#WoT Book Spoilers

[tiredmoonslut]

The way Robert Jordan writes queer people into his world is such an interesting time capsule of how different things were in fantasy media just twenty years ago. Casually, almost every Aes Sedai on the page is probably bisexual. One of the Forsaken is a transgender woman. Many of the White Tower's male servants are gay men. But it's all so unobtrusive that it's kind of blink and you miss it---but catching it seems almost revolutionary. It's not anywhere near what we'd call "progressive" in today's world but somehow it still is, to see the attempt made. It'd have been just as easy not to include at all.

Idk it's just interesting

[elf-princeling]

i didnt expect more than 4 likes on my previous drawing but apparently everyone loves this ship?? you ask and i shall deliver <3

[pien-art]

Remember how at the end of The Dragon Reborn, Ishamael wrapped Moiraine in black lightning and she screamed and Ishy hurled her across the room into a column where she lay unconscious for the whole duration of the book's final confrontation and then that was just never mentioned again and she was completely fine ?? Not on my watch 🤨

[thenotoriousscuttlecliff]

The thing about Wheel of Time is everyone in it is in an epic fantasy except the Forsaken, who are all in a workplace sitcom where everyone hates each other.

[romans-art]

Seonid placed her fingers beneath Alliandre's chin and tilted her head up with a touch more akin to a suggestion. Alliandre complied without a trace of resistance. In the glossiness of dim candlelight with night fallen through the windows behind her, Seonid was shadowed and gold-wreathed, all gilded at the edges.  (x)

[nervouspearl]

His emotions were a small knot in the back of her head, all steely hard determination. She knew the muted pain of old injuries, tamped down and ignored.

[ofthebrownajah]

Rand al'Thor:

[asha-mage]

Ishamael, staring down at Lanfear's latest Resources Requisition Form: You want 500 gold marks. To start.....an inn?

Lanfear, who would sooner die then admit she needs Ishamael's help to live out her sugar mommy fantasies with Rand: An evil inn. Ishamael sighing, thinking that at least this way he'll know where she is: Sure? Why not?

Five months later

Lanfear: So bad news the evil inn caught fire. Good news, it caught fire because I gave LTT a sex dream so intense he channeled in his sleep and set it aflame.

Ishamael, who has been busy taking over the Seanchan court: you WHAT?

[pillowfriends]

HELLO???????

Rand/Avi real??????????? also DRAGONS?????? but more importantly RAND HAD SEX??? WITH AVIENDHA?? DID I START READING A FANFIC ON ACCIDENT what theeee fuck. (positive)

[moghedien]

Everyone watch Wheel of Time, we have perfectly stable hinged milfy women who definitely love casual no strings attached relationships and have never ever made anyone into flesh balloons

[whchwitch]

The usual suspects.

[sixth-light]

truly the most underrated thing that makes the (RJ-authored) WoT books great is the combination of how good he is at inhabiting the narrative headspace of one character at a time, and how dedicated he is as a writer to the idea that people can have different, even contradictory points of view and cultural expectations without someone being wrong and someone being right. he truly writes like someone who understands that everybody is human and everybody is pretty much trying to do the right thing as they see it, and that all human cultures are the result of people living their lives under a specific set of circumstances. (the exceptions, his truly villainous villains, are always people who put themselves first outside of matters of survival - and they aren't limited to one culture or background.)

if there's a flaw in this approach, it's that he is so good at inhabiting one PoV at a time that people confuse 'things the characters think' for 'things the narrative is saying are true about the world', because a protagonist is thinking and/or saying them, when in fact 90% of the comedy and commentary in WoT falls in the space between what PoV characters think or understand and what is actually happening. alternatively, that space is used as evidence that X character is bad in some way instead of being a narrative technique to emphasise that everybody's worldview is limited by their experience and upbringing, and the 'truth' of the world exists somewhere at the intersection of all those worldviews. it's not a skill that's unique to him as a writer but in epic fantasy, especially of his time, I think it's rarer than it should be.

[spectrum-color]

Robert Jordan making a character who should be a perfect self insert power fantasy for young men (chosen one, powerful sorcerer, king, chief of the Proud Warrior Race Guys, master swordsman, had three hot girlfriends,) and just giving him severe mental illness and the worlds most miserable heroes journey was such a power move

[pien-art]

Moiraine coming to live with Lan and Nynaeve in Malkier bc it is what they deserve ;-;

prints available here!

[jaqobis]

honestly one of the most noteworthy things, imo, about the robert jordan era of wheel of time is his full stop refusal to glamorize pain. through every single character's experience in the books, he said over and over again: pain and trauma do not make you stronger, they do not make you better, they do not improve your life, and there is no one who is ~ too strong ~ to be susceptible to pain. when he showed intense hardass siuan sanche giving up information under torture, when he showed egwene controlled as a damane, when he showed rand's mental breakdown as he was subjected to more pain and torture and horrors, rj really said stop pretending suffering has moral value with his whole chest

[romans-art]

Carelle sighed. “You know your clever tongue is the reason you are still an Apprentice, yes?” she said.

"I was under the impression my clever tongue was an off-limits topic.” Seonid said this without even looking at Edarra. The other Wise Ones had no such qualms, turning with raised eyebrows to glance at her in disapproval as though she had been the one so bold with her words, and Edarra felt a flush creep up her neck regardless.

“That’s enough talking for you for one day.” Carelle waved Seonid away. (X)