Quote Originally Posted by Ian View Post
And the importance of various minutiae of different political systems throughout the unnecessarily complicated world he builds up.

Actually the biggest issue isn't even that, it's that there is about a three-book slog in there (9-11 or something?) where he genuinely seems to forget that the characters we care most about are Rand, Perrin and Mat and insists on pissing about with his oedipal obsession with matriarchal figures that he's about a thousand times more interested in than most of his reason.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, but Sanderson's final three books of the trilogy were the best it had been since somewhere in Jordan's first five, I'd say.

EDIT: And per the above, it's definitely worth powering through if you enjoy the series enough to get to the weaker ones. The final (I think it is) scene of the Gathering Storm is just wonderful.
A man knows.