Theoryland of the Wheel of Time

TOR Questions of the Week Part III (Verbatim)

In The Great Hunt, who wrote the Dark Prophecy on the dungeon wall in Fal Dara? And why, after Ingtar released Padan Fain from the dungeon, did Fain decide to go to Toman Head? We know he was rebelling against Ishamael's orders (he was supposed to follow the Myrddraal to Shayol Ghul) but why did Fain go to Cairhien and then to Toman Head?

A Myrddraal wrote the Dark Prophecy on orders, as a threat. I might want to use some of the reasons, so the rest on that is RAFO.

Fain (now amalgamated with Mordeth) was seeking his own power base, something he would try again with Pedron Niall and Toram Riatin. He wanted enough power to be able to kill Rand, Mat and Perrin, though most especially Rand, and to protect himself against agents of the Shadow. Because of Darkfriend reports, the Myrddraal who wrote the prophecy already knew who the strangers on Toman Head were, or claimed to be: Artur Hawkwing's armies returned to reclaim the lands stolen from Hawkwing's heirs. He knew that they collared women who could channel, which appealed to Fain/Mordeth, since one disliked Aes Sedai at best and the other purely hated them. The Myrddraal didn't simply give this up to Fain, you understand. Fain is one of the few people who could successfully torture information out of one of the Eyeless. As for why he went to Cairhien first, he knew the location of the Waygate there (along with several others and how to read the guidings in the Ways, this last from Mordeth) and preferred to use the Ways rather than make the longer cross-country journey from Fal Dara to Toman Head.

dark prophecy, fain, ishamael, mordeth, niall, prophecies, toram riatin, waygates, the ways,

WH Signing Report - Brandon Downey (Paraphrased)

Another guy behind me asked if he felt he was giving the books the level of detail he wanted (and RJ said yes), then he asked about the one sentence Lan/Toram fight.

RJ said that he had tried writing that scene several ways, but none of the split POVs (and have we even had a Lan POV, outside of New Spring?) seemed to work out. I chimed in, "Yeah, and Lan is enough of a badass to ice some punk in one sentence", and RJ said, "Yes, Lan is very, very good at what he does."

lan, toram riatin, rj on writing, winter's heart,