Rand
In taking on this project, one of my personal goals—if the series would allow it—was to focus more time on the main characters, particularly Rand. I love the middle books, with their exploration of other plots and characters, but the first book presented to us Rand, Perrin, Mat, and Egwene as our main characters. I feel that, in the true nature of the Wheel of Time, the appropriate thing to do was bring the attention back to them for the final books—and I feel Robert Jordan would have done so himself.
Rand needed to be the heart of the three novels. In pondering how to accomplish his outline, I was reminded of things I’d felt when first reading The Dragon Reborn . Rand’s anguish as a character was powerful to me, and I thought, “Surely he can’t go lower, be forced to go through more, than he’s had happen to him here.” The next few books affirmed this.
Then I read Lord of Chaos . That book breaks your heart; I found myself amazed that Rand could be brought down even lower. This progressed through the next books, with more being piled upon Rand—but the low points of Lord of Chaos are the most stark in my mind. I remember thinking, “Surely this is the bottom.”
That was why, in The Gathering Storm , I needed to attempt what Robert Jordan had successfully done twice. I needed to bring Rand even lower than the reader had assumed, expected, or even thought possible. This was in part to fulfill arcs Robert Jordan had in place, in part because of his love for the Monomyth and the Campbellian hero’s journey, but mostly because it felt right to me. Rand’s redemption, so to speak, needed to be preceded by his lowest point in the series.
This also offered me an interesting storytelling opportunity. In the original outline, Rand’s descent, his decision on Dragonmount, and his following actions as the Dragon Reborn would all happen in a single volume. In splitting the books, I could do the first part in one book, then have his actions in the second book introduce an interesting tension—the question of whether or not this new Rand was still the Rand we loved. I could prompt readers to fear that just as he became unrecognizable in the depths of his fall, he might become something unknowable in the heights of his redemption. It would make for a new kind of conflict, one I’d never explored before, through Towers of Midnight —before finally giving Rand more viewpoints in A Memory of Light to humanize him again. (Something Harriet was very glad to hear I was planning to do. Her main point regarding Rand was that he, in performing the actions he did in the last book, had to be very human in his approach to them. This was to be the story of an ordinary man who achieved something amazing, not an unknowable deity doing the same.)
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