ride again on the winds of time

In this house we love and respect Nynaeve al'Meara What's The Wheel of Time? my posts: ⁕ meta & essays ⁕ reread thoughts ⁕ i made a thing ⁕ fanfiction ⁕ Herenya's reactions ⁕ conversations about WOT ⁕ Wheel of Time “A book told me,” Rand said calmly [...] “A pair of books, in fact. Treasures of the Stone and Dealings with the Territory of Mayene. Surprising what you can dig out of books if you read long enough, isn’t it?” -- The Shadow Rising, ch. 15, “Into the Doorway”.

[herenya-sedai]

🖈important tags

Everything is pedantically tagged for organisational reasons. (I have too many tags?) But for anyone wanting to find (or avoid!) content, here is my tagging policy: 

#wot books for all posts about the books, including any #tv wot posts with book spoilers. Instead of “spoilers”, I tag posts with the relevant books and/or #After AMOL Character tags generally use full names, eg. #Nynaeve al’Meara

#tv wot for all posts about the Prime adaptation. I also use episode tags, eg. #wot s1e1, #wot s1e2 Character tags are tv+first names, eg. #tv nynaeve

#early series art for spoiler-free fan art

[alanalmeara]

Question for you guys

Is Rand a classic chosen one or a subversion of the trope?

Classic

Subversion

Voting ended onJun 30, 2023

[herenya-sedai]

Hmm, both? Because he's a classic in some respects and a subversion in others.

In terms of his origins and the beginning of his story, he's more classic -- the naive farmboy, unaware of his true royal parentage, setting off on an adventure, etc. That's all standard fare for the genre, and it certainly isn't setting up a subsequent twist that radically challenges readers' expectations of who Rand is and what his journey is all about. Rand is the dragon reborn, and his narrative follows the general shape that expected for a chosen one.

But within that general shape, there's a lot of details that are a subversion of the trope.

There's also the way this is a story about people who have clear expectations about what it means to be the chosen one -- characters who don't know their prophecies inside-out still have strong ideas on the subject -- and the ways in which Rand does / doesn't fulfil their expectations. (Including his own.) The prophecies, combined with the worldbuilding of the wheel turning and souls being reborn, mean that this is a world with a population of people who are, to varying degrees, savvy about the genre they inhabit.

And I wonder, maybe that makes Rand's story appear more subversive than it actually is?

[catknifetime]

Mat Cauthon is a magical character because he is simultaneously a horse girl and a World War 2 boy. He’s also Oden but that’s less important.

[swordofsun]

Once again saying the problem with Gawyn isn't his stupid ass choices. Wheel of Time is filled with characters making stupid ass choices. That's not the issue.

The issue, at least mine, is his lack of commitment. In a book series filled with characters who commit to their choices, where several different cultural have the idiom "take what you want and pay for it", Gawyn can't hold firm to anything. He refuses to pay for it.

Back the White Tower coup? Absolutely a reasonable decision to make based on the available information. But he can't commit to it and lets not just Min, but the disposed Amyrlin Seat, the equally disposed Keeper, and a False Dragon walk out the door. Because the price for taking what he wants (following Elaida and supporting the White Tower) is to turn them in and he can't accept it.

He abandons everything he'd built and sacrificed with no second thoughts because the price of the Younglings was fighting against Egwene.

He almost gets Egwene killed because the price of being her Warder was to just follow her damn instructions and he couldn't do it.

Gawyn isn't annoying because of his stupid ass choices. He's annoying because he repeatedly takes what he wants and refuses to pay for it.

[veliseraptor]

trying to disentangle what's brandon sanderson stuff from what's robert jordan stuff in the last three wheel of time books in terms of plot/story beats is both a fool's errand and not ultimately very interesting, but I have come to the conclusion that one of my issues with specifically the way branderson writes wheel of time characters is the fact that several of them are at least 1.5x quippier than they are in the rest of the series.

also i maintain that androl's outsize importance still really bugs me, the last two books does not feel like the time to introduce a majorly important and hitherto unknown character who then takes up a not insubstantial amount of page space, but.

although maybe that's just me being kind of bitter about the missed opportunities I see in the entire black tower arc. less malden kidnapping arc, more black tower corruption arc

[pien-art]

Moiraine in that new outfit in Cairhien has taken over everything in my brain !!!!!!!!! no thoughts only Her

(click image for optimal quality)

Prints available here !

+ detail closeups

[lordgolden]

absolutely obsessed with the fact that elayne has no bag and no supplies. she really said "I'm coming too!!!!! <3" no change of clothes no food no water no fucking clue. all she grabbed was the lantern. it's ok though nynaeve packed for both of them

[vancouver-lord-goldeneyes]

It’s always “nooo don’t use balefire you’ll rip holes in the fabric of reality” and never “how was the balefire the balefire looked fun”

[trollocks-in-my-bollocks]

[ofthebrownajah]

No fear:

One fear: the show giving Moiraine more emphasis as a character over Rand Nynaeve Mat Perrin and Egwene who are the actual main characters

[black-ajah-hq]

Oof yea as much as I loved Moiraine in season 1, WoT’s story isn’t about her as much as it is the others.

The thing is, for many of the show-only watchers that I’ve talked to, Moiraine was THE main event. They didn’t really care about the 2 Rivers folk at all. (I’ve also heard the same sentiment from critics). So, season 2 really has a lot of character work to do on that front in order to properly transition the focus away from Moiraine. 

It pains me to say it, but I also can’t help but wonder if it was a mistake to give Moiraine a more serious relationship with Siuan...since it’s creating a dependency/emotional connection with the viewer that will have to be answered in some way down the line. Will they be together or not? For me personally, Moiraine and Siuan's relationship in episode 6 was the emotional center of the season (whereas in the book it was Rand's fate as a male channeler).

That is stacked with her losing her channeling, her impending “downfall”, and her investigating what actually went on at the Eye of the World...is creating an insane amount of major plot threads that have to be resolved with her in the next season or two (compared to the other characters who right now don’t have as many threads). IDK its just SO MUCH MOIRAINE. She’s a neat character in the books but then there are characters like Rand, Nynaeve, Eggy, etc.. who have some of the best character development in fantasy fiction who are just sitting there with all this potential, unused so far. 

And, Moiraine also doesn’t have much time before her...hiatus. They can’t just abruptly have her leave and then start focusing on characters that we aren’t emotionally connected to yet. It would be detrimental to both show-onlys and book fans.  I think there has to be at least some resolution to her story which of course involves more time spent on her and less on the others in the next season. Tricky situation.

[graysedai]

since they apparently couldn't get a three hundred year old actor, I guess a thirty year old will do. I'll just....suspend my disbelief or somethinfg

[thesevenajahs]

look, i’m new to the fandom but i’m a simple woman - i see a hijabi, i obsess over the hijabi

who is she?? what’s her name?? her story?? i need answers???

as a hijabi, i can tell you that we very, very rarely see ourselves portrayed on screen as anything other than oppressed or terrorists. it really means the world to me that they added this small detail and casted this actress, even if it’s just a background character! i love that this series is allowing many of us to see ourselves in genres and roles we’re usually excluded from, and without the negative stereotypes we’re saddled with in western media

[thesevenajahs]

i found two more 👀

and i know it’s just costume but i thought it interesting that they borrowed from real world hijab styles, the woman from the blue ajah is wearing the same criss-cross underscarf i have in my closet haha

i just think it’s neat!

[mashithamel]

A lot of really great things have been said about the costuming in S1, including the floral detailing on Nynaeve’s coat that relates to her use of herbs and plants as a Wisdom and her belt that shows a river.

But I also love that they have her in this thick green coat over a yellow skirt/top. Because, in relation to Ajahs, it works so well. Nynaeve has this hard outer shell. She will punch you, or yell back at a Trolloc, or otherwise have a prickly personality that would suggest she’d belong in the Green Ajah (and early on in the books when posing as Aes Sedai she says she’s Green).

However, her true nature is of the Yellow Ajah. So many of her big moments, both magic and non-magic, are Healing. Healing Stilling, cleansing the taint, curing madness, keeping Alanna alive (when no other Aes Sedai could have!) at a critical time. Even her relationship with Lan post-Moiraine is a type of healing for him, and whenever she meets up with Rand she’s always trying to fix what she can or at least check him out.

Also looking forward to more costuming details for S2!

[mashithamel]

Very true! She does not shy away from a fight. She takes on Forsaken, has no hesitation about heading into a fight. She could have done well in Green, she’s no coward (although it takes her a while to realize that about herself), except she really wants to just heal the world.

[flo-n-flon]

Little Moiraine sketch I don't plan to render because I love the new look.

[queen-of-andor]

I actually really like the bathing scene of Moiraine and Lan on episode 1. Not because both are (obviously)very hot people, but because it shows a lot about their relationship. Those two are totally comfortable with being naked around each other and sharing their bath and at the same time it’s obvious that they are not interested in each other. A couple of episodes later we see them both having other love interests.

Platonic partners being establish on a single scene. Brilliant.

[sixth-light]

This post by @lesbiancytherea, as well as @butterflydm‘s ongoing series re-read made me think about how one of the things RJ did pretty well - not perfectly but well - was grasp that there are significant differences between how cultures understand themselves, how other cultures familiar with them see them from the outside, and what is seen by someone engaging with a culture for the first time. And that stereotype and prejudice can play a really strong role in how cultures are viewed externally, to the extent that this view can be almost unconnected to how the culture actually operates. Importantly, I think he also grasped that 1) there can be significant ELEMENTS of truth to all three of those possible viewpoints, but none is the ‘most’ true, because culture isn’t something that has an objective truth, and 2) stereotype/prejudice generally arises as a twisted version of something that is true, coloured strongly by what the external culture finds convenient or useful to believe.

This plays out most obviously w/r/t the Tuatha’an and the Aiel, where ‘wetlander’ understandings of how their cultures operate are just flat-out wrong for the most part, based on limited engagement - black veils used ritually in battle become ‘black-eyed Aiel’ who will kill anybody at any time, the Tuatha’an’s strong and unique philosophical/religious stance and nomadic lifestyle, which attract some people to join them, become child-snatching. It plays out more subtly with the Seanchan, who have very strong top-down propaganda/beliefs about how their culture operates, with extreme oppression and authoritarianism necessary to maintain stability and order, when their history and expectations demonstrate that they have never been stable or orderly or safe - *because of* their authoritarian regime. But you also get it between Randland countries, c.f. how Murandians think about Andorans and Andorans think about Cairhienin, with none of their views being universally true. Also, for the most part people are allowed to be people, whatever their culture. (I think this falls down most significantly for the Atha’an Miere in later books, where Atha’an Miere characters are boxed into being roadblocks for the sake of the plot needing roadblocks rather than having individual personalities.)

Anyway, if I have a point here, I think it’s that in retrospect this is one of the things Sanderson just doesn’t get very well in his books. He operates on a much more Planet of Hats vibe where there ARE objective, universal truths about cultures (whether their own or external). Which is how suddenly Seanchan rule in Altara brings stability when their invasions of Falme, Tarabon and Amadicia were marked by chaos, oppression, and massive disruption to the lives of ordinary people, and the Aiel are only capable of being warriors. It’s of a piece somehow with the way character start saying everything out loud instead of operating on unspoken assumptions and beliefs. IDK if you can call RJ ‘subtle’ as a writer but one of his strengths was a real grasp of things believed but not said and how they matter. It was a shame to lose that. 

[pien-art]

how i imagined all of Moiraine’s and Rand’s arguments in The Great Hunt

[rosamundpikesource]

🚨New Series Tie-In cover for ‘The Great Hunt’, Book 2 in The Wheel Of Time book series. Available July 18, 2023.

Pre-order your copy here.