Prior to that he never really said anything definitive about the length of the series since his infamous "it'll be a trilogy" statement early on. I stand by my appraisal of his reasons for dragging out the series prior to his decline around the time of Knife of Dreams. The statement about finishing in one book was made when fans were apprehensive he would die prior to finishing the series (or rather, when fans had good reason to be apprehensive that he would die). But we disagree on why he padded the series.

I think he also definitely let the series get away from him and lost focus entirely, and that this loss of focus manifested itself as Crossroads of Twilight.



To address this directly and succinctly: the series never had pretensions of literary greatness, but the first six books were engaging and fun, with a fast pace and great endings. When the quality started to decline, the apologists began to invent excuses for Jordan. He was "character building," his work was "literary" and the pace necessarily slowed as a result. I didn't ever presume to mock Jordan for what he wrote - much as I don't attack Dan Brown. HOWEVER, when his fans began to speak of him as though he were a veritable Dostoevsky, or on a par with Milan Kundera or even (gasp) Marquez, I took umbrage with their spurious claims.

Finally, I'll note that Sanderson is a good read, but he shares some of the same flaws that Jordan has. His characters could use more depth. He has, to his credit, been working on this, but if by criticizing Jordan I criticize Sanderson, then so be it. Sanderson could use some improvement. Regardless, if Jordan is his teacher then I believe the student has already overtaken his teacher and is excelling beyond what the teacher could have done.