Rand is the strongest character in all of fiction, in my not so humble opinion. Perrin's growth is too slow early on, and it's too fast in the Sanderson novels. There's an in world reason for Perrin being a slow learner, but from a storytelling perspective this turns into a problemover time. Not by book 5 though. His arc, while slow, is still acceptably paced in books 1 through 4. (And he isn't in book 5. He's rebuilding the Two Rivers at that time, and Jordan deliberately left that out.) Mat from books 1 and 2 is the problem child of the group. He's immature and silly, and he gets into trouble only to need saving afterwards. I completely agree that Mat from the first two books is dubious at best. But... Jordan was aware of this, and Mat from book 3 onwards turns into a very strong character all of a sudden. In book 3 we get a glimpse of how competent Mat can be (in the scene where he defeats Gawyn and Galad with the quarterstaff, and him holding his own in conversation with Lanfear), and from there he starts to grow. He still makes stupid mistakes, and still needs saving every now and then, but we get to know him properly, and we see him change from a good-for-nothing joker into a great and loyal friend, and then onwards to a battle-hardened leader, while never really losing track of where he came from. There's a reason why Mat is a fan-favourite character. As to OP's remarks: Yes, the heroes are reluctant. They're mistrusting. They're dumb at times. Why? They're from a backwater village in the middle of nowhere, and they have no idea what's going on in the world. Their reluctance to accept their fate makes perfect sense. Their mistrust is frustrating to Moiraine, and perhaps to some readers, but no one in that situation would trust a weird wizard, considering all the prejudices they grew up with. Trust an Aes Sedai? Why? They never show up in Emond's Field and history is full of Artur Hawkwing stories about how Aes Sedai are schemers and cannot be trusted at all. Besides, they can do a thing normal people cannot. And what you don't know or understand, you mistrust. That's how human psychology works. You could argue that Jordan keeps this up for too long, but let's face it: the moment Moiraine decides - as a last ditch effort - to swear allegiance to Rand, and the subsequent Cairhien docks moment, become all the more powerful because Jordan cemented this idea into our heads so firmly. So yeah, badly written? No, definitely not. Perfect for everyone? Also no, definitely not. If you don't have patience for slow arcs and extensive, repetitive descriptions, don't read WoT. Treat yourself to something that's less of an investment to read. Something that's faster paced, with less meandering sections and less subplots to distract from the core of the story. I recommend Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. Also, Dune Messiah > Dune.

What keeps some of us coming back to the series is quite simple: quality. Quality in the worldbuilding, characters, storylines and writing style. But let's face it: the Wheel of Time is not for everyone. Some get stuck on the slower pace, some dislike the repetitive descriptions, some don't click with the often stubborn and slow-to-learn characters, some don't appreciate the many subplots and some abandon the series because it wasn't finished by the author who started it. WoT isn't perfect, and I completely understand if people hate it. But... I've never seen stronger character arcs than in WoT. Rand and Egwene especially have incredible journeys. I've never seen a magic system this clear but still wonderous. I've never seen a world this rich but still completely comprehensible. And the only series I know that comes close to, might even match, the level of storytelling from WoT will probably never be finished. Sure, Jordan passed away and was unable to finish the series himself, but we did get an ending, and the ending is absolutely worth it despite the author change. And I'm saying this fully aware that Sanderson is almost the opposite to Jordan in terms of writing style. There's just so much to love about WoT, and if you truely let it in, it can burrow in your heart like a tick. For me personally, I don't think anything else will be able to push past WoT, ever. 🙂

I would like to point out that this is a fictional story we're discussing, not the real world. There is no "we", there is only the characters and what they face. And if this is what they face, then we'd better keep that Satan-like figure and keep things the way they are. But I think the main reason why Rand chooses the path he does is that he finds the Dark One is incapable of change: he doesn't learn, he doesn't adapt. He'll just do this until all eternity, just like the Creator planned. Elan was wrong: there is no mathematical possibility the Dark One will win, and so he never will. The Dragon will always choose to seal him back in his prison and this pattern will repeat infinitely.

I love the ending. It's not perfect, but I love it anyway. All the main storythreads got to proper conclusions, the Light won, there were many awesome things that happened and I was generally just very happy to get what we got. We had no business expecting anything more - in fact we had no business expecting anything close to the level of story we got - as Sanderson is a completely different writer with completely different strengths and weaknesses, and let's face it: finishing the biggest fantasy series ever is already a daunting enough task as is. But if I have to complain about things, which I don't want to, my list would be:

At first I too felt The Dragon Reborn was stronger than The Great Hunt, but upon rereads I expect those to change places. The strongest aspect of The Dragon Reborn is the change in perspective, where we deliberately don't follow Rand for a long time, but that effect will likely diminish in rereads as you'll know how the story goes and the not knowing what Rand is doing has less of an impact. And the Great Hunt is very good. 😉 My personal favorites right now are The Shadow Rising, the second half of Lord of Chaos (okay I'm cheating a bit here, but that part is so strong it needs a mention) and The Gathering Storm. I'm pretty sure Shadow Rising will stay at the top, but I fully expect many changes in my estimation as I read the books more often.

I'm not going to say that you're wrong - I'm not deep enough into the lore to say much for sure anyway - but a point against would be that the Seanchan channelers were also having lots of trouble using saidar, which would suggest that uncontrolled saidin wasn't the problem. I like the idea though. There are tons of options for solutions to the Power working okay at the cleansing but not at Falme with the Bowl, apart from my cheap idea that the effect might have a delay. A few that I can think of right now: a) The channeler in charge: Rand at this point is a lot more versatile and experienced than the Seafolk channeler who controlled the circle at the use of the Bowl, who seems to be rather one-sided in her knowledge of the power. b) The target: Rand and Nynaeve were aiming their efforts at specific targets, being the taint in saidin and Mashadar at Shadar Logoth. Rand knew exactly what he wanted to do, as opposed to the use of the Bowl, which was much more scattered, aiming all around. The women didn't really know what they were doing and were mostly just figuring it out as they went along. c) The Bowl itself: they know very little about the device when they use it, and they might be doing a number of things wrong, causing all sorts of issues. By all means come up with several more. 😉

Logain does spend a large part of the story gentled and unable to channel, so there's that. 😉 But indeed he does show signs of madness when we're in his POV, and also it indeed develops differently in different male channelers. I feel like Logain was handled extremely well throughout the story: his identity crisis when finding out he's not the dragon when he really thought he was, his depression when gentled and his eventual resolve and rise to power as Rand's left hand felt special to me, even though he gets only very limited page time.

Actually, this bit was explained. The extra unwieldy performance of Callandor in the battle against the Seanchan in PoD was because of the use of the Bowl of Winds earlier. The insane amount of saidin and saidar used there created ripples that caused the one power to be unreliable for a while in that area. Everybody had trouble with this, but Rand more so because he's the strongest and he's using Callandor. Also he's super inexperienced still. What one might call a plot hole in this case, is that a book later Rand and Nynaeve use even more of the one power when they attempt to cleanse saidin of the taint, but there those ripples don't happen and the battle against the forsaken proceeds somewhat normally. There might be a delay on the effects, and of course they don't come back to that place anymore afterwards, but it's a bit dubious.

Yeah, the Wheel of Time does that to people. 😉 When I finished the series, I tried to pick up another book, but nothing could spark my interest for quite a while. Not even really fun and accessible stuff like Andy Weir could hold my interest. I ended up not reading for about half a year before I started again.

Soooo... that was a fun stream! For those who missed it: Brandon Sanderson did a stream with Matt of the Dusty Wheel for the tenth aniversary of A Memory Of Light, and many topics came to pass, but most interesting was the fact that they finally had permission from Jordan's wife and team to talk about certain things that had remained a secret up to this point. And the main one was... Okay, I'll put it in spoilers. Go see the stream first. And if you haven't read A Memory Of Light yet, GO AWAY!! This is your final warning.