#Robert Jordan

[sophthebof]

Publisher: so I see you’ve got the magic system all ironed out here

Robert Jordan: yep pretty simple isn’t it

Publisher: just had a couple quick questions. So the “One Power”…

RJ: yep

Publisher: also used synonymously with the “True Source”…

RJ: bingo

Publisher: is entirely different and separate from this other important thing called the “True Power”

RJ:

Publisher:

RJ: I’m not seeing the issue

[gameraboy2]

Conan the Destroyer by Robert Jordan Tor Book 812-54238-X (1984)

[dndspellgifs]

look, I know I've talked about this essay (?) before but like,

If you ever needed a good demonstration of the quote "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", have I got an exercise for you.

Somebody made a small article explaining the basics of atomic theory but it's written in Anglish. Anglish is basically a made-up version of English where they remove any elements (words, prefixes, etc) that were originally borrowed from romance languages like french and latin, as well as greek and other foreign loanwords, keeping only those of germanic origin.

What happens is an english which is for the most part intelligible, but since a lot everyday english, and especially the scientific vocabulary, has has heavy latin and greek influence, they have to make up new words from the existing germanic-english vocabulary. For me it kind of reads super viking-ey.

Anyway when you read this article on atomic theory, in Anglish called Uncleftish Beholding, you get this text which kind of reads like a fantasy novel. Like in my mind it feels like it recontextualizes advanced scientific concepts to explain it to a viking audience from ancient times.

Even though you're familiar with the scientific ideas, because it bypasses the normal language we use for these concepts, you get a chance to examine these ideas as if you were a visitor from another civilization - and guess what, it does feel like it's about magic. It has a mythical quality to it, like it feels like a book about magic written during viking times. For me this has the same vibe as reading deep magic lore from a Robert Jordan book.

[staff]

Tumblr Tuesday: The Wheel Weaves as The Wheel Wills

The Wheel of Time has two episodes left, and emotions are running as high as the White Tower of Tar Valon. This one is all about the gals, their pals, and their lovers—if the fanart you're churning out at frankly alarming rates is anything to go by. Jk, we love it, please never stop. Here's a small collection of beautiful fanart for you while you bit-chompingly await the next episode.

Please be mindful of some mild spoilers (if you squint) ahead!

@by-izzmizz:

@wot-tidbits:

@flo-n-flon:

@grechkathekasha:

@jxsmindoodles:

@meyonherown:

@blacksalander:

@moiraineology:

@coconutbramblesprite:

@caprasoleil:

@sohndesmondes:

@mirandakat:

@c01dwitch:

@thatordinaryoddity:

@kaiartx:

@emillungs:

[torpublishinggroup]

TOR WRAPPED 2023

Books for every Spotify Wrapped listener class! 

VAMPIRE

Masters of Death by Olivie Blake

Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

Mordew by Alex Pheby

HYPNOTIST

The Library of the Dead by T. L. Huchu

Daughter of Redwinter by Ed McDonald

Spring’s Arcana by Lilith Saintcrow

ALCHEMIST

The Bone Orchard by Sara A. Mueller

The Genesis of Misery by Neon Yang

The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey

SHAPESHIFTER

Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher

The Warden by Daniel M. Ford

Wolfsong by TJ Klune

FANATIC

Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson

Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree

The Fragile Threads of Power by V. E. Schwab

TIME TRAVELER

Kinning by Nisi Shawl

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab

MASTERMIND

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

Red Team Blues by Cory Doctorow

Exadelic by Jon Evans

COLLECTOR

The Wolfe at the Door by Gene Wolfe

Cassiel’s Servant by Jacqueline Carey

The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan

[alverelover]

[asha-mage]

Because I am coping with current world events in a completely normal manner I've been thinking a lot about how one of the tensions that underpins the whole of Wheel of Time is Robert Jordan as 'person who likes history' vs Robert Jordan as 'person who had to live through the Cold War.'

Something that can be really hard for people born after the Cold War (like myself) to grasp is that for a long time history was the ultimate reassurance against existential dread. Civilizations could rise and fall, empires could crumble, disasters could wipe out a hell of a lot of people, but human beings as a species, where never in any real danger of dying out. New countries would eventually rise out of the ashes of old ones, societies would change to be unrecognizable but they would still be there, religions, cultures ideologies etc might all die out but the people would still be around. History provided the ultimate comfort: whatever happened in our brief finite lives human beings as an group would eventually be fine.

But that changed after World War 2 and the invention of a little something called the atomic bomb. Suddenly human beings had the potential to destroy not just ourselves but all life on earth if things went wrong enough. For the first time in history their was no real guarantee that human beings as a species would make it, and in fact their was a whole lot of reason to believe based on the patterns of history that eventually that power would get used and human kind would destroy itself. That was the Cold War- two nuclear states who really really wanted to start blasting each other to pieces but couldn't without risking the end of life as we know it.

The tension between these two realities- the assurance of history that life will go on and the reality that human beings could in theory actually end the fucking world, is built into the core of Wheel of Time. The first lines assure us: time is cyclical. It's all happened before. It's all going to happen again. Human being will live out the same stories in endless variation, the same patterns will always reemerge. And the world has already survived one apocalyptic event: the Breaking, and come out the other side not doing fantastically, but still around. The world has been reshaped forever and whole eras of progress have been undone, but humanity remains.

But at the same time doomsday weapons with the potential to wipe out the species are everywhere. The Choden Kal can crack the planet open like an egg. Balefire burns apart time itself. A plague of madness is waiting for any old schmo to wander into it's den and carry it back outside so it can infect and destroy everyone. Their are all kinds of different big glowing red 'destroy humanity' buttons laying around in WoT just begging to get pressed. And in a way the Dark One is the ultimate version of that because that button has already been pressed. The Bore has been opened. Left alone humanity is fucked and everyone knows it. It can be delayed and pushed back, but never truly stopped, except by the intervention of destiny- the intervention of the Dragon. That's the core conflict of the series. Rand is struggling to stop a missile that's already been launched, prevent an end everyone can see coming. It's not just 'I need to defeat the big bad evil overlord or everything will be bad forever', it's 'I need to stop the Dark One or that's the end of human beings as an idea'.

What's especially interesting is that Jordan isn't even framing the Wheel/Pattern as uniformly good, because it's history and history is messy and complicated and full of contradictions and no easy answers. The Wheel, the Pattern, is not some force for righteousness. It's a neutral fact of existence. Not what's best or what's ideal- those are subjective and grounded in human understanding of the world- but what's necessary and what's true. To want to break free from history, to break the Wheel, is to want to break free of being human. That's what the Forsaken all truly want (as I have talked about before): to leave behind their humanity, and their willing to sacrifice whatever it takes to do it. What that looks like and what motivates that desire is different for each of them but their united in that common goal, and they all either disregard the consequences of what it will mean or don't understand them.

The story of history is one of incredible suffering and amazing triumph: it's full of heartache and joy in equal measure. It's not fair or just or simple to understand, but it is a reflection of who we all are collectively. The fight to preserve the Wheel isn't a fight to preserve what is good or ideal, it is a fight to preserve what is human. Because as long as the story can keep going, we can have hope for tomorrow.

And Jordan promises right from the offing that their will always be a tomorrow. No beginnings. No endings. Just whatever comes next.

As we enter a period of history that is the most uncertain it's ever been in my lifetime, I can't help but I think of the incredible courage and strength it must have taken be staring down the barrel of nuclear armageddon and stubbornly insist that there would be a tomorrow. The man wrote eleven of the best books ever made exploring this exact struggle- about never giving in to despair or pain, never buying into the belief that things are hopeless, that humanity sucks and we're all doomed.

And remembering that...I don't know. It makes a little easier to breath and keep walking towards tomorrow myself.

[bitterkarella]

Midnight Pals: Magic Systems

[at Unicorn Fuck Club] Brandon Sanderson: hey robert what kind of magic rules do you have Sanderson: in my fantasy world, there's 18 laws of magic Sanderson: sorted into 23 categories and 65 sub-directories Robert Jordan: huh Jordan: well in my world, girls do girl magic and boys do boy magic

Sanderson: wait what? Jordan: girls do girl magic and boys do boy magic Sanderson: how does that work Jordan: saidin is stored in the balls

Jordan: why, how does your magic work Sanderson: ah well if you experience an emotion in my fantasy world Sanderson: then a sprite representing that emotion with physically appear and dance around Jordan: is that like Big Mouth then Sanderson: what Jordan: its a cartoon show Sanderson:

Sanderson: oh idk maybe Sanderson: i haven't seen it Sanderson: i only watch saturday's warrior on loop Jordan: look, i just think it makes sense Jordan: that the fundamental mystery powers of the universe would bisect neatly along binary gender lines JK Rowling: goddamnit!!! Rowling: why didn't i think of that

Rowling: ugh, inssstead i only have magic dividing people into uebermensssches and untermensssches Rowling: it could have been sssso much more!

Rowling: sssso in my world Rowling: the sssuperior wizard raccce issss sssimply born knowing magic Sanderson: right, right Rowling: then they have to go to sssschool Rowling: you know, to learn Rowling: Rowling: magic Rowling: alssso there are bad wizardsss who want to exterminate non-wizardssss Rowling: the bad wizardsss represssent queer people now Rowling: that's why we need to get them before they get us Rowling: anyway if you're an elected repressentative writing eliminationalisssst lawsss, feel free to reference my fictional booksss for jussstification Tolkien: Martin: Rowling: i don't get it, that alwaysss getsss a big hand on mumsnet Diane Duane: in my world, anyone can learn magic Rowling: SHUT UP DUANE Duane: from a book Rowling: SHUT UP Duane: you can get it at the library John Bellairs: oh yeah i think i've seen that book

[tentakrool]

it’s always “support women in STEM” and “women should be allowed to focus on a career” until you open up a hole into the Dark Dimension and release the embodiment of pure unadulterated evil, and then all of a sudden people have a problem—

[chumsterfire]

Rand al'Thor (I'm on book 1)

[fanondomstuff]

Robert Jordan looking on from the afterlife on the show having an entire song about women singing about their boobs: "They get it, they get my books"

[thenotoriousscuttlecliff]

Was just hilarious how Robert Jordan kept creating all this family connections between major characters and then doing almost nothing with them.

-Moiraine is aunt to Elayne, Galad and Gawyn. Never interacts with any of them.

-Rand and Galad are half brothers. Barely a thing.

-Slayer is made of Rand and Galad's uncle and Lan's cousin. Never meets any of them.

[clearancecreedwatersurvival]

Someone: the wheel of time was written by a misogynist problematizing female power

Me: the wheel of time was written by a man doing a kind of half-assed attempt at understanding feminism (from a very 90s perspective) by writing a world where sexism happened to men instead, and who also had a latent femdom kink and never emotionally recovered from the time two women decided between themselves to share him, so he had to write fifteen books to process it. And also all the war trauma.

[nyxastraedits]

The Wheel of Time: He Who Comes With The Dawn

I have been absolutely captivated by WOT. Here is a fan edit I have made.

[alverelover]