Wheel of Time Missed A Big Opportunity With Min's Identity
In The Wheel of Time episode 7, the show introduces Min Farshaw. In doing so, they missed a great opportunity for some better LGBTQ+ representation.
BY FAEFYX COLLINGTON
Warning: Contains spoilers for The Wheel of Time episode 7.
In
The Wheel of Time episode 7, “The Dark Along the Ways,” the audience is introduced to Min Farshaw for the first time and the show may have missed a huge opportunity by not making Min non-binary in the show. Amazon’s
The Wheel of Time is based on Robert Jordan’s series of the same name and the first book,
The Eye of the World, was published in 1990. While excellent in many regards, the series has been criticized for its lack of LGBTQ+ representation, though this is likely due to a lack of knowledge on Robert Jordan’s part rather than any kind of malicious intent.
In
The Wheel of Time episode 7, Moiraine leads the Two Rivers folks through The Ways to Fal Dara. With Rand, Egwene, Perrin, and Nynaeve in tow, she seeks out Min Farshaw, a bartender she has known for a long time. Min is revealed to have an ability that allows her to see some symbolic representations of people’s futures. She relates what she sees to Moiraine and is later confronted by Rand about his possible identity as the Dragon Reborn and she tells him more about his past.
A huge portion of Robert Jordan’s
Wheel of Timebooks rests upon a binary understanding of gender and gender essentialism that presents a problem to readers and viewers in 2021 when understanding and representation of trans and non-binary individuals is more widespread. However, in the books, the character of Min Farshaw is described as being extremely androgynous and multiple storylines see her express her hatred for being seen as traditionally feminine. Min would have been an easy and obvious character to make non-binary as a way to explore a more accurate understanding of gender in Amazon’s adaptation of
The Wheel of Time. However, Min is referred exclusively to with female pronouns by
Moiraine, who has known her for a long time, cannot lie, and would presumably respect any gender identity that Min expressed. While some non-binary people still use binary pronouns and Min might explore her gender later, this first appearance of the character seems heavily weighted against the show going in that direction.
The fact that Min is not non-binary in the books to many often feels like it is down to Robert Jordan not having the language necessary to express those ideas when he was writing them. The choice not to make Min non-binary in
The Wheel of Time TV series seems particularly odd after the previous episode, “The Flame of Tar Valon.” In the books, the LGBTQ+ relationship between
Moiraine Damodred and Siuan Sanche is hinted at, and the Amazon adaption made that representation fully explicit in episode 6. Drawing on the descriptions and actions of Min to make the character non-binary would have been in a very similar ballpark.
Ultimately, there may be one large reason that
The Wheel of Time TV show did not choose to make Min non-binary. The act of channeling the One Power is extremely rooted in binary gender ideas as men channel
saidar and women channel
saidin, the two halves of the One Power. While Min’s powers (and the powers of several other characters) are not connected to the One Power, introducing a non-binary character to the world would raise some complications for the show. If they included Min as a non-binary
character in The Wheel of Time then the question would quickly be raised of what would happen if a non-binary individual reached out to touch the One Power and, based on the world already established, any attempt to answer that question might fall into the difficult world of gender essentialism, and it was probably easier to pass on the non-binary representation and sidestep the thorny situation entirely.
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