He showed up, met his in-laws, whined about Rand's early signs of PTSD, and then badly handled the whole Berelain thing. At the last minute, people shove Rand's kidnapping in his face, and he mostly just puts his stamp of approval on Rhuarc and Dobraine whipping up a posse to go after him. Dobraine was the one who actually was more awesome in that sequence, because his bit took a lot more courage. Perrin just had to go after his friend, for whom he had already left home because he knew they needed to stick together. Dobraine was the one who had to make the choice to defy the Aes Sedai and a powerful rival who was about to seize the throne of his homeland, all in order to keep his oath. And to cooperate with the Aiel for a Cairhienin is like asking a Jew to cooperate with the Nazis for the greater good. Perrin just went along with it. Hell, he didn't even bring his own retainers! That was because of Alanna & the sisters uncharacteristically choosing to bring along ordinary mortals.

They...went places. And never got there. I don't see what was so awesome about this that the next two books fall so far short by comparison. Not that Mat didn't have some cool moments in this book, it's just that I hardly see his arc comparing to Dumai's Wells on the awesome scale.


Deadsy & FT have come up with a more than adequate list of moments in the next couple of books that surpass at least half the things you mention in this post, so I shall not bother repeating, but there's more than enough good stuff. The gholam, the Bowl of the Winds, Egwene's version of the Reichstag fire (if you liked her elevation to the Amyrlin Seat, you should love her consumation of her dictatorship in tPoD), Mat's Ebou Dar escape scheme, the Asha'man going renegade and blowing up the Sun Palace...there's lots of good stuff.


Did you now?