[bsder]

Um, the first book is "They finally left the village."

The Wheel of Time was stupidly verbose and slow from book one. I really have no idea how the books became so popular. I think it was because Jordan was willing to talk to people online back when that was a thing.

If you simply focused on Mat instead of Rand's Tsundere Haremfest, you would have a good story and it would be 3 books long, tops. (I'm leaving aside Sanderson's seeming inability to write Mat's character properly.)

[MereInterest]

I rather liked Sanderson's portrayal of Mat. He was actually shown to be a trickster, not just described as one. Up until Sanderson, the only character-defining actions taken by Mat are throwing a rock at a Whitecloak and stealing a dagger. Not at all the trickster described by others, but just a common fool.

[BookmarkSaver]

"If you simply told a different story, it would be a different length."