Many fans wonder whether the Wheel of Time world book should be considered “canon.” Did Mr. Jordan verify all the factual information in the book?
Mr. Jordan “verified” the facts, in that he had final approval over the manuscript and everything that went into it, but we wrote it as a “living” history—in other words, we wrote it from the point of view of a learned scholarly person living during Rand’s generation who had some unusual access to rare books relics, and materials. Whether this person’s assumptions about the true nature of those artifacts or the histories that were uncovered were the truth is only as certain as it is for any of our own present day historians and archeologists. This is doubly complicated because some facts are always lost to time, even in Rand’s world, and that not all truths are recorded accurately—especially of the Aes Sedai have decided to muddy the waters.
The result is that we wanted each reader to take away his or her own interpretation of the veracity of the information. Does the book reflect what R.J. intended? So far as I know, it does. Does it reflect the last and only word on Rand and his world? Perhaps. We also believed the dinosaurs to be cold blooded reptiles for many years. Now the current belief says they were warm blooded and related to birds. Which is canon? Who knows? Will it change again? As with Rand’s world—wait and see.
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