I feel like this book basically wraps up all the stories that have just been left hanging, like the Gholam, or the Whitecloaks, and while some of those stories I didn’t really care about, I thought the results of them were great, and it really finished the book well.
What I’m really curious about though, is this the result of Sanderson taking over? Or was this all planned, and Sanderson just got to take over at the right time, because it definitely takes a turn for the better when he took over. But such things like your Angry Women Troupe definitely takes a backburner compared to how pervasive it was before.

The other thing I always think about is that Jordan wanted to keep the last 3 books as only one, up until his death, I don’t think anyone thought that anything else was going to happen. Once Sanderson took over and announced 3 books, some people were upset, believing Sanderson wanted to stretch it out. What are your thoughts on that? Personally, I don’t think it was possible with where book 11 left everything to wrap it up in book 12, I think that if he had taken out all the bullshit that I felt was filler, a lot of book 10 and 11, then a 12 book finish could have been realistic, but I think Jordan dragged out those boring storylines to effectively finish the book by book 12.

I don’t really want to discuss this book any further, because book 13 and 14 I read so close together that I don’t want to ruin any of it for you by saying anything wrong. But I will say, that Mesaana being in the tower and trying to figure out who she was, was SUCH a big conspiracy while the books were being written, people writing super in depth theories about who it was. When it was revealed, it was nice to me, to see all those theories were dumb and didn’t really explain it, I was a little amused about how it was some random person we didn’t really see before. Same with who killed Asmodean, a LOT of theories around that.

I dunno if it was this book or the last, but I thought Verin being black ajah was super cool and her having that book with all the details, it showed how brown she really was, that she wanted to research the black ajah. I think maybe her letter towards Mat was the way she thought she would be able to make him open it? He’s a stubborn guy, so she thought maybe she outsmarted him? I dunno… You’re right, I don’t remember that part well though…

Fight the good fight though, read New Spring as fast as possible so you can get to some good shit, some of your theories are good, some of them… I’m excited to see when you hear the direction Sanderson goes with it.