Yeah, I know this isn't about me in general (nor in specific) but that's pretty clear and what I call accounting for the polemics/hyperboles.

I feel the same way. I'm admirative even of the efforts Sanderson invested in all this, and of everything he managed to get right (even down to little obscure things, like how he noticed and tried to emulate RJ's symbolism in the descriptions, use of colours etc. He even noticed this followed a pattern in the design of the locations, and replicated it notably in the layout of the woodland manor in TGS, and was careful to maintain it in his first description of TV too. It shows the guy has a background teaching literature and writing - he wasn't oblivious to details/layers like this. And I wonder what he could have accomplished had he got a few more months to do severeal re reads, to analyze RJ's writing deeper) I also realized before even reading the book that I had my vision of all the characters, and it was based off RJ's writing - not necessarily the "right" or intended vision but rather my perception, and no doubt Sanderson or anyone couldn't help but infuse the text with elements of his personal interpretations of RJ as a reader, and would interfere with interpretation of RJ's writing and create "noise" that would interfere with the pleasure of reading.

I'm also quite frustrated by the circumstances surrounding the project, and I won't shy from telling my opinions about this. I don't think the best conditions were created for Sanderson (and in part, he didn't help some of those either) - the whole "fiasco" of making the decision to split the book at the last minute, for instance. There's a great deal of good in the books, and I fully acknowledge this and in the same circumstances I'm not sure anyone but a dedicated fan of WOT and admirer of RJ, and someone who had the humility not to put himself completely to the service of RJ like Sanderson could have done better (most likely, most writers would have done far, far worse than Sanderson). The results are still the results, though. It's a very good vehicle to learn about the end of the series and I would have been disappointed to read just notes and outline full of gaps, but that will never, ever be for me a seemless transition from the previous books, or books I truly enjoy, or wish to re read the way I did the previous books. Compromises mostly in the hope of doing the best for the waiting fanbase were made, and they had a big effect on quality of the books. There are a lot of good scenes, and the fun of discovering what RJ had in mind is there, but the book just don't deliver the reading pleasure I was hoping for. They're too flawed for that, too unpolished. Compared to RJ, those are very advanced drafts still needing many tweaks, they just don't meet the standards of the previous books, and alas, they're like 70% there already - it's just that last 30% that spoil the whole experience. A few months to step back, smooth out the last problems, and this could have been really good books (not structure/divided as they were, but let's say the whole ordering was redone too). And alas, this is what would obviously have been done once Sanderson had completed the whole thing and started working to put together disparate parts to make a real novel out of it all, with parallels between events/character developments, themes and motifs emerging that he didn't know were there because of course RJ just outline the story, didn't document the WHY and the HOW . And now, this will never be done, because of publishing decisions.

And as much as I'm grateful and admiring of Harriet and the efforts she put into this, I must say I'm a little disappointed. I was under the impression she was a lot more intimate with the books and RJ's writing than this, and that her input in the final phase (when RJ put the books together after all the different bits and pieces were written, he did it with Harriet). Now I'm forced to conclude that whatever he said of Harriet's input, RJ was largely responsible for the books, and just called her for help with his "blind spots" (whatever they were), while with Sanderson her responsabilities as editor increased massively, and they're too much.

But RJ's and other comments lead to too high expectations on my part. A lot of things that I don't like much in TGS/TOM were expected with the change of writer (some fears just never materialized too) and it's not the things I point out in my posts. Rather, it's what I was under the impression was in safe hands and not issues at all that botheredme, like smoothing out Sanderson's vocabulary, properly structuring the books and so on. The structural problems especially are not forgivable because it's a new writer. There are attenuating circumstances for the book split, but that aside, it doesn't excuse that TOM is a terribly, terribly structured book - a cluster of stories and scenes but hardly a properly finalized novel.. Stuff like having Elayne appear on different timelines in the book, and not even respecting the chronological order of these apparitions. Except for weird literary effects, you're not supposed to have to keep track of obscure timeline indications to puzzle out if an apparation of a character happens before or after the previous scene with her (and TOM is FULL of that). That's terribly amateurish. Harriet no doubt saw all that, Sanderson no doubt saw all that. He would have jumped at any of his creative writing students who did that and explain this didn't work. I doubt Harriet would have let it pass while editing someone else. It's really very hard to understand why, with both their experiences and credentials, they didn't solve these very obvious problems, except to conclude their bloody self-imposed deadline is to blame. They didn't finish their work, they let it go because the deadline was reached.