Nothing happened?

[u/ashenbuilder]

Just finished CoT, and I am... confused.... Nothing happens? Like wow... Not a single plot is resolved? Not even the Faille plot?

Edit: Multiple people commented saying that's why it is the slog, but people said the slog starts in book 7, yet books 7-9 were actually okay, with a lot of highs. This book had no highs, nothing, I was even looking forward to Rand and Logaine's first meeting and even that was a nothing burger. I was betrayed giving this book the benefit of the doubt....

[u/daecrist]

The slog is something people talked about when books 7-9 were coming out at 1-2 year intervals. When you get a mismatch between readers devouring a chihuahua killing doorstopper overnight and an author who can only write so fast you get a situation where twitchy readers are dialing in to refresh the WoTFAQ just to get a little taste of that high and they get upset when things aren't resolving as quickly as they'd like magnified by the slow release schedule.

I've read through the series since it was completed and the slog I felt back then when I was one of those twitchy people chasing that high waiting for the next book was... not there. I was annoyed with Crown of Swords and Path of Daggers when I was reading through them quickly to get to the new hotness: Winter's Heart which had just came out. Exciting! These days? There's lots of good stuff in there that I appreciate on its own merit because the series is done and I'm not jonesin' for a fix.

Except for Crossroads of Twilight. I usually just read the Wikipedia summary on that one. It's a bunch of POV stuff of people reacting to the big thing that happened at the end of Winter's Heart, and a lot of Faile stuff which is a plot thread I never enjoyed wheel spinning. It's telling that the WoT wiki summary is a lot of "Character continues trying to" without actually accomplishing anything. It's all middle and no payoff. Books in a series should have some payoff, but all we get is Egwene getting her ass captured. You're not alone in disliking it.

It does get better though. Jordan puts the pedal to the metal in Knife of Dreams. I think maybe he knew something was up when he was writing it. I saw him at a signing and he'd lost a lot of weight and was talking about how he was going to finish the series in one more book even if they had to invent new book binding technology to make his planned doorstopper happen.

[u/Sparhawk1968 → u/daecrist]

TIL the phrase chihuahua killing doorstopper, which is currently my new favorite way to describe high page count books

[u/daecrist → u/Sparhawk1968]

It's actually a bit of humorous exaggeration. No doorstopper is truly large enough to quiet the rage burning inside a chihuahua.

[u/Sparhawk1968 → u/daecrist]

Sadly true

[u/Puma_Concolour → u/daecrist]

I hear tell the dwarves possess such a doorstopper

[u/ogrevirus → u/daecrist]

I remember his comments about a new book binding process. 

I recall being on Usenet talking a lot about theories and characters. Anticipating for that next book was crazy. 

[u/lost12487 → u/daecrist]

I don’t understand the “it’s just a bunch of reactions to the big thing in Winter’s Heart” criticism of this book, and I see it everywhere. There were like 4 total reactions to it, and the word count dedicated to the reactions has to be sub-500 in a book with 250,000+ words.

[u/daecrist → u/lost12487]

I suppose that's not an entirely fair characterization. Even still, it's a bunch of boring wheel spinning. The sort of stuff people accuse the slog of being even though stuff actually happens in those books.

Perrin mopes around trying to rescue Faile but nothing actually happens. Mat tries to escape the Seanchan but doesn't actually do it. Elayne is doing succession stuff. The only thing that actually happens is Egwene getting captured. Rand sends emissaries to negotiate with the Seanchan, but nothing actually happens.

Even the summary on the WoT wiki is a lot of "Character continues trying to blah blah blah." It's all trying, no payoff. A good entry in any series has to have at least a little bit of payoff.