#TEOTW was a bit slow but this????

[adri-atics]

Was anybody going to tell me last 200 pages of The Great Hunt were absolutely life-changing incredible or was I supposed to find that out by losing my shit on a plane myself?

[hazelcephalopod]

The Eye of the World Ch 27-28

Summary- While team Luck runs, everyone else travels. Trails are found and a new directions chosen.

Disclaimer: this is my first read thru but I’ve watched all of the show this far and been spoiled on some book things. So… I’m going to lean into that. Enjoy figuring out what I know, and what I think I know, and what I just don’t. Also s/x I add commentary when I edit.

Spoilers for the first book and up to the most recent episode under the cut. Potential spoilers for latter books.

Ch 27

Perrin POV

Still with the Tuatha’an. I still like them here

Honestly that (slow) pacing is probably best if you spend most of your life traveling.

He (Elyas) understands the traveling life even if not the pacifism

Also yes I realize when I type ‘the Tuatha’an’ I’m basically saying ‘the the People’. (I know enough Irish to know that)

Elyas- no you need to eat and rest. Even if you and I don’t like it here, we stay. Also I’m not leaving because someone has to protect you children’

Pie…. Mmm. Food!

Well the wolves can smell Trollocs really well so there’s that. I’m guessing Elyas knows that.

‘The plot says wait so we wait!’

“Nothing is hunting them” -Perrin on the Tuatha’an. My observation- Sure, probably not actively but doesn’t sound like their lives are easy. Being happy despite hardship doesn’t mean they don’t experience it.

Perrins dancing!

… unexpected horny on main. Tbh, I was wondering when that’s kick up. Not hoping just wondering

“What do I do now? What would Rand do? He knows about girls?” -Perrin thinking to himself when confronted by girls dancing slightly ‘suggestively’ -I’m sure there’s a better word but it’s not coming to me- for the first time. LMAO. Mm, sure. lol. Rand know what to do? Oh wow. No Perrin. No. That’s adorable.

It also. Wtf is this man? (I know. I know what it it. It’s… let’s just say I’ve been warned)

I said what I said. But I bet it is a fun dance to learn! So good for Egwene.

Yea Egwene is right. She’s got it, enjoy the respite.

It seeps into you by being honestly quite nice.

“There is never any excuse for violence to another *human being*. The Way of the Leaf.” -teotw.

Also. Aram, Egwene is for sure not gonna stay here. Sry not sry.

Aw yes, the supernatural inhumane dangers. But see. Maybe, the pattern does actually just like them? Hmm? No one else. Just them.

Mmm that trauma really hit you hard man.

“No Ba’alzamon. Just ordinary nightmares.” -(Perrin) on his awful Trolloc nightmares [editor me- uh oh]

Wolf powers! Improve!

Oh it’s Balzo again. Interrupting a wolf dream… leave the wolf alone. No!

“The Eye of the World will consume you…” -Ba’alzamon- Balzo to Perrin, being his usually spooky, evil, dramatic self.

He also threw a raven at him. Which is weird -and a call back to earlier raven things. But no wound when Perrin woke. So there’s that at least.

Yup. Ol’ Balzo finally found you. Sry ‘bout that.

“[Raen to Elyas] ‘I think the wagons will go east. Perhaps all the way to the Spine of the World. Perhaps we’ll find a *stedding*, and stay there a while.’ ‘Trouble never enters the *stedding*,’ Elyas agreed. ‘But the Ogier…’” -Teotw as Elyas tells Perrin they must flee. Raen notes something and makes a decision as to where he will lead his band.

Nice bit of lore there.

Really do actually enjoy that we are in the character’s perspectives and those perspectives are not always accurate. Like Egwene wasn’t going to stay with the Tuatha’an, but Perrin never really asked what she thought he just assumed. And this far for teenagers I buy that.

I feel a little sry for Aram. But only a little.

Plz. Tuatha’an men hug. I buy only that they know Perrin doesn’t.

Ah yes. Ritual goodbyes!

Was Elyas a Tuatha’an?

Sure. Wolves are like jock preps. Dogs are himbo jocks

Ha! Egwene did finally get Elyas to ride Bela

“Perrin did not want to think about his dream. He had thought that the wolves made them safe. /Not complete. Accept. Full heart. Full mind. You still struggle. Only complete when you accept./“ -teotw. (/words/ are the wolves).

Lol. And he’s like ‘that was weird. Don’t like’ these wolves- ‘dude. Really? We just told you we could help if you’d let us. And all you’ve got is this is creepy, no? Enjoy your haunting nightmares.’

I’m sry Perrin but, Fuck you. Let her enjoy her jewelry from her ex.

“Advice! Nobody tells us how to be men. We just are.” -Perrin on Egwene telling him Ila was giving her advice on being a woman.

& I live thru Egwenes answer- “That, is probably why you make such a bad job of it.” And Elyas cackling.

Ch 28

Nynaeve! Nynaeve POV

Also at Whitebridge…

Oh fuck. Nynaeve (to herself) ‘oh I’ll train to be an Aes Sedai. To wreck you Moiraine’

“Moiraine would not tell her anything!” -(Nynaeve)

Well she answered. By magic. That’s how.

As for the rest. Infuriatingly closed lipped and dismissive yea

“If only there was some way to get rid of the woman [Moiraine]. Lan would be better by himself… And yet, Lan made her even more furious than Moiraine. She could not understand how…” -(Nynaeve). Lol

Oh she just has a great deal of experience in that duel type I suspect.

Oh yea the shoe drop anxiety. (Nynaeve)- “The silence seemed like a crystal doomed to shatter, and waiting for the first crack put her teeth on edge. It weighted on Moiraine and Lan, too…” -

She is part of the Pattern!

More watching…

Everyone is worried about the White Bridge falling down.

Little comfort when the wheel seems to will a Fade to your village.

“She did not ask questions; she gave sympathy…” -(Nynaeve) seeing Moiraine help the people of Whitebridge.

Townspeople, terrified- ‘this is fine.’ (Standing in their ruined town)

This is such a good example of the rumor mill

Hey at least it sounds like the Spray is ok! And Cap Domon. If rumors are true

Hey that found that inn! Bartim’s inn

“Their meal was consumed in silence…” -teotw. Oh so no Bartim talking to them about his feet? Shame. /s (I had enough for a lifetime already)

“Lan spared him one glance and snorted, ‘Militia. Useless.’” -Lan seeing the guard that reminds Nynaeve of Cenn Buie.

Red uniforms are interesting.

Wow. She got all that from the air? Cool

Can Aes Sedai move in a way that is a lie?

Didn’t stay long huh? Understandable

Off to Caemlyn!

[shinylitwick94]

Shinylitwick reads Wheel of Time - Book 3 - The Dragon Reborn

Ok, book 3 of the Wheel of Time series wasn’t as good as I’d hoped it would be, but it was still pretty decent.

Warning:May contain accidental spoilers because I have a tendency to a) voluntarily spoil things for myself(it makes me wanto read the story more not less) and b) forget that other people care about spoilers. I try to not bring up too many spoilers, but it happens, especially if they are things worth discussing.

Again, took me about a week to read, so my reading pace is holding up at least. We’ll see how that turns out going forward. Still, probably with even more skimming tyhan the first two.

This book tried to do something quite interesting - keep Rand, our unquestionable main character and #1 POV as a non-POV character for most of the book. And to a certain extent, it works quite well. We get to see Rand from an outside perspective, when we’ve been looking at things mostly from inside his head up until this point. 

Rand certainly seems a lot crazier  and also more powerful from the perspective of the other characters, but we don’t actually spend much time with him at all. We see him at the begining and at the end and the rest of the time we follow people who are chasing him.

I think that part of the plot/structure did actually work quite well. It was refreshing to get some other POVs, and made the other characters’ reactions to Rand in the previous books seem a little more justified.

What I felt didn’t work so well, was that half the main characters didn’t have to be in that finale. At all. And maybe this is my own personal pet peeve, but if you’re going to give so much screen time to these characters, then have them actually do something, otherwise just keep them offscreen until they actually ahve something to do.

What was the point of the girls going to Tear? Or Mat? Moiraine, Lan and Perrin makes sense since chasing Rand is pretty much their goal in this book, but the others? I kept thinking they’d, y’know, DO something plot-relevant once they got to Tear. Something cool and important that they couldn’t do back where they were. 

I just don’t get why we couldn’t have left the girls at Tar Valon and Mat maybe in Caemlyn and have their storylines wrap up there. Have the girls take longer/search harder for the Black Ajah. Have Mat stick around in Caemlyn to find out what the issue there is. Or just keep him in a coma for another book if you don’t need him yet.

So yes, that was extremely annoying. I don’t like reading hundreds of pages of content to get characters from point A to point B and then have them arrive at point B and do nothing. 

Speaking of hundreds of pages of content, the usual complaint. Do we really need to know what every inkeeper and every inn are like? I won’t go further into this, because I get it’s a stylistic choice, but yeah, it’s a little frustrating, it could have been half as long, yadayadayada.

Otherwise I liked the plot well enough and the ending was pretty cool if we ignore these issues. And I did like some of the mini-adventures our characters had on their way to Tear, I just felt like the payoff there was pretty weak for some of them.

As for the characters, Rand is indeed quite interesting from the outside, and I’m curious to see if he has changed a lot in the next book; Nyneave is still my favorite by a long shot; I vastly prefer Elayne to Egwene; Moiraine and Lan are still awesome; Perrin is still meh but has improved a little; Thom is great; Loial is wonderful as always.

Mat is a character archetype I usually don’t like much. I don’t have much patience for wannabe funny guys/prankster types IRL and it translates into how I feel about them in fiction. However, he is well written enough to make me enjoy his chapters without wanting to punch him, which is quite an achievement. He might grow on me yet.

The side cast was pretty decent too. I think Liandrin is a bit ridiculous as a bad guy, but she’s good enough for this I suppose. I liked seeing more of the Amyrlin too.

And speaking of ridiculous: Rand’s proclamation/boast/thing at the end was cringeworthy. Because characters standing up and screaming “LOOK AT ME AND LOOK AT HOW AWESOME I AM” will never not look stupid to me, sorry guys. Not Rand’s fault, just a trope I dislike. I think the lead-up to Gandalf’s “you shall not pass” is cringey too.

Favorite scene(s): the girls meeting the Aiel girls; Rand’s earthquake; Egwene’s Accepted test; Mat in Caemlyn; Moiraine and Rand at the end; Nynaeve punching the black Ajah; Mat’s healing

Least favorite scene(s): all of the boating stuff; Mat’s neverending dice games;”you’re a girl!”; the really slow early chapters 

Favorite character(s): Nynaeve, Rand, Loial, Moiraine, Elayne

Least favorite character(s): Liandrin, Perrin again (I just can’t get into him for some reason)

Book rankings so far: 1.TGH 2.TDR 2. TEOTW

[shinylitwick94]

Shinylitwick reas Wheel of Time - Book 9 - Winter’s Heart

Warning:Will no doubt contain spoilers.

As before, read back to back with Path of Daggers and now I’ve read Crossroads of Twilight too, so I have a hard time remembereing what happened in which book.

I’d say this is by far my favorite of these 3. It was clear after I’d finished it and it’s even clearer now that I’ve finished CoT.

First things first: one of the best endings in the series so far. Loved how Rand and Nyneave handled the whole thing, loved the imagery, loved Cadsuane and co. keeping them safe through it.

I liked the bits with the sisters in the Tower searching for the Black Ajah, that was also quite fun.

Mat’s storyline was also ok this time around, although I could ahve done without Tylin altogether.

Perrin was awful - although for some reason Faile’s chapters were less annoying than his.

Elayne was ok, but not overly interesting, aside from the triple bond with Rand and the ceremony with Aviendha.

Speaking of the triple bond with Rand, I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand it’s a nice change to have a polyamorous relationship that everyone is totally ok with for the main character of this series. On the other hand it feels a bit like a forced excuse to give Rand three hot chicks at once. The thing is, I think the most natural of the three relationships are actually Rand-Min and Elayne-Aviendha. Rand’s been hanging out with Min for a while now, but he hasn’t seen Elayne since Tear (and she’d seen him exactly once before that), and he and Aviendha have had no romantic interactions since book 4 or 5. Elayne and Aviendha, on the other hand, have been all over each other pretty much since they met. Idk, it’s not that I dislike Rand with any of them, they all work in their own way, but I just feel like there is no justification for Elayne and Aviendha to be quite so into him, particularly Elayne. 

Eh, whatever, it’s not that big of a deal.

The Far Madding bits were also kind of meh, but since we got the payoff that we did, I can’t complain. That and Rand going batshit crazy in that cell was fun to watch.

And Cyndane=Lanfear has been made 100% clear now - welcome back, Lanfear, we’ve missed you and your yandere ways!

Rand and Nyneave remain the more interesting and compelling characters for me, while Perrin remains a wet rag whose purpose I have yet to understand, and this was one of the least annoying Mat books so far.

One thing that annoys me a bit though is that now it feels like every book there’s a new female channeler who’s stronger than Nyneave and I see no reason for it, at least not yet, but it’s not fair!

All in all a pretty decent book where the very exciting finale made up for the horrendously slow start.

Favorite scene(s): the cleansing of saidin and the individual fights at the end, Aviendha and Elayne becoming first sisters, the Tower sisters taking on that black ajah one, Rand going nuts in his little cell, Mat’s final scenes with Tuon and the rest of them

Least favorite scene(s): All of Perrin’s chapters and most of Faile’s, anytime the Sea Folk are on screen, scenes with that creep who is in Elayne’s guard

Favorite character(s): Nynaeve, Rand, Elayne, Mat (yes, really!), Cyndane/Lanfear

Least favorite character(s): Perrin, Faile, everyone around Perrin and Faile, all of the Sea Folk, that creep following Elayne

Book rankings so far: 1.LOC 2.TSR 3.TGH 4.TFOH 5.ACS 6.TDR 7.WH 8. TEOTW 9.TPOD