66 Fun Facts About Wheel of Time

Which innkeeper's daughter leaves Emond's Field with Rand, Mat and Perrin at the start of the story?

Egwene al'Vere, whose family keeps the Winespring Inn, joins her three friends when an Aes Sedai leads them out of the village; she and Perrin are later cut off from the others while fleeing a cursed city.

Which author completed The Wheel of Time's final three volumes after its creator's death?

Brandon Sanderson got the call from the author's widow and editor in 2007; working from the notes and finished scenes left behind, he found one planned book had to become three.

Which Wheel of Time novel did its creator finish last?

Knife of Dreams appeared in 2005; soon afterwards its author learned he was gravely ill and began leaving notes and recordings so that another writer could finish the story.

What is the title of the first Wheel of Time novel?

The Eye of the World was reissued in 2002 as two books for younger readers, with larger type, illustrations and a newly written prologue.

Which travelling gleeman flees Emond's Field alongside Rand, Mat and Perrin?

Thom Merrilin, once court bard to the Queen of Andor, stays behind to fight off a pursuer so Rand and Mat can escape; they believe him dead until he turns up alive in the next book.

What is the title of the final Wheel of Time novel?

A Memory of Light was meant to be the title of one last book; the unfinished story proved too large to print as a single volume, so it became three and the name went to the last.

Which novel was the first of the three volumes that completed The Wheel of Time after its creator died?

The Gathering Storm was published in October 2009, two years after the author's death, and was built from the notes, recordings and finished passages he left behind.

Which American publisher brought out every volume of The Wheel of Time?

Tor Books, founded by Tom Doherty in 1980, published every volume in the United States, while Orbit handled Britain; Doherty himself gave the eulogy at the author's funeral in 2007.

What is the title of the Wheel of Time prequel novel, expanded from a 1998 novella?

New Spring grew out of Jordan's 1998 novella for the Legends anthology and became a novel in 2004; he planned two more prequels but put them off to finish the main series and never wrote them.

What is the Wheel of Time's World of Dreams called in the Old Tongue?

Tel'aran'rhiod is the Old Tongue name for the World of Dreams; a wound taken there is still there on waking, and anyone who dies there dies in the waking world too.

What is the male half of the One Power called?

Saidin is the male half; the Dark One tainted it at the moment of his sealing, which is why male channelers go insane.

People around whom the Pattern bends, such as Rand, Mat and Perrin, are called what?

Ta'veren are made, not born: the Wheel spins them out to pull the Pattern back on course when it drifts, and they stop being ta'veren once that purpose is served.

What title is held by the leader of the Aes Sedai?

The Amyrlin Seat is raised for life, yet she can be deposed: Siuan Sanche, who holds the office as the story opens, is later stripped of it, and the Tower splits in two.

In which city does the White Tower stand?

Tar Valon covers an island in the River Erinin and is ruled by the Aes Sedai themselves; Ogier stonemasons built much of it.

Which of the seven Ajahs of the White Tower hunts down male channelers and cuts them off from the One Power?

Red Ajah sisters hunt men who can channel and gentle them, the Ajah's way of preventing another Breaking of the World; by long custom they bond no protector of their own.

Which secret Ajah does the White Tower officially deny exists?

The Black Ajah is the hidden sisterhood of Darkfriends inside the White Tower; in the TV series Liandrin Guirale is revealed as one despite wearing Red.

An Aes Sedai's magically bonded male protector is called what?

Warder and Aes Sedai share a bond that lends him strength and stamina and lets each sense the other; if she dies he usually loses the will to live and often dies seeking vengeance.

Emond's Field, home village of Rand, Mat and Perrin, lies in which region of Andor?

The Two Rivers is a remote corner of Andor, so isolated that most of its people barely know they are the Queen's subjects.

Which brutal humanoid Shadowspawn, eaters of any meat including humans, attack Emond's Field?

Trollocs, bred from men and animals in the Age of Legends, raid Emond's Field on Winternight; they eat any meat, human included, and fight in fists led by officers of the Shadow.

Which eyeless Shadowspawn can vanish into shadow and are reluctant to cross running water?

Myrddraal, also called Fades or Halfmen, are eyeless, melt into shadow and fear running water; even a mortally wounded one does not fully die until the sun sets.

The thirteen Forsaken sealed away with the Dark One call themselves by what name?

The Chosen is what the Forsaken call themselves; Forsaken is the name the rest of the world gave them, and they scheme against one another for the Dark One's favour.

Rand al'Thor is the reincarnation of which Dragon from the Age of Legends?

Lews Therin Telamon, the Dragon, led the sealing of the Bore; the Dark One's counterstroke drove him mad, he killed his family and himself, and the Breaking of the World followed.

The Seven Seals on the Dark One's prison are made of which supposedly unbreakable substance?

Cuendillar, or heartstone, is said to grow only stronger under any force used against it, yet the Seven Seals weaken as the Dark One's prison fails; the last are broken during the Last Battle.

Which weapon of the One Power erases its target from existence backwards through time?

Balefire burns a thread out of the Pattern backwards in time, undoing its target's recent deeds; in the War of the Shadow its heavy use began to unravel the Pattern, so both sides gave it up.

Rand claims which crystal sword, a powerful sa'angreal, from the Stone of Tear?

Callandor, the Sword That Is Not a Sword, hung in the Heart of the Stone until Rand took it; the Forsaken Be'lal had lured him there hoping to seize it himself.

At Falme, Mat summons legendary heroes back from the dead with which artifact?

The Horn of Valere calls the Heroes of the Horn back from the dead; at Falme they answer Mat's call and drive the invading Seanchan back to the sea.

In which cursed, abandoned city does Mat steal the dagger that poisons him?

Shadar Logoth's ruby-hilted dagger carries the city's own evil, born of its ruthless war on the Shadow yet separate from the Dark One's; Aes Sedai later sever Mat's tie to it.

Perrin learns from Elyas Machera that he can communicate telepathically with which animals?

Wolves accept Perrin as a wolfbrother; when Whitecloaks kill the wolf Hopper, he kills two of them and is taken prisoner.

What was Perrin Aybara's trade in Emond's Field?

Blacksmith's apprentice to Haral Luhhan from about the age of twelve, Perrin late in the series forges his own war hammer, Mah'alleinir, as he accepts that he must lead.

Lan Mandragoran is the uncrowned king of which nation, lost to the Shadow in his childhood?

Malkier, a Borderland nation, fell to the Blight when Lan was an infant; he grew up as its uncrowned king and eventually marries Nynaeve.

What title does Nynaeve al'Meara hold in Emond's Field at the start of the story?

Wisdom is the office of village healer and weather-reader; Nynaeve, unusually young for it, learns only after leaving home that her knack for healing had been channeling all along.

In Caemlyn, Rand meets which Daughter-Heir of Andor for the first time?

Elayne Trakand, Queen Morgase's heir, meets Rand when he falls into the palace garden; her brother Gawyn and half-brother Galad are there, and Galad is also Rand's half-brother.

Mat kidnaps which Seanchan heir, known as the Daughter of the Nine Moons, in Winter's Heart?

Tuon, the Daughter of the Nine Moons, is carried off by Mat during his escape from Ebou Dar; she later marries him and becomes Empress Fortuona.

Which Forsaken travels with Rand, Loial and Hurin in The Great Hunt as 'Selene'?

Lanfear, strongest of the female Forsaken, poses as the noblewoman Selene to get close to Rand: in the Age of Legends she had been the Dragon's lover, and she wants his reincarnation for herself.

The Forsaken who appears in the early books as Ba'alzamon is really which of them?

Ishamael, strongest of the male Forsaken, hid behind the name Ba'alzamon in the first three books; after his death at the Stone of Tear the Dark One reincarnated him as Moridin.

The Seanchan control captured female channelers with a collar called what?

An a'dam links a leashed channeler, the damane, to the sul'dam who controls her; unknown to the Seanchan, the handlers can learn to channel too, so the collar would hold them as well.

What do the Aiel call the desert that outsiders know as the Aiel Waste?

The Aiel call their desert the Three-fold Land: a shaping stone to make them, a testing ground for their worth, and a punishment for their sin.

Which city, built by the extinct Jenn Aiel, holds the record of Aiel history?

Rhuidean, raised by the Jenn Aiel in the Waste, holds glass columns that show would-be clan chiefs their people's true past: the warrior Aiel were once servants sworn to peace.

What is the name of the rare Ogier Talent for making plants grow and heal?

Treesinging is the Ogier Talent behind prized 'sung wood', and few still have it; Loial sings to the oak that grows where the Green Man dies, hoping to keep the Blight from claiming it.

Which soul-devouring force, also called the Black Wind, haunts the Ways used by the Ogier?

Machin Shin, the Black Wind, preys on the minds and souls of travellers in the Ways, which male Aes Sedai grew during the Breaking to thank the Ogier for sheltering them.

The pacifist Tuatha'an, or Tinkers, follow which philosophy?

The Way of the Leaf forbids all violence; the Tuatha'an travel in brightly painted wagons seeking a lost Song and share their ancient roots with the Aiel.

The Wheel of Time's cyclical concept of time was drawn from which religions?

Hinduism and Buddhism both picture time as a turning wheel of ages; because the ages return, Jordan set his story in a world that is at once our distant past and our future.

The Wheel of Time's author deliberately modelled its opening chapters on which part of Tolkien's Middle-earth?

The Shire was the model by design: Jordan said he wrote the opening as an homage to Tolkien, starting readers in familiar pastoral country before leading them somewhere new.

What was the real name of the Wheel of Time's author, who wrote under a pen name?

James Oliver Rigney Jr. kept a different pen name for each genre: Reagan O'Neal for historical fiction, Jackson O'Reilly for a western and, for fantasy, the one that made him famous.

In which South Carolina city was the author of The Wheel of Time born?

Charleston was Jordan's home for life: he studied physics there at The Citadel and worked as a Navy nuclear engineer until a knee injury put him in hospital, where he decided to write.

In what role did the Wheel of Time's author serve two tours in the Vietnam War?

Helicopter gunner on Hueys, Jordan flew two Army tours in Vietnam and won the Distinguished Flying Cross, then entered The Citadel as a veteran to study physics.

Before The Wheel of Time, its author wrote seven novels in the 1980s about which pulp hero?

Conan the Barbarian came Jordan's way because he wrote fast: his publisher needed a novel in a hurry to appear alongside the first film, and he went on to write seven, including the novelisation of Conan the Destroyer.

Which editor, later married to the Wheel of Time's author, chose the writer who would finish it?

Harriet McDougal gave Jordan the contract for his first published novel, The Fallon Blood, at her own imprint; the two began dating after touring for it and married in 1981.

Which actress plays Moiraine Damodred in the television series?

Rosamund Pike plays Moiraine and is also a producer on the show; she narrated a new audiobook of the first novel, released days before the series premiered in 2021.

On which streaming service did the TV adaptation premiere in November 2021?

Prime Video premiered the show on 19 November 2021 with its first three episodes; Amazon had renewed it for a second season before the first even aired.

Who developed the TV series and served as its showrunner?

Rafe Judkins developed the show and ran it throughout; he first reached television as a contestant on Survivor: Guatemala in 2005 before turning to screenwriting.

Which Wheel of Time novel takes Rand into the Aiel Waste?

The Shadow Rising, the fourth book, takes Rand into the Waste; the TV show's third and last season drew on it before the series was cancelled in May 2025, just over a month after the finale, with most of the saga untold.

In which European city was Jordan Studios, the Wheel of Time show's main production base, built?

Prague is where the producers built Jordan Studios, named after the books' author, converting industrial buildings into their own complex after finding established studio space booked up.

Which actor plays Rand al'Thor in the Wheel of Time TV series?

Josha Stradowski, a Dutch actor, was announced as Rand in August 2019; the first season then keeps viewers guessing which of the young villagers is the Dragon Reborn before revealing it is him.

Which actor took over the role of Mat Cauthon from Barney Harris in season 2?

Dónal Finn took over Mat from Barney Harris for season 2; the recast was announced in September 2021, so viewers knew Harris was leaving two months before they first saw him in the role.

Who plays Siuan Sanche, leader of the Aes Sedai, in the TV series?

Sophie Okonedo plays Siuan Sanche, who exiles Moiraine from the Tower in season 1; the sentence is a ruse the two secretly agree on, hiding both their mission and their romance.

Which actor plays the Forsaken who passes for the Dark One himself in The Wheel of Time's first season?

Fares Fares was billed as the Dark One in season 1, the enemy Rand believes he is facing; season 2 reveals the character as one of the Forsaken instead.

Which composer of Mission: Impossible – Fallout also wrote the score for the Wheel of Time TV series?

Lorne Balfe gave the score sung lyrics in the Old Tongue, the books' invented language; he says it was his own idea, one he half regretted once fans began checking the grammar.

Which actor played the Forsaken villain in the 2015 rights-preserving pilot Winter Dragon?

Billy Zane played the villain in Winter Dragon, which aired after midnight on FXX with no publicity; Jordan's widow said she had known nothing of it, and the producers sued her over the statement before the case was dismissed.

The original unabridged Wheel of Time audiobooks are narrated by Kate Reading and which male narrator?

Michael Kramer is married to his co-narrator Kate Reading, and the pair went on to read another vast fantasy series together, The Stormlight Archive.

Which group of male Aes Sedai helped the Dragon seal the Dark One's prison?

The Hundred Companions in fact numbered 113; their strike sealed the Bore, but the Dark One's counterstroke tainted the male half of the Power and drove the survivors mad, beginning the Breaking.

Which company released The Wheel of Time Roleplaying Game in 2001 using the d20 rules?

Wizards of the Coast published The Wheel of Time Roleplaying Game in 2001 on its d20 system; Jordan wrote the foreword, and its rulebook told how several nations were founded, details found nowhere in the novels.

Which massive mountain range separates the Aiel Waste from the Westlands?

The Spine of the World, which the Aiel call the Dragonwall, was crossed by an Aiel army after King Laman of Cairhien cut down the tree they had given his city, beginning the Aiel War.

The Sea Folk's prized porcelain is secretly made by which island people under their protection?

The Amayar of Tremalking make the porcelain and let the Sea Folk take the credit, content with the price they are paid; the Sea Folk have protected them since the Breaking.

The Aiel await a prophesied 'Chief of Chiefs' known by what title?

Car'a'carn means chief of chiefs: an Aiel clan chief is marked by a dragon coiled around one arm, and the prophesied leader of all the clans by a dragon on each, as Rand is.

Which Wheel of Time book was the first to reach number one on the New York Times Best Seller list?

The Path of Daggers, the eighth book, topped the list in 1998; its title echoes the old Seanchan saying printed at the front of the book, 'On the heights, all paths are paved with daggers.'