The funny thing about The Dragon Reborn is that it isn’t really about the Dragon Reborn. After the first few chapters, we take a nice, long vacation from Rand’s perspective. This whole book reads like an apology to the supporting cast for snubbing them during the first two books.
Nynaeve, Egwene, and Elayne all grow and change a lot. Nynaeve already got raised to Accepted in The Great Hunt, but Egwene and Elayne finally join her. Nynaeve is noticeably less opposed to the notion of becoming an Aes Sedai. She even practices adhering to the Three Oaths every chance she gets. Unfortunately, she has developed this nasty habit of tugging on her braid. This became so noticeable that I had no choice but to keep a running tally, counting twenty-eight braid tugs in total throughout the book. Twenty-eight! Why, oh why, did Robert Jordan feel the need to tell us about this?
Mat turns into a total fucking badass. It’s hard to choose which Mat chapter was most entertaining. Even Perrin finally gets acknowledged as a living, breathing human being; Jordan even gives him a girlfriend!
Moiraine seems to be turning into a darker, more pragmatic caricature of the naive, young initiate we saw in New Spring.
As for the forces of evil… they’ve come across as more bumbling than ever. It was kind of staggering how easily Moiraine took out Be’lal. The rest of the Forsaken have their hands in the politics of practically all major countries, and they still can’t manage to do anything to stop a few clueless farmers from a backwater village in Andor.