#this is to grrm: hey diva... it's been 14 years...

[infernalwraths]

[divagonzo]

Why did you change your username and how did you come up with the new one?

Oh hey, Sunglasses. You might want a beverage and a chair for this answer coming up.

So my Name - Amysthefardareismai (and my side-blog of Amys-the-wise-1) is for my ultimate all-time favorite book series (notice I said book because no matter how cocked up things are, I’ll never lose my love of the Star Wars movies.) and it’s in that fandom that the name makes complete sense.

So, TL;DR - It’s a secondary character in another fandom that is important to the series and the series is being made for streaming on Amazon Prime and Sony Pictures.

Under the Cut because the detailed answer gets really long

So, my favorite all-time book series (yes, moreso than HP) is the Wheel of Time series, by Robert Jordan (and Brandon Sanderson - the same one who writes Mistborn, The Stormlight Archives, Cosmere, etc.). The series is a prologue book, 14 massive motherfucking books, and a companion book/encyclopaedia.

Yes, I said 16 books. Millions of words, 13,000+ pages (and notes that exceeded the maximum capacity of MS Word and thus crashing the files because 32K pages of text are beyond the limits!) Yes, I said 32,000 pages of notes. Not the actual story but the notes behind the story.The Author first published Eye of the World in 1988. (Keep that date in mind) and within the next 8 years, he published another 5 books - and the sixth is the shortest at almost 700 pages.) The author had a storied life before picking up the pen, writing some Conan the Barbarian serials before branching out on his own. His wife was the editor of the series (and also editing Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game which is pretty damn cool) and pretty much most adore her (and I’ve had the pleasure of meeting her and thanking her for her works!)

GRRM first published A Song of Ice and Fire in 1996 - yet GoT was made into the series first (which proved to be a mistake to do a series to small screen when the damn series wasn’t finished.) WoT has been completed since 2012. 7 years now. Even with the death of the Author (May the Memory of the Dragon always be a blessing!) the series/saga was completed. 

The last tome is over 900 pages. I read it in 24 hours. Then I went back and re-read it, taking a full week to read it.

Wheel of Time, as of the 16th of September, has started filming, for a 2021 release date. The series is gonna easily be 8 seasons, if not 10-12. The showrunner for it is a huge fan. The big-name attached to it - Rosamund Pike - is a huge fan of it. There’s a bunch of us on Twitter trying to get Felicia Day a role in it since she’s a huge fan.

And already there is enormous controversy since, by the second casting announcement the series was more diverse than GoT was for a few seasons.  Yes, there are People of Color cast in important, pivotal roles. The ones cast already have fanart made with their faces. They’ve already seen new art depicting them in the roles, even if the original writer didn’t define such. (Casting those 5 young adults was a huge risk but it’s obvious that the paradigm is changing and High Fantasy isn’t just for the default anymore.)

So, to answer: My new name (and I do miss my Diva-Gonzo one but I’ll reclaim it someday) is that this character is someone my actual age (have I mentioned that the series has older women written into the series, 40 something and up!) who are shown to be absolutely kick-ass amazing. She’s described as being thin (well I’m not that) with long white hair (I have some but it’s not long and white) and ageless beauty to her (from using the particular kind of magic system this fantasy series uses) which I do seem to have a somewhat ageless face.

But who she is aside from appearance has made a huge impact on me since I first picked up the series in 1992 in my college years. She’s been a warrior, fighting alongside men. She’s been called to a higher duty and survived the process. She’s seen as a leader of her people, a teacher to recalcitrant apprentices, hasn’t birthed her own children but has children (and is married to a Man but also has a Wife!) and is a pivotal character in the series. She was a mentor I needed while at the time identifying with one of the primary characters who I saw myself in quite a bit. 

While there are some aspects are that are problematic and a couple of things anachronistic, considering when the series started, and how damn progressive it is (then, opening the way for so many new writers too!) and how much it focuses on women being, well, women, with flaws and foibles and failings and virtues to make anyone cheer, well, how could I not love it?

And right now, I’m on read-through #10, writing fic for it, spent 4 hours yesterday doing linguistics research for the fic I’m writing (and making it believable and fitting in-universe!) and generally excited for my favorite series to make it to the screen.

There was a hashtag from Monday where so many on twitter wrote what WoT means to them - and sooooo many expressed how the series helped them grow as people, helped them through some seriously dark things in their lives, helped them cope with things they couldn’t fix or heal and realize it was OK.

One of the people inside the twitter network of TwitterofTime knows the wife of one of the long-time assistants to the Author - and is close friends with the writer’s widow. She showed Harriet the entire hashtag of people speaking up and out on how the series is important to them - which was the first day of filming and also the anniversary of RJ’s passing.

So if you want to know what the heck is going on when Wheel of Time premiers/drops, I’d suggest starting by reading Eye of the World now (or getting Audible and the audiobooks of the series by Kramer/Reading and listening for hundreds of hours) so you are ready to half-way understand what’s going on.

Hell, I’m on the 10th read and I’m still learning things and picking up on things (including an obvious to everyone ‘cept an Ace Dragon!) and realizing that there is so much more that I’ve not scratched yet.

The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills.