#A Wizard Alone

[dduane]

The question is at the bottom of this very long thing.

I decided to do a reread of the Wizards series -- I don't think I'd gotten beyond The Wizard's Dilemma on my last re-read in 2016.

Reading A Wizard Alone was interesting, ada neurodiverse fiftyish woman married to an autistic guy, with one autistic (young) adult child and one differently-neurodiverse teen child.

The ending of the book threw me - back in 2002, when the book was published, my husband didn't have a diagnosis (nor did I) and the term "executive function disorder" didn't exist. I knew three autistic adults talking openly about autism. And it was still four years to knowing my one-year-old child's odd responses and sensitivities were a variation of autism.

Fast forward to 2023, and the very language around autism has changed. My son does have disabling effects from autism, but he doesn't say he doesn't want to be autistic. He doesn't want to have an eating disorder, he'd like to be able to do more things for himself, and he definitely wishes we understood him better (and vice versa) but even at eleven, he'd have known that making Darryl's choice would change him utterly.

If you were writing the book now, what would Darryl's choice look like?

Thank you for reading this.

Hey, thanks for your note. I very much appreciate it.

A more currently-written A Wizard Alone would look a lot like this:

...because, when I was updating the Young Wizards books a decade or so ago to their New Millennium Editions, in 2013 I took the welcome opportunity to extensively rewrite the book with (much!) better data, and with input from the autistic readership.

The rewrite's been discussed here and there online over time. Here's one examination of it. Here's another. There are numerous others scattered across the online landscape, if you go looking for them.

This version of the book is (to my intense regret) not available in print in the US, as the North American publisher has so far shown no particular interest in updating the books to their new editions. Should this occur, though, the very first thing on my to-do list is to have the 2002 edition of Alone pulled from print, and replaced with the 2013 edition.

...And yeah, Darryl's choice is a lot different in the revised edition; as it should be. :)

Thanks again.

[autisminmedia]

Darryl McAllister from A Wizard Alone by Diane Duane is canonically autistic.

Sources: [1][2]

[first--lines]

In a living room of a suburban house on Long Island, a wizard sat with a TV remote control in his hand, and an annoyed expression on his face. “Come on,” he said to the remote. “Don’t give me grief.”

  —  A Wizard Alone (Diane Duane)

[fiction-quotes]

Nita nodded. “I never thought that goodness could be so tough,” she said. “So strong. But then again...I guess goodness isn't something I'd think about a whole lot, anyway. Nobody uses the word much unless it's in a commercial, and then they're just trying to convince you that something has a lot of milk in it.”

Carl nodded, looking wry. “Virtue,” he said. “The real thing. It's not some kind of cuddly teddy bear you can keep on the shelf until you need a hug. It's dangerous, which is why it makes people so nervous. Virtue has its own agenda, and believe me, it's not always yours. The word itself means strength, power. And when it gets loose, you'd better watch out.”

“Something bad might happen...”

“Impossible. But possibly something painful.”

  —  A Wizard Alone (Diane Duane)

[cryptamen]

holy shit this game is hardcore. I was sat there zoned out drooling for 3 fucking hours. do NOT play stardew valley without a timer unmedicated it will destroy you.

[imustspeakmyheart]

Here's my Earthsea tattoo I got as a little birthday present to myself. This illustration comes from the Bantam paperback editions; it's the little icon above the very first chapter of A Wizard of Earthsea, depicting the island of Gont.

Ramble about my FAVOURITE Earthsea passage below :)

So I've been obsessed with this quote ever since I first read it a couple years ago. The full thing goes as follows:

"As their eyes met, a bird sang aloud in the branches of the tree. In that moment Ged understood the singing of the bird, and the language of the water falling in the basin of the fountain, and the shape of the clouds, and the beginning and end of the wind that stirred the leaves: it seemed to him that he himself was a word spoken by the sunlight" (35).

This happens in Roke's courtyard, the first time Ged enters the school and meets the Archmage. Objectively, it's just a lovely passage in a book series full of beautiful prose. It exemplifies exactly what Roke is: a place where magic coalesces and an understanding of the world can be reached. This knowledge is the very thing Ged has been wanting throughout the book so far, what has driven away from Ogion where the learning was too slow. And look here! He steps foot in the school and at an instant, this moment of transcendence. Lovely stuff in a small atmospheric scene.

But it does another thing I find way more interesting in that last phrase I put in bold. See, Wizard is a book very preoccupied with mastery over the world, in particular Ged's continuous longing for power, for overpowering others. That's, you know, his whole arc in this thing. Learning that power means knowing when or even whether to use it, and that magic (which in Earthsea means change, even the tiniest change, that ripples and ripples onward) takes consideration, time, patience.

So how wondrous is it that we get this phrase still at the very beginning of Ged's inner journey, still in his full hubris mode, that shows the world's influence over him. And look, I know this is a tiny itty bitty sentence right and it might not seem all that, but I don't think anything like this happens anywhere else in the books either? In a series where words are power and influence and change, literal magic, I think it really does mean something here that Ged feels like "he himself is a word spoken by the sunlight".

What does this mean? What does it mean to be spoken by the sunlight? That he feels made, created by the sunlight? Changed? Held in place? Either way, some influence is held over him by the very powers that wizards usually command themselves. The landscape is speaking him, the sunlight is commanding him, subsuming him, he's part of the world in the realest most primal way you can be in Earthsea. He's a word.

And another thing! Ged's entire struggle in this book is with what? His shadow. Yet this phrase reminds us that even at a moment where Ged has not learned his lesson yet, when he is yet to commit that terrible act, he has light in him. He's changed by that sunlight all the same. Light and shadow both; there can't be one without the other.

(Also this fountain Ged's at in the courtyard in this scene is the very same place Nemmerle dies after saving Ged from the shadow. Very important place, this.)

ANYWAY suffice to say I love this passage and I will never stop thinking about it.

[incorrect-hs-quotes]

ERIDAN: glasses. ON

ERIDAN: cloak n boots. ON

ERIDAN: earrings. GAY

ERIDAN: spells. WWHIMSICAL

ARADIA: pendant?

ERIDAN: CURSED

TEREZI: COCK R1NG?

ERIDAN: ALSO CURSED

[melveres]

my lvl 170 storm wiz Eurydice ᐠ( ᐛ )ᐟ

[seekmemystar]

my roman empire is that my name shipped with someone else's will never be as ethereal as rosekiller or wolfstar or starchaser which is why ill forever be alone-

[apicelladonna]

At the end of The Crimes of Grindelwald: Newt Scamander, mortified: You dated the brutal- most undesirable no. 1 war criminal Gellert Grindelwald? Albus Dumbledore, calmly: Well he wasn't the brutal- most undesirable war criminal when I was dating him.

[theindefinitearticle]

This far into the new game changer and I already know this is one for the history books

[chasingthestarss]

Sirius loving Remus was very hard. Because he wanted to give Remus everything he had and it felt like betraying James, who had always been there for him. And Sirius never felt that way for James ever, but still loving another one of his friends felt like betraying James.

Regulus watching Sirius’ guilt and hating that Sirius could feel bad for loving someone more than he loved James but not feel guilty for loving James as a brother more than he loved Regulus

[celestialmaison]

the twins are fighters just like their momma 🥺🤍🤍

[fiction-quotes]

What people had come in recent years to call lucid dreaming had always been a tool for wizards. In some ways the mind was at its most flexible when unconscious, and therefore not insistently trying to make sense of everything. Human logic wasn’t the only kind, and it could get in the way. The dream-state’s ready acceptance of just about everything often was a useful tool for understanding and getting comfortable with the thought processes of a species you didn’t know well.

  —  A Wizard Alone (Diane Duane)

[adharastarlight]

reg: I'm so jealous of people that have little dainty sneezes. Mine could send a whole neighborhood into lockdown

james, who has never seen him sneeze: your sneezes are adorable.

sirius, remus, pandora, dorcas, barty, evan: *all snort or snigger*

*a few weeks later*

reg: *sneezes*

james jumps: WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT

everyone: told you so!!!!