If I've read 1500 pages into a series and it hasn't "started getting good" then there's something wrong with the series, in my honest opinion. If an author cannot produce an incentive for me to feel excited after two massive novels and keep me tied to the series, he has ultimately failed. I see a lot of people making the same defense for this and others series but for me its as simple as this; if a series doesn't start good and draw me in at all, I won't stick around and keep reading simply out of courtesy or the hope that one day, a worthwhile novel might emerge somewhere in the line. Same with TV shows, if seasons 1 and 2 aren't any good, I simply don't want to watch them.

I think the fact of the matter is that I suffer from a two-fold problem here; I never liked Jordan's style or setting at all, and I think I simply grew tired of High Fantasy along the way.

Well, it's up to you, but you're the one missing out. The final trilogy, especially, is absolutely outstanding.

Though if you were getting bored by books 1 and 2, you would never have been able to sit through Book 10.

I would have liked to have Faile actually die.  I think Perrins character deserved to suffer for being so lame

I forgot how they had built Moraine up to be the savior of the world.  You are right, all she did was ease tensions between Egwene and Rand, which I guess is the part where she saved the world... 

Seriously, the Shara thing was Awesome and should have been explored earlier.  Instead of pointless plot threads about Perrin losing his wife, for three freaking books, should have had Perrin do something significant, like go to Shara.  Then, maybe people would like him...  Seriously, Perrin didn't even do that much wolfish stuff in the final book.  The wolves just kind of did their own thing...  Also, since walking on a twig in the blight can kill you... how did the wolves get to shayol ghul?  

The flame of tar valon was weird, but I do think Egwene's death was one of the highlights of the series.  Also, if you think about it, she is the only original character to die of the ones that fled Edmonds field.  Her death helped make the battle real, but others should have died as well.  Not that scary of a last battle if almost all of your main characters survive it...

About the dark one... There are some aspects of how it was handled that I thought worked really well.  The fact that the dark one is needed to balance the wheel makes sense, but then the opposite would need to be true as well, the dragon would need to always be.  The dragon is tied to the wheel and is reborn, but he dies.  If one force is needed for balance and can't be killed, wouldn't the same be true for the opposite force?  Perhaps it is implied that the creater is that force, but uses the dragon as his tool?  

Also, I don't understand how Rand could remember the dark one being vulnerable to being killed before, but not remember why he didn't kill the dark one.  

But as avatar of the creator his purpose was accomplished.  If Rand had stayed around, he would upset the balance of power in the world.  He was way too powerful, especially with his ties to Mat, Perrin, and Elayne, he would essentially be ruling the world.  

Besides, in order to truly make his act of defeating the dark one monumentous, sacrifice was needed.  The way the story is written, that sacrifice was that of Egwene... but that isn't nearly as powerful as if he had sacrificed himself.  Fact is, from the 8 original characters that left edmonds field in the first book, only one died... 

I made this Sporcle quiz on who killed or otherwise defeated each member of the Forsaken. Give it a try!

http://www.sporcle.com/games/Harsalan/wheel-of-time-deaths-of-the-forsaken

Well, none of the people from Emond's Field really had any reason to die. Not even Egwene.

Nynaeve and Moiraine were safe in Shayol Ghul. Nobody could really harm them there.

Mat's luck would certainly protect him.

Perrin would achieve nothing through his death; he spends most of the book in Tel'aran'rhiod anyway.

Lan surviving a Sheathing the Sword move is a huge inspiration for all of his troops and pushes them onwards.

Thom... okay, Thom didn't really do anything in that series after Eye of the World except occasionally go on sentry duty and help to rescue Moiraine. I was hoping that some huge secret about him would come out - like, he was Jain Farstrider or something - and that would make him significant, but that didn't really happen. As it was, he spend the Last Battle sitting on a rock watching Shayol Ghul.

Rand deserved his rest after everything he had done, and he was pretty specifically told that he would survive. Plus, the fact that he was expecting death makes his survival far more powerful than his death.

Egwene... she could have woven that Flame without killing herself. But if Gawyn had to die, then Egwene had to go with him.

But Mat gave half his luck away, or something like that...  I think Mat dying at the hands of Padan Fain might have given more credence to that plot thread.  Plus, I just can't picture Mat living with the seanchan for the rest of his life...

Perrin didn't achive much by living either... I guess he killed lanfear...

Lan could have inspired his troops by just killing demandred though, somebody else could have brought demandreds head up to inspire the troops more, didn't have to be lan.  

I did like Thom's casual dispatchment of darkfriends at the mouth of the cave though.  I got a good chuckle out of it.  

I don't know if Rand actually expected to die though, from the ending anyway.  It seems like he had planned on switching bodies.  I mean, the ex damane and him seemed to have planned out a way for him to leave without anybody else knowing.  At least a part of him was planning on living.  

I'm fine with Egwene dying, only problem was the flame of tar valon was kind of out of nowhere.  And what is up with it making everything crystal?  

How about this. What do you guys think of how the roles of woman and men were handled in this series? Jordan got a lot of flack for his treatment of women, do you agree or disagree? why?

Well, especially early on in the series, there was something fishy going on. He appeared to think that women did nothing but complain about men the moment they were outside of the company of a man. Nynaeve was genuinely unbearable around book 5 when she would just whine about Thom and Juilin all hours of the day.

He certainly improved a lot towards the end of the series, though.

Also, he does show quite a few matriarchal societies. Andor's monarch is always female; Far Madding bans men from being merchants; Altara has some creepy female-on-male domestic violence overtones; Seanchan has not seen an Emperor for 900 years. I'm not really sure what he was trying to get at here.

I think he was getting a lot of flack at the beginning and started creating societies where woman dominate.  One issue that I think kind of exemplifies Jordans view of woman in the series is the difference between how men and women use the one power.  

Women gain access to the one power by submitting to it, while men gain access by wrestling control of it.