Disclaimer: I’ve put off reading this series for several reasons.
- It’s pretty epic and would be quite an investment and monopoly of my time. I was reading lots of other books and series back then, who had the time when one was in a Palahniuk phase?!
- It wasn’t completed when I first heard of it 20 years ago, so waiting was ideal.
- I remember Sanderson wrapping up the series upon Jordan’s untimely passing away, so now that the end was in sight, I felt the time was soon to crack open these books. Unfortunately, by this time, the front cover of my used paperback of book 1 had cracked off.
- Then the Amazon series came out, my tbr list was getting longer by every passing day, so I figured I’d just watch the show. I enjoy multitasking, what can I say, this was an easy solution.
- Didn’t like the show for a variety of reasons that are most likely quite akin to a reddit commentary. So out of feeling quite offended by the modern retelling, I decided to read the actual books since life now permitted such a feat, and I may as well complete the series rather than sounding like an uninformed idiot touting groundless opinions.
Here we go then. I’m most assuredly not going to write a review for every single WoT book; however, the more invested I get into the story, the more likely that that is precisely what will happen. (The prior sentence is a grammatical disaster, and I ought to clean it up but currently refuse to do so.)
So book 3: The Dragon Reborn. Title rather self-explanatory: it is about Rand finally accepting the fact that he actually is this prophetical individual. As with any series that follows the Joseph Campbell formula of the unwilling hero, some series have the whining protagonist beating that dead horse so incessantly that the story loses all appeal and the reader grows a special loathing for the hero, now become hated hero. I won’t name names. As it appears, Rand does finally accept his role. His meandering and mental crisis over it may possibly be believable, considering how humble and down-to-earth he is, but I feel this could’ve been done differently.
The real plot of the story was how Egwene had a dream and their consequent pursuit to catch up to Rand before the bad guys get to him or prevent him from doing something dumb. I’ll establish this now: I didn’t like Egwene in the TV series, and I don’t like Egwene in the books. I’m not sure if this is because Jordan has other plans for her, hence jading his character-building of her, but her character is petulant and her childish talking down of Rand despite her child-like adoration of him is obnoxious.
The more enjoyable parts of this book was everyone else, mainly: Mat. Now that he’s cleansed, it’s so nice to see his true character shine. I couldn’t stand him in the first book, so this is a major personal plus because it is very hard to spend so much time with a book whose characters are disliked (usually an instant toss into the dnf pile). It’s interesting how Jordan is taking this immature childish character and converting him into a shrewd trickster of a character. I’ve always been fascinated with the gods of chance, roll of the dice, lady luck, that type of character. Takes a very clever writer to achieve their credibility, but always fun to read about. Jordan has a talent to make these boys’ reactions relatable to most.
Perrin’s journey is much more sympathetic as he struggles to prevent the beast within from taking over. The introduction of Faile was somewhat annoying (can you tell I hate distractions of the romantic sort?) but Jordan makes up for her unexpected introduction to the cast by making her extraneously annoying to the point of being endearing and redeemable in a short amount of time. It’s no wonder Perrin feels the need to protect her.
The Dragon Reborn was certainly more about Mat and Perrin than Rand. My issue with this story as a whole is the growth of Nynaeve and Egwene. It’s just not really interesting. Moraine is the only female character than appears realistic and genuine and I’m interested in what she has to say; the other two feel contrived and more or less forced into the story. That, or Jordan isn’t very good at writing younger female characters. Is he trying to redeem this by introducing Faile and Avhienda? In my darkest of hearts, I hope Egwene goes away. Her arc is predictable, and all her interactions are annoying unless she’s being scolded by Moraine and Nynaeve; unfortunately, as a rare dreamer type of witch, she probably won’t go away and will continue to play this pivotal role as ‘prophet/dimension traveler’ while being completely useless otherwise apart from pissing off the other characters and getting in everyone’s way.
Nynaeve, on the other hand, began as a proud and obnoxious character, but Jordan turned her weakness of a bad temper as a crux to her power, which works well, albeit predictable. She sees the big picture quickly and doesn’t beat around the bush. The moment she went through her three trials was when her character transformed, rightfully so, and if it weren’t for her attachment and concern for her hometown imbecile, she could most certainly grow into a powerful character. Possibly even an antagonist, though I think Jordan’s approach to women characters is much more pure than that. Their pretentiousness is just truly obnoxious to me, and pointless drivel; every time the book switches to their POV, I’m tempted to read the first paragraph and the last paragraph. Time is short.
This turned into a rant about the characters rather than about book 3. Dragon Reborn is most certainly a placeholder within the series and there were many ways to go about this transitional time. I’m not very keen on Rand’s transformation, it was a toss-up between wishing he had more of a role in this book and thinking there really was no need for him to be in this book. Mat and Perrin’s plot in this book certainly shone the brightest. I imagine book 4, The Shadow Rising, will be part ii of The Dragon Reborn, and hopefully reveal some more of the undercurrents moving the proverbial wheel of the world, as well as contain a larger plot than getting from point a to point b.
ellDimensional 