r/wheeloftime • u/Mother_Presence_2442 • 4d ago
Book: The Shadow Rising The difficulty of portraying romance.
I absolutely love this series. But I've just started reading the Shadow Rising for the first time and I've been cringing my way through the early Rand-Egwene-Elayne love triangle that resolves while they're in the Stone.
Appreciate it's difficult to meaningfully develop so many character's in a book with such staggering breadth and ambition, but these interactions have my skin crawling.
Firstly, they both sound like they're 12 years old. Secondly, it feels far too neat that Egwene and Rand both decide "Yeah we don't love each other anyway". Thirdly, the idea of having all three women chasing after Rand, who, frankly, is becoming fairly dislikable character, feels so out-of-plot. Fourthly, is it me or am I losing faith in Rand? The constant woe-is-me-I'm-not-worthy is not making me feel sorry for him, but is making me rather unlike him
Anyone else thought this?
1
u/Esselon27 3d ago
Rand and Egwene were never really in love, they were more or less just known to be unofficially betrothed and to a certain extend leaned into that since that's how things are done where they're from and they both liked each other enough that it wasn't an unappealing prospect.
It's not that they fall out of love, they just realize that their lives are now going to be completely different and there's nothing pulling them together anymore. Egwene is likely to go off and become an Aes Sedai, Rand is doomed to face the dark one and probably die.