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I've finally started consulting the Wikipedia pages for these books that I'm reviewing that I finished a few weeks ago, and so I can say with certainty that this is the one where Rand runs away and we know that he's feeling really angsty and going through some shit but also we're following other characters in the meantime, so we don't have to deal with all the personal growth that takes place during this book directly. At this point in the series I think Perrin has started to grow on me, awoo, but Mat is as annoying as ever because all he ever wants to do is run away sans the personal growth bit. The girls go off to do their thing but they have no idea what they're doing, and it's a wonder they survive. It's a wonder any of them survive, really. How did this series not end on Book 1?

This book has a cool climax with a cool sword that is depicted on the front of the book, and we get to meet the Aiel, who are fucking badass and oh so very different and hard to understand, something that will brought up every single time we see the Aiel again in this series, which will be a lot. Have you heard about their sense of humor??? And their sense of honor??? What could it all mean??? So weird!!!

This book has a lot of Loial in it, which is good because Loial is great and Ogier are great and if I could just have a Wheel of Time spinoff series about Loial and other Ogier that would be great. When I was younger I recall this being my favorite book of the series because it's adventure after adventure after adventure, and also it has a lot of Loial, have I mentioned that I like Loial a lot?

Like Eye of the World, I finished this one weeks ago as well, and apparently all I remember is Loial. The small-town teens turned adventurers are still bad at communicating and in denial about what they are and the boys hate being reminded that they are ta'veren whose fates are guided by the Pattern and who twist the Pattern around themselves whether they like it or not. But Loial loves to remind them of this, and I love Loial, so I derive some crude satisfaction from this.

I think this is the one Rand uses a [redacted] but totally [redacted] so [redacted]? That was great I loved that part.

I started reading the first book of the Wheel of Time series back when I was an internet teen with an internet crush on an internet guy with the username Lews Therin Telemon on internet forums and I thought it would be cool to like the same things he liked, or something. After several months of a global pandemic and general disaster I thought it'd be fun to get back into them as a goof or something, but joke's on me because a month and a half later, I'm still with it.

Anyway, what am I going to say about this ~NYT #1 bestselling epic fantasy whatever~ that hasn't already been said? There's a lot of neat stuff in the WoT mythology, and also a lot of eyerolly cisheteronormative stuff, and all the baby teen characters in this book are very annoying and bad at communicating with one another, but like, whatever. There is little enough excitement in my life hiding out from a respiratory virus and everything else that I am ready to gobble up these innocent little babies' adventures running from and fighting Trollocs and Myrddraal and Darkfriends, even though a whole lot of their choices are extremely SMDFH. (Like, all that shit they went through in Shadar Logoth??? Totally unnecessary but the Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills I guess!!!)

Look, the truth is I finished this book several weeks ago at this point and I'm on Lord of Chaos now and it hasn't all started to blur together quite yet but I don't have much to say about this other than that my trash goblib self was apparently ready to tear through it again after not thinking about it for over a decade. I'm not saying anyone else should read it and I probably would have 0 interest if it were new to me at this point, but for someone who made it to Book 9 or something in the long-ago past, it's been some mighty decent comfort food. Stay tuned for more "reviews" where I don't remember what happens in the books but do complain about the main characters a lot!