Wheel of time is moiraine gay in the books
This article contains The Wheel of Time spoilers.
The Wheel of Time has plenty to enjoy for those who haven’t read the Robert Jordan novels upon which the exhibit is based, but there has been no shortage of frustration on the part of “book purists” who are dissatisfied with some of the changes made by the television adaptation. Complaints of women existence among the Dragon Reborn candidates, for example, may include primed more defensive viewers to scrutinize the latest narrative revision: the portrayal of Moiraine and Siuan as lovers.
But before the claims of “woke nonsense” come rolling in, hold on a moment. Although the late Robert Jordan never spelled out a romantic connection between the Amyrlin Seat and the esteemed Aes Sedai of the Navy Ajah, there were plenty of references to the pair being “pillow friends” as novices and beyond. While Jordan’s portrayal may contain been colored somewhat by his have 1990s male perspective of what youthful secluded women might indulge in, he did clarify in a 2005 blog post that, “Pillow friends are not just good friends. Oh, they are that, too, but they also acquire hot and sweaty together and muss up the sheets something fierce.”
Moiraine and Siuan
Wheel of Time season one ends with the uncovering that Rand al’Thor is the Dragon Reborn, the prophesied male Channeler who will either save the world or absolutely annihilate it. This obviously freaks out our earnest shepherd boy, who decides to Spider-Man all his friends, begging Aes Sedai Moiraine Damodred to tell them he died fighting the Dark One at the Eye of the Earth. And actually something really terrible did happen during that battle: Moiraine missing her connection to the One Power, leaving her unable to do any Channeling. Season two kicks off not long after, with our ragtag band of townies from Emond’s Field splintering and splitting up, and Moiraine — in true queer fashion — taking a lot of hot, brooding baths to deal with her grief and angst over her lost magic. Prime Video’s promo for season two was Rosamund Pike times a million, and I’m pleased to state they were not overselling Moiraine’s continued involvement in keeping this Wheel turning.
Season one of Prime Video’s adaptation of Robert Jordan’s sprawling epic fantasy series was both celebrated and derided by fans and critics alike. For me, much like the books, I wanted to
SPOILERS FOR THE WHEEL OF TIME EPISODE SIX AHEAD!
I admire that, in vaguely acknowledging the being of queerness at all, Robert Jordan was far ahead of many of his straight light cisgender male peers in the fantasy literature scene of the 1990’s when it came to LGBTQ+ representation, but I think that speaks more to how low the bar was at the time for mainstream fantasy than to any particularly strong or noble effort by Jordan to write gender non-conforming characters and relationships into his Wheel Of Time novels. And women in fantasy and in speculative fiction at large had been raising that prevent for decades before Jordan, so I’m not sure how many points he deserves for giving us…”pillow-friends”.
Ah, the infamous pillow-friends – a bit of queer(ish) terminology unique to the Jordan lexicon, and therefore conveniently flexible. In and of itself, the phrase was seemingly so self-explanatory that queer readers could choose to interpret it as advocacy without straying too far into head-canon territory…but because the term was never explicitly defined, others could very easily dismiss those interpretations as frivolous, and find text
The Wheel of Time show totally changes who the story’s main personality is
Andrew Cunningham and Lee Hutchinson have spent decades of their lives with Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson's Wheel of Time books, and they're bringing that knowledge to bear as they recap each episode of Amazon's new WoT TV series. These recaps won't cover every element of every episode, but they will contain major spoilers for the show and the book series. If you want to stay unspoiled and haven't read the books, these recaps aren't for you.
New episodes of The Wheel of Time will be posted to Amazon Prime subscribers every Friday.
The Wheel of Time season one
View more storiesThere’s a bunch more to converse about, and we’ll receive to most of it, but this episode’s introduction of Siuan Sanche, the fisherman’s daughter who became the Amyrlin Seat, is inarguably the focal point.
I think you and I might have slightly diverse feelings about how her character was handled, particularly around The Big Thing, but I’ve got to say I thin
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Anon, I’m very surprised you haven’t been able to find anything about these two because I’ve seen many posts about it, especially on tumblr, but I tried my leading to summarize everything you asked for. It got a bit long, because we’re talking about a story that spans 15 books, but uh, appreciate. (You will not delight in this.)
The short version is:
- Moiraine and Siuan start their quest for the Dragon Reborn when they are 22/23 years old. They are Accepted (studying to be Aes Sedai) in the White Tower when they both hear the prophecy of the Dragon being Reborn. They develop Aes Sedai very soon after this, and kickstart their quest to spot the Dragon Reborn by Moiraine riding out of the Tower to physically search for him and Siuan staying in the Tower and learning to be a spymaster so she can do communication gathering for the hunt. At this point in time, there’s no genuine doubt - unless you’re reading the text with blinders on - that Moiraine and Siuan value each other and are romantically/sexually involved with each other. These bitches gay. -
- The main book series starts 20 years after the above happens. By this time, Moiraine has searched all over the Westlands for the Queenly