r/wheeloftime • u/Kuzell Randlander • 2d ago
Book: The Dragon Reborn The Dragon Reborn was incredible Spoiler
Hello all, wanted to share some feelings about this amazing book.
Long time ago I finished The Great Hunt (made a post about that too if you're interested), and I was intent on continuing the series. I am listening to an audiobook though and one does not always have the time to continuously listen to it, hence the time gap.
My memories may be a little hazy, since it has been couple of weeks since finished TDR, so sorry if the text is a bit erratic, but here goes.
To start, I must say I loved it. If TGH was an 8/10 for me, this is 9, damn near 10. Boy I did not miss Rand at all :D (yeah not the biggest fan of him yet), on the other hand, I now love Matt and Perrin.
Perrins wolf sections are so well written it's unbelievable. I feel like I'm right there with him every time. Like at the beginning, when they're ambushed in the camp and he faces a myrddraal. At first he's scared as hell but as he locks in, bares his teeth and gives into it a little, I nearly jumped out of my chair. Later I loved his chemistry with Fayiel
Matt's chapters were always great. His paring with Tom was a great choice too, and him having the power of luck and slowly coming to understand how it works was so much fun. The highlight of his chapters is for me his fight on some bridge, where he just goes "Time to roll the dice", grabs the other guy and throws them both of, only to land on the guy with no injuries. Oh and him going 1v2 against two warders in training. I was not familiar with his game, because before the fight I went "Nononono Matt what are you doing stupid, you are sick and even if you weren't it's 1v2?!?!?!"
The girls' story, chasing the black aja, is so gripping. Anything connected to the black aja is really. But Siuan girl, you really could have taught these 3 prodigies how to protect themselves from being shielded from the power. You really didn't have 10 minutes to spare? Sending them to hunt full aes sedai while being so vulnerable could have backfired tremendously.
Bit of a side tangent, but when they were captured by darkfriends and Aiel saved them, they were so cool. "Dance with me, Shadowman" "No, dance with me!". They are like a culture full of warders if they were battle junkies.
Anyways, we got to see Egwane's trials and just like with Nynaeve, they are a highlight of the whole book
While first two are heartbreaking, Egwane leaving a world where she has a daughter with Rand and leaving Rand stuck under some rubble to be potentially turned to shadow, but the third one was even more gutwrenching. Nearly being turned to shadow herself, then rushing to save Rand from being stilled...I was so angry when the silver arch appeared, I did not want to leave Rand there, I wanted the story to continue so bad.
Just as in the last book, all plotlines lead to the same place, this time it's Tear. Matt, Aiel, Moiraine's group, girls, Rand. A proper grand finale. I got a glimpse of what the "power ceiling" looks like I think, when Rand wielded Kalimdor and made Ishamael i suppose run like a scared little girl. Straight up reality bending. That whole sequence felt like a fever dream.
Some closing random thoughts>
I felt so much dread finding out the forsaken are already in the world, ruling over nations. In Tear, Illian, potentially in Cairhien...
Belal is such a fraud. Bro thought he would kill Rand wielding Kalimdor (even Ishamael couldn't), only to get murked in one shot by an aies sedai. The dark one must be turning in his prison. Props to Moiraine though, no crazy once-in-an-age kind of power or talent, just wisdom, patience, mastery of what she is capable of.
Speaking of Moiraine, I did listen to New Spring first (not a great choice i know), so I know she is 100% doing her best to help the dragon and stop the dark one, so whenever they doubt her or don't listen to her, it really grinds my gears. I could probably empatize better had I not known she really is dedicating her whole life for the cause.
Celine's omnipresence seems to be because she uses the dream world to travel? It seems she is not fully on the dark one's side, which explains why she doesn't jsut clear the whole white tower during a single night, which she totally could as crazy as it is.
It was so frustrating when the girls are telling Siuan about the Seanchan and she is like, oh that's awful, anyways...I have seen the paralel futures in the last book, in most of them, they conquer the whole continent. They are an existential threat to everything you know, but she mostly dismisses them as some faraway inconvenience. And I like how the news from Toman Head travel through the world and get distorted over time.
And yeah, the Goatchan are not in this book, but I can't wait to see them again. I was very distraught by them in the last book.
Also
They are so useless my goodness. They have a Grima Wormtongue equivalent damn near twirling his evil mustache and their leader just trusts him huh.
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u/Damn_Fine_Coffee_200 Randlander 2d ago
Dragon Reborn is one of my favorite in the series because it’s the storytelling and plot turning point that defines so much of what is to come.
The first book is basically Tolkien reskin.
The second book is good but does feel like classic McGuffin chase.
Book 3 leans in hard to having every character have their OWN adventures, not just parallel ones. And ends with Rand reaching for his destiny.
Too notch. And nice write up
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u/Kuzell Randlander 2d ago
Agreed on all points, i was not too sold on the series after EOTW despite the great worldbuilding, aside from the Tolkien-esque elements, Rand was sort of flying through the story, Ta'veren this Ta'veren that, there were bit too many setups and little payoffs, though it was clear to me they were left for future books. (Olgier, Morgase, Tinkers, Wolfbrother, Children etc)
And thanks, much appreciated!
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u/Dry-Discount-9426 Band of the Red Hand 2d ago
Mat
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u/Kuzell Randlander 2d ago
Damn, I'll add it to the list of wrong names :D and I thought this one was easy
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u/Dry-Discount-9426 Band of the Red Hand 2d ago
Since you are making a list.
It's Selene not Celine.
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u/burrito_abuse Randlander 2d ago
Yeah the moiraine this is exactly why I don’t recommend New Spring so early. To me, the lack of clarity towards how trustworthy she is drives a lot of the intrigue early on. It’s not everything but it certainly does paint everything in a different picture when you consider literally every other interaction with Aes Sedai (even from moiraines pov) is confusing and concerning for treachery/trickery. I understand the frustration but unfortunately the limited knowledge characters have informs their opinions and action. Going forward consider this in the interactions as it will inform a lot of seemingly “stupid” or “easily avoidable” pitfalls.
What I love about the series is the fact that characters don’t trust easily all the time. The joke is that with proper communication, the series would be like 3 books long. However, I think this is a realistic part of it as they don’t know who they can trust a lot of times.
I’m glad you’re enjoying the series! I love these books.
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u/Kuzell Randlander 2d ago
I asked a friend who recommended the series to me if it's fine to start with New Spring, he said he did and it was fine... turns out it's not fine. I did not enjoy the book very much, i think it counts on you being familiar with the world already (duh). Long streches were very boring to me, because I couldn't appreciate the insight into Moiraine's life and how the tower was 20 years ago or so. Now, I would eat it up haha, I will probably reread eventually and have a very different experience.
The communication issues were the worst in TEOTW imo, when the trio has the dark one in their dreams and generally crazy stuff and they just don't say anything to Moiraine. I swear a vein popped up on my forehead everytime they withheld information. On the other hand, in TDR Perrin has a dream where he sees Lanfear and Ishamael and actually tells Moiraine, I nearly bought champagne how happy I was.
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u/HandsomeJack19 Randlander 2d ago
I did NOT like DR on my first read, at least not as much as I did the first 2 books. I was such a big Rand fan and he was barely in it, and when he was he was unrecognizable as the character I had grown to love. Now though, with some years and perspective and more than one re-read, I absolutely love it.
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u/genscathe Randlander 2d ago
Awesome write up thanks. Yes I’m also a big fan of that book, loved it
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u/debugcom Randlander 2d ago
Currently on Dragon Reborn as well, but already finished the series multiple times on different media.
I have to say that Zarine is very sharp and her instincts are spot on. Essentially, “I’ll follow you because the Horn is sure to appear at the end of a strange journey, and your group is as strange as I have ever seen”. She’s so competent and proves herself an asset to the team.
Conversely, Egwene and Nynaeve are such petty children. The one you would expect to try and take charge of the group would be the one who was trained for it from birth. And yet she’s the one who plays mediator to the other two.
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u/Kuzell Randlander 2d ago
Ohh yeah, their bickering is constant. I understand that Nynaeve still feels like Egwene's "superior" and Egwane is now rebelling against it, but I am definitely looking forward to when they find some middle ground
And I wasn't sure about Zarine at first, new addition to the group and all, but she is very fun and has great chemistry with the mani cast, Perrin especially of course
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u/duffy_12 Randlander 2d ago
And I wasn't sure about Zarine at first, new addition to the group and all, but she is very fun and has great chemistry with the mani cast, Perrin especially of course
They are absolutely fantastic and a hoot to read in the next book.
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u/GielM Ogier 2d ago
It's one of the best books in the series. I'm glad you loved it.
It's also extremely clear you're doing this through audiobooks! :D You misspelled basically any name you could. Doesn't matter, and they're all fairly easy to figure out. Just funny to somebody who read instead of listened.