I have not been able to steel my soul sufficiently to do the same thing for his excretions.

I do not understand his reputation. I tried a couple times to read Mistborn, after he was named as the ghostwriter to finish WoT, and while there were some good ideas in there (the action sequence of the guy breaking into a house to steal from a safe, and fighting off the guards, using variations on a power to attract or repel metal objects was rather well-thought-out, IIRC), his prose was just awful, and I could never get very far into the book.

And he was an awful pick for WoT. Sanderson's reputed skills are in his clever creation and deployment of "magic" systems and his world-building. Wheel of Time already had the world-building done, and only proved Sanderson was a total dunce at understanding anyone else's. As for the clever gaming of the rules for preternatural phenomena, it really looked like Sanderson was trying to prove himself with the One Power and mostly failed or broke it.

For example, he had a thing where Gareth Bryne has a horizontal gateway open in his tent, that opens in the sky over the Shadowspawn army, effectively giving him an aerial view. You can really tell that Sanderson was proud of himself for that, in the same way you can tell when he is proud of a joke or literary device he employs, because he has to have the characters congratulate one another on it. But then, I think they went on to have some utterly idiotic comment with concerns about draghkar flying through. Either they then acknowledged that they will die on doing so, in which case their concern was the mass of bodies piling up in the tent, or they forgot about that issue altogether. Like, Sanderson went through the trouble to think all that up, and then had a brain fart believing that a large organism flying by flapping its wings, rising headfirst through a plane that instantly kills it, will somehow KEEP flying UP after it is dead, to then flop on the floor next to the hole? This isn't One Power stuff, this is life.

This is an essay I wrote a couple years ago elsewhere:

This is a thing the internet has been saying for nearly 13 years. I have been reminded of it lately, as I have been exposed to a number of posts criticizing Mr. Sanderson’s writing, and the inevitable defense of his handling of WoT have cropped up. Specifically that Jordan was bogging down his books with excessive descriptions and Sanderson dispensed with that extraneous crap in favor of getting to the point.

So let’s look at this sample of Robert Jordan’s egregious and overly verbose descriptions. Under a cut, because, after all, dress descriptions in Wheel of Time take up soooo much space…

“… each one wearing little more than a robe of diaphanous white cloth. A warm fire played in the hearth, illuminating a fine rug of blood red. That rug was woven in the design of young women and men entangled in ways that would have made even an experienced courtesan blush. The open windows let in afternoon light, the lofty position of her palace giving a view of pines and a shimmering lake below.

“She sipped sweetbristle juice, wearing a pale blue dress after the Domani cut – she was growing fond of their fashions, though her dress was far more filmy than the ones they wore…What an interestingly sour flavor it had. It was exotic during this Age, since the trees now grew only on distant islands.”

“…set aside her drink and walked through the gateway, her diaphanous pale blue gown shimmering with golden embroidery…”

“(Mesaana) had chin length dark hair and watery blue eyes. Her floor-length white dressbore no embroidery and she wore no jewelry. A scholar to the core.”

“Now, there was a handsome creature. Demandred looked like a knob-faced peasant compared with him (Moridin). Yes, this body was much better tha his previous one. He was almost pretty enough to be one of her pets, though that chin spoiled the face. Too prominent, too strong. Still, that stark black hair atop a tall, broad-shouldered body…”

“The building – a thick-logged structure of pine and cedar after a design favored by the Domani wealthy…The room he stood in was wide and long, thick logs making up the outer wall. Planks of pine – still smelling faintly of sap and stain – made up the other walls. The room was furnished sparsely: fur rug on the floor, a pair of aged crossed swords above the hearth, furniture of wood with the bark left on in patches. The entire place had been decorated in a way to say that this was an idyllic home in the woods, away from the bustle of larger cities. Not a cabin, of course – it was far too large and lavish for that. A retreat.”

“As always, (Min) had chosen to wear a coat and trousers. Today, they were of a deep green, much like the needles on the pines outside. Yet, as if to contradict her tailored choice, she had had the outfit made to accentuate her figure. Silver embroidery in the shape of bonabell flowers ran around the cuffs, and lace peeked out from the sleeves beneath… Why wear trousers only to trim herself up with lace?”

“Davram Bashere himself rode slowly through the camp, barking orders through that thick mustache of his. Beside him walked Lord Tellaen, a portly man in a long coat and wearing a thin Domani mustache. He was an acquaintance of Bashere’s.

“Like his men, Bashere went about unarmored in a short blue coat. He also wore a pair of the baggy trousers that he favored, the bottoms tucked into his knee-high boots.”

“(Cadsuane’s) dress was of a simple, thick wool, tied at the waist with a yellow belt, with more yellow embroidery across the collar. The dress itself was green, which was not uncommon, as that was her Ajah…”

“Today, (Nynaeve) wore a dress of gray with a yellow sash at the waist over her belt – a new Domani fashion, he had heard – and had the customary red dot on her forehead. She wore a long gold necklace and slim gold belt, with matching bracelets and finger rings, both studded with large red, green and blue gems. The jewelry was a ter’angreal – or rather, several of them, and an angreal, too – comparable to what Cadsuane wore. Rand had occasionally heard Nynaeve muttering that her ter’angreal, with the gaudy gems, were impossible to match to her clothing.”

“There were streaks of white in Alivia’s hair, and she was just a bit taller than Nynaeve. That white in her hair was telling – any white or gray on a woman who wielded the One Power meant age. A great deal of it. Alivia claimed to be four centuries old. Today, the former damane wore a strikingly red dress, as if in an attempt to be confrontational.”

Oh, wait, these were all Sanderson’s descriptions from one section of the prologue and the first chapter of The Gathering Storm.

So let’s contrast with the Robert Jordan’s first WoT book. Here are some of his first descriptions of characters, places and clothing:

In the prologue:
“The edge of his pale gray cloak trailed through blood as he stepped…”

“His clothes had been regal once, in gray and scarlet and gold; now the finely woven cloth, brought by merchants from across the World Sea, was torn and dirty, thick with the same dust that covered his hair and skin…the symbol on his cloak, a circle half white and half black, the colors separated by a sinuous line.”

“…he was clothed all in black, save for the snow-white lace at his throat and the silverwork on the turned-down tops of his thigh-high boots.

And in the novel proper:

“Gusts plastered Rand al’Thor’s cloak to his back, whipped the earth-colored wool around his legs…he wished his coat were heavier or that he had worn an extra shirt.”

“Tam…ignoring the wind that made his brown cloak flap like a banner…”

Somehow the following characters are introduced without a word of what they are wearing: Wit Congar, Daise Congar, Bran al’Vere, Cenn Buie, Mat Cauthon, Jon Thane. All but Thane have dialogue, too. Although there is a description of the Congars’ house.

The thatch looked as if it badly needed…attention

And the inn:

The first floor of the inn was river rock though the foundation was of older stone some said came from the mountains. The whitewashed second story – where Brandelwyn al’Vere, the innkeeper and Mayor of Emond’s Field for the past twenty years lived with his wife and daughters – jutted out over the lower floor all the way around. Red roof tile, the only such roof in the village, glittered in the weak sunlight and smoke drifted from three of the inn’s dozen tall chimneys.

Casks racked against one wall… polished canister on the plain stone mantel…The fireplace stretched half the length of the big, square room, with a lintel as high as a man’s shoulder…

A lamp hung over the cellar stairs, just beside the kitchen door, and another made a bright pool in the stone-walled room beneath the inn, banishing all but a little dimness in the furthest corners. Wooden racks along the walls and across the floor held casks of brandy and cider and larger barrels of ale and wine, some with taps driven in. Many of the wine barrels were marked with chalk in Bran al’Vere’s hand, giving the year they had been bought, what peddler had brought them, and in which city they had been made, but all of the ale and brandy was the make of Two Rivers farmers or of Bran himself.

Other clothing descriptions come when the characters meet or discuss outsiders:

“…’His cloak is like every gleeman’s cloak I’ve ever seen. More patches than cloak, and more colors than you can think of.’”

“The blacksmith…still wore his long leather apron as if he had hurried to the meeting straight from the forge.”

Then we get a whole conversation with Ewin Finngar, who may as well be naked for all the descriptions we get of his garb.

“‘…his cloak is green. Or maybe gray. It changes. It seems to fade into wherever he’s standing. Sometimes you don’t see him even when you look right at him, not unless he moves. And hers is blue, like the sky, and ten times fancier than any feastday clothes I ever saw. She’s ten times prettier than anybody I ever saw, too. She’s a high-born lady, like in the stories…’”

“’Their horses, Rand. I never saw horses so tall, or so sleek. They look like they could run forever. I think he works for her.’”

Then Moiraine actually shows up.

“Her clothes were just as strange. Her cloak was sky-blue velvet, with thick silver embroidery, leaves and vines and flowers, all along the neck, while another gold chain, delicate and fastened in her hair, supported a small, sparkling blue stone in the middle of her forehead. A wide belt of woven gold encircled her waist, and on the second finger of her left hand was a gold ring in the shape of a serpent biting its own tail. He…recognized the Great Serpent, an even older symbol for eternity than the Wheel of Time.”

“…a tall man Rand had not noticed before … one hand resting on the long hilt of a sword. His clothes were a dark grayish green that would have faded into leaf or shadow, and his cloak swirled through shades of gray and green and brown as it shifted in the wind. It almost seemed to disappear at times, that cloak, fading into whatever lay beyond it.”

Following that, Padan Fain, Perrin Aybarra, Nynaeve al’Meara, Egwene al’Vere all put in an appearance without any word of what they are wearing, besides a hood, when Egwene pushes hers back to reveal her braid.

“His cloak seemed a mass of patches, in odd shapes and sizes, fluttering with every breath of air, patches in a hundred colors. it was really quite thick, Rand saw, despite what Master al’Veren had said, with the patches merely sewn on like decorations.

… His long coat had odd, baggy sleeves and big pockets…a long-stemmed pipe, ornately carved, that trailed a wisp of smoke.”

That’s 3 quotes in the prologue and 15 quotes in four chapters. Compared to a dozen quotes in one chapter, by Sanderson. What’s more, each of those descriptions from Jordan comes as we are meeting characters for the very first time, while Sanderson mentions only one character who has not already appeared in multiple volumes (and Lord Tellaen will only be mentioned twice more in the rest of the book). Sanderson devoted 693 words to descriptions in that prologue section and chapter, and Jordan 771 words. I had to look through four chapters of Eye of the World to beat Sanderson’s word count.

And this may be subjective, but to my strictly amateur eye, Jordan’s descriptions seem much more relevant (and coherent) than Sanderson’s. Lews Therin’s clothing is part of the image of an important or powerful man in contrast with the disaster and mess around him. Elan Morin’s garb makes him seem above and untouched by it all, as well as giving him a sinister aspect.

The only thing we get about clothing for the Two Rivers folk in the village is that the al’Thors have brown cloaks. We get descriptions of Moiraine, Lan and Thom, because they are new and unique to the villagers’ experience. Lan’s cloak and Moiraine’s jewelry suggest to the readers preternatural aspects. Thom’s cloak and garments denote his entertainer profession, catching the eye of audience, the big sleeves and pockets clearly geared toward his sleight-of-hand tricks. And Jordan trusts the reader to understand that, and if the reader does not, it is not knowledge that will seriously impact their appreciation of the story.

What’s more, these details tell us that Rand is observant and notices the practicality of Thom’s garb beyond the superficial coloration. That rather than the ragged patchwork affair described by the mayor, it is a solid and useful garment. Almost like a foreshadowing of the character of Thom himself.

The description of the Winespring Inn might be a bit superfluous, but it sets the tone and mood. This is a place of hospitality and plenty, that is impressive to Rand, who has never seen better, but also somewhat parochial. The Two Rivers people only go outside their district for things they don’t make on their own, they prefer their own alcohol to any other. This might denote either pig-headed loyalties to their own kind, or a higher quality of production by the locals. Either works for the story, as we see Two Rivers characters demonstrate strong loyalties to their friends and neighbors, and also find the produce available in markets on their journey wanting.

The other building described is a brief note that the Congar house needs thatching, which contrasts with the resident’s indolence and preoccupation with the Wisdom and the weather, as opposed to the general pragmatic determination of the more sensible villagers, including Tam.

What purpose does Sanderson’s verbiage serve? What do we learn about Graendal that we did not already know? What do the descriptions of Min’s, Nynaeve’s, Cadsuane’s and Alivia’s clothing tell us? Do we need Rand’s ruminations about Nynaeve’s ter’angreal? We saw them in the four previous books. We’ve seen Nynaeve actually use them. Why do we have to have Rand mention Nynaeve uncharacteristically complain in his hearing that they are difficult to match to her clothes? If you want to convey that information, she is a major PoV character and it can come up in her own stream of consciousness, or in that of a woman in whom Nynaeve might actually confide that datum, who could more clearly articulate the contradiction between her professed preference for simplicity, and her sartorial behavior. Is there any reason at all to care about the country retreat of Lord Tellaen, or whose retreat it actually is? Could not “the retreat belonged to a Domani noble of Bashere’s acquaintance, and the simple rustic furnishings likely cost more than those of four farmhouses in the Two Rivers…” have sufficed in place of the 119 word paragraph we were privileged to read before any action or dialogue of our protagonist?

But this is not so much about his writing, as it is comparing him to Jordan. How does Jordan have Rand describe Min in their first encounter in each book?

“Not the usual plain brown coat and breeches, but pale red, and embroidered.” - LoC Ch 41 (13 words)

“Her breeches of brocaded green silk fit her like a second skin, and her coat of matching silk hung open, a cream-colored blouse rising and falling with her breath.” - aCoS Ch 33 (29 words)

“Her plain brown coat and breeches were very like what she had worn when he first saw her…” - WH prologue (18 words)

But to be fair, let’s see her first description in her now-normal clothes:

“Her blue heeled boots stirred the dust…a lace-edged handkerchief … Embroidered white flowers decorated the sleeves and lapels of her blue coat, and paler blue breeches molded her legs snugly. With yellow-embroidered bright blue riding gloves tucked behind her belt and a cloak edged with yellow scrollwork and held by a golden pin in the shape of a rose, she did look as if she had arrived by more normal means…” - WH Ch 11 (71 words)

“Her short blue coat, embroidered with white flowers on the sleeves and lapels, was cut to fit snugly over her bosom, where her creamy silk blouse showed a touch of cleavage…” - KoD ch 18 (31 words)

Rand does not really describe her clothes in tPoD or CoT, as he isn’t the PoV character when she first shows up. In the descriptions we get in Rand’s words, of sexy-clothes Min, Jordan uses an average of 32.4 words. Sanderson’s description is 74 words. More than twice the average of Jordan, and longer than any such description in Jordan’s books.

And again, Jordan’s descriptions are more useful. The LoC one is Rand suddenly noting the difference in her appearance, well into their first encounter in quite some time. This signals that Rand was initially seeing her as herself first, and as an attractive woman considerably after the fact, after his attention has been drawn to it. His next initial observation of her is their first encounter after they had sex, and he is more aware of the physical shape beneath the clothes.

The longest of Jordan’s description of her clothes is their arrival in Caemlyn, where Rand is noting her clothing in the context of their covert entrance to the Palace, and at the same time being drawn into admiring her beauty. This is a progression from LoC where he was barely aware of her attractiveness at first - now it draws him even when he is actively thinking of her look in a different context. Also note the pin. Where Rand is counting on Min to help him sneak through the Palace avoiding his other love interests to reach his hometown friends unobserved, Min is almost wearing Elayne’s sigil, although a rose is almost as appropriate considering her destined crown. This foreshadows that Min’s actions in those clothes will be more in line with her BFF’s wishes than her boyfriend’s.

Both the Winter’s Heart and Knife of Dreams descriptions are also in the midst of action. Min is entering a room and reacting to the dust, where the elaborate garments contrast with Rand’s and the dirty environment to highlight the absurdity of Rand’s efforts to avoid those he loves. In KoD, the focus is on her reaction to Rand’s issues and fears concerning women around him, and she’s reading, in support of a general theme of the scenario, where Loial is discussing his book, and his complaints about Rand’s reluctance to provide material fit in with Rand’s own mechanisms for coping with his trauma.

What does Sanderson’s account provide? We get that she’s wearing green that matches the pine needles in the area. Why? Perhaps for camouflage? Is she somehow connected to the environment? Nope. Sanderson just felt the need to specify the color and mention a correlation with another color. Rand also sees, for the first time, an apparent contradiction with … something. The outfit is made to accentuate her figure. Because she has never done that before? Rand has noticed how snug her pants are, and her shirts have made him aware of her bosom in nearly every book since she started dressing up. What does it even mean “…to contradict her tailored choice…” On its own, I would assume her tailored choice IS to have the clothes made to fit her, instead of cut for a male shape, but accentuating her figure is in contradiction to the “tailored choice”. Rand wonders at the end “Why wear trousers only to trim herself up with lace?” as if this is new as well, when, again, since Lord of Chaos, he has been observing her pants are too tight to be practical. Is this foreshadowing of a problem he is going to have with her clothing? Will the practicality of her clothes be an issue in this book, or ever, for the rest of the series? Not in any way of which I am aware.

How about Graendal? In her first PoV we have…

… nothing. Not a word of what she looks like. This is right on the heels of Sammael’s PoV in the same chapter, where he describes her thus:

“Her thin blue Domani gown clung and more than hinted. As usual, she had a ring with different stones on every finger, four or five gem-encrusted bracelets on each wrist, and a wide collar of huge sapphires snugged around the gown’s high-neck…suspected hours had gone into arranging those sun-gold curls touching her shoulders, and the moondrops seemingly scattered through them; there was something about their casualness that hinted at precision.” - LoC Ch 6

This is immediately followed by Sammael’s recounting her backstory and her personality, as he sees it. The “casualness that hinted at precision” fits with her depiction, how she affects carelessness, but does everything with a deliberate intention. In her PoV following his departure, we see this confirmed, as she reveals that the Sharans to whom she made casual references, were placed for psychological effect, but she still adhered to her habitual patterns in enslaving them.

It’s also worth comparing Sammael’s description of Graendal’s with Rahvin’s in the prior book, where she was similarly described as dressing provocatively, except Rahvin noted her beauty and compared her to Lanfear, the other woman present, and on a scale of women in general. Sammael makes no note of her attractiveness or sexual appeal. This is another difference between Jordan and Sanderson. When Jordan has a PoV man describe a woman as sexy, he wants you to know how the PoV man thinks of women, how he prioritizes sex and attraction in his mind. When Sanderson writes a PoV man describing a woman as sexy, he wants you to know she is sexy.

Anyway, back to Graendal, in a chapter where she is the main PoV, here is how she describes herself and her garments and accessories:

“…her streith gown went dead black before she could control herself and return it to mist.”

“Sipping her wine - and suppressing a sigh; it was from the here and now … - she stroked her gown with beringed fingers”

“…though if her gown changed color, it was by a hair…”

“Her gown shifted to a pale rose, but she let it stay.”

“She kept her face smooth, but the streith had gone a deeper rose, losing some of its mistiness.”

“Her gown rippled through violet shades of red, echoing the anger and fear and shame that rippled through her uncontrollably.”- LoC ch 23

What do we have in Graendal’s brain? Concerning her appearance? Not. One. Word. The only descriptions she gives are of the changing colors of her streith gown, where the purpose is to illustrate how much of her emotions she is revealing, and how calculated her choices to reveal those emotions is. We see that she has sufficient control over reactions that she can defeat even this high-tech sensitive fabric. And it makes a more striking contrast when she is badly shaken by Sammael’s presentation and has to show her real feelings and rationalize it as a strategy.

And just so we don’t write that off as a one-time fluke, in tPoD, Graendal also does not describe herself. Few characters do, unless they are doing in the context of a public appearance or a meeting in which their appearance might be a factor. Sanderson’s 37 words of Graendal describing her clothing (modern clothing, not her mind-relevant streith) are 37 more than Jordan does in three different PoV instances in two different books.

Also noteworthy is another error on Sanderson’s part, where he mentions the embroidery on Graendal’s Domani dress. The point of Domani dresses is that they are sheer, almost revealing the wearer’s body. They are never described as embroidered in Jordan’s books, though Sanderson also describes them so in Egwene’s PoV in the White Tower.

And what point is there to the description of her clothing? As noted above, Min’s clothing is often organically brought up in the context of her actions or Rand’s perception of her. Graendal’s clothing in Sanderson’s prologue is inserted into a description of the juice she is drinking. That juice, by the way, is something she finds interesting as a product of the current time, when in prior points of view, she scorns the comforts and products of the 3rd Age, being disappointed that among Sammael’s Age of Legends treasure trove, he is serving contemporary wine. Her rooms have open windows overlooking a scene of nature, when the last time we were in her head, she is oblivious to the changing weather because tells her guests she never goes outside, in her mind noting that she dislikes nature and rarely even uses rooms with windows. This is an important part of her obsession with control, as nature is beyond her power to subdue.

Jordan’s Graendal has a disciplined mind that sticks largely to important details, lacking in typical forms of vanity and is almost always in control of her reactions and submerses herself in an environment shaped as near to her pleasure and satisfaction as she can create. Sanderson’s Graendal’s mind jumps to her clothing in the middle of thinking about the juice she is drinking, and leaves the windows wide open. Jordan’s Graendal thinks of Demandred’s Mesaana’s and Semirhage’s alliance as a public front, while Sanderson’s Graendal believes the trio thinks their alliance is a secret! When they were first together on the page, it was in Graendal’s presence, where Demandred openly demonstrated he knew the locations of other two, while Graendal did not, openly asking her. Later she reveals that she only learned of Mesaana’s location in a subsequent meeting where Semirhage was not present. So if Mesaana’s location was a secret to most, why would Demandred reveal that he knew it, if they were trying to keep their association secret? In Jordan’s last book, at the Garden Party, the trio are openly huddling together, again, under the eye of Graendal. How can anyone believe they are trying to keep this a secret? But that’s Brandon Sanderson’s idea of demonstrating how clever a character is - have them ferret out a secret that no one is actually hiding. Demandred, Mesaana and Semirhage might not have been trying to fool their fellow Chosen, but they did just fine with ol’ B-Sand.

This could go on for pages and pages, and frankly, “describe” and “description” no longer look like words to me. My point is, the contention that Jordan is somehow inferior to Sanderson by virtue of his excessive description, while Sanderson’s writing is streamlined and direct, cutting out the fat and getting right to the action, this notion is pure bullshit. You might not like them, you might not think what Jordan is telling you with his descriptions is necessary, you can prefer Sanderson’s writing as a matter of taste, but you absolutely cannot say that this is a fault unique to Jordan, or an area in which Sanderson is superior. The real problem with Jordan’s descriptions is that they did so much create a definitive setting and characters, that a reader who has become immersed in these aspects of the story is unable to sit through Sanderson’s lexiconic abuse and word salad and accept it as The Wheel of Time.

I'm not a literary analysis person, and this is what my own inexpert, completely amateur eye discovered in a couple of chapters before I had to stop reading to prevent myself from hurling my tablet at something. The guy is a shit writer who did a shit job with WoT.

There are tons of other things where he could not be bothered to check the source material, or screwed up so many times you can't tell if he's making a point. Like Gawyn & Egwene being indignant about the fact that Warders can lie, after Gawyn just realized that they are not bound by the Three Oaths, and hoping Aes Sedai don't take advantage by having their warders lie for them? You dumb bitch, do you remember Moiraine and Lan doing EXACTLY that, when you got to Baerlon? Lan does most of the talking at inns, to avoid Moiraine even having to risk slipups beyond "you may call me Alys". Gawyn also wrestles with the ethics of using the bloodknife rings, saying that the enhanced physical abilities and stealth powers are "not the way of the Warder." A. Warders have physical abilities enhanced by the bond, which SANDERSON emphasizes way more than Jordan did. B. their signature is their color-shifting cloaks that help them disappear into the background! Enhanced abilities and ter'angreal-granted stealth are the TRADEMARK of the Warder! B. In book 7, (as opposed to Book 14 where he has these concerns) Gawyn reflected on his having long since shed his boyhood ideals about fair fighting. Either Sanderson rolled his characterization back to the start of his arc, decided to portray him as epically stupid, or Sanderson himself has a dimwitted adolescent take on the whole matter, that also does not accord with the established lore.

Or there was Aviendha, who, in Book 13 had to be led through a Socratic dialogue on her way to Rhuidean, in order to reach a conclusion that Rand needed to give the Aiel a new purpose, which she herself articulated all on her own back in Book 5!

And speaking of Warder bond dumbassery, forget that Jordan almost never dealt with the physical effects of the bond, beyond the consequences of death, and even then, mostly implied it was a subtle extension of his stamina and endurance, while Gareth Bryne gets bonded and starts acting like he's just swallowed a full can of spinach and the Popeye theme is playing fast. And where Jordan used the Warder bond primarily to convey the PoV character's awareness of their bonded partner, Sanderson forgets that all the time, with one character wondering what their bonded partner is feeling, or guessing from their facial expressions. It culminates on Elayne walking into her tent, and being surprised to find Rand inside, and Rand, in turn, looking up and being surprised to see her.

Every RJ character to win a battle is just relieved, exhausted and kind of sad. Sure people celebrate, but even that is framed as having a kind of desperate quality to it. There is nothing glorious or happy about killing people. And then Egwene goes psychotically self-hyping after her own efforts against the Seanchan, comparing herself to a Hero of the Horn, among other grotesqueries. I don't know if Sanderson is trying to trash her more than I would have dreamed had I been allowed to write her in a way to tarnish her character in that manner, or if he really believes it. Because also, her win in that fight is really underwhelming. All she did was fight personally, which RJ spent book after book denigrating wrt leaders, and leadership qualities. Saerin was the one who actually demonstrated good RJ-style leadership during that fight. Also, there is the point that Egwene did not "win" anything, all she did was increase the bodycount in a raid that was epically successful by the parameters of the win conditions the Seanchan set up at the outset. Furthermore, it was Egwene herself who made it an enemy win, by getting captured in a foolhardy, unleader-like risk, and enabling the Tower sisters to learn about Traveling, which the captives then gave to the Seanchan. And she murdered helpless women during the fight, torturing them to death, in fact.

I just think she's a selfish, power-obsessed asshole. I would never have written Egwene torturing unarmed women to death because of their nationality. And Sanderson does not even seem to know that's what he did, or how hollow the "victory" he has her celebrate actually is. What Egwene did was nothing more than eliminate a bunch of people whose next combat action would have been for the Light at Tarmon Gaidon.

Thanks, Brandon. I hate it.