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2012-04-30: I had the great pleasure of speaking with Harriet McDougal Rigney about her life. She's an amazing talent and person and it will take you less than an hour to agree.
2012-04-24: Some thoughts I had during JordanCon4 and the upcoming conclusion of "The Wheel of Time."
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Nov 16th, 2009
Paraphrased
Scottsdale, AZ
The Gathering Storm Book Tour
Scottsdale Public Library
kcf
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Here's a summary of my Q&A and other time spent with Brandon as a Storm Leader. (It may warrant its own post, but I'll post it here first and we go from there).
There will eventually be a pretty detailed blog post about me meeting Brandon and the whole Storm Leader experience, but that'll be a few days coming.
I will say that meeting and 'hanging out' with Brandon was both a privilege and an honor. He's a very nice guy that immediately knew who I was from my blog—which led to my exclaiming to the group, 'he's heard of me'. Later he said that he was very happy to see that I had been chosen a Storm Leader, umm, wow, that was pretty cool. We (fans) need to all be extremely thankful to Brandon for doing this—he is on tour for four weeks away from his family, literally being in an airport on planes every day, eating out all the time, etc. The toll is beginning to show, so we need to all express our gratitude for what he's been doing for the fans. For Towers of Midnight, expect a shorter tour—two weeks, with another two-week tour for The Way of Kings.
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OK, on to the Q&A. The questions and answers are not exact, but I was taking notes (not that I can read my chicken scratch). I will also include my own commentary and interpretation. Brandon very much wants to be forthcoming with answers—he doesn't seem to like RAFO. Mostly it would be something like, 'I can't answer that, but I will say...'
Unfortunately, I didn't get to ask many spoilery questions about The Gathering Storm because one Storm Leader hadn't finished yet—this means that my craving for more info about Verin, the Black Ajah, and such was not meant to be. The questions below are what I intended to ask—I didn't necessarily ask them word for word as written—and many are from suggestions here and at RAFO.com.
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RAFO.
This lead to quite a bit of discussion. Basically, Graendal pretty much uses compulsion on everyone she interacts with. He also asked if it had been revealed that King Alsalam's letters were revealed to be fake. I went into our discussion here and Dom's interpretation in particular. Brandon seemed to like it.
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There are about 50,000 words of secondary plots that Sanderson wants to include in Towers of Midnight. He's just not sure all of it will get into the book. If something gets cut, he'd like to get to his fans on his website.
This lead to quite a bit of discussion about Towers of Midnight. It will be a very different book from The Gathering Storm. The Gathering Storm was very intentionally focused. Brandon felt strongly that a 'hit' wasn't good enough, that The Gathering Storm needed to be a home run. (At the table, we all thought it was a home run.) Towers of Midnight will need to catch up many plot threads and will be much less focused. This will have its problems and it will be a big struggle to find the right balance—they aren't there yet in the writing process. Brandon mentioned a few plots as examples which strongly suggests they will be in Towers of Midnight—Loial, Lan, Fain, Taim, Logain, Elayne, if Mat does what fans think he will, etc.
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The Gathering Storm begins sometime in April. It ends around the end of June/beginning of July. However, Perrin advanced very little—only about two weeks. Mat advanced a bit more, but was still about a month behind Rand and Egwene (this gets an asterisk as a MAFO), but Mat traveled to Caemlyn about 30 days before the end of the book—he emphasized 30 days and asked if I understood the significance of that—I said that I do. (Interpretation: Mat will open Verin’s letter very early in Towers of Midnight).
Tuon's timeline jumps around the most. In Knife of Dreams, she ended about a month ahead of everyone else. There were probably (MAFO) about two weeks between her meeting with Rand and the launch of the attack on the White Tower.
That sounds about right to me.
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I'm pretty sure she's stronger, but they are very close. RJ has a list of all the channelers' strengths. On that list, only six people are stronger than Nynaeve. It's such a rare event that pretty much anytime we meet someone stronger than her, it's explicitly said. There are two One Power strength scales—an 'old' and a 'new'. Nynaeve was the top of the female list for the 'old' list. Six are stronger on the 'new' list.
Brandon was pretty certain that Nynaeve is stronger than Mesaana, who isn't particularly strong in Forsaken terms.
Brandon was very open and willing to talk about this issue—people who care about these things should ask at every opportunity.
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Basically RAFO. Laras is in New Spring (which I don't remember).
This led to a fair amount of discussion about backstories—he doesn't want to spoil something that could be revealed. So, I followed up with something like 'presumably, if the prequels are written, we'll learn more of Laras'. Brandon said yes, presumably.
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Yes, but I'm not going to tell you what.
This led to a fair amount of discussion about balefire and such. At one point, Brandon said 'all Forsaken other than Sammael who haven't come back were balefired'.
I immediately jumped on this and asked if that included Asmodean—Brandon said that he wasn't talking about Asmodean (we all didn't even want to go there), but this is further evidence of Brandon slipping hints that Asmodean was balefired.
This led to a small debate about Osan'gar—I didn't think he was balefired, everyone else at the table thought he was.
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It was also mentioned that balefire does not mean that someone can't be reborn into the Pattern.
I was very surprised by this and hadn't heard it before, but apparently Brandon has said it in previous Q&As.
Brandon said he was also surprised but that Maria was very insistent about this—so if the Dragon Reborn was balefired, he could still be reborn.
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It's very difficult (but not impossible) to channel the True Power without the Dark One's direct permission.
This led to lots of discussion about the whole Semirhage death scene. Basically, she felt betrayed by the Dark One, and Brandon says she's a very astute person. Brandon also said that Moridin and the Dark One are on the same page with most things, and that Moridin is the most trustworthy Forsaken for the Dark One.
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Shaidar Haran needs a minion to most of his work for him. Elza was essential to Shaidar Haran in getting things done.
This led to lots of discussion about swearing to the Shadow—basically, it's a very bad idea and you forfeit some very basic protections when you do. Shaidar Haran has special power over those that swear to the Dark One, and the Forsaken in particular.
I asked about Alvairin's special mark, and he said Shaidar Haran has similar power over her. The implication is that there are lots of ramifications for swearing to the Dark One. Brandon mentioned that this makes Verin all the more remarkable.
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Where have any of the new bodies come from? He then mentioned that it's not confirmed who Cyndane is, though he didn't refute me when we all said that it's pretty certain.
I asked about her strength in the One Power—Brandon says she's very, very weak. This surprised me since I didn't think she was that weak.
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