amyrlinegwene

[amyrlinegwene]

Hello dropping in to say please watch the gilded age on hbo max if you are interested in period dramas and female led shows!!

[amyrlinegwene]

There are no endings to the turning of the wheel of time because nobody ever gets to finish the story they start

[amyrlinegwene]

man so i've been rereading tdr and i've been really noticing here that the reason egwene has such a hard time with nynaeve is because she keeps being reminded of renna

and egwene doesn't even fully realize this! nynaeve doesn't even know she's doing it!

but egwene spends this whole book on HIGH ALERT, because the last time she trusted anyone, she got carried off to the seanchan!! siuan's directive about the black ajah only feeds into her own paranoia after being deceived by liandrin...who, you know, was black ajah. it's not undeserved fear!! but egwene has a hard time looking at anyone she doesn't know (or doesn't know well) as anything but a potential threat. she spends the whole first meeting with aviendha and bain and chiad thinking about ways to protect herself or defuse the situation, when in actuality everyone's wondering why she seems so on edge and ready to attack. aviendha literally catches her embracing the source and hastily goes I WOULD NEVER HURT AN AES SEDAI BTW, FOR NO REASON, JUST FYI,

but coming back to nynaeve...the thing is, renna — and this is really emphasized in the book, where most of the torment is off-screened and told to us later in absolutely horrifying anecdotes — really abused egwene in the way of alternating punishment with "kind" and "humane" treatment. she acted like the owner of a recalcitrant animal she really cares about, or...wait for it...a particularly abusive older sister. renna is the one with the knowledge, the right answers, and egwene was her foolish damane who was learning the ropes. who, when she was punished, was hurt because she'd brought it on herself.

nynaeve, village wisdom, also acts like the older sister with the knowledge, and with the right answers. she also favors egwene with the affections of an authority figure. it's totally different, of course, because nynaeve actually loves egwene and respects her deeply. nynaeve would never hurt her. but we see moments like nynaeve giving egwene's hair a playful tug after egwene compliments her...which completely sours egwene's mood....and is also reminiscent of renna patting her hair when she "does well." both nynaeve and renna position themselves as teachers who have taught egwene lessons, which they ask her to recall! and though their behavior and treatment of her are wildly different, egwene is unable to separate her reactions to nynaeve and feelings about nynaeve with her visceral disgust at her time as a damane.

egwene doesn't WANT to be a "good girl," because with the seanchan she was forced to be a "good girl," a pliable damane, or she'd be hurt until she became compliant. but she is free now, and she's determined to keep her freedom forever, so she CANNOT be the foolish girl who trusted an adult and got captured and tortured. she CANNOT be the valuable damane who had no recourse but to learn her lessons and attempt the smallest resistances allowed to her. she won't agree with an authority figure just because they're an authority, and she won't enjoy their kindness when they agree with her!! all of these experiences have been completely poisoned for her. and, importantly, nynaeve is safe to act out with. egwene couldn't react this way at the white tower, because they have the power to withhold her education, her future as an aes sedai (which she conflates with safety because she will have power), and because they too are willing to apply physical punishment. nynaeve, at worst, will get frustrated or say something sour, but she would never meaningfully hurt egwene. and there's the part of egwene that knows that, even with all of the trauma informing every choice she makes.

tl;dr as usual rj wrote some really compelling trauma material in the wake of egwene's horrific experiences with the seanchan. i love his commitment to depicting the messier, uglier trauma responses people can have and the sympathy with which he does it

[amyrlinegwene]

free my girl she did all that shit but the fandom is mischaracterizing her for it

[amyrlinegwene]

I do get feral at times about how much Siuan helped shape Egwene, and how much Moiraine helped shape Rand, and how much Egwene and Rand shaped each other, and how much Siuan and Moiraine shaped each other, and how much the story hinges on Egwene and Rand parting, growing separately, fearing what the other became and finding each other again a changed people, and how much Siuan and Moiraine in the show specifically... You get the gist of it

Beautiful mentor quatuor, too good for this world, too pure

And by too pure I mean "Moiraine would slit Rand's throat if needed, Siuan would let Egwene be torn to shreds if it served the Light, Rand would have choked Moiraine if she pushed too hard at some point and Egwene would have let Siuan rot if she hadn't been of incredible value to her"

I love them

[amyrlinegwene]

Rafe’s full statement for people who haven’t seen:

It seems like they didn’t even give him a clear reason. But let’s keep fighting! We have nothing to lose and everything to gain by making as much noise as possible.

[amyrlinegwene]

the thing about Wheel of Time is that the actual narrative style isn't humorous. not like Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams. if you took any of the character's PoVs in isolation it would be perfectly normal fantasy writing.

in juxtaposition though??? this is the most fucking hilarious shit ever. thank you Robert Jordan i could never.

[amyrlinegwene]

kate's 365 days of female characters:

day 94: nynaeve al'meara wheel of time

[amyrlinegwene]

[amyrlinegwene]

In continuation of this drawing showing Siuan's hair going white from shock after her stilling, I wanted to draw and reflect on women and violence in fiction, and letting brutality and age and survival mark their skin rather enshrine their youth in death and memories.

I have a lot of feelings about narratives exacting terrible violence in life on women, and then keeping them eternally young and intact in death, often elevating them as symbols, images rather than people, thus turning them into immutable objects of meaning rather than letting them live with scars, heal and eventually grow old. One of the reasons older women are so important is that they live bearing scars and wrinkles like a tally and a stamp of persistence on their skin. All that to say, I appreciated greatly the show's decision to keep on screen Moiraine's chest scar in season 2 and had great hopes for Siuan getting similar visible scars after her deposal and torture.

It wasn't meant to be in this life. So here's my turning of the Wheel where they lived on to cherish the other's body that had gone through so much. (The Lichtenberg scars on Moiraine's back and shoulders come from pien-art because Moiraine gets beaten up by the One Power with a notable frequency and gets back up often enough to earn cool scars.)

[amyrlinegwene]

you've been transported to the Wheel of Time world and one of the characters is your roommate now, spin this wheel to find out who it is (btw reblog and tell me who you got!!!)

[amyrlinegwene]

Hi, I noticed your story has conflict in it, and I was wondering why you didn't just write people who are right doing everything correctly with a note saying "I enthusiastically co-sign everything in this story"? Must be some kind of mistake haha

[amyrlinegwene]

A small stylised Siuan because I miss her so fiercely

[amyrlinegwene]

From Ayoola's instagram

[amyrlinegwene]

[amyrlinegwene]

Wheel of Time

I’ve been doing these as warm up studies or when I need a break from one of the longer pieces or feel a bit blocked. I’ve got quite a few set up to do but here are the first six I’ve done over the last couple months. These are all monochromatic so not a range of colors just one in varying intensities. Each is five shades in light to dark.

This show has been delightful and such a surprise to me. I never expected to see these stories on screen let alone with such a diverse cast of characters, gorgeous production values and intensely queer. Baby pie never could have imagined. So grateful to have gotten three seasons.

Enjoy!

[amyrlinegwene]

I do think other prestige streaming services should consider picking up the wheel of time (not sure how that works with the rights but), maybe HBO or STARZ (Outlander is ending and they need another headliner show) or Showtime