This is a good point. In previous turnings of the Wheel, the champion of the Light may have been called the Tiger or whatever else you can think of. Dragon is a nickname for Lews Therin, but perhaps earlier champions got different nicknames. From book 1 onwards it's made clear that we can't know what happens in previous turnings of the Wheel. Stories turn to myth, myth turns to legend and will be long forgotten when the Age that gave them birth comes again. In the story we get actual accounts of things that happen in the last bit of the Second Age, and we get hints of things that happened in the First Age (pay attention to stories that Thom tells in book 1 especially), but we get nothing from before then. We're at the end of the Third Age, so we're missing all info from Ages seven, six and five. We do get a few hints of what COULD happen in the fourth Age, but Rand prevents that particular disaster, so we're not sure what we can expect the fourth Age to bring. My personal theory is that at least one of the Ages will be extremely long (think in terms of hundreds of millions of years, perhaps a billion+) and at least one of the Ages will have no humans at all. Probably those two align. During that time, the entire surface of the Earth is renewed, all evidence of human activity is erased and when humans arrive again and start to get organized, we get the First Age where humans achieve technological advancements, then after discovery of the One Power we get the Second Age and from here everything we know happens again in roughly the same way as it always does, because the Creator designed it that way.

I vaguely remember noting that I didn't want to start a history debate. My point is that technological advancements aren't inevitable. We've seen accellerating advancements since the invention of book printing, then steam engines, then combustion engines, all the way to the digital world we communicate through right now. This extreme level of advancement in our time leads us to believe that advancements always go quickly, but they don't. And a 700 year old cathedral doesn't prove anything when the Egyptians were building pyramids millennia before then, and we still aren't sure how they did it with the technology they had available to them at the time. History shows us times of advancement and times of stagnation and even decline. It all depends on what happens. Natural disaster can hold us back, waves of trollocks attacking can hold us back, and a feudal society where a few powerful people control most things can definitely hold us back. And because of this, I don't see these 3000 years of slow advancement in WoT as unrealistic. PS. Somehow I managed to trigger Bugglesley big time, which I didn't mean to do at all. Their word salad contained many assumptions about my arguments and ideas that are strange to me - I never mentioned charts, Galileio or any specific details. But anyway, the main thing I took away from that post was: "progress is messy", which is something I absolutely agree with. If people want to discuss actual history, by all means. I'll have to leave you to it, as for me history class is two decades ago. But I'm pretty sure the conclusion will be that progress comes and goes, is indeed messy and definitely not inevitable. If the discussion flips to expectations for future progress, I'll come back in and share my thoughts on why I expect decline to start again within 100 years from now. 🙂

A guy like that would definitely listen to metal, so the confusion is warranted. 😉 But to stay on topic: I reckon that in the Cosmere, Perrin would be Mistborn.

It raises another question that Jordan didn't consider back then: what determines whether you channel saidar or saidin? Your biological sex? But what about intersex people - people with physical attributes of both? Can they channel both? Or can intersex people just never channel? Or maybe it's the gender you identify as. In which case a transgender person having to relearn how to channel would be an interesting story. But in that case, what about non-binary people? See, we do need gender studies. 😉

I always sort of assumed that Mat got struck by debris flying around in the chaos. If lightning weaves cause rocks and other stuff to start flying around, the amulet won't protect him from getting hit by those. I'd need to reread that part to be sure, though. So yeah, might be either.

I think "the slog" has a few causes, that everyone experiences differently. 1) The ending to book 6 is so awesome and explosive that anything that follows it will be at least somewhat disappointing. The fact that book 7 starts rather slow and handles a sidequest doesn't help here. For some, this is where the slog starts, and I understand completely. 2) Too many plot lines, dragging the overall pace down. Books 7 through 11 handle a number of different plotlines that don't directly impact the main struggle, and from book 8 onwards many of those plotlines are advanced simultaneously, slowing things down quite a bit. Especially Perrin & Faile's arc is very slow, and Elayne's also takes two full books. Even Mat suffers from a return to a certain group that people already disliked in book 5. The main reason why people call book 11 a return to form for Jordan is because those plotlines get resolutions in that one. 3) Book 10. Book 10 is all setup and no payoff, as Sanderson put it. It's the only bad entry in the series, in my opinion. Nothing of note happens, and then it even has the audacity to end on a cliffhanger. Booh! In hindsight, the story became too big and could have used some trimming of the fat. When Sanderson takes over for book 12, you see him do just that by simply cutting out a whole plotline in the beginning. I won't say what it is, but you'll immediately recognize it when you read it, and I think you'll agree with me that it was the right decision. Jordan was more of a discovery writer than a planner, and it shows. The plotlines start to meander, side plots take over and their resolution takes quite long. Still, I think for such a long running series, having just one actually bad book, which is still quite readable, is quite impressive. I remember hating book 7 of the Sword of Truth series so much that I actively recommend people skip that one. I don't do that for Crossroads of Twilight. It's still a nice read, despite being super slow and nothing happening. Book 7 still has a really cool ending full of important moments for the story. Book 8 feels like four episodes in the middle of a season of a TV show, but three of those are really fun and quite action-packed. Book 9 is very slow but contains some of the nicest moments in the entire series and one of the strongest endings, and if you manage to fight through 10 you get rewarded with a very strong book 11. Also, when Sanderson takes over, the pace goes up twofold. Yes, the slog is real. No, it's not hopelessly bad. It's well worth fighting through.

As an exercise in study and analysis of the writing, sure. But I'm pretty sure this would ruin your enjoyment of the story. There's always a duality between the experience of a story as a whole and analysing it. In analysis we need to pick apart pieces, check everything, find out what the author wanted to accomplish (and in this case there might be two different things as it's two different authors). You end up picking apart every sentence, wishing the other author wrote it, or that it had been revised more, or that more time was spent on aspect x, and so on. The more I know about writing, and the more I write myself, I notice myself forcefully trying to turn that part of my brain off when reading a book or watching a movie. I need to experience the whole, enjoy it for what it is. Maybe afterward I'll dig deeper, try to learn from what went wrong. That's kind of futile with WoT, though. It's not perfect and we'll never get a perfect version. Jordan already wasn't perfect, and large parts of his vision died with him, leaving only notes and interpretation by a skilled but very different author to use to finish the story. So yeah, if I want to learn about writing, I feel like it's much more useful to pick apart something that was finished by one author with one vision, edited to be as good as it could be at that time. Also preferably not too long, because analysing every sentence takes a while if you're picking apart a pile of books that barely fits on a book shelf. I recommend the novelette "Sandkings" by George R.R. Martin for full analysis. It's 17 pages of brilliant scifi horror with a number of highly unusual choices, which makes for very interesting analysis.

To be fair, the Children of the Light are actually (ironically) infested with darkfriends, so we shouldn't really expect them to make much progress towards the good cause. 😉 But yeah, many characters in the Children of the Light are extremely frustrating to read about.

It repairs an otherwise terrible ending for Lanfear. I feel like that has to count for "adding something".

Brandon Sanderson was live with the Dusty Wheel on the AMOL 10 year anniversary and revealed a certain thing about the ending that made a lot of people go kinda floompy. You can find it on YouTube as well. But I don't think you missed it. It's got to do with Lanfear's part in the ending.

Huh, I feel like an idiot for not thinking about this. 🤣

The best Rand book would be book 12. Which is also the best Egwene book, by the way. But yeah, like the others said, reading these books in random order will ruin things. The only book I'd say you're allowed to skim or only read the summary of, would be book 10. Book 10 is the bad one. The rest I'd rank ranging from decent all the way up to brilliant. You've read book 1, which is flawed indeed, but if you consider it decent, I'd recommend you keep reading in order. Skip the prologue book New Spring for now. I currently recommend you read that after book 11, or after you finish the series. You don't need that one. Anyway, continuing onwards, book 2 improves upon a few flaws from book 1 (mainly pacing and a much better ending), and book 3 I loved so much that's where I decided to read the entire series. Fair warning though: book 3 is about Rand a lot, but we don't get a lot from his perspective. I do think this was a great idea though, as worrying about Rand works better if you're not sure what he's up to. Hard disagree with Elendir here. Don't skip this one! You don't want to miss out on the ending to book 3. Continuing onwards, now you're in for a treat: book 4 is the best in the series, and books 5 and 6 are close behind. Those three I reckon probably make up the strongest bit of fantasy of all time. But.. book 6 has such an explosive and amazing ending that book 7 will probably feel a tad disappointing. It's not bad though. Perhaps take a little break before starting book 7. Book 8 feels rather episodic but is quite strong in its own right. Book 9 has a lot of Rand, but it's very slow. Great ending though. Book 10 I mentioned is the bad one. Almost no Rand, all setup and no payoff, and to make matters worse, it ends in a cliffhanger. Book 11 is really good again though. And here we switch authors, which you'll notice by the pace going up twofold. And from a few other things. Book 12 is one of my favourites, but many disagree. But like I said, lots of Rand so you'll enjoy that one. Book 13 has amazing Rand moments, but focuses more on other characters. Still very good by the way. Book 14 everything blows up and you get the ending to the biggest fantasy series of all time. If you make it that far, you'll be interested to know how it ends. 😛 So here's a sneak peek into the series. It's absolutely worth it. Don't quit after book 3, or you'll miss out on the best books.

Hahaha don't sweat it! We all have our opinions and that's cool. 😅 With Lan & Nynaeve I'd agree except if you only read book one, you'd have to put that romance in bad. The setup just isn't there. Them liking eachother came out of nowhere and when I read it, I was like: huh where'd that come from? Contrast that to Rand & Aviendha and the difference is night and day. Rand & Avi get an entire 1000 page book to get to know each other, dislike each other at first, growing to respect each other and so on. When they finally get together it feels inevitable. And weird, but that's because Rand's supposed to be with Elayne. The way Aviendha deals with that did add to the dynamic though. She feels proper shame and has immense toh towards Elayne. But I disgress. If the Lan & Nynaeve romance had had a proper setup, for me it would probably have been fighting for the top spot. But setup is so important! For the Siuan & Bryne romance I could get on the same page as you, but there's something off. I loved Siuan in books 2-3-4, but somehow the powerhouse personality of Siuan Sanche seemed to slowly diminish after that. I liked her character more in earlier books, and found myself not caring as much anymore when that romance started to come along. Egwene's arc in books 11 and 12 RULES, but for the romance I shall agree to disagree. 😉 Lastly, you mention disagreeing about Faile & Perrin, but you don't elaborate. Care to? 🙂

Have fun! You're in for a treat. Do give it some time though. It's long, and in style it takes a while to get going proper. It's absolutely worth it though. 🙂

Should you wish to change this, I recommend Warbreaker. It's a standalone, but it does happen in his connected universe, the "Cosmere". You don;t need to know any other stroies though. It's a really fun read, and you can get the e-book for free on his website if you sign up for his newsletter. Don't worry about that last bit. He sends like two a year, and they always contain a button to unsubscribe, should you wish to never get any again. Sanderson's main contribution to epic fantasy is that connected universe, but if you don't care for that bit, just see him as the writer who writes epic fantasy that reads like a thriller. Simple, functional prose, a faster pace, and very little literary stuff like symbolism, thematic layers or poetic commentary. He deliberately focuses mainly on the story itself, and everything he does has to support that story. If you read mainly to relax after a busy day, he's definitely an author you want to check out. But if you read for a literary challenge, Sanderson isn't the author for you.