Just Finished Reading Robert Jordan's The Shadow Rising

The other day I finally got around to completing my reading journey through Robert Jordan's long fantasy novel The Shadow Rising, which constitutes book four in his fourteen-volume The Wheel of Time series.  The Shadow Rising, as I had written a few days ago here, is a mix of interesting plot narrative and mired-down magical/historical/prophetic dogma, with different characters bringing out one emphasis over the other.  The main characters are divided into four different stories: the White Tower, where there is division about the Aes Sedai leadership (this is basically Min's story), the journey by Rand, Mat, Egwene, Moiraine, and company to the Aiel Wasteland to firmly establish Rand's status as the Dragon Reborn, the clandestine trip of Aes Sedai members Elayne and Nynaeve to a city where they suspect traitors within their sect to be active, and the attempt by Perrin and his love Faile to return to Perrin's original homeland of the Two Rivers to save the area from devastation by dark forces and a group calling itself Children of the Light.  For the most part, it was easy reading until I got to sections about Rand's adventures...I wonder how much more arcane information I'm going to be expected to ingest!  My favorite subplot was the one with Perrin and Faile, and how they relate to each other and eventually fall in love.

Originally pitting main hero Rand against main bad guy Ba'alzamon in the first couple of books, Jordan has introduced a layer of antagonists called the Forsaken, each of whom, although originally squarely on the Dark One's side, has his or her own individual agenda...and some even come to Rand's aid.  This naturally confuses the situation for Rand and his allies, for it's hard to discern where these people truly stand on things.  And it also, I'm beginning to suspect, conveniently enables Jordan to prolong his series by a few more books!