Long before it was a hit fantasy show on Prime Video, The Wheel of Time was one of the most successful fantasy book series of all time. Author Robert Jordan penned 11 volumes of the main series and one prequel before his untimely passing in 2007. After that, up-and-coming author Brandon Sanderson was selected to finish the series using Jordan’s notes and a ton of support from Jordan’s wife/editor Harriet McDougal and her team.
The final novel in the series, A Memory of Light, marked its 10-year anniversary over the weekend. To celebrate, Sanderson appeared on The Dusty Wheel Show to talk about his experience working on the book. The far-ranging discussion between the author and The Dusty Wheel’s Matt Hatch covered all sorts of intriguing topics, including some deep dives on the decision-making process behind some of the novel’s more shocking twists and turns. Sanderson also revealed an enormous secret about the final book, one which casts certain elements of the ending in a new light.
We’re going to talk about a few of the highlights from Sanderson’s interview, but first, a MAJOR SPOILER WARNING: If you haven’t read A Memory of Light, turn back now. I mean it. We’re going to be discussing the ending of The Wheel of Time in detail below.
Brandon Sanderson is “not the definitive voice for The Wheel of Time” anymore
The Wheel of Time was not Brandon Sanderson’s creation, so even though he wrote the last three books in the saga, he can’t claim to know exactly what original author Robert Jordan intended in every instance. Over the years, he’s debated theories with fans, sharing what he’s able to share and acknowledging when “evidence-based” fan theories have the one-up on him.
“I am not the definitive voice for The Wheel of Time, right now in particular,” he explained. “Even when I was writing it…I could be the definitive voice if I wanted to be. Anything I wanted to canonize into the books I could, and I made the choices I made very deliberately to try to preserve things I thought that Robert Jordan wanted to be left a mystery.”
Naturally, he made a Lord of the Rings analogy to set us nerds at ease: “As I often say, I was Sam carrying the Ring for a while. I gave up the Ring after I finished The Wheel of Time, and I stopped being the definitive voice for The Wheel of Time. And so I can only give you my impressions and recollections.”
Brandon Sanderson explains how the body swap worked in A Memory of Light
Humility aside, Sanderson’s impressions and recollections are rather comprehensive. When writing the books, he worked off extensive notes compiled by “Team Jordan,” which helped him write as engaging and powerful a tale as he could.
One particular part of the ending that was outlined for him by Team Jordan was the fate of Rand al’Thor, the Dragon Reborn. In the novel’s final pages, Rand finds himself locked in a duel with the Dark One that stretches across realities. He’s also confronted by a man named Moridin. Moridin is a reincarnated version of Ishamael, the karmic rival and former best friend of the previous Dragon, Lews Therin Telamon.
It’s eventually revealed that Rand and Moridin swap bodies in their final moments. Moridin, now living in Rand’s body, dies, leading everyone to believe the Dragon Reborn has breathed his last. Meanwhile, Rand, in Moridin’s body, sets out to live a normal life now that his duty to overcome the Dark One has been fulfilled.
But how exactly did the body swap happen? Sanderson confirmed the accuracy of a fan theory which posits that when Moridin and Rand both used balefire during an earlier clash in Shadar Logoth, their magic crossed and “entangled” their souls, which made it possible for their souls to switch bodies. “I believe the balefire entangling, connecting their souls is canon,” Sanderson said. “I believe that that is legit the way it happened. I think [Robert Jordan] teased it and stuff…I consider that straight up canon, personally. And I wrote the books as if that were the canon answer.”
He also discussed something shared with him by Jordan’s widow/editor Harriet McDougal, that “the soul that wanted to live found the body that wanted to live, and the soul that wanted to die didn’t go to the effort, or something to that effect.”
"That’s the best answer we have. That phrase I use there, like that comes straight from the [Robert Jordan]. It might be filtered through a few people, but it at one point came from the source, and so you can hold to that explanation pretty firmly."
Sanderson admits that he hadn’t anticipated that this would be how Rand al’Thor’s story ended before it was revealed to him by Team Jordan, but that he found it a satisfying conclusion to the character’s arc:
"What Robert Jordan was looking for was for a chance for Rand to just put down the weight and go live a life. And I can only assume that he knew once you’re Rand al’Thor, you can’t do this without being recognized. Even your description is super distinctive. And so the idea of putting him in another body seemed like a perfect way for this to happen, and for…you know, the idea that the Dragon has died, there’s the corpse we can hold a funeral, you know and things like that, is a fitting end. It’s such an Aes Sedai answer to ‘the Dragon Reborn has died’ that it’s like a fitting end philosophically to the series as well."
Brandon Sanderson reveals a huge secret about The Wheel of Time: [REDACTED] lives!
As intriguing as Sanderson’s explanation of the body swap is, that wasn’t the biggest bombshell. He recalled how he approached finishing Jordan’s series by trying to get into the headspace of each character, imagining what their “ideal situation” would be if the story went their way. For many, like Rand, the answers were obvious or laid out in Jordan’s notes (“he wants to be left alone for a while”), but for others this was a far more difficult process.
That brings us to Lanfear, one of the Forsaken who constantly influences events from behind the scenes throughout The Wheel of Time. “I asked the question, ‘what does Lanfear want?'” Sanderson recalled. “And my answer was, ‘Lanfear is screwed,’ because no solution to this puzzle, that is an obvious solution, ends with her in a good situation.”
"Because if the Dark One wins, she’s screwed, right? She has been playing her own game. Everyone knows it. She’s way down on the totem pole right now, everyone hates her. Dark One wins, she is just…it’s a terrible, terrible situation for her. The good guys win, that’s also terrible for her because they’re gonna hunt down the remaining Forsaken and they’re going to you know, take them out. You don’t leave Forsaken around. And if the good guys win, that means they’re stronger than the Dark One, there’s no hope for [Lanfear]."
Sanderson imagined how “the best schemer of them all” would get out of this impossible dilemma. “What she needs is everyone to think she’s dead, but the good guys to win. If all the other Forsaken get taken down and she’s the only one, and no one knows she’s alive, the world is her oyster. She is suddenly one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful being alive. Nobody knows it, she can go into the shadows and do her thing.”
Lanfear spends much of A Memory of Light toying with Perrin in order to use him to help her overcome Rand after his battle with the Dark One. But in the final moment, Perrin seemingly breaks out of his magical compulsion and snaps Lanfear’s neck, ending her life. However, this is all happening in Tel’aran’rhiod, the world of dreams.
But Sanderson reveals that…Lanfear survived that encounter! She survived The Wheel of Time. As of this writing, Lanfear is still out there in Randland somewhere, doing whatever it is that Lanfear does.
Sanderson has been surprised that more fans didn’t pick up on this twist, or call him out on Lanfear’s odd behavior in A Memory of Light. The plotline with Lanfear and Perrin feels tonally off; she’s a great schemer, but makes a lot of weird choices in that final book, including helping Perrin in his fight against his nemesis Slayer and announcing her intentions to subdue Rand with uncharacteristic clarity during the novel’s final chapters. According to Sanderson these were intentionally designed to clue readers in that something was amiss.
"So the whole plot on her side was she needed to give something plausible that when it got back to Rand if he lived, he would believe that this all happened. And so the whole idea of playing with Perrin and things like this was to give as credible a witness as she possibly could to her demise so that there would be no question in the minds of the heroes if she lived. And then she also got the bonus of supporting Perrin to try to make sure that the good guys won."
This was always Sanderson’s plan for Lanfear, and one he came up with rather than something left for him by Jordan. The Dusty Wheel’s Matt Hatch is one of the few people who knew about Lanfear’s survival; Sanderson revealed it to him before the book’s release during the BETA read for the novel. The author even exchanged emails with Harriet McDougal about Lanfear’s fate when he was writing the book so that he had a record of it in case he was ever accused of retconning the story after it’s release, like J.K. Rowling and her many addendums to Harry Potter.
So there you have it: one of the last big secrets of The Wheel of Time revealed. I don’t know about you, but I’m itching for a re-read. All those Lanfear and Perrin scenes are going to hit quite differently.
Season 2 of The Wheel of Time TV show is slated for release sometime this year, which means we’ll most likely see Lanfear onscreen sometime in the coming months.
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