You're almost there! The ending is totally worth getting to.
As a jew, this is amazing.
To be clear, I don't mean the plus sign box that denotes "create a new post."
When you click that, it opens a new view where you create the post. In that view, when you want to finish and close, you click another plus sign. That's the one I'm talking about.
Millennials: Hold my beer
Beowulf fucking slaps
RIGHT??
Like, I 100% understand how the president would unintentionally take classified information with them when leaving the White House. Half their meetings every day are classified, a large proportion of the documents they handle are classified, and any notes they take about classified information are also classified. It is not reasonable to expect the President to be 100% perfect about the storage of the thousands of documents he will see in a month, let alone over the 4 years in office. They rely on their aides to help keep track of this stuff, and mistakes happen. A file gets put in a briefcase, or a desk drawer, then an emergency happens and everyone forgets it was there.
I get that, that's normal IMO. Where this becomes exceptional is that AFTER he was notified that he still had classified information they were STILL storing them in a damn public bathroom. He was bragging about having these documents and showing them to people, KNOWING THEY WERE CLASSIFIED.
Literally all he had to do was hand them back, like every other president has, and go "oops, sorry, these got mixed into the wrong box." Nobody would fucking care if that had happened, because everyone recognizes that mistakes happen and we aren't going to prosecute the president for accidentally taking home a classified document and giving it back when they find it. Yes, we would do that to a normal low-level person who did the same- but I think that's fundamentally different in the scope and volume of the job. The president has more important things to think about than the security classification of the document he's holding, or the notes he took earlier. It's other people's jobs to consider that for him so he can focus on the actual problems he is facing every day in administering the entire federal government.
I personally think that EOTW needed a bit more than that (spoilers all books):
::: spoiler
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I would have made Moiraine's plan from minute one be to find the Dragon and take him to the Eye of the World. I would have a viewpoint from her perspective when they get out of the two rivers, and have her talk with Lan about why- and use that as a way to talk about the prophesies and how she needs a way to determine which of the three is the Dragon, and how the Eye of the World would be the easiest way to do that unless more than one of them can channel.
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I'd make it more of an Ensemble piece to preserve the mystery of "who is the dragon" and also to have more development for the other characters. If you tweaked Mat and Perrin's backstories you could have all 3 boys clearly originate outside of the two rivers, further preserving the mystery of who the dragon is. I would cut the scene of Rand bring Tam to Emmond's Field completley- I wouldn't even have it happen off screen, it would just not be there. Rand already gets multiple identity crises throughout the series- this one is comparatively short lived. It works just as well if he is told by Moiraine at the Eye that he is the Dragon and Tam cannot be his father. I'd have Tam go to Caemlyn with Perrin in book 6, and have him and Rand talk- and have that conversation end with Rand angry with Tam, and confused, and not sure where to go from there. That better sets up the next conversation they would have in book 12, where Rand nearly kills him.
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I'd completely re-work the eye of the world scenes to damn near what the show did. I would cut the battle of Tarwhin's Gap altogether, it isn't necessary and never has impact again. Have the confrontation at the Eye be between Rand and Ishamael in the world of dreams, and have it reflect the central conflict of the end of the series, the way the show did. The other characters can fight Aginor and Balthamel while Rand is unconscious talking to Ishy or something.
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I would have Moiraine actively teach Egwene and Nynaeve to channel as much as she can in their travels. She teaches Egwene the bare basics, just so she won't develop a block, but I would have her go much deeper than that. Especially with Nynaeve, I would have her teach her constantly as they search for Perrin and Egwene. That way they don't feel like they go from barely knowing what channeling is to being surprisingly proficient at it early in book 2. If Moiraine begins the Forcing process by really pushing them to channel as much as possible, that becomes a lot more organic. :::
From talking with LOTS of readers, I've always gotten the impression that EOTW didn't have much impact on most readers once they finish the series. EOTW is kinda just... there. Like, it's fine- it's a fun story, but it reads so differently from the rest of the series that it feels like a different book sometimes, and the events in it have practically no impact past TGH. TGH is where the longer-term plotlines really get established, but there are still some inconsistencies with the magic system because he hadn't 100% ironed out all the details. Book one has by far the most inconsistencies with how magic works in the world, and it can be a bit confusing for new readers once they get to book 2 and everyone feels less powerful than they did in book 1.
I've always been of the opinion that, looking at the series as a whole, EOTW was the weakest of the series, and not really where I feel it starts to feel like the wheel of time- that was always TDR for me.
I'm actually considering writing up a real long post about an argument a friend of mine and I have been having for several months about what we would do to re-edit the series in hindsight if we were writing, say, a TV show adaptation, because I have a lot of thoughts about the structure of the first 3 books in hindsight and how they could have been VASTLY improved
I watched the show first (I've never gotten past season 4, personally) and I liked the books WAY more. The show added a lot of unnecessary drama that distracted from the overall plot IMO.
No Problem! r/wot was one of my most visited subs. I'm a commenter/lurker though, IDK how to post for a sub like this. I'm good at joining discussions, not starting them.
People think I'm insane for this, but I usually recommend new readers start on TDR rather than EOTW. It's where I started- way back in middle school my mom and I would listen to audiobooks in the car, and she picked TDR up for us not realizing it was part of a series. We didn't really notice that it was book 3; it picks up in a really solid place, summarizes everything that happened before, and introduces everyone pretty well.
My big reason for it is that, IMO, book 3 has a big tone shift and a lot of character changes from book 2. For example, Perrin's whole arc in book 2 is about accepting leadership and accepting the wolves at the same time, and by the end he has pretty well accepted the wolves- he has spent a lot of time communicating with them, and has been open with another person about his ability. Then, in book 3, suddenly he hates the wolves, and wants nothing to do with them. I know why that happened (IMO because Jordan was setting up longer-term plotlines after fully committing to more than 3 books) but it's still noticeable.
I think starting at book 3 gets a new reader in with the characters as they will be written for the rest of the series, and gets them into the writing style Jordan uses in the other books. Then, go back and read 1 and 2, and you'll have the characters as established in 3 in your head the whole time- so Mat suddenly becoming a compulsive gambler makes more sense, and Perrin's later reluctance with the wolves makes you want to read him as reluctant about it in all of book 2.
I have tried malazan so many times and just can't get through the first book. Idk what it is, I just can't seem to finish it. I've even tried the audio book, I think it's just a style thing