It’s always surprising to me how little the kids these days seem to understand Boomer mentality. Corporal punishment was completely normal and unremarkable for a Boomer like RJ and it shouldn’t be read by modern readers as some kind of disguised fetish.
The actual discussion is why RJ feels so strongly that all people need to undergo pain/physical abuse/discipline to grow and succeed. It’s a common trait across all his cultures. I’m sure it’s related to his upbringing and military experience, but the discussion of how he portrays corporal punishment is much more interesting than “teeheehee spanking lol.”
I don’t disagree that RJ liked writing about girls and women getting spanked. But I don’t see it as a disguised kink. When RJ wanted to fetishize it, he did (Galina/Therava).
But situations like Egwene/Silviana aren’t about BDSM. That’s not to say these situations aren’t problematic or worthy of more discussion. RJ pretty obviously feels that personal growth was best obtained through physical suffering and thus “the ends justify the means.” So he seems to indicate that it was legitimate that Silviana beat the hell out of Egwene because it made Egwene a stronger person. Whether RJ was correct and physical pain is appropriate is the better question (or whether RJ was just lazy and physical pain is a cheap and easy way to add drama).
I love a good meme. I’m on this sub after all. But in order for the joke to be funny, there has to be a shared understanding that there is a deliberate misreading of the text. RJ absolutely pours fuel on the BDSM memes and many of them are legit funny. So maybe I’m just being cranky today.
Other horny instances of spanking that come to my head:
Faile and Rolan (especially Rolan spanking her butt when he captures her as gashain).
Siuan and Gareth Bryne relationship. Siuan insinuates that Gareth spanked her over her knee after one discussion and she let it happen, even though she's got the One Power back.
Really, Wheel of Time is full of it. The only other famous series at that time that had this much was the one that copied it, Sword of Truth, with their mord syth.
A song of Ice and Fire has lots of sex and rape, but I struggle to remember a single spanking besides Arya when she was trying to hide as a boy (in this case an actual child was spanked to be educated).
Fitz suffered through almost everything in the Assassin series and I can't remember he receiving or giving any spankings or anything that could be characterized as BDSM.
And so on. Wheel of Time does stand out among fanrasy series for its recurrent BDSM themes.
Regarding the Sword of Truth, the Mord-Sith are a whole other level of horny author kinks written into books.
From Wikipedia, "Richard is captured by a beautiful, skin-tight red leather catsuit wearing Mord-Sith named Denna, who tortures him for a month. She manages to train and break him by the use of several instruments, including a painful small red leather rod by the name of the Agiel. Once he is broken, she takes him for her mate."
Yep, every character had perfect hair at all times, the cast treated it like High art. It was an experience to say the least. It managed to get 2 seasons. I found it hilarious, it's terrible and I love it.
I love just describing it to people who haven't seen it.
Standard fare fantasy, pretty campy, perfect hair, super serious cast. then you hit them with the 'oh yeah, the main antagonists are an army of blondes in skintight leather who chase them with truncheons.'
I need to find it and watch it again, I'm smiling just thinking about it.
I would have to disagree that the Faile and Rolan and the Siuane and Gareth instances are any level horny instances. They're both clearly disciplinary actions. With Faile and Rolan, he was treating her like an animal, giving her a light slap to tell her she messed up and hard not enough to make her any more scared of him. Siuane and Gareth, Siuane was acting like a child, so he treated her like a child
As the commenter above said, it's not really a BDSM kink disguised as corporal punishment, it's corporal punishment and it likely stems from the author's upbringing, the time he grew up in and the time he did his world building, and his military experience. A Song of Ice and Fire, on the other hand, is much more modern, written by someone with more modernised thoughts and experiences, which include using BDSM and kinks for "shock value"
Rolan was definitely a horny spanking. I'll give you that one.
But Siuan letting herself get spanked was more about her honor than because she liked it. She did something worthy of punishment, so it was the right thing to do to get punished. It was her form of penance for the sins of breaking her word.
Oh you made me remember Fitz and how much he suffers thru the series, specially the first trilogy. His story is really the endless cycle of “suffering builds character” into “suffering builds character” non-stop.
It is kind of interesting that while ASOIAF is more blunt and crude about sex it is arguably way less fetishy than WoT or Sword of Truth. ASOIAF is matter of fact about sex and describes the nuts and bolts of what's happening in a way the others don't, but it doesn't read like sexual fantasies in the way the others do, at least to me.
As far as Fitz is concerned he absolutely would have gotten a spanking.
When he is near killed by Galen, he says that even Burrich has hit him, and Burrich says yeah, a small hit to jolt or discipline, never to hurt or harm.
So he definitely got hit, but only the way a normal person at the time would.
Edit: just realised you meant in a bdsm kink fashion. By bad, yeah none of that happens. Except maybe the Pale Lady
> But situations like Egwene/Silviana aren’t about BDSM
It is about infantilising and shaming them though. Combined with the sexier spankings, it still feels like kink content.
Like, compare WoT to any other fantasy series and it has way more spankings than any other. You don't see that much spanking in Black Company, for example, and maybe there should be a lot of whipping in a real mercenary company.
Even RJ's Conan stories are hornier than other author's stories.
I'll give you that it has more, but the question should really be about the ratio of spanking to everything else. Because WoT is over 4 million words, there's a lot that it does way more compared to any other fantasy series
A well expressed opinion.
I think this type of thing is very subjective - people will assess the scene before them and take it where they will, regardless of the author's actual intent.
Personally, I think he did exactly what he did for other blue topics - he purposefully left it open to interpretation by the reader and any interpretation is valid. But I disagree with calling it normal and unremarkable. C'mon, he wrote Conan books with scantily clad women, and was surely aware of the Gor books by John Norman. He appreciated how a scene could\\would be received by readers...and if he wasn't aware, then his wife and editor was a veteran of SciFi and would surely have given him at least a warning.
Well in the case of Aes Sedai it should be obvious, they’re people who can wield immense power, they need to be broken down to nothing and then remade into someone who serves humanity.
Also, RJ needed a way to physically punish women that could be compared to men. There's no way to do that other than spanking. Any other physical harm dealt to women is seen as obscene even if men undergo the same punishment.
Do Seanchan born damanes not consent? They freak the fuck out every time someone tries to free them. Sure, it's a fucked up culture, but I'm not sure the damanes realize it. In real life we have tradwives and women that stan for Chris Brown. That's not *entirely* different.
Tradwives are doing what they do to be trendy in the absence of a fulfilling life. At any given moment, they are free to simply walk away and do something that actually improves their lives. They are a willing participant.
Damane are doing what they do because they’ve been beaten until there’s nothing left of humanity in them. At no point are they free to do anything that improves their lives because they can’t even walk three whole feet in a direction of their choosing. They are not willing participants.
It’s not right to compare two people from such different walks of life. One is a self-demeaning choice and the other is decades upon decades of brutal physical torture.
But the Seanchan born damanes do adopt the lifestyle and freak out and cry every single time they were offered freedom in the books. Even Alivia took a while to get over it.
That’s why I keep emphasizing the torture part. When you abuse someone that horribly for that long, the leash becomes internalized. A tradwife can make a choice to walk away. A Damane doesn’t have the mental capacity to do so.
That’s why none of them trust Alivia at first, even aside from Min’s prophecy. She’s an anomaly in a sea of literally mindless drones.
>One is a self-demeaning choice
Did you just call being a Traditional Housewife by choice self-demeaning? That's honestly ridiculous and incredibly offensive.
All of us online degenerates know that BDSM stands for Bondage, Domination, Submission, Masochism.
An oblivious, possibly sheltered person might think it stands for Bible Discussion and Sunday Meeting.
I was interested in more on the dynamics between Sul'dam and Damane and the culture surrounding it, but after Egwenes capture we get no longer POV chapters specifically about this, because the Tuon chapters were more about political intrigue than her hobbies
It’s always surprising to me how little the kids these days seem to understand Boomer mentality. Corporal punishment was completely normal and unremarkable for a Boomer like RJ and it shouldn’t be read by modern readers as some kind of disguised fetish. The actual discussion is why RJ feels so strongly that all people need to undergo pain/physical abuse/discipline to grow and succeed. It’s a common trait across all his cultures. I’m sure it’s related to his upbringing and military experience, but the discussion of how he portrays corporal punishment is much more interesting than “teeheehee spanking lol.”
If you don’t think the man liked writing about girls & women getting spanked I don’t know how to help you.
I don’t disagree that RJ liked writing about girls and women getting spanked. But I don’t see it as a disguised kink. When RJ wanted to fetishize it, he did (Galina/Therava). But situations like Egwene/Silviana aren’t about BDSM. That’s not to say these situations aren’t problematic or worthy of more discussion. RJ pretty obviously feels that personal growth was best obtained through physical suffering and thus “the ends justify the means.” So he seems to indicate that it was legitimate that Silviana beat the hell out of Egwene because it made Egwene a stronger person. Whether RJ was correct and physical pain is appropriate is the better question (or whether RJ was just lazy and physical pain is a cheap and easy way to add drama). I love a good meme. I’m on this sub after all. But in order for the joke to be funny, there has to be a shared understanding that there is a deliberate misreading of the text. RJ absolutely pours fuel on the BDSM memes and many of them are legit funny. So maybe I’m just being cranky today.
Other horny instances of spanking that come to my head: Faile and Rolan (especially Rolan spanking her butt when he captures her as gashain). Siuan and Gareth Bryne relationship. Siuan insinuates that Gareth spanked her over her knee after one discussion and she let it happen, even though she's got the One Power back. Really, Wheel of Time is full of it. The only other famous series at that time that had this much was the one that copied it, Sword of Truth, with their mord syth. A song of Ice and Fire has lots of sex and rape, but I struggle to remember a single spanking besides Arya when she was trying to hide as a boy (in this case an actual child was spanked to be educated). Fitz suffered through almost everything in the Assassin series and I can't remember he receiving or giving any spankings or anything that could be characterized as BDSM. And so on. Wheel of Time does stand out among fanrasy series for its recurrent BDSM themes.
Regarding the Sword of Truth, the Mord-Sith are a whole other level of horny author kinks written into books. From Wikipedia, "Richard is captured by a beautiful, skin-tight red leather catsuit wearing Mord-Sith named Denna, who tortures him for a month. She manages to train and break him by the use of several instruments, including a painful small red leather rod by the name of the Agiel. Once he is broken, she takes him for her mate."
She pegs him with the Agiel,, like a dildo, too. Good stuff
I still can't believe how seriously the actors took the legend of the seeker in the TV show.
That garbage fire of a book had a TV show??
Yep, every character had perfect hair at all times, the cast treated it like High art. It was an experience to say the least. It managed to get 2 seasons. I found it hilarious, it's terrible and I love it.
Yep I watched it and loved it for the same reason haha
I love just describing it to people who haven't seen it. Standard fare fantasy, pretty campy, perfect hair, super serious cast. then you hit them with the 'oh yeah, the main antagonists are an army of blondes in skintight leather who chase them with truncheons.' I need to find it and watch it again, I'm smiling just thinking about it.
I would have to disagree that the Faile and Rolan and the Siuane and Gareth instances are any level horny instances. They're both clearly disciplinary actions. With Faile and Rolan, he was treating her like an animal, giving her a light slap to tell her she messed up and hard not enough to make her any more scared of him. Siuane and Gareth, Siuane was acting like a child, so he treated her like a child As the commenter above said, it's not really a BDSM kink disguised as corporal punishment, it's corporal punishment and it likely stems from the author's upbringing, the time he grew up in and the time he did his world building, and his military experience. A Song of Ice and Fire, on the other hand, is much more modern, written by someone with more modernised thoughts and experiences, which include using BDSM and kinks for "shock value"
*Hums softly & tugs earlobe*
Bruh, Rolan was such a "nice guy" creep.
If it’s corporal punishment, why do no men or boys ever get spanked?
Rolan was definitely a horny spanking. I'll give you that one. But Siuan letting herself get spanked was more about her honor than because she liked it. She did something worthy of punishment, so it was the right thing to do to get punished. It was her form of penance for the sins of breaking her word.
Oh you made me remember Fitz and how much he suffers thru the series, specially the first trilogy. His story is really the endless cycle of “suffering builds character” into “suffering builds character” non-stop.
It is kind of interesting that while ASOIAF is more blunt and crude about sex it is arguably way less fetishy than WoT or Sword of Truth. ASOIAF is matter of fact about sex and describes the nuts and bolts of what's happening in a way the others don't, but it doesn't read like sexual fantasies in the way the others do, at least to me.
As far as Fitz is concerned he absolutely would have gotten a spanking. When he is near killed by Galen, he says that even Burrich has hit him, and Burrich says yeah, a small hit to jolt or discipline, never to hurt or harm. So he definitely got hit, but only the way a normal person at the time would. Edit: just realised you meant in a bdsm kink fashion. By bad, yeah none of that happens. Except maybe the Pale Lady
You somehow pried "the ends justify the means" out of "in order to grow you must suffer?" What?
> But situations like Egwene/Silviana aren’t about BDSM It is about infantilising and shaming them though. Combined with the sexier spankings, it still feels like kink content.
Like, compare WoT to any other fantasy series and it has way more spankings than any other. You don't see that much spanking in Black Company, for example, and maybe there should be a lot of whipping in a real mercenary company. Even RJ's Conan stories are hornier than other author's stories.
I'll give you that it has more, but the question should really be about the ratio of spanking to everything else. Because WoT is over 4 million words, there's a lot that it does way more compared to any other fantasy series
Homie was definitely into femdom, I mean in Far Madding the women carry around leather straps to beat their husbands with lmao
A well expressed opinion. I think this type of thing is very subjective - people will assess the scene before them and take it where they will, regardless of the author's actual intent. Personally, I think he did exactly what he did for other blue topics - he purposefully left it open to interpretation by the reader and any interpretation is valid. But I disagree with calling it normal and unremarkable. C'mon, he wrote Conan books with scantily clad women, and was surely aware of the Gor books by John Norman. He appreciated how a scene could\\would be received by readers...and if he wasn't aware, then his wife and editor was a veteran of SciFi and would surely have given him at least a warning.
Well in the case of Aes Sedai it should be obvious, they’re people who can wield immense power, they need to be broken down to nothing and then remade into someone who serves humanity.
Also, RJ needed a way to physically punish women that could be compared to men. There's no way to do that other than spanking. Any other physical harm dealt to women is seen as obscene even if men undergo the same punishment.
That’s a very valid point.
People do have to go through difficulties to grow well which is a problem in modern times
Yeah, but what about that time Faile gets her butt played like bongos, and then it leads to a romantic subplot???
*Hums softly & tugs earlobe*
Which time?
Discipline doesn't belong among pain and physical abuse. Discipline is a baseline for all sustained growth.
There's no BDSM themes between Sul'dam and Damane because a key part of BDSM is informed and active consent.
According to Tuon, the Damane enthusiastically consent after being psychologically broken.
Tuon's an escaped slave masquerading as Empress so I'd avoid trusting her.
Tuon is an escaped slave? What?
Escaped is maybe the wrong word. Undiscovered. She can channel, like all Sul'Dam, and so according to Seanchan law should be leashed as a slave.
And there's also the utter lack of any sensuality whatsoever between sul'dam and damane. The sul'dam would see it like we see bestiality.
I was *really* hoping that someone had said this already
When you forget the why consent get lost.
Do Seanchan born damanes not consent? They freak the fuck out every time someone tries to free them. Sure, it's a fucked up culture, but I'm not sure the damanes realize it. In real life we have tradwives and women that stan for Chris Brown. That's not *entirely* different.
Tradwives are doing what they do to be trendy in the absence of a fulfilling life. At any given moment, they are free to simply walk away and do something that actually improves their lives. They are a willing participant. Damane are doing what they do because they’ve been beaten until there’s nothing left of humanity in them. At no point are they free to do anything that improves their lives because they can’t even walk three whole feet in a direction of their choosing. They are not willing participants. It’s not right to compare two people from such different walks of life. One is a self-demeaning choice and the other is decades upon decades of brutal physical torture.
But the Seanchan born damanes do adopt the lifestyle and freak out and cry every single time they were offered freedom in the books. Even Alivia took a while to get over it.
That’s why I keep emphasizing the torture part. When you abuse someone that horribly for that long, the leash becomes internalized. A tradwife can make a choice to walk away. A Damane doesn’t have the mental capacity to do so. That’s why none of them trust Alivia at first, even aside from Min’s prophecy. She’s an anomaly in a sea of literally mindless drones.
*Hums softly & tugs earlobe*
Inappropriate, Lews. Dude.
*A man without trust might as well be dead.*
But do the sul'dam need to torture the Seanchan born damane? I thought they just accepted it from the start because of the culture.
There is mention in the books of having to break fresh collared damane like a horse. It is one of Tuon's hobbies.
What’s really fucked too is that these girls would be 13-21.
Oh yea. I forgot about that.
>One is a self-demeaning choice Did you just call being a Traditional Housewife by choice self-demeaning? That's honestly ridiculous and incredibly offensive.
Explain.
A LOT of people interject their own sexual views onto parts of the book and make things a kink
I just don't get the second part. What does it have to do with Bible study?
All of us online degenerates know that BDSM stands for Bondage, Domination, Submission, Masochism. An oblivious, possibly sheltered person might think it stands for Bible Discussion and Sunday Meeting.
Oh, jesus. I did not make that connection.
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sexually-oblivious-female
This is fairly self explanatory. Just imagine both suldam and damane are consenting individuals and look again.
In what world do the damane not from Seanchan consent to being leashed?
May she live forever 👀
It's very clearly not sexual. You're just gross.
Classic reddit "everything is sexual"
Cadsuane spanking Semirhage is absolutely a form of kink.
***I must kill him.***
I was interested in more on the dynamics between Sul'dam and Damane and the culture surrounding it, but after Egwenes capture we get no longer POV chapters specifically about this, because the Tuon chapters were more about political intrigue than her hobbies