Sense of community
Many fans say they enjoy the sense of community they find in online forums devoted to the series. And while they trade theories about what may happen to whom, or make suggestions of which actors and actresses they’d like to see in a movie, such forums are hardly restricted to book talk. They’re often places to flirt and try on new personalities.
Ultimately, they’re places to connect.
“Think of it as a sports bar,” suggested Bill Garrett, a computer engineer in his late 20s who constructed a “Wheel of Time” Web site in the mid-1990s, which he has since archived and largely abandoned. “When the game’s on TV, pretty much everybody watches it, but when the game fades they turn to talking with one another about their families, their jobs (and) the political scene.”
Garrett met his girlfriend through fandom, and others have made lasting ties, meeting at events across the globe. Still others have crossed the line from enjoyment to obsession.
“There are people who want me to teach them how to channel,” said Jordan. He also remembers a medical student from Malaysia who asked to become his “spiritual disciple”—an opportunity Jordan declined.
“I’m not a guru or a sage. I’m a storyteller. The only times I get disturbed is when I find people who seem to be taking this too seriously,” he said.
“I just wanted to write books I wanted to write,” continued Jordan. “There’s no writer who has not had enough ego to hope something he or she wrote would be seized on by the public—that something they write will last beyond them. But hoping and expecting are two different things. Expecting would be beyond ego.”
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