In the beginning of Chapter 35 of The Fires of Heaven, Elayne Heals Nynaeve’s black eye while she sleeps, without Nynaeve’s permission and with full knowledge that Nynaeve would actively refuse Elayne’s ministrations if she were awake. It’s a small moment, focused on Elayne’s boredom and on her evaluations of her strength in various applications of saidar, almost not worth mentioning. Until you consider the larger context of Nynaeve’s story arc, that is. Then a pattern begins to emerge that I find troubling.
Since Elayne and Nynaeve began traveling with Valan Luca’s menagerie, Nynaeve’s life has become increasingly out of her control. She doesn’t have a clear direction to go next, and she’s depressed and struggling with herself and her choices, or lack thereof. Afraid to retreat but unable to find any momentum to take her forward, she’s stuck treading water, and it was clear even before Moghedien’s attack that, sooner or later, something had to give.
It’s a narrative journey that makes a lot of sense for Nynaeve’s character. She is someone who is unable to face most of her emotions, burying fear, doubt, and even desire under a layer of stubbornness and anger that serves her well… right until it doesn’t. Her block against channeling is part of this pattern; anger helps her circumvent it in certain moments, but her refusal to engage with her fear of the One Power and of her own uncertain future continues to hold that block in place. Now, as time and events wear on and the fight against the Dark becomes more complicated, the limitations of Nynaeve’s stubbornness are becoming more apparent. At least part of her journey must be her learning that lesson. Learning to listen to herself, and to others. Learning to compromise, to accept that fear and failure are part of life. That she can’t protect everyone at all times. That her perfectionism won’t always serve her, and that she can’t hide from the world by continually putting up a prickly, unreasonable front.
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I am so here for that journey. But I’m worried that one aspect of Nynaeve’s lesson is being set up to come from the continued violation of her personal autonomy.
Nynaeve’s words to Luca in Chapter 33 of The Fires of Heaven are one of my favorite moments for her thus far in the series. “It doesn’t take much bravery to stand like a stump,” she tells him when he praises her performance in the knife throwing act. “I am no braver than I have to be.” These sentences say so much about Nynaeve and how she views herself—she can be such an ass at times, but we see here how much of her strength she actually devalues. Nynaeve has many flaws that she doesn’t recognize in herself, but if we’re being fair, she doesn’t recognize most of her best characteristics either.
She’s also only agreeing to the knife performance because she has no choice. And she is forced into the red dress even though she never agrees to it at all.
Acquiescence under duress, be it threat or merely Luca’s frustrating persistence, isn’t actually consent. Nynaeve is basically trapped at the menagerie, even if some of that comes from her own reluctance to go back to Tear. She doesn’t enjoy performing the way Elayne does, and she is miserably unhappy. And Luca won’t take a gentle no for an answer, not in his creepy suit towards her or in what he wants from the performance. Whenever Nynaeve gives him an inch, he takes a mile, turning the rehearsal into an agreement to perform and refusing to take no for an answer when it comes to the aforementioned red dress. And what’s even worse is the way the other women support this state of affairs: Elayne scolds Nynaeve for leading Luca on, and Birgitte equates Nynaeve’s desire for a more modest dress to shame over her own womanhood.
Now, I am perfectly aware that women are just as capable as men of having problematic opinions when it comes to other women’s decisions about their own bodies. Birgitte has some very classic “women in a man’s world” perspectives, as someone who has spent her life largely in the sphere of soldiers and that specific kind of culture. But there is an implication in the narrative that her opinion on the matter is more “true” or fair because she is also a woman. In fact, this type of implication is all over The Fires of Heaven; women are often assaulting each other in a manner that can easily be taken as sexualized, but because it is the violence of women on women, it is made easier to overlook. At best, it suggests that ladies themselves are to blame for the cultural subjugation of women in society. At worst, it suggests that this behavior isn’t problematic at all because it’s a woman enacting it, not a man.
If Rahvin or Sammael had been the one to disintegrate Nynaeve’s clothes before contorting her naked body into a painful shape and torturing her, it would be almost impossible to escape the sexual implications of that choice. The same would be true if the Whitecloaks had captured and interrogated Leane and Siuan and left them naked in a dungeon, instead of Elaida.
It even happens with the heroes. If Rand had stripped Nynaeve’s clothes off and created nightmare rape monsters to attack her in Tel’aran’rhiod, it would be obvious how not okay that is. But because it’s Egwene, it’s much easier to “excuse” it. She was trying to teach Nynaeve a lesson, we think to ourselves, one Nynaeve desperately needs. She is helping, just like she was helping when she forced Nynaeve to drink the bad tasting potion and learn to stop lying so much.
It’s for Nynaeve’s own good.
It’s better than what will happen to her if she doesn’t learn her lesson.
She brought it upon herself.
The narrative of The Wheel of Time seems to view physical-punishment-as-a-teaching-moment as a perfectly acceptable and even moral choice. The incidents we see of this in the first five books are almost all suffered by women, and are at least somewhat sexually suggestive. Novices and Accepted are often described as walking stiffly and unable to sit comfortably after a visit to Sheriam’s office. Siuan is threatened with having her “bottom switched” by Gareth Bryne, a man who is romantically interested in her and who, in the very same conversation, allows her believe that he means to rape her as a tease. The Maidens strip Isendre naked when they catch her stealing and force her to walk around in front of everyone. Even women’s own minds turn against them; in Tel’aran’rhiod a stray thought about someone you love inevitably results in their necklines plunging downward without their knowledge.
Of course, the implication there is that the character, on some level, wants that lower neckline or sheerer gown, even if she’s embarrassed when it happens. It’s the same way the narrative suggests that Min would like to wear a dress for Rand, and learn to flirt like a Domani, even though she has been entirely consistent about her disdain for dresses since we met her. It’s the same way the narrative implies that Nynaeve does kind of like Luca’s advances, despite showing her fleeing from them at every opportunity.
The Wheel of Time is written entirely in close 3rd person point of view, shifting between a myriad of protagonists and side characters. It results in a rich tapestry of voices and perspectives, but it’s a mistake to assume that, because every thought and comment comes from the perspective of a specific individual, the narrative isn’t making any larger declarative statements. One can claim that Birgitte’s opinion about Nynaeve’s neckline is the archer’s alone, but there is nothing in the narrative that disagrees with Birgitte’s claim—in fact, it supports her in a number of small yet poignant ways.
Think of how much time the books spend on the rage that Rand and Mat and Perrin hold against Moiraine for laying hands on them and Healing them without their permission. Mat literally gets an ancient talisman to protect him from such things. Rand’s fear and mistrust of Moiraine and the possibility of the Tower manipulating him comes in part from the seeds Ishamael sowed in his mind, but also from the fact that Moiraine continually acted upon him and directed him without his consent, telling him only what she believed he needed to know; her assumption that it is her right to Heal without question is just one example of a larger problem. The series is not unsympathetic to Moiraine, nor does it paint her as the villain Ishamael made her out to be, but we are with Rand in his righteous anger and his fear of being controlled. Other men understand it, and support it, and even experience it in their own way. Think of Gareth Bryne knowing that he’s been trapped by the Aes Sedai at Salidar. Think of Thom allying himself with the boys against Moiraine because of what happened to his nephew; she shares the blame by association because she is Aes Sedai, but Thom doesn’t hate the boys for being the same kind of peasant folk that turned against Owyn.
No one defends Nynaeve. Luca pursues her romantically while she tries to avoid him, then proves that he won’t respect a direct no when she doesn’t want to wear the dress or be in the knife-throwing performance at all. Then Elayne tells her off for leading Luca on after watching her try to get away from him all evening. Birgitte tells her that her desire to not have her breasts prominently exposed means she is ashamed of her own body and gender, even after Nynaeve just had all her clothing violently and traumatically removed by Moghedien. Both Birgitte and Elayne consider that the antidote to Nynaeve’s despair is for her to get beaten up again—and why shouldn’t they, since that is this world’s answer to all personal problems?
And sure, one could argue that the narrative is suggesting some part of Nynaeve does like Luca’s attentions. But if that’s true, then it’s worse, because now the story is telling us not to believe a woman’s gentle rejections… because really she likes it, and is just playing hard to get.
At the same time that Nynaeve’s friends are threatening to beat her depression out of her and shaming her for wanting a higher neckline on her gowns, Moiraine—the woman who has given her life to finding and guiding the Dragon Reborn, who has saved his and his companions’ lives half a dozen times at least—has been forced to swear to an exacting, even oppressive level of obedience to him merely to get him to listen to her advice. She has been reduced to desperate begging for his attention, and even then his discomfort over the situation is centered by the narrative. And when Egwene asks Moiraine why she would let herself be put in such a position, her answer is simple.
“Because I remembered how to control saidar.”
To be a woman, The Wheel of Time tells us, is to surrender. It is built into the very fabric of existence, and it is the reason Nynaeve cannot control her own Power. The very thing I enjoy most about Nynaeve is that she is written more like a standard male hero—she is stubborn, ungracious, and hopeless at understanding her own feelings. I’m quite happy to have a female character take the journey of learning compassion and empathy and how to handle her emotions like an adult, without lashing out. But being an Aes Sedai is not about growing—we’ve been told outright that it is about being broken down and rebuilt. And I think that is what the narrative is doing to Nynaeve, punishing her for her stubbornness by denying both her power and her bodily autonomy until she learns to submit.
Submission is not an inherent part of femininity or womanhood, and assault—be it physical or sexual, or both—is not a teaching tool, be it at the hands of a mentor or the at will of the Wheel.
Sylas K Barrett will return next week with your regularly scheduled Reading the Wheel of Time.
The three boys/men rejecting Healing without permission is specifically because of the belief stated from TEOTW onward that any gift from an Aes Sedai has a hook hidden in it. This belief is ubiquitous and for good reason. That’s exactly how they are. I have a brother-in-law who often offers help if you have work to do on your house – yard work, shoveling snow, painting, whatever. He offers because if you say yes, you are now in his debt and he can call on you whenever he needs help and you have to agree. As a result, I NEVER accept help from him. To avoid the hook.
Also for millennia prisoners have been stripped naked by their captors. To dehumanize and humiliate them and demonstrate they are completely within their captor’s control. It’s not always about sexualization.
Thirdly, ambivalence is a real phenomenon. One can reject the advances of another while at the same time feeling inwardly pleased that we are found desirable. To illustrate, I’m an old man now and it doesn’t happen anymore but in my younger days I was frequently hit on by gay males. I am straight and was never interested. But nor was I offended. Rather I was flattered on a certain level. When the same idiot brother-in-law referenced earlier sneered that gays never hit on him, I replied, “that’s because you’re ugly.”
Sylas, my grandchild is an 18 year old trans male so I am not insensitive to your point of view. But I do think some of your concerns contain a degree of projecting. No complaints, I am still interested in reading them, whether or not I disagree with some points.
What mp1562 said.
Women can be very ambivalent about having their bodies admired and being desired. Men too obviously. Who is doing the admiring and desiring has a lot to do with it, and the temperament of the woman in question. It’s very situational.
Birgitte is a woman very much in control of her own sexuality. She knows how make men accept her as an equal, one of the guys, and she knows how to invite their admiration and desire and she knows how and when to switch from one to the other. This is a difficult feat but she’s got it cold, and maybe doesn’t get how difficult it can be for other women to reach that sweet spot.
Nynaeve is a mess. She started out minimizing her youth and attractions because she wanted to be taken seriously as a Wisdom. In her travels she has discovered pretty clothes and finds she likes them. But they conflict rather badly with her former no nonsense image, and she has Two Rivers standards of modesty. She is conflicted. She can easily both like the glamorous red dress and be bothered by its deep cleavage and I think she does because Nyn is no pushover. If she was really dead set against that dress she’d just refuse to wear it.
The only man Nyn wants to desire her is Lan. She does not want Luca and she clearly has no idea how to get rid of him. Instead of pointing out what Nyn is doing wrong Elayne should tell her how she should discourage Luca. Assuming of course she knows.
Additionally, to reiterate chapters are written from a person’s POV including their inner thoughts and erroneous perceptions and judgements. Just because Nynaeve THINKS she is perfectly clear in Luca’s rejection, multiple other characters who do not have the privilege of knowing her inner thoughts, based on her behavior towards Luca, mistake it for hard-to-get flirting.
Spoiler:In fact, within same book another woman, who DOES like Luca would get into fight with Nynaeve because she would be sure that Nynaeve is stringing Luca along.
One thing I think Sylas hit on obliquely is that the Aes Sedai breaking down their initiates in order to build them back up as Aes Sedai is exactly my understanding of how military basic training works. RJ would have known all about that of course.
Sylas has some good points, but some others need nuancing.
Valan Luca made it clear from the beginning that there is no such thing as a paying passenger in his menagerie. Everybody works. Those who don’t perform do menial work. (The only possible exception would be Valan’s hypothetical lover.) Elayne, Thom and Juilin have agreed to perform, but Nynaeve is trying to be a passenger. She doesn’t want to perform, but she hasn’t offered to clean the cages or take care of the horses either. She does housework in their own wagon, but that’s no more than what everybody does besides their work for the menagerie.
That doesn’t excuse Valan’s romantic advances, but it is one reason why he insists that Nynaeve needs to perform. He has even come up with a role for her that doesn’t require any particular skill, so that others in the company won’t complain too much about “Nana” not working.
As others point out above, ambivalence exists, one who is praised can feel flattered without being romantically interested, and nudity as a means of humiliation doesn’t necessarily need to always have a sexual subtext. And before stating categorically that to be a woman is to surrender, let’s also remember all the cases where women demand that men obey them.
@princessroxana (2):
I doubt that Elayne has much experience with such things. Who in Caemlyn would have dared make advances to the daughter-heir right under the queen’s nose?
@@@@@ 3 – it’s something Sylas has not had an easy time grasping, that the biases and prejudices of the POV characters are not authorial fiat, nor are they reliable narrators.
Pretty much every single person in Luca’s menagerie believes Nynaeve was deliberately playing “hard to get” with the man. We know that’s not true, but even Elayne, who within the narrative is the only person who “knows” it’s not true, thinks Nynaeve is being deliberately provocative. There is never an excuse for giving persistent unwanted attention to someone, but in this case all the evidence is that Nynaeve does want that attention, and we’ve pointedly never heard her say “no”. Within the context of Nynaeve’s actions, Luca has actually been somewhat restrained.
@@@@@ 2 – Elayne does tell Nynaeve what to do to get rid of Luca. She’s very explicit in her advice – say no! And in a way that cannot be mistaken as coquettish. It is Nynaeve who refuses to act on that advice or moderate her behavior from what is universally believed, in-narrative, as showing interest in Valan Luca.
“The incidents we see of this in the first five books are almost all suffered by women, and are at least somewhat sexually suggestive.” I am unsure whether Sylas will be happy or not to find out that two of our male heroes will be experiencing these kind of incidents very soon. And while Mat seems to suffer very little outwardly, Rand has a little bit different experience and a pretty negative reaction.
@6, like, for example, instead of edging away from Luca, glare at him and say ‘Back off, Mister!’?
Interesting that she doesn’t. Nynaeve has never worried about hurting anybody else’s feelings, she’s fine with harassing Cerandin, so why hold back with Luca?
Creator knows her feminine ego has taken a beating from Lan. Maybe she does kind of like being openly admired and courted, yet at the same time it makes her uncomfortable because she doesn’t know how to flirt? Ambivalence again.
@8 princessroxana I believe you are right on target with your last point. She doesn’t feel like she knows how to flirt – never had any need for the skill, and no doubt does feel somewhat flattered. Battle hardened Shienaran soldiers step lightly around Nynaeve but she is afraid to tell Luca to bugger off? Not likely.
I expect Nynaeve feels a need to restrain her actions toward Luca because he runs the menagerie she’s traveling in and thus has power over her. Spoiler: ///It reminds me of Mat and Tylin — Mat kills Myrddraal and Aiel warriors, but can’t kill or wound a queen when he’s a guest in her palace — though the power imbalance is less extreme and thankfully Luca doesn’t take it as far.///
I realize that there’s no way to really tell Sylas this, as they’re doing their utmost to avoid spoilers in order to maintain the integrity of the this read through, but I don’t really think this is the reaction most of the fandom ever actually has to this scene or Egwene’s behaviour towards Nynaeve. Sylas seems to think that this is framed as ‘Egwene helping’, but almost everyone seems to read this scene as ‘Egwene being a monster’. If anything, I’d argue that Egwene at the end of the day is more likely an example of ‘light is not good’ than anything else. She might fight for the right side, but she’s not really a good person at all.
I kind of feel like, to a degree, Sylas is trying to insist upon a sort of authorial intent in the text that is much more difficult than not to actually say exists. What happens to Nynaeve is a mixture of the fact that the writing style of the Wheel of Time is very Third person limited. None of the characters are truly reliable narrators about anything; but whereas other authors might use the unreliability of the narration to purposefully deceive the reader about what’s going on, RJ uses it much more to enhance the PoV of the characters. What Nynaeve says she does or thinks and what she actually does are often at odds with one another.
In a lot of ways this is at the heart of the very premise of the wheel of time: what actually happened, and what history remembers, and what bards two ages removed from those events tell stories about, are often very different things and very distorted. What the characters think and say they’re doing and what they actually do can be very different too.
@11, Aerona, I thought of that but Nynaeve doesn’t hesitate to argue with Luca when he takes them on and they are paying him so I don’t have buy that explanation.
Lots of good comments about this. The only thing I’d like to add is about the original point Sylas was making about Elayne healing Nynaeve. I think one of Nynaeve’s biggest personal blindspots is that she does not want to ask anyone for help. Ever. She’s more than willing to bully people into doing what she thinks needs to be done, but she never wants to admit weakness.
Elayne knew this about her which is why she also knew that the best way to get Nynaeve the help she needed was to give it in secret. Is it a violation to give someone the help and assistance they want and need even though their own issues and ego prevents them from acknowledging their weakness? It obviously depends on the kind of assistance, and I’m sure some people would still see it through Sylas’ viewpoint, but in this case I don’t.
Just came here to say that I think Sylas will be happy when he gets to (spoiler) Nynaeve’s test.
You can’t break Nynaeve! She will do it her way, and you will learn to like it. She’s the bomb.
While Sylas’s comments are interesting, I do think we should remember that WoT was never written as a treatise on how life should be lived (unlike another series I really don’t want to mention).
I think a lot of us in the comments so far are benefiting a lot from hindsight that Sylas obviously doesn’t have yet. The fresh first-time raw perspective is what we’re here for, and it’s good to be reminded that there’s a lot yet to flesh out about the world and the characters at this point, so it’s interesting what stands out at a given point in time here.
Anyway, @@.-@ – I think the military “break-down-and-rebuild” thing is definitely something Jordan was going for deliberately… the Tower and the Citadel are cousins in more ways than one. What stood out to me here was the stark description of Nynaeve’s situation at the start of the essay:
Which make me think a bit of some Vietnam memoirs I’ve read. Birgitte and, soon, Mat, make particularly interesting foils for Nynaeve’s stress/depression here, taken as a parallel to the stress of a long, hard, maybe pointless slog of a campaign… since they’re the two characters with the magical benefit of many lifetimes worth of military adventurism to draw on. It makes for a more interesting way to frame their interactions, so it’s too bad to see it not expanded more, though I do think Sylas will start to get a more nuanced understanding of Birgitte soon enough anyway.
The sense that I’m getting from the article at large is that the cosmology of Saidin/Saidar is coloring everything in the book when it comes to interpersonal relationships between men and women. In order to channel, men fight against and dominate the Source, while women surrender submit to the source. It’s a broad generalization based on stereotypes, but stereotypes exist for a reason. It certainly seems that RJ had more than a little bit of BDSM influence in his writing. Sylas makes it quite clear that the entire world seems to accept physical punishment as the standard. And the nature of the a’dam is obvious. So when we have a woman in Nynaeve who is experiencing a wider world beyond her conservative, vanilla community, it makes sense that she would encounter things she would not know how to react to, especially if elements of her body, mind, and heart betray her by reacting in ways she herself would not expect. She is still young, and has growing up to do.
@@@@@ 8 – Well, I will repost what Sylas included about Elayne’s reaction
Stubborn to a fault, the other woman refused to be diverted. “I may be younger than you, but sometimes I think I know more of men than you ever will. For a man like Valan Luca, that coy little flight of yours tonight was only asking him to keep pursuing you. If you would snap his nose off the way you did the first day, he might give up. You don’t tell him to stop, you do not even ask! You kept smiling at him, Nynaeve. What is the man supposed to think? You haven’t smiled at anyone in days!”
This is Elayne making it extremely clear that Nynaeve is, by the standards of Randland courtship, absolutely encouraging Luca and playing “the game”. And again, it is once again made explicitly clear without any shred of a doubt that Nynaeve has never said “no” or even approached the concept of “no”; all of that taken together very much implies that it is Luca who is in the right in this situation, whatever Nynaeve’s feelings may be. Or rather, despite our knowledge of Nyn’s internal train of thought and emotion, she’s in no position to complain about Luca’s actions with respect to her, which have been very much within the bounds of respect and consent. He never does anything more than compliment her or play the same game he thinks she’s playing. Again, no means no…. but you have to say it or at least intimate it.
@@@@@ 11 – I don’t think we can give Nynaeve a pass here because “she’s in his power.” First off, this is very much not the case. Nynaeve is one of the dozen most powerful people alive, and she knows it! Especially before her second showdown with Moghedien, when she’s filled with a little too much confidence. Yes, she’s on the run, but all the power dynamics in this relationship tilt towards her. Even if you want to make the case that because they’re in hiding and cannot use the Power to defend themselves without risk, that brings up some very thorny issues of consent around the way in which Nynaeve and Elayne are deliberately endangering everyone around them without their consent.
I think RJ may have INTENDED what many of the commenters above argue for, but the effect of the male gaze is 100% what Silas concludes. I think he’s going to be so disappointed (but not at all surprised) by how her block is removed.
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@22
How? There’s nothing like that with her block being removed.
Ny doesn’t want to admit that she enjoys Luca’s compliments. She is angry at herself because she thinks liking Luca’s attention is betraying Lan.
@@@@@ 22.
Your comment gives me life and hope. Even by saying that Sylas is misunderstanding because he doesn’t have the benefit of foreknowledge and doesn’t understand how unreliable a narrator Nynaeve is, his conclusions are 100% valid. Eit her RJ wrote so his books would ONLY avoid problematic Power dynamics and gender politics on a second read, or he wrote them in there.
People are bending over backwards to excuse and ignore a lot of the problematic male gaze / sexism in Wheel of Time. Something can be problematic and you can still like it. That doesn’t make you sexist. What IS problematic behavior is refusing to recognize body autonomy and agency, and twisting in knots to explain it away.
People are on this thread arguing that psychological torture that breaks you down to rebuild you is okay because… Vietnam??? People are arguing that Because violence is an acceptable punishment in this world we should also just go with it without calling it out. And worst of all, people are arguing that gender stereotypes exist for a reason, and that Sylas is projecting they’re own gender issues onto the characters.
News flash, literature is a mirror. We ALL project our issues and texts have different reflections for us. That means what Sylas sees is legit, and disturbing, for at least SOME. Of the audience. Don’t be so dismissive and disgusting and sexist. Just try to be open minded, and remember that RJ didn’t have to be the most WOKE woman-loving inclusive author in the world. He can suck sometimes and you can still enjoy the books.
Pretending perfection doesn’t help anyone.
Sorry Sylas, I love your essays! Reading this one helps me enjoy the small niche in this fandom where violence against women (and all people really) is recognized.
What needs to be remembered is assessing the way they react to sexual or potentially sexual situations is that most of the characters are, not just virgins, but “never been kissed” virgins. While the Two Rivers is the most democratic and egalitarian society on the planet. It is also the most conservative. There appears to be little or no “dating” or courtship and this applies to all the Two Rivers characters. There appears to be no real opportunity for couples to even get to second base. In particular, Nynaeve would have intimidated any young man interested in her from approaching her. It took someone as strong and old as Lan Thus, she never learned how to turn down someone like Luca.
Even many of the other characters are sexually inexperienced. Nobody would make a move on the Daughter-Heir in her mother’s court but her good looking prince brothers also seem to have never had girlfriends.
It takes a long time for some of the characters to lose their virginity. Egwaine does not until the last book and then it is offscreen. Rand goes something like five books and Elayne even more books.
One other thing: Randland and Middle Earth, unlike more modern fantasy novels, have no bordellos which are universally to be found around armies and wars. Jordan would have known of such things from Vietnam where they were all over the place.
This whole thing is why, despite generally enjoying this series, it has never reached my top ten. Points to Jordan for trying to flip gender ideas but he failed at it. Too much stacking, hair pulling, looking at dresses etc etc. Thank God Sanderson dumped a lot of that. A
@24 I think what gomiller is referring to is that (spoiler: Nynaeve doesn’t lose the block until she is almost drowned by Moghedien destroying her ship, and she finally surrenders to death, thereby breaking her block and allowing her to live.)
Yeah, I think it is abundantly clear (and was abundantly clear to me reading this as a teenager in 2005) that while RJ’s attempt to create a gender-flipped society is interesting and worthwhile, it ultimately does not succeed because too many of his own assumptions from the real world crept in. A lot of stuff in the series is just messed up — consider, for example, that corporal punishment of women by women is common and portrayed as titillating, of women by men is a bit less common but always portrayed as men rightly taking control in ways that women are ultimately happy about, of men by women is rare and portrayed as evil and horrific, and of men by men is nonexistent.
This doesn’t make the series bad. It is very good in all kinds of ways! It just misses the mark on this particular point.
I seem to remember some VERY problematic female sexism in Wheel of Time.
@lenny – Thanks for a reasonable viewpoint!! How refreshing! I really enjoy the Wheel of Time series, but some things about it are deeply disturbing to me (especially Faille wanting to be shouted at and spanked by Perrin; domestic violence is never something I want to read about). The flipped gender dynamics really do change Randland in countless ways from our world, but the flip is certainly not perfect, especially applying the standards of today (which I think we can all agree have changed considerably just in the past 10 years, and changed astronomically from when the series began).
There are tons of assumptions slipped in there from our real world in his time that are unquestioned in Randland (men marrying vastly younger women, exploratory lesbianism, brutal military style training, female duplicity, women always being threatened by other beautiful women, the list can go on and on). That doesn’t mean that I don’t greatly enjoy reading the books even if I do squirm a bit at certain parts. I don’t always agree with Sylas, but I do enjoy the fresh and modern perspective.
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I stumbled upon this post by accident, but I had to comment – it’s really interesting watching the fandom talk about this book from the perspective of reading the rest of the series (#17, 22, 27 you hit it on the head). This book is exactly where I stopped reading the series (in 2017), precisely for the reasons Sylas is outlining. This “male gaze” permeated it to an extent that I just didn’t want to read it anymore; I saw what RJ was trying, but it was so dissatisfactory. Not saying I have a problem with anyone else enjoying it, but it’s really nice to hear that these things bothered other people (esp. because there’s so many people out there that love it and recommend it).
@@@@@ 37 – You obviously have your right to find whatever you want disturbing, but if you’ve never heard of people having kinks like enjoying spanking, you’re either very new to the internet, or not paying attention. I agree there are problematic aspects of Jordan’s writing, but I don’t think Faile enjoying a bit of dom/sub play is one of them – that’s a real thing!
I’ll be interested in seeing Sylas’ reaction to what I think is the Jordan’s biggest “missed the mark” moment in the entire series, which is of course Mat’s relationship with Tylin.
It feels so strange to take something written in my lifetime and say you need to read it in its historical context. Prevailing attitudes toward gender and other issues have changed dramatically in the decades since the first WoT books were written. There are several characters and situations in WoT that are disturbing, even horrific, by modern sensibilities.
They were not particularly disturbing to the average reader at the time they were written. Robert Jordan, love him or hate him, was a product of his era and background. The abusive treatment in the White Tower is reminiscent of military training; remember that the esteemed Mr. Rigney was a graduate of the same institution about which Lords of Discipline was written. (And if you want to understand that mindset, read that book and consider novice training in that light.)
Mat and Tylin, Egwene and Nynaeve — neither of these relationships bothered me when I first read the books back in the ’90s. I’ve since come to see in the text that Mat’s experience with Tylin is deliberately ambiguous, and reflects Mat’s own unreliable narration as he struggles to come to terms with something even he’s not sure should be considered traumatic. There’s a depth there that I couldn’t grasp as a teenager. Egwene’s perspective is exactly that of a teenager — the pupil’s glee at surpassing her former master/teacher and overstepping the bounds of what that reversal should look like. She goes too far, but I understand her delight in what she’s able to do even so.
Clearly the text hasn’t changed since then — only I have.
@34: Man on man ‘corporal punishment’ in WoT exists, you’re just not recognizing it as such because it’s not ‘spanking’. People’re flogged, hung, beaten, and tortured in various ways throughout the books. Perrin, infamously, will cut off someone’s hand, and then threaten to leave them a begging quad amputee, in order to interrogate someone.
Interesting article and comments. I agree with @31 — the interaction between Nynaeve and Luca reminded me of the trouble that Perrin had trying to deal with Berelain’s harassment (for want of a harsher word).
I also agree with earlier comment that what Nynaeve thought she was portraying wasn’t what the people around her were seeing, and that is a lesson too.
I’m intrigued by the idea of the series breaking Nynaeve down to build her back up. But alas, I don’t think she was ever built back up. She went from being one of my favorite characters in the first few books to … not. I had put it down to a fault with the author tbh — although the series in my top 10, as @32 said, there is far, far too much braid-yanking and what not.
As for Egwene, she took the opposite journey in my mind. I’ve seen quite a few comments from people thoroughly disliking her. I think I used to as well. Then one day I sat and thought about the fact that she had made the exact same journey as Rand, enduring hardships along the way, learning so very much from so many different people, and applying it. Yet she was given far, far less credit and the worst love interest to boot. And that really is messed up.
I really enjoy reading (or listening to as I currently am on my 2nd read through in audiobook form) the WoT, but I have seen a lot of stereotypical gender norms being portrayed.
As a female, I notice the slightly problematic female based ones more, such as the continuous focus on what clothing the female characters are wearing with necklines being mentioned pretty much every time. Compared with the male characters who only discuss the colour and material of their coats.
However, I still think that RJ did a great job in creating this amazing world for us to enjoy. It has been interesting to read through this article and the comments on the different viewpoints. I can’t imagine how difficult is it as an author to create accurate representations or different types of characters without their own subconscious biases and assumptions coming into play.
I’m afraid from my perspective I just don’t see the sexualisation aspect that Sylas sees quite often, and wonder if he is perhaps being overly sensitive to, in many cases.
For example, the sentence of: “And sure, one could argue that the narrative is suggesting some part of Nynaeve does like Luca’s attentions. But if that’s true, then it’s worse, because now the story is telling us not to believe a woman’s gentle rejections… because really she likes it, and is just playing hard to get.”
As @princessroxana rightly points out in my view, that “Women can be very ambivalent about having their bodies admired and being desired. Men too obviously. Who is doing the admiring and desiring has a lot to do with it, and the temperament of the woman in question. It’s very situational.”
I would believe this to be a true statement about the real world we live in, for both men and women. And I would not interpret this example above as somehow an encouragement or excuse for men in the real world to ignore a clear rebuff from a woman.
Nyneave has not yet made her feelings clear to Luca, who genuinely believes that she may yet like him / be won over, as many commenters above have illustrated with relevant passages quoted. There is never the impression given that Luca ever goes beyond what Nyneave freely allows him to do, even if she does not feel altogether comfortable with it in herself. She is after all, as others have mentioned too, a very strong-willed character that would not be easily pushed around if she felt strongly enough about it.
@Evilina makes a good point about Faile wanting to be shouted at and spanked by Perrin, which is odd & not something one can imagine happening in real life, but why do we have to take this as somehow a condoning of this kind of behaviour in the real world? It is a fantasy series after all.
I never thought of Luca as assault, she had power and was making her own choices to be there. It was the best way to accomplish what she wanted. And as for Brigitte coming from “a man’s world”, what? Nowhere in Randland is ever “a man’s world”. Women in the present era have magic men cannot access without going mad, and wield a lot of political power, with as many female heads of state as male! And I can’t think it was that different in the Age of Legends even though men could wield saidin back then without going mad. The number of powerful female Forsaken from that time who all seemed to have at one time wielded considerable political influence would negate that. How the heck is Brienne from “a man’s world” exactly? And how is Nyneave oppressed? The whole point is that Aes Sedai are arrogant and sometimes they learn the error of their ways by falling face-first, dragged down by that arrogance. Nyneave did have an important lesson to learn. I can’t see what happens with Luca assault because she could just walk away if she wanted. Teaming up with her was simply a means to an end, right? To travel discreetly. She could have done that any other way if she really wanted.
While it’s true that Nynaeve was not entirely direct, shouting “No, get away and stay away you creep!” at Luca, it’s important to remember the context from which she wasn’t doing that; She and the others were hiding in fear of their lives, and given Luca’s general behaviour, it’s entirely reasonable for her to assume that a direct rejection would result in him demanding the entire group leave, and in a manner that would draw precisely the attention they were desperate to avoid.
You know, these books were written what 30 years ago….
by a Male author.
Reflecting the mores of his time.
So much had changed since then
Reading the first few comments gave me a deep urge to jump in and essay-at-length-on-male-gaze-in-literature, but there’s no need because Lenny @27 (and Evalina later) have said everything I was going to, better.
Lenny is completely correct.
The fact that we like the series doesn’t mean we have to pretend it’s flawless. It’s not. We’re allowed to love everything great about it and still criticize the gendered assumptions the author made without realising.
And the fact that the characters are making these very male-gaze women-grow-through-being-spanked-but-it’s-evil-to-do-that-to-men choices for entirely reasonable reasons – in universe – is not an answer. We are reading a work of fiction. We are allowed, and if we want to read advertently required, to consider the Doylist perspective as well as the Watsonian one. The cultural background that makes the characters OK with some of this behaviour is an authorial choice no different to any other authorial choice; there were other options.
As some have pointed out, Egwene is not generally read as good, only as working for the right side. (Which is not the same thing at all, as any Vietnam vet could tell us and many have.)
But the tone of dismissiveness of agency which makes Egwene a monster is there in many of the other characters and scenes throughout. It’s just more obvious what’s wrong with that when Egwene does it.
It’s alright, and desirable, for us to notice and call out that problem while we read, and still love the characters.
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I’m going to particularly respond to something @14 Nik_the_heratik said:
Yes. Yes it is.
It’s not Elayne’s right to decide what is “the help Nynaeve needs” and what isn’t. That’s Nyn’s call. Perhaps “the help Nynaeve needs” is to learn that she’s somewhere safe where people will respect her bodily autonomy – there is ample reason in the text to think so – in which case Elayne has done massively more harm than good here.
Perhaps “the help Nynaeve needs” is to learn that there are consequences to her refusal to accept help, in which she remains hurt, and her world will be better when she learns to say ‘yes, thankyou’ instead of trying to bully people into helping without ever admitting a need for help. Elayne has certainly undermined Nynaeve’s chance to learn that lesson!
It’s not Elayne’s right to decide which refusals are just “their own issues and ego” and which ones should be respected. What’s happening by that argument is that Elayne is the arbiter of other people’s issues and autonomy – which is exactly the unwarranted power she’s taking here.
In the very first comment @1 mp1952 correctly points out that the reason people reject Aes Sedai healing without permission is the sometimes-factually-correct belief that there’s a hidden hook…
…but does not go forward to the obvious conclusion: that Nynaeve is perfectly entitled to be worried about the hidden hook when someone offers to heal her, just as the men are. (In which light Elayne’s gesture suddenly doesn’t seem so altruistic, does it? Think of it as forcing a personal debt onto someone, and the reason Nynaeve might reasonably object become clear… since Nynaeve’s background experiences so far give her little reason to believe Elayne might just want to help.)
(If you want a truly devastating example of why healing someone without their consent is a horrific violation of bodily autonomy, read the web series Worm and Ward – although there’s well over a million words before you get to that point, so this isn’t a serious suggestion. Also, content warning: everything, and then some. I just want to make clear that to heal someone without permission can be an utterly monstrous act – it isn’t in this case, but the point is that there are good reasons why it shouldn’t be Elayne’s call to make once Nynaeve has expressly rejected that help.)
The Maidens and Isendre isn’t all that good of an example. The Aiel women are constantly amused by ‘wetlander’ women and their embarrassment at nakedness (and they are amused by males having the same hang-up – both at being naked with a woman and seeing a woman naked). But like anything else that the Aiel do, their reaction is based on how their society has evolved…you use your enemies weaknesses to defeat them, and your friends weaknesses to train them.
It’s what the Wise Ones do with Avienda, too.
It seems to me that “Jordan” tries very hard to come at some subjects from a female point of view, but his born-and-bred chauvinism keeps him from being as successful as he (or we) would like him to be. But he was better at it than I have been for most of my life, and that’s probably still true.