I also asked about how Asmodean was killed now that we know Graendal was “responsible” for his death.
Brandon said that when he arrived at Harriet’s and asked to see the ending and got the pile of Robert Jordan’s notes including the ending, on top of that pile was a message from a fan in the form of a dialogue between a Sherlock Holmes character and a Watson character with a note from RJ saying “this is right”. Emily asked if it was from Matt Hatch and Brandon didn’t think it was. He said that he can probably give send me that message so we know exactly what RJ said “this is right” to.
Maria told me that she is the one who found the Sherlock Holmes thing and gave it to Brandon. Matt Hatch was one of the most anti-Graendal Asmodean-obsessed folk out there, so Emily’s comment is funny (though I’m sure Matt is flattered that she thought of him).
This is apparently all of the information that is available from RJ himself about the actual method of Asmodean’s murder. In Brandon’s vision of the story, he imagines Graendal killed Asmodean (did the deed herself) with balefire, but apparently this is not in the notes. So its possible that it could have been done by another kind of weave and we are free to speculate on that.
I then asked about the RJ quote where he said that the place and the method of Asmodean’s killer both mean that he couldn’t come back.
Brandon said this was also a RAFO as he couldn’t tell us why the place was important at this point without giving something away. He seemed to know something about this reason (there is probably information about why someone killed in the place Asmodean was couldn’t be brought back by the Dark One). I asked if whether “where” referred to the city of Caemlyn or something else and this was also a RAFO.
He also said that RJ’s answer to WSB “The Dark One couldn’t bring back Asmodean because of the combination of two factors: HOW HE DIED and WHERE HE DIED. Not one or the other, both factors.” might be interpreted as both factors (each alone) would have prevented the DO from bringing Asmodean back (and not just one or just the other) OR both factors (each alone) were not sufficient to prevent the Dark One from bringing Asmodean back and the combination of both was required. It seemed to me like his vision of it was more the first answer than the second (both factors each alone would have prevented it).
I am guessing that we will learn about that in either A Memory of Light or the encyclopedia, but probably A Memory of Light . My personal theory is that there is perhaps some kind of magic tied to the city of Caemlyn that makes the Dark One’s power be lessened within that city itself and perhaps he cannot bring back anyone killed there. This is perhaps also a reason that he wants to make a strike at the city of Caemlyn with all of the Trollocs very soon.
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