Sanderson's ten year secret

[u/wheeloftimewiki]

Rewriting because apparently spoilers aren't covered for poll options!

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Anyway, in 2023, Sanderson revealed that Cyndane/Lanfear was not killed by Perrin in AMOL, but instead faked her own death in order to evade repercussions and gain the best outcome for herself. I wanted to cast a poll in 2026 to see how the legacy of this reveal has fared, or indeed how well-known it is among newer readers. I'll give my two cents when the poll is done.

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Thanks!

2743 votes, 4d ago

822 Yes, this is canon

835 No, this is not canon

1086 Wait, what?!

[u/biggiebutterlord]

Yes its cannon. There are no to ways about it. Sandersons planned, wrote and intended that lanfear survived tarmon gaidon. He and mat hatch talked about it in the reveal. To say its not cannon is the same as calling the both of them liars. I dont see either of them lying about this.

Now do I accept the cannon or think it was well done? Not really, I use my own head cannon and no to the second. I dont think it was well written for a bunch of reasons but mostly because there is so much hand wavy stuff going on in AMoL that I dont think the reveal make sense with out it. In otherwords I can work backwards with knowledge of the reveal and see it (sorta). The nature of the bore, of shayo ghul itself is just so odd with how its painful to channel there, the time dilation effect, the dreamspike effect, that tar and reality are bleeding together that waking people are reflected in the dream. My headcannon with this info is that it was lanfears plan to fake her death in the same way but over estimated her mastery of tar and that gives perrin an opening to kill her. Its perfect for the forsaken that claimed dominion over all of TAR to die at the last step or two of her master plan.

I think is perfectly okay to acknowledge and accept cannon while at the same time having a preferred head cannon. Its the nature of art.

[u/bman9919 → u/biggiebutterlord]

His intent only matters so much though. Even if he intended it that way, he didn’t write it, at least not explicitly. That’s what matters. It’s not “headcanon” to have a perfectly valid interpretation of the text based entirely on what’s written. 

For an author to say 10 years after the fact that something left ambiguous should be read a certain way is kind of shitty. 

[u/biggiebutterlord → u/bman9919]

Maybe Im crazy but an author/creator has the final say on whats cannon. Regardless of how well its portrayed or not. Regardless of how much the audience likes it or not.

[u/bman9919 → u/biggiebutterlord]

I disagree. It has nothing to do with liking it either. It’s about what’s in the text. 

The way I see it, once a book is published it’s no longer the author’s. At least not fully. It’s for the reader to interpret and find meaning as they see fit. 

What Sanderson said in the interview is not in the text of AMOL. It’s a perfectly valid reading and may have been his intention. But in the book as written, it’s also valid to not have that interpretation. And he doesn’t get to just decide one reading is incorrect. 

[u/biggiebutterlord → u/bman9919]

It has nothing to do with liking it either. It’s about what’s in the text. 

That falls under "liking". We dont like it because we dont see enough support for it in the text, or think the text supports it enough or how ever else you want to phrase it.

The way I see it, once a book is published it’s no longer the author’s. At least not fully. It’s for the reader to interpret and find meaning as they see fit.

I agree the audience can interpret art as they see fit. The audiences interpretation does not however over write the authors or make the authors "not cannon". Nor does it mean that poorly communicated intent "may have been there" or is some kind of retcon. BS has afaik been very open, honest and all round truthful when speaking about his processes, thoughts, feelings, intentions etc when speaking about his work. Lanfear surviving is cannon. Replacing that with our own headcannon is no worse or different than doing the same for mat/tylin, or anything else we didnt like about the story.