Theoryland of the Wheel of Time

Brandon Sanderson - /r/books AMA March 2015 (Verbatim)

Hey Brandon. I must say, I had never heard of you until I read the last three Wheel of Time books. I loved your writing style and found the wrap up (well three books worth of wrap up) immensely satisfying. This prompted me to check out some of your other work and I'm currently listening to Mistborn on audio book during my daily commute and am loving it. So not a whole lot specific to ask that you probably haven't been asked already (though I would love some interesting facts on your completion of the Wheel of Time series), but more of a thanks for making reading awesome, can't wait to read/listen to the rest of the Mistborn Trilogy!

My pleasure! Hope you enjoy the trilogy.

Facts about the WoT. Let's see... Of the viewpoints in the last books, I had the most to do with Perrin, as RJ left very, very little about what to do with him. The one I had the least influence over was Egwene, where he left a lot of material.

In both cases, I had a wonderful time. In some ways, it was more fulfilling to take the master's vision and see it applied in a way that I could see he specifically wanted. In other ways, it was very satisfying as a long-time fan to be able to fill the holes with things that I wanted to see happen in the series.

brandon on wheel of time,

Brandon Sanderson - /r/books AMA March 2015 (Verbatim)

Wheel of Time question here. My understanding is that the title A Memory of Light refers specifically to a particular scene that actually happens at the end of The Gathering Storm. This has always bothered me that the title does not match up to the scene it references. Could you comment on this and how you decided to title the books?

The answer from the other poster is, in part, the correct answer. (I wrote most of TGS hoping I'd be able to publish the entire thing as one book.) However, philosophically, I always envisioned "A Memory of Light" to not mean any specific moment, but instead, the idea that the shadow was so strong upon the land that light had become but a memory--yet a very important one, driving people to seek it again and fight in the Last Battle.

Because of this, it felt as if the final book of the three was the right place to use the title. Beyond that, I'm pretty sure RJ would have wanted that title on the final volume of the three.

brandon on wheel of time, a memory of light,