Wheel of Time improved on the books’ gender binary in just 6 episodes

When we meet Egwene al’Vere in “Leavetaking,” the first episode of The Wheel of TimeAs a woman, she’s attending the ceremony to mark her entry into womenhood. As she stands at the edge of a cliff, newly welcomed by the women of her village, her mentor, Nynaeve, grasps her by the shoulders and murmurs, “Be strong, Egwene. Trust the river.” Then she shoves her off the edge. Egwene, who is screaming before hitting the river below and struggles against the current to swim, coughs, as the water slides above her head. Then, suddenly, Egwene calms down and begins floating on her back with her eyes closed.

It certainly is an interesting way to mark someone’s coming of age. But the word “trust” stuck out to me, as a fan of the book series on which the show is based. It’s a different word from the one that is used in Robert Jordan’s 14-novel epic, illustrating the subtle and yet profound way that the show has altered how the One Power functions; how it is improving on the concept of channeling; and how it is erasing some of the problematic gender stereotypes of the source material.

[Ed. note: This essay contains spoilers for the first six episodes of The Wheel of Time, and for the identity of the Dragon Reborn in the novels.]

The world of The Wheel of Time, there is only One Power, the energy which turns the Wheel of Time, spinning out the thread of people’s lives to weave the Pattern of Creation. However, it’s a single energy. In the novel, however, it’s divided into two halves. saidinAnd Sayar. They work in both opposition and collaboration with each other. Their push and pull creates the movement that propels One Power and turns The Wheel.

Some people are able to contact the True Source. They can channel the One Power, and perform miracle feats. But it’s here that the world-building hits a snag, because the two halves are divided into a strict gender binary, with saidinBeing the male half SayarBeing the female half. Jordan is able to manage these problems in some places. However, Jordan’s narrative often falls for tired gender stereotypes more frequently.

Photo by Jan Thijs/Amazon Prime Video

One of the most grossest is how channelers work with each side of the One Power. The same goes for men saidinIt is an explosive torrent of energy that resists being controlled. Channelers have to “seize” • and bend it forcibly to their will; they are often described as “dominating” saidin and “wielding” it like a weapon. SaidarThe One Power’s female half, referred to as the steady, but powerful, river. To channel SayarWomen must be open to this power, and let it fill them. Then, they can gently guide it in the direction that is best for them. They are described predominantly as “yielding” and “surrendering” to it.

It’s here that the show gets the imagery of the river as a metaphor for the One Power, and seeds the concept immediately at the beginning of the series with Egwene’s experience. We have seen this in the fourth episode. The Wheel of TimeEgwene as well Nynaeve both have the ability to channel One Power. But they didn’t know this initially. It is Moiraine who explains to Egwene that the Wisdom’s skill of “listening to the wind” is just anotHer name for being connected to the One Power. Nynaeve doesn’t discover her ability to channel until she instinctively heals Lan and the Aes Sedai injured in Logain’s attack. And yet, despite being unaware of their abilities, and despite Nynaeve’s hatred and distrust of the Aes Sedai and what they do, this ritual has begun preparing Egwene to learn how to channel, to understand and connect to the One Power.

Moiraine shows Egwene her ability to touch The True Source later. Egwene is instructed by Moiraine to concentrate on a small blue gem and visualize it being a river.

Moiraine does eventually use the word “surrender” as she is speaking to Egwene, but it is not the forefront of the conversation. Rather, her focus is on producing an almost meditative state in Egwene, telling her to let herself drift and to allow all distraction to fall away until only the river — the One Power — remains. The mention of SayarThis is why I believe that this television series may be abandoning the notion of the two halves. But even if it isn’t, the show seems intent on avoiding much of the harsh binaries of the novels.

Image by Jan Thijs/Amazon Prime Video

Indeed, Jordan’s own characters often defy the binaries he sets around them. The series’ popularity is due to the many complex and flawed female characters Jordan has created. Nynaeve’s character is an excellent example. She is extremely competent, strong and stubborn. She’s a healer, a tracker, and leader for her people. But the story often feels like it’s punishing her for her more “masculine” traits, reminding the reader that she is still a woman and bound by gender roles. This results in some very uncomfortable moments, such as when Nynaeve enters a dreamscape and her desire for Lan causes her clothes to suddenly become extremely revealing, or when she repeatedly refuses a man’s advances toward her and is then assured by her female companions that they can see her enjoying the attention and purposely leading the man on.

It also results in a complicated relationship to her channeling, which often contradicts itself — in the first several books, Nynaeve experiences a mental block to channeling that only intense anger allows her to overcome, which doesn’t fit at all with the rules of Sayar. She later overcomes her block after “surrendering” to the thought that she is going to die. It’s funny how Nynaeve uses her persistence and determination in situations that are more challenging than those she is able to survive.

Ultimately, the narrative of the novels constantly asserts that women’s strength is in cooperation, manipulation, and other “soft” versions of power; it then doesn’t know how to handle the many female characters within the story that don’t fit that assertion. The challenge of the show is to maintain this separation when it is thematically relevant — the division between men and women caused by the corruption of the One Power, and how it weakens humanity as a whole, is one of the most important themes of the story — and improve upon it everywhere else.

It has done an admirable job so far. Liandrin — basically a cartoon villain in the novels — has quite a few moments where viewers may feel empathy for her, such as after Kerene’s death, or when she tells Nynaeve that men “are rarely kind to little girls who show a spark of being greater than they are.” In the very next scene, Eamon Valda justifies murdering Egwene by explain his fear and loathing of women who wield the One Power “like gods among men.” When Nynaeve’s stubbornness and fear of the Aes Sedai could have resulted in Mat’s death, there is no suggestion that the trait is “unwomanly” in some way, and she doesn’t start acting less like herself when she develops feelings for Lan.

And it’s not just the show’s female characters who are being freed from gender prison. It would have been better if the show had kept some of Mat’s playfulness, but the impulse to give him a parental connection to his young sisters is a good one. It is not just women who have a desire and an instinct to care for children, but male characters are not given this trait very often, and it makes Mat’s reticence to be involved with Moiraine (and his resistance to the possibility that he is the Dragon Reborn) more complex and relatable.

Rand, meanwhile, is shown to be loving, gentle, and kind — more traits that are too often denied to male characters. The story follows Rand’s lead, however, as the book progresses the main focus seems to be on his burden and the role of male leadership. Rand has to make decisions as a general, to sacrifice people or treat them badly in service of a greater end goal, and he struggles deeply with the pain of having to become “hard,” as he terms it. While his role in the TV series sometimes feels more sparse than the others’, the show definitely seems interested in developing this conflict without erasing the fact that his gentleness and desire to be kind and connected to others is a strength, not a weakness.

Photo by Jan Thijs/Amazon Prime Video

Photo: Jan Thijs/Amazon Prime Video

Photo by Jan Thijs/Amazon Prime Video

The show is doing exactly this with Lan. His character is very self-driven and stern with a dark past. As many characters observed, he speaks very little and places duty ahead of all other things in his life. He is also deeply loving and can be very gentle, but this character trait takes a back seat in the novels — in the same way Rand’s gentleness does — to a focus on the burden of being a man. This onus of male violence, male duty, and male aggression is heavy on all the main male characters, but it fails to be an interesting theme because the narrative doesn’t unpack it. This is the status quo, a fact that is immutable in gender and the same for men. saidin.

Lan’s gentle, caring nature has been shown on the show as well as the other males. His friendships with fellow Warders were highlighted, he was able to have quiet moments with Nynaeve and it showed him being proud and admiring Moiraine. It has even had moments where he goes to her for comfort and strength, firmly establishing the Warder/Aes Sedai bond as a two-way connection, one that doesn’t leave Lan emotionally repressed and unhealthy.

The show allows Lan time to grieve after a Warder is killed in Episode 5. This feels like a balm considering the fact that such moments were considered footnotes in books. Something had already been set in my soul and his. And the funeral scene is not a departure from Lan’s original character, either. He’s not losing control, but he is simply expressing grief ritualistically in support of the Warders who have lost a friend.

But Amazon’s The Wheel of TimeThis goes well beyond the mere liberation of characters from an incorrect binary. Although reincarnation is an established fact in novels, the nature of the gender binary was literally written into all elements of the universe. It is therefore not surprising that souls have immutable genders, which do not change between incarnations. The soul known as Dragon is always a male.

The last incarnation, Lews Therin Telamon, managed to save the world from the Dark One’s threat, but also caused the Breaking of the World when the Dark One managed to corrupt saidin. In the books, when Moiriane arrives in the Two Rivers, only Rand, Mat, and Perrin have the ability to be Lews Therin reincarnated, or what they call “the Dragon Reborn.” Egwene and Nynaeve are never contenders, and are not even said to be ta’veren — special people the Wheel uses to manipulate threads of the Pattern — like all three of the boys are. Even though they can only use magic to do some of the most heroic work in the series, their symbolic significance is not the same as that of male protagonists.

While the shows have not revealed what actually happened in the Breaking of the World yet, the overall outline of events is consistent, even though details of Lews therin may change. Either way, the fact that only the male half of the Power is tainted becomes more interesting when the Dragon might be reborn as a girl — it would be much easier for the forces of the Light if Egwene or Nynaeve turned out to be the next savior of mankind, and the Aes Sedai wouldn’t have to deal with a Dragon who will be corrupted and perhaps destroyed by the taint.

The tweak might not mean much, plot-wise — it seems unlikely that The Wheel of Time on TV will have a different Dragon Reborn than in the novels — but even knowing that the Dragon couldA girl who is a change agent in the world has been fundamentally changed by her. A woman was the champion of Light and the world’s savior in the past as well as the future. It is not a fixed fact that gender can be changed. Being male isn’t inherently necessary to being the strongest channeler or best warrior against the Dark One. Moiraine’s opening monologue was so moving that I experienced the same emotions Logain had when he first saw Nynaeve channel. It was as if I had a grasp of the universe I was living in. I also thought that I understood the restrictions I was subject to. But I was able to see a world of possibility and power. Everyone can be the one to save others. The Wheel of Time.

Photo: Jan Thijs/Amazon Prime Video

Who knows? Maybe the series will be bold enough to do something completely different than the books. Not only have the writers added in the concept that the Dragon might be reborn as a woman, they have also slightly altered how confident Moiraine and Siuan are in the prophecy foretelling the Dragon’s birth. He’s supposed to be a certain age, but Nynaeve is so powerful that Moiraine feels like they can’t discount her as a candidate. Moiraine even raises the possibility of a “many-headed” Dragon — one soul split into several bodies — after hearing it from a gleeman somewhere. She points out the Dark One doesn’t seem to know more than them. When she suggests to Mat, Rand Perrin and Egwene that they forget what they really know about Dragon Reborn, it almost feels like she’s talking to them.

We are presented with the Wheel of Time novels, which claim that women and men are fundamentally opposites. They feel constantly confused by each other and believe that they must control the other in many ways. However, it claims that the Wheel of Time novels also use the mechanisms of saidinAnd SayarThey are essentially dependent on each other and that cooperation is the only way to achieve their greatest potential. As there’s little place in this narrative to encourage same-gender romance, so too is it impossible to make truly great characters escape the confines of heteronormativity.

The depth of things like Siuan and Moiraine’s relationship in the books — dubbed “pillow friends,” which is basically the Tower’s version of the “gay until graduation” trope applied to all-women’s schools, or the “brothers in arms” relationships experienced by soldiers — gets shortchanged in favor of reinforcing the need for women and men to come together. The TV series, however, has taken a completely different route and has a very different story. We already encountered a queer and polyamorous relationship between Alanna and her Warders in episode 4, and the other Warders’ easy acceptance of it paves the way for more queer relationships in future episodes. Moiraine and Siuan’s relationship is treated with respect, and as an important part of their identities.

The show may make mistakes along the way — as it did when it invented a wife for Perrin that didn’t exist in the novels, just to kill her off in service of His journey — but ultimately, it has embraced a broader worldview, one that makes space for every type of person. You aren’t limited by your gender, sexuality or ability to touch the True Source. This is quite fitting. It reflects the real world but it also reflects the best of what the novel says: Everybody is part and parcel of the pattern, which is created by one Power.