What happened to the FAQ?

[JrockNRolla]

Hi

 

Been years since I read the WOT books and with the announcement of the TV show I decided to consider re-reading them. Once I did I remembered the wotfaq and thought it would be a good “catch up”. 

 

Cant seem to fond it anywhere, can someone point me in the right direction?

 

Much appreciated. 

[2RiversFan]

If what you're asking for is what I think you're asking for, I think that site has been gone for about 3-5 years.  

But the encyclopaedia-wot.org is still up.  It provides chapter by chapter summaries, and also has a comprehensive character list with descriptions.  It was updated thoroughly until A Memory of Light.   For AMoL, it was only updated for a few chapters.  I always use that and Leigh Butler's Tor reread when I decide to reread.  

For more involved questions, Theoryland interview DB is still up, as Theroyland forums are still active, (about as active Dragonmount maybe).  

The most community involvement these days seems to be on social media, especially FB.

Of course, we'd prefer you'd ask questions here first ? 

[Zorlon]

Wait WoTFAQ is down? Pity, a bunch of folk put a lot of work into that compilation, and I enjoyed their sense of humor.

[JenniferL]

We are working on getting it back online. 

[Trekkerdude]

Hi, I was just wondering if you managed to bring back up the FAQ? If you did could you tell me where it is now located?

 

TIA

[JenniferL]

Nope. Not yet. 

[Sabio]

What about now?  ?

[JenniferL]

Get back in your cage. 

[Sabio]

I had debated posting that once a day ?. 

[JenniferL]

I will just ignore you. 

[Guest PrimeTyme75]

This looks like a good mirror site for the FAQ.

 

http://linuxmafia.com/jordan/WH/

[BilboHunted]

Hello, is there any update on getting the FAQ back online?

 

I’m sure demand will continue to grow as the TV show gets closer, starts, and spreads interest. 

Edited January 9, 2021 by BilboHunted
Clarity

[iAmQuestar]

For those interested, the mirror linked above seems to be a version from 2002.  I found one on the Way Back Machine from 2015:

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20151211072907/http://wotfaq.dragonmount.com:80/node/16

 

[eva.reves]

Updating the FAQ would take up at least a year with 20-25 people. Or 6-8 very dedicated fans. But it would be good to updated up to KOD, with things like this (wink) Mary from Niniveh (Nynaeve al'Meara), because 'The Lord Dragon cares for her as for a mother.') Naturally, there are more serious issues than this little joke.
 

WOTFAQ - Sources

'At Easter mass this past spring, I saw an adult baptized for the first time in the Catholic faith. They get the person to kneel, pour water over their head, and say something like "Now you are sealed". I don't recall the exact words, but "sealed" was in it for sure and I recall thinking Jordan must be Catholic. Sounds a lot like becoming Accepted to me. [Judy G.]'

Instead of reports like this one, they should find a book about rituals, and present the real ceremony to us. I don't care about religion, but if you do a job, do it properly. 

Jordan: 'For Piercy, I am Episcopalian, though rather High Church.'

Finally, the FAQ is meaningless now: headcanons dominate on every level. And the TV Show will completely rewrite the series (putting Rand into the background, throwing out every dialogue and many storylines, moreover throwing out whole books, and distorting more and more things...)

Someone mentioned Encyclopaedia WoT: the site should offer the pure Jordan (up to KOD) version (and the tainted one if anyone cares about books not written by Jordan).

A few (rantish) thoughts, if I may.

Before Jordan's death it was so easy. A quote from the books or from an interview, and it was settled (almost - there are many things which can be interpreted in many ways). Now you quote from the books / interviews, and you are called 

gatekeeper (e.g. for saying read the books)

 

sexist (e.g. according to Jordan the Dragon is never female)

 

racist (see below)

 

homophobe (e.g. saying Loial, Rand, Elayne, Aviendha, Perrin etc is heterosexual)

 

liar (e.g. for quoting Sanderson's own words)

 

and similar names. 

Plus a ban, naturally, because faithfulness and accuracy to the books recently puts you into very bad light, because 'the books are dated, and modern audience cannot accept WOT in its original form'. I don't know anything about making TV series or 'modern' audience, but I read a lot reviews and posts, and it seems to me the majority of the viewers like faithful adaptations better than 'corrected / updated ones'. I can't defend storylines either because they are bad and boring. According to the recent fandom (especially on Reddit) Jordan's whole series is just a midden heap. (Why do they call themselves fans?) I disagree. 
 

One of the main message of the books that be more open to other cultures, other beliefs, and judging people on their outward appearance etc. is wrong. This is the whole point of WOT: Jordan wasn't a racist saying 'women with olive skins and dark eyes who were certainly not Andoran', he just described a quality, a trait which was typical before the New Breaking, but now thanks to Rand, the whole continent is getting more and more mixed up, and in the end it will probably reach the variety of the Seanchan. (Naturally we don't have many examples of that. Maybe I should say the variety of the Seanchan is unsettled without seeing Jordan's notes. One pov is not enough.) But right now you can easily say this man is from x, this woman is from y. Not just based on the color of his or her skin, but based on his or her facial features etc.

'The redness spread to cover nearly Siuan’s whole face; with her fair skin, it made her look like a sunset.' (Siuan describes herself as fair-skinned. (Almost as fair-skinned as Moirane (Moirane's pov, who is 'too' pale, and you know, she's from Cairhien).))

I got banned for this quote alone (I don't remember the name of the site/board/blog), because 'You are racist.'

As a human being I don't care about Siuan's skin color, eye color, height, garment, behavior etc. As a fan I care a lot about her skin color, eye color, height, garment, behavior etc.

When I replied to the moderators with this:

Jordan uses this expression 'it made her look like a sunset' exclusively for white people (Elayne blushed like a sunset, Nynaeve blushed for two; Nynaeve’s face as it reddened to shame two sunsets. Maybe three; Ten sunsets would not have done for Mat's face; Fiery sunsets paled beside Aviendha’s face; Reanne blushed a sunset)

I became an even bigger racist and a very toxic person, who cannot send even pms anymore.

In a similar way, Jordan uses 'knuckles white' exclusively describing white people.

But now I can't say / quote things like this, because I get immediately branded as a white supremacist. White supremacist my ***. But if you can't digest the fact that the main cast is white in Jordan's books, and the main cast was white in Jordan's head (see his casting choices), then you are the racist. I know that hating dead, white, heterosexual, Christian authors is in vogue in these days (e.g. Jane Austen etc. was/is the pinnacle of racism - this changes weekly), but there are so many other books out there you can read instead of WOT if you are not pleased with the series.

This is getting too long (thanks if you have read this post so far), so let's finish it.

See the case of Edorion who is described as pink-cheeked and plump (Mat's pov, Rand's pov), then he still pink-cheeked but not quite so plump as he had been (Rand's pov), then he became harder and sun-dark since coming north (Mat's pov), and according to Tuon Edorion is a dark, lean man. (Dark as a face that is not light in color, or as sullen or threatening? Maybe both.)

But how many readers care about details like that ones? How many? How many fans know the name Edorion at all? But these things (see Alarys' hair etc.) were important to Jordan. 

'This far north in Altara, they were fair rather than olive-complected, and some even had blue eyes' (Faile's pov)

Again, how many readers care about detail like that one? How many? But Jordan had crystal clear visualization of the people of different places, and it was important to him to write these things down.

[Mike Grier]

@eva.reves, dude, this kind of censorship sucks. I'd like to see what the management of the dragonmount site here has to say about this topic overall. Quoting and being accurate to the books has to take precedence over social preferences.

 

I came here because the public copy of the WOTFAQ is 11 years old now and doesn't include anything post-RJ's death. I'd love to volunteer to help with the update but I only stopped at book 9 when RH died. (I was waiting for the series to complete; I had always re-read the series from book 1 each time I read a new book. The last re-read took a year so I was waiting for more new books before I started over again...)

 

Since everything is done and the TV series is coming out I figure now is a time to start the Final Re-Read. In the past, the WOTFAQ was an amazing resource when I was confused but now I'm going to have to have to ride without safety wheels. (Well probably 9 or 12 months from now I will.)

 

But let's not let the trolls stop goodness from happening. Unless the trolls are institutionalized.

[SinisterDeath]

11 hours ago, Mike Grier said:

@eva.reves, dude, this kind of censorship sucks. I'd like to see what the management of the dragonmount site here has to say about this topic overall. Quoting and being accurate to the books has to take precedence over social preferences.

The video below goes through this topic, quoting the books.
To put it bluntly, the poster you responded to was dead wrong.