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#wheel of time – @mystofthestars on Tumblr
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Myst in Tumblrland

@mystofthestars / mystofthestars.tumblr.com

Myst * Italian * obsessing over blond fictional characters
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avelera

Wheel of Time for all its flaws really was just The Most Worldbuilding

Like it really showed that oh, that cool idea you have for a fantasy world? Yeah come back when you’ve got 200 more of those to layer on top of each other. Ok, you’re almost half way to the amount of batshit worldbuilding in just the first three books out of fifteen.

It’s post apocalyptic sci-fi

It’s also Arthurian

It’s ALSO Norse mythology

It’s ALSO a totally new elemental magic system a generation before Avatar the Last Airbender

It’s ALSO a reimagining of Tolkien’s “a wizard shows up to take some provincials on an adventure where they become Important People”

It’s ALSO a political epic

It’s ALSO a reimagining of Dune

It’s ALSO an exploration of war veteran trauma and a denunciation of pain as having moral value

It’s ALSO a total remix mishmash of all the world’s cultures

It’s ALSO a deconstruction of the Chosen One trope where the Chosen One is utterly ruined by all the “cool things” destined to happen to him

It’s ALSO an air-tight prophecy engine where one tiny lie buried in the middle of just ONE of the THOUSAND PAGE BOOKS that many took to be an error was actually a huge character reveal they got debated for LITERAL DECADES before it was confirmed

It’s also an interrogation of gender in a world where women with magic are essentially the Vatican because men with magic are doomed to go insane, such that they’re hunted down like dogs

(And before I have to deal with the whole “gendered magic makes it transphobic” no it FUCKING ISN’T. It’s not perfectly progressive ffs because it was written in the 90s, but a man reborn into a woman’s body channels male magic because he is MALE and I’m so sick of people saying that the book is gender essentialist. You just haven’t read far enough.)

Anyway. Wheel of Time is totally unhinged worldbuilding. It was my first most beloved fandom. It’s totally unlike so much other fantasy to this day. The showrunner loves the books enough to know they have to be broken and reformed, just like the world itself, to work in this new Age and he’s done a fabulous job. You don’t understand how abnormal I am about this series.

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asha-mage

People complaining about the "Rand is lashed to a wheel" symbolism being heavy handed has got to be my new favorite flavor bookcloak delusion. In the books Rand is slathered in so much Messiah symbolism that the wiki has a subsection of his page dedicated to the different references. That man collects stagmata like Pokemon gym badges. He is every mythological savior archetype tossed into a blender with a healthy does of King Arthur, Baldr, and Achilles just to be safe.

The only reason Robert Jordan didn't crucify Rand "literally dies for the sins of humanity" al'Thor himself is because he probably couldn't find a spot to fit it in between him get Spear of Destiny'd and pulling the sword out of the stone. (Fun fact the ot Sword In the Stone was called Caliburn which you might note is remarkably similar sounding to Callandor. If you think that wasn't intentional I'd like to discuss some exciting bridge realty opportunities with you.)

Anyways lashing Rand literally to the symbolic representation of the enteral cycle of conflict in which all humanity is trapped, and Rand specifically is charged with preserving is dead on Jordan shit and I can't fathom anyone thinking otherwise.

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cha-faile

If y'all new readers want to remind yourselves about a specific character (including horses), I recommend the free, fan-made app the Wheel of Time Compendium! You select your reading progress and can then see each character with information only up to what's been given so far in your reading.

Show-onlies can select The Eye of the World for s01, and The Great Hunt (or book 3, The Dragon Reborn) for s02.

*I am not associated with this app in any way, I just think it's neat

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