Well, I should have made it clearer I did not really have you in mind, nor even only people in this thread, or recently.

I just remember stuff like people going ballistic over comments by Brandon about Cyndane's strength and so on.

And yes, I do hate what Brandon and Harriet did with the book split.

That's the book, not Q&A. Brandon even admitted it was all a mistake, after a fashion, and his explanation for why that happened is very much what I thought happened. It was a rushed decision, they were under pressure and they made the bad one.




He's given us many very interesting things, actually. Not much in this one for sure, and often not much in any one Q&A. Certainly not in Q&A with Luckers. Luckers tries to be too clever and ends up with boring answers nearly all the time.

Brandon's understanding of RJ's world is far greater than some comments here make appear. One trick is to make him talk about concepts - his grasp of the concepts is really good, and he often goes into things RJ would not have discussed so openly.



He won't give much about the OP (if people tried sticking to concepts he might though...), he's all too aware that people here are unforgiving when he tries to answer without being sure (I mean specifically here, someone from elsewhere made fun of rafo people's obsession with OP ranking in a Q&A - Wotmania/RAFO is famous/infamous all around for that and for the never ending Egwene lover/hater debates - and Brandon said he knew all too well about that OP ranking obsession at rafo). Anyway, that time he said he couldn't answer questions about the Forsaken strength (this time it was trying to get it to confirm if Aginor was stronger than Demandred), that the notes were very precise about that and their skills etc. and that some of the male Forsaken are far closer in strength then many assume, just a few points between some of them on RJ's scale he said, and he can't possibly rank them or answer such question without having the file open in front of him or he's certain to make a mistake. He added there was a lot more talents, skills, factors that made the DO choose those thirteen above the other Forsaken than merely their strength.



Well, he often threw at us a few interesting bits, like recently confirming that the stone on which Taim gave his speeches, and the black columns of his palace are from SG (it's inferred all the black stone at the BT are from SG).

It's been confirmed that the one manipulating Masema was a woman.

When asked how many Forsaken remained, he answered there's really no hidden surprise there.

He all but confirmed that Demandred doesn't use an alter ego or has not for most of the series. In fact, he pointed out how irrelevant that would be if he had one early on since it's someone that never appeared in the series before TOM and that whenever he answers about Demandred's "identity" we have to understand he means his plans, where he hides, what he's achieved, not necessarily his alter ego. He says the clues are there but it would be incredibly more difficult to puzzle it out than spotting the clues that Graendal killed Asmodean.

It's also been confirmed that Graendal was the one using Jain Farstrider in Ebou Dar, that he was the sad old man in her palace.

Egwene has about the same screentime in AMOL as the three ta'veren.

He teased us we might understand better the nature of LTT in Rand's mind because Rand had a lot of POVs in the next book.

Tidbits all, but it's fun stuff I'm glad to get when we get them. Even if there's a lot of dross too.




Well I was wrong, Brandon said he's pushing for Harriet to include stuff like that. It's not a fleshed out BWB, Brandon said it's something a lot more comprehensive than that Harriet has in mind, and that it will make good use of RJ's notes.

I'm more eager to get that than AMOL, to be honest. I'll be glad to know the end of the story, and I'm sure there will be tons of great moments, but TGS in part, and TOM mostly have really killed my excitement for the ending. It's not very fun books to read for me because it's a great story but not told all that well (especially it's a structural problem that undermines them), or to wait for eagerly. I was happy to see Harriet seems to agree at last it shouldn't be rushed and asked for as much editing time as possible - which she should have seen and done for TGS really - they would never have split TGS/TOM as they did had she left time to Brandon to finish the four storylines before dividing the books.... Perhaps the last one they'll get really right, the odds are better now they can't ruin the structure RJ had in mind extensively anymore, but if so it will be a pleasant surprise.


I'd rather re read COT three times in row (OK, maybe just twice and not in a row) than having to re read the whole of TOM again. If I ever do it will be in many years, once I've forgotten how one could make such a messy terrible book out of all those good and great scenes.





Oh yeah, 1 or 2 books a week normally, not necessarily fiction.

Haven't touched a WOT book since TGS came out indeed. Not sure I'll do a full re read again. It's not planned at this point, anyway.