a lot of you guys who had a good impression of the books the more I'm stomping on your enjoyment.  I don't want to do that - like I said, I enjoyed parts of the book myself.

I don't feel that us being forced to speculate is necessary a bad thing, nor do I think we can conclusively.......conclude that it wasn't intentional.

 

Whether Brandon forgot or whether he intentionally excluded, we'll never really know.  But if he forgot, at some point, the editors need to start getting more of the blame.  As I said, Brandon isn't blameless (assuming, again, that this was a mistake) but at some point, the responsibility has to shift elsewhere.  In the case of WoT, I put even more responsibility in the lap of the editors, if only because Brandon had to rely on them for continuity and the like because, again -- it wasn't his world.

 

The blame -- to the extent that there's blame to go around -- needs to be shared here, and I just feel like Brandon is unfairly getting the bulk of the criticism.

 

And again -- I have far less of a problem because some of these issues are things that I expected, stemming from the fact that Brandon wasn't the original author and that some inconsistencies are unavoidable.

[MarkDiLillo]

Also - I want point out that Jordan not telling us who killed Asmodean and insisting that we had enough info to discover it on our own was total BS!  I think technically that someone had figured it out using all the clues, but the clues were so vague and undefinitive that it was really impossible to say for sure that Graendal was responsible.  So chalk that one up as a strike in RJ's corner IMO.  I really am thankful that Brandon flat out told us the truth finally because that would have driven me insane never being 100% sure who did it.

[Sarlic]

 

However...we didn't even discover why Rand would "almost certainly fail" without Moiraine's help. 

 Well, here's what I thought with this.  Maybe call it a "showing vs. telling" example -- :-)

 

Merrilor was on the brink of disaster.... and then Moiraine walked in, and the ship righted itself.  If Rand walked out of Merrilor not having resolved things with the rulers, I'm not sure he could have entered the Pit of Doom as "ready" as he was.

 

Additionally, Moiraine was with him in the Pit of Doom..... Clearly he needed her there, with Nynaeve, or things could have gone sour.  (I'll concede the point that no where were we shown why it "specifically" had to be Moiraine and couldn't be someone else.)

[Centauri25]

I will agree with others in that RJ shoulders some significant portion of the blame for things left unfinished. There seems to be a lot of griping that such and such should have been addressed, but at the same time there was too much wasted space in the book already. Or things just moved too fast, but lets add a few quick lines about some fanboy theoryland issue. Come on folks. To do justice from where we were after KoD in full on RJ wheel of time fashion, we needed another 5 or 6 books. And that was not going to happen.

[Suttree]

Also - I want point out that Jordan not telling us who killed Asmodean and insisting that we had enough info to discover it on our own was total BS!  I think technically that someone had figured it out using all the clues, but the clues were so vague and undefinitive that it was really impossible to say for sure that Graendal was responsible.

Well I think a good portion of the fandom had figured. Graendal was certainly the most popular suspect and RJ confirmed the fan who wrote the "Sherlock Holmes" scenario had it right.

 

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4975913/1/Sherlock-Holmes-Examines-the-Death-of-Asmodean

 

I will agree with others in that RJ shoulders some significant portion of the blame for things left unfinished. There seems to be a lot of griping that such and such should have been addressed, but at the same time there was too much wasted space in the book already. Or things just moved too fast, but lets add a few quick lines about some fanboy theoryland issue. Come on folks. To do justice from where we were after KoD in full on RJ wheel of time fashion, we needed another 5 or 6 books. And that was not going to happen.

Not sure how certain plot lines are "fanboy theoryland" issues? That is a rather significant straw man. In fact most are upset at the times he broke the 4th wall. Bottom line there was an appalling amount of bloat and filler in these last three books. You could easily cut portions out while addressing many of the plot points that were forgotten. Hell in AMoL alone the "battle porn" was excessive and the space could have been better utilized. It is clear after these last three books that there was no need for the split(which is Brandon argued. He did not want the books to go to three). Claiming 5 or 6 more books is patently absurd.

[papertiger]

Seeing as we have all the information we're going to get now, someone needs to start working on an abridged version that's 8-10 long at most. The red herrings and everything is okay but there's no reason to subject future readers to a detailed rendering of Faile captivity sequence, the circus, the Black Ajah hunters in the Tower, and the Andoran and Murandian nobles. Also, just kill Fain along with Toram Riatin.

 

We can call it the 4th Age edition!

[Grr Aaargh]

I think Mark D is making an excellent point with Moiraine's purpose, her wishes, and Verin's letters. But this is a typical example of how plot and execution are connected. I have seen some people here argue that Moiraine's purpose was to make peace between Rand and Egwene. There are a couple of problems with that argument, though.

 

First, although the setup of the conflict was clear in ToM, I had trouble with the dialogue between them at Merrilor. It was childish, it ignored about 10 volumes' worth of character development, the characters' voices were not distinctively their own: it fell flat. (I guess other people were OK with it - I'm kind of jealous of you for that!)

 

Second, Moiraine did not speak in her own voice in that scene - she mainly stuck to quoting from the Prophecies. Now, I get that Moiraine's return is something we've all been waiting for for ever and ever, and it's scary to try to do justice to all the expectations. But I really do wish that Brandon Sanderson had at least given it a shot. As it was, Moiraine simply did not appear as a character in her own right. There were no revelations; she did not have very much to say that we did not all know already.

 

So for these two reasons, Moiraine did not end up having a convincing purpose at Merrilor. This may well be due to execution rather than plotting.

 

However, there is a third issue. Mat is the only model we have for someone who went through that particular doorframe ter'angreal. He received three gifts, all of which changed his level of agency within the fictional universe enormously. Only two of the gifts were objects. If Moiraine emerged with only one object, it may well be that the other two gifts involved changes to her mind, just like Mat got his memories. The way all of this was set up led many readers to believe that Moiraine had to have received some vital piece of information or some skill that would make a major difference, presumably during Rand's confrontation with the DO. And I think this is part of the reason why many people like myself would now like to have a chance to see the notes that RJ left behind: I'd like to know whether Moiraine really was incidental to the Last Battle, or only to the story that BS ended up telling.

[Mr. Micawber]

Uh, yeah, the reason Mark - and for that matter myself - is getting frustrated is that we emphatically do not claim this is the worst material ever put on paper

 

What Mark has said, what I have said, what many people have said, is that MOL is a failure. That doesn't mean literally everything he wrote was terrible. It means the book is bad.

 

By contrast, we have people constantly saying how "awesome" and "cool" and "sad" this book is. Right.

 

I've been trying to limit my deconstruction largely to the battle scenes so many people love, in order to demonstrate they're unevenly written, abysmally plotted action sequences out of step with the WOT universe but in line with fan service of the most grating variety. I've also commented on the sheer ridiculousness of Brandon promoting a character that's essentially made up by him to save the day like half a dozen times.

 

I don't actually expect most people to agree with me because they're refusing to acknowledge even the most basic issues with MOL. But it gets incredibly annoying when people deliberately distort what Mark's saying.

 

And frankly, if you go to the "sad moments" thread, you'll have a painful example of what we're talking about. Namely, people keep saying patently ludicrous things like "omg I was so sad when Lan almost died"

 

Yes, that's a perfectly fine reaction when you're reading the book the first time. But Lan didn't die. So maybe, maybe you might want to revisit that conclusion when you get to the end.

[Mr. Micawber]

Oh, and you know what that sound is on this board? It's the incredibly deafening silence of the regulars, the guys who've been into this series almost professionally. Where are they? They certainly commented when KOD and TGS and TOM came out. I wonder where they are now. Could it possibly be that they're a bit, hmm, disappointed? Nah, that's probably just crazy talk

[Hack n Slash]

Uh, yeah, the reason Mark - and for that matter myself - is getting frustrated is that we emphatically do not claim this is the worst material ever put on paper

 

What Mark has said, what I have said, what many people have said, is that MOL is a failure. That doesn't mean literally everything he wrote was terrible. It means the book is bad.

 

By contrast, we have people constantly saying how "awesome" and "cool" and "sad" this book is. Right.

 

I've been trying to limit my deconstruction largely to the battle scenes so many people love, in order to demonstrate they're unevenly written, abysmally plotted action sequences out of step with the WOT universe but in line with fan service of the most grating variety. I've also commented on the sheer ridiculousness of Brandon promoting a character that's essentially made up by him to save the day like half a dozen times.

 

I don't actually expect most people to agree with me because they're refusing to acknowledge even the most basic issues with MOL. But it gets incredibly annoying when people deliberately distort what Mark's saying.

 

And frankly, if you go to the "sad moments" thread, you'll have a painful example of what we're talking about. Namely, people keep saying patently ludicrous things like "omg I was so sad when Lan almost died"

 

Yes, that's a perfectly fine reaction when you're reading the book the first time. But Lan didn't die. So maybe, maybe you might want to revisit that conclusion when you get to the end.

It sounds like your purpose here is to convince people that something they enjoyed or even loved is bad and wrong? It's one thing to say "I didn't enjoy this book and here is why" its another to say "this book is demonstrably bad and you are wrong if you liked it" which appears to be what you are saying. I mean, do you feel so empty right now that you need to spread that unhappiness to others?

 

Also, I didn't distort anything that was said. He wrote a post extolling the virtues of Chapter 37 and talking about how it was obviously written by RJ and was amazing, and has been backtracking ever since he's been shown that he was just wrong. Maybe if you just tried to enjoy things you'd be happier. You realize that nothing is amazing when you spend hours deconstructing it and pointing out all its flaws right?

[papertiger]

Yeah, Moiraine's purpose seemed too vague. Quoting prophecies like a Brown! I think she should have just gotten confirmation from the Finns that Callandor could be used to channel the TP and to trap a male channeler.

 

BOOM!! Problem solved. But instead we got Moiraine standing around watching stuff happen. Thom was more bad-a$$ than Moiraine; not that I don't like Thom but she had less to do than Berelain.