WOT questions, advice needed and given.

[Lyanna Stark]

Of course, the Witcher series is also one which while it has traumatic events happen to multiple female characters, it's another series I cite for important female roles provided characters beyond "love interest" and "to be rescued."

Well. I don't even know what to say to this. Mark this day, Darth Richard. I am actually rendered absolutely speechless.

It sounds like a fascinating work. The transgender experience is one almost ignored in fantasy and almost never is well handled. In Bioware's Inquisition, I actually cringed at some of the dialogue options for talking to Krem.

Krem is generally lauded as a very good inclusion. (I also think you should perhaps read up on the terminology before using stuff like "the transgender experience".)

Back to Wheel of Time and Gender Roles and Magic...

Of course, the importance of magic to stepping outside of gender roles and into positions of power is something which I'm glad the Wheel of Time avoids. Magic could have easily been used as a kind of justification for why the women in Randland have such authority, power, and prominence but it isn't.

Instead, it's simply treated as a fact of culture that they have position and prominence and are respected with prominence. Kudos to Jordan for that.

I am not even sure what this means, since it's logical the female Aes Sedai have power for this very specific reason. Why don't you want it to be explored? Why is looking at the mechanics behind a society which, supposedly, is a mirror image of our own, in which stereotypical male attributes are valued far higher and men are disproportionally in power? Especially since it doesn't logically hang together, in that a lot of underlying views on sexuality, power, innate abilities etc. are still very much stuck in a patriarchal cultural pattern.

You are telling me the whole underpinning for a matriarchal society is there in the novels, and you are glad it is not explored?

[C.T. Phipps]

Krem is generally lauded as a very good inclusion. (I also think you should perhaps read up on the terminology before using stuff like "the transgender experience".)

Yeah, I'm glad Krem is there. He's a wonderful character and did wonders for visibility. I just thought the questions you could ask him were rude and offensive. I apologize for any poor terminology.

Well. I don't even know what to say to this. Mark this day, Darth Richard. I am actually rendered absolutely speechless.

Video Games wise:

Yeah, for all the hubub about the Sex Cards, there's probably more proactive plot-relevant three-dimensional female characters in the Witcher franchise than probably the next three fantasy games combined. Triss, Yennefer, Philippa Eilhart, Ciri, Anais, Sile, Ves, Cerys, and more. Of course, that doesn't mean that the whole Sex Card thing WASN'T ****ing ludicrous. I just think the franchise dramatically improved from 1 to 2. It also still has areas which were in direct need of repair.

Books wise:

Well, that requires its own thread of ups and downs. Much like Martin.

I am not even sure what this means, since it's logical the female Aes Sedai have power for this very specific reason. Why don't you want it to be explored? Why is looking at the mechanics behind a society which, supposedly, is a mirror image of our own, in which stereotypical male attributes are valued far higher and men are disproportionally in power? Especially since it doesn't logically hang together, in that a lot of underlying views on sexuality, power, innate abilities etc. are still very much stuck in a patriarchal cultural pattern.

You are telling me the whole underpinning for a matriarchal society is there in the novels, and you are glad it is not explored?

Actually, I tend to favor the viewpoint of the Aes Sedai as having attained their position by being the matriarchal versus patriarchal analogue to the Catholic Church. Channeling is not really all that important in my opinion to the Aes Sedai's prominence because it's less important than their role as peace-makers, preservers of civilization, political advisors, academics, and a unifying force across the Randland.

Channeling is dross or window-dressing to their importance as characters who serve an important social role beyond their power to throw magic (which is almost crippled to the point of uselessness by the oaths).

I guess I would not want the issue of magic explored because it implies that women are required to have a special power to ascend to positions of power beyond merely their intelligence or the proper cultural context. Women don't need to channel in Randland, they simply have gained positions of power because the culture allows them to excel to the level they deserve to.

If women were allowed that role solely because of magic, I'd feel it would be cheat versus presenting simply a more gender equal society.

[Lyanna Stark]

Actually, I tend to favor the viewpoint of the Aes Sedai as having attained their position by being the matriarchal versus patriarchal analogue to the Catholic Church. Channeling is not really all that important in my opinion to the Aes Sedai's prominence because it's less important than their role as peace-makers, preservers of civilization, political advisors, academics, and a unifying force across the Randland.

So you mean that Aes Sedai in advisory capacity and as powerhouses in general has nothing to do with them being channelers? And instead it is by coincidence that they can both channel and are powerful advisers/diplomats because....?

I am at a loss what you mean with Catholic church. The Aes Sedai are not a religion.

As for the rest, it is now off topic and I suggest that discussion can continue in the Feminism thread.

[Darth Richard II]

Poe's law strikes again.

[SilentRoamer]

Lyanna,

Thanks for your comments. Still feel lost and probably should stay out of any discussions involving feminism/gender/sexual preference and all that! As a woman you are less likely to offend and get SJW's oversensitive boarders jumping at you than I would as a white/straight male - so I feel like I am having to be very careful. Obviously your own replies have been gentle but I fear someone else will chime in a little less so.

Lord Varys,

Just wanted to reply to your questions. A hile sicne I read the series but I will do my best:

Ishamael:

Physically projecting yourself into dreams is something the very skilled Dreamers are able to do. Perrin and Rand can both do this but it is regarded as taking something from the world and as such is "evil".

I suspect that Ishamael through some soul shenanigans was able to physically escape the bore via Telhariond - there are a number of scenes with Ishamael when he is still claiming to be Baalzamon which support him being a physical presence in the Dream World.

Mordeth:

Yes I grant that but it is also worth remembering at the time that the DO was free and the barriers between all worlds would start dissolving (with the associated bubbles of evil) it could have been a bubble of evil, it could have been some ancient One Power experiment, the point is that it was so long ago and so powerful that no real records remain as evidence. I think the real point of Aridhol is to show that fighting evil with evil only leads to the breeding of more evil. Mordeth is the first ghost we see in the series but later as the Dark Ones influence grows there are entire ghost villages that appear (because of bubbles of evil). Yes Aginor created the Shadowspawn with the One Power - when I said "turned on itself" this wasn't referring to a specific mechanism (such as them trying to create shadowspawn) but more like the methodology (we are going to be even crueller and more evil than the Dark Ones agents) - this probably led to Darkfriends as well among the population.

Other supernatural evils:

The metaphysical explanation during the Last Battle in Rands Pov explains the nature of the Dark One - I actually really like the explanation. The other evils are just independent evils other than the Dark One - yes as long as they are spreading Chaos they are doing the Lord of the Graves work even if they have their own intentions. None of the other evils in the series operate anywhere near the scale of power of the dark one. Sure Fain can beat up a few Shadowspawn but nothing near the power of the DO. The Finns are part of the pattern along with all other multiverses - again the multiverse metaphysics is explained more during the LB.

Faile - I really really dislike Faile and always have done, for me she is the worst character in WoT, poor Perrin!

Hope this helps your thought process.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

"Social Justice Warrior" continues to be one of the most silly insult shorthandles ever invented.

[SilentRoamer]

Ser Scot,

Yeah I typed in haste - I have edited now.

[Zoë Sumra]

Wow. Cool. Not everyday you meet professional artists on a forum discussing said art (As in, writer's on a book forum, musicians on a music forum etc). Good luck with future projects. I'm only in the planning stages of my series, and it might well stay there for ever as I tend to like planning the books more than the writing them. :D

Several SFF authors occasionally post on here, including Richard Morgan, Joe Abercrombie and Mark Lawrence. Neil McGarry is also a member. (And Charles and me, and kujenato. Do pop into the writing-a-novel thread...)

Regarding the gender essentialism, let's take the RL problems with it (namely pigeonholing of roles and lack of explanation of transsexual people) into the RL feminism thread - in the context of this particular series, it harms the story. I don't think characterisation is RJ's strong point in general - and to an extent a very good novel can be constructed resting solely on archetypes (e.g. Watership Down's characterisation of rabbits rests on wholesale utilisation of human archetype). But when archetype or stereotype replaces characterisation's part in the plot, the result is a weaker novel than it might otherwise have been. See: braid tugging and ineffectualness.

[fionwe1987]

I jumped ahead to the last page to see if I should spend the time reading the previous 14. I think I will, but...

 

See: braid tugging and ineffectualness.

How is braid tugging an archetype or a stereotype? It is, in WoT, the behavioral tic of exactly one character.

 

Now the "women sniff and men grunt" thing can be called a stereotype in WoT, though women snort too.

 

All of these are, of course, way overused as a sort of "code" to indicate certain emotions. That's lazy writing, but I'm not sure it quite counts as gender stereotyping (if, in fact, that is what you're implying).

[Werthead]

I am at a loss what you mean with Catholic church. The Aes Sedai are not a religion.

 

I believe Jordan has cited Catholic nuns as (one of numerous) an influence on the Aes Sedai. I wouldn't say it was an overwhelming or prevalent one.

[C.T. Phipps]

I believe Jordan has cited Catholic nuns as (one of numerous) an influence on the Aes Sedai. I wouldn't say it was an overwhelming or prevalent one.

 

The Aes Sedai are advisers to the nobility, independent of all nation, preservers of ancient civilizations, viewed as unpleasant meddlers, and disliked by religious fundamentalists with their own interpretation of Doctrine as well as Witch Hunters. They're also a once-sex priesthood which anyone can join of any race or nationality and consider it their spiritual duty to fight against Darkness.

 

In short, in a land with no organized religion, the Aes Sedai ARE the Catholic Church.

 

I may be influenced by twelve years of Catholic school but the Aes Sedai also work very similarly to how the Catholic Church is internally structured.

[fionwe1987]

Yes, politically and structurally there are many similarities between the Church and the Tower.

 

I'm not fully through the thread, but I'll say this about the One Power, Lyanna:

 

Yes, it is essentialist, and by no means can it be considered problem free. Embracing vs. seizing, and women-only linking are the most problematic aspects, for me. And something you missed: the reason the prison to the Dark One was opened is because men and women sought a power that they could both use, ie. try breaking the separation between the sexes and you're literally inviting the devil to play in your backyard. This is Original Sin in WoT, and that is incredibly sexist.

 

That said, what WoT is not is consistently sexist in terms of the One Power. Having started with the sexist division of the Power, the series then goes on to assert, quite decisively, that "Paradise" was achieved only when men and women worked together. And when they do, the best results only come when a the person leading the circle both forces saidin and works with saidar to get what they want: ie. break the essentialist divisions of behavior between the sexes.

 

Then Jordan promptly undermines this a little by having only a man able to lead a circle between a man and a woman, while only a woman can initiate the circle, in the name of some sort of absurd "balance". Why the hell not have both able to do both? Wouldn't that much healthier balance have been better?

 

Jordan also has one character have their soul transferred from a male to a female body. This character has all the memories of life as a male, and starts this new life as an adult femal. But eventually (though, disappointingly, completely offscreen) accepts and thrives in the new gender identity. Puzzlingly, this woman still channels saidin. So clearly it isn't about chromosomes or DNA. RJ seems to have gone the route of saying the soul has a sexual identity (there's other evidence to back this up). Whatever this soul sexual ID is, it determines which half of the Power you get, no matter what your behavioral traits or body parts are. That is... ok, I guess? In the problems created by a gender divided magic system, I suppose we can be thankful that magic isn't determined by whether you have functioning testes or ovaries.

 

More later. 

[Werthead]

Jordan also has one character have their soul transferred from a male to a female body. This character has all the memories of life as a male, and starts this new life as an adult femal. But eventually (though, disappointingly, completely offscreen) accepts and thrives in the new gender identity. Puzzlingly, this woman still channels saidin. So clearly it isn't about chromosomes or DNA. RJ seems to have gone the route of saying the soul has a sexual identity (there's other evidence to back this up). Whatever this soul sexual ID is, it determines which half of the Power you get, no matter what your behavioral traits or body parts are. That is... ok, I guess? In the problems created by a gender divided magic system, I suppose we can be thankful that magic isn't determined by whether you have functioning testes or ovaries.

 

That's pretty much how I've seen it going down. I always took this to mean that it's certainly possible that a man could be born able to channel saidar or vice versa, but the odds of it happening (given the already-low chances of being able to channel in the first place) are vanishingly small. However, it should certainly have been known in the Age of Legends.

[fionwe1987]

 

That's pretty much how I've seen it going down. I always took this to mean that it's certainly possible that a man could be born able to channel saidar or vice versa, but the odds of it happening (given the already-low chances of being able to channel in the first place) are vanishingly small. However, it should certainly have been known in the Age of Legends.

The Age of Legends characters (ie. the Foresaken) are also interesting because in their behavior, there really is no gender segregation. They give each others' gender very little thought, and their interaction isn't much influenced by it.

 

Jordan being Jordan, though, there's one major stink in all this:

 

[spoiler]Most of the Female Foresaken do not die, and if they do, it is associated with rape and/or humiliation. 4 of the 5 have been raped by Shaidar Haran. The men, on the other hand, tend to die clean.[/spoiler]

 

I just came across an interesting point a few pages ago that gender essentialism isn't automatically sexist. It has certainly been used in our world to justify all sorts of sexist behavior, but that doesn't seem to be the case in WoT. The women are anything but submissive and placid, while one of the major male characters is placid. Rand's story arc: 

[spoiler]Is all about embracing change and submitting to them to gain control over your life. [/spoiler]

 

This is in some measure true of all the major male characters, and some of the female characters have to learn it too.

 

Once again, it seems to me that WoT is just not consistently sexist. In the basis of the world, in the repeated tics of most characters, yes, there is definitely something sexist. But many individual characters do exist that buck these trends quite soundly. Its almost like RJ was wrestling with his own sexist biases, and made a major muddle of his story because of it.

 

I really do wish someone would write an epic fantasy again that has some of these elements. Specifically trying to imagine a society dominated by women. Anyone know of one?

[fionwe1987]

RE: WOT.

 

I think it is "feminist" in that it clearly tries to discuss gender-issues in a fantasy context. I don't think it *succeeds*, mind, but he's clearly trying. Now, another factor is that it is clearly written by a man who got his grounding in feminism in the 60's and 70's. He's updated some, but the basics is a fairly old style of ideas that were swishing around at the time, and a lot of which has since become outdated or superceded.

 

Add to this the fact that, y'know, he's a man, he's not neccessarily the greatest of writers, and a lot of unexamined prejudices and you end up with the weird soup that WOT is. I'd still classify it as a femnist work though: Just a bad one. ("feminist" is not a seal of quality, or even of sanity) 

This is very close to how I see WoT. It is clearly not sexist in every way it can be. And in a lot of things, it is way less sexist that even current fantasy novels tend to be. When I read it as a teenager, it was certainly a revelation to me, and while the feminist literature it led me to explore only ended up making me see how much of a failed attempt it was, I still appreciate that Jordan didn't go the route of "medieval world fantasy= rampant patriarchy".

 

ETA: Also, I do still think Rand's early struggles with being a channeler in secret, and Egwene's struggles after she is released from her captivity with the Seanchan work well as metaphors for closeted homosexuality/internalized homophobia and rape trauma and recovery.  Those aspects of the early book were powerfully attractive to me, and might explain why I still feel a connection to these books today, for all the myriad problems.