Something VERY interesting I noticed in Book 11 about the ''Rand/Perrin Timeline'' Mess

[The Fisher King]

No TOM spoilers follow:

 

Ok. So much talk about how in Books 12 and 13 Rand and Perrin's story arcs are out of sync in terms of the overall Timeline.

 

But - I noticed something very interesting ( to me, at least, lol) near the end of Book 11 that really...well...I'm not sure what it means, to be honest, which is why I'm asking you guys, lol ;-)

 

The commonly accepted thought is that Perrin and Rand's Timeline is SEVERELY out-of-whack in Book 12 and much of Book 13 is an attempt to bring the two back in sync. Ok. I am fine with that. ... Think about this though: If the 2 Timelines are so problematic in Book 12. then is it not fair to wonder ''Where/When did the problem BEGIN???''

 

And here is where what I think is interesting comes into play:

 

Near the end of Book 11 Rand loses a hand in a trap set by Semirhage. Ok, shortly after that, Perrin sees (during one of his Color-Swirl Visions) that Rand is missing a hand!!! ... Ok, so obviously at this point near the end of Book 11 their two timelines are STILL in the same place as each other! Perrin sees Rand with a missing hand right after Rand loses it! ... This takes place near the end of Book 11 ... Then, in Book 12 they are all whacked-out and Perrin is severely behind Rand....HUH??? How? When did the gap occur??? (During the gap after Book 11 ends and when Book 12 begins??? - That makes NO sense! Not narratively and certainly not logically). ... And, what CAUSED the gap to occur?

 

Thoughts?

 

 

...Fish

 

''I have another man to kill first."- Thom Merrilin; a gleeman and one-time court bard...known by some as 'The Gray Fox' - according to Moiraine Damodred; an Aes Sedai of the Blue Ajah.

[Byzantine279]

Because for all of book 12 Perrin got almost no time, so Rand surged ahead.

[Mats Spare Hat]

Yeah dude, there's no 'real' timeline gap between what's happening to Perrin & what Rand's been up to. It's just the story backtracking to show what was going on with Perrin, while such and such was going on with Rand. It's like one of those television episodes where an event occurs, but then throughout the episode they show what happened to each individual character from their point of view, and how they arrive at the previously established event...I think The Simpson's did an episode like that?

 

Hope that helps

[moratcorlm]

There's nothing really wrong with Perrin's timeline.

 

Mat's, on the other hand...

[Kathleen]

I did notice a big laps in Perrin's timeline too, but I don't have the memory/chapters to point it out right now (actually I just remembered when I did notice it but I am not gonna temp giving spoilers so I can't say when, but it did seem way off, or I misunderstood something). I haven't really noticed it being off in Mat's but I wasn't looking and it didn't stick out like the issue with Perrin's.

[moratcorlm]

The... oddities... I noticed about Perrin's timeline were all internal to TOM; through KOD and TGS I'm pretty sure everything added up, though, as others have said, Perrin/Mat/Elayne's plotlines fell behind the others.

[paetric]

Yeah I don't think thee is a time line or warped time space blah blah blah going on.

I think it was just piss poor writing and editing and we had no choice but to suffer through it.

[mb]

Steve's timeline on this series might explain when stuff happens.

From checking there, the loss of Rand's hand was the day before Perrin noticed it missing.

 

Rand's Gathering Storm timeline has not yet been finalized at that site; nor has Egwene's.

Mat's & Perrin's they have been able to find out and/or to figure out.

[OptimusPrime]

ve to remember books 12 to 14 wrre originally going to be one book. Rands arc in TGS was nearly full book material all by itself. However Perrin and Mat still had to get SOME involvement for that space in time. Id say the lag of Perrin s arc began in TGS simply because that was Rands book, even though we got a snippet of Perrin thinking he should get up off hiss ass. It stands to reason that any if not all of Perrin s involvement in ToM should bring all Ta'veren timelines back into sync. (still havent read much of ToM yet, Ithink I might have to rreread book 12 first)

[Kathleen]

Yes I see that, but I think what got me was Perrin's Arc moving forward (me thinking it was catching up) and then around that Rands was still progressing as I thought Perrins was caught up, then found out it was still way behind ---though this was all/mostly in ToM so I should really not be posting too much here.

 

I agree that the timeline for Perrin is behind, and a lot of other characters in but I agree/understand that it is because of the way the final book was divided into 3 and they just didn't have enough pages to move all the story lines in synch in the first third of the book. I know they will end up being the same at some point but it is a little awkward to read one storyline catching up and still reading the other moving forward. I think it would be noticed less if they caught up the characters who were behind before moving the ones who were ahead even further ahead. But I didn't write it and I am enjoying reading it so I really can't talk.

[EmeraldCastrol]

Yeah I don't think thee is a time line or warped time space blah blah blah going on.

I think it was just piss poor writing and editing and we had no choice but to suffer through it.

 

Yeah I noticed the out of whack time space between Rand and Perrin too, especially when Tam gets involved and he mentions Morgase not being Maighdin anymore. It is confusing and I don't think its necessarily a bad thing if Brandon or the editors go back and fix it up for future printing...

[blazetheearth]

Yeah I don't think thee is a time line or warped time space blah blah blah going on.

I think it was just piss poor writing and editing and we had no choice but to suffer through it.

 

Yeah I noticed the out of whack time space between Rand and Perrin too, especially when Tam gets involved and he mentions Morgase not being Maighdin anymore. It is confusing and I don't think its necessarily a bad thing if Brandon or the editors go back and fix it up for future printing...

 

The timelines fell out of whack in TGS because it was focused so much on advancing Rand. In order to have the chapter in TGS named Veins of Gold, Rand and Tam had to meet in Tear. ToM matches up those 2 timelines easily and (some may consider it to be ) quickly. But to answer the question, Yes the break in the 2 timelines occurred during TGS. One major problem that an author faces when trying to break one story into 3 parts is that each needs a climax. Every portion of the whole story of the Final Book has to have a climax, and if you don't think that is so just imagine if the timelines were in sync in TGS there would have been no epiphany by Rand. Rand would simply have gotten darker and darker, we might have left his story in TGS with him walking the corridors before meeting Tam. While, for those of you who have read ToM, Perrin's story had nothing during that time that could have been considered a climax or epiphany, so what would have been the ending to TGS? Where would the characters have been? How many people would have bothered to buy or read the second book put out by RJ's replacement, if the first book by him did not have an acceptable ending?

 

You cannot have it both ways, either Sanderson keeps the timelines intact and produces something no one is happy with, or he puts one character's epiphany in one book and then put the epiphany/climax for other character's in the next then put the series climax in the last book. If all three books were written as one, it is possible the timelines might have matched up, but since we are getting 3 books from one, it cannot be considered bad writing or bad editing. It was simply the only way that it could be done to provide a complete story within each volume of the trilogy.

[Kathleen]

I completely understand and agree with the climax thing and shifting around with the time line. I think it just would have been smoother if he had let Perrin's time line catch up in ToM before progressing with Rands timeline. I know that the problem with that would be the flow of the story in ToM and breaking up the story lines in way to have the right flow and energy to the book. I actually really love how the 'final book' is coming along. Most of it flows except at one point the time line glitch is really noticeable, but its not really all that bad once you processes it for what it is and carry on.

[mb]

Like I told in other post, the time line in the following link might explain timeline things::

http://www.stevenac.net/wot/wotchron.htm

 

The "non-finalized" dates; only their timelines would be "messed up".

Most everything up through Knife of Dreams has been "finalized".

[jmikea]

Yeah I don't think thee is a time line or warped time space blah blah blah going on.

I think it was just piss poor writing and editing and we had no choice but to suffer through it.

 

Yeah I noticed the out of whack time space between Rand and Perrin too, especially when Tam gets involved and he mentions Morgase not being Maighdin anymore. It is confusing and I don't think its necessarily a bad thing if Brandon or the editors go back and fix it up for future printing...

 

The timelines fell out of whack in TGS because it was focused so much on advancing Rand. In order to have the chapter in TGS named Veins of Gold, Rand and Tam had to meet in Tear. ToM matches up those 2 timelines easily and (some may consider it to be ) quickly. But to answer the question, Yes the break in the 2 timelines occurred during TGS. One major problem that an author faces when trying to break one story into 3 parts is that each needs a climax. Every portion of the whole story of the Final Book has to have a climax, and if you don't think that is so just imagine if the timelines were in sync in TGS there would have been no epiphany by Rand. Rand would simply have gotten darker and darker, we might have left his story in TGS with him walking the corridors before meeting Tam. While, for those of you who have read ToM, Perrin's story had nothing during that time that could have been considered a climax or epiphany, so what would have been the ending to TGS? Where would the characters have been? How many people would have bothered to buy or read the second book put out by RJ's replacement, if the first book by him did not have an acceptable ending?

 

You cannot have it both ways, either Sanderson keeps the timelines intact and produces something no one is happy with, or he puts one character's epiphany in one book and then put the epiphany/climax for other character's in the next then put the series climax in the last book. If all three books were written as one, it is possible the timelines might have matched up, but since we are getting 3 books from one, it cannot be considered bad writing or bad editing. It was simply the only way that it could be done to provide a complete story within each volume of the trilogy.

 

You nailed it. Thanks.

[moratcorlm]

How many people would have bothered to buy or read the second book put out by RJ's replacement, if the first book by him did not have an acceptable ending?

 

You cannot have it both ways, either Sanderson keeps the timelines intact and produces something no one is happy with, or he puts one character's epiphany in one book and then put the epiphany/climax for other character's in the next then put the series climax in the last book.

You're hardly being fair in declaiming to "you" as "everybody". Some people want it one way; others want it another.

 

It's unfortunate that Sanderson was under constraints that Jordan would not have felt.

[EmeraldCastrol]

You cannot have it both ways, either Sanderson keeps the timelines intact and produces something no one is happy with, or he puts one character's epiphany in one book and then put the epiphany/climax for other character's in the next then put the series climax in the last book. If all three books were written as one, it is possible the timelines might have matched up, but since we are getting 3 books from one, it cannot be considered bad writing or bad editing. It was simply the only way that it could be done to provide a complete story within each volume of the trilogy.

 

I don't think it's as black and white as you make it sound. How many times have I read the Rand sections to feel as if a lot of what Jordan had written was unnecessary and could have been condensed. I understand Sanderson's constraints and the importance of a good ending for each book and at the moment, finishing the series is priority. I happen to think Sanderson has done a fantastic job with GS and ToM, the writing is much more clean and tight than Jordan's. However, in future, once the excitement of anticipating MoL dies down, perhaps Sanderson and the editors can go back and clean up (e.g. condense in order to tighten up the time line )what I'm sure Jordan would have done had he the rest of a century to do so (in between working on his new series). This is because authors are constantly going back and rewriting their past books. I'm not going to excuse bad editing just because certain writing constraints existed. Was it bad editing? Yes. Did Sanderson have much of a choice? No. Is the WOT series still entertaining? Yes. And that's all that matters. There is no point of arguing the literary value of the WOT series because that was never its objective. And if entertainment was the main objective, then I believe a smooth transition of the time line to minimise confusion from the reader's end is just as important as a satisfying climax in the individual books. But for the moment, I'm sure we all agree that completion of the series is the main priority.