#frankly picking up a used copy and just striking out the stuff i dont really need sound like a beautiful catharsis

[old-crabapple-mckinley]

unfocused thoughts on wot book 9: winter's heart

alright. im gonna put this one in the lord of chaos zone on the basis of "mediocre book, very cool ending."

i feel it started better than book 8, but a couple subplots bogged me down into the dirt. but then!!!!!!!!! they did a big thing!!!! very cool, very exciting, made me briefly forget my problems but then once it was over, i remembered it kind of sucked.

alright; lets start with the big plot point in the room

cleansing saidin is fucking awesome. im glad that they did that and i think its really cool how the massive angreal from like book 2 and the statues from book 4 made a come back.

it was great to see rand trust nynaeve so much. i appreciate their relationship, but i have some opinions about the execution of the scene.

i love me a big magic fight. havent seen it since dumai's wells. so so great about the forsaken descending on everyone and the ashaman/aes sedai linking. loved it loved it loved it.

shout out to moghedien dipping out and watching all her buddies get fuckin iced. i love this massive coward, she is the only forsaken that matters

what's the fuckin deal with verin, i wanna know so bad!!!! is she a darkfriend? she compelled the lady in the previous book but here said a captured forsaken could help them?? what is her deal i love her!!!!

some bummers from this sequence:

i wish rand and nynaeve and rand were shown to be better friends. nothing tells me that he actually likes her; he trusts her because she was the wisdom of emond's field, but that's about as much as we got from him. the emotional human parts of their relationship (the big sister vibes, how they've been on this ride together) isn't at the forefront

it also bugs me none of it was from nynaeve's perspective. they way it talks about linking, where nynaeve says "how do you deal with this disgusting feeling all the time?" was so interesting for the first 5 mins, its the 1st time men and women link in the series, but considering how often they talk about the 2 sides of the power, it's kind of a disappointment they dont allow her to comment on touching saidin the way rand experiences saidar

nynaeve passes out halfway through?!?! and cadsuane has to heal her?? foolish choice. shoulda been the 2 of them the whole time. really making nynaeve look like a scrub next to super special awesome rand and his extra beefy boy powers

i wish there was a moment where the cleansing clicked, where nynaeve and rand look at each other and have a moment and see the taint is gone!!!! they did it!! let me see it!!! a moment of euphoria when they do this monumental thing!!!!!

im listening to the audiobook, so im having some issues differentiating the aes sedai rand (and everyone else) has with them. none of them have stood out too much from each other besides alanna, verin, and cadsuane, so it's hard to not think of them as fodder for the forsaken

things overall:

you could cut the whole far madding subplot and nothing would change. stopped the momentum of the story dead in its tracks. nothing would be different. hated it.

dont care about faile getting kidnapped and im emotionally done with the shaido. they should have been routed and finished at dumai's wells, or immediately after when the forsaken got in their business. (poor morgase tho, jesus christ just leave her alone). i do enjoy dark friend subterfuge tho, so the stuff with galina here is at least interesting enough to keep me going. my poor perrin with this crappy storyline.

geez where do i start w/ elayne? the coolest thing was dyelin, where she was waiting to see if she should game for more power, because she really could have made a powerful contender for the throne, but then ultimately landing on elayne's side after the assassination attempt.

didn't really like the dude elayne made guard captain (tho it was nice to see the og black ajah cell from book 2, my girl chesmal!!) i would much rather focus on the darkfriend who killed adeleas than this creepy dude. i wanted more intrigue from people who actually matter. it doesn't feel like good political drama, it just feels like weight

did not like that she immediately got pregnant. that's a big yikes from me. #1 it makes sex have this very consequential nature, which feels super uncomfortable #2 it's been 6 days and people are treating elayne like she's gonna pop at any minute and that's fuckin stupid as hell!!!!!!!! (not a big fan of the rand triad, but it was kind of funny having all of them + birgitte feel elayne and rand bone thru the bond)

everything with mat could have been in the last book. the seanchan are very interesting but keeping track of all this new information is hard, im afraid im gonna forget everything. (im doing the audio book over my commute so i cant really go back to passages) i think mat had the stongest plot overall because things actually happened!

overall- ehhhh meh on this one. im already into book 10 and i know book 11 is a banger so im just holding on until then!