Theoryland of the Wheel of Time

Anyway, back to the chapter. I planned from the beginning for Sarene to give Raoden this vital bit of information about the magic system. As I've said before, she represents chaos—and chaos isn't always a bad thing. She is able to give Raoden the one simple bit of information that, despite all of his studying, he hasn't been able to find.

I worry, now that we have the map, that the Chasm answer is too obvious. Jeff made the Chasm a lot bigger than I intended it to be. And, since we zoomed in on the map so much, the Chasm dominates a large section of what we see.

Fortunately, I think it's the very next Triad where Raoden figures out how to use Sarene's bit of information. We don't have to wait long for him to figure out the secret—so, hopefully, if the readers figure it out, they won't feel Raoden is too stupid for taking so long.

Why is there only one Chasm line per Aon? Since each Aon is made up of repetitions of Aon Aon, shouldn't there be a Chasm line per repetition?

The Aons aren't JUST made up of repetitions of Aon Aon. There's a lot more to them than that. Some follow a repetition pattern, others do not. The only requirement is using the initial Aon once, then building from there. Because of this, I made the new requirement be only one use of the chasm line.

Aons can actually have multiple forms and still work. For example, if you drew the chasm line on each one of those Aons, they'd work fine. (Maybe even better, in some cases.) What is happening in the books is that the Aons are ALMOST functional, and the Dor is straining to come through them. The chasm line brings them the one step further they need to be functional. However, further tweaking could make them more efficient.

Was the Reod natural?

The Reod natural? [Laughs]

MI'CH

Here’s the thing, you’ve answered this question for us already, we just need it on audio.

JOSH

It wasn’t the Reod that was the question it was was the earthquake natural?

MI'CH

No, Eric’s asking if the Reod was natural.

JOSH

To heck with Eric, we don’t care about him.

MI'CH

You’ve told us that the earthquake was not caused by natural events.

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yeah, it’s a complicated question because the earthquake was not caused by natural but the Reod was a natural effect of the earthquake, then... does that make sense? So the Reod is natural, a natural result of... does that make sense? That’s why it was a tricky question.

QUESTION

But the earthquake was not natural.

BRANDON SANDERSON

No, it was not.

AARON

So the Reod is a natural reaction to an unnatural occurrence.

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yes.

JOSH

And wasn’t it because there was like magical strain on the land?

BRANDON SANDERSON

That is certainly part of what was going on.

I always imagined it right there. Um, and so if you finished it... but the strictures of the first book, I didn't quite know what I was doing yet, and I was trying to match a map that didn't quite match what I had in my head. I could do it so much better now. But, the problem is, it is kinda down here at the bottom of this, but where I described it....if you don't mind me putting in this... I described it right there in the book, and it needs to be up more.