Moiraine gay
Wheel of Time season one ends with the revelation that Rand al’Thor is the Dragon Reborn, the prophesied male Channeler who will either save the world or absolutely destroy it. This obviously freaks out our earnest shepherd boy, who decides to Spider-Man all his friends, begging Aes Sedai Moiraine Damodred to relate them he died fighting the Gloomy One at the Eye of the World. And actually something really terrible did happen during that battle: Moiraine lost her connection to the One Power, leaving her unable to perform any Channeling. Season two kicks off not long after, with our ragtag band of townies from Emond’s Field splintering and splitting up, and Moiraine — in genuine queer fashion — taking a lot of hot, brooding baths to deal with her grief and angst over her lost magic. Prime Video’s promo for season two was Rosamund Pike times a million, and I’m pleased to say they were not overselling Moiraine’s continued involvement in keeping this Wheel turning.
Season one of Prime Video’s adaptation of Robert Jordan’s sprawling titanic fantasy series was both celebrated and derided by fans and critics alike. For me, much like the books, I wanted to
SPOILERS FOR THE WHEEL OF TIME EPISODE SIX AHEAD!
I value that, in vaguely acknowledging the being of queerness at all, Robert Jordan was far ahead of many of his straight colorless cisgender male peers in the fantasy literature scene of the 1990’s when it came to LGBTQ+ representation, but I think that speaks more to how low the bar was at the time for mainstream fantasy than to any particularly strong or noble effort by Jordan to write homosexual characters and relationships into his Wheel Of Time novels. And women in fantasy and in speculative fiction at large had been raising that lock for decades before Jordan, so I’m not sure how many points he deserves for giving us…”pillow-friends”.
Ah, the infamous pillow-friends – a bit of queer(ish) terminology unique to the Jordan lexicon, and therefore conveniently flexible. In and of itself, the phrase was seemingly so self-explanatory that queer readers could choose to interpret it as visibility without straying too far into head-canon territory…but because the term was never explicitly defined, others could very easily dismiss those interpretations as frivolous, and find text
This article contains The Wheel of Time spoilers.
The Wheel of Time has plenty to enjoy for those who haven’t read the Robert Jordan novels upon which the show is based, but there has been no shortage of frustration on the part of “book purists” who are dissatisfied with some of the changes made by the television adaptation. Complaints of women entity among the Dragon Reborn candidates, for example, may have primed more defensive viewers to question the latest narrative revision: the portrayal of Moiraine and Siuan as lovers.
But before the claims of “woke nonsense” come rolling in, hold on a moment. Although the late Robert Jordan never spelled out a romantic connection between the Amyrlin Seat and the esteemed Aes Sedai of the Blue Ajah, there were plenty of references to the pair being “pillow friends” as novices and beyond. While Jordan’s portrayal may acquire been colored somewhat by his own 1990s male perspective of what immature secluded women might indulge in, he did clarify in a 2005 blog post that, “Pillow friends are not just nice friends. Oh, they are that, too, but they also get hot and sweaty together and muss up the sheets something fierce.”
Moiraine and Siuan
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Anon, I’m very surprised you haven’t been able to find anything about these two because I’ve seen many posts about it, especially on tumblr, but I tried my leading to summarize everything you asked for. It got a bit long, because we’re talking about a story that spans 15 books, but uh, adore . (You will not savor this.)
The short version is:
- Moiraine and Siuan start their quest for the Dragon Reborn when they are 22/23 years old. They are Accepted (studying to be Aes Sedai) in the White Tower when they both hear the prophecy of the Dragon being Reborn. They get Aes Sedai very soon after this, and kickstart their quest to spot the Dragon Reborn by Moiraine riding out of the Tower to physically search for him and Siuan staying in the Tower and learning to be a spymaster so she can do knowledge gathering for the hunt. At this point in time, there’s no actual doubt - unless you’re reading the text with blinders on - that Moiraine and Siuan adore each other and are romantically/sexually involved with each other. These bitches gay. -
- The main book series starts 20 years after the above happens. By this time, Moiraine has searched all over the Westlands for the Kingly
THE WHEEL OF TIME’s Showrunner on Moiraine and Siuan
In the lead up to episode six of The Wheel of Time, “The Flame of Tar Valon,” we hear some of the Aes Sedai talk with tones of deference and awe about the Amyrlin Seat. They communicate about going in front of her like kids refer to going to the principal’s office at school. And could you call the Amyrlin Seat the principal of the Aes Sedai? Nah. As we saw in the episode, she’s so much more than an administrator. Siuan Sanche, the Amyrlin Seat of the Aes Sedai, is a gal who can shake the world.
Portrayed by Sophie Okonedo, Siuan commands the Hall of the Tower from the moment she walks in. The Wheel of Time showrunner Rafe Judkins tells Nerdist via email, “The Amyrlin Seat is one of, if not the, most powerful individual in the world in the books. So, to bring them to experience, casting was everything for us. And bizarrely, the first person that both Rosamund [Pike] and I separately thought of was Sophie Okonedo.”
Judkins continues, “I remember standing in the Two Rivers with her when we first talked about it and had that almost kismet meaning of ‘if that was both of our number one