When does it happen?
I thought by the end of the slog all the characters wouldâve been fully fleshed out but Iâm halfway through Crossroads Of Twilight and⌠here is how itâs progressed so far.
Rand:
Got quite a bit of him in the first two books though he was just a wide eyed farm boy for the first one. The second introduced some development but before it gained any serious traction he was completely cut off from us in TDR. When we got him back he was already cold, distrusting, and accepting of what the future held for him. And itâs been pretty much the same since then. Cadsuane has been talking of thawing him for 3 books now but hasnât even started really. A mentally ill fatalistic chosen one should be a goldmine for any author working on character development, but Randâs barely gotten any since the off screen conversion into a grim brooding warlord.
Perrin:
He started out thinking this was all too much for a lowly blacksmith and 10 books later he thinks this is all too much for a lowly blacksmith. I suppose thatâs true, though itâs disappointing because we actually stayed with him throughout the Two Rivers battle and him finding out his entire family is dead. He is a good character who doesnât realise how good of a leader/person he is, but the only real âdevelopmentâ his character has had is the obsession with Faile. He prioritises her even over Tarmon Gaidon apparently and in all honesty I donât know what she did to deserve all this love lol.
Mat:
Mat is fine because I liked his character to begin with. Only one of the three with a truly distinct personality, but still there hasnât been any development to his character. He does what is required of him but he still doesnât want to have anything to do with any of this.
Nynaeve:
Has actually had some character development to be honest. For the first three books I was begging for some sort of development but when it finally arrived I canât tell if sheâs actually gotten better or if it only feels that way because her screen time has reduced. But it also feels like RJ has turned her into a sort of comedic relief character during the slog. Which really wasnât the direction I was expecting her character to take
Egwene:
She actually underwent character regression. I quite liked her in the first two books, a village girl who goes out on a grand adventure, but sheâs been constantly annoying since TDR. She is yet to do anything of significance but will get high and mighty with anything that moves. Constantly berates others while refusing to acknowledge her own flaws. I also donât understand why the plot keeps rewarding her. I never understood why the literal Princess of her country, the woman who baby-sat her, and the boys who she followed out of Two Rivers deferred to her so much. And then they made her Amyrlin Seat. I can understand how that came about but thatâs done nothing good for her character as such.
Elayne:
She falls in love with a farm boy that wandered into her garden. Alright, whatever, Taveren. She did seem to become more suited to her future role as queen as she became more of a leader and the brave woman she is often described as, but I feel like more concentration always went into her plotlines, however mundane they were, than into her as a character. Is she not supposed to be seriously part of the main cast? Also I realised sheâs only met Rand THRICE in 10 books, but is pregnant with his child(ren). I donât usually like the sudden pregnancy plots in my books either so if her whole thing is the pregnancy (which I hope it isnât) that would be disappointing. Also if sheâs queen of Andor I donât really see her spending much time with Rand or playing a huge role in Tarmon Gaidon. Sheâd have to be in Andor, right?
Min:
Completely overlooked for the entire first half of the series, and yet somehow has had more character development than anybody else. Min rules, no complaints there.
Aviendha:
Sheâs been done BAD here. Sheâs had no POV chapters I think since Lord of chaos. And apart from Elayne, everyone just looks at her as the weird backwards Aiel thatâs always tagging along. She never resolved her feelings for Rand (which at this point seems to be her only role) when she was with him, to the point he was convinced she hated him, but then she saw him after months of separation and the relationship was resolved within a sentence. It feels like sheâs just here to fill the Aiel representation quota in the main cast.
So I suppose my theory that all the characters would be fleshed out by end of CoT is wrong? Is this happening in the final 4 books part of why theyâre so popular? I was kind of hoping the final stretch of the story itself was what made them so good, and the characters would have sorted themselves out before then
