MINOR SPOILERS FOR THE WHEEL OF TIME UP TO BOOK FOUR: THE SHADOW RISING, AND SPOILERS FOR THE WHEEL OF TIME SEASON THREE, AHEAD!
Some surprises are not lessened for having been spoiled well over a year in advance, and Shohreh Aghdashloo being cast as Elaida in The Wheel Of Time season three is certainly one of those. Aghdashloo, an immensely talented Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning actress best known for her roles in sci-fi drama The Expanse and HBO’s The Batman prequel series The Penguin (and for her distinctive, gravelly voice, which she has lent to animated series Arcane: League Of Legends, fantasy film Damsel, and video game Assassin’s Creed: Mirage), is a huge get for Prime Video’s adaptation of Robert Jordan’s fourteen-volume epic fantasy series, standing on equal footing with star Rosamund Pike and guest star Sophie Okonedo (both Oscar-nominees). And fans have been waiting for this announcement for a very….very long time.
Shohreh Aghdashloo in The Expanse | imdb.com
It all began back in December of 2021, while The Wheel Of Time was airing its first season and The Expanse was airing its sixth and last. Both shows being on the Prime Video home page resulted in a lot of crossover between the two fandoms, and people started fan-casting Aghdashloo as various characters from The Wheel Of Time books who had yet to appear in the show, particularly the cantankerous sorceress Cadsuane Melaidhrin. Aghdashloo took notice and even brought it to Wheel Of Time showrunner Rafe Judkins’ attention, tagging him in a fateful tweet that read: “Hi, @rafejudkins, the fans say, we need to talk”. Judkins responded: “Girl, I’m in. I don’t know how to use Twitter but if I did I would DM you. You’ve been on my mood board for a certain character since 2018 haha”.
We now know that the character Judkins had in mind was not Cadsuane at all, but rather Elaida do Avriny a’Roihan, an even more important character in the books who takes an antagonistic role to protagonists Rand al’Thor and Egwene al’Vere, not because she’s a Darkfriend, but because she genuinely (and mistakenly) believes she’s the most qualified person to lead the fight against the Dark One. Elaida is a divisive character: some readers (myself included) regard her as one of The Wheel Of Time‘s most compelling villains, while others find her unbearable or almost comically misguided. I am nonetheless confident that the adaptation which somehow turned us all into Liandrin Guirale redemption arc truthers will give us a reason to begrudgingly sympathize with Elaida, maybe even root for her. Aghdashloo’s casting makes it a near-certainty that her shenanigans will be more entertaining to watch than they sometimes are to read about, that’s for sure.
Elaida is a member of the Aes Sedai, the order of female channelers (sorceresses) who have historically used their considerable power to try and repair a world that was deeply fractured three-thousand years earlier during the Breaking, when all the male Aes Sedai went mad and turned on each other. Elaida belongs to the Red Ajah, the largest faction of the present-day Aes Sedai, whose primary task is to hunt down male channelers and subdue them before they can go mad and cause another Breaking. Elaida is one of the most powerful Aes Sedai alive, equal in strength to Moiraine Damodred and Siuan Sanche, and at one point seemed to have her eye on ascending to the Amyrlin Seat (the leadership position which Siuan currently holds). It therefore came as a shock to many when Elaida abruptly moved to the nation of Andor and became the full-time advisor to Queen Morgase Trakand, seemingly conceding the Seat and ending her promising career in Aes Sedai politics. What none realized was that Elaida had the rare Talent of Foretelling, and had seen in a vision that the royal line of Andor would be the key to victory in the Last Battle: which she interpreted to mean Morgase’s daughter, Elayne Trakand, who can channel and is indeed stronger than Elaida herself.
The Amyrlin Seat | youtube.com
Elayne began training at the White Tower in season two, and was almost immediately kidnapped by Liandrin Guirale, an Aes Sedai of the Red Ajah and secretly a member of the unofficial Black Ajah made up entirely of Darkfriends. Her abduction was covered up, and Liandrin was consequently able to avoid being caught for a time, but season three opens – Rafe Judkins has said this, the teaser trailer confirmed it, and footage from the sequence was shown to CCXP attendees – with Liandrin finally being exposed, and subsequently activating a whole bunch of Black Ajah sleeper agents amongst the Aes Sedai to help her escape punishment. The ensuing massacre (my word choice, but that’s what it looks like to me) will rock the Tower to its core; and amidst the upheaval that must surely follow, Elaida will return at long last, probably looking for Elayne and instead finding the Aes Sedai in total disarray, enflaming in her a fierce desire to fix the Tower, even (or perhaps especially) if that means getting rid of Siuan Sanche and replacing her with a more competent, capable leader, someone like…oh, I don’t know, Elaida herself.
To say any more would require me to get into major spoilers for The Shadow Rising, the book being adapted in The Wheel Of Time season three, so I’ll leave it there and let you discover what happens next when The Wheel Of Time returns on March 13th, 2025. In the meantime, share your own thoughts, theories, and opinions, in the comments below!
MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE WHEEL OF TIME SEASON TWO, EPISODES 1 – 5, AND BOOKS 1 – 3, AHEAD!
This piece was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labor of the actors currently on strike, the series being covered here would not exist.
I’m not sure how Robert Jordan would feel about me describing his books as campy. But that’s beside the point. His books are campy, and delightfully so. The Eye Of The World, the first book in what would grow to become a fourteen-volume series spanning decades, was published in 1990, and hailed as a radical return to the classic formula that initially made high fantasy successful after a decade of the genre being dominated by weird, esoteric science-fantasy and grim, hypermasculine sword-and-sorcery, but far from being just another tired take on the hero’s quest, The Wheel Of Time is distinctly fun, right down to the iconic, endearingly garish cover of the first book that depicts Moiraine Damodred (Rosamund Pike) as a seemingly three-foot tall woman with a beehive updo sitting sidesaddle on a white pony, riding alongside a hulking samurai. It’s a colorful blend of the poetry and profundity of Tolkien and Le Guin’s seminal works, the vividly pulpy imagery of Brothers Hildebrandt artwork from the 70’s, and the wild romanticism of McCaffrey’s Dragonriders books, rolled up into the strongest, trippiest joint you can possibly imagine.
Ishamael and High Lady Suroth | press.amazonstudios.com
Of course, grabbing a little bit of everything encompassed by the fantasy genre means that, inevitably, a few unsavory or downright icky ingredients make it into the mix. Every book in the series is as dense as the day is long, and the lore only gets more incomprehensible the deeper you go. The rules of Jordan’s gendered magic-system are extremely dated, and he writes women like he heard about them once from fragments of an ancient, poorly-translated myth. The queer representation, even if progressive for the time, is still abysmal. It’s a difficult book series to recommend for all these reasons. But if you happen to enjoy camp, there are the fabulously-dressed, morally-ambiguous middle-aged sorceresses to consider. The eccentric and overtly queer-coded villains who throw masquerade-balls and tea-parties in their spare time, fierce young women put through the ringer both emotionally and physically, and numerous hunks with romance novel-ready hairstyles, many of them stoic and brooding and deeply repressed, are a nice treat, too.
And of course, there’s the kink and eroticism, can’t forget all the kink and eroticism.
While Amazon’s adaptation of The Wheel Of Time may not be skewing close to the plot of the books in its second season, the series has never been more faithful to the essence of the source material than it is right now, simply by being unapologetically fun, bold, and at times a little bizarre. I mean, we were straying into surreal territory already with the Trial of the Arches, but I think Lanfear (Natasha O’Keeffe) donning a BDSM-inspired all-black leather outfit to seduce submissive farm-boy Rand al’Thor (Josha Stradowski) in the World of Dreams might be what finally convinces the average viewer that this is not another Lord Of The Rings or Game Of Thrones, and it’s not trying to be, either. The Wheel Of Time was made for the girls and the gays. Unintentionally? Perhaps that’s what Jordan would say, but there’s no way showrunner Rafe Judkins – a gay man himself – doesn’t know what he’s doing.
Episode five is high camp from start to finish, opening on the masked High Lady Suroth (Karima McAdams) having her foot-long lacquered fingernails clipped with a sword to symbolize her fall from grace, and closing on O’Keeffe’s Lanfear debuting her dominatrix look. Every minute in between is practically dripping with the homoerotic subtext that Jordan injected into so much of his writing; somehow most palpable when Lanfear and Ishamael (Fares Fares) are onscreen together, going over their plans. While they circle each other with a hungriness in their eyes, both wearing oversized, open-collared nightshirts and sipping wine from enormous goblets, there’s one thing on both their minds, and it’s Rand al’Thor (an underrated hilarious aspect of The Wheel Of Time is the fact that Rand is Just Some Guy™ in this Age, but all these three-thousand year old entities with enormous power remember him as someone completely different, and much more impressive). The Forsaken take turns toying with each other’s emotions – and demonstrating their prowess in the World of Dreams – by conjuring lifelike images of the sheepherder lying in Ishamael’s bed, while they loom over him. Ishamael even snuggles up to him and caresses his face at one point. I legitimately believe things would have escalated further if Ishamael hadn’t been woken out of his pleasant dream by something in the real world that was no doubt far less interesting to him.
Mind you, this isn’t the first time Ishamael has shared an intensely erotic scene with one of the ta’veren boys – I have not forgotten how he force-fed Perrin Aybara (Marcus Rutherford) in episode three while making uncomfortably prolonged eye-contact with him – nor is it the last, but this is the first time in the show I think it’s unequivocally clear that Ishamael’s obsession with them has an undercurrent of sexual attraction. There’s certainly a debate to be had over whether The Wheel Of Time has enough heroic queer male characters in its cast to get away with portraying the main antagonist as a gay man, but anyone who’s watched any Disney animated movies can tell you that it’s the campy, queer-coded villains who make the strongest impression, and there’s no denying that Ishamael has been a highlight of the second season, his jovial nihilism unexpectedly endearing.
The fact that he looks and dresses like the grizzled, older, sexually adventurous wealthy businessman on the cover of a very filthy Wattpad fanfic is another point in his favor – and I don’t just mean because he’s very attractive for those who are into that sort of thing. The trope of a queer male villain besotted with a straight male protagonist is quite common. It’s rare, however, to see a queer male villain portrayed with such raw sex appeal, and that changes the whole dynamic. There is nothing loathsome or pitiable about Ishamael, nothing ineffective about his preferred tactic of seduction. He is potent, affecting everyone who comes into his orbit and leaving them shaken even if they manage to pull away. Take Perrin, for example. If he wasn’t bisexual before meeting Ishamael, he is now.
Put a pin in that, we’ll get back to it later. I’d be remiss for not first praising the scene-stealing performance of Natasha O’Keeffe as Lanfear, a juggernaut in black leather thigh-highs. She was holding back on us in the role of Lanfear’s alias, flighty, free-spirited Selene, diminishing herself and her presence to match what Rand wanted from her, but as Lanfear she effortlessly dominates the screen, a dismissive flick of her wrist the most motion required to pop a man’s skull like soap-bubbles or stitch a woman’s mouth shut with intricate needlework. She seems to take joy in doling out these and other sadistic punishments for the minor offence of existing in her vicinity, but no pride. She does not swagger or brag to intimidate those she does not see as her equals. Everything humans have built and accomplished in the last three-thousand years since the Breaking is of little interest to her, or provokes a mild disappointment. But then, even the other Forsaken who survived the Breaking, powerful as they are, earn her derision – “Moghedien’s insane, Graendal’s a vain idiot, and the boys couldn’t execute a plan even if they were under Compulsion”. Rand has her respect, because of what he is, while Ishamael has her partial attention because he stands in her way.
Lanfear is iconic, and we love to watch her on a rampage, but she would not be half as interesting if she were simply evil for the sake of being evil. While the Dark One wants to break the Wheel of Time to restore the universe to its natural state of chaos, and Ishamael believes that breaking the Wheel will end the cycle of violence and suffering, Lanfear – unsurprisingly – could not care less what happens to the world, as long as she and Rand walk away from the Last Battle hand-in-hand. She loved the last Dragon before Rand, Lews Therin Telamon, and when he left her for his eventual wife, she turned to the Dark to get him back. With all that said, I do hope the show eventually delves a bit more into who Lanfear was before the Breaking, including her work as a quantum physicist and her involvement in releasing the Dark One, because there’s more to her, too, than her relationship with that scummy dude.
The Wheel Of Time has taken an empathetic approach to many of its villains (with the notable and appropriate exception of the imperialist Seanchan); Liandrin Guirale (Kate Fleetwood) is among the most three-dimensional characters in the series, which is incredible given that Robert Jordan wrote her to be the exact opposite, a mustache-twirling minor antagonist whose schemes were repeatedly foiled by her own unamusing incompetence. Fleetwood’s Liandrin, apart from being complex and compelling, is also extremely capable. She sidesteps every trap laid for her, and does what she can, with the limited power at her disposal, to walk a fine line through the gray area between Light and Dark. She turns Nynaeve al’Meara (Zoe Robins) and Egwene al’Vere (Madeleine Madden) over to the Seanchan as prisoners, as expected of her, but frees her beloved Nynaeve just before exiting through the Waygate and stranding them there with High Lady Suroth – who is incompetent and only succeeds at collecting Egwene, letting Nynaeve and Elayne Trakand (Ceara Coveney) slip through her (now significantly shorter) fingernails.
Yassica and Verin Mathwin | press.amazonstudios.com
Back at the White Tower, the sudden disappearance of three very powerful Novices does not go unnoticed, but someone – Liandrin or another Darkfriend amongst the Aes Sedai – has already contrived a cover-story; that the girls received permission to attend Elayne’s brother Gawyn’s nameday ceremony in Caemlyn. Furthermore, the same someone used a forbidden weave of Compulsion (essentially mind-control) on the kindly Mistress of Novices, Sheriam Bayanar (Rima Te Wiata), to make her write the blatant lie into her log, breaking the Three Oaths…unless, of course, Sheriam is a Darkfriend herself? In a short amount of time, the show does a fairly good job of making the viewer feel suddenly unsure of who to trust, just as the books did when the so-called “Black Ajah” made up of Darkfriends first came to light.
I’m a little sad that Egwene and Nynaeve couldn’t participate in the investigation of the Black Ajah, as they did in the books, but I would gladly watch an entire spin-off series focused on Verin Mathwin (Meera Syal) and her fellow sisters of the Brown Ajah playing at being detectives in their stead, taking on a different Darkfriend each week. If the lovably quirky Brown Yassica seems familiar, by the way, that’s probably because she’s played by Katie Leung, best known as Cho Chang in the Harry Potter series and as the voice of Caitlyn in Arcane: League Of Legends (though as Yassica, Dundee-born Leung speaks with the strong Scottish accent she’s spoken in the past about wanting to use more frequently).
Another recognizable face in episode five is that of Will Tudor (Olyvar in Game Of Thrones, and Sebastian in Shadowhunters), who joins the ensemble cast of The Wheel Of Time as Moiraine’s foppish nephew, Barthanes Damodred, soon to be the King of Cairhien through marriage to Queen Galldrian. Moiraine’s interactions with her family continue to be surprisingly meaningful, probably ranking among her best scenes in the series despite having the least basis in the source material, though the very subtle references or allusions being made to the ruination of House Damodred during the Aiel War by Moiraine’s uncle will likely fly over most viewers’ heads, as I don’t feel the show has done enough to connect those dots. With the Aiel being introduced properly in this episode, you’d think this would be the perfect moment to expand on their lore.
But that’s why I’m here, to provide you with answers to all your questions. In short, the Aiel are a society of primarily red-haired warriors who come from the Waste beyond the Spine of the World, and follow a complex system of honor and indebtment called ji’e’toh. They are divided into several clans and subdivided into dozens of individual “septs” – Aviendha (Ayoola Smart), whom Perrin first meets as a prisoner of the Whitecloaks in this episode, is of the Nine Valleys Sept of the Taardad Aiel, for instance. She and many other Maidens of the Spear were sent west across the Spine in search of their prophesied Car’a’carn, or “Chief of Chiefs” (no bonus points for guessing who that might be). Aviendha is one of the most important characters in The Wheel Of Time going forward, and bringing her into the story at this early stage makes sense from a writing perspective, though I’m of two minds on how the writers actually went about it – lifting Aviendha out of her subplot with Egwene, Nynaeve, and Elayne and transplanting her in Perrin’s subplot, replacing Gaul as the Aiel he rescues from a cage, incurring much toh.
The change is logical in the short-term – Aviendha is by far the more relevant of the two characters, and needed a momentous opening scene – but in the long-run, it’s hard to believe that Perrin and Aviendha will have many more opportunities to interact, while her, Nynaeve, Egwene, and Elayne (colloquially referred to as the “Wondergirls”) form enduring connections in the books and share many of their greatest moments in future storylines between them. Losing Gaul also means changes to Perrin’s arc, though they might not be quite as consequential if Gaul is introduced early next season, before Perrin’s The Shadow Rising arc kicks off. And while I don’t necessarily expect anyone to take me seriously on this, it also means Perrin is missing the source of all the homoerotic tension in his storyline. Thankfully, Dain Bornhald (Jay Duffy) steps in to fill that role quite effectively.
Dain is one of these characters that got tiring to read about in the books after a while because his relationship to Perrin was just so tenuous and one-dimensional, but Dain in the show is a different story. Him and Perrin have chemistry, however you want to interpret it. Maybe they’re just totally platonic bros who share drinks by candlelight and give each other cute nicknames and bond over their trauma. I’m not sure I buy it, with the way Dain was checking Perrin out, but it’s possible. Either way, having them interact before the season finale – and the event that shapes both their futures – was a smart choice.
The Whitecloaks, of which Dain is a part, are extremely important in the finale, and I would have liked more setup for their storyline, but the episode was already juggling a large number of subplots and one more thing on top of the pile might well have been too many. We don’t even see Dónal Finn’s Mat, and still there’s a lot going on. Two scenes that definitely needed more room to breathe were the capture of Egwene by the Seanchan and the reunion between Moiraine and Rand – the former could have used an extra few minutes of action, the latter even just a few additional lines of dialogue. Of course, with more and longer episodes per season, this wouldn’t be a problem, but The Wheel Of Time is just one of many large-scale streaming series’ being undermined by time constraints for which there is no good reason. We’re past the middle-point of the season now. The people who are still watching are probably more likely to be put off by a lack screentime rather than by an overabundance of it. Amazon really needs to give its best fantasy show everything it’s earned with this incredible second season, including ten episodes (though I wouldn’t be opposed to twelve), each at least an hour and ten minutes long, and a larger budget so that the VFX isn’t spread thin and we can visit more locations.
Perrin Aybara and Dain Bornhald | press.amazonstudios.com
What the writers, directors, cast, and showrunner have done with this episode is elevate The Wheel Of Time once again to a point you don’t think can possibly be surpassed – only to top themselves again the week after. Episode four was the exception, not the rule, and although with the season now completed I can say for certain that the seventh and eighth episodes don’t quite surpass the highest highs of episodes three, five, and six, my favorites, the difference is largely a matter of which characters I believe were underutilized or misrepresented as a book reader, and not really a reflection on the show’s quality. The Wheel Of Time is an excellent adaptation, the best kind in fact: one that takes risks by making bold, purposeful changes to the source material while honoring the themes and tone of the books. Nailing the blend of unserious, delightfully irreverent campiness and drama played completely straight was probably the trickiest part, but they got it. I walked away from episode five craving more of the Forsaken, their sexually charged interactions with just about everybody, and that unmistakable queerness that is woven into the very fabric of this fantasy world.
I can’t speak for all of us in the fandom, but I know that’s what I’ve been looking for from this adaptation. The Wheel Of Time has always been high camp. It’s just finally embracing it.
MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE WHEEL OF TIME, SEASON 2, EPISODES 1 – 3, AND BOOK 2, THE GREAT HUNT, AHEAD!
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the series being covered here would not exist.
It’s fair to say that the first season of Amazon’s The Wheel Of Time was carried through its highs and lows by Rosamund Pike, the epic fantasy series’ Oscar-nominated star and producer. Not only was she front-and-center in all the marketing, her name alone a major draw for casual viewers unfamiliar with the acclaimed yet inaccessible source material (fourteen weighty novels and a prequel, published over the course of three decades by two authors), but in seven of eight episodes she was the clear lead amongst an underdeveloped ensemble cast, despite her character Moiraine being something of an enigma in the early books. While her young castmates had moments to shine, it was only in episode three that they had the run of the place to themselves, so to speak, while Moiraine was unconscious. It was New Zealand-born actress and relative newcomer Zoë Robins who stepped up then to fill her place, going above and beyond what was asked of her to earn her top-billing alongside Pike and Daniel Henney, two established stars. And in the second season, though all the cast have returned much stronger and more confident to their roles, it is Robins once again who tethers The Wheel Of Time to her perfect performance in a third episode that follows the pattern of sidelining Pike and Henney.
Nynaeve al’Meara | Twitter @TheWheelOfTime
Pike and Henney may be the bigger stars, and Josha Stradowski may play the main protagonist of the books, but Robins is this adaptation’s beating heart, her soulful eyes the window through which we see most clearly all the workings of the world laid bare, because her Nynaeve al’Meara, while arguably even more likely than the other four villagers from the Two Rivers to reach some wildly wrong conclusion based on the limited information at her disposal and act on it before anyone can stop her, to be fair, is usually much closer to the truth of the matter than she has any right to be.
With a lesser actress in the role, I can easily imagine where this would become aggravating to watch, like one of those infuriating ads for a home-renovation mobile game that doesn’t resemble the actual game in the slightest, the ones where the “player” is presented with an extraordinarily simple problem yet somehow makes all the wrong choices and inevitably kills their character while all you can do is scream at the screen. It can still be like that, sometimes, watching Nynaeve metaphorically pick the sledgehammer to fix the bathroom sink, except that in her case, I know from the subtleties of Robins’ performance that it’s because Nynaeve has a relatable bad habit of deluding herself to the truth while simultaneously insisting that she couldn’t possibly be deluded, and not because she’s trying to make me download some generic match-three game.
Nynaeve is not one to be impressed by the artifices of the White Tower or the insufferable pageantry of its occupants, the Aes Sedai. She respects those who speak the truth plainly and mean what they say, no more, no less, so bending the truth without breaking it does not – and likely never will – come naturally to her. As a former Wisdom (the closest thing to an authority figure that existed back home in the Two Rivers), she particularly detests being made to feel like a pawn in all the ridiculously intricate mind-games Aes Sedai play at the Tower; a valuable pawn but a pawn nonetheless, to be used and cast aside by one woman, then another, as they all vie for higher seats in the Hall, with the ultimate goal of ascending to the Amyrlin Seat itself. And for all these reasons, The Wheel Of Time never made a better choice than when it paired Nynaeve up with the phenomenal Kate Fleetwood as Liandrin Guirale, an Aes Sedai of the Red Ajah who has had decades to practice the art of confounding young women by oscillating unpredictably between seeming like the least genuine person in the Tower and the most.
We don’t even see much of the masterful interplay between the two actresses in episode three, which opens with Nynaeve attempting the perilous Trial of the Arches alone and becoming trapped in a “mirror-world” for the entire duration of the episode, yet while Robins is occupied with selling Nynaeve’s growing desperation, Fleetwood, with a tremor in her proud jaw and a twitch of panic in her steely eyes, never allows us to forget that it was Liandrin’s ostensible confidence in Nynaeve’s abilities – and Nynaeve’s reluctant trust of Liandrin, formed through manipulation – that led her to this point. Whatever ulterior motive she may have had is irrelevant to her now as she watches this girl she’s come to regard with respect and pride be pulled apart, stitched back together, and thrown back into the meat-grinder in a ritual that will ultimately determine not whether she has what it takes to be Aes Sedai, but whether she is willing to sacrifice everyone and everything for the White Tower.
And in the first two mirror-worlds behind the silver Arches, Nynaeve heeds Sheriam Bayanar (Rima Te Wiata)’s repeated warning that “the way back will come but once” and successfully returns to the real world, at the price of abandoning her mortally wounded parents in one mirror-world and the disease-ridden population of the Two Rivers in another. But the callous attitude of the Aes Sedai enrages her as she heads into the third and final Arch, which leads her…straight back into what seems to be the real world, clinging to a blood-soaked lock of al’Lan Mandragoran (Daniel Henney)’s hair. Unable to remember what happened in the third Arch, she blows up at Liandrin and the other Aes Sedai, rejecting the Great Serpent Ring they offer her for completing the Trial and stating that she won’t be an Aes Sedai if it means turning her back on the people she loves. She says farewell to Egwene al’Vere (Madeleine Madden), leaves the Tower, and unexpectedly reunites with Lan, who takes her in his arms and assures her that they can go wherever she wants, together. And Nynaeve agrees, dismissing the small voice whispering urgently in her head that “the way back will come but once”, and the misty outline of the silver Arch dissipating swiftly behind her as she steps out of the Pattern, into a different life.
Meanwhile, in the real world, there is nothing that Liandrin, Sheriam, and Leane Sharif (Jennifer Cheon Garcia) can do but stare helplessly into the roiling depths of the third Arch, all three of them silently praying that they haven’t just gone and killed the most powerful channeler the Tower has seen in a thousand years, and probably wondering how they can cast the blame on each other…until the ter’angreal goes quiet and any chance of Nynaeve returning has disappeared. Leane skedaddles (she’s the Keeper of the Chronicles, she can’t be seen to have been involved in this debacle), Sheriam berates Liandrin and hurries away to clean up the mess, and Liandrin, in another disarming display of genuine affection for Nynaeve, stays behind, tears welling up in her eyes, before angrily flinging a clay pot on the floor and storming away in search of somebody she can take out her pain on, specifically Mat Cauthon (Dónal Finn), who barely has time to crack a joke before Liandrin is lacing into him with a monologue so scathing, so demeaning, and delivered with such brutal sincerity that Mat has no choice but to become a background character for the next two episodes.
What for Nynaeve feels like five or six years in the mirror-world is only about a day in the real world, yet even in that brief time the world comes close to falling apart without Nynaeve around. Liandrin leaves the door to Mat’s cell ajar and tells him to go find his friends or die in the Blight for all she cares, he makes a halfhearted effort to seek out Egwene and actually comes upon her crying for Nynaeve but turns away at the last moment and instead returns bashfully to his cell, where it falls on fellow prisoner of the Red Ajah Min Farshaw (Kae Alexander) to persuade him that being of little consequence to the Pattern is something to be envied, and that they should run off together…only for the audience to discover that Min is actually moving Mat out of Tar Valon at Liandrin’s explicit instruction. Egwene, distraught over Nynaeve’s death, refuses to be consoled by her new friend Elayne Trakand (Ceara Coveney), telling her “I don’t even know you!” as she slams a door in the Daughter-Heir’s face. She then seeks out Liandrin and actually channels at the far older and more experienced Aes Sedai – notably, without using her hands – but Liandrin effortlessly unravels her weaves of fire and only barely resists the urge to push Egwene off a balcony (forget the Last Battle, the Amyrlin Seat needs to do something about the lack of guard-rails at the White Tower).
Far west of Tar Valon, Perrin Aybara (Marcus Rutherford) and the Shienaran soldiers seeking the fabled Horn of Valere are made prisoners of the Seanchan Empire, whose representatives stand atop a pyramidal palanquin, wear fabulous scale-patterned robes, ornate masks and bladed fingernail covers, and speak with the most unnerving accent to hear in a high fantasy setting – a thick American Southern drawl. The Seanchan, we soon learn, are invaders from across the Aryth Ocean who have come to reclaim the lands that belonged by birthright to the founder of their mighty empire, Luthair Paendrag (everything from Toman Head in the west to the Spine of the World in the east). They could perhaps accomplish this goal with their massive armies, fleets, and the element of surprise alone, but they also have a…unique approach towards the use of the One Power, fastening unbreakable golden collars on women who can channel and leashing them to women called sul’dam who claim to be able to manipulate the use of the Power without dirtying their hands by touching the True Source. To the Seanchan, there is no distinction between an untrained channeler who believes she’s merely “listening to the wind” and an Aes Sedai, or between channelers of their land and another; there are only damane (those who have been collared) and marath’damane (those who will be collared).
Rand al’Thor | winteriscoming.net
The Seanchan claim the first major casualty of the season, fan-favorite Uno (Guy Roberts), who dies gorily but not without dignity, spitting at the feet of High Lady Suroth (Karima McAdams) – or as close to her feet as he can aim from the bottom of her pyramid – uttering The Wheel Of Time‘s first F-bomb, and having a large curved spike driven through his mouth shortly thereafter as an incentive for Perrin and the other Shienarans to swear the Seanchan oaths of fealty without further complaint. They wisely decide that mumbling something about obeying, awaiting, and serving is preferable to choking on a tusk, but instead of letting them go, Suroth has her new subjects chained and shipped off to Falme, the first major city captured by the Seanchan. Perrin is able to slip away from the convoy with Elyas Machera (Gary Beadle) and his wolf-pack, but what waits for him in the wilderness maybe worse than what’s behind, if Ishamael (Fares Fares), the Dark One’s right-hand man, is to be believed when he tells Perrin that his wolf-senses are derived from the Dark. It may seem counterintuitive to let Perrin escape, given that Ishamael is already posing as Suroth’s advisor, but he seems to care about letting people come to the Dark through their own choices, not through force.
It’s a more carefree version of Perrin who inhabits the mirror-world where Nynaeve found herself, and he’s not the only one of the Two Rivers folk for whom the ter’angreal has created something more pleasant than reality.Mat is a lord, by the looks of it, and quite dashing. Egwene is already an Aes Sedai of the Green Ajah.Nynaeve herself has returned to the Two Rivers, married Lan, and given birth to a daughter. Lan has grown out his hair (it looks terrible) and put down his sword. There’s no sign of Moiraine, conveniently, and the Last Battle must not have happened (yet), because everyone is happy. The highlight of this comforting sequence is seeing Rutherford and Finn play Perrin and Mat as two fun, dorky uncles to Nynaeve’s adorable daughter, and I’d be down for more exploration of mirror-worlds in the future if it allows the other actors to let loose a bit and play around with what might be – which is, fittingly, the title of the episode.
But this is The Wheel Of Time, and as I explained in my review of the previous episode, the titular Wheel doesn’t give many options to ta’veren, individuals like Nynaeve who are spun out into the Pattern to hold it intact. And the mirror-worlds are reflections for a reason – they may seem serene, some of them, but they are the versions of the world that the Wheel cannot allow to exist, where something went wrong: usually because someone made a choice that cannot happen in the real world without weakening the integrity of the Pattern, as I understand it. Nynaeve is meant to pass the Trial of the Arches and become Accepted, because she is meant to do…all of the things that she does later in the books that I won’t spoil here, but she can’t do any of them if she leaves the Tower now.
That doesn’t necessarily mean every version of the world where she leaves ends as this one does, with a horde of ravening Trollocs slaughtering Nynaeve’s friends and family before her eyes while she watches on, powerless to stop the carnage, but there’s no version of that world that results in the “official” triumph of the Light over the Dark at the Last Battle that the Wheel is turning towards in the real world, however it may have seemed to her in the Two Rivers. Already, she was hearing rumblings that Egwene was taking Aes Sedai north to the Borderlands to deal with incursions from the Blight. That version of Egwene will likely die and Trollocs will overrun the world without her, Nynaeve, Perrin, Mat, or Lan around to stop it. The people of that mirror-world could still conceivably defeat the Dark One – after all, they should still have a version of Rand al’Thor (Josha Stradowski) hanging about somewhere – but it will be a bleak and miserable world by the end, hardly worth saving.
Real world Rand, if you’re wondering, is busy tracking down an expensive bottle of red wine to bribe Logain Ablar (Álvaro Morte) into teaching him how to wield the One Power without going mad, which turns out to be a pointless endeavor because Logain is – surprise – already mad. The anticlimax is intentional and intriguing, though there were likely more effective methods by which we could have reached the same low-point in Rand’s arc where he feels time slipping through his fingers without us having to necessarily share the sentiment. At least there’s some fun to be gotten out of this slight diversion – Rand and Selene (Natasha O’Keefe) posing as outland lords to sneak into a fancy party; Rand unwittingly causing a commotion by throwing out invitation-letters from the great Houses of Cairhien; the subtle introduction of Moiraine’s younger sister Anvaere Damodred (Lindsey Duncan); and a fireworks-display, courtesy of Aludra and the Illuminators Guild. Rand isn’t enjoying any of it, however, and he leaves Selene to watch the fireworks by herself, which earns him an aggressive, sexually charged scolding later that night.
If there’s a version of Rand in Nynaeve’s picture-perfect mirror-world who’s any happier than the real world’s Rand (unlikely, seeing as he would still be the Dragon there, which pretty much guarantees that he’s traumatized and depressed), Nynaeve never met him and will never get the chance. Overcome with grief and rage unlike anything she’s felt before, she channels the One Power – something that is supposed to be impossible within the Arches – and wills the portal back into existence, years after it vanished. She can’t explain how she did it, Robert Jordan couldn’t explain how she did it when something similar happened in the books, and nor can I. Suffice it to say that Nynaeve is a force of nature, and although you’ve probably heard her referred to as “the strongest channeler the Tower’s seen in a thousand years” about as many times, it bears repeating. With her raw power and her determination to protect people, she can do the impossible, which is why breaking her block is crucial. If she can’t bring herself to channel until she’s angry or extremely sad, chances are someone she loves is going to have to die or get hurt in front of her before she can do anything to help.
And despite escaping the mirror-world, Nynaeve endures another terrible loss on the way back – that of her daughter, who survived the Trolloc attack only to disappear as Nynaeve staggered through the silver arches holding her close to her chest…the only trace of her a fresh bloodstain on the front of Nynaeve’s dress. Robins portrays the unimaginable horror and agony of this situation without reservation, her body contorting around the empty space that used to be her child, haunting screams issuing from her mouth while her eyes remain fixed on something ahead of her, something gone and soon to be forgotten. Memories of the mirror-world visited in the Arches fade quickly, like dreams, and the years Nynaeve spent in the Two Rivers with Lan, raising her daughter, will blur together. In time, she’ll only remember with certainty that she once remembered something more.
Sul’dam and Damane | nerdist.com
As The Wheel Of Time inches closer to adapting the lengthy sections of the source material that feature very little of either Pike or Henney’s characters, it is an encouraging sign for the series’ future that the ensemble cast surrounding them are now not only capable of carrying episodes on their own, but that a few like Robins and Fleetwood have been hailed as the season’s shining stars. The outstanding performances they deliver may not earn them any Emmy nominations, because awards show voters tend to overlook the fantasy genre entirely unless it has the Game Of Thrones title attached (and even House Of The Dragon received fewer nominations than were arguably warranted), but they have accomplished something greater than any trophy could honor, bringing The Wheel Of Time‘s most iconic characters to life. “It was about them all”, reads a famous and enduring quote from the books. That has never felt more true of the show than it is now.
MINOR SPOILERS FOR THE WHEEL OF TIME, SEASON 2, EPISODES 1 – 3 AHEAD!
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the series being covered here wouldn’t exist.
“The Wheel doesn’t want anything. It can’t. Any more than a river or the rain can want something. It’s people who want.”
Those words, spoken in The Wheel Of Time‘s first season by Moiraine Damodred (Rosamund Pike) in rebuttal to Logain Ablar (Álvaro Morte)’s whimpered insistence that the Wheel “wanted” him to be the Dragon and the carnage he left in his wake was therefore unavoidable, have never sat right with me, and I think I have finally found the words to explain why while mulling over the events of the second season’s second episode, Strangers And Friends, which brings each of the main characters to something of a turning-point in their respective arcs where they realize that all the “wanting” in the world will avail to nothing if the Wheel of Time never gives them opportunities to assert their agency in the first place, and the Pattern, the complex product of the Wheel’s endless turnings, is practically inescapable for those unlucky individuals called ta’veren who find themselves woven into positions where they are responsible for holding the Pattern intact through the duration of a crisis. Even if they were somehow able to make a choice of their own free will, they would never know, because the Wheel would simply course-correct and keep turning. The Wheel doesn’t want, it can’t, but it was set in motion for a purpose by its Creator, and it will serve that Creator’s purpose as long as it is not prevented from doing so by the Dark One.
Selene | polygon.com
For some, like Logain, fate has convenience as a shield, an excuse for dark deeds, but accepting foregone conclusions is not in our human nature, and most of us would become enraged or inconsolable if we could analyze our every action to discern which we made freely and which were made for us with the express purpose of guiding us to an end – and we don’t even live in a universe where a Wheel of cosmic proportions periodically requires something of us, at least not as far as we know. And maybe it’s for the best that we remain blissfully unaware of our metaphysical surroundings, because for Rand al’Thor (Josha Stradowski) it’s the knowing, as much as the impending madness brought on by channeling the tainted male half of the One Power, that has him on the verge of collapsing every day.
As Rand sees it, the Pattern should be done with him. He defeated the Dark One at the Eye of the World, and Moiraine let him leave so he could safely isolate himself from his friends before going mad and killing himself, as he was sure he would, sooner or later, when he first touched the True Source and felt the madness clawing into his head. And yet…five months later, he’s still alive, still mostly sane, and still haunted by recurring nightmares of the man he believed to be the Dark One, but was actually Ishamael (Fares Fares), strongest of the channelers derisively named Forsaken who served the Dark One before the Breaking of the World. The Rand we meet in episode two is one who is still just tentatively starting to accept that he might have been granted a few more months, weeks, or days in the world to do some good, and is now realizing he doesn’t want to work up the courage to face madness and death a second time. But the harder he fights to bring his powers under control, the more the madness grows within him. And no one can help him, not even the enigmatic innkeeper Selene (Natasha O’Keefe) who sidles up to him in his moments of doubt.
What Selene offers Rand, however, is the physical affection he desperately craves but wouldn’t dare to ask for from anyone he truly cares about. Although their arrangement is sexual in nature, it is not exactly a romance, and I’m surprised (but then again, not really) that some reviewers interpreted it as one when The Wheel Of Time goes to great lengths to make it evident that Rand is with Selene for reasons of his own, and vice versa. Now, there is a moment in episode two during a candid conversation between the two where something in Selene’s eyes suggests she’s disappointed in Rand when he admits he’s only with her to try and forget someone else, but she merely sighs and assures him that if that’s the way it has to be, then she’ll gladly help him to forget. She confesses to fantasizing he’s someone different as well, someone she wants to remember. Will we ever get clarification on that? Perhaps.
In the meantime, Rand begins working his way through the ranks of the caretaking staff at a depressingly decorated sanatorium in Cairhien that houses patients from all over the Westlands, including veterans of the local Aiel War and male channelers gentled by the Red Ajah. As we soon discover, it is also where Logain has been residing for the past several months; not at the White Tower, as in Robert Jordan’s books, which means the fan-favorite character may play a different role in the story going forward, but the explanation given in the show is that Logain comes from an exceptionally wealthy and influential family in Ghealdan (canonically accurate), and they arranged more comfortable accommodations for him to live out his last days, still watched day in and day out as Siuan vowed he would be, but free to swagger about the gardens and boast that he used to be a Dragon. Rand’s only hope for enduring the madness or avoiding it altogether now rests with Logain, certifiably a madman.
To my surprise, the tender scenes between Rand and an elderly patient at the sanatorium (played by Nasser Memarzia) did far more to engage me in his storyline than any amount of watching him grapple with the Power after leaving a generic bully lying bloodied in an alleyway, though I feel it’s a matter of personal preference and Stradowski being at his most convincing when his Rand has a faint remnant of his sweetly rugged former self to cling to and build around.
A Fade nailed to a door | moviesr.net
On the other side of the world, Perrin Aybara (Marcus Rutherford) is struggling to make sense of his own rare abilities, which manifest primarily as golden-tinted afterimages crowding any space where violence has been done and blood has been spilled, disorienting the somewhat squeamish young blacksmith. In the books it’s Rand, following the trail of Padan Fain, who comes upon a farmhouse in the land between Shienar and Cairhien, and stumbles into a looping vision of the previous occupants being slaughtered, while in the show, this moment has cleverly been repurposed for establishing Perrin’s wolf-senses, and the setting moved to the small village of Atuan’s Mill in Arad Doman that becomes the site of our protagonists’ first brutal skirmish with the Seanchan invaders introduced in the closing moments of season one.
It’s an excellently choreographed action sequence that uses to its advantage the diversity of fighting-styles and philosophies amongst its participants: Perrin is a follower of the pacifistic Way of the Leaf and reluctant to kill or hurt even his enemies for fear of becoming more wolf than man, while the Shienarans take great joy in combat and the Seanchan have a callous disregard for anyone occupying the land they believe to be rightfully theirs, matched only by their monstrous treatment of female channelers, whom they collar and leash like animals. These women, the damane, have had their agency stripped away from them and placed in the hands of women called sul’dam, who claim to be unable to wield the One Power themselves but can manipulate its use by others.
Outside the White Tower, channeling may still be dangerous for both women and men with the ability, but for someone as strong in the Power (and as strongly ta’veren) as Nynaeve al’Meara (Zoë Robins) or Egwene al’Vere (Madeleine Madden), none of the options before them are free of risk, because their options are limited at this point to what moves them both closer to becoming the most powerful and second-most powerful Aes Sedai, respectively, that the Tower has seen in a thousand years, something of which their teachers are eager to remind them at every opportunity – particularly Egwene, who understandably tires of hearing that her power is incomparable to Nynaeve’s, and that there’s no closing the gap. In need of a shoulder to cry on, she turns to the Tower’s newest Novice, Elayne Trakand (Ceara Coveney), the Daughter-Heir of Andor, who is true bestie material.
Elayne’s lofty titles are dropped into casual conversation with great weight, as if they should mean anything to the majority of non-book readers, who have no way of knowing yet, without a map to refer to, that Andor is the largest kingdom in the Westlands, encompassing the Two Rivers and a hundred other towns and cities, or that its current Queen, Morgase Trakand, was once a Novice at the Tower herself and is now attended by the powerful Red Aes Sedai Elaida do Avriny a’Roihan, soon to emerge as one of The Wheel Of Time‘s greatest antagonists. With the title of “Daughter-Heir” only vaguely defined and none of the political tensions between Andor and neighboring nations established, Elayne is likely just a princess to most viewers, but hopefully that changes if and when the show traces her familial connections to various other characters on the show. Regardless, she’s immediately endearing and cleverly written not to come off snobbish or entitled.
While Egwene and Elayne have sleepovers in each other’s rooms and sample strong alcoholic beverages brewed with the One Power via experimental weaves, Nynaeve has no one to turn to for shelter and thus finds herself coerced into taking a guided tour of the Tower’s seven Ajahs with Liandrin Guirale (Kate Fleetwood), who exploits their time together to try and make Nynaeve see the benefits of taking the Trial of the Arches, which all Novices must pass before being “raised” to Accepted and presented with a Great Serpent ring, albeit one bereft of the colored gemstone that Aes Sedai wear as a visual marker of their chosen Ajah. As Liandrin explains, with that disarming hint of genuine passion and pride in her voice, Accepted are permitted to learn from the Ajah of their choice – Healing from the Yellows, diplomacy from the Grays, spy-craft from the Blues, and so on. Sadly, our time with the different factions is limited to brief glimpses into the workings of the Yellow Ajah hospital, where Nynaeve discovers that the incurable illnesses of her village are easily treated in Tar Valon.
Egwene al’Vere and Elayne Trakand | Twitter @TheWheelOfTime
For Nynaeve, however, that’s the only time on the tour that’s not wasted. She has no interest in the Yellow Ajah as an organization, but the first time she ever consciously channeled was to Heal the Aes Sedai and Warders wounded, some almost mortally, by Logain in season one, and she channeled again to protect her friends in the Ways. Long before she knew what she could do, she was drawn to the life of a Wisdom, and never regretted sacrificing companionship for the privilege and honor of protecting the people she loves. The duties of the Yellow Ajah come closest to aligning with her own desires, and it’s only after seeing the work they do that Nynaeve starts seriously considering the Trial of the Arches. She makes up her mind after following Liandrin later that night (having clocked the Red sister stealing poisonous herbs from the hospital), and realizing that even the cold and emotionless Aes Sedai have people in their lives besides their equally enigmatic Warders they would do anything to protect.
Liandrin’s happens to be her son, a man about eighty or ninety years of age, whose long-overdue expiration she has staved off with toxins that Nynaeve warns her will only cause him more pain. We don’t know what the Tower would do about it if they found out, but we can reasonably assume (and Nynaeve certainly does) that a lot of Liandrin’s more…questionable choices are the result of trying to hide her precious boy and keep him alive as long as possible, at least until she finds something else worth living for. How far will Liandrin go for her son, and who will get hurt in the process? That question has been answered in the latest episode, but I wouldn’t dare spoil it for those who haven’t watched yet. The long, tumultuous, and often uncomfortable emotional journey viewers will take alongside Kate Fleetwood’s Liandrin, for whom you can’t help but feel a begrudging form of admiration and respect despite all the writing on the wall telling you not to trust a single word that leaves her permanently pursed lips, is something you must experience for yourself – and if, by the end of it, you don’t understand why I am adamant that Fleetwood deserves an Emmy nomination for her work here, well, I can’t change your wrong opinion but know that I will judge you for it.
Seemingly central to Liandrin’s schemes is Mat Cauthon (Dónal Finn), whom we learn has been imprisoned at the Tower for months now, but is digging an escape-route through the wall of his cell that eventually leads him to…an adjacent cell. Disappointing for him, but great for us viewers, because it facilitates a meeting between Finn’s Mat, who has a genuine warmth and sense of humor that Barney Harris, in my honest opinion, lacked, and Kae Alexander’s Min Farshaw, a charismatic bartender born with the unenviable ability to see pieces of the Pattern like images attached to people – sometimes cryptic, sometimes frighteningly clear. Mat has refreshingly little interest in learning his fate, however, and Min has no inclination to tell him what she sees; a vision of him stabbing Rand with the cursed dagger from Shadar Logoth, something that has no precedent in the books. Whether you interpret it as platonic, romantic, or playfully erotic, the palpable chemistry between these two is no joke (personally, I want them to kiss before the end of the season, but that’s just me).
Mat’s approach to life is to pretend he’s dodged the weavings of the Wheel of Time entirely, and to avoid looking too long at his own reflection, which would show him he’s bound up in threads of the Pattern as tightly as a fly in a spider’s web. The confidence he gains from thinking that only strengthens his resolve to escape the White Tower dungeons, but leaving the confines of his cell is exactly what the Wheel expects of him and has taken into account already. He can’t escape, not really; no one can. And if he and the other four ta’veren have it especially bad, they are not alone in feeling helpless. Moiraine, once the most self-assured character on the show, is trying to come to terms with the fact that, at this critical juncture, she’s expected to do something not in her nature and surrender to the will of the Wheel. She’s seen the threads that bind her; seen even further, all the way to the brink of the abyss where she’s being pulled, swiftly and inexorably. She’s prepared for that. What she can’t cope with is the thought of anyone being dragged down with her, because of her.
Verin Mathwin | nerdist.com
And thus we come to the most painful scene in the episode, in which Moiraine dismisses her Warder, al’Lan Mandragoran (Daniel Henney), after nearly twenty years of service. It’s for his own safety, which he can’t bring himself to comprehend through anger and frustration, but Moiraine doesn’t tell him that, or try to assure him of anything. She’s very much like Rand in that way. They are both extremely protective of the people they love, and see themselves as inherently unworthy of receiving that same love and protection in return because anyone close to them is in danger of being hurt, possibly by their own hand. When Moiraine tells Lan they “were never equals”, Lan interprets it one way but Moiraine, I think, phrased it as she did specifically so she could lead him to a conclusion at odds with the truth: that in her eyes, she was never deserving of his loyalty, because for as long as she’s known Lan her only purpose in life has been to serve and protect the Dragon Reborn, and, as was pointed out to her by the alarmingly perceptive Verin Mathwin (Meera Syal), there is no telling who she’ll have to hurt or kill to help the Dragon achieve his victory over the Dark One at the Last Battle. She knows she can’t bring herself to hurt Lan and that he would all too willingly sacrifice himself if it were ever necessary, so rejecting him is the only option left to her.
The unfortunate consequence of this choice is that it sets up an aimless subplot with Lan and Alanna Mosvani (Priyanka Bose), the Aes Sedai to whom Lan is handed for safekeeping like a parcel by Moiraine, that begs for a swift resolution. Alanna’s sensuality and apparent openness juxtaposed with Lan’s stoicism and silence could have provided insight into both their characters as well as entertainment, but I feel that The Wheel Of Time is perhaps focusing too hard on establishing Alanna before it has the need, or the ability to do anything particularly meaningful with her. Until Lan inevitably returns to Moiraine (and, short of killing him herself, which she will never do, there is nothing she can do or say to prevent that from happening one way or another, because the Wheel has willed it), this storyline was bound to drag – but we will discuss that in greater detail another time.
The philosophical questions raised in episode two are unlikely to be definitively answered in our lifetimes, much less in this season of The Wheel Of Time, but the speculative answers put forward in the pages of Jordan’s books offer arguably less comfort than the uncertainty we endure. In the world he envisioned, certain events must happen and ultimately will happen in every Age for as long as the Wheel keeps turning, but they cannot happen on their own, therefore requiring that the people statistically most likely to make the “right” choices are spun out into the Pattern at the “right” time to ensure said choices will be made, as anything else could potentially lead to the breaking of the Wheel and the dissolution of the Pattern.
This would be bad, we’re meant to understand, because no one’s choices would have any meaning then. But what meaning does a choice actually have, if the Wheel only allows those that either directly serve its goal or have no consequence, and can spin out ta’veren to “correct” the rest? What meaning is there in the Wheel itself, if it wants nothing, works toward nothing, achieves nothing in any Turning except its continued self-preservation? If humanity can never advance so far that all their progress can’t be reversed in the next Age, all their accomplishments reduced to the stuff of legends? If the so-called Last Battle between the Dragon and the Dark One only acts as a catalyst for further upheaval, and all the blood shed, all the tears spilled, all the sacrifices made by our protagonists, not only won’t prevent it from happening again, but rather, ensure it will? Is the promise of rebirth any comfort, if the world into which you’re reborn is still fighting the same war you fought in all your previous lives?
(left to right) Ingtar, Masema, Loial, and Uno | imdb.com
I don’t mean to burden my readers with these and other questions that keep me up at night wondering what Jordan potentially found soothing in this unique interpretation of the cosmos, and I’m not trying to parrot the Dark One’s own talking-points (breaking the Wheel is his only solution to everything, and while it sounds revolutionary on paper, in practice, it would achieve nothing), but these are questions which The Wheel Of Time‘s writers should spare some further thought, seeing as they’ve expanded on Jordan’s themes in countless ways already and always with a care and consideration for the essence of the source material coupled with a desire to be forward-thinking that makes me genuinely interested in what they have to say through the retelling of this particular story. I’m not saying the protagonists should necessarily break the Wheel by the end of the series; I just think there are a lot of shapes that time could take and something as simple as adjusting it to a…Straight Line of Time, for instance, would solve a lot of this world’s problems.
