An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time IV: The Spy Reborn

[Ashen Lilies]

And seriously, now its really starting to turn into a game of gender/sexuality bingo. Lets change matt, lets change min, lets change aiel sister wives, lets change this and that. There has yet to be any reason stated to make any of these changes beyond wanting to fill out your check list to make sure every group you can think of is represented.

Congratulations, you're exactly correct.

I mean, you're not, because storytelling based arguments for making Mat bisexual and Min nonbinary were actually advanced and discussed, but even if you were being completely accurate here, then this would already be a good enough reason.

[TheStranger]

Fair enough, and as I said I’d be just fine with less random female nudity (a sentence 18-year-old me could never imagine writing). I wasn’t arguing for equivalence, just throwing out the first beefcake example that came to mind. I think we’ve pretty thoroughly established that the workings of the White Tower are at least 80% fetish fuel anyway.

Spoiler

Show

On the other hand, I think the all the girls’ boarding school spankings are partially balanced by Rand spending half a book locked in a box and taken out for thrice-daily whippings like the Gimp from Pulp Fiction. If that’s your thing.

[Psyren]

And seriously, now its really starting to turn into a game of gender/sexuality bingo. Lets change matt, lets change min, lets change aiel sister wives, lets change this and that. There has yet to be any reason stated to make any of these changes beyond wanting to fill out your check list to make sure every group you can think of is represented.
*snip*

There's some spoilers in your snipped portion there Traab, please redact.

And we've already provided reasons why. To increase the verisimilitude/depth of the world. To account for perspectives the author didn't consider 30 years ago. To broaden the audience appeal of the work as a whole. Exclusion is not a nice feeling even when (giving the benefit of the doubt) it is completely unintentional.

Ok, I need some clarification here. Is matt

Spoiler

Show

remembering his past lives like how various people are constantly reborn such as brigit and her eternal lover, I am blanking on his name? Or are these random lives crammed into his skull that werent him, just memories of other people? Because if its his soul being reborn over and over again, it seems less likely that he happens to have memories of ever being gay/bi/anything other than straight as the soul stays more or less the same, even if they live a different life each time. If they are random lives then yeah its entirely possible at least one of them might have indulged in different scenarios than matt ever would have himself and thus have an influence.

Per Word of God, they are not his at all, but random. Wording is very important when making requests.

Spoiler

Show

The ones crammed in there from the Eelfinn, which make up the vast majority, are from random people. He might have a few random bits from Old Blood / Manetheren, and those are his.

[Tvtyrant]

Ok, I need some clarification here. Is matt

Spoiler

Show

remembering his past lives like how various people are constantly reborn such as brigit and her eternal lover, I am blanking on his name? Or are these random lives crammed into his skull that werent him, just memories of other people? Because if its his soul being reborn over and over again, it seems less likely that he happens to have memories of ever being gay/bi/anything other than straight as the soul stays more or less the same, even if they live a different life each time. If they are random lives then yeah its entirely possible at least one of them might have indulged in different scenarios than matt ever would have himself and thus have an influence.

And seriously, now its really starting to turn into a game of gender/sexuality bingo. Lets change matt, lets change min, lets change aiel sister wives, lets change this and that. There has yet to be any reason stated to make any of these changes beyond wanting to fill out your check list to make sure every group you can think of is represented. I was on board for some of the suggested changes like the troubling relationships between matt and whats her face, tuon? And the faile perrin trainwreck. Both of which could use some minor adjusting and changes in emphasis to make work better in various ways. But this litany of sexual preference altering, gender assigning and other such changes are being added not because the lack of them is somehow offensive, but because you just want to see more options added for no reason other than to have a good guy who is also xy or z.

Spoiler

Show

Min's already coded at the extreme end of tom boy, as is Aviendah. There is a lot of role overlap that can be avoided there.

Galad is Ace, they make that pretty clear through the series. Him being gay and Ace is 1. Really rare and 2. Lets me make Berelain a guy.

I want her to be a guy because there are a lot of sexual temptress types in the setting, but all women. Galad and Lan are the only men women ogle for their looks, and they are both stoic warrior types. Mat's the closest thing to a male temptor and its treated like a joke, even letting him get raped for it to the laughter of other characters. Male sexuality is good, it takes a few easy changes to make that acceptable.

They probably won't do any of that, and instead make a spanish viking or some other adaptation garbage like Last Kingdom goes through.

[Traab]

Congratulations, you're exactly correct.

I mean, you're not, because storytelling based arguments for making Mat bisexual and Min nonbinary were actually advanced and discussed, but even if you were being completely accurate here, then this would already be a good enough reason.

No, those were ways you could justify the change, not reasons why the changes should happen. And no, you shouldnt alter a story just because you feel like it should have totally different genders and sexual preferences. Thats called fanfiction and there are plenty of sites you can go to for that. This is about taking a book, and putting it on tv. This isnt a reboot, a reimagining, a retcon, or any other such excuse to change the source material. There is no reason why any character should have their sexuality altered from what they are clearly established to be. Wanting to wear pants and not play happy home maker doesnt make a woman nonbinary. Being a guy who likes to drink fight and gamble doesnt make you bisexual.

There's some spoilers in your snipped portion there Traab, please redact.

And we've already provided reasons why. To increase the verisimilitude/depth of the world. To account for perspectives the author didn't consider 30 years ago. To broaden the audience appeal of the work as a whole. Exclusion is not a nice feeling even when (giving the benefit of the doubt) it is completely unintentional.



Per Word of God, they are not his at all, but random. Wording is very important when making requests.

Spoiler

Show

The ones crammed in there from the Eelfinn, which make up the vast majority, are from random people. He might have a few random bits from Old Blood / Manetheren, and those are his.

Sorry about the spoiler, I got a bit turned around with what I had spoilered and what I didnt, edited.

[Ashen Lilies]

I'd argue that [making Mat bisexual] would even strengthen [his] characterization [spoilers spoilers spoilers]

Honestly, Min dressing in "men's" clothes and refusing to act in ways that are traditionally feminine is kind of a dead horse trope at this point. We've had 40 years of social progress, it's just kind of staid and expected. Even if it's still "unusual" in-universe, there's a pretty blunted impact for the audience. There are some examples recently where it's been done well (Arya Stark) but a lot of the time, the "I'm not like other girls" characterization can be pretty eyeroll inducing.

Min being non-binary or some other form of gender-divergent might have a ton of utility when it comes to updating her character into something that's impactful and relevant to modern values and societal trends.

These both seem like me making affirmative, Watsonian Doylist cases for these changes to me. You're free to disagree with me, but I did make them.

Edit: rip me

[georgie_leech]

These both seem like me making an affirmative, Watsonian case for changes to me.

Er, Doylist. Watsonian is when it's in-universe, and I doubt Min much cares what we think in the year 2021.

[Ashen Lilies]

self deprecating facepalm emoji

I mean... Min can see the future, right?

[InvisibleBison]

self deprecating facepalm emoji

I mean... Min can see the future, right?

Yes, but our world is in her past.

[Psyren]

This is about taking a book, and putting it on tv. This isnt a reboot, a reimagining, a retcon, or any other such excuse to change the source material.

Adaptations (even the narrow "take a book and put it on TV" variety you've limited them to) change the source material all the time, and that includes sexuality and gender. Queen Maeve from The Boys. Quentin Coldwater from The Magicians. Jeryn Hogarth from Jessica Jones. Penguin from Gotham. The examples go on and on. None of these are "fanfiction," they are officially licensed and sanctioned works.

[Tvtyrant]

No, those were ways you could justify the change, not reasons why the changes should happen. And no, you shouldnt alter a story just because you feel like it should have totally different genders and sexual preferences. Thats called fanfiction and there are plenty of sites you can go to for that. This is about taking a book, and putting it on tv. This isnt a reboot, a reimagining, a retcon, or any other such excuse to change the source material. There is no reason why any character should have their sexuality altered from what they are clearly established to be. Wanting to wear pants and not play happy home maker doesnt make a woman nonbinary. Being a guy who likes to drink fight and gamble doesnt make you bisexual.



Sorry about the spoiler, I got a bit turned around with what I had spoilered and what I didnt, edited.

Putting something in another format is fanfiction. None of these alterations are nearly as big as, say, making Ron an idiot in Harry Potter or Hermione hot. The Hobbit movies are literally nothing like the book, and the LotR movies missed the tone and context of the books entirely (while still being great in a totally different way.)

The story of the Lord of the Rings is literally the End of Innocence with Elves, "You can never go home." The movies are action movies.

I used to agree with your position but over time I have come to realize the adaption changes are good. Like a good cover band alters the song, I can just read the books if I wanted to read the books. The adaptation has to add something or what is the point?

[Murk]

There has yet to be any reason stated to make any of these changes beyond wanting to fill out your check list to make sure every group you can think of is represented.

I can try - but I'm usually not very good at explaining it.

To me, I think adding queer* characters to an adaptation of an older work is good because it is more true to the intent of the work.

When adapting a story you sometimes have to choose: will we be true to the letter of the work or the intent? That is: will we follow what is written or what is meant?

Usually in a good story the letter and the intent are the same. If an author writes "the sky was blue" you can be pretty sure the sky was intended to be blue.
But when an author writes about society and society changes, letter and intent can become very different.

Achilles in The Iliad is a hero. He's a flawed hero, but he is a good person who we should root for. He's a role model and when he dies we should be sad.
When Achilles takes a Trojan woman as a sex slave, Homer did not intend for this to mean he wasn't a hero: it does not make him a villain or a bad person.
But if you were to make a modern movie and have Achilles rape an innocent civilian it will be very difficult for a modern audience to sympathise with him afterwards. Yes, we know times were different, but we will be left with a very unpleasant view of the protagonist of the movie. If we see Achilles rape a civilian, we won't see a hero anymore.

Hollywood-movie Troy did indeed try to make Achilles' relationship with Briseis seem consensual. That's not exactly what Homer wrote down, but it is much closer to his intent.
The intent was for Achilles to be a hero.
The letter was that Achilles was a rapist.
I think it's better to follow the intent rather than the letter.

That's an extreme example - but that's because The Iliad is three thousand years old and society has changed a lot in three thousand years.


In the case of the Wheel of Time, I think Robert Jordan intended for his humankind and how they love, have sex, and how gender works to be recognisable and familiar.
Not exactly the same as ours, but close.
The three main characters should be recognisable as adolescents are in our own society, with the same worries and fears about love and relationships that adolescents in our society have.
Randland has men and women, people love, and have sex, and have family. There are gender expectations (with dress codes!), marriage exists, people flirt like they do in our world and fall in love like they do in our world. The whole thing about society being female-dominated is an effective topic because it paralels nicely to our own society.

Or to be short about it: Robert Jordan intended for love, sex and gender in Randland to work the same as it does in our world.

In our world, love, sex and gender includes queer people.
Robert Jordan might not have known that**. He was a product of his time. He absolutely intended for love, sex and gender in Randland to work the same as it does in our world, but he did not fully know how it actually works in our world.
I don't blame him for that, and I don't think it's necessarily a flaw in his work.

But when it comes to an adaptation, the question arises: should we stick to the letter of the work or the intent?
The letter says "There are (almost) no queer people in Randland".
The intent says "Love, sex and gender in Randland works the same as in our world", which includes queer people.

I usually prefer adaptations to stick to the intent of the work, even if that conflicts with what was exactly written. The intent for the Wheel of Time was for love, sex and gender to work the way it does in our world, and as such it should include a sizable portion of queer people.
Robert Jordan did not include them because he didn't know our world includes a sizable portion of queer people - but we know. Nowadays, we know.


*Someone please correct me if it's not OK to umbrella all the topics talked about under "queer". I'm not always up-to-date on acceptable terminology.
** He obviously knew, but probably not just how prevalent queer people actually are.

[Traab]

Putting something in another format is fanfiction. None of these alterations are nearly as big as, say, making Ron an idiot in Harry Potter or Hermione hot. The Hobbit movies are literally nothing like the book, and the LotR movies missed the tone and context of the books entirely (while still being great in a totally different way.)

The story of the Lord of the Rings is literally the End of Innocence with Elves, "You can never go home." The movies are action movies.

I used to agree with your position but over time I have come to realize the adaption changes are good. Like a good cover band alters the song, I can just read the books if I wanted to read the books. The adaptation has to add something or what is the point?

I mean, the point is to share the story in a different medium. But fine, changes do happen, im still asking for any reason why they should other than a desire to include more of the rainbow coalition that serves no narrative purpose. I can see making changes that mitigate if not eliminate troubling scenes and messages, but this is change for the sake of change. And it honestly comes off as self indulgent self insert type of stuff considering every character mentioned getting changed is one of the good guys. Im not claiming the people who support this are bi or gender fluid or whatever, im just saying thats how its coming off to me. It makes about as much sense as demanding that Rand ride off to battle on a unicorn cause unicorns are neat. (Please tell me nobody actually rides a unicorn)



*EDIT* Murk, thank you for your well thought out post. This is a rational reasonable argument to make, and I can understand the point you are aiming for with your stance. However, I would say that it doesnt necessarily follow. The story isnt about ALL relationships, and doesnt pretend that it covers every permutation of human sexuality and gender identity. Its about those specific characters, and how they live and grow and change. And how they do those things is covered by the story already. Altering the story just to try and be more inclusive of all the other ways people can fall in love is excessive and not really in line with the authors intent. If he had wanted matt to be bisexual, he would have been bisexual. Same for the other relationships. To me its one thing to change a questionable setup as has been mentioned before, but this is the equivalent of going, "Ok, we already have a boy/girl pairing. Now we need a boy boy, girl girl, boy girl girl, boy gender fluid and dreamscape only setup, etc etc etc" And thats not really how you write a good story. You arent ticking off boxes to meet a quota of types of relationships, and it shouldnt be considered offensive if whatever your particular preference may be is not included. So long as it wasnt maliciously excluded in some fashion like, I dunno, portraying all gay dudes as the basis for trollocs. (Dear god I cringed just typing something like that) So thats why there arent any gay men in randland.

[Tvtyrant]

I can try - but I'm usually not very good at explaining it.

To me, I think adding queer* characters to an adaptation of an older work is good because it is more true to the intent of the work.

When adapting a story you sometimes have to choose: will we be true to the letter of the work or the intent? That is: will we follow what is written or what is meant?

Usually in a good story the letter and the intent are the same. If an author writes "the sky was blue" you can be pretty sure the sky was intended to be blue.
But when an author writes about society and society changes, letter and intent can become very different.

Achilles in The Iliad is a hero. He's a flawed hero, but he is a good person who we should root for. He's a role model and when he dies we should be sad.
When Achilles takes a Trojan woman as a sex slave, Homer did not intend for this to mean he wasn't a hero: it does not make him a villain or a bad person.
But if you were to make a modern movie and have Achilles rape an innocent civilian it will be very difficult for a modern audience to sympathise with him afterwards. Yes, we know times were different, but we will be left with a very unpleasant view of the protagonist of the movie. If we see Achilles rape a civilian, we won't see a hero anymore.

Hollywood-movie Troy did indeed try to make Achilles' relationship with Briseis seem consensual. That's not exactly what Homer wrote down, but it is much closer to his intent.
The intent was for Achilles to be a hero.
The letter was that Achilles was a rapist.
I think it's better to follow the intent rather than the letter.

That's an extreme example - but that's because The Iliad is three thousand years old and society has changed a lot in three thousand years.


In the case of the Wheel of Time, I think Robert Jordan intended for his humankind and how they love, have sex, and how gender works to be recognisable and familiar.
Not exactly the same as ours, but close.
The three main characters should be recognisable as adolescents are in our own society, with the same worries and fears about love and relationships that adolescents in our society have.
Randland has men and women, people love, and have sex, and have family. There are gender expectations (with dress codes!), marriage exists, people flirt like they do in our world and fall in love like they do in our world. The whole thing about society being female-dominated is an effective topic because it paralels nicely to our own society.

Or to be short about it: Robert Jordan intended for love, sex and gender in Randland to work the same as it does in our world.

In our world, love, sex and gender includes queer people.
Robert Jordan might not have known that**. He was a product of his time. He absolutely intended for love, sex and gender in Randland to work the same as it does in our world, but he did not fully know how it actually works in our world.
I don't blame him for that, and I don't think it's necessarily a flaw in his work.

But when it comes to an adaptation, the question arises: should we stick to the letter of the work or the intent?
The letter says "There are (almost) no queer people in Randland".
The intent says "Love, sex and gender in Randland works the same as in our world", which includes queer people.

I usually prefer adaptations to stick to the intent of the work, even if that conflicts with what was exactly written. The intent for the Wheel of Time was for love, sex and gender to work the way it does in our world, and as such it should include a sizable portion of queer people.
Robert Jordan did not include them because he didn't know our world includes a sizable portion of queer people - but we know. Nowadays, we know.


*Someone please correct me if it's not OK to umbrella all the topics talked about under "queer". I'm not always up-to-date on acceptable terminology.
** He obviously knew, but probably not just how prevalent queer people actually are.

He was also writing in a period of social backlash against queer movements, with mainstream US culture being extremely anti-queer in the late 1980s and early 1990s. What is mainstream now would have been seen as radical activism then.

*watch Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventures, Ace Ventura, Silence of the Lambs, etc.

I mean, the point is to share the story in a different medium. But fine, changes do happen, im still asking for any reason why they should other than a desire to include more of the rainbow coalition that serves no narrative purpose. I can see making changes that mitigate if not eliminate troubling scenes and messages, but this is change for the sake of change. And it honestly comes off as self indulgent self insert type of stuff considering every character mentioned getting changed is one of the good guys. Im not claiming the people who support this are bi or gender fluid or whatever, im just saying thats how its coming off to me. It makes about as much sense as demanding that Rand ride off to battle on a unicorn cause unicorns are neat. (Please tell me nobody actually rides a unicorn)

Probably because the majority of the queer characters already in the series are evil?

Spoiler

Show

Graendal, Red Ajah, Black Ajah, that forsaken that comes back as a woman, Semirhage, the false head of the white tower. The good ones usually have bad stuff done to them and are very minor.

[Ashen Lilies]

Yes, but our world is in her past.

There are no beginnings and endings to the Wheel of Time...

[Anteros]

Singling a character out to change them to gay/bi because they drink and are promiscuous is the offensive stereotype. Changing a character to hit on people while in combat with them is a major (and terrible) change. The main character's sexuality is a major part of all of them in this series, and I don't trust a non Jordan author to rewrite them that heavily without severely changing those characters into cringey stereotypes like some of the suggestions I've seen here. Mat suffered enough when Sanderson got his hands on him. Leave him alone.

If you truly just wanted representation then there are plenty of better candidates whose sexuality doesn't define a large part of who they are already. Morraine, Gaul, Talmanes, Sandar, etc. There's plenty of opportunity to represent and normalize whatever you want without majorly re-writing characterizations that run the series.

[Murk]

Singling a character out to change them to gay/bi because they drink and are promiscuous is the offensive stereotype.

This I do agree with. I wouldn't like for Mat to be changed into the Horny Bi Bard.

Not because I think it's disrespectful to change the character, and I definitely do not agree his sexuality is anything more than a very minor part of his character - but just because I think it's a stupid stereotype that I wouldn't want perpetuated.

[Misery Esquire]

If I could be indulged to dip into serious undirected analysis mode for a second here, I do think it's important to recognize the difference between the ritualized and ceremonial female nudity that's present in Wheel of Time, compared to the instances of male nudity which (to my recollection) occur in purely practical and functional contexts (not counting sex scenes).

Rand's shirtless because he's training. Rand's naked because he's going for a swim. Rand's naked because he's having a bath (I will credit RJ for also giving the boys a bath scene, even if it's not as infamous as THAT chapter).

Compared to the various circumstances where women are naked, like the aforementioned ~ or the ~ which impart female nudity with unique ritual significance. It's not the same thing.


That said, I definitely do not complain at the prospect of sweaty Rand and Lan training or Perrin blacksmithing scenes.

Spoiler

Show

Rand also gets piles of random bathing scenes* - including with Min pre-relationship which the Maidens see as top-tier humour. And the I'm The Dragon Reborn Nakedness Can't Stop Me scenes, at least twice; once pre-Cairhein and once post-Fain stabbing. Mat gets left nude and tied to a bed, and has a pink outfit to dress in. Rand also gets forced to change and hand out his clothes while nude, in order for the Borderlander women to ensure he isn't cheating and keeping some.


The Black Tower has also been around for all of twenty minutes with an initiation ritual that may as well go,
"When I say Ready To Die For The Cause, you say Hell Yeah! Alright, here we go. READY TO DIE?"
"HELL YEAH!"

It's not surprising that they haven't started to build up ritual yet. Give them a decade and they'll have some odd rules, give them a century and there'll be arcane requirements for nonsensical reason that noone would dare remove. Give them two-thousand years and change and the rules for rules will be longer than your arm.

*edit: Ah, I see that's what you meant by boys bath scene - I thought you were referring specifically to the Eye of the World scene when I read it through the first time. Leaving this as it is, anyway.

[Sapphire Guard]

There is a lot of potential for unfortunate implications here.

Making Min other than a woman because she follows male conventions carries the potential implication that a woman that follows male conventions is somehow disqualified from being a woman. Baaaad implications.

With the gendered magic system, that means that the universe has to take some kind of stance between which people are 'really' genderfluid (ie the magic they access changes) and those who are not, which is virtually guaranteed to exclude and hurt people that will end up on the wrong side of that line, wherever it is drawn.

[Mechalich]

One of the things about queer representation in WoT is that it's not entirely clear how much active queer repression is going on in the environment and to what extent we don't see hardly any queer people is due to everyone hiding in the closet or even engaging in unfulfilled heterosexual relationships to avoid scrutiny. There's clearly some enforcement of traditional Western European pre-Enlightenment religious and social mores going on, and there are some active references to this - the Two Rivers at least enforces a stigma against pre-marital sex, something mentioned in the very first book. Most of the queer characters that do appear are in some fashion exempt from social pressures, which is suggestive, but it's really unclear.

[Psyren]

Singling a character out to change them to gay/bi because they drink and are promiscuous is the offensive stereotype.

Nah, context and execution are everything. People are suggesting Mat not because bi = horndog, but because Mat's carousing offers the most opportunity to experiment and possibly learn things about himself he didn't explore in his sleepy village than the others might - so discovering he's bi in this adaptation could be a natural outgrowth of that, without being directly dependent on any stereotypes of promiscuity.

I actually agree there's no need for him to hit on Gawyn and Galad (especially if the latter is truly ace); my "phallic symbol" comment was a joke.

If you truly just wanted representation then there are plenty of better candidates whose sexuality doesn't define a large part of who they are already. Morraine, Gaul, Talmanes, Sandar, etc. There's plenty of opportunity to represent and normalize whatever you want without majorly re-writing characterizations that run the series.

Moiraine is already bi, and we're not exactly hurting for bi female representation in Hollywood. I wouldn't mind any of the other three you listed though, sure.

[MammonAzrael]

I mean, the point is to share the story in a different medium. But fine, changes do happen, im still asking for any reason why they should other than a desire to include more of the rainbow coalition that serves no narrative purpose.

Spoiler

Show

What is the point of sharing stories? Societally? For me, to entertain or to teach (morals, safety, propaganda, etc.). Do you disagree?

For entertainment I will be more entertained by an adaptation that has a broader, kinder, and more knowledgeable base of inclusion and representation. Clearly some other posters here would be as well. Why is the desire for better representation, better entertainment, not a valid reason for a story to be altered? If I could go back in time and be a beta reader for RJ and provide him direct feedback, I would push for this. From a more Watsonian perspective, Mat being straight serves no narrative purpose. Perrin having pale skin serves no narrative purpose. Rand riding off on a unicorn serves no narrative purpose, it's just sick as hell. Min's gender identity does serve a narrative purpose, which is entirely about how she doesn't feel comfortable with the set of expectations her society's label of woman carries.

As for teaching, the lessons and take-aways regarding sex and gender in society (which RJ clearly wanted to make a statement about) are, assuming the best of intentions, deeply flawed and ignorant. Wrong lessons shouldn't be propagated or pass unexamined. Works of fiction can have massive impacts to highlighting specifics groups, influencing society at large, shifting an Overton Window, and more. Intentionally or not, WoT has some problematic messaging and implications, and it is immoral and potentially harmful to regurgitate those lessons uncritically or without additional context.

Stories aren't sacrosanct or carved from stone. They are plastic. Authors are continually revising and editing to improve the story their telling. Every edit, every rewrite, every adaptation, is an opportunity to improve the story being told. Why wouldn't you want it to be better? Unless, I suppose, you think The Wheel of Time is a singularly perfect story in it's entirety? I haven't gotten that impression from your comments.

[Psyren]

*snip*

*snip*

Kudos to both of you for these measured responses.

Like a good cover band alters the song, I can just read the books if I wanted to read the books. The adaptation has to add something or what is the point?

Indeed.

One of the things about queer representation in WoT is that it's not entirely clear how much active queer repression is going on in the environment and to what extent we don't see hardly any queer people is due to everyone hiding in the closet or even engaging in unfulfilled heterosexual relationships to avoid scrutiny. There's clearly some enforcement of traditional Western European pre-Enlightenment religious and social mores going on, and there are some active references to this - the Two Rivers at least enforces a stigma against pre-marital sex, something mentioned in the very first book. Most of the queer characters that do appear are in some fashion exempt from social pressures, which is suggestive, but it's really unclear.

Well, the whole "pillow friends" thing is treated as a second-class form of relationship in most instances. Even the very name implies its limited scope / fleeting nature. And the POV pillow friends we get are often quick to talk about their dreams of kissing and wedding the opposite sex etc. Is it better than no representation at all, sure, but it's also not particularly meaningful or resonant with our own world and relationships.

[Ashen Lilies]

Spoiler: On Queerness and Intent

Show

I singled out Mat because he's the one of the few main characters that has sexual and romantic relationships with non-main characters, so changing some of them to be with men is the smoothest and least disruptive way to make a main character queer. It was "low-hanging fruit", as someone put it. Perrin doesn't have a relationship with anyone except Faile, and Rand doesn't have a relationship with anyone other than Elayne, Avhienda, or Min (or Lanfear if you can really count her). Nynaeve doesn't have a relationship with anyone except Lan. Min, Elayne, and Avhienda don't have relationships with anyone except Rand. Egwene doesn't have relationships with anyone except Rand and Idiot Ball. Making any of them queer in a way that isn't shallow and purely nominal would require adding extra sexual or romantic encounters, which is a much bigger change than simply altering some of the ones that are already there in the existing fiction.

Moiraine is already implied to be bisexual, or at least, to have had a same-sex relationship with Siuan, though it's left ambiguous as to whether that reflects a true sexual preference or was merely a function of being in an all-female environment at the time. Certainly she's not terribly interested in Siuan by the time of the first book. You'll notice that some of us, including myself, did actually suggest centering that relationship and pushing it further into the "Moiraine is unambiguously bisexual" camp.

You'll also note that in addition to Mat, I did also earlier suggest making Elayne and Avhienda bisexual, which would involve rewriting their very close friendship/sisterhood into a romantic and sexual relationship, forming a polyamorous triad with Rand (with Min also being involved with Rand, but not involved romantically with Elayne or Avhienda, just being friends with both of them.) No one really engaged with this suggestion, so I didn't take it further.

I didn't consider Gaul, Talmanes, or Sandar because they are not main* characters, but if you wanted to make them queer too, that's fine. No complaints here.

*I consider the set of "main characters" to include the three ta'veren, team Magikarp, Avhienda, and Min. Moiraine, Thom, and initially Loial get second-string consideration.

Making the staff fight gay was an extremely tongue-in-cheek, unserious suggestion (and I am glad that at least two people engaged with the joke as intended).

Also, if you're concerned with a queer character ending up a stereotype, the clear answer isn't to make that character not-queer, it's to make more characters queer. Men can be bisexual and promiscuous. It's only if that's your only form of queer representation that that's a bad thing.

Nah, context and execution are everything. People are suggesting Mat not because bi = horndog, but because Mat's carousing offers the most opportunity to experiment and possibly learn things about himself he didn't explore in his sleepy village than the others might - so discovering he's bi in this adaptation could be a natural outgrowth of that, without being directly dependent on any stereotypes of promiscuity.

This is also a good way to say it.

[TheStranger]

Nah, context and execution are everything. People are suggesting Mat not because bi = horndog, but because Mat's carousing offers the most opportunity to experiment and possibly learn things about himself he didn't explore in his sleepy village than the others might - so discovering he's bi in this adaptation could be a natural outgrowth of that, without being directly dependent on any stereotypes of promiscuity.

I actually agree there's no need for him to hit on Gawyn and Galad (especially if the latter is truly ace); my "phallic symbol" comment was a joke.



Moiraine is already bi, and we're not exactly hurting for bi female representation in Hollywood. I wouldn't mind any of the other three you listed though, sure.

Mat:

Spoiler

Show

This. While it's definitely even less surprising to the audience to make a minor character bi/gay, I posited that making Mat bi was an easy change in large part because the scene I described could have easily happened half a dozen times while he was bumming around Ebou Dar (I might just make it my headcanon), without changing anything in particular about his character or how other characters interact with him.

That second part is a large piece of my worry about adding too much representation to an existing work. You don't just have to rewrite the changed character, you have to rewrite how everybody else responds to them and everything that flows from it. Like if you change Min's gender, you have to change how Rand relates to her (and sees himself as a result), how people see Rand because of that relationship, and so forth. Or you have to change the setting to a place where Min's gender identity is a non-issue, which would be a massive change in this case. I don't think going down that road ends well, but YMMV.

Is Moiraine actually bi, or did she just give it a go because she was in an all-female environment? My impression was the latter, but maybe I'm misremembering something.

[Ashen Lilies]

Spoiler: Moiraine

Show

My impression was always that it meant more to Siuan than it did to Moiraine, because Suian wanted it to continue after they took the shawl, but Moiraine, for whatever reason, did not.

Whether this is because Moiraine was only bisexual in context/wasn't really into Siuan in the same way, or because Moiraine was, but more unwilling to deal with the stigma that would have surrounded their relationship had it continued into their being full Aes Sedai is open to interpretation, I think. I personally lean to the former based on my own reading, but given Moiraine's aristocratic upbringing (from Cairhein, no less), the stigma definitely would have weighed on her more heavily than Siuan so I think both interpretations have something going for them.

Also, I think discussion of Moiraine's sexuality might need to be spoilered until at least New Spring.

Edit: also, as a extemporaneous, random musing on the topic of gender divergence in the Wheel of Time universe: are we sure we aren't taking the gendered nature of Saidar and Saidin a bit too seriously? I mean, obviously, RJ intended for male and female to be objective, cosmic categories in the world as he designed it, which was quite thoughtless of him, but no adaptation or re-imagining necessarily needs to take it as anything more than long-lasting social construct, the same way it works in our world. In the universe we inhabit, some people are born with penises, which are a (regrettably) moderately permanent feature, but that doesn't make the womanhood of those women who do possess penises any less real.

Perhaps the in-universe classification of Saidar and Saidin as the 'male' and 'female' halves of the True Source, too, is nothing more than a social construct, and should be treated as such. There are some men who channel Saidar, and there are some women who channel Saidin (unfortunately, to bad ends, since the Dark One is a TERF) and that doesn't make their manhood or womanhood any less real than it would in our world.

[Gnoman]

Spoiler

Show

Mat's the closest thing to a male temptor and its treated like a joke, even letting him get raped for it to the laughter of other characters.

This element is not exactly that.

Spoiler

Show

The only characters that actually laugh at what happens to Mat are those who don't realize what is going on. They think he's just playing his usual games and caught somebody stronger than him, placing him in the "woman's" position. As people find out how involuntary it is, they stop laughing and start helping. This can be easy to miss because even Mat tends to think in those same terms - because he is trying to hide from what's happening to him.

[Mechalich]

Edit: also, as a extemporaneous, random musing on the topic of gender divergence in the Wheel of Time universe: are we sure we aren't taking the gendered nature of Saidar and Saidin a bit too seriously? I mean, obviously, RJ intended for male and female to be objective, cosmic categories in the world as he designed it, which was quite thoughtless of him, but no adaptation or re-imagining necessarily needs to take it as anything more than long-lasting social construct, the same way it works in our world. In the universe we inhabit, some people are born with penises, which are a (regrettably) moderately permanent feature, but that doesn't make the womanhood of those women who do possess penises any less real.

Perhaps the in-universe classification of Saidar and Saidin as the 'male' and 'female' halves of the True Source, too, is nothing more than a social construct, and should be treated as such. There are some men who channel Saidar, and there are some women who channel Saidin (unfortunately, to bad ends, since the Dark One is a TERF) and that doesn't make their manhood or womanhood any less real than it would in our world.

Spoiler

Show

Except in WoT gender is tied to the immortal soul, apparently. We know this because Balthamel - born male as Eval Ramman in the Age of Legends - was reincarnated into the body of a female Borderlander woman as Aran'gar and continued to channel Saidin rather than becoming able to channel Saidar. This implies that, in WoT cosmology, a transgender person is quite literally a soul born in the wrong gender body. Presumably if such a person could channel they would channel the half of the source affiliated with their soul, not with their flesh. However this appears to be almost unbearably rare, since Aran'gar was apparently the only known case and the Aes Sedai believed her abilities to be impossible.

Of course it is possible that, given this cosmology, there simply are not any transgender persons in the WoT because the Creator doesn't make mistakes in reincarnation like that and only the malign influence of the Dark One could allow such a thing to happen at all. Notably several characters have experiences where they live other lives at various points in the series and none of them ever lives out a life as a member of the opposite gender.

And...whether or not it is a good or bad thing to have a fictional universe where a certain condition simply never occurs is a highly politically charged topic that we can't really discuss, but it's certainly not unique to the Wheel of Time. In many advanced science fiction universes (ex. The Culture) it's simply not possible to have someone born with a severe physical disability like blindness.

[Ashen Lilies]

Everything in your spoiler is certainly true, and a result of choices RJ made in designing the setting, which is why I framed my musings more around an adaptation or re-imagining of the cosmology, since the seed for them was various justifications people put forward for not having trans people in a WoT adaptation, or why having trans people in a WoT adaptation is potentially problematic.

I'm just thinking that if choices made in the book are problematically restrictive, it is an option to... not make those choices. Or at least, make them differently. Maybe Saidin and Saidar are locked to souls, but physical sex and gender aren't. Maybe there are, indeed, female Dragons, and female Artur Hawkings, and male Birgitte Silverbows, and female Mat's Past Lives. It could be established as simply as The Dark One using 'they' to refer to their ancient foe. The Dragon isn't male or female, they are The Adversary, no matter what form they currently inhabit.

It's certainly a very big departure... possibly too much. Just one that occurred to me in the moment.

[Sapphire Guard]

The problem with taking the magic system as a social construct is that this has deeply unfortunate implications for those that don't conform to gender stereotypes but still identify in accordance with their gender.

You don't act according to your socially constructed gender conventions? Then you're not really part of that gender, and our magic systems write that into the bedrock of the universe, which ends up being deeply problematic for everyone no matter where they fall on the spectrum. So in spite of our good intentions, we end up creating something much worse than what was already there.

Saidin and saidar need to be locked to souls or the whole worldbuilding breaks. They don't have to align with bodies, though.