In any case you can see why RJ wanted one book - Edit 1
Before modification by ajfurst at 01/12/2010 01:46:19 AM
It's a pity they didn't split it into two books instead of three. Three books split by clusters or chronologically was going to be flawed in one of the ways discussed. Two books could have been split with it ending after Perrin destroyed the Dreamspike and the Shadowspawn.
So by that point in time you'd have had Rand, Egwene, Perrin's arc's completed, Avi's visions when all those are held up. Leaving only Perrin's talks with Elayne, Elayne's 'exciting' antics in Cairhien and Mat's ToG visit pushed to AMOL of the main arcs. Along with some of Lan and the Epilogue. And of those only the Moraine one missing would have disappointed fans. Sure TGS would have had 500 odd of the 750 odd pages of TOM and required more pages and/or a smaller font, but it would have resolved the problems of chronology - which for me is not the out of order, it's the lack of despair in TOM it caused - whilst still giving fans plenty of resolution.
Of course we would have had an extra 9-12 months to wait for the book in that case, so it wouldn't have been perfect. It would have been the best option though IMO. TGS would have had the Light set back then ready, then AMOL the Last Battle. A neat division, rather then an arbitrary one (TGS could just have easily been Rand and Perrin or Rand and Mat, with TOM Egwene and Perrin or Egwene and Mat).
So by that point in time you'd have had Rand, Egwene, Perrin's arc's completed, Avi's visions when all those are held up. Leaving only Perrin's talks with Elayne, Elayne's 'exciting' antics in Cairhien and Mat's ToG visit pushed to AMOL of the main arcs. Along with some of Lan and the Epilogue. And of those only the Moraine one missing would have disappointed fans. Sure TGS would have had 500 odd of the 750 odd pages of TOM and required more pages and/or a smaller font, but it would have resolved the problems of chronology - which for me is not the out of order, it's the lack of despair in TOM it caused - whilst still giving fans plenty of resolution.
Of course we would have had an extra 9-12 months to wait for the book in that case, so it wouldn't have been perfect. It would have been the best option though IMO. TGS would have had the Light set back then ready, then AMOL the Last Battle. A neat division, rather then an arbitrary one (TGS could just have easily been Rand and Perrin or Rand and Mat, with TOM Egwene and Perrin or Egwene and Mat).