History YMMV / Thewheeloftime

** Gawyn is disliked for several reasons. He has an IrrationalHated of Rand, believing that Rand [[spoiler:killed Gawyn's mother]] based solely on rumor and refusing to believe multiple people telling him Rand is innocent. Gawyn's also noted for his supposedly rigid concept of morality, even though he repeatedly joins the worst die in various conflicts and often proves an unreliable ally to people who trust him.

%%* TheScrappy: Several female characters, primarily the manipulative, anger-equals-love Faile and the obnoxiously imperious Cadsuane. Hated males include the aggressively ignorant and finger-pointing Gawyn.

* EvilIsSexy: Very few of the Forsaken are described as physically ugly (the primary exceptions being Aginor and Balthamel, who suffered from AgeWithoutYouth) but Ishamael (both in his original body and as Moridin), Demandred, Lanfear, Graendal, Rahvin, and Aran'gar in particular are all explicitly noted to be attractive. Lanfear in particular is noted by many characters of both genders to be the most beautiful woman they've ever seen.

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: Nowadays, ''The Wheel of Time'' is considered by many to be a horrendously cliched example of how all fantasy books are too long, with series that go on seemingly without end and yet little happens in them. When the first volume was published, in 1991, most fantasy novels were actually quite short, and/or tended to be trilogies or quintets at the very longest. However, he inspired so many other writers to [[{{Padding}} pad out their volumes]] and stretch their stories over ten or twelve volumes that by the 2000's he tended to get lumped in with those he inspired, often cited as the UrExample, but rarely acknowledged as the man who started the trend.

* BrokenBase: Mat in the books co-written by Brandon Sanderson is either hilarious or acting totally out of character, depending on who you ask. Big points of contention: the "character sheets" in ''The Gathering Storm'' and the [[spoiler:letter to Elayne]] in ''Towers of Midnight.''

* TooBleakStoppedCaring:
** As Rand descended into insanity, it became increasingly hard to root for him. The people who tried to manipulate him into turning out for the better, however, were not much better on their own. This gets better in the last 3 books, first for the latter, then for the former.
** While the villains are often irredeemable monsters, it can be hard to find enjoyment in seeing them get comeuppance as (especially for female villains) it often comes in the form of a FateWorseThanDeath, with them typically getting enslaved, tortured, raped and/or {{Mind Rape}}d.

* HesJustHiding: [[spoiler:Moiraine]] got this in spades. [[spoiler:The belief was vindicated.]]

* MemeticBadass: Bela is the Dark One! Bela is the Creator! Bela killed Asmodean!

* TheScrappy: Several female characters, primarily the manipulative, anger-equals-love Faile and the obnoxiously imperious Cadsuane. Hated males include the aggressively ignorant and finger-pointing Gawyn.

** Tuon is another who tends to provoke strong reactions one way or the other. A big factor is whether or not one can get past the fact that she's the heir apparent to a militaristic empire that treats a major segment of its population (female channellers) as subhumans who need to enslaved and essentially {{brainwashed}} not just for the good of society but for their ''own'' good - and the fact that Tuon herself not only defends this state of affairs but is personally involved in it as one of the slave-handlers. She does have a lot of good qualities otherwise (including what some would call the best-written romance plot in the series, just by virtue of being the only one that's not LoveAtFirstSight, though YMMV on that too; see below), but it's understandable that some people find the ''damane'' situation very difficult to overlook, and grow frustrated that the series wants to present her as an overall sympathetic character despite this background.

* DamselScrappy: Elayne, Egwene and Nynaeve are popular choices. Especially Elayne and Nynaeve, because they spend a lot of time getting into trouble and are positively ''bitchy'' to the people who pull them out, particularly Mat. Having said that, other characters eventually call them out on it, so one could argue that their irritating behavior was intentional.

** In Book 2, Nynaeve took charge of rescuing Egwene from being a [[FateWorseThanDeath damane.]] While Egwene was grateful at the time, she quickly forgot or never realized how important Nynaeve was to that rescue and spent the next several books rebelling against Nynaeve's authority, often for no good reason. In Book 5, she used ''Tel'aran'rhiod'' to [[KickTheDog pull a nasty, mean-spirited trick on Nynaeve]] (which greatly contributed the BreakTheHaughty storyline Nynaeve went through in Book 5) solely to cover up Egwene's own misdeeds. Like the Mat example above, Egwene has never apologized to Nynaeve for this, nor been made to see that she needs to.

** See {{Doorstopper}} on the main page. One of the principal reasons for splitting ''A Memory Of Light'' into three volumes was that as one book it would be literally unprintable. This is funny, because as quoted at the top of the page, Robert Jordan had said there would be one more book even if Tor had to invent a new binding format. Turns out they literally ''would'' have to invent a new binding format -- and wouldn't you know it, they don't want to, so three books it is.

* MyRealDaddy: While this series has millions of devoted readers who have read and re-read the series many times over, it also has its more disgruntled fans who grew frustrated with Jordan's pacing, needless side-plots and additional characters that added nothing to the story, not to mention his penchant for going overboard describing dresses and having characters argue and deliberate the same points multiple times, and had given up on the series in disgust. These sorts of fan think the last three books, with Brandon Sanderson as a co-writer, were a great improvement and that Sanderson has a better grasp of pacing, dialog, humor and action than Jordan did. Meanwhile, fans who loved Jordan's writing style will tell you that silly humor and brainless action are all Sanderson brought to the series. See OnlyTheCreatorDoesItRight below.

* OnlyTheCreatorDoesItRight: Brandon Sanderson's name is almost a swear word to some of Jordan's more devoted fans, who reacted as if Creator/MichaelBay had been hired to complete the works of Shakespeare. To a reader of this mindset, Sanderson is a stupid child trying to drive his father's car, and all but destroying it in the process, shoving Jordan's insightful narrative and solid character development to the side for silly jokes and action scenes. In particular they detest the way Sanderson portrayed Mat Cauthon, but in general they tend to suggest that any part of the last three books they don't personally like had to have been the parts Sanderson wrote, while if they did enjoy any of them it must have been from Jordan's manuscript. Even Sanderson's original works aren't immune from their ire, with a majority of them claiming that his books are utter garbage. Chances are very high that any author chosen would have been subjected to more or less the same treatment, with only the specifics changed. There is another branch of the fandom that sees this all rather differently (see MyRealDaddy above).

* ShrugOfGod: According to Sanderson, there were certain plot developments (most notably who or what Nakomi is and how Rand was able to light his pipe after his rebirth, as mentioned above) that Jordan's notes explicitly stated were not to be explained.

* GrowingTheBeard: The first novel can be read as a fine standalone adventure, but it's often said that its first few sequels (particularly ''The Dragon Reborn'') are what really got fans of the series hooked.

* MyRealDaddy: While this series has millions of devoted readers who have read and re-read the series many times over, it also has its more disgruntled fans who grew frustrated with Jordan's pacing, needless side-plots and additional character that added nothing to the story, not to mention his penchant for going overboard describing dresses and having characters argue and deliberate the same points multiple times, and had given up on the series in disgust. These sorts of fan think the last three books, with Brandon Sanderson as a co-writer, were a great improvement and that Sanderson has a better grasp of pacing, dialog, humor and action than Jordan did. Meanwhile, fans who loved Jordan's writing style will tell you that silly humor and brainless action are all Sanderson brought to the series. See OnlyTheCreatorDoesItRight below.

** Faile's capture and captivity by the Shaido; it lasts for three books, during which we get constant repeats of Faile and the other ''gai'shain'' being abused by their captors.

** Faile's capture and captivity by the Shaido; it lasts for three books, during which we get constant repeats of Faile and the other 'gai'shain'' being abused by their captors.

** Faile's capture by the Shaido. Elayne's political plot in the later books, while arguably important to the plot as a whole, drags on far longer than it should.

** While the villains are often irredeemable monsters, it can be hard to find enjoyment in seeing them get comeuppance as it often comes in the form of a FateWorseThanDeath, with them typically getting enslaved, tortured, raped and/or {{Mind Rape}}d.

* WhatMeasureIsANonBadass: Among a cast of badasses, most with one supernatural magic power to invoke or another, and the rest firmly in BadassNormal territory, Min, despite being thrown into death's jaws quite a lot, falls very short. She tries to remedy this by having Thom teach her the art of throwing knives, which she picks up quickly, but she's still little-to-no help (and in one very important case, a dramatic hindrance) against almost all of the enemies she comes up against. Her fans tend to point out that this is somewhat unfair to hold against her, since despite her lack of conventional strength, she's still a very important character.

* AuthorsSavingThrow:
** The last four books feature a drastic acceleration in the plot, after the four books preceding them were widely criticized for moving too slowly. Jordan himself admitted ''Crossroads of Twilight'', which is pretty much universally considered the worst book in the series, was a failed experiment. Of course, the rapid increase in plot developments after that book may have had something to do with Jordan's diagnosis with a rare (and eventually fatal) blood disorder as well. In any case, by ''Knife of Dreams'' and especially by ''The Gathering Storm'' (which, unlike the two volumes that followed it, had more of its prose written by Jordan than by Sanderson), the pace of the plot ramps up massively.
** ''The Fires of Heaven'' features Thom and a minor character acting like they've never met before, when they actually have. In the next book, Thom explains that he figured she was acting like she didn't know him for her own reasons, so he played along. Though funnily enough, several fans have said that given the large cast, they never would have noticed the mistake if Jordan himself hadn't pointed it out.

* FunnyAneurysmMoment: An out-of-universe example; in Jordan's dust jacket biographies, it always said he intended to keep writing "until they nail shut his coffin". Robert Jordan [[{{Determinator}} continued to say this]] after he found out that he was terminally ill.

* TheScrappy: Several female characters, primarily the manipulative, anger-equals-love Faile and the obnoxiously imperious Cadsuane.

%%* IdiotPlot:

* WhatMeasureIsANonBadass: Among a cast of badasses, most with one supernatural magic power to invoke or another, and the rest firmly in BadassNormal territory, Min, despite being thrown into death's jaws quite a lot, falls very short. She tries to remedy this by having Thom teach her the art of [[KnifeNut throwing knives]], which she picks up quickly, but she's still little-to-no help (and in one very important case, a dramatic hindrance) against almost all of the enemies she comes up against. Her fans tend to point out that this is somewhat unfair to hold against her, since despite her lack of conventional strength, she's still a very important character.

* UncannyValley: Myrddraal are ''just'' human looking enough to make their inhuman features (particularly the lack of eyes, but also the way they move) exceptionally disturbing.

%%* UnpopularPopularCharacter: Mat, in spades.

** ''The Fires of Heaven'' features Thom and a minor character acting like they've never met before, when they actually have. In the next book, Thom explains that he figured she was acting like she didn't know him for her own reasons, so he played along. Though funnily enough, several fans have said that given the LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters, they never would have noticed the mistake if Jordan himself hadn't pointed it out.

** ''Crossroads Of Twilight'', the tenth book of the series, is the worst part of the series if you believe the [[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/B000FFJRI6/sr=8-1/qid=1187882157/ref=cm_cr_dp_all_helpful/104-1520169-6111945?ie=UTF8&n=283155&qid=1187882157&sr=8-1#customerReviews reviews at Amazon]]. The action consists of the same two days from the point of view of every tenth character we've ever met... that is to say, LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters.

** In Book 2, Nynaeve took charge of rescuing Egwene from being a [[FateWorseThanDeath damane.]] While Egwene was grateful at the time, she quickly forgot or never realized how important Nynaeve was to that rescue and spent the next several books rebelling against Nynaeve's authority, often for no good reason. In Book 5, she used ''Tel'aran'rhiod'' to [[KickTheDog pull a nasty, mean-spirited trick on Nynaeve]] (which greatly contributed the BreakTheHaughty storyline Nynaeve went through in Book 5) [[MoralDissonance solely to cover up Egwene's own misdeeds.]] Like the Mat example above, Egwene has never apologized to Nynaeve for this, nor been made to see that she needs to.

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: Some of the changes made to the characters in the TV Series have irritated or disgusted various fans. The biggest examples are the changes to Mat's character and Perrin being already married.