I had thought maybe I wouldn’t like Wheel of Time, since basically every review, critique, or defense of the series that I could find only seemed to circle around Robert Jordan being bad at writing women or it being a generic fantasy story.

Wow, were my expectations going in way off. I was sincerely blown away by how great everything was. I especially liked Nyneave’s parts, but honestly I loved the whole show from start to finish. I thought the actors did a great job, of course. But, wow, that story is amazing, I guess it has generic tropes, but the way Robert Jordan set everything up is awesome. I’m honestly blown away by how much I enjoyed every aspect of this show. I really can’t think of anything negative; it was all fantastic.

Although the plot was somewhat following generic patterns with Rand; I still really liked how they did the twist of him being the Dragon and the court politics of the White Tower. I’m guessing it’ll be expanded more, because I’m not entirely sure why the politics there exists in the first place.

Now, I later learned this was due to changes from the original story, so please keep that in mind: What blew me away the most (sort of innocuous, I guess), was Mat choosing to stay behind instead of going into the portal. That was a phenomenal plot twist to the story that I didn’t see coming. Usually with these stories, you just expect the slightly more emo best friend character to eventually work himself out and be the slightly bland best-buddy of the MC (see Ron Weasley), but wow at that plot twist. I guess Mat either didn’t believe Rand about not having murdered the farmer family while possessed or he feared something terrible was going to happen if he went in. Definitely my favorite part of the story. The writers who made changes definitely know how to set-up a mystery and make their audience intrigued with a character.

Also, I liked the amazing LGBT romance plot twist that the show writers made in Jordan’s story involving Moiraine and Siuan. I’m curious about Robert Jordan’s books now. I am skeptical about reading anything past Jordan’s unfortunate passing though. I read Warbreaker by Sanderson and couldn’t get into it much because of the terrible characters and worldbuilding. If Robert Jordan created fantastic characters, it’d be hard for me to read as Sanderson undoubtedly ruins them in his continued extension of the books.