Theoryland of the Wheel of Time

There are about two pages of discussion on this matter in the OLD questions thread, starting with Mr Unreasoner's post at the very bottom of this page. I suggest you go read it if you haven't already, because it leads directly into what I learned today.

I met Brandon today at the Birmingham signing. He was very amiable, friendly, and cool to be around even when I said I was going to ask a complicated question. I mentioned that I knew something similar had been asked before (I can't find the quote right now, feel free to chime in with it), but was going to do my best to ask in a slightly different way.

What I asked was:

Brandon then said (quite excitingly IMO) that it actually went further than that, and if perhaps Rand had died whether someone else would have taken over that role.

ZOMBIE SAMMAEL

If that had happened, would that person be called Dragon?

BRANDON SANDERSON

I'll give you this: there was no chance of Demandred ever being Dragon.

ZOMBIE SAMMAEL

Ah, that's a bit similar to the answer you gave before. But if not Demandred, somebody else?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Maybe.

Personally, I think that "maybe" is damned interesting, because it implies there may be something he didn't want to give away. I have a wild theory about that which I might come on to. It certainly seems to imply, however, that the title Dragon is not completely exclusive to Rand, but does put it outside the realms of possibility for Demandred. Kind of a frustrating answer in terms of settling the debate, but interesting nonetheless.

As to my wild (but not quite looney) theory, I'm wondering if it isn't possible that someone else will actually end up fulfilling Rand's role at the end of the series. It would be a huge bait and switch and possible unsatisfying for us, but there does seem to be a possibility, both in terms of the Logain prophecy of glory, and in terms of the original conception of the series, in that the Chosen One couldn't do it for whatever reason and someone else had to step in. To my mind, from both Brandon's playful manner and his reply, it certainly seems as if something from AMOL ties into this. Then again, I might be reading too much into a smile and a nod.