Signings and Secrets



In the end there were probably less than 20 people there. A couple of them were from tarvalon.net, and one of them remembered me from JordanCon 2012. (She said I schooled her on HCFFitude in trivia.) Then when Jason introduced Maria, he said that she knew more about WoT than anyone else in the world, "except maybe Terez" (I had actually stopped paying attention to the introductions, until I heard my name). I get the feeling that he didn't say anything like that on other tour stops. It was kind of embarrassing because he caught me off guard and I didn't know what to say, but Maria was smiling and making "so-so" (i.e. "maybe kind of") motions with her hands; she knows she saved us on team trivia this past JordanCon, primarily by virtue of being more intimately familiar with the Brandon books than I am, since she had to work so hard on them. I just read them, and only once all the way through at that.



The Q&A session was fun, and I ended up wishing I'd recorded it, or asked Southpaw to do it. Before the signing I was telling Southpaw about RJ's early books, and how RJ basically tried to write historical novels in the steamy romance genre to help Harriet launch her own imprint, and by coincidence Harriet spent some time talking about exactly that, and I found myself chiming in more than I had planned. And then one of the fans asked about the notes, and specifically a page from the notes that I had posted online (and Jason reposted it on Dragonmount). So after a few minutes of backseat driving I made a concentrated effort to keep my mouth shut, which was mostly successful, partly thanks to the next line of questioning.



One of the fans asked about Taimandred, and Jason went on a long spiel about how he believed that Taimandred was originally true until the LOC tour happened and RJ realized how obvious it was. And even then it took him a few books and several years to deny it outright (COT tour). Maria chimed in and pointed out that RJ had always "categorically denied" that he had ever intended Taim to be Demandred, which of course we all know, and that she didn't have any evidence to refute that. The fan asked if she believed that, and Harriet chimed in with the exact same thing I have always told people: "I think we should take him at his word!"



Now, the reason I have always said that (which I have spelled out before) is not because I believed that RJ was some kind of morally superior person who would never lie about such a thing. There were two reasons I made that argument: 1) I figured since we would never know for sure, we might as well take him at his word and save ourselves some grief, and 2) I knew that RJ took a great deal of pleasure in using Aes Sedai speak at book signings. He enjoyed the challenge of not lying. But since Taimandred was the reason why I sought out Theoryland in the first place, I have always pretty much felt the same way as Jason. And RJ's obvious distaste for what was "too obvious" definitely influenced my theorizing style here.



I was last in line for the signing as usual, and I hung around after everyone else was gone. Team Jordan had 30 minutes left before their ride was due to arrive, but I only stayed about 5 more minutes for goodbye hugs and "see you at JordanCon" type things.



As I was about to walk out the door, Jason pulled me aside and whispered in my ear, among other things, "It's not like I was going to argue with them!" So I gave him my best evil grin and said, "Oh, the truth will come out!" And we laughed. A few months ago, he had posted his same spiel on Facebook about not believing RJ about Taimandred, so I PM'd him something along the lines of, "Don't you know?"



And indeed, the time has come to divulge the truth, thanks to Kimon getting antsy on me. (I told him half of the secret a while back, and he came close to blabbing it a couple of days ago.) I was originally planning on waiting until JordanCon, but sometimes things don't go as planned.



For those who might have the chance to go to Charleston some day to look at the notes, I'll reference everything, and use small quotes as allowed by Fair Use.



There is a file entitled "PEOPLE" in Box 55 of the



Quote: Originally Posted by RJ b) Demandred: Hated/feared/despised Lews Therin. Like Lanfear, he plays for larger stakes than most of the others, who are trying to stake out wordly kingdoms. HE WILL SHOW UP CLAIMING TO BE MAZRIM TAIM . TAKING ADVANTAGE OF RAND'S AMNESTY.



Quote: Originally Posted by RJ Taim/Demandred showed up, not so much because his party wants Rand free -- though that might be a point in their plans; on the other hand, Rand in the hands of the White Tower, and thus within Mesaana's power, could still cause one hell of a lot of chaos -- but because of learning that the Shaido were moving in. They could not be sure the Aes Sedai could drive off the Shaido, nor that the Shaido would not kill Rand. And a rescued Rand, pissed at the Aes Sedai will really be a source of chaos and disunity. surprised. I certainly was not.



But there is more. That is only one half of the big secret in the notes.



Also in Box 55, there is a Nynaeve file. This was clearly written in conjunction with LOC, as will become clear in this snippet of a list of things, found on p. 19, that Nynaeve did or did not know as of the end of LOC:



Quote: Originally Posted by RJ She does not know that Aginor (Osan'gar) and Balthamel (Aran'gar) were resurrected, the latter as a woman who is now masquerading as Halima, Delana's secretary/companion.



She knows that Moghedien was prisoner, of course. Until she is/was informed by Egwene, Siuan or Leane, she thinks Moghedien is still a prisoner.



She does not know that Asmodean was a prisoner of Rand, nor, of course, that he was killed by Demandred.



I actually discussed this with Maria last JordanCon, and she seemed surprised that there was anything in the notes at the library that said any such thing. I did make it clear to her that I was only going to be able to keep that secret for so long, but until that time (being now), she and Harriet clearly considered themselves bound by RJ's public statements. (At least now they will only get asked about it at JordanCon, with the hardest of the hardcore.) When I asked Peter if he knew, he told me that he did not, and then he kind of blew it off with something like, "Oh, writers change their minds all the time."



Of course that's true, but these two mysteries in particular are not the average mysteries in that respect because 1) to use Maria's words, RJ "categorically denied" that Taim was ever Demandred, and he even



It's not entirely clear when RJ changed his mind on either of these points. He had a habit of hanging on to certain files for 2-3 books before making a new, updated file, so it's hard to tell when any given line is written. But it's safe to say that, at the time LOC was published, Taimandred had killed Asmodean; that much is obvious in the direct context of the above quotes. And it's also worth noting that, as far as I could tell from his notes, RJ really did manage to avoid lying to us the vast majority of the time. Often we just didn't ask the right questions.



Duplicity aside, this particular double nugget is kind of exemplary of RJ's writing method. Everything was subject to change at any given time, and things often did change. I mentioned last year that, in RJ's TGH notes, Lanfear was the one who caused the time loop with the flies. Many years later, RJ was saying at book signings that it was Fain, and this change was actually reflected in his notes, and he probably changed his mind around LOC when he began to really explore Fain's new powers. (The Demandred and Asmodean changes were also reflected in his notes.)



And that particular aspect of RJ's notes should also give context to the process that Brandon and Team Jordan underwent in finishing this story. It explains why Harriet encouraged Brandon to change almost anything if he felt that the story required it, and it explains why Brandon did feel relatively free to do just that. Our impression from his and Harriet's Q&A events over the years is that they often had spirited debates about where to draw the line, and that they didn't always take the same side.



As the signing was winding down, I asked Harriet, "How does it feel to be done with your last WoT book tour ever? Doesn't it feel good? It's been a long time." She gave me some kind of affirmative answer, but she seemed disarmed by the question in such a way that makes me think she was just telling me what she thought I wanted to hear. I'm guessing she has really mixed feelings about it; she loved going on tour with RJ and meeting the fans. It was probably a bittersweet evening for her. I think she had a good time, though. Photo proof!



I went to the Naperville (Chicago) signing Thursday night at Anderson's Bookshop, the last stop on the Companion tour. I found Southpaw in the aisles and he walked with me while I bought a copy of the Companion for Marie and Jason's book, and then we meandered toward the back. They only had about a dozen chairs set up and most of them were full, so we stood in the back while they rearranged a bunch of shelves to make room for more chairs. Meanwhile Jason and Team Jordan showed up and there were hugs and chatting for a few minutes while the bookshop people finished setting up.In the end there were probably less than 20 people there. A couple of them were from tarvalon.net, and one of them remembered me from JordanCon 2012. (She said I schooled her on HCFFitude in trivia.) Then when Jason introduced Maria, he said that she knew more about WoT than anyone else in the world, "except maybe Terez" (I had actually stopped paying attention to the introductions, until I heard my name). I get the feeling that he didn't say anything like that on other tour stops.It was kind of embarrassing because he caught me off guard and I didn't know what to say, but Maria was smiling and making "so-so" (i.e. "maybe kind of") motions with her hands; she knows she saved us on team trivia this past JordanCon, primarily by virtue of being more intimately familiar with the Brandon books than I am, since she had to work so hard on them. I just read them, and only once all the way through at that.The Q&A session was fun, and I ended up wishing I'd recorded it, or asked Southpaw to do it. Before the signing I was telling Southpaw about RJ's early books, and how RJ basically tried to write historical novels in the steamy romance genre to help Harriet launch her own imprint, and by coincidence Harriet spent some time talking about exactly that, and I found myself chiming in more than I had planned. And then one of the fans asked about the notes, and specifically a page from the notes that I had posted online (and Jason reposted it on Dragonmount). So after a few minutes of backseat driving I made a concentrated effort to keep my mouth shut, which was mostly successful, partly thanks to the next line of questioning.One of the fans asked about Taimandred, and Jason went on a long spiel about how he believed that Taimandred was originally true until the LOC tour happened and RJ realized how obvious it was. And even then it took him a few books and several years to deny it outright (COT tour). Maria chimed in and pointed out that RJ had always "categorically denied" that he had ever intended Taim to be Demandred, which of course we all know, and that she didn't have any evidence to refute that. The fan asked if she believed that, and Harriet chimed in with the exact same thing I have always told people: "I think we should take him at his word!"Now, the reason I have always said that (which I have spelled out before) is not because I believed that RJ was some kind of morally superior person who would never lie about such a thing. There were two reasons I made that argument: 1) I figured since we would never know for sure, we might as well take him at his word and save ourselves some grief, and 2) I knew that RJ took a great deal of pleasure in using Aes Sedai speak at book signings. He enjoyed the challenge oflying. But since Taimandred was the reason why I sought out Theoryland in the first place, I have always pretty much felt the same way as Jason. And RJ's obvious distaste for what was "too obvious" definitely influenced my theorizing style here.I was last in line for the signing as usual, and I hung around after everyone else was gone. Team Jordan had 30 minutes left before their ride was due to arrive, but I only stayed about 5 more minutes for goodbye hugs and "see you at JordanCon" type things.As I was about to walk out the door, Jason pulled me aside and whispered in my ear, among other things, "It's not like I was going to argue with them!" So I gave him my best evil grin and said, "Oh, the truth will come out!" And we laughed. A few months ago, he had posted his same spiel on Facebook about not believing RJ about Taimandred, so I PM'd him something along the lines of, "Don't you know?"And indeed, the time has come to divulge the truth, thanks to Kimon getting antsy on me. (I told him half of the secret a while back, and he came close to blabbing it a couple of days ago.) I was originally planning on waiting until JordanCon, but sometimes things don't go as planned.For those who might have the chance to go to Charleston some day to look at the notes, I'll reference everything, and use small quotes as allowed by Fair Use.There is a file entitled "PEOPLE" in Box 55 of the RJ collection . This was clearly written in preparation for LOC, though it's also evident throughout the file that certain parts of LOC were already written at the time he wrote the notes. On page 15 of that file (emphases all RJ's):Also in Box 55, there is a file dedicated to Rand. On page 34 of that file, this paragraph appears twice in the notes on Dumai's Wells (note the change to past tense):So, clearly Taimandred was true at the time RJ wrote LOC. I imagine this will shock most people as much it did me, but I also imagine that few people will actually be. I certainly was not.But there is more. That is only one half of the big secret in the notes.Also in Box 55, there is a Nynaeve file. This was clearly written in conjunction with LOC, as will become clear in this snippet of a list of things, found on p. 19, that Nynaeve did or did not know as of the end of LOC:So not only was Taimandred true. TAIMANDRED KILLED ASMODEAN. (And now I feel very relieved because I no longer have any big secrets to keep about the notes.)I actually discussed this with Maria last JordanCon, and she seemed surprised that there was anything in the notes at the library that said any such thing. I did make it clear to her that I was only going to be able to keep that secret for so long, but until that time (being now), she and Harriet clearly considered themselves bound by RJ's public statements. (At least now they will only get asked about it at JordanCon, with the hardest of the hardcore.) When I asked Peter if he knew, he told me that he did not, and then he kind of blew it off with something like, "Oh, writers change their minds all the time."Of course that's true, but these two mysteries in particular are not the average mysteries in that respect because 1) to use Maria's words, RJ "categorically denied" that Taim wasDemandred, and he even claimed (as reported by Isabel) to be surprised that fans ever thought that, and 2) he said it should be "intuitively obvious" by the end of TFOH who killed Asmodean.It's not entirely clear when RJ changed his mind on either of these points. He had a habit of hanging on to certain files for 2-3 books before making a new, updated file, so it's hard to tell when any given line is written. But it's safe to say that, at the time LOC was published, Taimandred had killed Asmodean; that much is obvious in the direct context of the above quotes. And it's also worth noting that, as far as I could tell from his notes, RJ reallymanage to avoid lying to us the vast majority of the time. Often we just didn't ask the right questions.Duplicity aside, this particular double nugget is kind of exemplary of RJ's writing method. Everything was subject to change at any given time, and things often did change. I mentioned last year that, in RJ's TGH notes, Lanfear was the one who caused the time loop with the flies. Many years later, RJ was saying at book signings that it was Fain, and this change was actually reflected in his notes, and he probably changed his mind around LOC when he began to really explore Fain's new powers. (The Demandred and Asmodean changes were also reflected in his notes.)And that particular aspect of RJ's notes should also give context to the process that Brandon and Team Jordan underwent in finishing this story. It explains why Harriet encouraged Brandon to change almost anything if he felt that the story required it, and it explains why Brandon did feel relatively free to do just that. Our impression from his and Harriet's Q&A events over the years is that they often had spirited debates about where to draw the line, and that they didn't always take the same side.As the signing was winding down, I asked Harriet, "How does it feel to be done with your last WoT book tour ever? Doesn't it feel good? It's been a long time." She gave me some kind of affirmative answer, but she seemed disarmed by the question in such a way that makes me think she was just telling me what she thought I wanted to hear. I'm guessing she has really mixed feelings about it; she loved going on tour with RJ and meeting the fans. It was probably a bittersweet evening for her. I think she had a good time, though. Photo proof!

Qui nos rodunt confundantur, et cum iustis non scribantur.

@Terez27 __________________