The Official Wheel of Time Thread (UNMARKED SPOILERS FOR ENTIRE SERIES)

[Kantor]

On the last novel in particular:

• On the whole, I was very impressed. I enjoyed it a great deal.
• Logain's moment where he stops to help the children instead of recovering the sa'angreal nearly brought a tear to my eye.
• Lan's battle with Demandred was great. Gawyn and Galad's battles, on the other hand, were pointless.
• I was actually a little sad about Demandred. He and Ishamael are the only two Forsaken I've ever sympathised with. And he never got his showdown with Lews Therin.
• WHY THE HELL did we hear literally nothing about Demandred in Shara? Could he not have replaced 500 pages of Elayne bickering with the Kin or 3000 pages of Perrin pining for Faile with some of that?
• It would have been cool if Ishamael had realised that the Dark One was misleading him the whole time, allied with Rand and turned on him. But hey, that's a different story.
• The Flame of Tar Valon came out of literally nowhere and I don't see why Egwene needed to die for it
• Rand's rebirth makes little to no sense, but hey, I'm just glad he's alive. So is he going to go all Jain Farstrider and wander the world now, ignoring all of his friends and his three lovers?
• Mat really came into his own in this novel. Major respect.
• Mazrim being a leading Darkfriend was so obvious it was kind of sad. I was hoping for it to be subverted.
• I don't really see why Moiraine was so essential to the victory. She didn't really do anything. She kind of helped break up the tension between Egwene and Rand and then just acted as a pool of saidar for a few seconds, which any female channeler could have done.
• Seriously why was Alanna even in this series? She has done nothing of any significance ever.
• Perrin didn't make me want to punch him in the face, which is a huge improvement. I silently cheered when he snapped Lanfear's neck.

On the Dark One:

• I think this got a little bit muddled.
• Rand says a couple of books earlier that the Pattern is balanced, and that the Dark One needs to be killed to restore that balance.
• But then he sees that the Dark One is the balance. So I suppose he was just completely wrong the first time?
• But then why is there a bubble of protection and light around Rand that unspoils food?
• I posted this on reddit, and the most satisfying answer I saw was that the Dark One does provide balance to the world when he is securely imprisoned, but when the Bore was open, or the seals weak, he had far too much corrupting influence over the world. That influence needed to be reduced, but not eliminated.