Fixing an Unfortunate Implication: Non-Cis People in The Wheel of Time

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Spinning off from the An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?632571-An-Enemy-Spy-Reads-The-Wheel-of-Time-IV-The-Spy-Reborn) because while the debate has stayed very civil thus far, it's ultimately only tangential to the purpose of that thread and is taking up quite a lot of space there.

This discussion will involve small to serious spoilers for the series, so outside of this first post (where I'll be using spoiler bars for the sake of condensing material into easy reading) don't expect to be able to read safely. You have been warned!

The problem is twofold.

First, there is only one non-cis character in the series, a minor character by the name of Aran'gar. He is evil, without any redeeming qualities that I can recall, and also only trans as an explicit perversion of nature by the setting's Satan equivalent, Shai-Tan, AKA The Dark One. That could (conceivably) be made workable, using his forced trans-gender status to show the misery and frustration that actual trans-gender people feel at their gender dysphoria and turning it into a sympathetic trait, except for the fact that as the only example non-cis person it comes across more as a statement that such people are not part of the natural order and/or are evil.

Which leads to the second half of the problem: adding non-cis people to the universe would seriously undermine the worldbuilding around the gender-linked powers present in the setting. When all men who can channel are driven violently insane, and all women who can channel can sense whether another woman can channel, it strains credulity to imagine that for thousands of years no one noticed, e.g., a trans man who couldn't be sensed and went destructively insane despite having a female body. And the status quo of gender relations and politics in the setting kinda depends on the consistency and predictability of how channeling relates to sex. Additionally, the setting runs on reincarnation, and it appears that people are without fail reincarnated into a body of their original gender (barring the sole exception above), which can be seen because they cycle and flicker through all the bodies they've had when present as not-yet-reincarnated souls.

The second half implies a world where non-cis people either can't ever wield magic/be heroes or (more likely) simply don't exist, which is exclusionary and also reminiscent of IRL prejudiced arguments that non-cis people are imagining their gender dysphoria. The implication becomes truly unfortunate when paired with the one trans character we do get, though, suggesting that non-cis people are perversions of the natural order. This flies in the face of the otherwise progressive and quite good series themes of who you are on the inside being what matters (not gender or magic or age or nationality or any of that), the importance of coming together and treating each other as actual people in order to work together to accomplish great things, and that ultimately the most important thing is the freedom to choose who you are and what you do. And in light of the upcoming adaptation of TWoT to TV show format, I think it's worth discussing possible solutions to this problem.


One of the major pushbacks that shows up whenever this topic comes up is that people want to see The Wheel of Time, not some new work that just borrows heavily from it while changing fundamental parts. In light of that, my proposed solution is designed to eliminate the unfortunate implication with the bare minimum of changes:

1a. Access to the One Power should be sex-linked instead of gender-linked. This carries its own potential unfortunate implication (see below), but opens the door for nonbinary, genderfluid, trans, etc. people to access the Source despite not falling into the binary genders it currently represents. Even if the show chooses not to expand on this with non-cis characters, it's now at least possible for them to exist without undermining the worldbuilding. It helps that the One Power works extremely well as a metaphor for traditional gender roles, one that the series goes out of its way to show is viewed as far more important than it actually is.

1b. What effect does this have on the story? As it stands, this literally only affects Aran'gar, a character so minor that most people in the other thread couldn't remember his name (I had to look it up for this thread). After being put in a female body, Aran'gar would need to either now be channeling the female half of the power, Sai'dar, or would need to be compared to actual trans people in the setting to show that he is an explicit exception to the rule. Or you could cut this character after his initial death; many fans probably wouldn't even notice.

2a. Souls shouldn't be locked into a single sex and/or gender for each reincarnation. Fairly self-explanatory; this allows for people to be born whose souls don't match their body, i.e. people who are non-cis.

2b. What effect does this have on the story? This will require a slight change to the visual effects of the not-yet-reincarnated heroes' souls. They already cycle/flicker through their past bodies; just make some of those bodies be of the opposite sex/androgynous. This will affect 4-5, maybe six, scenes across the entire thirteen book series. If they talk about reincarnation (which happens maybe once or twice, as part of those scenes), you could also switch to gender neutral pronouns.

And that's it! Changes to one minor character, and momentary special effects in a handful of minor scenes. That's all it would take to make the worldbuilding inclusive of non-cis people, and from there the showrunners could expand on it or just leave it at that.


Thank you to ecarden for laying this out:

I don't think it's that easy. I think if you do that, you'll find that folks are deeply (and not necessarily wrongly) offended by the notion that in this universe it works that way.

If you treat it as sex-linked you are going to upset folks who view that as suggesting that trans people aren't 'really' the destination gender. After all, the universe as a whole is flat out saying that no matter how much you're a transwoman, you can't access the power that 'real' women can.

That's... a fair point, but I do think it's looking at it in a negative light.

The way I view it, being unable to access Sai'dar makes you no less a "real woman" than not having two X chromosomes, or not having ovaries, or any other difference you were born with.

And this view has the advantage of fitting well with the text. A repeatedly emphasized theme in the series is that being able to channel (and what you channel) is not nearly as important as who you are as a person. Only one of the ta'veren can channel, and while Rand is probably the most important of them, channeling doesn't even play a role in the Final Battle. Rand mocks Taim for being over-reliant on on the Source, and often trounces his opponents without using it at all. Moraine isn't diminished by losing some of her power. Thom singlehandedly kills like twelve Black Ajah in the Final Battle by outsmarting them one at a time.

It also plays nicely with one of the other major themes, that being the freedom to choose who and what you are.

But even though my proposed solution does have a possible negative implication, I still think it's a real and significant step up from the implication as the work currently stands, which is that non-cis people either don't exist or are locked out of channeling by not fitting into the mold (except as the work of actual Satan).



So. What do people think? In particular I'd like to know if others would interpret my solution in the way laid out in the Flaw section, but I'm also very interested in hearing other people's thoughts, criticisms, and solutions of their own.

[Ramza00]

Just a heads up, there was a 25 page thread last year about this very subject matter. Old thread past necro date, so it is good to have a new thread, just pointing out lots of people talked about this long ago...


The Message Board turns, and Threads come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Thread that gave it birth comes again

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?613244-Modernizing-the-Wheel-of-Time

Have Fun :smallsmile:

[Aeson]

You realize that there is no evidence for either the advanced medicine or the magic required to take a person who was born anatomically X and make them anatomically Y in the setting, right? Certainly not post-Age of Legends, anyways...
And, no, the act of an entity which for all practical purposes is a deity does not count as evidence that anything else in the setting can do that - particularly given that the 'transformation' is literally reincarnation.
So if you're looking for a reason why trans people in the sense of people who were born anatomically X but have become anatomically Y don't exist within the setting, the obvious answer is that the capability to perform that transformation doesn't exist within the setting, at the very least not in any time vaguely close to the 'present day' except in the crude form of castration.

Also, I would suggest that the true solution to this 'problem' is to change how you think, because your description of the 'problem' is basically a "boys have penises and girls have vaginas so trans cannot exist" argument. Failing that, the best 'solution' would be to acknowledge the "male souls / female souls" thing to be how the people of the setting think things work and just leave it at that, much like how many Star Wars fans regard Qui-Gon Jinn's statement on the relationship between midi-chlorians to be a mixture of fact (high midi-chlorian counts corelate with strength in the Force) and belief (midi-chlorians are the interlocutors for the will of the Force). Altering the setting's metaphysics will only create problems, especially when your rationale for altering the metaphysics basically boils down to you reading it as boys having penises and girls having vaginas means that trans cannot exist.

[Rynjin]

There's not really any problem. Your proposed solution is as it actually is; Channeling is determined by sex, not gender. The book was written in the 90s by an old man with very of-his-time knowledge and views on things. When the series says gender, it means sex, because that was generally how people thought of it at the time.

It's not really controversial to say that biological sex involves distinct, physical differences between people both on the macro and micro levels.

[Callos_DeTerran]

Okay, I'm being completely serious with this question, but why is this a problem? Or, to be more specific, what does changing the Wheel of Time in this manner 'fix'? What is being fixed by altering this?

[PoeticallyPsyco]

You realize that there is no evidence for either the advanced medicine or the magic required to take a person who was born anatomically X and make them anatomically Y in the setting, right? Certainly not post-Age of Legends, anyways...
And, no, the act of an entity which for all practical purposes is a deity does not count as evidence that anything else in the setting can do that - particularly given that the 'transformation' is literally reincarnation.
So if you're looking for a reason why trans people in the sense of people who were born anatomically X but have become anatomically Y don't exist within the setting, the obvious answer is that the capability to perform that transformation doesn't exist within the setting, at the very least not in any time vaguely close to the 'present day' except in the crude form of castration.

Also, I would suggest that the true solution to this 'problem' is to change how you think, because your description of the 'problem' is basically a "boys have penises and girls have vaginas so trans cannot exist" argument. Failing that, the best 'solution' would be to acknowledge the "male souls / female souls" thing to be how the people of the setting think things work and just leave it at that, much like how many Star Wars fans regard Qui-Gon Jinn's statement on the relationship between midi-chlorians to be a mixture of fact (high midi-chlorian counts corelate with strength in the Force) and belief (midi-chlorians are the interlocutors for the will of the Force). Altering the setting's metaphysics will only create problems, especially when your rationale for altering the metaphysics basically boils down to you reading it as boys having penises and girls having vaginas means that trans cannot exist.

Um... I don't mean to be rude, but you've completely misunderstood my description of the problem. My point was not that being unable to genetically rewrite people so their bodies match their preferred gender is somehow a problem with the setting. My point was that the worldbuilding as it stands implies non-cis people do not exist save by the Dark One's direct intervention, which is at best not very inclusive.

...Am I misusing a word or something? I'm trying to figure out where I could have erred to cause this misunderstanding, and drawing a complete blank.


There's not really any problem. Your proposed solution is as it actually is; Channeling is determined by sex, not gender. The book was written in the 90s by an old man with very of-his-time knowledge and views on things. When the series says gender, it means sex, because that was generally how people thought of it at the time.

It's not really controversial to say that biological sex involves distinct, physical differences between people both on the macro and micro levels.

Aran'gar disproves that, though... or rather, is the only evidence one way or the other, and is not in favor of that interpretation. As the only trans person we see in the setting, he is a man in a female body, and has access to Sai'din.

Like I said, at least half of fixing the problem is as simple as making Aran'gar either channel Sai'dar now or be shown/told to be an exception to the rule. Then voila; the textual evidence (or I guess visual evidence for a show? Scriptual evidence?) is now in favor of channeling being determined by sex instead of gender, which like you said is perfectly consistent with every bit of evidence except for Aran'gar.

[Rynjin]

Aran'gar was created by the act of an evil deity who can break whatever rules of the setting they want. Calling them trans is also questionable in the first place.

[Lord Raziere]

Okay, I'm being completely serious with this question, but why is this a problem? Or, to be more specific, what does changing the Wheel of Time in this manner 'fix'? What is being fixed by altering this?

Well, when fans get invested into something, when a story is apart of your life enough, a bit of someone's identity is invested into it just by spending so much time in it, whether its intentional or not. another part of someone's identity might be being transgender. some of these people might feel a desire to make sure there is self-consistency between these parts of the identity that is the self. other transgender people might not care of course and they don't have to care, but neither does it mean those people have a right to say those who do care, to not care about making these parts of the identity consistent.

since we're focusing on fixing the problem, the concerns of those who don't care, aren't really important to the discussion, to my logic. what do they have to gain from stopping people from trying to solve it for themselves? nothing. it is illogical for them to offer "help" through the advice "you should stop caring like me", because the premises are fundamentally different and thus not conducive to productive discussion.

[Mechalich]

Aran'gar disproves that, though... or rather, is the only evidence one way or the other, and is not in favor of that interpretation. As the only trans person we see in the setting, he is a man in a female body, and has access to Sai'din.

Like I said, at least half of fixing the problem is as simple as making Aran'gar either channel Sai'dar now or be shown/told to be an exception to the rule. Then voila; the textual evidence (or I guess visual evidence for a show? Scriptual evidence?) is now in favor of channeling being determined by sex instead of gender, which like you said is perfectly consistent with every bit of evidence except for Aran'gar.

Insofar as Aran'gar has a function in the story, it's as a physically female body capable of channeling Saidin, because that enables Aran'gar's infiltration of Salidar, which is basically the entire post-reincarnation purpose of the character.

And there is other textual evidence for gender fixation of the soul in the setting anyway. In particular, when Rand takes the portal stone journey during The Great Hunt he lives through something like 100 lives and he's male in all of them. Similarly, when Rand travels to Rhiudean and lives through the history of the Aiel, he always takes the viewpoint of a male individual, never a female one, while when Aviendha journeys into the future in the same place all of her viewpoint descendants are female. All in all characters jump into the memories of other characters dozens of times throughout the series, but unless I'm mistaken no one ever spends time in the viewpoint of the opposite gender.


Aran'gar was created by the act of an evil deity who can break whatever rules of the setting they want. Calling them trans is also questionable in the first place.

Indeed, especially because the Dark One messed with mind as well as body and overwrote Aran'gar's memories so that she became female in the hundreds of years worth of life that had been lived as the male Eval Ramman. Not sure what to call that but it's not comparable to any real world trans scenario.

The existing evidence suggests that souls pledged to the Dark One are functioning under a different set of rules than those of normal people with regard to how reincarnation works in WoT. Normally people go round-and-round the Wheel, but those whose souls belong to the Dark One are his to do with as he wills, including the ability to remove them from the cycle forever if he wants - it is strongly implied that this is what happened to Asmodean when he was killed.

Ultimately, there's lots of weird stuff about souls in the WoT, including the ability of mortal channelers to destroy immortal souls using Balefire, which is just theologically bizarre. So really you just have to roll with it.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Okay, I'm being completely serious with this question, but why is this a problem? Or, to be more specific, what does changing the Wheel of Time in this manner 'fix'? What is being fixed by altering this?

Well, it's a problem because the current implication is that there are no trans, nonbinary, or gender fluid people... and that's exclusionary. It's quite literally taking a group of people and saying "There is no place for you in this cool world we've built", even if only by implication. (Alternatively, "There is no place for you in this cool magic system we've designed", which is fundamentally the same problem). And that's not a nice message to send.

I've chosen to single it out because it's almost certainly not an intentional message; it's an accident born of the way gender and sex were viewed when the author was writing the story, and clashes badly with the series' other themes. Fixing it is therefore a) something an adaptation should be expected to do, to fit with the other themes, and perhaps more importantly b) remarkably unintrusive, because it's an accidental element of the worldbuilding, and thus only comes up a couple of times.

You could argue that it is a minor problem, caused only by a few elements that can be read into in ways the author didn't intend... and I'd say that that's exactly why it should be fixed, because it's so dang easy that it makes a good starting point.

[Anteros]

what do they have to gain from stopping people from trying to solve it for themselves?

In this particular case? Stopping people from mangling one of their favorite stories in order to push personal agendas. Headcanon whatever you want, but when it derails discussion of the book, or people are pushing to get their fan-fiction into the adaptation being made then don't be surprised when people disagree with you.


Well, it's a problem because the current implication is that there are no trans, nonbinary, or gender fluid people... and that's exclusionary. It's quite literally taking a group of people and saying "There is no place for you in this cool world we've built", even if only by implication. (Alternatively, "There is no place for you in this cool magic system we've designed", which is fundamentally the same problem). And that's not a nice message to send.

I've chosen to single it out because it's almost certainly not an intentional message; it's an accident born of the way gender and sex were viewed when the author was writing the story, and clashes badly with the series' other themes. Fixing it is therefore a) something an adaptation should be expected to do, to fit with the other themes, and perhaps more importantly b) remarkably unintrusive, because it's an accidental element of the worldbuilding, and thus only comes up a couple of times.

You could argue that it is a minor problem, caused only by a few elements that can be read into in ways the author didn't intend... and I'd say that that's exactly why it should be fixed, because it's so dang easy that it makes a good starting point.

It's not easy at all. You're literally talking about changing a fundamental part of the setting. There are literally dozens of subplots that would need to be changed. Here, I'll make it easy for you. If you're born with male private parts you channel Saidin. If you're born with female parts you channel Saidar. You can identify as whatever you want, but it doesn't change what you were born with. Just like in real life.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Honest question: am I doing a bad job of explaining myself?

Because this

Here, I'll make it easy for you. If you're born with male private parts you channel Saidin. If you're born with female parts you channel Saidar. You can identify as whatever you want, but it doesn't change what you were born with. Just like in real life.

is literally my proposed fix.


1a. Access to the One Power should be sex-linked instead of gender-linked.

Make channeling dependent on sex instead of on gender. That way people who don't identify as their birth sex can still channel without causing problems throughout the worldbuilding. Simple. Clean. Inclusive. Requires barely any changes to the source material.


1b. What effect does this have on the story? As it stands, this literally only affects Aran'gar, a character so minor that most people in the other thread couldn't remember his name (I had to look it up for this thread). After being put in a female body, Aran'gar would need to either now be channeling the female half of the power, Sai'dar, or would need to be compared to actual trans people in the setting to show that he is an explicit exception to the rule. Or you could cut this character after his initial death; many fans probably wouldn't even notice.


So genuinely, if someone could point out to me what about my writing is making it so easy for people to miss my point, I would be extremely grateful, because I am obviously doing something wrong, and I would like to improve it.

[Lord Raziere]

In this particular case? Stopping people from mangling one of their favorite stories in order to push personal agendas. Headcanon whatever you want, but when it derails discussion of the book, or people are pushing to get their fan-fiction into the adaptation being made then don't be surprised when people disagree with you.


Meaning nothing. because the original version will exist unaltered. while every agenda is personal. you have one to, by trying to stop it. so saying that a "personal agenda" is involved is meaningless as "I like it the way it is" is a persona agenda as it an agenda held by a person. we are discussing entertainment there is literally nothing not personal about this. while implying that there is something wrong about the people doing this by implying that people are "mangling" the story. discussing this topic is no different from any other fan discussion, Anteros, such as discussing whether to view the prequel trilogy of star wars in the machete order, or making headcanons about Doctor Who.

[Rynjin]

Honest question: am I doing a bad job of explaining myself?

Because this


is literally my proposed fix.



Make channeling dependent on sex instead of on gender. That way people who don't identify as their birth sex can still channel without causing problems throughout the worldbuilding. Simple. Clean. Inclusive. Requires barely any changes to the source material.



So genuinely, if someone could point out to me what about my writing is making it so easy for people to miss my point, I would be extremely grateful, because I am obviously doing something wrong, and I would like to improve it.

Ultimately though this means a net...no change. This is a medieval fantasy world with pretty strict views on gender, even if it is an overall matriarchal paradigm. They're going to use gender and sex interchangeably, because that's what people did.

[Mechalich]

One thing I think that needs to be unpacked here is that the Wheel of Time has some very specific opinions with regard to its overarching metaphysical structure and these are very important.

First, the Wheel of Time is an explicitly dualistic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind%E2%80%93body_dualism) universe. The mind is not simply an emergent creation of physical processes but is a separate entity that can exist entirely without a body at all and is instead linked to an immortal existence that cyclically reincarnates through different bodies over the course of time. This is generally referred to as the 'soul' in everyday parlance.

Second, souls in WoT are not infinitely malleable and in fact come with a whole pile of traits. In a sense souls have inherent traits (nature) in addition to being shaped by outside circumstances (nurture). This is made very clear through the Portal Stone journey in The Great Hunt when Rand lives a hundred lives in succession but is still very clearly fundamentally the same person throughout them all, and the recurring line 'I have won again Lews Therin' calls this out explicitly. Another character later comments on his own experience during this event and provides confirmation.

Gender appears to be one of the traits inherently bound to souls. When characters live many lives over and over they always have the same gender. This is true during the portal stone journey, it's true for the Heroes of the Horn, it's true for Rand himself, and so on. Aran'gar, a being essentially created by the Dark One perverting the nature of reincarnation in-universe, appears to be the only exception (there's an unanswerable question attached to what would have happened if Aran'gar had been reincarnated again since she was killed using balefire).

Given all this, the only real way to have transpersons in the WoT is if souls are placed into the wrong bodies. There's nothing wrong with that philosophically, however, no such characters are recorded in the series. Now, that doesn't mean they didn't exist during the Age of Legends since we don't see enough of that time period and the magitech utopia of that period was probably capable of rendering a trans individual capable of passing perfectly so there is no real way to observe such a character in the first place (after all, they could create human replicate bodies in the form of gholam). In fact, it would be possible to have one of the Forsaken explain this.

If such characters exist in the Third Age, well, one of the reasons we are unlikely to encounter them is they probably face immense prejudice. There's very strong evidence for powerful in-universe prejudice against being publicly trans (for one, Min faces considerable prejudice just for wearing some male articles of clothing, even though she presents as female the whole time). Male souls placed into female bodies who channel saidin (the WoT version of transmen) are likely to be particularly vulnerable - plausibly the Red Ajah kills them all outright and then lies and says they had male flesh from the start in the records (this would actually explain why none of the Aes Sedai in Salidar recognize the Aran'gar threat, since none of them are Red). Female souls in male bodies who channel saidar is a less lethal situation, and it is possible that a small number of them are found among the Aes Sedai or other female channeler societies. There is a question of how detectable this would be. The Mirror of Mists (https://wot.fandom.com/wiki/Mirror_of_Mists) can be used to create an alternative appearance and it strikes me as plausible that in addition to whatever surgical means could be used safely, transwoman channelers would present themselves as how they believed they should be using this art more or less constantly.

I think the adaptation could absolutely produce a couple of characters of this nature - probably mid-tier Aes Sedai in Salidar would be the best choice, perhaps even one of the Sitters - with trans actresses, but there would be very little reason for anyone in-universe to ever comment on it.

[Saph]

Honest question: am I doing a bad job of explaining myself?

I don't think you're explaining yourself badly, it's just that the solution you're trying to explain is really counter-intuitive and confusing.

Your "solved" version of the Wheel of Time has people who are born male, with male bodies, who channel the male half of the True Source, but who are still female. So, in your version of WoT . . . what makes these characters female, exactly? The fact that they say they are? If so, then you've basically redefined the words "male" and "female" to be totally transitory and meaningless . . . while leaving the categories of "biologically male" and "biologically female" just as ironclad and important as ever. I really don't see how this helps anyone, or anything.

[Lord Raziere]

I don't think you're explaining yourself badly, it's just that the solution you're trying to explain is really counter-intuitive and confusing.

Your "solved" version of the Wheel of Time has people who are born male, with male bodies, who channel the male half of the True Source, but who are still female. So, in your version of WoT . . . what makes these characters female, exactly? The fact that they say they are? If so, then you've basically redefined the words "male" and "female" to be totally transitory and meaningless . . . while leaving the categories of "biologically male" and "biologically female" just as ironclad and important as ever. I really don't see how this helps anyone, or anything.

Indeed. It makes sense from a "the universe is an unfair and unjust place and thus if the the True Source is a materialist physical apart of that cruel unfair materialist injustice that trans people face" perspective as it reinforces the struggle against such an injustice. but it provides little help in how someone would solve that in this world. its real cold and uncaring.

the alternative from a spiritual interpretation of the True Source is to say that everyone who is born with a form of channeling that doesn't match their sex means they are transgender and that you can prove this by having all the characters with channeling that doesn't match their sex turn out to be transgender and thus use their channeling mismatch to channel their bodies to change into their preferred sex somehow, which is how I'd do it but others would argue doesn't really capture the struggle of being transgender by making it too easy, which I guess is valid criticism.

[Rynjin]

There's also the possible interpretation that it's a utopian state in that regard, where everyone is born with their physical sex matching the gender they're most comfortable with. Nobody seems bothered in the series, after all, save Aran'gar.

[Lord Raziere]

There's also the possible interpretation that it's a utopian state in that regard, where everyone is born with their physical sex matching the gender they're most comfortable with. Nobody seems bothered in the series, after all, save Aran'gar.

I mean you can, technically.

I just don't know if the reaction to that would be positive, because yes you can technically say that from a perspective of pure logic? But......that doesn't mean the reaction would be positive? because it can be interpreted either as "the trans people all get their ideal bodies" or...it can be interpreted as erasure. its tricky like that, because if you go that route, it can be seen the same as not respecting transgender people at all by saying they are never born thus Wheel of Time has no place for them. its one of those things where ironically by saying the problem never happens your potentially disrespecting the struggle of the identity thats trying to solve it, because the imperfection of it existing in the first place is what the identity is about. like Poeticallypsycho's version still make sense even if the story of that would be dark, depressing and full of stomping on hearts to make transpeople go "oh thats so sad! I relate to this struggle against cold uncaring things defining me not as who I truly am", but it might work. you on the other hand, might actually be proposing something that could make people mad, I think?

I know, its probably not rational for the fantasy to be "my fantasy was born with this imperfection like me but through their struggles manages to get rid of it and become their ideal self" instead of "my fantasy was just born without this imperfection" but you can say that for a lot of fantasy heroes really. for some reason humans when telling stories really go for that journey part for it to work.

[Sholos]

There's also the possible interpretation that it's a utopian state in that regard, where everyone is born with their physical sex matching the gender they're most comfortable with. Nobody seems bothered in the series, after all, save Aran'gar.

Came here to say this. What if there aren't any trans people because no one is ever born into the wrong body. But, as a cis individual (I think?) I don't know if that's a preferable world state from trans individuals, which I expect would differ from person to person in the same way that my answer to whether I'd have rather been born without ADHD would differ from another.

[Murk]

Came here to say this. What if there aren't any trans people because no one is ever born into the wrong body.

There are three problems with this:

- It would be unlike the real world. WoT obviously is a fantasy world, but it's presented as if gender, anatomy, sex, and biology work the same way as in ours. The humans in Randland are normal humans, just like humans are in the real world. They are supposed to be real humans, not fantasy humans. And real humans are sometimes trans.
By saying "No trans people exist", you also say "humans in Randland are different from real humans".
Which is not necessarily wrong but it would definitely be a change to the original work - and most people in this thread seem to dislike making changes to the original work.

- Not all genderqueer people are the "born in the wrong body" kind of trans. Heck, not all genderqueer people are trans. The same interesting questions apply to intersex and non-binary people.

- It comes with all kinds of... unpleasant implications. "The creator made sure nobody is ever trans" is an easy quick fix, but this kind of "perfect" fantasy has commonly been used against trans people. If you want the story to be more suitable to modern audiences (or take some kind of societal responsibility) this is exactly not what you need to do.

[Sapphire Guard]

'No one is born into the wrong body' is erasure, but so is 'trans channelers don't survive puberty', and most of the other solutions.

Having Aran gar switch to saidar doesn't work, as she would be completely unfamiliar with how it works and not be effectively able to use it without years of training. Travelling works differently and so forth. If sdhe can use it effectively, that carries unfortunate implications of its own, in that it devalues all the work channelers have to put into learning their abilities, or possibly that saidir is easier to learn or something.)

If there is any ability to switch which Source you access, then the breaking doesn't happen.

[Rynjin]

There are three problems with this:

- It would be unlike the real world. WoT obviously is a fantasy world, but it's presented as if gender, anatomy, sex, and biology work the same way as in ours. The humans in Randland are normal humans, just like humans are in the real world. They are supposed to be real humans, not fantasy humans. And real humans are sometimes trans.
By saying "No trans people exist", you also say "humans in Randland are different from real humans".
Which is not necessarily wrong but it would definitely be a change to the original work - and most people in this thread seem to dislike making changes to the original work.

- Not all genderqueer people are the "born in the wrong body" kind of trans. Heck, not all genderqueer people are trans. The same interesting questions apply to intersex and non-binary people.

- It comes with all kinds of... unpleasant implications. "The creator made sure nobody is ever trans" is an easy quick fix, but this kind of "perfect" fantasy has commonly been used against trans people. If you want the story to be more suitable to modern audiences (or take some kind of societal responsibility) this is exactly not what you need to do.

If the story were going n any way ABOUT trans issues, this might be relevant. As-is I see little reason it would ever come up in the story, and if it did...simplified answers work fine.

It's exactly the same way not every story featuring a black character needs to deeply explore black social issues. No story can be about everything.

[Lord Raziere]

If the story were going n any way ABOUT trans issues, this might be relevant. As-is I see little reason it would ever come up in the story, and if it did...simplified answers work fine.

It's exactly the same way not every story featuring a black character needs to deeply explore black social issues. No story can be about everything.

Then you might as well just leave well enough alone and let any transpeople make their own headcanons and OCs that work for them without confirming one way or another, or not care enough to post about its not "relevant" to change Wheel of Times.

It cuts both ways: you don't have to be involved in everything a fandom is involved in, or participate in everything a story is about just because your a fan. if a bunch of transpeople want to enjoy it their way, or if a new thing comes out thats not for you....thats okay. you don't need to insist on owning every part of it. you can't be apart of everything.

[Rynjin]

Then you might as well just leave well enough alone and let any transpeople make their own headcanons and OCs that work for them without confirming one way or another, or not care enough to post about its not "relevant" to change Wheel of Times.

It cuts both ways: you don't have to be involved in everything a fandom is involved in, or participate in everything a story is about just because your a fan. if a bunch of transpeople want to enjoy it their way, or if a new thing comes out thats not for you....thats okay. you don't need to insist on owning every part of it. you can't be apart of everything.

This thread isn't about headcanons, you're looking for the one a few threads down. It's about what, if any, changes need to be made to make the series consistent re: Channeling and gender.

You making posts like this does not actually help matters, do you realize this? It never does.

You've made four posts in this thread and only one of them is actually about the thread topic; the rest are just you telling people to shut up in a wordier fashion.

Does this seem like a way to have a discussion to you? Everybody else has managed to discuss the topic without telling anybody else to **** off.

[Murk]

If the story were going n any way ABOUT trans issues, this might be relevant. As-is I see little reason it would ever come up in the story, and if it did...simplified answers work fine.

It's exactly the same way not every story featuring a black character needs to deeply explore black social issues. No story can be about everything.

Oh, I would never argue the story needs to be ABOUT trans issues.

But issues of gender, gender expectations and gender roles are pretty essential to the story, and that's why people are left with questions about trans people. I completely agree simplified answers work fine.
For me it seems only reasonable that one of the hundreds of Aes Sedai we see in the tower is a trans woman.
If someone wants a simple answer, this would be the simplest of answers: Egwene walks through the tower and sees an Aes Sedai that looks like man but channels Saidar. She if confused but someone explains the Aes Sedai is a woman who just happens to have a male-looking body.
This takes maybe four sentences, or five seconds of screen time? It acknowledges that - like intended - humans work the same in Randland as in the real world, trans people exist, they channel according to their gender, no issues whatsoever.

If you don't like the idea of the Aes Sedai being so tolerant and nonchalant, have the transwoman pop up among the Kinswomen. Those are used to criticise the Aes Sedai anyway. "Even though I channel Saidar I wasn't allowed into the tower because I look like a guy."
Three sentences top, fits the narrative of Kinswomen complaining about the Tower, done.

I'm sure some people would complain about wokeness and tokenism, but hey.

[Rynjin]

Oh, I would never argue the story needs to be ABOUT trans issues.

But issues of gender, gender expectations and gender roles are pretty essential to the story, and that's why people are left with questions about trans people. I completely agree simplified answers work fine.
For me it seems only reasonable that one of the hundreds of Aes Sedai we see in the tower is a trans woman.
If someone wants a simple answer, this would be the simplest of answers: Egwene walks through the tower and sees an Aes Sedai that looks like man but channels Saidar. She if confused but someone explains the Aes Sedai is a woman who just happens to have a male-looking body.
This takes maybe four sentences, or five seconds of screen time? It acknowledges that - like intended - humans work the same in Randland as in the real world, trans people exist, they channel according to their gender, no issues whatsoever.

If you don't like the idea of the Aes Sedai being so tolerant and nonchalant, have the transwoman pop up among the Kinswomen. Those are used to criticise the Aes Sedai anyway. "Even though I channel Saidar I wasn't allowed into the tower because I look like a guy."
Three sentences top, fits the narrative of Kinswomen complaining about the Tower, done.

I'm sure some people would complain about wokeness and tokenism, but hey.

That kind of begs a lot of other changes. Like making any of the existing Channeler groups tolerant people.

Which...is probably a good change in general now I think of it. Having almost every major female character being wholly unreasonable because "women, amiright?" is one of the bigger hurdles to adapting the series.

[Lord Raziere]

This thread isn't about headcanons, you're looking for the one a few threads down. It's about what, if any, changes need to be made to make the series consistent re: Channeling and gender.

You making posts like this does not actually help matters, do you realize this? It never does.

You've made four posts in this thread and none of them are actually about the thread topic, just you telling people to shut up in a wordier fashion.

Oh. I guess telling people how I'd do the fix myself, telling you what the probable reaction would be to your fix while admitting it was logical in theory but providing reasons why people would understandably not be entirely logical about taking it because we aren't logic machines, and providing my view of poeticallypsycho's fix, doesn't count as being on the threads topic now. :smallamused:

and I have no idea what you mean by "it never does". that is something that probably doesn't involve this thread, whatever it is.

[Murk]

That kind of begs a lot of other changes. Like making any of the existing Channeler groups tolerant people.

Which...is probably a good change in general now I think of it. Having almost every major female character being wholly unreasonable because "women, amiright?" is one of the bigger hurdles to adapting the series.

Fair enough!

One the other hand, making any of the women in the series reasonable would be a pretty major change, and I think most of us are opposed to doing major changes :smallwink:

[Aeson]

If someone wants a simple answer, this would be the simplest of answers: Egwene walks through the tower and sees an Aes Sedai that looks like man but channels Saidar. She if confused but someone explains the Aes Sedai is a woman who just happens to have a male-looking body.
This takes maybe four sentences, or five seconds of screen time? It acknowledges that - like intended - humans work the same in Randland as in the real world, trans people exist, they channel according to their gender, no issues whatsoever.
There is enough variety in the cultures from which the Aes Desai draw their recruits that the answer to "why are you dressed like a man?" could very reasonably be "I'm not" (for a real world example, consider that kilts are a form of male attire which have the same general appearance as skirts). It could also reasonably be Min's apparent answer of "I prefer pants to skirts."

Also, transvestite = transsexual probably isn't exactly a great way to go about being inclusive, and adding a bit character whose only purpose in being there is, essentially, to make Egwene - or anyone else - go "what's with that freak?" seems to me like a pretty bad form of tokenism.

[Murk]

There is enough variety in the cultures from which the Aes Desai draw their recruits that the answer to "why are you dressed like a man?" could very reasonably be "I'm not" (for a real world example, consider that kilts are a form of male attire which have the same general appearance as skirts). It could also reasonably be Min's apparent answer of "I prefer pants to skirts."

Also, transvestite = transsexual probably isn't exactly a great way to go about being inclusive, and adding a bit character whose only purpose in being there is, essentially, to make Egwene - or anyone else - go "what's with that freak?" seems to me like a pretty bad form of tokenism.

I didn't mean clothing. It's been a while since I read the book - I was under the impression all Aes Sedai wore standardised clothing.
I meant any other physical characteristic that might make someone think "hey I don't think this is a ciswoman". Yes, that too comes with issues (it would be less problematic if the character freely tells others they are trans rather than being seen as such), but it is a fast and easy way to show "your channeling depends on your gender, not on whether or not you grow a beard".

Other more subtle solutions - which would also help with accusations of tokenism - would mean spending more time on it, which seems to be an unpopular option.
For me, the most important part is the acknowledgement that trans people exist, and that they're not somehow divinely excluded from channeling. I don't think that would be such a drastic acknowledgement, or that it would dishonour the original work.
And if that acknowledgement requires some tokenism, eh, so be it.

[Dragonus45]

If such characters exist in the Third Age, well, one of the reasons we are unlikely to encounter them is they probably face immense prejudice. There's very strong evidence for powerful in-universe prejudice against being publicly trans (for one, Min faces considerable prejudice just for wearing some male articles of clothing, even though she presents as female the whole time). Male souls placed into female bodies who channel saidin (the WoT version of transmen) are likely to be particularly vulnerable - plausibly the Red Ajah kills them all outright and then lies and says they had male flesh from the start in the records (this would actually explain why none of the Aes Sedai in Salidar recognize the Aran'gar threat, since none of them are Red). Female souls in male bodies who channel saidar is a less lethal situation, and it is possible that a small number of them are found among the Aes Sedai or other female channeler societies. There is a question of how detectable this would be. The Mirror of Mists (https://wot.fandom.com/wiki/Mirror_of_Mists) can be used to create an alternative appearance and it strikes me as plausible that in addition to whatever surgical means could be used safely, transwoman channelers would present themselves as how they believed they should be using this art more or less constantly.

This situation you describe right here is the worst of all possible solutions, because it sets the world building on fire and either creates massive plotholes or requires a huge restructuring of most of the plot.

[Sapphire Guard]

Egwene's reaction would likely be 'holy crap, that means Rand can learn saidar and doesn't have to go insane.'

[Murk]

Egwene's reaction would likely be 'holy crap, that means Rand can learn saidar and doesn't have to go insane.'

I'm sure you're not suggesting Rand is a (trans) woman, but I'm not sure what you are suggesting.

[Sapphire Guard]

I'm suggested Egwene would not know the difference, and on seeing someone with a male body channelling saidar would immediately wonder if Rand can do the same (and therefore not die insane).

[Psyren]

There are three problems with this:

- It would be unlike the real world. WoT obviously is a fantasy world, but it's presented as if gender, anatomy, sex, and biology work the same way as in ours. The humans in Randland are normal humans, just like humans are in the real world. They are supposed to be real humans, not fantasy humans. And real humans are sometimes trans.
By saying "No trans people exist", you also say "humans in Randland are different from real humans".
Which is not necessarily wrong but it would definitely be a change to the original work - and most people in this thread seem to dislike making changes to the original work.

- Not all genderqueer people are the "born in the wrong body" kind of trans. Heck, not all genderqueer people are trans. The same interesting questions apply to intersex and non-binary people.

- It comes with all kinds of... unpleasant implications. "The creator made sure nobody is ever trans" is an easy quick fix, but this kind of "perfect" fantasy has commonly been used against trans people. If you want the story to be more suitable to modern audiences (or take some kind of societal responsibility) this is exactly not what you need to do.

Agreed, and it's 10x worse when you consider that Wheel of Time's First Age is based on our world - see the ancient stories like Mosk and Merk, (John G)Lenn flying to the moon, the Mercedes hood ornament in Tanchico etc. So not only is RJ implying that trans people don't exist, he's implying they USED to and the Creator deleted them all at some point :smalleek: Yikes.


Honest question: am I doing a bad job of explaining myself?

Because this


is literally my proposed fix.



Make channeling dependent on sex instead of on gender. That way people who don't identify as their birth sex can still channel without causing problems throughout the worldbuilding. Simple. Clean. Inclusive. Requires barely any changes to the source material.

Which side would an intersex person channel? Can they choose? Do they even exist?

We end up with some form of erasure no matter what we do. My preferred solution is that both the 2nd and 3rd Ages are simply wrong about how the Source works, and the truth is much more inclusive. Even that results in erasure (since you then need to explain why no current channeling society has trans people who figured this out) but that's at least a problem that can be explained socially rather than an inviolable rule of the cosmos. I vastly prefer that to your junk invariably dictating how your magic works, especially when both halves of the Source rely on numerous stereotypes in their channeling methods that shouldn't be tied to someone's junk in the first place. So long as the truth doesn't come to light until the series is close to finishing, it won't actually matter for the main worldbuilding or plot.

[Taevyr]

I mean... I'd rather not see a remake of LOTR add/change any characters for the sole purpose of having non-cisgender/bisexual characters in the story, and that has the exact same criteria as WOT: dated fantasy, set in our world (past instead of future, but still), less emphasis on gender in-story but worse in terms of female characters doing anything important.

As for Aran'Gar: the Aran'gar situation isn't problematic because it ties channeling to gender, I actually liked that channeling is linked to "what you are" rather than "what you biologically happen to be", and I'll happily handwave any complications that'd bring as "no-one ever had the time or paid enough attention to investigate it". It's problematic because it's the sole "trans" person in the series who becomes "trans" 'cause of the Dark One. That particular aspect, I wouldn't mind doing without, and he's a minor enough character that I can see him getting written out.

I wouldn't mind if a new story set in the LOTR or WOT world would add new non-cisgender or bisexual characters, it'd be perfect to get an interesting, plot-relevant character without having to change anything story- or worldwise. In the existing stories, you'd either have to go with a token insertion who barely does anything, shift the story to fit their presence, or arbitrarily change an existing character's sexuality, none of which sounds like proper representation of either story or non-straight/binary peop

[Psyren]

I mean... I'd rather not see a remake of LOTR add/change any characters for the sole purpose of having non-cisgender/bisexual characters in the story, and that has the exact same criteria as WOT: dated fantasy, set in our world (past instead of future, but still), less emphasis on gender in-story but worse in terms of female characters doing anything important.

Yeah, I can't imagine a Tolkien adaptation adding characters for the sake of representation (https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Tauriel) :smallamused::smallbiggrin:


As for Aran'Gar: the Aran'gar situation isn't problematic because it ties channeling to gender, I actually liked that channeling is linked to "what you are" rather than "what you biologically happen to be", and I'll happily handwave any complications that'd bring as "no-one ever had the time or paid enough attention to investigate it". It's problematic because it's the sole "trans" person in the series who becomes "trans" 'cause of the Dark One. That particular aspect, I wouldn't mind doing without, and he's a minor enough character that I can see him getting written out.

Agreed.


I wouldn't mind if a new story set in the LOTR or WOT world would add new non-cisgender or bisexual characters, it'd be perfect to get an interesting, plot-relevant character without having to change anything story- or worldwise. In the existing stories, you'd either have to go with a token insertion who barely does anything, shift the story to fit their presence, or arbitrarily change an existing character's sexuality, none of which sounds like proper representation of either story or non-straight/binary peop

We're already getting an Age of Legends prequel (https://gizmodo.com/the-wheel-of-time-is-getting-a-movie-trilogy-now-too-1847281197) in addition to the main series. I imagine that if one or both do well, we can expect additional stories in the setting, similar to what Game of Thrones was planning before they soiled the bed. All the more reason to bring the magic system more up to date now than RJ thought to.

[Ramza00]

In this particular case? Stopping people from mangling one of their favorite stories in order to push personal agendas. Headcanon whatever you want, but when it derails discussion of the book, or people are pushing to get their fan-fiction into the adaptation being made then don't be surprised when people disagree with you.

Where does that logic end? Nothing will get made if someone is a fan and is invested in stopping the production of new things for that fan does not want anything that is disrespectful in their fanatical mind. The whole idea of fan-dom is X is important for X is set apart and is unique in some way.

But the very nature of storytelling is we borrow from what came before, it is mimicry as in memetic, even if the very act of narration is diegetic. A thing is both new and is unique, yet is also familiar, it is a chimera, and that is the nature of the storytelling process.

[Aeson]

I didn't mean clothing. It's been a while since I read the book - I was under the impression all Aes Sedai wore standardised clothing.
I meant any other physical characteristic that might make someone think "hey I don't think this is a ciswoman". Yes, that too comes with issues (it would be less problematic if the character freely tells others they are trans rather than being seen as such), but it is a fast and easy way to show "your channeling depends on your gender, not on whether or not you grow a beard".
"There's no way that's a woman - just look at those muscles!" Yes, I'm sure this is a much better approach.

1. Anatomically-male people who were born anatomically-female are implausible for the setting given the observed state of medicine and the observed capabilities of ordinary magic in the books, at the very least in the 'present day.' As such, it is rather unlikely for a main character to encounter a male personage who channels saidar due to having been born female but having undergone a sex change operation of some description.
2. A man channeling saidar or a woman channeling saidin as a result of having a gender identity which does not match their biological gender creates significant problems for the world building of the setting unless you assume it to be vanishingly rare, at which point, well...
3. Getting "trans channelers / people do not exist" from "men channel saidin while women channel saidar" is something that I agree is a problem, but it is not a problem which can be found in the text. Rather, this problem may be found between your book and your seat, and as such it is not a valid reason to make changes to the text. It is a valid reason to sit down in front of a mirror and have a frank discussion with yourself about why it is that you have assumed a link between gender identity and channeling ability, and then extrapolated from that assumption to the position that trans / nonbinary / whatever people do not exist in the setting.

Also, regarding the use of the terms 'gender' and 'sex:' Regardless of what some of you may think, these words have been synonymous in certain contexts for roughly five centuries and can still be to this day. If you are going to get your pants in a twist because you read 'gender' as 'gender identity' despite the fact that it can also mean 'sex' as in 'what set of genitals you have,' then that is on you - especially given that gender-as-sex is as or more common in everyday use as gender-as-gender-identity. See, for example, the recent news reports about things going wrong at gender-reveal parties hosted by couples who want to tell their friends and family if they're expecting a boy or a girl. 'Gender' and 'sex' may have strictly-delineated definitions for certain fields of study, but there is no such hard distinction between the two terms in the vernacular, and Wheel of Time is not a specialist text - it's a work of popular fiction, and as such can reasonably be expected to use lay English rather than specialist jargon.

[Ramza00]

That lay text is only two hundreds year old, and at one time it was specialist jargon, then it became “common”, became deconstructed, and is now becoming less common than its earlier prevelance.

Please do not make appeals to “common sense” when people are disagreeing.

[Callos_DeTerran]

Well, it's a problem because the current implication is that there are no trans, nonbinary, or gender fluid people... and that's exclusionary. It's quite literally taking a group of people and saying "There is no place for you in this cool world we've built", even if only by implication. (Alternatively, "There is no place for you in this cool magic system we've designed", which is fundamentally the same problem). And that's not a nice message to send.

...I still don't see the problem. Wheel of Time, from everything I've read and heard about it, seems like the type of setting where trans, nonbinary, and gender fluid people would not actually exist. And you could explain that in a variety of ways, optimistic or dark, but that doesn't change the fact it still makes perfect sense for that particular setting. Doesn't matter if that's not nice or if its exclusionary-by-accident, not everything is meant to be for everyone and trying to make it so creates a watered down, un-notable mess. Especially for a direct adaptation, it needs to be a faithful recreation of the work its adapting. So something that weakens that while in the process adding nothing most definitely should be avoided.


I've chosen to single it out because it's almost certainly not an intentional message; it's an accident born of the way gender and sex were viewed when the author was writing the story, and clashes badly with the series' other themes. Fixing it is therefore a) something an adaptation should be expected to do, to fit with the other themes, and perhaps more importantly b) remarkably unintrusive, because it's an accidental element of the worldbuilding, and thus only comes up a couple of times.

You could argue that it is a minor problem, caused only by a few elements that can be read into in ways the author didn't intend... and I'd say that that's exactly why it should be fixed, because it's so dang easy that it makes a good starting point.

I would argue it neither clashes nor should it be 'fixed' because honestly this does not seem like a 'fix' because there is no issue. Its creating a minor problem by merit of the fact your viewpoint doesn't jive with the source material but you want an adaptation to conform to that experience. See Anteros' comments about including fanon in the real deal because that's what it would amount to. These issues about gender don't come up in the Wheel of Time because the story isn't about those issues and thus they aren't present, deliberately or not. Wanting to include those issues in a story that isn't about them is the definition of 'fixing something that isn't broken'.

[Psyren]

3. Getting "trans channelers / people do not exist" from "men channel saidin while women channel saidar" is something that I agree is a problem, but it is not a problem which can be found in the text. Rather, this problem may be found between your book and your seat, and as such it is not a valid reason to make changes to the text.

"None of the main characters are BIPOC for at least the first 6 books or so" is not "a problem which can be found in the text" either. Yet Amazon chose to change that anyway, because it was the right thing to do. Such changes may not be valid to you, but they certainly are to others.


Doesn't matter if that's not nice or if its exclusionary-by-accident, not everything is meant to be for everyone and trying to make it so creates a watered down, un-notable mess.

I don't see how changing or removing Aran'gar and the implications around them waters anything.

[Aeson]

That lay text is only two hundreds year old, and at one time it was specialist jargon, then it became “common”, became deconstructed, and is now becoming less common than its earlier prevelance.

Please do not make appeals to “common sense” when people are disagreeing.
Which lay text under discussion is 200 years old? The Eye of the World was published in 1990, so even if you assume Jordan took ten years to write it and count The Wheel of Time's age from when he started on the first draft of the first book the entire work is still not much over 40.

As to gender-as-gender-identity, Merriam-Webster gives "late last century" as when gender gained a meaning synonymous with gender identity and claims 1964 as the first appearance of the phrase "gender identity." This is not a meaning of "gender" which has spent a long time in the wilds of vernacular English being accepted, deconstructed, and reclaimed; this is a relatively recent arrival from technical jargon, and it is something that was only arriving in the vernacular during Robert Jordan's lifetime. It is significantly more likely any time gender comes up within the text that it should be read as gender-as-sex than gender-as-gender-identity. If you want to go with the interpretation that you personally find most offensive, fine - but don't expect me to believe you when you tell me that this is a problem inherent in the text if you do so.

[Ramza00]

Just a reminder from the other thread if you read it, or if you read the books (like I have, though I did not read the Sanderson ones.)

RJ Jordan has some unique ideas about the women of the Red Ajah and why would women channelers hunt down men channelers for the chance they were ticking time bombs. It was not just inverting the imagery of witch hunts and inquisitons, some of the time it is Sapphics who hate men for various reasons.

Likewise in different parts of the text RJ explored BDSM with his bracelets, but also other forms of play and not-play with language about Compulsion and so on. RJ was exploring the contradictions of his own system that he built, on purpose. It showed how savvy the heroes and the villains were when they looked for contradictions and challenged what they were taught.

Is it any surprise the readers of the text will do the same thing when they want an adaption, and they want some aspects of it to be changed? It was what the text itself explored through the series.


Which lay text under discussion is 200 years old? The Eye of the World was published in 1990, so even if you assume Jordan took ten years to write it and count The Wheel of Time's age from when he started on the first draft of the first book the entire work is still not much over 40.

As to gender-as-gender-identity, Merriam-Webster gives "late last century" as when gender gained a meaning synonymous with gender identity and claims 1964 as the first appearance of the phrase "gender identity." This is not a meaning of "gender" which has spent a long time in the wilds of vernacular English being accepted, deconstructed, and reclaimed; this is a relatively recent arrival from technical jargon, and it is something that was only arriving in the vernacular during Robert Jordan's lifetime. It is significantly more likely any time gender comes up within the text that it should be read as gender-as-sex than gender-as-gender-identity. If you want to go with the interpretation that you personally find most offensive, fine - but don't expect me to believe you when you tell me that this is a problem inherent in the text if you do so.

Much of our obsession of what is coded to be masculine or feminine is stuff of the last 200 years, and I will call it Victorian even though it was not limited to Britain under Queen Victoria’s reign.

For example it became coded that men eat more meat in the last two hundred years, and that meat itself is masculine and you need to eat meat or you produce an inferior male. Of course this is all bullocks and if you look at the history of farming and meat production there was radical changes in how we produced food in general but especially meat during said time. Less hunted game, less smaller animals, more livestock, all made possible by large grazing land, railroads, refrigeration, slaughterhouses, and then killing one cow and selling its parts to a large community. Likewise the size of cows changed due to breeding.

And simultaneously you see media and culture changed during this time, much of it due to marketing not just to eat more meat, but to create an US vs Them demographic where true men do X and non true men do not do X. This inner vs outer does not just exist in a local community but was also trying to say people outside the community were foreign in their own different habits. (Aka rise of one style of nationalism.)

When things change such as technology change, or creating a frontier, or capitalism or imperialism, it changes not just those 4 concepts I uttered but dozens of other things like what we see as masculine vs feminine.

All of this is covered in the text by focusing on teenage boys going into one culture but then learning they have their own traditions but it all makes sense. Likewise all the teenage boy protagonists do not understand women but do not understand them for different reasons and we the reader learn the false dichotomies are kind of bullocks. Hell arguably the most important character of the series who is not the 3 boys is Min, a non channeler who has her own special power unique to her, and is a person who plays at gender.

[Aeson]

"None of the main characters are BIPOC for at least the first 6 books or so" is not "a problem which can be found in the text" either. Yet Amazon chose to change that anyway, because it was the right thing to do. Such changes may not be valid to you, but they certainly are to others.
If race of the character isn't relevant in the source material then I don't see why it should be an issue in casting, and if the only reason you have a diverse cast is because "diversity is good" or some other nebulous, vaguely progressive talk then I would say that you are not making your casting decisions for the right reasons. Rand being a bit of an outsider among his fellows from the Two Rivers due to being a tall red-headed white guy when the rest of them were darker-skinned white guys with dark hair who weren't quite as tall was a largely irrelevant detail in the books; Two Rivers becoming cosmopolitan enough for Perrin to be black, Egwene to be indigenous Australian, and so on is a bit odd, but it is a change that makes very little real difference to the story, because it is a detail that wasn't that important to begin with. Channeling being dependent on gender identity rather than gender, though? That's a major change with significant implications for the setting, and as such it should only be implemented of there is a very strong reason for doing so. You convincing yourself that some groups of people don't exist in the setting because the book says men have penises and women have vaginas doesn't qualify.

[Murk]

Wheel of Time, from everything I've read and heard about it, seems like the type of setting where trans, nonbinary, and gender fluid people would not actually exist.

This is something that stood out to me.
It's the type of setting where they would absolutely exist, because it is based on our world and our humankind and our history.
WoT is of course set in a pre-modern setting and hey, guess what, trans people existed in pre-modern times as well. In the real world, trans people exist and have existed since the start of humankind.

The author didn't know that. Can't blame him; wasn't very well known back then. But we know now.

[Psyren]

If race of the character isn't relevant in the source material then I don't see why it should be an issue in casting, and if the only reason you have a diverse cast is because "diversity is good" or some other nebulous, vaguely progressive talk then I would say that you are not making your casting decisions for the right reasons. Rand being a bit of an outsider among his fellows from the Two Rivers due to being a tall red-headed white guy when the rest of them were darker-skinned white guys with dark hair who weren't quite as tall was a largely irrelevant detail in the books; Two Rivers becoming cosmopolitan enough for Perrin to be black, Egwene to be indigenous Australian, and so on is a bit odd, but it is a change that makes very little real difference to the story, because it is a detail that wasn't that important to begin with. Channeling being dependent on gender identity rather than gender, though? That's a major change with significant implications for the setting, and as such it should only be implemented of there is a very strong reason for doing so.

1) Diversity IS good, representation is good. There's nothing nebulous or vague about that. HTH.

2) I once again draw a clear distinction between "how channeling works" and "how channeling societies THINK channeling works." Those are not the same thing, even if they can end up having the same impact on the Third Age that is shown in the story. It's hardly the first time the Aes Sedai - or any of the others for that matter - would be wrong about the true nature of the OP.


This is something that stood out to me.
It's the type of setting where they would absolutely exist, because it is based on our world and our humankind and our history.
WoT is of course set in a pre-modern setting and hey, guess what, trans people existed in pre-modern times as well. In the real world, trans people exist and have existed since the start of humankind.

The author didn't know that. Can't blame him; wasn't very well known back then. But we know now.

It's arguably very, very post-modern even.

[Sapphire Guard]

Okay, so, Rand discovers at the end of the series that saidin and saidir can both be accessed by everyone.

The question this stands or falls on is how he discovers this, and why no one else has discovered it. If someone wants to access the other side of the coin, how, specifically, do they do that? If the writers want to make this work, they have to answer that question.

Behaviour? Mindset? Identity? Something else? All of them carry their own unfortunate implications.

[Mechalich]

This is something that stood out to me.
It's the type of setting where they would absolutely exist, because it is based on our world and our humankind and our history.
WoT is of course set in a pre-modern setting and hey, guess what, trans people existed in pre-modern times as well. In the real world, trans people exist and have existed since the start of humankind.


It's important to acknowledge that while trans people have always existed (probably at roughly the same level of demographic abundance throughout history) their level of visibility in the past was greatly reduced compared to the present with the exception of a small number of cultures that specifically adopted practices to acknowledge a 'third sex' or something similar. For most of human history in the majority of human societies being openly trans simply was not a viable option. And this is generally assumed to hold true in basically all fantasy settings that are quasi-medieval and European based, of which the Wheel of Time absolutely is.

This can be compared to gay and lesbian relationships in the series - we know they happen because several viewpoint characters reference them, but they are never publicly acknowledged and there are no openly gay or out lesbian couples (the White Tower appears to tolerate lesbian relationships on a greater level than public society, but the Aes Sedai are a cloistered order that exists at least partly in opposition to in-universe cultural mores).

These sort of circumstances make is hard to find trans characters in a narrative of this kind because unless one is chosen as a viewpoint character or unless a trans character is uncovered attempting to pass as their gender rather than their biological sex there is no way for a random character to tell that another person is trans. Further, even in the case of a character who is crossdressing there's no way to determine that they're doing it because they are trans versus for some other reason such an attempt to access societal roles otherwise closed to them (the French period drama Versailles included a cis-woman who dressed as a man and who got the king to declare her male so she could be a doctor, not because she was trans). And we see this to some degree in the text in the case of Min, who dresses in partly male fashion out of an act of personal rebellion not because she is in any way trans.

All of this makes it tricky to include any trans or nonbinary character in the WoT in a way that is actually representational. For example, if you cast a transman to play a character who is male in-universe is that character trans or cis? Unless said character takes their clothes off (which is a bad way to handle things on its own) it's very open to interpretation. Channelers, actually, offer an opportunity to address this from an in-universe perspective that a series without a gender-bound magic system wouldn't have.

[ecarden]

So I see four basic ways to deal with this:

1) Non-Cis people don't exist in this universe. We've got actual magic, a literal creator and a literal devil. People don't get born in the wrong bodies. This doesn't address non-binary folks, but frankly in a relatively intolerant society the answer 'invisible minority' is reasonable.

2) Non-Cis people do exist, but aren't channelers. What would they channel? Who knows. Tiny minority intersects with other tiny minority in a high mortality world, it hasn't come up, or if it has, people didn't notice. Maybe it was 3 below, but everyone just thought the transman went nuts, there are non-Taint reasons to be violently unpleasant. Maybe it was 4 below and the transwoman was killed before anyone knowledgeable recognized they were channeling the 'wrong' magic. Don't have to answer this question.

3) Non-Cis people do exist. Channeling is gender based. This has major worldbuilding implications, especially for the gender-fluid, or agender.

4) Non-Cis people do exist. Channeling is sex based. This is going to have exactly the Unfortunate Implications which are attempting to be fixed, as it implies that effectively God has decided that your soul is male/female. I do not think this fixes the Unfortunate Implications.

I guess there's 5:

Don't raise the question in series. I think my answer would be 5, but I'm awful glad not to be writing this show. Gonna be awkward.

[Rynjin]

Agreed, and it's 10x worse when you consider that Wheel of Time's First Age is based on our world - see the ancient stories like Mosk and Merk, (John G)Lenn flying to the moon, the Mercedes hood ornament in Tanchico etc. So not only is RJ implying that trans people don't exist, he's implying they USED to and the Creator deleted them all at some point :smalleek: Yikes.

I'm not sure why this would be a "yikes". "Deleting" them in this case is making sure that these people are reincarnated into their ideal forms. It's not like trans people were genocided, souls obliterated, or whatever.

[Lord Raziere]

I'm not sure why this would be a "yikes". "Deleting" them in this case is making sure that these people are reincarnated into their ideal forms. It's not like trans people were genocided, souls obliterated, or whatever.

Its like writing a high school story like this:
"All teens when they go to school instantly graduate with perfect grades their years having passed in an instant. None of them ever do anything against the rules and all they all go to college and become Ph.D's"

[Callos_DeTerran]

1) Diversity IS good, representation is good. There's nothing nebulous or vague about that. HTH.

The fact you have people arguing this with is pretty evident that it is nebulous, vague, or at the very least not a commonly accepted idea.


This is something that stood out to me.
It's the type of setting where they would absolutely exist, because it is based on our world and our humankind and our history.
WoT is of course set in a pre-modern setting and hey, guess what, trans people existed in pre-modern times as well. In the real world, trans people exist and have existed since the start of humankind.


See, your making an assumption based on the setting with little to no evidence to back it up that I know of. I'm making an assumption based on what I've read about the series. Wheel of Time is dualistic world that deals with reincarnation, innate qualities of the soul, etc. and has greater powers/god-like figures (at least one anyway). As has been pointed out, we had two characters experience around a hundred or so of their past lives. If trans people existed in Wheel of Time, it would make sense that at LEAST one of those lives would have been as the opposite gender..or maybe even as specifically trans. None of them where. Not a single one. The easiest, and thus most likely explanation for that is that in the Wheel of Time a 'male soul' or 'female soul' never ends up in the wrong body, it does in fact end up in the exact body its supposed to be in. The one example otherwise is when Wheel of Time-Satan goes out of its way to make it happen. And if that is a notable incident, that would mean its not one that naturally occurs on its own.

This does not mean there's anything wrong with actual trans folk. Whither its kinder or crueler, it means there would be no trans folk because no one is stuck in the unfortunate situation of being stuck in a body that feels alien and 'wrong' to them for reasons based on gender. That's in no way deleting them or removing them, it means they do not have to face the troubles they face in the WoT series because something has ensured they are as they are supposed to be.

Or hell, maybe non-cisgender people just can't channel because they are trans, non-binary, whatever. Either way, asking this question is creating a problem where one really doesn't exist.


Its like writing a high school story like this:
"All teens when they go to school instantly graduate with perfect grades their years having passed in an instant. None of them ever do anything against the rules and all they all go to college and become Ph.D's"

Except..not. It would be more like:
"I wrote a story about high school where all the teens face the same challenges and difficult tests, they pass or fail on their own merits and character but all start from the home situation."

Wheel of Time ISN'T about trans people trying to fit into a gender-binary magic system so not addressing it or saying they don't exist in hat kind of world is not the same as removing the central conflict from the story.

[Mechalich]

Except..not. It would be more like:
"I wrote a story about high school where all the teens face the same challenges and difficult tests, they pass or fail on their own merits and character but all start from the home situation."


It's actually most equivalent too: "Everyone in this world undergoes genetic screening as an embryo and serious problems such as a mismatch between sexual character development and cognitive gender identity are corrected prior to implantation." This is a common scenario in highly futuristic science fiction settings, and tends to apply to a lot more than trans persons, including most major disabilities such as blindness, deafness, and so forth. If the Wheel of Time works this way, the Creator is simply taking the place of a highly advanced and ubiquitous medical system.

A worldbuilding change of this nature is utopian in nature (or, in the case of isekai-type narratives, gamist), and so it's certainly not meaningless, especially if it's applied only to trans people as a opposed to a broad range of issues, but it's certainly a viable option.

The tricky part about having the Creator intervene to make it so there are no trans people, however, is that there's very little difference between making this particular change out of kindness versus making the exact same change out of prejudice, which is one of the sticky bits with regard to this issue generally.

[Aeson]

4) Non-Cis people do exist. Channeling is sex based. This is going to have exactly the Unfortunate Implications which are attempting to be fixed, as it implies that effectively God has decided that your soul is male/female. I do not think this fixes the Unfortunate Implicationsn.
Would someone please explain why the hell it is that being born with a female gender identity, a male body, and a "male soul" (i.e. the ability to channel saidin - which, as far as we know, is the only actual in-universe consequence of having a "male soul" and just so happens to be the only known way to test for a "male soul") is somehow worse than the real world condition of being born with a female gender identity, a male body, and a "male" (i.e. Y, usually) chromosome?

If it's the "unnatural abomination" angle, might I point out two things?
1. Surgery and hormonal therapy - i.e. the process by which gender change occurs in humans - is not a "natural" process.
2. Modern medicine may be quite capable of altering your anatomy, but it is not currently capable of rewriting your DNA to any significant extent.

If you call someone an "unnatural abomination" for having a female gender identity and a "male" soul, what do you call a person who has a female gender identity and DNA that says that they "should" be biologically male?

To me, the position a lot of you who claim to be progressive hold looks damningly hypocritical.

[Lord Raziere]

Would someone please explain why the hell it is that being born with a female gender identity, a male body, and a "male soul" (i.e. the ability to channel saidin - which, as far as we know, is the only actual in-universe consequence of having a "male soul" and just so happens to be the only known way to test for a "male soul") is somehow worse than the real world condition of being born with a female gender identity, a male body, and a "male" (i.e. Y, usually) chromosome?

If it's the "unnatural abomination" angle, might I point out two things?
1. Surgery and hormonal therapy - i.e. the process by which gender change occurs in humans - is not a "natural" process.
2. Modern medicine may be quite capable of altering your anatomy, but it is not currently capable of rewriting your DNA to any significant extent.

If you call someone an "unnatural abomination" for having a female gender identity and a "male" soul, what do you call a person who has a female gender identity and DNA that says that they "should" be biologically male?

To me, the position a lot of you who claim to be progressive hold looks damningly hypocritical.

Dude?

Chill out.

Its not because they're an unnatural abomination, no one is saying that.

Its not unfortunate implication because there is anything wrong with the person, its unfortunate implications, because the universe has decided their eternal soul is male and thus that their idea that they are female is somehow a lie or pretend to fool themselves, meaning its implying the universe is saying they are wrong to try and express themselves as transgender because who they are metaphysically on a spiritual level is male. now you may take a materialist interpretation where the soul somehow doesn't matter and its just another physical thing that doesn't matter to what your mind thinks, but the other interpretation that some people can have is a spiritual one where the soul DOES matter to an identity and the mind. maybe even more so, than the physical body aspect. that in that model, its just as important for them to be spiritually female. it may not be what you value, but its something others might.

[Peelee]

The Mod on the Silver Mountain: Closed for review.