I just finished with a post to this blog, but I thought I’d make this separate, especially since I told Jason to go ahead and let you post comments to the blog. Not that I’ll be answering your comments necessarily, but we may enter into a dialogue upon occasion.
No, I’m not going to reveal what the “gasp” moment is. I certainly won’t be putting any spoilers here. But I have read the reviews, both spoiler and non-spoiler. For those who have read the book and believe you have identified the “gasp” moment, congratulations. For those who have read the book and still don’t know what the “gasp” moment is, my sympathies. I mean that in all truth. You failed to see something that really should have made you gasp. I think I am fairly hardened, but occasionally something happens that makes me mutter, “Where are you, God? Are you sleeping? Are you blind?” This is fiction, but even so, I had to pause a couple of times in writing about it. Of course, I get deeply immersed in my work so that it becomes real to me while I am writing, but I hope to pull the reader into that level of realness, too. Either I failed completely in this instance, or some of you have become way too hardened. Too much on the evening news, I suppose. It’s just today’s hurricane, today’s tsunami, today’s Armageddon. I wonder what’s coming up at eleven?
On a lighter note, I understand that some of you are unhappy with the pronunciation of Taim’s name. Sorry, guys, but it is tah-EEM, not tame. Never tame. Not that one. In the same vein, Shaido is shah-EE-doh, not SHY-doh.
For a few others that I understand some folks have trouble with:
Siuan — swan.
Demandred — deh-MAN-drehd.
Seanchan — SHAWN-chan.
Seandar — SHAWN-dahr.
Moiraine — mwah-RAIN.
Mandragoran — man-drah-GORE-ahn.
Maybe I’ll give you a few others another time.
Take care, guys. And remember, if you can look at absolutely anything without at least a desire to weep, then you’ve lost part of your humanity.
RJ
The Eye of the World
The Great Hunt
The Dragon Reborn
The Shadow Rising
The Fires of Heaven
Lord of Chaos
A Crown of Swords
The Path of Daggers
Winter's Heart
Crossroads of Twilight
Knife of Dreams
The Gathering Storm
Towers of Midnight
New Spring
Other Books
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January 7th, 2010 at 9:38 pm
The gasp comes earlier on page 233 of the first edition when Mazrim Taim refers to the “so-called Aiel.” Unless he was alive during the Age of Legends, when they followed the Way of the Leaf, it makes no sense for him to speak of the Aiel this way.
December 29th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
The “Gasp” Moment that RJ was talking about is when Taim says “let the lord of chaos reign” something that only the forsaken and/or dark-friends say.
August 4th, 2009 at 9:12 am
The one RJ reffers to i would guess is all of the people on tremalking doing suicide due to the ter’angeral melting from rand cleaning the source.. Other parts i loved/felt emotions in the book (WARNING!!! Mass spoilers comming up) Nyneave gathering support for Lan, Galad becomming the Lord Captain-Commander, Perrin saving Faile though he killed Roland, Rand loosing a hand, Tuon marrying mat and becomming the empress.
March 27th, 2009 at 1:42 am
I just finished book 11. I listened to the series on audio over the last few months, and really enjoyed it. (It’s March 2009 now, the 12th book is due in November 2009, I think). The narrators (Michael Kramer and Kate Reading) are fantastic.
I was reading the brief description of Book 11 on this site, and it linked me to this blog post.
I’m a part-time blogger, and I know what it’s like to post a weak blog entry, and this post from the late Mr. Jordan reminds me of one of those.
I gather that the “gasp” moment was from Chapter 22 (To Make An Anchor Weep) when we “learn the horrible cost (mass suicide) of an event in a previous book (removing the taint) that [we] cheered when it happened.”
I really enjoyed the books, but that moment didn’t make me gasp in the least, yet I feel certain that my humanity is completely intact.
Like a lot of poor blog posts, there are some good parts, including the suggestion that he possibly “failed completely in this instance” to sufficiently pull the reader into the scene to make it feel real.
For me, there were so many characters and side plots to keep track of; I was not disturbed at all about a fictional mass suicide of some characters about whom I had no feeling.
I think the author was frustrated that the scene didn’t have a bigger impact, and took out that frustration a bit by attacking some his readers, which is far from the end of the world, it’s just a thought I had reading the post and the comments.