My goal is to read 75 books in 2022. The first book I finished on audiobook was "Winter's Heart" by Robert Jordan, the 9th book in the Wheel of Time series, on Jan. 5. I've been reading this series off and on for about two years now. The 4th book, "A Shadow Rising," got me through my drive from Florida to Pennsylvania when I moved in June 2020. I've also recently finished watching the first season of Wheel of Time on Amazon Prime.
I listen to Wheel of Time while knitting, and I've paired this series with my Knives Out sweater. I completed and published the pattern for it in August 2020 after seeing the Knives Out movie and reverse-engineering the pattern in November 2019, but I’m still chipping away at my own sweater. The cables make it slow-going, and I’m an inch of knitting away from finishing the back, with the front and one sleeve left to knit. I mostly put it aside last year to take on some commissions, but I’m ready to pick it up again.
After listening to nine of these books, I've picked up on some of the author's strange writing habits, some of which might reveal his less-than-progressive views of the world. If Wheel of Time were an episode of Jeopardy!, some of these could be entire categories. Thankfully, the Amazon Prime TV series strips away a lot of this, and it seems that throughout the process the showrunners were interested in refreshing and modernizing a lot of the antiquated sentiments in the narrative.
Horses
Characters spend too much time thinking about horses, and the narrative lingers entirely too long on readying horses, riding horses, descriptions of horses and so on. Characters will stand in a stable and decide which horse they want to take on their adventure, and then there will be a description of what type of horse it is and its name and what its temperament is like. Readers who stay with Wheel of Time long enough know which named horses belong to the main characters. Egwene has Bela, Elayne has Fireheart, Faile and Perrin have Stepper and Swallow, and so on.
Folksy sayings
One of the detriments to consuming these books entirely by audiobook is that I can't highlight the strange similes and folksy sayings Robert Jordan includes as part of his narration. I can't cite any of this for you. You'll just have to take my word for it! This is not about Siuan Sanche and her perpetual fish metaphors, though those are very funny. Instead of saying a character looks guilty, for instance, Jordan will write that someone looked "like guilt nailed to a wall." When I'm finished with the entire series, I might go back and read physical copies of these books, just to be able to pinpoint how odd and frequent these figures of speech occur.
Names of taverns
If you're a fantasy RPG writer, look no further for tavern name inspiration than Wheel of Time. There must be hundreds of inns and taverns, and each with its own unique name. 83 are listed on the Wheel of Time fan wiki.
Spanking & hazing
This is one of the most difficult things, in my opinion, about reading Wheel of Time. Corporal punishment, and threatening other adults with spanking, is a normal and accepted condition of living in Robert Jordan's world. Wheel of Time spans several sprawling continents, complete with unique cultures and customs. Yet, a common thread remains that it's perfectly fine to threaten others' lives with physical violence, and hazing is a normal part of joining a group of people. One of the main protagonists, Egwene, lives for a while with the desert-dwelling Aiel, misleading them by saying she's an Aes Sedai when she is only a novice. Once she admits this to them, they strip her naked and whip her with a belt, and then all is forgiven and they're all friends.
I don't think adult sci-fi and fantasy should spare readers any brutality if it is called for, and this stretch of disturbing material did not unhinge my fragile sensibilities. It's ultimately just weird to live in the year 2022 and read a book with some enduring themes and progressive ideas, but still have other parts of the book that seem determined to live in the 1940s. Corporal punishment and domestic violence also are present in relationships between two married protagonists. I've written multiple screeds about the contentious relationship between Perrin and Faile. Some of it, I think, is rooted in old-fashioned cultural ideas on Jordan's part. The rampant hazing might have something to do with Jordan's time in the military. Yet other instances are just proof that Jordan really isn't that great at writing real people and human relationships.
Women, amirite?
Wheel of Time is set in a matriarchy, and in many of the cultures portrayed in the book, men are expected to defer to women. Yet there are many incidents where men take an exasperated tone with women and the decisions they make, and it's played as a joke. Expect a lot of eyerolling and quaint generalizations like: “Being married to a woman is like being trapped in a hornet’s nest: No matter how you move, you’ll get stung!”
Since Wheel of Time offers equal opportunity gender-based condescension, occasionally one of Jordan's female characters will say something like "Men are woolheads who do nothing but think with the hair on their chests!" Relationships between men and women tend to be portrayed as adversarial, and there's a reluctance to truly work together for a common interest, even when saving the world.
Braid pulling, skirt smoothing and shawl adjusting
These are just a few anxious tics some of the female characters have. The braid pulling is unique to Nynaeve, who is perpetually filled with rage (and I don't blame her!)
Descriptions of coats
In later books, Jordan enjoys describing, in great detail, what characters are wearing, particularly their coats. Sometimes clothing is a signal for morality, and Jordan props up some old-fashioned ideas about the morality of women as it relates to how high or low the neckline of their dress is.
Conversations we can't hear
In "Eye of the World," there's a scene where Rand witnesses Moiraine speaking to Egwene about channeling. He doesn't hear the dialogue between the women, but we get a long description of facial expressions and body language. My suspicion is that Robert Jordan doesn't have a knack for writing conversations, but so often scenes will be narrated from the point of view of someone outside of the dialogue. It is desperately frustrating.
Amazon Prime's Wheel of Time show
I loved the first season of Wheel of Time, as someone who is acutely aware of the books' shortcomings and had several bones to pick with some of the strange habits I outlined above. It's as though the TV show took all of the strange character tics, condescending proverbs about women, descriptions of horses, and Robert Jordan colloquialisms and threw them directly in the trash. We actually got to hear the sweet conversation where Nynaeve and Lan share their feelings with one another, rather than witnessing it from an outsider perspective! Moiraine spoke candidly about a time when a White Tower mentor tortured her to get her to channel, but it wasn't shown, nor did adults threaten to spank any other adults in the TV show! It felt fresh and brutal - there were definitely moments of violence - but nothing felt unnecessary or overdone (except for THAT CHOICE with Perrin, which I think a lot of viewers were upset by.)
Our problematic faves: Do I want to continue?
Wheel of Time has a robust fan culture on Twitter, to the point where mild criticism is met with accusations of "shitposting." I don't think the problem is that Wheel of Time fans enjoy Wheel of Time. The problem is where all extreme fan culture lies: When fans get defensive about a work's more problematic elements and refuse to engage with them in a constructive way. Also, when fans think that the object of their fandom is pristine and perfect and get upset when they were not personally consulted on the choices in an Amazon Prime TV show (see also: Game of Thrones fans.)
It turns out that there are other books and fantasy book series that are better than Wheel of Time! Fans of Harry Potter have been reckoning with this for the past few years after the author outed herself as a rabid transphobe whose world appears to be a stagnant rock. Since it's simply impossible for the Harry Potter author to re-evaluate her repugnant beliefs and change her mind, fans need to make the decision whether the still-living beneficiary of a lucrative franchise ought to get any more of their money, which ultimately will be and has been used to affect the state of human rights in the UK and around the world.
Why am I bringing Harry Potter into this? I think when we reach adulthood, we might not read as much as we did when we were younger. We don't have the time, and we're not being forced to in school. For some readers, Harry Potter might have been the last, longest, or most memorable book series they've ever read. Also, I think when we grow up with a series like Harry Potter or Wheel of Time that is so engaging and formative, we look back on it with the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia. I think that's what might be happening with the Wheel of Time series for some readers.
While Wheel of Time has some elements I struggle with, those issues might be largely benign to another reader. And while those issues might reveal the biases of the author, the author in this case is dead. However, reading Wheel of Time, written by a dead white man and a still-living white man, takes time away from seeking out newer, better works written by authors of color.
Since I am this far into the series, I will likely continue. I have 2 books left that were 100% written by Robert Jordan, and then the last 3 books are written by Brandon Sanderson, who took up the series after Jordan's death. Last year I read Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy, and I felt he wrote combat well and his characters were complex and compelling.
Let people enjoy things in 2022
For as much as I just complained about this silly book series, I really don't have any complaints with those who read it and love it and see no problems with it. I don't ascribe any moral failings to those who want to read Harry Potter or Wheel of Time over and over again until they die (though I might recommend that they maybe try reading something else - just once!) As we continue to experience ongoing trauma as a country and as human beings, we ought to take moments of joy and comfort where we can get it, so long as it does not harm others.
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