Theoryland of the Wheel of Time

LOC Signing Report - Tony Zbaraschuk (Paraphrased)

Tony Zbaraschuk

wotfaq, rj on writing, fandom, harriet, glossary, rj the man,

LOC Signing Report - Tony Zbaraschuk (Paraphrased)

What about Warders? I thought the previous glossaries (up to The Fires of Heaven) said that Aes Sedai couldn't sense the direction of their Warders?

Tony Zbaraschuk

Encyclopaedia WoT keeps a list of errata here.

aes sedai, warders, warder bond, glossary, errors,

TPOD Signing Report - Matthew Hunter (Paraphrased)

My last question concerned the glossary—the bit about "speculation is futile." I asked, "Do you really expect that to stop us?"

He said of course not.

glossary,

WH Signing Report - Hawk (Paraphrased)

Why was the glossary so short?

Normally he solicits opinion from people what should be in there, but he ran out of time this book. He would have liked it to have been more fleshed out.

glossary, winter's heart,

KOD Signing Report - Allen Bryan (Paraphrased)

He gave the standard remedial pronunciation guide, and was exasperated that people didn't use the glossary pronuncations. Look back there people, there's stuff not in the main storyline!

pronunciation, glossary,

TGS Midnight Release - Matt Hatch (Verbatim)

Are you going to discuss Moiraine in the future?

Way to give me a great out. Moiraine will be mentioned in future books. [...] In future books there will certainly be references. Her name will at least be mentioned, at the very least in the Appendix. In fact, I think in The Gathering Storm the entire letter to Thom is in the Appendix.

glossary, moiraine,

Grasping for the Wind Interview: Brandon Sanderson on Towers of Midnight (Verbatim)

Anything else on your mind you would like to say to potential readers of Towers of Midnight?

John Ottinger

glossary, towers of midnight, graendal, asmodean,

Goodreads ToM Fantasy Book Club Q&A with Brandon Sanderson (Verbatim)

I was a bit shocked when I started reading Towers of Midnight. The Prologue included a Graendal scene. I went to the glossary to refresh my memory concerning that Forsaken and discovered a huge spoiler...

Dawn

Brandon Sanderson

asmodean, graendal, glossary, maria, harriet, towers of midnight,

Tor Q&A with Brandon Sanderson (Verbatim)

Who is the First Selector of the Blue Ajah? (and if that gets RAFO'd) Have we seen her on screen or her name mentioned?


The glossary in the back of Towers of Midnight says, "The First Selector is currently unknown, although it is suspected that Lelaine Akashi fills this position." That suspicion is correct.

blue ajah, white tower, aes sedai, lelaine, glossary,

Elf Fantasy Fair Interview with Robert Jordan - Kurafire (Verbatim)

What are you planning to do with all the notes you have made for The Wheel of Time when you are completely done with the series?

I might publish some of them. I have thought about publishing some sort of concordance, or single volume dictionary/encyclopedia, a very straightforward thing, not with any pretenses to be part of the Wheel of Time. From the beginning my editor has kept a list of words—created words—every plant that I mentioned, animal that I mentioned, every person’s name that was sitting in a town, or a village or an inn, every song. And it’s all there in that long, long list, and just the bare list right now I think is probably over a thousand pages. Which would present some difficulties, but the thing is I think I might take that list and give the basics, give definitions, put in definitions, put in references, who this person is, where this person’s seen.

Kurafire

Sort of like a massive glossary..?

Robert Jordan

In a way, yes. I don’t know, I think, perhaps, there might be some interest in that. I certainly wouldn’t do it until this is all over, because I, uhm, if and when I do it, I would like it to be complete, just nothing left out.

Kurafire

There is a large request from the fans that you do not let it to be edited, and that you publish them in their ‘raw diamond form’.

Robert Jordan

Oh, ah, okay.

rj's notes, encyclopedia, harriet, glossary,

Elf Fantasy Fair Interview with Robert Jordan - Kurafire (Verbatim)

How much do you have to do with the Glossary of each book? Do you write it yourself, supervise it or just don’t have anything to do with it?

I write it myself, yes. Of course, there are some difficulties when I do. I ask my editor and my assistant, both of who get the manuscript to read, simultaneously. I tell them: "Give me a list, what do you think should be in the glossary? What really needs to be in the glossary?" And I take a look at old glossaries, to see if there are things in the old glossaries that should be in the new glossary, and I’ll try to put together something, add in and take out terms, these sort of things. And add in terms that they think should be in the new glossary. They usually come up with a lot of the same things, apart of a few different ones. And there is also the difficulty of how much time is available, with the last four books, last five books I guess. And that is that for each of the last five books—I don’t do the glossary until I finish the book—each of the last five books, there’s been two months from me finishing the book, to the book being in the stores. It’s been, in some of these cases, a week from me finishing the book to the second pass [..] and that means there is hardly no time at all, to write the glossary.

glossary, maria, harriet, rj on writing,

Reddit AMA 2011 (Verbatim)

For the love of good things, tell me who kills Asmodean?

Real question: Mistborn surprised me with its intensity. I didn't think that it would have as big of an impact on me that it did, and for writing it, thank you.

How long do things cook in your mind before you put them on paper?

Spoiler

When you write something as beautiful as "I am hope." Does it give you the chills? Where does something like that come from? I am just so fucking amazed that, even though I knew of his past with his wife and the mines, that you could make me think he was just doing it for greed reasons... then you bust out with this and I was floored. It cemented the entire trilogy for me. With that one line, I will forever buy anything you write.

/heroworship

The Asmodean killer is revealed in Towers of Midnight. (Look in the glossary.)

How long things cook depends on the project. Some, like The Way of Kings, cook for decades. Mistborn was a period of about 2-3 years. Others, like my children's series, are exercises in free writing with very little 'incubation' time give.

As for the last question...sometimes, it's hard to pinpoint how things come together, even for a planner like myself. I often compare writing to playing music. Often, a musician gets to the point where they don't know why their fingers move as they do—through a great deal of training, they learn to just make it happen. Writers develop similar instincts, but for plot, character, and prose.

towers of midnight, glossary, asmodean, brandon on writing, mistborn, first mistborn trilogy, way of kings,

Sydney Signing Report - dicetosser (Paraphrased)

Also the idea of putting Asmodean's killer's identity in the glossary was his...kinda. RJ left a print-out of a reader's theory with a sticky note on it saying "this is right". That's it; nothing else. They tried figuring out how to get it in the story, then Brandon being a bit of a smartypants suggested the glossary. Apparently Harriet LOVED the idea so much that later when he tried to write it into the story she crossed it out and wrote "IT'S IN THE GLOSSARY!"

asmodean, glossary, harriet, brandon on writing wot, towers of midnight, graendal,

JordanCon AMOL Status Report - Marie Curie (Paraphrased)

The final question of the session went to Tamyrlin.

For some reason he always seems to have Asmodean on the brain, lol, so he asked whether or not the glossary of A Memory of Light would contain any important information. Harriet teased that now she would make it a point to include something important in the glossary of A Memory of Light!

harriet, glossary, asmodean,

TOM Signing Report - Drew (Paraphrased)

I asked him "Why the Glossary?"

He said that they were instructed to "put it in" somewhere, and they could not find a way to do it that seemed to fit so they put it in the Glossary. Harriet added "I like making people read the Glossary."

asmodean, glossary, harriet, towers of midnight,

JordanCon 2012 - AMOL Update Panel (Verbatim)

I just want to prepare myself...Do you plan to reveal anything important in the glossary of A Memory of Light? (wild laughter)

If I possibly can!

glossary, asmodean, lol, harriet,

Reddit Earlybird Q&A (Verbatim)

Why the decision to leave out the glossary at the end?

Harriet suggested this. She liked the idea of RJ's words being the last ones in the series, and felt that it was right.

a memory of light, glossary, harriet,

AMOL Signing Report - Christine (Paraphrased)

Do we find out who killed Asmodean?

*laughs* It is in the Towers of Midnight glossary.

asmodean, towers of midnight, glossary,

AMOL Midnight Release Q&A (Verbatim)

My name is Niels Oleson. Tai'shadar [sic] Manetheren, and Tai'shadar [sic] Pleasant Grove. [laughter] That's where I'm from! Go Vikings!

The one question I have is—this wouldn't be a panel without asking—who killed Asmodean? [laughter, cheers] And I know you can't answer it, but is it in the book?

For those who missed it, it's in the, um...the glossary of Towers of Midnight. [boooo] It's actually mentioned in there who killed Asmodean. [laughter] Towers of Midnight, last book; it came out last year. Two years ago. [laughter] So, you've got your answer; you just have to go find it in there.

And let me give a little explanation on that, so you guys who haven't heard this story—I know many of you have—when I first went to Charleston—this was 2007, in December—I had signed the contracts, not knowing how much was written of the book or what was even available, because you know, that's how it had to go; I had to sign all the NDAs and things before I could see, so I flew out there, and picked up the material, so to speak—the material we call the notes and everything—and I got in very late because it's—you know, flying to Charleston from Salt Lake is uh, and you gotta connect at Atlanta, and things—you know, I get in late, and we walk in; Harriet picks me up from the airport, brings me in, and she—(to Harriet) it was bean soup you had made, or something like that—and you're like, "Would you like some food; I know you've been flying a long time..." I said, "No, I'd like the ending, please, thank you." [laughter]

So she laughed and got me the materials, and handed them to me in a stack, and I went in to the room—the sitting room—and I sat down to read them, and on the very top was a post-it note, on top of a page of a fan...fan information, like it printed off from the internet—a fan theory—and all it said is, "This is right." And the fan theory was about who killed Asmodean, and that's all we had, was a "This is correct." Maybe they have more—maybe Maria has more—but all I knew was, "This is correct." I didn't know the how, the why, or anything that this person...why they did this.

And so when it came time to put it in the books, I kind of almost jokingly said, "We should put it in the glossary, because we don't know, so we'll just put it in for fans in the same way we got it, which is just a post-it note." [laughter] "...We'll stick it in the book like a post-it note, in the glossary," and that's because we don't have the full story. And so we went ahead and did that, and then when I was writing the book, I actually worked it into the text, and Harriet wrote back and said, "No, no. I like this glossary thing; it's going in the glossary." [laughter] So, we cut it out of the text and left it in the glossary, and the idea is, you get to feel like we felt because I didn't know anything more than "This is it," so I gave it to you as transparently as possible so that you could have the same feeling of confusion that I had.

Harriet McDougal

And did you see where he got Moghedien from my basic character? [laughter]

asmodean, towers of midnight, harriet, rj's notes, brandon on writing wot, fandom, glossary,

AMOL Signing Report - Deslya (Paraphrased)

Is there a confirmed killer for Asmodean?

It's listed in the Appendix of Towers of Midnight. It's in there. Go find it. I found it by way of a post it note listed on top of the notes. I don't know any more than who did it, as far as why or how. There's only a name.

asmodean, towers of midnight, glossary, rj's notes,

AMOL Signing Report - Freelancer (Verbatim)

Two questions. One, who killed Asmodean? And the second one, the Aviendha scene with the rings [sic], going back in time, and then into the future, was that part of the original intention with Robert Jordan, or is that something you kind of improvised?

Can I take the first question?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, go for the first one.

Harriet McDougal

The first question, simply illustrates the importance, as every sister of the Brown Ajah knows, of reading the glossaries.

Brandon Sanderson

I'm not going to give you a very good answer on the other one either. The reason being, we try to keep away from saying too much about what Robert Jordan did, and what I did. Particularly while there are people who haven't read the books yet. Maybe in a year or two we can start being more open about these things, but right now, I don't want people reading the books and focusing on "Was this Jim, was that Brandon?" and things like that. The only answer I can give to questions like that is every scene is 100% Robert Jordan, and 100% me.

Freelancer

asmodean, glossary, harriet, who wrote what?,

AMOL Signing Report - Aegon (Paraphrased)

I remembered some more stuff in the shower this morning.

Someone asked who killed Asmodean. Groan. The answer was, of course, in the appendix [glossary] of Towers of Midnight.

In the interim since showering, I forgot the other thing I remembered. But it was of similar consequence as the Asmodean question. If I knew that I'd be sharing answers then I surely would have taken notes.

asmodean, towers of midnight, glossary,

AMOL Signing Report - Anna Hornbostel (Verbatim)

Are either you now, or else in the encyclopedia—are you going to answer who killed Asmodean? (laughter)

I wish to stand up for librarians, writers of indexes, and in this case, writers of glossaries. Glossaries need to be read very carefully, particularly—which one is it? (laughter) Particularly the glossary of Towers of Midnight.

Question

Thank you.

Harriet McDougal

Somebody told me I was being a smartass. (laughter)

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, okay. All right.

harriet, asmodean, glossary,

AMOL Signing Report - DomaniSway (Paraphrased)

Do Robert Jordan's notes state who killed Asmodean?

Brandon states that at the top of a large stack of Robert Jordan's notes that he received, there was a print-out of a fan's theory about the killer of Asmodean. Stuck to it was a post-it note from Jordan that read, "this is right."

Harriet McDougal

Harriet commented about the importance of glossaries.

rj's notes, asmodean, glossary, towers of midnight,

Waygate Foundation Q&A (Verbatim)

What was the Ring of Tamyrlin—could it have been the twisted stone ter’angreal?

The Ring of Tamyrlin was defined in the expanded glossary included in To the Blight (the second half of The Eye of the World repacked for YA readers); it was a legendary ring, believed mythical by most people, worn by the leader of the Aes Sedai during the Age of Legends. Stories about the Ring of Tamyrlin include that it was an angreal or sa’angreal or ter’angreal of immense power. It supposedly was named after the first person to learn how to tap into the Source and channel the One Power, and in some tales, was actually made by that man or woman. It was definitely not the twisted stone ter’angreal.

ring of tamyrlin, ter'angreal, tamyrlin, age of legends, the eye of the world, glossary,

JordanCon 2013 - Q&A with Maria (Verbatim)

Was a glossary every written for A Memory of Light?

No. We decided pretty much right off the bat that we wanted to end with the end. How do you follow that ending anyway? And we're doing the whole Encyclopedia; that would just be like a separate glossary.

glossary, encyclopedia, a memory of light,

JordanCon 2014: WoT Q&A with Brandon Sanderson (Verbatim)

Why was the answer to who killed you-know-who buried in the back of the book?

Oh! So, this is a great story; some of you have heard this one before. So, when I got there—this is the 2007 visit, so this is December 2007, right before [?] was announced and my inbox exploded, right before the interview with Jason went live that preempted the [?]—I got the notes, and stuck on a post-it note on top of the notes was the answer to who killed Asmodean, and it isn't the answer you think it is. I don't even know—[to Harriet] was this Robert Jordan's writing, or was this yours?—there was fan sheet that was printed out—there was a fan theory, and a post-it note that said "this is right". And I don't know who even wrote the "this is right".

Someone

I think it was Jordan.

Brandon Sanderson

You think it was Jim, yeah. Robert Jordan. And so, anyway, we had this thing with the "this is right", and the only thing I had really from him was the "this is right". And I kind of felt like the fandom, like "Well I've got my answer but there's no explanation; it's just "the fan theory is right", that it was this person, and so, as we were doing our brainstorming session months later, I said "You know what would be funny? Is if we made...we forced the fans to feel like we do," because we don't really know much about this answer, and we just...we put it in the appendix because then, they would have to, you know, they would found it like we found it. I got a post-it note; you got an appendix item, and Harriet loved this idea. She thought it was awesome. She has, you know, I think she, over the years, got infected by her husband and transitioned from nice editor to mean author [laughter], because we authors love to be mean to readers. Those provoking strong emotions in readers is one of the things that we love to do, and so sticking it back there, I actually when I was writing Towers of Midnight, I was...there was a sentence I wrote where I made it a little more clear in text, and Harriet was like, "No, this is going in the appendix; strike that sentence out." And I was like, "Alright! She's on board with this." So that's...and it is...you know, a lot of what we do in writing, at least in my vision, is to try to make sure you feel like the characters feel, like the Last Battle. Why is it 90,000 words, or whatever it is—that chapter. It's because the characters can't put down their weapons. They are back-to-the-wall, this is the End, and I don't want you to feel like you can put down the book. I want you to be like, "I'll read to the next chapter." [laughter] All they're thinking is, "Well, I'll try and make it to the next day." Well, that's how you have to feel too; this is using the form of the story to try and evoke the right emotion, and putting [?] in the back was to evoke for you the same emotion that we felt in finding just the post-it note answer.

Next Question

Okay, so before you got the note, who did you think killed that appendix item?

Brandon Sanderson

Here's the story of appendix-item man: Like, when I...and I found since that this was actually pretty common. I didn't really care until I started reading fan theories, right? Like, this was not one of the questions I had. The questions I had were things like, "Oooh, what could you do with gateways? Ooh, what kinds of Talents exist out there and what could they do? Ooh," you know, "what kind of weaves exist in the Age of Legends and how did they develop into the contemporary weaves?" These are the things I was really interested in as a reader, and then, you know, you get Asmodean, and like, "Who cares about him?" I mean, yes, he was a fun character, but he's dead, probably one of the Forsaken. And then, you start reading the theories, and then you go through this thing where you're like, "Wow, this is actually really a mystery. Oh, I really want to know!" And then you transition into the, "I'm so tired of people talking about this." [laughter] "Can we talk about something else?" And so, by the time I was working on those, I knew all the theories, and I didn't...I had transitioned out of that caring too much. I'm like, "These are all good theories, and I have no idea which one is right." And so, I didn't have...you know, I was more interested in, you know, "Which of the women is Rand going to end up with?" That's a really...that's a question I wanted answered. "Will he survive the Last Battle?" "Who killed Asmodean?" was not a big deal to me at that point, though there is a fun story. Matt Hatch, who runs Theoryland, or founded Theoryland—I don't know if you run Theoryland any more—but Theoryland kind of runs on its own...

Matt Hatch

Theoryland has always run on its own.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, you're just the unfortunate person who started it and got trampled by the masses. So, um, he came to me—when was it? JordanCon? No, it couldn't be JordanCon. DragonCon?

Matt Hatch

JordanCon.

Brandon Sanderson

It was JordanCon. Okay.

Matt Hatch

[unintelligible]

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, something like that. The book wasn’t out yet—Towers of Midnight—but I had mentioned that you will eventually, in one of the books, get the reveal on who killed Asmodean. And he pulls me aside, and he says, “All right, I’m not going to ask you who it really is, but I just want to say, it’s not Graendal, right?” And I didn’t say . . . I didn’t say anything. But he’s like, "Okay, if it’s Graendal, just don’t tell everybody. Just make it remain a secret forever. I would rather it remained a secret forever than you actually reveal it. Just so you know, If you’re gonna throw me a bone, don’t reveal it if it’s Graendal.” Sorry, Matt. My duty to the entire Wheel of Time fandom was greater than my duty to you.

Matt Hatch

So my side of the story is, I said Brandon—I was watching his face—and I said, I did add in there, “I will kill myself if it’s Graendal,” because if you say crazy things to people, they get human for a moment for your health. And so I swear, and I told everyone this on Theoryland after I asked Brandon that question, I’m like, "It’s Graendal, and it’s pissing me off”. It’s his look of concern like, “Oh, I don’t want Matt to kill himself”. Just momentarily a blip across his face like, “Oh. Oh, okay.” After that point, I just, I knew it was coming.

Brandon Sanderson

On the Gathering Storm tour, we did dinners with fans before each signing, which was wonderful but exhausting because it just added an extra hour or an hour and a half to each signing. But at one of them, I wrote “Graendal” on the tablecloth because it was one of those paper tablecloth things at one of those Italian restaurants in Korean, and then scribbled it out. And then said, “Hey I just wrote down who killed Asmodean right here.” And they’re all like, “What?!?” And so someone actually cut that piece of paper out and took it with them. But I’d scribbled it so well they couldn’t figure it out, and I didn’t tell them it was in Korean. Somebody’s still got that thing, I’m sure. Did they scan that and post that online and stuff?

Matt Hatch

I was there, I don’t know . . .

Jason Denzel

Yeah, I was there, too. You scribbled both sides of the tablecloth, just to make sure. [. . .] He was panicked that someone would figure it out. He was terrified. He was like, “I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have done that."

asmodean, glossary, harriet, brandon on writing wot, rj's notes, fandom,