A: To whoever put this one forward, this is one of the best questions I've ever gotten! Nym and Trollocs both have souls, and either could be reborn, but since Nym were a pure construct (i.e. each of them was individually made, like hand-crafting) a Nym would not be reborn as a Nym. You might say that a Nym's soul was borrowed temporarily from the supply of souls awaiting rebirth. A Trolloc, however, bears a twisted, or corrupted soul, and would be reborn as a Trolloc. Though frankly, a Trolloc's soul is such a pitiful thing, it hardly seems worth calling a soul.

A: I didn't consult with them on interpretations at all, really. I was trying to let them set up situations where the game could be played parallel to to the story arc, or perhaps outside it. I did try to find anything that contradicted the books, or what I intended in future books, and I caught a few errors when going over their galley proofs. I would have asked them to remove this, had I caught it.

A: Choosing the POV character is a matter of choosing whose eyes are the best to see a scene. What do I want the reader to know in that scene? What do I want to leave them uncertain about? Since the POV character is the one whose thoughts you have access to, the easiest way to leave someone's motivations, reactions or future plans murky is to have someone else be the POV character. Or, if I want to set a certain tone, or to present events in a particular way, that influences the choice of POV character. Faile and Perrin, for example, will not see the same event in exactly the same way or react to it in the same way, nor will Min and Rand, or Nynaeve and Elayne and Egwene, or Rand and Perrin and Mat.

A: The Aiel have a different tradition, as I have mentioned in the books. When a young Aiel man learns that he is beginning to channel, or thinks that he is, that is taken as sign that he has been marked out to try to kill the Dark One, and he sets out for the Blight in an attempt to do so. And given that any Black Tower recruiting party that showed up in the Waste would very likely find itself in a fight to the death fairly soon after arrival, it isn't a spot that anyone would pick for recruiting. Now, it may be that some Aiel may finally join the Asha'man (I'm not saying they will!) but traditions are hard to change, especially when they have religious overtones and have lasted a few thousand years.

A: The conditions would have to be exactly right. Those conditions were set up while the seals were being placed on the Bore. The chances that exactly those conditions would occur again are fairly small. And that is saying that it was a volitional act rather than a side-effect of trying to stop the seals from being placed. After all, if the Dark One could taint saidin at will, why could he not taint saidar as well, and why would he not have done so?

A: Who says you haven't? I have not given a nationality for every sister I have shown.

A: The conquerors of Seanchan suffered the fate of many smaller groups that conquer larger. They were, in many ways, absorbed by the conquered, with only an over-layer remaining of what and who they were before. In pre-conquest Seanchan, the raven was a symbol of rulers because (1) it was supposedly wise, and (2) (perhaps more importantly) it supposedly saw and knew everything that happened. Nothing escapes the eyes of the raven, and frankly, any hawk or eagle that tries taking on ravens, gets chased off. So, the golden hawk remains the symbol of the Imperial family, descendants of Artur Hawkwing, but the raven is the symbol of rule and of Empire.

A: He is unique to this particular Age. A very unique fellow, indeed. In some ways, you might say he has unwittingly side-stepped the Pattern.

A: Erian Boroleos was not meant to disappear. In my notes, she is placed guarding those with Cadsuane who cannot channel and not too pleased about it (there are reasons why she was chosen out for this, which I won't go into here), and there is even a note (under CHECKS AND CORRECTIONS, a category I use to make sure that I haven't blinked at the wrong time) to make sure of mentioning her in passing. It didn't happen, for which, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. I was so certain that I had done it, that I didn't find out I hadn't until the paperback came out, but a correction will be made.

A: No story at all. In Salidar, Min knew Birgitte as a adventurer, you might say, but not until Caemlyn did she realize that Birgitte was, in fact, BIRGITTE BY GOD SILVERBOW!

A: 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.

A: I shouldn't think so. I mean, I'm not jealous of Stephen King, and he has a lot more success than I do. So do a number of other writers. Some people sell fewer books than you do, and some people sell more. There really isn't any point in jealousy. You just keep trying to write the best book you can. Besides, remember that MOBY DICK was both a commercial and a critical flop when it was first published. Anybody want to try naming the top ten sellers of that year? I didn't think so. Of course, I hope for the longevity of MOBY-DICK (I don't think there is a writer who doesn't!) but I trust you get the point.

A: Well, no, I can remember the time. The timelines?

A: Yes, it's in my head. Ah, I was about eh, critical method flowpath charts. For the books by some engineers, it seemed to be obviously necessary that but the flowpath charts were too complex to do on the computer. I finally figured out that doing the setup on the computer for the flowpath charts, which would have to be three-dimensional, at the very least, for the books, would take at least as long as writing one of the books, so it was easier to put it in my head, where I could at least have a better zoom facility than I could possibly have, a better resolution than on a computer screen.

A: Yeah, for my books that is, at least

A: Well, I think I tell a good story, about people you will believe in. And sometimes people you will recognize. It's hard for a writer to produce characters people care about. I think that I have managed to write characters that people care about. They want to know what's going to happen with this person or that person.

A: Well, to some extent. There's more than that. I happen to think that they are good books.

A: Oh yes, I Ah, I taught myself to read. Well, it was quite incidental. My older brother ah, he would be stuck sometimes, when my parents couldn't get a babysitter, he would be stuck with looking after me. He found out that he could keep me quiet by reading to me. Mainly to keep me from flying his balls, or his airplanes or whatever and to keep my pants out of his probably fishtanks [?? that's what it sounded like] , that sort of thing. Ah, and he read to me. but of course he wasn't about to read children's books to me, so he read the books that he wanted to read. Uhm, I remember I don't remember when I began making making a connection between the marks on the paper and the sounds coming out of his mouth, but I do remember a day when I was four years old that It must have been a weekend, because my parents came home on a day like and he took off; He put the book back on the shelf, and I didn't want him to stop with the story, so I took the book back down, eh, it was 'Jack London's White Fang' and I managed to break through it Ah, I didn't manage to understand every word, but I managed to make my way through the rest of the book with enough understanding to be able to pick up on the story. So I eh, I did start reading quite early.

A: I don't know, I dont know where the inspiration came from. My favorite authors are ah Bearly Whitespread shame on me, this probably isn't the name, but it's the best I can make of it, not recognizing the name] , Mark Twain, Jane Austin, Charles Dickens, John D. McDonnald, Lewis Lemore. Ah, these are not people you pick up as eh inspiration for writing science fiction or fantasy, although John D. McDonnald wrote eh, was best known for his travel fiction, and did write a book called 'The Girl, The Goldwatch and Everything' which is a hilarious science fiction novel.

A: Eh, yes. I'm not sure I'd call myself a scientist, but, my degree is in physics, yes. Because I write what I want to write, really, but I'm not certain I'd say that it would be logical for a physicist to write science fiction. Are you aware of the paradigm called Schrödinger's Cat? It's a mind test in a way, really. If you can wrap your mind around it in the right way, believe it, then you are ready for higher physics. Imagine a cat, sealed in a lead box, and there's no way to look into the box. Inside the box there is a flask of cyanide gas. Attached to the flask of cyanide gas is a geiger-counter. The geiger counter is pointed at an atom. The atom has a 50-50 chance, in any given second, of decay. Now tell me, is the cat alive, or is the cat dead? "He's fifty-fifty. No, no, no, is the cat alive, or is the cat dead? I'm not asking you to give me odds. Is the cat alive, or is the cat dead? "Ah, he's alive." No. "Why not?" If you're an engineer If you have an engineering mindset, you'll say that the only way to do it is to open the box and check. If you have the mindset that could take you into higher physics, you're willing to accept that the cat is alive and dead, both, and will be fixed in one state or the other when the box is opened. But until the box is opened, the cat is alive, and it is dead, simultaneously. "Yeah, that's fifty-fifty." No, it's not a fifty-fifty chance. A fifty-fifty chance says that it's fifty percent chance that the cat is one way, and fifty percent that it's the other way. "so it's either way." No, the cat is not either way, it is both. It is a 100% alive, and a 100% that the cat is dead, and both things are true. And must be acceptable as true. If you can not accept this as true, then you are not ready for quantum, for the most basic quantum physics, much less getting into anything beyond. But the thing is that if you can wrap your mind around Schrödinger's cat, you can also wrap your mind around fantasy. As a matter of fact, the thing that I find very interesting is that I don't really follow theoretical physics to any degree now, and haven't for more than twenty years. But when I find myself talking to a theoretical physicist, I sometimes get stuck on panels with theoretical physicists. I'm always afaid that I'm going to be left way behind because I haven't kept up in the area, but I find that I can keep up quite nicely. As long as while they're discussing theoretical physics, I discuss theology. And ah, I find myself able to keep up quite nicely, talking about the same thing.