Barnes and Noble Chat Log In

November 1997

Keywords

One Power

Robert Jordan has spoken...

A recurring motif in the Wheel of Time series is the differences between men and women. Why did you decide to make this such an important feature in your writings, and why do you take such a bipolar view on gender?

I became fascinated with women at the age of three. It's a long story -- too long to go into here. But I quickly realized that for everything that was the same about men and women, there seemed to be at least two or three things that were different. Once I had decided that I wanted to use the One Power in the way that I was using it -- that is, divided into a male half and a female half -- it became obvious to me that the differences between men and women themselves should also play a part.