I also get a little tired of how the Two Rivers men are always considered better than the rest as well, each time, its like Perrin and Rand trust them more than the other people, a little village of a couple hundred, over basically anyone else, I understand they grew up with them, but they were still villagers a few months ago, and are trusted with way too much shit for that.

How do you feel about the Children of the Light and the whole Masema prophet thing going on? I’m not sure where you are in the series in regards to those, but I really was excited about how the Prophet portion would go.

I think Min is my favorite of the foursome in part because it seemed like she was the only female character for a while who wasn’t a total bitch at least half the time. And I like that she’ll actually be open and honest about her feelings for Rand. I felt early like Aviendha was acting like a little kid, shoving someone on the playground because she secretly had a crush on him. And Elayne did her whole thing of falling in love with Rand, then writing him a letter saying she hated him just so he didn’t get cocky about her loving him. (Or something. I still don’t really get why she did that letter.) Min felt like a nice contrast in a sea of Angry Women. But Aviendha has grown on me a lot since. She’s another one where Jordan has figured out the line of being tough without being a harpy. And she’s definitely the love interest I’d most want on my side in a fight.

I see what you’re saying… I can understand why you would want a clear pallet, but depending on how well you retain books, its nice to have all the little nuances fresh when you start the last 3 books, a lot of smaller stuff that you don’t think would be brought back, is. These last 2 books just move all the pieces into position perfectly, almost like a Rubik’s cube, before all of a sudden, you see that its been solved.

I agree with the whole Perrin thing, I really liked him, might have been my favorite of the 3 boys in the beginning, but he definitely rubs me the wrong way, especially with Faile. At times I love the relationship, but the number of times I get frustrated by it and how selfish he is, outnumbers the times I like it, love Faile’s dad though, Davram, I feel like you haven’t mentioned him at all.

I wonder if the 4some allows everyone to have their favorite girl? Because my favorite is Aviendha, Min is nice, but way too mushy and drapes herself all over him too much. Aviendha is a real woman!

The break idea was/is conceived as a way to cleanse my pallet a bit so I’m not dwelling on any frustrations with the series as I near the payoffs at the end. I initially planned it for now-ish, but decided to keep going when the women issues got considerably better. I’m still keeping the option open in case these next two books are rough, so I can kind of reset for a couple weeks before the Sanderson goodness. But we’ll see; nothing is in stone.

It’s bizarre to me that Perrin hit such a high point way back in Book 4 and has been so uninteresting since. It’s something I’ll probably talk about more if I find his chapters as rough as you do.

Don’t get me wrong, Rand’s foursome is absolutely unbelievable, and pretty ridiculous when thought about at all. But idk, when that stuff is actually happening, Jordan somehow kinda makes it work. My preference would still be for him to be with just Min, but I don’t hate the way it’s turned out, yet.

I also felt the same way about Cadsuane, she makes the women a bit better than before, but I never liked her for some reason. I feel like the next 2 books kind of set up the final 3 books, they get all the story lines that you don’t care about to a point that they are actually exciting. I think the Perrin chapters in the next few books are terrible to sit through, but that’s just me. Rand’s character development is fascinating through the next few books, just getting darker and darker, I love reading it, because its exactly the character you would expect him to be, in order to do what must be done.

I’m glad you are ok with Rand’s 4 some. That was a point that I thought you would find too unbelievable.

One point that you kind of addressed was Taim, that point frustrated me, its something he so obviously needs to follow up on, but he doesn’t.

Hope you are at least halfway through book 10 by now!!!