They are a no go... - Edit 1
Before modification by DomA at 02/02/2013 10:34:41 PM
... but Jordan planned AMOL thinking he would write them, and probably didn't alter his notes/decisions for the ending much when he realized he wouldn't recover and would never write them.
Did he hold off on some Seanchan resolution that he originally planned to bring further than this a bit in the main series, keeping that for the outriggers? Possibly. It's hard to tell because a lot of what can be seen as "set up" was in KOD, and that's when RJ got the idea of the outriggers. He might well have included new stuff in case he wanted to write the outriggers.
Not Min, her final fate was heavily foreshadowed in the series, even as far back as TGH. We just missed it.
He also had plans to include Perrin.
Moghedien I'm not so sure. Her final fate in AMOL looks far less like a set up than like RJ's typical "ironic punishments".
Will Tuon keep a forsaken alive? Maybe she'll be tempted, maybe she'll remember Anath.
Moghedien's fate is most, most incertain. Damane are stripped of all their possessions. She's lost her mindtrap as soon as she reached Ebou Dar, for sure. Marath'damane possessions are destroyed, Egwene's stuff was all burned in TGH. No one alive knows what the mindtrap is. We don't know how fragile it is. It could easily get broken by accident, or carelessness, or get destroyed with the rest of Moghedien's possession... or she might be forced to reveal what it is and who she is as her last resort to save her life...
There's a great number of ways Moghedien might not have survived until the outriggers, set 5 to 10 years after TG. She made a good red herring "villain" for the outriggers. RJ might have surprised us by revealing as they opened that Moghedien is dead, without depriving himself of her original "ironic fate" in the main series.
Keeping Moghedien alive was certainly a possibility (Liandrin is not freed of her shield, and the only one who can recognize Moghedien unless Elayne or Nynaeve show up), but somehow I doubt RJ intended Moghedien to be the outriggers's "sub Dark One" as the big villain. I'm not quite sure he meant them to be a Mat vs. Evil story. I prefer to think he had a more original idea in mind for the "dark power" that arose in Seanchan. IMO, and that's just speculation, RJ's main idea rested on "how do someone everybody believes a big time Hero and military genius, oblivious to the fact his luck was "supernatural" and due to his ta'veren nature copes when he's no longer ta'veren but his Empress of a wife, who never believed in all that, gambles the reconquest of a whole continent on his genius and skills." He thought the idea of a Mat who was no longer ta'veren and unnaturally lucky was a new vein to explore. Whether he meant to play on remnants of the Shadow too or avoid that to go elsewhere, we might never know.
Did he hold off on some Seanchan resolution that he originally planned to bring further than this a bit in the main series, keeping that for the outriggers? Possibly. It's hard to tell because a lot of what can be seen as "set up" was in KOD, and that's when RJ got the idea of the outriggers. He might well have included new stuff in case he wanted to write the outriggers.
Not Min, her final fate was heavily foreshadowed in the series, even as far back as TGH. We just missed it.
He also had plans to include Perrin.
Moghedien I'm not so sure. Her final fate in AMOL looks far less like a set up than like RJ's typical "ironic punishments".
Will Tuon keep a forsaken alive? Maybe she'll be tempted, maybe she'll remember Anath.
Moghedien's fate is most, most incertain. Damane are stripped of all their possessions. She's lost her mindtrap as soon as she reached Ebou Dar, for sure. Marath'damane possessions are destroyed, Egwene's stuff was all burned in TGH. No one alive knows what the mindtrap is. We don't know how fragile it is. It could easily get broken by accident, or carelessness, or get destroyed with the rest of Moghedien's possession... or she might be forced to reveal what it is and who she is as her last resort to save her life...
There's a great number of ways Moghedien might not have survived until the outriggers, set 5 to 10 years after TG. She made a good red herring "villain" for the outriggers. RJ might have surprised us by revealing as they opened that Moghedien is dead, without depriving himself of her original "ironic fate" in the main series.
Keeping Moghedien alive was certainly a possibility (Liandrin is not freed of her shield, and the only one who can recognize Moghedien unless Elayne or Nynaeve show up), but somehow I doubt RJ intended Moghedien to be the outriggers's "sub Dark One" as the big villain. I'm not quite sure he meant them to be a Mat vs. Evil story. I prefer to think he had a more original idea in mind for the "dark power" that arose in Seanchan. IMO, and that's just speculation, RJ's main idea rested on "how do someone everybody believes a big time Hero and military genius, oblivious to the fact his luck was "supernatural" and due to his ta'veren nature copes when he's no longer ta'veren but his Empress of a wife, who never believed in all that, gambles the reconquest of a whole continent on his genius and skills." He thought the idea of a Mat who was no longer ta'veren and unnaturally lucky was a new vein to explore. Whether he meant to play on remnants of the Shadow too or avoid that to go elsewhere, we might never know.