I was a bit shocked when I started reading Towers of Midnight . The Prologue included a Graendal scene. I went to the glossary to refresh my memory concerning that Forsaken and discovered a huge spoiler…
The glossary, remember, was begun as a tradition before there were internet wiki sites, and it’s limited by size in what it can contain. I don’t do the glossary; that’s all on Team Jordan. Maria handles it.
As for why the big secret was included in the glossary, I’ve said before that Harriet made the decision where it would go. I actually did suggest it, though I later changed my mind and thought I would put it in somewhere else, but she said, “No, I love this idea of the glossary.” The reason I think that we like the glossary location so much is because the instruction I received from Robert Jordan was just a Post-It note that had written on it, “This is right,” attached to a sheet of paper that was an explanation, one of the many, printed off from the internet, talking about who killed Asmodean. That Post-It note saying “This is right” was all there was—I didn’t know the how, the why, the circumstances, any more than you know. So we felt that rather than extrapolate all of that ourselves, the best thing to do, as frustrating as it might be, was to give you the information much in the same way that we got it, as simply a “This is the person.” That still allows a bit of theorizing on how this person was involved in the event, whether it was by her hand directly, or whether a servant was involved, or that sort of thing. That allows for theorizing.
After that, I kept expecting to see that information revealed somewhere in the actual book, but as far as I can tell it wasn’t there! Will it be revisited in the last book, or was the glossary the way of answering that question?
The glossary was the way of answering that question. Though in the epilogue, I had originally included a more specific line that Harriet edited out and said, “No, I like the glossary entry. We’ll let it stand.” There’s still a hint, but it was actually spelled out in that same sentence.
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