Now, I know we can’t talk about A Memory of Light , but is there something that’s out now that you can talk about in terms of plot twists that you really wanted to make happen, and then you got to?
Yes, yes. So, the main character, Rand. He is the one who’s been told this, and he leaves in the first book, goes off, chased out of his home city by all of these, you know….different factions want him, and want to do things with him, and he left behind his father. They had a very nice relationship, and one of the things I wanted to do was kind of bring it full circle and have him and his father meet back up again. I wanted to do that; it felt like it would be a very touching thing. There was nothing in the notes either way to say if it could or couldn’t happen, and so I went into and I said, “I really want to have a meeting between Rand and his father again; it’s very important for me.” It’s very important plotwise, because you kind of look at the hero’s journey and things like this, the return home was a very important part of it, but beyond that, you know, these are about characters; great stories are about great characters, and we love both of these characters; they needed to meet up again. And that was something that I got to do.
I have to say, if this was George R.R. Martin, he would have killed off Tam al’Thor.
Yes, yes. Yes, he probably would have forced Rand to kill Tam, or you know, he would have….yeah, George really likes his body counts. He likes killing people in very unexpected ways…
I mean, these two series are sort of parallel, in my mind. It’s almost like, sort of, I don’t even… Star Trek and Star Wars .
Yes. No, no…they are very similar. Robert Jordan and George R.R. Martin were friends. In fact, Robert Jordan has a cover blurb on the first George R.R. Martin book, Game of Thrones . It says, you know, Robert Jordan recommending this book, and they were friends, and they kind of had parallel careers, and Robert Jordan is more on the kind of epic side, like Tolkien, with this sort of, you know, Grand Quest, and Martin is more what we call the heroic side, which is you know, gritty characters living in a really sometimes dark world, and fighting for survival, and there are two kind of archetypes in the fantasy genre that are both very important, and we’ve had them all along, and they’re great writers in both traditions. They’re kind of parallel in that way.
Do you have any advice for George R.R. Martin, because I know people are like, “Don’t…” And it’s horribly insensitive. People are like, “Please! We can’t go through this again! Don’t die in the middle!”
[laughs] Well, you know, I saw George last week. He seemed to be very healthy and nice. He was eating some Italian food at the time, so that may not be the….but I’m not one to speak; I like my Italian food too. No, George is awesome; I think he’s going to be just fine. He’s having the time of his life. He’s got his show on, and things like that, so I think you guys are going to be fine. I think George is going to finish his series. He looks really excited, and he looks really good.
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