The Wheel of Time's female characters are a breath of fresh air in the world of fantasy

Paste Magazine

"Sometimes it can be really difficult to be a female fan of genre television, particularly in the fantasy space. Because no matter how much you might love it, nine times out of ten, it does not love you back," says Lacy Baugher Milas. "Representation can be slim, when present at all. Women are too often stuck as de facto supporting characters, usually present to serve as love interests to one of the male heroes rather than drive the action themselves. Many (most?) end up as victims of physical or sexual violence, and their stories tend to be peppered with the sort of casual misogyny and pointless objectification that generally only exists to serve a male gaze." Milas notes that Game of Thrones, "which notably gave us a groundbreaking array of female characters, from the traditionally feminine Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) to murderous dragon rider Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke), still generally positioned its women as exceptions to their genders, succeeding only in ways that were acceptable or similar to men. (And most were still raped or otherwise violated along the way.) Even Netflix’s The Witcher, which has established itself as something of a gold standard for female agency in the fantasy space, is still an explicitly masculine story, albeit one that generally treats its women as equals in their own rights. This is the reason that Amazon’s new high fantasy drama The Wheel of Time feels like such a breath of fresh air. The simple fact that the show features so many women in major roles feels rather astounding, but more than that, the series consciously treats them as the primary drivers of the tale we’re watching. In this story, women are everywhere, as everything from powerful sorceresses and gifted politicians to rural blacksmiths and village healers, and the nuanced depiction of these different types of female power is both an exciting and necessary change of pace." ALSO: Rosamund Pike on playing Moiraine: "With this kind of woman who seemed really cold and in control, I think it’s probably a kind of cartwheel for people’s brains to suddenly see that underneath there are all these other layers and things at play."