Congrats on finishing spoiler free! I love that your friends fandom was contagious, hah. Shout out to parents who read stories to their kids! My dad read Sherlock Holmes and Little House on the Prairie to me. He wasn't one for emotional affection and we never played a game of catch in the yard, but those bedtime stories fueled my passion for literature.

What an awesome experience, thanks for sharing! I was also a voracious reader as a child. I used to live at the library, taking home 30+ books spread across some of my siblings cards to circumvent the book limit. My librarian recommended WoT to me and I loved it. I would actually work at this library with this same librarian years later! It just shows the importance of books and the role that mentors at used book stores (Support small business!) and libraries can have in their community.

Oh, I am not criticizing Jordan's writing. I personally don't care for Rand much, which amongst my own friend group is an unpopular opinion. The fact that he never cared to actually learn Aiel custom from Aviendha irked me. I know he had a lot going on, but there were periods of time he's just traveling with her and not taking any of it. That just seems disrespectful. So yes, Jordan did elicit emotion from me, hah.

The audiobooks are amazing! Michael Kramer and Kate Reading do a great job and fun fact, they are married! I do have a gripe, they are not consistent with some of the character's names. I believe this is partially due to Jordan giving them notes on how to correctly pronounce names, so they adjusted. But sometimes they flat out just botch a name. I found it annoying at the start, but by the end of 14 books with them narrating, you can only chuckle.

I also thought "pillow friends" was more than suggestive!

How much subtle foreshadowing is there over multiple reads? I would love to pick up on some easter eggs. I know there will be obvious stuff, I am just hoping for some gems that reward the reader!

Now you can watch the tv series! I am not the type of person who can read or rewatch something right away, but I will eventually make another run at it. I just finished last month., but I first started around 1995-1997!

I would check out your local used book stores. The series has been out for a while so I am sure they will have some if not all of the books. The price will be reasonable and ultimately I think if we can support small businesses we should. I have watched a couple local used book stores close 😞

I just realized I didn't respond to your earlier post, but I meant too! My apologies. I joined this site hoping to be able to talk to fellow fans and I don't intend to ignore anyone. In regards to that post, I don't think Rand was ALWAYS doing more important things. Certainly he was doing important things off screen, but there was a fair amount of time that we spent with him that he was doing nothing important. I agree that he was clearly paranoid and nutty and I can't fault him for those things. But if your whole goal is to make it to the Last Battle and win, I just don't get him making it so much harder on himself. Yes, it was sad that Egwene paid the price! I suppose on the plus side Egwene secured legendary status, the Battle Amyrlin! She wasn't my favorite character by far, but she would win me over from time to time. Her being humbled by the Aiel and then her resilience at the White Tower made me like her more.

Thanks! I was honestly shocked that it was an available username, especially after all these years. I am glad no one took it! Sometimes it felt like Jordan was intentionally using it, as an inside joke. His use of fingering had me laughing as well, but in that case it seemed like he just refused to use any other synonym. Perrin 'fingering his axe" just seemed too perfect, but at some point all the characters are fingering, including sausage fingered Loial! Rand refusing to deal with things/people, was a constant annoyance to me! He puts talking to the sea folk off forever and can't be bothered to meet with the borderlanders...because he does't know what they are up to... But letting Taim loose is by far the worst. Hell, Egwene might actually have lived were it not for Rand's ineptitude.

Was that part of the prophecy? I can't recall, but even if it was, I would argue that nothing stipulates that Rand be instrumental in how the Dread Lords come about. I remember when I first heard about them, I thought they would be some sort of special creation...like Myrddraal. In reality they are just dark friends who are powerful channelers. Could we consider the red veiled Aiel to be DL? If we were Aes Sedai we could definitely interpret that to be the case, hah.

I think I will make a longer post in the near future, but my gut reaction to that whole Perrin kills Lanfear scene, was that it felt wrong. I didn't think her logic or the whole situation made sense. But I chalked this up to questionable writing from BS and took it at face value. Hearing his secret revealed, I do believe him. Could he have done a better job executing it? Absolutely. The fact that so many people doubt him now, shows that he didn't stick the landing.

Thank you for the welcomes! I am noticing that there is a huge difference between views and comments on most of the posts. Who knew that Wheelies (I'm gonna try and make it a thing 🤣) were such lurkers!

Alright that would make sense, that's who I thought it was going to be! I thought it was Demandred, possibly in Taim's old body. Once we learn that the DO can put their souls back into bodies (which is around the same time Taim shows up at the black tower) I suspected that was the play. There's the moment with Bashere not recognizing Taim as well. That could have been a red herring, but I interpreted it as Demandred not getting a mannerism right.

Rand drove me nuts with his behavior though most of the books. I was especially irritated by Rand's negligence with Mazrim Taim. He gets many warnings about Taim and does nothing. Early on, I actually thought Taim was going to turn out to be a Forsaken in disguise, so I was wrong about that. But Taim ascending to Forsaken status is even worse. Rand allowed him to train the next generation of Dread Lords. The minute Logain came to Rand with essentially a final warning about Taim, Rand should have done something. Replacing Taim and company with a loyal Logain would have saved so many lives. I think if the author's intent was solely to create Dread Lords, it could have been executed better.