reblog this and tell me where you'd sit

5. Window seat, I get to kick the seatback of valda for hours, and Ishy at least is a good conversationalist.

I love that the show is flirting with the idea that actually the female and male aspects of the power do not need to be handled differently at all. It’s a hold over of some First Age misogyny that now everyone takes as gospel. I like the ways the show works in that misogyny still exists deeply in the world. It’s corrosive and exists as such deeply held truths that it isn’t even recognized as existing. Truly such a great commentary on the books and their claim to have flipped gendered power on its head while being so deeply misogynistic themselves.

YES! (now let's introduce some trans channellers, just to really hit that shit home)

this is so frustrating. i agree with op that it’s fascinating to see how misogyny still affects what is ostensibly a matriarchy. it’s an important point about how corrosive misogyny is, as op says.

however, i’m confused by this desire the fandom on here seems to have to completely disempower said matriarchy by opening it up to men. from what i understand in the canon of the show, if males touch the one power, they are unable to control it, physically. it is incompatible with their physiology. that’s kind of the whole point. even as rand stresses that it’s the one power (which honestly felt like a misogynistic microaggression when rand said it—let’s not forget the source material was written by a misogynist who is problematizing female power), the fact remains that there is a physiological difference around channeling that doesn’t appear to be socially constructed—it is a material reality in the show.

why are people so eager to erase that and open it up to males? why must everything be made “egalitarian” in this way? where does this discomfort come from, this urge to “correct” female dominance?

Hi! Because explicitly the power imbalance and fear-based institutional traditions of the aes sedai and the persecution of men who can channel are all bad things that get dismantled across the course of the book series. Including, book spoiler, the taint on the one power itself, which is cleansed in one of the most important turning points of the entire story. And you’re incorrect to suggest that men can’t control the one power, they can control it just fine, what they can’t control is the toll it takes on them.

The supposed ‘matriarchy’ you’re identifying, which is an oversimplification of the complex geopolitics across the many varied nations of randland, only exists as a reactionary societal development to the story premise of ‘what if a society where magical original sin was committed by man instead of woman.’ It’s not portrayed as some sort of feminist utopia, what is done to men who can channel is horrific and one of the main conflicts of the series.

That the show is taking these supposedly strictly divided gendered ideas about magic and breaking them down way further than even the books do is a good thing.

OPE, turns out that poster is a radfem, which does explain why she watched the show and unironically thought that the red ajah are right actually, and why she seemed so offended by the suggestion of trans characters in the show ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

seagull girl and bird boy should meet and become a bird family

that’s just impressive

I’m in love

My cat emerged from behind my TV like a blood lusted demon at these sounds what in the fuck

I want him carnally

yeah I think he's the love of my life

Brennan, calm down.

Gonna be me and the two other Aram Enjoyers fighting for our lives this week

Rooting for our Tuathuan boy! I know he can overcome being doomed by the narrative!

Surely nothing bad will happen THIS turning of the Wheel :)

Look at what they've done with Liandrin, i'm sure some of that good oil can be spread to Aram!

"The number of beads tells your price." So Nynaeve bashfully puts down the beaded veil... and then Mat wears it anyway. 💀 Incredible, no notes.

Then we see him with a fat purse full of marks and no veil.

I want that scene from episode 5 where Siuan is like “don’t worry about the daughter heir she’s doing something very important” or whatever she said and then hard cut to Elayne standing on a table in Tanchico singing about tits

I can't stop singing it.

If I see ONE MORE person going "bUt hoW DId RaNd hAVe anY anceStors iF tHe One waS With a mAn???" I'm going to lose it!!!! Trans people exist! Poly relationships exist! They might not have been together forever and had other relationships!!! Who cares!!!!

They were literally in a magitech age, we don't know what weaves they had and we only know a few things they thought were impossible. They also lived longer, not least because everyone had access to magical Healing. Maybe those two have long since had kids conceived with magic and carried by a surrogate or an entirely magical construct so that no body would have to undergo all the risks of growing an entire body inside their bodies and their kid(s) are on another wagon, and they just still look pretty young cause they've been in good health.

All the rules are made up! The fantasy world and its magic can be however inclusive the people writing it want it to be.

Magical Theoretical Physicist releasing untold evil by breaking reality itself? Fine. Dude begets baby after husband dies? Absolute Insanity!