Welcome back to Reading The Wheel of Time and the last week of Lord of Chaos! It’s just the epilogue this week, which is remarkably short by Robert Jordan standards. Still, we get some tasty little teasers of what’s to come in the next book. I must confess, I did not expect Moghedien’s escape!
Falion receives a note that Nynaeve and Elayne have somehow slipped out of the palace again without any of her spies seeing. She had all but given up searching for the cache of angreal that Moghedien had insisted was somewhere in Ebou Dar, but Elayne and Nynaeve’s presence has changed her mind. She thinks that the pair might lead her to the cache, and even if not, Moghedien would certainly be pleased to have the two captured and brought to her.
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In his study, Herid Fel is killed by a gholam that squeezes under the door. Later, Idrien finds his remains and faints at the sight of a body, which has been torn limb from limb.
A Seanchan rider leaves Ebou Dar. He is one of the eyes for the Return, and he is pleased to have discovered that the Ebou Dari will certainly resist being conquered by the Seanchan, which means the Blood will allow looting after they are subdued.
Perhaps that fellow’s comment had been an omen. Perhaps the Return would come soon, and the Daughter of the Nine Moons with it. Surely that would be the greatest omen of victory.
Moghedien is in her tent, thinking about how much worse Egwene is than Nynaeve and Elayne had been, and worrying over what might happen to her if Egwene ever passed the bracelet to Siuan or Leane. Suddenly Halima comes into her tent, and Moghedien’s protests die on her lips when the woman addresses her by her true name. She’s even more shocked to see the woman channeling but not be able to sense saidar—Moghedien realizes that somehow, impossibly, the ball of light Halima is channeling must be saidin.
Halima tells Moghedien her name is Aran’gar, and that she has come to free Moghedien. She tells her that once freed, Moghedien will vanish quickly and silently, or else she will die right here. She also tells her that Moghedien is summoned to Shayol Ghul. When she touches the a’dam she flinches slightly, though touching the necklace should only hurt a man who can channel, and then it is off and she slips it into her pouch.
Egwene searches Moghedien’s tent, having felt the pain of a man who could channel brushing the link the a’dam made between her and Moghedien. She tells Chesa that Moghedien has run away, and privately muses that surely Logain wouldn’t have come back to free Moghedien. He couldn’t even have known she was there.
Demandred knelt in the Pit of Doom, and for once he did not care that Shaidar Haran watched his trembling with that eyeless, impassive gaze. “Have I not done well, Great Lord?”
The Great Lord’s laughter filled Demandred’s head.
I was actually really upset when Fel got killed. I liked that old scatterbrain. But he’s clearly too powerful for the Dark One to let him live. The last we heard from him was the note he left for Rand about how you have to “clear rubble before you can build,” which I assumed had something to do with Rand’s questions about breaking the seals on the Dark One’s prison. If Fel has hit on something important here, it makes sense that the Dark One and his followers would want to get rid of him as quickly as possible.
Of course, on the surface, breaking the seals seems like it would be the opposite of what the good guys would want—after all, the Dark One has been breaking them from his side, and once he breaks all of them he’ll ostensibly be free and the Last Battle will commence. But Rand clearly feels that breaking the seals might be necessary—he had the instinct to break the one Taim brought him, and although he restrained himself, he has clearly decided that that impulse might have something more at work than taint-induced madness (either his or Lews Therin’s).
Granted, it could have been the madness. But I do see the strategic logic in the idea of making the definitive move towards Tarmon Gai’don on Rand’s own terms. This gives him more options in dictating how the fight unfolds, and means that he might be able to strike before the Dark One is fully ready and all his plans are in place. If Rand waits until the seals break on their own, that might very well mean that the Dark One’s forces have grown too powerful to overcome.
It’s the same strategy Gandalf urges on Aragorn and the other leaders in The Lord of the Rings. The forces of men and elves are far too small and weak to face Sauron at the height of his strength—it is only by striking before he is ready that they stand any chance at all. (And by relying on the strength of two hobbits, of course.)
We know that Fel believes that, as the Dark One’s prison must have been whole when it was made, so must it be whole again by the time the Third Age comes back around. He doesn’t know when or how the prison will me made whole again, but although he was initially shocked by Rand’s suggestion of breaking the seals, he perhaps has come around to the idea, or at least has come up with a plausible answer to Rand’s question of “can you think of any reason to break the seals.” His suggestion here is that breaking the seals, getting rid of them, is the only way to seal up the Dark One’s prison properly. I think we could even go so far as to suggest that “before you can build” is a reference to remaking the prison as though the hole had never been made, rather than putting on a new patch. Fel said “build” not “repair.” This would solve the apparent contradiction he was wrestling with earlier, and it would also mean that the Dragon is capable of creating something as good as what the Creator made, which Fel doubted when he was first asked about it. (Interestingly, if it is possible to remake the prison as it was originally, that would mean that Rand, coming from a comparatively primitive time, would have to figure out how to do something that Lews Therin, a Dragon from the Age of Legends, did not know how to do.)
In any case, if Fel really has come to the conclusions I suspect and is right about them, this is a very dangerous situation for the Dark One. He would want to keep such information from Rand at all costs. Though how he knows about Fel’s discovery is anyone’s guess—it’s not as though the man talks to a lot of people, so either someone knew enough to already have Darkfriend spies on him, or Fel said something he shouldn’t when he was inspired to “go fishing” after Min’s visit. Also, since I have no idea what a gholam is in Jordan’s world, right now I’m picturing a creature made of wet clay that can smoosh itself down so it can slide under doors and stuff.
I’m not sure I approve of Jordan reinventing the golem, a creature in Jewish tradition whose existence is specifically tied to providing help and protection to imperiled Jewish communities, into a creature of the Shadow. If it turned out that anyone, good or evil, could make and control a gholam, that might be okay.
I had completely forgotten about Falion and Liandrin and the rest. Jordan must have had such extensive notes to keep track of everything! (This is a joke, I know he did.) I do remember when the Black Ajah seemed like such a big deal, though. Now, compared to all the Forsaken we’ve just met, Liandrin and co. don’t really seem that scary or impressive. That doesn’t mean they can’t cause problems for our girls, though! And it’s even more dangerous now that Moghedien has escaped. I don’t know why I didn’t see that coming, to be honest. Narratively it doesn’t make a lot of sense for her to just stay there, statically. And she’s kind of too interesting to kill off too quickly.
I mean, I’m still mad about Asmodean getting killed off so fast. That guy was so entertaining, and it was cool having a Forsaken whose motivations were so much less power-hungry and blood-thirsty than the rest. He just wants to be an immortal musician! And speaking of Asmodean, are we ever going to find out who killed him? Was it Demandred? Seems like he might have been pulling a lot of strings in this book, but I have no idea which ones, or if we’ve seen him in disguise in any of the other scenes besides the ones he’s actually named in.
In Chapter 6, Sammael reflects that “events to the south” have Demandred’s mark all over them, but as he’s in Arad Doman at the time, there’s kind of a lot south of him, much of it chaotic. Sammael also reflects that Demandred likes to use proxies, so it may very well be that we haven’t seen Demandred “on screen,” so to speak, in any kind of disguise.
It probably doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone that I hate what Jordan is doing with Aran’gar. The presentation of this character is very in line with the false and dangerous rhetoric that transwomen are men in disguise, who can infiltrate female-only spaces as dangerous predators. I can’t help thinking of the scene of Egwene’s confirmation as Amyrlin, during which all the Aes Sedai had to present their breasts for inspection, to prove their womanhood. Aran’gar would pass such a test, would pass any test given to her. Female channelers can’t sense the channeling of saidin even the little bit that men can sense the channeling of saidar, it seems, so Aran’gar can keep hanging out with Aes Sedai and channeling freely.
Even the sentence about how “Halima” looks like a woman who was designed by a man plays into this trope. If this is just Moghedien observing how voluptuous and beautiful the body Aran’gar was given is, that’s some weird lady-on-lady prejudice. If it’s more to do with how “Halima” carries herself, then we’re back to the suggestion of a man who is aping femininity, an accusation that’s often leveled at trans women and drag queens, especially those who don’t achieve a specific level of what society considers “natural” or “modest.” Back in Chapter 44, Mat observed that Halima almost seemed to be testing how he reacted to her and her body, which also plays into this trope of duplicitousness and a man “play acting” as a woman. Jordan may not have been aware of the specific gatekeeping and accusations I’m talking about here, but it’s definitely built into the narrative dichotomy of men vs. women on which so much of The Wheel of Time is built, just as it is in our own culture. It’s really a shame.
You know, I don’t think I realized when I read Chapter 44 that Halima still channels saidin, not saidar. Or at least I’d forgotten about it. But if it was Halima who channeled at Mat, that means that the foxhead medallion works against saidin as well as saidar. Which I suppose makes sense—the foxy people are accustomed to dealing with an order of Aes Sedai that includes both genders, and wouldn’t have assumed or guessed that Mat was only thinking of women. It’s a neat little detail, and I hope it comes up again soon.
I’m quite curious about what answer the Epilogue title refers to. The Dark One’s answer to Demandred’s question of how well he did, I suppose. I suppose he wouldn’t laugh if he was displeased, so I guess that’s a yes, of sorts. For anything more we’ll have to wait until next week, to start A Crown of Swords. Judging by this epilogue, I imagine we’ll see some more of the Seanchan than we did in Lord of Chaos. Hopefully we’ll also get the overthrow of Elaida, and Rand and Egwene will find a way to come together about the future. And we’ll see if it’s Logain or Taim who cause Rand the most trouble.
Also, I’m really wondering now who the Daughter of the Nine Moons is. The name always sounded important, but the Epilogue has lent it even more significance.
Finally, I want to take a moment to thank all of you for continuing with me on this journey. It’s been quite the ride, and we started it together all the way back in February of 2018! Our world was pretty different back then. I guess it’s sort of fitting that Rand’s was too.
Sylas K Barrett is kind of excited to go back to a title with “The” at the beginning of it. Lord of Chaos not having one was always kind of confusing. And he always typed it wrong.
Jordan’s blindspots do weird things to his project of interrogating gender roles.
Poor Silas – the series now goes PLoD (as Leigh Butler so properly called it) and other delays as we get to the weakest and unnecessarily slowest quartet of books. If only Jordan had made 7-10 one book of condensed story the whole series would’ve been much stronger and he may have actually finished it
The slog only felt like a slog to me when I was still waiting for the next book to be written. Once Brandon finished the series, and I approached it as a whole, I found the slog to be filled with things I appreciated and enjoyed.
Lezby Nerdy wrote a song for the Dusty Wheel’s song parody contest, to the tune of “Wait For It” from Hamilton, all about the slog and Perrin/Faile/Shaido. She not only made me love that tune more, but she captured my feelings for a storyline that used to bother me, but I appreciate more now.
@3 – there were definitely great moments in 7-10. Essential moments to the series. Just not 4 massive novel’s worth. What I was really trying to say is that I felt the same way as Silas after LoC wrapped up – things were starting to really move and all 6 books were strong (even if TDR was a little fluffy). Things ground to a halt and the overall story barely progressed. I just feel these next four books could’ve been condensed into a tighter story and the series wouldn’t have lost a thing
Yeah, there are definitely some ‘oof’ moments, although I think some of it can be explained (in narrative) as Halima himself being a gross person so he himself would have bought into a lot of the stereotypes of ‘how women are’ (or how ideal women should be).
But it is interesting that clearly, the saidin/saidar tie is NOT determined by your body, but by the nature of your soul, whatever that is.
@5 – Exactly. That Sylas forgot that Aran’gar channels saidin means he is missing this crucial detail that is essential to understanding this character and gender in WoT. Channeling is tied to the soul, not the body. I’d like to see him engage with that concept and its implications and how that relates to the real world, with gender identity not necessarily aligning with the sex assigned at birth.
I would like to reiterate to us readers why the tower sitters inspect each other bear to the waist and at close proximity for their sittings. During the breaking of the world, men gone mad had infiltrated these sittings by killing the women and using mask of mirrors to impersonate them. So it became a habit to the Tower, albeit the reasoning has been lost, to not only inspect that they have the physical qualities of a female, but they are also close enough to sense the ability to channel within that person. Think of it as modern-day two-factor identification.
@6 – You hit the nail on the head. So many people these days cast the entire WoT as being woefully inadequate when speaking to a lot of the more complex gender issues that we as a society are dealing with today. I think that by doing so they have a tendency to overlook the fact that the example of Aran’gar pretty much asserts that channeling ability, while gendered (draw your own criticisms here if you like) also is explicitly rejected here as being tied to the physical body and the gender that it presents. If that isn’t an argument for saying that the person you are on the inside doesn’t necessarily have to match the physical shell you reside in, and all the gender/trans implications that has, then I don’t know what series you are reading.
Now, I know that I will immediately hear from people who will argue that because this example is one of the stories’ antagonists this implicitly says that being transgender* is BAD. I disagree. The text never makes that argument on the basis of a ‘male’ soul being in a ‘female’ body.
The other argument I expect to hear is that people will point out that the only way this happened was directly because the DO did it, therefore it is unnatural, ergo ‘trans’ = BAD. My counterpoint would be that 1) The only verified ‘unnatural’ aspect of this situation was the DO snatching a dead soul and implanting it into a body. 2) While we have no evidence of souls in WoT being mis-gendered* in a body we also have no evidence that this doesn’t already happen. Nothing we have in the text says that it can’t.
*Using this term loosely to try not to exclude or offend anyone. If I did I apologize and assure you it was NOT intended to dismiss or offend.
A quick note: Everyone should feel free to explain why they disagree with an interpretation or reading of an event or character, but we ask that you avoid framing your objection or disagreement as a criticism of Sylas (or another commenter). It makes the discussion and criticisms feel overly personal—particularly when the person in question isn’t taking part in the conversation—so please try to focus more on the ideas involved and less on other people’s perceived motivations or concerns. Thanks!
@7 where was this said? I don’t remember any official material mentioning that tradition of women taking off clothes to prove her gender came from mad men infiltrating them. It is more of RJ’s kink about women taking off clothes anywhere and everywhere, along with punishment by spanking. Only applies to women not men.
@7, @11 I also do not remember this backstory. I just finished Lord of Chaos, and if it comes up in later books I have not yet read, well, I don’t think that’s a sufficient to nullify the charge that this is just another example of Jordan titillating his readers with breasts for the 18,000th time.
Another piece of backstory for Aes Sedai rituals, that a shield must be maintained by steady channeling and not tied off, is justified in the text of the same book, when Rand learns from Lews how to break through tied-off points in a shield. So if this part of the Amyrlin installment ritual also has ancient and forgotten justification, it ought to be explained in this book.
@12 @11 Well then, if you’re only in book 8… In the words of Rigney himself, “Read and find out.”
Also in the postmortem encyclopedia ‘The Wheel of Time Companion’, speaks of this.
@7 @11 @12
I assumed that RJ adopted the practice of using physiology to verify the sex of Aes Sedai leadership from a Catholic tradition. I believe that since the Pope could only be male, an official of the church would be tasked with verifying his manhood by physically checking for testicles. (My source for this is an episode of “The Borgias” years ago, not otherwise verified). So I assume RJ translated that to various Aes Sedai rituals being performed while “clad in the light.”
So I had been following this thread quite a while ago, but discontinued due to life. It popped up in my Google feed unexpectedly today, so here I am, ignorant of where we are with spoilers, etc. So I’ll try to be careful here.
Sylas pondered who killed Asmodean. It was something I wondered about, and never had answered until after I finished the series. I later learned from the community that the answer had been revealed in the Glossary (!) of a later novel. That novel was ToM, but I can’t say under which entry for obvious spoilers reasons.
I think this is one of the more fittingly-titled WoT books. Chaos and division are proliferating all over the place, from large battles to small political groups, and it’s mostly to the good for the Shadow.
It says that “few” people would have stood a chance against the gholam. I suppose those exceptional few would include Mat (or anyone with a certain foxhead medallion) and the Forsaken. The WOTFAQ hosted a brainstorm of other potential ways to dispose of a gholam: https://steelypips.org/wot-tgs/node/177.html
I started the series after Knife of Dreams was already out. Hence, going through books 7 to 10 was a bit easier as I knew the PLOD would end. It is easier to reread as we know which snippet goes were in the overall narrative.
That being said, all the major plot lines in 7 to 10 drag- Perrin & Faile (the worst), Moragse, Elayne and the bowl of winds, Elayne and the Rose throne, even Mat in Ebou Dar.
While the look into the goods, bads and uglys of Sanchan culture is nice, the storyline between Matt and Tuon also drags.
The cleansing of Saidin is fantastic of course, but the shenanigans in Far Madding ultimately turn out pointless, except for making Rand harder (which we did not need a whole book for).
So yes, I agree that the 4 novels could have been easily condensed into 2 (not sure about 1).
@13 please be more specific. I read ALL WOT books several times and there is no in-book explanation for that, other than current Halima situation which is unprecedented in WOT world. I skimmed thru WOT companion before and it also did not jump out on me.
@14 That may be, but in WOT world full on nudity in ceremonies is reserved mostly for female channelers – Aes Sedai is one example, Aiel trip to Rhuidian is another. Wise Ones had to run nude to Rhuidian, while male chief candidates were fine going there fully clothed. Male nudity only takes place along with female as a way of domineering and establishing subservience upon capture and enslavement by both Aiel and Seanchan. Also obsession with punishing female characters only with spanking.
@15 Al’lan:
That is correct.
What would not be a spoiler is referring to the Fish theory. During his chase of Rahvin, Rand gets bitten by fish. After his massive outburst of balefire, the fishbites remain. The assumption was that these were not caused by Rahvin’s channeling and that ergo another Forsaken was present, probably a female one…
I think RJ found it likely that from this and some other small observations in other books the readers would deduct the identity of Asmodean’s killer.
Re: Halima:
Does it matter that they were forced into a woman’s body? In some ways, she seems to be an inverse of real world trans people: the latter were assigned a biology at birth that doesn’t fit who they are (their soul, to use WoT terms) and take hold of the gender identity that fits them best on their own volition – while “Halima”, as far as we know, never struggled with gender identity in her previous incarnation but was forced into a cis woman’s body.
Re: the PLoD:
It’s real. Yes, it was made worse for those of us encountering it during the publication process, but my most recent reread was in 2020, and I can assure you books 8-10 (with large portions of 7 and 11 as well) are often WORK to get through. Book 10 is, frankly, shockingly bad – the nadir for the series. I don’t know if RJ’s health issues affected his writing of it, but it’s just not good.
Re: Halima
I think that had RJ been writing the books now, there would have been at least one non-Dark One-forced trans-character, and if they were a channeller, they would have been using the source that matches their soul, so a trans-woman would be channelling Saidar, and a trans-man would channel Saidin. It could be hilarious to see some TERF-y Aes Sedai freaking out over a trans-woman trying to gain entry to the Tower. Well, maybe not funny, exactly, because the AS in general would be very hard to accept any kind of change in their traditions, and too many would really be terrible to any trans person, refusing correct gendering, dead-naming… Maybe it would be worth it just to see readers rally behind Egwene in her acceptance of people, regardless of how they differ from her upbringing, while she forces the White Tower to change. It would be a really thorny writing job, with a lot of ways to involuntarily hurt people, but representation matters. I’d love to hear a trans-persons point of view on this theory.
Re: the slog
It’s been my feeling that RJ’s writing wasn’t exactly affected by his diagnosis, but that it became a painful challenge for Harriet to edit the books during that time. I only had the pleasure of meeting RJ once, and he spoke the way he wrote: brevity was nowhere to be found. I can’t imagine the difficulty of silencing your partner’s words when there is a very real chance that they are the last ones people will read. I understand this sounds like I’m being too critical of Harriet, and I can accept that charge; but I always felt it was more of a justification for letting more prose than is strictly needed stick around in the books than a harsh criticism. Crossroads of Twilight is absolutely the low point of the series, and it’s particularly grueling because I never felt Winter’s Heart was a slog – there were a lot of threads, they all were moving, and the ending is momentous in so many ways. Crossroads being a ‘different points of view’ of the end of book 9 sure doesn’t help with the plot, and the second half, once we’re caught up on everyone, doesn’t really have much happen. It’s still well-written, but I felt like book 11 had a lot crammed in, and everyone would have been better off with the pacing between those two books balanced. I’m also coming at it from the point of view of someone who’s never written one novel, and who’s never had a degenerative disease diagnosed, so it’s pretty easy for me to say.
I feel like the PLOD through to Crossroads is where a bunch of earlier decisions came home to roost. RJ was trying to do a bunch of different things and tell some stories that could get left out of other epic fantasy stories. But not very many people had finished an epic fantasy series, especially not one that eschewed explicit internal trilogies or weren’t just endlessly serialized. So there were unintended consequences to some of the early narrative and editorial decisions. As successful as Sanderson was in ending the series, it’s too bad we didn’t get to see how RJ would have done it.
I could very easily be recalling this incorrectly but was RJ diagnosed with his illness during the writing of CoT or AFTER? I thought it was after but cannot recall and am not in a position to look this up at present. I have in the past read some of RJ’s commentary on the structure of CoT and it seemed more reflective of someone who wanted to make a bit of a literary experiment by showing the end of WH from the multiple view points. I think that obviously didn’t work out as well as he’d hoped based on general fan reaction and I also think he was less satisfied with the result as well. It was a pretty gutsy move as a writer though and it really highlights just how extremely pivotal the Cleansing was as one of the central points of the entire series.
As for me I can’t say CoT is my favorite book in the series but I don’t hate it as much as most. I really just try to take a “the sum is greater than the parts” approach to the entire series to mitigate any disappointment from one plotline or book versus some of the other Crowning Moments of Awesome as Leigh would call them.
@15 – Asmodean’s killer was spelled out plainly in the Glossary of ToM, but a scene in the narrative proper in the epilogue of that same book also proved beyond a Shadow of a doubt who did it. Obviously a lot of people didn’t pick up on it, but it was made clear before the glossary (admittedly, JUST before the glossary).
Also, if you haven’t followed this series… Sylas does not read the comments anymore to avoid spoilers, so spoilers are fair game. I wish he would include a boilerplate statement to that effect at the end of every post to let people know there are spoilers below, but alas…
@23 and others – Correct, RJ did not have his battle with amyloidosis until several years after Crossroads of Twilight, which was published in 2003. So his health had nothing to do with it. RJ admitted in his blog on Dragonmount.com that the structure of CoT was an experiment that didn’t work. Which is partly why KoD was so chock full of plot developments, I think.
I appreciate that Sylas has a point of view that is attuned to seeing characterizations through a certain lens—we all do that—but I don’t believe for a second that Jordan intended Halima/Arangar to be some sort of social commentary/allegory on the transgender issue, certainly not when he wrote the book in the 90s. I don’t even remember the issue being front and center until the last decade or so. Nonetheless, has Sylas figured out who Halima actually is yet? As in, the individual she previously was? Knowing the character’s origins, and their particular lasciviousness, may put the current incarnation’s actions (both up until now and going forward) a bit more in context as opposed to just putting it down to, “Jordan is saying transpeople are bad”.
@24 – Thanks for confirming, that was my recollection as well.
@25 – I don’t recall if Sylas has picked up on exactly who Halima/Aran’gar was previously or not. I don’t think so however. I agree with you that I don’t believe RJ was thinking about gender identity in relation to trans concerns at all when he was writing this. I very much doubt this was an issue on his radar. I also agree that Halima/Aran’gar/Balthamael’s depiction with regard to lasciviousness is much more a reflection of their personally low moral character than any kind of veiled jab at queer or trans representation. The problem I suppose is that a lot of critiques I’ve seen in recent years on the WoT seem to want to point to the lack of these representations coupled with the one “trans” character being horrible as evidence that RJ was leaning into harmful stereotypes. I absolutely reject that argument. Sometimes a blindspot is just a blindspot,
Last thing on Aran’gar. Partially because I don’t want to type all their aliases again lol. I’m sure I’m not the first to think this but having this discussion just drove home to me that most of the Forsaken can pretty neatly fall into representations of the Christian sever deadly sins. Lust (Balthamel, Rahvin), Gluttony (Graendal, Sermihage), Greed (Be’lal? insert lawyer joke here), Sloth (Asmodean, Moghedien), Wrath (Sammael), Envy (Demandred, Mesaana also Be’lal since ‘The Envious’ was his nickname), Pride (Ishamael, Lanfear)
I also enjoy Sylas providing commentary on these matters from his perspective because it gives me a chance to view this series in a whole new way again. It’s been eye opening so far. You can never read a book for the first time again but hearing someone else’s perceptions of it for the first time is about as close as it gets. You can find unexpected insights you would never have obtained on your own.
@24 Thank you for clarifying that for me – I had the timeline wrong.
@26 I totally agree that trans issues were not on most people’s radar in the 90s. It was still socially acceptable to use trans-ness as a punchline (ugh). Sylas’ point of view on the book is really fun, he sees a bunch of things that I didn’t catch on my first read.
I agree with others here that Halima was not intended as commentary on trans issues. One person suggested that if RJ wrote it now he would probably have included at least one ‘natural’, ie ‘not body swapped by the DO’ transgender character, and that if he did, they would channel the Power that matches the gender they identify with. My thought on that is, if such channelers existed, channelers would be likely to be aware that it could happen and has happened. It would be objective proof that a metaphysical gender can be mismatched with the physical one, of a sort that we in our world do not have. It would produce a world where everyone (or at least everyone educated in the ways of channeling) knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that a male body can have a female metaphysical component and visa versa. Transgender people in such a world would be well known and, I suspect, accepted since ancient times. Or not accepted; there could still be a cultural aversion. But they would be known, it would be known that such people existed and especially cultures like the Aiel and Sea Folk that do a good job of identifying their channelers would have procedures in place for finding them, and well educated characters would not be caught off guard by someone like Halima who looks female but channels saidin.
I suspect that natural transgender people in WoT channel the power that matches their physical sex. This would imply that a Saidar-weilding soul always ends up in a physically female body, and a Saidin-weilding soul always ends up in a physically male body. I am specifically not saying a ‘male’ soul or a ‘female’ soul. In fact I am avoiding suggesting that there are ‘types’ of ‘soul’ at all. I am theorizing that there are ‘saidar capabilities’ and ‘saidin capabilities,’ which are associated with a soul, in the same way that perhaps a love of history or a virulent bloodlust or an aptitude for painting or a delicate sensibility might be associated with a soul, and if the DO moves a soul to a new body, everything associated with the soul comes along, including capabilities for saidin or saidar. But ‘saidar capable’ and ‘saidin capable’ souls are always born into physically female and physically male bodies in natural circumstances. And under this theory, weilding saidar or saidin has no bearing on a person’s gender identity, just as having certain body parts has no bearing on a person’s gender identity, just as the ability to get pregnant has no bearing on a person’s gender identity. I suspect you can be a saidin-weiding transgender woman who was born with testes and cannot get pregnant, or a saidar-weilding transgender man who was born with ovaries and can get pregnant. The saidin-weiding transgender woman does not have a male soul. She either has a soul with no gender if souls do not determine gender identity, or she has a female soul if souls do determine gender identity, but in either case, she has a ‘saidin capable’ soul matching her ‘saidin compatible’ body, under this theory.
And then the final question would be intersex people, and I would guess that maybe an intersex individual really could end up capable of weilding saidin or saidar, either one. Using very rough numbers, populations are approximately 1% transgender, and approximately 0.01% intersex. 0.01% times the low rate of channeling points to a vanishingly small population of intersex channelers, so that could explain why they aren’t known. Or, they are known, but are so rare that it just doesn’t come up in the story. Or, being intersex interferes with channeling and there are no natural intersex channelers.
Worldbuilding wise, given the state of modern Randland it makes sense that transgender channelers would be totally unknown. About 1-1.5% of the population identifies as transgender and about 2-3% of the population in the Age of Legends could be taught to channel. Since the testing of the population for channeling is abysmal (even when wider testing begins with the Black Tower and the Rebels it relies on self selection), we cut the population even further to the “much smaller group” of people born with the spark and then cut that again because three out of four who channel without being taught simply die. Then pre-cleansing anyone touching Saidin goes mad and dies.
BUT, when Tuon talks about testing all the girls in Seanchan for the spark she should have mentioned the very rare case of the girl tested simply dying as we are told that is what happens when men who can channel. Such a thing would doubtless be a very important omen of something.
Also the Aiel or Seafolk might have had knowledge of transgender channeling, but they could have slipped through the cracks given the nonsystematic, nonfatal methods involved.
Regarding Demandred working through proxies I remember the fuss about Demandred/Taim and how RJ explicitly said that “Demandred has never posed as Taim.”
I also remember that RJ invented the Aes Sedai and I read this as “There are no portraits of Demandred wearing Taim’s clothing” and not “Demandred is NOT Taim.”
PS I know we know the real answer now but nevertheless I remember those fun days when we were still trying to figure it out…