Which may be the right take on it. I tend to be a big picture guy as well, but even if we agree that's the way the world works, that's not how any human being in history has perceived it: It may be the functional reality, but it's still largely foreign to our experience. I can't tell you how the world reacted on 911 because I don't have the vantage; I can tell you people I knew then reacted because I observed it.

You can make an argument for either approach, because neither one is "right" to make the other "wrong. " Both are viable, well established and time honored literary techniques; if you want a linear story, you probably shouldn't read Wuthering Heights, for example. It's not even new in WoT; I can't tell you how many times I've read TEotW, but I STILL can't completely follow the whole timeline of Rand and Mats first trip to Caemlyn. Even after spending a fair amount of time at EncyclopediaWOTs graphical overview of those very events; there are simply too many details and the timeline shifts around too much. On the other hand, I'm not sure that my learning in the '90s that the Bong Recreation Area is named for a pilot killed in WWII really changes world history. It changes my perception of it, because I only found about the event a half century after it happened, but that's nothing new.