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Your search for the tag 'the towers of midnight' yielded 7 results

  • 1

    Interview: Apr, 2003

    Budapest Q&A (Verbatim)

    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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  • 2

    Interview: Sep 3rd, 2005

    Question

    We know the Tower of Ravens located in the Seanchan capital city is used as an imperial prison especially for members of the Blood, but there is also a reference to the first marath'damane shaking the Towers of Midnight. Are the Towers of Midnight also a prison? Can you tell us more about them? (Some of this question paraphrased)

    Robert Jordan

    There are thirteen Towers of Midnight. The Towers of Midnight are a fortress complex, and were, at the time this happened—Seandar wasn't the capital—and the Towers of Midnight were the center of military might, or the forces that were beginning the consolidation before the conquest of Seanchan.

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  • 3

    Interview: Apr 28th, 2010

    Brandon Sanderson

    After that, we had an Hour With Brandon Sanderson, and he did read us the first paragraph of chapter one from Towers of Midnight. I bet you can guess 99% of the words. But, for your hard-working brains to wrap around, the wind rose around the city of Imfaral. Yes, in Seanchan. Think on it and get back to me, eh?

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  • 4

    Interview: Apr 28th, 2010

    Brandon Sanderson

    We also got a few comments on Towers of Midnight, in particular the following: like most Robert Jordan book names, the meaning of "Towers of Midnight" is twofold—it is a real place or thing in the world, and it is also a metaphor for what is going on. So while the Towers are part of the Seanchan government, there will be other "Towers of Midnight" metaphorically speaking. He also informed us that the book is sitting around 310,000 words right now, and while he has some more to write, he expects the final draft will be right around that length too. As far as I can tell, he is still hopeful for the release, although it might (big might!) get moved back to November. He will try to make sure it doesn't get bumped back to February, which is the next month something would come out since December and January are just bad months to release books.

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  • 5

    Interview: Oct 19th, 2010

    John Ottinger

    The title's allusion in The Gathering Storm was fairly self-evident. To what does the title of Towers of Midnight refer?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Like many of Robert Jordan's titles, there is a metaphorical element and a concrete element. The title refers to both metaphorical events and an actual place. You'll have to read the book to find out.

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  • 6

    Interview: Dec, 2010

    Amelia

    Why is this book named Towers of Midnight when the only time those are mentioned are during the first chapter when the wind blows past them and also a mention in the glossary? I'm assuming they're going to be important in the next book. I think most people think these towers were the Towers of Ghenjei, so why the little twist in the title?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Most of Robert Jordan's titles had twists. There are some that were very straightforward—The Dragon Reborn; The Great Hunt. There are others that are simply things like Knife of Dreams, which comes from a line in a quote at the beginning of the book. The titles usually refer to something specific as well as something metaphorical. Towers of Midnight is the title I chose. There of course are the Towers of Midnight in Seanchan, and if you knew what those were for, and why they were there, it would illuminate the question a little bit more. But the title also refers to the towers that Egwene saw.

    My working title for this book was The Three Towers, as a pun on the title of the second book of the Lord of the Rings. I was writing the second book of a trilogy of sorts here, and was dealing with the Tower of Ghenjei, the White Tower, and the Black Tower. There was going to be a lot more Black Tower stuff in this book which has been moved to the next book, but when I was working on it, we had a lot of focus on those three towers. So the name just struck me. It felt like the right thing to do.

    Carrie (Care)

    I thought that maybe it had to do with Egwene's dream. She dreamt that there were thirteen black towers raising up from the ground, one fell and then raised up again taller than the others. I thought this referred to the Forsaken. Maybe Brandon can clarify.

    Brandon Sanderson

    RAFO. But I did mention that it is related to that vision.

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