I might have teared slightly on the marriage announcement too; at a minimum, I got major goosebumps. But the other scene I was referring to involved the Aes Sedai (mostly Joline, I think) trying to talk Tuon into ending the war, and Tuon responds by slapping an adam on them. It was brief before Mat convinced her to relent, but she was so sincere in her belief that all channelers must be collared, and she was so earnest in degrading the grown woman as being less than human, nothing more than a pet to be trained. She came across as downright pathological, and it really complicated my otherwise strong desire to like her.

I actually liked Ituralde’s devotion to his king; blind loyalty is almost an anomaly in this series, so I thought it worked. I think in the next book, he elaborates on it a bit as stemming from their friendship as younger men, with the king giving him his reason to ever start fighting for honor at all. But I really like your point about Bashere too; I didn’t give enough thought to how quickly he became devoted to Rand out of sheer practicality/necessity.

Your way of looking at the Black Tower situation also helps; I certainly like that better than thinking Rand just had his head completely in the sand. I think he also mentions in the next book that he’d hoped cleansing saidin would help bring Taim’s group back around.

I started becoming an Egwene fan as soon as she was raised Amyrlin in Salidar, as I thought we started to see her be much more crafty and capable then. But it definitely went into a higher gear at a captive in the Tower.

I’m glad you felt my frustration about Perrin, I did like him in the beginning, but his character just does a nosedive during that whole Faile portion, as does all the characters with him who support him, thousands of people are losing their husbands/wives because of his selfish pursuit for his wife. Its bullshit.

Mat and Tuon’s thing was really sweet though, I think when Tuon announced that she was married to Mat, I teared up a little bit, I don’t remember the episode you are talking about between her and the Aes Sedai.

Thom’s revelation of that note is pretty great though, I really felt that that was a storyline I wanted to hear more about but had kind of given up on Jordon on finishing, or giving more of an explanation.

Rodel Ituralde isn’t bad, but I think I didn’t like how blindly devoted he was to his King, or whatever the title was, like it seemed obvious he was fighting a losing battle why keep going? I loved Bashere for being such a realist, and siding with Rand because he knew it was what needed to be done.

Totally agree on Rand and the Black Tower, but I think that possibly the other issue is that Rand knows that they are out of hand, but he really can’t put that much more on his plate right now, like trying to cleanse the Black Tower would take a LOT more man power than he has, he fucked up, he will deal with it when he has to, but I think he has to know at this point. How removed he was from his hand being cut off was amazing writing I thought, and demonstrated how he has become.

This was also where I began loving Egwene, wasn’t a big fan of her before, but she really grew on me when she was captured.

I’m really stoked for your next entry though, shit starts to happen, and you really start seeing where everything is going, I really hope the next one comes out faster than this one!