And that really captures my preferences in a nutshell.

I don't read literature. I read a good story. And I want to experience great characters.

In other words, I want to read something that's a visceral experience, rather than an intellectual one.

I often use Martin's work as an example, but by this I do not mean to suggest that his work is somehow less "literary" in nature than Jordan's. In fact, Martin's work is probably even more so. But that's not why I read it. I read for the way he puts you in the moment.

Let's use Arya as an example. I enjoy her chapters immensely, not because of the symbolic meaning of her lifestory, but because she casts some kind of spell over me that draws me in helplessly to experience her ride through war torn Westeros.

I FEEL it when she plucks a worm infested apple from amongst the hanged corpses dangling around it. And I EXPERIENCE her hatred when she goes through her list that goes something like this: "The Tickler, the Hound, Queen Cersei, Ser Jaime, Dunsen and Polliver, Ser Gregor etc...."

It is because it touches the BASE emotions in me. A sense of being wronged. The burning desire for vengeance. The intense love for her family, her pride as a Stark, her fear, all of it.

I contrast this with the sanitized, "goody two shoes", intrinsically heroic and noble characters in the Wheel of Time. People like the heroic Egwene, honourable Perrin and self sacrificing Rand.

In tGS I got the first ever hint about Rand saying that he actually wants to live despite the prophecies of his death. Up to now, he has so fatalistically accepted his fate, and his duty which is heavier than a mountain that it becomes unbelievable.

My biggest gripe is that every good character in the Wheel of Time lives for goals greater than themselves. They deny their own needs and desires almost without fail.

So how can I identify with this character if I read a book to EXPERIENCE the power of saidin, or to FEEL the satisfaction of exacting vengeance on an enemy, or to be immersed in the gratification of setting right a wrong that was done to me?

Instead, he only makes me feel his humiliation when he gets slapped in the face in front of his followers by some old lady.

Arya also got humiliated in such a fashion by a character, but she ended up sticking him with the pointy end. And THAT brought me more satisfaction than when Rob Stark won the battle of the Whispering Woods.

In a nutshell what I'm saying is that by denying the characters these experiences, Robert Jordan is denying me as the reader those experiences as well. And that's why I identify with the bad guys almost to a greater extent than with the protagonists. Because they don't deny themselves, and by extension me as the reader when I am in their shoes.

So I guess I haven't responded directly to your thematic analysis of the Wheel of Time. Sorry about that. But what I have tried to articulate in my own way, is the essence of my experience when reading the Wheel of Time. And the underlying cause of most of my disgruntlement with the series. I'm sure someone else could have worded it much better than me. But that's my take on the whole thing.