You May Go Far

I love how Wheel of Time (Jordan edition) is a series which really deep down believes that people are people and everybody is ultimately kinda trapped in their own cultural upbringing and point of view, but that this doesn't condemn them to being a Good Guy or a Bad Guy, in a way that is very hopeful about the basic nature of humanity and is also utilised for some extremely funny point-of-view humour. I love that every single character is looking at a different character going 'man, how come they have it together when I'm such a mess'. I love that it says quietly but emphatically that an influx of Muslim-coded non-white refugees to the heroes' rural hometown brings prosperity and new industry and positive change that should be embraced. I love that its human bad guys are the Inquisition via the Klu Klux Klan and a chattel slavery empire with Southern accents and a bunch of deranged academics, but, this is important, it still thinks academic research and being a giant nerd is a hugely valuable (and gender-neutral) area of human interest. I think it has held up remarkably well nearly forty years after the first book was published and I think it will continue to do so.

the fires of heaven, chapter 1, fanning the sparks - siuan

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The academic environment he is primarily satirising simply was not as gender-segregated as the one he depicts. My own great-great-grandmother was at Cambridge in the 1880s; women couldn't get degrees but they could and did study. There are no female students at Unseen University. The wizards build Discworld's first computer. In the real world women designed and operated the first computers and the word computer originally meant 'a woman who makes mathematical calculations'. There are no women anywhere near Hex except domestic servants. The wizards are broadly meant to parody physicists at some points; I was recently reading a biography of Ernest Rutherford, a leading physicist in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in the UK and Canada. He had female students and corresponded with female physicists of the day. They weren't abundant but they did exist (uh, Marie Curie?)

With Unseen University Pratchett has created a magical tradition so gender-segregated it doesn't have room for the Discworld equivalent of Marie freaking Curie, and in the real world the only way that happens is very significant levels of misogyny pushing women out of spaces, because otherwise you're saying that there is not one woman in Ankh-Morporkh smarter or more interested in magic than (checks notes) Rincewind. But the wizards aren't presented as raving misogynists deliberatly keeping out women with an academic interest in magic, because that would be wildly unpleasant. So it winds all the way around again to magic gender essentialism by implication.

I have long ago (2 days ago) decided my first post of 2026 will be a shitpost

(book) throwing half a loaf of bread at Mat's head in anger. who among us has not wanted to throw something at Mat's head in anger

(show) verbally eviscerating Moiraine in the sweat tent. the audacity to call Moiraine "child" is incredible. "do they not teach politeness at your White Tower, child?"

(book) riding on the back of Moiraine's horse through the desert. holding her "awkwardly" around the waist bc she can't ride but she's just so desperate to talk to her!

(book) holding Lan back from following Moiraine into Rhuidean and also physically blocking him when she returns. very impressive

(show) when Avi says she can't teach Rand if he's unwilling to learn and she smirks at her and goes "Cannot?" [meaningful look at Bair] "Cannot." the sass in this scene is at lethal levels

(book) comforting Aviendha before Rhuidean, it's a very sweet moment and Egwene is like "wow I'm surprised, I thought she was the meanest of the four Wise Ones"

(book) asking the Wise Ones to talk to Dorindha about marrying Bael with the iconic (to me) line "I cannot stay away from him and I cannot kill him." yes she kind of acts like a sugar-high ten-year-old in her romance plot but sometimes being into someone just feels like that

(book) naming her baby after Egwene. again a very understandable urge. I named my car after Egwene

(book and show) slipping up and revealing that Moiraine has to go to Rhuidean. girl keep your mouth shut that wasn't very wise of you

WIVES !!

Weave ✨