Book two of the series re-read. This one ends up being one of the most brutal of the series from what I recall. There's a visceral quality to the personal violence that doesn't come back, though I could be remembering wrong. In any case we get the beginnings of the three ta'veren story arcs. We know who Rand is, Mat will always be connected to battle and Perrin will struggle with the animal in us all. Epic fantasy can go a philosophic route (Goodkind), a world-building route (GrrM) or a human exploration route (Sanderson). Jordan did the latter but through the mechanism of the second. The result is a distance between the reader and characters but an immense world to see how humanity reacts within it. The Great Hunt truly begins Galway journey and it's huge.