In a lot of ways WoT to this point could be viewed a series of trilogies—Rand coming to realize who and what he is, Rand rising to power, the Shadow striking back at Rand, and now (perhaps) we start moving toward the final showdown at Tarmon Gai’don. Is this a valid way of looking at WoT? And would this have an implication in terms of the series ending in twelve books?
No, it really isn’t a valid way of looking at the books. From the beginning, I haven’t thought in terms of trilogies, but in terms of one long novel. Longer than I had hoped, in truth. I tried from the start to structure things so that the books would not only bear re-reading, but so that re-reading a book after having read later volumes would mean that you saw what was happening in a slightly different way, yet with the first few books, I also tried to make each volume entirely self-contained (with varying degrees of success) so that anyone could pick up any book and start there. After all, I really had no way of predicting that the earlier books would remain in print, especially not all this time! Eventually, though, I decided that I could not waste time on explaining again what I had already explained. The Wheel of Time is one rather long novel. You really have to start with The Eye of the World , or you won’t understand what is happening, why it is happening, or who these people are.
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