Especially since there was a payoff in the form of watching my favorite character go down in a bright blaze of glory. I’m not sad I slogged all the way through to the end. It’s a relief when one of the characters finally cuts her hair in the 14th book because it’s tiring to read about how she tugs her braid all the time. Descriptions tend to wordiness, and after a while character quirks become annoying. Never-ending character introductions, side plots, and meandering scenes that don’t have much bearing on the actual story constantly crop up.
It’s also impossible not to get bogged down as the series continues. Additionally, few of the romantic relationships in the book are what many of us would consider healthy. From the way spanking (and the threat of spanking) is used to discipline the adult women in the books, to the way that the men and women interact with each other, I’ve got some issues. The fact that I find some of the gender dynamics in the book disturbing now also says something about the way I’ve changed since high school. However, as a fan, and as someone who reads a lot, it’s hard not to judge. It’s probably not fair to be nit-picky since I don’t write fiction - and the fiction I have written kind of sucks. However, when I reread some of the books, I am struck by the sometimes-inconsistent quality, as well as a number of flaws. It’s true that I still feel as though some of the characters are friends I have a feeling that I will always identify with the character Egwene al’Vere. But as the series lengthened, and as the books finally came to a conclusion (it took 14 books, more than two decades, and a second author had to finish when the books’ creator died in 2007), I realized that my feelings toward the books had changed. I even enjoyed them quite a bit in college.
As a high school student, I thought the books were awesome. I started reading the Wheel of Time series in high school.