The Aiel

Q: how do wise ones get gaishan? (they don't fight, right?) 
A: They can be traded, though. Besides which, there are other ways, if you read LoC, to become gai'shain. 

Q: Are you ever going to expand the existing map and perhaps open up the lands east of the Spine of the World? 
A: There are no known maps of the Aiel Waste. That has been established. 

Q: First off, I'd like to say thanks Mr. jordan for providing my family and I countless hours of reading enjoyment, and I'd like to ask you something about the Aiel, well, who are they? 
A: You're welcome. And they are the descendants of the pacifists who were in service to the Aes Sedai  in the Age of Legend. If on the other hand, you mean the source of the culture in my mind, they contain some elements of the Apache, some of the Zulu, some of the Bedouin, and some elements of my own including that I rather liked the fact of making the desert dwellers blue-eyed and fair instead of the usual dark-eyed, dark-complected desert people.

Q: There's been some question about how the Aiel sustain their vast numbers east and west of the Dragron wall. How can millions of Aiel live on grubs in the Waste and why don't they scavenge the land clean in Illian, Cairehen, and Caemlyn? 
A: They can live in the same ways that the Bedouin manage to live in a desert where you or I would die, and the Apache did so. They make very efficient use of what they find. And if they stay in one place for too long in too great a number they would indeed strip the land bare. But there certainly aren't millions of them in Illian.

Q: How do you explain Liah being in Shadar Logoth for so long? 
A: She became absorbed into the city. She was left there and she is, after all, a Aiel, one of the people better at surviving under harsh circumstances than anyone else in the world. And also her corruption by Shadar Logoth gave her *some* protection.

Q: Are the Aiel already a Remnant?
A: RAFO.

Reports from signings

He made the Aiel look Irish because he thought it was kind of funny. He doesn't like the fact that hardened desert warriors are always described as looking a certain way, so he used the opposite description.

On why Aviendha's toh required her to kill Rand, he said basically "Read and Find Out", but he noted that Aviendha is under the strain of several tohs. He also pointed out that her interpretation from Elayne's reaction from her confession to Elayne gives her a way out, but that Elayne does not share that interpretation. [ The show will certainly go on :-) ]

The invasion of iron-clad men into the Aiel Waste as reflected on in the ancestor-memory ter'angreal he said did not refer to Artur Hawkwing, but to a much earlier event.

The Aiel were based on bits of the apache, zulu, bedouin, and arab(?) cultures. Nothing starting here, but I don't think we've had this one answered as a complete list before. It was fired off really fast, so I may have missed some...

My first question: "Was the Aes Sedai who initiated the Pact of Rhuidean from the Age of Legends?"  (From TSR).
Jordan: (Pause)"No." (Pause)"No, she was not from the Age of Legends."

Raina's Hold / Thus Spake The Creator - Index