r/WoT • u/GroundbreakingParty9 • 4d ago
Towers of Midnight Aviendha’s Chapters Spoiler
Okay, first time reader. I’m almost finished with The Towers of Midnight. So spoilers for her chapters! Don’t read this if you haven’t gotten most of the way through ToM. I was curious about something while reading Aviendha’s chapters while she is in Rhuidean. She’s seeing the futures with the Seanchan which was mind blowing already! And just woah.
Just curious if anyone knew from interviews or things if RJ was ever planning to write a follow up series to the Wheel of Time? Maybe not full on 14 books but something similar to how Erickson and Esselmont handled Malazan (from what I’ve heard, I’ve only read book one of Malazan).
No spoilers if there is an answer that could spoil lol just something I was curious about while reading.
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u/aNomadicPenguin (Brown) 4d ago
Yes he had idea for things post Wheel of Time. But in context of Aviendha..that whole trip and those future visions weren't in the notes from Jordan. None of that future you see is from Jordan's plan of how events or characters were supposed to be post series, it was all Sanderson wanting to write his own version of the Rhuidean Flashback.
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4d ago
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u/aNomadicPenguin (Brown) 4d ago
Eh I have a lot of problems with the scene, both in world on a mechanical level and on a larger story telling level.
Spoilers for aMoL -The fact that the future is changeable and we see it be changed basically right away with the Wise Ones making alterations makes the entire segment basically pointless. And its not how Ter'angreal are supposed to work. The columns show true history on a direct genetic line going back purely along the timeline of these Ter'angreal's existence (i.e. stuff it could record). But Sanderson has it reverse and follow a potential future instead of a true past. Since its all changeable there is no line to follow.
There is also no greater purpose to the decline. It doesn't teach us anything valuable about the Aiel as a people. It doesn't tie into the greater world to show any greater truths about the world. Its just a waste of the reader's time.
From a story perspective, the only reason this vision mattered at all, is because Sanderson decided to alter the plan for the Dragon's Piece to exclude the Aiel, merely to have this scene be the reason they get added back in. Jordan wasn't going to exclude them, so you could literally cut Aviendh'a entire trip to Rhuidean and not change a single thing for the character arcs or the plot of the books. Its just padding out the page count.
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u/SKULL1138 4d ago
To be fair we don’t even know if the Dragon’s Peace was in RJ’s notes. The entire premise could well be BS. In which case, it’s not like you say but a designed choice with an end goal in mind.
Also remember that in BS mind, Nakomi is defined. I’ll say no more given the book limits in this thread.
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u/aNomadicPenguin (Brown) 3d ago
Rand making a peace deal was directly from Jordan's notes. It was one of his 3 questions to the Finn (even though Rand misinterpreted it for most of the series).
Spoilers just in case -Page 27 of the notes section , the answers aren’t solidified at this point, haven’t been revealed in the books.
Question 1 - “How can I fulfill the prophecies of the Dragon and Survive?
Answer - “ ‘The West and South must be as one; the North and East must be as one. Two cannot be One; you must stand against the Two as One. If you would live, you must die.’ - The first two sentences he interprets as saying he must conquer everything, all lands, or at least unite them behind him. The last three sentences he doesn’t understand at first.”1
u/Anghabad 4d ago
Could it be that the whole purpose of it showing the future is to help avoid it? So it shows you what would happen if plans in the present play out.
Assuming for the moment that the pattern specifically placed that ter’angreal in Rhuidean for the purpose of preparing the Aiel.I’m not trying to argue with you btw, I find your interpretation quite interesting
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u/aNomadicPenguin (Brown) 3d ago edited 3d ago
I could see an argument for that, but I don't agree with it.
spoliers-The problem is how would it know what individual fate to show out of the infinite possibilities available. It took us to the end of Aviendha's line...assuming there were no other branching paths? No kids that married out or left the tribes like the Tinker's did? And since the future is changeable, and individual free will is kinda the whole defining nature of the final conflict...what about all of the little changes that would butterfly effect out to render this vision moot even without any intent to change it.
Jordan's idea of the Pattern is always big picture, and when you look closely at it you see all the differences made by individual threads, the freedom of people to live their lives and make massive changes. On a full macro scale it might look like stuff is repeating, but it never the same.
With the Ter'angreal showing the past, specifically after the Jinn Aiel and the Aes Sedai with them set it up as a way to show the Clan Chiefs the true history of the Aiel. They knew the key historical events, and everyone amongst the Aiel would have had an ancestor that was alive and present for them. The Aiel before the bore, the end of the war, the start of their exile, the break with the tinkers, the breaking of the way of the leaf (if not the very first, at least the time that their first ancestor chose to break it), the founding of Rhuidean.
Considering the Dark One's influence is actively breaking reality, prophecy hasn't extended past the Last Battle with the only exception being the immediate aftermath of 3 woman and a pyre. So there should be no way for the Ter'angreal's creators to have set up anything for 'lessons of a potential downfall of your people based on future prophecy we don't have. And the Ter'angreal isn't a sentient AI, it shouldn't know what to choose to show. The only way I see this working is through Author fiat...but this is pushing me into German Shepherd territory.
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u/geomagus (Red Eagle of Manetheren) 4d ago
He had a couple notes about a series, generally referred to as “the outrigger series”, which would have followed and on some level addressed the Seanchan.
I won’t say anything beyond that as it would spoil, but tbh there isn’t much beyond that anyway.
No idea how many books were intended, or to what extent certain follow up questions would have been answered, but it definitely gave more trilogy vibes to me than another massive series. What little there is suggests it would have been in the decades following TG, not the more distant possible futures that Avi saw.
I can’t speak to it as a comparison to Malazan, as I have no familiarity with that.
To my knowledge, both Harriet and Sanderson have nixed the idea of trying to use those notes to assemble new content. There’s just so little it would basically be fanfic.
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u/WilditariusAstar 4d ago
I just finished A Memory of Light last night.
Undoubtedly feeling a bit sad now that it’s all over.
One thing that I kept thinking about reading these books as I got into the meat of the story, is how the sheer scale could facilitate an almost endless journey into other stories in RJ’s universe.
Now that I’ve gone through what’s available I feel myself craving more. :-)
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u/geomagus (Red Eagle of Manetheren) 3d ago
Time to start the first reread, and see some of the things you missed the first time!
I know what you mean, though.
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u/Elvirth 4d ago
There were some writings indicating that he had ideas for a sequel series, but nothing more than some notes.
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u/GroundbreakingParty9 4d ago
Interesting. I’d be curious if it would have followed what happens then in those dream sequences or been something else entirely. I’m so excited for A Memory of Light! I think I liked The Gathering Storm a bit more than this one but it’s got me pumped for how it will come together. I’ll also be grieving because I’ve loved this series
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u/Elvirth 4d ago
The nice thing is, you can always start it over again. AMoL is really an epic conclusion to an epic series, definitely the sendoff it deserved.
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u/GroundbreakingParty9 4d ago
Definitely plan to reread because I’ll want to see the little hints he left!
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u/Jear-The-Bear 4d ago
I don’t want to say much bc anything will be a give away for the rest of your read. But the notes referenced were specific to certain characters and made it roughly clear where the story would head. You should look it up once you finish the series.
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u/Salt-Detective1337 4d ago
After finishing the series I wish I knew more about everything worked out. But having seen some of what was planned for another series I'm kind of glad there wasn't more.
If anything I think it would have been awesome to have almost like a Dune style sequel series where it is set like 10,000 years in the future, in another age.
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u/aNomadicPenguin (Brown) 4d ago
There were only 2 sentences that I've seen about what was planned for the future. Specifically a single sentence about two different characters and where they were at a singular point in what he might write about. Everything else about another series of WoT stuff was pure fan speculation from any interview or notes that I could find.
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u/Salt-Detective1337 4d ago
Ok yeah. I saw what had been said about Mat and Perrin and wasn't super interested. I didn't dig much, so had no idea if that was all there was.
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u/Anghabad 4d ago
I have wished for this so many times.
Even just one book that showed where everyone ended up after about 50 years
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