The Queer Pleasures of Amazon's "The Wheel of Time"
In its first two seasons the adaptation of the beloved series by Robert Jordan has already established its bona fides as a true queer classic.
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A few days ago I happened to be browsing Twitter (which I refuse to call X), when I came upon a thread bemoaning the fact that Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time wasn’t nearly as queer as the reader had been led to believe by online discourse. It’s easy to see how they might reach the conclusion that the book series is a queer riot, given just how much queer folks have taken the Amazon adaptation to their hearts. However, while there’s no question that the 14-book series remains a titanic accomplishment of fantasy storytelling, queer it is most definitely not. Oh, sure, there are hints here and there of queer characters and desires, but aside from references to Aes Sedai being “pillow friends” in their youth, it’s all pretty much off-stage.
Now, to be clear, I’ve been a fan of The Wheel of Time since junior high, and it’s one of those fantasy series that I’ve revisited many times over the years. However, I’ll be the first to admit that it does have its shortcomings, and its gender politics and portrayal of queer folks (or lack thereof) is something I’ve always wanted addressed with a screen adaptation. Fortunately for all of us, Rafe Judkins and company have done just that, and I couldn’t be happier with the results.
I think it’s safe to say that queerness suffuses Amazon’s adaptation in a way that simply isn’t true of the novels. To begin with there’s the showrunner, Rafe Judkins, who is openly gay. While not every gay showrunner brings a queer sensibility to their projects, I think it’s safe to say that Judkins does. More to the point, it’s quite exciting just to see an openly gay person be given the reins on such a big-budget production.
But it’s more than just the creative minds behind the series. It’s there, too, in the casting. Take, for example, Rosamund Pike, who plays our beloved Moiraine, arguably the best character in the entire series. Pike is something of a queer icon, thanks to both her steely on-screen grace and her tendency to play devious and sometimes downright diabolical women (including an exploitative lesbian in I Care a Lot). She is the perfect person to play someone like Moiraine, a woman who has been blessed with the ability to wield the One Power and who is also motivated by an unshakeable belief in the justice and rightness of her mission: to recruit the Dragon Reborn and ensure he is equipped to fight the Dark One in the Last Battle. If this haughty woman isn’t the stuff of which gay icons are made–who among us wouldn’t like Moiraine to step on our faces?--then I don’t know who is?
The series wisely decides to make the implicit explicit by making it clear that the relationship between Siuan and Moiraine was not just romantic in their youth but has continued to be so well into their adulthood. It’s quite thrilling to watch their sapphic dynamic, laced and complicated as it is by their positions of power and vulnerability. This choice makes both of their stories much more compelling and emotionally authentic than they are in the novels, where Moiraine’s late-blooming romance with Thom and Siuan’s with Gareth always felt very forced to me, as if Jordan just wanted to have these characters get together and didn’t much care about how he brought that about or how believable they ended up being (I don’t think I’ll ever be able to let the Thom/Moiraine pairing to be honest). Any time that Sophie Okonedo and Pike are on the screen together sparks fly, and the fact that their story so far is an achingly tragic one just makes it all the more poignant.
The queerness in Amazon’s The Wheel of Time also encompasses many of its other female characters. The gays love a bad bitch, and boy is this adaptation filled with such characters. Obviously there are Moiraine and Siuan, but there are also Nynaeve and Elayne (my hat is always going off to Zoë Robins, who is truly remarkable as the former). Yet, as so often in fantasy, it’s the baddies who are true queer icons. No one is really a match for Kate Fleetwood’s hard-edged and icy Liandrin, with her cheekbones that could cut diamonds, and Natasha O'Keeffe made an immediate impression as the Forsaken Lanfear. Though both characters are obviously “evil,” you can’t help but love them and maybe even to cheer for them, even though they could very well bring about the demise of our heroes. I mean, let’s be real, who wasn’t seduced by Lanfear’s dominatrix outfit when she ensnares Rand in Tel'aran'rhiod? Judkins and company knew exactly what they were doing with this scene, and I was and am here for it.
And, of course, there’s also all of the beautiful man-candy on display. The central trio of Rand, Mat, and Perrin–played by Josha Stradowski, Dònal Finn (Barney Harris in the first season), and Marcus Rutherford, respectively–are all beautiful men in their own very distinct ways. They manage to capture so much of what’s appealing and crush-worthy about their book counterparts without falling into the trap of what makes those characters almost impossible to really like or enjoy spending time with (most notably their tendency to always wish that one of the others would be present since they know so much more about women). They’re also just beautiful to look at, and the scene in which Rand is spreadeagled on a wheel for Lanfear’s and our visual delectation is one that will always live rent-free in my head.
It seems more likely than not that subsequent seasons of the series–a third one is already in production–will have even more queer delights for us to savor. I mean, we’ve already (supposedly) got Shohreh Aghdashloo lined up to portray Elaida, giving us yet another mother to love, and Laia Costa has already briefly appeared as the suitably deranged Moghedien, as has Meera Syal as Verin. I don’t know about anyone else, but I simply cannot wait to queen out for season three.