42 minutes ago, Sabio said:

Ummm for the sun there is probably a distance limitation, my guess is the sun would be way too far away, not to mention one gateway will hardly end the world, just the spot the gateway is at.  Just like a gateway pouring lava on top of the Stone of Tear won't simply flood the city, just pour down a gateway sized flow of Lava down.  You need to start linking etc to increase the gateway size.

No distance limitation is ever even implied in the books. I'd have to play around with the math, but I think even a relatively small hole (10 square meters with an s'angreal is not unrealistic) would allow enough stellar material through (and at sufficient force) to be apocalyptic (remembering that the gateway can be tied off and left open).

As to lava-leveling tyr (or other cities), you have to consider that there is no reason to have the lava merely flow through at ambient atmospheric pressure. Flow volume, at the pressures existing inside the mantle, can be pretty catastrophic. And you have to consider the enormous amount of kinetic energy involved: as the magma piles up, it starts flowing out from the point of impact at a rate proportional to the impact velocity. And there is no reason not to put that portal pretty high up. I'm not sure what the terminal velocity of a 3 and a half meter wide column of lava is, but I expect it would be quite spectacular.

So I got into wheel of time late. I burned through it over the last few months and pretty much just finished it: I can definitely see what people were talking about, both those who loved it and those who hated it. And I think much of the criticism that can be leveled at the series in recent years is unfair: some of the elements that now seem derivative or hackneyed were very fresh when they first showed up a quarter century ago. Overall I like it a lot, and I think Jordan should get full credit for great world building any excellent characterization. Very few fantasy authors manage to give each character a distinct "voice", they are all feel like variations on the authors own internal monologue.

I also think it's unfair to criticize it for being long, or their being "pointless" side plots. When you go to a steakhouse and don't like their Pad-Thai, your criticisms of the restaurant have to be taken with a grain of salt. If you want a tightly written and focused story, maybe you shouldn't be reading a 14 book epic fantasy series. I mean, statistics alone suggest you're going to find sub-plots unsatisfactory when there are literally hundreds of them. By all means, compare and contrast with other 10+ volume epic fantasies whom you feel avoid this problem. I'll be waiting. 

But it's a flawed series, for sure. My major complaints:

1) Inexplicable romance. Almost of the couples just arbitrarily fall in love. I have no frikken idea why Elayn loves Rand. It is simply stated that she does, full stop, and the plot roles on. And honestly, that's a pretty well developed romance compared to the others. Tom Merrelain? Nynaeve? Galad? Gawyn? Perin is probably the worst offender here: hey, this woman is horrible to me all the time, and wants me to be verbally abusive... *swoon*. What's jarring is that some of the romances DID work well. Matt and Tuon's situation was charming in part because they didn't arbitrarily fall head over heels. Ditto with Androl and Pevara. Min was alright as well, although Rand was predictably weird about it. 

2) Horrible Women. The problem here might be me, but I found a couple of the female characters to be absolutely odious: Nynaeve and Faille being the standouts. Characters who hold nearly everyone in contempt, but are supposed to be likeable anyway. Characters whose insane pettiness and stubborn obstinance is supposed to be endearing. To be clear, I'm not complaining about the male/female relations in general: there are lots of evil men and evil women, good men and good women. Some of the strict gender relations have in-universe explanations, and frankly I think Jordon doesn't get anywhere near enough credit for trying to explore gender in fantasy (indeed, he gets criticized instead). But like so many male authors, he falls flat on his face when confusing "strong woman" with "huge asshole, but supposedly likable because tits".

Mind you, he's in fine company here. David Eddings gave us Polgara. Orson Scott Card's Enderverse gave us Novinha. There are other examples, and they all strike me as manifestations of the same thing. I'm all for exploring gender differences, but a male who thought of women the way these women think of men would be a villain. There's a lot to be said for having women with agency, but this class of female character is the antithesis of a woman with agency: they are women who systematically try to deny agency to the characters around them, particularly men. And when the male heroes overcome this sabotage, their status as the true drivers of plot is inevitably reinforced. 

3) Idiot Ball. There are a lot of moments where a character becomes incredibly dense for no particular reason other than dramatic tension, or where really obvious moves are not explored. Tuon (who I otherwise adore) falls into this category (delaying arrival at important battlefields, or refusing to consider what the link between Sul'Dam and A'Dam means for herself or her empire). Arbitrary refusal to cooperate is such a recurring theme it went past tiresome and into the realm of aggravating. The other issue is applications of magic: a lot of these were eventually explored but took way too damned long and were inconsistently used (gateways+dragons should have been obvious. Ditto with gateways + lava). Actually, magic in general was annoyingly inconsistent: the bizarre inaccuracy of balefire got pretty ridiculous. Oath-rod shenanigans. Exhausted wizard... just kidding here's a last minute save! Incompetent usage of compulsion (Why would you ever pick Andor over Seanchen?). Outright stupid usage of the Golem (send it to fight the one person who can hurt it. THAT'LL SHOW 'EM!) Incomprehensible unwillingness to break the seals (on both sides). A lot of the conflict and tension in the plot was driven around seeking magical mcguffins or managing arbitrary constraints, while characters never seemed capable of considering the implications of their abilities. 

Related gateway gripes (anti-spoilers, things that didn't happen): Why didn't Moridin open a gateway to the sun and end the world? Why didn't Rand lavapocalypse Shayol Ghul? Why didn't the Forsaken lavapocalypse every major city, starting with the white tower? Why did no one open a deep sea gateway (15000 PSI waterjet cutter say what?). Why did so few people get telefragged? 

My main problem with Perin was Faile. Horrible woman. And I'm serious: literally abusive while justifying her abuse in terms of love for Perin. His affection and dedication was inexplicable: nothing ever suggested a reason for it, we are simply told that he loves her, and that's that. Everything else is supposed to make sense. But she is basically contemptible for the entire series! Very frusterating.

More generally, I hated the wolf-dream stuff. Not the weirdness of the world of dreams, that was fun. But the fights with Slayer painfully reminds me of 13-year-old kids who fantasize about fighting battles as astral projections. Watch out, I'll IMAGINE YOU DEAD SO HARD THAT YOU ACTUALLY DIE. Just... really corny.