Women and men in The Wheel of Time (book 1*)
*Trying to avoid spoilers, but there is a quote from book 1 that some readers might prefer to read spontaneously without it being spoiled. If that’s the case, then don’t read this post. I mention other events from later books vaguely enough that you hopefully wouldn’t know what they refer to if you haven’t read that far.
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Finally he [Perrin] said, “What did you spend so much time talking about with Ila? If you weren’t dancing with that long-legged fellow, you were talking to her like it was some kind of secret.”
“Ila was giving me advice on being a woman,” Egwene replied absently. He began laughing, and she gave him a hooded, dangerous look that he failed to see.
“Advice! Nobody tells us how to be men. We just are.”
“That,” Egwene said, “is probably why you make such a bad job of it.” Up ahead, Elyas cackled loudly.
I adore The Wheel of Time book series. I discovered it for the first time after watching season 1 on Amazon Prime. I mostly enjoyed the show because I hadn’t read the books, but there was a lot I didn’t understand. Then I looked it up on google, ordered the first book, and began reading. Once I began, I could not stop and devoured all 14 books over several months.
One of the things I was struck by was the female characters. After reading only a short way into the first book, I checked the author. A man wrote this! On the one hand, they didn’t fit a simplistic ‘powerful female character’ trope. While they all developed incredibly unique and powerful skills, they were also complex, contradictory and flawed. All of them had incredibly interesting character arcs and growth. In my opinion, their journeys were just as interesting as those of the ta’veren (main male characters) and sometimes more so. Light! The most thrilling points in the book were dominated by the women – Tel’aran’rhiod, the rediscovery of lost skills and one character’s journey to the Amrylin Seat, to name just a few.
On the other hand, the gender dynamics were sometimes simplistic, at least from my perspective. In the scene above, for example, Perrin thinks Egwene getting advice on being a woman is an absurd idea, and he mocks her for it. She quickly puts him in his place, though. Egwene’s reply shows just how little merit she gives the opinions of men and also how she feels about men in general. They are too often insufferable. And while I cackled out loud along with Elyas at Egwene’s snarky reply, her response hints at an overarching idea in the series. There seemed to be a clear line between the way the women behaved compared to the men, and there wasn’t all that much variety. Also, the women’s preoccupation with beauty standards didn’t add up considering that, in this world, women were generally more powerful than the men, with a few exceptions. (I also remember how, later in the series, some of the women spent *a bit too much time* obsessing over their breasts. Yep. A man wrote this. Lol!) Ultimately, though, almost all of the women were fiercely critical of men, calling them names and chastising them like children. The scene above gives me the impression that women in The Wheel of Time care deeply about proper and improper behaviour, which is why the men anger them so often. The men don’t care about this nearly as much. They don’t behave the way the women think they ought to. The ‘battle of the sexes’ is a clear trope throughout the books.
Yet, there is some complexity within the simplistic ‘battle of the sexes’ trope, if that makes any sense. It seemed to me, during my first reading, that this inability of men and women to get along was, in fact, a significant barrier that both the men and women had to overcome. There was a tremendous lack of trust between men and women, which so often led to difficulties and disasters that could have been avoided – if only they trusted each other. Like Egwene above, women assumed that men would always ‘make such a bad job’ of any situation, and they continually attempted to control the men and limit the information they shared with them, especially the ta’veren. (Blood and ashes, woman! Why are you being so harsh? I sometimes wondered). Men also assumed that the women were always out to get them, and so they rarely confided in them. The state of the world depended on men and women both putting aside their differences to work together. I liked this idea, even if it was clunky and simplistic at times.
A few days ago, I decided to re-read the series and take a closer look at the gender dynamics. I also decided to listen to the audiobooks, and I was delighted to discover Rosamund Pike’s narration of the books. Like for many fantasy series, when a live action film or show is made, I can’t wait to see some of my favourite scenes on the screen. However, the films and shows never fail to disappoint. And The Wheel of Time series deeply disappointed in so many ways. I tried re-watching it after reading the first book. It was painful. However, Rosamund Pike’s reading is wonderful, and it’s safe to say that I will get to ‘see’ every single one of my favourite scenes because the way she narrates the books brings the characters and events to life.