We Are All Far Worse Than The Cairhienin

[Rose]

Oops. Why did I write it that way. Sorry! :p

[Mr Ares]

I'm not sure any publisher would have agreed to publish somehting that huge that as a single book ;) They probably would have ended up splitting it in 2 or 3 parts, even if it still was considered one book. Isn't this what they tried to do for AOL by the way? They wanted it to be AOL 1, 2, and 3 instead of TGS, TOM and AOL, but it didn't work out for some stupid technical reason?

They probably would have struggled to publish it as one book, but I was just pointing out that RJ's decision to only have one more book had nothing to do with his illness.

[Terez]

I'm not sure any publisher would have agreed to publish somehting that huge that as a single book ;) They probably would have ended up splitting it in 2 or 3 parts, even if it still was considered one book. Isn't this what they tried to do for AOL by the way? They wanted it to be AOL 1, 2, and 3 instead of TGS, TOM and AOL, but it didn't work out for some stupid technical reason?

They probably would have struggled to publish it as one book, but I was just pointing out that RJ's decision to only have one more book had nothing to do with his illness.

Both Harriet and Brandon have said that it did. Apparently he knew he was ill for a long time before he told us about it; he just didn't know for sure that he was terminally ill until then. He just knew that his health was failing.

[Mr Ares]

When did they say that?

[Terez]

When did they say that?

They've both said it repeatedly over the last few years, but I couldn't tell you where exactly right now. This is not the sort of thing I worried about for the current interview database, and I just now got to 2008 on the new one. I'm not sure I have Harriet saying it on record anywhere; it might just be one of those things she mentioned at JordanCon. But I could be wrong. I'll let you know if I come across it.

[Terez]

I found one Brandon quote, from his filmcritic interview:

 

Q: Robert Jordan was adamant that he was going to write only one more book in the series. Did you ever wonder what he was thinking?

 

A: [Laughs] I have. I think that if he had been around, there's a chance he might have been able to get it into one book. But only because of his illness. If he would have had all the time he wanted, it would have been this long. It was always intended to be huge, but for me it was easier to write it piece-by-piece.

 

This is just the first one I found; I know there are several similar quotes. I think that he and Harriet didn't say as much in the beginning because it would have called RJ's honesty into question regarding what he told us about when he learned he was ill. I think he probably knew well before then that it was serious, but didn't want to worry the fans.