It’s been over six years since I first wrote about sexism in Robert Jordan’s epic fantasy series The Wheel of Time. At the time, I didn’t expect to touch on the subject again, but that post’s comment section remains active to this day, so I know a lot of people are interested. Naturally, the only thing to do was reread The Wheel of Time and report back on what I found. However, it turns out there are fourteen books in this series, fifteen if you count the prequel novel. No one has time for that,* so instead I’m only looking at the first four books today. For those keeping track at home, that’s The Eye of the World, The Great Hunt, The Dragon Reborn, and The Shadow Rising. Don’t worry, that’s well over a million words, so there’s plenty to cover.
1. Objectifying Description
The first sexist problem you’ll come across in ye olde Wheel of Time is the way it describes women. Namely, it describes them like its purpose is not to give readers a window into the world, but purely to titillate. Which it probably is, I suppose. We’ve got boobs and butts everywhere, of course, plus a lot of swaying hips and everyone’s favorite: super sheer clothing. It’s like they’re naked, guys, do you get it?
This kind of description is unfortunately par for the course in a lot of spec fic books, but WoT often takes it to unusual extremes. One of my favorite examples is in the prologue for book two, where the viewpoint character is a scheming villain meeting with other villains.* Naturally, this bad dude is constantly thinking about how he can get the upper hand over his rivals and what dangers they pose to him. He’s very observant, so his viewpoint focuses on how the other villains talk or stand and what that says about them.
At least, that’s how he examines the men. Whenever he looks at an evil woman, the description suddenly shifts to how hot they are and how exposed their cleavage is. That’s pretty odd. Does this guy just not consider women as possible threats? Seems unlikely for such a cunning and ruthless villain.
This casual objectification is so common it eventually fades into background noise, and you only notice it in unusually extreme sections, like when the villain Lanfear is so hot that she can even attract dudes of a totally different species. And just like you’d expect, this objectification often comes hand in hand with making women uncomfortable, like when the normally butch Min has to dress super femme for an undercover assignment. It’s very sexy how uncomfortable she is, you see. Jordan even introduces a special magical effect to keep his long-lived lady mages super hot looking as they age.
Compare this to how the male characters are described, and, of course, there is no comparison. The men are described like real people. Some are dashingly handsome, some are rugged and worn, whereas others aren’t even attractive at all. GASP. You know, the way you describe people when you’re trying to give your reader a view of the world rather than imitating the soft-focus camera on a low-budget sexploitation film.
2. Slut Shaming
As concerned as The Wheel of Time is with making sure you know how hot all the women are, it also wants you to know that none of them would ever do anything so scandalous as, shudder, being sexually forward. At least, none of the women we’re supposed to care about.
This theme doesn’t suffuse every page the way our previous entry does, but when it does show up, it’s even less subtle. There’s a scene where one character slaps a man for groping her, even though she actually didn’t mind being groped; she just had to put on a show so people wouldn’t think she was a slut. Ew.
Believe it or not, that actually happens more than once! In another scene, a man forces a kiss on a woman, but it’s okay because she secretly wanted it and was just being ornery. These scenes are actually gross for two reasons. First, they imply that it would be somehow wrong for a woman to make it clear what she wants. Second, they reinforce the idea that women secretly want to be harassed and assaulted, a belief that causes serious harm in the real world.
But the slut shaming really kicks into high gear when the story introduces Berelain, a character who seems to exist for no reason other than to be slut shamed. The more established female characters* are all written to hate her because she has the audacity to dress sexy and make her affections known to men. Doesn’t that just sound like the worst?
Later on, the books offer us a bizarre explanation about how men will fall in love with the first woman who’s nice to them, so it’s the women’s job to make sure men fall in love with the right partner.* Berelain is bad because by being overtly sexual, she’s distracting the poor men and keeping them from the woman they should be with.
What is going on here? Not only does that idea infantilize men,* but it reduces romance to a bizarrely calculated dance sequence where everyone has to end up with the right partner, or else. There’s no room for spontaneity or passion, no room for two or more people to click over shared interests, just two-dimensional emptiness, and all in the interests of shaming women for being sexually active. Then again, considering this is the book where Elayne falls for protagonist Rand completely offscreen and for no discernible reason, maybe that’s how Jordan thought love worked.
3. Gender Essentialism
As gross as they are, objectification and slut shaming aren’t particularly unique to The Wheel of Time. For that, we have to get into the gender essentialism that permeates every aspect of the world. In my original post, I looked at how this essentialism affects WoT’s magic system, but it is everywhere. Men are like this, women are like that, and anyone that doesn’t fit is a weird exception.
One way we can spot this essentialism is that Jordan just writes it out for us in plain English. He uses lines like “Men forget but never forgive, women forgive but never forget,” delivered by one of the wise mentor characters to be sure the point is clear. Even as a kid reading that for the first time, I knew something was wrong, since I have a pretty good memory and I’d just forgiven my brother for deleting my Final Fantasy VII save file.*
But when it comes to gender essentialism, nothing can compare to the sheer volume of time spent on how men and women can’t ever understand each other. None of the boys know how to “talk to girls,” whereas the women’s idea of courtship is akin to an elaborate hunting exercise full of traps and false trails. Female characters constantly despair over how stubborn men are, with terms like “woolhead” being repeated so often that they start to lose all meaning. Meanwhile, you can’t go two sentences in a male POV without being told how irrational women are. Sometimes Jordan slips up and admits that women can be stubborn, too, but only as part of their irrationality.
You might recognize this as a continuation of the juvenile idea that women are “crazy” and men are “stupid.” At least, that’s what they called it when I was in high school. You might have heard it under a different name, but the basic idea remains the same: women can’t make rational choices, and men just don’t know any better.
This gender essentialism hurts the books in several ways, the most obvious of which is how laughably untrue it is. Anyone who trusts the evidence of their senses rather than stereotypes can tell you that different genders don’t make for different species. This extreme binary also erases the existence of anyone who doesn’t fit into one of the two boxes. Nonbinary characters are right out, the idea of a trans character is extremely messy, and even the reveal of gay characters later in the series is difficult to believe. How could two women be in love when they’re both so obviously irrational? Everyone knows you need a combination of stubbornness and irrationality for good dating prospects. It doesn’t help that most of the gay characters use the exceptionally homophobic Evil Man-Hating Lesbians trope.
More subtly, this theme supports the insidious “boys will be boys” idea that does so much damage in real life. On the surface, it looks like Jordan is equally stereotyping both genders, but that’s not how sexism works. In reality, when people say that men don’t know any better, it’s used to avoid holding men accountable for their actions. Inversely, when people say that women are irrational, it’s used to invalidate women’s experiences and punish them for speaking out.
4. Kink Gone Wrong
It’s an open secret that despite The Wheel of Time’s almost total lack of actual sex, these books are incredibly horny. It’s as if a light BDSM glaze has been applied to the entire world. Rarely does a chapter go by without some talk of spankings or sexualized public humiliation. It’s everywhere, and it’s really off-putting. It’s like Jordan is constantly leaning out from behind the page to tell me about his fetishes. And yet, I have to talk about it because of how sexist it is.
To be perfectly clear, there is nothing wrong with kink between consenting adults, be it BDSM or otherwise. That isn’t what WoT shows us. Instead, the kink is used almost exclusively as a way to degrade women. The Aes Sedai are an entire organization of magic women built on corporal punishments and other forms of humiliation. The Wise Ones are similar, and their initiation ritual requires a woman to run naked into a spooky abandoned city. Maybe ghosts hate clothes or something.
This happens at the individual level, too, a lot. When two prominent Aes Sedai talk about their dangerous plans to save the world, they make a point about how they’ll probably get switched if they’re discovered. You know, on their butts, which is a sexy part of the body. Dear lord, these books are immature. Moving on, we also have a number of men who threaten to spank women for misbehaving. Pro tip, my dudes: if she doesn’t enthusiastically agree to it, that’s sexual assault! Don’t worry, women get in on this, too, but mostly against other women. In one sequence, two female characters confront each other in the dreamworld, and naturally they fight by making each other’s clothes vanish.
Every once in a while, a man is threatened with spanking, but it’s clear that Jordan’s heart isn’t in it. I guess that didn’t turn him on the same way. When male characters go to that same spooky city from the Wise Ones’ initiation rite, they notably get to keep their clothes on. Nor are men routinely given demeaning tasks as a punishment.
What WoT has done here is weaponize kink against its own female characters. This is an insult to all the people out there who practice consensual kink without harming anyone. Something they enjoy is being used to tear down a group of people for no reason other than mild titillation for a certain section of the audience. It lets Jordan get his sexy moments without the inconvenience of his characters actually having sex, and the only cost is a degrading world in which every (attractive) woman is at constant risk of abuse. It’s also just weird that the entire world seems to share the same fetish, like if every character was really into balloons.
5. Infantilization of Women (and Men)
There’s no way around it: Robert Jordan writes most of his female characters like they were children. Some exceptions do exist, but they are few and far between. At the far end of childishness, we have characters like Faile, love interest to one of the three main dudes. In these early books, her entire schtick is making unwise choices, holding petty grudges, and throwing tantrums when she doesn’t get her way. She also likes to physically attack her boyfriend, but it’s fine because she’s a tiny weak woman and he can easily restrain her, which is even played as sexy sometimes.
Not every woman is so extreme, but they’re all affected in one way or another. In the backstory, the supposedly savvy Queen Morgase banishes her closest advisor after one heated fight. Lanfear, one of the main villains, pouts when she can’t seduce the main character into doing what she wants. Berelain, the slut-shaming champion from earlier, makes it her life’s mission to seduce one of the main characters just to piss off his girlfriend. Lots of very adult decisions, as you can see.
Beyond the actions of individual characters, large sections of the setting are set up to infantilize women as much as possible. A lot of the previously mentioned kink gone wrong is featured here. Both the Aes Sedai and the Wise Ones base their entire training regimen around treating women like children in need of highly sexualized punishments, which is a particularly gross combination.
If that isn’t enough, WoT’s male characters are often put in the position of having to placate angry female characters. If Jordan had written everyone like the adults they’re supposed to be, then these inter-character conflicts would be serious problems in need of solving. Instead, the angry women are treated like something the men just have to weather as best they can, since there’s no point in applying reason. You might recognize this as a tactic generally reserved for very young children who haven’t yet learned how to deal with their feelings.
In the interest of fairness, Jordan also infantilizes his male characters on occasion. Yay? As part of WoT’s never-ending battle of the sexes, we sometimes get female characters explaining how men need to be led around by the hand, taught not to ask too many questions, and probably to eat their vegetables. Believe it or not, this doesn’t actually fix the problem. Shocking.
For one thing, you don’t generally want to infantilize any of your adult characters. That just makes them super annoying. More importantly, gendered power dynamics mean this isn’t a level field to start out with. Even if Jordan was as devoted to infantilizing men as he was with women, which he wasn’t, the treatment of female characters would still cut much deeper. Lots of people in real life already believe that women are inherently childish, while this is almost never said about men except to excuse bad behavior. Because of this context, scenes where female characters talk about how immature men are actually make the women look bad.
6. Women Are Manipulative Schemers
To finish off our examination of WoT’s sexist themes, it’s time to look at how often the female characters are portrayed as underhanded and controlling, always scheming to get men and sometimes other women to do what they want. This starts right away with Moiraine, easily the best character in the early books.
Moiraine is a clever planner and a skilled tactician. She saves the other characters’ lives on multiple occasions, even when they go against her directions. Moiraine knows how to make the hard choices, preserving the good guys’ strength when others would have wasted it by fighting too soon. Her competence is proven over and over again.
Naturally, the other characters cannot shut up about how much they all desperately want to get free of Moiraine’s clutches. It’s never clear exactly why they want this, just that doing what Moiraine says is somehow bad, even when it leads them to victory every time. They just keep going on about how manipulative Moiraine is and how they can’t let her “put strings on them,” along with other colorful fantasy metaphors. The issue doesn’t seem to be specifically what Moiraine wants them to do but rather that she wants them to do anything at all.
This is a bizarre trend until you realize that in Jordan’s world, all powerful women are super manipulative, and everyone else is in a constant state of trying not to get manipulated by them. The Aes Sedai in particular are all manipulation, all the time, which is especially weird because they have the least need for it. They have actual magic powers. If anyone can afford to be direct, it’s them.*
While the Aes Sedai are WoT’s most extreme manipulators, they are hardly the only ones. Throughout the early books, we get lots of dialogue explaining that even though this is clearly a patriarchal society, it’s really the women who are in charge because they can manipulate the men into doing things. The books are also big on the idea of women as a hive mind, where if a poor man offends one woman, he’s suddenly offended all of them.
Jordan is so committed to this theme that he includes a Moiraine POV chapter in book four just so we can see that she really is as manipulative and controlling as the other characters say she is. Sorry, Jordan, but she’s still right. You created a female character so powerful even you couldn’t degrade her.
In addition to shattering believability for anyone who lives in the real world, this theme reinforces the idea that women are inherently dishonest. They can’t be trusted and always have ulterior motives, even the ones who aren’t totally evil. It also furthers the myth that women are actually the ones with structural privilege, since men are supposed to open doors for them and what have you. This argument was used to defeat the Equal Rights Amendment back in the ’70s, in case you were wondering about its real-life consequences.
To be honest, even I was surprised at how sexist The Wheel of Time turned out to be once I started my reread. Jordan keeps a lid on most of these themes for the first book but really cuts loose after that. The only positives I can give WoT is that it does have a good percentage of female characters, and it features very little rape, at least so far. Those points are significant, but it’s difficult to enjoy them when everything else is a full orchestra blasting misogyny directly into my eyeballs.* I really hope the upcoming TV show takes corrective action here, or it’ll be a chore to watch. And once again, thank you to the many commenters who’ve kept the older post active. Who knows, maybe I’ll write another article if there’s enough interest.
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“Whenever he looks at an evil woman, the description suddenly shifts to how hot they are and how exposed their cleavage is. That’s pretty odd. Does this guy just not consider women as possible threats?”
Silly Oren! Everyone knows that when a woman becomes evil she turns three times sexier. All hetero male villains are contractually obligated to oogle them. It’s in the manuel! Also, this guy is probably assesing the men to see how likely they’ll be a wingman for him.
On a more serious note, these books seem quite bad. The kink and infantilization tropes take away a woman’s control of her decisions and her own body. This one of the reasons why people think women can’t be in power, because of this. Same with the schemers one. And, for anyone who says that since these books are a little older, we shouldn’t judge them by 2020 standards (this goes for anything really), these stereotypes still hurt people today, so we have a duty to call them out so people don’t normalize them.
The whole “product of their time” argument is especially silly for Wot, the final book of which was published in the ancient year of 2013. And as an editor, I can personally attest that many writers are still being inspired by these books, which is exactly what you’d expect for such a popular series.
Robert Jordan was born in 1948 though and a lot of people really don’t overcome the received wisdom of their younger years. The post-Jordan author was born in 1975, so probably absorbed a lot of this too when growing up and also wanted to continue in the style of the series because he was hired as a hack in the original sense of the word.
I think the “product of the time” argument is nonsense but for different reasons. There are 330 million people in the United States and many of them still hold beliefs like the above or at least some of them, especially if they see it as advantageous to them. I was born in 1980 and many people I know about my age expressed ideas resembling stuff like the above.
Conversely, back in “their time” there were still people who knew better – so could they have.
What the fact the he was a Mormon play into the fact the way the church views women.
Sadly it’s one few early fantasy book series that has polyamory in it.
The first five minutes of the Prime series indicate an overarching theme of “men can’t be trusted with power”. That bit of sexism had me quickly moving on to stream something else. I realize, however, that may not be the author’s ultimate point or viewpoint.
While there is a lot of sexism in WoT, the above is actually less
“Men can’t be trusted with power” and more “there is a major problem with the power men can use thanks to an ancient event and thus men who use it become untrustworthy”
I think the show talks about what is up with men’s power pretty early, and it’s well know to the characters and world in WoT. It’s not considered men’s fault things are this way, even if they do use the power, just an unavoidable fact.
That said, there are women who extrapolate this to men inheritanly can’t be trusted, but they are not well viewed by other characters for holding that belief of men.
All in all I think the show is doing a much better job with not engaging in the book’s overt sexism, so if that was the concern maybe the show is worth another watch.
Course there are many reasons to drop a show but the clothes are fabulous in WoT and Moiraine is a bada** so i have a low bar to wanna plug it
I’m SO tired of the sexy female villain trope. It’s particularly egregious in movies and TV, I think.
A friend of mine said it’s probably because Hollywood tends to cast attractive women in all female roles, which he admitted as a problem, but he didn’t see it as a special villain problem. But casting attractive women isn’t the whole explanation! Female villains usually also do this thing where they’re acting “seductively” 24/7 for no reason.
Devs managed to cast Alison Pill as a villain, dress her in perfectly normal, casual clothes, and have her walk and talk like a normal person, rather than purring out every line and slinking around with swaying hips and boobs.
Sure, Alison Pill isn’t super hot by regular Hollywood standards. But Kingdom managed to cast Hye-Jun Kim as the villain Queen Cho, and she’s really beautiful. EVEN SO, they somehow managed to have her walk and talk like a normal person, and not have her beauty be a plot point. It CAN be done!
I think the main problem is not the Hollywood casting process, but the way the female villains are written – almost always at least as part femme fatale. That isn’t necessary, so even an attractive female villain can manage not to act seductive all the time. They can dress regularly or practically, they can hold a conversation without sending all kinds of sexy signals, and they can manage not to base their evil plan (I’m all about evil plans myself) on ‘I’m so hot that everyone is going to do what I say.’
Exactly!
Stories most often show the bad guys as ugly and the good guys as seductive and good looking like in James Bond and Indiana Jones.Maybe by showing a beautiful woman being bad they are trying to break stereotypes because Hollywood is known for casting beautiful heroines.
‘A beautiful woman being bad’ is a femme fatale – an old trope, often used in adventure or espionage stories. No, not trying to break the stereotype.
Hi Oren – thanks for a perceptive and amusing article- when the show comes out I know I will struggle not to look for/ see these themes now. I confess I loved the early books even though the stereotypes and character cliches were coming through. I remember disapproving of the demeaning teaching style of the various orders – I think it comes thru that these are flawed.
In partial defence of the departed Jordan he wasn’t writing a guide for better societies and maybe he thought these were ways people saw each other and how things sometimes worked rather than how they should see each other and should work. I’ll grant that his drawing out of interesting snippets of social orders from history and examination of how people deal with power showed more maturity than the gender relations stuff. Things like the constraints on Aes Sedai and the risk /reward dilemma of males tapping into magic were strong story points.
Recalling Peter Jackson’s modest efforts to update the Lord of the Rings small numbers of female characters from Tolkien’s 1940s perspectives perhaps the screen writers for Wheel of Time have a little more to work with in terms of multidimensional female characters. We will see.
Oh no, I just remembered admiring the ‘progressive views’ of the Sea Folk about clothing. :-).
Actually, they’re described like that specifically because they went to a meeting of evil people dressed like nobility rather than in plan robes like everyone the man who calls himself Bors considered a threat. They practically revealed their true identities for the sake of their vanity, making them a non threat to the POV.
I’m proud to say that even at the height of my Spec Fic reading, I’ve kind of shifted genres to more literary fiction, especially multi-generational family sagas, by my mid to late twenties, I’ve never had any temptation to read the Wheel of Time series.
A lot of speculative fiction, especially works written by people born before 1980, fall into these sorts of sexist traps because it was received wisdom at the time. Even today, there are plenty of people, and young people at that, who see these things as received wisdom. I’ve definitely listened to conversations with people my age where “men are like this, women are that” talk happened. Speculative fiction might fall into things like gender essentialism because it makes formulating fantasy societies easier for the writer beyond received tradition like a school of magic practical jokes that only children and adult men can cast because unlike women, men never really mature, etc.
That’s why you should make sure your work doesn’t fall into sexist traps…or die.
The worst part is that in the mid books several of those issues actually escalate, with some of the most egregious offenses.
I think it has some marginal improvements, though (except on gender essentialism, that is the core of the entire thing); the prequel story, for example, is quite a bit better. If I hadn’t started with the prequel, and its Moiraine point of view, I probably couldn’t have powered through the series (less than 6 months).
“…and it features very little rape, at least so far.” Yep, so far.
One day I’ll have to write what I actually enjoyed about the series, because whenever I talk about it all I can give are warnings and caveats.
It probably looks absurd that I would even read the thing, but it’s more an issue of “before we even start, here are a bunch of content warnings”.
You should write that!
Please do
Yeah I’ve heard that becomes an issue later in the series. I figured it was only fare not to ding the early books for it, since I’m not giving them bonus points for later improvements.
> a bizarrely calculated dance sequence where everyone has to end up with the right partner… or die.
Sorry, I had to do it :P
Our day is made every time someone makes that joke.
Twice in this thread so far :).
Wow. I heard there was some messed up bondage stuff in certain aspects of Wheel of Time worldbuilding, but I didn’t know it was so pervasive and ingrained with the world at large. Cue the “Wait, it’s all a magical realm? / Always has been.” meme.
Yeah it’s not great! It doesn’t get mentioned often though because it’s so awkward.
Yeah. It’s not pervasive. Most things touched on here are what characters suggest about what they see. The slut shaming for example. Berelain is also shown to be strong despite what others view her as, and it is acknowledged that she chooses to flirt with powerful men to protect her kingdom. Something that has actually taken place in history.
Bondage stuff is definitely pervasive. If I read 13 books in a series and have an issue with 5% of the content that means I don’t have an issue with 95% of the content. Apparently that doesn’t seem to matter to the perfectionist who exist today.
You can critique aspects of books without hating the whole thing. I’d argue it is a must for literary analysis.
This isn’t a review of the book as a whole but particular aspects. If you don’t want critique of any sort without accusing others of perfectionist tendencies, that flies in the face of analysis.
Of course you have a right to your opinion but opposition to any criticism because the work is not universally disliked isn’t exactly productive.
And don’t forget the fact that all women of the series but Moraine share exactly the same personality.
This is true but one of them also makes a lot of fish metaphors. That’s variety, right? RIGHT?
I was born in 1957 and I don’t buy the ‘product of its time’ excuse. Still less for Brandon Sanderson. Anyone who’s been watching ‘Mrs America’ has a very good idea that feminism was a very big deal in 1975.
Yup, that was smack in the middle of the second wave of feminism. A lot of women were very outspoken about sexism them.
Though with Sanderson I have to point out that he worked with what he was given to finish the last few books and it can be extremely hard to figure out the balance between staying somewhat true to the wishes of the creator and improving on such obvious weakpoints, especially if the author is dead.
It’s certainly not a position I’d want to be in.
I must admit I’ve occasionally wondered if just disliking the books slanted some of your mentions of the series. That said there’s almost no problems or inaccuracies in this one and the few issues are either subject to interpretation or based on limiting yourself to the first 4 books.
Mildly curious how you will interpret the events I had issues with even when ignorant (Faile’s abduction alone probably has over a dozen things that seriously ew if you give them any real thought).
So only a few notes-
1)The reason Aes Sedai manipulate is part of the price their predecessor’s decided on for moral superiority and trying to retain trust.
Personally I’d have thought a name change would be better. They’re still not trusted because the Breaking was by male Aes Sedai and the Aes Sedai were originally both men and women.
Anyway one of the 3 Oaths is about not using the Power as a weapon against any people but darkfriends unless it’s a life or death issue. So no smashing armies or kingdoms with magic.
Another Oath is to speak no word that isn’t true. When you don’t lie and you don’t have easy violence available you get very crafty with words and manipulations, very fast. Over their long lives even the ones that dislike such manipulating pick up some of it.
Even if it’s for the best though people hate being manipulated.
2) Morgase was literally under mind control by Rahvin, and Berelain is not being petty. Berelain misunderstood Rand’s turning her down as political maneuvers and a recommendation that she pursue his friends for a political marriage instead. She felt Matrim wasn’t a good fit so settled on Perrin and didn’t care about a prior relationship getting in her way.
3) men are given corporal punishment too, but you really can see the link issues because men get a strap whipping their backs and women get a spanking on the ass.
My younger self didn’t notice. Admittedly my younger self also took the 2 genders both judging each other as a sort of equality and proof that such things are ridiculous. I’d like to think that was the intent and the goal wasn’t achieved but I’m admittedly biased.
On a more personal positive note beyond helping with whatever sexist bs has buried itself in my brain and needs to be eliminated and kept out of my stories; I want to thank you for showing me a major problem with really long stories. Putting something too far down the road is terribly problematic.
Yeah, this was one reason I gave up the series (maybe the main one). It just got incredibly annoying before too long, with the same anguished “What do women want?” from the men, then “Men are idiots who need to be led” by the women over and over again every book. The sexism aside (which is certainly bad to be sure) it’s just aggravating. Some of the characters could be that way, sure, but they all are. Like you said, gender essentialism. It would be a little better if anyone were shown as wrong in this, but they never are that I read. The very natural laws agree-men and women really are that way. I actually hadn’t noticed or perhaps remembered everything you said here, so it was helpful, thanks. After reading the first six books, it had some good aspects (strong worldbuilding, compelling intrigues) but otherwise largely fell flat. I think it is overrated honestly. There are more problems than positive stuff.
That’s what made me give up on the series as well! I got I think six books in before I just couldn’t take the “all men complain about women/all women complain about men” dynamic. Especially when it was on EVERY PAGE. Also, so many of the women were randomly sporadic, violent, dismissive and mean to men for pretty much no reason…
Reading this article, it feels like we haven’t read the same books. I agree that Jordan has some very essentialist and immature views on genders and attraction, but a lot of time it feels the post author really tries to see things into the books that are not really there.
While a disproportionate amount of female characters are described as various degrees of pretty, ugly/plain/old female characters do exist, sometimes in powerful positions. Aes Sedai are very rarely sexualised, and regarding manipulativeness, the post author seems to forget about their binding oaths. Switchings and other corporeal punishment are not viewed in a sexual light at all. Berelain is shown to be an intelligent politician, who does her shtick to protect her tiny country from being conquered by a large male-led neighbour, and once she realises that her method doesn’t work on the protagonists, she becomes an earnest and loyal ally.
Aes Sedai are very rarely sexualised, and regarding manipulativeness, the post author seems to forget about their binding oaths.
The oaths didn’t force Jordan to write the Aes Sedai as manipulative. He was the one who made up their form and wording, and he was the one who decided that the Aes Sedai would respond to being so bound by finding other ways to deceive.
Switchings and other corporeal punishment are not viewed in a sexual light at all.
But they are used in a way to infantilise, degrade and humiliate in a way they aren’t for men, or at least not so routinely.
Just as an editor’s note, it is well understood that the corporal punishment in WoT is meant to be sexual. Even hardcore fans acknowledge that these books are horny as heck.
I see. It’s been a very long time since I read them
One thing that The Wheel of Time actually does well is with the orc-analogue. The trollocs, unlike many orcs in fantasy, aren’t really coded as a race*, more like monsters. It’s not much, but it’s something.**
*Not that this stopped the cover artist for The Great Hunt (american hardcover and mass market paperback) from depicting them as armored black men. Like, what? The trollocs are explicitly described as being like humans fused with animals. (The recent trade paperback cover is more accurate in this regard)
**Disclaimer- have only read the first two books and part of The Dragon Reborn.
They are actually constructs, created and bred by human villains, borrowing the evil power of the Dark One.
The main problem I have with the story is how it sexualizes male characters – constantly describing guys as tall and with broad shoulders. Every girl likes Rand and Galad because they are tall and sexy.
I just wish I could find a good fantasy series where the protagonist isn’t super attractive and having people oggle them like eye candy all the time. I’d like a series where the relationships are either platonic or non-existent. As a 24 year old guy who has been single my whole life, constantly rejected by women for being 5’3″, the last thing I want to read about is tall guys getting all the women, or even a hot female protagonist lusting after tall guys. Authors, please, just make the protagonist ugly… FOR ONCE.
Other than that, the books are good. But I am close to putting it down and reading something else.
That being said, I would encourage you not to read it if you don’t like it. At no time would I ever encourage censorship. Authors should always be allowed to write what they want and publish it. Free speech is sacred.
Let the free market decide.
If you’re in the market for funny fantasy as well as epic fantasy, the MYTH stories by Robert Asprin have a rather average main character in Skeeve, failed thief and still in training to a degree as a mage. He’s a good guy and the women around him have personality and agency. Plus, he has one of the grumpiest mentors I’ve ever met and he owns a baby dragon.
So, Robert Jordan had a particular desire for tall, gorgeous men with broad shoulders, and you simply aren’t the intended audience of his personal wish-fulfillments? Clearly, this book was targeted at people who want to get off on imagining tall, gorgeous, broad-shouldered men and should have been marketed as such, to avoid misleading people into thinking the characters would be relatable to a wider audience.
Jordan should sue (have sued, I guess?) his publisher/cover-designer/marketing department.
Are you aware that the two characters you mention are brothers, and therefore may tend to look alike.
By contrast of the three main male characters, Perrin is described as ‘stocky’ and Matt is described as ‘long-limbed as a stork, with a wiry body’. I’m not sure this fits your claim.
I’m also surprised that people haven’t seen the variety of Aedai Sendai. Verin Mathwin, one of the first Aes Sedai to travel with Rand is short, plump and square faced. Anaiya is homely and blunt faced. Sheriam is plump, Adeleas and Vandene have long patrician faces. These characters may still be ageless and beautiful but they are far from cookie cutter images.
Excellent points, and all very well said. I had to give up on the series. It was all just too much. Most especially the creepy spanking fetish.
I’m a new commenter and participant on this site! Thank you, Oren, for your blog post. Heads up – I’m much more of a fan of WOT than the other commenters here.
I’m on my second reading of the entire series and I keep finding myself thinking about the relationships between men and women, the way the magic system is “gender essentialism,” which I didn’t know the words for but found a good way to describe it, and the prevalence of corporeal punishment.
Here are some thoughts from another perspective and I’m hoping to get a challenge on them from you all (Oren?) – if anyone comes by to check on this discussion. My views can definitely be biased and would appreciate help seeing it if you see something I do not.
Men and Women
I took the constant thoughts of the men about women and of the women about men as irony. I thought it was funny and I thought it was supposed to be funny. I thought Jordan was having fun with the way we tend to think of each other – stereotypes, frustration, confusion. The women often think the men are irrational / illogical and they can’t see what’s in front of their faces. The men usually feel the women are confusing and bullying them. I don’t know if that’s how men and women see each other in our world but I know that I often find my husband confusing and frustrating and I’m sure he finds me that way too. To me it seems he’s stubborn over stupid things, makes bad choices about his health, and thinks about sex way too often. He probably finds me strangely changeable – I change my mind fast and for reasons that aren’t even obvious to myself – and I want things done my way and expect him to do them that way even though it might not be a fair expectation. These may be stereotypes but they are real in my relationship. I find the best way to approach them is to laugh at them. My point is that the way the men and women think about each other in WOT is comic relief. All the characters are in first person in a way that we, as the reader, can see their faults, flaws and the things they are clueless about but they cannot. We see their flaws because the first person shifts around so often that we know the characters from the outside and when we see what they actually think it’s funny. How Perrin, Matt, and Rand all think the others understand women better than they do. Funny! So many times Nyneave accuses others of the same thing she does (temper and pride) in a way that’s total irony and Elayne, Thom and Julen have to work not to laugh out loud. I wouldn’t take any of these behaviors as the way the world ought to be just that it really highlights how blind people are to their own faults and how that can be hysterical.
Gender Essentialism
I found this fascinating in the series. I’ve never engaged with a magic system that has it to this level. I mentioned to my 21 year old son (who read WOT) about how transgenderism doesn’t fit into the system of WOT. There is a character, Halema, who ends up being a male forsaken in a female body – the dark lords idea of a joke. This female uses Saidin and ends up being sexual with both men and women. Many cultures in our world believe in reincarnation and some believe that men do not get reincarnated as women and vice versa. Others believe that it can happen. I see the WOT universe as an alternate universe to ours. In that case, it is possible that men are men and women are women and transgenderism does not occur because male souls typically only get male bodies and vice versa? There is certainly a lot of evidence in the series for this because many characters remember their past lives and do not remember being other genders. My point is that if reincarnation occurs by those rules then there could be a clear division between male and female souls in a way that would produce a universe in which there is true gender essentialism. I took the series to have that as a basic premise. I found it interesting – like a thought experiment rather than sexism.
Corporal Punishment
I also spoke to my son about the corporeal punishment in the series and how much it annoyed me. He said that not that long ago corporal punishment and torture were commonly used in our world. I remember when I was a kid my parents had to sign a form for school either giving the principal permission to spank me or not giving permission. I think about the punishments like the gallows, beatings and whippings, stringing up, “the rule of thumb.” In WOT Egenine says that you “beat a dog if it runs away but don’t maim it.” I do not think that beating a dog that runs away would teach it not to run away but she takes it as a given. At one point in the series there is a reference to a sul’dam planning punishment that was clearly intended to create leaned helplessness in a domane. I wouldn’t be surprised if Jordan did intend this stuff to be kinky – he clearly was using titillation in the series with his constant references to breasts and nudity – but I don’t know if he needed to be thinking of that way. The prevalence of corporal punishments is so universal in the series that I took it as the way the universe is and, if my understanding is correct, the constant use of corporal punishment doesn’t contrast strongly with how our world was during the middle ages (a similar period politically and technologically to the 3rd Age of WOT).
Since you seem to be engaging in good faith, I’ll make a quick attempt to address your points. Just be aware that I’m not here to argue with anyone, so this is all the clarification I’ll offer.
1: Gender stereotypes. If these are meant to be comic relief, there’s a problem: they aren’t funny. Whether certain individuals fit them is not important, what’s important is that in real life, women (and to a lesser extent men) are judged according to these sterotypes, and it does them harm. At the same time, comic relief doesn’t work if every character does it all the time. That’s no longer funny, it’s just tiresome.
2: Trans characters. To be clear, the character you describe is not trans. Trans people are a different gender than the one their are assigned at birth. This character remains his assigned gender, his body is simply altered against his will. Trans-ness is also a lot more complicated and nuanced than being a male soul in a female body or what have you. That’s something you’ll need to do your own research on, but regardless, the very fact that the magic system of this world precludes trans people from existing is, in itself, transphobic.
3: The history of corporal punishment isn’t relevant here. WoT isn’t a work of historical fiction, and there is no single point in history that it’s modeled off of. The issue is that Jordan fills his work specifically with non-consensual sexualized punishments because that’s what got him off. That choice degrades women. In real life, there’s nothing sexy about being flogged bloody, but that’s not how Jordan portrays it in his story.
Hi Oren, Thank you for responding, and so fast, too! I want to honor your intention of “all the clarification I’ll offer” so I won’t respond to any of your points. I have also been continuing to think about the gender essentialism. I went poking around the internet to see what others have to say about the use of this in fantasy. One commenter thought that if you can make up whatever you want, why would you make up a sexist world? (My words not a quote.) That did seem a quite reasonable view. I also thought about sources of conflict. WOT uses the “battle of the sexes” as a major source of conflict to drive the plot. I do think it gets tiresome – or “just silly” is how I might put it in my own mind. I would love to see people feeling comfortable engaging about these topics and exploring different angles on them in pleasant discussion. While I like the idea of recognizing gender essentialism, I also allow the possibility that there is gender essentialism. While we are biologically so complex that there is no way to boil us down to simple A or B categories, I do not know that humans are incapable of holding both an expected result and openness to an unexpected result in their minds at the same time. A lot of bias is inflexible fear and I think we all have it. To pigeon hole someone into the biased camp and make assumptions about their motivations is another form of bias.
Thank you Erin,
I appreciated your point of view. While I do agree with most of what Oren had to say on the topic, I also dislike how he argues subjective items in objective terms – it’s harder for me to want to be supportive of someone that makes valid points, but then takes a ‘holier than thou” approach concerning subjective aspects.
I was bothered greatly by the fact that he seems to think he is the gatekeeper to what is funny. Although like Oren I didn’t find the antics of Jordan’s characters particularly amusing, you clearly did (and you made a compelling case for your point of view of why), and it was dismissive for him to simply tell you that your opinion on the matter is just wrong, especially since you seem to have opened this dialogue in good faith. Humor is about as subjective as it gets. Gatekeeping is almost as annoying as sexism in it’s own right.
I do think the Wheel of Time is especially full of questionable gender stereotypes, but one should also be mindful that, like in your case, sometimes those stereotypes are borne out of some truth. I don’t believe that one should necessarily attempt to remain “PC” while writing a story, as many great stories and interesting characters wouldn’t exist if the author attempted to supply a current Century moral/ethical/cultural mentality to their writing. The best way to combat these things leaving a bad taste, in my opinion, is to use varied characters, some that defy stereotypes, some that fit them, and every character be complex in a way that makes us both love and hate them at different times. I found most of Jordan’s characters to be two-dimensional.
I just wanted to you to know I appreciated a well thought out semi-dissenting opinion of the article. Thank you.
I disagree that Oren is somehow “gatekeeping what is funny” or is wrong to present his argument as an absolute.
If humor has a consequence of harming real people, it is not “funny”, because when a person is aware of that harmful impact, hearing that humor is not enjoyable. Continuing to present that humor only normalizes ignoring that harm, and finding it “funny” necessarily means a person either is unaware of the harm it causes or doesn’t mind continuing that harm.
I’m also very sick and tired of being told gender stereotypes and
gender essentialism are okay to perpetuate because there’s a “kernal of truth” to them or whatever. These generalizations should not be perpetuated because they cause harm, just like any other harmful generalization. The origin of the stereotype does not matter. If a generalization causes harm–> it should not be used.
Editor’s note: I’ve removed a comment for making the patently false claim that trans people are a recent invention. A little basic Googling will show you the truth of that one.
Editor’s note: I’ve removed a comment for attacking the post’s author.
Thank you… I got bogged down in book 8 a few years ago, and recently decided to do a re-read before finishing. It is a compelling story, with a lot of interesting themes. I did remember that I was a bit annoyed by the 2 dimensional characters, and particularly the way women are portrayed… my have I grown. I’m not going to bother finishing the series. I wonder if the writer who finished the series could go back & clean it up? I can’t bear to read/hear the phrase “like a girl” one more time. We don’t accept speaking about women (or anyone) like that anymore.
How has no-one brought up “goosing”?
I’m re-reading the series for the first time since I was a teenager and woof there’s a lot of cringey stuff in there, much of which is covered in this excellent article.
I’ll admit, I remember being titillated by all the naked lady scenes as a teenager. Even at that time, though, I thought that the excessive spanking and constant domination between characters was off-putting and clearly RJ’s particular fetish showing through.
In this read-through I keep noticing the use of “goosing” as it is casually thrown around. At one point, Egwene’s point of view fondly thinks back to when Mat would prank her by goosing her. Now maybe I have a wrong interpretation of what goosing is, but I’m pretty sure it means getting some fingers way up between someone’s butt-cheeks. You know, the thing we all did to each-other as a prank when we were kids… Right? Super normal. To be fair, most of the time it’s used in context of tavern drunks getting handsy with the serving ladies (which also happens basically any time the characters are in a tavern or inn).
Huh. You know I always assumed it was supposed to mean pinching and filed it under the general groping of women without consent but your definition is the one that comes up when I google it so… Honestly I have no idea.
I’m going through these books right now. In terms of fantasy and setting they really are engaging – but they are so sexist that I was wondering if anyone ever did a study about it. (I did not know about this blog before)
The “men are wool headed” and “Light knows what women want” sentences make me facepalm everytime.
I think this book is good but only if you know before hand that it’s quite a sexist book. I wouldn’t recommend it to any child for sure – that would be the quickest way to introduce misconceptions about love and the other genders in their head.
Glad you enjoyed the article! I very much agree that there’s stuff to enjoy in WoT if you’re forwarned about the sexism.
Thanks so much for writing this. It’s incredibly cathartic to read that other people have noticed all this stuff, I’m on book 7 and I love epic fantasy but all the sexism, objectification and gleeful degradation of female characters has really spoiled my experience tbh. Casually trawling wot forums only reveals a legion of fanboys who won’t acknowledge any criticism of the series, especially a critique of the sexist writing in the books.
I really want to finish the series, I like the world building, I want to know how it ends but… It’s impossible to ignore these issues, they are every page , shoved down your throat and it kills the immersion.
I feel a lot better after reading your blog, it’s nice to know I’m not imagining this stuff after all!
Yeah, by the time someone shows up on most fan forums, they’re not exactly open to critique. Glad the article was helpful, whether you choose to finish the series or not.
Every now and then I am reminded of Wheel of Time and I get uncontrollably angry. I am always thankful to find that I’m not alone in being mystified how adults still refer to that monstrosity as at or near the pinnacle of the genre. Nynaeve tugged her braid.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it as a teenage boy, and I absolutely wouldn’t judge anyone for the books they like (we’ve all got our guilty pleasures), but there are certainly enough issues that whenever it’s recommended to someone interested in the fantasy genre I find it difficult to control myself, and Nynaeve tugged her braid.
There are other classic rants on the subject that I occasionally return to in order to remind myself that I am not alone, but it is nice to read a text on the subject where the author managed to keep themselves from profanity or braid-tuggingly offensive metaphor, no matter how well deserved they might both have been. Thank you for the catharsis.
Hang on, I have to smooth my woolheaded skirt. I’m glad you enjoyed the article, thanks for saying so!
While I do generally agree with much of what you have to say, I do have a counter-point to offer:
From how I understood many of the chapters from various POVs, Jordan isn’t actually endorsing any of the characters’ opinions (including that one you mentioned from a “wise mentor”), but playing them off against each other. It’s clear that many of the characters are inherently immature, but that does include men as well as women, and the men indulge in the “women are so blah blah” talk just as frequently and flippantly as the women. The irony in many of the scenes is what makes me think that Jordan is very much aware of what he is doing and of how he is describing these characters and that he fully means to depict most (not all) of them as inherently immature characters. Let’s not forget that most of the main characters are in their very early 20s or late teens and therefore not likely to be the paragons of maturity. I do agree that he goes overboard with this approach, but IMO it is at least slightly more nuanced than you give it credit. It does help to take all the opinions uttered by characters in their POV chapters as just that – their opinions (and not Jordan’s).
I also feel like one of the main themes of the series is abuse of power. My interpretation of the way many women in power (especially those wielding magic) are depicted as manipulative and abusive is that Jordan is attempting to create a mirror version of our own society and is thereby engaging in social criticism. Hear me out. The point isn’t that they are manipulative because they are women, it’s that they are manipulative because they are in power and take it for granted, because they live in a society that is matriarchal, sexist and skewed towards women (just like ours is patriarchal, sexist and skewed towards men) and therefore the exact mirror opposite of our own reality. I take this theme as a comment on the dynamics of power and on how power corrupts those who become accustomed to it. The manipulative way the Aes Sedai behave in Jordan’s world is not at all dissimilar from the way men wielding power (and men in general) behave in ours. The same goes for the way women belittle and generally look down upon men in Jordan’s world. I believe this is entirely deliberate.
While this doesn’t address all of the points you made concerning the (definitely present and sometimes glaring) sexism in the books (the constant focus on “bosoms”, “plunging necklines”, “snug breeches” etc. gets soooo yucky after a few books and some of the gratuitous nudity is just jarring), I think you don’t give Jordan entirely enough credit when it comes to the characters’ opinions and behaviour.
Thank you. Yes, in short, the author of this article considers his own interpretation of WoT as the holy bible. This readiness to seize on things in the books Oren finds disagreeable, in the attempt to guide everyone on how to behave IRL unfortunately prevents an appreciation of the deeper meanings and contexts.
I got part way into that series before quitting it. In retrospect, we can consider that series as an example of what not to do when it comes to gender. When it comes to recommending books and other kinds of stories, how those books treat women seems like it ought to be a consideration at least.
Hi Oren, second time commenter. Your articles are thoughtful and interesting as always. Have you written a similar article on Game of Thrones/ASOIAF and sexism? Would love to read it if you have. It seems to me that while GOT may lack the baked-in gender essentialist magic stuff, it’s also very sexist in a different way. I’d also be interested in your take on to what degree George R.R. Martin was influenced by the WOT series. I can see some similarities…none of them good.
Glad you’re enjoying the site! We don’t have anything as in depth about GoT, but we do have a bunch of posts that touch on it. A couple you might find useful:
1. Six Rape Tropes and How To Replace Them
2. When Dark and Gritty is Just Exploitation
Those were both excellent articles! Thank you! I really enjoy the kind of analysis you do here.
Thank you so much for writing this. When I read the books in my late teens, early twenties, I got a rising sense of unease and revulsion and couldn’t quite put my finger on it given everyone seemed to love the books so much. It was all the spankings, and humiliation of women and general creepiness. Sorry, explain to me again why Rand is a mormon who is entitled to multiple wives according to the prophecy, but any woman who has sex is slut shamed despite the constant nudity and rapey BDSM themes. There are just too many creepy mentions in there and I had to stop reading. But I wasn’t sure if it was just me so pleased to hear I’m not crazy. Even though I liked the plot and storylines, I just had to put it down due to my irritation and nausea with all the creepy references. Thank you so much.
Yeah it can be difficult when everyone around you seems to love a story. I’m glad you found this post helpful!
Actually, what struck me the most sexist in the books is that men are inherently more powerful than women at magic. Yes, women are born better weavers, but that can be learned, so in this universe, a woman can never be as powerful as a man.
At first glance it looks like this is like some reviewer wrote “a mirror to our society” in that it is a matriarchal society which women rule with magic and men have some mystical flaw (similar to the flaw of Eve) that makes them inferior, and which has to be fixed by restoring the balance.
This is however all offset by the overall theme that everyone “knows” that this world is wrong because male power was tainted and can only be fixed by an all powerful male saviour (who all the good women quickly rush to serve).
For all that the idea of the wheel with yin and yang powers in a balance sounds great, they are not in balance, because men are inherently more powerful than women (no matter if they wield One Power or True Power), which renders the whole concept void. The “fix” to the wrong world is not creating balance, but restoring partriarchy.
This is what made the books unpalatable for me. Maybe the TV series will handle that better (it already started with the idea that the dragon can be reborn male or female, so maybe it will).
The other theme of gender essentialism (not just in WOT but in general) applied to reincarnated souls is just weird for me (I admit I never really thought about the concept before and was a little horrified to discover it). If you can be reborn as a human, animal, or plant, are you then supposed to be only reborn as a male or female human, animal or plant? (Let’s hope you are never reborn as a snail or fungus, you will be forever messed up…)
Great comment. One of my favorite video games is Morrowind because you play the reborn Saint Nerevar who was a male Dunmer and I’ve almost always played it through as a female character. (I get a lot of flak from elitist male gamers when they see or hear that I play a female almost any time I’m given the choice.)
I was also put off by Rand having three women who were each seemingly alright with sharing a man. Still, I have read almost every “defining” fantasy saga in modern times and stand by the opinion WoT is in a class of its own. At the time the final book was published by heWoT series had already sold over 20 million copies so Jordan did something right.
Just to shut down any bad faith-arguments about how “it’s not stated in the books that men are stronger than women at channeling!”, or something like that: Robert Jordan had a scale where almost every channeler in the series was ranked, and he specifically stated that the highest six levels (out of seventy-two) were reserved for men.
I know Mythcreants supports Death of the Author, but that’s an important piece of information to know when critiquing the series.
Whoops, that was supposed to be a reply to Muriel right above me; I have no idea why it’s it’s own comment instead. Maybe it’s because I’m typing on my phone.
Just to shut down any bad faith-arguments about how “it’s not stated in the books that men are stronger than women at channeling!”, or something like that
Besides, it *is* stated in the books.
Huh, I didn’t actually know that. I’ve only read as far as about halfway through The Dragon Reborn, and even then, that was a while back, so I probably don’t remember everything.
Seeing how the TV show is navigating this is interesting so far. It is too soon to tell if they have ‘fixed’ it, or even if they can, but at the very least those writing it are not blind to the flaws of the source material.
For one thing, the show goes great lengths to humanize and center Moiraine and the Aes Sedai. While it would be a stretch to say that she is the main character now, M has far more screen-time than she did page-time. In the books, much was made of how the Aes Sedai were stoic and hard to read- not emotionless, just opaque. This kind of works in book form, but it wouldnt in a more visual medium, so the show wisely downplayed that element. This has the side effect or making them far more sympathetic.
The biggest surprise is how the show is handling sex and sexuality. The show is, if anything, even hornier than the (first) book was, but it is framed very differently. What in the books sometimes came across as leering or adolescent is, for want of a better word, wholesome, bordering on saccharine. Not for titillation, but for warm-n-fuzzies, if that makes sense. Unlike the gratuitous nudity that GoT delved into, the non-primetime-worthy nudity totals to a single brief ass-shot- from LAN of all people! Given how violent the show can get at times, this introduces a bit of a tone problem, but it kind of just *works* in a way the book didn’t.
The show is also, for want of a better phrase, casually queer in a way that not many other things are. Green ajahs forming polycules with their warders and initiates becoming ‘pillow-friends’ were used for wink-wink-hur-hur-hur effect in the books, but here they are generally played straight (hur-hur-hur). For example, in the books it is mentioned that Siuan and M were ‘Pillow-freinds’ when they were initiates. In the show, they are still lovers in the present tense- and the scene where this is shown to us is legitimately heartwarming in a way that shocked me.
Part of this may be due to the nature of television as an inherently collaborative work. Robert Jordan was an author with odd tastes and singular obsessions, in a way that only a lone unaccountable auteur can be (Authors usually have editors, but RJ married his, which… explains a lot, come to think of it) Wheel of Time is the quintessential ‘love it or hate it’ work for exactly this reason; you either vibe with it or you don’t. A team who all love it but are not blinded by that love can shave away some of the rough edges and make others work through subtle changes, to make something recognizably kin to the original yet distinct in a way that is utterly fascinating.
It is too soon to tell, but if what has come so far is an indication, I have high hopes. They have not explored the show version of the magic much yet; it is still a gendered system, but I have a suspicion that there will be a few curve-balls thrown in.
On the other hand, the first episode has the most blatant case of Fridging that I have ever seen. As in, ‘I am too baffled to even be offended’ blatant; as in ‘how the heck did this make it out of the first draft’ blatant. You will know what I mean when you get to it. Which is doubly weird because even RJ knew better than to do that!
*sigh*
Two steps foreward, one step back.
The Wheel Weaves as the Wheel Wills
Your opinion of the show is a lot more positive than mine; to me, it feels like the showrunners are just awkwardly dancing around the nature of the magic so they don’t have to discuss it. At least the books were explicit about that, so you can decide whether or not you’re willing to accept it.
Another thing to note (that some people already have, and that I don’t have the know-how or experience to comment on any further) is that, while the show does feature a large amount of non-white actors, two of the darkest-skinned actors in the series so far play villainous characters (there’s another character introduced later played by a darker-skinned actor, but he’s an Ogier, so non-human).
I agree on the fridging though; it’s so blatantly telegraphed, too. I saw it coming as soon as the character in question gets introduced. (Although I had heard about it from another non-spoiler review first, and that review gave enough clues as to who the character was, and I’ve read the books too, so…)
The show is also doing some interesting things aside from the gendery stuff.
The books are, *thematicaly*, kind of a hodgepodge of of many different cultures- the titular Wheel is a decidedly dharmic import, the central good-evil conflict seems judeo-christian at first but is decidedly Zoroastrian on a second glance, a lot of the names have an al’___ form, ect. But the Westlands itself and its people are decidedly European.
The show makes the characters more racially diverse, but it goes further. The architecture has strong Arabic and Indian flourishes, and the costume department takes cues from every region and period that I can think of, modern fashion included, with some wholly new stuff too. (leather pauldrons on a dress, anyone?) This *could* have come across as just being inconsistent, but it *doesn’t*. It takes all of these disparate things and makes them feel like they fit.
The show is also leaning on the post apocalyptic element of the setting a little harder than the books did. Look closely at the ‘Mining’ village in episode 3. The ‘ore’ they’re pulling out of the ground is machined steel. This ‘mine’ is actually a scrapyard, but they call it a mine anyway because the fact that their world is built on the corpse of another is just taken for granted in this world, so no-one calls attention to it. It is such a small detail, but it adds so much to the world.
This ties into the cultural patchwork thing. Post apocalyptic societies, both in fiction and in reality, are characterized by scavenging from the ruins of the world before, using old things in new ways, but fiction often focuses on the scavenging of physical goods, like the aforementioned miners. But culture can be scavenged and re-worked as well. If you were to take Mad Max and skip forward a hundred years until civilization had started to reform, you would end up with something not dissimilar.
Well, I can’t say I’ll like it, but this commentary has made me more interested in watching the show than I was before.
The inevitable comparisons to Game of Thrones also reveals some interesting contrasts.
Visually, it is a WoT is a much brighter and prettier show than GoT. Tone-wise, it is generally lighter, but zig-zags a lot more, which may be good or bad. Some of the sexual stuff seems like a deliberate contrast to Thrones, all of it consensual and, if not plot-advancing, tone-building and characterizing. It is a *weird* approach, almost like something out of pre-banwave tumblr, that I have never seen in a work this mainsteam before.
Judging intent is hard, and rarely usefull, but I get the distinct impression that the people making the show actually AGREE with you, but also love WoT, and are trying to somehow square the circle.
People have accused WoT of being a GoT immitator, but in aggregate it feels more like WoT learned from GoT.
Admittedly, after GoT fumbled the final season, the bar to clear is a pub in hell. GoT botched the landing so bad that it retroactively made all of it’s copycats better by comparison, a dubious honor indeed. So I MIGHT be being a little generous here.
“the bar to clear is a pub in hell”
I have never heard that before, and I wish I’d heard it a lot sooner, because that is probably my new favorite play on words.
Editor’s note: I’ve removed a comment for breaking several of our rules, most notably promoting sexism. And as a side note, it doesn’t really work to start by arguing that human nature is just different in WoT than in real life, then go on to argue how actually, everything in the books is perfectly realistic.
The Wheel of Time series shares a lot of elements with Robert Jordan’s Conan works which are more blatantly exploitive and perpetuate a far more toxic view of male and female perspectives on relationships. Trying to justify the way these views are glorified in both series is a very slippery slope. The commenter that made the point that WOT makes the point of how power corrupts makes a good point but the absence of characters that challenge the stereotypes puts the series more in the realm of Harlequin romances written for teenage boys. The more alarming problem is that this is probably the target audience for much of the genre. While I prefer WOT over GOT, GOT does have the character of Tyrion Lannister as a redeeming feature. I think Robert Jordan did attempt to write more empowered female characters but falls victim to the same problem Hollywood movies fail to address in that it is more profitable to cast actors that appeal to how we objectify people than to develop rich characters that defy our stereotypes. Robert Jordan was a very talented author when it came to writing prose that titillates teenage boys but falls far short of an author like Thomas Hardy who writes compellingly about social issues from a female perspective. As a critique of his series, I would say he demonstrates in a convincing way how we objectify people in both our fiction and daily lives. If it is meant as commentary there might be some worth, but it is hard not to see it as an exercise in fantasy that glorifies the stereotypes that we struggle with in society. I think Marion Zimmer Bradly writes richer characters that challenge some of our sexual stereotypes with more developed protagonists and antagonists. Her characters’ sexuality is not binary but part of a spectrum without the implication that either end of the spectrum is superior or the realm of a particular gender. She examines issues such as gun control and gender in meaningful ways from the perspective of the powerful and powerless. I don’t see WOT or GOT as much more substantial than soap operas set in a fantasy world. Highly entertaining and possibly addictive but the burden is on the reader to look beyond the stereotypes and question the message. I think the failure of the last season of GOT was a reflection of the sprawling storylines typical of a soap opera that is not meant to come to a conclusion but only to entertain. WOT takes a similar approach with a narrower target audience and a certain lack of maturity. Entertaining with little intrinsic value and some disturbing assumptions that are never really challenged.
I havent read through all of your article, or responses, but to be fair you havent read all of the series so I guess its ok to comment. My overall thought was that there are far more good women than bad in the series, and far more bad men then good. Moraine certainly seems like the overall best of all of them, and is indeed the main savior and guide for Rand. Mainly I found it to be fairly groundbreaking as well. There are way more powerful women than men in this series. Up to this point in Fantasy, that hadnt been done much, if at all to my knowledge.
Editor’s note: removed a string of troll comments that were clearly against our rules. Unfortunately that did catch a couple of legit replies from another commenter, so just know there was nothing wrong with those replies, we just had to delete the thing they were replying to
Ah, don’t worry; I always know there’s a possibility that my replies to those comments will be deleted, especially with blatant trolling like that.
I found this article very interesting. Just a couple of questions. What would your ideal for the alternate punishment be. It is made quite clear corporal punishment is the universal way of keeping discipline. So if spanking does perhaps fuel the sexual nature of the books and the degrading of the women within (something I admittedly did not notice when I read it. I just put it down to standard punishment from decades ago) which punishment may be beter. A cane? A whip? Genuinely curious as I had just thought that the spanking was a punishment, used because of the pain came from hitting that specific area of the body.
Secondly I would have liked to see your perspective on a small yet noticeable theme later on of rape and, more specifically, the rape of men who ‘can’t be raped’. One character has sex with a man in the hope of ‘fixing him’. The man is a shadow, a walking zombie at this point and likely had little say. Another is literally forced to engage in sex with one woman who threatens him, manipulates him and even uses a knife to have her way, tying him up etc. This goes along the more explicit lines of BDSM, but literal in this case and involuntary. Whats worse is the reaction another character has who finds it hilarious.
Finally I found it fascinating to see the variety of views. In my research I found people lauding Jordan for his progression of gender dynamics and the powerful female rolemodels within who take charge. Another I read even claimed this series is what made them a feminist. I really like the series, but found this interesting to read and has certainly helped change some of my views.
The spankings and other degrading punishments don’t need to be replaced with anything because as a whole they don’t add anything to the story except for a certain amount of eroticism for people with specific tastes, and there are better venues for that elsewhere. The actual stakes for these books include death, imprisonment, not completing one’s magical training, the world being destroyed, all the normal stuff. Jordan knew he needed real stakes to maintain tension, the spankings are only in there because he thought they were hot. There might be a handful of specific scenes that would need to be revised, but it wouldn’t change the broader story at all.
I can’t comment on the sexual violence you mention because it’s been decades since I read past book four and honestly I don’t remember how that all played out. As for Jordan being lauded, it’s true that the Wheel of Time has more women in it than, say, Lord of the Rings. And if people got validation from that, then all the power to them. But that doesn’t change or excuse the book’s many problems. We can have lots of women in stories without including all of Jordan’s sexist bullshit.
This is a fair view and thanks for replying so fast! Whilst I don’t wholly agree with all your articles arguments I think it was well written and a good read, and I think certainly made me more aware of the problems contained.
No problem, I’m usually happy to answer questions if they’re asked in good faith.