Galad's Wheel of Time Origin Story from Robert Jordan's Notes

Wheel of Time fans and content creators, Linda Taglieri, Terez, and Matt Hatch, met in a livestream on The Dusty Wheel Show, Wednesday evening, to discuss Galad's Origin Story from Robert Jordan's notes. Their discussion ranged from the earliest known references of Galad, from before The Eye of the World was published, to the latest known references in the outline for A Memory of Light.

You won't believe what they found.

Spoiler Rating: High.

You will encounter spoilers for the entire series.

Watch the Replay

You can watch the livestream in its entirety, or skip below for a quick guide below to the most interesting highlights!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FNz8lelpRs&t=5m31s

Just the Top 6 Highlights, Please!

Their discussion of Galad includes 20 quotes from Robert Jordan's Notes, along with 6 contextual quotes about the state of the story as Jordan envisioned it at the time he had these ideas. From that, we've distilled the most interesting ideas Jordan played with while crafting Galad.

1. Galad was originally envisioned as the jealous, grudge-holding, ascetic son of Morgase.

Morgase was Galad's mother, not step-mother, in this early version of the story. And, it seems clear that some of these original concepts for Galad's character, ended up in others such as Gawyn.

Read this 1st Quote from the Notes

2. Galad was the love child of Lan and Morgase.

Really. In this telling of the story, Morgase chose to marry Maric, not Lan, either in spite of Lan, or because he was already a Warder.

Read this 2nd Quote from the Notes

3. Galad would become a powerful Channeler.

This was set to occur after Rand cleansed the male source of the Power, which is an interesting note that the cleansing was a very early component of the story Robert Jordan wanted to tell.

Read this 3rd Quote from the Notes

4. And, Galad would turn to the Dark One.

After revealing this quote, they go on to share another quote that explains what reason Robert Jordan was using to convince Galad to turn: Rand would become Morgase's lover.

At the time of writing this note, Robert Jordan referred to the Dark One as Sha'tan, not Shai'tan.

Read this 4th Quote from the Notes

Please note the story will become more familiar for these last two highlights, as these events are much more in line with what we experience in the actual books.

5. Galad goes with Liandrin, Nynaeve, Egwene, Elayne, and Min to Toman Head where Liandrin tries to turn them over to the Seanchan, leading Galad to lose all trust in Aes Sedai, partner with the Whitecloaks, and see Rand as the worst danger.

Readers will recognize this plot from The Great Hunt. Though, in this version, Jordan considered having Galad part of the party who travel the Ways and are turned over to the Seanchan. The following three quotes will explain everything Jordan intended with this twist.

Read this 5th Quote from the Notes

Read this 6th Quote from the Notes

Read this 7th Quote from the Notes

6. Galad swears to Gawyn that he will protect Gawyn's child; Gawyn dies at the end, and Egwene is pregnant.

Yes, Jordan considered a version of the story where Gawyn impregnates Egwene, then dies, and Galad is there to swear to the child's protection. This is found in two notes, one from around A Knife of Dreams, and the other from an A Memory of Light Outline.

Read this 8th Quote from the Notes

Read this 9th Quote from the Notes

Read this 10th Quote from the Notes

That's It! But, Not Really!

Those were the highlights, but the conversation covered so much more context for each of those early story lines, along with supplementary quotes that were not included above. Now, go check out the full video.

If you enjoy these Robert Jordan Notes Discussions, you can find four additional episodes on the Robert Jordan's Notes Playlist.

Final Notes

1. The video thumbnail image is Galad by Ariel Burgess.

2. If you've never heard of Robert Jordan's Notes, you can find a listing here of what information can be found at the College of Charleston Special Collections.