There are many powerful stories here already of people’s lives being saved or changed by The Wheel of Time. It might seem incredible that a set of books and a show based on them could achieve this, but it’s not. I know this because, if you had told me 5 years ago that my life and choices would change because of WoT, I would have been incredulous. But here I am, about to share personal details of my life to strangers, to show you why The Wheel of Time is the kind of art that alters brain chemistries, perspectives and lives.

I first heard of WoT – embarrassingly for an SFF fan – when I saw a social media announcement about Moiraine’s casting, with Rosamund Pike in her I Care A Lot haircut and a black dress, holding up a paperback copy of the Eye of The World. I decided to spend the scant couple of months until the S1 release reading as many of the books as I could.

There was a thrill of luxury and a drumbeat of guilt about this decision: I had quit my job some weeks prior in the middle of COVID, burned out on everything. I was supposed to spend the next few months searching for my next role. Instead, there I was one weekday afternoon, settling onto a blanket in a sun-dappled park, with a vegan burger and fries, about to start reading the unwieldy mass-market paperback version of EotW. I hadn’t known then that I was in fact on my way to one of my next “roles” as a WoT superfan. The signs began to emerge: I created an anonymous Twitter profile to talk about the books and show with strangers (there’s that word again). I waited on line (as we say in the greatest city in the world) in the cold for 2 hours for the S1 fan screening event, in Moiraine closetplay.

Fast forward to my fortieth birthday, 1.5 years later: I had made it through most of the books, aiming to finish before Season 2 aired. I had also come to a realization (or resignation) that I would not have children. What does it mean to be a woman – in this world – who chooses not to procreate? (WoT would answer this in Season 3 with a simple and extraordinary line: there are many ways to be a channeler, many ways to be a woman.) For me, it meant in part that I would let my inner nerd blossom.

There were many firsts in the years that followed; I’d go to my first ever con, learn basic sewing for cosplay, join a Discord server, write a WoT Idol parody song, speak on a panel about Resistance to Fascism in WoT. Most importantly: fandom strangers would become acquaintances, then friends, then community.

Do you see what I mean?

My life after WoT is richer, more vibrant, less stifled by convention (the other kind). The show is intertwined with my love for the books. We may always have the books, I may always have my WoT community, but I would be missing a piece without the show that breathed life into this thing we love and have shaped our lives around.

The Wheel doesn’t want anything. It’s people who want. I hope that our want and love can be the water that turns the Wheel itself to give us the story that deserves to be told in full.