After over a month I’m taking this crappy book up again. I’m still mired in the Elayne chapters. Just one crapty chapter after another. I had really forgotten how terrible Knife is. Gotta be the second worst book after Crossroads. ITS SO DAMNED BORING AND NOTHING IS HAPPENING. It’s kind of a pathetic end for RJ, honestly. Good lord.

Seriously, I dunno where all the money went. Cause we sure didn’t see that level of spend on screen. So much of the show looked low budget. To be fair, I know absolutely nothing about making a show.

I think RJ lost “the drive” to move this series forward as his health declined. Even though things started slowing down in POD and WH, those books have improved significantly upon re-read. This morass of Crossroads and Knife is really putting a sour taste on the series. And I’ve been reading straight through. Perhaps in a few more years, it would be fun to load the first nine books into AI, pepper in some good excerpts plus a few notes on various storylines (Galad and the Whitecloaks, the Moraine rescue, The Last Battle, etc.) and give it 2,000 pages to finish out the series. I wonder…

One chapter of Perrin. He’s grocery shopping. With Seanchan. Man am I weary of the Seanchan. This series really bogged down with Crossroads and it hasn’t gotten markedly better yet as I approach halfway into Knife. One chapter of Perrin and then it’s back to… Elayne Succession. Gah my eyes!!! Will the torment end??

Lol. Agree. EOTW is criminally underrated by a certain segment of the fan base. I think some people have forgotten how masterfully it establishes the principal characters, the lore, and the magic system. If only the show had more faithfully adapted it, what might have been?? One thing that’s interesting to me in my reread is how my impression of the female characters changed quite a bit. Nynaeve has risen considerably in my opinion, whereas Egwene and Elayne have diminished.

Well my re-read of Knife has obviously slowed to a crawl. Much like this series. I’m a third of the way in and almost nothing has happened. It’s chapter after chapter of Mat and Tuon. Which is mildly entertaining because it’s Mat. But time has apparently ceased to exist in Randland. All that urgency about TG seems a bit misplaced as Mat and Tuon slog through Altara. I don’t even know where Altara is anymore. I. Just. Don’t. CARE. And now we’re at Moraine’s letter, which should be a big moment. And my brain is so numb at this point that I’m basically “meh, ok, another side quest that’ll take… four or five more books?”

Hey now! Worse than Rafe’s version is a low blow lol. Even if we just agreed on cutting the circus stuff, that’d help. And Taim doesn’t have to be Demandred - just can’t have Demandred coming out of practically nowhere at the very end. As I’ve gotten further into my re-read, I agree that the Bowl plotline doesn’t need to be cut, just shortened. But the Seafolk probably need to go. And a lot of the Kin, too. Basically that whole thing that coalesces around the Andoran Succession plot line is insufferable and needs to go.

The Eye is first mentioned by B’A in Chapter 14 into the first dream sequence, and in at least one more dream. Then it is mentioned mid-way through the book in Caemlyn. The Eye is a bit of a MacGuffin since the only real point of the first book is provide a quest to develop the main characters. But it also did serve a real purpose. While I agree some of the first battles between Rand and the forsaken take on a whimsical quality because it isn’t really explained at that time about some channelers being able to physically step in and out of TAR, I didn’t mind it.

Yeah, I’ve seriously bogged down early in POD. It’s not good. Not any better than COT.

Yeah. I guess it would have made more sense to just make Eg a TV, but evidently that’s not the case. Thing is, I liked her character initially. I liked her in the early books from EF to the Seanchan captivity to her time with the Wise Ones in the waste. Her apprenticeship to the Dreamwalkers seemed real. It seemed earned. I could even go along with the Salidar faction naming her Amyrlin for purposes of manipulation, although that’s a reallll stretch. But pretty much everything else from then on is just annoying as hell. She’s awfully passionate all of a sudden about a White Tower that she has lived in for all of maybe a month or two and has actually spent most of her time with the Aes Sedai finding any possible reason to avoid. And then all these women who are vastly older and more experienced than her are just like “oh wow, you’re so strong and wise.” And Elaida is like “rather than executing you like I was gonna do with Siuan, I’m just gonna let you walk about and spread your dissension.” And this all came from RJ - not Sanderson! It’s YA-caliber nonsense, but even Harry Potter didn’t have any pretensions to be headmaster of Hogwarts. Honestly, the Elayne and Egwene storylines have gotten more annoying to me - not less - during this read-through. Nynaeve, surprisingly, has way elevated herself. It’s so bad that I’d much rather read about Mat/Tuon or Faile’s captivity. By the way, I found this thread on Dragonmount from over a decade ago - many of the posts here describe my exact frustration.

I made it through Crossroads. It was terrible. I remember Knife being an improvement. So far we’re off to a slowwww start. Ok, the Prologue at least starts with a banger. Galad does something cool. Then, even cooler, he tells the Children “yeah we got bigger fish to fry right now than hating witches.” Neat to see a rare moment of common sense. Then we’ve got Ituralde doing Seanchan stuff in Tarabon that nobody cares about. But at least it’s an action scene. Suroth is stressed. Really don’t care. She meets Semirhage. Still having trouble caring. I’ve just lost interest in the whole Seanchan thing a while ago. Then we get some Red Ajah sisters talking. K. Can’t even be bothered with their names because I’ll forget anyway. But the new “Highest” swears like Uno which kinda funny. They’re fretting over Asha’man again. Whatever. Alviarin is still sniveling. Whatever. Galina meets Perrin briefly. Forgot all about that. Gotta say, I’m surprised how the Faile captivity plot line is more interesting than I remember. Although that may just be relative to all the White Tower tedium. And then Egwene. Sigh. I just can’t buy it. She feels like she’s “coming home” to the White Tower. How many days has she actually spent at the Tower - less than a month?? Serious question. Anybody do the math? And this 18yo girl is suddenly far more mature and confident than women 10x her age? I mean, this storyline is about as close as WOT gets to Young Adult drek and it really sucks. The ability for Egwene to keep up with email via TAR is an interesting angle… but then rather than using her inside info to plot a White Tower takedown via gateway (that would have been COOL) she’s all like “nah - I got this handled with my 18yo powers of PERSUASION.” Dumb. This story line is not as bad as Andoran Succession. But it’s close.

Well, here we go. My re-read has arrived at Crossroads. I hated this book when I first read it. But my hope is that, much like Crown, POD, and WH, I am misremembering some good stuff and if I hit Crossroads with a running start (meaning I’ve got at least 10% of the rando Aes Sedai and other bit players straight in my head) it will be better. The Prologue. EIGHTY PAGES and I don’t care about a single thing happening here. We start with Rodele Iterlude parleying with other leaders in Arad Domon. Don’t care. Not gonna care. Then we’ve got Eamon Valda doing… Whitecloak things. Don’t care. Not gonna care. Next up Logain who bonded two Aes Sedai. He’s having sex with one of them. I like Logain, but I don’t care about this. Then some Aes Sedai names Yukiri is walking around the White Tower. There is much sniffing and crossing of arms beneath breasts and smoothing of skirts and just general cat fighting among many sisters I’m not gonna bother naming. Gah this is terrible don’t care / not gonna care. Ov my lord, we’re back to Gawyn next. He’s sooo in love with Egwene. He does nothing notable. Per usual. Davram Bashere - who I like - basically sits on his horse and talks about nothing important. Then his wife is attacked. But lives. Ok? And finally another Aes Sedai in Cairhien, again not really doing anything. At least Loial makes an appearance. He closed the way gates. Ok. Then somebody tries assassinate Dobraine! K that’s at least a little exciting. We’re not off to a good start. But then we get a few Mat chapters which are slow but generally ok. Basically a flashback to their escape from Ebou Dar. Even though they’re hunkering down with Valan Luca’s circus. Remember from Fires of Heaven? This is still a thing. There is at least a genuinely funny moment when Tuon is throwing things at Mat and she grabs the chamber pot and Setalle is like “we need that - here use this cup we have plenty of these.” And then we get one of the worst chapters of the whole dang series about a Seanchan general thinking about Tuon’s doll. Not great, Bob. Not great. But plowing ahead.

Imagine you get to a free hand and unlimited resources and a clean slate to adapt the books to the screen. What are the BIG changes you would have made from the books? I just finished my reread of Fires of Heaven (and I had forgotten how good this book was, btw). Here is my list off top of my head… - Book 1 = Season 1 and I would have been super faithful. Including the prologue. - The Super Girlz just figuring stuff out by intuition makes ZERO sense. At least with Ran he’s the DR so there’s a reason. I’d have them learn most of their stuff in the tower. - Elayne sucks. Sorry not sorry. I wouldn’t cut her character. And I’d still have her be “in love” with Rand. But that doesn’t mean Rand has to love her back. This whole “love story” makes sense as teenage infatuation but not actual love, and I’d depict it as such with the expected outcome. In fact, I’d probably make her character even more annoying in the show. Basically she’d be like Sansa, like how book readers would be like “ok, Sansa sucks but she’s as bad in the books. She still sucks but not as bad as the show.” - Give the Forsaken interesting backstories, make them more dangerous, and don’t reincarnate half of them. Ugh. - The Elayne and Nynaeve join the circus storyline is tedious and dumb. Cut. - Bowl of the Winds gone. - Elayne Andor/Cairhien succession waaaay abbreviated. - Perrin/Faile captivity story waaay abbreviated. And the Shaido are obliterated after Dumai’s Wells. - Taim is Demandred. Or at least Demandred is somewhere way less contrived than in the books. I’m sure I’ll think of more as I get further into the reread, but that’s what I can think of for now.