AMOL Prologue Spoiler Discussion

[mmurray821]

I thought about using this as one of my sig quotes:

 

"Always leave a way out, unless you really want to find out how hard a man can fight when he's nothing to lose."

 

That always reminds me of Murphy's laws of combat. One of my favs, "The easy way is always mined."

[Terez]

Yeah, I have no doubt Mat will be on that. Eventually. I think it's a nice foreshadowing of the Last Battle in the context of Rand dying before he's saved the day, and in the context of the overarching theme of Rand's friends being very nearly as important as he is. And in the context of people like Elaida who can't wait for him to get on with saving the world and dying in the process.

[capuga]

What Yoni says is true (and not told to him by me, by the way). This scene was barely ready in time.

 

That being said there IS a higher degree of sophistication to this scene. I believe we are either seeing a scene that was written rough draft by Jordan, and edited by Brandon, or (and this is my hope) that we are seeing a scene written by Brandon which is showing the benefit of the stricter, more thorough editing and polishing sequence that has caused the delay.

 

I talked to Brandon last week at a quick signing he did for locals on his newsletter list after he was done with a writing seminar in Las Vegas. He indicated that that section was not the part of this prologue that RJ wrote. Meaning that scene was his. I thought he did a really good job with it. Very RJ-esque in my opinion.

 

Can you supply date, town, and bookstore?

 

This past Wednesday May 2nd in Las Vegas in the lobby of the Golden Nugget hotel. He was in town as one of the guests/teachers of a writers convention. He squeezed in a quick signing for local fans. If you signed up for his newsletter and gave your location as in the Vegas area you got an email from Peter about the signing. There were 8 or 9 of us there so it was pretty cool. He let us ask some questions but didn't give any new details that aren't already out there. The info on the prologue came up as he was talking about his progress revising the book and how the ending was pretty much all RJ and didn't even need to be polished. He then mentioned that parts of the prologues of all 3 books had been written or dictated by RJ but the scene that was released was not one of them.

[Suttree]

What Yoni says is true (and not told to him by me, by the way). This scene was barely ready in time.

 

That being said there IS a higher degree of sophistication to this scene. I believe we are either seeing a scene that was written rough draft by Jordan, and edited by Brandon, or (and this is my hope) that we are seeing a scene written by Brandon which is showing the benefit of the stricter, more thorough editing and polishing sequence that has caused the delay.

 

I talked to Brandon last week at a quick signing he did for locals on his newsletter list after he was done with a writing seminar in Las Vegas. He indicated that that section was not the part of this prologue that RJ wrote. Meaning that scene was his. I thought he did a really good job with it. Very RJ-esque in my opinion.

 

Can you supply date, town, and bookstore?

 

This past Wednesday May 2nd in Las Vegas in the lobby of the Golden Nugget hotel. He was in town as one of the guests/teachers of a writers convention. He squeezed in a quick signing for local fans. If you signed up for his newsletter and gave your location as in the Vegas area you got an email from Peter about the signing. There were 8 or 9 of us there so it was pretty cool. He let us ask some questions but didn't give any new details that aren't already out there. The info on the prologue came up as he was talking about his progress revising the book and how the ending was pretty much all RJ and didn't even need to be polished. He then mentioned that parts of the prologues of all 3 books had been written or dictated by RJ but the scene that was released was not one of them.

 

Thanks for the info Mark!!!! So nothing that good came out of the Q&A?

[capuga]

What Yoni says is true (and not told to him by me, by the way). This scene was barely ready in time.

 

That being said there IS a higher degree of sophistication to this scene. I believe we are either seeing a scene that was written rough draft by Jordan, and edited by Brandon, or (and this is my hope) that we are seeing a scene written by Brandon which is showing the benefit of the stricter, more thorough editing and polishing sequence that has caused the delay.

 

I talked to Brandon last week at a quick signing he did for locals on his newsletter list after he was done with a writing seminar in Las Vegas. He indicated that that section was not the part of this prologue that RJ wrote. Meaning that scene was his. I thought he did a really good job with it. Very RJ-esque in my opinion.

 

Can you supply date, town, and bookstore?

 

This past Wednesday May 2nd in Las Vegas in the lobby of the Golden Nugget hotel. He was in town as one of the guests/teachers of a writers convention. He squeezed in a quick signing for local fans. If you signed up for his newsletter and gave your location as in the Vegas area you got an email from Peter about the signing. There were 8 or 9 of us there so it was pretty cool. He let us ask some questions but didn't give any new details that aren't already out there. The info on the prologue came up as he was talking about his progress revising the book and how the ending was pretty much all RJ and didn't even need to be polished. He then mentioned that parts of the prologues of all 3 books had been written or dictated by RJ but the scene that was released was not one of them.

 

Thanks for the info Mark!!!! So nothing that good came out of the Q&A?

 

Not really, he didn't want to give away any spoilers. I do wish I had taken some notes though. But this was the only thing that stuck out in my mind that we haven't heard before. It was pretty cool though. He stayed for about 40 minutes and signed all the books we brought (I was lugging around 2 bags full with 12 books) and personalized them all. One of the fans that came brought him a pack of Magic cards that I guess had a rare card in it. He was pretty excited.

[capuga]

I'll try to sum up a few other things I remember:

 

- We talked about if he laughed when fans were guessing who wrote what and getting it way wrong. He said the story he could tell about that was someone looking at the chapter titles to tGS and saying they could tell that Brandon wrote those when of course Harriet has named all the chapters since the start.

 

- He was disappointed that DKS couldn't finished the last cover even though he really thinks Whelan is the best fantasy artist around. He likened it to the same as it being too bad that he had to finish the series instead of RJ.

 

- He talked some more about how he felt Mat was the hardest character to get write because he's pretty complicated. His thoughts don't always match up with his actions and it was hard to strike the right tone.

 

- He knows that his action sequences don't sound like RJ's. He said he just doesn't have the real world experience that RJ did as a combat soldier so he just writes them as the best action scenes that he can.

 

- He said Perrin was his favorite character so one of his goals was to redeem the character a bit and make him awesome again.

 

- I asked about his Alcatraz books and he said there will be one more but it's not high on the priority list and will be several years. He also said the Scholastic distribution wasn't great and he's working on buying back the rights and bringing the series to TOR for wider distribution and ebook release.

 

Stuff like that. Nothing that hasn't been covered before.

[Suttree]

I'll try to sum up a few other things I remember:

 

- We talked about if he laughed when fans were guessing who wrote what and getting it way wrong. He said the story he could tell about that was someone looking at the chapter titles to tGS and saying they could tell that Brandon wrote those when of course Harriet has named all the chapters since the start.

 

- He was disappointed that DKS couldn't finished the last cover even though he really thinks Whelan is the best fantasy artist around. He likened it to the same as it being too bad that he had to finish the series instead of RJ.

 

- He talked some more about how he felt Mat was the hardest character to get write because he's pretty complicated. His thoughts don't always match up with his actions and it was hard to strike the right tone.

 

- He knows that his action sequences don't sound like RJ's. He said he just doesn't have the real world experience that RJ did as a combat soldier so he just writes them as the best action scenes that he can.

 

- He said Perrin was his favorite character so one of his goals was to redeem the character a bit and make him awesome again.

 

- I asked about his Alcatraz books and he said there will be one more but it's not high on the priority list and will be several years. He also said the Scholastic distribution wasn't great and he's working on buying back the rights and bringing the series to TOR for wider distribution and ebook release.

 

Stuff like that. Nothing that hasn't been covered before.

 

Good man, always fun to read even if there is nothing groundbreaking. Appreciate all the notes!!!

[Terez]

This past Wednesday May 2nd in Las Vegas in the lobby of the Golden Nugget hotel. He was in town as one of the guests/teachers of a writers convention. He squeezed in a quick signing for local fans. If you signed up for his newsletter and gave your location as in the Vegas area you got an email from Peter about the signing. There were 8 or 9 of us there so it was pretty cool. He let us ask some questions but didn't give any new details that aren't already out there. The info on the prologue came up as he was talking about his progress revising the book and how the ending was pretty much all RJ and didn't even need to be polished. He then mentioned that parts of the prologues of all 3 books had been written or dictated by RJ but the scene that was released was not one of them.

 

Thanks! I had totally just made up some details for it. Hopefully Brandon will be willing to put a place on his blog for past events so I can dig things like this out because it's not uncommon to get drive-by signing reports from people with no details. But I figured you'd be back.

[Charlz Guybon]

I thought this was an interesting excerpt. Especially with the act of creation pushing back against the Dark One's power.

 

I actually expected to see Jarid in the prologue, though I expected him and his army to get rolled over by Shadowspawn.

[Charlz Guybon]

 

The problem with the Roedran=Demandred idea is motive. Demandred is said to be the Dark's big go-to guy at this point, he's the best general they have left. Say Murandy fielded 40 or 50,000 troops... great. Thats at best 1/100th of the trollocs and fades boiling out of the blight.

 

What could that army possibly do? Sure you could gate them into a critical fight, but are they going to attack an army of humans fighting an army of trollocs no matter what they were ordered? Unless of course you think Demandred has spent months of time compelling thousands of green human soldiers (cue Herid Fel eyebrow waggle).

 

We've seen that when a Forsaken is inside a city its people take a darker turn. If he's been their long enough he could have converted most of Lugar. Don't you remember Illian and people's twisted faces?

[Durinax]

The problem with the Roedran=Demandred idea is motive. Demandred is said to be the Dark's big go-to guy at this point, he's the best general they have left. Say Murandy fielded 40 or 50,000 troops... great. Thats at best 1/100th of the trollocs and fades boiling out of the blight.

 

What could that army possibly do? Sure you could gate them into a critical fight, but are they going to attack an army of humans fighting an army of trollocs no matter what they were ordered? Unless of course you think Demandred has spent months of time compelling thousands of green human soldiers (cue Herid Fel eyebrow waggle).

 

We've seen that when a Forsaken is inside a city its people take a darker turn. If he's been their long enough he could have converted most of Lugar. Don't you remember Illian and people's twisted faces?

well number one would be the hit to morale a sudden attack by a human force would create. Second if he uses them creatively he could strike at Andoran targets that are important but are not going to be struck by shadowspawn, or even use them as a reserve force in case the shadowspawn fail

[Stubby]

Demandred thinks big. Remember he thinks himself as a Great Captain better than LTT. Correspondingly he is going to have a great big army. So Murandy is out especially when you consider its history. They are not a conquering nation full of warriors but mostly fops.

[bigdoug1971]

I enjoyed it. At this point I'll take any new part of the story. I'm so ready for the book to be released. And so tired of the waiting. I don't know about anyone else here, I'm 41 years old and have waited half my life for the end of the story. I've learned one lesson from the Wheel of Time, and for that matter, I've also learned from A Song of Ice and Fire.......I will never, ever start another book series that isn't finished. I've discovered that I'm impatient and not very good at waiting around for the next part of the story. I do understand that's not RJ's fault, but it still sucks IMHO.

[Durinax]

Demandred thinks big. Remember he thinks himself as a Great Captain better than LTT. Correspondingly he is going to have a great big army. So Murandy is out especially when you consider its history. They are not a conquering nation full of warriors but mostly fops.

no one is saying that all demandred has been up to is Murandy, its just going to be a key ingredient in the damage he is going to do.

 

for example right now he could assault the FoM with a vast horde of trollocs while razing half of Andor or illian with murandian troops. Of course travelling does cause issues with how effective standard military forces are but I am sure he has it figured out from before

[Sharaman]

Perfect locale. Centre of Westlands, can strike out in any direction. If it has portal stones/ waygates, you can peacefully infiltrate trollocs behind enemy lines. Also not taken seriously by anyone.

[OptimusPrime]

The passage I found more interesting than the report on it. The scene itself seemed pretty ordianary (well, compared to what COULD have been read, like a Forsaken chapter or something) but I think it has a lot of potential Forshadowing.

 

Alot of interesting stuff musing about the DO, and how concentrating on his work made it seem Lighter, that he thinks this was the way to fight the DO.

 

I found that interesting as well. Almost as if the act of creating something helped push the DO's effect back to some extent. "Belief and order give strength"?

 

Hands off, that is my old theory!

Granted, i kinda hit the wall with it when I tried to incorporate Leyas comment in TDR, "It is with the strength of our belief that we fight the Shadow". A very typical tinker-thing to say, but how to make it work together with the rest (since we know there has to be an awful lot of violence during TG).

 

Ive thought for tiiime that Rands ultimate role is to stay loyal to his cause. His will drives his Ta'veren pull, so if he goes back to the uber-determination he had in, say, Fires of Heaven, but with all the knowledge he has now, he becomes the ultimate Ta'veren. All he needs to do is stay loyal to his role to defeat the Shadow, and the entire Pattern (barring threads the Dark One has influence over) will work to that end. This is why the Dark One never wins.

[Durinax]

ok I haven't read through this entire thread so please bear with me.

 

Does anyone else think Jarid was 'touched' by the forsaken the same way that the Prophet was?

[Feral]

Someone might have mentioned this already, but I didn't find it if they did. I was reading this thread the other day and I noticed someone said something about maybe stone being important somehow because of the emphasis on the stone spear head ( I think it was that anyway). Then yesterday during my reread of ToM, I reached the part where a bubble of evil makes the weapons in Perrin's camp go crazy. And they discover that dirt touching the weapons made them go normal again. So maybe there is something important about stone/earth. Very vague I know, but I found it interesting.

[snooze1128]

And they discover that dirt touching the weapons made them go normal again. So maybe there is something important about stone/earth. Very vague I know, but I found it interesting.

 

Brilliant! I think the title of the final chapter ought to be: "Rand showers SG with dirt. Seals the DO in a prison of earth for 3,000 years." :-D

[Wheel of Thyme]

ok I haven't read through this entire thread so please bear with me.

 

Does anyone else think Jarid was 'touched' by the forsaken the same way that the Prophet was?

 

I agree with you. Jarid definitely did not seem as if he was "playing with a full deck". I could absolutely believe the Forsaken had made him insane.