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A review by willowbiblio
A Crown of Swords by Robert Jordan
5.0
"In a cruel land, you either learned to laugh at cruelty or spent your life weeping."
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I would probably change this to 3 stars upon reflection but I'll leave up my original rating. The inclusion of Sevanna's POV from just before their rout by Rand and the Asha'man was really interesting. Her greed and rejection of what doesn't suit her narrative is typical of many characters in the series, and yet has led to the loss of thousands of lives.
I once again was completely infuriated with Nynaeve as a character. It's not even excusable at this point. Sometimes I would skim her POV because it was so annoying. Mat deserved better. The way he was effectively sexually, physically, and emotionally abused and everyone around him laughed at him and called him a "pretty" was disgusting and added nothing to the plot. Similarly how the Aes Sedai refused to acknowledge his bodily autonomy. In general the Aes Sedai have transformed into somewhat garbage humans who think everyone not Aes Sedai is sub-human. It doesn't really make sense to have such a massive tone shift toward them as a whole.
Perrin and Faile felt neutral to me, although Faile too lacks character progression and I don't like the whole emotionally/physically abuse your husband to show you love him trope. I found Lan's treatment by Myrelle & co to be horrific; sexual compulsion in the woods while the man was grieving was... disgusting. Then to be forth into marriage with effectively no say over it even though he loves Nynaeve was equally gross. That Egwene and Siuan chose to let Myrelle & co get away with it in order to have power over them made the whole situation atrocious. Honestly, I feel like Jordan just has some serious issues with toxic relationships as the inclusion of all this ick adds nothing to the plot at all.
Rand was fantastic as ever. The ending was anticlimactic for me. After the confrontation between him and Sammael has been building for so long, for it to end so quietly with the mist just seemed weird. Looking forward to getting closer to finishing the series.
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I would probably change this to 3 stars upon reflection but I'll leave up my original rating. The inclusion of Sevanna's POV from just before their rout by Rand and the Asha'man was really interesting. Her greed and rejection of what doesn't suit her narrative is typical of many characters in the series, and yet has led to the loss of thousands of lives.
I once again was completely infuriated with Nynaeve as a character. It's not even excusable at this point. Sometimes I would skim her POV because it was so annoying. Mat deserved better. The way he was effectively sexually, physically, and emotionally abused and everyone around him laughed at him and called him a "pretty" was disgusting and added nothing to the plot. Similarly how the Aes Sedai refused to acknowledge his bodily autonomy. In general the Aes Sedai have transformed into somewhat garbage humans who think everyone not Aes Sedai is sub-human. It doesn't really make sense to have such a massive tone shift toward them as a whole.
Perrin and Faile felt neutral to me, although Faile too lacks character progression and I don't like the whole emotionally/physically abuse your husband to show you love him trope. I found Lan's treatment by Myrelle & co to be horrific; sexual compulsion in the woods while the man was grieving was... disgusting. Then to be forth into marriage with effectively no say over it even though he loves Nynaeve was equally gross. That Egwene and Siuan chose to let Myrelle & co get away with it in order to have power over them made the whole situation atrocious. Honestly, I feel like Jordan just has some serious issues with toxic relationships as the inclusion of all this ick adds nothing to the plot at all.
Rand was fantastic as ever. The ending was anticlimactic for me. After the confrontation between him and Sammael has been building for so long, for it to end so quietly with the mist just seemed weird. Looking forward to getting closer to finishing the series.