[C Of K]

I believe most people blame Jordan, not so much for writing a bad story, as much as they do because he changed the pacing. Even RJ admitted that some methods he employed in his story didn't work so well as he would have liked. Art and writing are often experimental.

There are many series out there that are all about plots and plotting, ASOIAF for example, but WoT didn't start out that way. It can only be expected that many people that enjoyed the beginning, wouldn't necessarily like recent developments.

Had RJ started the series off, writing as he did in the last few volumes, his fans would have grown to love it because of that style. Fewer people would have been disillusioned by the changes in pace, although he may have had a number of different fans.

You'll find that musical artists are often like this. Throughout their careers their interests often change. It's up to the fans that were there in the beginning, and the ones who come along later on to define the popularity of such artists. Good and bad are just a point of view in this respect. With art, such classifications will always be subjective, and people will always rate it as one or the other.

The pace of the first few books is largely part of what made WoT popular to begin with. Robert Jordan became the leading author in High Fantasy because of the beginning of his series. Would he still hold that position if Eye of the World had been written more like Crossroads of Twilight? Or would WoT have been more enjoyable had it not changed pace so drastically? I think fans consider these things when they decide whether or not RJ's last couple books are either good or bad. The number of hardcore fans he has right now might actually reflect how things may have turned out for him.

Oh, and welcome, Daenerys! The Dragon has three heads.