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Wheel of Time blog, book reader, Egwene lover, Main: ladyofpembroke, tags ‘wot book spoilers’

[horseproductions]

the fires of heaven, chapter 1, fanning the sparks - siuan

//

the fires of heaven, chapter 15, what can be learned in dreams - moiraine

[sixth-light]

thinking about this post again and you know what I'd like to talk about the gender essentialism of in re: magic systems?

fucking Discworld, where for almost the entire series women do domestic magic and men do academic magic and never the twain do meet unless in exceptional circumstances. and I think Pratchett is a very good writer of women who engaged with feminism and in his later years trans issues in a thoughtful way! but why do we do endless rounds of 'Wheel of Time bad because magic system based on gender' but Discworld gets a complete pass on the issue? I WILL DIE ON THIS STUPID HILL

[asha-mage]

I think one of the interesting contrasts between Jordan and Pratchett is how the witch/wizard divide is Discworld is full of unexamined biases because, in theory it's not supposed to be about gender. Pratchett grounding his work in gendered tropes rather then gender itself means he ends up reinforcing gender essentialist ideas and themes far more then if he had just directly engaged with the idea.

Jordan on the other hand, by literlizing the gender divide in his world building and magic, forces the reader to confront uncomfortable questions about gender directly and gives himself space to comment on it. By saying the quite part out loud, Jordan brings it to forefront deliberately and makes it a conversation rather then background radiation.

[sixth-light]

Yes, this is it for me - there's a lot of well-meaning people in the notes of this post saying "but the witch/wizard magic thing is clearly meant to be social so it's not gender essentialism" and "Pratchett is satirising particular kinds of men's clubs/environments with the wizards". But here's the thing.

The academic environment he is primarily satirising simply was not as gender-segregated as the one he depicts. My own great-great-grandmother was at Cambridge in the 1880s; women couldn't get degrees but they could and did study. There are no female students at Unseen University. The wizards build Discworld's first computer. In the real world women designed and operated the first computers and the word computer originally meant 'a woman who makes mathematical calculations'. There are no women anywhere near Hex except domestic servants. The wizards are broadly meant to parody physicists at some points; I was recently reading a biography of Ernest Rutherford, a leading physicist in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in the UK and Canada. He had female students and corresponded with female physicists of the day. They weren't abundant but they did exist (uh, Marie Curie?)

With Unseen University Pratchett has created a magical tradition so gender-segregated it doesn't have room for the Discworld equivalent of Marie freaking Curie, and in the real world the only way that happens is very significant levels of misogyny pushing women out of spaces, because otherwise you're saying that there is not one woman in Ankh-Morporkh smarter or more interested in magic than (checks notes) Rincewind. But the wizards aren't presented as raving misogynists deliberatly keeping out women with an academic interest in magic, because that would be wildly unpleasant. So it winds all the way around again to magic gender essentialism by implication.

And this is one of the primary ways misogyny works in fiction! By allowing women to be written out of places they exist or existed in the real world, even when those places are being satirised, to depict entirely unreal absolute gender segregation. (Pratchett of course knew enough to address this for the military in Monstrous Regiment, notably a book where he was actively thinking about the issue.) His disinterest in considering it regarding his magic-users, except at the very start and end of the series, deserves way more interrogation than it gets. Jordan is by no means doing a perfect thing but at least he's fucking asking the questions.

[killldeer]

THE FLAME OF TAR VALON; THE WATCHER OF THE SEALS; THE AMYRLIN SEAT

[amyrlinegwene]

I was reading Will of the Many and all throughout I kept thinking that the world building reminded me of Wheel of Time, and sure enough the author says he’s inspired by Robert Jordan in his authors note

[wibblyrlin]

first appearance x last appearance THE WHEEL OF TIME (2021 - 2025)

[clearancecreedwatersurvival]

'the wheel of time is bioessentialist' is it really? or is every instance of a character thinking people of x gender are like y included to show their limited and flawed perspective and contrasted within the narrative with a counterfactual instance of the observed trait being purely human and not gendered?

why are we taking the unreliable narrators at their word?

[amyrlinegwene]

I miss being obsessed with wheel of time

[zkretchy]

I have long ago (2 days ago) decided my first post of 2026 will be a shitpost

so-belated meme time on an overdone, but still funny idea

[pillowfriends]

I miss Melaine

[pillowfriends]

top ten Melaine moments off the top of my head

(book) throwing half a loaf of bread at Mat's head in anger. who among us has not wanted to throw something at Mat's head in anger

(show) verbally eviscerating Moiraine in the sweat tent. the audacity to call Moiraine "child" is incredible. "do they not teach politeness at your White Tower, child?"

(book) riding on the back of Moiraine's horse through the desert. holding her "awkwardly" around the waist bc she can't ride but she's just so desperate to talk to her!

(book) holding Lan back from following Moiraine into Rhuidean and also physically blocking him when she returns. very impressive

(show) when Avi says she can't teach Rand if he's unwilling to learn and she smirks at her and goes "Cannot?" [meaningful look at Bair] "Cannot." the sass in this scene is at lethal levels

(book) comforting Aviendha before Rhuidean, it's a very sweet moment and Egwene is like "wow I'm surprised, I thought she was the meanest of the four Wise Ones"

(book) asking the Wise Ones to talk to Dorindha about marrying Bael with the iconic (to me) line "I cannot stay away from him and I cannot kill him." yes she kind of acts like a sugar-high ten-year-old in her romance plot but sometimes being into someone just feels like that

(book) naming her baby after Egwene. again a very understandable urge. I named my car after Egwene

(book and show) slipping up and revealing that Moiraine has to go to Rhuidean. girl keep your mouth shut that wasn't very wise of you

(book) straight up (lightly) stabbing Bael when he makes a "haha aren't wives terrible" joke. this is a very Aiel wtf moment but also he deserved that. I think Melaine should get to lightly stab Robert Jordan as well until he stops with the gender bullshit

[anira-naeg]

[anira-naeg]

[pien-art]

WIVES !!

(click image for optimal quality)

[amyrlinegwene]

-Galad Damodred

[killldeer]

pleased to announce that i have figured out the objective correct answer to the question of “who should have ACTUALLY succeeded egwene as amyrlin” and that it is silviana brehon

[bloodyawfulfishwife]

Weave ✨

art account on Instagram: @ berriedrawstoo

[vancouver-lord-goldeneyes]

His dad wanted him to be king, his mom left him when he was 2 his stepmoms lover killed his dad when he was 14 (it’s ok tho cause he was a dick), he’s a (step)mommy’s boy, his only friends are his years’ younger half siblings who resent him, his other half sibling called him too handsome for masculinity but we don’t have time to unpack all that, he always does the right thing but the right thing to whom, he can probably channel, he’s never had a job, he’s linked to three major Houses (Mantear, Damodred, Trakand) and none, he’s a master swordsman but got his ass kicked by a sickly farm boy with a stick, he’s apparently the only person ever to read The Way of the Light in its entirety, he joined the Incel Domestic Terrorism Network, he killed their leader and then became the leader and then told them they’re not doing Domestic Terrorism anymore, he started a civil war to get his crush a boat, he pulled the baddest baddie this side of the Aryth Ocean, he’s a trophy husband, he failed his grandstand moment of the series and got his swordhand chopped off by a Forsaken, he is twenty nine years old when basically everyone else in the series is still a teenager, he’s never - and I cannot stress this enough - had sex

[fuckinkfruious]

Absolutely shook by the Fashion & Fantasy Exhibition in Prague. A very heartfelt farewell to my beloved Wheel of Time...