I'm guessing this is aimed at me, given the context of the thread, so please allow me to attempt to clarify. I had never hoped to come across as hating on the books. I suppose I kind of assume that to everything I post there is an unspoken postscript explaining that I truly love the books regardless of any criticism I may have. There are even bits I love and hate, such as the arguing about what food they are going to buy and that kind of thing. Parts I loved but thought were a bit dodgy, such as Valan Luca's obsession with Nynaeve's bosom. And indeed some bits I didn't like, perfection is not possible, in my estimation. There is a lot about the ending that I found very disappointing, true, but that is within the context of the greater story. There are a lot of strange things for me towards the end, some of it probably inevitable from bringing such an epic sprawling story line to a close, some from the author change and the at least partíal writing by committee where the editors perhaps had more power over Brandon Sanderson than would be normal in such circumstances. But my intention is not to hate on the books. Rather it is to discuss them in all their aspects, without the unfortunate habit in the discussions of the show to assign dastardly intentions to those who disagree with us. For example I really didn't like Egwene's death. I was not a great fan of her character in the book but it seemed to me that to be the greatest Amyrlin of all time you would need to Amyrlin for longer than a year. The whole anti-balefire creation at point of death also seemed very rushed, especially as it isn't made very clear how others learned it and especially what it was called. But other people have said they loved that piece. That is was incredibly moving for them. So I'm happy to discuss it, to see others opinions, and take solace that others do enjoy those aspects and hopefully can temper my opinions by seeing the positivity in others. I hope there is no implication that my opinion is somehow superior or more justified or that I am trying to convince anyone of The One True Opinion. Throughout the forums you will probably see people that really don't like the Faile/Shaido arc and those that love it. People that really don't like certain books, or the beginning, or the middle or the ending, and those that love exactly those parts. The same with characters etc etc. But to me that is all part of loving and living with the books, and I can only apologise if that comes across as hating, because that isn't the way it is meant, I mean it as discussing the aspects of the books that I love in all their aspects. For me being critical of the books does not in anyway undermine my love for them, and I really like discussing things with people that have different favourite characters or completely different takes from me as that can deepen my own understandjng of the story or just be interesting. Tl:dr sorry, my bad.

I am not sure that citing insanity for characters acting irrationally is a great plot device. I mean sure, but why not have characters act coherently at this crucial point in the narrative? It seems a strange choice. Having three duels will always seem a weird point - a single duel was a rather arbitrary way to end Demandred given the context - three would seem to need a really important function in the narrative to make sense, and for me, there wasn't. I could be wrong but at least for Lan it clearly said in my memory that Lan was easily the better swordsman, but he was exhausted, so not performing as well. And there was so much wrong with the battle. The Shadow had had great effect dividing their forces and driving deep into friendly territory, yet when on the brink of victory, agreed to meet the forces of the Light in one pitched battle, allowing the Light simultaneously fight at Merrilor and Shayol Ghul without people desrting to protect their own homelands. Pike formations sliced apart with balefire is not some kind of minor inconvenience, Mat's army would have collapsed at that point, not bravely fought on, without a formation pikes are utterly useless. Sending the Seanchan away did nothing. Demandred did not alter his plan and it had no effect on the battle except limiting how Mat could use them as a tactical reserve. The aping of Austerlitz where they lose the heights and then retake them was not explained at all - why was this a good idea? How could they suddenly have the troops to fight on another front? Using the villagers from Hyam(?) to defend the dam was a great little idea, explaining why Mat would not properly reinforce them, but having them retake it was nonsensical. How could they have overpowered Dreadlords? How would the troops defending the dam even have known they were the same people back from dead? Why during the Last Battle would they be so shocked that they would not have fought back but just let themselves be killed without raising a finger? It's like the Ateam where they make a custard gun and all the bad guys stand about saying "oh I'm covered in custard" until they get arrested and completely forget they are still holding M60s and the Ateam have, well, a custard gun. None of the battle made sense to me at all. Not the tactical moves, not how they protected the troops from the One Power, not Mat's great plan... Add in the duels, Bela's death, the disgusting Olver being made a hero, the heroes explaining they might be immortal and all powerful but the bad guys might tie them up and hide them in a cupboard somewhere (thanks Brandon! some magic is better left soft), Egwene's death and creation (and naming! while dying and not telling anyone?) of the Flame of Tar Valon, the weirdness with Logain who rescued refugees rather than confronting Taim... For me it was just a disaster from start to finish. The only thing I can say in its defense is compared to how bad endings of long series can be, it wasn't that bad, all things considered. Oh and Thom and Moiraine, lol. And Alvara helping Rand live again or whatever Min's viewing said by laying out clean underwear for him. Actually when I think about, let's have Demandred have three duels in the middle of the battle for no reason doesn't seem that bad in comparison.

I don't see that for me this really clarifies anything. Demandred had Mat beaten, all of Mat's battle skills were useless, why have them if he was just going to dumb luck his way through it all? His stratagems seemed completely ineffective and the whole set-up of making Demandred bet heavily on a losing hand never seemed to actually come to fruition. Three duels just seemed to be pointless as well, putting them down to ta'veren seems rather unsatisfactory. Why not just have Demandred fall from his horse? What was the actual point of making the duels such a central point of the battle? Though maybe you should not listen to me, there is very little I liked about the ending to the series. The battle with the Demandred and the Sharans high on the list of those things that I did not like. I don't think any of it made any sense to me at all.

Unfair

Wine

Daredevil

We gotta prepare. Training montages and all that.

Wasp

May as well have a look about town.

Welcome to Dragonmount, guloo. I hope you enjoy your time here.

Loot goblin sounds so common. I prefer to think of myself as a loot troglodyte.

Nappies

Disrobing

I'd say maybe take the opportunity to make a few more spells when we can as we can only do it once per period. And then crack on.

Maybe we should review whereabouts we are in this grand quest.

I have no idea. I'll add my vote to 4. Cause gems have to be good, no?

Fireworks

Yeah maybe best not upsetting it, all things considered. It really is amazing how it can do this.

I'm having a bit of a break at the moment.

If only there were an auto-loot addon.

Yeah I dunno lol. First option please, cos like it was first and stuff.

Lol I can remember when me and my friends would avoid nightclubs as that was where all the twenty-somethings went, those dinosaurs with one foot in the grave and terrible taste in music. The phrase hits home differently these days somehow. Cannot out my finger on what has changed...

I think you have established that you hate the show, and you want to argue that your opinion is objectively true. You haven't shown any inclination to discuss the books at all, which is strange if you loved them so much. When did you read tEotW for the first time? What did you already know about the books? It is not obviously about the Dragon. The prologue establishes that this is about an epic story of good and evil, of tragedy and redemption, and not about a sheepherder. But it is breadcrumbing, it is not meant to explain anything, it is deliberately vague with enough info for it to make sense when you have more information. I love how Jordan teaches the reader about the lore, about the One Power with Egwene, False Dragons from tales of Logain, the history since the Breaking through Manetheren, etc etc. At no point did it sit down and say this is all about the Dragon. It isn't clear how mythological the Dragon is, whether he will be reborn or when, if he would be the antagonist... the Prophecies are deliberately vague and ominous, and we don't know how they are going to apply to the story. The book weaves a rich tapestry of background info that, to me, really seemed alive. So when we found the Horn of Valere, I was shocked. [An aside, I was disappointed that Farstrider was made into plot, having a world so detailed that we knew popular songs and everyone's favourite book, imho, was better than forcing Jain into the actual narrative, but that might just be me]. It was nothing like the standard trope in fantasy of the heroes needing a magical sword to save the world but all they have is the rusty sword they found in their father's attic. Wait, you don't mean that actually is the legendary sword of unlikely coincidences! OMG, lets save the world. If you read these forums you will find a lot of people that found the first books so slow because they already knew it was all about the Dragon, had probably heard a bit about the books, maybe read a few of the blurbs of later books. All in my humble opinion, but the early books were always going to have to be treated with great care because a simple 1:1 adaptation even if possible was going to be problematic.

I still wish you all the best but I forgot to mention how completely nuts you must be to be this for *checks notes* fun. I think for me anything less than the lives of my kids would probably insufficient motivation to even try. Still your insanity is incredibly impressive, lol. Look forward to hearing how you get on at your warm up 🙂

My closest friend that loves fantasy got to around book 7 and gave up. Many of the fans on the boards here really didn't like the first 3 books. This hasn't got anything to do with "modern" audiences or target audiences. This has to do with the books were always an acquired taste. My love of them doesn't change that. It certainly doesn't change the rather slavish aping of LOTR. It doesn't change that the original readers of tEotW didn't know the book was about the Dragon Reborn, and that affects the pacing a lot for later readers. It doesn't change that the tone is quite different to the rest of the books. None of this says that any decision of the adaptation was the right one, but it does make a nonsense of the argument was all they had to do was be closer to the books. That simply isn't true. Which isn't to say that an adaption closer to the books narrative could not be done successfully, but it presents its own challenges, and is not the solution to all problems. And of course @WoTwasThat, you can use the forums as you please (within the rules you have agreed to follow, obviously). However, your use isn't consistent with a fan of the books, nor does your claim that people just need to dust off the books ring particularly true to someone that actually is familiar with the source material. Most of us don't need to dust off the books to recall their content. The fact remains that opinions on the adaptation remain subjective - there is no right or wrong way to feel about it.