Time & Perspective Quote by Raymond E. Feist

Feist isn’t pretending character death is a thunderbolt from the gods; he’s admitting it’s a production choice. The blunt enumeration (1) reads like a project memo, not a eulogy, and that’s the point: long-running fantasy series aren’t just mythmaking, they’re logistics. He’d already mapped the “next series,” and James, positioned as a “Grey Eminence,” threatens to become a narrative cheat code - the behind-the-scenes fixer whose competence dissolves conflict before it can harden into stakes. In genre fiction, especially sprawling sagas, too-powerful mentors don’t just “complicate matters.” They flatten the world.

The phrase “Grey Eminence” is doing quiet, loaded work. It invokes the archetype of the shadow adviser, someone who shapes events without taking the spotlight. That kind of figure is intoxicating to readers because it suggests depth and hidden machinery. It’s also poison to a writer trying to pivot into a new arc: the eminence can explain too much, rescue too easily, and keep the story tethered to old power structures when the author wants new ones.

Then Feist pivots to something like affection: “He had had an amazing life.” It’s an elegiac line, but also a justification that turns authorial necessity into moral closure. “Time to bid him good-bye” frames the death as respect, not disposal - a way of telling fans: this isn’t cruelty, it’s stewardship. The subtext is craft meeting sentiment: sometimes the cleanest way to let a new story breathe is to remove the person who could run it better than your new protagonists.