Questioner
In a Google video you once made, you talked about how you never knew Robert Jordan. You knew his family, friends, world, and characters; but not him. You wrote the end of his life's work. That juggernaut that is and was The Wheel of Time.
In The Emperor's Soul, Shai had to build up something new from journal entries from the Emperor as well as pieces from her to make what she thought was a better man. Long question short, is this analogy baseless? Or do you in some way see The Wheel of Time as your Emperor's Soul?
Brandon Sanderson
You know, there's an interesting connection there that I'd never thought about before, reconstructing the person from the lore of their life, rather than themselves. Where that falls apart is, I still maintain (and I doubt there's much contention on this point) that Robert Jordan could have done a better job of his ending than I did. This is in the definition, right? I couldn't reconstruct...
The whole goal of The Emperor's Soul is that she's creating a work of art that replaces the original, but in many ways is superior to the original. I don't think I did that. But I did have that experience of trying to recreate, in some ways, Robert Jordan from all the pieces, all the lore, all the ephemera.
So I love that you've made that connection, and I certainly think there's something there. But I don't know that the metaphor sticks in the large scale.