rikuson1's reviews
78 reviews

It Was Okay 🙄
-★★✬☆☆ - (2.25/5.00)
My Grading Score = 45% (D) 

The Dragon Reborn was an entry I was quite looking forward to getting into. For both The Eye of the World and The Great Hunt, I understood very quickly what needed to be done in them, respectively. That's not necessarily the case for this one. It felt very disjointed, and I felt I spend too much time trying to figure out what the goal of this book was overall. 

If there's one thing I heard going into this book, and now finishing it, is that this entry has an infamous association with it. And you've probably heard it before at least once in regard to the title of this book, The Dragon Reborn. A book labeled The Dragon Reborn, which by this point we all is Rand Al'Thor, has little to none of him within it.

This book has essentially and in total a whopping four points of view. The 1st POV is Rand which we see little to known of but the story tries to tease us with a chapter, or a paragraph sprinkled in here or there about how he's headed off on a solo mission basically. The 2nd POV consists of Perrin, Lan, Moraine, and a new character, Faile. And their mission for basically this entire book is "catching up to Rand." The 3rd POV consist of Egwene, Alayne, and Nyneave in Tar Valon for the first chunk of their chapters continuing to learn the ways of being a Aes Sedai and then their mission and main goal is to track down the Black Aja who screwed them over in the previous book. And the 4th POV is with Matt whose first goal is basically to be a messager for Alayne to Caemlyn and then it transitions into another plot in Caemlyn which transitions into wanting to save the characters of the 3rd POV. These four, or more so, like three since Rand's POV can barely be considered one. Have events in them that were barely interesting and very few and far between for me. Between those small moments of engaging related things, it was a very very slow burn thrown in with Robert Jordan's signature over-explanation of every location the characters come in contact which only bogged the pacing down even more for me. 

This book did manage to make me care more about Matt since we spend so much time with him and the return of Thom Merrilin (even though he didn't really do anything) into Matt's POV was since to see. Perrin felt like it was a lot more whiney in this book, it felt like since Rand wasn't really a focus in this book RJ took all of the whiney angst he'd usually make Rand go through and injected it into Perrin. Although this did make him a bit more of an interesting character since he's not entirely the same as Rand because of this. His relationship with this new character Faile was interesting enough to follow at first but I do feel around the end their connection and care for each other happened a bit too fast and sudden to be caring for each other like that. The girls were all about the same, and Lan, I felt didn't really do anything either, especially during the climax of the book. 

Speaking of the climax, it was about the last 10% of the book, and it was engaging until the end constantly swapping POVs which made it feel very fast pace and yet another clash with Balazamon and another enemy called Be'lal. Rand obtaining Callandor was cool, I guess this is an upgrade from the Heron Mark Blade that got broken in The Great Hunt and him before this being able to conjure and wield a sword of fire which was random but, cool as nonetheless. Clash with Balazamon basically felt like a repeat of their clash in The Great Hunt and The Eye of the World. Rand didn't really seem like he struggled in this fight either and him on the run and destroy pretty effortlessly. So, although I was engaged, it did feel like we've done this before with similar results. 

Verdict
The Dragon Reborn to me was confusing for the first 10% and engaging the last 10% of this 500+ page book, which, overall, that's not that good when phrased that way. Not that much engaged me for this book and is one of the weaker entries thus far for me. It's not bad,

It Was Okay

It Was Okay 🫤
-★★✮☆☆ - (2.50/5.00)
My Grading Score = 50% (D+) 

I am just going to have to accept and come to the conclusion that when it comes to this series, I need to stay as honest about my thoughts as I possibly can. Maybe in hindsight, I'll like The Fires of Heaven more, but as of right now, I can not say that I did that much.

The Fires of Heaven felt like it tried to have a similar pacing as The Great Hunt where it tries to be sporadic but the issue is that when it came to The Great Hunt it had fewer moments that were unengaging to me than The Fires of Heaven. 

The story starts off focusing heavily on the POV that takes up more of this book than it probably should have, and it is with Siuan Sanche on the run. The start of this book was very odd and did not fully pull me into it, starting with such a character and crew. 

The next POV consisted of Elayane and Nynaeve encountering the circus/menagerie and the character Valan Luca. When it transitioned to this portion, it started to lose me even more, especially since it overstayed its welcome. Speaking of Nynaeve, I feel like her character in this book is the most infuriating and annoying she has ever been. Throughout this book, she was non-stop nagging and whining about everything under the sun to literally everyone. Additionally, when it came to the inner monologue and overall dialogue for basically every female character in this book, at some point, it was riddled to the rim with overwhelming misandry. The books leading up to this one had their fair share of this, but this one did reach a point where it did get a bit too annoying and started to sully my experience, especially like I said, it's coming from basically every single female. I understand that this is the world that they live in, and it's probably normal to take down about men, but that doesn't change the fact that it was just not enjoyable to any degree. 

Another portion of the Elayane and Nynaeve portion consisted of them going in and out of the dreamworld to contact Egwene, Siuan Sanche and meeting with Birgitte who is there and assists them in spying on the Forsaken who are discussing about how they should leave Rand alone, which did not make that much sense to me. Especially since continuously throughout this book, it is stated that thirteen ajah can overpower any man, including the dragon reborn (if I'm not mistaken). You would assume the best thing to do is for all of them to ambush him at once, but instead, they conclude that the one who would be in charge of observing Rand and going after him, alone, is Lanfear, the person who was in love with Rand's previous reincarnation, that did not seem like a good idea to have her do that alone, conflict of interests should have raised questions in that decisions and it started to raise my suspicions that the Forsaken overall are not that competent of villains. When they found out this information Nynaeve and Birgitte are ambushed by Moghedien, this is a villain who was easily defeated in the last book by Nynaeve and at the start of this book RJ tries to redeem how much of a threat she is by having her torture Liandrin, which somewhat worked and it almost did here as well during the ambush. But with her failing to capture them and Birgitte shooting her and them getting away, it just felt like it undermined how competent and powerful she's supposed to be. Additionally, on top of the fact that the next time they encounter her, she is once again easily subdued because Nynaeve imagines a linking chain around her neck. It felt anti-climatic once again for a build-up to an enemy the book spent so much time hyping up. 



The Rand POV was the best of the three. We simply are picking up where The Shadow Rising left. And probably my favorite part in the book comes in the fashion with the explanation of Bale-Fire. I thought how it was executed and explained was very impressive and creative. Then it transitions to the story focusing on Rand deciding that their next move is to chase down Couladin, who took the Shaido Aiel west to raid towns along the Spine of the World and attempt to take Cairhien. This issue I had with everything leading up to the Couladin conflict is that, firstly, it was very, very slow-paced, building up to Couladin himself. And then, when it's finally time to give us the reader some sort of payoff to the Couladin conflict, he gets off-paged killed by Matt. At first, I thought I genuinely dozed off while reading and completely missed the fight, which would have been bad if I had been so bored that I completely missed such an important encounter. But when I doubled back to realize I did not miss anything, it was skipped over and we were just told that Matt killed him, severely disappointed me as someone who was looking forward to his end, and I felt cheated out of a fight that I felt was built up to for a nice chunk of this book. 

The other part of the Rand portion that was heavily focused on was the romance between him and Aviendha. I heard that Robert Jordan was not that good at romance, and up to this point, I didn't fully agree or care to debate against that point. For how sloppy Perrin and Faile's relationship started in The Dragon Reborn I was sold on it by the end of The Shadow Rising and she was quite annoying there too, so I was going into this dynamic with the same expectation. I am still trying to wrap my head around the irrational decision of creating a way gate to a location far off in the freezing cold and running through it naked to get away from Rand. I understand that she wanted to get away from him as far as possible but this was just a bit too unreasonable, even for me, to take seriously even from an irrational standpoint, she basically said with her actions that she was ready to kill herself if it meant she could get away from him in that moment. And if that was her mindset then I do not understand how one could go from such a mindset in one moment to having sex with him, to me it just felt way too forced and I was not convinced. At least I wasn't bored, I just thought such a scene could have been handled better.

Another POV we got around the first half of the book that dealt with Morgase and her relationship with Gabriel. These weren't bad or too boring. They were engaging enough but were mainly and simply here to set up Rahvin as a main conflict for the climax of this book. 

At the end of the Rand POV, a spy tells Lanfear that Rand had been with another woman, and she flips out to go to him and causes a rampage. This, to me, showcases that Lanfear knows where Rand is located essentially at most, if not all, times. Once again, if she was going to ambush him, you would assume that she'd tell literally any of the other Forsaken to come with her it on this mission for better success. One could say she was too much in rage to think about such a thing and ran off, but once again this just brings the Forsakens' level of competence in question, especially since up to this point Lanfear I felt was one of the main Forsaken that felt like they always moved in a way that had a lot of thought put into every detail, her fall from grace over such a thing I understand to some degree and plus she is very powerful and probably was under the impression that she's stronger than anyone that could get in her way but still once again you'd assume she would have a back up plan in some fashion given by how much planning and scheming she's done up to this point. I don't know. Once again, it just did not sit well with me on this action from her. Her and Moraine clash and end up killing each other, which was another conflict I'm not sure how to feel about since it happened so quickly. This once again just brings up one of my gripes with RJ, I just feel like he spends too much time detailing out so many other things but when it comes to fight scenes and the written choreography that could be done it leaves so much to be desired and it makes basically fight and climatic conflict just not feel rewarding to me. 

In the last portion of the Rand POV, he is made aware that Rahvin has killed Morgase in Caemlyn. He, basically like Lanfear, gets enraged and heads down to Caemlyn to kill Rahvin. He gets there and falls into a lighting trap that kills Matt, Aviendha, and another person I can't remember right now ( it doesn't matter tbh). And Rand rushes into the palace to fight Rahvin. Ravhin creates a way-gate and runs away inside of it, and Rand follows him. This brings up another issue I have with basically most of these Forsaken climax fights. They are suppose to be these all powerful enemies but most of these end book fights consist of them running away while Rand chases them down and defeats them, riddled with abstractive action scenes that are extremely difficult to imagine fully. We come to the conclusion that the way-gate Rahvin made was one to the dreamworld, and it is not explained why Rahvin does this. The plot reason is to connect Rand's POV with Nyneave's who shows up there to distract Rahvin giving Rand enough time to shoot him with balefire, which causes his actions to be erased, thus brining back Matt and Aviendha. At the start of the book, when the balefire was executed and explained, I thought it was (and still is) very creative, bad ass and powerful. The potential for creative ways this could possibly be used in a fight I felt is only limited by how RJ writes it. And here I did not feel like the execution of such a creative element was utilized in an impressive or creative way. 

Lastly, the book ends with a mysterious person meeting Asmodean and killing him. 


Verdict
If you manage to read everything I wrote above, you can see the many issues I personally had with this book entry. On paper, a lot happened, and debatably, some of the coolest events in the series thus far occurred. I can understand how someone could come out of The Fires of Heaven, absolutely loving it despite its flaws. But for me, the execution of so many of these moments that should have been cool for me fell from the Fires of Heaven down to the Pools in Hell. I do not think overall that this is a bad book or even the weakest entry for me thus far, that still goes to The Dragon Reborn. But it was not that good to me,

It Was Okay

It Was Amazing 🤩
-★★★★★- (5.00/5.00) 
My Grading Score = 100% (S) 

The study of psychology in this book is extremely dense it is definitely a harder read than his two later books 12 Rules and 12 More Rules. Those are far more digestible, and I like them a lot more. But this one isn't worse than them, and it has way more to say. It's simply incomparable, but it's equally as well put together in regards to what it wanted to say and accomplish. And his prose and articulation do help a lot going through such deep topics. Nonetheless, it requires a lot more attention from its reader. 

Verdict
The middle was a bit tough to get through because its density is at its all-time high but its conclusion chapter allows the book to end on a note so high that it is completely worth the entire read that lead up to it. So, with all that being said..

It Was Amazing.