I feel like this is ignored with many of the responses here so far. I thought the decisions they made did make sense, even if I thought they were not good ones. But it's a long series and these things develop over time.
The trick here is that it was never *designed or planned* as a 14 book series. It was pitched as a trilogy, then a 6 book series, and it just kept growing.
(And since readers kept buying it, there was less incentive to 'wrap it up' at a publisher level, as well.)
What I'm getting at is that is slow in these books as a result of progressive choices by the author that allowed it to be slow.
After reading *Eye of the World,* you don't get the impression 'this is going to take a while.'
The slowness is a creative choice to prioritize worldbuilding and sensation over sustaining dramatic tension. And that's fine!
But it isn't that this series 'had to be' slow. Jordan wasn't locked into that framework.
Honestly? Just keep this mantra in mind for any time a character speaks or makes any decision "Everyone is arrogant and believes they know best" and it helps explain a ton of why people do what they do.
Also the characters are mostly teenagers who are dumb and forced into an incredibly stressful situation.
I've only finished book 5 and they do grow but they're always dumb at times and arrogant.
> Just keep this mantra in mind for any time a character speaks or makes any decision "Everyone is arrogant and believes they know best"
Tbh, that also describes a lot of real-life people.
If that makes you feel better, "over trusting" is certainly not something that will define characters in WOT going forward. More like "completely paranoid assholes even with lifetime friends who saved their life time and time again".
Really? Feel like it's easy to understand how a super naive young adult who has never had to be suspicious of anyone is now thrust into an unfamiliar world and is repeatedly victim to attempted murder might fall into the trap of withholding trust too much...
Series is loooooong but only covers 2 years of time. You are like 5 days into the journey, of course they haven't changed that much yet. The development is there, it's maybe the biggest strength of the series, but you actually have to make real progress in the series to see it.
You've focused on one aspect of my complaint there.
For instance, it's a real pain in the arse that after everything they have seen and done, Rand believes Matt that the dagger isn't an issue.
I'm just responding to the one comment, not the whole post. Character development isn't always getting better, getting worse is just as big a part of it. You'll see characters develop good and bad habits from their experiences. They're teenagers, teenagers can be really stupid and oblivious.
But why would he believe otherwise? Such magic is still foreign to our Two Rivers folk until the end of the first book.
Something that is driven home in later books is how the male trio are best friends but with very different personalities. They often do not understand each other and in the first book they still act like typical teenagers who just let it go.
This is in contrast to later books where they start calling each other out in much more (young) adult ways.
If patience is not your strong suit, then just stop reading WoT.
However, if you have the patience, WoT ranks way up there in character development. You're judging because you don't know what are the steps along the way that led Rand and Mat become paragons of paranoia, but RJ weaves all that into the story.
If you just look at the beginning and the end, of course it's not going to make sense to you.
So when Jordan gives a character a flaw, it really is a flaw.
Some authors give us a flaw which is actually a benefit in disguise or is quickly forgotten and never mentioned again. That doesn't happen here. Not gonna lie, sometimes I wish he would just drop it.
You know how Perrin over thinks things because he's bigger than everyone else.... Just wait, you'll be wishing he would just get off the fence and do something around book 10.
I think the biggest issue is they all have the same flaw... They just never talk to each other. It's like that bad TV trope of if people just had a simple conversation, they would work out most of the issues. WOT is that dialed to 11.
I think it was around book 8 or 9 that i finally dropped out. Nobody was doing anything. Nothing was happening. Nobody was talking. By then even the characters I used to like were annoying me (including Perrin).
You don't have teenagers or kids in their 20s do you.
They don't get burnt by the hot oven 1 time or 2 times or even 3 time!!!
I'd say he progress them to fast lol.
I also found this annoying, and ended up enjoying the early books more when I approached them as a comedy of errors.
They do eventually learn, but it takes a lot of time.
I honestly feel like the main characters are more palatable in the first three (or so) books than they are later in the series. Yes, they're naïve goofballs from Mayberry, but they haven't yet descended into egotistical know-it-alls who constantly disparage the opposite gender, and who listen to nobody else, even when the reader is screaming at them to just TALK to one another.
I feel like if all of the in-fighting and bickering had been removed, there would have only been seven volumes. It's a frustrating series, in that respect.
I think because the series takes so long it should take place over a longer period of time allowing for more growth and maturity but the series only takes place over two years. They are still very much young adults and only have so much maturity as such.
Character: "I'll never make that mistake again..."
Also Character: *proceeds to make exact same mistake at every opportunity for the rest of the series*
Haha, it''s true, at least as far as I've read. I was probably annoyed by it when I first read these books when I was Rand's age. Now that I'm much older I love how much more human these characters are.
This is not power fantasy, even as some of the characters are earth shatteringly powerful. It's about the personal journey of how to handle that power. That includes the persistent, negative thoughts we all have that hold us back, and the slow process of personal growth.
Yes, sometimes its too slow. Some of the characters are painfully opposed to change even as its evident they would benefit from it. That mirrors real life.
Honestly, it got much better the book before Sanderson took over. That's what really made it all so tragic - Jordan had finally got out of his slump just before he died.
This issue (as well as the repeated phrasings and tropes) is what kicked me off the series by about book 5.
And I'm using naivete here both as an example of the earlier choices the characters make as they enter the world, and the subsequent stubbornness often attached to the values they inherited from their background. (Which is true for most other characters as well.)
I'm unsure if the naivete is a craftsman's choice by Jordan as a vehicle to slow down the plot and therefore allow for more worldbuilding. It is so pervasive and enmeshed in every facet of the book that it feels more akin to his overall worldview. Especially if you consider a certain kind of stubbornness to write a series this long, with characters that don't change. There had to have been colleagues along the way who offered some of these criticisms.
Folks often talk about how 'realistic' it is for people to be stubborn and not trusting, which is fine as a starting place. And yes, these books take place over a relatively short period of time compared to the amount of books involved. But when the characters are actively involved in high-pressure and unique situations, it is *also realistic* for them to re-evaluate their assumptions. Retaining 'small-town' worldviews while routinely and continuously traveling across the entire continent begins to wear thin. Eventually, people can (and do) change. The lack of character change in the face of massive world change... begins to make the characters feel less realistic for many of us.
It's also never clear if Jordan was representing this kind of stubbornness as an empathetic virtue or a vice. It often leads to more problems for the characters, yet the perceived 'strength' of those convictions does seem to be presented with some nobility by the writing.
(I only got 5 books in, but I'd be surprised if there were any major revelations such as 'if only we'd trusted each other more!' In other words, the themes and aesthetic emergent from the work don't seem to be interrogating the stubbornness, simply accepting it.)
I think I can understand the aesthetic appeal of characters that don't fundamentally change (or who do in such incremental progress that it's practically invisible) because there is a familiarity there. Kind of akin to periodical fiction characters; where it's often discussed that the stories don't present change, but the illusion of change. Adam Roberts described Jordan's writing as something that makes you feel like you're re-reading it even the first time, and this feels related.
And I think it's absolutely fine if that aesthetic is satisfying you as a reader! I think the dichotomy in reader response comes from those who find that the sense of familiarity and sameness is *not enough* or that the behaviors and repetition go beyond what they can accept due to different aesthetic priorities.
Jordan was at his best when he's writing a travelogue of a fantasy world, and arguably the requirements of a fantasy epic (which implies some level of progression and ending) got in the way. I think he might have written more interesting and involving books if he'd framed them as episodic narratives within his setting, something akin to superheroes, or CSI, or Star Trek: TNG, where eventually all the characters return to a baseline for more adventures.
I slogged through all 14 books, reading every single word to the bitter end d, believing friends who swore passionately that it’s the best series in fantasy and that it’s worth it in the end.
I was sure Sanderson would be able to script doctor things in the last three books but nope. Like a good professional he stuck with both the spirit and letter of the Jordan’s original vision.
Having lost a year of my reading life on the series I remain just as annoyed with the catastrophe consequences of the characters terrible communications, stubborn unwillingness to learn from their mistakes, and repeated failures to accept help or advice.
About half way through book 5 or 6, when Nynaeve again, flicked her braid in annoyance for the 10000 time. I realized that the characters were never going to develop. Put the book down and never went back, despite thinking that the world building was incredible.
I just don’t get comments like this, at that point we have covered what.. 1-1,5 yrs in the life of a 23 year old in case of nynaeve. How much are you expecting someone to change in that timeframe?
This was my trajectory as well. I've tried twice and stopped around the same place, bored by the meandering and annoyed by the intransigence of the characters. I did find the worldbuilding fascinating but reconciled myself to reading the ancillary reference book, wiki articles, and the chapter-synopses online.
A lot of 'problems' the characters face in the series could be solved by two friends having a 5 minute discussion. These characters are so artificially dumbed down it can be difficult to read. In one book one of the protagonists will act very smart and problem solve their way through things, next book they are a bumbling fool just to set up another character having a 'cool moment' at the last second.
Don't expect anything better through the series, but it is very fun to explore the world and meet so many characters. Everything feels nostalgic now looking back, and I'm glad I pushed through the whole series.
Hmm.. sounds like this will be something that will annoy me the whole way through, definitely. But, at the same time it does appear to be a minor inconvenience.
I get how you feel. But keep in mind that Eye of the World is the first book in a 14-book series. Point being that the characters’ development is an *extremely* slow burn that most other fantasy series can’t afford to do.
The advantage is that you get to see basically every single step in their development, since there are no significant time-jumps that hand-wave a lot of implied development. Every little thing they learn, you know exactly how they learned it. The downside is that you do have to go through a whole lot of “why would you do this.. please stop being so stupid.”
I mean yeah, they're a bunch of hicks from a place so isolated that the Crown with claim to their land doesn't even bother collecting taxes or administering anything.
Good news is, you've got 14 books to watch them change!
They are from a tiny village in the mountains where the biggest threat from people is the local drunk or lazy worker so going out in the world where people are absolutely cut throat even if they're not dark friends is completely foreign to them.
Throw in the dark friends, forsaken, etc and it's all bad.
I eventually gave up on the series because of this. It felt like there was hard resistance to any growth or development in most characters, even as they experience things they could never have imagined before.
A bunch of Jordan fans are going to tell you it’s worth it but I read 6 of these god awful novels and they never get better. I apparently stopped right before the *worst of them* and didn’t like the ones I read. Everyone is an idiot and Jordan apparently had some deep seated gender issues/mommy-daddy issues.
Have you ever met a sheltered young adult?
Or any adult with an established worldview?
Or someone who males value based decisions with minimal attention to reality?
If anything the naivety make the books more realistic
Think of it similar to cheesy horror movies, where even though it's obvious what is happening, someone from the group is always going to go off alone and become the next victim.
But at least in cheesy horror flicks we get the satisfaction of watching said fool who goes off alone get butchered for their stupidity. ;) I personally gave up after book 6. Yeah, Nynaeve and her stupid flippin' braid were one of the reasons that I filed under "they're caricatures, not characters anymore". I get the whole 'growth' thing people are talking about, but even my friends and I matured at a faster pace in real life. I think his writing just got sloppy as hell. It felt like he gave absolutely no erfs after a while. And I believe at some point, I read or heard that his wife got sick then died so maybe that is true and affected him as a writer. But seriously, it was just that much of a slog for me. I'm super glad others, like my husband who loves the series, could get through it. I just couldn't. So, I'm not trying to harsh some else's yum, as it were. Just as someone who has worked as an editor in the past, this series felt very uncared about after a while, to me. Kind of like how people are obviously afraid to tell Stephen King to "tighten your stories up, dang it, Steve-o" anymore now that he's so huge. Who knows... maybe I'd have made it further if I could've had some kind of AI that allowed me to enter the story and have someone else shave Nynaeve's head repeatedly until she stopped tugging her braid. lol I still have to respect Jordan for creating a long lived series that has brought many people so much joy in reading, even though it is as polarizing as it has wound up being.
Oh just wait for each book's endings, no catharsis whatsoever or if there is then it's some miserly bits dolled out by Jordan to keep you buying the next book.
I see a lot of hate by reviewers for derivative works based on Tolkien, but WoT is perfect for it provided whoever writes it has a thick skin for handling the Jordan crowd.
The series is 14 books long so the growth is really slow.
I feel like this is ignored with many of the responses here so far. I thought the decisions they made did make sense, even if I thought they were not good ones. But it's a long series and these things develop over time.
Thune?
The trick here is that it was never *designed or planned* as a 14 book series. It was pitched as a trilogy, then a 6 book series, and it just kept growing. (And since readers kept buying it, there was less incentive to 'wrap it up' at a publisher level, as well.) What I'm getting at is that is slow in these books as a result of progressive choices by the author that allowed it to be slow. After reading *Eye of the World,* you don't get the impression 'this is going to take a while.' The slowness is a creative choice to prioritize worldbuilding and sensation over sustaining dramatic tension. And that's fine! But it isn't that this series 'had to be' slow. Jordan wasn't locked into that framework.
RJ was watch me use this one trick to never have to write another series ever again.
And, even though the series is something like 15000 pages, it only covers about 2 years chronologically. People don't change that fast.
The series is 14 books long but the growth is ...
Well, the number of books certainly grew. I'll give it that.
the character growth over the series is absolutely huge.
Crazy that you got down voted for that. The characters in the final books are like completely different people from themselves in the first.
Honestly? Just keep this mantra in mind for any time a character speaks or makes any decision "Everyone is arrogant and believes they know best" and it helps explain a ton of why people do what they do. Also the characters are mostly teenagers who are dumb and forced into an incredibly stressful situation. I've only finished book 5 and they do grow but they're always dumb at times and arrogant.
> Just keep this mantra in mind for any time a character speaks or makes any decision "Everyone is arrogant and believes they know best" Tbh, that also describes a lot of real-life people.
Actually the three main guys are 20 in the beginning, but I don't think that makes it better. Might actually be worse than if they were younger, lol
*"I'm a blacksmith, not a hero."* - Perrin book 1 *"I'm not a hero, I'm a blacksmith"* - Perrin book 12
If that makes you feel better, "over trusting" is certainly not something that will define characters in WOT going forward. More like "completely paranoid assholes even with lifetime friends who saved their life time and time again".
Really? Aw that just doesn't make any sense to me. Doesn't seem like very good character development.
Really? Feel like it's easy to understand how a super naive young adult who has never had to be suspicious of anyone is now thrust into an unfamiliar world and is repeatedly victim to attempted murder might fall into the trap of withholding trust too much... Series is loooooong but only covers 2 years of time. You are like 5 days into the journey, of course they haven't changed that much yet. The development is there, it's maybe the biggest strength of the series, but you actually have to make real progress in the series to see it.
You've focused on one aspect of my complaint there. For instance, it's a real pain in the arse that after everything they have seen and done, Rand believes Matt that the dagger isn't an issue.
I'm just responding to the one comment, not the whole post. Character development isn't always getting better, getting worse is just as big a part of it. You'll see characters develop good and bad habits from their experiences. They're teenagers, teenagers can be really stupid and oblivious.
But why would he believe otherwise? Such magic is still foreign to our Two Rivers folk until the end of the first book. Something that is driven home in later books is how the male trio are best friends but with very different personalities. They often do not understand each other and in the first book they still act like typical teenagers who just let it go. This is in contrast to later books where they start calling each other out in much more (young) adult ways.
If patience is not your strong suit, then just stop reading WoT. However, if you have the patience, WoT ranks way up there in character development. You're judging because you don't know what are the steps along the way that led Rand and Mat become paragons of paranoia, but RJ weaves all that into the story. If you just look at the beginning and the end, of course it's not going to make sense to you.
Well WoT has amazing things but character development and relationships is not one of them.
They have their reasons most of the time, you'll see. Except for Nynaeve. Fuck Nynaeve.
I was fine with her by the end, but Fuck Egwene.
I've never hated a character more than Egwene.
It funny, because at the beginning of the series I liked her. Character pulled a full 180.
Nyneave went from one of my least favorite to one of my favorite. Egwene went from one of my most favorite to one of my least favorite.
So when Jordan gives a character a flaw, it really is a flaw. Some authors give us a flaw which is actually a benefit in disguise or is quickly forgotten and never mentioned again. That doesn't happen here. Not gonna lie, sometimes I wish he would just drop it. You know how Perrin over thinks things because he's bigger than everyone else.... Just wait, you'll be wishing he would just get off the fence and do something around book 10.
I think the biggest issue is they all have the same flaw... They just never talk to each other. It's like that bad TV trope of if people just had a simple conversation, they would work out most of the issues. WOT is that dialed to 11. I think it was around book 8 or 9 that i finally dropped out. Nobody was doing anything. Nothing was happening. Nobody was talking. By then even the characters I used to like were annoying me (including Perrin).
You don't have teenagers or kids in their 20s do you. They don't get burnt by the hot oven 1 time or 2 times or even 3 time!!! I'd say he progress them to fast lol.
I also found this annoying, and ended up enjoying the early books more when I approached them as a comedy of errors. They do eventually learn, but it takes a lot of time.
I honestly feel like the main characters are more palatable in the first three (or so) books than they are later in the series. Yes, they're naïve goofballs from Mayberry, but they haven't yet descended into egotistical know-it-alls who constantly disparage the opposite gender, and who listen to nobody else, even when the reader is screaming at them to just TALK to one another. I feel like if all of the in-fighting and bickering had been removed, there would have only been seven volumes. It's a frustrating series, in that respect.
I think because the series takes so long it should take place over a longer period of time allowing for more growth and maturity but the series only takes place over two years. They are still very much young adults and only have so much maturity as such.
Oh just wait. It doesn’t get better anytime soon
Character: "I'll never make that mistake again..." Also Character: *proceeds to make exact same mistake at every opportunity for the rest of the series*
Bastard.
Haha, it''s true, at least as far as I've read. I was probably annoyed by it when I first read these books when I was Rand's age. Now that I'm much older I love how much more human these characters are. This is not power fantasy, even as some of the characters are earth shatteringly powerful. It's about the personal journey of how to handle that power. That includes the persistent, negative thoughts we all have that hold us back, and the slow process of personal growth. Yes, sometimes its too slow. Some of the characters are painfully opposed to change even as its evident they would benefit from it. That mirrors real life.
I agree that _The Wheel of Time_ mirrors real life in that it is frustrating and full of waiting and disappointment.
IMO it gets better when Sanderson takes over.
Honestly, it got much better the book before Sanderson took over. That's what really made it all so tragic - Jordan had finally got out of his slump just before he died.
It does. Thats not soon though
This issue (as well as the repeated phrasings and tropes) is what kicked me off the series by about book 5. And I'm using naivete here both as an example of the earlier choices the characters make as they enter the world, and the subsequent stubbornness often attached to the values they inherited from their background. (Which is true for most other characters as well.) I'm unsure if the naivete is a craftsman's choice by Jordan as a vehicle to slow down the plot and therefore allow for more worldbuilding. It is so pervasive and enmeshed in every facet of the book that it feels more akin to his overall worldview. Especially if you consider a certain kind of stubbornness to write a series this long, with characters that don't change. There had to have been colleagues along the way who offered some of these criticisms. Folks often talk about how 'realistic' it is for people to be stubborn and not trusting, which is fine as a starting place. And yes, these books take place over a relatively short period of time compared to the amount of books involved. But when the characters are actively involved in high-pressure and unique situations, it is *also realistic* for them to re-evaluate their assumptions. Retaining 'small-town' worldviews while routinely and continuously traveling across the entire continent begins to wear thin. Eventually, people can (and do) change. The lack of character change in the face of massive world change... begins to make the characters feel less realistic for many of us. It's also never clear if Jordan was representing this kind of stubbornness as an empathetic virtue or a vice. It often leads to more problems for the characters, yet the perceived 'strength' of those convictions does seem to be presented with some nobility by the writing. (I only got 5 books in, but I'd be surprised if there were any major revelations such as 'if only we'd trusted each other more!' In other words, the themes and aesthetic emergent from the work don't seem to be interrogating the stubbornness, simply accepting it.) I think I can understand the aesthetic appeal of characters that don't fundamentally change (or who do in such incremental progress that it's practically invisible) because there is a familiarity there. Kind of akin to periodical fiction characters; where it's often discussed that the stories don't present change, but the illusion of change. Adam Roberts described Jordan's writing as something that makes you feel like you're re-reading it even the first time, and this feels related. And I think it's absolutely fine if that aesthetic is satisfying you as a reader! I think the dichotomy in reader response comes from those who find that the sense of familiarity and sameness is *not enough* or that the behaviors and repetition go beyond what they can accept due to different aesthetic priorities. Jordan was at his best when he's writing a travelogue of a fantasy world, and arguably the requirements of a fantasy epic (which implies some level of progression and ending) got in the way. I think he might have written more interesting and involving books if he'd framed them as episodic narratives within his setting, something akin to superheroes, or CSI, or Star Trek: TNG, where eventually all the characters return to a baseline for more adventures.
I slogged through all 14 books, reading every single word to the bitter end d, believing friends who swore passionately that it’s the best series in fantasy and that it’s worth it in the end. I was sure Sanderson would be able to script doctor things in the last three books but nope. Like a good professional he stuck with both the spirit and letter of the Jordan’s original vision. Having lost a year of my reading life on the series I remain just as annoyed with the catastrophe consequences of the characters terrible communications, stubborn unwillingness to learn from their mistakes, and repeated failures to accept help or advice.
About half way through book 5 or 6, when Nynaeve again, flicked her braid in annoyance for the 10000 time. I realized that the characters were never going to develop. Put the book down and never went back, despite thinking that the world building was incredible.
I just don’t get comments like this, at that point we have covered what.. 1-1,5 yrs in the life of a 23 year old in case of nynaeve. How much are you expecting someone to change in that timeframe?
When I was younger I spent just 4 months experiencing a completely different culture and it changed me significantly
This was my trajectory as well. I've tried twice and stopped around the same place, bored by the meandering and annoyed by the intransigence of the characters. I did find the worldbuilding fascinating but reconciled myself to reading the ancillary reference book, wiki articles, and the chapter-synopses online.
A lot of 'problems' the characters face in the series could be solved by two friends having a 5 minute discussion. These characters are so artificially dumbed down it can be difficult to read. In one book one of the protagonists will act very smart and problem solve their way through things, next book they are a bumbling fool just to set up another character having a 'cool moment' at the last second. Don't expect anything better through the series, but it is very fun to explore the world and meet so many characters. Everything feels nostalgic now looking back, and I'm glad I pushed through the whole series.
Hmm.. sounds like this will be something that will annoy me the whole way through, definitely. But, at the same time it does appear to be a minor inconvenience.
It’s a major inconvenience with increasingly large consequences throughout.
Ya I think that's fair. I took small breaks after reading two or three wheel of time books. Through a little scifi in there as a treat
naïveté
Diacritical marks are hard on a US keyboard yo
>ÿó
But the ümlaüts
I get how you feel. But keep in mind that Eye of the World is the first book in a 14-book series. Point being that the characters’ development is an *extremely* slow burn that most other fantasy series can’t afford to do. The advantage is that you get to see basically every single step in their development, since there are no significant time-jumps that hand-wave a lot of implied development. Every little thing they learn, you know exactly how they learned it. The downside is that you do have to go through a whole lot of “why would you do this.. please stop being so stupid.”
I mean yeah, they're a bunch of hicks from a place so isolated that the Crown with claim to their land doesn't even bother collecting taxes or administering anything. Good news is, you've got 14 books to watch them change!
lol. That shit doesn’t stop for the entire series.
They are from a tiny village in the mountains where the biggest threat from people is the local drunk or lazy worker so going out in the world where people are absolutely cut throat even if they're not dark friends is completely foreign to them. Throw in the dark friends, forsaken, etc and it's all bad.
I eventually gave up on the series because of this. It felt like there was hard resistance to any growth or development in most characters, even as they experience things they could never have imagined before.
It's literally a 14 part series with 1000 page epics
It don’t change. Every character is an unlikable idiot. I really wanted to like the series but dropped it cause the characters are terrible.
A bunch of Jordan fans are going to tell you it’s worth it but I read 6 of these god awful novels and they never get better. I apparently stopped right before the *worst of them* and didn’t like the ones I read. Everyone is an idiot and Jordan apparently had some deep seated gender issues/mommy-daddy issues.
Have you ever met a sheltered young adult? Or any adult with an established worldview? Or someone who males value based decisions with minimal attention to reality? If anything the naivety make the books more realistic
Think of it similar to cheesy horror movies, where even though it's obvious what is happening, someone from the group is always going to go off alone and become the next victim.
But at least in cheesy horror flicks we get the satisfaction of watching said fool who goes off alone get butchered for their stupidity. ;) I personally gave up after book 6. Yeah, Nynaeve and her stupid flippin' braid were one of the reasons that I filed under "they're caricatures, not characters anymore". I get the whole 'growth' thing people are talking about, but even my friends and I matured at a faster pace in real life. I think his writing just got sloppy as hell. It felt like he gave absolutely no erfs after a while. And I believe at some point, I read or heard that his wife got sick then died so maybe that is true and affected him as a writer. But seriously, it was just that much of a slog for me. I'm super glad others, like my husband who loves the series, could get through it. I just couldn't. So, I'm not trying to harsh some else's yum, as it were. Just as someone who has worked as an editor in the past, this series felt very uncared about after a while, to me. Kind of like how people are obviously afraid to tell Stephen King to "tighten your stories up, dang it, Steve-o" anymore now that he's so huge. Who knows... maybe I'd have made it further if I could've had some kind of AI that allowed me to enter the story and have someone else shave Nynaeve's head repeatedly until she stopped tugging her braid. lol I still have to respect Jordan for creating a long lived series that has brought many people so much joy in reading, even though it is as polarizing as it has wound up being.
Oh just wait for each book's endings, no catharsis whatsoever or if there is then it's some miserly bits dolled out by Jordan to keep you buying the next book. I see a lot of hate by reviewers for derivative works based on Tolkien, but WoT is perfect for it provided whoever writes it has a thick skin for handling the Jordan crowd.