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2012-04-24: Some thoughts I had during JordanCon4 and the upcoming conclusion of "The Wheel of Time."
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WoT Interview Search
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Your search for the tag 'the dragon reborn' yielded 23 results
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1
Interview: 2011
Twitter 2011 (WoT) (Verbatim)Eiremauve (3 January 2011)
Can Rand get the most POVs in A Memory of Light, please? (bambi eyes, clasped hands) We were severely deprived in Towers of Midnight. :'( (grovels)Brandon Sanderson (3 January 2011)
There will be more Rand VPs in the last book, I promise.BRANDON SANDERSON
Rand's lack of VPs in Towers of Midnight was intentional. Much like his lessened VP role in The Dragon Reborn, and for similar reasons.AUSTIN MOORE
Was the lack of Rand VPs in Towers of Midnight intended to show his change from other characters' VPs?BRANDON SANDERSON
In part. There are other reasons. But that's part of it.Tags
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2
Interview: Oct 29th, 1998
TPOD Signing Report - Kevin Bartlett (Paraphrased)Kevin Bartlett
In The Dragon Reborn, when Rand encountered the lady merchant and her soldiers and slaughtered the whole bunch, did he have a good reason for doing so? Were they all really Darkfriends? Was that eleventh man really a Gray Man, or did Rand just count wrong?Robert Jordan
He said that it's not supposed to be clear to the reader exactly what is going on. What is supposed to be clear is that there was definitely a Gray Man in the party. But whether or not Rand knew that before he lopped off their heads, we're not supposed to know. It's supposed to be unclear whether Rand is just very observant, or whether he's on the brink of madness.Footnote
Clearly Rand didn't notice the Gray Man until after everyone was dead: "He had been sure there were only ten men, but eleven men knelt in that line, one of them without armor of any sort but with a dagger still gripped in his hand." Rand didn't even appear to notice that it was a Gray Man.Tags
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3
Interview: Apr 4th, 2001
Leiden Signing Report - Aan'allein (Verbatim)Aan'allein
(And then the first half of my tape was gone, and I decided to save most of the rest for the audience questions.)
Jordan mentioned all the different cultures and myths he used in WoT. That he'd mined everything from Europe and Asia and Africa etc...
Robert Jordan
[first sentence paraphrased...only started taping again halfway through this] I don't know how it is in other places, but the best known legend for the American audience, that I had in mind ... when I wrote this for ... that legend is King Arthur. I would imagine that more people know the complete story of King Arthur and Guenever and the round table and the whole nine yards than know any other myth or legend, or perhaps more than know all the other myths put together. Now there are Arthurian elements in these books, but I had to try to bury them, for that reason, make them not so readily apparent. And while I had a particular part of the Arthurian legend mentioned from the first book, it was not until the third book that people began to realize what it was. In fact my editor, who is my wife, and who is a very very sharp woman, uhm, had edited the book and was writing the first version of the flap copy for the book, when she suddenly shouted down the stairs to me (if you're young, forgive me):
[loud] You son of a bitch, you've done it it to me again! [laughter]
Because she had suddenly spotted, not until reaching this... not until reaching the cover flap, she suddenly spotted by a... chance connection of words, this one particular Arthurian thing. [Jordan never mentioned what this was, but the logical option is of course Callandor.] And that you see, to me it's very obvious that the Arthur legend and all of the others are in there. If you spend time on the net, you find sites where they discuss these legends. [People sitting around me knowingly chuckle] I have to tell you that if you visit any of these FAQs... I haven't seen one in a couple of years, but the last time I was sent copies, I've read the printout of the FAQ, and when I was through it. And about a third of the answers in there were correct.
Aan'allein
[Turned the memo off here, this is well known. I did like the way he phrased the other two points here though. Something about "the second part was going in the right direction, but somewhere along the way they spotted something pretty which they followed and never arrived at drawing the conclusions they should have. As to the third part, I think it was written by people who didn't read my books at all."]Tags
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4
Interview: Apr 5th, 2001
Amsterdam Signing Report - Aan'allein (Verbatim)Aan'allein
The first thing I heard when I came in was a question about how he researched things.Robert Jordan
He talked about Perrin making that barrelstave in The Dragon Reborn, said that he'd done a lot of research into 18th- and 19th-century blacksmithing (and couldn't find anything from before). Then he wrote the first version and sent it to a blacksmith, who gave a lot of useful critique.Tags
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5
Interview: Jan 7th, 2003
COT Signing Report - David Funke (Verbatim)Question
In The Dragon Reborn, how did the other sisters find Moraine in the Mountains of Mist?Robert Jordan
She’d been putting out feelers. All she had to do in this case was make the first contact herself with an agent of her Ajah, and word would begin to spread. Things are already winding down, so she became a focal point. You might say that the communication networks realigned themselves.Tags
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6
Interview: Apr 27th, 2004
Wotmania Interview (Verbatim)Wotmania
Ishamael's corpse in The Dragon Reborn had only pits where his eyes and mouth once were. Was this a result of the True Power? If this is true, is the True Power the reason that Fades have no eyes, but some supernatural abilities?Robert Jordan
The True Power is reason that Ishamael's corpse had no eyes, just as it was the reason that his eyes had been caverns of flame, but it not precisely the reason that Fades have no eyes. The True Power as well as the One Power was used in creation of Trollocs, which proved to be uncontrollable and useless as soldiers until the first Myrddraal were born, throwbacks to the human stock used in creating Trollocs, but twisted by the inclusion of the True Power in making Trollocs.Tags
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7
Interview: Sep 3rd, 2005
DragonCon Report - Isabel (Verbatim)Question
In The Dragon Reborn, Lanfear visits Mat as he is recuperating from his One Power surgery over the dagger. At one point she stretches out her hand towards him and he feels a tingle going over him, somebody interrupts them, and she turns her head and sobs, at about the same time a member of Black Ajah stole angreal and ter'angreal out of the Tower cache, one of which was a ter'angreal that was known to have some effect on chance. So it was about this time that Mat's really really really weird luck and the dice rolling in his head began, is this a connection or coincidence?Robert Jordan
That is a coincidence. When they say that Mat has the Dark One's own luck, he can get as mad as he wants to, but in a way it is true. It wasn't a gift from Lanfear, though.Isabel
[Hehe, another theory busted, and a very interesting answer. I am going for Shadar Logoth now.]Question
In that case, what was Lanfear doing?Robert Jordan
She was checking his health. She doesn't care very much, except that he is important to Rand, to Lews Therin, him and Perrin both, so she is interested in, the one she wants mainly is Lews Therin, or wanted anyway, and uh, so she is interested in these other two ta'veren, who seemed to be tied in with him, because they might be important to him.Tags
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8
Interview: Sep 4th, 2005
DragonCon Report - Matt Hatch (Paraphrased)Matt Hatch
Skipped [transcription of] question to Harriet about how Jordan may have tricked her in the past, as he has done to his readers about where he was going with something or another.Harriet McDougal Rigney
She focused on two incidents when he tricked her with the books. She made a point about the 'Sword in the Stone' coming to her after having read the entire book. She didn't make the connection to Arthurian legend until she was writing the flap cover [of The Dragon Reborn].Tags
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9
Interview: Oct 2nd, 2005
Robert Jordan
For Rifty, the extra body Rand found was that of a Gray Man. And, by the way, proof that the lady was no lady. She was a Darkfriend.Tags
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10
Interview: Jul 14th, 2006
Robert Jordan's Blog: NO CHAMPAGNE YET (Verbatim)Robert Jordan
By the way, I've seen posts various places suggesting that I've had Trollocs using gateways in previous books. I think this stems from the attack on the Stone of Tear where I speak of Trollocs and Myrddraal "leaping out of thin air." This was not meant to convey gateways—no openings in the air were mentioned—but rather the suddenness of their appearance. A cliche, I know. Later, in The Shadow Rising I think, I explained that they had been smuggled into the Stone using barges and wagons.Tags
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11
Interview: 2012
Twitter: AMOL Writing and Editing Process (Verbatim)Brandon Sanderson (30 September 2011)
FINALLY done with the through line I've been working on for weeks now. Progress bar moved to 70% done.
SRINATH UPADHYAYULA
When can we expect it??? What do you think?? #reallyreallycan'twait!!BRANDON SANDERSON
Sometime next year. I suspect they'll set a date when I give them the first draft in November.BRANDON SANDERSON
Now, to fire a gun that has been sitting on the mantle since the middle (chapters 30-40) of book 3.TEREZ
Now THAT is a good clue. (The Mat one was not incredibly surprising, but this one will be fun.)TEREZ
Want to discuss @BrandSanderson's latest A Memory of Light clue? It's a good one!BRANDON SANDERSON
Theoryland thread on what I just posted: http://www.theoryland.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=6057 Thanks @Terez27.BEN KLUGE
Has anyone got close yet:) ?TEREZ
Pfft, we've barely started yet.BEN KLUGE
I know—but once we have got started the odds of possibly getting an answer drop from very low to zero.BRANDON SANDERSON
Ha. I already flirt with giving away too much. I doubt you'll pull anything more from me for a while.4TH AGE
I'm sure with how conscious you are of us examining your every word you checked, so are you SURE it's in those chapters?BRANDON SANDERSON
99% sure.TEREZ
Would you at least confirm you're not talking about 13-13? You referenced that as a Chekhov's Gun before Towers of Midnight...TEREZ
...and so the association is hard to shake. But it was introduced in The Dragon Reborn 22 and of course already showed up in Towers of Midnight.TEREZ
And technically, you could be referring to that since we didn't actually see the turning. And 99%. :( ... ;)BRANDON SANDERSON (5 OCTOBER)
Mat is so much fun to write. The trick, which is hard, is to get the right mix of humor & awesome. One without the other just isn't Mat.TEREZ
Ahh, confirmation. And good luck with Mat. ;)BRANDON SANDERSON
Not sure what I'm confirming, but okay. On the thing I tweeted before, it's obviously NOT 13x13. It is cool, but smaller than that.TEREZ
Cool. I was talking about the fact that you were working on Mat's 'through line'. I had assumed you were. Smaller? Hmm.FOOTNOTE—TEREZ
In retrospect I'm not so sure he was working on Mat's through line because in the previous one, he specified he was writing Mat's thoughts.Tags
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12
Interview: Feb 5th, 2008
Brandon Sanderson
I've mentioned that it's sometimes hard for me to remember which events happen in which book. Obviously, I knew going into this one that I'd be reading about the fall of the Stone of Tear—the cover gives a handy hint on that. However, some of what I'd THOUGHT happened here—the pages and pages of Egwene being held by the Seanchan, the training of the three in the White Tower—all was covered in the last book. (Man, he packed a lot into The Great Hunt.) And now, it turns out that another big event (Rand using the lightning to clear the Stone of Shadowspawn) is actually in the next book.
So, I went into this one a little bit confused, trying to remember what exactly happened in Book Three. About a hundred pages into it, I suddenly remembered. This is the one where Rand disappears.
As if in foreshadowing of future books in the series, where side characters become main characters, this is the book where we only get brief glimpses of Rand. I remember being annoyed by this when I was younger. Oddly—this is another change between my young self and my older self—I didn't feel that any more. I've grown, over the years, to see the WHEEL OF TIME less as Rand's story, and more of the story of the end of an age. It's the story of the entire world and the people in it, not just the story of one person. And so, I actually enjoyed reading the different viewpoints, which allowed me to get to know the world and setting better. Perhaps that's just the writer in me knowing that in another month or so, I'm going to have to write in this setting, and so anything that shows me more viewpoints, more characters, and more places is going to be well appreciated.
All admit to a slight longing, however. Not for more Rand viewpoints specifically, but a longing to know him better. The man whom we read about at the beginning of this book has changed a lot since the end of the second book. That progress, that change, is trapped between books, lost to us. A friend recently explained to me that Mr. Jordan looked at Rand's changes during this book as a metaphor for the way he himself changed during his years in Vietnam. That same friend suggested that maybe showing those changes explicitly might have been too close to home for Mr. Jordan. I'd never heard that before, but it makes a whole lot of sense.
My only other complaint about this books is Moiraine. She's always been one of my favorites, but she got on my nerves here. It's okay to push around Mat—he deserves it. Rand is fair game too; he can blow up cities. He needs direction. But why does she have to pick on Perrin? He doesn't deserve it.
And, speaking of Perrin, my favorite moment in this book came when Perrin entered the blacksmith's shop near the end and worked the forges. Something about the beauty of the writing there, mixed with Perrin's inner turmoil of the surrounding chapters, worked for me. It was one of the most amazing moments in the series so far for me, and reminded me why I like Perrin as a character so much.Tags
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13
Interview: Nov 11th, 2009
TGS Signing Report - Tim Kington (Paraphrased)Question
After Moiraine uses balefire on the Darkhounds in The Dragon Reborn, she says something about how she's much more dangerous now than when she met Perrin in Emond's Field. How did she become more dangerous?Brandon Sanderson
There are a couple of ways she might mean that she has become more dangerous. Think about this—when she went to Emond's Field, she thought Rand was the Dragon. Now she knows that he's the Dragon. That in itself, combined with the fact that she's Blue makes her much more dangerous.Tags
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14
Interview: 2011
Twitter 2011 (WoT) (Verbatim)Krishnan Murali (14 November 2011)
How Moiraine is able to able to learn which Forsaken is in power in Tear and Illian in The Dragon Reborn?Brandon Sanderson (14 November 2011)
I believe, but am not taking the time to look it up, she used means more mundane than you're probably expecting.
BRANDON SANDERSON
Meaning good use of information networks. That said, I'll give a tentative MAFO and try to remember to look it up specifically.KRISHNAN
Oh , what do mundane method do you think she used? She found which Forsaken was in power quickly and spot on in The Dragon Reborn.BRANDON SANDERSON
She is very smart, and she knew exactly what to look for. She knew they were coming, and what they would likely do.TEREZ
One good theory is that she just eavesdropped.KRISHNAN (19 NOVEMBER)
In #TorChat, you said that Moiraine probably eavesdropped in The Dragon Reborn to learn the Forsaken's identity; is this a theory in Theoryland?KRISHNAN
I don't mean to ask whether it is a full theory (would be silly), I wanted to know whether it has been discussed in Theoryland.TEREZ
I have seen it discussed at Theoryland and Dragonmount, and @zemaille might have also written something on it.LINDA TAGLIERI
Moiraine did eavesdrop. Egwene saw her listening to Rand and Asmodean in The Fires of Heaven 'What can Be Learned in Dreams'.TEREZ
Agreed, it seems the most logical and straightforward explanation. We saw it in The Eye of the World last POV too.Footnote
Eavesdropping would also explain why Sammael detected her presence. See Maria's commentary here.Tags
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15
Interview: May 19th, 2004
Rome Signing Report - Raven (Translated)Robert Jordan
I then asked, as (plot-wise) the 4th book is clearly different for the three previous ones, if it was planned or if it just happened; he answered that it was planned.Tags
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16
Interview: Apr, 2012
Afternoon Tea with Brandon Sanderson - Luckers (Paraphrased)Luckers
How did Moiraine identify Sammael and Be’lal in The Dragon Reborn?Brandon Sanderson
I have no idea.Tags
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17
Interview: Apr 21st, 2012
JordanCon AMOL Status Report - Marie Curie (Paraphrased)Melissa Craib
Melissa Craib, this year's JordanCon master of ceremonies, asked the Team Jordan members which parts of the story they had been surprised about.
Harriet McDougal Rigney
Harriet told about an incident she has described before from when she was writing the blurb for the dust jacket of The Dragon Reborn and finally realized that RJ intended Callandor to be an analog of the sword in the stone. She yelled down to RJ, "You son of a ****, you've done it to me again!"
Maria Simons
Maria said that she was surprised... well, actually I've forgotten what Maria was surprised about. Maybe somebody else remembers...was it from Knife of Dreams when Semirhage blows Rand's hand off? That's what comes to mind, but I don't remember any details about why that surprised her, really, so maybe that's not it. :s
Alan Romanczuk
Alan at first said that he wasn't surprised by anything; he had figured it all out, of course. Then he owned up to being a little surprised about the scene in Crossroads of Twilight in which Perrin chops off the hand of one of the captured Shaido, because it showed the depths to which a person could go when pushed to the brink.
Peter Ahlstrom
Peter said he was surprised when it was revealed that Demandred was... (yeah, he was messing with us).
Footnote
Nalesean at Theoryland pointed out that Maria said that she was surprised by the death of Rolan during the battle of Malden.
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18
Interview: Feb 22nd, 2013
AMOL Signing Report - Terez (Verbatim)Terez
Was the "innocent" foreshadowing in early The Great Hunt—that you mentioned on Twitter when you were doing your reread—do you remember that?
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah, I do remember it, and people have asked me this, and I can't remember what it was! (crosstalk)
Terez
And you don't remember what it was. And then there's the one in The Dragon Reborn Chapter 27.
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah. Oh, I can probably remember that one.
Terez
Can I email you about those two?
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah, you can email me about that one, because I can find that one. Because I know which one that one was, but I can't remember the other one. I feel so bad! It's like...
Terez
Well, was it Leane and Perrin, with the crown and the High Chant?
Brandon Sanderson
Mayyy-beee.....
Terez
Like, she said something about, "Next the blacksmith is gonna be wearing a crown and speaking in High Chant..."
Brandon Sanderson
Ohhhhh, yeah! I bet it's that one, because...yeah.....
Terez
It's kind of an innocent foreshadowing....
Brandon Sanderson
...No, you're right.
Terez
I think you kind of avoided my question, and then you later kind of...
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah, I think it's that one, because it's Perrin becoming king.
Terez
Right. Okay.
Brandon Sanderson
Which finally happened in this book.
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19
Interview: Apr 20th, 2013
JordanCon 2013 - Q&A with Maria (Verbatim)Terez
When the girls are kidnapped in Cairhien in The Dragon Reborn, several Myrddraal arrive to collect them. Who were they working for?Maria Simons
I should know that. I think if I go to the notes, I could find that.Tags
20
Interview: Apr 20th, 2013
JordanCon 2013 - Q&A with Maria (Verbatim)Terez
How did Moiraine identify Sammael and Be'lal? How did she know their names?Maria Simons
I'm assuming research; I don't know.
Terez
My theory was always eavesdropping.
Maria Simons
Oh yeah, that's another good possibility.
Terez
And that would be a reason why she tipped Sammael off to her presence.
Maria Simons
Yeah.
Terez
How did she rediscover balefire? Assuming research again?
Maria Simons
Assuming.
Marie Curie
That question always comes up, about whether you can learn a weave by reading about it.
Maria Simons
Yeah, I think it can help, and then you have to experiment and hope for the best.
Footnote
Maria answered the question about Sammael again later.Tags
21
Interview: Apr 20th, 2013
JordanCon 2013 - Q&A with Maria (Verbatim)Terez
In The Dragon Reborn, Perrin sees Ishamael, Rahvin, and Be'lal in a place that looks like the Ways—and of course we see that place in The Eye of the World, in the boys' dreams too—is that a construct that Ishamael makes in Tel'aran'rhiod?Maria Simons
I am assuming so, but again, I don't know.
Terez
I got the impression (because of this conversation) that Brandon kinda tried to explain that one.
Tags
22
Interview: Apr 15th, 2013
Reddit AMA 2013 (Verbatim)smb89 ()
The Flame of Tar Valon—what does it do other than shore up the Pattern? Does it have effects also opposite to balefire? Was the weave related to the weave that Rand used to seek out Shadowspawn in The Dragon Reborn?
Brandon Sanderson
This is left for your consideration and discussion for now.
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