I started reading The Wheel of Time series in the 90s, when I was around 16 or so. From book 8 on, I read them as they came out, until the last one in 2013. Then I put them aside until recently. T. and I watched the Amazon show, and that got me nostalgic. First I reread the last one, then the first one, then the second, and then I kept going. I thought I might stop at the seventh because it's around when the story turns into a slog and it's the last one I have in paperback, but I just picked up the eighth, so who knows.
In my teens and college years I used to reread books a lot. I had a lot of free time and nothing better to do with it. In my 20s and early 30s I would do so more rarely. Less free time, and more and better computer games, which can be an infinite time suck. But now I'm not commuting, it's easy to read now and then while working from home, and Wordle only takes 10-15 minutes per day...
It's interesting to reread these books now, years after they were written or I last opened them. I'm noticing things I didn't notice before (but then, how can I be sure? It's so long, I could misremember).
I don't mean just foreshadowing. Most of that was discussed to death in the proto-Internet back then as fans tried to figure out what prophesies meant and how mysterious plots would turn out. I mean things more like characterization that the writers trusted readers enough to leave implicit. For example, if I had written a high school book report on book 6 or 7, I would have said that by this point Rand was basically a competent leader and heroic figure except for being psychically tortured, both by mundane trauma and by the Dark One's taint. It would have seemed implausible how fast he became a competent autocrat, but a lot happened off-screen.
But now? Late in *A Crown of Swords*, there's a couple chapters where a romantic relationship blossoms, he starts negotiations with the leader of the Sea Folk, it starts off well but triggers his recent claustrophobia, so he makes an excuse and leaves early. Then he goes off to deal with these rebels who have been a minor annoyance for weeks, bringing only his new girlfriend with him. This isn't competent leadership, this is a young man trying to impress his girlfriend! He's not going mad in the magical sense, he's high on puppy love!
Or the name of the book. The "crown of swords" could be called the McGuffin of the book. Rand getting that crown resolves a plotline that started in book 4 if not earlier, so that might be a good reason for the name, even if that exact phrase doesn't appear until the last few pages of the book. But on a reread the book is obviously about the problems of leadership. Rand had them earlier but he has them in spades now. He tried to avoid causing the death of a political enemy in this book even though she really deserves it (ethical politics is complicated, but she really did screw up big) and fails. He delegates things he shouldn't and doesn't delegate things he should. Rand aside, his friends are dealing with similar problems. They've all come into power in various ways and are trying to figure out how to use it.
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