Theoryland of the Wheel of Time

Terez

Terez

Brandon Sanderson

Maria Simons

I can’t find anything to clarify this, either. I will just offer up anecdote: I have been reading WoT for 22 years, and went to work for its creator over 17 years ago. I could be said to live and breathe The Wheel of Time. But Terez has taught me much about WoT. It could be a TEOTWism, or Lan could have been thinking of some very specific things that Elyas shared that he found helpful.

Footnote—Terez

I thought about asking how Elyas could teach Lan anything about the sword, too, but I figured the Blight bit was the most incredible. TEOTWism: this was stolen from the fandom for Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen series. The first book of that series is called Gardens of the Moon, and in that fandom, details that are particular to the first book—details that cause continuity issues later in the series—are referred to as GOTMisms.

BRANDON SANDERSON

BRANDON SANDERSON

QUESTION

ERICA SADUN

Question

Robert Jordan

Richard Fife

Brandon Sanderson

Richard Fife

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

ELEANOR

Asked if there was anything else he could give us on this one and he said he could not be more descriptive. Perhaps if someone was more pointed/specific?

The Blight had consumed the Two Rivers. (p. 652)

No.

Brandon Sanderson

No. Spoiler! No spoilers please.

I feel like somebody asked who summoned Slayer to the Blight. I could be mixing memories with Freelancer's great post @7, but I have a strange feeling that someone asked, and presented a case that it was Lanfear for similar reasons as provided above, and was told by BS that they make a good case and can defend their reasoning with confidence. I honestly don't know if I'm conflating memories, so please take this with a grain of salt.

Aegon

Furthermore, the above question doesn't make sense given that the audience was instructed not to spoil A Memory of Light, and to save questions related to A Memory of Light for the personal signings, which I wasn't able to attend or eavesdrop.

Do we see a full grown Jumara in the encyclopedia or anywhere else?

Yes.

Is the Town, the only human settlement in the Blight?

I believe so.

Question

And was the Town the same cluster of building that was seen by Graendal in Towers of Midnight from Moridin's...

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Do we know what Moridin was doing in the Town?

Umm, Define we.

Question

Will we know what Moridin was doing in the town?

QBrandon Sanderson

That depends on how good you are at guessing.

Harriet McDougal

I think he was building a new Westin Hotel.

QBrandon Sanderson

That's right.

(laughter)

Question

Sounds reasonable to me.

That came up in a panel yesterday.

Terez

Did you answer it?

Maria Simons

We talked about it. I don't think he was a Darkfriend when he went into the Blight, but I don't know.

If you're still hanging around, there's something that's been nagging at me since I read A Memory of Light.

SPOILER
Lan. Why is it that Lan ended up surviving? Was this your decision, or RJ/Harriet's? Lan has pretty clearly been building towards dying to the Shadow the entire series. Was it just too obvious of a move? That being said, it was one of my happiest moments when he stood back up. Kinda nice to see Lan stay an unstoppable juggernaut.

Lan's survival was mandated by RJ. It was something we could have changed, in that he didn't say directly "don't kill him", but some of his notes talk of what happens after the Last Battle, and those involve Lan. It is clear to me that he wanted Lan to live. I took comments like this as mandates unless there were very good reasons to do otherwise.

Note that I have not weighed in on whether Lan died or not. The position some fans have theorized (that he died, and Rand changed the Pattern) is defensible. Some asked me about it on tour. I haven't said whether it is the case or not.

And, because I have more leeway with such things now, here are some nice quotes for you directly from RJ's notes regarding what happens to Lan and the Borderlands following the Last Battle.

"Malkier might have a lot of uniting to do with the western end of the Borderlands under Lan, who will find himself made king out there . . ."

"The Blight recedes to some extent, I'm not sure how far, it recedes a good bit, though. And they can reclaim some, I'm not sure they can reclaim all of Malkier at this point, but the Blight has visibly retreated so they can go down there and check on the towers on the Blight Border. And they are miles inside the Borderland now, instead of being right on the Border, towers sitting right on the edge of the Blight. They're not on the Blight anymore."

So, talk that the Blight is completely gone isn't true, though it does retreat. (And there are other pockets of land in the north where it is not present.)

Fencinator

Thanks! I would love to say that I responded like a normal 20-year old would and was mildly happy about getting this extra information. However, instead, I squealed in glee. So thank you for bringing me squeal amounts of joy, Mr. Sanderson.