Did Jim talk to you about where he was going with a story as he wrote it?
No, it was a surprise because I really pretty much had to have it that way. If he told me about it ahead of time, I would look at it on the page and think, “I’ve heard this stuff, before. This isn’t fresh,” forgetting that it was he who told me.
But we did go out for lunch once, towards the end of The Eye of the World , and he said, “I want to talk to you about some people who are turning up in the series,” and I said OK. He wanted to discuss the Aiel and how it would happen if a Maiden had a child. Well, you know the Aiel don’t even appear until book three except for the guy in the cage. So, he was planning that far ahead, and he wanted to bounce it off of me.
And at the end, he was concerned about a young woman’s reaction to her mother’s love affair, and did that read true to me as a woman. He would do that very occasionally; his women were great. In fact, in an early signing, there were some women in shawls who came up to him and said, “You’re Robert Jordan? We were sure that was the pseudonym of a woman, ‘cause your women are so well written.” That pleased him to no end. He loved that.
The first Aiel is introduced in The Great Hunt (Urien). Gaul (the guy in the cage) is introduced in The Dragon Reborn along with Bain, Chiad, and Aviendha.
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