While Spirit was found equally in men and in women, great ability with Earth and/or Fire was found much more often among men, with Water and/or Air among women. There were exceptions, but it was so often so that Earth and Fire came to be regarded as male Powers, Air and Water as female. Generally, no ability is considered stronger than any other, though there is a saying among Aes Sedai: “There is no rock so strong that water and wind cannot wear it away, no fire so fierce that water cannot quench it or wind snuff it out.” It should be noted this saying came into use long after the last male Aes Sedai was dead. Any equivalent saying among male Aes Sedai is long lost.
—Glossary, The Eye of the World
I, like many other fans and critics, have written before about my dislike of the gendered nature of channeling in The Wheel of Time. You don’t have to be a gender studies major to recognize the problems with suggesting that the driving power of the universe is divided into two halves, which are diametrically different from each other and which each correspond to human gender.
Even if you (incorrectly) believe that there are only two genders (nope) and that these genders are recognizable by a strict and limited set of physical traits (nope again), this premise still doesn’t make a lot of sense. Sure, it corresponds to the general societal assertion that men and women are basically different species. But if you think about it for more than five seconds, the idea becomes pretty laughable, especially when you consider the complexities of physics and philosophy that Jordan employs in other aspects of his world-building in The Wheel of Time.
Consider, if you will, how the One Power is accessed. A woman channeling saidar must surrender to its river-like flow, opening up to it like a blossoming flower and letting herself be filled, then guide in the direction she wants. A man, on the other hand, has to seize control of the wild torrent of saidin, fighting it every step of the way and bending it to his will before he can “wield” it, like a tool or weapon. It does make sense to think of the One Power as a river (and the Wheel of Time as the waterwheel over which it flows) and a great river will have both rough, turbulent parts as well as slow-moving, deep parts. But what happens to a male channeler who is not a dominant type of person? Can he not learn to channel well? Are only men with the proper commanding and aggressive tendencies given the ability in the first place? Or is the insinuation that this is just what men are like, all men, and so saidin’s nature makes perfect sense?
The problem becomes even more obvious when we consider women and saidar, since we have so many more examples to choose from. What, I ask you, is particularly yielding about Moiraine, or Siuan? Or Elaida, for that matter? How about Nynaeve? I mean, it makes sense, given her personality, that she would have a block around channeling. But rather than that block being overcome only in moments when she can convince herself to relax and let go of her need for defensive control over everything, it is overcome only by her anger and rage. That sounds to me like a technique that would be far more effective with saidin.
Buy the Book
The Eye of the World: Book One of The Wheel of Time
The obvious connotation between concepts of “yielding” and “subduing” respectively is an uncomfortably physical one, referencing traditional ideas of heteronormative sex, and the concept really isn’t born out in any other way within the narrative. It would have made a lot more sense for one’s access to saidin and saidar to have to do with temperament: People who prefer to work more calmly and sedately, people who are open and empathetic and calm, are channelers of saidar, while those who are bold to the point of brashness, who prefer big deeds and feats of strength and daring, are channelers of saidin. If you remove the gendered element from these categories, it actually gives you a lot of room to play with character types, with how channelers work together and what sorts of strategies different types of people employ. Instead, Jordan has written himself into a bit of a corner, presenting us with a host of fierce, stubborn, brilliant female characters and then either ignoring or finding ways around the assertions about their character that his own world-building is making.
The Five Powers present a similar problem. When we were first introduced to them I thought they were merely a human concept, a way of categorizing what you can do with the One Power. But given what we have seen of channeling and flows now, it seems they are actually alike to the classical elements, they are the base components that are being manipulated by channelers. This also feels a bit simplistic, but perhaps that is because the greater understanding of things like atomic particles have been lost to the Aes Sedai of Rand’s time. I appreciate how the gendered lines are blurred a little here—men are generally better with Fire and Earth and women with Air and Water, but not always. (Shout out to Moiraine who primarily uses Earth and Fire, at least as far as the first four books, and to Egwene’s impressive skill with Earth). I’m curious how all five elements are equally manipulatable by saidin and saidar; the difference seems to lie solely in the strength and natural tendency of the channeler. If we’re going to mark saidin and saidar as being two halves of the substance that makes up all of creation, how is it that any part of creation can be touched and manipulated by only one half of that whole?
The narrative does address this to an extent: More than one character has spoken about how the feats of channeling that can be achieved by men and women working together are far greater than either gender can accomplish alone, and I think that might be one of my favorite concepts in regards to channeling. With the taint on saidin and the subsequent gentling of all male channelers, it’s hard to say what this teamwork really looked like, and I hope we get to see our Emond’s Fielders figuring some of these things out going forward.
I think what rankles me most about the binary structure of the One Power is the fact that Jordan has some truly complex ideas for the makeup of reality in The Wheel of Time. Take the mirror worlds, for instance, in which all the choices of one’s life are reflected in other realities in which a different choice was made. The Aes Sedai only know a very little about these worlds, but they appear to be only echoes of the “real” world, and there are some that are quite close to Rand’s reality while others are much farther away, and much more different. This idea, that every choice might be played out to each possible conclusion, resembles the theory of daughter universes, developed from the observation of how subatomic particles behave. Rather than just one outcome to an event, there is, in fact, every outcome, reflected in multiple realities.
There appears to be a distinct difference between the “mirror worlds” and “parallel worlds,” and I love the way Jordan is exploring these ideas. There is also much I love about the One Power. But the oversimplified and binary nature of it hampers complex storytelling in many places, especially when it comes to character building. Jordan even goes so far as to reinforce this binary throughout the different cultures he creates, which are quite culturally varied and yet seem to more or less have the same ideas about men and women, which matches, and makes impossible to escape, what the natures of saidin and saidar imply about gender.
After seeing what Jordan can do with mirror worlds and Tel’aran’rhiod, I wish the concepts of quantum mechanics were brought out a little more fully in other aspects of world-building. Quantum mechanics, after all, defies neat categorization, boxes and labels. And it definitely defies a binary.
Sylas K Barrett is not a scientist, but was inspired to learn just a little bit more about Quantum Mechanics after seeing this video from Amrou Al-Kadhi on quantum physics and queer identity!
I don’t know if it’s totally fair to judge a story that began to be written over 30 years ago by the views of today.
I think the way the One Power is accessed and its meaning is somewhat debatable. I actually find it more interesting that someone has to surrender to saidar to use it. It can be seen as a pact, giving something in exchange for something else. And I don’t think it reflects on the nature of men and women. Strength in the One Power, however, might be an indicative of something deeper within each character’s personality. That’s why we find characters like Nynaeve, Elayne, Egwene, Moiraine, Siuan, etc, who are strong-minded women and strong in the One Power. I don’t think it’s always this binary, even if people tend to see it so
I’m a bit confused at this part “rankles me most about the binary structure of the One Power”, then you start talking about the mirror worlds.
The gendered view of channelling is interesting, mainly because it does not appear to be innately genetic (unlike the base ability to channel at all, which is). We see in later books a “female” body channelling saidar when it is possessed by a “male” soul/spirit, suggesting that the spiritual connection to the One Power is paramount rather than the physical one.
This raises all manner of implications that RJ decided not to fully engage with (and RJ wasn’t writing in the 1930s, he was somewhat aware of more complex gender issues because fans were raising them even in the 1990s and 2000s), most likely because he wanted to keep this worldbuilding element simple, the same as his decision not to have multiple languages in the Westlands or to cut religions from the story after trying and failing to make them work in the original draft of the first novel.
If you take the logical extension of the One Power connection being spiritual or intangible rather than based in genetic science, that means that we might see people who are biologically born male or female being able to wield the form of Power of the “opposite” gender because their soul/spirit is of a different gender (exactly the same situation as Balthamel/Halima, although not enforced by an outside agency like the Dark One in that case). You might argue that the tiny percentage of people who can channel in the modern age and the much smaller overall population explains why we never see this happen in the current time period, but given that the number of people able to channel in the Age of Legends likely numbered in the hundreds of millions, at least some of them would fall into that category, yet we never hear of them. Of course it might be that this situation has arisen and maybe known of in the AoL, but none of the AoL veteran characters (the Forsaken and Rand/Lews Therin) have time to think about it because so much other stuff is going down.
Even ignoring the transgender angle (which is difficult because RJ made at least vague nods to trans issues through the Halima character), there’s also the intersex one. If you’re born outside of the male-female classification, you can’t channel at all? Or you can, but it being saidin or saidar is randomly assigned? Is it based on hormones or chromosomes? What if you fall into one of the dozen or so chromosome arrangements outside of the “typical”?
I get why RJ never really delved down the rabbit hole in the books, but it is interesting to take a closer look at his assumptions.
Thankyou for articulating this Sylas. It’s something that has irked me for a while for some personal reasons. It’s one of the things I most dislike about WoT.
I’m aware you’re currently reading WoT for the first time, so I’ll try and be mindful of spoilers, but I think it’s worth mentioning that later in the series there something that has a major bearing on this.
The precedent in question being Osangar / Arangar being reincarnated with different bodies to their original incarnations but retaining access to their original power set. In my view the precedent itself isn’t particularly well handled – it essentially portrays being transgender as a ‘divine punishment’ in a way., but it is nevertheless an extra layer of nuance that shows at least a vague attempt to handle answering this. But I don’t want this whole comment to be spoilers so I’ll leave it there
You will want to revisit this for sure after a certain point.
Edit: hah and by the time I’ve finished writing this, Werthead has come along and has posted an entirely unspoilered comment discussing this future-point. Ah well.
Its not the genders, but the sexes that have different physical traits. In this world of magic its not so unbelievable to think that certain physical traits would make one sex better at different elements than another.
Not that I disagree with the actual issues you bring up in the article, but the closing comment “Quantum mechanics, after all, defies neat categorization, boxes and labels. And it definitely defies a binary.” is pretty funny. Fitting things into little boxes is fundamental to quantum mechanics, and it’s certainly much closer to binary than Newtonian mechanics!
After all, in quantum mechanics things are quantised, while in Newtonian (traditional) mechanics you have continuums. For example, quantum mechanics says that there are a specific number of colours in a rainbow, while Newtonian mechanics says that the colours blend into one another indivisibly.
It’s Egwene, not Elayne, who has unusual strength in Earth.
OP:
Which, perhaps, is the narrative (and the author) undercutting the in-world understanding of “how the world works?”
Just a thought — lets stop taking what characters say in-world as the way the author intends things to be in reality, especially when said author is constantly undercutting those characters and showing their knowledge is unreliable.
I think the less said about Halima with regards to trans representation, the better. If she’s meant to be an example of that, she is a rather questionable one IMO… (She does open the door to headcanon that does better by trans people, though.)
On the personality stereotypes/accessing the Power thing, however, I prefer to view it as an opportunity for personal growth. You might be a nice fellow but a bit of a doormat, but perhaps learning to channel saidin will help you stand up for yourself? Or you’re a control freak who deals with problems by bulldozing them into submission, and learning to surrender once in a while is exactly what you need to reach your full potential. (Nynaeve, I’m looking at you! Also, Moiraine’s epiphany in book 5.)
@3: Strength in the Power doesn’t seem to be a function of inner strength. Take Sorilea, or Alise the Kinswoman. And then there’s everyone’s favourite pageboy from the Sanderson books :)
You mention how the women channelers have personalities that oppose the requirements of saidar. Nynaeve overcpming her block when she’s fired up. You don’t mention that male channelers have to perform the opposite dance to seize saidin, calming their internal aggressions.
I totally understand how this goes against current developing orthodoxy and would make non-binary adherents uncomfortable and upset with Jordan. Fact is, our species has had gender duality for thousands of years. The belief in the existence of multitudes of genders (defined entirely by expression with no mind to physical characteristics) for around 20 years (if that). However, calling an artists work problematic because part of it makes you uncomfortable seems to miss the point of art.
His world is consistent. The duality of the power that drives the world is woven well into the tapestry that he creates. The author’s discomfort has more to do with differences in perspective. That’s art.
Finally, my problem is not with critiquing art. My problem is saying the artist should have done something different. There is more narcissism and hubris in that stance than I’d care to take on here.
@12: That’s a massively Euro/modern American-centric view of the world. Many cultures have recognised more than two genders for thousands of years, including Indian, Polynesian and Native American and some African cultures, such as the Yoruba. RJ himself used some of the same cultures as the basis for his mythology and worldbuilding (the Wheel of Time itself comes from Buddhist and Hindu concepts).
Mods- change Elaine to Egwene in comment about power in Earth (6th paragraph)
Being told immediately that if one has a different opinion than the author one is wrong seems off-putting and a way to get readers to not want to engage with the ideas presented later. It feels like a direct attack to those who think/believe differently than Sylas (and many others). I can have the opinion that there are two genders, but not believe that they “are recognizable by a strict and limited set of physical traits”. I would dare say that I see gender and biological sex tied more closely than Sylas. But people can present differently and have individual characteristics that in no way are determined by gender/sex.
To me, it isn’t a problem that the two halves of the Power, Saidin and Saidar are tied to gender. I am using gender here instead of biological sex, because we do have one instance/character in later books where this is very relevant. Sylas sees that differently. That doesn’t make either of us wrong, just that we approach some of the subtext in the books in different ways.
Although I am intrigued by Slyas’ proposal that which aspect of the Power one accesses is tied to temperament, I think that might tie into which of the 5 powers one is strongest in instead. But having two very different ways to access the Power, and that way tied to the individual characters gender is a feature to me, not a bug. Having to go against the personality one has developed to access the Power provides some great character development and struggle for me. Especially for Nynaeve, learning to surrender to access the Power doesn’t make her weaker at all. See Avatar:The Last Airbender (A:TLA) and it’s presentation of the 4 nations. At first they seem monolithic, but we get to see how benders can learn from each other, even when the elements may seem antithetical. Especially Iroh and learning to direct lighting by applying waterbending concepts of flow and calm.
Built in constraints around the Power gives the author more room for creativity in my mind. How does one write a compelling story within the bounds they set in the world they have built? This is what makes stories great to me.
I do find the descriptions that RJ used for the ways men and women access the power problematic as it does feel like it relates them to a more sexual dynamic and context than I would prefer.
Some mild spoilers below for those who haven’t finished the books.
And I do find it interesting that some of the characters who are strongest are able to do their best work when they embrace all of their identity and work within that. Often that is by incorporating aspects that might go against what we see as stereotypical traits of their gender. For example, in the later books, once Rand is more accepting and empathetic, he is able to do more. We see his compassion to others increase and his small acts to help others, such as in Apples First as he truly becomes teh Dragon Reborn and recognizes his mistakes. Or Egwene taking charge of the Aes Sedai and being forceful to propel them to the Last Battle. Or Nynaeve understanding when to surrender and when to confront. Each character embraces fully what they are and is able to do incredible feats.
I am looking forward to Sylas seeing how the characters learn to work together and implement the two different halves of the power.
@13 Does stating a Eurocentric viewpoint invalidate my views, especially considering how few societies in history have subscribed to more than two genders (most of which simply acknowledged an “other” gender to encompass those that didn’t fit into the characteristics of the duality)?!
@15 It means you’re wrong when you say “Fact is, our species has had gender duality for thousands of years. The belief in the existence of multitudes of genders (defined entirely by expression with no mind to physical characteristics) for around 20 years (if that).”
Furthermore, the pre-modern construction of sex and gender in the West was (at least academically) a single sex model based on Greek ideas of women being an imperfect form of men. So even from a Western view point your proposed duality is less than it appears.
Accepting Jordan’s binaryism for the space of the story is just an aspect of suspending disbelief. I’ve got problems with it too but it’s Jordan’s world. His rules.
@15: Does stating a Eurocentric viewpoint invalidate my views
No. But being demonstrably factually incorrect does invalidate them.
@6 makes good points! I had always seen saidin and saidar as biologically linked, like the difference in the center of gravity between a male and a female (remember the chair trick?). I did not see it as having anything to do with character traits specifically assigned to men or women. But Halima (urgh! for so many reasons!) does undermine that.
But overall I can easily handwave away any incongruity in a magic system (it’s the magic silly!). What irked me most about the WoT is that there was kind of an attempt to turn the tables on traditional sexual roles but it was not really pushed very far. And I’m not very much into these issues, it was just something that was kind of advertised about the books and that I was expecting, but it did not really come through. Aside from Aes Sedai and maybe Wise Ones, roles and power distribution between men and women go pretty much along the same lines as in let’s say 16th century Europe. If you’re gonna go for role reversal, go all out and be consistent. I found the attempt lukewarm at best and not very consistent throughout the narrative. I think it’s a missed opportunity and it would have made for even more amazing worldbuilding. Actually, I’ve never seen this done right in fiction (I don’t think Le Guin got it right either, any other examples?).
That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed the series, just had to not scrutinize that aspect of the books too much.
Why is it not so easy to accept that there are flaws not only in his writing but the world setup? How do all these characters ‘fall in love’ with next to no interaction with the other person? I never finished the series and am re-reading and currently on book 6 but Min’s attraction to Rand makes more sense than Elayne. Nynaeve developing such a strong connection with Lan after a sob story and some fighting? I don’t buy it. What I do buy is it’s fantasy and things move at the speed of plot…or try to but Jordan wrote a lot…
I agree with @14 that it’s not helpful to lead with telling people who disagree with you that they’re wrong…especially on such a contentious topic that people can argue over until they’re blue in the face and still not get anywhere. It’s one thing to try to persuade people of a given view; it’s another thing altogether to deliberately alienate them. Do we want to stay engaged with people from all walks of life even when they disagree, or shame and cancel those who won’t conform to the group narrative? Just my opinion.
As for Jordan’s gender portrayals, I remember reading interviews from the 90s where he said he would have female readers express surprise upon meeting him at book signings because they were sure he was a woman writing under a male pseudonym; they were that convinced by his female points-of-view that surely a man couldn’t write women that well. (Just what I remember reading at the time.)
And while the male/female “battle of the sexes” schtick does wear thin in spots—ESPECIALLY with Nyneave, lol—I understand a lot of it is within the characters’ POVs, and I’ve known people who do think like that as far as men and women being fundamentally different, right or wrong.
I’m not trying to anger anybody by saying any of this, just offering a different perspective. People turn to things like fantasy as a way to escape the real world—and we certainly need to these days!—and while I appreciate that Sylas is critiquing the WoT from his own unique experience, I feel like what he’s saying is that if you disagree with him, then you’re not welcome.
@19. I wouldn’t exactly call the Far Madding marital arrangement the same lines as 16th century Europe.
If we’re talking about sexuality here, then let me posit that Robert Jordan may have had a preference for S&M that showed through in several places, from Malkieri customs to Sea Folk Marriage Vows to the Mat spanking Jolene incident, to the nature of saidin/saidar itself. It’s not surprising that a fantasy world an author creates hews to his preferences and assumptions.
Must agree with 13, 16, 18 here. Humans have always come in lots of options with respect to genitalia, hormones, chromosomes, and internal sense of where they fit in terms of sex/gender. Culture steps in to provide options and labels. Some cultures accommodate everyone or nearly everyone well. But Modern Europeans made an attempt at collapsing all types of bodies into two ‘sex’ boxes and also trying to force people’s genders to map onto to those. Obviously, it didn’t work. German scientists were beginning to discover this (along with the sexuality spectrum) but Magnus Hirschfeld’s research institute was burned to the ground in 1933 because guess what, Germans put into power some violent people who despised the idea of not exterminating the exceptions to a narrowly defined mainstream.
Very little in complex organisms is binary, especially once we get into the realm of anything that interacts with human consciousness – and that’s where Wheel of Time rubs a lot of readers the wrong way, especially given that it’s tied up with a binary sex-gender system that might already be leaving people in Western cultures bristling and/or suffering. Gender is a lot like personality: if you have 8 billion people, you will end up with 8 billion slightly different options. Some are bound to fit into the boxes they get from their cultures, some not. Neither sex nor gender in humans inherently fits into a binary system, and they also don’t map onto each other tidily. Genitalia vary considerably across a couple of axes (especially if you don’t try to surgically force conformity onto infants shortly after birth). Same is true of chromosomes, and hormones. All sorts of combinations of these things exist. And even on top of that, nothing gives away what an individual’s gender identity is going to be. This is before we get to identity versus expression, which are also different things.
Nothing wrong with being a cis man or being a cis woman (I am one of those two things, albeit with some gender nonconformity in my interests and appearance once we eventually get to the ‘expression’ stage). The idea is just that a simplistic collapsed binary just isn’t a very comprehensive, scientific, or useful way of looking at it, especially the second that cross-cultural elements are involved (i.e. with history, anthropology, or sometimes SFF).
Since the first post, I have been waiting for an essay like this one. I wanted to see how Sylas would react to what is a major, if not the most important, theme in the series. It has, of course, been touched on at many points in the blog, but this was the first essay devoted to the topic in its entirety.
Defining it the way RJ does, I could not see it to be anything but problematic for someone that rejects a binary. To me, the fact that many of the most wonderful accomplishments in the story were/are only possible through cooperation of disparate groups makes it at least a bit more palatable. Ultimately, a flawed foundation for a what is a good theme.
We’re only ever shown one male channeler up close, as he’s learning how to channel, and that’s Rand, so it’s difficult to say what the actual ‘rules’ are for accessing saidin. However, based on what we do see, accessing either half is fairly similar. Novices are guided through the mental exercise of making-a-flower-and-imagining-it-opening, but Rand learns how to channel through the flame-and-the-void, which strikes me as a very similar technique to the opening flower. Like the flower, it involves building a mental construct, and like the flower it’s how Rand learns to access the one power. However, in both cases it becomes clear that all channelers stop relying to heavily on this mental construct, this metaphor, in trying to access their respective half of the one power. Hell, for Rand, once he starts channeling he can’t form the void without his access to saidin being there, and it scares him so badly in the second book that he repeatedly avoids using it, even though it makes him a far worse swordsman.
My point being that it isn’t clear how much of the description is metaphorical, rather than real; again, there are several times when Rand wants to reach for saidin, but several times it ‘flees his grasp’. This happens to Egwene and like too.
Wilder’s blocks are almost completely nonsensical, but that won’t become clear until a little bit further into the series. For Nynaeve, though, it’s not that being angry allows her to embrace saidar, it’s that being angry allows her to even sense it, even see what others are doing, channeling wise. Once she’s in the proper state of mind, she still has to undergo the mental exercise to embrace saidar. It’s also worth noting that Nynaeve has something of a secondary block where she can’t heal someone without having her herbs in hand. Whether this is a true block or just a way she self taught her weaves, I don’t know.
In other words, its not really clear how much of the dichotomy is ‘real’, and how much of it is more cultural. For modern day Aes Sedai, I can’t help but not that the way their training is constructed, when they’re learning the basics of channeling they’re expected to be extremely meek and subservient to everyone above them. But later, they’re expected to be not so meek, and indeed they’re supposed to be strong willed. I can’t help but wonder how much of this training is ‘real’ and how much of it is meant to re-enforce the power structure within the White Tower itself. I wouldn’t be surprised if other cultures, such as the Wise Ones, use different techniques, and if this methods were used at all during the AoL.
I’ve never really understood these kinds of takes. I mean… I read the article, I read the agreeing comments, I understand what you are feeling, but I just don’t understand why. It’s like people take it personally and assume the author is making a statement about how the real world is or should be, as opposed to simply describing how that fictional structure works. I think it comes down to people’s thoughts surrounding suspension of disbelief. We’re reading a book where people are using magic, where there are trollocs and myrddraal. But some draw the line that representing characters’ gender dynamics a certain way doesn’t match our world close enough? Why can’t it just be different? Or even wrong? I’d be fine with a conclusion of “Well thank goodness our world doesn’t operate that way.” But these repeated ideas that characters, societies, and cultures have sub-optimal beliefs and therefore the story or even the author are “problematic” seems like wasted angst to me.
I’m going to try to dodge the question of binary vs. multitudinous genders in real life because I think anyone reading this far into the comments is too invested in that discussion to be open to changing their minds. I think there is room, however, for a discussion on reading fiction based on a metaphysical system that the reader believes to be false.
What it really seems to boil down to is two questions. Can I stretch my imagination enough to accept this premise? Is the author attacking my ideals with their writing?
The first is more an indictment of the offended reader than the writer, unless it’s simply bad and inconsistent writing. I remember reading a book where a coed mercenary company featuring many teenagers was holding a shieldwall against a larger, veteran, all-male unit. There were other parts in that story where it seemed to ignore physics and favor determination. I also know a famous steampunk story that prominently features a love affair between a human and an insectoid alien that I just couldn’t wrap my mind around long enough to enjoy the story unlike many of my friends. The first is bad writing in my opinion, the second is a failure in my own imagination.
The second question is, I think, the more important one. For the life of me, despite the supposed quality characters and interesting plot, I can’t enjoy the Golden Compass series because I know it’s an attack on religion in general and Christianity in particular. I wouldn’t expect anyone to support or acknowledge writing that is designed to undermine something they hold dear.
I have yet to hear a case that Jordan was attacking people like Sylas or their way of life. And before someone points out that by basing this in the real world and having Mosk and Merk be in the past it’s an indirect attack, that’s as absurd as saying the Dresden Files is an attack on atheists because it has God and is based in the real world. When we say a story is based in the real world in fantasy, it does not follow that any deviation from our beliefs in the world building is an attack on them.
As for the specific criticisms of the binary power system and its effect on the rest of the world:
1) Sylas says what about non-domineering men channeling? What about women who have a hard time surrendering to Saidar? Answer: They have a harder time learning, but are ultimately able to learn and still retain their unique personalities. Several examples of this in-text, admittedly he hasn’t gotten to many male channelers yet.
2) Why are the powers arranged that way? Answer: In a meta-sense, to show the importance of very different people and groups of people learning to work together. Many books talk about working with others, but the world-building makes working together with those that are different literally fundamental to solving problems. Changing the world building weakens that theme.
3) Quantum mechanics? Sylas wanders a little bit in his critique here, but the thrust of it seems to be how can he have such complex world building in these other instances and make gender and the true power so simplistic. Aside from the rather cliche observation that something can have simple parts and complex parts, consider the prime numbers. People learn about prime numbers in elementary school. Every integer greater than 1 is either prime or not prime, a direct binary. But some of the most elegant proofs and mathematical wonders come from examining primes. Not to mention that prime number theory still has some of the most baffling problems in the mathematical world.
In conclusion, with all due respect to those that write off Jordan’s world as a product of his times, I think the truth is more compelling. His world-building, whether or not it reflects reality, is in itself an elegant system that illuminates themes important today and into the future. The question is whether the reader can let go of their own hangups long enough to fully appreciate the message.
It’s been made clear in the books (Halima) and in interviews that channeling is tied to the soul. So, in theory, the template already exists for transgender channelers. Now, would RJ have ever portrayed an actual transgender person? Not likely. He admitted that he wouldn’t be comfortable writing a gay male character, so it’s doubtful he would be any more comfortable writing a transgender person. But the two powers are tied spiritually rather than via biological sex.
People, please! It’s fiction!
But, for further discussion: At it’s core, RJ’s story is one based on the age old discussion/conflict of Good/Evil, Light/Dark, saiden/saidar, choice/predestination, freedom/slavery, male/female, etc. Yes, there are shades in between and a blurring of lines at times and we all seek to view RJ’s construct/world through each of our own individual prisms. And doing so, we can loose sight that it is a story and exploration of duality in a fictional world like and unlike our own. It is meant for our enjoyment and at the same time to question those concepts. The beauty of duality and the depth of RJ.
Its always the problem judging books written a while back by current ever changing standards and critiquing or worse, condemning, a book solely based on that.
Same applies for Anne McCaffrey, who as years passed and views changed about feminity, sexual violence, and sexual orientation. Her Dragonrider book start one way, and by the time she finishes writing her canon books are adjusted for those times.
Unfortunately, Robert Jordan never lived to these times with recognized and socially accepted views about gender identity and gender fluidity. Perhaps if he were writing WOT now, his Asengar/Osengar character would be better handled other than unrepentant and canny villain. Perhaps his Dragon Reborn would have been handled more like Avatar in Last Airbender. Gender neutral spirit with abilities of both male and female sides.
Coming from a perspective of someone who is a failed writer (started thrice but gave up due feeling of inadequacy) I always thought that this whole series is an experiment in role reversal. Jordan saw a male dominated world and decided to make a world dominated by female magicians. How he went around to do it resulted in Saidin Saidar and taint. Once we set this as ‘what if’ that spawned the story then things become more palatable. Was it perfect no but it’s a good exploration to see how a female dominated medivial society may come into being without any major modification in human traits. A good mental exercise can be to reverse gender of all the characters and it would become a story of a female lead winning in a male dominated society.
As far as no representation of LGBTQ and other nuances like religion languages etc are concerned my guess is he subscribed to the dictates of my middle grade English teacher one theme in one essay. Thus he makes a world which may be incomplete but works within its limitation. It’s not the best solution but it’s what he decided to do. His world good rules.
Peace
I know Sylas has no way of knowing this, but it’s actually kind of trinary, isn’t it? Anything saidin and saidar can do, the unissex True Power can also do. It does differently, and some would say it corrupts, but it does. So is the True Power an essencial part of what makes the universe in Wheel of Time work, or is it just the Dark One’s power, which can influence stuff but isn’t necessary for the universe to exist? At the end of AMOL, Jordan/Sanderson kind of do point out that evil is kind of necessary for this world to exist, so the True Power could possibly need to exist, like antimatter to matter, but it’s not accessible in 5 of the 7 ages because the Dark One is locked out of reality.
Also, hooray for True Power already appearing way in the prologue of the Eye of the World, with Ishamael travelling and healing differently than is described later with saidin.
@21: Well said.
I admittedly don’t have as much of an issue with the concept of binary gender in that I can concieve of a universe with two spiritual forces/energies that just are, and represent some larger concept, and that perhaps each person is keyed into one or the other on some spiritual level. They can be in opposition to each other, but also when they come togehter work better than they do on their own, and each provide balance to the other.
How that pertains to how we express gender though I do think there’s a lot of fuzziness on that (and definitely don’t subscribe to any type of base personality traits being more associated with one or the other). And maybe were Jordan writing it now, those two energies wouldn’ be so tightly linked to your sex (perhaps there are just people who sense saidar and some who sense saidin). But I do find the way we talk about gender these days interesting since there are many ways we can look about it; in some philosophies gender is so much of a spectrum that using defining words is almost pointless, since there’s no one set of characteristics we seem to agree encompass it. What does it even mean to say you are a man or a woman or male or female and how do you know that’s what you are? (that’s not meant to be a sarcastic or dismissive question, I think it’s a genuinely interesting and important question. Is it spiritual? Psychological? Physical? Neurological? Just a pointless cultural construct?). I have my own ideas (and I have grappled with my own concept of what it means to be a woman and feminine). On the other hand, it must be SOMETHING because otherwise we wouldn’t care so much about being misgendered or about our bodies matching up to it (plus I’d wager even among trans and queer communities there’s a spectrum – no pun intended – of thought on this topic and how binary or fluid they see their gender).
Hopefully none of that stepped on anybody’s toes :)
The binary I’ve actually struggled more with is the whole Light/Dark dichotomy of the Force and what that means, and if it’s inherent, or detectable, or quantifiable, and what Light and Dark actually mean morally, spiritually, ethically, etc. :)
Spoiler thoughts: I’m interested to see how you react to some of Nyneave’s further developments. Namely, breaking her block (which if I recall happens in a moment of surrender) and also her “failure” of her Aes Sedai test because she does NOT lose that passion that makes her who she is.
Also another thing Sylas has no way of knowing is that when a male is in a circle and needs to use saidar, he also has to surrender. And vice versa, a female in a circle has to struggle with saidin. This is seen in the cleansing of saidin, from Rand’s pov. Nynaeve told him to surrender, he at first doesn’t do it, is almost engulfed by it, but then he does. In the circles that appear later this is mentioned sometimes, and when a weak saidin channeler, like Androl, has to mostly use saidar in a circle, he needs to adapt to this stuff. So, due to the lack of circles, this way of using the power seems very gender stereotypical, when in the end, when saidin is cleansed and all, stops being that in several situations.
Like Sylas already know, a mixed circle is capable of doing way more powerful stuff than a single one power user. So a good one power user would’ve to learn to both surrender and control stuff to be veey capable in the second age or the fourth age. This goes into the wheel of time theme that the genders at war with each other is wrong and gets in the way of saving the world. It saved the world, by happenstance, in the strike at shayol ghul at the end of the second age, with the counterstrike affecting only saidin and avoiding a worse disaster, but Jordan hammers again and again that things are easier when men and women cooperate, and this is the way the world is saved, with everybody cooperating.
@31: It’s worth noting that Robert Jordan began publishing the series in 1990 and died in 2007, well, well into the period when the complexities of gender definition and discussion were a thing. If Tolkien had done a gendered magic system in the 1930s, that excuse more holds water. It does not when the first book came out 21 years after Le Guin explored some of these issues in The Left Hand of Darkness.
I think RJ left enough doors open and enough wriggle-room for people to bring different perspectives into the gendered nature of the One Power (as we’ve seen here), whilst also wanting a streamlined and simplified idea perfect back-of-the-book blurbing, and that’s reasonably fine. In that respect, the fact that WoT is now a historical text (i.e. complete and the author is no longer around to tell us who’s right and wrong) means it can be debated with and readers bring different ideas on board.
Blackless, Fausto-Sterling et al., said in two articles in 2000 that 1.7 percent of human births (1 in 60) might be intersex, including variations that may not become apparent until, for example, puberty, or until attempting to conceive.
Although not technically binary 98.3% of people are born with either a penis or a vagina. I do not use gender because what you are born with is not fluid. Only how you identify is. Given this, it does not bother me that the source of channeling is tied to what organs you developed in the womb. It also does not bother me that those sources of power would have differing methods of control.
That said, I do agree that how gender is handled in the books has flaws that at times bothered me enough to be notable. Jordan definitely used potentially offensive stereotypes for gender and race.
World building is not easy and although I would love to debate his choices with him, sadly we were deprived of that.
This essay all but guarantees that Sylas will blow a fuse on finding out that in this world souls themselves have gender and that it is binary. That is the conclusion one is driven to when a male channeler continues to access saidin rather than saidar after their soul has been transmigrated into a female body. The fact that the Heroes of the Horn living in Tel’aran’rhiod are binary gendered all but seals it.
Like it or not, the world that Jordan wrote is binary. The perspective often lingers in the male gaze. And there are definitely components of BDSM in his description of relationships, both romantic and platonic.
Awareness of these issues and criticism of them is a completely justified academic activity and channeling them into popular discourse, while not universally appreciated, is also completely justified and the correct way forward.
Having said that, I disagree with Sylas’ right to espouse these views at present for a number of reasons:
1) Counting New Spring and River of Souls, this series has 16 books out of which Sylas so far has read 4. Publicly speculating on the philosophy of Jordan’s thinking, even going so far as to say he should have used temperament instead of gender, without a complete reading of his work is frankly a very arrogant position to take.
2) Jordan was a very good writer and has dipped into science, philosophy and various cultures of our world without undue appropriation to create a very realistic fantasy world. However, in addition to his strengths he has his weaknesses and seems to have been aware of them. His lingerings into philosophy are few and shallow. He does not write detailed sex scenes but pans to the fireplace for them. Homosexuality exists but is not openly accepted. He eliminated religious and linguistic barriers in this world to streamline the story better.
It is likely that a binary gender is what he wrote because it worked for the story he wanted to tell both artistically and financially. It is unfair to expect Jordan to write as if he was a combination of Stephenson, Gaiman, Murakami, Bujold, Martin, Pullman and <add your favorite author to this list> while also ignoring the economic realities of getting published.
Jordan’s magic system is an inorganic construct that is secondary to the story he wants to tell. This is in complete contrast to Sanderson who designs organic magic systems whose intricacies are as important as the story itself. Sanderson wants his readers to play around with the magic system to appreciate the story at a deeper level. Jordan did not have that expectation so save yourself the agony of over analyzing something that is at its very essence a reinterpretation of the biblical fall of man. There are dozens of details in these stories that a joy to discover. For example, I loved that Jurador has salt wells and interpreted it as the town sitting over a sea or an ocean – maybe even the Dead Sea – that got covered with land in the Breaking.
Additionally, this is a blog I discovered during the period of Sylas’ hiatus and highly recommend it as the author has a very wicked sense of humor: https://neuxue.tumblr.com/WoT-liveblog
WoT is allegedly set in the distant future (and the past, somehow) of our world. It’s reasonable to point out some of the less-well-known ways in which the setting is actuality different from our world, especially when they exclude the existence of specific real-world identies. The system of saidar and saidin is fictional, obviously, but so is the gender binary that forms its foundation, and not everyone knows this even now. In most fantasy, non-binary humans don’t explicitly exist. In WoT, they explicitly don’t exist.
Did Jordan mean gender or sex?
@44 – I’m not sure he thought much about the distinction. Are there any relevant quotes?
@41 – Neuxue is a delight!
It’s been a long time, and I stopped reading the series and never finished it, but one of the things I remember from the last books I read was about the gendered split of aptitude between the powers, and this was at the point the male channelers were really coming out of the woodwork and forming their own tower.
The aptitude split is a lie.
It’s propaganda.
One of the older Aes Sedai characters whipped around to someone and said something like, “No that line about men being good at fire/earth and women at air/water and us all being relatively similar in power levels is total crap. Men are just straight up like 10-20x more powerful, which is why one crazy man channeler can flatten a town in the night from having a nightmare.”
Like the glossary said, “It should be noted this saying came into use long after the last male Aes Sedai was dead.” In other words that was an author disclaimer that this was not series-bible-truth, but an in-universe belief. And as it turned out, it was a false belief.
@41 – I’ve never read any of Neuxeu’s blog before but clicked your link and…wow, incredible. (I may have sunk far too much time in to reading her reactions to some of my fav scenes – KoD prologue…Golden Crane…”When the sun turns green”.) I am going to be spending some…significant time on that blog these next few days. Thanks.
I discovered Neuxue’s WoT liveblog in 2017 and spent several months reading it all. I sometimes post quips from it in the comments on Sylas’s WoT blog series here.
There are nuances that definitely blur the line more.
But the truth is RJ was an old white guy born and raised in South Carolina even if he did have wide life experience. I don’t believe he was bigoted, but he did have a certain set of old fashioned assumptions he was raised with and that comes out in the writing.
@23, Not to mention the whole collar and leash thing.
I don’t know what the conversations in South Carolina were on this topic, but where I live there weren’t conversations – at least nothing in the news, school, government, etc. – until 2016 or 2017.
This was hardly a topic that was front and centre in people’s mind’s in the 1990’s or 2000’s unless they were directly impacted by this.
I wouldn’t consider that an issue with the author or story, just a sign of the times.
The fall of the AoL being blamed on the male channelers has parallels in Biblical Original Sin being blamed on Eve and women in general. If this was RJ’s preferred literary parallel, then his narrative may have required the normative sexual dimorphism to work. In other words, if he wanted men to take the blame, enforcing it with a curse that always reveals their abilities, he couldn’t have channelers of both sexes demonstrating those powers. This assumes he intended this literary parallel, which I find plausible.
I don’t generally love gender essentialism and I agree that the division the powers, especially when combined with the battle of the sexes stuff that he really does lay on thick, can feel cringe worthy at times. I suspect he laid the battle of the sexes on thick on purpose to drive home the central theme–the ultimate importance of unity between the two halves and their ability to accomplish so much more together than apart. I liked that theme. There may have been less cringe worthy tools he could have used to get there, and I personally wouldn’t have made the halves about biological sex or gender (halima aside he doesn’t seem to differentiate between the two), if it were me, because I do really dislike gender essentialism. But I suspend my annoyance because I still find the theme, the magic system, the general story, and most importantly the characters, compelling anyway. And I do understand he started from the construct of a society with a flipped gender power balance (sort of…he still did it with clear southern conservative ingrained ideas about gender roles) so the world building he did fits around that. It’s a really challenging construct to tackle. He definitely did it with flaws. I don’t find them such story flaws that it totally takes me out if the story,—though there have been times when the battle of the sexes got so tiring to me I came close–but I could understand if others did.
To me, saying ” It would have made a lot more sense for one’s access to saidin and saidar to have to do with temperament” is saying I wish Robert Jordan told an entirely different story. The story is playing with gender conflicts, how men and women have had trouble and strife over centuries. He reverses the roles, taints an entire gender’s access to magic, and leads us along a journey to discover the world is better when we work together, whether men or women are on top. Tainting a temperament makes no sense and isn’t the conflict he wanted to address.
@41, @49, @50 – Her blog is quite something isn’t it? I hope she considers making an ebook out of her posts once she is done with all the books. I worry that tumblr will financially sink one day without much of a warning and take a lot of content out of circulation.
Austin@29:
It was also made clear in the books and in interviews that Taim and Demandred were not the same person. Ever. But RJs notes make it clear that Taim was created to be Demandred’s cover identity, and then RJ changed his mind. There are other quotes where RJ makes it clear that Sheriam’s “culling” theory is accurate, and killing men who could channel before they could have children has reduced the human capacity to channel at all.
So at least some aspect of accessing the Power has to do with biology. RJ has given contradicting quotes on this, on several occasions. Which could be interpreted as “he never really made up his mind.” His creative process was very…fluid.
Saw the link to this article and opted to read this article. I will be honest, I read a good chunk of the series (initially a fan) but lost interest due to factors, one of which is related to the post. Namely, that Jordan developed a tendency (at least to my eyes) to essentially copy and mildly tweak strong female characters as needed. Generally, if the more lines they had the more they became at their core simply the same character with a different cover thrown over them. (Kudos for avoiding the damsel factor that some authors fall into, but at the end of the day the repetition….) It has been years, but that was one of the strongest impressions his writing made on me. Given that, it seems so odd how he dealt with Saidin and Saidir. Almost none of the Aes Sedai I recall reading about either through their acts or reputation struck me as “yielding” to anything.
To people saying that non-binary genders or trans people don’t exist or w/e, there’s no point reading the rest of my post, just skip to the next comment.
To people saying that RJ created the world and thus gets to choose how to set it up–
The problem is that media doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and has a non-zero effect on the world around us. Absolutely, Robert Jordan gets to choose how to set up his own world, I don’t think anyone is disagreeing with that. But choosing to do so in a way that only mirrors, instead of challenges, the pre-existing power structures of the world we all do live in, is a choice. It’s maybe not a choice he thought about, but that’s part of the problem– that his decisions to stick to a gender / sex binary, his decisions to, through his magic system, enforce gendered stereotypes, etc, were probably not even thought of. He exists in a sexist, binary and cis-normative society, which means that his decision to have all of those, not just in his characters or societies (which can often be used as criticisms of those problems), but in the underlying fabric of the world, enmeshed in the actual Wheel of Time, perpetuates the idea that also exists in our own world that the gender binary, cisnormativity, etc, are “natural” and “god-defined” things, rather than social decisions that not all societies have made the same way. Which brings us to my second point.
Media has a non-zero effect on the world. People don’t get social views out of the ether, views are mirrored and perpetuated through conversations and interactions with others, as well as media. This has always been true, with people forming views from mythology and anecdotes, and has only become more true in our atomized society where most of the “social interaction” a lot of people get is through TV, movies, books, video games, etc. Which directly means that presenting and upholding unequal power structures (as positive or natural things) in media is a direct cause of those power structures being upheld in the real world.
Tl;dr RJ and others mirroring unequal social systems as “positive” or “natural” is not done in a vacuum. These choices, whether they mean to or not (and to be clear, I don’t think RJ meant to do this), uphold the very real-world systems they (usually without even thinking of it) take inspiration from.
(continuation of my last comment)
None of this is to say that I think that the Wheel of Time is a bad series, or that Robert Jordan is a bad person or bad author. I genuinely love the series and it’s what brought me into the broader world of High Fantasy. I just think that it is important to, when enjoying art, understand the effects it may (without meaning to) have on us and, eventually, society, as that is, in my opinion, more interesting an analysis than one that doesn’t delve into the real world, and will allow us to enjoy art that isn’t perfect (which is all art, because no art is perfect) while not letting it affect our own worldviews in negative ways.
@67
As a side note to what you’re saying, it’s a good thing he did change his mind on the whole Taim/Demandred thing because the concept of Demandred being Taim is completely illogical, at least to me.
Yeah, the guy who hates another guy due to getting an inferiority complex over not being #1 to the degree that he betrayed the Light simply to wreck everything and show he was the best is going to be all about setting himself up as a fake Dragon, failing via prophecy smackdown, in order to willingly place himself in a subservient role to the new Dragon and take orders and endure being yelled at when Rand’s in one of his moods for however long it takes to subvert the Black Tower to the Shadow’s ends.
That just doesn’t fit into the character of Mr. Likely Would Have Won The Final Battle If Not For Constantly Using His Power To Scream For Rand/Lews To Personally Fight Him. Dude just had too much hate to have the patience for that sort of long game where he’s enduring being the inferior of the guy he’s always hated due to always being the inferior.
Taim as the next age’s version of Demandred just always made more sense to me. Too bad there weren’t more Rand’s era versions of Forsaken. Alviarin SHOULD have been one, but she went from important villain to afterthought by the end, only getting a cameo appearance in the POV of one of the series’ most ineffectual villains (that Miscrelle or whatever dude whose main accomplishment was, uh, making Taim annoyed enough to beat him down hard enough to warrant “if he lives through the night, heal him” instructions for his care).
@69 You make a valid point about fiction impacting the world, but there’s a reciprocal point about the world impacting fiction. Wheel of Time mirroring traditional stereotypes does help reinforce those stereotypes (or at least their underlying assumptions), but challenging those assumptions would immediately make the story (or at least the conversation around the story) be about that challenge, not about the intended themes.
You can’t make points about the war between sexes when you’re busy denying that the two sides of the conflict are a meaningful categorisation.
There’s not an easy answer here – it’s good when stories bring up ideas that challenge the status quo, but that doesn’t make it bad when individual stories don’t challenge a given aspect of the status quo; only when no stories do.
And, given the way Jordan writes his gendered characters, it may be just as well that he sticks with colouring between the lines rather than trying to paint a rainbow…
I’d say anyone who is so sensitive that criticism of WOT on any basis makes them feel personally attacked needs to take a breath, then move on. As a completed series, WOT is open to critique from any angle imaginable.
Especially in an age where we’re truly beginning to grapple with the impact of gender imbalance in power, in expanded awareness of the non-binary understanding of gender, etc, it’s hard to imagine a series like WOT, which so strongly situates itself in gendered conflict, not receiving this kind of critical exploration.
Expect a metric crap ton of this when the show comes out, too.
To the points raised by the article: these are well founded. That saidin and saidar have a gendered behavior is one thing. That these strictly map to the gender binary is the real problem.
To RJs credit, it is immediately laughable to assume that he thinks women are like flowers who must surrender to wield power. Well before we learn of this distinction in the way saidin and saidar work, we see men and women not fitting into these behavior molds.
It’s also true that in the Age of Legends, men and women regularly used the opposite power, so of course inherent in the world is the notion that the world was a Utopia when men and women were regularly adopting both types of “behaviors”.
But there’s complication. These links aren’t egalitarian at all. Only women can initiate them. And in a circle of one man and one woman, only the man can lead. This is also the case with a circle of 72, the most powerful there is.
I don’t think we need to have a deep discussion of how this is troubling, right?
To complicate things further, the “original sin” of the world, which causes the Dark One’s prison to be opened, is scientists wishing to break through this divide. They come across a power that men and women can use equally , regardless of gender.
So Utopia ended when the leading minds of the world sought to move beyond the gendered, binary system that had some troubling power dynamic implications? The only power that could be used free of the gender binary is the Devil’s?
I don’t think any of this means RJ was a run of the mill sexist, or a transphobe.
I just think he didn’t think through these implications much, or if he did, he didn’t care much.
It’s fully possible he’d have retconned something to mitigate these issues had he lived longer and been exposed to more criticism of these issues. He did it with the power levels.
For context, we started out with a broad assumption that men and women were equal. Then for a while the series showed various characters stating or assuming that men are more powerful, and women need to form circles to beat them.
Then around book 7, we get multiple implicit rejections of this notion, and in interviews RJ started saying that while men draw a greater volume of power, women are more dextrous, so functionally, men and women are equal, and the effects they can have on the world are equal, just with men using more of the Power, and women using their somewhat weaker strength more economically. He even quantified all this, and put in multiple clues in the books.
I suspect we’d have gotten hints of the binary being more fluid, or a mapping of human imperfection and understanding on a grander unified whole that was the One Power.
Or even if we wouldn’t get that, that’s my headcannon. The final battle Rand has does nod in this direction, at least.
I don’t think the author realizes the driving force of the world being split in two and gendered isn’t Jordan’s worldbuilding but Taoism, lol. The yin yang at the top of the article..?
Also channeler’s proficiency in the power and the different elements is distributed differently per individual. Kinda exactly like gender and not sex. This author also doesn’t seem to have finished the books as he asserts several things that become untrue later in the series.
Drat. I made a small edit to Comment 42 on Tuesday, and it apparently got lost in the awaiting-moderation queue (unless it broke the commenting rules). Mods, can it be retrieved?
@77: Correct. Sylas has read the first four Wheel of Time books thus far, with segment-by-segment commentary and other analytical essays all posted in the Reading the Wheel of Time blog series linked above the title of this post.
@77, Yes definitely Tao influenced. But the Tin and Yang each contain a bit of the other which doesn’t seem true of the Saidar, Saidin divide.
The big problem with moving past the strict binary is if you do that there’s now a way to escape the taint, by switching to saidar. So the false dragons and the male Aes Sedai that broke the world now have a way to avoid going violently insane, and if you do that, all the worldbuilding completely crumbles. If Rand had a way to avoid the taint, he’d take it.
@77
The issue isn’t that the Power that drives the world is divided into two halves, one masculine coded, one feminine coded, as with Yin and Yang.
The issue is how that maps on to people. Saidin and saidar could be exactly the same, and if RJ had it that people could access either depending on personality, or even both if they manage to bridge the gender divide, then there wouldn’t be as many troubling implications, which Sylas points out.
Of course, that would be a wholly different story. Which only makes the criticism more potent. The enforced binary of saidin and saidar is central to the story. It isn’t some small aspect of the world you can easily ignore.
The exact criteria doesn’t really matter, if there’s a way to avoid the taint, and the alternative is violent insanity, many people will try to take it. If my options are ‘go violently insane, potentially killing all the things I love’ or ‘change your temperament’ I’ll take it.
Give the setting a way out, and then the false dragons are the people that chose not to take it, rather than tragic victims with no choices.
‘Bridging the gender divide’ has the potential to be even more problematic than the strict binary, as that means the writer must take a stance on who bridges the gender divide and who doesn’t, which will inevitably exclude people and lead to judgments on those who are truly bridging the divide and those who are somehow not really doing it no matter how much they might want to.
This leads to deeply problematic questions, because it leads to certain kinds of people being classed as ‘you want to be X type of person, but you’re not really X, no matter how much you might wish to be or how hard you try.’, as backed up by the cosmology of the setting, based on who can use what type of magic.
r0bert @71: Just to be safe, whiting out my reply for spoilers.
I think that in the original setup, Demandred replaced Taim after the capture/escape. In the scene in LoC where we’re introduced to him, RJ makes a point of having Bashere doubt that Taim is who he says he is, and Taim claiming he looks different because he shaved his beard. I always assumed Demandred looked enough like Taim to impersonate him, similar to what Mesaana did with Danelle.
@82, princessroxana: Which would be why the symbol at the top of the article isn’t quite the Yin-Yang one. It’s the symbol of the Aes Sedai, the Flame of Tar Valon & the Dragon’s Fang, and it lacks the interpenetrating dots of the proper Yin-Yang symbol.
Which is entirely a knowing and intentional choice on Jordan’s part. He’s communicating.
I actually don’t find the circle limitations entirely troubling (although yes there are some implications) but rather appear to be a set of checks and balances.
And while I definitely have wondered at the concept of the ‘True Power’ being the Dark One’s and what it means that it is either a-gender or perhaps both genders, we do see Rand using it at the very end (or at least that’s the theory). But perhaps it’s also a metaphor for a more individualistic approach that doesn’t have the same type of cooperation and guardrails.
Is saidar/saidin sex based or gender based. I always saw the divide as being sex based. Which with less than 2% of births being non binary (Based on #38), and human reproduction requiring a binary pair to be successful, I feel that it is rather safe to ignore sex fluidity in a fantasy novel that already contains much larger concepts to grasp.
People seem to forget that Sex and Gender aren’t the same thing, and attribute things to gender that could be explained by sex. Remember, gender is an imaginary construct used to stereotype people based on their sex. Sex is the biological features of a person, and has little to no effect on who they are outside of how they mold them selves to fit the societal norms.
Just an aside, how do people read whited out text on iPads? Highlighting it does not work like it does on computers.
hrpanjwani @95: Sorry; I realize that’s annoying. On the rare occasions I’m browsing here on my iPad, I copy-and-paste the whited-out text into Notes
@91: The existence of Halima confuses the issue considerably. The basic conclusion I’ve come to is that in the WoT there are gendered souls, which governs access to the Source, but that there’s interplay between those souls and whatever they’re incarnated into. Halima notably has altered memories as time goes on.
@96 Yup I do the same if it seems worth the effort. Wish the site design were better in this regard
hrpanjwani @99: Yep, a “Spoiler” tag set would be very useful!
@88
Huh, that does make sense, especially if you look at it along the lines of Jordan starting it that way and then changing things over upon realizing the concept of having someone who totally hates someone else, but is totally willing to work with them as a subordinate and even do a few things that are actually helpful, isn’t exactly feasible. At least to me, it works a LOT better to have [rollover to read potential spoilers] Taim be a modern version of Demandred, where playing second-fiddle just isn’t in his nature. But in reading the Neuxue recaps, she also noted that Taim used “so-called Aiel” much like Asmodean did, which also would tie in with him originally being planned to be Forsaken-in-disguise.
Of course, that still lead to the question of when Taim became Dark. It’s obvious he was by the seventh book because the only people he’d raised to full Asha’man rank were Dark (the four losers who got fragged by Rand and Fain in Winter’s Heart AND Aginor in disguise) and he was trying to foist them (at least the four; he was surprised when Rand picked Aginor/Dashiva) on Rand to be his guard before going back to the Farm in the wake of Dumai’s Wells. Logic would say that he either was from before doing anything notable or, at the latest, during that time when he was in captivity (with as many Black Ajah as there were out there, it’s easy to picture them convincing him that working for their side was a lot better than being a Gentled footnote). But throughout a lot of the sixth book, he did seem into helping Rand, was concerned/unnerved when the Lews-related insanity started creeping through and mainly seemed to be getting more and more annoyed by being subordinate to Rand, having to take orders and the like, but didn’t seem to actually be doing anything to undermine him, as he did in later books when he really started working to shape the Black Tower into a Dreadlord Mass Production Facility. [end]