My memory of the series is somewhat hazy, being some years since my last run through. However, I seem to remember an incident back in the AoL where the Aiel were sitting in a huge circle around a group of channellers that were killing them. They were singing as they were killed, trying to prompt the channellers to remember who and what they were. As I say, my memory is very hazy on the point. I'll get back to the point on this read through eventually, but I always assumed The Song was that song.

That they had a clearer view on Brandon's abilities than you do.

About the book only, of course.

Read for enjoyment? Yes, that's what we do. But saying that, some of us feel that we would have gotten more enjoyment out of the books had a bit more effort, a bit more time, and a bit more work gone into them. It's not about just wanting to bash BS, it's about offering an opinion on the series and his work. There were things he could have done better. Had he done them better, I, for one, would have enjoyed the books more. Would you rather shrug and say good enough, or try and get the author to write the best damn books he can? Surely the books being more enjoyable is beneficial to reading for

Yes, Elayne never read any of the previous letters, and had Mat written a well presented, standard formal letter, Norry would have filtered his letter the same as he did all the others. It's precisely because it's so irreverent and carefree in execution that it gets through to Elayne at all. That letter *HAD* to be like that, else there's no way that Elayne would ever have read it.

They're more likely to travel in :)

To go further with it, the creator says "Next time, my turn to be the dark one"

It was RJ that said that there was 1 more book, only one, and one it was going to be. Because he died, we've gotten 3 instead. And, of course, a plethora of people blaming BS for RJ's failings as an author

Perhaps it'll result in the Creator turning to his best friend (The Dark One) and saying "Well done. It only took you 44 million revolutions that time. Care for another game?"

I've never read it at all. Listened to the audio books otoh, too many to remember

There's also the good general purpose of eliminating the most potentialy effective weapons in the enemies arsenal (ie. channellers) for the least possible risk and cost

Your defining 'being respectful to Brandon' as 'praising Brandon'. Those are two very distinct things. Actually, no I'm not.

Nothing to do with the topic at hand, but I wanted to mention that killing time sounds like a really really bad thing for them to be doing, given the context of the eternal struggle between dark and light, and the resolutions desired by each side.

The level of criticism directed at his work on this board is not consistant with being respectful to him. It is rare to see an opinion that he has done a good job, and very common to see long diatribes seeking to pull apart anything he has written. If I'd read these boards before reading the books, I might very well have come to the conclusion that they were so terribly written as to be not worth reading, rather than being among the better books in the series.

Sanderson has done a fantastic job with the whole of the saga that he wrote. I really don't get how determined some people are to try and criticise his work.