The parallel/alternate realities we see through the portalstones are never fully explored. I think Jordan figured out he bit off a bit more than he could chew even without exploring the insane consequences of diving deeply into something akin to the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. So yeah, what those realities are exactly we'll probably never know. But my personal interpretation of the story is that the Dragon Reborn will never fail. Every turning of the Wheel he will succeed in sealing the Dark One back into his prison, and this pattern will repeat indefinitely, just as the Creator designed it to. Elan/Ishamael/Moridin was wrong to assume the Dark One has a theoretical chance to win. He doesn't. Each different turning of the Wheel will see slight variations in who what where exactly, but the main events will always play out as designed. Show or book, who dates who, mid-tier characters living or dying, anything can happen there, but the Ta'veren will do what they are meant to do. In my head-canon the alternate realities we see though the portalstones are "what ifs", but admittedly that's a bit weak considering the tightness of most of Jordans world building.

I don't know what Freemasonry is and at this point I'm too afraid to ask. 😛 But this theory looks rather well founded. Very interesting read. I'll try to dive into this some more later.

I seem to remember the original plan for the series was a trilogy, where book 1 was supposed to be everything up to the ending of The Dragon Reborn. But Jordan was a bit of a discovery writer and everything became longer than planned. And then even longer, and so on. 🙂

I love seeing people mention books 9 and 10 being among their favourites. It indeed is a personal thing, and writers should approach every scene like trying to make it so that it will become someone's favourite scene in the book. Every reader is different, everyone has different preferences, expectations, interests, backgrounds and so on. As long as every scene and every book has something special, something to recommend itself, you're doing okay as a writer. Not everyone will like it, but that will be the case anyway.

I think this is where we should look for the answer, but it's hard to say. Jordan kept this vague for a reason, as every clear answer you give creates consequences for other aspects of the magic system, and as a writer you want to have a certain amount of leeway. But there's other uses of the power that are also "talent-based": gateways, for instance. The weave is the same, but when Androl makes a gateway, he can make it really big, despite being weak in the power overall, but some channelers can barely make a gateway big enough the step through. Though on the healing part, there might be more to it. In the current Age, it is common knowledge that healing is a certain exact weave, but when Nynaeve learns to heal, she feels like it's wrong sometimes, and starts to experiment a bit in using all five together rather than the traditional weave with just spirit, water and air. Nynaeve feels like the weave should be different for different ailments as well. This hints heavily at the Aes Sedai of the current Age simply not understanding healing that well.

It is absolutely difficult to relate to Rand's struggle. Farmboy to Demigod having to fight Satan, the weight of the world on his shoulders, Magic-induced madness, nobody trusts him and he doesn't trust a lot of people around him either. Thankfully we have a whole shelf of books in characterization for us to help understand his struggles. Does Rand handle his struggles perfectly? No. But he isn't a perfect person. Some people find that hard to deal with in stories. Many feel like every character has to deal with their issues the right way. But that's not realistic. I like WoT so much mainly because characters make mistakes all the time. And they learn from them. Rand finally coming to terms with the duality of himself and Lews Therin, and finally fully accepting his fate feels incredibly cathartic at the end of book 12, and reading about him in book 13 and 14 is a joy because he's grown so much and he's finally ready to do what must be done, not just out of anger or basic necessity, but because that's the way the people he loves get to live their lives the way they deserve to. Zen Rand is amazing, and the journey towards Zen Rand is the best character arc I've ever read in any piece of fiction.

The Gathering Storm is one of my favourites in the series, so my take might be a strange one to some, but I'd say: yes, it gets better. Sanderson gets a better grasp on how to write Mat. He never really nails him, and he was the first to admit that. He struggled a lot to get Mat's voice and unreliable narrator right, and it shows the most in book 12. Books 13 and 14 feel better: Mat takes more responsibility and generally feels like he's grown a lot and is more competent.

Same here. It's not fun reading about sexual assault, but it's an interesting dynamic and I do think it adds to the story as a whole, with the gender reversal you mentioned. Besides, it's a story. In storytelling, more conflict is more better. Also, I think Mat grows as a character because of this. In the first half of the series he's a bit of a womanizer, and he doesn't take relationships all that seriously, but his conflict with Tylin changes that quite a bit.

I don't think this is canon, but it's an interesting idea. I interpret the story very differently, but it doesn't really matter, as the story has many aspects we can enjoy theorizing about, and it's cool that everyone has their own view on things. (Mine is that the Dragon Reborn will never choose wrong, the Dark One will always be sealed back in his prison and this whole cycle will repeat indefinitely, just as the Creator designed, without opportunities for the parties involved to learn and change the pattern as a whole.) I do like your change about having Perrin face off with Moghedien. That feels like a natural duel of the dreamwalkers. But then again Perrin already needs to be at Shayol Ghul at the ending with Lanfear, so I guess Jorderson didn't want to have Perrin fight another dreamwalker. Besides, Moghedien not really participating in the Last Battle is very much in character, and I did very much like how she ended. 🙂 (Ha! Take that you idiot!)

I do understand Fain has delusions of grandeur, and perhaps I have indeed been fooled. But to me it's a storytelling thing. The way it was written didn't work for me. And I'm definitely not alone in this. As I understand it's one of the main criticisms on Brandon's WoT books. Anyway, let's agree to disagree. 🙂

Very much disagree. Padan Fain is an important character who comes back regularly and causes a lot of trouble. You don't know (and can't know) what role Fain was going to play. You can only have an opinion about it, and if you feel like Fain's ending was appropriate, that's cool, but I feel like the character deserved more than he got. His ending to me felt like an afterthought. You can compare it to the Prophet. Sanderson probably had very little to go on for him as well, and decided too many things were going on already, so he cut him out in the beginning of book 12. This made sense to me. If he wanted to do the same with Fain, he could have had Mat kill him somewhere in the beginning of book 13. That way, Fain wouldn't be part of the grand finale and perhaps I'd be more okay with it. It could have been used as an action-packed part of the beginning, to jump-start the book. The way it's written now, Fain pops up briefly here and there, and then kind of comes out of nowhere in the finale, after which he just dies in two paragraphs. I'd say either develop him more and make his ending more impactful (perhaps have him kill an important character before Mat destroys him), or just Masema him out of the story in an opener somewhere. But I'd go for developing him more. Fain's been with us since the very beginning and he nearly succeeded in killing Rand several times. Whenever he shows himself, cool stuff happens (as opposed to Masema who is very much part of the slog). I wanted more.

Someone who calls Rand's mental health issues superficial either hasn't read the books or completely misunderstands what's happening in them, in my opinion. But beyond that I completely agree that art needs a certain measure of abstraction so the audience has the opportunity to interpret the art in their own way. It deepens the enjoyment. But the artist doesn't have to focus too much on that aspect, because typically there's plenty abstraction without adding it on purpose, especially in books. Then again recently, especially in recent Hollywood productions, you see a decline of the amount of abstraction we get. Some people like that, but I feel stories get more stale and preachy as a result. It's an interesting topic for analysis.

Don't forget some people actually like having a floompy set of books. Mine: TEotW and TGH in original Dutch paperback, TDR in modern Dutch paperback. Here I switch to English and I have TDR through to WH in US mass market paperbacks in two box sets of three each. Then I have CoT in original US Paperback. KoD, TGS and ToM I have in British hardcover, AMoL I have in original US hardcover and finally NS I have in modern US paperback. So a disjointed mess, but I kinda like it that way. The only upgrades I consider are books 4-5-6 because I will reread those a number of times, and the US mass market paperback boxes are of rather poor quality, unfortunately. They're cheap though, so I can't complain too much. Oh and maybe I'll get books 1-2-3 in English. But first I have to finish my current TBR pile, which is getting dangerously close to the ceiling...

Kramer and Reading are beloved audiobook narrators, but they will be different from Rosamund Pike. What I would recommend is that you find a different book narrated by them to try, so you get a feel for their style. I don't expect you'll dislike them, but if you want to be on the safe side, trying a different book by them would be a good option. You could try Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by Brandon Sanderson. That's a standalone novel (it does take place in his connected universe The Cosmere, but you don't need to have read anything from that universe for it to make sense). That audiobook isn't super long and it's narrated by Kramer and Reading.