Much is often made about how underwhelming the Foresaken are in WoT. I think what RJ was showing us is the fear of something can be misplaced. The Foresaken were just normal people who have been made fearsome by legends. The real villain in the story were normal people who were serving the shadow for their own selfish purposes.

It's still my first read through, and I'm surprised I read this book so fast.. i think it was mostly due to procrastination. But one other major thing in this book was that it was revealed that "M'Hael" is a darkfriend, that's Mazrim Taim. So bascially, the white tower is in the hands of the darkfriends (Alviarin) and the black tower too. Also, one of the Aes Sedai in Rand's party at the end, Elza, is revealed to be a dark friend too (she is the one who killed Osan'gar, or Dashiva as she knew him, and we get some sort of confirmation of his death because Cadsuane later mentions they singed Forsaken and a dead "renegade"- Dashiva) Another thing I wanted to put in, I read the last few chapters with music! It was incredibly fun. I found the perfect compilation of music for this series, one I've been listening to at the end of each book since The Great Hunt- I will edit this comment with the link!

Yup MIN is GOAT of WoT. I love her.

I loved the ending of Winter's Heart, I thought the cleansing of the taint was so cool! And I was so eager to read crossroads because I wanted people to find out that the taint is gone and react to that. What can I say, I waited longer than expected... Ended up being very disappointed

It's so much better on re-reads. You get all of the foreshadowing and understand so much more about where he's going. It's amazing when taken as a whole. I'm on my fifth re-read and I'm still learning things I missed on previous reads.

I think the books in the latter half of the series get a bad reputation among the readers, because the feeling of the fight going wrong is all in the story. In tFoH, Rand had his traumatic experience with Moiraine's disappearance, and Elayne's mother likewise disappearing, with Rand believing his own failure to act was responsible for what happened to both women, and then he sees his best friend and the only women he has slept with, die in front of his eyes. And he reversed their deaths with a dangerous weapon he was told could endanger the Pattern. This convinced Rand that he has to be "strong" and he can't worry about saving or protecting people, he's just going to get them killed, instead, he has to be hard and ruthless and do whatever it takes. And in the next book, that's when the phenomenon people call "the Slog" really starts. Throughout Lord of Chaos, Rand's story drags, nothing really happens, he is constantly upset or frustrated or things aren't going the way he wants. People forget what a "slog" Lord of Chaos is, because of Dumai's Wells and Egwene getting raised Amyrlin, and Nynaeve Healing Siuan & Leane. But Mat spends the whole book just traveling around or being annoyed & confused with the Aes Sedai. Except for her Healing moment, Nynaeve & Elayne spend most of the book being frustrated and balked, at first by their Aes Sedai superiors who don't respect them or take them seriously, no matter how extraordinary their accomplishments, and then later in Ebou Dar, where their search is yielding no results and they aren't cooperating with Mat (and despite being Aes Sedai, getting no respect from the elder sisters). Perrin shows up late and except for the Dumai's Wells campaign, is mostly befuddled by marriage issues, from his whacky in-laws to his wife's rival freaking him out. Egwene spends most of the book frustrated because the Wise Ones won't let her have lessons and she can't seem to get anything done or help with anything going on, and then when she is raised Amyrlin, again, it is an exercise in futility, where she is only a figurehead whom no one takes seriously. By the way, in WoT, they have a festival like the one in the Hunchback of Notre Dame, where they elevate a lowly person and treat this person as their ruler for a day, but of course it's not real, they are just pretending to honor and respect their fake leader, and tomorrow their reign will be over and they will be back down at the bottom of the heap. This person is called the Lady or Lord of Misrule. or of Fools... of of Chaos. Lord of Chaos means a temporary figurehead, a person who is elevated not out of respect, but contempt, for amusement rather than leadership. That is the THEME of the book - figureheads (Mat as well as Egwene), the low raised high, and the high cast down (Morgase is a refugee and a captive in all but name, Siuan has no respect among her former followers, Moghedian is enslaved) and at the end, the formerly despised male channelers are ascendant, and the Aes Sedai who made the world dance to their tune, are on their knees. The big dramatic action moments are a distraction, but more thoughtful readers will notice that otherwise, this book's plot drags a bit. And the same in A Crown of Swords, where Rand has received additional trauma from his abuse at the hands of the Aes Sedai, with additional negative lessons, to not trust Aes Sedai, to not let himself be closed in or vulnerable. Path of Daggers also feels slow or off, because it is deliberately structured in a random and unsettling way. The big action scene comes at the beginning, as the girls use the Bowl and fight off the Seanchan, and then spend the rest of the book on a long miserable trek through increasingly bad weather, with the whole group feuding and mistrusting each other, and at the end, Elayne finally arrives home, but she comes not in triumph but tired and dirty, and it doesn't feel like home, because her family is scattered around the world and strangers are running the Palace and city. Mat is absent, Perrin starts off with a dramatic confrontation but almost as much page time is given to relationship stuff, and then his wife is taken just when things are going well. Perrin himself has no real action or fights. Egwene spends her chapters plotting against her own people, and Rand is doing something similar when he finally appears very late in the book. Like Egwene, he is not leading through positive example, but trying to trick people into doing what he wants and cynically sending his less loyal followers out to get killed while his tainted male channelers slaughter the enemy. His plans don't work as well as he thought they would, he tries to do too much and it all blows up in his face, and when he goes home with his tail between his legs, he is met with a bargain whose terms he dislikes, but has only himself to blame, his efforts to get what he wants from Cadsuane fail and then there is the assassination attempt coming right on the heels of what he thinks is the crowning breakup message of all breakup messages from Elayne. And now, in Winters Heart, Rand is first trying hide from people he loves, all the action of his story, running around laying false trails, is off the page, and he has one (frustrated) fight scene, where he only succeeds at half his objective, and then spends way too much time stalled out, doing nothing while waiting and hoping to find his enemies, while also avoiding people who want to help him. And he gets MORE trauma, and in the end, needs to be bailed out by the very woman he is afraid of showing weakness to. Note that Rand's so-clever ploy to eliminate the Asha'man traitors so they can't backstab him during the Cleansing effort would, at best, have eliminated four of the hostile channelers he has to worry about, while the more powerful and dangerous Forsaken are still at large and Rand has no plan to guard against them. But when he sends his message of agreement and apology to Cadsuane, he opens the door to allow her to help him, and thus Cadsuane is able to protect Rand while he is channeling at Shadar Logoth. For four books, ever since Moiraine started teaching Rand Daes'Daemar, and training him to be suspicious and tricky and hard, Rand has been working to separate himself from people, to wall them away or dominate them, rather than let himself be vulnerable in dealing with them as equals. And the results have been a lot of pain and disaster and getting people killed regardless of his intentions. It's by seeking help that Rand is able to score his greatest victory since The Fires of Heaven ended with Rand sitting on a throne he had no right to. The books drag, the pacing is slow and the structure is a mess in these last four books, because the WORLD is a mess. "There can be no health in us, nor any good thing grow, for the land is one with the Dragon Reborn, and he one with the land." The story feels wrong or off or slow, because RAND is wrong, he is off and he is doing things wrong in all the books since we read that quote (at the beginning of A Crown of Swords). It's like in Star Wars, where the true victories all happen on planets with life and greenery, and the rest of the time, they are on planets that are lifeless, barren, cold or dank or in sterile, artificial environments like space stations and ships and fake cities untouched by nature. The look of the setting tells you what kind of shape the heroes are in. In Wheel of Time, you know the fight against the Shadow is going poorly because of how you feel reading the story. Jordan can't just show you a desert or an icy landscape to make you feel like the heroes are struggling, so he uses the dissonant story structure to do so.

Yesss..we love series books :~) Happy Thursday Bookish Friends

I think one of the reasons the slog is rough is because it takes place over such a short period of time. Like it starts to feel like a "day in the life" of different characters IMO. It definitely does get better, but I do wish each book had spanned more like 6months to a year personally.

I’m glad that you give us the woman’s point of view on the love square. I too thought it wasn’t too unrealistic that three beautiful women would be willing to share one guy. That’s basically what goes on nowadays anyway. Wouldn’t you be down to share a 6’6” broad shouldered hollow cheeked grey-blue eyed GigaChad?

I put the slog as 3 books, and they were difficult to get through. I can't help but wonder if this was the beginning of RJ's illness. Knife Of Dreams has a totally different feel, the story is finally starting to move along again. I don't know if I could ever re-read all 14 books again

I know Tuon’s really hated by most people (for completely valid reasons), but I remember really loving her. I haven’t read this series since I was much younger and before some personal trauma that I think might impact my view of her if I return to the series eventually, but at the moment I share your positive sentiments with regard to her character

I just finished Winter's Heart and it was one of my favourites as I was reading it, but then the cleansing of the taint happened and it blew me away.

The ending of Winter's Heart is epic. I'm one that had to wait for each book for a couple years, as I started the series just before A Crown of Swords was released. Crossroads is the toughest to get through, I took two years to finally finish it after buying it on release.

This book wasn't a slog read for me I did have some problems with it though I'm definitely will be continuing with the series

back then it was frustration fest but back to back is cool despite the filler. it is hard to keep up with the vast cast

I still think Min and Mat’s personalities match better. Can you imagine the banter they would have as lovers??? Missed opportunity.

We don't talk about the book between Winter's Heart and Knife of Dreams. However I can say that none of the books between 11-14 felt as boring as 7-10. Not even closely! So once you get through this last effort your investment will be coming into fruitation!

Good news is book 11 is fantastic and you will see an increase in the pacing and plot, just gotta get through crossroads. I didn’t think crossroads was as bad as the fandom lead me to believe but I also didn’t wait years betweeen books. Tuon I feel like you’ll really end up loving her. She cracked me up.

I think Mat actually does have love for the Queen but he's not used to being the submissive one in the relationship... Her almost male-like cavalier and ownership attitude over him is so off putting to him that he doesn't know how to handle it. I think it's RJ's way of bringing to light the terrible way some men treat women by turning it back on a character who would do it to women. I'm just waiting to see if Mat learns from it or not in the next book(s)...

7-10 should have been one absolutely killer 1100 page book.

Cool easter egg: Tuon is actually mentioned as the Daughter of the Nine Moons in The Great Hunt! One of the Seanchan in Falme mentions her by name

I think there are POV chapters of tertiary characters that make you want to die of boredom (like the one in Atha'an Miere), but there are others that I really enjoyed (!!), like those of the hunt for the Black Ajah in the White Tower and those of the Aes Sedai connected to Logan. Am I the only one?

“Don’t stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed.” -George Burns “Walking distance to the Riverwalk “ -AloysiaAndAvery🌷InITTogether

I also had a really good time with Winters Heart, I think it gets a little too much hate. Now onto crossroads of twilight, bet you're loving that!! Haha

You should find a copy the world of Robert Jordan's the wheel of time also known as the white book it's a source book

Nah Mat had stockholms syndrome in the end for mine man, I found this relationship another way Jordan subverted the 'Patriachy' to the 'Matriachy' and was another way he explored how Power corrupts absolutely and doesn't discriminate between genders. It was SUPER uncomfortable! Which it was sposed to i guess, i always cringe at those pages whenever I read them, mission accomplished as the Author i would say :-)

Hi 👋 thank you for the review... loads people say that in the middle of the series it slow..... hoping to read the forth book in the Robert Jordan series 😊😊 happy reading to u!! 😊💜📖

I remember sitting in my school bus (as a driver) and reading these books. Only got up to the shadow rising though. But yo: best series ever. There’s something “cozy” about these fantasy novels. Can’t explain that idea further, but like all deep feelings, it just feels right.

Just my opinion, but I feel like the Slog was not as bad for people who were waiting for the next book to come out, because we were able to read the books multiple times and would pick up on little things that we may have missed on the first reading. Just as real as the slog is that the books are better on a re-read.

10 is 10. It's notable because the only time Jordan tries an actual romance is Tuon/Mat. She's kinda evil, but she's entertaining and she makes Mat romance her. A lot of boring middle book stuff gets stuffed into everyone-else's plot lines. In 11 multiple plot lines that have been hanging around since book 4-6 get resolved in quick order, via the sort of decisive action that makes WoT great. He obviously doesn't get to 100% of them i 11 (there are too damn many for that), but he gets more than one. Also the wait between 8 and 9 was 2 years 18 days. CoT was another two years and 2 months. Not that I was counting.

Man do I absolutely loath Tuon!! Anyway, yeah Crossroads of Twilight is the real tough one to get through. I recently reread it and had no qualms with skipping the Perrin and Faile chapters, but I guess that's the luxury of knowing the story already.

the slog is 8-10 and your just describing it. You’ll be by ok. you’ve gotta remember they happen at the same time. its not smooth and us WoT fans know it. it will get really good, i promise. also, if it helps, I would say skimming is OK

Great review! I would be surprised if you rated crossroads of twilight any less than 3 stars, based on the review.

You have cool ink! I understand you reservations about the book but I do like the climax of this one! :)

I might have to read these again at some point, but this reminded me of the other issue I had reading them the first time, it seemed like Robert Jordan maybe couldn't figure out how to end the series, so each book would get up to the beginning of the end, but then the next book started all over with a different character. Does Brandon Sanderson do that as well?

Skip the 100 page prologue to Crossroads of Twilight and you'll like that installment more

I am in book 13 now and just know that from book 11 things start to truly pick up particularly in book 12 after reading book 12 I said to myself I will reread the series again for sure but I will skim over the slower books and I won't ever read Path of Daggers again way to boring. It gets better Brittany just get to book 11

Hello. WH is the last WoT book i managed. looking forward to hearing how the rest turn out.

Push through. One to go :)

Holy crap, is that a Brooklyn accent??

#teamaviendha

"trying to remove the taint" that's just a bad time...

Haha Crossroads of Twilight is the worst imo. I hope you like it better than i did.

if it is ABSOLUTELY worth the read, it can not be 3 stars. Make your mind up

I was wondering when you reviewed A Path of Daggers how much your vaccine sickness affected your overall enjoyment..you seemed pretty miserable when you were listening to it. ~~ I agree completely about cycling the POV instead of giving chapter chunks. it feels almost like the first 3 chapters of each POV are mundane filler and than on the 4th chapter we get to the point of the POV block. I feel like if it was 1 chapter and than on to a new POV RJ could have given more significance to each chapter on its own. The chapter blocks feel more like a slog to me than the few books that are considered the slog do. ~~ The love quadrangle put a smile on my face and that chapter actually made me laugh out loud. ~~ One of my biggest annoyances with Wheel of Time is the way that the Villians are so far on the back burner that they are almost insignificant. His relegation of Padon Fain to 500 words per book makes me want to scream..Having forsaken in key places throughout the world and getting nothing out of their positioning makes me want to scream..getting introduced to Simhrhage in like book 5 and being in at book 10 and still never seeing her again makes me want to scream..I really want to hate the villians in a book and i dont really feel anything but let down by them.. ~~ The ending was very good IMO, on par with the events at Dumais Wells..it was great to find out who Cyndane and Osan'gar are. ~~ Brace yourself for the only book worth of the term "Slog"..Crossroads was for the most part a painfully long prologue, important conversations and insignificant events..Audiobook should take some of the sting out of getting through it

so are you going to toture your cousin?

Damn you read fast