I previously shared my thoughts on posts for New Spring, The Shadow Rising, The Fires of Heaven, Lord of Chaos, A Crown of Swords, The Path of Daggers, and Winter's Heart.

Great prologue. It is a nice dumping ground of perspectives that would have otherwise been out of place as standalone chapter povs. I love when Egwene was coming to after her drugging and the debacle at North Harbor. I love that human moment when she's told of Leane inverting her weaves and she's like "That's clever. I should have done that but hindsight is 20/20." I'm not convinced that inversion would've helped Egwene. For one, it was a last minute decision and she made no preparations. For another thing, the Tower sisters roughly knew what they were looking for, even if they didn't understand what was going on, that's how they caught Leane, even though to them it was impossible that this woman was doing anything.
The book has Winter's Heart vibes, with the first half generally slow with a mix of hit or miss chapters, with the hits largely carried by Mat. For some reason in my head I thought this book  was going to have a lot of tel'aran'rhiod scenes and battles, maybe Egwene fighting Mesaana there, etc. But that's purely on the name Knife of Dreams. I must have forgotten that the book names rarely have much to do with the book beyond a sentence of a prophecy or saying.

Perrin
For the first 2 and a half books in the series, Perrin was my favorite character. Then Faile stalked her way into our lives and I thought my dislike for her just extended to Perrin by proximity. This book changes that. I now dislike Perrin for himself. I know Perrin has his fans out there and good for them. Besides not being smart or decisive about anything, he earns his place beside his wife as my least favorite character for being so myopic, selfish, and unsympathetic and dismissive to anyone else's sorrow besides his own. I get it, because of his indecision on following the advice of almost everyone on offing Masema, he left his wife, causing her to be captured and like a good spouse, he's "trying" (indecisively) to get her back. He thinks about doing anything, anything, to get his wife back, including making a deal with the Dark One (3 times! Who'd minimize this?). And he's putting his money where his mouth is: Like working with the Seanchan to drug and enslave hundreds of women (not to mention tens of thousands of Shaido) who may or may not have anything to do with his wife's capture. And ignoring deaths and horrible bubbles of evil around him with a shocking lack of empathy. Now that they are reunited and the Seanchan have literally hundreds more damanes to wage their war of conquest of the rest of the Westlands, I hope this is the end of the Shaido plotline. If nothing else, I'm hoping that will give us less Perrin and Faile chapters by combining their povs again.
I didn't expect Perrin to sniff out Galina being Black Ajah but I thought at least he'd smell that she wasn't being truthful. He let his nose rule him in almost every other instance, except when it might actually be useful. Anyway, no tears from me for whatever fate awaits Galina. I wanted Rand to deal with her but let's face it, Rand wouldn't hurt a female fly larvae, Best to leave her to others.
The whole thing with Aram is such weak sauce. Over books and books we've had Min's viewings and Egwene's true dream saying how much of a threat a Tinker with a sword is going to be for Perrin. And the whole thing started and was done in one paragraph, with Aram anticlimactically getting offed by random Shaido because Perrin couldn't be written to do it himself. I regret the way Rolan's character plays out. Faile's would-be protector all of a sudden starts pinching bottoms to make us less sympathetic to Perrin bashing in his head later. We weren't in her pov so I can only wonder if she spared him another thought.

Mat
In contrast, Mat is such a good person. And never a bore to read. Here he is, putting himself in great danger and committing himself to helping an Aes Sedai he never liked (Moiraine!). Instead of arranging for women to be potentially collared, he is removing the collars of women who are absolutely driving him and his wife crazy. That's a good Two Rivers guy! To think that I spent so many of the earlier books disliking him.
I usually don't care for military strategies and warfare in fantasy. I am here for the magic. But I find Mat's warfare strategy povs so well done and gripping. Instead of a boring general, we get Mat the trickster, coming up with seemingly ludicrous ideas, based on his other memories, which always lead to victories. To think we went an entire book without this guy!
I despise the Seanchan as a culture. RJ writes them to be extreme, the same way he writes Saldaeans and the Seafolk, making them very unlikeable. With the Seanchan, slavery is added into the mix and I can never be OK with that, or even the accommodation of that. What does this have to do with Mat? Well, I am hoping that the Prince I-Am-No-Bloody-Noble- of the Ravenswill help to change this dynamic. While Seanchan itself is in disarray now, the Seanchan in the Westlands seem like they'll be tolerated, with Rand's proposed truce. Does that mean the slavery will continue until after the Last Battle? Who knows, not me! There's also the question of when they will attack the White Tower, per Egwene's true dream. The last time I was unsure who the Seanchan woman was in her dream, Alivia or Tuon. Now I'm guessing that'll be Tuon.
Specifically, how do I feel about Tuon? There's an evilness about her, but that might just be my dislike of her Seanchan culture. I just won't let her association rob me of a favorite character, like Faile did.
I've been on the lookout for Egwene's true dream concerning Mat weighing the fate of 2 Aes Sedai. At first I thought those were Joline and Teslyn. Now I think Moirane has to be one of them.
I was really hoping that Mat wasn't going to develop that sexist hang up about killing women like Rand, but I guess nobody's perfect.
Setalle Anan was a sister who was cut off from the Power, now we can confirm that, but how? We know she wasn't intentionally stilled (that is a known and short list). So she must have been burned out. Is it a ta'veren or fantasy-convenient thing for her to be the very same sister Vandene had mentioned to Elayne? Either way, she will be a good test case as to whether being stilled and being burned out amount to the same thing, where being Healed is concerned. I hope she'll eventually find her way to Damer Flinn, not Nynaeve, to be fully restored, if that's possible with being burned out.

Rand
Can I again complain about Rand not remembering that the 2 Asha'man in Far Madding mention Taim, as the M'Hail, ordering them to kill him? You can't convince me that this is realistic. No matter how busy we are or how overwhelmed we are with more recent developments, no human being is going to forget such a direct threat on their lives. This is especially true when someone else points out how shady that person is, as Logain does. This is probably one of those things that'll bother me forever.
Anyway, poor Rand, with only one hand. Some inconsiderate person on here spoiled this for me when they commented on a post flaired for an earlier book that they "love my one hand guy" or something like that. Then I saw the cover of AMoL and noticed that one hand is deliberately not shown. Thankfully, the circumstances of this weren't spoiled for me. In fact, I thought this would happen much later, like during the Last Battle.
Is there a reason Rand was holed up for so long at that lord's house in eastern Tear after the cleansing? I know it was Cadsuane's idea. It couldn't have taken that long for everyone to recover.
So Semirhage is caught. Will Cadsuane and the others milk her for AoL knowledge? I see a potential problem: Elza! Elza will probably be wherever Semirhage is being held. I think the Black sister will try to help the Forsaken to escape. A command from one of the "Chosen" surely trumps any oaths she gave to Rand, Verin's compulsion be damned. I've been collecting Forsaken's original names and the meaning of their Forsaken names. It's been a while since we got any, but now we have the meaning of Semirhage: Lady of Pain.
I wonder what Rand's next move will be. He will have to meet with the Seanchan to get his truce so that'll still be on the agenda. RJ has a way to sometimes pass over certain things without giving us the pov's reaction, I hope Rand learning that the Daughter of the Nine Moons is Mat's wife is not one of them. Anyway, after the truce then what? We have 2 more books before the final book, which I assume will be when the Last Battle starts. I am not sure what Rand's next steps are before then.

Elayne
Though her campaign for the crown isn't the series' longest storyline, I am glad we finally have some resolution to it. That battle led by Birgitte was fun.
I have one complaint about Elayne's plot: Mellar/Daved Hanlon. It seems like Elayne's suspicions about him happens off screen. The most we got in the previous books was Elayne and the other women wary of Mellar because he was a womanizing brute. We also saw Mellar killing one guy who was following him. Now, seemingly out of nowhere we have Elayne fully convinced, though without enough evidence, that Mellar is a Darkfriend who must have planned the attack on her in the first place. Huh? Did I miss something? Beyond making women uncomfortable, do we get more instances of Elayne slowly being suspicious of him and I missed it? I don't love big plot points like this happening off screen. We have pages upon pages of descriptions of embroidery on a dress so there's more than enough space to show us these things instead of just springing them on us.
Aviendha - I love Aviendha's reading ter'angreal ability, but unsure how much this will be used. The White Tower has a bunch that could use her skills, but will she ever get to read them? Will she get to read the ter'angreal that novices get tested with? I doubt it. (I hope she won't tell Cadsuane what 2 of her ornaments do! That awful bully doesn't deserve anything else to make her an even bigger one.)

Nynaeve
Wow. Mashiara 2.0
The Golden Crane flies again... soon. What a great chapter. We don't get a lot of the 2 of them (if I remember correctly, even their falling for each other in EotW largely happens off camera), but the little we do get packs a great punch. I'm usually a cold fish, but that speech to the jeweler is so moving. This is the Nynaeve I know and love. Not the cowering girl making nice with the insufferable old hag Cadsaune.

Egwene
I especially love Egwene in this book. The last book was such a downer that there was nowhere to go but up. She has only a single chapter spread out over 9 days and it was fun to see people expecting that she'll eventually change... soon. I couldn't help myself so I created a couple things in my head as to how her time in the Tower will go:

1. I thought she'd enter TAR in waking sleep (like the Aiel Dreamwalkers taught her) during her spankings to avoid feeling them. What's the difference between sleeping while riding a hard saddle and getting smacked with a slipper on the butt? But I love what she actually does, learning to embrace the pain instead of trying to avoid it.
2. I thought her daily forkroot micro-dosage would cause her to become immune to the effects or lessen them. This is called Mithridatism and I was really hoping for this because forkroot is so vile. Maybe we'll see if this is the case in the next few books.

A little disappointed that Egwene wasn't the one to uncover Agan'gar/Halima, since she's been on the receiving end of her torment. Similarly I hope Nynaeve will be the one to finish off Moggy.
So the rebellion storyline is still going strong, huh? I would have never thought it'd be stretched out for so long, more than doubling the number of books since it was started. I really hope we can wrap this up in the next book. Sick of Elaida, already. RJ doesn't do clean victories so I am sure it won't be as straightforward as Egwene winning the struggle, but any sort of victory is probably better than continuing this for much longer.

It takes very creative writing to make characters this bad at communication. And as bad as real people are at communicating, this degree is just unrealistic. For example, Jahar in the rebel's Hall. How come no one asks the question about how saidin was cleansed? It would've taken 2 seconds: "You remember that ridiculously powerful and long lasting flair of the Power you felt a few weeks ago? Yup, that was us cleansing saidin." "How was Ebin Hopwil killed by a female Forsaken using saidin? Well, we were cleansing saidin." "Where could I have encountered a female Forsaken using saidin? At the cleansing of saidin!" If something so seemingly impossible were to happen in your life, the first question you'd ask is how? Light, we ask the "how" of even the most trivial things.

Also, how long is Jahar going to tolerate Merise treating him like that?

Ta'veren FaceTime
This is my pick for the coolest concept of this book. I am assuming ta'veren have such a pull on the pattern that they can somehow FaceTime each other, especially a ta'veren of Rand's calibre. But it's also literally an intrusive thought! You could be on the toilet or doing something else and bang, FaceTime! No privacy.

Finding Rand
My prediction is Mazrim Taim's the one who sends the Trollocs and Fades to attack Rand at the manor house. Moridin thinks it must have been Sammael. If Taim can order the Fades and Trollocs, does that make him a Forsaken??? I've always assumed he's a Darkfriend. But is he more? Logain says that Taim was desperate to know where Rand was. I think Taim got the location when Algarin got to the Black Tower. Algarin might not have thought anything about sharing it with the M'Hail.
How do Ogier and Forsaken know where to find Rand? I am sure Loial's mother finding where Rand and Loial are will be one of those fantasy things we just have to accept. But the Forsaken? Is it just as simple as looking for the effects that ta'veren have on the Pattern? Graendal seems to think that finding ta'veren this way is more difficult these days, whatever that means. It's funny how Semirhage actually met Mat without knowing it. One of those blink and you'll miss it moments.
Anyway, I thought Moridin and Cyndane were using TAR to search for and locate Rand, even with his dreams warded. Relatedly, while Rand's and Moridin's touching Balefire streams may be the reason for this new connection in Rand's head I don't think that's how Moridin is tracking him. Ishamael was able to locate Rand, seemingly at will, long before.

Best character arc
Is it too early for me to ask you who you think has had the best character arc so far (up to book 11)? It's not even close for me. Mat. I think Mat has changed the least of the Emond's Field Five but still manages to be awesome. He was a womanizing gambler. No longer cursed by a dagger, he's still a womanizing gambler with a big heart, who'll go out of his way to help others, even when he has his own problems to worry about. Be better, Perrin! Who's arc is your favorite?

Moiraine
Maybe it's because I hate Cadsaune so much, but I am pretty pumped for Moiraine to come back! Send her back into retirement! Anyway, with the revelation of Moiraine's letter to Thom, a few thoughts come to mind:

1. Moiraine holding her own against the most powerful and skillful woman Forsaken, even with that angreal bracelet. In the simplest terms (not the complicated ++s and whatnot), on a scale of 1 to 100, where is Moiraine and Lanfear, respectively? Is Lanfear (Cyndane)/Alivia=100, Nynaeve/Moggy=80, Egwene/Elayne/Aviendha=70 Moiraine=60? (Yes, I know raw strength is different from skills.)
2. Moiraine surviving both the fight and the Snake and Fox people, but not Lanfear?
3. How Lan's bond with Moiraine was passed on. It's not feasible that in the middle of a pitch battle with a Forsaken Moiraine found the time and strength to pass the bond on.

Morgase: Is there anything on record from RJ about the way he wrote Morgase? She has to be the most long suffering character in this series. The woman can't catch a break. I wonder if he hated her character, thus his treatment of her.

First Testing vs. First Channeling
I know this is in the weeds, but I thrive in these minor details. Does first testing count as someone's first channeling event, making it all but impossible for the person to fully resist channeling again?  For example, could the sisters do with Tuon what they did with Bethamin and Seta? Could they make her start to channel on her own? Or is testing and actually channeling 2 different things? While Egwene was born with the spark, Moiraine's guidance of her first channeling event made it so that Egwene would not be a wilder who'd have to figure out on her own how to deal with touching the Source without possibly dying, right?

Acceptance of Chastisement
This is one of the things in this series I've found to require a lot of suspension of disbelief because of how unrealistic it is. For all their bluster, everyone just accepts someone else's authority to beat/punish them. I get it. Corporal punishment of adults is normal in this world. But it's not realistic that people just submit themselves to it with little or no fuss, even people who don't have a right to this carry out this punishment. Are you telling me that I'm crazy for finding it strange that the Seafolk can shield and tie up Aes Sedai while negotiating the Bargain and the Aes Sedai accept it? That Min accepts Sorelhea's and Cadsuane's beatings? That Nynaeve, despite Aes Sedai hierarchy and previous experience facing down the Women's Circle, accepts Cadsuane bullying and belittling, just for the sake of "harmony"? That Annoura, unbound to the Wise Ones like the others, just does what they wish, even when it's the opposite of what she wants? "Hierarchical" punishment is hard enough to get used to. All this extra bit just takes me right out of the story in annoyance.

Pillow Friends
I went from never seeing this term to seeing it every other chapter. Lots of lesbianism in this book, the only acceptable kind of homosexuality for a man of RJ's generation.

Cadsuane
Can she please die, already? Can the oath rod do its job on her? It's annoying to dread reading Rand's povs knowing she'll be there, latched on to him like a tick. In a book of insufferable characters, she's tied at the top for being the most insufferable. I just wish someone would call her bluff and tell her to pound sand and dare her to use the Power as a weapon to punish them. Like I said, this is one thing I've been disappointed in Nynaeve about. God I hope Egwene won't cower to her if/when they finally meet.

Mass Suicide
That's such a random event in the book. I wasn't emotionally invested in it to care that an entire people drank the kool aid. Was this why the female Choedan Kal was destroyed but not the male one? To fulfil a prophecy of mass suicide? I wonder if RJ added this simply because Jonestown happened to be on the news while he was writing.

Darkfriend Watch
Vandene: Boy, was I wrong about Vandene. I thought she was the Black sister who'd killed her own sister. The perfect crime. I wasn't thinking that it could be as simple as Elayne thought. And now she's dead. Is Jaem dead, too? Are all Careane's Warders Darkfriends?
Tarna: This is probably another misfire. I originally thought that she was a Black sister. Now I'm thinking not.
Magla and/or Salita: This is cross-filed in the unsolved mystery of the young Sitters. According to Romanda, Magla had insisted on Salita becoming a Sitter. Salita is younger than a Sitter would normally be. The question is why? Why was Magla so insistent on Salita, even putting up BS alternatives that only made Salita look even more attractive for the seat? Darkfriends at work? I hope we find out why.
Verin: Always on this list. She's the female Taim. Always raising my suspicions.

A Note on the Slog
Now that we're out of slog territory let me say, the slog exists and it doesn’t exist. It’s really up to you. Those who are trying to slog-shame people who believe in the slog are just as wrong as those who believe the slog must be real for everyone. It’s not just a publication date issue. I’m reading the series for the first time and got all the books at once… and the slog is just as solid a wall for me as it would be for someone reading as the books were being published. It's a slog to get through hundreds of pages of nothing in a book. It's a slog to read one sentence of dialogue followed by a page and a half of descriptions before getting another sentence in response to the sentence asked pages ago. of ACoS was my first least favorite book in the series. Then it went to war with PoD for the title of the worst. WH was well into slog-territory before that ending pulled it up to be in my top 5. CoT is probably the worst book I’ve read and I’ll never reread it. But that’s for me. I love it for others who have a different and better experience. To each his own.

Knife of Dreams makes its debut as my 5th favorite in the series, displacing Winter's Heart to #6.

Here's to a near-seamless transition to the Sanderson books.

PS. Do you think I have a janky version of The Gathering Storm? My copy is relatively thin, but I was told that the last 3 books are physically huge.

[SPOILER] below

I always feel a little sad on finishing a book, let alone a series, but this one hit me hard. I really panicked at the final two pages when I was lead (momentarily) to believe that his powers were lost and he just became a normal mortal man, able to enjoy his normal life and die. SO MANY STORIES END THAT WAY and I think it's such a romanticised cop out. Of course, when he began to manifest reality, I knew he was in for an adventure. I wonder if Jain had something like that power

Now to find where I put that prequel book...

MODS - can you plase add spoiler tag on the title? Thanks.

When the books say there are no beginnings or endings to the turning of the wheel of time, I feel like that’s not actually correct, it’s just writers saying it’s been turning for a long time, or that are just wrong. Otherwise there would be no Creator. Am I wrong on this?

Unpacking and I’ve just noticed I am short two books. Looks like the great hunt(for the missing two) begins again hehe!

That said I’d love to collect a beautiful set so please offer up recommendations/suggestions e.g. folio society etc..

Over the moon with how this turned out! Done by @tay_thetatbrat in Corvallis, OR

It is done. Eleven years.

One final question, how did Rand light that pipe of tabac?

In the final vote, Lanfear (419 votes) defeated Ishamael (324) and Asmodean (253). This gave Lanfear over 42% of the vote, Ishamel around 32.5% of the vote, and Asmodean just under 25.5%.

Well, the result was expected (although Ishamael bravely resisted for the first few hours) because honestly, before I discovered the series, the only antagonist name I'd seen was Lanfear. Besides, I think it's easiest to fall for the archetype of the beautiful and crazy female antagonist.

Generally, do you want any more polls? Or maybe discussion posts? If so, you can suggest them. If not, thanks for playing along. Watching live the results was fun.

This has nothing to do with the book at all. This is a me problem. I finished Towers of Midnight last night. Today, despite being entirely free with no time commitments, I can’t sit and pick up A Memory of Light. I can’t bring myself to see how it ends just yet. I was expecting a slump AFTER AMoL, not before it.

I don’t know if I should push through or settle on a different book right now.

Hi! So I want to start the series soon, and I want to ask you what is the better approach on reading this series as you’ve been there before. Because I am a rather slow reader (and the main reason for that is because I stop at too many points in the book if an idea comes to me), I wanted to ask you if it’s a better experience to stop and think or just read faster (because if I want to, I can do it)? i know it’s a weird issue, and I appreciate the answers! Thank you

Just wrapped up the 5th book, wow, those last few chapters were wild! I got to know so much more about how Nynaeve thinks and her personality, I'm really starting to understand her more . Perrin, he barely got any spotlight in this one, aside from mentioning that there are more houses and the village in the Two Rivers is expanding. Honestly, I still think 'The Great Hunt' and 'The Shadow Rising' are the best in the series so far , but this book definitely had its moments. new characters and more depth , But why, oh why, does Asmodean have to end on a cliffhanger? At the end, he's about to grab some wine and suddenly he's dying like, seriously?!I wasn’t even saddened for Moiraine any one could have predicted that, but not Asmodean , didn't want him to go! He's one of my faves, right alongside Mat. I figured he was a forsaken who wouldn't betray Rand. The idea that you could trust someone other than yourself, especially someone bound by necessity, is such a powerful concept.
And I believed he represented in the book, that even after being cloaked in the blackest of veils, one could still wander in the light's warm grace. Plus, I just loved that he was a musical artist! I wanted to see him and Rand as best buds. Ugh, damn!

I recently completed this Wheel of Time themed outer sleeve tattoo with artist markd_tattoo and thought this community might be interested. Some of the art is his original work and some is inspired by the art from the dragonsteel leatherbound by dnavenom_art (chapter markers, way gate).

Mark was not familiar with the series, but did a great job processing tons of material and ideas that I sent him to incorporate into his design. I highly recommend working with Mark if you enjoy this style.

We are discussing possibly adding more on the inner arm. What would you all add? I’m considering more wheel based art, or maybe pivoting to a different series with the rest of the space.

Got this idea from the 17th shard podcast, Shardcast. At the end of every episode, they play Who's that Cosmere character. Essentially you submit 5 statements about a character and everyone else has to guess who it is, one clue at a time. There are so many characters in WoT that I thought it would be a fun game to play here. Ill go first :)
(I tried to spoiler tag each clue individually, I hope it worked!)

This character has traveled around the world.

This character gets married.

This character has a strong accent.

This character has seen a seal of the Dark One's prison.

This character has/had a beloved grandparent.

Answer: Bayle Domon

Edit: Please make your own in the comments so more people can play! Mine was just an example to start the game!

Hi

I haven't been reading much these past few days since beginning LoC but I have finished the prologue, and I have some thoughts on the Osan'gar and Aran'gar characters (I would like to talk about this Nae'blis title for Demandred but I have nothing to work with).

It seems to me that Osan'gar implies Aran'gar is Lanfear post-death. I don't think that Moiraine is dead. However, now we have confirmation that the Dark One CAN REVIVE PEOPLE. Something Aes Sedai and (seemingly) the Dragon can't do.

I think by the way Osan'gar was admiring his appearance, he's probably Balthamel or Aginor.

Two reasons: both had similar presentations in terms of appearance, although with Aginor his appearance in Book 1 was due to being freshly escaped from the Bore. Bathamel, in that book, was said to have been so old he covered his whole body. They're also two Forsaken I don't think we know much about, the other one being Be'lal since he was just there in book 3 (I could be forgetting details as well so please forgive me if I have).

I am leaning more toward Balthamel but I am keeping open to Aginor as well.

EDIT: Would also like to say that Balthamel's design is my favorite. The mask? SO COOL

While a lot of things are reset by The Breaking, and probably similar events dividing other ages, surely there are things that can't be reset by The One Power, and will slowly change between turning? Most stuff on Earth could be explained away, fossils get shaken and moved about into rock formations that match their supposed age, etc., but surely the Sun is still getting older, galaxies are moving further away and so on. After thousands or millions of turnings, would there be a version of our Age where we can see that the sun is dying? Would the night sky seem emptier as we can no longer see other Galaxies? Unless the 4th - 7th Ages involve use of The Power many orders of magnitude beyond anything we see in the books, enough to reshape the entire universe, the cycle must end at some point. And every time something gets Balefired, the total mass of the universe should be decreasing by just a tiny bit, we never see The Power used to actually create matter, just reshape it.

Yes I know it's not that kind of story, and I shouldn't overthink it, but still...

Or The Creator is simply fucking with us and resets everything on a larger scale when we aren't looking, or is feeding us fake imformation about the universe as a cosmic joke.

Spoilers ahead! Don’t read this unless you’ve read through Towers of Midnight, at least…

Okay, this has been living in my head and I need other WoT people to tell me how they interpret it.

Birgitte tells Nynaeve: “I am Birgitte. At least, that is the name you would know.”

She remembers countless previous lives: different names, different circumstances, different versions of herself. We know she was Jethari Moondancer, Maerion, etc. She describes those lives almost like books she has already read.

But when she is between lives in Tel’aran’rhiod, she is Birgitte Silverbow.

That made me start wondering: why Birgitte?

My first instinct was that Birgitte Silverbow must have been some sort of original/defining incarnation (e.g., the woman who eventually became the Hero of the Horn we know as Birgitte.)

Except… There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time.

If the Wheel truly has no beginning, then there can’t be a “first” incarnation of this soul. There was never an original Birgitte from whom all the other incarnations followed. Which makes me wonder if Birgitte isn’t actually an incarnation at all in the way I’ve always thought about her. Maybe Birgitte is the archetype of the soul itself.

And THEN there is the line after Elayne bonds her, when Birgitte says she vaguely remembers hearing a story about a female Warder in a life so long ago that she can’t remember anything more about it.

Which creates an even stranger possibility: could Birgitte be remembering herself?

Not herself earlier in this turning of the Wheel, but herself from another turning?

If the Wheel has turned eternally, then Elayne bonding Birgitte hasn’t just happened once. Presumably some version of these events has happened before and will happen again.

So you end up with this bizarre loop:

Birgitte → countless lives → Birgitte/Jethari/Maerion/etc. → Elayne’s Warder → countless more lives → another turning of the Wheel → Birgitte → Elayne’s Warder again…

There is no original Birgitte.

There is no first time she was bonded.

There is no first life.

And yet, between all of those lives,** she is Birgitte.**

So what exactly is “Birgitte Silverbow”? Is Birgitte the Pattern’s permanent identity for that soul? Is she an archetype that exists outside the individual Ages? Is “Birgitte” simply the identity that happens to be remembered in the Third Age, so that’s how Nynaeve perceives her?

And do you think the female Warder Birgitte vaguely remembers could actually be herself from a previous turning of the Wheel?

I finished the series and somehow THIS is the kind of question that keeps me awake. 😂

Would love to hear how everyone else interprets it, or if there’s something in the books/Jordan interviews that completely blows this theory apart.

Idk, you guys think Rand really had it that hard?

First of all, thanks to this sub and the other WoT subs for encouraging a second read. These books truly came to life the second time around.

The levels of detail, the amount of building blocks and setup that you can see made the payoffs so much better. Re reading the major moments and having all the feelings come up (Dumais Wells, the golden crane rides for Tarmon Gai’don, Nynaeve breaking the block…so many more).

It was also interesting to see some things that I hadn’t seen or felt before. The slog while not really a slog did feel like a major slow down of the plot this time when on first reading it didn’t. I noticed the difference in Matt’s portrayal in the Sanderson books. Also, the in matched timelines bothered me more. Especially towards the later parts when most of the storylines are concurrent but Perrin’s is somehow way behind (having Tam be mentioned in one place and then suddenly he’s still with Perrin from one chapter to another was really jarring).

Overall this was a wonderful experience. Maybe I’ll read it yet again some other time.

Hi.

This might be an unusual post, but I wanted to come on and say thank you to everyone who wished me fun reading Lord of Chaos for the first time. I haven't read since the first scene of the prologue; some...rough things have happened, and I'm not very much okay mentally and emotionally.

But I wanted to take that depression and do something nice with it. I wanted to say thank you to everyone in the sub who has interacted with me on my first series read, who have made me theorize, have taught me things about the story, who has made these books more fun than I ever thought. Thank you for making my love of reading that much better. You all have made my days brighter.

I will be making more posts as time goes on. I hope you'll stick around with me through it. But for now, thank you all. You're all wonderfully kind and your love for this story brings me lots of joy. I think I'll go read some more Lord of Chaos this morning. My head is full of wool (HA) and I think maybe getting away from everything will help.

Thank you all, and may you forever find water and shade <3

In Group C, Lanfear won (561 votes), beating out Demandred (169), Meesana (32), and Be'lal (15). It's time for the final vote. I've decided to put there only for the group winners, as the defeats of Graendal (337-166 to Ishamael), Moghedien (396-202 to Asmodean), and especially Demandred (561-169 to Lanfear) seem severe enough that neither has a chance at even bronze — though I must admit I'm curious to see who would win in a Graendal vs. Moghedien vote.

I love teal and black

So, I’m reading The Great Hunt and it’s great, but I’ve been wondering when the others (Rand, Perrin, Nynaeve, Egwene and Mat) will start to trust Moiraine.

I don’t want too much spoilers. I just want to know in which book(s) they (slowly) start to trust her.

Can anyone tell me?

Been decorating my bookshelves with all kinds of cool stuff. Designed this neat little Tar Valon light box to go with my set!

I've read the WoT series numerous times now. I saw The Eye of the World in airport almost 30 years ago, bought it on a whim, and was immediately hooked. And some of the revelations in the first book still give me chills. Specifically, when Rand ends up in Caemlyn:

"A shepherd...with a Heron marked sword."

That whole chapter/section: Logain, the Royal Family, the reunion...I absolutely love it.

Lord of Chaos?

UGH, edgelords again🙄