Wheel of Time Screentime, s1e6
In this first season of the Wheel of Time, "The Flame of Tar Valon" is quite an outlier. Except for the 5m10s cold open, the entirety of this episode 6 is told from Moiraine's PoV. After seeing her distant and secretive for more than half of the season, it was refreshing to discover the humanity of her character.
It is thus not a surprise to get more than 50m of screentime for Moiraine, as she was, well, everywhere. Our Amyrlin Seat, Siuan Sanche, comes 2nd with about 31m of screentime. The characters that follow, Maigan and Leane, were heavily helped by their background role in the two Hall scenes, which lasted 11m13s and 5m03s respectively.
All of our EF folks got between 8min and a bit more than 13min, which may seem small in comparison to Moiraine or Siuan screentime, but is not far from what they all had in episode 4 (from 6m30s to almost 14m per character) or episode 5 (from almost 7m to a bit more than 14m per character).
The gender balance in this episode is, well, vastly different from previous ones. Due to the focus on Moiraine and, to a lesser extent, on Siuan, and the number of women-only scenes, women obtained about 1h47m more screentime than men. No wonder it made me gayer. Side note: during the first five episodes of The Wheel of Time, men had a total of 8h20m of screentime, compared to 5h34m for women. With episode 6, the difference of screentime decreases from 2h46m to 0h59m.
I would usually stop a screentime breakdown on that note, but since I'm a queer and this episode was literally a childhood dream coming true, I will allow myself a deviation in a (huge) follow-up part, which I will call:
The Case for a Siuraine Endgame.
[Some minor book spoilers ahead]
In the book series, Moiraine and Siuan canonically have an intimate relationship during their time at the White Tower. If you have never read New Spring, or if that relationship went completely above your head (which is fine, honestly), you can either (re)read that prequel (it's a very short read) or take a look at this thread. Put on some gay googles if needed, but New Spring felt like the gay cousin in a more traditional Fantasy book family.
What isn't in the books, though, is whether that relationship continued after New Spring. While Moiraine and Siuan are still very close to each other after being raised to Aes Sedai, one ended up running away from the Tower (for politics) while the other got stuck in it (also for politics, kinda). They then only talked once in the main book series, in a few early chapters of The Great Hunt. Both of them have a main male love interest by the end of The Wheel of Time. The quality/development of those relationships is another story in itself.
As a result, making Moiraine and Siuan explicitly and canonically in a long-term romantic relationship is a decision made by the show. Did they take from the books? Yes. Did they have to do any of that? Not unless they wanted to. Sure, it would have been nice in 2021 for them to acknowledge that such an intimate relationship existed between Moiraine and Siuan at some point in their past, but they could have stopped at that acknowledgment, making it queer enough to check a bullet point in some diversity list. Honestly, as far as I'm concerned, this is what most movies and TV shows still tend to do: have a character canonically LGBTQ+, and then too often it's either never mentioned again, or it becomes their whole personality trait, or their partner is mostly irrelevant to the story.
So far, the show is doing more than that, and this is not even just about episode 6. Despite Siuan Sanche only being present for one episode, her introduction and her relationship with Moiraine were built up during the three episodes that came before.
Ep3 had this very short but very sweet moment of Moiraine whispering her lover's name while being sick and unconscious from the Trolloc poison. In my breakdown for this episode, I called it the "unconscious but gay" moment.
Ep4 gave us Lan asking Stepin for news of the White Tower and of the Amyrlin Seat ("Still seated. Not any fonder of Moiraine, though. I heard her threaten to fetch you two home personally."). With Lan being often careful about his words, asking about the Amyrlin Seat is not innocent: he knows of her relationship with Moiraine and the plans they have made together regarding the Dragon Reborn.
While the discussion between Alanna and Moiraine in ep5 started about the Warder bond, it quickly switched to the Amyrlin Seat. This was the first time non-readers heard her full name, Siuan Sanche. Only those watching with subtitles could have made the connection with the name whispered by Moiraine in ep3. This episode deepened the known tensions between Moiraine and Siuan, with Alanna even commenting on Moiraine taking the Seat from her.
Then ep6's cold open showed us a young Siuan Sanche and her moving relationship with her dad, until their home gets burned down due to Tear's hate of channelers. It is then hard to see young Siuan, who went to the White Tower after losing pretty much everything, as the powerful enemy Alanna mentioned in ep5. In fact, if the Amyrlin Seat had been an opponent similar to Liandrin, I doubt we would have taken the time to learn about her childhood.
It is quite the whiplash when the Flame of Tar Valon finally turns her attention to Moiraine in the Hall. The 2m20s that followed were freaking tense. Moiraine fails to find adequate answers for the Amyrlin, who insults her by mentioning her noble blood. As Siuan's father told her in the cold open, "if any of them bastards tries to shame you, you show them who you are", and the Amyrlin did not take lightly Moiraine's refusal.
Of course, this was just for show. Book readers knew they were at least friends, and non-book readers may have guessed from the importance of that cold open. But still. Later in that episode, after a fun minute of Lan "You masked your bond" Mandragoran and Moiraine "Goodnight Lan" Damodred, Lan departs on a "Give her my love", to which Moiraine reacts with one of the cutest expressions ever.
It takes another minute for Moiraine to open that portal to meet Siuan, and we then get some delicious 6m7s of continuous screentime with only the two of them.
In the context of queer relationships in mainstream medias, 6m7s in continuous is a fuck ton of time, especially for such intimate scene. Considering this was a 57m episode (taking out the recap and credits), this means more than 10% of ep6 was given to develop Moiraine and Siuan’s private relationship. We got to see two middle-aged and powerful women in an interracial relationship, one of which is the lead of the show (so far), who have loved each others for probably around 25 years, despite the 20 years Moiraine has spent on the road. After two years without seeing the one they consider their partner and equal, their reunion was sexy but not sexualized (take that, male gaze!), and both finally got to talk about the secrets, doubts and dreams that have been nagging at their minds. It made those characters beautifully human and vulnerable, a welcomed contrast from what has been shown of them so far.
But the show doesn’t even stop there. When Moiraine brings Egwene and Nynaeve to meet the Amyrlin Seat (”Siuan Sanche waits for only one woman. And it’s not you.”), the focus of those 3m35s is on the Two Rivers girls meeting the most powerful Aes Sedai in the world. But when Siuan talks about deserving something different (”stay home, love the people you love, grow old with them”), it’s a direct reflection of her life with Moiraine and the sacrifices they both had to make because of the pattern. That star-crossed lovers theme comes back and forth during most of the scenes Moiraine and Siuan share.
The last moment they have together is the 5m3s long exile scene. The oath in itself takes about 2m of that time, and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen wedding vows shorter than that for queer relationships in mainstream media. And yes, I’m talking about wedding vows: there was a time where women would vow to love, honor and obey their husbands in Christian wedding ceremonies. While the original vows are archaic and misogynistic, the parallel is at least funny if not very interesting, considering Moiraine is directly swearing to Siuan Sanche (”daughter of the river, clever as a pike, strong as the tides”). Moreover, while “By the Light and my hope of salvation and rebirth” is commonly used in the books to swear the Three Oaths (and the rebirth is a direct callback to Siuan’s earlier “In this life or the next”), I don’t recall “or may the Creator’s face turn from me forever and darkness consume my soul” being used in the books except for when Siuan swore to Gareth Bryne in TFoH. Also quite interesting considering Siuan and Gareth later relationship in the books.
Which brings me to my next point: how Siuan was developed in this episode 6 compared to other recurring characters in the show:
In term of screentime, Siuan is about 5min behind Liandrin, who appeared in 5 episodes this season (1, 3, 4, 5, 6). She’s above Alanna and Logain, who appeared in 4 episodes, and above Stepin, who appeared in 3. She has more than twice the screentime than Thom, a significant character in the books that met Moiraine in tEoTW but still hasn’t seen her in the show. Meanwhile, Siuan had a stunning 25m48s of shared screentime with Moiraine in a single episode. This is half of Moiraine’s screentime in ep6, and 45% of the episode.
That ranking would probably change if considering speaking time. @far-dareis-me has been doing some Wheel of (Speaking) Time analysis, and I am looking forward to see how Siuan’s speaking time would compare to Liandrin’s or Thom’s for example.
So, what does this tell us overall?
Siuan is an important character in the books, and will also be one in the show, and not just for her relationship to Moiraine. While her introduction in the cold-open does serve her relationship with Moiraine (see Moiraine quoting Siuan’s father during her oath), it tells a lot about her own poorer background (in contrast with Moiraine’s noble one). She also has an active part in the search for the Dragon, and her discussion with Egwene and Nynaeve tells us we may see them interacting with the Amyrlin again as they move to the Tower to be trained.
The show spent a significant amount of time on building and developing Moiraine and Siuan’s relationship, which they did not have to do to follow the books storyline. We know they cut a Loial scene in this episode, and that the ending had to be changed because of the deal with Mat. They could have reduced Moiraine and Siuan’s time to develop more other characters. Moiraine did not need to be there when Siuan was talking to Egwene and Nynaeve. That exile scene could have been shorter (and those vows didn’t need to be that long). Those 2m25s of Moiraine prepping herself to see her wife girlfriend could have been shorter. But the fact that the show kept all those moments and gave this queer storyline the time it deserved means something, especially in comparison with what other mainstream shows tend to do.
The storyline of Thom, who [book spoilers] is Moiraine’s male love-interest in the books, has been modified enough that he did not meet Moiraine when he was supposed to. They may meet later on, sure. But how could this meeting even compared to the 25+ years of love the show gave us for Siuan and Moiraine?
Maybe the show is just cruel. After all, they’re giving some mostly sweet development to another couple we know is doomed. But, in my opinion, with all the pieces they put on their board, it would be very strange (and disappointing) to devote so much time on Moiraine and Siuan’s relationship if they have no intent to play the star-crossed lovers card as much as they can.
Let’s just hope that this trope ends up as beautifully as Aragorn and Arwen’s relationship did (or Fitzsimmons for the Agents of Shield veterans), and not as a queer remake of Romeo and Juliet.
As always, here’s a link to the data. Sorry for the long rant, but it needed to come out.
