When I read a book, I usually form an immediate attachment to the first protagonist that we are introduced to.

For example, during Book 1 we were kept in the dark as to who the Dragon will turn out to be. I remember feeling a terrible stab of disappointment each time the possibility raised its head that Mat or Perrin might be the one Ba'alzamon was searching for, and not Rand.

Personally, I identify fully with the initial protagonist and cannot accept any later protagonist sharing his limelight.

That went for Perrin and Mat as early as Book 1. From the start I simply saw them as competition for the glory I wanted to experience through Rand, my alter ego in the story. (Which is why you read fantasy, after all, to live through the character in an alternate reality.)

So you can imagine the revulsion I felt when Sanderson tried (as per RJ's intention all along, I know, I know) to foist Egwene onto us as late as Book 12 as a counter hero figure to Rand.

I was like : How do you dare!

It is just foreign to the entire concept I have for a story. If the author wants you to identify with a protagonist, he must place you in that character's shoes from the start. Don't try to make you change your loyalty halfway through.

It's like George Martin trying to make you identify with that bastard Jaime Lannister and his b*tch of a sister, Cersei, after what they did to Bran in Book 1. That will NEVER fly with me.

I choose my side early on and I stick with it.

Hence my VAST relief when Rand finally came into his own at Dumai's Wells, and we read the immortal words:

"Kneel Aes Sedai or you will be knelt."

And now again in Chapter 1 of ToM, where Rand becomes the savior of the world he was always intended to be.

So fanboy? No.

But identifying with the main character as if you were walking in his shoes? Yes, definitely.