Why is this book named Towers of Midnight when the only time those are mentioned are during the first chapter when the wind blows past them and also a mention in the glossary? I’m assuming they’re going to be important in the next book. I think most people think these towers were the Towers of Ghenjei, so why the little twist in the title?
Most of Robert Jordan’s titles had twists. There are some that were very straightforward— The Dragon Reborn ; The Great Hunt . There are others that are simply things like Knife of Dreams , which comes from a line in a quote at the beginning of the book. The titles usually refer to something specific as well as something metaphorical. Towers of Midnight is the title I chose. There of course are the Towers of Midnight in Seanchan, and if you knew what those were for, and why they were there, it would illuminate the question a little bit more. But the title also refers to the towers that Egwene saw.
My working title for this book was The Three Towers , as a pun on the title of the second book of the Lord of the Rings. I was writing the second book of a trilogy of sorts here, and was dealing with the Tower of Ghenjei, the White Tower, and the Black Tower. There was going to be a lot more Black Tower stuff in this book which has been moved to the next book, but when I was working on it, we had a lot of focus on those three towers. So the name just struck me. It felt like the right thing to do.
I thought that maybe it had to do with Egwene’s dream. She dreamt that there were thirteen black towers raising up from the ground, one fell and then raised up again taller than the others. I thought this referred to the Forsaken. Maybe Brandon can clarify.
RAFO. But I did mention that it is related to that vision.
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