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The Great Reread - Knife of Dreams


Shivertongue

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THIS THREAD WILL MOST LIKELY CONTAIN SPOILERS.

Discussion thread for the Great Reread, pertaining to book 11, Knife of Dreams. This is book number eleven. Yes. Number ELEVEN! This is the last of the books written by the original author, Robert Jordan. Are you going to disgrace his memory by starting so late in the series? I thought not. You have obviously read everything that came before, and maybe even New Spring as well. Good job!

For information and to join The Great Reread, please go here.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I just finished the part where Nynaeve tricks Lan into riding across the whole of the borderlands. I can imagine the letter being sent out goes something like this (of course I did have help, I only took one or two creative liberties)

"The Golden Crane flies for Tarmon Gai'don.

From World's End to Tarwin's Gap.

Will the Uncrowned King ride alone?"

Anyway, that part has been the most powerful part of the whole series for me (so far).

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  • 1 month later...
  • 4 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

I'm now in the part later in the book that is about Egwene. She mentions in passing going to a lesson with Kiyoshi, an Aes Sedai - who I always and forever will picture as Avatar Kyoshi. Except that I doubt we'll ever see her again. Oh well.

I know Egwene gets a lot of hate in the fandom. People think she's too arrogant and full of herself. But you know what? I'm gonna disagree. That was true at the beginning of the story, before she had cause. But she has brought about success after brilliant success against incredible odds using her wits, will, courage, guts, and a large body of information that she assimilated from Siuan in an incredibly short amount of time. Arrogant? Considering what she accomplishes, she's downright humble.

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Faile has been rescued. I repeat, Faile has been rescued. And that means we're mostly done in The Sucky Countries. Woohoo!

Which countries am I talking about? Why, Amadicia, Murandy, and Ghealdan, of course. Not only do the countries suck, but all my least favorite parts of the series take place there. So I'm glad they will no longer be featured in any significant way moving forward.

Also, I forgot that Faile and her retainers have to betray their Brotherless protectors in order to protect Perrin from them. That...*really* sucks. Oh, it's great writing—I mean that it sucks for the characters.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm now in the part later in the book that is about Egwene. She mentions in passing going to a lesson with Kiyoshi, an Aes Sedai - who I always and forever will picture as Avatar Kyoshi. Except that I doubt we'll ever see her again. Oh well.

I know Egwene gets a lot of hate in the fandom. People think she's too arrogant and full of herself. But you know what? I'm gonna disagree. That was true at the beginning of the story, before she had cause. But she has brought about success after brilliant success against incredible odds using her wits, will, courage, guts, and a large body of information that she assimilated from Siuan in an incredibly short amount of time. Arrogant? Considering what she accomplishes, she's downright humble.

One of the biggest concerns I have with her is that she feels she has the right to judge others while not applying it to herself.

And she didn't so much as manoeuvre herself tactfully as she got everything handed to her. She wouldn't even have the lawful right to the Amrylin chair if the Salidar rebels hadn't tried to use her as a puppet. She's intelligent, there's no doubt about that, but she also feels like she's entitled to these things, like they should be handed to her. Rand, Mat, and Perrin all hated being called lords but she embraced "Mother."

She takes things for granted, lies to her friends, and feels exhilarated when she steps on her closest friends' shoulders - I can't remember the scene verbatim but it had something to do with Egwene humiliating Nynaeve and feeling happy about it, not guilty that she'd just hurt someone that had looked after her in their youth. And she feels this need to constantly compete with Nynaeve despite the fact that Nynaeve is older and more mature, stronger in the Power, and she followed Nynaeve's advice in the past so why suddenly reject it all when she's made her equal? Egwene is content with becoming more immature the more power she's granted.

Another time was when Siuan came to rescue her and Egwene just said, "I don't trust you any more." Well, sorry that Siuan has feelings and cares about you Egwene, and, you know, when you stopped responding in the Dream World she got worried and feared the worst? Nooo, just be a complete cow about it.

She hasn't developed since the start of the series. Maybe she's more world educated but she's still childish and prone to making rash decisions often with poor consequences. And she still regards men without any worth - her treatment of Gawyn is ridiculous. She still has a lot of her old prejudices and can't see they're faults or doesn't want to fix them like every other character in the books has or is trying to do.

There's also her treatment of Rand. At the end of the Great Hunt, when he almost died, she abandoned him to recuperate alone. But who stayed behind? Min; a girl that hardly knew Rand, understood he was the Dragon, that he could channel and would likely go mad and kill her, and yet she stayed while Egwene, a childhood friend and "to-be", fled.

Which also shows she's a coward, especially when we see her thoughts in The Shadow Rising when she's telling Elayne in the privacy of her thoughts that Elayne can't have him. I was glad when Nynaeve confronted Elayne about him being the Dragon and she showed that she was still willing to be with him; that was a much needed middle finger to Egwene.

She constantly talks about how Rand is promised to her in Eye of the World - becoming jealous when there's even the hint of another girl in Rand's encounters and yet she went off and practically tongue wrestled Aram (that hypocrisy) - and then when she realises he's the Dragon she doesn't want anything to do with him any more.

Oh, and while we're talking about Rand, remember how Elaida trussed him up in a box intending to imprison him until Tarmon Gai'don? The very thing that even Egwene said was horrible and then tried to do exactly the same?

She thinks that every thought that comes out of her mouth is flawless and even when she's proven wrong she'll skirt the issue and find some way to ennoble herself again, instead of admitting she's wrong.

While re-reading I noticed that most things Egwene thinks or says just annoy me, and then I realised she isn't really unique, she's just a pastiche of all the annoying aspects of her culture and traits that other characters have grown out of or are trying to alter about themselves for the better.

tl;dr: Egwene is a terrible character. Well written and realistic? Yes.

Edited by Lyrebon
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I finished last night.

First, let me say that the chapter where Karede rides into the camp of the Band is a triumph. His misconceptions are hilarious. But I also love the fulfillment of his tender relationship with Tuon. That she reciprocates his feelings to at least some degree does her great credit.

Actually, I enjoyed that chapter a lot more than the battle that followed it. What is happening to me? Am I getting old?

Anyway, great book. I find it worthy to stand as the last work of one of the true greats of the genre. Oh, I know that the final three are his work too, but you know what I mean.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Halfway through the prologue and I keep waiting for the bits that I remember streeeeeeetching out for evvvvvvvvvvvvver on my first read of the last few books, and other than the stuff from Faile's viewpoint in book 10 I'm yet to find it. I feel that the pacing reading the books straight through is much better than I thought it was in comparison to reading each book as it came out (this is my first reread since the one I did for when book 9 came out).

When you are waiting 4 or 5 years for a book nothing much seems to happen in it but if you are reading a book every two weeks and can go straight to the next the pacing seems perfect!

So looking forward to next month, I'm a little behind where I wanted to be for my reread but having 2 and a half weeks off before the book comes out I'm sure I'll have time to be able to finish for the 8th!

Only two days off once it comes out before I'm back to work tho, so I'll need to ensure I do nothing but read!

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Just finished Knife of Dreams. I find during my re-read I am always reading just so I can get to certain parts in the book. They aren`t necessarily huge parts just scenes I really enjoyed, when I am reading I sometimes flip ahead to see how long it will be before coming to that scene and if I should go to sleep or try to get their. I read every word and can`t skip pages as I`m a little OCD so I just scan ahead and come back to read where I was.

This had me read the first few books rather fast cause I just wanted to read the scene when Mat was in the tower and defeated Gawyn and Galad with the quarterstaff, I thought it was much earlier than when it was and kept reading to get there. Same thing happened in this book, I wanted to see the scene with Kadere in the camp because he was just SO wrong aboot his assumptions and shocked when he realized mat was just gonna let him take Tuon with him.

Now I have to pace myself as I only have 2 books left and still an entire motnh to read them. Luckily I have these forums to occupy me in between books for a day or two.

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*snip for brevity*

tl;dr: Egwene is a terrible character. Well written and realistic? Yes.

Sorry for the late reply, I've been a bit busy lately. It's true that Egwene has her flaws. She wouldn't be realistic if she didn't. However, IMO many of the character traits that you despise in her are the very qualities that have allowed her to succeed as the Amyrlin Seat. The Amyrlin needs pride and insufferable self-assurance; she needs to be at least a little conniving. She needs to browbeat even the people she loves and that love her. That speaks volumes about Aes Sedai in general, and as Rand often thinks, for better or worse, Egwene has become Aes Sedai to her toes.

She did not ask to be the Amyrlin Seat. She didn't want it, at first, but they forced it on her. It would have been so easy for her to just sit back and take what she was handed by the Hall. They offered her a life of luxury without responsibility, and there are a lot of people in her position who would have reveled in that. Responsibility weighs heavy on even the strongest shoulders.

But she didn't choose to take it from them. She sucked it up and decided to be a leader - a difficult and lonely path. And she succeeded brilliantly, with her brains and her guts and a fair amount of help from her friends. There are a lot of people who would have failed to do what she did.

I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the notion that anything was just handed to her. She had to fight for every inch against the rebel hall. She endured an incredibly harsh regime of daily beatings, manual labor, and humiliation in the Tower, and she rose above it. When the seanchan attacked, she marshaled an army of novices and fought them more effectively than any of the other Aes Sedai, despite being full of forkroot. She proved herself in the eyes of every Aes Sedai that tested her, so that, when Elaida was taken, they felt that Egwene was the best candidate to replace her.

Yes, they handed her the Amyrlin Seat. But she had to prove herself worthy of it first. Otherwise they simply would have chosen someone else, someone who had become an Aes Sedai the normal way, someone who wasn't a child. Once Elaida was out of the way, both rebels and Tower would have rallied behind almost anyone. They chose Egwene, because Egwene is awesome. :D

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