#hopper muses

[faild3adly]

Having just relistened to Wheel of Time,for the first time in around 5 years, I was struck by several moments that stuck with me as a more adult incarnation of myself.

(spoiler alert)

Mat's arc, his journey, one of knowledge and impetuousness, impulse becoming calculation, the salty joy of riding life like a bucking horse really foils how momentous the moment in the tower of Ghenjei is.

He knew, if not literally how much it would take.

Half the light of the world, to save the world. He knew the cost was coming, and refused to let someone else pay that price. The Gambler. The Hanged Man. The General.

It's the closing of a character arc that I don't think I could fully define when I was younger.

The reveal of Noal's true identity was just icing on the cake.

[faild3adly]

One thing I really adore about Wheel of Time, is how when I was a kid, I could see myself in all of the major characters, and as an adult I can see myself in all of them.

Our 3 ta'veren are *Scared* when we meet them. They're young, and they all think everyone else has their shit together. As the series proceeds they have a remarkably real growth arcs. Their behaviors feel consistent, even on the extremes. Trauma is a hell of a drug, and people handle it differently, but all of our heroes, Perrin, Mat, Egwene, Rand, Nynaeve, they all have believable arcs and emotional responses.

[faild3adly]

I was familiar with Percy Shelley's Ozymandias (I have no idea how, I'm a feral raccoon cursed into human form) and I went to look up the actual title of the poem, and found out that there's a companion piece! Written as part of a friendly competition, by Horace Smith, also titled Ozymandias! :

In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone,

Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws

The only shadow that the Desert knows:—

"I am great OZYMANDIAS," saith the stone,

"The King of Kings; this mighty City shows

The wonders of my hand."— The City's gone,—

Naught but the Leg remaining to disclose

The site of this forgotten Babylon.

We wonder,—and some Hunter may express

Wonder like ours, when thro' the wilderness

Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace,

He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess

What powerful but unrecorded race

Once dwelt in that annihilated place.

.....

So fucking metal.