Some Thoughts:

- After having an increasingly bad case of diarrhea all day, I did feel a profound insight into Brandon Sanderson's writing process.

- That being said, once I got into it, the plot was sufficient to drive all the annoying little Sanderson-isms into the background.

- While it was touch and go for a while, the world was saved from one of the worst fates imaginable. It got really suspenseful for a bit, and I was on the edge of my seat (for more than medical reasons), but they were saved at the end. And then all the armies rallied and Rand beat the Dark One and Cadsuane got picked to take over, so it's all good.

What did you think I was referring to?

- "Jordan lacks the guts to kill any major characters" Fuck you, 20 Years of Trolls. These deaths, and the loss of the lives were EARNED, unlike various other "no one is safe" works, in which you're pretty much desensitized right off the bat, or else are not quite fitting of the label, because you know there is always that central core that will never get killed.

- High five to Min, for finally finding an actual job, like 14 books in.

- I liked Padan Fain's fate, both for who killed him and how, and the massive head fake that he's supposed to have a key role to play like Gollum or something.

- I liked the fake-out of Alivia's role, too.

On that note, characters whose outcomes or arcs I enjoyed or found satisfying:

- Olver

- Nynaeve

- Mat

- Birgitte

- Lan

- Logain

- Mogehdian

- Demandred

- Galad

- Min

- Cadsuane

- Moiraine

- I thought the emphasis on Androl was a bit off, coming as late as it did, and giving me the impression that the Black Tower storyline was drawn out a little too much. Moiraine, on the other hand, got just enough attention and a role that was just about right in her whole return-thing.

- I also wonder if Rand appreciates just how awesome his girlfriends are, to intuit all on their own that the thing he would have wanted most while in his coma would have been to fake his own death and get the hell away from them, among other things.

- I still don't get a couple of the early viewings, like the trees flowering all around Perrin (why him? Because the Merrilor scene was his PoV chapter? It's not like he did it or caused it), and I think Mat's laughing face is still a bit too vague.

- The new Breaking of the World sucked, as did the remnant of a remnant thing with the Aiel, unless Sanderson just glossed over the relative casualties. On the other hand, the body count and scope of the conflict were pretty good.

- I wonder whose idea the 190 page chapter was?

- I really have to get some sleep, so I'm just going to close with a particularly relevant piece of verse: