Begin Reading
Table of Contents
About the Authors
Copyright Page
Thank you for buying this
Tom Doherty Associates ebook.
To receive special offers, bonus content,
and info on new releases and other great reads,
sign up for our newsletters.
Or visit us online at
us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup
For email updates on Robert Jordan, click here.
For email updates on Harriet McDougal, click here.
For email updates on Alan Romanczuk, click here.
For email updates on Maria Simons, click here.
The authors and publisher have provided this e-book to you without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied so that you can enjoy reading it on your personal devices. This e-book is for your personal use only. You may not print or post this e-book, or make this e-book publicly available in any way. You may not copy, reproduce, or upload this e-book, other than to read it on one of your personal devices.
Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the authors’ copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.
This book is dedicated to all the readers who love The Wheel of Time.
INTRODUCTION
When I began editing The Eye of the World, I started a list of proper nouns, keeping them in a file known as “Raw Glossary.” It is a thing copy editors do—and I had been one, many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea called Manhattan—with the idea that it is useful to have a canonical list of the spellings in a series. This “Raw Glossary” expanded through—oh I don’t know—about the first seven books; I then turned its care and maintenance over to Maria Simons, and the stalwart Alan Romanczuk.
This is not an extension, or an update, to the earlier reference called The World of Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time. Instead, this is an alphabetized adjunct that will allow the reader to check on characters, locations, herbs, kinship structures and many other things that appear in the series.
Now I, Harriet, join Maria and Alan in the comforting, cozy, editorial “we.”
We hope that this Companion will be useful for those reading or rereading the series, or those just wishing to refresh themselves about some aspect of the series. To those new to The Wheel of Time, though, we offer the following warning: there are SPOILERS in here! In fact, this volume might be called The Big Book of Spoilers because there are so many of them. Tread lightly, novices.
We in no way claim that each entry exhausts its subject. We had no desire to do so, mainly for practical considerations—the book’s size would be prohibitive. If you want detail beyond this Companion, we refer you to various impressive online efforts, such as Encyclopaedia-WoT.org and TarValon.net.
We also don’t claim that this book is without errors. Our entries draw as much as possible from Robert Jordan’s abundant notes, in order to show the reader what the writer wished to note for his own reference. One can infer that what Robert Jordan noted were points that were particularly important for him in the manuscripts; in some cases this was true. On the other hand, you can see that there are backstories on and descriptions of the various quirks and motivations of many characters, things that never made it into the books, but that informed the writer and helped him bring the characters to life.
Some entries were pulled directly from Robert Jordan’s notes with little alteration, to give you the flavor of his writing for his own personal use. As you will see, his phrases could be amusing at times.
While we hope that the reader will find a lot that is new and interesting here, we make certain disclaimers about the material. In some instances, the descriptions may vary from what is in the books. Writers constantly change their minds about characters, events and places in their creations, and adjustments often fail to be made in background notes. We have tried to correct all discrepancies of this sort, but sometimes let the more interesting ones stand, to show a change from the writer’s original intention compared with what finally arrived on the printed page. Or, the error remained because of our own oversight.
If this seems like a sneaky way to avoid taking responsibility for any errors found here, well, maybe it is; that’s for you to decide.
We at Bandersnatch Group wish to thank past, present and future fans of the Wheel of Time series for your devoted interest. You are the ones who have kept and who will continue to keep alive the world created by Robert Jordan. He said many times that he wished these books to be read for decades to come, and to be as relevant to future generations as they are to readers today. He sincerely loved his fans, and was always just a little humbled by the positive worldwide reception of his books. Thank you for staying through the whole set, all the way to Shayol Ghul.
Speaking of endings, we also wish to thank the talented writer Brandon Sanderson, who accepted the daunting challenge of seeing the Wheel of Time series to completion after Robert Jordan’s untimely death.
And most of all, thanks to Tom Doherty, publisher of The Wheel of Time, who stuck his neck out on this series many years ago, and never flagged in his support and belief. Without him and Brandon Sanderson, you would not be reading these lines today.
Onward.
ROBERT JORDAN
HARRIET MCDOUGAL
ALAN ROMANCZUK
MARIA SIMONS
A
a’Balaman, Rhys. See Rhys a’Balaman
a’Conn, Paitr do Fearna. See Paitr do Fearna a’Conn
a’Cowel, Nisain. See Nisain a’Cowel
a’dam. A ter’angreal used to control a channeler. Traditionally it was composed of a bracelet and a necklace connected by a silvery chain and was used to control female channelers. A modified a’dam without the chain was shown to work as well, and a device to control male channelers was discovered that was made of two bracelets and a necklace. The channeler being controlled wore the necklace, and the person wearing the bracelet had to be someone who could at least be taught to channel. The a’dam would fit itself to anyone who tried it on. The first a’dam was created by Deain, an Aes Sedai, to help Luthair Paendrag control the channelers he had found in Seanchan; it was then used on her. The a’dam created a link between the two women, a circle of two, with the woman wearing the bracelet always leading the circle. She could control the other woman’s flow of saidar completely, in addition to feeling her emotions and physical reactions and being able to influence or change them, or combine her own abilities with those of the other woman to channel a single, combined set of flows herself. This was known to Deain, of course, and to others after her, but that knowledge was eventually lost. After many years, the a’dam was used merely to control the damane and make her channel to command.
There were differences between the link entered by Aes Sedai and the link created by an a’dam. One was that while a circle of one man and one woman was possible, a man who could channel would be in intense pain and usually killed by wearing the bracelet. No experimentation was done regarding a woman wearing the bracelet and a man the necklace, but it might well have done the same thing. Even touching the a’dam while it was worn by a woman who could channel was painful for a man who could channel, and also for the woman. In a normal link, a woman who only had the potential to learn to channel could not be brought into it, but the a’dam could control those women, too. In addition, whatever the woman wearing the bracelet experienced was also felt by the woman wearing the necklace as though it had happened to her, but at several times the intensity; this feedback did not occur from the woman leading a normal link.