New Spring is not the beginning of the Wheel of Time. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.
And it begins with Lan Mandragoran going around waking up sentries which might be the most borderlander thing ever. In the borderlands, they’re overwhelmingly aware of their duty to stand between the Blight and the rest of humanity. Lan Mandragoran is often presented as a distillation, the platonic ideal of what it means to be a borderlander.