by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
The previous Wheel of Time blog post was largely about the transition from Jordan to Sanderson. The next will probably be a lengthy wrap-up for the entire series. I don’t know how much there really is to say about Towers of Midnight.
I will try to say stuff anyway.
Overall, I liked the book, though it’s pretty clear there’s a checklist of things the characters have to do and places they have to be before we can move on to the finale. It’s foreplay. Or, for our younger readers, it’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. In other words, Towers of Midnight is cool, but even while you’re reading it, you’re already thinking about finishing. So to speak.
Just to get my main criticism out of the way, there was way too much Perrin and the Wolfdream. There’s always too much Perrin. I know I sound like a broken record, or that modern music your friend swears is huge in Europe. But there’s simply too much Perrin, and way too many dead wolves spouting pseudo-philosophical nonsense. It got old many, many books ago.
Alright. With that said, here are the best moments in Towers of Midnight, in no particular order.
- Mat finally kills the fucking gholam. I don’t even remember where the thing came from; it was probably one of those prologue scenes featuring previously unknown Darkfriends, and it was probably in book seven or something. Regardless, Mat disposes of the gholam, and the loose plot thread, in a cool way.
- Egwene gets put in her place. Why Jordan wanted to create a virtually flawless character I’ll never know, but it’s nice to see her at a loss for words when Perrin shows her up with his wolf dream skills. Immediately afterwards, of course, she instantly masters everything it’s taken Perrin thirteen books to learn, but whatever.
- Elayne chooses to exercise her idiocy in a way that moves the plot forward. Okay sure, Birgitte is right about the “interrogation” of her captured Black Ajah being a really, really bad idea. It’s at least a fun action scene that doesn’t do anything we’ve seen before. Plus, it introduces the idea that Min’s vision–Elayne giving birth to healthy babies–might be wrong, a prospect that will hopefully be explored further in A Memory of Light.
- Perrin and Galad. We always knew Galad wasn’t really a dick, even though he’s the most dickish “good” character, but Sanderson was still able to make the standoff between him and Perrin exciting. The presence of Morgase, the Whitecloaks, the dreamspike–it all came together quite nicely.
- Mat’s rescue of REDACTED. I’ve never really understood the snakes and foxes. I guess they exist in parallel worlds where it’s normal for people to look like snakes and foxes? But somehow also they’re all-knowing about Mat’s world? Whatever it is, the whole book builds to this one particular scene, and it was great. Mat tests the boundaries of what his luck can do for him, and of course it works, because he’s fucking Mat.
- Oh yea, the war. There is a war. Rodel Ituralde, one of the more memorable and likable minor characters, is in charge of defending Maradon. He does war stuff.
- Rand kicks ass in the war. His appearance at Maradon is one of the most badass moments in the whole series. In a world with witches and wizards around every corner, it’s frustrating to watch the main characters constantly behave as if big medieval battles aren’t absurdly wasteful. I guess I’ve just been waiting for Rand to show how powerful a weapon of war he can be. His walk towards the enemy line to deliver a well-deserved ass-kicking, two bodyguards in tow, is one of the more memorable images of the series thus far.
- Rand stops being grumpy. Self-explanatory. Major improvement.
That about does it. Unless there’s a secret fifteenth book that I don’t know about, my five-year Wheel of Time journey is about to come to an end.
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