Fantasy stories traditionally center around men who become heroes and save a woman they fall in love with. Recently, the more popular fantasy stories have reversed gender roles, giving the women characters far more agency in their society.Game of Throneshad characters like Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) and Sansa (Sophie Turner), along with many other strong women, but their agency revolved around how they manipulated men who always held more power. TheStar Warsfranchise has done better by comparison, with characters such as Ahsoka (Rosario Dawson) and Bo-Katan (Katee Sackhoff) most recently reintroduced in live-action, but the events driving the conflict in their universe still center mostly around men.
Prime Video’s adaptation ofThe Wheel of Time, however, has presented a world where females hold more power than men, and not just because of their connection with the One Power. Regardless of whether a woman can channel or not, they’re independent warriors and diplomats who shape the world around them, which is why this type of representation is far better in this show than in other modern fantasy shows.
The Wheel of Time
Set in a high fantasy world where magic exists, but only some can access it, a woman named Moiraine crosses paths with five young men and women. This sparks a dangerous, world-spanning journey. Based on the book series by Robert Jordan.
Channeling Is Just One Way Women Hold Power in ‘The Wheel of Time’
Using the One Power in the current age is a right reserved only for women. Both men and women can channel, but the arrogance of men 3000 years before exposedthe One Power to the Dark One, who corrupted it for any future man who can channel. Men were forbidden to channel after this, which put women in a far more powerful position in society. These women are the Aes Sedai and, while their use of channeling has been bound by the Three Oaths, they’ve found many loopholes to bend them.The politics behind their institutional authority is often used in the pursuit of their own agenda rather than protecting everyone.
Moiraine Damodred (Rosamund Pike) and the leader of the Aes Sedai, Siuan Sanche (Sophie Okonedo), are secret lovers who sacrifice their relationship in their efforts to stop the Dark One, but politics wouldn’t allow any official records to reflect that truth. Moiraine was asked to stop traveling and remain in the Tower after being away for years, so she concocted a plan to publicly disobey Siuan, which would get her expelled from the White Tower, freeing her to leave and continue her quest to destroy the Dark One. While these two are extremely powerful channelers, they have proven even more powerful in how they politically manipulate events to mask their true agenda.
Other Aes Sedai have gone far beyond playing politics to keep up appearances, though. The Dark One has a couple of majorly powerful women on his side. Liandrin Guirale (Kate Fleetwood) is one of the most ruthless of the Aes Sedai as a Red Ajah, and it was recently revealed thatshe swore herself to the Dark. She’s been adamant about being involved with training the newest and most powerful channeler, Nynaeve al-Meara (Zoë Robins), in an attempt to persuade her to serve the Dark One as well. Nynaeve accuses Liandrin of breaking the Three Oaths, and she retorts, “I’ve broken many more than that.”
But Liandrin is not the only woman serving the Dark One, though.Among the newly-revealed members of the Forsaken is Lanfear(Natasha O’Keeffe), a sadistic, cunning woman who was imprisoned for siding with evil three thousand years ago. She was one of the most powerful channelers alive, and she takes lives as easily as she breathes. Now that she’s been freed by Ishamael, she plans to try every trick she can imagine to convince Rand (Josha Stradowski), the Dragon Reborn, to join the Dark as well.
Women Who Can’t Channel Have Their Own Power in ‘The Wheel of Time’
At the beginning of the first season, before she discovered she could channel, Nynaeve held authority as the Wisdom of Two Rivers. She was the youngest Wisdom the community had ever known, yet her maturity and decisiveness taught everyone to trust and respect her. Other women, like Moiraine’s younger sister Anvaere Damodred (Lindsay Duncan), have worked hard to bring dignity back to their family’s tarnished history. Anvaere has sacrificed a lot over the decades since she last saw her sister, but she successfully arranged a marriage between her son Barthanes (Will Tudor) and Queen Galldrian, restoring their name to high esteem.Another remarkable leader who doesn’t display any ability to channel is Ila (Maria Doyle Kennedy) the pacifist leader of the nomadic community called the Tuatha’an.She believes in the Way of the Leaf, drifting through life and never causing harm to others. Her determination to confront any threat with non-violence is proven effective against the Whitecloaks in her effort to protect Perrin and Egwene from being captured.
Season 2 has broughtglimpses of the Aiel culturefrom the distant Three-fold Land, where all their people, especially women, become hand-to-hand combat experts. The first example is in a Season 1 flashback that depicts the moment when Rand’s mother (Magdalena Sittova) gives birth. She is literally in labor while one soldier after another unsuccessfully attempts to take her out, but that doesn’t stop her from spinning circles around them.
From the day they’re able to, all the Aiel learn to fight and never give their enemy the opportunity to strike. One of these women could easily take out a dozenhighly trained Whitecloak soldiers, as viewers see inEpisode 5when the show introduces Aviendha (Ayoola Smart). After Perrin (Marcus Rutherford) frees her from her cage and tries to protect her, she laughs at the thought of someone else having to fight for her. As the soldiers attack, Aviendha maneuvers around their blades while breaking their bones, making each of those Whitecloaks her momentary partner in a dance to the death.Aiel women are stronger and more deadly than any man outside their own culture, and this fact is well known throughout their world.
In ‘The Wheel of Time,’ Power Can Be Wielded in Many Ways For Good
The show has so many women in different positions of power who don’t need the protection of men. They have independent lives and shape the world around them. Not all women may be able to channel the One Power, but they can learn how to get stronger and more agile just like Aviendha and the Aiel. Real women are also gaining positions of power in politics, much like the power the Aes Sedai use when they’re not channeling. Many women find ways to peacefully put themselves between oppressors and their victims to protect the vulnerable, just like Ida did leading the Tuatha’an. Power isn’t simply using force or threats to assert your authority.The different ways women lead inThe Wheel of Timeexemplify how power can take many different forms.
That said, this show is so much more than just reversing the roles of power between men and women. Women are not assumed to have authority over men in their world the way that men are assumed to have authority in ours.The Wheel of Timeteaches the many different ways women can gain power over their lives — not just to attain autonomy and individualism, but to coexist with men’s autonomy as well, giving both genders an equal footing.
