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Random thing I learned, I read way faster on ebook than regular. I can't contribute it all to that, since this past month was crazy busy for me, but considering there was about a week between the other books and about a month between this one, I have to conclude that ebooks are a faster read for me. Now that the random fun fact is out of the way, on to the book! The first thing I want to say is I noticed the pacing problems in this book more than the other three. And by noticed, I mean I flat out wanted to throw the book at a wall in random placed because I was so tired of waiting for things to happen. Then, when the plot did finally decide to show up, it was only around for a few pages or so. It didn't ruin the read for me, but this was probably my least favorite of the books so far, as it felt more like a chore to read at points than it did recreation. One of my big problems up to this point has to be the female characters. We touched on this in my previous thread, but I want to expand on it here. Most to all of the female characters in the books so far do not seem believable to me. They seem more like caricatures of women rather than fully developed characters. I had extremely high hopes for Elaida, but that was quickly squashed during her rebellion. She spent her whole life attaching herself to Andor in order to help with the final battle, then, when it falls apart, she just walks away to completely undermine the Aes Sedai, in order to grab power for herself? What? So because you know that the final battle is coming, you decide to destroy half of your number because you didn't like the leadership? Maybe, just maybe, if she didn't know that Rand was the dragon but figured out he could channel I could understand this, but it seems too egregious a mistake when you know the biggest threat to the world is just around the corner. Especially considering how many greens they take out, who are supposed to be prepared for battle (that confuses me because they should have put up more of a fight, and they seem to be a more important Ajah for when the end comes.) I guess if you're going to make Elaida into a villain that outright and vanilla, at least have the decency to give her the Snidely Whiplash mustache. Along those lines, are all the Aes Sedai just carbon copies of each other? This frustrated me a great deal as well. Sure, they might have similar personality types that are drawn to those Ajahs, but they all can't be clones of each other. I'd like to meet a Red I can relate with, or at least have a Red whose reason for hating men is shown through character development. And where are the Grey Ajah at? I didn't even know that was their color until I got frustrated and looked it up online. Suane actually is much more interesting to me now that she's been stilled, and I'm hoping to see some great character development from her in the next few books. I was also highly satisfied to see I was right about her being stilled, and I still expect her to rally the Aes Sedai to her. But while I'm on the subject of Suan, what in Kelek's tongue was she thinking?!?! After reading through the book and learning about the different societies of channeling women, and thinking about her sending Egwene, Elayne, and Nyneave off to hunt the Black Ajah, I can't help but feel like she did deserve to lose the stole. Sending those three off could very well endanger everything the tower has worked for, and the little amount of trust that they have in the world. Especially considering their little display in front of Bornhold, and Verin's reaction, why would you send them off into the world to cause trouble, whatever results they bring? Min was one of the few exceptions to my frustration with female characters, but the fact that she's mostly impotent and driven along still leaves me dissatisfied. Egwene. The most satisfying moment in the book for me was her having to braid her hair. Everything she thinks about Rand's head being too big and all her frustrations with him all seem to be her projecting her own actions onto him. Having the luxury of getting both their points of view shows Egwene to be the immature little girl that the braids paint her to be. This disappoints me because she seemed to be such a promising character while reading Eye of the World. I still like Elayne. She seems to at least try to be a force for good and decency, and fairly well developed. She also seems to drive the story forward the least though. I won't say that Nyneave isn't well developed. All I will say on her is that she reminds me of my older sister, if my older sister didn't listen to reason, was crazy with rage most of the time, and if my sister wasn't right about just about everything. If anyone needed to be taught how much of a child she is, it's Nynaeve. Faile seemed to me that she was an entirely different person than she was last book. I was very excited for her, but she just frustrated me throughout most of the book. Not that I don't understand where she was coming from, not even that I don't like her, or think she's underdeveloped. I guess I'm just getting a little tired of all the internal squabbling and politics withing the protagonists. Can anybody even try to just get along? Egeanin really excites me. The inner turmoil she's having about her cultural upbringing is fascinating, and she's definitely humanized the Seanchan for me, at least a little. Perrin's story was very interesting, but I felt like it was very much lacking after the Whitecloaks came into the defenses. That seemed extraneous, and there's no real point to having that happen. They didn't contribute to the defenses much, and at the end of the conflict, absolutely nothing had changed. For all I care, the Whitecloaks could have never come to the Two Rivers, and it could've just been Ordeith, or Fain, or Mordeth, whatever you want to call him (I still like MorFain, but I'm a fan of puns) without any of the Whitecloaks. Call me crazy, but between Verin and Alanna, I trust Alanna. There's still something about Verin that just makes me very suspicious. Though I'm curious to see where Verin's talens lie after her comment about healing and being skilled in another area. That was an offhand comment that seemed very important to me. Rand has finally come around, and is now my favorite character. Although I still think he's an idiot for the way he's treating Moiraine. Ok, maybe not an idiot. I finally understand where they are coming from not trusting Aes Sedai, but Moiraine is the exception to that rule. She's more than proven herself, and he could at least listen to her advice, even if he doesn't take it. LAN KEEPS CRACKING JOKES! STOP PROVING ME WRONG! Mat makes me smile. Nuf said. I loved everything about the Aiel, and was glad to learn more about them and their culture. I was also fascinated by their origin. That revelation leads me to believe that the Tinkers are the "remnant of a remnant" that Rand is going to not destroy of the Aiel. Geeze, now that I'm finally writing this, I've forgotten all of the predictions I had while reading through. I certainly didn't see the ending coming. I was dead wrong about the 'lines' coming out of the forsaken. I had thought that was their connection to the true source. It will be interesting to see how Rand interacts with his new teacher. If I think of anything I've left out I'll post it on the comments. I think I lost a lot of my thoughts because I went on vacation last week, and was having so much fun I just plain forgot!