Were the Stakes Too High?
I feel that David Eddings had the line with the stars going dark to mourn the fallen god planned, and then worked backward in places to support it. This led to him having the stakes of “the universe” rather than something like “the world.” Having it be so great kind of took me away from things, and he never walks the universe back to something smaller or limited only to the world and system—kind of like how Wheel of Time does it, where the Pattern seems to be that world only (for the sake of this argument).
To be honest about that take, I’m in my mid-40s now and this book would have been targeted toward younger readers. Then the stakes make a little more sense, but still it would have been nice to have them limited a bit. It just doesn’t age as well as I age as a reader.
Which is why, to contrast it with Wheel of Time, it’s nice how Jordan kept things mostly grounded. In the first books we do see those portal stones showing either different worlds or different outcomes, the alien beings that grant wishes, and there is talk about multiple Patterns, but it stays grounded through most of that. Then even the outcome stays a little grounded: there are references to the Pattern needing the evil forces imprisoned again and that it would be bound to happen at some time. Even if the current story we are reading fails, it seems that at some future time it will succeed.