Theoryland of the Wheel of Time

There was a signing at a local Borders very close to my apartment. Kate, myself, and the Dilicks attended. The signing began at 1:00 PM. We showed up separately between 11:00 and 11:30 AM to find ourselves close to the front of the line. Such paranoia was justified, as the line grew very swiftly and to great length.

As the time approached, the cafe area was cleared and chairs set up auditorium style so that those of us who had been waiting were able to sit down and enjoy. This was cool. Those of us in the cafe area (and maybe others) were also given a complimentary cup of spiced cider—to bring to mind the idea of having a mug mulled wine in front of us. This was cool. There was also an amazing-looking layered sheet cake with a truly impressive Wheel of Time design drawn on the top. I never got the full story on where it came from—if Tor arranged it, or if a fan owned a bakery or what. It was divied up into small pieces and given to the fans as we went through line.

Jordan began with a reading, which was fairly short. He read the first few pages from chapter one of The Path of Daggers. I think I'm happier narrating them in my own internal voice. He then commenced with about an hour and a half of rapid signings. I asked politely if I could stand off to the side and record the answers to any questions that he gave. He and the Borders staff were very gracious. They seemed to expect it, somehow... I will make one comment about Mr. Jordan: he seems like a very nice man. He was obviously tired (he commented at one point that he had hit some 27 cities in 32 days) but was cheerful, engaging, willing to chat and banter and seemed generally pleased to be there.

rj the man

I did my best not to be completely underfoot, getting out of the way of photographs, keeping relatively silent while people were chatting to him and asking him questions. On a personal and weird note, a lot of people seemed to recognize me, too. (Of those, I recognized only Amy and her man.) This is unsettling and weird. And I am not nearly as approachable as I may have seemed to be—but I would have felt like a heel for bitchslapping people who stood behind me trying to talk to me or at me or near me as I was busy listening and jotting and dodging out of photographs, while Jordan was being so nice about letting me hang out there.

Here's what I learned:

(Bear in mind that while there were stretches while I wasn't writing anything, when I WAS writing, I had to write fast. I hope I didn't mistranscribe anything.)

[Is balefire the eternal death of the soul?]

If someone is balefired, the Dark One can't reincarnate them. But they CAN be spun back out into the Wheel as normal. Balefire is NOT the eternal death of the soul. He also made a comment to the effect that even in the absence of balefire, there may be circumstances where the Dark One cannot bring someone back. There was a long line, so I didn't press.

RJ expanded on these other 'circumstances' in the TOR Questions of the Week (see Q3).

balefire

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dark one

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rebirth

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transmigration

The Bowl: Someone asked him whether, if men had helped the Aes Sedai and Windfinders and Kin channel through the Bowl, the One Power would still have been screwed up.

His implicit assumption was that the Bowl screwed things up. I expected this to be a sheer RAFO. I was surprised. He went into a relatively detailed explanation to the effect that the Bowl was stressed far, far beyond its original design parameters because of the advanced knowledge of the Windfinders. It was affecting a global pattern, when it was designed for only a small region. Men helping would not have changed anything, and the effects linger most strongly near Ebou Dar, but also along the "spokes" which radiated from that place. (I should have asked if a spoke went out over Tear.)

The 'relatively detailed explanation' can be found in TPOD 2, Moridin's POV. Moridin noted that the Bowl was originally a ter'angreal designed to control the weather in small areas, and that the Sea Folk were likely capable of stretching its abilities far beyond its intended capacity (since they could do unaided what should have required the Bowl, by Age of Legends standards).

bowl of the winds

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one power

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sea folk

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talents

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ter'angreal

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windfinders

Moiraine lost her list sometime between New Spring and The Eye of the World. By the opening of the story, all she could remember was that there had been a name from the Two Rivers.

The novel version of New Spring had not been released at this time. The Legends version included a mention of Kari, which RJ decided to remove in the novel version because of the confusion: ["Kari al'Thor. From Andor? Husband Tamlin, Second Captain of he Illianer Companions, took discharge." That pair might have gone anywhere in the world and there was doubt she had had a child at all.]

kari

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moiraine

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tam

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two rivers

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the eye of the world

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new spring

On the subject of a story set in the Age of Legends, most probably not. The Age of Legends was entirely too boring to write about, up until the time it became too interesting. And at that point, it became too gloomy because it was a long, drawn out apocalypse.

age of legends

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breaking of the world

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war of power

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prequels

He has no particular real world inspiration for the One Power, at least not that he knows of. He admits that he's read a lot of stuff and at times forgets a source here and there.

wot influences

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one power

At one point, he looked at me and added (with no prompting or questioning) that no, Mat is not Cyndane. He explained that at another signing, he had a string of ten or so people in a row ask him about Mat, and he got frustrated and belted out, "What if Mat is Cyndane?" He claimed he then recanted, but couldn't tell if the guy he told that to believed that he was joking. I admitted that I had heard the story, but it was okay—we got the joke.

mat

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cyndane

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lol

John Novak

Robert Jordan

wot influences

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transmigration

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aran'gar

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balthamel

He is already thinking about his next work. He has been thinking about it for five or six years now. It will definitely be a fantasy, definitely not Wheel of Time, and will spend a lot of time in a culture that somewhat resembles the Seanchan. i.e., the Shipwreck thing is still going strong.

infinity of heaven

John Novak

seanchan

John Novak

black ajah

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warders

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darkfriends

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oath rod

Asmodean is, and I quote, road-kill. And he still claims there are many indirect clues from The Fires of Heaven on about who killed him. He also claims that very, very few of the fan letters he gets are correct about it.

asmodean

Will more Heroes be bound to the Horn?

RAFO.

horn of valere

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heroes of the horn

Who or what is the Tamyrlin?

RAFO.

In the glossary of the split version of The Eye of the World, RJ hints that Tamyrlin was the person to discover the One Power at the dawn of the Age of Legends. Some fans believe this was the previous incarnation of Lews Therin/Rand.

Composite Glossary: Ring of Tamyrlin

tamyrlin

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rand

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lews therin

RAFO sometimes means that he intends to reveal it later. Sometimes it means that an answer is not consequential, but its logical implications ARE consequential.

rafo

He really hopes to get the next volume out faster.

rj on writing

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winter's heart

His plans have not significantly altered from the time of conception. No major scenes have been inserted or left out or substantially altered.

genesis

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rj on writing

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plotting

Apparently a Dorset House (?) is currently planning to produce replica of jewelry (such as the Aes Sedai rings, Moiraine's forehead jewel) and articles of clothing (like the shawls) for the market.

merchandise

Does the Snakes and Foxes game played in the Two Rivers have anything to do with the 'finn?

John Novak

finns

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aelfinn

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eelfinn

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two rivers

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games in wot

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snakes and foxes

A calendar for next year seems like a very possible thing. So does the encyclopedia concept we've heard about—he already keeps a running compilation of invented terms anyway.

encyclopedia

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merchandise

John Novak

Robert Jordan

wot influences

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lol

John Novak

Robert Jordan

lol

And my favorite fan comment: "No questions. Just, 'Thanks.'" Dunno who that was, but if you're reading, I thought that was cool.

So that's that.

Last signing of the tour.

(I left out a bunch of shit we already knew about how many more books, how does he title things, who's his favorite character, what's his daily schedule, etc.)

One person asked whether Romanda was the Aes Sedai that Cadsuane referred to as being nearly as old as she was.

John Novak

cadsuane

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romanda

Someone actually asked Jordan whether a hermaphrodite would channel saidin or saidar. Jordan was...non-plussed. "A hermaphrodite?! I dunno. I'd have to sit down and figure that out." He shot the guy a funny look as he walked away, then remarked to the next group of people in line that he put that in the same category as the person who wrote to ask him what Donald Duck would channel.

lol

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channeling

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one power

A lot of people asked pronunciation questions.

He remarked that no one ever seemed to read the glossaries. He also remarked that one of the taped versions (I omitted this earlier because I didn't catch the publishers) was just awful about this—they stopped calling for clarifications about halfway through the first book. He thought this meant they had enough to extrapolate correctly for the rest of them. They did not.

He ended by commenting that everyone was going to come up with their own internal pronunciations anyway.

wot audiobooks

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pronunciation