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I just can't believe he was that lazy/sloppy in editing LOC. Terez Send a noteboard - 14/11/2015 12:29:47 AM

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Though after I saw those files, Terez and me argued quite a bit about when they were from (and it's very much open for debate, as many RJ files were partially updated only, retaining bits of outdated stuff). She tended to think it that the "plan" for Taim to be Demandred rather than being his pawn survived for some time beyond LOC before RJ finally changed his mind. I disagreed with her on that.

I do think it unlikely that the idea survived much past the LOC book tour, maybe past ACOS, TPOD at the latest. By WH he had made up his mind, and purposefully laid clues in the book that Demandred was not Taim. But even still, RJ never explicitly denied that Taim was Demandred until the COT tour. At least, that's what appears to be the case. We don't have many reports from the WH tour; I think it was short, and then he went to the Netherlands where he was very dodgy on the subject.

That's a long time for him to be unwilling to put Taimandred to rest. And I find it incredibly difficult to believe that he changed his mind at the last minute before publishing LOC, because Taimandred was essentially the essence of LOC, from the very first POV in the prologue to the last in the epilogue.

Clearly, at the very least he had written Dumai's Wells with Taimandred in mind, as his notes on that subject are past tense. (And lost in the drama of Taimandred is the quite logical reason RJ gives for why Taimandred decided to show up and save Rand after all.)

Taimandred is baked into LOC in a way that RJ could have fixed without too much trouble—we're mostly talking about a handful of too-explicit one-liners, after all—if he'd really changed his mind before turning in the book. He also denied that he ever intended Taimandred to be a red herring, and that much at least is true!

The most compelling evidence you can offer that he changed his mind while writing LOC is that Demandred appears to have not killed Asmodean in the prologue, but the arguments against that are old, well-known, and still feasible.

It's also not difficult to believe that Osan'gar was ordered to complement Demandred at the Black Tower, since Aran'gar was ordered to complement Mesaana by joining the rebels. Osan'gar's main purpose at the Black Tower might have originally been to coordinate the turning circles with the Shadowspawn, since Shadowspawn were his specialty. The White Tower and the Black Tower were, after all, central to the Dark One's plans, the Seanchan were another huge source of channelers.

That brings me to the most important point: the foreshadowing concerning Shara was dismal, one might say non-existent, and its relevance to the story was minimal. It could have been a good place for Demandred to work if it had been made relevant to the story beginning in TSR when it was first mentioned. And maybe I'm missing something, but I saw absolutely nothing about Demandred/Shara in RJ's notes. Peter and Brandon have both publicly said that they saw notes concerning Taim becoming a Chosen named M'Hael, but these endgame notes were not available at the library.

It's certainly possible that RJ left instructions regarding Demandred and Shara, but it's also possible that he still hadn't made up his mind about what Demandred's master plan was supposed to be, since he had to ditch his original great idea. I think RJ was attached to Taimandred! Maybe he wanted Shara to come out of nowhere in the end, just to spice things up, but he should have been making notes on those plans all along, dropping small clues that would only become clear later. He did none of that.

RJ said at one point that LOC almost killed him, particularly the last-minute editing session he and Harriet did from a hotel in NYC. This is when he really started to get ill, and he'd used up all of his buffer zone that he had when he signed a 6-book, book-a-year contract. So maybe at the last minute he had a change of heart and slipped in the bit about Asmodean in some kind of irrational panic. But you'll never convince me that he did a good job removing Taimandred from the book, or even that he tried very hard. And I don't think anyone could convince me it was the right decision to make, either.

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Demandred, Taim and Asmodean - 13/11/2015 05:22:36 PM 3148 Views
Holy...SHIT! - 13/11/2015 07:12:08 PM 1702 Views
Yup...shocked, but hardly surprised. - 13/11/2015 08:12:54 PM 1272 Views
Thank you so much for revealing it - 13/11/2015 08:57:32 PM 1381 Views
I agree... - 13/11/2015 09:03:21 PM 1217 Views
Re: Holy...SHIT! - 18/11/2015 05:21:26 PM 1069 Views
Re: Demandred, Taim and Asmodean - 13/11/2015 07:15:14 PM 1289 Views
There was bound to be changes of mind... - 13/11/2015 10:50:39 PM 1867 Views
Hmmm... - 13/11/2015 11:59:41 PM 1157 Views
I just can't believe he was that lazy/sloppy in editing LOC. - 14/11/2015 12:29:47 AM 1626 Views
I thought Shara was begging to be noticed as a last minute foe. - 14/11/2015 02:46:42 AM 1311 Views
So did a lot of people. But... - 14/11/2015 05:27:27 AM 1269 Views
I still tend to think Demandred in Shara was Sanderson's creation - 16/11/2015 09:07:28 PM 1460 Views
He has pretty much admitted as much publicly. - 17/11/2015 03:14:19 AM 1274 Views
Agreed. In fact.. - 17/11/2015 03:19:20 AM 1173 Views
Re: I still tend to think Demandred in Shara was Sanderson's creation - 17/11/2015 05:08:58 PM 1072 Views
One more comment on the timing - 21/11/2015 04:29:02 PM 1250 Views
I don't get the Nynaeve note - 14/11/2015 02:32:28 AM 1498 Views
There are a lot of inexplicable notes like this. - 14/11/2015 06:33:11 AM 1365 Views
Nynaeve was one of the few who met the original Balthamel and Aginor - 17/11/2015 08:46:43 PM 1094 Views
Re: Nynaeve was one of the few who met the original Balthamel and Aginor - 17/11/2015 09:33:34 PM 952 Views
It's interesting that stopping Taimandred coincided with the drop in series quality. - 16/11/2015 05:02:38 AM 1689 Views
Some of this could have been interesting - 16/11/2015 04:37:00 PM 1303 Views
It would take away from Verin though - 16/11/2015 05:05:41 PM 886 Views
That is a good point - 16/11/2015 08:52:37 PM 944 Views
For the record my suggestion was not that he was a mole - 17/11/2015 01:56:41 AM 1089 Views
that was clear in your post - 19/11/2015 05:36:02 PM 949 Views
Sanderson certainly did that - 20/11/2015 05:08:03 PM 1120 Views
I don't think I would have cared for that - 20/11/2015 06:05:19 PM 1059 Views
It didn't necessarily have to be "dark", just a bit less two-dimensional. - 20/11/2015 10:00:59 PM 1053 Views
I mostly agree - 21/11/2015 06:38:31 AM 941 Views
This I can agree with - 23/11/2015 04:12:19 PM 903 Views
I don't read a ton of fantasy anymore - 23/11/2015 04:29:47 PM 1238 Views

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