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pik_d posted:To add onto this, use the "WoT Compendium" app to look stuff up, it updates spoiler level for each book. It's a good safe way to check things out without googling something and have it autofill with how they die. Thank you I had no idea
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Jul 13, 2023 00:35
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:How far in have you gotten before? I absoIuteIy HATED one character, to the point that I aImost quit any time she was part of the storyIine Which character? EIaine! There is absoIuteIy nothing redeeming about her! So when I got to a sort of "best friends for Iife!" very speciaI ceremony, and someone was to sum up what they disIiked about this horribIe parody of a character, I was aII "Yes! FinaIIy!" but the negative traits were "Oh, she Iikes to eat candy!" and that was about it? I put down the book with a NOPE! and never picked it back up! ProbabIy misremembering some detaiIs here? Any advice on how to get around the terribIe bit that is EIaine? She is Iike having to pick out that one ingredient you hate from an otherwise prefectIy nice dish
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Jul 13, 2023 14:48
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You got to Winters Heart (book 9) and stopped? 
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Jul 13, 2023 14:54
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BattyKiara posted:I absoIuteIy HATED one character, to the point that I aImost quit any time she was part of the storyIine Actually fair You can mostly just skip past her storyline honestly especially after that point
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Jul 13, 2023 17:17
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pik_d posted:You got to Winters Heart (book 9) and stopped?
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Jul 13, 2023 17:19
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:The man may dawdle a bit here and there but he knows how to close My opinions on RJ and my wife's opinion on me 
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Jul 13, 2023 19:13
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BattyKiara posted:I absoIuteIy HATED one character, to the point that I aImost quit any time she was part of the storyIine this will never be different
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Jul 14, 2023 05:44
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Third of the way through A Crown of Swords, just finished chapter 12 where Lan is sent by Egwene to Nynaeve . The change of pace with multiple chapters in a row for POV character was cool. Probably helps that Perrin, Rand and Egwene are my favorite characters going right now. Perrin and Faile together is a joy to me. Really dig their bickering and making up. Love those crazy kids. RJ finding new ways for Faile to break Perrin's balls is outstanding. Very excited to see if/how Rand Taim and Logain triangulate. Sure hope we get the three dragons reborn all in the same place at the same time Egwene settling into the Seat was much needed filling in the blanks - it initially happened so fast, we needed to catch up what it all actually entails for her as the new boss. Cool to see the balance of her taking charge and being overwhelmed. 81sidewinder fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Jul 14, 2023 |
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Jul 14, 2023 18:06
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finished Crown of Swords last night and i gotta say i don't believe Sammael is dead at all. seems like Liah was probably an illusion that Sammael used so that he could end up faking his death some way to get Rand off his rear end and onto the other Forsaken so Sammael can end up Nae'blis at the end by process of elimination i am appreciating that it looks like the books get shorter going forward. Daggers is almost half the size of Chaos!
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Jul 22, 2023 13:30
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Soul Glo posted:i am appreciating that it looks like the books get shorter going forward. Daggers is almost half the size of Chaos! Yeah, I was thinking about that as well. 4-6 is just over 3000 pages and 7-11 is just under 4000. Path of Daggers maybe the shortest? Have a couple chapters left in CoS, then will post my thoughts. Old heads - I want to take a another break eventually, maybe before the Sanderson books? Or is there a natural stopping point? Want to know people's opinion on the slog again now that I'm at this part of the story.
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Jul 23, 2023 20:09
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81sidewinder posted:Yeah, I was thinking about that as well. 4-6 is just over 3000 pages and 7-11 is just under 4000. Path of Daggers maybe the shortest? The end of CoS is a good stopping point for now, and then after Jordan's last book might make sense. Though Knife of Dreams picks up the pace noticeably, so maybe take a break after book 10?
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Jul 24, 2023 11:28
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Take a break after Crossroads and you're liable to never pick it up again  I dunno if there's a real good breakpoint anywhere after LoC to be honest. Pick any of CoS, aPoD or WH.
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Jul 24, 2023 11:33
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I was going along at a great clip through The Great Hunt, but I hit this stretch where it feels like Jordan really wanted to write a sitcom treatment First we have Egewene's first day of school where every time she turns a corner it's to comically stumble upon a fellow member of the Women's Guild of Rand Knowers. Even that could have been cute and silly in a fun way if not for the fact Egewene acted like an empty shell. Where's clever, fierce, and defiant Egewene? This should have been her chance to shine when faced with a princess and a seer and multiple bitchy Aes Sedai. The most we get is a "pang of jealousy" and sticking her tongue out behind someone's back, everything else she just sorta wordlessly rolls with, culminating in the cartoonish meet cute with Galad where you can practically hear the needle drop But the Rand chapters were what almost lost me. A parade of trolloc puppets, but oh no, some are real! Every window and door is closed for some reason, so let's duck inside the fireworks factory. sure hope nobody trips and sets them off.... oops! Oh well, no sense risking saidin when Rand can just channel Mr. Bean and cap his series of mistakes by inventing a bazooka I actually like Rand a lot in this book. It's endearing that he has this powerful artifact, is thrust into leadership / nobility, and is being constantly manipulated by a member of the Forsaken (hasn't been confirmed but I have to believe this chick is Lanfear), yet he's still stumbling his way to victory thanks to the perfect mix of stubbornness and stupidity. It's like how the hobbits' greatest strength was a willpower that stemmed from not really knowing any better But it's getting a little silly. Maybe it's to demonstrate the lengths the Wheel goes to bend and knit the pattern around ta'veren, but I'm ready for characters to have more agency. I want a "Frodo & Sam say screw it, we'll figure it out ourselves" moment
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Jul 24, 2023 17:13
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also this is absolutely my own brain poisoning, but I see the word Seanchan and I'm immediately thinking of some terrible amalgamation of Seanbaby and Chris Chan
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Jul 24, 2023 17:16
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WarpDogs posted:also this is absolutely my own brain poisoning, but I see the word Seanchan and I'm immediately thinking of some terrible amalgamation of Seanbaby and Chris Chan See, it made me think of that CNN presenter going "Do we even know, who is this four chan?" but "Sean instead of "four"
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Jul 24, 2023 18:27
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WarpDogs posted:But it's getting a little silly. Maybe it's to demonstrate the lengths the Wheel goes to bend and knit the pattern around ta'veren, but I'm ready for characters to have more agency. I want a "Frodo & Sam say screw it, we'll figure it out ourselves" moment This criticism is addressed. The story is significantly better starting in book four.
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Jul 27, 2023 22:20
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Soul Glo posted:finished Crown of Swords last night and i gotta say i don't believe Sammael is dead at all. seems like Liah was probably an illusion that Sammael used so that he could end up faking his death some way to get Rand off his rear end and onto the other Forsaken so Sammael can end up Nae'blis at the end by process of elimination Absolutely not, that did not feel like a definitive ending at all. Also - was Mat sexually assaulted? Seeing some takes on this, and that's not how I read into those scenes at all, but maybe I misunderstood it. It's pretty dated 'war of the sexes' type comedy to me. I thought it was meant to be a Three's Company type plotline, not an actual mediation on the plight of a victim of sexual violence.
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Jul 28, 2023 21:05
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It was a crime and disgusting. What specific crime is up to different definitions I would say it was rape
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Jul 28, 2023 21:16
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81sidewinder posted:Also - was Mat sexually assaulted? Seeing some takes on this, and that's not how I read into those scenes at all, but maybe I misunderstood it. It's pretty dated 'war of the sexes' type comedy to me. I thought it was meant to be a Three's Company type plotline, not an actual mediation on the plight of a victim of sexual violence. He was literally raped at knifepoint and the text specifically calls him out as trying not to cry about it. It's kind of easy to miss because the tone is definitely written as comedic. I think it's a product of the era it was written in where in a lot of contemporary media women getting raped was treated like a comedy bit, and he's just inverting that.
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Jul 28, 2023 21:44
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Tylin gets her just desserts later
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Jul 28, 2023 21:48
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I knew Liandrin was going to be a real son of a bitch, but I still gasped at that betrayal ~80% through The Great Hunt. It was so nakedly evil it's actually making me think it might a ruse, though that'd be dumb every time someone interacts with an Aes Sedai in this book I like to imagine the camera cuts to Moraine serenely smiling and going "miss me yet?? lol"
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Jul 30, 2023 01:58
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Plowed through the rest of the book last night. Overall, I think it was better than Eye of the World, though with lower lows. I liked that it was so Rand focused because it let Jordan really zoom in on each step of his character arc, which he needed. I also liked the much deeper look at Aes Sedai and other nations beyond Andor. I do hope we get to see much more of Perrin and Mat in the next books, though. It was a nice little adventure romp. We knew from the first dozen pages that the gang would all end up on Toman Head and that they'd blow the horn, yet despite that nothing about the adventure felt contrived or tedious. Each twist and turn felt reasonable, and what seemed like tangents would suddenly coalesce back into the main thread. Lots of "ohhhhh THAT'S how that's going to work!" moments, which are a lot of fun. I complained about how in the last book the ending itself came way too fast and against threats we didn't have enough time to care about. It was the exact opposite this time around, so I'm happy As I type this I'm realizing a pattern in how Jordan plots out stories: he's not shy about heavily hinting at or even outright revealing how something will end up, and then tension / fun comes from how he plays with your expectations and makes you reinterpret what you thought you knew. Ingtar raised a bunch of death flags very early on, and the Toman Head prophecy ("5 ride in, 4 ride out") hinted he'd die there. But I never would have guessed he was a Darkfriend, and that his Boromir-y desire for the horn wasn't about power or glory but redemption for what he had done. This is a really common way of writing stories that deal with future knowledge, but I'm more used to seeing it in scifi (time travel, etc.) than epic fantasy. It's neat! Favorite moment of the book was the very end: Rand is describing the strange things he's seeing after leading the charge, how he can see far into the town and even the ships at the dock despite the fog, and yet it all looks weird in a way he can't put his finger on. After the battle Min finds Rand in a garden somewhere, and I'm thinking I accidentally skipped too many pages on my Kindle. How'd he get there? Why is he so beat up? We get to puzzle that out for a couple dozen more pages, then it's revealed Rand was fighting satan in the loving sky. How metal is that???
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Jul 30, 2023 17:45
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WarpDogs posted:As I type this I'm realizing a pattern in how Jordan plots out stories: he's not shy about heavily hinting at or even outright revealing how something will end up, and then tension / fun comes from how he plays with your expectations and makes you reinterpret what you thought you knew. Ingtar raised a bunch of death flags very early on, and the Toman Head prophecy ("5 ride in, 4 ride out") hinted he'd die there. But I never would have guessed he was a Darkfriend, and that his Boromir-y desire for the horn wasn't about power or glory but redemption for what he had done. This explains what I like about the storytelling style. It's not the 'what' by the 'how'. The foreshadowing is done in such a way that no broad plot point is really shocking, so the reactions of the characters become the central focus. I also like the heavy foreshadowing with the big payoffs because it makes me feel like someone I can trust is actually driving the plane - I know my time isn't wasted with someone who didn't know where the story was going and the ending will be poo poo. Getting towards the climax of Path of Daggers (about to start chapter 23) and still no slog for me, I'm loving it
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Aug 11, 2023 18:11
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81sidewinder posted:Getting towards the climax of Path of Daggers (about to start chapter 23) and still no slog for me, I'm loving it Path of Daggers whips rear end and I loved the ending Rand wilding out and using Callandor was nuts and was a moment built up to effectively. Not quite as intense an ending as Great Hunt or Lord of Chaos, but felt in a similar vein. 40 percent done with Winter's Heart and the slog is very real. Got spoiled that Crossroads of Twilight runs parallel to Winter's Heart. Hoo boy, I can see why many people consider it in last place among the books. It's nine IRL years between Lord of Chaos and Knife of Dreams, so I see why fans reading when the books were new might call it a slog. I'll just keep pushing along. The worst part of the story for me since LoC ended has been (spoilers thru WH chapter 12) the Elayne chapters. Hoo boy these have felt pointless compared to everything else. She finally hooks up with Rand, they bond him as warder and they seemingly resolve the polyamory tension - this should have been an interesting payoff, but just kind of fell flat because I have totally lost interest in this character. She strait up feels like part of a different story to me. Does it get better?
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Aug 19, 2023 21:35
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The slog definitely ends with CoT. If "it" is the series, yes it gets way better. If "it" is Elayne's plotline, it gets better sure, but also dumber.
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Aug 19, 2023 21:52
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i'm like 300 pages into winter's heart. i broke down and googled how long faile spends kidnapped since i heard that was a bit of a meme and lmao really
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Aug 20, 2023 01:32
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81sidewinder posted:40 percent done with Winter's Heart and the slog is very real. I powered through. Ending is actually very good. Gotten through 15 chapters of Crossroads, and hoo boy this is not great. People calling it a slog undersold it. Really could not care less about the slow burns for Mat and Elane's different plot points. Strait up nothing is happening.. Even though its a meme, I actually enjoy the Perrin and Faile plot. It actually has some tension for me and I care where it is going. Too bad it's only been like 5 of the last 45 chapters
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Sep 8, 2023 19:17
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The ending of WH is worth it
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Sep 9, 2023 06:03
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Obviously not breaking new ground here - The level of 'nothing happening' in Crossroads of Twilight is insane. The prologue of Knife of Dreams is more eventful than the entire book Crossroads I'm getting over COVID and did the last 10 chapters of CoT and I felt like it washed over me. Read a recap to make sure that I didn't miss anything I didn't. Glad to be on the next phase of this. Galad earning the heron-marked blade - very, very cool. Egwene's plot moving forward? Yes, lets loving go 81sidewinder fucked around with this message at 00:08 on Sep 14, 2023 |
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Sep 14, 2023 00:06
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im on page 250ish of CoT and this is the only book where ive looked at the wiki of pov chapters so i could look forward to something i care about maybe happening
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Sep 14, 2023 14:53
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One of the things I have tried to do since taking over from HA is keep an eye on all of the most active threads, and get to know all of the communities posting in TBB. Consequently, while reading the Book spoiler thread for discussing WoT on tv, I have become somewhat intrigued about this whole thing. I think next year I am going to make a point to read a book from most of the larger mega threads to get a better flavor for why you all find these series so good. I assume for WoT its start from the first book or do things start kicking later and a different book would be more representative?
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Sep 16, 2023 21:03
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Bilirubin posted:One of the things I have tried to do since taking over from HA is keep an eye on all of the most active threads, and get to know all of the communities posting in TBB. Consequently, while reading the Book spoiler thread for discussing WoT on tv, I have become somewhat intrigued about this whole thing. I think next year I am going to make a point to read a book from most of the larger mega threads to get a better flavor for why you all find these series so good. I assume for WoT its start from the first book or do things start kicking later and a different book would be more representative? There is a prequel but yeah start from Eye of the World. The prequel's best read in publication order. Your instincts aren't wrong though -- Eye is pretty deliberately a tolkien-inspired quest fantasy, basically all one big chase scene, and if that was all there was to the series it would be a forgettable series. Things get progressively more and more interesting with each book after that. You *could* in theory read book four -- if you knew you were never going to read any other books in the series, book IV would be the book to read -- but that would be a weird way to read the series, like trying to get a feel for the Lord of the Rings by only reading the first half of Return of the King. I don't know that it would "work" -- does King Aragorn resonate the same way if you never met Strider? edit: you could also just like . .. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3974396 watch the show, if that isn't cheating. The show has . .. problems. . . but it's decent as an intro to the books Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 21:27 on Sep 16, 2023 |
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Sep 16, 2023 21:11
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Bilirubin posted:One of the things I have tried to do since taking over from HA is keep an eye on all of the most active threads, and get to know all of the communities posting in TBB. Consequently, while reading the Book spoiler thread for discussing WoT on tv, I have become somewhat intrigued about this whole thing. I think next year I am going to make a point to read a book from most of the larger mega threads to get a better flavor for why you all find these series so good. I assume for WoT its start from the first book or do things start kicking later and a different book would be more representative? I think you could start from book 2 pretty easily. To me that's where the series really starts and it also has the benefit of being the most complete, stand-alone book in the entire series. If you like it, either read on or go back and read EOTW.
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Sep 16, 2023 21:18
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Bilirubin posted:One of the things I have tried to do since taking over from HA is keep an eye on all of the most active threads, and get to know all of the communities posting in TBB. Consequently, while reading the Book spoiler thread for discussing WoT on tv, I have become somewhat intrigued about this whole thing. I think next year I am going to make a point to read a book from most of the larger mega threads to get a better flavor for why you all find these series so good. I assume for WoT its start from the first book or do things start kicking later and a different book would be more representative? Book 1 feels like a LotR also-ran. Which if you enjoy that, may be a plus. I don’t, but slogged through and felt rewarded in Book 2 when the series started really finding its own identity. It’s weird to recommend skipping or crib noting the first in a massive series but I also don’t know that you’d have an understanding of what makes WoT fun by grinding the first book and stopping tbh.
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Sep 16, 2023 21:32
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Agreed with everyone else here. First book is decent to good, but quite derivative of Lord of the Rings. The Wheel really starts Wheeling in book 2. By the end of that, you'll absolutely know if this is for you.
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Sep 16, 2023 22:16
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It's true Eye of the World is heavily LotR inspired, but two things make it stand out: 1) it knows what it is, and it knows that you know what it is, and 2) it's a very good version of that kind of story. It begins very traditionally, but before long there are lots of plates spinning and it's impressive how he manages them all. For those reasons it's an easy recommendation for any fantasy fan, even if you don't plan to continue with the story Book 2 is a lot more its own thing, but I don't think I would have appreciated parts of it as much without reading book 1 and getting to know these characters
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Sep 16, 2023 23:02
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Interesting, and many thanks, I'm glad I asked. I need to plan on reading books 1 and 2.
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Sep 17, 2023 16:10
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I'm about halfway through book 4 The Shadow Rising. I really enjoyed the chapters where Rand vision walks through the history of the Aiel. Such strong worldbulding with just snippets of moments. Every section was a tragedy, but so pivotal historically. It is really neat to see things weaved together. Such as the Aiel and Tinkers sharing a common connection. The next chapters made me seethe with hate for the fucker (I can't spell it his name and am not going to dare google it) who murdered Perrin's family. This fucker needs his comeuppance and soon.
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Sep 19, 2023 06:00
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The wot compendium app has spoiler free settings
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Sep 19, 2023 11:50
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OhFunny posted:I'm about halfway through book 4 The Shadow Rising. Yeah, this part whips rear end. Already planning a re-read to catch the foreshadowing, and this is one of the biggest sections why. That and flicker flicker.
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Sep 19, 2023 18:38
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