Yeah, I will say, okay old white dude writing a series when the first book was published in 1990 – but if I compare it to its contemporary/a series with an author of a similar-ish age and background coming only a few years later (A Song of Ice and Fire), then its brand of sexism and racism is way less offensive to me. The fandom denying that Eqwene, Elayne, and Nynaeve weren’t as much a main character as Rand, Matt, and Perrin pissed me off more. Are there problems with the Seanchan? hell yes. But the core world-building where women had the magical and thus also a hefty among of major political and social power was such a matter-of-fact revelation for me as a young reader – it wasn’t artificial inflated sexism that so many fantasy worlds fall prey to. That there’s very few sexual assaults across this sprawling plot (though the double-standard of one is pretty bad), especially nowadays it’s soothing.

The fifth book is especially I’d say that turning point where it starts to become painful to read Rand’s plot line, and there’s definitely the weakest books coming down through 5…10, at least for some of the plot threads. It really is a series where if you like Perrin or Matt and Egwene or Nynaeve or some of the villains, you read for them and for the other side character plots, and you force your way through the others. God knows I was grimacing through Rand’s chapters for almost all of the series.

But also the series is just great for ‘why being the Chosen One sucks, Fun with Prophesies (for the readers to piece together, also in-universe the fun with plot and characterization pressures of characters trying to operate with prophesies)’ and ‘better nuanced world-building, how to do it’