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Your search for the tag 'the ways' yielded 21 results

  • 1

    Interview: Jul 19th, 2005

    Week 10 Question

    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?

    Robert Jordan

    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.

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  • 2

    Interview: 2011

    Twitter 2011 (WoT) (Verbatim)

    Brandon Sanderson (25 January 2011)

    I've always wondered if it'd be viable when traveling the Ways to leave night, sleep in a random location outside, and go back in.

    TEREZ

    Maybe time in the Ways is compressed as well as distance? I can't recall if we have enough detail to say.

    RUTH HINCKLEY

    We have plenty of evidence that time is compressed. People seem to move slower when looking out from inside.

    TEREZ

    Good point. So then it depends on how big of a hurry you are in, I suppose.

    BRANDON SANDERSON

    I always feel that the chapters Egwene spends as a damane will last longer than they do. The pain feels like a full book's worth.

    BRANDON SANDERSON

    Another example of RJ's excellent use of foreshadowing is how he depicts Ingtar all through The Great Hunt. This often impresses me.

    BRANDON SANDERSON

    Climbing the wall to escape: "Ingtar cursed when Mat tossed the Horn of Valere...Mat snatched it up,'it isn't even scratched.'"

    BRANDON SANDERSON (26 JANUARY)

    Yes, I have finished The Great Hunt. I'm spending a little time outlining now. Lots of work to do there.

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  • 3

    Interview: Jun 16th, 1995

    Robert Jordan

    The check made by Verin on the Ogier that had his soul consumed by Machin Shin in The Great Hunt he commented with "Read and Find Out".

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  • 4

    Interview: Aug 23rd, 1996

    Robert Jordan

    How Verin could determine the Ogier had no mind inside a stedding: We're going to find out something in the next few books about people without souls and characteristics of them. (He started out saying that we're going to find out something significant about Verin, then stopped.)

    Footnote

    RJ worked in an explanation in the next book, TPOD5, when Perrin wakes in Berelain's tent. Berelain tells him: "[Annoura] said you almost felt like someone who had lost his soul, cold no matter how many blankets were piled on you. I felt it, as well, when I touched you."

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  • 5

    Interview: Aug 23rd, 1996

    Robert Jordan

    Machin Shin eats the souls and memories of the people it catches.

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  • 6

    Interview: Nov 10th, 2000

    Brandon Downey

    After that, my friend got to ask his question, which was the one about Machin Shin and the Ways.

    QUESTION

    Is Machin Shin a result of the Dark One's taint on saidin being used in the creation of the Ways, or a result of some portion of the corruption of Shadar Logoth creeping into the Ways via the Waygate there? Or is it something completely orthogonal to both these powers, merely being a parasite that showed up once the place began to grow dim?

    Robert Jordan

    "Machin Shin is a function of the Dark One's taint on the male side of the force... er...source" [we all chuckled, and he mentioned how much he'd been traveling. :)] The corruption on Shadar Logoth is a result of an evil specifically designed to combat the Dark One's taint. This is why Rand experiences a resonance while channeling in Shadar Logoth—the Dark One's taint is reacting to the corruption of Shadar Logoth.

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  • 7

    Interview: Apr 5th, 2001

    Aan'allein

    In The Great Hunt, you showed us Trayal, the Ogier without a soul. And he could still walk. Barely, but he could still walk. So, the body retains some skill without the soul. How...how's that...divided?

    Robert Jordan

    Think of it as...ah, as what is autonomic, nervous-system really, autonomic nerve reflexes. You still breathe, you still move, but I would not...I would not ask him to play the flute.

    Aan'allin

    Language skills?

    Robert Jordan

    Ehm...no.

    Aan'allin

    Absolutely nothing at all?

    Robert Jordan

    Absolutely nothing. Unless it's done in the form of a Gray Man. Which is a voluntary ahh...rejection of your own soul. In that case, there are other skills, higher function. That's a matter of making a deal with the Dark One, and there are other prices to be paid from that.

    Aan'allin

    (Yup, that was me again. Olver-Cain suddenly begins to look dim to me. Kudos to Rando for not being swayed on this point. I always thought it a likely possibility that Cain's soul would be reborn naturally, but that in the last instance the Pattern gave him a yank to make him be reborn in an older body. Rando however pointed out that Olver had a lot of skills, while a newly reborn soul should be as a blank slate. I argued that the body of Olver could very well have retained the language skills from the previous soul, which could then quickly be acquired by Cain...That doesn't hold though, so I'm going to have to find a different explanation. How possible is that a one-year old soul, given input on and above the level of that of a 9-11 year old boy would rise to the challenge and acquire knowledge and skills fast enough to stay alive and become experienced enough to be this 9-11 year old boy? Actually, I think that's very possible. And it would explain why Olver now is developing so rapidly. He has 'learned' to mature far faster than normal people...There, my belief in the theory is saved.)

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  • 8

    Interview: Jan 16th, 2003

    Question

    Will the Ways heal now that the taint is gone?

    Robert Jordan

    RAFO.

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  • 9

    Interview: Sep 2nd, 2005

    Question

    Someone had a question about Machin Shin in the Ways. Since it seems to absorb the creatures that pass through there, could you regard it as a servant of the Dark One or perhaps almost as a Forsaken?

    Robert Jordan

    It's not a servant of the Dark One. It will kill Trollocs or anything else. You can say it's a parasite that grew in the Ways because of the taint on the One Power that was used to initially create the Ways. The talisman of growing that was used to extend the Ways. So it's not a servant of the Dark One, but it's definitely on the evil side.

    Question

    Would it be cleaned with the Cleansing of saidin?

    Robert Jordan

    No. Its like a bacteria breed. Just by cleaning up the chemicals that caused the bacteria to come into existence, unless it's feeding on that, those chemicals, you are not going to destroy the bacteria. You simply cut off what helped to create it.

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  • 10

    Interview: Sep 2nd, 2005

    Question

    In The Great Hunt when Rand, Mat and Perrin are trying to enter the Ways, Machin Shin is waiting there for them. It seems like Padan Fain has been waiting there for them. Is Machin Shin in any way related to the evil of Shadar Logoth?

    Robert Jordan

    In some ways. Machin Shin is linked or you might say drawn to that. It's not a matter of linked, but more attracted by. In much the same ways as I spoke about the evils being attracted to one another due to opposite polarities. (Shadar Logoth and the taint)

    In the same way there is an attraction because Machin Shin was created in effect by the taint. It grew out. You can see is at a fungus that was constructed with the wrong type of materials. If you think about it as that way you get a more idea about its true nature.

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  • 11

    Interview: Apr, 2012

    Terez (7 April 2012)

    Ask him if there is a Waygate anywhere near Lugard. We suspect that Ogier-built Shaemal was somewhere in Murandy.

    PRK

    Why does it matter where Shaemal is?

    TEREZ

    It only matters because of the possibility of a Waygate in Murandy, which is why I phrased the question the way I did.

    TEREZ

    It has to do with the theory that Roedran is Demandred. ;)

    PRK

    Okay, I'll ask that one next time!

    Brandon Sanderson

    PRK (8 APRIL)

    Answer re Lugard Waygate: "*chuckles* That's clever! Anything I say will give away too much, so I'll have to RAFO that one."

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  • 12

    Interview: Apr, 2012

    Terez

    Is there a Waygate near Lugard?

    Brandon Sanderson

    As far as I recall, yes. But I'm not a hundred per cent sure.

    ELEANOR

    No notable expression changes. Can someone check that map on Deviant Art?

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  • 13

    Interview: Apr, 2012

    JordanCon 2012 - Terez (Paraphrased)

    Terez

    Can you confirm that there is only one Talisman of Growing? Because it looks like they found one in Ebou Dar.

    Maria Simons

    No, I can't confirm that. (Her expression etc. seemed to suggest that there was definitely more than one.)

    Footnote

    She was fighting a smile, specifically. I had con-head at the time; not sure why I didn't impart that detail.

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  • 14

    Interview: Jan 8th, 2003

    Dave Rothgery

    If I go to another signing, I'm showing up early, with a hundred copies of transcripts from the most recent online chat, and handing them out. There were all of two questions asked that weren't reruns, and one was basically a RAFO, while the other was mine.

    Robert Jordan

    My looney theory on the Ways was wrong—despite a 2500 year lag before anything noticeable happened, the darkening was really a taint side effect.

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  • 15

    Interview: 2012

    Memories of Light (Verbatim)

    Day 7

    "Nobody travels the Ways," Ituralde said, aghast. (p. 190)

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  • 16

    Interview: Feb 22nd, 2013

    Question

    What created the Black Wind in the Ways?

    Harriet McDougal

    I have no idea.

    Brandon Sanderson

    I believe Robert Jordan may have answered some questions about this at certain times, so if you look at the fan archives of questions, people have asked a lot of questions about this one, you may be able to get some clues there.

    Footnote

    RJ said that the Black Wind (Machin Shin) grew in the Ways like a parasite as a result of the taint on saidin.

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  • 17

    Interview: Apr, 2013

    Question

    What about the Waygates? If they were tainted by the Power were they cleansed when saidin was?

    Maria Simons

    No, the Ways were not cleansed when the Source was. Robert Jordan said, "It's like a bacteria breed. Just by cleaning up the chemicals that caused the bacteria to come into existence, unless it's feeding on that, those chemicals, you are not going to destroy the bacteria. You simply cut off what helped to create it."

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  • 18

    Interview: 2013

    RazGriz3 (May 2013)

    Was anyone else a little disappointed with the way to Ogier showed up for the Last Battle? Kinda just like "Oh yeah, we are here too." Then that was it. The scenes in which we see Ogier fighting are awesome, but I felt their introduction to the Last Battle was a little lacking. Anyone else?

    Brandon Sanderson

    The way they show up is actually the result of a sequence being cut. Originally, Perrin led an expedition into the Ways to try and close the Waygate in Caemlyn from behind. During this, the Ogier arrived, full of song, to drive off the Black Wind. Unfortunately, this sequence had logistical problems with the rest of the book, and had to be deleted entirely. The biggest casualty of this cut was the Ogier introduction, which didn't work nearly as well in the new sequence as it once had.

    kaybeesee

    Thanks so much for adding your insight.

    Ever thought about publishing a deleted scenes book? If movies can do it, why not books?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Afraid it isn't my call. You'd have to convince Harriet. That said, we are releasing some deleted scenes in the Unfettered Anthology to help with a friend's medical bills. (They aren't the Perrin ones, though.)

    Andre_Gigante

    Thank you for being a redditor as well as an awesome author.

    Pilkunussija

    Did the same thing happen with Mashadar?

    Brandon Sanderson

    No, no deleted scenes here. I did Mashadar the way I did because of the small amount of information in the notes about it or Fain, and I felt that going with what little I did have was better than exploring widely without knowing where RJ wanted to go. In some other cases, I did extrapolate when we didn't have much from RJ, but here it felt better to go with the "less is more" idea.

    There was a big danger in these books in me taking over too much and driving the books far from RJ's original vision. I had to pick and choose carefully which parts I extrapolated, and I did it based more on my own instincts and talents than anything else. For example, I felt very comfortable with Perrin as a character—he'd always been my favorite, and I felt like I knew him very well and could write him strongly. So, in Towers of Midnight where we had very little direction on what to do with Perrin, I felt that the right move was to expand his part and develop a sequence on my own.

    However, for Mat in the Tower of Ghenjei, RJ had been planning this sequence for years and years. He wrote or outlined a good portion of it before he died. It was a small sequence, however, only a couple of chapters worth. I realized fans would be expecting more from this sequence, but my instincts said that it would be wrong to develop it into something much larger. That would not only go against RJ's wishes, but would risk messing things up royally. RJ had laid careful foreshadowing and groundwork for the scenes, and had a specific vision for this sequence. Perhaps if he'd lived, he would have expanded it in additional directions, but it would have been the wrong place for me to add.

    Fain through my three books feels very similar to me. It wasn't as strict here as it was with the Mat/Ghenjei sequence—I COULD have expanded, and perhaps I would have, given more time. However, at the same time, there is an argument to be had that RJ wanted Fain to have a lesser-than-expected place in the Last Battle, and expanding him would undermine this.

    devoidz

    I wish the Ways had been touched on. They were very interesting, as well as the portal stones. Was there any more info, or back story, on the Black Wind that hasn't been shared? Thanks for responding to us, by the way. I loved the last three books, you did an awesome job on them. I am getting ready to start going through some of your own stories.

    Brandon Sanderson

    There is some, but not as much as I think fans hope. In regards to something else mentioned on this thread—I believe that RJ was planning to do the Ogier/Seanchan Ogier relationship exploration in the Outriggers.

    1anthony90

    What logistical problems were there?

    simps984

    IIRC in some of Brandon's other posts on Reddit, he indicated that the deleted scenes were casualties of keeping the book reasonable in length. Additionally, Harriet or the publisher preferred that the storyline in A Memory of Light should be directly approaching the Last Battle, and this sequence got a little too far away from that.

    Brandon Sanderson

    There were a number. The biggest one was that the sequence wasn't needed. As you can judge from the final book, the Waygate didn't NEED to be closed. The structure of the battle worked just fine without it, as the plan was always to draw the Shadow's armies upward and through the woods. By the time the big fights here played out, it didn't matter terribly much if the Trollocs were being resupplied from behind.

    Beyond that, the weight of this heavy Perrin sequence in the early middle of the book was distracting, keeping attention away from Rand and from the push toward the rest of the Last Battle. (this is what simps984 mentioned in his reply, which is correct.) The sequence was awesome on its own, but distracting in conjunction with the rest of the novel.

    I would still have liked to have found a way to make it work, but I feel that way about every scene I end up deleting from the book. The truth is that aside from the Ogier arrival, nothing big was lost by cutting this ten thousand words—and a whole lot was gained.

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  • 19

    Interview: Apr 15th, 2013

    Reddit AMA 2013 (Verbatim)

    EverAccelerating ()

    What was your favorite scene in any of your published books that you had to eventually cut from the book?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Perrin traveling the Ways in A Memory of Light.

    iwasazombie

    What?! Can you tell us about that scene? This is the first I've heard of it. That sounds awesome.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Perrin gathered a team and traveled the Ways in order to try to close the Waygate in Camelyn from behind. It was determined that this section, among having other issues, was not needed for the final book and was distracting from the momentum toward the Last Battle.

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  • 20

    Interview: Oct 30th, 2013

    Brandon Sanderson

    Perrin

    When I launched into this book, I'd just finished Towers of Midnight and was in a very "Perrin is awesome" mood. I wanted to keep writing Perrin, so I did his sequence for the book first. It worked, to an extent. I love the Perrin parts of this book. However, by the end—and after finishing the other viewpoints—we found that the book had way too much Perrin in it. Cutting the sequence where Perrin travels through the Ways to try to close the Caemlyn Waygate from behind was one method of balancing this out. The sequence was also cut because Harriet felt I'd gone too far in the direction of returning to previous themes in the series, bringing back something better left alone so we could focus on the Last Battle. (In addition, Maria thought my descriptions of the Ways just didn't fit the story.)

    This was a 17,000-word sequence (and it ended with the Ogier rescuing Perrin and his company from the Black Wind, driving it off with their song). I love the sequence, but unlike the sequence with Bao (the deleted scenes named "River of Souls" and included in the Unfettered anthology) it is not canon. It couldn't happen for a multitude of reasons, and got trimmed.

    Otherwise, Perrin ended up as I wanted him. A lot of people were surprised that I knocked him out of the fighting for a big chunk of the Last Battle, but I felt it appropriate. The fighting armies were Mat's show, and Perrin's focus for the fighting was to join Rand and protect him in the Wolf Dream. There was so much else going on, I decided to bench him for a chunk of the warfare—and I'm pleased with the result. It brought real impact to the Slayer fight, where Perrin was left wounded.

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