Rolan had nowhere the screen time some people imply he got (and beside it was a good story arc, those who like Faile's character usually found Rolan interesting). Perrin's story line was much shorter than people believe. Its problem was never its length. It's about as fast paced and full of ellipses and jumps forward as his TSR story arc. The problem has always been that this arc was very thin to be spread over four books, and RJ had painted himself in a corner with Faile's rescue being how Perrin got his army and joined Galad on the one hand, and the fact that he could not come up with side adventures for Perrin's character too much without destroying what he was building, which was Perrin's obsession about losing Faile.

Do the exercise once of reading only those chapters, and unless you're a visceral Perrin hater, you'll see. Account for the fact of course RJ needed one or two very slow chapters to re introduce all the characters and issues at the start of each book. Those chapters would have been cut had he written it over one or max two books. The rest is really not that slow.




Come on.

The massive amount of pages wasted by Brandon on building up Gawyn and inflating his arc to the point he got more scenes and POV in TGS/TOM alone than RJ gave him in the whole series is all COT's fault. Damn Jordan and his pacing.

To essentially drop the Asha'man like Flinn, Narishma and Logain from the story to shift the focus to create a whole arc for a character named one or twice by RJ previously, boosting him to main secondary character, with more screen time than many main players (Faile, Nynaeve, Moiraine, Loial... ) even it meant outshining and sidetracking the players RJ had developed toward this is all RJ's bloody fault, all deriving from the pacing of COT. Heck, even the baby kissing scene with Logain felt like someone put a leash on Brandon and forced him to give Logain "his glory", because if Brandon had follow his whims, it would have been Androl. Brandon turned Logain into a figurehead leader, while the whole book spells out the real leader at the Black Tower is bloody Androl, humble Androl who lets Logain appear to lead.

To drop the handful of BA characters on which RJ focused in the late books (Alviarin, Duhara, Talene, Sheriam, Delana) from the BA resolution is also all COT's fault.

To inflate Egwene's arc in TGS when RJ meant her to have only one dinner with Elaida and go to a cell until the resolution is all COT's fault. RJ was so slow and going nowhere with this he devoted a whole chapter to Egwene's full month of captivity in KOD. A whole chapter! Imagine this! Surely he could have done it in two lines if he skipped mentions of dresses!

The fact TGS focused too much on Egwene/Rand when it should have set a few balls rolling for the side story lines that fitted bettern thematically there than in TOM was all RJ's fault too. Bloody Rolan!

To have Perrin run in circle for a few chapters while creating a whole usuless and stupid prequel arc for Mat rather than start in Caemlyn as RJ intended to do is all to blame on COT as well.

To give Graendal a reprieve (which RJ didn't give her - she was supposed to get her punishment following the death of Aran'gar) and get her involved with Perrin instead of beginning to build his Lanfear arc subtly is also RJ's fault.

To stretch out the hunt for Mesaana, introduce the bloodknives etc. has nothing to do with inventing a way to include Egwene in TOM. It was the result of a few paragraphs wasted in COT on describing silk washing.

Heck, it's also RJ's fault that for 2/3 of the finale Brandon didn't dare start giving good hints to build up to Demandred, fearing to spoil the "surprise", even though a "surprise" is cool for two seconds and afterward it's the lack of build up that stand out... is also COT's fault.

Yes, RJ had pacing problems, and the whole WH/COT/KOD sequence was uneven and not quite optimal. By the end of KOD his ducks were finally all in line again, though. The pacing problems of books pre-KOD no longer had any bearing.

Don't let your loathing for COT blind you. The lack of resolution for stuff like Logain, the BT etc. has nothing to do with lacking space in COT or KOD or earlier books for this stuff. Jordan had no intent whatsoever to resolve any of this before the finale, he was merely placing what he needed for his finale. Logain for e.g. was right where he needed to be, in screen presence, development and location.

There wasn't "too much story" left for the finale, or not that much anyway. It's largely Brandon who got sidetracked, giving too much pages to some stuff and lacking space for a lot of other things. It was his choice to abandon many secondary characters and use characters of his own, or obscure named players like Silviana, Androl etc. Much easier for him to "build" Androls/Silvianas out of a few lines by RJ than to get the likes of Romanda, Lelaine, Siuan and co. right, just like it was much easier for Brandon to simply create new players left and right, and picking names out of a hat than to ask Maria to find for him which minor players might fit well in those roles and what background details might be cool to use with them. Brandon's use of tertiary players/the more obscure secondary ones was really not great - he gave their parts almost exclusively to picket fences with fan names, and this seriously lack polish and was very lazy. If he couldn't be bothered to get distracted by this as he wrote (which by the way was most likely the case with RJ as well.. he included such stuff late in the game), he could easily have asked Maria to track down secondary players for him and in turn inspire himself from little details she found about them to include RJ style little details. But nah... he preferred is horrendous picket fences or else grabbed a side player like Naeff and used him for everything. It's not Jordan, it's in part laziness, in part being no doubt overwhelmed, and in part being rushed and not having time to polish much of anything.

A great deal of Brandon's continuity mistakes originated from losing track of the details, and TJ lacking care to even summarily verify if what he invented fitted. He made one or two with nearly all the secondary players he used in AMOL, all fairly easy to verify (eg: Uno was an officer and has been for Bryne since about his arrival in Salidar. Just checking WOT encyclopedia for Uno would have shown TJ immediately the arc Brandon was planning to give him in AMOL didn't work).