Before I get into this book, I want to talk about the series as a whole first. (I’ve read all but the prequel, which for some reason I’ve decided to save until after Sanderson writes the last two books.) My father was the one who recommended this series to me, though he said he stopped reading it after a few books. I can understand why.
The Wheel of Time series has an enormous scope. Robert Jordan went to great pains to create an in depth, complex world. He succeeded, but perhaps he went a little too far. There are so many characters (often with extremely similar names) and nations, that it’s hard to remember from book to book (and even chapter to chapter) who everyone is. Within the main land there’s Andor, Amadicia, Cairhein, Tear, Arad Doman, Shienar, Kandor, Illian, Murandy, Tarabon, and Arafel. Then there’s also the Aiel, the Sea Folk, the Seanchan, the Traveling Folk, and the Aes Sedai. All of these people have specific characteristics and details. I can only tell a few of them apart because there are just too many to keep track of. Going along with this detail, it annoys me how “distinct” in look and behavior, people are from places that are so close to each other. It’s like saying that the people of North and South Carolina all look and act so distinctly that they are immediately distinguishable to anyone. This is a flaw in fantasy in general, but it feels particularly pronounced here.
In addition to the obsessive distinction between peoples, there is the even bigger obsession with distinguishing guys and girls. How often does a woman say/think “fool man!” in the books? We get it, guys and girls are different, but the degree to which this distinction was made (especially considering the fact that their heroes of legend were both male and female) became too much. I appreciate there being strong female characters who can take care of themselves and don’t appreciate being talked down to or “babied” by boys. I don’t appreciate them all thinking that every guy has zero common sense even when they’ve demonstrated otherwise. (And same goes for the reverse!) It felt like Jordan just doesn’t understand women, to the point where he overexaggerated their personalities.
The series also has the flaw of having a character who just happens to always have the power to defeat whatever enemy he faces. Rand, meant to be the focus, ends up being the least interesting character. He’s sort of like Superman, so good you kind of feel like “Why bother fighting him? He’s just going to win.” If I didn’t know that he was so crucial to the plot, I likely would have skipped the sections focused on him.
I also disliked Jordan’s tendency to write 100 pages about a character and then jump to a second character for a hundred pages and never come back to the first person. For one thing, if there is a character you don’t enjoy spending much time with (Rand…) you are stuck with them for a long time. And for another, if there are characters you really like, you are stuck unable to look at them for possibly hundreds of pages.
With all my complaints, you might wonder why I’ve continued reading Wheel of Time. (They certainly aren’t short books after all.) But the series definitely has its upsides. While Rand is a particularly dull character, some of the others–Mat, Thom, Egwene, Elayne, Birgitte, Aviendha, Siuan, Morainne–were quite interesting. Whereas it felt like Rand just luckily obtained his various abilities, you really felt like you watched characters like Elayne, Egwene, and Aviendha grow and learn how to use their powers. Even though Mat was just given his powers rather than developed them, he did grow up over the course of the series. Birgitte was particularly interesting, a woman of legend pulled into the world before her time. Mostly, I kept reading for those characters that I enjoyed and sort of put up with the rest.
Continue on to read about The Gathering Storm
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