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Ending Questions


m8580

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Hello all,

 

First, I want to say that I love Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson, and I think Brandon did a magnificant job with the books.

 

However, I have a few questions.  I read the book when it was first released, and than I just finished it again,  and while I liked the ending, it was bittersweet, but I can't help to be dissatisfied. I want to know what eventually happens with the Aiel and Seanchan.  Does Perrin become a Two Rivers lord, or move back to take the crown of his wife's homeland? Does Mat become the Prince of Ravens and lead their conquest of the continent? What happens with the Dragons peace? etc etc..

 

Are there answers? Am I just suppose to not know and make my own interpretations (I hate these type of endings)?  What did y'all do? 

 

I am not wanting to complain, but I cannot find anyone talking about this, so I thought I would.  

 

 

 

 

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There are some answers, though none are available to us. When the Wheel of Time Encyclopedia comes out we'll get some of those things cleared up. Mat and Tuon were actually supposed to get a sequel series (no, that's probably not happening now) where they "go on adventures," presumably in Seanchan, but we'll have to get their story from the Encyclopedia. We'll probably get a little bit about the afterstory of each major or semi-major character - Robert Jordan had a few sentences / paragraphs written for each one of them.

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I think the Aiel/Seanchan feud got settled with the revised agreement. Perrin probably does both at once because of gateways; it's actually not at all unusual for a king to be a lord in another country. Mat likely does eventually assist with the reconquest. From the column vision, the Dragon's Peace was pretty stable even without the addition of an enforcement mechanism, so if the pact nations don't get drawn into an Aiel/Seanchan conflict it'll hold for more than two generations.

 

But, at the same time, not having all the answers is kind of the point. There are no beginnings or endings to the turning of the wheel of time; any arbitrarily selected time would leave more questions.

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I feel based off of Avi's viewings in the ter'angreal we can get a decent picture of how things work out in "RandLand" for a few generations. The Dragon's Peace holds for a little while, and is gearing up toward a new Age of Legends. Or the Era before one at least. We have new technologies popping off left and right (The Steamwagons, Aludra's Dragons, the "storing of lightning in jars", sounds like batteries to me). This will lead to an Industrial Revolution of sorts.

With the Seanchan and the Aiel, we see most of the Aiel will eventually be hunted down, to the last remnant of a remnant. I personally believe that remnant is what remained of the Shaido Aiel who first fled back across the Dragonwall to the Three Fold Land. They had the most time to spread out and hunker down.

And yes, there was talks of more Mat books and probably awesome generaling in Seanchan, but I don't think Sanderson will do it. We'll just have to believe that Mat out over there being a BAMF. Although I do want to know what Arthur Hawking had to say to Tuon...

And of course some of the biggest questions are one we'll never get to know. Who is Nakomi? How did Rand light the pipe at the end? How exactly did he change bodies?

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I'll start this post by saying that I think Brandon did a superhuman job with the cards he was dealt, in terms of finishing Wheel of Time. I'll also say how painful it feels to admit this, because of how much I loved the series.....

 

...having said that, I have to admit that in all honesty, I thought Memory of Light was a huge flop. The major issues for me were that it felt extremely rushed, and I have NO doubt that if Jordan had lived to write it himself, he would have broken it up into at least 2 or 3 more books, regardless of what he'd said beforehand. But I think Team Jordan knew that, with Brandon taking over, they really had to wrap things up in order to retain the fan base, who were clamoring for an ending. The other big dealbreaker for me was that, in an epic with character arcs spanning thousands of pages and tons of critical foreshadowing, you don't just pull out a new major supervillain at the very end. (Yes, I'm taking about Bao the Wyld, or Bao the This post has been reported for attempting to skirt the rules as I like to call him). I know people will say that it's the answer to the Demandred mystery that we were all preoccupied with, but that excuse doesn't hold water. I'm absolutely convinced that Jordan's original plan was to have Demandred be Taim, but when the fans figured it out way before he wanted them to, he decided to change things. We'll never know, I guess, but I just don't see how any other explanation fits. 

 

Oh, and I also was convinced that the Sealing of the Bore would require the One Power to be lost to humanity. If you think about it, all the implications of circular time, of Randland being our world in the past/future, of a time before/after the One Power, of the emergence of new technologies, of the Dark One's touch making saidin/saidar seem to fail....it was all leading somewhere. Not sure when Jordan changed his mind on that, if he was leaving himself options or what, but the ending just felt very anti-climactic.

 

Again, not knocking either Brandon or Jordan here; Brandon did a great job finishing the series, and Jordan, sadly, never had the chance to finish it the way he should have been able to. All I'm saying is that, when I think of the Wheel of Time, I still think of it as an unfinished work....which, perhaps, is somehow fitting.

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I think the Robert Jordan was able to finish the series as he wanted it. He had it already written. Most big scenes he already had planned and written. That and all the notes are what Brandon had to work off of. But the ending and major points would've all been the same, it just would've taken a tad longer to get there using Jordan time.

And I don't believe for a second RJ was planning on Taim being Demandred. It would have been too easy and obvious. We have tons of books of rumours and whispers of Shara. Just enough to let us know it's there. That was the best surprise for me in AMoL.

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But the ending and major points would've all been the same, it just would've taken a tad longer to get there using Jordan time.

 

As Mark Twain once said, "The difference between the almost-right word and the right word is like the difference between a lightning bug and lightning." I don't care how detailed the outlines Mr. Jordan left were, there was no way Memory of Light wouldn't have been infinitely better had either he or Sanderson had the opportunity to tell it over the number of books that it deserved.

 

As for Shara....sure, it's foreshadowed. Echoing my first point, maybe if it had been brought into the series in a less Deus-ex-machina sort of way, it wouldn't have felt like such a cop-out. And I don't think Taimandred was too obvious at all, it just seems that way to you because you've been aware of it as a possibility/theory for so long. 

Edited by 11thorderknight
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Personally, I think Demandred and Shara were introduced perfectly. Granted, I actually saw it coming, probably in part because I bought the guide, which has a section on Shara (that's rather uninformative, there's a conversation between some Forsaken that hits the hightlights) and thus noticed that there were rather a lot of channelers over there, and so paid rather a lot of attention when Sharan merchants began making minor appearances. By Towers of Midnight, we knew that the Sharans possessed a lot of channelers, had recently experienced a sudden vacancy at the supposed top via Forsaken kidnapping, and had made a rather major policy change regarding foreign trade. We also knew that Demandred had secured control over an area with substantial military forces, and everywhere else was either in chaos or their leadership was accounted for.

 

Yes, they did show up rather suddenly, but that rather fit. Demandred was the finest military mind of his Age; we've always known that. A sudden, overwhelming surprise attack on an engaged army using gateways is entirely appropriate. Likewise, Taim was frankly not competent enough to be Demandred.

 

I guess it comes down to how much you bought into Demandred's buildup. He hardly ever appeared and didn't do much, but for me that actually made him more intimidating. We kept getting told he was a military genius, yet we had no idea what he was doing. The other Forsaken were plotting, feuding, and getting into fights with Rand, while Demandred occasionally showed up at team meetings to remind us he existed. He was the Shadow's finest general, and his actions were a complete mystery. Whatever he was doing, it couldn't possibly be good. So I didn't see him as a new supervillian introduced at the last minute; he'd been ominously present in the background for six books and finally took to the field personally, revealing his secret master plan in grand form. Frankly, I would have been disappointed if he hadn't been so wildly effective.

 

However, I can see how you'd feel it was cheap if you did not have such a high opinion of Demandred; we certainly heard about his credentials a lot but his only prior onscreen battle was during the cleansing, where he demonstrated he was competent but didn't accomplish anything of particular note due to being badly outmatched by the linked circle.

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Indeed. The little we can gleam from River of Souls makes me think that his story would have been a nice contrast to Rand's given that the Sharans accepted him as their own saviour.

Also, I got the idea that he was somehow redeeming himself. That in the beginning he just wanted a country and an army and the sa'angreal, but after a while he started to actually care for his people.

Really, it could probably have filled a whole book by itself setting up a more personal confrontation.

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I don't really get the sentiment that AMoL was rushed. Fact is, the rest of the series is slow. It's my favorite series ever, so I say this with love: it's TOO slow. AMoL (and, to a certain extent, the other two Brandon books) picks the pace up to a normal clip, and people complain that it feels rushed.

 

Anyway, to speak to the original topic, I can't see Perrin willingly taking a crown, but he would also do anything for Faile. And there was that one viewing Min had of him, a broken crown...that has something to do with Saldea, though I can't recall what, if we were ever told.

 

I also can't see Mat leading a conquering army. It just wouldn't sit right with him. He might even get himself executed or assassinated for refusing, or he might run far and fast. Based on Aviendha's vision, Tuon seems to hold to the Dragon's peace anyway. There's some implication that she was assassinated, as I recall, which would be a shame.

 

The most tragic thing about that future (apart from the fate of the Aiel) is the enslavement of the female channelers and subsequent repression of the Asha'man, as well as the loss of knowledge of channeling. I guess the fourth age is supposed to be like our time, with myths of magic in the past and technology at the forefront of society. I don't have to like it, though.

 

I imagine Rand will find his way back to his wives eventually. Assuming he burned himself out resealing the Bore, he may even get Nynaeve to heal him. Sure he was initially relieved, but that's so unusual - it's rare enough for a channeler that has been severed to even survive for long, let alone be happy about it. He does have his mysterious reality-bending power, which may be enough...who can say?

 

Cadsuane would do well as Amyrlin, but she has so little time left. And Egwene's progressive reforms were exactly what the Aes Sedai needed, too. Sniff...Egwene...

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I could see Mat conquering Seanchan. Since it won't really be conquering, it will be him helping his wife retake the throne and empire that have been snatched away from her. 

 

Rand, however, probably won't need Healing - he did perform something similar to channeling. Whether it's a ta'veren trick, his old channeling, or something entirely new (which is what I felt the scene hinted at) is something we will, unfortunately, never find out...

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Remember, Avi did whatever she could do to prevent the column visions from happening, thus her discussion with Rand about leaving the Aiel with a role.  Making them the enforcement mechanism for the peace effectively killed off her vision.

 

About the only thing that I really want to see is how long it takes Min, Elayne, and Avi to drag him back somewhere.

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Come to think of it, it's possible that in the column vision, Tuon died during the Last Battle. Min did foresee the assassination attempt when visiting her command tent; if the negotiations had been shorter and thrown the timing of events off even slightly she might have missed it. It is fairly unlikely that the attempt would have succeeded without the warning, but not impossible.

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Come to think of it, it's possible that in the column vision, Tuon died during the Last Battle. Min did foresee the assassination attempt when visiting her command tent; if the negotiations had been shorter and thrown the timing of events off even slightly she might have missed it. It is fairly unlikely that the attempt would have succeeded without the warning, but not impossible.

 

They said that they regarded Tuon as a woman of honor, and I don't think any Aiel had enough interaction with her before (or even during) the last battle for that to develop.

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I believe Rand will definitely marry Avi. Or at least they hook up for a while. She still needs to have her 4 kids from him. And while Avi's work to prevent the bleak Aiel future, I believe it has a sort of inevitability to it. Unless Arthur Hawkings words with Tuon had some effect on her. But the Seanchan ruling absolutely for the next weave of ages fits in with my Saidar Taint theory (or at least I'll make it work into it, somehow).

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Well, it's definitely been kicked back a good bit. The war was sparked off by the Aiel being a warrior culture at peace with a grudge against a group that they barely had a ceasefire with. The Seanchan continued to hold the Dragon's Peace for another generation until the Aiel duped the other nations into joining. While they might just have wanted to avoid expanding the war, it shifted decisively in their favor once they started seizing channelers from the other nations, so it appears they were sincere in holding the peace. With a proper treaty and a job, the Aiel will be much more reluctant to go to war, and their enforcement role means the Seanchan have more reason to listen to their demands, so the release of the Wise Ones might be successfully negotiated. Also, with an enforcement mechanism in place, the Dragon's Peace might develop into a UN-style system and help mediate the dispute. If the flashpoint is removed, the war would probably be delayed at least two generations.

 

That said, nothing lasts forever, and there's no reason to believe that the Seanchan will be weaker. Inevitably, someone is going to start something, and the Raven Empire is going to finish it.

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The visions really depend on if you consider it The future or A future.  

 

Avi saw the reason for the war coming from the Aiel having no role.  That is why she demanded Rand give them some.  He originally intended to leave them free of the agreement, which is the reason they were fighting the Seachan in the first place.  Making them part of the non-aggression pact killed that root fairly adeptly.

 

We also have to remember that Elayne was not on the throne during the vision.  Either she abdicated to prevent her reign for going on for centuries or something happened to her.  I doubt that the AS would have allowed the first openly AS queen in centuries to just give up and move out of power.  Yes, Nyn is now a queen too, but she is more queen consort than ruling queen.

 

Also, has anyone ever considered that the remnant of a remnant idea might have been a hold over from the original Aiel ideals.  There is already an in-world group that closely follow what the Aiel originally stood for.  The hinting indicates there never have been all that many tinkers around, and they more appropriately fit the bill if the prophecy is as ancient as it is said to be.

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The column visions are obviously not the future anymore; in the visions the agreement did not include the Aiel in any manner. I expect they're a non-recursive prediction; they show what would have happened if Aviendha had not seen them. The visions may not have been guaranteed if she hadn't seen them, but do not appear to include themselves; Avi's children make no mention of any column visions.

 

The thing with the visions is that they're basically self-defeating. They simply include too much information. Most of the other sources of future knowledge are inescapable but also incredibly vague, saying what will happen but not how or when or why. The visions actually trace a clear line of cause-and-effect, and also include information about events under the viewer's direct control.

 

That said, some information can still be gained from them; presumably everything not altered by seeing the visions would remain true. Unfortunately, seeing the visions directly altered global politics, so the cascade effects are significant. Even worse, they altered the meeting, shifting the timing of events of the entire Last Battle and thus likely altering who specifically lived and died, so we can't even say the same people will necessarily be born next generation.

 

However, there's another set of "visions" you're overlooking: Rand and the Dark One both created two worlds each where they won, and Rand won in the manner his first alternate was based on. Now, these were specifically created by characters and 75% of them were blatantly false, but if Rand's worlds did not logically follow from his plans then the Dark One would have called him out on it. So it appears likely there will be a golden age of sorts for a good while, where the only large-scale violence is in Shara. At a guess, Tuon and Mat eventually put down the Seanchan civil war using the overwhelming strategic advantage of gateways and male channelers (either from the Domination Band replicas or because the damane system is disbanded and the Towers back them), or failing that the various factions eventually stop going for the throne and settle into some form of peace. The Sharans lost their old figureheads before the Last Battle, and then the channelers running the shadow government deployed under Demandred and were almost entirely exterminated, so things presumably went to pieces.

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I assumed he was using his Ta'vern nature and has gained enough control over its effects on the Pattern to perform blatant reality alteration, possibly as a result of directly manipulating the raw material of the Pattern in the Bore. Its effects certainly started intensifying back in The Gathering Storm; food in his vicinity rotted and light distorted when he was angry, and in Towers Of Midnight he blocked or reversed decay throughout entire cities. The Sea Folk food shipment was probably the most blatant. Food rotted into something extremely poisonous almost instantly, but when he came back all the unopened containers were miraculously fine. While that's technically only highly improbable, being able to cause something that unlikely and reality alteration are basically indistinguishable, because there's always a physically possible but highly unlikely event that could do what you want. 

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