Response to Lady Door first:
-I'll say right away that, at base, I think the female mains have an edge on the male mains because they lack that ta'veren label. This means the universe bends less to make them always win, and it feels like they work a bit harder and experience more setbacks, and thus are actually more personally impressive, particularly Egwene and Elayne. I mean, have Mat or Perrin even been so much as held captive by their enemies? Granted, Rand has, and in general, Jordan has been more willing to let him make mistakes (unlike Perrin) and suffer for them (unlike Mat).
-That said, overall my favourite is Rand - he just has the most character depth. Good Rand exceeds the best of any other character, and he's an excellent character study of random man having that much responsibility thrust upon him and the immense stress it puts him under. Elayne makes a close battle for this spot, though; she's generally been the best thing about the books since they left their first major peak around books 4-5, to me, I dig political arcs in fantasy and find her thought processes very amusing and relatable, and I love her ability to get shit done, as I touched on. Huge fan of book 12 Egwene for obvious reasons, and she's solid outside that, so also a favourite although the clear #3 to me overall.
-Least favourite... used to be Mat, because he does all sorts of just idiotic shit and never seems to actually pay for it. I also find him quite whiny in his internal monologue, although this is probably just me finding the personality type alien. However, in recent books I've warmed to Mat quite a bit; first Tuon made him a lot more fun, and in general I think Sanderson writes him better than Jordan did, with humour that works better for me. These days, thus, the least favourite is definitely Perrin. I kinda like him at base but his plot arc has been interminable ever since book 7. See my previous comments. As well as some forthcoming ones in the spoilertags. <_<
-Nynaeve's sort of in the in-between category for me, though I like her well enough. I'd probably have a stronger opinion of her if she'd done more since book... 7 or so? It feels like she's been relegated to more of a secondary role compared to the other five. Still, I do find myself largely nodding with Super's comments, she just appeals to me less personally.
Towers of Midnights - Done!
Good, although a bit of a mess at points. It's a step back from the previous two books mainly due to this, which is a shame because there's some really excellent stuff in there.
Oh, two things to get out of the way:
1. Okay, yeah, my bad on that assassin thing. I'd honestly thought those bloodknives died much too quickly to still be around, but the former damane Gawyn talks to does note they can survive weeks, so eh, sure.
2. DAMNIT MAT WHY THE HELL DIDN'T YOU OPEN THAT LETTER. *headdesk*
Anyway...
The good!
MAJOR CHARACTERS INTERACTING WITH EACH OTHER. Yes, by far the best part of the book to me, almost every scene where major characters met was memorable. Many of these were totally overdue. Elayne/Mat remains possibly my favourite scene in the book, but the others get hype too, both when they agree with each other and when they're practically enemies.
Elayne chapters were awesome as expected. I was afraid she'd have a smaller role in this book but instead she was second only to Perrin for screentime, with a mix from her own perspective and from those of Mat, Perrin/Faile, and Egwene/Gawyn. She intersects with all the other main stories in the book (shouldn't have to explain why I like this!), her interactions with them are great, and as always I dig the political side of her stories. Already commented on some of her notable scenes in my previous post.
Mat's chapters, despite my dread, were very solid. His interactions with Elayne, the fight with the gholam (the bit where he pulls out the medallion copies? Badass), the general humour. Only Mat chapters not really up to snuff were the Tower of Ghenjei, which at least managed to not be terrible, although a little hard to really care about given how little we actually know about the "villains" there, who have been irrelevant for 8 books now. I still feel nothing for Noal, also. Waste of space.
Egwene/Gawyn didn't get much but it was pretty good if not outstanding. I did like her scene with the Hall, though. Good stuff, very reminiscent of her book 12 awesome. Gawyn has just... managed to stop being an emo brat, seeing him grow up is good. He's never going to be an all-time favourite, but he's a far cry from "one of the worst characters in the series" that I used to think of him as.
The other brother, Galad got rounded out into a decent character. I liked how he stayed true to his ideals but saw the decency of Perrin through logic, and not ta'veren bullshit, despite ta'veren bullshit flying all around Perrin in this book. Great to see the whitecloak perspective actually done some justice since overall they're such goobers. Loved the theme of Perrin and Galad of the importance of keeping those who would fight in the Last Battle alive to do so.
Stuff gets tied up, again. Three books in a row where I can say that, though, so I'm no longer giving too many points, but it's something it has over 7/8/10 nicely at least.
Aviendha chapters are interesting foreshadowing, going to be interested to see where the last book takes them. I assume that it's an avoidable "bad future" (the fact that Tuon lasts very little time as Empress hints at this) but yeah. Does little for Avi herself, though. Also, who was that random woman she ran into on the way to Rhuidean? That scene was very suspicious.
I'm surprised at just how much shit is going to be hitting the fan in the last book. Whether this is actually good or bad remains to be seen, since it'll need to be handled well. Trolloc invasion in Andor, Seanchan invasion of the White Tower, something in the Black Tower, something like ten notable villains still alive... hopefully this will leave time for a good resolution of Rand's battle itself!
Less good:
My biggest problem with the book is that it's just too darn cluttered. Things like Ituralde's PoV, the Black Tower stuff (since it wasn't resolved), Lan's chapters, and so on. At least, they didn't need 3-4 scenes each! There's literally over a hundred perspective changes in the book. This is probably a design decision to make things seem more hectic as the Last Battle approaches, but I find it more annoying as I have to continually readjust to different characters, some of which I don't care about at all! Put these little side slices in the prologue and epilogue where they belong, or the occasional chapter dedicated to them, don't just scatter them everywhere as a distraction from the mains. Also, Book 13 really isn't the time to introduce new, minor characters.
Some of the Perrin stuff. Specifically: Oh my god Slayer. No. What a terrible villain. Why the fuck did he get so much screentime. Why the fuck is he still ALIVE after all that, meaning there's probably more to come. Way, way too much Perrin stuff in general, though I liked parts of it certainly (anything involving the whitecloaks or politics) but did we really need chapter upon chapter of wolf dreams and Hopper and Slayer? GRAH. Mesaana got taken care of in a tidy amount of time so why couldn't this? Because some random wolf-killing T'A'R-adept mook is this fascinating an antagonist? Give me more Padan Fain or something.
Man I hate it when books barely have Rand, he's too important. He's potentially interesting now, but also kinda creepy. I found myself withholding judgement on him throughout the book and I'm still going to do so until after book 14, but I really hope there's more to him than wise, messianic godmoding left. Really disappointing after how good he was in book 12!
Super notes that the book is predictable in some of its major events, and yeah, it is. Those events aren't really the book's strong points though anyway, so it's not too big a deal.
I find it kinda annoying that all three surviving female forsaken are being subjagated by the main (male) villains. None of the male forsaken ever have to put up with this shit, they just get blown up. (Side note, Lanfear's chance to survive book 14 actually just rose to non-negligible. Still low, though!)
Rand (or Logain, I'm not picky) needs to go open a deathgate in Mazrim Taim's stomach already. Easily now tops the list of plotlines inexplicably not yet resolved, really surprised he lasted until the final book.
Overall... the book is probably around where Lord of Chaos is to me. Or maybe a bit closer to Winter's Heart, which is a bit higher? Thereabouts, somewhere in the middle. Definitely worse than 2/4/5/11/12, definitely better than 1/3/7/8/10.
