Whoops, I guess I’m going to jump into this thread a bit late as well!
I first want to start by saying that I agree wholeheartedly with my guildmate, @Skylad. When I first took the guide, I was extremely confused by that I got Weatherwatch. I’ve written about this before on an essay I wrote about the Further Fire, but I think Sky’s comments earlier on in this thread have already deconstructed my old concerns with my belonging in the guild.
So what does my guild me to me? Well, I agree with @CJB: Weatherwatch is the House of Exploration. That means exploration in all senses: physical, mental, social, emotional, intellectual, etc. Weatherwatch tends to be associated with the physical kind of exploration, but as that’s not representative of the whole guild. I’m sure some pirates, aviators, and any number of explorers (unproblematic and not) would have gotten Weatherwatch if they had taken the guide, but there are plenty of other people who never went further than 20 km from their homes who would have gotten WW, too.
That doesn’t mean that I don’t associate physical travel with my identity within the guild - every time I travel, I get this stupid grin on my face because I know I am going away from where I’ve been. But it does mean that I think Weatherwatchers have had a variety of professions outside of those who have to travel professionally. That’s because I literally can’t travel most of the time, and I’m okay with that most of the time. I live in a small city an hour away from the nearest larger cities; I don’t have any way of reliably getting away. And yet, I still feel very much like I am a part of WW because I define exploration more broadly than just travel. As someone who hopes to one day become an academic, it’s essential that I continue to rethink and reconsider how the topics I’m interested have been considered in the past. I have to EXPLORE. And that kind of Weatherwatcher, to me, is just as valid as any adrenaline-fueled daredevil Weatherwatcher.
I think Ascender, one of the few Weatherwatchers in TMP, is a good example of this. Though he did travel a bunch throughout his life, he did this often times out of necessity, not necessarily out of the desire to travel. His exploration was personal and intellectual, and when you travel that much for so long (especially after the Storm almost got him), he likely had to do some personal exploration as well. I believe the Further Fire manifests itself differently for each Weatherwatcher, and I think that the pulls that each Weatherwatcher feels can change.
Weatherwatch is if nothing else a guild that pursues change, and sometimes that change is positive and sometimes it is negative. Exploration implies a kind of change - it’s not quite discovery (I find discovery to be a problematic term in many cases - see the Age of “Discovery”). But still, something changes and those changes have results, not all of which Weatherwatchers can predict.
Weatherwatchers move onwards to the Further Fire. By following its light, we become the lights which bring about changes.
That’s what Weatherwatch means to me.