Spanking in the Wheel of Time Series

A common practice among spankos is to try to find non-erotic mainstream books or movies that feature spanking scenes. I admit to having done the same thing, but that is not something I will be focusing on in this blog. However, I wanted to write a post about the epic fantasy novel series The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan (and later finished by Brandon Sanderson after Robert Jordan's death). I recently finished reading the epically long 14-book series (not counting the prequel). Despite being kind of slow around the middle of the series, I greatly enjoyed it. Robert Jordan did an amazing job creating a diverse and lively fictional world. When it comes to complexity of the plot, long cast of characters, and all the scheming and backstabbing that goes on, it reminds me a lot of A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin, just with a much more lighthearted and comical writing style.

Of course, I am not mentioning this on my blog because it is a good series with the occasional spanking scene. No, this is a good series with a LOT of spanking going on. I'm not going to even attempt to list all of the examples of spanking in this series, because there are just so many. Unfortunately, a lot of the spankings are implied, such as referring to a young woman with a sore butt who is unable to sit comfortably after a visit with the Mistress of Novices. At several points in the series, it flat out declares that a character was just spanked (often specifying which implement was used), but doesn't really go into much more detail than that.

Despite the sheer number of spankings mentioned in the series, one character stands out above all the rest when it comes to being spanked. When Egwene is taken captive by the White Tower, she is subjected to regular spankings as punishment for her defiance. What starts out as relatively mild hand spankings quickly increases in severity when milder spanking fail to tame her defiance. Eventually, she is being sent for a spanking several times per day that involves her being bent over a desk and spanked long and hard with a leather strap on her bare butt. The fact that the desk she is bent over is mentioned as having been stained by countless tears indicates just how well-spanked she is.

In this series, birching is talked about as a more severe form of spanking than strapping, but I don't recall any instances where birching is actually used, although it is certainly threatened for very serious crimes, sometimes as a punishment inflicted right before execution.

Spanking isn't always used in an institutional context either. At night, a slaveowner named Sevanna would spank the five slaves who displeased her most that day. Spanking is also used in domestic contexts. After tiring of his wife's temper, mild-mannered Perrin finds that spanking her makes her more agreeable. Rather than protesting his tactics, his wife seems to be happy that her husband found the backbone to do something.

All things considered, I wouldn't read this series just for the spanking, but it does make a nice addition to an already enjoyable reading experience.