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One of the things Jordan does really well is interrogate how information spreads, is warped and misinterpreted: Very rarely do people have an accurate understanding of what is going on.

Mostly I remember this novel being about the Aiel, but I'm sure there's more than that. I imagine several events I think occur in book 5 actually happened here.

It should be apparent fairly soon if it's not yet who Ordeith is. Rand not making it to Falme in time does have consequences.

Mat's not so good with cards. Too much skill, not enough luck.

And you'll be getting that Upper Class Twits feeling from quite a few characters from here on out, sadly.

Huh. I didn't remember this. Then again, most of my memory for Thom's role in things comes from later books.

The big "villain" roles are generally restricted to the Forsaken and the Dark One, but there are a few exceptions.

Hmm... I have completely forgot these things. What if it's true?

Rand's not just sitting around, he has his own plan.

Also, yes, that door is a major Chekhovs Gun.

All I can do while reading this liveblog is think about how it relates to more recent events.

So hard to not spoil you! :P

Foreshadowing!

Interesting. I didn't remember that scene here where he kills everything effortlessly.

Interestingly enough there are explanations, which are a big part of a later book.

Amys is definitely better than Faile.

"And I hope we eventually get an actual battle there"

I expect so do some of the (fictional) people in question but they at least should be careful what they ask for.

While it's called the "Aiel Waste", I think it's probably best to think of it as a desert. From the various descriptions given, the Blight is more of a wasteland than the Waste itself.

Oh, and female-dominant cultures are actually pretty common in this series. You already know of four, and there are others.

That is: Aes Sedai, Seafolk, Aiel. What is 4th? Two-Rivers? Andor? No, they are only ruled by womens, not dominated by.

Perhaps Tuathan?

Unfortunately you're going to see a lot more of those two being snippy at each other.

As in, they keep it up for TEN MORE BOOKS.

It's one of the hate-spots of the series.

Stop exaggerating; it's not ten. *Not saying the actual number because it's potentially an unwanted spoiler*

It's not. Mat hasn't met his destined love interest yet. Egwene has.

I don't think Egwene has any (literally) destined love interest... at least at the moment (tSR, ch15). Rand has, and Perrin, and Nynaeve, atm. I think.

Honestly, I didn't like this book either. It gets better in the second half, particularly regarding Mat & Rand's parts of the plot. Egwene & Aviendha are also okay, while Perrin's plot was at least to me the weakest of the lot. Perrin having the weakest plot seems to be a recurring theme, really. (with the exception of the first two books)

TSR has a lot of.... Setup. In some ways this can be seen as the new "First book", the first three books forming a kind of trilogy of their own, and TSR setting off the stuff that will be relevant for most of the rest of the series.

It's also the point where the characters really starts to sprawl around, and the plots start getting more disparate. Until now we've had all the plots basically being resolved in the same book, and everyone at least starting and ending up at the same place, not so any more.

Oh yeah, those two. Good plots generally follow them, although they go in and out of focus at times.

Oh, and Owyn is Thom's nephew, I think. The difference isn't really enough to matter though.

Long time no update?

Indeed. Where'd you go?

Still waiting updates. They are superb.

Welcome back.

Yeah, him being The Chosen One of yet another peoples was borderline parody by this point. Maybe it would have been stomachable though if it wasn't in the same book as him being The Chosen One of the Aiel.

Greetings again!

As far as I can remember, unlike the Aiel, he still hasn't really done anything with/for them other than mundane shipping utility.

The Sea Folk subplot is pretty amusing, in general.

But I think the idea is that the Dragon Reborn is the same Chosen One of all these cultures: They just have different expectations of what that's about. (in at least one case, deliberately distorted ones)

Don't worry, he still gets a lot more character development after this.

He's being overconfident; he'll be like this for a bit longer yet.

Oh, and I'd less call it a Deus Ex Machina and more Because The Plot Says So (Sad that's not a trope title)... Although I suppose there's not much difference.

Dreaming, Foretelling, and prophecies in general are interesting in this, in that they can sometimes cause that which they predict. I blame the Timey Wimey Ball.

Oh, and the gai'shan are not prisoners, nor slaves (in case you were considering that). They'll go into more detail about it later, but its a cultural thing.

"And at long last, Rand acknowledges that he was born an Aiel." - there should be a name for this, perhaps a Deronda Moment...

I think it's fair to explain it now: The guys in the first doorway answers questions. The guys in this one fulfills requests. (with a serious case of Malevolent Genie thrown in) Since Mat thinks they do the same things he screws up badly.

I would have waited on that, Arilou; Mat doesn't realize the difference for quite a while yet.

It's interesting about them exiling people who broke that "code"; if you exile enough people, they tend to gather together and form their own groups. (This isn't a cultural thing, it's a logistics thing. The early convicts of Australia are a good example of this, having been exiled from Britain in the late 18th century.)

The description of the pre-Breaking soldier's helmet is reminiscent of the Seanchan design. Which has no real relevance to anything plotwise, just a nice link to modern times.

I don't think the reader was supposed to like her by this point. Soon, but not yet.

I couldn't remember who that was, almost guessed Lanfear then sensibly opened my own copy to check.

"You have a bannerman's courage, which some say cannot be told from foolhardiness." So you know where she first saw Perrin, at least (reference to the climax of The Great Hunt).

To know who Slayer is - or to even suspect it - you'd need to have been very attentive. I consider myself attentive and I didn't figure it out until quite a while later.

The woman I think I got though. Or maybe I got it wrong. Either way, it became clear later. Slayer's identity on the other hand won't be explicitly stated for several books yet.

Please remind me; what was the nature of her Character Shilling?

This farmhouse stuff is relevant, although it may take a chapter or two for it to become clear.

Sadly, the dream world will be the only way people from different subplots communicate for a while yet. It is not, however, the only method of communication and connection the subplots will have in the series.

They communicate by normal methods too and that information is of course not accurate. It brings nice effect to the story.

I think I had the same feeling of pointlessness back when I was reading these chapters. It gets better of course, when the matter of when it gets better is up for interpretation.

I was looking in to the LoTR series earlier this week (shock-horror! I've never read it), and noticed even more parallels with the early WoT books than I realized would be there. A bunch of stuff I already knew, but Tom Bombadil lines up surprisingly well with the Green Man from the end of the first book.

On a different note, do you, Eegah, read these comments down here? (Although I suppose if you don't, then you won't respond to this question...)

It's interesting. I'm having a hard time counting how many times main characters won or lost battles in this series. Or neither. ("Neither" should be much easier to count, however)

Well, at least you're on your way there. I wonder if you'll start calling her Faile once Perrin does.

From hereon, books will practically never end with all current subplots being resolved, but rather leaving at least two hanging.

That was NOT Liandrin, fyi.

You'll have lots of time honing your hatred of Elaida in the upcoming books. :)

I'm not sure I would have called that chapter a "climax" of any sort. The climax of this subplot is a long time coming.

Rand's biggest issues later will not be his sheer strength or skill, but rather something a bit more understandable for somebody of his upbringing.

This book has so many chapters...

Book, hah, think about the entire SERIES!

The first three books weren't like this. Well, not really anyway. I'll have a look at the exact numbers...

53, 50, 56... Okay, so maybe they were this bad.

58, 56, 55, 41, 31... Now these are getting short

35, 30, 37, 50, 57. And back to big numbers again with Sanderson. Oh, and New Spring has 26, while some - but not all - of the books have epilogues and/or prologues.

Domon's seal was taken from him by Turak in book 2. And it was broken at the end of that book.

Yes, you will find out about how the tattoos were done.

From this book onward, you will be following multiple plot threads the entire time. Including minor plot threads and subthreads, there are times when you'll be following more than ten at a time. Thankfully, four main threads will generally be the limit in that regard. (Rand, Mat, Perrin, and the girls and/or Aes Sedai)