The Phoenix

I think the finale for me (and I suspect for a lot of other people based on posts I’ve seen) ruined that. I had such a visceral reaction to seeing Siuan’s beaten’s body, a trail of blood behind her that speaks of brutality and torture, her lying on the floor crying and whimpering, the pain of pulling herself up to try to assert her humanity, her bruised and beaten face as she speaks, the ending shot of her decapitated corpse - just a body, humanity taken from her completely in the end. I recoiled from those images, half watched it once, and unlike every other scene of Siuan’s in the show, cannot bring myself to ever watch it again.

I don’t think the show intended to bring in any real world context, but it is absolutely what made me recoil, what made me feel sick watching those scenes. You can’t put a Black woman on screen lying face down stripped of her clothes and left in a bloody shift, beaten and brutalized, and not make me think of the violence done to Black women in the real world, now and historically. You can’t show me a Black woman who fights so hard to be defiant in the face of brutality and pain and such violence, but who in her last scene is reduced to a body, a tortured, decapitated body, as if attempting to remove all humanity from her, and not have me think about centuries of slavery and all that came in its wake, all the ways that Black women are still dehumanized today.

I know none of that is within the world of Wheel of Time, but as a viewer who lives in the real world, it’s what makes it impossible for me to watch Siuan’s scenes without feeling sick. I am sure none of this was intentional, but I think when people (creators and fans) push back against audience members who had such a visceral reaction to the choice to kill Siuan in this way, they aren’t thinking of the real world baggage those images inevitably carry. Just because the show’s creators might not have seen a Black woman in a bloody shift, a Black woman beheaded, and thought about the centuries of viewing Black women as nothing more than bodies - not human, just bodies for forced labor, for sexual exploitation, for medical experimentation - doesn’t mean that those connotations don’t exist.

Secondly, try engaging with this backlash with the larger context of the show in mind. Or even just S3. Look at how many characters (with speaking roles) died this season and how many of them were black. Think about the unnecessary death of Child Valda (Eamon Valda) this early in the series. The actor, Abdul Salis, devoured his introduction scene (and every scene since) so goddamn thoroughly that he instantly made the White Cloaks a terrifying presence that has resonated throughout the rest of the show. This brilliance gets rewarded with an anticlimactic quick death, with no buildup, by the hands of characters we haven't had the time to get to know properly, and who didn't even share a single scene with him prior. Right when Perrin, who does have a real established connection with him, is set up to spend a whole lot of time with the White Cloaks. Why not keep him for longer, doing what he does best, so that when the girls kill him down the line we'd have spent enough time building up to their confrontation to make for a proper earned send off worthy of such a towering talent?

And Ryma, played magnificently by Nyokabi Gethaiga, who absolutely electrifies from the get-go and through (2x6) in particular (along with her warder Basan played by Bentley Kalu). Ryma whose scream and anguished face as she is being collared by the Seanchan has haunted us for the last two years. Who left such an impression of her kindness, her strength, her faith in her sisters, her bottomless love for her warder, and with so little on-screen time. Gets one singular scene this season. With no acknowledgment, explanation, or addressing of any part of her role last season. How was she freed? When? Why was she not part of the effort to uncover Black Ajah in the tower when we saw her so deeply pained and shaken even by just the realization that one of her sisters could betray their sisterhood? She was written into such an afterthought background character this season that so many audience members seem to have straight up not even recognized her as the same character from S2, as Ryma, at all.

And Ihvon, originally played by Emmanuel Imani and recast this season to be played by Anthony Kaye, who dies in ep.(1) and, to the show's credit, haunts Alanna and Maksim's storyline so strongly that we feel his presence throughout the season. But we see none of that reflected in the tower. With Stepin (Peter Franzén) in S1, we get such a beautiful display of the warder's brotherhood, cultural ties to each other, and most importantly, how deeply loved Stepin was by his fellow warders. S1 makes us feel the loss of him reverberate through them all so devastatingly. Where is that grief for Ihvon? Where is his community? We spend so much time in the tower immediately in the aftermath of his death, and yet there is no one to mourn or honor him in the absence of Alanna and Maksim? We couldn't have had some of our characters pass by or even just hear about the other warders holding a funeral for him? Or just remembering him in some way?

I could go on for a good while still honestly. And sure, we could make legitimate arguments and have readings that justify these choices individually. But regardless, what this shows in aggregate, is a pattern of clumsiness in handling dark-skinned black characters/actors in particular. While at the same time, playing around with extremely politically, historically, and emotionally charged images of black bodies. Be it Ryma being collared and never addressing it again, Child Valda's whole thing, etc. etc. ... and now Siuan Sanche bruised black and blue, bloody, stripped to her shifts, bodily dragged across the hall, and decapitated. These are incredibly powerful and visceral images.

From the server. Here you go @cozcat. For my blorbo.

FULL BOOK SPOILERS DO NOT ENTER IF YOU DON’T WANT TO BE RUINED First of all I had a bunch of feelings today do to you guys while I was in a meeting with my boss and missed Cry About Siuan Sanche Hour so thanks for that. I’ve heard about Moiraine’s heroism like a million times since she’s more of a fandom fave so that’s not usually my focus when I go off the deep end. 

But Siuan Sanche? Everything for her tbh. That passage? The one where she ruminates on the time she spent in the Tower? How she was couped within it grown old early while the world was beautiful? How she missed experiencing the world while Moiraine was searching without her? How they’d never spent a night apart in all of New Spring but then in short succession after being raised Aes Sedai in the gayest ceremony ever performed at the White Tower she loses her first love and her freedom? 

Siuan was happy with  her lot in life on a fishing boat with her father and that was taken from her. She found purpose and love while training to use a power she didn’t want and then that was taken from her. She didn’t understand the game and Cetalia and the Blue Ajah took her freedom from her.  The girl who wanted to see the world? who never dreamed to be Aes Sedai until she was forced to it? 

Chains stronger than cuendilar forged of duty bound Siuan to her fate and she never escaped it. Siuan who stoically made her peace with her role after one known escape to warn Moiraine about the Black Ajah and what happened to the official searchers. She made the best of her prison and she LEARNED. An unsophisticated fisher girl mastered daes dae'mar in self defense. She waited, she did paperwork, she played the Towers game until she landed on top of it. She spent her time and energy protecting Moiraine and their quest. We never learned what other goals she may of had or events she influenced but it didn’t matter in the end. The Tower she built her life around betrayed her. Stuck like a crab in a trap her worst enemy arranged her deposal and tore her down. 

Siuan knew that for 20 years the Black Ajah was there and how the Amyrlins before her met their end. How afraid was she? How alone she must of felt while she was a sitting duck? She’s always so quick to get back to business but she’s not an idiot. She knew her time was coming. She understood what Min said but since Min can’t say when then she moves all that she can until that moment comes. 

But also the surprise of the betrayal? How painful to realize how badly she’d miscaculated her colleagues? She’s tortured for info about Moiraine and the Dragon. Then the power she never wanted but also defined her status was ripped from her. She got her best friend tortured and stilled a long side her? Everything she ever accomplished was erased in an instant. 

But this is Siuan Sanche? for the fourth time in her life she woke up and seized what opportunity she had. She left that Tower with Min, Leane, and Logain and she went out on a MISSION. And against all odds she succeeds? She puts all that mastery of daes dae'mar on display in Salidar and she gets no respect for it. She’s no one. She’s the idiot who broke the Tower. She’s the one who made all the mistakes and ruined everything. She’s shunned by her peers and is now a maid to some asshole with a hardon for her newer younger face. But god damn does she square up and show those assholes what she can do.  

Egwene is nothing but an apprentice to the Aiel before the pattern worked it’s magic through Siuan. She uses Egwene but also becomes her biggest mentor and friend. Making the transition to someone used to being in charge all the time and then to a bottom feeding catfish was a rough ride for Siuan but she does it? Does she complain? NO. You get ONE monologue towards the end of the series where she thinks damn this really didn’t go the way I wanted.

Siuan gets her power back but it’s just a trickle compared to what she had before and she has to completely find her place again in the Aes Sedai’s social hierarchy and RECALIBRATE all of her plans to work with her new status while she continues to be some assholes maid while developing stockholm syndrome.

And guess what bitches? Siuan Sanche is back daes dae’maring the entire Salidar Show asap. Egwene gets herself captured and it’s up to SIUAN with help but she’s the mastermind to hold that camp together and circumvent Lelaine and Romanda’s power grabs for Egwene. Can you imagine if Siuan Sanche wasn’t there? Egwene would of lost everything that she had gained but Siuan kept it for her by her teeth and nails but she did it. The pariah of the camp now a weak to middling Sister kept that ship afloat. At any point that could of gone tits up. How worried was Siuan? You’ll never know because she’ll never say that’s not her way but dear god the work ethic she has? The ability to hold on in the face of fear or loss? Her bravery?

And then when Egwene is in charge of the unified Tower? Siuan is the FIRST in line to declare herself NOT A FUCKING DARKFRIEND in front of all the Aes Sedai who doubted her and those who betrayed her. She waltzed up to the front of the line bypassing the gd strength hierarchy to do it. And also her secondary purpose? The failed former Amyrlin bowing to the newly raised Girl Amyrlin. She bestowed political capital to Egwene to spend how she choses. The old bent knee for the new. A message for the entire Tower that the world is seriously changing.

Without Siuan Sanche at the beginning of the series letting Rand go free and protecting Moiraine and then through the middle of the series guiding and protecting Egwene then the fields of Merrilor never happen?? Rand would be in a box and Egwene a novice but both are needed by the pattern to set the stage for the last battle between the Dragon and the Aes Sedai. Siuan Sanche was the tool that did all of this unglorious work and she lost everything for it including her life… just like her prodigy Egwene. Seriously WTF on that.

Anyways Siuan Sanche ladies and gentlemen. She deserves the world. She deserves more love. She deserves her character arc to play out in the show in a way that shows her intelligence, her power, her grit, her determination, her WILL. Fuck your prophecy Siuan Sanche did it her way and she’ll do it again no matter how many times fate knocks her down.Siuan Sanche swam upriver against the pattern her entire life, flipping off her haters, until the day she died.Siuan Sanche.

This is fucked up beyond all reason.

Not only have they killed off the queer woman of colour to prop her white partner, they have always planned to do so.

The oath rod and the oath came into this with such importance that it only tells me that this was always the plan. Which means they promoted the show and talked about this couple like it mattered, like it would go the distance full knowing how it would end.

They sold the Oath Rod scene as a marriage vow when THIS was always the plan, and for that the show has lost all confidence I had in it.

And to add insult to injury they did it in a unnecessarily brutal way. Siuan was fully brutalised on full display; other scenes where similar people were hurt or whatever were done in darkness, but there she was - brutalized on the first good lighted scene in the season, it seems like. And then- they fucking BEHEAD her.

It is unacceptable and if the claims about colourism weren't already making the rounds, this should shoot it to the top of the list.

And this is not even considering that Siuan has a fucking arc in the goddamned books to continue. They literally took it all away, and made her matter only to her white partner and then had the gall to fucking kill her without her being nothing more than Moiraine's girlfriend.

I hate this. I hate that I ever got anyone interested in this show. And I hate that when I talked to people before, I always dismissed when they said that Siuan would die for Moiraine, because I thought it was idiotic. I am so sorry to those people because they were right.

Because that's what happened and, worse, that was always the plan.

I MEAN IT - DO NOT CLICK BELOW THE CUT IF YOU HAVEN‘T SEEN 3x08 YET!

Rahvin: Hey, maybe we should stop infighting because this is what got us defeated the last time! Anyway, what's this meeting about? Lanfear: I was thinking that we should gang up on Moghedien.