You’re looking for opinions? I got opinions.

• The Chosen One who gets dragged around like a sack of potatoes until they Come Into Their Own and go on to Turn The Tide.

• The Wise Yet Enigmatic Sage.

• The Sharp-Tongued Princess.

• The Rogue With A Heart of Gold.

• Plots based on misunderstanding ancient prophecies that are so vaguely written they could be cookie recipes.

• Gods that slot into neat roles on a godly table of elements.

• Magic systems so detailed and prosaic you may as well call them technology.

• Elves that are exactly like every other elf character you’ve ever read about except for one glaring but superficial difference which is there to make you think the author’s not plagiarising their own favourite author.

Me reading the wheel of time:

• The Chosen One ✓ the main male characters, but definitely Rand

• The Wise Yet Enigmatic Sage ✓Moiraine

• The Sharp-Tongued Princess. ✓Nynaeve

• The Rogue With A Heart of Gold. ✓Mat

• Plots based on misunderstanding ancient prophecies that are so vaguely written they could be cookie recipes. ✓All the prophecies

• Gods that slot into neat roles on a godly table of elements. ✓The forsaken all having distinct methods to get to the top

• Magic systems so detailed and prosaic you may as well call them technology. ✓The one power

• Elves ✓Warders

All that said, I’m still enjoying the series thus far.

I honestly don’t understand the appeal of Robert Jordan. I made it through 50 pages of The Eye of the World before throwing it into the nearest little library. By then I had uncovered every fantasy cliche known to man, made even worse by the writing style of a 12 year-old.