Modernizing the Wheel of Time

[PoeticallyPsyco]

The one single clear and easy change to make would jut to say that if a trans person is capable of channeling they channel as what they identify as. Which probably works well enough I guess. Try not to think to hard about all the trans men going insane channeling the male half of the one power and making people think that channelers of both genders are tainted? Or Trans women channeling just fine and making everyone even more confused. That feels like a plot hole but one that could probably be navigated easily enough? The other option would be to add in some lore clarifying that a persons internal gender and physical appearance always match due to the nature of the setting and its magic, or at least that that is how it works if you channel with normal trans people existing outside that dynamic. Which probably looks to much like just erasing trans people entirely to be allowed even if it simplifies the plot. Damn, now that I think about it that doesn't feel as easy and straight forward as I thought. I think I feel sorry for the people who's actual job it is to convert this stuff for the series.

Perhaps healing with the One Power also changes their body to match their gender (though it's impossible to heal oneself, so that's a definite hitch)? Or simply accessing the power for the first time, or being a nonbinary channeler also comes with a knack for a weave to switch your body to the right gender (like the one guy who could make gates easily despite being theoretically nowhere near powerful enough because he had a talent for it).

[Dragonus45]

Perhaps healing with the One Power also changes their body to match their gender (though it's impossible to heal oneself, so that's a definite hitch)? Or simply accessing the power for the first time, or being a nonbinary channeler also comes with a knack for a weave to switch your body to the right gender (like the one guy who could make gates easily despite being theoretically nowhere near powerful enough because he had a talent for it).

That seems like it might work, but I remember bringing the idea healing spells also allowing a person to transition up once as a way for trans people to be able to transition in a D&D setting I was working on, since the shape shifting elf thing didn't fit the lore of it, and a couple different friends pointed out a few ways that would also be problematic anyways. At first I figured trans channeling would be an easy fix but once I started into the subject I'm not really sure there is a way to totally reconcile the core plot bits here without making someone mad or just making a lot of plot holes.

[Vahnavoi]

I suppose that bring us to the question of whether there are differences in the mind of those whose sex is male and whose sex is female which persevere even if their gender identity does not equal their sex. I don't know the answer to that question, and I suspect it is not known.

We do know the answer to that one: transgender people, when left without medical and psychological treatment, suffer from various dysphoric and dissociative symptoms which are absent from cisgender people. As far as modern science is concerned, the world is monist: the mind is not separate from the body and variances in gender identity have both a physical causes and physical effects.

But that latter part should also tell how absurd this line of thought is in context of fantasy: you cannot use monistic science to argue how a dualistic imaginary system ought to work.

[dancrilis]

The problem is that this indirectly implies transgender people don't exist in the WoT ...

Why is that a problem - this is a setting of reincarnation and souls, why would there be a need to reincarnate some people incorrectly?

[Liquor Box]

The problem is that this indirectly implies transgender people don't exist in the WoT, if not a single one has ever channeled the wrong power, thus revealing that they have a soul contrary to their body. And that's the positive interpretation; the negative one is that it implies that they're wrong about being transgender.

You say a trans person who channels the powers corresponding to their sex rather than their gender identity might imply they are wrong about being transgender.

In real life some trans people are able reproduce corresponding to their sex rather than their gender identity (as in a pre-op trans man --> woman would usually be able to produce sperm but not eggs, and vice versa). Do you think that implies they are wrong about being transgender?

We do know the answer to that one: transgender people, when left without medical and psychological treatment, suffer from various dysphoric and dissociative symptoms which are absent from cisgender people. As far as modern science is concerned, the world is monist: the mind is not separate from the body and variances in gender identity have both a physical causes and physical effects.

But that latter part should also tell how absurd this line of thought is in context of fantasy: you cannot use monistic science to argue how a dualistic imaginary system ought to work.

I'm not sure your first paragraph actually answers the question.

But I do tend to agree with your second paragraph - there is no "ought to" here. It seems to me that the setting (especially a fantasy setting) is free to link channeling to physical sex, such that it may not match the gender identity of trans person, and that in no way undermines the existence or validity of trans persons - not any more so than producing sperm or eggs undermines the existence of trans persons. The opposite is also true, that the setting could link it to identity.

I must admit, I have not read far enough into the series to know whether channeling corresponds to gender identity or physical sex. But if it has done so one way or the other, then that is fine.

[Aedilred]

Game of Thrones improved on the books by being more open about Loras x Renly too.

Well, that's a matter of opinion. The books could have been more open about it, to the extent that I actually missed it completely during the first two books and only picked up on it later at which point I felt very silly. So clarifying the existence of the relationship early on was probably a good move; I might have some minor gripes about the show's making overt of things that the books left to be inferred*, but that is one of ones I'm not fussed about.

But the way in which it characterised and portrayed them was horrible. In the books, Renly was a larger-than-life figure, in both personality and physicality, a proper man's-man who could joust and fight and win friends among the nobles and common people alike** - who just happened to prefer men to women. The show turned him into a snivelling cipher of no discernible merit for whom "being gay" was the principal feature of his character, and who appeared to be a pawn of Loras's scheming. Loras did a little better but he was still portrayed as rather openly effeminate.

And then there are the scenes where other characters mock them (either openly or by reference) for their relationship. Most notably that scene in what I think was season 2 where Lannister soldiers joke about Loras's sexuality disqualifying him from consideration as a top-tier warrior. That was purely a show addition, and entirely unnecessary.

So, yes, they made it more open, but I'm not sure the way in which they did it was an improvement to the extent it should be cited as an example of positive adaptation.

Spoiler: Spoilers marked with asterisks

Show

*Such as displaying openly in that first season episode that Varys was plotting with Illyrio, something which careful reading might have revealed, but which only became explicit for book readers in about book 5.

**To the extent that some of his followers were willing to die for him, and his name was still shouted in the streets, even after he was killed, a level of loyalty only really displayed elsewhere in the books by Stark men.

[Craft (Cheese)]

The simple answer is: Just don't do it. Take the money, give it to trans writers of color, let them create literally anything they want with it. That's how you'll get an actually interesting fantasy TV series.

But if you put a gun to my head and forced me to do it: Best option is probably to base it off of Jordan's original 3-book outline, rather than the sprawling monster it became. Cut out the misogyny, cut out the harem bull**** (cause that's what it is, calling it a polyamorous relationship is offensive), minimize the transphobia stuff as much as possible (you really can't excise the gender essentialism nonsense without changing the entire premise of the setting, but you can cut out the direct hatred toward trans people without affecting anything). That'll get you a "overpowered chosen one saves the world from a Dark Lord" story that's so cliche as to be a joke by this point, but honestly, that's kinda what Wheel of Time always was? It's the inevitable consequence of adapting 30 year old media instead of letting fresh creators have their turn.

[Themrys]

This is really all that needs to be done; not this specific change, mind, but the general idea: reframing.

Having the Red Ajah be the most militant haters of male channelers is fine in itself. The framing just needs to be changed from "She-woman man haters club" to "have PTSD and legitimate reasons to distrust men".

Was it stated explicitly in the books that they don't have a legitimate reason to distrust men?

In the real world, when a woman doesn't trust men, I assume she has legitimate reasons unless proven otherwise. Each and every woman has very good reason to distrust men, so ...
It's a bit like someone telling me they don't want to swim in the alligator infested swamp. I am going to assume they are afraid of being eaten by an alligator, which is very reasonable, unless they go out of their way to inform me that the alligator swamp is just a cover for a terrible, terrible conspiracy and we are going to be murdered by child-eating evil scientists if we go near it.


And I have, indeed, never met a "she-woman man hater" as that would imply that she performs stereotypical femininity to an excessive degree while hating men. That would mean a woman in a pink mini-bikini who shaves her whole body and has silicone implants in her breasts and wears very high heels ... and hates men.

If that is how the Red Ajah are portrayed, it is even worse than I thought.

[Craft (Cheese)]

If that is how the Red Ajah are portrayed, it is even worse than I thought.

Nah, they're just Political Lesbian Straw Feminists. You're meant to believe that their distrust and hatred of men is irrational and is a sign that they're evil: Indeed, many of the red sisters who chase down male channelers to Gentle them (which is a very brick-to-face metaphor for castration) take a sadistic glee in it. Also most of the Red Ajah are outright working for the Dark One by the end of the story.

[Liquor Box]

The simple answer is: Just don't do it. Take the money, give it to trans writers of color, let them create literally anything they want with it. That's how you'll get an actually interesting fantasy TV series.

Is that how it works? Do people throw money at people (trans writers of colour or otherwise) and tell them to create? Or does the creation happen first, and then if it is iconic and successful as novel it (might) get picked up by a network?

It seems like the latter for the persons mostly discussed in this thread (Jordan and Martin), both of whom were writers of varying success who ultimately created something that sold, and the TV studios picked it up. Not sure about others who have followed a similar path from iconic fantasy novel to acclaimed television show (Rowling, Tolkein, Goodkind others?), but may be it happens the other way too?

That being said, wouldn't it be better to pick up an already published work that was created by trans people or people of colour, or whatever minority you want to promote, and has been as commercially successful and iconic as WoT?

[Themrys]

Nah, they're just Political Lesbian Straw Feminists. You're meant to believe that their distrust and hatred of men is irrational and is a sign that they're evil: Indeed, many of the red sisters who chase down male channelers to Gentle them (which is a very brick-to-face metaphor for castration) take a sadistic glee in it. Also most of the Red Ajah are outright working for the Dark One by the end of the story.

I see.

That might not even be a problem in a TV show, since it is not as easy to tell people what to think about something in a movie. Sure, there's ways, but you can't do that blatant "there was an expression of sadistic glee on her face" thing.

And a good actor will always ask "What is my motivation? Why do I act like this?" So that might already solve the problem of poorly motivated straw-characters.

[Divayth Fyr]

In the real world, when a woman doesn't trust men, I assume she has legitimate reasons unless proven otherwise. Each and every woman has very good reason to distrust men, so ...

Do you apply the same to the opposite situation - ie. a man not trusting women?

[Saph]

Nah, they're just Political Lesbian Straw Feminists. You're meant to believe that their distrust and hatred of men is irrational and is a sign that they're evil.

This really isn't true. If you read Jordan's interviews, he says that no, not all Red Ajah are misandrists; however, they tend to develop a dislike/distrust for men as part of their job. To be Red Ajah means that your primary mission is to capture and gentle channeling males, so all men become potential enemies. After having this outlook for several decades, it will be hard to have a normal relationship with men.

And no, they're not all lesbians.

[Dragonus45]

This really isn't true. If you read Jordan's interviews, he says that no, not all Red Ajah are misandrists; however, they tend to develop a dislike/distrust for men as part of their job. To be Red Ajah means that your primary mission is to capture and gentle channeling males, so all men become potential enemies. After having this outlook for several decades, it will be hard to have a normal relationship with men.

And no, they're not all lesbians.

Yea when your job all day is to find and capture men who at best are going to be innocent of any wrongdoing but are literally living time bombs and at worst are raving mad and corrupted by the immense power they wield its gonna have some long term effects. Which also means that the women who are going to be more blatant misandrists are more likely to be drawn to the Ajah and you get a nasty feedback loop that by the time we see them in story has taken a lot of them to dark places and created a very sexist internal culture.

[Aedilred]

Is that how it works? Do people throw money at people (trans writers of colour or otherwise) and tell them to create? Or does the creation happen first, and then if it is iconic and successful as novel it (might) get picked up by a network?

It seems like the latter for the persons mostly discussed in this thread (Jordan and Martin), both of whom were writers of varying success who ultimately created something that sold, and the TV studios picked it up. Not sure about others who have followed a similar path from iconic fantasy novel to acclaimed television show (Rowling, Tolkein, Goodkind others?), but may be it happens the other way too?

That being said, wouldn't it be better to pick up an already published work that was created by trans people or people of colour, or whatever minority you want to promote, and has been as commercially successful and iconic as WoT?

I think it depends on whether you're looking at original content for screen or whether you're looking to create writing to adapt for TV/film.

From what I understand, at least, for the most part, the book-writing side of things is creator-driven. Someone works up a manuscript, hawks it around until someone takes it on, it gets edited, published, if it sells they're given the opportunity to do another one, etc. There are exceptions to this but they tend to be either authors who are already sufficiently successful and familiar to a publisher, or the genre fiction factories that rely on bulk and rarely produce anything artistically worthwhile. There is also an occasional exception where someone has an "in" with a publishing company and therefore manages to get an unusual level of investment for a debut author. Susanna Clarke is an example of someone doing that and producing quite a good book. Christopher Paolini is … also an example of someone doing that.

Rowling's trajectory is pretty typical. She hadn't published anything before she managed to get Bloomsbury to take Harry Potter, then her first couple of books sold so well she became a "name" author who could sell phone books by the thousand if she so desired, so has earned a lot of leeway and probably more in the way of prospective investment.

On the other hand, TV series tend to be more producer-driven. They do a treatment, then produce a pilot. If that looks worth proceedings with they then put together a team of writers and production crew to write the rest of it and put it on screen. This probably offers more opportunity for scouting out talent of a certain profile and giving them money to create something.

Movies seem to fall somewhere between the two. You get auteur creators who like to build things from the ground up themselves, and others who are happy to step in to existing commissioned projects, and some who are happy to do either, and varying degrees of success with either approach.

[tiornys]

I have a couple of thoughts.

1: keep the male/female divide in Saidin/Saidar, but tie it to biological sex. Yes, that's a change. Yes, Aran'Gar presents difficulties, but that can be explained as the Dark One warping normal reality (and subtextually it could represent the rare scenario of a genetically XY person physically expressing as female--the DO can understand genetics and AoL channelers (Aginor!) can understand genetics even if current age people probably shouldn't). It is far less problematic to assert that there is (99+% of the time) a true sexual dichotomy in humans than to assert a metaphysical dichotomy. Exceptional cases like XXY pairings and similar are rare enough that the series doesn't really need to address them. Meanwhile, this leaves open potential for trans representation in a few ways. I don't see any (outworld) issues with having occasional Aes Sedai/Wise Ones/Windfinders/Kin who present male but are biologically female (and this opens room for some inworld exploration of the subject). And you could also have the occasional male channeler trying(succeeding?) to hide by presenting as female, which has more potential for outworld problems but would make inworld sense and can be done without creating outworld issues.

2: Faile is not as problematic as she seems. Most of the time that we interact with her, we are in the head of an incredibly sensitive magical empath who doesn't really understand that he's a magical empath. Many of her problematic aspects stem from having this added perception without being in her head to see how she inwardly deals with the emotions. And many of the problematic aspects of the relationship stem from Perrin reacting to these emotions without Faile knowing that he's reading them. Just the fact that we will be viewing Faile from the outside will help a lot. Tone down Saldaen culture a bit and tweak the relationship conflicts a bit and she's fine.

[Psyren]

Spoiler: @Saph

Show

And the fact that saidin and saidar are different and work differently in WoT is probably the single most important detail about the setting. It's what I start with when I'm explaining it to people.

I never said saidin and saidar can't be different or work differently. Just that the way that they work now is making a statement (one that I think is either unintentional, or simply not well-thought-through) about people's minds/souls and even roles in society.

Honestly, if you find the idea of male and female magic being metaphysically different to be this offensive, I'm genuinely confused as to why you even like WoT in the first place. You talk in your original post about how the series has lots of characters, a big world, big battles, triumph of good over evil, etc. But that also describes basically every epic fantasy book ever.

But it doesn't. Those individual elements can be found in other series, sure, but the combination of them in Wheel of Time is unique. (And honestly, I'm not even sure that all those elements are really found elsewhere - I'm hard pressed to think of any fantasy series with Wheel of Time's wealth of strong female characters for instance, especially one that was originally created in 1990 and so had decades of people positing theories and ideas that a showrunner could leverage for an adaptation. Even staying 100% faithful to the source material with #NoChanges, you have to figure out how best to translate some moments or story beats to screen, and WoT has had a lot of people thinking through those problems for a very long time.)

In something like 90%-99% of fantasy series, male and female magic basically works in the same way. Why are you so determined that that number should be 100%? Is it really THAT terrible for a small minority of fantasy stories to do something different?

Gender expression changing how one's magic works isn't necessarily my problem. Rather, it's the unfortunate implications of some of the arbitrary details that were crafted to go along with that. Things like a woman's magic being generally weaker than that of a man, or accessing female magic requiring submission while male magic is "seized", or male mages being inherently incapable of cooperation - things that have no rational explanation, and that I think could be altered without fundamentally harming the story.

For example, if saidin-users can link, but nobody from the AoL to the beginning of this age remembers how or even realizes it's possible - that reframes the issue without changing much (if anything) about how the narrative plays out. You could even have them figure it out close to (or even after) the end-game, when it doesn't change much if anything about how the plot plays out.

I recall in the books that there's a whole sequence where Rand sponsors a series of non-channeler great thinkers (scientists and philosophers) in Cairhien. While ostensibly he's doing it simply to improve the world, the plot purpose of this school of his is twofold - it gives Rand the idea on what he needs to do to cleanse saidin, and also plants the seeds for how he can ultimately reseal the Bore in the DO's prison. The fact that mundane philosophy is the source of both of these solutions is yet more proof that using the One Power is a function of mind and psychology rather than body/genitalia.

If so, is it not a question of whether group 1 is larger than group 2 and 3 combined? Or in other words, how many people's preference if for magic to be redone relative to how many people's is that it is left untouched?

That would probably depend on the goals of the person in charge of the adaptation. If profit is the primary motive, then figuring out whether the purist or modernist camp is larger and catering to that larger number is a logical approach. Of course, even that is subject to some complexity - I would suspect that, if there were a modernized TV adaptation of WoT with fully-realized special effects and solid actors, most folks in this thread (myself included) would watch it regardless of whether they attempted to update anything about the magic system or not - so they may judge that they have the freedom to make an artistic or cultural statement regardless of any controversy it might generate (in either direction.) And in fact, the controversy itself might result in the show getting free media exposure beyond the current fanbase, making it even more popular than it otherwise might have been by bringing in non-fans.

So the short version of this long-winded answer is that it's not as straightforward as figuring out whether 1, 2, or 3 is the biggest group and doing that.

Well.. i would hardly take a case of the Dark one meddling as proof of anything about the natural order.

But yes, channeling ability seems to be attached to whatever bit it is that gets reincarnated though the wheel.
So what? Male souls get male magic. And Female souls get female magic. Its just magical biology.

The problem is that this indirectly implies transgender people don't exist in the WoT, if not a single one has ever channeled the wrong power, thus revealing that they have a soul contrary to their body. And that's the positive interpretation; the negative one is that it implies that they're wrong about being transgender.

Fortunately, that's a pretty easy fix. Throw in a nobinary character, or reference one in the past, whose access to the One Power matches their gender identity.

What Psyco said. As for why that implication is itself a problem - I added the Giant's quote to my extended sig, but my understanding is that you don't agree with it. That's fine, but I'm not sure I'm any better equipped to explain the fundamental underlying issue than he did, so we may be at an impasse here then. You say so what, I point to that, you say so what, etc.

[Darth Credence]

But does that leave us with three sets of people:
1. People who, like you, think of binary gender as an out-dated social construct, and would prefer that a WoT adaption reflect that.
2. People who, like you, think of binary gender as an out-dated social construct. But, unlike you, don't see the magic system of WoT as contrary to that, or feel that maintaining the original story outweighs that, and therefore prefer to see an adaption leave the magic system as is.
3. People who, unlike you, do not think of binary gender as an out-dated social construct and thus would prefer to wee a WoT adaption leave the magic system as is.

I accept that this is an oversimplification, and there will be people who sit on the fence between these, or who don't care etc. But at a basic level most people who have an opinion will have something approaching one of those three.

If so, is it not a question of whether group 1 is larger than group 2 and 3 combined? Or in other words, how many people's preference if for magic to be redone relative to how many people's is that it is left untouched?

That would probably depend on the goals of the person in charge of the adaptation. If profit is the primary motive, then figuring out whether the purist or modernist camp is larger and catering to that larger number is a logical approach. Of course, even that is subject to some complexity - I would suspect that, if there were a modernized TV adaptation of WoT with fully-realized special effects and solid actors, most folks in this thread (myself included) would watch it regardless of whether they attempted to update anything about the magic system or not - so they may judge that they have the freedom to make an artistic or cultural statement regardless of any controversy it might generate (in either direction.) And in fact, the controversy itself might result in the show getting free media exposure beyond the current fanbase, making it even more popular than it otherwise might have been by bringing in non-fans.

So the short version of this long-winded answer is that it's not as straightforward as figuring out whether 1, 2, or 3 is the biggest group and doing that.

I think you are both ignoring group #4 - people who have never heard of the Wheel of Time, know effectively nothing about it, and won't care one way or another whether it is faithfully adapted. I absolutely guarantee that is the biggest group, and it is the group that the money making producers will be chasing. Psyren, you touch on it, but only as some extra money to be made. It's where almost all of the money will be made.
Jumping off from there - if someone adapts WoT, it will be different than the books. It will almost certainly eliminate characters, and 'new' characters would likely be a composite of existing characters. Might they change the gender politics? Sure, if the people making the show care about that. But it will still be in service of making the most money off the show. That doesn't necessarily rule anything out, as the incentives for different services differ. I think Amazon is making this, and AFAIK they use a cost per first stream model to determine whether a show is successful - basically how many people sign up for Amazon and stream that show first. So what they ultimately care about is not making something their subscribers will watch, but something that will draw in new subscribers. The question is what type of adaptation will draw in more new subscribers. If Amazon has a disproportional number of subs that match one of those categories, then they would likely shoot for a different one to try and maximize numbers. I do not pretend to be able to predict what would be most profitable for them.

[Psyren]

That's a very valid point, Darth Credence, I was indeed underestimating that group.

[MammonAzrael]

... Mat "im not a hero" Cauthon isnt unreliable?
Yeah right. Pull the other one.

Well.. i would hardly take a case of the Dark one meddling as proof of anything about the natural order.

But yes, channeling ability seems to be attached to whatever bit it is that gets reincarnated though the wheel.
So what? Male souls get male magic. And Female souls get female magic. Its just magical biology.

Mat is absolutely unreliable. Mat is not a narrator. The series is told from a third person perspective. "Unreliable narrator" has a specific meaning, and does not apply to Mat.

As for So what?

1. "Magical biology" is invented. There is no reason it can't be changed, unless it is trying to saying something. Are you arguing that RJ was trying to say something about the existence of trans and non-binary people? If not, then what's the issue with altering it to be inclusive?
2. Biology with regard is gender is a hell of a lot more complex than Male/Female. If this is something you're unfamiliar with I hope you'll research it on your own. It's fascinating.
3. How do you deal with non-binary channelers?

Why is that a problem - this is a setting of reincarnation and souls, why would there be a need to reincarnate some people incorrectly?

Most people aren't reincarnations. I don't think anyone is arguing that that souls should be reincarnated "incorrectly" (while that could present interesting stories it isn't in the scope of this series). The issue is that the current nature of the One Power

Was it stated explicitly in the books that they don't have a legitimate reason to distrust men?

Short answer? Yes.
Long answer (assuming you haven't read the books)? The male half of magic is tainted by the BBEG. Every single male caster will gradually go violently insane until they rot and die. Casters are so strong in this world they can generally only be dealt with by other casters. The Red Ajah's primary function is to hunt down and neuter male casters before they develop the power, skill, and madness to be a threat to everything around them. Over the ~3,000 years of their history, and the voluntary application process, their attitudes, customs, and reputation have evolved in to the current state.

I have a couple of thoughts.

1: keep the male/female divide in Saidin/Saidar, but tie it to biological sex. Yes, that's a change. Yes, Aran'Gar presents difficulties, but that can be explained as the Dark One warping normal reality (and subtextually it could represent the rare scenario of a genetically XY person physically expressing as female--the DO can understand genetics and AoL channelers (Aginor!) can understand genetics even if current age people probably shouldn't). It is far less problematic to assert that there is (99+% of the time) a true sexual dichotomy in humans than to assert a metaphysical dichotomy. Exceptional cases like XXY pairings and similar are rare enough that the series doesn't really need to address them. Meanwhile, this leaves open potential for trans representation in a few ways. I don't see any (outworld) issues with having occasional Aes Sedai/Wise Ones/Windfinders/Kin who present male but are biologically female (and this opens room for some inworld exploration of the subject). And you could also have the occasional male channeler trying(succeeding?) to hide by presenting as female, which has more potential for outworld problems but would make inworld sense and can be done without creating outworld issues.

The issue with this is that while I agree the series has no particular need to directly address exceptional cases, the world building would still be flawed if it explicitly excluded them. And you're still left with the issue of non-binary people.

Right now, I'm thinking the solution would be to remove the 100% connection to gender channeling currently has. Instead, make it weighted. Each soul can channel one half of the One Power, that connection being an immutable part of their soul. 99% of the time this aligns with the persons gender, but rarely it would not. This would mean there would be, potentially, a few male Aes Sedai kicking around (maybe), and a few female channelers going mad from the taint. The weight of the skew would keep the populace-at-large more or less ignorant of special circumstances, keep the prejudice against male channelers, and allow for both trans and non-binary people to fit in to the world. Did I miss anything?

I think you are both ignoring group #4 - people who have never heard of the Wheel of Time, know effectively nothing about it, and won't care one way or another whether it is faithfully adapted. I absolutely guarantee that is the biggest group, and it is the group that the money making producers will be chasing. Psyren, you touch on it, but only as some extra money to be made. It's where almost all of the money will be made.
Jumping off from there - if someone adapts WoT, it will be different than the books. It will almost certainly eliminate characters, and 'new' characters would likely be a composite of existing characters. Might they change the gender politics? Sure, if the people making the show care about that. But it will still be in service of making the most money off the show. That doesn't necessarily rule anything out, as the incentives for different services differ. I think Amazon is making this, and AFAIK they use a cost per first stream model to determine whether a show is successful - basically how many people sign up for Amazon and stream that show first. So what they ultimately care about is not making something their subscribers will watch, but something that will draw in new subscribers. The question is what type of adaptation will draw in more new subscribers. If Amazon has a disproportional number of subs that match one of those categories, then they would likely shoot for a different one to try and maximize numbers. I do not pretend to be able to predict what would be most profitable for them.

I agree with you, but wasn't the prompt from OP "What would you, personally, like to change?" and not "What do you think the upcoming adaptation going to change?"

[dancrilis]

Most people aren't reincarnations.

There is no reason to have souls and body not linked correctly in the setting - whether from a reincarnation prespective or from a new soul prespective.

As Psyren points out in the Giants quote: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?

An assumption that does fit the text is that men and women are different at a spiritual and biological level and so biological men are also spiritually men - and anyone outside that is an agent of supernatural evil.
That matches the text and seems to be a fine setting stance even if some in the real world may find it uncomfortable.

[MammonAzrael]

There is no reason to have souls and body not linked correctly in the setting - whether from a reincarnation prespective or from a new soul prespective.

As Psyren points out in the Giants quote: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?

An assumption that does fit the text is that men and women are different at a spiritual and biological level and so biological men are also spiritually men - and anyone outside that is an agent of supernatural evil.
That matches the text and seems to be a fine setting stance even if some in the real world may find it uncomfortable.

There are several reasons.

1. Yes, that's the core of the issue. A strict reading implies that biotrutherism narrative. And that trans people are an aberration of Evil, and non-binary people cannot exist. But unless the text is deliberately discussing or commenting on a topic, in this case the existence of trans and non-binary people, I see no reason why an adaptation should be unable to modify an outdated and incorrect accidental assumption.
2. It posits that men and women are fundamentally different species. RJ even repeatedly uses an explicit metaphor regarding fish and birds repeatedly when discussing teaching channelers. This is clearly an intentional message, rather than accidental, and it's a bad one. This is a flaw the material would benefit from having excised.
3. If you want to talk about taking the text as is: The Wheel of Time is explicitly set in the real world, our universe. The First Age is our time, right now. From Thom's stories from the Age before the Age of Legends, to the Mercedes-Benz hood ornament, it is confirmed both in text and through Word of God. Which means that under this argument either the magic system's handling of trans and non-binary people is either a mistake or a deliberate denial of their existence. Neither of which is good and any adaptation should fix.
4. My issue isn't that it makes people uncomfortable. It's that it aides the narrative that trans and non-binary identities aren't real. While each individual story may be a drop in the bucket, the drops add up. The only way to stop filling the bucket is to reduce the number of drops put in it in the first place, which is the point of modifications like this. Representation matters.

[Themrys]

Do you apply the same to the opposite situation - ie. a man not trusting women?

Take a look at the real world. A good look. Try to look past what you want to see, and look at what is really there.

And then think very carefully about what you just asked.


That said, if an individual man says he is afraid of women and acts like it, i.e. actually stays away from women, I would be inclined to assume he has been traumatized, yes.


I don't have to explain this to you and run the risk of breaking the forum rules. You know it, and you know it well. If you refuse to see the truth, that is on you, and no explanation could ever make you understand what you do not want to see.


@Mammon Azrael: I haven't read the books, but ... this "going violently insane" thing does sound like a rather good reason to be wary of male magic users.

Kind of like in Harry Potter, the people who are not so happy with a werewolf teaching their children do have a point, seeing as Lupin would almost have killed the protagonist trio, but the narrative still wants us to hate them.

[tiornys]

Mat is absolutely unreliable. Mat is not a narrator. The series is told from a third person perspective. "Unreliable narrator" has a specific meaning, and does not apply to Mat.

I disagree, and so does Wikipedia:

Character voice
One of the most common narrative voices, used especially with first- and third-person viewpoints, is the character voice, in which a story's character is presented as the narrator; this character is called a "viewpoint character". In this situation, the narrator is no longer an unspecified entity; rather, the narrator is a more relatable, realistic character who may or may not be involved in the actions of the story and who may or may not take a biased approach in the storytelling. If the character is directly involved in the plot, this narrator is also called the viewpoint character. The viewpoint character is not necessarily the focal character: examples of supporting viewpoint characters include Doctor Watson, Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird, and Nick Carraway of The Great Gatsby.

Unreliable voice
Main article: Unreliable narrator
The unreliable narrative voice involves the use of an untrustworthy narrator. This mode may be employed to give the audience a deliberate sense of disbelief in the story or a level of suspicion or mystery as to what information is meant to be true and what is meant to be false. Unreliable narrators are usually first-person narrators; however, a third-person narrator may be unreliable.[16] In J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, the voice of Holden Caufield, the novel's narrator is biased, juvenile, and unreliable.

WoT is written with a succession of different viewpoint characters, i.e. third-person viewpoints in character voice (plus omnicient opening/closing lines). When we are in Mat's head, he is absolutely an unreliable narrator.

The issue with this is that while I agree the series has no particular need to directly address exceptional cases, the world building would still be flawed if it explicitly excluded them. And you're still left with the issue of non-binary people.

Right now, I'm thinking the solution would be to remove the 100% connection to gender channeling currently has. Instead, make it weighted. Each soul can channel one half of the One Power, that connection being an immutable part of their soul. 99% of the time this aligns with the persons gender, but rarely it would not. This would mean there would be, potentially, a few male Aes Sedai kicking around (maybe), and a few female channelers going mad from the taint. The weight of the skew would keep the populace-at-large more or less ignorant of special circumstances, keep the prejudice against male channelers, and allow for both trans and non-binary people to fit in to the world. Did I miss anything?

Most non-binary people are not intersex, so connecting access to the power to biological sex avoids most of those issues. Intersex cases can have been studied in the Age of Legends and there are multiple ways they could be handled. I think the simplest way to go is that having at least one Y chromosome means you have Saidin, otherwise Saidar, but the specifics aren't really relevant. Assuming normal genetics/genetic expression, humans actually do have a biological binary, so it makes for a better connection to the One Power binary. Gender is not at all binary, which is why I prefer to avoid connecting the One Power to gender.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

You say a trans person who channels the powers corresponding to their sex rather than their gender identity might imply they are wrong about being transgender.

In real life some trans people are able reproduce corresponding to their sex rather than their gender identity (as in a pre-op trans man --> woman would usually be able to produce sperm but not eggs, and vice versa). Do you think that implies they are wrong about being transgender?

Of course not. But I was replying to a comment that magic is tied directly to the soul and independent of the body, and that has way different implications for trans people. Having your body not match your identity is the definition of being trans, and how it works in the real world. Having your soul not match your identity is outside of real world science, and therefore veering into the 'making a point on the subject' zone of literature, and more importantly, the interpretation I think that most people would draw from that is that your soul is the "real" you, so the soul not matching the identity implies that the identity is wrong.

But perhaps I'm wrong, or weird about how much weight I put on the soul.

[Ramza00]

@Mammon Azrael: I haven't read the books, but ... this "going violently insane" thing does sound like a rather good reason to be wary of male magic users.

[Edit: I apologize for the wordiness of this paragraph but I want to give a sense of scale before I deliever my point in the next paragraph.

• The books are complicated, the series is literally 11,308 pages long...
• With 4 million words told over 20 years with two different authors writting it for the series author died due to medical issues (he had time to prepare and pick the followup writer, and he left way too many notes even prior to getting sick.
• For example the prologue of Book 9 (Winter's heart) is 11% of the book but the book is 780 pages long. That means the set up of Book 9 is almost 100 pages with no plot advancement instead just setting up the table saying this is the status quo, the prologue, before any action.
• And Book 9 is complicated with there being 29 different people giving points of view, for a total of 73 different point of view shifts in the story (since several characters have multiple points of view in a single story.)

Edit: Back to answering Themyrs point.
We the reader are first told that the only reason the Red Ajah hunt down men, for men who use magic go insane even if they try to be celibate and never use the magic. It is a future inevitable outcome. But what we learn over the tale is far more complicated than that. There is subjectivity of individuals, history of individuals, but there is also "systems" at play and the systems are not necessary created out of idealism or pragmatism, but instead due to life is messy, complicated, and chaotic.

Red Ajah castrating men (called Gentling) is not something you can assign the words "good reason" or "bad reason." Hell even calling it Gentling as the book does reveals stuff. You see in the book there are 3 different words to describe the exact same thing depending on the gender and the situation of how it occured. It is called Stilling for women who are disconnected from the magic source by other women magic users, and "burning out" when it happens by accident. But when it happens to men it is "Gentling." Gentling implies it is an act of mercy to the individual, but in reality it is that but it is also a societal control act. But to explain what I mean here is spoilers.

[MammonAzrael]

I disagree, and so does Wikipedia:

WoT is written with a succession of different viewpoint characters, i.e. third-person viewpoints in character voice (plus omnicient opening/closing lines). When we are in Mat's head, he is absolutely an unreliable narrator.

Point conceded. I may not like the broad definition of the term, but that doesn't make me correct.

Most non-binary people are not intersex, so connecting access to the power to biological sex avoids most of those issues. Intersex cases can have been studied in the Age of Legends and there are multiple ways they could be handled. I think the simplest way to go is that having at least one Y chromosome means you have Saidin, otherwise Saidar, but the specifics aren't really relevant. Assuming normal genetics/genetic expression, humans actually do have a biological binary, so it makes for a better connection to the One Power binary. Gender is not at all binary, which is why I prefer to avoid connecting the One Power to gender.

The primary problem I see with an adaptation marrying which half a channeler can access to the presence of a a Y chromosome is how can that information be presented to the audience? My first idea would be some Aginor infodump, but that feels rather inelegant. Tying it to a biological marker also makes Aran'Gar an issue again. Unless you're proposing the adaptation make Aran'Gar's access to Saidin a deliberate perversion of the Dark One?

[tiornys]

The primary problem I see with an adaptation marrying which half a channeler can access to the presence of a a Y chromosome is how can that information be presented to the audience? My first idea would be some Aginor infodump, but that feels rather inelegant. Tying it to a biological marker also makes Aran'Gar an issue again. Unless you're proposing the adaptation make Aran'Gar's access to Saidin a deliberate perversion of the Dark One?

I doubt I'd even address it directly within the show excepting maybe one line explaining Aran'Gar (e.g. "YOUR NEW BODY IS MALE, EVEN IF IT APPEARS FEMALE" from the Dark One, or similar from Osan'Gar). Simply having some transgender channelers who access the power associated with their biological sex is sufficient to demonstrate the core concept.

[Rynjin]

Was it stated explicitly in the books that they don't have a legitimate reason to distrust men?

In the real world, when a woman doesn't trust men, I assume she has legitimate reasons unless proven otherwise. Each and every woman has very good reason to distrust men, so ...
It's a bit like someone telling me they don't want to swim in the alligator infested swamp. I am going to assume they are afraid of being eaten by an alligator, which is very reasonable, unless they go out of their way to inform me that the alligator swamp is just a cover for a terrible, terrible conspiracy and we are going to be murdered by child-eating evil scientists if we go near it.

This is the problem with commenting on media you haven't experienced, you lack context. From an our world perspective I can understand where this comes from, but the issue with abuse and fear typically stems from POWER as I understand.

And in Wheel of Time's setting, women (and particularly Aes Sedai) typically have all the power. Most (all? I actually don't think there's one that's not) major societies we see are matriarchal, and in several of them men are explicitly subservient, or at least meant to act so in public so as not to shame their spouses.

The Red Ajah, as all Aes Sedai, exist in this universe where they hold ALL the power. They are not discriminated against for being female, and while they may face discrimination for being Aes Sedai...well, it's the exact same discrimination most politicians face, but more so. People are afraid of them because they are both personally powerful and hold extreme political power on top of that.

Even among Aes Sedai, the Reds are generally the most combat capable (besides arguably the Greens), putting them in another tier beyond that.

Given these factors, yes they are unreasonable. They have nothing to fear physically or societally from a man unless they happen to be one of the (exceptionally rare, mind you) male Channelers, and yet still hate men. Not universally, and not originally, but the organization has for a while been self-selecting new members that fit the worldview, and so it's a strong majority.

And I have, indeed, never met a "she-woman man hater" as that would imply that she performs stereotypical femininity to an excessive degree while hating men. That would mean a woman in a pink mini-bikini who shaves her whole body and has silicone implants in her breasts and wears very high heels ... and hates men.

If that is how the Red Ajah are portrayed, it is even worse than I thought.

I wouldn't read that deep into it, it's just a Little Rascals reference.

As to the general thread on trans people, I'm not sure the differentiation between Saidar/Saidin and its wielders actually has any unfortunate implications most people are likely to care about. You can read too deeply into a lot of magical settings if you want. Is Avatar the Last Airbender problematic because Bending is segregated along racial lines? I personally don't think so, and it's the same thing here.

[Psyren]

There are several reasons.

1. Yes, that's the core of the issue. A strict reading implies that biotrutherism narrative. And that trans people are an aberration of Evil, and non-binary people cannot exist. But unless the text is deliberately discussing or commenting on a topic, in this case the existence of trans and non-binary people, I see no reason why an adaptation should be unable to modify an outdated and incorrect accidental assumption.
2. It posits that men and women are fundamentally different species. RJ even repeatedly uses an explicit metaphor regarding fish and birds repeatedly when discussing teaching channelers. This is clearly an intentional message, rather than accidental, and it's a bad one. This is a flaw the material would benefit from having excised.
3. If you want to talk about taking the text as is: The Wheel of Time is explicitly set in the real world, our universe. The First Age is our time, right now. From Thom's stories from the Age before the Age of Legends, to the Mercedes-Benz hood ornament, it is confirmed both in text and through Word of God. Which means that under this argument either the magic system's handling of trans and non-binary people is either a mistake or a deliberate denial of their existence. Neither of which is good and any adaptation should fix.
4. My issue isn't that it makes people uncomfortable. It's that it aides the narrative that trans and non-binary identities aren't real. While each individual story may be a drop in the bucket, the drops add up. The only way to stop filling the bucket is to reduce the number of drops put in it in the first place, which is the point of modifications like this. Representation matters.

All of this, and the third point in particular is a powerful one that I didn't touch on as much. To all the "fantasy worlds can be different than our world" folks - this one is explicitly set in (a fictional future representation of) our world, and it's heavily implied that the True Source is a constant throughout the turnings of the Wheel of Time - so attempting to state universal truths about the setting that are heavily based on the author's 1990 understanding of society and psychology would be even more of a mistake.

I have a couple of thoughts.

*snip*

Aran'gar isn't the only problem this approach creates though. Because by making the Power tied to biological sex characteristics in this way, the metaphor for linking moves away from joining minds/emotions, and becomes joining bodies. That's bad enough on its own, but then you layer on yet more arbitrary RJ weirdness in the magic system, like a man needing to control the link (except for the FMF configuration for some reason), and women being unable to end it or stop giving consent for it on her/their own.

Yeah, there's a lot about the magic system that is just deeply weird and seemingly there for the sake of being weird.