Date: 2011-04-17
Type: Verbatim
Location: Dunwoody, GA
Reporter: Terez
Edit: my transcript of the Sunday signing questions, including WSB’s:
When the Eelfinn told Mat, ‘Wise to ask for leavetaking, when you set no price’ etc., did they know he would be back?
The ‘Finns do not have a perfect vision of the future, but are capable of reading some things about it, and so I would say it’s likely they knew. They didn’t know everything, though.
So, it’s…to the best of their knowledge, they couldn’t…
Yes. They sincerely tried to kill him, but they knew there was a strong possibility he’d be back.
Did they know that his ashandarei was the answer to the leavetaking thing?
They knew what they were giving him. They were hoping he wouldn’t.
Excellent. Thank you.
In Towers of Midnight , when Rand confronts Lord Weiramon and Lady Anaiyella, and they basically can’t look at him…I was wondering, does he have like an aura of Lightness that’s preventing them from looking at him, or was it possibly that Verin clued him in to the fact that they were Darkfriends in her letter?
More will be revealed…
We’ll get some more info on that?
You’ll get some more info on things that were happening in Towers of Midnight once you see from Rand’s perspective in the next book.
Great! That’s great to hear…I can’t wait for it. Thank you.
Did Aginor have anything to do with creating the Nym?
Not that I know of. I can MAFO that, but I’m like 95% sure on that.
The Green Man? No…he was good!
You know, that’s what I said to him last night, and then he was like, ‘Well, you know, before the Bore was drilled, you know…that might have been what he was doing.’ Because, you know, he had to get his experience in bioengineering somewhere.
Yeah…
Yeah, where did he get his start?
It is a good question, but I don’t think so. I really don’t. But, if you really want me to go to the notes and search it out, I will.
That works for me. Thank you very much.
A quick search turned up nothing, I’m afraid. I’ll try to remember to keep my eyes open for it.
Even a stone in a wall has a thread in the Pattern, right? You said so…
As I understand it, Robert Jordan specifically said that even inanimate objects have a thread.
So, that explains why when, say, a stone pillar is balefired, only the portion that balefire hits disintegrates…
Right…
…because all of those little bits would have their own threads…
Theoretically. And I was wrong on that for a while—I had to go back and look at interviews before I…[to Terez] Were you the one that sent me that?
Yeah, I tweeted that to you…
Yeah…the boat that Nynaeve was on that got balefired…
She pointed out that inanimate objects…their threads are burned back. But that also explains why a person who has one thread tied to their soul would be completely eliminated by balefire.
Mmmhmm.
So…why did their clothes go away?
(laughs)
Balefire does spread a bit, from what I’ve read.
Then why doesn’t it for the column?
It does, but it’s like, you know…just a little bit.
Right, but if you use a pencil-thin bit of balefire, right, and I shot your shirt, why would the whole shirt disappear?
Um, if it goes through and hits you, then you disintegrate, and it will spread out from you.
Then, that doesn’t explain Nynaeve’s boat.
No, it doesn’t. … I will be perfectly honest with you. I’ve worked through and tried to figure out the rules of balefiring inanimate objects quite a bit…because we’ve got the whole thing with Nynaeve and…
The rowers.
Yeah. Well no, not even that…earlier than that with the balefire rod that’s like cutting swaths through the palace in Tanchico, and it’s just cutting lines through the palace, just slicing big holes…
Right. That’s the stone pillars…the multiple threads…
It did the same thing in Caemlyn with Rand and Rahvin.
Yeah. And that’s searing little lines, but then you hit something living, and it all *poofs*. It actually becomes motes…like it hits and it spreads to the full, living thing, and then *poof* that all goes away. And so…the clothes are something I hadn’t even thought of, but balefire does seem to spread a little bit…
You would think that, you know…where the balefire hit, obviously there would be a hole, the person would *poof*, and their clothes would drop.
Yeah. But it’s got to spread a little bit because of that. But then, you know, with the boat…yeah.
You can’t imagine how many debates we’ve had on Theoryland about the boat…
Oh god…
The boat is an outlier. You could argue a couple of things on it—distance and power level could both be involved.
And there are other outliers, like in The Gathering Storm …um…
The palace?
Yeah, the palace…
That, I did intentionally. Looking through everything that is happening, and saying, ‘He is continuing to pump balefire into this thing, to expand it through into the entire thing…’
So, it’s a deliberate, directive thing…
That’s got to be possible, because in the Age of Legends…
Right, whole cities…
Right, whole cities. And so there’s got to be a force-to-spread multiplier. Does that make sense?
Sure.
So, I’m using a force-to-spread multiplier. And so you could maybe make that argument with the boat.
[Brandon is signing my copy of Towers of Midnight and drawing a lovely picture of Goodkind .]
You even put the yeard in! That’s awesome.
No, I didn’t put the yeard in…
Yeah you did!
Oh, I put the yeard in, but I didn’t call him ‘yeard’, though…I called him ‘Zod’, which is my nickname for him, because he reminds me of General Zod in all his publicity photos, so there you are.
[He moves on to signing my copy of Hero of Ages , and a dude behind me joins the conversation.]
You voted for Quick Ben, didn’t you?
In the last round.
Yeah, uh-huh.
Up until the semi-finals, I supported Vin, but in the finals I supported Quick Ben.
I never even heard of that series until the, uh…
Well that’s what cage match is for!
Yeah. And it’s actually a shame; he should be better known than he is. He’s a really great writer.
It’s the learning curve.
It’s the learning curve mixed with some really bad publication luck. What was going on with him is, he published first in the UK, and got a really good big following, and then he did a big launch in America with TOR, but by then, all the Americans had heard about him from the UK and were buying the UK editions, and TOR was behind, and so every time they would publish a UK edition, all his fans went and bought the UK edition, and then TOR would release several months later, and it wouldn’t sell…
Because we wanted our books to match!
…and so he had real trouble getting shelf presence in America for that reason.
Yeah, that makes sense.
And it is a shame; he’s a really good author. But I think he’s catching up finally. TOR is simultaneously releasing now, which will really help.
I definitely want to start picking up new series once the Wheel of Time is done. I’ve invested in too many large series that are ongoing…
And this one is finished!
This one is finished. He’s going to do more in the world, but the series is done, so you can read it full sequence. It’s very nice.
Thank you.
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