Spinning off from the An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time thread 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!

Spoiler: The Problem
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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.


Spoiler: My Proposed Solution (Minimalist)
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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.


Spoiler: Flaw in my solution
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Thank you to ecarden for laying this out:
Quote Originally Posted by ecarden View Post
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.

Spoiler: Because
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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.
Spoiler: My response
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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.