Neon Reads The Wheel of Time

[Dunkum he/him]

8 hours ago, aneonfoxtribute said:

Alright now for a big cluster of thoughts from my reading last night

God I just do NOT care about Sevanna lmao. This is the lowest point of the book so far, I honestly could not care less about what Sevanna is doing. Ever since Couladin died, the Shaido basically became a non-issue. I feel absolutely no threat from them whatsoever lmao. That said I'm still not feeling as deflated when reading as I was at certain points in the last few books lmao. 

I like Cadsuane, she reminds me a lot of Moiraine. I miss Moiraine, when is she coming back (she's NOT DEAD I STILL DON'T BELIEVE IT WE DO NOT HAVE A BODY)

I always love it when we see the opposite side of a common trope. Like, Cadsuane just let Alanna sit there for a while without looking in her direction and then when Alanna made to leave, Cadsuane said "come in". That trope is as old as time, and I love that we saw it from Cadsuane's view. If we were in Alanna's view, we wouldn't have bat an eye at that, we would have thought she just sensed her or something. But we saw in Cadsuane's view that she just had a mirror pointed towards the door. It's always fun when that happens

Oh interesting, Cadsuane has something similar to Mat's medallion that negates use of the Power

Wow really, Cadsuane thinks that Moiraine messed things up with Rand? Damn.

I like Cadsuane, but she IS Aes Sedai - if anything she is MORE Aes Sedai than all the rest put together if that makes sense, and she is definitely of the opinion that people should respect Aes Sedai and do what they say, and that very much includes the Dragon Reborn.

[aneonfoxtribute]

Egwene sure did put the Hall in their place lmao

[The cheeseman Don't you dare go Hollow!]

11 hours ago, aneonfoxtribute said:

Egwene sure did put the Hall in their place lmao

I loved that scene. Egwene as Amyrlin is a great parallel to Rand as the Dragon, except that--in raw power--Egwene isn't nearly so strong.

[Edema Rue she/her]

On 6/12/2023 at 10:24 PM, aneonfoxtribute said:

Egwene sure did put the Hall in their place lmao

Some of these middle books are my absolute favorites just for the Egwene moments.

[aneonfoxtribute]

Yeah I have no idea why people say this book is part of the slog, this is incredible. This is one of the most enjoyable books in the series to me. I suspect I'm going to read much tonight, because I feel like I'm gearing up for a big fight between Rand and the Seanchan

"Let the Seanchan know who had come to destroy them" YEAH RAND THAT'S MY BOY! SO RAW!

Edited June 15, 2023 by aneonfoxtribute

[aneonfoxtribute]

God damn this fight with the Seanchan has been happening across days

[aneonfoxtribute]

What a hell of a battle. I have exactly two thoughts after all of that.

Quote

I AM THE STORM THAT IS APPROOOOOOOOOOOOACHING

PROVOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOKING BLACK CLOUDS IN ISOLATION

I AM RECLAIMER OF MY NAAAAAAAAAAAAAME DRIFTING IN THE OCEAN ALL ALOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONE

And there are no winners, only pain

[The Sovereign]

17 hours ago, aneonfoxtribute said:

"Let the Seanchan know who had come to destroy them" YEAH RAND THAT'S MY BOY! SO RAW!

I did tell you :

On 5/23/2023 at 4:05 PM, The Sovereign said:

If you like seeing the Seanchan get nuked, then Path of Daggers is the book for you... Elayne just gave you a small taste.

"I am the storm."

[aneonfoxtribute]

Ooh Alviarin is a Black Ajah under Mesaana. Did we know this? Elaida really knows how to pick 'em doesn't she

[aneonfoxtribute]

I'm surprised I'm down with a Red Sitter. I thought the Red would all be hateful little bastards, but Pevara doing clandestine nonsense in order to root out the Black Ajah I can get behind

 

Do we know how true the Reds setting up the false Dragons are? I think I was assuming it was true, but I don't recall if we have a reliable source on that.

 

LMFAO I THINK THEY FOUND THE BLACK SISTER OF THE GROUP! God, they all went there to figure out what was happening and they all left finding Black Ajah by complete accident

[Dunkum he/him]

43 minutes ago, aneonfoxtribute said:

I'm surprised I'm down with a Red Sitter. I thought the Red would all be hateful little bastards, but Pevara doing clandestine nonsense in order to root out the Black Ajah I can get behind

 

Do we know how true the Reds setting up the false Dragons are? I think I was assuming it was true, but I don't recall if we have a reliable source on that.

 

LMFAO I THINK THEY FOUND THE BLACK SISTER OF THE GROUP! God, they all went there to figure out what was happening and they all left finding Black Ajah by complete accident

pretty sure the Reds setting up false dragons was explicitly a lie Siuan told - taking advantage of the fact that she could lie again after being stilled. might not have been quite so explicitly stated as I think though.

[aneonfoxtribute]

1 hour ago, Dunkum said:

pretty sure the Reds setting up false dragons was explicitly a lie Siuan told - taking advantage of the fact that she could lie again after being stilled. might not have been quite so explicitly stated as I think though.

Yeah I was reminded on the Discord. It's just been so long that I didn't remember.

[aneonfoxtribute]

I might try to finish tonight. I'll post my thoughts in batches based on chapter, if I have any thoughts.

So Ispan and Adeleas were murdered. Alright, was not expecting that

Does anyone outside of Morgase's party, Seanchan, Children of the Light, and Logain know that Morgase is alive?

CARRIDIN?! GOD DAMN CARRIDIN IS BEING USED AS FURNITURE OKAY! Moridin really is just taking all of the Darkfriends as his playthings lmao

Well he's dead now

Looking at WoT Compendium, the last thing it says about Falion is that she was made prisoner by Nynaeve. What happened in between then and now? Do we know?

[aneonfoxtribute]

OKAY RANDOM EXPLOSION OKAY

Oh damn, Dashiva tried killing Rand. I wonder if it was because of his attack on the Seanchan

Wow, we missed a LOT of things between Rand's POV and Min's. Looks like some Asha'man have started going mad, with Fedwin among them, and Rand captured Fedwin at some point

God damn, Rand gave Fedwin a poisoned drink. Oof. 

Also very interesting how Rand questioned that he was going to kill Narishma, when Narishma has been one of the ones he's hated most. It'll be really interesting if Narishma turns out to be one of the most reliable

[aneonfoxtribute]

MASEMA HAS BEEN MEETING WITH SEANCHAN OH DEAR GOD THAT IS A MATCH MADE IN THE DEEPEST PITS OF HELL! Oh that's very bad. Veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery bad. 

And then in an ENTIRELY UNRELATED EVENT, the Shaido show up. Joy of joys.

God this chapter is just some huge buildup for the next books. This whole book has been huge buildup but this is, like, the most.

And so begins the siege of Tar Valon, may Elaida choke on her own vices

[aneonfoxtribute]

Across the nations the stories spread like spiderweb laid upon spiderweb, and men and women planned the future, believing they knew truth. They planned, and the Pattern absorded their plans, weaving toward the future foretold

The End

of the Eighth Book of

The Wheel of Time

That book was amazing. That's one of the best books in this series

It certainly had less explosive moments than other books, but the explosive moments it did have were top tier and it managed to be far easier to read than the last, like, three books even despite having less explosive events than those books

[The cheeseman Don't you dare go Hollow!]

Winter's Heart is the best of the slog, in my opinion. There's so much great action and a... uh... thing that happens that gave me goosebumps and got me super hyped.

It's great to see someone enjoying The Wheel of Time as much as I did.

[aneonfoxtribute]

1 minute ago, The cheeseman said:

Winter's Heart is the best of the slog, in my opinion. There's so much great action and a... uh... thing that happens that gave me goosebumps and got me super hyped.

It's great to see someone enjoying The Wheel of Time as much as I did.

I hope so, if it's as good as Path of Daggers was I'll be pleased (and it will confirm that the slog is just nonsense). I wasn't enjoying WoT very much for a while there, I kept going because at this point I'm invested and the good moments more than make up for the bad, but I was having a hard time reading the series since at least Fires of Heaven. So I'm glad I'm back to enjoying it wholeheartedly.

[The cheeseman Don't you dare go Hollow!]

1 hour ago, aneonfoxtribute said:

I hope so, if it's as good as Path of Daggers was I'll be pleased (and it will confirm that the slog is just nonsense). I wasn't enjoying WoT very much for a while there, I kept going because at this point I'm invested and the good moments more than make up for the bad, but I was having a hard time reading the series since at least Fires of Heaven. So I'm glad I'm back to enjoying it wholeheartedly.

Honestly yeah. I think a lot of people hate/say the slog is a thing because not a ton happens over the course of about six books to move the plot forward. However, there is a ton of character work, which is one of my two favorite parts of a book. The second being worldbuilding which the slog has in plenty.

On another note, one thing that I encountered the first time I read The Wheel of Time was a feeling of loss once I finished the series. Now that I'd finished it, I didn't know what else to read because WoT took up so much of my time and my life. For months, it was the only thing me and my middle brother talked about. What I really missed from The Wheel of Time that I wasn't getting from other books I tried was the depth of character, world, and plot. So, I suggest that when you finish A Memory of Light - best book ever written, btw - that you pick up a similar series like A Song of Ice and Fire or The Witcher. Those are both excellent, however, ASOIAF is intensely brutal. More so than anything I've read except maybe the Broken Empire trilogy.
Which you shouldn't read unless you love brutally psychopathic protagonists.

[aneonfoxtribute]

Just now, The cheeseman said:

Honestly yeah. I think a lot of people hate/say the slog is a thing because not a ton happens over the course of about six books to move the plot forward. However, there is a ton of character work, which is one of my two favorite parts of a book. The second being worldbuilding which the slog has in plenty.

Honestly, I wouldn't even say the plot progression in this book is insignificant. Not a lot happened, yeah, but what did happen was definitely major. A lot has progressed.

I was always holding off on reading other supermassive series until I finished Wheel of Time. ASoIaF and Witcher are both on that list, along with Malazan and Cradle. I'd say that I'd read ASoIaF next because of FF16 hype but who knows when I'm gonna finish Wheel of Time, by then the hype will have probably died down for me

Oh by the way, I'm not gonna take another long hiatus between books. I'm not going into it immediately but that's only because I don't want to interrupt Secret Project 3. WoT will be the next thing I read after SP3

[Dunkum he/him]

didn't realize all of that stuff happened in Path of Daggers. the main thing I remember about it is spending the entire book wondering if maybe Mat was dead.

[aneonfoxtribute]

2 hours ago, Dunkum said:

didn't realize all of that stuff happened in Path of Daggers. the main thing I remember about it is spending the entire book wondering if maybe Mat was dead.

To be fair, he's completely MIA. Like nobody even mentions what could have happened to Mat. I'm almost thinking thar the next time we see him, he'll be in Seanchan hands and meet this Daughter of the Ten Moons or whatever.

Also question, do the Brandon books introduce any new important characters?

Edited June 21, 2023 by aneonfoxtribute

[The cheeseman Don't you dare go Hollow!]

20 hours ago, aneonfoxtribute said:

Also question, do the Brandon books introduce any new important characters?

A couple, I think. But important in small ways, like pushing snow down a hill to start avalanche. It's been a while since I've read the last three, so I'm not totally sure.

Spoiler

It's... the Daughter of the Nine Moons, neon. *sigh* semantics...

 

[aneonfoxtribute]

Quote

It's... the Daughter of the Nine Moons, neon. *sigh* semantics...

I didn't remember lol

[Edema Rue she/her]

On 6/20/2023 at 10:40 AM, The cheeseman said:

Winter's Heart is the best of the slog, in my opinion.

Holy fishes dude. I’m glad you at least enjoyed it, it was probably my least favorite book in the whole series. I quite enjoyed knife of dreams (idk if that one is part of the official slog, but of those middle ish ones it was my favorite).