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#my angry braid mom isn't my top character tag???
queenofmalkier · 2 years
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I posted 2,709 times in 2022
That's 941 more posts than 2021!
48 posts created (2%)
2,661 posts reblogged (98%)
Blogs I reblogged the most:
@wot-tidbits
@highladyluck
@amemoryofwot
@birgittesilverbae
@wheelwheelwheel
I tagged 2,701 of my posts in 2022
#wheel of time - 1,811 posts
#wheel of time book spoilers - 1,620 posts
#wheel of time tv series - 700 posts
#rand al'thor - 524 posts
#moiraine damodred - 443 posts
#memes - 403 posts
#matrim cauthon - 358 posts
#nynaeve al'meara - 296 posts
#elayne trakand - 263 posts
#wheel of time fanart - 232 posts
Longest Tag: 138 characters
#i'm still recovering from surgery and pushed myself too hard so i'm going to wait until i'm better until i respond but for the most part i
My Top Posts in 2022:
#5
Somehow Moiraine manages to be the most selfless human being on the planet and also the most selfish.
55 notes - Posted August 25, 2022
#4
I’m still mad about the lack of thatched roofs with cranes in them.
What’s your minor-missing-detail-pet-peeve about the show?
68 notes - Posted June 15, 2022
#3
The Ongoing Egwene Exploration
If I’m gonna kick the hive, I might as well cite the books and clarify my meaning.
I’m going to preface this with, while Egwene is not my personal favorite character that doesn’t make her a bad character, a bad person, etc. I do stand by my statement that I find her to be arrogant to the point of being dangerous, and her motivations at time are not as pure as she suggests from her own POV chapters, but ultimately she is who needed to be in the role she played, and she is a vital part of the series.
This is going to be a multiple parter, because I truly wish to be fair about my perceptions. The rest will probably be in September because I’m going to be away on a trip. But who knows I might get squirrelly.
Basically, I’m going to skim through the books and only review mentions of Egwene that give insight to her character/how she is perceived by those who personally know her or her own POV chapters.
As an aside, I would argue that unlikable female characters are important. More important than the Moiraine’s (who also had her fair share of arrogance), more important than the stern-yet-soft-hearted Nynaeve’s. They’re the most important in fiction because we so often don’t get to see them.
Female characters are forced to be likeable or be Amy Dunne. Even their grey areas are carefully negotiated so they aren’t written off as a bitch.
They don’t get to be heroes that you sincerely hope you never have to be stuck in an elevator with.
They don’t get the depth and variety because it makes people uncomfortable.
I find that annoying on a good day, on a bad day it makes me want to burn half my library. Modern writers have developed much more nuanced characters, and we’re beginning to see “new” types of female characters that really are just based on living, breathing, real people, but the backlash and fear of it is often there too.
It’s very easy for people to hate a female character. Just look at any popular series and go to reddit. If by some miracle there’s more than one female character in the main cast, chances are there are individuals complaining about her.
Hell, they’ll complain even if she’s the only female character.
(The phrase Mary Sue will appear often. If it does not make you want to boil with rage at the outright hypocrisy when compared with every mainstream male character I invite you to walk into the ocean.)
Lastly, before we begin, this is solely about Egwene. I can just as easily get into every single character in the series and how they also display negative characteristics but then we’re going to be here for ten years. I specifically said Egwene when I kicked the hive and I’m going to see how well my argument is supported by the source material.
So, Egwene.
Why does she get under my skin? How is she any more arrogant than the other characters in the series? What about her do I find troubling and ultimately dangerous? Am I biased because she was mean to my poor little meow meow trash son Gawyn?
Let us start with our first introduction to Egwene, through the eyes of a very, very smitten Rand. (To be fair, I would also be smitten. Just because I don’t particularly like her doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be half in love with her in ten minutes.) We know through later POV’s that Egwene has admitted that he is easy to manipulate so it is difficult not to allow that to color this transaction now, but let us try.
She begins by mimicking Nynaeve, a figure of authority, perhaps to see the effect it has. This is a trait she carries on throughout the series until she no longer needs to mimic and instead becomes the one who is mimicked.
But she soon shifts focus to staring at Rand, unsettling him because he has a crush the size of a solar system and it’s so obvious Perrin and Mat leave him to his fate. They flirt a little before Egwene reveals her now braided hair.
This is a very calculated move, and it feels planned, on her part. A test. But what is she testing?
Being a young, unmarried man in a small village that definitely pushes traditional values, Rand senses a trap here but it’s not what he’s expecting. I think this gives us a very key piece of information about Egwene early on. We think this is her Hint Hint moment, only for her to pull the rug out and mention not only does she want to become a Wisdom, a woman who seldom marries, but that she’ll likely have to travel to a different village in order to do so because Nynaeve isn’t going to retire any time soon. Egwene is telling us that she wants more.
Queue Belle song.
We also see some of her arrogance here. “She says I have a talent, that I can learn to listen to the wind. Nynaeve says not all Wisdoms can, even if they say they do.” When Rand fails to be suitably impressed, we get the very word used that I have mentioned already: dangerous.
Again, we’re seeing character traits I originally brought up: manipulative, arrogant, dangerous. She strikes me very much as the type of person who plans encounters in her head before they happen. That isn’t a bad thing - as the most socially anxious person ever I do this as well as a way to ease my anxiety and plan for everything I can think of - I am simply making an observation. This does not feel like a casual, unplanned conversation on Egwene’s part.
(Manipulative behavior in and of itself also isn’t inherently negative, most human interaction is based on it.)
Yet this moment isn’t Egwene gently letting Rand down either is it? Because Rand - puppy that he is - mentions he’d never see her again and she’s back to vaguely suggesting it’s not like he cares. Because we only see it from his perspective, it’s hard to know if she shuts down ultimately because the conversation didn’t go how she’d planned, or if her temper really did get the better of her.
Was she angry he didn’t demand they wed? That didn’t demand she not become a Wisdom? What was her ultimate goal here? Did she have one? Because of her age, I highly doubt Egwene is some crazy, master manipulator of Hannibal Lecter proportions. She’s not even on level 1 of that crazy train; I doubt she even knows where the station is. Not yet.
My perception here is she’s likely conflicted and confused about what she wants, and angry that Rand isn’t giving her anything to act on. He isn’t saying no, so she can’t dig her heels in. He isn’t offering to marry her so she can’t react to that either. He’s simply saying he’d never see her again, and what’s she to do with that? Egwene very much is a character who wants to act, and right now she has nothing to fuel her to action.
We do get the idea that Egwene is sensitive, perhaps overly so. Does she feel the limitations of the Two Rivers? How small their world is? Do their recent visitors make her feel equally small and therefore her fuse is shorter than normal?
I do want to mention here that I do not want to dismiss Egwene’s cleverness, or her own abilities when it comes to gleaning information from others. Yes, she’s eavesdropping in this moment, but even before she was reading Rand and the others like braille, which is a skill that should not be undervalued.
See the full post
68 notes - Posted July 9, 2022
#2
youtube
SHE’S MAKING ITTTTTTTT.
68 notes - Posted January 8, 2022
My #1 post of 2022
I will not go on a random tangent about silhouettes in clothing. I will not go on a random tangent about silhouettes in clothing. I will not go on a random tangent about silhouettes in clothing. I will not go on-
71 notes - Posted January 4, 2022
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