Am I the only one who thinks theres a kinky undertone to a lot of these books?

[False Dragon1991]

I mean, you know, Suldam leashing and breaking their good damane slaves (in fact I think the undertone is meant to alleviate just how evil the practice is). The Aes Sedai punishments. Egwene being birched till her bottom was sore. Cadsuane spanking Semihurge because pain won't break her but humiliation will. The Aeil Wise Ones brutally treating Egwene as well. Descriptions of clothing and women. Birgitte in glossy black heeled boots. Min in heels which Rand likes. How much ample bosom is on show and how tight the dress fits the womens forms.

 

I am sure people could make a more comprehensive list.

 

 

But its really strange. A Song of Ice and Fire is more explicit and has swearing in it. But to me that just comes across as old hat (everybody has sex in exactly the same way in his world) after a while and vulgar in how unsubtle it is. Whilst you tend to notice these little sly hints and suggestive things much more in Wheel of Time.

[EmperorAllspice]

Yeah... I kept having this odd feeling that RJ had a big domination or mind control fetish.

I could be wrong, but the sheer amount of it in this series really does give me pause at points.

 

... He coulda left Mogheiden out of it though. (hugs Mogheiden protectively)

 

It's kinda like how in ASOIAF you could REALLY tell how much GRRM loved food because of the extravagant detail he put into describing almost every meal.

[False Dragon1991]

Oh yeah, and RJ loved it when the tables were turned and suddenly the weaker party has all the power. Like Moghedian turning Nynaeve into a pony and then Nynaeve dream adaming her so she becomes Nynaeves bitch. Plus, Tuon is a dominatrix if you listen to some of the stuff that comes out of her mouth, like when she takes those two Aes Sedai with adams. Its like, the characters are totally oblivious to the connotations of what they are saying.  

 

Oh, with Martin its all about incest and rape. Aside from that one time where Dany gets given a really big whip when she buys the Unsullied he generally avoids that sort of thing IMO.

 

 

One word about the food. Drooling. Nobody can just eat without juice or gravy spilling down their face. 

[EmperorAllspice]

Like Moghedian turning Nynaeve into a pony and then Nynaeve dream adaming her so she becomes Nynaeves bitch.  

 

Leave Mogheiden out of this! (glares)

[False Dragon1991]

My memory of the first book is hazy but didn't one of the Forsaken basically have a gimp mask on as well?

[EmperorAllspice]

Balthamel? That was a mask of a laughing face. Not sure I'd count that as all too gimp like

[False Dragon1991]

I guess. I had forgot about the actual description. 

 

Moiraine turning into a giant illusion of herself always came across as a bit iffy to me as well. Is it really necessary to have a giantess in a chapter?

[Barid Bel Medar]

I think the mask was a little homage to the "tragedy/comedy" masks - but yeah, it didn't have any sexual undertones. It was because Balthamael didn't want his rotted face to be seen. 

 

As for the undertones of the series. Yeah, there are a lot of things which are inferred. People tend to think it is tame because it isn't raw sex like GRRM, but there is some pretty kinky stuff on the down low. 

[szilard]

almost off

 

 

False Dragon1991, you should read HP. Every second word is "wand".    

 

Oh, and sometimes JKR can lie with a straight face:

 

Q: In the Goblet of Fire, Dumbledore said his brother was prosecuted for practicing inappropriate charms [JKR buries her head, to laughter] on a goat; what were the inappropriate charms he was practicing on that goat?

 

 JKR: How old are you?

 

 Q: Eight.

 

JKR: I think that he was trying to make a goat that was easy to keep clean [laughter], curly horns. That's a joke that works on a couple of levels. I really like Aberforth and his goats. But you know Aberforth having this strange fondness for goats if you've read book seven, came in really useful to Harry, later on, because a goat, a stag, you know. If you're a stupid Death Eater, what's the difference. So, that is my answer to YOU.  

 

[loud applause]

 

 

[Agitel]

RJ is really fond of writing about corporal punishment. In many cases, it seems to be a way of signifying that someone else isn't fully mature and needs to be punished like a child. This makes sense in the context of Aes Sedai and the Wise Ones. While I feel that is true in many cases, it's also important to note that you never (never?) see this applied to any of the men. Oh, they get some lashing with air, but you never see a man bent over a knee or a desk or receiving a spanking to signify he's a child. The scenes where Perrin bends Faile over his knee and Mat bends an Aes Sedai (Joline?) over his knee and spanks her are also uncomfortable reading, particularly because you never see the situation quite reversed like that.

[Plato]

The spankings always abruptly took me out of the story.  I can never properly visualize them, and they seem so random. 

[False Dragon1991]

RJ is really fond of writing about corporal punishment. In many cases, it seems to be a way of signifying that someone else isn't fully mature and needs to be punished like a child. This makes sense in the context of Aes Sedai and the Wise Ones. While I feel that is true in many cases, it's also important to note that you never (never?) see this applied to any of the men. Oh, they get some lashing with air, but you never see a man bent over a knee or a desk or receiving a spanking to signify he's a child. The scenes where Perrin bends Faile over his knee and Mat bends an Aes Sedai (Joline?) over his knee and spanks her are also uncomfortable reading, particularly because you never see the situation quite reversed like that.

 

Now, that is simply unfair. :D Tylin all but rapes poor Matt in Ebou Dar! She forces him into bed at knifepoint; literally. She then proceeds to emasculate him and Tuon constantly reminds him that he was the bitch ("Toy") in that relationship. Granted, she doesn't bend him across her knee or whip him (that we know of) but still. 

 

I think the sexual connotations of having a man whipped or spanked by a woman would be too obvious and more noticable. 

 

 

 

@Plato. Matt with Jolene, yes that was inappropriate and silly. Doing it to Semihurge was hilarious  however

[EmperorAllspice]

 

Doing it to Semihurge was hilarious  however

 

(glares)

[False Dragon1991]

 

 

Doing it to Semihurge was hilarious  however

 

(glares)

 

 

Hey, she was such a bad, bad girl trying to collar Rand. :D

[EmperorAllspice]

You're reading the wrong series if you want ANYONE to maintain even the tiniest shred of dignity. (like I do. Thanks friend who recced this series)

 

Unless you're Rahvin. Because Rahvin was a godamned BEAST

[Lavaliar]

From what I've read so far (1-3) I'm not getting a "kinky" vibe. But I haven't gotten that far yet. Skipping through one of the later books I happened upon a spanking & it seemed like something out of the Quiet Man (old movie) to me, nothing even remotely kinky. I also didn't feel like the Seanchan stuff in TGH ever crossed over into being voyeuristic, it just seemed like an attempt to create a logical antithesis to the Aes Sedai.

[Eht Slat Meit]

 

 

Oh, with Martin its all about incest and rape. Aside from that one time where Dany gets given a really big whip when she buys the Unsullied he generally avoids that sort of thing IMO.

 

 

It seems so wrong to mention RJ's Fallon Trilogy here, but shoot. Doing it anyway!

[lilltempest]

RJ is really fond of writing about corporal punishment. In many cases, it seems to be a way of signifying that someone else isn't fully mature and needs to be punished like a child. This makes sense in the context of Aes Sedai and the Wise Ones. While I feel that is true in many cases, it's also important to note that you never (never?) see this applied to any of the men. Oh, they get some lashing with air, but you never see a man bent over a knee or a desk or receiving a spanking to signify he's a child. The scenes where Perrin bends Faile over his knee and Mat bends an Aes Sedai (Joline?) over his knee and spanks her are also uncomfortable reading, particularly because you never see the situation quite reversed like that.

 

Well, no matter how dominated the world is by females, the fact remains that men are, typically, larger and stronger (physically) than women, so if a woman wants to "spank" a man, he either must consent and submit to it or she must force him with the OP or at knifepoint. As far as men "spanking" men in their groups, they have far harsher treatment (if an AM trainee fails, he'll either burn himself out, kill himself, or be knocked the head and almost killed as Taim did to Mishraile). My guess is that all of that will change with Logain in charge of the AM, and the younger AM trainees might find themselves being strapped instead of getting their heads smashed in. Corporal punishment is an accepted thing in the WoT, as it was long ago before we got this BS attitude of "you musn't spank children and hurt their egos". 

 

As for the men spanking women, that is also understandable. Perrin had three choices with Faile: allow her to continue her physical abuse of him, punch her back (in which case, she'd be a mangled bloody mess, which is unacceptable since Perrin was taught to revere women) or spank her like you would a child, since she was acting like a spoiled brat. She did what she did to push him, to see if he'd stand up to her...he did. She was mad, but it's what she wanted (don't forget that the people of Saldaea have very different views on romantic relations and how to deal with each other).

 

As for Mat, the same went for him...there is no reason why any man should have to put up with a woman slapping him and being a bratty jerk to him (when he has done nothing to provoke such a response...and saying something you don't like is not a provocation to slap someone, or I'd spend half my life slapping the piss out of people). If he had slapped her back, I imagine all of the readers would be whining about how inappropriate that is and how sexist, blah blah blah. If he didn't do something to stand up to her, she'd think she could run around slapping him all the time, whenever the mood struck her, without consequence. That left one option: she was acting like a spoiled brat, so treat her like one. Personally, I'd have loved it if Rand had put Caddy over his knee and spanked her for slapping him. Then, perhaps, she would've found another method for correcting his behavior. 

 

Anyway, as a woman, none of this bothered me, and it was actually nice to see some of the men showing spines instead of just allowing the women to crap all over them while asking for more. 

[lilltempest]

I mean, you know, Suldam leashing and breaking their good damane slaves (in fact I think the undertone is meant to alleviate just how evil the practice is). The Aes Sedai punishments. Egwene being birched till her bottom was sore. Cadsuane spanking Semihurge because pain won't break her but humiliation will. The Aeil Wise Ones brutally treating Egwene as well. Descriptions of clothing and women. Birgitte in glossy black heeled boots. Min in heels which Rand likes. How much ample bosom is on show and how tight the dress fits the womens forms.

 

I am sure people could make a more comprehensive list.

 

 

But its really strange. A Song of Ice and Fire is more explicit and has swearing in it. But to me that just comes across as old hat (everybody has sex in exactly the same way in his world) after a while and vulgar in how unsubtle it is. Whilst you tend to notice these little sly hints and suggestive things much more in Wheel of Time.

 

The spankings normally don't give off a kinky vibe to me. What does give me a kinky vibe about this series is all the D/s stuff. Everything is always about dominating others and forcing them to your will. There is, generally, never a sense of cooperation with the characters..it's all about "winning" and being able to force them into submission. The huge D/s vibe between Egwene and Nyn (Eg tried to break her with the attempted rape in TAR, then tried to force a drink down her throat to add insult to injury, and she continued that dominating attitude until the very end of the series with her) bothered me, as did Egwene's D/s attitude toward Rand and every other man she was around. Her relationship with Gawyn really bothered me, despite what a worthless sack of whining crap he was.

 

Tylin's rape of Mat bothered me even more, because that wasn't just kinky, it was sick. If that storyline had been reversed, with a man holding a woman at knifepoint and forcing her to have sex with him, while denying her food and drink if she did not "behave", everyone would have been throwing fits over it. Instead, RJ and Harriett thought it was funny. Sorry, people, it's not funny. I think RJ was a closet sub, personally. He seemed to love having women dominate and control men, abuse them physically and emotionally, and having the men submit or be humiliated into going along with the woman. 

[Suttree]

 The huge D/s vibe between Egwene and Nyn (Eg tried to break her with the attempted rape in TAR,

 

While that was a despicable moment for Egwene, it's statements like that which make it hard for people to take you seriously. The constant hyperbole distracts from any real discussion of the topic.

[EmperorAllspice]

 

There is, generally, never a sense of cooperation with the characters..it's all about "winning" and being able to force them into submission.

I will agree so much that this is the series' biggest boat anchor. There's just so rarely a feel that these people LIKE each other. I'm aware that the omnipresent paranoia and distrust is a large theme of the series, but I think the point could've still been made wihile still giving some of the characters some people whom they actually exchanged pleasant words with.

 

The men suffer from this problem less than the women. Men normally chill together more than the women do, at least on screen. Rand celebrating Perrin's wedding with him was one of my favourite moments in the entire series.