My name is Adam Simmons, and I’m from Atlanta, Georgia. [hoots] I really hope that I’m not misremembering something. I was trying to look it up on my Kindle, and I couldn’t find it, so please God, let me not be wrong. [laughter]
In one of the Forsaken viewpoints in—I think it was Knife of Dreams or something?—one of the Forsaken was thinking about how, had circumstances been different, Demandred could have been named the Dragon. And what I’m wondering is, is “the Dragon” an actual title, or was Lews Therin born to be the Dragon, or was that a mantle he picked up along the way?
(looks at Maria and Harriet) [laughter]
Not me!
I can say some things on this, but it’s going to be more…it may not be the exact answers you want. I can say things that have been said. For instance, you can look at things like Logain, and how false Dragons were being brought up out of the Pattern, until Rand, and at that moment, everything collapsed. Until…and it was really when Rand channeled for the first time—am I correct?—that everything sort of collapsed. (to Maria) There’s some parallels in there. When he what? No, it was when he took Callandor . Yeah, you’re right.
It was the visions in the sky !
In the sky? Okay. Until Rand took up the mantle—yeah, that’s it—and so it’s when Rand…and so, you could look at that and make the argument, “Wait a minute; until that moment, until Rand stepped up and was willing to be the Dragon, the Pattern was searching for one.” And you can interpret that a lot of different ways, and you could probably make an argument—Theoryland could make an argument for both sides on that. [laughter] And if Rand had not stepped up, was that just the end of the world? Would the world have then been doomed, if Rand as a baby had been killed? That’s something that you can theorize on, and you can look at the clues in the books, and Jim did not leave us an answer, so far as I know.
Okay, thank you.
The quote in question was in Graendal’s POV in the prologue of The Gathering Storm , which was presumably written by Brandon himself. In any case, “Dragon” was a name given to Lews Therin by his peers in the Age of Legends much like the names given to the Forsaken, so while it’s possible Demandred could have been given that name as a title, it’s not possible that he could have been the Champion of the Light. This is addressed by Matt Hatch at the end of the Q&A .
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