Wheel of Time - Page 11

I was so heart-broken after I read Aviendha's visions from walking through the ter'angreal. I've always been a quiet fan of the Seanchan, but after reading about their complete takeover of the westlands and the destruction of the Aiel by their hands... I was disgusted. To the pit of doom with the Seanchan! The story in TGS should have been Rand balefires the Seanchan and then remorses over it after he ascends to Jesushood. F***!!!!!!!!

You shouldn't be mad at the Seanchan. You could see from her visions that the Aiel started the war. They didn't even have a good reason to start it. The Aiel justified their war against the Seanchan because they (the Aiel) were born to fight and to die. It's the mindset and the culture they live in that is to blame.

I'm pretty sure Aviendha will convince Rand to do something monumental to change the Aiel's future. The question is what. I'm also curious as to how Rand/Mat will make peace with the Seanchan. Do you just walk up to Tuon/Fortuna and say "Hey, did you know you can channel the same as any damane? How about we focus on the big bad monsters who want to eat us all instead of each other? That will be an interesting encounter.

The Seanchan enslaved Aiel Wise Ones as damane and refused to return them. That's a pretty good reason for a war in my opinion. Seeing the future beyond the end of the series was definitely cool. I kind of groaned when I got to the Aviendha chapters, but they ended up being a few of the best in the book. It seems that Rand's demands of all the nations will be the peace among themselves, and he'll probably demand the same peace of the Seanchan in exchange for bowing to the Crystal Throne.

Also, kinda funny how Asmodean's killer was such a big mystery for so many years, and then it's revealed in the glossary for ToM (although it was indirectly mentioned in the book itself).

Sanderson, wow. He's is sooooooo good at writing, every chapter feels so fast paced, while Jordon made it seem so much slower, or maybe its the speed of the plot moving on. He also has an amazing way of describing fights, like especially the dream world stuff. The whole book was soooo good, and made me laugh out loud so many times. I hope to god thats a fake future, I fucking hate the seanchan man, they're like so gay, with their really ridiculously strict everything. The aiel are hilarious and awesome, wetlanders are like normal people so we don't mind them.
Mat is a badass. It's like "Well, we got this guy, has a cool spear, can beat the shit out of Aes Sedai (foxhead medallion), picks up women even if they're an empress, tactical genius general you know what, this mofo needs an eyepatch. That'll complete the image. I also LOVE how perrin and egwene's happened to meet together and fuck up mesanna's plans, and egwenes like sorry perrin ima put you down but he's like no bitch you're not even close to my level here i'm going to chase after slayer now kthxbye.
Nynaeve figured out how to heal madness, i love Nynaeve.
Characters I like: (in terms of personality whatever, they're all really well designed/writted
Mat
Min
Elayne
Faile
Bain and Chiad + Gaul LOL
Nynaeve
Morgase, the tea thing was so funny but morgase is cool anyway
Thom
Siuan Sanche
Tam Al'Thor

Middleground:
Tuon
Lan
Rand
Most of the forsaken
Egwene
Galad


Don't like:
Graendal
Perrin
Aviendha
Gawayn

Don't know why I put it out there, wonder if the people agree with me the on character likes/dislikes though.

I'm willing to bet that someone (Avienda? Loial?) will find the Song after (or at) Tarmon Gai'don. That would bring beautiful closure to so many disparate parts of the story's history, and after the Last Battle there be a movement to return to the Way of the Leaf. Obviously Aviendha's visions suggest this does not happen, or at the very least that the Aiel never embrace the Way again, but why would Jordan have both carefully set up the backstory of the Da'shain Aiel and shroud the Song in so much mystery only to reveal the whole thing via Rand at Alcair Dal, but never have the Song matter...

- Tower Of Ghenjei (sp?) was amazing all the way throughout, Mat is a badass and Moiraine is finally back!
- Perrin's duels with Slayer were very well written and I could picture them perfectly as I was reading
- Perrin's encounter with Egwene in TAR, fucking owned.
- Ituralde's defense of Maradon; he seems like the best general out of the Great Captains to me, though we haven't really seen the others do too much yet.
- Rand's destruction of the Shadowspawn army; although the battle part was cool, I thought the reactions and reasoning to it were even more interesting.

- Perrin moved from low to top tier for me this book; he finally stopped being a whiny bitch and took control of his situation in an awesome way.
- Gawyn moved from low to mid tier this book: he gave Egwene the finger after she chewed him out for saving her and then came back and sacrificed himself for her after her trap for the assassins failed without even knowing if she was still alive, and got over his whole RAND KILLED MY MOMMY IMA KILL HIM thing.
- Egwene is definitely one of the more annoying characters in my opinion; she's so uppity and yet ignorant (lol @ Perrin and Gawyn showing her up). Fortunately, I'm pretty sure Rand is using her as an unwitting pawn for him by gathering up the nations.
- Elayne is low-mid tier, mostly for the same reasons as Egwene
- Aviendha as a character is... decent. Maybe it's her Aiel views that are slightly at odds with most characters that make her a bit odd. I liked the future scenes from Rhuidean though, they were extremely interesting.

So I finished it, and I have to say I am pretty impressed with most of it.

For starters, while I really do like Perrin as a character, until about...the forging of his Hammer I felt that he was pretty underwhelming. Then once he got his hands like that he started being pretty badass. Truly though, the Faile/Perrin bit was a breath of fresh air in the romance section of the book compared to Egwene/Nynaeve/Eylane (I actually hate the sections for these characters entirely). Matt's is over, so I cannot say much there...and Rand really just had 3 chicks fall in love with him without too much in the way of development).

Matt's section on the other hand...loved it. He has always been one of my favorites.

Rand, I read this without rereading the other books (or rather, I reread up until Crossroads of Twilight, and did not have time for the last few books). However, I really like him as a character. I always liked the interaction between him and Cadsuane as well.

But the most important thing is that I like that they are finally doing something about the black tower. I mean honestly...Elaida's fortelling about the Black Tower was what...3-4 books ago? It is nice to show that there is some development going on regarding it, even if it is just a hint of what will be going on in the last book.

Two minor (or major?) questions though.

1.) Someone mentioned that Asmodean's killer was revealed in the glossary. I do not have access to my book right now. Who was it?

2.) And has it ever been clearly stated that Taim is Damodred (or was it Demandred >.>)? I know that Taim is never spoken of without mentioning that half smile...