Budapest Q&A: Wheel of Time Interview Search: Theoryland of the Wheel of Time (Robert Jordan)

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Terez

This was transcribed by Gonzo, Sarevok, and Marie Curie, and edited by myself. Special thanks to Rhynn for providing some of the audio files we were missing; also, some of the question attributions were found here. All of the audio files can be downloaded here.

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Robert Jordan

...and she said that's it...that's...I'll do it for that, you give...you make sure they give you a copy of each of the weapons they make, and with LIVE blades, which means sharpened, not dull. She said I want live blades, so...

Question

Uh, to go back to pronunciation.

Robert Jordan

Yeah?

Question

My problem with phoneticism is this, I like...uh...I'm reading from a character's point of view and he hears a name he's(?) never heard before. So...he can't know the spelling and even...of course it's not the character writing it [??]. But that's my point again, it's writing this way than it is, uh...non-phonetic way, but I don't want to dwell on that too long. It's just that I'm a great Tolkien fan and I...

Robert Jordan

[interrupts; Q keeps talking for a few seconds but is incomprehensible] But as I say: I write in English, and in English very few names a phonetical...

Question

That's right.

Robert Jordan

...and uh...so I don't...so I don't use that.

Harriet McDougal

[something about words and letters or Latin]

Robert Jordan

[Hmm's in agreement]

Question

Indeed!

Harriet McDougal

It would be strange to have phonetics names, when you don't have phonetic [writing?]

Question

But that...that goes back to the history of English, with...I mean...

Harriet McDougal

[interrupts]: Yeah, [??] [??] (names)

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3

Question

English has completely different [incomprehensible] vocabulary over the last couple of hundred years.

Robert Jordan

Oh sure, more than the last couple of hundred years English...

Question

[interrupts]: I mean, as taught(?) before as the last couple of hundred years as opposed to the Westlands. I mean, everybody spoke the Old Tongue.

Robert Jordan

English has absorbed words from other languages as recently as the last ten years.

Question

Well of course.

Robert Jordan

[interrupts] American English in particular is a sponge. The thing is that most Americans think they know no foreign words whatsoever. But if you sit them down with a test, you find that the average American knows twenty or thirty words of French, twenty or thirty words of German or, you know, maybe as many as fifty from Spanish—more than that from Spanish; probably knows close to a hundred words from Spanish—and between fifty and a hundred from Italian, and from other languages as well, because they have been absorbed into American English.

Question

But in the Wheel of Time world, you don’t have this flux of languages; you don't actually have many different languages. Even the Seanchan speak the same language.

Robert Jordan

[interrupts: And I set that up deliberately, because, you know, one of the things about a world that believes in a circular nature of time, is that they believe that there is no real possibility of change. It is one of the things that burden India, as you might know. Whatever I do to affect change...the Wheel of Time—which is as Hindu concept (from others as well, but the Hindus believe in that)—whatever I do to affect change, the Wheel will turn and all things will return to being as they are now. Therefore my effort to affect change is essentially useless. The great gift to the world of the ancient Greeks is that they were the FIRST culture to conceive of time as being linear, which allows for change. I can change things, I can change the future, and it will not return to what it is now, because time passes on; it does not double back. So I have a Wheel of Time world, where there is a belief in reincarnation and a belief that things will return to, not exactly the way they are now, but essentially as if there were two tapestries and you look at them from across the room, and they look identical, and it’s only when you get close that you can see the differences.

I began to think also of the periods involved. Do you know why the mountains in this world are so incredibly rugged? Why there’s so few passes? These mountains are only a little over three thousand years old. There are no mountains in the world that are only three thousand years old. There are no mountains in the world that don’t have hundreds of thousands—millions—of years of wind and water erosion to have worn them down. THESE are mountains in their infancy. And in this world, be have had three distinct one thousand year periods, roughly from the Breaking of the World to the Trolloc Wars, from the Trolloc Wars to the War of the Hundred Years, from the War of the Hundred Years to today. Not quite a thousand years in each case, some were perhaps a little more. But in each case, what has happened is, you have had a mixing of the population during the turbulence—the nations breaking apart—a production of a lingua franca for these people to communicate with one another, and not enough time for that lingua degenerate into distinct languages which are no longer intelligible to one another.

And that is enough so that the people of today could not understand the people from before the Trolloc Wars, who were speaking something very close to the Old Tongue, if not the Old Tongue itself. But they can understand the people of the Seanchan, who are speaking the language of Arthur Hawkwing’s time, which had not enough time to break down into separate languages, you see. And any effects of it breaking down into separate languages was modified by their getting together, so what’s happened over the space of just a thousand years is: they think each other have strong accents. It’s like I’m speaking to somebody who speaks English and he’s Jamaican, and I don’t understand him very easily, or he’s Nigerian. I don’t understand him very easily, and he’s a native English speaker—we can understand one another; it’s not easy, but we understand one another.

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4

Mort

[something about the Forsaken]

Robert Jordan

Essentially learned the local language.

Mort

They just got free and learned the local language in a few weeks or so.

Robert Jordan

A little more than a few weeks.

Mort

Wow...That's impressive! What about the first and second that were let loose?

Robert Jordan

They were very near the surface. It's one of the reasons for the effects on them. They were for three thousand years aware—not in a sleep like the others; aware—and more aware of what has happened in the world. And because of the way the Bore works... See, the Bore is not located at Shayol Ghul. Shayol Ghul is simply the place where the Bore is most easily sensed. The Bore is everywhere, because of the nature of the universe. And those two guys, in effect, spent the last three thousand years in a state of feeling that they had no body—they certainly had no ability to move—that they were simply trapped minds, but aware and drifting over the face of the earth, able to hear people, able to see what was happening in one area or another. They could speak the language when they came out.

Mort

You are talking about Aginor and Balthamel now.

Robert Jordan

Yeah.

Mort

And Ishamael as well?

Robert Jordan

Ishamael is a different case. Read and find out.

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5

Mort

What about the thread of the life in case of the Forsaken? Are they part of the Pattern or they are outside? Is it broken in the case of the Forsaken?

Robert Jordan

No. They're part of the Wheel, except for the fellows who've been balefired, who are now gone: no rebirth [resurrection]; they’re out. The Dark One is outside of the Pattern, as the Creator is outside of the Pattern, but everything human is inside of the Pattern. One of the things that the Forsaken hope to gain is immortality. And immortality would put them outside of the Pattern.

Footnote

RJ has said elsewhere that balefire is not the eternal death of the soul, and Brandon has confirmed it (and so RJ was merely saying that the balefired Forsaken could not be transmigrated into new bodies).

Rhynn

You’ve wrote somewhere that Moridin used the True Power and he stepped out of the Pattern or something like that.

Robert Jordan

No, he's made a hole in the Pattern as a way of Traveling which uses the True Power, which is a different thing. If you notice as far back as the Prologue of The Eye of the World, when Ishamael Traveled in to meet Lews Therin, who was mad, the description does not match the Traveling that we see later. It’s because at that point, Ishamael is using the True Power, which produces a different sort of effect for Traveling. It is a different method of Traveling than either men or women use with saidin and saidar.

Mort

The descriptions are quite similar when he arrived by Travel with saidin. You also say 'bore a hole through the Pattern', and for the True Power, I think in one instance, 'ripping a hole in the Pattern'. And in one other instance you wrote that he stepped back inside the Pattern.

Robert Jordan

It's similar. Similar, but it's not the same thing. It's why it produces that fading in and fading out effect.

Sequoia

But if a woman used the True Power she would use it the same way?

Robert Jordan

Yes. It's not separate. The True Power is not like saidin or saidar. The reason there are differences for men and women using the One Power is that one is using saidin, for men, and women are using saidar, which are not identical. But using the True Power, which flows from the Dark One, men and women are using exactly the same force, exactly the same source of Power.

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Question

Are the Forsaken defined by being allowed to tap the True True Power?

Robert Jordan

No, not necessarily. They are, but it takes more than that, and they may be denied it. You see there were many more than thirteen Chosen at the time of the Breaking of the World. At the time of the sealing, there were more, and they died. The reason these thirteen lived was that they were trapped and, except for Balthamel and Aginor, sealed away in large extent from the effects of time, as if they were put in suspended animation. The others who were not there at this conference died.

Question

May I ask you what makes a Forsaken Forsaken, or Chosen?

Robert Jordan

Well, many people had sworn their souls to the Dark One. To be one of the Chosen, is to be someone who is recognized by the Dark One as having enough potential to be brought to Shayol Ghul to swear this oath personally, as close to being in the presence of the Dark One as is possible, with the prison partially sealed up.

Question

Is it just a coincidence that all those thirteen who survived can channel?

Robert Jordan

Oh, no that’s no coincidence, because if you weren’t able to channel, you weren’t going to get into this game at all.

Question

Ah. [mumble] cannot channel?

Robert Jordan

Yes, but somebody has to be cannon fodder.

Question

Yeah...poor Mat and poor Perrin.

Robert Jordan

Hmm, well, if they wanted to be Forsaken, yes.

Question

Yeah...I hope they’re not gonna be Forsaken.

Robert Jordan

Read and find out.

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7

Rhynn

Are there any religions in the world of the Wheel of Time?

Robert Jordan

No. No religions, no churches: that will change in the next set of books, not in this, but where religion becomes in some ways preeminent, but...

Mort

[interrupts] Oh, is that a spoiler?? No, no!

Robert Jordan

No, that's not for the Wheel of Time at all, and may change somewhat, as these things do. But the reason is this: I've always believed that our religious rituals our attendance at temples, or churches, or whatever is, in part, a reaffirmation of our faith, and a reaffirmation of our belief, a strengthening of our belief in something that we cannot see. And we do these things in order to strengthen our belief in what we cannot see. God, Allah, whatever...but, in this world, it is a world that...as if we had...prophets walking around...performing miracles. The One Power can be channeled. Occasionally men show up channeling the One Power; the Aes Sedai have been there for 3000 years.

Question

But the Creator does not interfere!

Robert Jordan

The Creator does not interfere, but there is clear evidence of the theological doctrine.

Question

Of the unseen.

Robert Jordan

Of the unseen. As far as it is believed, of the existence of the Creator: Here is the One Power. Here is evidence of everything we believe. There is therefore no need for anyone to undergo rituals to reaffirm or strengthen their belief because it is manifest every day. If we really had prophets walking among us, performing miracles and healing people and raising the dead—and this was a matter of every day that somebody might walk down the street and say 'In the name of...' and lay their hand on you. 'In the name of God be healed,' and your wounds are healed. Or, 'In the name of God rise up and walk,' and your dead brother, just died of cholera or whatever rises up and walks—I believe that organized religion would vanish within a generation, or at least become a fringe within a generation, because there would no longer be a need for most people to reaffirm their belief in God, or to strengthen their belief in God, or Allah, or whatever else their religious belief is. It would be manifest in every day life.

Wood Sun

And how about the Whitecloaks? I mean they look like some sort of religious sect.

Robert Jordan

Which?

Question

(two girls in unison) The Whitecloaks!

Robert Jordan

The Whitecloaks? Well, they're meant to look as a religious sect. They began as, an ascetic organization dedicated to preaching against Darkfriends, trying to convince people by example that they should not become Darkfriends. And during the War of the Hundred Years they became a military organization. They are patterned on the Teutonic Knights, a touch of the German SS, and...

Wood Sun

[interrupts] And the Spanish Inquisition?

Robert Jordan

A touch of the Spanish Inquisition. (laughter) They are in short anyone who believes that they know the Truth—the Truth with a capital T. They know the Truth so well, and its so clear to them that if you don't believe that truth, then it becomes obvious that you are evil.

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Question

You wrote about a very exotic place, called the Towers of Midnight. I think it seems to be an evil place, because as far as I know the Deathwatch Guard is trained there...

Robert Jordan

[interrupts] No. The Towers of Midnight are a place that is run by the Seekers: a political prison [RJ meant the Tower of the Ravens; see The Great Hunt Chapter 34], a place of execution at least for very high-ranking political prisoners. They can’t shed your blood, so they simply stuff you into a sack and hang you over the side of one of the towers until you die, but very careful. A sack lined with velvet so none of your blood will ever seep out and be spilled. Remember there have been times this has been done—this is not an invention of mine. There are cultures in this world where people of certain classes, it was illegal to shed their blood: you could not, even in an execution. Therefore, they would roll a man in layers of velvet and put him inside a bag and have him trampled to death by horses, but the velvet was there to absorb his blood, and the leather bag to insure nothing seeped out, so his blood was never shed. It was never spilled on the ground. You see? So that’s what the Towers of Midnight are. I won’t tell you a lot more, because I don’t know that I will ever show them in one of the books, but it’s possible, so...

Question

[interrupts] You showed them maybe in the second book, as far as I know, only one sentence I think...

Robert Jordan

[interrupts] I’ve mentioned them, but I did not show them; you were not there. There’s a difference between mentioning and actually being there, taking a character there to see them.

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Question

There is one place, one continent, you wrote about it only in the Guide. It’s the Land of Madmen. What is this?

Robert Jordan

It is a place where was never was a White Tower, or any other organization of Aes Sedai, to effect any control over men who could channel. Therefore, no civilization was able to rise up there again after the Breaking. It is still a place where men who can channel can be found (much more). [They are] hunted by women who can channel, because they’re very dangerous. Anybody else, for that matter, if they can find a way to kill them. It’s like, if you find out you have a tiger loose in your neighborhood and you have to kill it. You can’t leave it running loose; somebody has to kill it.

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Question

Was pre-Consolidation Seanchan like [the Land of Madmen] or was it different?

Robert Jordan

No, pre-Consolidation Seanchan was a quilt of petty kingdoms, or queendoms, if you will, ruled by Aes Sedai, with no unifying power. More Aes Sedai died by assassination than by any other means. They ruled by use of the One Power, gathering a small group of other women around them who could channel, constantly struggling for power against other small groups of women who could channel, who ruled their own small kingdoms, and the constantly shifting quilt—because if the wrong woman died or the right woman died in a particular country, or small fieflet, whatever, small kingdom, it would be absorbed by those around it—there were two continents of almost continual rolling open warfare: there’s war here, war here, war here, war there, stop here, now there, now here, now stop there, okay this could go on here, and constant plotting and scheming, because the only way to rise to the top is if you were and Aes Sedai is to kill those ahead of you. The most common means of death for an Aes Sedai, or cause of death for an Aes Sedai there was assassination. That is the world in which Arthur Hawkwing’s army arrived and began the Consolidation.

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Question

Did [Seanchan natives before Luthair] speak the same language?

Robert Jordan

The people there did not. But the people there...this is like an acquisition. This is sort of like what the Han did: when the Han conquered China, there were many languages in China, as there still are. Because Mandarin is one language and Cantonese is another. They use the same ideograms, because the Han said: “You may speak any language you wish to use, but you will use our alphabet, our ideograms.” And it is as if the French said poisson, you say whatever you say for “fish”, but all of you spelled it F-I-S-H, in English letters. The French spelled it F-I-S-H, in English letters and said poisson and that’s what they wrote when they said poisson. And that’s what you wrote: you would say whatever the Hungarian word is for “fish” but if you wrote it, you would write F-I-S-H in the English letters. And with the Consolidation, culturally the people of that conquering army had been much more absorbed than they were. Culturally they have little left of the culture that they brought with them. But their language was imposed: they imposed the language they brought with them. I’ve thought about it a little bit and I think there was, because of that history, probably more languages than one. The languages would have had more time to drift and more incentive to split apart than they did on the [Randland] continent, as I postulated its history, but those languages were wiped out.

Question

That’s what happened in India, by the way.

Robert Jordan

Yes. Those languages [on the Seanchan continent] were wiped out and the language that remains is essentially the language that was spoken by Arthur Hawkwing. But, because, as I say, of the things that happened after Hawkwing’s death: the shifting around of populations, mixing and blending of populations from different parts of the continent, and a thousand years of growth, and no time for that language to change a great deal. Also the one thing that has survived, which helped, I think: printing presses were one for the first things rediscovered, you might say, after the Breaking. People began printing books very shortly after the Breaking—I mean very shortly—as soon as people were setting up cities, there were people who had book presses going, and it’s an interesting thing: I can read Shakespeare and understand 98, 99 percent of the words and language. If you went back the same length of time between me and Shakespeare to behind him, he could not have understood what those people were saying, he could not have read what they wrote. Because the English language had changed in pronunciation, in the way the spelling was, in the way the letters were written, everything.

What happened simultaneously then: it wasn’t as I’ve heard postulated that Shakespeare was so beautiful and so wonderful that he froze the English language. What happened was: the printing press came into common use and suddenly the language stopped changing as rapidly. It still changed, but you would take me back to Elizabethan times and I would have a hard time understanding the accents, but eventually I would work into understanding what would sound to me like strangely accented English, but pretty recognizably English for most, at least for London and the south of England. So we’ve got printing presses, and so in relatively short periods of time, the language is largely unchanged, not completely but largely, in each thousand year segment. Although over the three thousand year segment it has diverged from the Old Tongue, which you must learn to be an educated man, to what people speak now, and most people do not speak the Old Tongue and can not understand the Old Tongue. A thousand years back, you’ve got Arthur Hawkwing, and that’s the language that the Seanchan speak. And these people can understand it, they only think “You’ve got a funny accent, you speak too fast, and you speak too slow, and it’s all slurred.”

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12

Question

Is the Old Tongue entirely alien to modern speakers?

Robert Jordan

I'm sorry?

Question

I know it sounds alien, but don't they recognize even a couple of words or word?

Robert Jordan

No, not really. You know, scholars would.

Question

How come, a language, over three thousand years—isn't that right?—three thousand years of the books' story, everyone spoke the Old Tongue didn't they? So over three thousand years the language has managed to change so much that you can't even understand a word or a phrase of that language. But over one thousand years, on the other hand, it has changed so little that you basically understand it as an accent.

Robert Jordan

If you consider English. You wouldn't understand Old English. You couldn't even read it. You could read the letters, probably. I couldn't; I've seen manuscripts. But printing does stabilize a language, so there is some shift, because, say, a thousand years, a little bit of shift. See, what I have got here, look at these points. This is the Breaking, the Trolloc Wars, the War of the Hundred years and now. Okay. From here to here the language changes somewhat, and from here to here the language changes somewhat. Now, a person here, from this period, right here, just before the War of the Hundred Years could understand somewhat the Old Tongue, but would think "he's got a strange accent". He's got a strange way of expressing himself, his grammar is strange. He puts the words together oddly and he's got a very strange accent, but that's the extend of it. It might be that the gap is not all the way from here to there, but maybe from here to here, that he thinks "I should understand this, but I don't quite, I don't quite understand" and a guy here, listening to this language, says "Yeah, I can understand him. He's got a funny accent, but I understand him." So okay, from here to here, he says, the guy here listens to someone from here speaking and he says "he's got a funny accent, but I understand him". A guy from here listening to someone from this point says "you know, I understand some of that, but it's not quite, you know" and from here to here he says "yeah, I almost think I should understand that, but I can't make out a word" and from here to here he says "What?" I know that the intervals and the true progression of a language are never that smooth, and that's one reason why I have never tried to put it in the books as exactly where these points of commonality existed and where the points shifted from being "I understand him with an effort" to "I think I should be able to understand this but I can't" to "what the hell is he saying, is he talking, I don't know this".

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13

Wood Sun

What about the saa? You wrote in a chapter, that there is a black hole before Moridin's eyes.

Robert Jordan

No, no, in the eyes. It is not before. In the eyes, inside the eyes.

Wood Sun

And can see through? (-?- unsure about this sentence. -?-)

Robert Jordan

It depends. When you are using the True Power. At first, when you begin using the True Power, there's nothing there. Nothing in the eyes. After you've used it for a while, you begin to have a black speck floating across your eyes, when you're using it.

Wood Sun

And then you see, other observers can see it.

Robert Jordan

No, you don't see it. You don't actually see it.

Wood Sun

I think it was the chapter when Moridin was observing with a cloak of fancloth. His vision was blurred by a rain of black spots.

Harriet

But it didn't affect his vision.

Robert Jordan

It didn't affect his vision. You're aware of it, but it's not like there is blackness between you, because it gets thicker and thicker and thicker and you get to a point where if you've used it long enough you get a steady stream even if you're not connected. And you are then on the road, at that point, inevitably, to becoming what Ishamael was. Because these are stigmata, if you will. These saa are stigmata caused by a linkage to the Dark One. And eventually the effect is to become all fire eyes. You no longer have eyes visible to other people. If they're looking into your eyes, they seem to be looking into caverns of flame that stretch to infinity. And when you open your mouth they see another cavern of flame that stretches to infinity. Because you've reached at that point the ultimate level of this usage and quite possibly, if you've at this point not been granted immortality, you're on your way to death. Not madness, but you're on your way to death. So it's sort of a race. The Dark One has given you this boon, but if you use it very much, then you'd better hope he is willing to give you another boon, because if he doesn't give you the second boon then you're dead. Some of the Forsaken have expressed discomfort with the fact that Ishamael and Moridin are so free with using the One Power.

Wood Sun

And is it addictive?

Robert Jordan

Yes.

Wood Sun

Entirely.

Robert Jordan

So is the One Power. That's one of the things that I intended from the beginning. The One Power has at least the potential for good, and it is something used by those on the side of good. And it is addictive, physically and psychologically addictive and also potentially very dangerous, even deadly to those who are using it.

Wood Sun

And so the other Forsaken seem to be afraid of using the True Power?

Robert Jordan

Well, they are, because they know this; they will use it when they have to, but they limit it, because they know that if you use it enough to let the saa begin to appear, then you are on a spiral and once they begin appearing, they begin appearing more often. And eventually, unless you are given immortality by the Dark One, you are dead. Now, the thing is, they don't wanna die. This is really great, it is a really great honor to be given the ability to tap into the True Power. Which is not inherently stronger than the One Power. It's not that it is stronger in any way. It is just something that does not have some of the limitations of the One Power. Other people can't feel you embracing it, or using it, like the One Power.

Question

-?-

Robert Jordan

Yeah, you could.

Question

-?-

Robert Jordan

Yeah, you could burn out with the True Power.

Wood Sun

Only True Power, or One Power too?

Robert Jordan

With the True Power as well as the One Power you can burn out.

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14

Question

Can you sever a person from the True Power with One Power?

Robert Jordan

Not in the same way. If you try to gentle a man or still a woman who's capable of using the True Power you'd have to use another method.

Question

So it is not only the Dark One who can stop giving the Forsaken the True Power, but they can be cut off as Asmodean was cut off.

Robert Jordan

Read and find out on Asmodean. I'm not gonna tell you. They could be cut off, but the problem with that is, nobody knows how to do it. It is possible that some of the Forsaken themselves know how to do it, but nobody else does.

Question

What happens when Rand and Asmodean have this conflict and ...

Question

... and Rand severs his ties with the Dark One ...

Question

... and Rand severs some black ties. Isn't that ...

Robert Jordan

That was cutting off his protection from the Taint and also cut off his ability, it was not like stilling them. It was cutting the ties that, most important to him, protected him from the taint on saidin, so he could draw saidin all he wanted to and never worry about the taint. But it was also those ties that represented his ability, or the conduits by which he could draw on the True Power. But it was not his ability to draw; it was not the same thing as stilling or severing; it was more like shielding.

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15

Question

To go back to what you were saying a few minutes ago, were you implying that you could channel the True Power without being granted immortality?

Robert Jordan

Oh yes.

Question

Aren't the Forsaken already ...

Robert Jordan

No. They're not immortal.

Question

Do they know that?

Robert Jordan

Yes, they know that.

Question

But they believe they are immortal.

Robert Jordan

No, they do not believe they are immortal, but they believe they will be. All they need to do is get the Dark One free. And they have been promised this. This is their reward for getting him free. If they manage to get him out of that prison, he will grant them immortality. And they believe this because they have seen him in the past, as he has done now, bring the dead back to life. Give the dead new bodies. Transfer souls from a dying body into a young and healthy body. They've seen him do this. So they know that can be done. So it's not as though they are believing something, somebody just walked up to you and said "I can make you immortal if you go out and do this, kill and do awful deeds". They've seen him, they have seen these incredible things done. So they have reason to believe.

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16

Question

-?- the Dark One, who has now this super Myrddraal, Shaidar Haran. Did he breed him, or did he just take an ordinary ...

Robert Jordan

Read and find out. (background giggle) Read and find out.

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17

Question

I have an exciting question, maybe, we heard of making the Forsaken reborn, so has the original body any reflection to the mind of the Forsaken?

Robert Jordan

Well, if a Forsaken dies and is reborn naturally, through the turning of the Wheel, no.

Question

If then the Dark One puts him in a new body?

Robert Jordan

Oh, if the Dark One puts him in a new body, it is for all intents and purposes the same person, with a new body. It is a shift of an entire person. The concept here, with the exception of the Gray Men: You've seen an Ogier who lost his soul. And in effect there's nobody home anymore. It is a body that lives and breathes, and will move if it is helped along. But it does not, there's nobody home in there. The Gray Men are slightly different. But they also have given up their souls. They've given up their souls in a way. Already, their souls are gone. But it's happened in a way that protects them against this emptiness, as if they're severed from the physical and spiritual side. And the spiritual side is gone, but the physical side remains so there is an intellect in that body, but no soul. And that's why they are Gray Men. Your eyes slip past them, the perfect assassins. You can look right at one and look on, never having realized you saw somebody there. So there's, when a soul ... (break in audio file)

Robert Jordan

Sorry, just checking the time...we have to do some things in the morning.

Footnote

The ordering of these questions is unknown.

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18

Question

Was there any time when there was no Blight?

Robert Jordan

Oh, yes. The Blight is an artifact of the War of the Shadow and the Breaking. There was no Blight before the Bore was created, and the drilling of the Bore did not immediately create the Blight, but the Blight came into being after that.

Question

Was the Blight [mumble] from the Dark One, or one of the Forsaken?

Robert Jordan

From the Dark One. It is land that has been corrupted by the Dark One.

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19

Question

Is the ability to channel a property of the soul or the body?

Robert Jordan

That's a RAFO, sorry. I don't know whether I want to put that in the books or not, but I wish to leave myself the opportunity to put it in without having it already known.

Footnote

RJ answered in 2005 (2.5 years later) that it was both.

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20

Question

About channeling, you begin as having channeling [mumble mumble] so when Rand cleanses saidin, he thought about it, how he [mumble mumble] Do you do this intentionally, or do you just not want to tell us?

Robert Jordan

In the beginning when Rand channels, it’s something very new and unusual to him, and as time has gone along, channeling has become a more common thing. When a child learns to walk, walking is an adventure, and maybe for that first whole year, walking and running is just this wonderful thing, and all excited about it, and a year after that well, you know, you walk, and it’s no big deal. Rand, first learning to channel, first growing in strength, it’s something that is to him a very big deal. Even if he’s trying to be cool about it, it’s still a very big deal. But he’s been doing this long enough now that channeling, per se, is no longer a big deal, and that’s what I’m trying to show in this. He doesn’t think about it in the depth. He’s aware of the effect of saidin, of what saidin is like, but he doesn’t think about it in the same depth that he did when he was first learning how to walk, and doing this wonderful thing about moving around on his hind legs.

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21

Question

Why saidin, why not saidar, was tainted?

Robert Jordan

Because there were only men in the party that made up the party that made up the Strike at Shayol Ghul, that were setting the seals. In the act of setting the seals, there was a backblast that affected the people doing this. As I pointed out in something...I wrote a piece called The Strike at Shayol Ghul...there was a great division at the time—I don’t know if all of you have read it...or have none of you read it?

Question

Yes, yes.

Robert Jordan

Okay, then you know about the political struggles that were going on, and the different plans to try and end the War of the Shadow, and seal up the...and why various groups thought that one plan or the other was the best way to go. And in the end, what resulted was the so-called “Fatal Covenant” [It was actually the “Fateful Concord”], which had the female Aes Sedai swearing not to go along with Lews Therin’s plan, that they would not support it. The result of this was that Lews Therin carried out his plan with only male Aes Sedai, so there were only male Aes Sedai channeling there, which was a lucky thing, because if there’d been women as well, then both saidin and saidar would have been tainted. And his plan worked, except for that one side effect of the backblast which tainted saidin and caused him and the men there with him to go mad there and then, and other male Aes Sedai to go mad slowly as they touched the Source and began to absorb bits of the taint. But that’s why saidar was not tainted, because there were only men there channeling during this act of sealing up the Dark One’s prison.

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22

Question

Are gholam immortal?

Robert Jordan

No.

Question

Because they were in...a box?

Robert Jordan

Stasis box. A stasis box is an artifact of the Age of Legends, and is in effect an artificial vacuole. Time does not move inside a stasis box. It is a thing devised for storing things that are fragile or that might decay in some way.

Question

So the gholam can die by a natural death?

Robert Jordan

I don’t know if you’d call it a natural death, but yeah, they can decay. You saw what happened with Mat’s medallion—it just fell on the gholam’s cheek and branded it.

Question

But do they die of old age?

Robert Jordan

Yeah, they do, but they live a little longer than you’d like them to, let me tell you (laughter)—not as long as an Aes Sedai, but...not as long as an Aes Sedai that hasn’t sworn the Three Oaths, anyway...not as long as a strong Aes Sedai that hasn’t sworn the Three Oaths.

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23

Question

Is it true that the Three Oaths is why Aes Sedai [mumble mumble] I thought it might be because, when you try to avoid the Three Oaths, you get a lot of dangerous situation [mumble mumble]...

Robert Jordan

No...now you have to be careful with this, because this is a kind of spoiler for people that haven’t read far enough, but the Oath Rod is what was in the Age of Legends called a binder. It was used on criminals. If you committed a violent act, or some sort of criminal act, with a binder, someone who could channel could be constrained from ever doing that again, and the result of having three of the Oaths, is the ageless appearance. One would not produce agelessness, but even one would shorten life, and three of them put a cap on Aes Sedai’s lives, on how long they could live.

Question

Does this mean that the Black Ajah has also at least three oaths sworn on the Oath Rod?

Robert Jordan

Yeah, they do. Just not the same ones. [laughter]

Question

Of course. Does this imply that the Oath Rod is definitely not one of the Nine Rods of Dominion?

Robert Jordan

Oh yes, definitely. No. I don't think it was. No, the Oath Rods are not the Nine Rods of Dominion, no. There were a fair number of binders available around the world.

Question

Were they numbered?

Robert Jordan

Yes, they were numbered.

Question

Because we've seen two so far and they had numbers on them . . .

Robert Jordan

Yeah, they were numbered.

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24

Question

And there is the Ring of Tamyrlin. It's just a signet ring, or . . . ?

Robert Jordan

Read and find out. Again, this is something I don't know whether I'm going to put it in or not.

Question

Okay.

Robert Jordan

But you see there are things that I might want to put in, I might want to use, and giving you the answer lets it out and means I might as well not use it because . . .

Question

It's more interesting.

Question

Does Telamon mean "dragon" or does it mean "Kinslayer" or is it something else?

Robert Jordan

What? In Lews Therin Telamon? No, no. It means something else. That's his name. Lews Therin is the name he was born with. Telamon, a name he was given later.

Question

It does not mean dragon?

Robert Jordan

It does not mean dragon, no.

Question

And are dragons definitely not the same as raken and to'raken?

Robert Jordan

Definitely not. Definitely not.

Harriet McDougal

Oh that's an interesting question.

Question

But, I mean the name [sounds?] the same. . .

Robert Jordan

But no, they're definitely not. They're definitely not.

Harriet McDougal

They're flying creatures.

Question

They're like a dragon image.

Robert Jordan

Yeah, I know they are somewhat of a dragon image. But no, they're definitely not.

Harriet McDougal

Oh, cool. That's a wonderful thing to have noticed. That's great.

Robert Jordan

Although who can say what may be said in the next Age? Remember, things get repeated, things get distorted. And what the next Age believes is true history of a previous Age may not be in any way close to what actually happened. So who knows?

Question

So was . . . In the Age of Legends, a dragon was a completely symbolic thing? It did not refer to an actual creature?

Robert Jordan

Not to an actual creature. But beyond that, read and find out.

Question

Did they have dragons like . . . ?

Robert Jordan

No, it was symbolic at that time. There were no dragons flying around in the Age of Legends, no.

Question

And did they have [inaudible...]

Robert Jordan

They named this man the dragon as a symbol. And his banner was a dragon as a symbol.

Question

[inaudible]

Robert Jordan

No, that . . . I think you better read and find out. Again, I don't know if I'm going to use it, but I don't want to put out too much.

Question

So if you don't use it, after you finish the series, we come back to this question.

Robert Jordan

Okay, okay.

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25

Question

There is a widespread debate on the internet: you mentioned some tales of times like Mosk and Merk...does it have any connection with America and Moscow?

Robert Jordan

Yes. I thought that one was very obvious.

Question

(various mumblings about Anla)

Harriet McDougal

Anla, the Wise Counselor, she was the most popular advice columnist in the United States. Do you know Abby and Ann[?]? You write to the paper with a problem, you know, "What shall I do?", and she tells you. But her name was Ann Landers.

Robert Jordan

And she was the most widely distributed advice columnist for what? 40 years? In the United States, and syndicated in newspapers all over the country. Anla the Wise Counselor was Ann Landers.

Question

We would never have guessed it.

Robert Jordan

No, but I try not to throw in everything that that people are going to guess immediately.

Harriet McDougal

And Salya?

Robert Jordan

No, let's not talk about Salya. [Q confused.] Salya, who walked among the stars? Lenn, who went to the moon in the belly of a fire eagle? Yes? And his daughter Salya who walked among the stars? [much mumbling] No, she didn't—she wasn't on the Challenger. Sally Ride was the first female American astronaut. So, that's Salya, who in this thing has become the daughter of Lenn, who was John Glenn, who did not go to the moon in an eagle, but flies to the moon in the belly of a "fire eagle"...

Harriet McDougal

[interrupts] And his relationship to Salya. That's how it works.

Robert Jordan

But that's the whole thing, in these books: it's giving you hints, really, and it was the way it was giving you hints, clearly, as to the way things are working in the books, that these are the source of legends, but it's not in any way a straightforward retelling. What two or three men have done will be compressed to make one story, or what one man has done may be split up into two different men—this part's given to somebody else, and that part's given to that one—and he himself is completely forgotten. I put these things there in a way as a clue, a hint to you: this is the way things are working in these books, this is what has come of things that are somewhat recognizable from our time. What myths have risen out of them? So, you see how the distortion has happened. What myths are going to arise out of the events of these books? It's not going to be just another telling of what happens in these books—it's all going to be twisted and woven together in ways that nobody who was there at the events would ever recognize.

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26

Question

Did Lews Therin have any children?

Robert Jordan

Yeah.

Question

What happened with them?

Robert Jordan

He killed them.

Question

Okay, okay. He killed them.

Robert Jordan

He killed his wife. He killed his children. He killed everyone who bore a single drop of his blood. He was Lews Therin Kinslayer, remember.

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27

Question

I've got one—another technical question. You said when you were at the signing you were quite angry at your English publishers over your books because they published your last book in December.

Robert Jordan

They released it way ahead of schedule. They promised me not to do that.

Question

Did it take some steps in the direction to punish them for that?

Robert Jordan

Well, they will not be able to do it again.

Question

Because frankly, I have to say that I like their books better.

Robert Jordan

Well, I'm sorry to hear that.

Question

Because they publish better [ inaudible ]. The books are better, the cover doesn’t come off, and so on.

Harriet McDougal

There are some serious business problems with that.

Question

Yes, I understand.

Harriet McDougal

One is the copyright.

Robert Jordan

They put my copyright in danger. I don't hold still for that. They put my copyright in danger. So, they're still my English publisher; I will deliver the books to them as contracted. And I will deliver the books to them exactly as contracted. But it's not going to happen again; they're not going to release the books again. One thing they have promised me that they will put a hold on—their first class hold, which I thought they had been doing before, which is what they do in the United States—which means that if a bookstore puts the books up on sale early, there are sanctions against that bookstore.

Harriet McDougal

It's only a matter of a few weeks, but it's important to the sales of the book pretty internationally. If the book makes number one in the United States, and also if it makes number one in London; that matters. And by breaking the date, they put his opening at number one in both countries in at risk.

Robert Jordan

In danger. They put it at risk.

Harriet McDougal

And there was no reason to do that.

Robert Jordan

Because people from the States could have bought it, and perhaps enough.

Harriet McDougal

And they did.

Robert Jordan

And some people did—they found out about it and bought it. But they put the making of that number one opening, which from a purely commercial point of view, is important. If you open at number one, if you're at number one, you get publicity, you get a lot of things. You get discounts—stores sell your book at a discount. You don't get any less of a royalty, but they put a deep discount on your book, which they make a lesser discount if it's further down in the top ten. And there are more people who will buy the book at the deeper discount than will buy it at the lesser discount. So these things are important. This is my rice bowl, and they threw rocks at my rice bowl.

Harriet McDougal

Well, they did write a very apologetic letter.

Robert Jordan

Yes, they did.

Harriet McDougal

Because they read the internet, too. [laughs] And I don't think it will happen again.

Robert Jordan

No, I don't think it will happen again.

Harriet McDougal

And also, my dear husband had been kind of begging Tor Books to send the discs to England so that they could make the same date.

Robert Jordan

So that they could publish at the same time.

Harriet McDougal

And Tor really didn't want to do this.

Robert Jordan

They didn't, but I kept saying "please, please".

Harriet McDougal

He was doing them a favor to make them able to do this.

Robert Jordan

I was doing them a favor to get them to do that so they could release the books on the same day.

Harriet McDougal

Yeah.

Robert Jordan

Because see, even if I deliver the manuscript to New York, and at the same time I send the manuscript by courier to London, New York can get under way faster and have books ready to go faster than London can. So what I would do would be deliver the manuscript to New York, and New York would prepare everything ready to send to the printer on disc. And I would beg a copy of that disc from New York to send to England so they could hit the presses within 24 hours of the Americans doing this.

Harriet McDougal

On the same date. And they hurt Tor doing this. So that is also personally embarrassing.

Robert Jordan

It was very embarrassing to me.

Harriet McDougal

Yes, we'd asked one company for a favor.

Robert Jordan

Because I'd asked my American publisher to do this favor for me—for a number of years I had done it, to do it for the English.

Harriet McDougal

And the reason for that is once we turn the book in, I have done my editing but they then have a copy editor who goes through for commas and the little stuff, and that isn't on our discs, and it should be that the books are identical. So it was a mess. It was not happy.

Robert Jordan

No, no . . . but I think it's okay now.

Harriet McDougal

But I really think it will be okay now. And it's only a matter of about two weeks, but it made a big difference.

Robert Jordan

Honey, yes. And I don't think it's going to happen again.

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28

Question

I think we should here finish then officially tell you thank you, Mr. Jordan for coming [to] us and . . .

Robert Jordan

It's been a pleasure.

Question

And I may ask your permission to publish it on our site?

Robert Jordan

Okay. With the one place in there that I said it's a spoiler, please note that that is a spoiler so that people will not . . .

Harriet McDougal

They can skip it if they don't want it.

Robert Jordan

Yeah, if they don't want to have things . . . And if you see anything else . . .

Question

Audio as well, or only transcript?

Robert Jordan

I think the audio would be all right. But can you mark in the audio that it is, you know, spoiler coming up.

Question

Yes, of course.

Harriet McDougal

And you say so.

Robert Jordan

Well, you might know some other places that I've talked about things that are not . . .

Harriet McDougal

For someone who's just read one book . . .

Robert Jordan

If somebody's just read one book or two books, and I'm talking about things that have happened in five, six, seven, then it's . . .

Question

Of course. Jason is very interested in our interview.

Robert Jordan

You might want to put at the very beginning that this interview contains numerous spoilers.

Harriet McDougal

Oh, at Dragonmount?

Question

Should we share it with them?

Robert Jordan

Surely, you can do that if you wish.

Question

Thank you very much.

Harriet McDougal

Tell him he must . . . [ inaudible]

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Interviews: Budapest Q&A

Summary:

Entries

Date

Type

Location

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Links

Terez

Robert Jordan

Question

Robert Jordan

Question

Robert Jordan

Question

Robert Jordan

Harriet McDougal

Robert Jordan

Question

Harriet McDougal

Question

Harriet McDougal

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Question

Robert Jordan

Question

Robert Jordan

Question

Robert Jordan

Question

Robert Jordan

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Mort

Robert Jordan

Mort

Robert Jordan

Mort

Robert Jordan

Mort

Robert Jordan

Mort

Robert Jordan

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Mort

Robert Jordan

Footnote

Rhynn

Robert Jordan

Mort

Robert Jordan

Sequoia

Robert Jordan

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Robert Jordan

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Robert Jordan

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Robert Jordan

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Robert Jordan

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Robert Jordan

Question

Robert Jordan

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Rhynn

Robert Jordan

Mort

Robert Jordan