dduane:

I think that number was meant to indicate humans only.

This percentage is one of the things that’s constantly in flux across all the sentient species on the planet (or for that matter on most others). Probably at the end of the day it’s a bit facile to try to deal with it in anything but the broadest-stroked guesstimates, as there are times when there’ll be a larger percentage of wizards on the planet than at others.

In the aftermath of times of planetary disruption – wartime, natural disaster, etc – it’ll be noted that in the buildup to the events in question, there will seem to have been (in retrospect) more wizards than usual coming online. Since the Powers that Be work in a more senior timespace structure than ours and are able to dip in and out of our timeflow at will, they’re in a position to predict in a general way when there’s going to be greater need for wizardry, and to try to provide for it by offering more new potential wizards the Oath. Yet at the same time, the “upstream” timestream is in constant flux, determined by our actions as much as by theirs – so hard predictions of what’s going to happen, and how to deal with it, are hard to come by. And also, there’s that pesky issue of Free Will to be dealt with… and equally pesky Circumstance. There’s no way to be sure who’ll accept the Oath. And once they’ve done so, there’s no way to be sure what they’re going to do with it: or exactly how they’ll do it, or when. Or what will happen when they do.

Also, in their predictions and estimations, because of the inherently variable natures of circumstance and time, sometimes (not that often, but sometimes…) the Powers get their estimates wrong. Sometimes there aren’t enough wizards. Sometimes… I was about to say “Sometimes there are too many.” But if you ask one, they’ll just laugh at you and say “There is no such thing as too many wizards.”  Because, as the truism has it, “entropy has us outnumbered.”

…Anyway, broad strokes again: I would guess that of the (let’s for argument’s sake say) ten billion sentients on the planet who’re capable of wizardry, the wizardly component is probably around 2%, or twenty million.

(sigh) …And it still wouldn’t be enough.

dduane:

Yes. And no. Except sometimes. In fact, always.

(See also, “go not to the
writer for advice, for she will say both ‘yes’ and ‘no’ and ‘wait two
seconds while I come up with some proto-canonical material that I’ve
never had reason or opportunity to mention to anybody before.’”)

Ordeals
serve a number of purposes. Primarily they help the Powers that Be
determine, in the simplest and most straightforward way, whether or not
the wizard to whom they are potentially entrusting a lifetime of energy
will actually commit to use that energy in moments of crisis.
Equally primarily (if that phrase makes any sense at the human level,
while remembering that from the Powers’ point of view, “all is done for
each”) they routinely serve to solve or at least illuminate interior
issues that the new wizard needs to get handled. This is besides actually
solving a problem or concluding an intervention that some part of the
local space-time continuum needs enacted / sorted out.

So you understand that no two Ordeals are ever alike, but every single time their effect is identical to that of saving the world
— because when you save a part of it, even a very small part of it,
“saving the world entire” is nonetheless exactly what you’re doing.
Existence is, in this particular mode of analysis or expression,
holographic: intimately interconnected at the quantum level, in such a way
that — in what may be the best possible use of this phrase — “size
doesn’t matter.” When (for example) instead of squashing a bug in the
house, you get a glass and a piece of paper and catch it and put it
outside, it may seem like nothing in particular… but on levels we are
not even remotely sensorially equipped to perceive, when one chooses to
spare life instead of taking it, existence quakes to its roots as living
experience is kicked just a wee bit further into the Life direction. Choice always matters.
And Ordeals are a particularly acute form of choice; both an expression
of personality and a shaping of it – the iron in in the fire,
submitting to the hammer, willingly. (And possibly, ideally, dragging the Lone Power into the fire with it, in just one more tiny little change.)

So the immediate answer is that all wizards
have such opportunities. They may not look so earthshaking — but
appearances deceive. One Ordeal or another may not seem dangerous, they
may seem to involve very small changes in the local environment… But
without fail, when passed, they are enough to convince the Powers that
Be that the wizard in question is one who, for their definition of
wizardry, is going to get the job done. And that’s what counts.

Hope that answer makes sense. 🙂

dispatchrabbi:

wanderingskywatcher:

a very important question!

now that mark is reading yw, and we’re potentially gaining a whole bunch of people, is there some tagging policy we should be following? since sometimes we shout about spoilers a lot, but most of the time we won’t tag ‘#yw spoilers’ because lbr here the series has been running long enough that spoilers from the early books are older than me! but we’re hoping to get new cousins for whom older-than-me spoilers really ARE spoilers, and even if mark wouldn’t track the tag maybe it’d be nice for new cousins to have a safe spot?

or maybe not that’s too confusing. thoughts?

We had #yw spoilers when Lifeboats and Games Wizards Play came out, but the spoilers were contemporary. It’s tough to figure out how to do spoilers for a series that’s getting a resurgence.

Tagging by book name is sensible, but it also doesn’t cover cases where you’re talking about characters that haven’t been introduced yet (or things about those characters that haven’t been introduced yet), e.g., in AU situations or shipping situations or meta. Later minor plot points build on earlier major plot points too, which makes it tough.

Totally here for creating a space that encourages new readers without spoiling them. Is tagging for books and a #yw spoilers tag for major plot points, with an apology that it’s hard to figure out what to tag for something that’s up to 33 years old the best we can do in that vein?

What about something like #mark reads yw spoilers? Kind of specific, but that’s probably good in this case.