Topic: Wheel of Time Re-read Impressions (Pt. 3 of 11)

[Archelous]

TDR has always been a favorite of mine, because it finally wraps up what the two before it is setting up, which would be Rand proclaiming himself and taking Callandor. The beginning makes it seem it will be quite different from the actual book, which suggests Rand has already a following, and will follow in the steps Logain and Taim did by pushing that procession towards Tear. Early on it suggests that Rand will not be listening to Moiraine, so that throws a twist to the book, as he seemed to take Aes Sedai advice even at the end of book two.

This book, we finally get a taste of Mat's pov, which is always a lot of fun for me at least, but sadly, we get a lot of Perrin too, but it's good Perrin! Not annoying, whiny Perrin. Sadly, this is the last we see of good Perrin, even by the end of the book all I could think was: Ugh, Perrin, why?

The few times we do get to see what Rand is up to during the novel, we find out he's being hunted by a number of things, and one thing I never noticed till this readthrough, is he loses Cloud, which kinda upset me. I liked that horse, though he also discovers how to use Saidin more and more.

Probably the best chapters read are between Thom and Mat, the only one I really enjoyed from Perrin's POV was when he freed the Aielman.

Overall, the end chapters were the best, with Rand claiming Callandor and finally hunting down Ba'alzamon (Ishamael).

Another thing that occured to me, was it was pretty fun reading both Mat and Perrin's reactions to Selene (Lanfear).

I fear I should start ranking these, perhaps when I finish with 11 I'll write a favorite to least favorite ordering.

[Todd]

When I first read TDR I was disappointed, I was never a big fan of Perrin even in the earlier books. He was a bit of a whiner in EotW, and he was tolerable in tGH. The addition of Faile just made Perrin worse.

The Mat and Thom parts were great though, and for me really saved the book.

[Gianaryn]

I wasn't crazy about TDR. It moved a bit slowly (for me), and I had to force myself not to skip over some of the stuff, especially the Perrin chapters. Which is ironic, because in later books, I love Perrin and Faile.

I have to honestly say, I never really bought Siuan's motivation for sending Egwene, Nyneave and Elayne out to hunt the Black Ajah. Here we have Darkfriends who can channel and parade as Aes Sedai, and the Amyrlin Seat is sendinig 3 Accepted after them? Seriously, I just didn't buy it. So they would have expected pursuit from Aes Sedai - there was no way the 13 who ran away knew ALL Aes Sedai, and if she was worried about the "Ageless" look thing, why not send a new-ish Aes Sedai? It always reeked of a plot forcing to me.

And even if she did send them after the 13 in the suspicion that the 13 would hunt Rand, and Supergirls each had a tie to Rand and she wanted to use them to get another string on him, why would she send them alone? Wouldn't you expect them to at least be accompanied by an Aes Sedai or 2?

That was something that sent me up the wall, but I did still enjoy the book.

I've always loved Mat's POV, though he can become a bit much. Honestly, I find myself sympathising more and more with the older female characters like Moirraine and Nyneave - I'd have liked to box Mat's ears for him a time or two! For that matter, box the ears of all 3 of them...