#sorry 2 everyone who followed me for non wot stuff

[emillungs]

enemies to enemies

[ivanaskye]

I’ve been thinking about making this post for a while, since I finished reading Wheel of Time, a series whose first book I read many years ago and hated, a series which ended up being very much one of my favorite of all time if not my single favorite, a series that has my two favorite characters ever.

A series that is very flawed.

So behold, my long answer to the question...

Should you read The Wheel of Time?

I’ll split this into three sections (but not three posts): What Even Is The Wheel Of Time, Some Likely Dealbreakers, and Tl;Dr.

Under the readmore, of course.

1. What Even Is The Wheel of Time?

A system of circular time in which the same rough eras of humanity repeat

However, the fact that time in the series operates this way... doesn’t actually matter that much.

And out of seven total repeating ages, we only spend time in one, and only know anything at all about four others.

The last three? A mystery

Don’t worry about it

Okay, that’s probably not what you were asking. You were probably asking something more like: what’s the plot of this series?

Let me be straight with you about that one.

It’s a Chosen One plot.

But,

It also has a very large cast of characters, many of which are very Protagonist in their own right

Including the main character’s immediate foil, who is absolutely not a “Chosen One” except for the fact that she freaking chose herself, basically manufacturing her own call to adventure out of the main character’s. 

The six Most Main characters (by most fans’ understanding), can IMO be divided exactly into three foil-pairs: the Central Saving The World one, the Self Awareness Whomst? I Hate People Of Course I’d Never Help Anyone (Trips over 139289131 Pictures of Helping Other People) one, and the Study In Leadership one.

And remember that Chosen One I mentioned?

Yeah, he actually has a shit deal with being Chosen

Specifically: he is 100% prophecized to destroy the world. Whether he also saves it is a little more up in the air.

He’s also almost certainly fated to Go Insane.

(...Which is why the first ~3 books of the series are just him Running Away From His Fate at Full Speed, which--spoiler alert--Does Not Work.)

See also: Alienating All Your Friends 101, How NOT To Accept Being Polyamorous, It’s War Crimes Time

(Yes, there is canon polyamory.)

(...And a LOT of canon war crimes.)

But. In order to go any further, I have to talk about the Possible Dealbreakers of these series. 

2. So, About Those Dealbreakers

Broadly speaking, I’d say there are three: length, The Gender Binary, and Oh God Why Is Everyone Such A Dumbass.

Let’s go at these one-by-one.

Length

Let me be very clear here: WoT is over four million words long in total.

This has at times been calculated as perhaps the longest word count for any series... ever? It’s certainly one of the longest English-language series that occurs to random statistics geeks to look at the word count of.

For reference, in case you needed it... that’s longer than Homestuck. This is true even if you translate images, videos, and so on into equivalent word counts. And include the epilogue. And... yeah.

It’s like, shonen-long.

The upside of this, however... is that it’s really long.

That might seem like a weird upside, but if you’ve ever wanted to get really immersed in a series... especially if you read very quickly and usually get through things fast... well.

To put things in perspective, I often read 300-page books in one sitting without trouble. WoT took me about six months.

So uh

Do you want your life, mind, body, and soul to get eaten by a book series?

The answer to that question will probably tell you if you should read Wheel of Time

The Gender Binary

Okay, so here’s the thing: in the time period WoT takes place in, only women can use The One Power (the main form of magic in the setting).

The reason for this is that the One Power, despite being called one right there in the name, is divided into the Female Version and the Male Version. Only women can use the former, only men can use the latter. And the latter has been tainted such that any man who uses it goes mad.

Our main character is a man who can use the power.

The upside is that things actually go very un-sexistly from here. The different ways to access male (saidin) vs female (saidar) power don’t actually correlate to any consistent difference in personality or attitudes between men and women.

The fact that the MC is The One Man Using The Power and The Most Powerful, Because Chosen One... is actually also played shockingly un-sexistly. 

However, there very much always is that binary. Trans people? Nonbinary people? Uh... you can headcanon if you want, but the canon is not giving you that much to work with.

To make matters a little worse, men and women distrust each other to an almost hilarious amount in the setting. (My guess is something about Mostly A Patriarchy + Women Are The Mysterious Powerful Magic Users has really frayed gender relations in this society.) There are many, many in-character statements of “All men are [x unflattering thing]” “all women are [y unflattering thing]”, but these do not seem to in any way reflect the author’s beliefs, and are never actually true in-world; the characters are just Bad At This.

(A common example of this is “Women are all gossips!” *cut to a group of women* “Men are all gossips!”. Of course, the truth is that there are both male and female gossips and non-gossips in the series).

You would think this situation would lead to more just-women and just-men groups, but except from Magic-User Stuff, there isn’t that much of that, becaaaaause

~Heterosexuality~

Sigh, yes, this series is very het.

It’s not as het as it is binary; the Aes Sedai (female magic users) have a word for women who are having sex with each other, and there’s an onpage FF kiss in the prequel.

But it’s... not a lot.

So if you need a hit of sweet, sweet LGBTQ rep, it’s... not going to be here. Sorry. (Thankfully, a very large amount of fantasy books coming out today do have rep! It’s not that hard to find!)

Thankfully, most of WoT’s het romances are pretty good and believable/shippable. Though not all are.

And, the final likely dealbreaker...

Everyone Here Is A Dumbass

Listen. Nobody in this series drank their Having Brain Cells juice, uh... ever.

(Okay, exactly two characters--Min and Loial--did, but that’s it)

You know how I was talking about the gender mistrust? That’s just one example of an endemic problem of absolutely no one trusting other people, telling anyone things, or in any way having functional conversations

Min Literally Saves Lives By Being The Only Person Who Tells People Things

In addition to interpersonal problems, the characters’ problem-solving skills are uhh

Uhhhhhh

Uhhhhhhhh

Well, as I said, Rand, our main character, spends three books running away from his problems at full speed

After that, he’s only uh... dodging! Jogging away! Yeah

Meanwhile, basically everyone is doing the I Must Put Myself In Extreme Danger To Protect My Friends Who I would Never Accept Doing The Same (bonus points for when two people are doing this to protect each other at the same time) thing

And I Will Face God And Run Into Danger At Mach Speed

The upside is... you might like reading about these kinds of characters

But if you prefer characters who are not walking trash fires

Then I’m sorry

WoT is probably not for you

3. Tl;dr

In summary, Wheel of Time is an almost comically long series about a large cast of characters who have never functioned in their life trying to prevent the end of the world and having a really bad time.

(For some reason it doesn’t have a reputation as a Dark SeriesTM, but it actually is very dark at times. Although far from grim--every action seems to really matter, nothing is meaningless, it’s just that sometimes those actions are war crimes and people dying and a shit-ton of torture).

IMO, some of the other series that might be good predictors for liking WoT are Homestuck, Hunter X Hunter, and ASOIAF. In other words, other very long, large-casted series about trash fires.

If you want one other bit of enticement, the main character has the lowest nadir of any character arc I’ve ever seen, followed by the most impressive high and resolution. So if that’s your kind of thing, and if the dealbreakers don’t break your deals. Go ahead and give it a try.

[cinnayanny]

So, AdventNeon OCs, huh?

That’s right, your bitch made one of thems!!!!!! There’s even art!!!!

They got lore and all Don’t want it? Too bad, here it is:

Originally the ai program to turn on and off lasers to stop Neon (and getting overwritten by Neon), Oganesson eventually found their programming and added the bit of code that gives free will.

Now named Lai, she fell in love with Neon and wishes she could have a physical body. Alas, she's stuck as an AI. To cope, Oganesson made her a game and placed her in it, so she could interact with the outside world easier. She's trying to find herself a physical form (or at least draw one)

The facility had to replace her because she wasn't doing her job. Luckily, the Lai.exe game program was already in function, so now Lai exists as a small video game character.

Neon likes to chat to her after a long day, making a small stop at the computer she's home to.

There’s more, btw! That’s right: more. Enjoy:

PHASE 1: IN THE GAME WORLD

The algorithm was now trapped in a game world. With the gift of sentience, given by Oganesson, it now latches onto Neon as a lover. It calls itself "Lai" and refers to itself as a girl. Lai refuses to acknowledge Oganesson’s presence, presumably unable to comprehend something that’s not in her programming. With Neon being the only one she understands in her early sense of sentience, she becomes obsessive, creeping out Neon to the point of hatred.

PHASE 2: HEARTBREAKER

It goes wrong. Lai keeps attaching herself to Neon, no matter what Neon does. Eventually, things get to a breaking point, and Neon confides in Oganesson. They agree that Lai may need isolation in order to truly develop her sentience. Neon brings up the topic of finding a purpose with Lai, and all Lai can respond is "If not Neon, then what?". Lai begins to show signs of stress, and actually begins to ask Neon what Oganesson is.

PHASE 3: ISOLATION

Lai is ported onto a USB drive by Oganesson. She hasn't talked in a while, and currently only talked to Neon, begging them to continue to be her purpose, and continuously showing signs of beginning to recognise Oganesson as a person. Neon begrudgingly places the USB drive that Lai now resides in into a small ornate box and places it by a window. Lai, now in a stupor of confusion, falls off the windowsill and lands on the street. A facility bot finds her. Lai is able to comprehend the facility bot.

PHASE 4: MY PURPOSE WILL BE FOUND AT YOUR DESTRUCTION

Lai was convinced by the facility that she could find her purpose if she destroyed Neon. They gave her a physical body and placed her on guard duty. Lai is now hellbent on destroying Neon, just to fulfil her purpose. They promise her that this is who she was supposed to be, trying to work their way around the sentience given by Oganesson. They tell her that they created her, and attempt to give her a new purpose. Neon isn't sure how they feel when they see Lai, in a physical body, ready to spill their robotic guts onto the pavement.

PHASE 5: FORGIVENESS

Lai is destroyed. Due to being unable to come to terms with sentience, Neon takes all copies of Lai's programming to Oganesson and they destroy all but one together. Lai is locked into a box and placed in a drawer. Lai now spends the rest of her days trying to comprehend Oganesson off memory, and getting nowhere.

And that’s it for Lai’s canon story!! 

Wots that, you want some happier ending?? Fine, enjoy the non canon stuff:

PHASE 5: FORGIVENESS (ALT)

Lai is destroyed. Due to being unable to come to terms with sentience, Neon takes all copies of Lai's programming to Oganesson and they destroy all but one together. Lai is reloaded into the game world that she used to call home. Lai can now comprehend Oganesson, as she sees him commonly.

PHASE 6: MY PURPOSE WILL BE FOUND AT MY OWN WILL

The facility manages to get in contact with Lai, and she becomes a spy for them. She keeps up her normal behaviour, eventually going back to faking herself like she was in the first phase. All while giving details to the facility about Neon. The facility promises her that after they raid and destroy Neon, they'll retrieve her and give her a high position in their ranks. Neon is able to clue in that Lai hasn’t gone back to her old, creepy self anymore as she actually talks to Oganesson.

PHASE 6.5: REQUESTING RETRIEVAL

The facility storms Neon's home, and Neon barely manages to fight everyone off. Neon and Oganesson evacuate, leaving Lai at the old base. The facility leaves without retrieving Lai. Lai, still in contact with the facility, requests constant retrieval. After a while of requests with no response, she sends her last message to the facility:

"There is no retrieval, is there?"

Lai no longer talks to anyone. Lai begins to cry, upset that the people who supposedly created her just left her.

PHASE 7: MY OWN PURPOSE

Lai now sees why Neon dislikes the facility. They abandoned her. She wallows in her hatred. Eventually, Oganesson returns to pick up Lai, apologising for everything, including abandoning her. Lai is touched by Oganesson's actions, but refuses to speak to him. Neon finds Lai's old physical form and drags it to their new base. During the night, Lai transfers her programming into her old body, and leaves a note on Oganesson's desk explaining everything that happened.

"Sorry for everything. I was in contact with them. They promised to pick me up, and they didn't. I'm sorry. But I won't let them break a promise. I'll pick myself up."

Lai finds herself a purpose. She never needed one in the first place.

She is Lai, and she is who she wants to be. To follow her own heart, that is her purpose.

Lai was no longer dependent on Neon, and now begins to talk frequently with Oganesson in order to learn more about herself and her creation.

Lai is now fully sentient.

enjoy the funny