Second, the epilogue was awful and completely unsatisfying. Rand goes from Dragon Reborn to deadbeat dad? All that great stuff when he was fighting the dark one about accepting everyone's sacrifices, that everyone was fighting the same fight and not just taking part in Rand's fight, just to have him walk away at the end like it really was just his fight that's now over? All his obligations are now void because he won the fight against the dark one fulfilling his roll as the Dragon (and only his roll as the Dragon), even those to his children? I'm sorry I just can't buy it. I'm so glad that we got everything up to that point to finish the story, but I just can't accept that ending as legitimate.

I agree on the deadbeat dad issue.  That is one thing that didn't occur to me right away, but which bothers me more and more as I take time to reflect on the ending.

Thing is that is your own personnel intepretation of what Rand will do. There is no indication whatsoever that he will just permanently ignore his children and never be a father to them.

t 

What do you mean "no indication"?  "he figured he wanted to go someplace away from it all for good."

Oh sure, you can just make up your own ending in your head, which is exactly what I've done.  I assume rand rounds the next bend, turns for one last looks at his friends and family and sees all their unrealized hopes and needs.  He sighs and says "death would have been as light as a feather" and turns around to head back to the pyre smoking his impossible pipe.

But that's not the ending we were given nor the trajectory implied.  We see him heading off intending to abandon responsibility (including to his children). Sure he might redeem this awful choice, but that choice is the ending that we were given, and in my mind it is not an acceptable ending.

A bit late to finish, but have to write something :)

Basically very satisfied.  It was overall a wonderful and well written book.  I laughed and cried, and stayed up way to late (I intentionally stay in the dark about book release developments because I get so frustrated about it, so I didn't actually know it was out until a week ago).

That said, I just can't help but complain on two points.

First, the book really did suffer from Jordan's and Sanderson's (to a lesser extent) unwillingness to resolve plot-lines.  So much random crap thrown in at the end epitomized by Fain showing up right at the end just to get punked by Mat. That plot could have been wrapped up half a dozen books ago in a much more dramatic and satisfying manner.  Plenty of other stuff like that; the ending would have been just as climatic without a bunch of tangential story-lines wrapping up in the last 200 pages.  The book was still great despite these someone anti-climatic resolutions, but I can't help but feel it was a flaw to the series.

Second, the epilogue was awful and completely unsatisfying.  Rand goes from Dragon Reborn to deadbeat dad? All that great stuff when he was fighting the dark one about accepting everyone's sacrifices, that everyone was fighting the same fight and not just taking part in Rand's fight, just to have him walk away at the end like it really was just his fight that's now over?  All his obligations are now void because he won the fight against the dark one fulfilling his roll as the Dragon (and only his roll as the Dragon), even those to his children?  I'm sorry I just can't buy it.  I'm so glad that we got everything up to that point to finish the story, but I just can't accept that ending as legitimate.