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.

Will be interested to hear your take.

We spend a few chapters with Mat and Tuon. Yawn. And for the “grand finale” final chapter we get Egwene squaring off against Romanda and Lelaine. Is this the second worst storyline aside from Andoran Succession? I think maybe. And let’s toss in the names of at least 73 other women I mostly cannot remember. We are treated to scintillating discussion about whether Aes Sedai should use the Oath Rod, and whether Aes Sedai should enslave Asha’man. All culminating if Egwene executing her dumb plan and getting captured. The End. God this book sucks. Arriving at it on a straight read-through did not help at all. It’s not quite as bad as I remembered from the first time I read it maybe 15 years ago? But just awful all the same. Well, at least that’s done. On to Knife. I think I remember things getting marginally better.

No offense intended, but I’m not following anything you’re saying. Maybe you can try to explain it a different way.

You raise a really good point about the “hands off” Creator versus the “hands on” DO. But as for RJ retconning anything, I dunno. Maybe he retconned some things later on, but I think RJ intended from the very first book for Ishy to be posturing as the DO. I mean, there’s a reason that Ishy is featured in the Prologue. I think the sad fact is that the bad guys - even the DO himself - is more of a plot device than a carefully constructed and logical thing. I certainly haven’t seen any cohesive explanation 10 books into the series. Best I can tell… The Forsaken want power and immortality and they’ll do whatever the DO demands to stay in his good graces - makes sense - but they don’t work in concert to achieve… whatever it is the DO wants. We know Ishy is a nihilist. He’s just sick and tired of the endless cycle and wants to end it all. That at least makes sense. Although again it’s difficult to see how his actions are directed at that end. I have no idea what the DO wants. “Chaos” is a cop out. Evidently he wants free of his prison? He’s already doing a good job degrading the seals. Why doesn’t he want to kill the Dragon? Or does he? Ishy said the Dragon was even turned evil in prior spinnings, and yet this didn’t “break the wheel” or free the DO for good? That doesn’t make sense. I dunno. I’ve wasted too much time trying to ponder this. I don’t think there is an answer and I don’t think RJ had an answer, either.

Yeah agreed. This will be a topic for when I get to the final book, but I remember being a little dissatisfied as to how the final confrontation played out. To me, it seemed like the best ending would be for Rand to discover that the Creator and DO are both essential to the turning of the Wheel itself - like a positive and negative current - and that the Dragon’s only job was to restore balance between the two. That seemed like the natural conclusion because “balance” and “duality” (male/female, saidar/saidin) are both major themes in the series. But I don’t recall the ending really going in that direction. One of the things I’ve been looking for in this re-read is a coherent explanation of the overall struggle and the actions of the bad guys. I haven’t found it. Not yet, at least. The other thing I was looking for was whether the “slog” would be as bad with a straight read through. I was partly wrong - I’ve been pleasantly surprised how enjoyable everything was through Winter’s Heart - but Crossroads is indeed a pretty terrible book. The Slog is at least somewhat real.

Sigh… how bad is this book? Even the Rand chapters are boring. He sits at a manor, and then makes the dubious decision that rather than dealing with the immediate threat of the Mazrim Taim subverting the Black Tower, his next move is… truce with the Seanchan. Keep in mind, he literally just visited Far Madden to hunt renegade Asha’man who tried to kill him, but suddenly that takes a back seat to the ‘Chan. Ok…. And now we’re back to a Perrin chapter. Which appears to be entirely about him scrounging up some coin and jewels to feed his army. Gah.

There is a chapter maybe in LOC where Moridin is musing over some semblance of a chess board where “The Fisher King” is obviously the Dragon and there are three ways to win the game: - Capture the King and move him onto a square of your color on the goal row behind your opponent. - Force your opponent to move the Fisher King onto a square of your color anywhere along the goal row. - Kill every piece belonging to your opponent. Moridin considers this way extremely destructive and chaotic. He contemplates that he tried it just once and failed, which was painful. Ok. Intriguing. And yet RJ never really explains how any of this is actually playing out. And without a coherent strategy, or even conflicting strategies, or even “chaos” being clearly explained in the books, the “bad guys” are basically just reduced to a plot convenience - they’re just doing whatever is needed at the time to advance the plot, even if what they are doing and perhaps more importantly not doing makes little sense.

Chapter 21. In a shocking - and I don’t think very well explained reversal - Elaida has suddenly grown a backbone and Alviarin timid as a mouse. I’m very confused. What, exactly, changed? Alvi goes back to her rooms to cry or something and gets out her pager for Mesaana. Now here’s an interesting little throwaway nugget I had completely forgotten: “standing flows” that allowed anyone in the Age of Legends to use some ter’angreal. Hat tip to RJ - he dreamed up Starlink at least a decade before Elon Musk! Mesaana shows up. Then Shaidar Haran. Some bad guy stuff ensues. Interesting I guess, but herein lies I think the single biggest weakness with WOT: there is no unifying theory or motivations to the actions of the bad guys. Whether that be the DO or Forsaken or whatever. And the rote response is “chaos” but to what end? The most effective strategy would be to just kill the DR, and there are seemingly plenty of opportunities for the DO to do so if he can literally walk around in the form of SH, and he’s also got Moridin using the True Source. I always thought it would have been interesting if it turned out is was just as impossible to kill the DR as the DO and Creator, but isn’t the direction the series went. Instead, the DO just seems kind of incompetent at the end of the day.

I think part of my frustration - maybe a big frustration - with all the Aes Sedai stuff is that they are having debates wholly ignorant of what’s actually going on with Rand and the Black Tower. And I don’t recall that there’s ever any real payoff to this ignorance. And as much as I’ve mocked the forsaken for their incompetence - at least the bad guys have regular staff meetings to confer with each other. The good guys rarely even do that. And even when they do, like when Avi meets Egwene in TAR, Avi could have told Eg that Rand and Nyn were involved in “the Beacon” but Avi inexplicably chooses to remain silent. So everyone, and the Aes Sedai in particular, just muddle around. And it is particularly frustrating if, like me and I would guess much of the readership, you believe Rand is the central protagonist to the story and even the “good” Aes Sedai just won’t get out of the dang kitchen and let the man cook!!

Egwene. I don’t like her. Used to like her. She seems to be making a lot of terrible decisions since being implausibly raised to Amyrlin. First, how have neither she nor Siuan figured out the Halima thing yet? Come on. Second, her “plan” for laying siege to Tar Valon is stupid. She should take her freaking general’s advice. They have one military advantage - and advantage that even she realizes could slip away any day - and she refuses to use it. This foolishness is on pay with sending Elayne to Ebou Dar. Still slogging forward. This book really is the one where the series took a steep decline.

The “Last” Battle has been fought 42 times. This was explained quite clearly in Crossroads of Twilight. Cannot remember the chapter offhand. Just re-read that book to find it.

Great write up. Agree with much of it. Admittedly, I gave up after Season 2 Episode 1. I was basically ready to throw in the towel after the Season 1 abomination. But I decided to give season 2 a shot on the off chance that the showrunners had learned something. And then S2E1 Rand is working in a hospital in Cairhien and banging Lanfear. Nope, done. Maybe someday I’ll watch the Ruidean episode since those two chapters of Rand among the columns is the greatest writing in the entire series. Glad to hear you think they did it well. And yeah, the GOT comparison has received much discussion, but I agree. The GOT world looked real. Lived in. I don’t work in the industry so I don’t know how to describe the problem, but everything about WOT’s production looked cheap and fake. The sets looked like sets. The costumes looked like costumes. It looked like crapty television instead of a movie-quality production.

My thoughts exactly. Alanna was made a major character for the same reason why Siuan and other Aes Sedai were prominently featured in Season One - because the plan was clearly to make the Aes Sedai the center of the show. You don’t need to know a dang thing about Alanna to realize she basically raped Rand. It actually enhances the story that, in the books, up to that point she’s just some rando Aes Sedai who gets her claws into the DR.

Chapter 16 finally gets me AWAY FROM ELAYNE. On to the Salidar faction. Will it be any better? I don’t think it could possibly be worse. After Chapters 10-15 in Caemlyn, I am hanging by my fingernails. Even the half-chapter from the POV of the bad guy was boring. I have nothing else to say about what I just read. Total, irrelevant garbage. ONWARD!

Man the middle of this book… I am getting some Elayne chapters, and I am getting them good and hard. Just terrible. The last one she basically took a bath. And then talked to a Sea Folk person - can’t even be bothered to remember the name. Zaida? The problem with the Elayne chapters is that it isn’t just Andoran Succession boredom - it’s that most of the other tedious storylines are included here, too. The Sea Folk “bargain” fallout. The Kin. The royal guard. And they’re still going. I’ve spent three chapters in Andor - 10-12 - and Chapter 13 is still more Elayne. Gotta say, unlike my misremembering of Crown, POD, and WH - which are all quite a bit better than I remembered - my recollection of Crossroads was spot on. Just terrible. It really says something that the Faile captivity bits are the interesting part so far.

One Faile chapter. It’s fine. Slow. Not much happens. Some of the wise ones notice the cleansing. K. Whatever. Then an Elayne chapter where she thinks about being pregnant and how much she wants a drink. Elayne seems to spend a lot of time thinking about being pregnant and missing booze. Is she a closet alcoholic? She and Avi notice the cleansing. K. Whatever. Up next another Elayne chapter. The good news is, thanks to the insanely long and meandering prologue I nearly halfway through this slog of a book already.