Theoryland of the Wheel of Time

TOM Signing Report - Ted Herman (Paraphrased)

Regarding timeline in Towers of Midnight, what can you say about how each person's plot arc lined up?

There was a gap for some of the main story lines for about 1.5-2 weeks of only off-screen activity before the big meetup at Merrilor. Lan's trip from World's End to Tarwin's Gap took 100 days, and it lined him up with the other plotlines at that point. The whole gang can jump right into Tarmon Gai'don!

maria, alan, chronology, lan, merrilor,

Gold Coast SupaNova - Eleanor Chandler-Temple (Paraphrased)

What is the exact location of the Fields of Merrilor?

There will be a map in A Memory of Light. (Added something along the lines about not being aware of debate on the location.)

ELEANOR

I wish I'd had the full background on the debate on this one with me. As it was, I didn't have enough to describe with any clarity. I know the basics of the contradiction but not the full story.

geography, maps, merrilor, a memory of light,

WorldCon 2009 - Dom (Paraphrased)

Brandon drew a graph of A Memory of Light's structure and explained in some details how he ended up re structuring it as three books. Not much that isn't already known in there, book 12 will have two main story lines (we know it's Rand and Egwene, but as I said Brandon didn't say so explicitly at the Q&A) and teasers for three more (Mat—and seemingly Perrin and Elayne). By 'teasers', Brandon precised he means 3 or 4 chapters per story line, the rest of the chapters being divided between the two main story lines (by recent books, this could means Egwene/Rand have about 10-12 chapters each, or a few more). Some developments happen in the teasers but it's not huge stuff, more like set ups chapters for what happens in book 13.

Book 13 will have the opposite, with 3-4 chapters each for Egwene and Rand, "toward the end". Brandon kept those for book 13 to avoid spoiling in The Gathering Storm the climax of book 13, which will mark the reunion of all the main story lines at some location, and launch Tarmon Gai'don. So in book 13 we will have the residual Rand/Egwene chapters that specifically build up to the reunion.

Brandon explained the decision to split the books this way came about between Harriet and him, in part to avoid the "Crossroads of Twilight trap". Apparently, RJ went that way in Winter's Heart/Crossroads of Twilight mostly because he had been affected by all the grief he got for keeping Mat out of The Path of Daggers. He decided to try to put all the main characters in the next books, even if it meant all the story lines would advance more slowly if they were all told in parallel like this. He very much regretted this after Crossroads of Twilight, for which he got even more grief than for The Path of Daggers, and decided to return to his more organic/uneven approach for Knife of Dreams and A Memory of Light. The original plan for The Gathering Storm was to develop all the story lines in parallel again, but Brandon and Harriet had qualms about this and Brandon came up with an alternative to focus on two story lines in one and three in the other.

There is one of the 'POV clusters' Brandon had written that it mostly unused for The Gathering Storm and will go in book 13.

Brandon of course wouldn't tell who is the character not in The Gathering Storm at all, though he gave a few clues. Piecing all his bits of answers together, the character isn't Aviendha, Cadsuane or Nynaeve, nor Mat (the only character he confirmed is in the two first books, but we already knew this). He basically destroyed the speculation it could be Perrin by hesitating on the words 'major character' and then adding the bit that the vast majority of fans would actually place this character at the very bottom of the list of characters to be considered 'major'. The way he put Elayne over and over among the five really major ones during the Q&A suggests it's not her either after all. He also said while explaining his graph that there were chunks (his "teasers" for three story lines in The Gathering Storm and the core of the story for two—and his 'five' clusters he explicitly said were Rand, Egwene, Perrin, Mat and Elayne.

So perhaps we've read too much in his 'major POV character' comment (Jason's review may also allude to this, when he commented that one major character is missing but it's pretty much up to each reader to decide who is major and not in WOT). At some point, he said a major POV character in A Memory of Light will be missing in The Gathering Storm, which is not exactly the same as saying a major POV character from the earlier books isn't in The Gathering Storm—which is the way his previous comment was interpreted by many.

Dom

Lan isn't a major POV character in the earlier books, but now he's on his own he may very well become one in A Memory of Light.

In any case, I'm more and more thinking it's Lan (or possibly Moiraine), not Elayne or Perrin which I doubt many would place 'at the very bottom' of the list of characters to be considered major. Most people would place Elayne not near the bottom at all but among the top 7 or 8 most important characters. Above Moiraine and Lan, Thom, Loial and probably even Min and Aviendha.

The POV character missing in The Gathering Storm was Elayne, and they didn't quite make it to the reunion of all plotlines at the end of Towers of Midnight as they had originally planned.

a memory of light, the gathering storm, towers of midnight, harriet, brandon on writing wot, merrilor, rand, elayne, mat, perrin, egwene, tarmon gai'don,

Orem Signing Report - Zas (Verbatim)

Question from Travyl, at the reread: Did Rand tell Darlin what Darlin responded to Egwene's letter, or was that all Darlin?

RAFO.

Loialson

Dangit.

Brandon Sanderson

I don't want to say anything about that because there's a potential confrontation coming up between all of these folks, and so there may be mention made of what various people knew and didn't know.

Loialson

Okay.

Brandon Sanderson

It's not a big RAFO—it's not like there's some big secret there—but I don't want to say anything that's going to spoil a potential read of scenes that are coming.

merrilor, egwene, rand, a memory of light,

Memories of Light (Verbatim)

"It is one of the three things which I will require of you. Your payment, to me, in exchange for my life." (p. 160)

memories of light, rand, merrilor,

AMOL Signing Report - Jonrox (Paraphrased)

Where was Roedran after the Field of Merrilor?

(Consternation on his face) He was goofing off somewhere.

Jonrox

And his army? They didn't do anything of note, eh?

Brandon Sanderson

Right.

a memory of light, tarmon gai'don, roedran, merrilor,