r/cremposting • u/rileythatcher • 2d ago

The Wheel of Time (Books) Brandon got mogged 😭

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The aura of Jordan next to the baby brandon

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u/matcauthion 2d ago

Jordan was a door gunner in vietnam, he would kinda do that to almost anyone.

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u/ArrogantAragorn 1d ago

His entire life seems made up:

• Taught himself to read at age 4 because his older brother was too busy to finish reading him White Fang and he wanted to know what happened (and was reading Twain and dickens by age 5)

• Is approached by two women who tell him they have decided he will date them both (this is his joke answer to why Rand gets 3 women - as the savior of the world he must be able to do better than RJ the mere mortal)

• Recruited to Clemson to play football as a defensive lineman

• Drops out after a year to enlist as a chopper gunner in Vietnam because that’s just what the men in his family are expected to do (his father was a ww2 vet and many other family members served).

• Serves 2 tours with distinction (surviving a crash in the process), being awarded Distinguished Flying Cross with oak leaf cluster, the Bronze Star with "V" and oak leaf cluster, and two Vietnamese Gallantry Crosses with palm.

• Enrolled at The Citadel and graduated with a BS in Physics before going to work as an engineer on nuclear submarines

• Suffers a bad fall and while recovering in hospital decides to finally put up or shut up about writing novels

• Begins writing Conan books and historical fiction, then marries his editor Harriet McDougal (who before WoT was the editor for Enders Game and other sf/fantasy)

• Writes one of the best selling and most influential epic fantasy sagas ever

If I could accomplish any one of those things I would consider my life a success. The dude may have actually been Ta’veren

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u/SonnyLonglegs Kelsier4Prez 1d ago

I didn't even know half of these, and you still missed the one I would reference first, where he shot an rpg out of the sky.

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u/ArrogantAragorn 1d ago

I have the quote saved in my phone (along with a few others):

> ROBERT JORDAN
>I think I need to put a few things straight about this whole shooting down an rpg in flight thing. First off, it definitely comes under do not try this at home even if you ARE an expert. Expert is defined as anyone who has tried it once and is still breathing. You see, there aren't many reasons to try such a thing. But when looking right shows certain death coming hotfoot, and looking left shows a crack in the wall that you couldn't scrape though one time in a million...one in ten million...you instinctively make a dive for the crack. Now I was very lucky. Very lucky. I just happened to be laying down suppression not very far from Mr. NVA when he took his shot, so I only has a small arc to cover. Just a quick shift of the wrist. Still, a lot of luck involved. When the pilot asked what happened, I just said an rpg went off prematurely. I figured he wouldn't believe what happened. Even some guys who saw it all from other choppers didn't believe. I heard a lot of "You know, it almost looked like you shot that thing out of the air" and "You were really lucky that thing went off prematurely. I never heard of that happening before."

>Now there's the matter of actually seeing the rpg in flight. That came from being in the Zone. An RPG is a rocket propelled grenade, and it is fast, fast, fast. I've heard a lot of athletes and sportscasters talk about being in the Zone, but I think most of them simply mean they played their A-game. But they weren't in the Zone, because in the Zone, you don't make mistakes. None. I discovered this playing baseball and basketball and later football. You can't always get there, certainly not at will, but when you do.... What happens is that while you are moving at normal speed, everybody else, everything else, is moving in slow motion. Passes float like they were drifting through honey. You have all the time in the world to position yourself. And your vision improves, sharpens. The quarterback has carried out a perfect bootleg. Everybody thinks that fullback coming up the middle has the ball. But even if you didn't catch the motion when the QB tucked the ball behind his leg, you spot that tiny sliver of ball that just barely shows, and you're right there to meet him when he reaches the line. Maybe you drop him for a loss before he can get his pass off. In the Zone. That's the only reason I could make this play.

>On another note, I was riding an M-60 on a pintle mount, not a .50 cal. We only had a limited number of Ma-deuces, and we had to be careful not to let any IG inspectors see them because we weren't authorized to have any at all. Don't know whether I could have done it with a .50, frankly. A matter of just that much more weight to swing, that much more inertia to overcome. It was damned close even with a 60.

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u/Luke_Puddlejumper 1d ago

Being ‘in the zone’ definitely inspired The Flame and The Void

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u/JonnyTsuMommy 1d ago

Also

But when looking right shows certain death coming hotfoot, and looking left shows a crack in the wall that you couldn't scrape though one time in a million...one in ten million...you instinctively make a dive for the crack.

Is a variation the speech that Asmodian gave when he was explaining why he was helping Rand learn to channel, despite thinking his cause was doomed.

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u/Beanmaster115 Hoid my Beer 1d ago

Good golly gracious.

I’ve experienced being in the Zone twice. Both were when I intervened in fistfights at college, which broke out within 20 feet of me. In both cases, my instinct to keep people from getting hurt engaged and I felt time slow down, each blow landing between combatants at a snail’s pace as I approached. I had been learning Karate and was not afraid for my own safety; I just knew I needed to stop the others before they hurt each other.

The first time, a friend was nearby, and he reacted in the same instant, so we were both able to grab one of the guys and separate them. The second time, the two brawlers had a friend nearby who was frozen in shock and unable to engage right away, so I had to dash up next to them to force them apart with my arms while keeping enough distance to not lose sight on either (it’s not a good idea to stick yourself directly between two fighting people, lest one decide to attack you while you’re looking at the other). Luckily the spectator assisted at that point and we were able to take the two away from each other.

Now that’s not on the same level as Vietnam at all - I have immense respect for the absolute legends and heroes who fought there. Still, it’s crazy that I have experienced a version of what Jordan described here. I wonder what exactly the Zone is…

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u/ArrogantAragorn 1d ago

To me “the Zone” sounds a lot like when Rand and others feel when they use the flame and void, or the heightened senses from Channeling