The general consensus from the WoT fandom is that Books 1-7 are pretty decent (which they aren’t), with 1 getting marked down for its few similarities to LotR (which are not hugely overwhelming anyway). Books 8-10 are far too flabby and could have been one book with some more ambitious pacing and editing. Book 10 is the nadir of the series. Book 11 starts off as more of the same, but Jordan impressively does drag it kicking and screaming back on-track by the end of the volume, concluding a large number of storylines and character arcs. Book 12 is more of the same. Sanderson refocuses the series on its core two characters, Rand and Egwene, in a different manner and gets a whole lot of character work done. Book 13 is okay, but suffers from Sanderson's decisions in 12. A lot of stuff from 12 is delayed into 13, resulting in continuity lapses. There's some very good scenes and epic moments, but it's all over the place in tone and feel. Book 14 is a stupid conclusion to the series. Some of the stuff at the end is a rushed and the fates of a few minor-but-fan-favourite characters are skipped over; in the end it tries to make sense but it does not work.

I must admit I always found the 'three male leads' thing to be a bit of a red herring. It's presented that way in the first two or three books, but by the end of the series I think it's clear that the two main protagonists are Rand and Egwene, and their stories and the differing ways of how they cope with the situations they are thrown into are paralleled against one another very well. In the 80s when I first read this guff I sort of liked what Jordan was trying to do with the male/female duality in the series; in 2021 I don't think he had enough writing firepower to pull it off. Instead of recognising the complexities of both men and women as human characters, he had a tendency to retreat to stereotypes and comedies of manners based on those stereotypes. It is quite impressive that he did built a fantasy world where women have as much (if not more) power and authority than men and gave reasons for it, rather than presenting us with another faux-medieval, "everything sucks if you're not a tough white dude," kind of world. But that doesn't really work if half your characters (male and female) behave very stereotypically and stupidly.

The WoT series is stuck in the 80s. It's a clunky, poorly written and plotted artifact as well having all too many plots depending on the protagonists being thick.

As for how much of RJ's work is in the last 3 Sanderson’s books: Most of the three prologues, almost all of AMoL's epilogue, a lot of Mat's stuff in ToM and a lot of Egwene's stuff in TGS were written by Robert Jordan directly. According to Sanderson, the biggest problem was that the notes were very detailed in the ultimate fates of characters and what role they played in the Last Battle, but not very detailed at all in how they necessarily got from the end of Book 11 to that position. That required some invention on his part. But with no alternative available, there was no way around it.

Books written by Sanderson are so juvenile, so atrocious, so pathetic that these books make “The Eye of the World” look like written by Joyce. ( )

So before I begin rereading this one:

It was a very long time ago when I read this. Thirteen or fourteen of something. I remember loving this because it was one of the first fantasy in which men and woman were treated (somewhat) equel (explanation: male and female have their own roles in society. Both are respected but you can't easily take on another). I found that fascinating. Also something about ying and yang? But also the world building was amazing. Other thoughts were:
- Nyneave was my favourite. Although even then I didn't really like may-dec love. And I think her and her love interest Lan were one.
- I don't really remember about the other characters. When reading the blurb I was like... Mat who?
- Perrin I remember vaguely mainly because of his ax.

I read this in dutch... So hearing it in English will make for WTF moments... I had the same thing with Harry Potter. Some parts didn't 'feel' right...

And so it begins!

Very long, great beginning and end though middle is rather dull ( )

I had already read this once, and this was my second read. I liked the first book, it was an excellent experience. I liked the prologue part a lot. The series is good for about 6 books and then it was extended by about 3 books. It could have been reduced and made crisper. I felt a lot of struggles about Elayne and Egwene were not needed (atleast I did not enjoy them). ( )