The poor OP... If he thinks the women are bad now...

Wait until he reads far enough that blankey gets called to the blankety-blank.

'Veiled' and 'Veil'. As in;

"There was a large number of Taraboners in the army, noticable by their distinctive chainmail veils".

"Sensing danger, the Aiel veiled themselves".

And wasn't Tuon 'under the veil' when she arrived in Randland?

COT is awful. Utterly awful. Easily the lowest point of the series, and not because nothing happens (and slowly at that) or because RJ assumed that we all loved fictitious women's fashion or had not had enough "strong" female characters yet. It is the lowest point because poor RJ assumed (wrongly) that (far) more people liked Egwene and Elayne than actually did and would happily sit through scene after scene after scene of them doing nothing. Read it once, because you've come this far with the series, and then put it away never to see the light of day again or be suffered through again.

Do things get better after it? Yes. Much, much better. Personally I quite liked KoD, especially on the 2nd re-read, and the two Sanderson book may or may not endear you to his writting style but they contain some bloody fantastic chapters. Stick with COT and consider the next three books your well earned reward.

Dumai's Wells. Especially "Asha'man, kill." And Rand making the Aes Sedai kneel.

The Grave Shall Be No Bar To My Call. No explanation needed for that one!

The Battle for Cairhien was fantastic in so many ways.

I quite liked the early chapter in the Eye of the World when Rand and Tam's home is attacked and Rand drags a wounded Tam through the forest. So many tantalising teasers from Tam in his fever! So many nuggets that made me go "oooooh what's that about?!".

The Cleansing, obviously.

I really enjoyed the opener to The Gathering Storm where the farmers are standing round watching the darkness approach on the horizon and realising what it signified and that it was time to beat the plough shares into swords because every human was going to have to stand his/her ground and fight. The tone of it was just perfect.

With a topic like this I could chose a dozen more chapters and keep going but I'll stop. For now....

1) Mat Cauthon; for someone that's basically dead weight for the first two books man does he really go on to redeem himself. I've rarely rooted for a character as much as I do him

2) Rand al'Thor; I love his arc and I imagine if I was in his shoes I'd have done much the same as he did when he tried to harden himself and intimidate the world into doing what he said. I root for him only slightly less than Mat

3) Al'Lan Mandragoran; particularly the Lan of the early books when he tries to help the boys, especially Rand when the Amyrlin comes to meet him in Sheinar. The epitome of a man's man.

4) Rodel Ituralde; mentioned long before he actually makes an appearence but was he sure worth the wait! Not half bad for a short-arse with a beauty mark!

5) Davram Bashere; a military genius and a man who treats Rand as just another man but with the heaviest of burdens to bear. Aware that his following Rand likely means his death when his queen gets her hands on him but still serves regardless.

6) Lord Dobraine; another solid military man who realises who and what Rand is and follows him in the name of the greater good and not out of some attempt to control him or acquire power through him (Aes Sedai take note). It's men like him, Bashere and Ituralde who will hold the line against the Shadow long after the channelers (and Aes Sedai in particular) are dead or exhausted beyond use.

7) Birgitte Silverbow; a female Mat and just about the only woman to ever treat him fairly and realise his greatness. Could've been on par with Mat as one of the great characters of the series if she wasn't dragged down by Elayne. One of the greatest tragedies of the series.

8) Pedron Niall; another Great Captain. I loved the fact that even though he was a Whitecloak he wasn't a foaming at the mouth fanatic but rather coldly logical. I especially loved how sneaky his idea was of letting Rand run loose to scare people into supporting the Whitecloaks. And then those pesky Seanchan had to show up and ruin it all!

9) Tam al'Thor; is it any wonder he rose so high in Illian? Who wouldn't follow this man?! I'll lay money that during the Aiel War he had loads of Green Ajah pulling each other's hair out to try and be the first to proposition him about being a warder/lover.

10) Jahar Narishma; an outright badass. He Who Will Follow After. Worthy of being in the list for just that one scene where he walks straight into the Aes Sedai camp and out-sneers them as he realises that he is a living weapon who will do some good in the Last Battle while they are just a group of largely useless, manipulative women who will still be trying to manipulate their fellow humans while the Last Battle is raging around them and good men and women are fighting and dying for each other.

I'm aware of the ratio of men to women in my list and to be honest if we were just taking the first few books it would possibly be 50/50 or majority women but we all know the disasters that Egwene, Elayne and others turned out to be. Thoroughly unlikeable little madams.

Edit; spelling.