The Eye of the World

This is a decent enough book, but I don't buy into the Children of the Light. Not that I don't believe a group like that couldn't exist. Indeed, they're clearly modeled after the Spanish Inquisition. However, what allowed the Inquisition to get away with what they did is that they were attached to the larger power structure of the Roman Catholic Church, with all the power and influence that entailed, not only within the inquisitor's countries, but between nations.

Even then, the Inquisition had its limits - if the Inquisition tried to foment a popular revolt against a monarch, no one would tolerate it. The monarch wouldn't stand for it, as it's literally a direct threat to their power, and for that matter neither would rival nations who might be inclined to side with the church otherwise, because someone else could be overthrown by a church sponsored populist revolt, then so could they. Yet, the Children of the Light, which as written in this book has no backing from any organization with the scope and influence (benevolent and malevolent) of the Roman Catholic Church, is shown clearly attempting to start a populist uprising against a monarch, and the monarch is doing nothing about them. I don't buy it. If other monarchs found out about this, lots of members of the Children of the Light would end up being publicly executed for treason (or other convenient offences which might have been ignored otherwise).