A Memory of Light [FULL SPOILER DISCUSSION] Part 2

[Gertrude]

Do full spoilers mean full spoilers for everything or just A Memory of Light? Just to be safe I'll use spoiler tags.

For those who don't know, River of Souls is about

Demandred.

It's good to know there was more to him. I found the Sharrans and their motivation to be very opaque and not satisfying. Hopefully these notes would have filled that out a bit.

See, I can handle the explanation that there never was a Song and they had just misinterpreted what the Song was rather than the idea that they never meant an actual song and were talking about finding a philosophy. They already have a philosophy and are bound and determined to stick by it even when being brutally murdered, so the idea that they're purposely looking for a new philosophy is just, well, not a good idea.

I don't mind it. I kind of equated it to Christianity in the way they live their lives according to their beliefs in hopes that they will be rewarded with Paradise. The Song represents an idyllic existence (Heaven), and to be worthy of it, they follow the Way of the Leaf (Christ's teachings). It's probably not a good example, but I'm fine with it.

Personally, I don't understand why Rand didn't try to teach Singing to somebody - Aiel, Tinkers, whoever, given that they are staring at a massive famine which is going to kill a lot of people even in such a breadbasket as Tear, per Min's viewing!

Nym were living ter'angreal, so if Rand bothered to explain to somebody how they worked, the channelers might have figured out how to substitute for them, too.

I think he was pretty busy before the Last Battle. I am assuming that sometime in the course of his travels he will bring back as much as he can. I see him becoming a mysterious traveler and adventurer, something along the lines of Jain Farstrider (but with emphasis on wisdom and helping people rather than exciting adventures).

PS - Demandred => Shara. :P

But were you satisfied with this? I admit defeat, I was wrong on Demandred being in Sharra, but I stand by my opinion that it would be sort of an ass-pull at this point. I think it was, mainly because of execution. Why were they even fighting for Demandred? I'd love to know just a bit more about their prophecy and motivations. And giving Demandred a love interest was just ... bad. Mainly the execution, I admit. Why even introduce it? It had no bearing on anything.

[Gertrude]

Was he dead and brought back to life by Rand do you think? Or did Rand bend the pattern to allow him life? Lans hugely symbolic to the gathered armies, far more so then i would say any other character, even its HC Elayne

I don't think Rand was aware of anything happening outside his struggle, so Lan is just that badass.

[trickster]

I don't think Rand was aware of anything happening outside his struggle, so Lan is just that badass.

Rand was aware of what was going on in the battlefield.

[BLU-RAY]

Yeah, I got the distinct impression that Rand was resurrecting Lan.

[Balefont]

Finished it this morning. I felt the losses of some of my most favorite characters but the loss I feel by this book being the end of a most epic series is greater.

[Gertrude]

Rand was aware of what was going on in the battlefield.

Ah, ok, I missed that.

Blu-ray, what gave you that impression? I didn't get that feel at all.

[Shryke]

I keep seeing that said, but I can't see any support for it.

I mean, Rand looks down at Lan and Demandred after the fight, but there's nothing at all that says he actually does anything. In fact, the text says the opposite. It says he looks down and then he says "You have not been watching closely enough. About one thing, you are wrong." He says "That man still fights." Everything in the book indicates he sees Lan still alive and tells the DO about it, not that he actually saves him in any way.

And that's to be expected, since him actually ressurecting Lan would run counter to the entire purpose and theme of that part of the book. It's about how, as Rand says literally the page before "YOU CAN NOT WIN UNLESS WE GIVE UP." And so there is Lan, the man who will not give up. To have Rand actually fix him here robs the scene of all it's weight.

[Shryke]

But were you satisfied with this? I admit defeat, I was wrong on Demandred being in Sharra, but I stand by my opinion that it would be sort of an ass-pull at this point. I think it was, mainly because of execution. Why were they even fighting for Demandred? I'd love to know just a bit more about their prophecy and motivations. And giving Demandred a love interest was just ... bad. Mainly the execution, I admit. Why even introduce it? It had no bearing on anything.

I was totally satisfied with it. It works perfectly with what we know from the text. To call it an ass-pull to me says that a story can never surprise us after a certain point. It's certainly unexpected, but it's completely consistent with everything we know and, frankly, was always the most likely option. And there's nothing wrong with the unexpected.

It reminds me of the unexpected twist in ADWD. That one is even more unexpected then this. No one, I think, saw that coming, but it makes sense and it works.

The love interest thing was to give a bit of flavour and texture to what had to be, do to it's late edition, an underdeveloped part of the plot.

[Gertrude]

OK, ass-pull is the wrong thing to call it. I just don't like it - it's probably in the execution. A lot about the execution in the later books (not just the Sanderson ones) underwhelmed me. I just keep thinking that this is a great story with great characters that falls flat time and time again. I probably can't be objective about this.

I am blanking on what ADWD moment you are talking about.

[Brendan Moody]

No one saw the twist in ADWD coming... but in hindsight you can see how everything has been leading up to it. There's even a big pointer in that direction at the end of the character's first chapter. That's great foreshadowing: when it's obvious that something has been in place all along, but you don't see the clues until afterward. It's early days yet, but I don't see people finding any meaningful new clues about Shara now that they know the details, just saying things like "well, it was the only place left." That was always Jordan's problem: he foreshadowed some things so relentlessly that everyone had guessed them years in advance, and others so lightly that they strike many readers as arbitrary.

The only reason I don't think it's completely out of the blue is that it makes a certain thematic sense for Demandred, the guy who always felt slighted by the Dragon, to set himself up as an equal and opposite messiah in a different land. If Jordan or Sanderson had used the earlier Demandred POVs to play that angle in a subtle way, the revelation might have worked better, and felt less like an obligatory last-minute reversal.

[BLU-RAY]

ADWD spoiler:

Connington/Aegon, presumably

On Lan/Rand, it just seemed like the wound he took from Demandred should have killed him. As far as the will of men to resist, that's sort of the purpose of the Dragon- to re-invigorate the will of mankind against the Dark One; by resurrecting Lan and showing him as the conqueror of the Dark One's general (the raising of Demandred's head gave me chills), he reignites the fight of the forces arrayed against the Shadow.

For what it's worth, I don't really think that Rand resurrected him anymore, though I'm not 100% either way- but that was absolutely the feel and impression I got while reading.

Concerning a resurrection robbing the scene of its weight- well, that may be a personal preference thing, but I disagree; Rand saying "you think you have broken their will, you think you have destroyed this man- no." is plenty powerful and momentous in my eyes, while Lan just sort of getting up in the same spot and having it be a blow to the Dark One in and of itself would have been sort of implying that the DO thought Lan was dead (kind of a weird spot to make the Lord of the Grave not-omniscient about death) and was just wrong. I was also convinced he was dead as the correctly-weighted consequence of Sheathing the Sword, and having it be just a flesh wound (in the Monty Python sense) kind of robs that action of its gravity - recall the only other time we see a character explicitly choose to Sheathe the Sword (Ingmar) he distinctly equates it with his death. So for me, the resurrection fit better - Lan should have died from Sheathing the Sword, but Rand uses him as a symbol of hope for the rest of the forces of the Light.

[Shryke]

ADWD spoiler:

Connington/Aegon, presumably

On Lan/Rand, it just seemed like the wound he took from Demandred should have killed him. As far as the will of men to resist, that's sort of the purpose of the Dragon- to re-invigorate the will of mankind against the Dark One; by resurrecting Lan and showing him as the conqueror of the Dark One's general (the raising of Demandred's head gave me chills), he reignites the fight of the forces arrayed against the Shadow.

For what it's worth, I don't really think that Rand resurrected him anymore, though I'm not 100% either way- but that was absolutely the feel and impression I got while reading.

He is a warder. Those bitches take ALOT to die.

[Gertrude]

Oh, that. That was believable and actually highly predicted, minus exact details. I pretty much agree with everything Brendan Moody said above me.

[Shryke]

No one saw the twist in ADWD coming... but in hindsight you can see how everything has been leading up to it. There's even a big pointer in that direction at the end of the character's first chapter. That's great foreshadowing: when it's obvious that something has been in place all along, but you don't see the clues until afterward. It's early days yet, but I don't see people finding any meaningful new clues about Shara now that they know the details, just saying things like "well, it was the only place left." That was always Jordan's problem: he foreshadowed some things so relentlessly that everyone had guessed them years in advance, and others so lightly that they strike many readers as arbitrary.

The only reason I don't think it's completely out of the blue is that it makes a certain thematic sense for Demandred, the guy who always felt slighted by the Dragon, to set himself up as an equal and opposite messiah in a different land. If Jordan or Sanderson had used the earlier Demandred POVs to play that angle in a subtle way, the revelation might have worked better, and felt less like an obligatory last-minute reversal.

It's sort of a process of elimination, but we know he was building a large military power-centre somewhere and it had to be somewhere big to assuage his ego. Once Seanchan is out, there's few places left we wouldn't have already seen it.

There is, I think, alot of foreshadowing that Demandred is coming and it's going to be nasty. That it's Shara is not really hinted at (although like most things in WOT, it can be inferred) but it's completely plausible once it happens. I think plausible, sensible and unexpected makes for a good last minute twist.

We do get POVs from the forsaken before then that play up that angle alot. That's the biggest reason I thought the Roederan theory was crap: Demandred would never be anything less then LTT. Whatever he was up to, it had to be big enough to assuage his ego. I really really liked how he played out in the book. Dangerous as hell and completely in character with what we know of him. He worked as an antagonist imo.

[BLU-RAY]

He is a warder. Those bitches take ALOT to die.

Eh, true. See the above edit about Sheathing the Sword and the implications that connoted for me, at least, though.

On Demandred- I was pretty well OK with him coming out of Shara except for one thing- lack of backstory. Not because it seemed like a Satan-ex-machina, but basically, my favorite thing about the WoT is the backstory- the history, the metaphysics and magic system, the secrets of the world, etc. And so I was bummed to not know more about the Sharan prophecies, and the significance of the name Bao the Wyld, and what other secrets Shara might have held; did the Forsaken know something about the land that became Shara from the AoL? Etc.

[Brendan Moody]

I think good last-minute twists are described in language rather more excited than "plausible," "sensible," and "process of elimination." A good twist makes you think you've figured out what's plausible, and then shows you how laughably wrong you were. Key narrative developments can be plausible within a fictional universe and yet dramatically arbitrary.

The other thing that's frustrating about Demandred-in-Shara-- and this in particular comes down to Sanderson's execution of it-- is that the Demandred POVs in Jordan's books suggested a canny, subtle operator, the only male Forsaken post-TFOH who really deserved his title. Arrogant, yes, but not blinded by his arrogance. That he turns out to be bringing in a massive army whose only impressive feature is its size, that he then stomps around like the final boss of a cheesy video game... that jars against what had come before, and just isn't interesting. Possibly "River of Souls" will address this issue, but I have my doubts.

[Shryke]

ADWD spoiler:

Connington/Aegon, presumably

On Lan/Rand, it just seemed like the wound he took from Demandred should have killed him. As far as the will of men to resist, that's sort of the purpose of the Dragon- to re-invigorate the will of mankind against the Dark One; by resurrecting Lan and showing him as the conqueror of the Dark One's general (the raising of Demandred's head gave me chills), he reignites the fight of the forces arrayed against the Shadow.

For what it's worth, I don't really think that Rand resurrected him anymore, though I'm not 100% either way- but that was absolutely the feel and impression I got while reading.

Concerning a resurrection robbing the scene of its weight- well, that may be a personal preference thing, but I disagree; Rand saying "you think you have broken their will, you think you have destroyed this man- no." is plenty powerful and momentous in my eyes, while Lan just sort of getting up in the same spot and having it be a blow to the Dark One in and of itself would have been sort of implying that the DO thought Lan was dead (kind of a weird spot to make the Lord of the Grave not-omniscient about death) and was just wrong. I was also convinced he was dead as the correctly-weighted consequence of Sheathing the Sword, and having it be just a flesh wound (in the Monty Python sense) kind of robs that action of its gravity - recall the only other time we see a character explicitly choose to Sheathe the Sword (Ingmar) he distinctly equates it with his death. So for me, the resurrection fit better - Lan should have died from Sheathing the Sword, but Rand uses him as a symbol of hope for the rest of the forces of the Light.

He's a symbol of hope to Rand as well though. That's the problem with the whole idea. He's a symbol Rand sees, not a symbol he makes.

To have Rand resurrect him robs the character of that indominable will that Lan represents in the story at that point.

[Shryke]

I think good last-minute twists are described in language rather more excited than "plausible," "sensible," and "process of elimination." A good twist makes you think you've figured out what's plausible, and then shows you how laughably wrong you were. Key narrative developments can be plausible within a fictional universe and yet dramatically arbitrary.

No, a good twist or surprise is an event you never saw coming, but one that makes perfect sense once it happens. "Plausible" is probably the most important word for describing a twist or surprise, since if they aren't plausible, they tend to deflate the tension rather then add to it. If a twist/surprise isn't plausible, it breaks the rules the story establishes and then you have no stakes.

For the dramatics, I think it's not arbitrary at all (that is, after all, why many predicted it in advance) and serves to raise the stakes for the final confrontation.

The other thing that's frustrating about Demandred-in-Shara-- and this in particular comes down to Sanderson's execution of it-- is that the Demandred POVs in Jordan's books suggested a canny, subtle operator, the only male Forsaken post-TFOH who really deserved his title. Arrogant, yes, but not blinded by his arrogance. That he turns out to be bringing in a massive army whose only impressive feature is its size, that he then stomps around like the final boss of a cheesy video game... that jars against what had come before, and just isn't interesting. Possibly "River of Souls" will address this issue, but I have my doubts.

Demandred is canny and intelligent and very very good at what he does. But his most defining trait, the thing that made him a Forsaken, is his pride. His need to one-up LTT. This is really the one thing we see that makes him insane with anger in his previous apprearences.

He is also, above all else, a general. Him appearing with a massive army is exactly what you'd expect. He then demands that Rand face him because to him, this is in most ways personal. Rand must come and face him and die at his hands because all this is to show that he is the greater man.

[BLU-RAY]

I don't really agree with the second line- putting his sword in fucking Demandred is all the expression of his will you need. Resurrection would simply be Rand restoring that will to the forces of the Light. His being a symbol to Rand, as opposed to a symbol for Rand is a fair interpretation, though.

As mentioned, I'm not 100% sure on whether he was resurrected or not, but I lean towards "no". I think you can definitely read it either way, though. And I kind of prefer the reading where he's resurrected, but that might just be because that's where my mind went first.

[Shryke]

I don't really agree with the second line- putting his sword in fucking Demandred is all the expression of his will you need. Resurrection would simply be Rand restoring that will to the forces of the Light. His being a symbol to Rand, as opposed to a symbol for Rand is a fair interpretation, though.

It may be all the expression of will you need, but it is not the expression of will Rand is talking about when the "Lan's not dead" scene occurs.

As mentioned, I'm not 100% sure on whether he was resurrected or not, but I lean towards "no". I think you can definitely read it either way, though. And I kind of prefer the reading where he's resurrected, but that might just be because that's where my mind went first.

I don't think you can read it either way at all is the thing. There's nothing in there to indicate Rand does anything. It's why I found the interpretation so strange.