Tuesday 22 January 2013

A Memory of Light

So it's all over. Finished. Complete. All in all, I loved it. Even though it was pretty tense, being mostly one long battle. Still not entirely sure what happened in some parts, and wish there was more about other bits...will definitely be rereading the entire thing as soon as I can dig out Eye of the World. In the meantime...

* SPOILERS *

With the Forsaken being brought back to life all the time in new bodies, with new names, it got more and more difficult to keep all the characters straight in my head. Sort of like any spy novel, I guess, whenever people might switch to the other side at any point it gets complicated very quickly. Rereading will probably help with this though.

Things I liked:

That the Shara finally got into the story!
There was a really good tie-in reason for Nyneave's long running respect for non-power healing techniques.
That the Dark One speaks in capitals. Actually sounded like he was booming in my head.
Pretty much every scene with Telmanes in it.
The Ogier in war-mode.
The fact that it made me cry - I kinda hoped it would.
Tam swordfighting with Rand.
The main ending.
Androl - never noticed him before, but really nice character.
The huge philosophical, free will and meaning of suffering debates.
The overriding 'it is not me, but us which are important' theme.
Perrin 'doing what Rand cannot' - very poetic.
Perrin's power-wrought hammer - reminds me of Northern Lights!
Egwene bonding Leilwin. Brilliant.
Lan and his death threats: "Who are you?" "The man who is going to kill you" - if they ever do films (please DON'T do films) I'm voting for Liam Neeson to play him.
Loads and loads of the Old Tongue. Everything sounds cooler in a made-up language.

Things I didn't:

Not quite enough Seanchan. Still too curious!
The very very end. Not satisfied really.
Padan Fain dying far too easily - extremely interesting sub-baddie, killed off in an instant.
Everyone continually sending last messages of love through their bonds, just to survive and do it all again five minutes later.
That Matt was no longer bound to the Horn but no-one noticed, or cared when this was revealed.

Things I still don't understand:

Who was Moridin originally?
Are Luc and Slayer separate people? If so, who?
What was the Bowl of Winds for - just to keep evil storms at bay?
Was Matt coming on to Min briefly?
What happened to Alvairin? (It might be I've just completely forgotten this already - it seems highly unlikely she would have been left to run around on her own)
That Moriane went through everything at the Tower of Ghenjii (in full knowledge that it would happen), and Lanfear wasn't even killed? Or even imprisoned very well.

There are plenty more, but that's just a taster.

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