The Perrin chapters. Slow. I’d forgotten the darkhound thing. I also can’t remember if it mattered at all. They find Shaido. And the aqueduct. It’s all very slow. But at least it’s not Elayne. And the channelers become aware of Rand/Nyn starting the cleansing. At least there is something happening. Albeit really slowly. I remembered this book as the one where everyone just sits around and talks. Ok - on to some Faile chapters?

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.

The cleansing! One of the single best chapters in the whole series. I love how matter of fact Rand is when he leaves Far Madding. “K, now I’m gonna cleanse Saidin” lol. I love that Nynaeve is working with Rand instead of against him. I wish the mechanics of the cleansing were a bit better explained… basically using Mashadar as a siphon? And with that I’m onto Crossroads. Just like with Crown and POD, I think I way misremembered and unfairly maligned Winters Heart. I thought this book was mostly Perrin/Faile with the Cleansing at the end. In truth, the Faile chapters weren’t that bad, the Mat chapters in Ebou Dar dragged a bit but had a satisfying payoff, and there’s quite a bit of Rand between the awesome cleansing and Far Madding. The downside of this book wasn’t Faile - it was the terrible Elayne chapters.

More Elayne chapters. Oh she’s pregnant now. Dragon stuff must be potent. So now we get to hear at least 15 times about “she must protect her babe!” She must. So apparently pretending that her creep of a Guard Captain is the daddy… why? Oh, but then she’s traipsing off to meet the borderland armies. Still not sure any of these morons decided to bring half their armies off the border to… look for Rand?? Elayne then masterfully “manipulates” them into using their armies to help her secure her claim - where have we heard this plot line before? - and the borderlanders tell Elayne “we know exactly what you’re doing, and we’re cool with that.” And now we’re back to Mat. Who is being “hunted” by the most incompetent gholam in history given that Mat’s not exactly hard to find. But the rescue plot finally provides a decent payoff to the Ebou Dar storyline. This might be a controversial opinion, but I’m anti- a’dam so it’s always nice to see some damane freeing. Then we’re back to Rand in Far Madding. I’m not complaining per se - look this is 1000x more interesting than… literally anything involving Elayne or Egwene - but “Blue Carp Street” is kinda weird, right? First, Nynaeve literally knows the Guardian can detect channeling, and she does it anyway?? Just to lift two dudes into a roof? Find a ladder. And then… Fain is back. Teamed up with Toram for some reason? And Fain can now conjure images from the recent past or something? At least Cadsuane does something useful and rescues Rand in less than one chapter. That’s about the time it took Perrin to put his boots on before heading after Faile. Almost makes you wonder how motivated Perrin really is…

Ummm… maybe. Can you give me a few examples of changes he made to Book 1 / Season 1 in order to condense things in future seasons? It seems like he added a lot of stuff.

The first couple Far Madding chapters are interesting. I had forgotten most of the details here. Nice to see Lan and Rand teaming up again, sort of. And while RJ gives a few mentions to Far Madding in earlier books - I think basically as Cadsuane’s home town - I don’t think it is ever revealed until mid-way through WH that you can’t channel there! That’s a pretty cool reveal, and sets up some interesting drama. Luc/Isam is back. And one of the Forsaken has hired him as a hitman to pop into Far Madding using his ability to step in and out of TAR - which evidently doesn’t require channeling. Clever. Also apparently he’s the guy who killed the gray man in the WT all the way back in TGH. Not that that’s a mystery that was exactly begging to be solved. And why use the gray man to take a shot at the Super Girlz when you could have just used Slayer? Odd. And he also killed a couple of Aes Sedai in the Stone? I don’t even remember that happening. Anyway… now I’m back to Cadsuane and… the dang Sea Folk. And the Sea Folk are pissed and scheming again. And by again I mean always. What a surprise. I think I would have cut them completely out of my show adaptation - they do almost nothing useful and just waste pages.

Man these Mat Ebou Dar chapters stink. They just drag and drag. I had forgotten. I thought all the Ebou Dar stuff ended in Crown of Swords, but here we are in WH and it’s just chapter after chapter of Mat, Tylin, Tuon. Bleh. Mat trying to rescue a damane and Aes Sedai is kind of interesting. But the things with Tuon, and Eaganin/Bayle, and the Seeker… sigh. Not great. But now comes some Rand chapters.

There is a big difference between cutting things and just making stuff up or dramatically changing things. I was a big proponent of cutting things and changing some things that, in my opinion, seriously bogged down the latter half of the series. I would have axed Valan Luca’s circus, shortened the Faile captivity (and that would not have hurt Perrin’s character - it would have freed him to do more interesting things), WAY shortened the Andoran succession plot, and probably have axed “Seanchan Part 3” / Tuon completely. I also would have cleaned up Rand’s love quadrangle by painting Elayne as the high school infatuation that is was - not real love. The problem is that Rafe changed so many things at the beginning, when the series was much tighter / better. The decision to plot Season 1 as a “who is the Dragon mystery” including females was a DISASTER from which the show never really recovered. So was putting too much focus, too soon, on too many Aes Sedai. Book 1 was the easiest adaptation and almost reads like a screen play at times. Relatively little internal monologue - most of the foundational lore and magic system is set out in easily digestible spoken narrative. And Rafe just mangled it so so badly.

Agree it was the length of the Faile captivity that was the problem. It ain’t bad so far I just know I’m in for a super long slog. The Rand chapters… ugh. Some things are growing on me during the re-read. Some are getting worse. The Rand love quadrangle is definitely the latter. This whole thing is so stupid and cringe. “I love all of you!” And “That’s totally awesome we love you too and… each other! Now you and Elayne go bang it out and we’ll just get to know each other.” Oh and Avi is gonna have quadruplets. Hope they’ve got a good neonatal intensive care unit in that day and age. At least Nynaeve is not being a pill. And I had forgotten the setup for Cleansing which was cool. Also Rand and Nyn are actually sharing information about the Aes Sedai, but frustratingly little. I realize that Elayne and Egwene and Rand needed to work independently for outward appearances, but it’s inexcusable that they weren’t coordinating more behind the scenes. Even the forsaken are having monthly staff meetings and they’re totally incompetent. Good little sub chapter on that, btw. The Cadsuane stuff is boring. Back to too many names I can’t keep up with. Alright on to Mat…

Here we go. Ten chapters in or so. Honestly, the Perrin stuff so far has been ok. I’d say at least mildly interesting. Faile’s intro to gai’shain life, Galina’s machinations, Perrin starting the hunt. Not as bad as I remembered. Then the Elayne chapters. Sigh… I’m just not ever gonna find this interesting. So. Many. Names. Rando Kin, Wavefinders, Aes Sedai. This is worse than the Salidar plotline. But all in all this is not as bad as I remember and I just got to a Rand chapter!

I heard he was somewhere into his read of Crossroads of Twilight when he left. Make of that what you will.

Finished POD. I think I unfairly criticized this book overall. Yes, it starts super slow. The Perrin and Egwene and Elayne chapters are tedious. But I had forgotten there are quite a few Rand chapters in the latter half which are pretty darned good! His campaign against the Seanchan was refreshingly “real” in the chaos, as is the attempted coup in Cairhien which I had forgotten all about. RJ is doing a good job setting up events with the Black Tower and the taint on Saidin, etc. The Elaida stuff is also fun, as is the BA hunt in the WT. And WT sisters swearing to Rand. About half the chapters in this book are pretty great. Now it’s time for Winter’s Heart. I know I’m in for a slog until toward the end. I hope it isn’t as sloggy as I remember.

It kind of is, though. Or at least it is one form of acceptable discourse. You’re just not being very tolerant of other people’s opinions. If you don’t like those opinions, either engage and explain why you disagree, or don’t. You’re basically complaining that people are voicing their opinions too strongly. Not a great look. These aren’t personal attacks against you, but you seem to be interpreting them that way.

First, Elayne didn’t need to be escorted. They already knew how to Travel by then. She could have the left the Band in Salidar or done whatever. Second, nobody ever argued that Nynaeve should have gone to Ebou Dar alone. The question is only whether Elayne needed to accompany her when she had a different task - taking the thrones - that only she was capable of.

Some of those elements, yes. But definitely not “straightforward writing style.” And that one element is where the comparison falls apart. Granted, I started reading WOT as a teenager. But I was an advanced reader. As I suspect many on this forum were/are. But if you were to compare the sheer wordiness and complexity of sentences in WOT against YA pulp like Twilight, Hunger Games, Maze Runner, even Harry Potter (although Potter is a rung above), there simply is no comparison. YA is designed to be accessible to younger audiences, and a big part of that is a much simpler writing style. I think a lot of it reads like moody dreck - Twilight is horrific and Hunger Games is not much better even though the story is - but I applaud anything that encourages kids to read.

Dude, I’m in the middle of a re-read and I was trying to figure out if I was missing something in these chapters. I asked for input, I reached a conclusion, if you don’t like it… ok? You’re welcome to your opinion.

It’s not anymore YA than LOTR was. Which is to say, it isn’t YA. Now, I would strongly argue that the production value of the show certainly looked YA. But that a production problem - not the content which we all know went much more risqué than the books. But again, the books just can’t possibly be labeled YA.

I guess at the end of the day these five chapters boil down to: Egwene and Suian cooked up a genius plan to use a confrontation with another army at a border in order to convince the Hall to declare war on Elaida because… being confronted by an army would show the Sitters that nations won’t respect them unless they declare war. Ok, I guess. That just seems very, very contrived. And then the plan magically works. Nobody except one Sitter has any idea how the Law of War operates. And then the entire Hall is like “welp, good one Eg… guess you got us. And even though we elected you to be a puppet now we’re totally gonna go along with a law none of us had heard of until five minutes ago.” And unless I missed it, it still hasn’t been explained why Eg sent instructions to different Aes Sedai the night before meeting the nobles. But I dunno maybe the big “payoff” for that is somewhere in Crossroads of Twilight lol.

Alright, I’m slogging through POD and I’m reading Chapters 15-19 and I am confuzzled. I feel like I must have missed something earlier. In Chapter 15, Eg learns that Byrne wants to see her… Byrne then tells her about Pelivar’s army pushing to stop them at the Andor border. So… she was planning to be confronted by an army? Was this explained earlier somewhere? She tells him to set a meeting with Pelivar, and to keep it a secret from the Hall as long as possible. He says he will try, but doubts it’ll remain secret long. And Egwene thinks… Wut? How is setting a meeting and keeping it secret the “first step”? To what? Bryce leaves, and Egwene thinks to herself… Howwww… did she manipulate him? What does any of this mean? But Egwene isn’t done. She orders Beonin, Anaiya, and Myrelle and their five warders to ride north. Even though Byrne is already sending a rider to arrange a meeting. And then… Again. Wut? What am I missing here? Chapter 16, Egwene convenes the hall for all of one minute to tell them… What was truly begun now? Romanda barges into Egwene’s tent and accuses her of keeping secrets about the army. Egwene thinks… Lelaine comes in after and says she knows about the secret, too. Siuan talks to Egwene after and asks how things went with Romanda and Lelaine… Still so confused. Alright, so Chapter 17. She meets with the nobles. And she’s happy because she’s acting with authority and being all Amyrlin and stuff and tells them they’re gonna wait on the border for a month. And she doesn’t let Romanda or Lelaine talk. Ok. Chapter 18. More talking. Not really seeing much that matters. Chapter 19. Ok so now is the big payoff. Supposedly. Egwene call the Hall again. And she asks for a declaration of war. I’m not saying the declaration wasn’t important, but I’m not sure why any of the other stuff she did in the preceding chapters was a necessary predicate for that? Because apparently Pelivar’s army shows that the world “doubts” the resolve of the Salidar faction? I dunno. This was a very confusing few chapters. Any explanation appreciated.

I am in exactly the same boat and agree 100%. My re-read made me realize I’d been unfairly downvoting Crown. Even the Ebou Dar stuff wasn’t as tedious as I remember. I also agree that reading straight through versus waiting on books could impact your perception. Crown is the first book I had to wait on during my first read. So I thought, “ok now that I have a running start maybe Daggers won’t be that bad, either.” But no, Daggers is slogggggy. There’s just no getting around it. And I’m only like 12 chapters in. I refuse to skip entire chapters but I’m definitely starting to skim just a bit. There are too many dang women and names to keep track of, and nobody is doing anything that interesting!!!!

Very much enjoying my re-read up through Crown of Swords. Also, my apologies for ever disparaging Crown. Things are definitely slowing down a lot, and there’s the somewhat anticlimactic and vague ending to Sammael, but overall it’s an ok book. Certainly I should not have lumped it in with the Final Four RJ books. Which brings me to Daggers. Sigh. I’m ten chapters in. This is soooo not good. The drop off is significant. So far I’ve been treated to the tedious hen-scratching between the Aes Sedai, the Kin, and the Sea Folk Windfinders. RJ has introduced so many dang women’s names at this point that I’m fresh into my re-read and still can’t even stay close to keeping track. Elayne and Nynaeve somehow made the dumbest “bargain” I’ve ever heard of - why in the heck would they ever have had to offer the Sea Folk anything other than the Bowl itself for their help??? The Bowl of the Winds storyline comes to a close - actually much shorter than I remember - only to be immediately replaced with Andoran Succession (oh my head). And now we’re getting the Perrin and Faile show and I know that’s just gettin’ started. And as if I didn’t have enough women’s names to track we get the idiotic Cha Faile. God this book. This book you guys. This is where the slog truly starts.

And there’s a point early in Path of Daggers where even Elayne is getting impatient and acknowledging she has wasted wayyyy too much time in Eboni Dar and it’s gonna make her job in Caemlyn so much harder. Kinda my entire point.

Nah dog. First, GRRM’s latest book is light years superior to Crossroads. Second, I highly doubt RJ was cashing in with filler. I think it’s much more likely he got trapped in the weeds of his own writing and kinda went crazy in his twilight years. It’s sad for him and sad that it tarnished an otherwise excellent concept and series. A series that could have stood on par with LOTR if he’d had an editor - his wife, there’s your problem - who’d said when Path of Daggers landed “what the eff are you doing, Jim?”

Does the basic premise of the entire series count? That the Dragon from the last Age has been reincarnated into a world where the male half of the magic is tainted due to the Dragon’s actions, and as a result the Dragon Reborn is prophesied to both save and destroy the world and is both heralded and hunted by different factions of the Aes Sedai? Cause if that counts, then that was obviously Jordon’s most creative idea.

Agree that Nynaeve is growing on me during my re-read, at least up through Crown of Thorns so far. She’s pretty funny. I think you’re being a little charitable about Jordon’s treatment of Elayne LOL. God she is just an insufferable personality, her “love story” is beyond contrived, and her storylines are tedious.