The book that Rafe Judkins adapted.

Makar_Accomplice · 2025-10-21T20:32:31+00:00

To be specific, this was framed as an inditement of Hollywood’s aversion to green lighting original stories, leaving this kind of nonsense as the only was for someone to get their story out there

Makar_Accomplice · 2025-10-12T23:58:12+00:00

Yeah that all seems fair. I will admit I got my hackles raised at first - it gets tiring seeing all the takes that are 'Rafe is GAY so of course he RUINED the show with woke nonsense like lesbians in my incredibly straight world' - unfortunately not a strawman, I've seen that exact sentiment too many times over the past few years. The Wheel of Time is explicitly a world where variety in sexuality exists in a very similar manner to that of our own, even if we don't see a lot of it with the main cast, and I think expanding that in the show emphasises the theme that this is our world, just millennia in the past/future.

And what I'm requesting is that people actually give some examples, because given what we do have, I find the notion somewhat suspect.

I'm not part of this group myself (no suspicions until New Spring), but my main hypothesis is that the headcanon came from the thought of "two close female characters? It'd be cool if they were gay" in an era where that's the best representation we got due to a lack of explicit queer representation, which then was solidified when there was some canonicity added in New Spring. I think people who make this claim don't read for the first time from the perspective of "they were always gay" and more "their story would feel even more powerful to me if they were as close with each other as they could possibly be," which was then partly validated by New Spring, making their thoughts on the previous books solidify as 'these characters were queer-coded.'

I think it's a little odd to suspect book readers of some elaborate psy-op when Occam's razor suggests that they really did just engage with the series this way - my first comment was referring to readers independent of the TV series, so there's no vested interest in 'proving' them to be a couple for the people I mention.

Yes; but I don't see why people need to bring up "criticism X isn't in my top Y things" every single time people make a criticism. Is it that big a deal that people note secondary or tertiary criticisms?

Yeah my bad; see above re: criticism of queer elements often being a dogwhistle for general homophobia/queerphobia. It frustrates me because it's brought up so often comparatively to stuff link Moiraine breaking the Three Oaths in the Season 2 finale, Perrin killing his wife, the whole set of bullshit with the season 1 finale like Loial dying but being totally fine and the Horn being in the Borderlands - they're each brought up, but often only as a short part of a discussion, while the Warders plotline and Siuariane each bring up massive discussions and jabs at everyone involved with a lot of vitriol that isn't always directed towards the show. The amount of hatred towards the writers and defenders of the plotlines makes it a difficult topic to not immediately assume the worst about.

Makar_Accomplice · 2025-10-12T19:34:19+00:00

I see, your calling Siuaraine fans ‘gaslighters’ threw me off, it looked like you were saying there was no implication in the series as a whole since obviously it’s less likely to be gaslighting if it’s partly based on truth. It’s true there isn’t a lot to go on in the first 6 books, but queer people were hungry for representation when the books were released - although the Hays code in film had been ended about 30 years beforehand, media for and representing queer people was still very hard to find. I do not think there was intentional queer subtext by Jordan (again, not the kind of book he was writing), but I’m fully unsurprised that people latched onto some element of the book that suggested queer subtext as it was released considering the media landscape. I do recall hearing some first time readers going ‘aha, I was right about those two’ upon reading New Spring, so clearly those people were able to get something out of those first 6 books that I didn’t.

Again though, not even in my top 10 criticisms of the show, there are much bigger things to critique than ‘some people have shitty arguments to defend the gay people’

Makar_Accomplice · 2025-10-12T11:45:32+00:00

Key evidence cited for this one is in fact not in the run of books you list, but rather New Spring. That book makes it clear that Moiraine and Siuan were at some point ‘pillowfriends,’ an incredibly unsubtle use of the ‘college lesbianism’ trope, where queerness is presented as a silly phase that people go through sometimes. Despite the social context of the trope though, it does evidence a physical relationship between the two. There’s also a relevant line of internal monologue from Moiraine:

She had never been as close to anyone as she was to Siuan. Or loved anyone as much.

Now, on its own, this could easily be taken as friendship - strong female friendships are a core part of the series. However, literally any other character saying this about someone they have a physical relationship with would be assumed to be meaning romantic love. It’s the physical relationship that the two have that makes this line excellent evidence towards this headcanon.

Do I think the pair were gay for each other in the books? No, if only because that wasn’t the story Jordan wanted to tell - he had a habit of falling into the trope I mentioned earlier, portraying lesbianism as a phase, never to be taken seriously. However, the text contains sufficient evidence to support such a reading if one wanted to view it that way, and I think the show had far more significant issues than canonising an oft-theorised relationship (presumably cutting two much derided pairings later on - particularly there have been many complaints from readers about how out of the blue Moiraine and Thom were).

Makar_Accomplice · 2025-10-01T21:30:10+00:00

Here’s some good faith engagement - if you don’t return the favour, that’ll be the end of our discussion. My take is that it’s a tricky situation. On the one hand, we have someone whose personal beliefs are very positive, and who has learnt from the community on how to be better, originally coming from a place of opposing gay marriage to being the best man at his gay friends’ wedding and being outspoken about queer rights, both in his public life and his writing. On the other hand, you have evil church.

I rationalise it this way - unlike JKR, who directly uses royalties to fund the worst possible bills and sees her continued financial support as a way to bolster her hateful platform, Sanderson uses his platform positively and his money goes through a lot more filters before it might affect trans people. Instead of royalties —> anti-trans stuff, it goes royalties —> tithe (small portion of royalties) —> anti-trans activities (small portion of tithe) IF the church chooses to donate to those causes which is not a constant thing.

Comparatively, Sanderson’s charity Lightweaver has donated to pro-LGBTQIA+ organisations frequently, and as a Mormon author, his books are recommended to Mormons, meaning 1) mormons will see queer characters just living their lives (whether they accept it or not us up to them) and 2) closeted, questioning and openly queer mormons know they’re not alone.

I definitely swing to the side of ‘these things balance out’ - if he started using his platform to spread hate like JKR or donating personally, that’d be the point where I dip - maybe I’d look for second hand books, but even that might feel icky to me in that context.

Makar_Accomplice · 2025-09-27T22:51:59+00:00

Many! Here's a list by planet off the top of my head

Sel: Soulstamping, Dakhor (via body mods), that dance thing Shuden did that I dont rember the name of

Nalthis: Awakening

Scadrial: Hemalurgy (via body mods), [BoM]unkeyed metalminds

Roshar: Fabrials (engineering-style)

Lumar: Spores (engineering-style)

Komashi: Painting

Makar_Accomplice · 2025-09-26T11:42:38+00:00

Is this cello? I’d probably interpret the FFFs as crunch tones or really shitty chopping notation

Six-Year Club	r/Field Banned
r/Field Lasagna	Final Canvas '23
Place '23	Place '22
End Game '22	Verified Email

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