Nitrousoxide posted:

There need to be humans in each age for legends and myth to survive an entire turning of the wheel though. You can't have an age of dinosaurs with no humans because that breaks the ability for those legends to make it all the way around the wheel.

every Wheel of Time intro posted:

“The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.”

Barreft posted:

Wait what?

quote:

Now that it has been revealed that Taimandred killed Asmodean, and the Encyclopedia is out, I no longer feel bound to keep any secrets from the notes. And there are a ton of interesting details. I want to share them all but the problem is that I'm bound by copyright laws for this stuff so I have to summarize a lot of stuff and only quote when RJ's exact wording is crucial.

I'll start with the file that everyone's already seen the first page of, and the beggar/hot iron viewings I mentioned last year when I was going through the notes. The file is called "Notes On Books Two Through Six" and it's found in Box 4 Folder 2 at Addlestone.

After the introduction seen on page one (plus a little more along the same lines), RJ goes through a list of numbered plot points which he calls a "List of Incidents". I will summarize these here, and I will use quotes when I copy the exact words RJ used. My comments inside quotes are in square brackets; when RJ uses them, I change them to parentheses.

RJ outlines the beginning of the story which is completely different from what he eventually used. He saved his "shipwrecked" idea for his next planned series, Infinity of Heaven.

1. Rand was going to be shipwrecked "on the coast of a Blight". Note the singular: at this point in his planning, there were several Blights scattered across the land. This Blight surrounded a land that was totally isolated from the outside world. He used this idea later for pre-Luthair Seanchan: the Aes Sedai were the rulers of the city-states in this land.

Rand falls in love with one of the rulers' daughters, who is "a general in her own right". He realizes at some point in this arc that he is the Dragon Reborn. While in that land, he ends up fighting the Dark One again, and he exposes himself as a channeler, so he has to flee all the Aes Sedai, though his girl follows him and her army helps him take the Stone of Stair. (Stair became Tear, in case it wasn't obvious.)

2. RJ is vague here: "Time with the Sea Folk." He then goes on to describe what the Sea Folk are like. It's clear that, at this point, he hadn't put much thought into them at all. It also seems that he intended them to play a more important role than they did.

3. Rand's first ally after he declares himself the Dragon is Morgase, with whom he has a brief affair. This causes Galad (her son) to go over to the Shadow. Rand has some difficulties with Morgase that are reminiscent of the Daes Dae'mar issues he has later on in Tear and Cairhien. Morgase is not Elayne's mother (see below).

4. Stone of Stair is described, and the as-yet-unnamed Callandor. At this point, the prophecy "says that the Dragon will bring women bearing swords to take the fortress, and that he will remove the sword. Some think this means the Maidens of the Spear, but only a handful any longer give credence to this for a Blight separates stair from the Barrens [Aiel Waste], and few humans will willingly enter a Blight."

5. Describes an early invasion of Trollocs from the northern Blight, and how Rand gets blamed for the aftermath. This seems reminiscent of the Shadowspawn invasion during Hawkwing's time.

6. Rand is going to "heal" the male half of the Power, about which many people will not be thrilled.

7. Full quote here: "After his disastrous attempt to destroy Sha'tan, Rand is taken prisoner by the Queen of the land where he was raised, Elyn's mother. The queen wants to kill him, but Elyn manages to get the sentence commuted. As a price for this, though, Elyn is forced to pronounce the alternate sentence. Rand is blinded by hot irons and turned loose to wander as a beggar. This is the lowest point for him, when he feels that everyone, even Elyn, has abandoned him. (NOTE: he will regain his sight later.)"

8. "A sojourn with the Aiel." RJ goes on to describe the Aiel in great detail, mostly details that are already known: appearance, hardiness and endurance, role of clans and warrior societies, Maidens, their identity as People of the Dragon (which is used pejoratively by outsiders), their 2nd Age history (serving "Jeran Telamon" rather than the Aes Sedai generally). All of this is thought out in recognizable detail, even the columns ter'angreal (which was described here as a "circle of stones"), but one significant bit is different: "They call themselves the Thirteen Clans, but only twelve clans are known to outsiders." Also, RJ originally thought that the clan chiefs would be somehow Compelled to stay silent about what they saw in the ter'angreal, but that Rand would somehow find a way to break that Compulsion. Finally, Tigraine was originally "Morgase's sister who, refusing an unwanted marriage to Maric, fled into the Barrens."

9. Returning from the Barrens (Waste) Rand finds that he has more supporters now, mostly common people, but some Aes Sedai too. He goes off to defeat the Dark One.

10. "At the very end Rand will engineer his own disappearance, accompanied by some of his friends. He will leave behind another legend: that the Dragon sleeps, awaiting mankind's hour of need to rise once more."

RJ closes the file with a few paragraphs on how he intends to weave Arthur, Thor, and many other myths into a story that could conceivably be the original of all those myths, and how many of the myths in the story would obviously be distorted stories of events in the real world. Closing paragraph:

"The main thrust of the story will not be how fact becomes legend, however. Rather it will explore the nature of good and evil, of free will and the duty owed by the individual to humanity as a whole, of why and how mankind makes the choice to oppose evil, and the harm that can be done in the name of good."

Zore posted:

Yeah, Dragonmount alone would be a completely out of context problem. Mountains do not naturally form solo with hundreds of miles of relatively flat plains surrounding them.

quote:

The Sutter Buttes (Maidu: Histum Yani or Esto Yamani, Wintun: Olonai-Tol, Nisenan: Estom Yanim) are a small circular complex of eroded volcanic lava domes which rise as buttes above the flat plains of the Sacramento Valley in Sutter County, Northern California. They are situated just outside Yuba City in the northern part of the state's Central Valley.

Referred to as the world's smallest mountain range,[2] the Sutter Buttes has as its highest point the summit of South Butte, at 2,122 ft (647 m), which is also the highest point in Sutter County.[3]

Nitrousoxide posted:

There need to be humans in each age for legends and myth to survive an entire turning of the wheel though. You can't have an age of dinosaurs with no humans because that breaks the ability for those legends to make it all the way around the wheel.

CainsDescendant posted:

Does it, though?

Zore posted:

I mean technically no legend or myth survives to the age that birthed it

7th age is a 300 million year period after all life is wiped out from Earth and re-evolves.

CainsDescendant posted:

Does it, though?

Barreft posted:

Keep in mind almost all of Egwene is Jordan.

exmarx posted:

i'm just at the prologue, it sucks rear end. somehow manages to be simplistic and bloated at the same time.

Nitrousoxide posted:

There need to be humans in each age for legends and myth to survive an entire turning of the wheel though. You can't have an age of dinosaurs with no humans because that breaks the ability for those legends to make it all the way around the wheel.

CainsDescendant posted:

Nitrousoxide posted:

There need to be humans in each age for legends and myth to survive an entire turning of the wheel though. You can't have an age of dinosaurs with no humans because that breaks the ability for those legends to make it all the way around the wheel.

CainsDescendant posted:

Does it, though?

exmarx posted:

i'm just at the prologue, it sucks rear end. somehow manages to be simplistic and bloated at the same time.

Hollismason posted:

I've decided I'm going to reread The Black Company series since I bought a book that's a collection of the first 3 books.

Barreft posted:

The random blacksmith guy at first is full Jordan.

exmarx posted:

that's wild, it def needed an edit.

exmarx posted:

that's wild, it def needed an edit.

Jaxyon posted:

Hexel posted:

Everybody read Malazan

Barreft posted:

No, because the Heroes are in TAR at all times. Knowledge never gets lost, we just don't know how it's passed. Probably not at all since even the Age of Legends people had no idea about the Horn or other things.

Probably just a groups of humans survived and like the real world grew from the Dinos. Iunno

CainFortea posted:

Where does the Horn come from anyway? Did they ever use it in the War of Power?

CainFortea posted:

Where does the Horn come from anyway? Did they ever use it in the War of Power?

Hexel posted:

Everybody read Malazan

Devorum posted:

Do not do this. It's boring, up its own rear end, and every book is at least 300 pages too long as the author loves to spend a lot of time discussing poo poo that will not matter, or be seen again, until six books later.

Read The Black Company, instead. It's got all the good ideas Erickson pilfered without the boring nonsense. Hell, play Myth and Myth 2 instead. Just don't waste time on Malazan.

Nitrousoxide posted:

Are darkfriends even going to be a thing in the 4th age? The Dark One is cut off from the world again and can't promise anything new or deliver on any previous promises anymore. You might still have existing darkfriends trying to somehow free him again, maybe, but there's nothing to entice new ones and they'd all but die off in a generation.

What would even a reformed Whitecloak org even do in the 4th age other than find "darkfriends" where none exist to continue to justify their existance.

Devorum posted:

Do not do this. It's boring, up its own rear end, and every book is at least 300 pages too long as the author loves to spend a lot of time discussing poo poo that will not matter, or be seen again, until six books later.

Read The Black Company, instead. It's got all the good ideas Erickson pilfered without the boring nonsense. Hell, play Myth and Myth 2 instead. Just don't waste time on Malazan.

Devorum posted:

Hell, play Myth and Myth 2 instead. Just don't waste time on Malazan.

jetz0r posted:

The timeline I think about from our world is how we remember the tale of Sodom destroyed by god's wrath compared to finding a bronze age city that was destroyed by a meteor air burst 3600 years ago. There's at least 2 ages (ours and AoL) that do scientific exploration and archeology, so there has to be enough time and disruption between those that we're not finding AoL cities under 2ft of dirt. That timeline of ages lasting 1700 or 300 years is just too short, roughly 3000+ years per an age makes way more sense in keeping them distinct and far enough apart to forget everything, even when we're looking for the past.

Edit: with probably one long primitive age after humans really gently caress things up more than usual.

Mayor Dave posted:

Say, for example, an ice age caused by the one power that reduced human population to a few thousand and radically reshaped the landscape?