Paranirvana

Shadowbox, David Townsend, 2019. Wood, collage, and acrylic.

Teetering on the Brink of Fandom

Last week, on a friend's recommendation, I binged every then-available episode of The Wheel of Time on Prime Video. (Another is released every Friday.) And am tempted to dive right in again from the beginning. I've never fallen completely down the rabbit hole of fandom--though I came close with Star Trek Voyager, after the divine Seven of Nine first stepped onto the set in silver spandex and heels and nearly turned me into a lesbian.

But now--I'm at serious risk. What's next? Cosplay?

The debt to the world of Tolkien's Middle Earth is obvious. The threat of a Dark Power arising once again in a distant stronghold. A band of reluctant travellers only gradually realizing the full extent of what's expected of them. Hideously savage minions wreaking havoc on innocent villagers, led by overwhelmingly powerful wraiths on horseback. Throw in Star Wars for the sort-of-Taoist interplay of the light and dark sides of the One Power, and the ever-present possibiltiy of crossing over. And a sort-of-Hindu belief system grounded on faith in reincarnation and a cycle of world creation and destruction.

But unlike the relentlessly homosocial world of Middle Earth--homosocial, but almost entirely asexual--the powerful female order of the sort-of-Celtic Aes Sedai, channelers of the One Power, call the shots in this world, and it's men who, when they try to tap into the One Power, inevitably go mad and fuck it all up.

As you gradually piece together the rich, complex, and visually gorgeous world of The Wheel, you realize that Lan--the hot guy who travels with Moiraine, the blue-cloaked Aes Sedai who shows up in a remote town in the first episode--is her Warder, the man bonded to his Aes Sedai more closely than husband and wife, more closely than brother and sister, more closely than parent and child. And later, that all the Aes Sedai (except the Reds, but that's another story) have Warders, who hang out at night together around the fire, bantering affectionately with each other.  One of them sits leaning up against another's chest, until they both respond to the beckoning glance of the Aes Sedai to whom they're both bonded and saunter off after her to the knowing glances of the rest of the group. Later on, a Warder whose Aes Sedai has been killed by a powerful adversary is invited to join that cluster of three.  "I've never been with a man," he confides to Lan as he considers the possibility. "With two men," Lan replies, smiling. 

Among themselves, the Aes Sedai are just as sexually fluid and diverse. Moiraine, it turns out, has a passionate but clandestine relationship with the woman who holds sovereign power over the whole order. When she's not soaking in a tub with Lan.

I love that the world of The Wheel makes room for the beauty of men--of men at home in their skins, at home in their bond with each other, confident of their strength, aware of their limitations, capable of experiencing their own vulnerability and therefore capable of healing from their psychic wounds, capable also of accepting their attraction to one another--in the context of women's unquestioned strength, authority, and power. As pathetically nerdy as it may be, I want to hang out around that fire every night of my life.

Found Objects

 

Shadowbox, David Townsend, 2017. Antique hardware drawer, collaged photography, beachcombings, and acrylic.

Bodhisattva of Fire and Light

 

Shadowbox, David Townsend, 2012

Wood, collaged paper, photographs, ribbon, cotton thread, and beachcombings