Fantasy Books Archives - Page 16 Of 23

December 31, 2021

“The Wheel Of Time” Episode 7, Down A Lead Actor, Forges Ahead

**SPOILERS FOR THE WHEEL OF TIME EPISODE SEVEN AND BOOKS AHEAD!**

Tug a thread carelessly from any piece of fabric, and it will begin to unravel. The same is perhaps doubly true of story-threads, especially in a narrative as carefully and deliberately woven as The Wheel Of Time. Many of the major events and character moments in the fourteen-volume book series, written and published over a span of roughly twenty-nine years, were plotted out by author Robert Jordan from near the beginning of the series, allowing him to layer foreshadowing into the early books for story beats that wouldn’t transpire until after his death in 2007, when Brandon Sanderson completed The Wheel Of Time.

This hasn’t prevented Amazon Prime’s adaptation from rearranging the order of events and character introductions, excising or swapping out characters and locations, or otherwise streamlining Jordan’s sprawling series, but until episode seven these changes haven’t dramatically altered the predetermined course of the story and individual character arcs. Most of the material in the Baerlon and Caemlyn chapters of The Eye Of The World, for instance, has simply been redistributed across the width of the first season – including the character of Min Farshaw (Kae Alexander) who’s been transported halfway across the map from Baerlon to Fal Dara.

But those changes were part of showrunner Rafe Judkins’ plan for The Wheel Of Time, and he and his team of writers had already comfortably integrated them into the story by the time filming began. By contrast, it does not appear that anyone foresaw Barney Harris’ abrupt departure midway through filming, and if I had to hazard a guess based solely on the quality of the scripts for the last two episodes, I’d wager that the writers were not provided anywhere near enough time by Amazon to try and work around Harris’ absence in such a way that it felt planned.

To be fair, it’s a miracle that the loss of a series lead – coupled with COVID-19 and budget constraints – didn’t halt The Wheel Of Time dead in its tracks, and that they were able to move forward at all with revised scripts and a new direction for Harris’ character, Mat Cauthon. Judkins wisely chose to put off the recasting process until he had time to fully devote himself to finding the right actor for the role, but the consequence of that decision is that Mat doesn’t appear again between episode six and a few moments worth of presumably repurposed footage in episode eight.

Now, anyone who’s read The Wheel Of Time knows that major characters often disappear for entire books to go do their own thing, and Mat is one of those characters. But that’s roughly halfway through a fourteen-book series, after readers have gotten to know, and to care for, and to love Mat Cauthon. The effect is quite different when you’ve only got to know a character throughout six episodes of a crowded debut season, the last four of which said character spent being driven mad under the influence of a cursed dagger. If I didn’t know why I should care about Mat by virtue of having read the books, I’m not sure I would.

And all of that is exacerbated by the shoddy justification for Mat’s decision not to enter the Waygate at the end of episode six; that he has an “inherent darkness” within him that’s apparently pushing him towards the Dark One. It only further alienates the character from the audience at a point where he’s not here to defend himself, and clashes with what we thought we knew about Mat given that his only firmly-established character trait was a selfless desire to help his family that was driving him away from his destiny, but certainly not to the Dark One’s side.

It’s a flimsy excuse and a hurtful one, not only to Mat but to the characters forced to halfheartedly state it as if it’s an irrefutable fact that Mat’s already succumbed to the darkness. I could perhaps get onboard with the idea that Moiraine Damodred (Rosamund Pike), ever the wariest of the Aes Sedai, would be reluctant to bring Mat near the Dark One because of his exposure to darkness through the cursed dagger, but I can’t easily accept that she never actually intended to bring Mat to the Eye of the World, as she claims in hushed tones to Lan (Daniel Henney), until I understand why she brought Mat to the Waygate at all in that case.

If he hadn’t decided to stay put of his own accord, was she planning to kill him in the Ways or after reaching their destination? Did she have a reason for telling him where she was going if she genuinely feared that he would join the Dark One? And if she always planned to send the Red Ajah after him, why not do so back in Tar Valon, when she could have used the opportunity to appease Liandrin Guirale? If, on the other hand, she’s doing all of this for Mat’s protection, why not leave him in safe hands instead of stranding him in the middle of nowhere near a Waygate he can’t open even if he wanted to?

The one person you can usually rely on to see through Moiraine’s smokescreens is Nynaeve al’Meara (Zoë Robins) – so naturally in this situation, instead of demanding truth from the Aes Sedai or fighting to reopen the Waygate, she’s quickly convinced that that would be impossible and decides to follow Moiraine into the darkness of the Ways, remarking that they’ll find Mat once they’re out (a promise she doesn’t even attempt to keep once they reach the city of Fal Dara). Soon, the only character consistently standing up for Mat is Rand al’Thor (Josha Stradowski).

If the intent behind all of this was to endear Rand to viewers just in time for the big twist that he’s also the Dragon Reborn, it comes at the cost of exposing the lack of character development amongst all the Emond’s Field Five (well, four now), and is undermined by Rand himself. I get that Rand makes himself unlikable in the books to try and distance his friends from the fallout of his actions, but that plot-device is so poorly utilized here that it alienates us from Rand without providing any reason to keep sympathizing with him.

Gone is the quiet yet affable sheepherder whose presence we tolerated through the first six episodes; in his place is the sullen, irritable woolhead I fear we’ll be burdened with from this point hence. Not content with privately pushing his friends away one-by-one, Rand stirs up drama between them and stokes rivalries and divisions in the group under the pretense that he’s trying to unite them against Moiraine. He leaps at the opportunity to berate Egwene al’Vere (Madeleine Madden), calling her out for doubting Mat and not having his back when Rand did.

But this argument – this entire subplot – hinges on the viewer knowing these three characters more intimately than The Wheel Of Time has actually allowed us to, even seven episodes deep. Egwene and Mat only shared a handful of scenes in the first two episodes before separating at Shadar Logoth, and never had any interactions in which Rand could plausibly have interpreted some sort of animosity on Egwene’s part, so everything they’re arguing over in episode seven is largely meaningless to us, based on stuff that I guess must have happened before we entered the story.

And, well, don’t even get me started on the other big revelation that comes out of this argument. At some point while everyone is fighting, Nynaeve blurts out that Perrin Aybara (Marcus Rutherford) had an unrequited crush on Egwene while married to Laila, something that comes as a shock to Egwene, to Rand, and to us, the viewers. Technically, this is not a new development. Perrin was implied to have a slight crush on Egwene in The Eye Of The World, but Jordan never referenced it again afterwards. It was unbelievable even by his standards, and that’s saying something.

So obviously there was a great deal of shock and disappointment from fans (including myself) who felt that Perrin’s crush on Egwene maybe wasn’t the most vital part of the books to bring over into live-action. Don’t get me wrong, I like relationship drama in my fiction as much as anybody; when it’s just the right amount of juicy and spicy, that’s good stuff. But this is neither. It’s the bare bones of a love-triangle, which is already a generic trope, but on top of that Perrin never indicated any romantic interest in Egwene ever, and now I’m supposed to believe that his marriage was on the ropes because he couldn’t get over her?

Perrin’s wife, Laila, has lingered in the back of my mind as I’ve waited for The Wheel Of Time to reveal why she existed in the first place except to die horribly and motivate her grieving husband. Supposedly, part of the thought process behind her inclusion was that aging the main characters up from teenagers to twenty-something adults in the show required them to act more mature, and to come across as more comfortable in their love-lives than the helplessly awkward, angsty protagonists of Jordan’s books. A married Perrin exemplified that. The ham-fisted reveal that he was secretly crushing on his best friend…eh, not so much.

It’s obviously insulting to Laila. As if the poor woman didn’t go through enough, trapped in an apparently listless marriage and fridged by her own husband with an axe to the stomach (against Brandon Sanderson’s wishes), now the secrets she confided in Nynaeve to keep are shared with a roomful of her friends and enemies. Not to mention the fandom is still convinced she was a Darkfriend, no matter what Rafe Judkins might say. But perhaps The Wheel Of Time is even crueler to Perrin, who’s spent most of season one cycling through pointless subplots, patiently waiting for the show to remember that he’s a major character.

Hopefully he can hang in there a little while longer, because as Judkins himself revealed, Perrin was intentionally sidelined throughout this season to preserve the mystery around the identity of the Dragon Reborn, which Judkins worried non-readers might have solved on their own if The Wheel Of Time had explored how far Perrin’s connection to the wolves goes.

Personally, I feel like the guy who can literally talk to animals would have shot to the top of my list of potential Dragons if I didn’t already know it was Rand going in, but be that as it may, the mystery resolves itself at the end of episode seven and…Perrin still gets nothing to do with wolves in the finale, because he’s burdened with the role that was clearly meant to be Mat’s before these episodes were heavily rewritten.

That said, the mystery was effective in at least one regard. It got non-readers talking and speculating and having fun watching The Wheel Of Time, trying to guess the identity of the Dragon Reborn based on the limited clues that the writers were willing to spare. And at the same time, book readers got a good chuckle out of watching those reactions, or, alternatively, felt their hearts sink to their stomach when they saw how non-readers reacted with joy to the misdirect that Nynaeve was the Dragon.

I admit to being partially biased in this matter because I never liked Rand, and about five books into the series I basically had to reconcile with the fact that I was only tolerating him because the supporting cast was worth the blood, sweat, and tears required to make it through every one of his POV chapters. I proceeded to tolerate Rand for the next seven books. The experience left me tired – and in need of more likable and offbeat protagonists. Learning that some fans really adore Rand is something that invariably shakes me to my core, although I suppose after a couple rereads one grows numb to the pain.

But on a serious note, I really love hearing the various reasons why people like Rand because I can see the potential in his arc. For Rand, the responsibility of being the “chosen one” is claustrophobia-inducing, because he can never be free of it. Wherever he goes, his very existence alters the Pattern and causes irrevocable damage to the people he loves. He’s haunted day and night by the deranged musings of the last Dragon, Lews Therin Telamon. He’s hounded by the Dark One and the Aes Sedai. The corrupted male half of the One Power offers no escape, only a constant reminder of his duty to “cleanse the taint”.

Fittingly, Judkins stages the Dragon reveal in episode seven as a revelation for the audience, but not for Rand. A montage of flashbacks to recontextualized moments throughout the season tell us that Rand has actually suspected that he is the Dragon Reborn for a long time; since he channeled in the Ways to kill a Trolloc and let Egwene take the blame; since he used weaves of saidin to escape from Dana (Izuka Hoyle) in episode three; since the Battle of Bel Tine, when his delirious father Tam al’Thor (Michael McElhatton) revealed that Rand was actually born far from the Two Rivers, on the blood-soaked slopes of Dragonmount during the Aiel War.

The cold-open for episode seven takes us back twenty years to that battle on Dragonmount (known simply as the “Blood Snow”), giving non-readers an indelible mental image of the ferocity and determination they should come to expect from the Aiel – and therefore from Rand. Vikings director Ciaran Donnelly brings an expertise in shooting raw and gritty action to the table, coupled with an almost painterly understanding of how to elegantly compose and choreograph scenes of brutal violence so that they remain one step removed from the hyper-realism of Game Of Thrones‘ early seasons.

The Wheel Of Time is the kind of fantasy show where a pregnant woman in labor can climb up a mountain in the middle of winter, leap through the air with a heavily-armored man in tow before killing him and several others in intense hand-to-hand combat, sustain a stab-wound to the stomach, and only finally die after giving birth to a healthy baby. It’s fantastical, which is refreshing in this case because the fantasy genre is usually known for mercilessly slaughtering mothers and their babies in numbers that rival Disney’s kill-count. Tigraine Mantear (stuntwoman Magdalena Sittova) reclaims agency over the last moments of her life and goes out like a warrior.

A private audience with the seer Min Farshaw confirms Rand’s suspicions that he was adopted by Tam in the aftermath of the Blood Snow, while tentatively establishing the groundwork for a romantic relationship between their characters. If they’re not quite as flirty off the bat as some fans had hoped, it’s only because Rand has just been informed that there’s a strong likelihood he’ll die the very next day, and it kind of throws a damper over any flying sparks. But Amazon’s Wheel Of Time is taking a slow-burn approach to the canonical romances, so I wouldn’t have expected Rand and Min to fall in love yet anyway.

Jordan had many strengths as a writer, but romance was not one of them. His canonical couplings often play out like some of the weirdest and most random “crackships”, with characters falling in love on their first meeting, or on a whim after several books. Even Nynaeve and Lan, whom most fans (including myself) agree are perfect together, are revealed to be deeply in love with each other almost as a side-note nearly fifty chapters into The Eye Of The World. Amazon ‘s Wheel Of Time follows that relationship more closely throughout the season, cluing us in to what both characters are feeling.

The mystery regarding the Dragon Reborn adds a sense of urgency to their relationship in episode seven, as Lan and Nynaeve are both aware that if Nynaeve is the Dragon, there’s a good chance the Dark One will kill her at the Eye, and if she’s not, she’ll almost certainly be obliterated in the clash between the Dark One and the actual Dragon. Either way, the outcome doesn’t look good, and Nynaeve resolves to die having loved Lan as fully as she can. Not content with longing from afar, she joins Lan at his home in Fal Dara, where she meets his foster-family, before returning to his bedroom with him.

Or rather, Lan returns to his bedroom without even kissing Nynaeve goodnight, and Nynaeve enters a minute or two later as he’s getting undressed for bed. Lan can’t bring himself to tantalize her with what they both know is beyond their reach, but Nynaeve is living in the moment, accepting that she’ll probably never have the chance to settle down with Lan or start a family – hell, she’ll be lucky if she survives one more day, but at least right now they can have this together. Before we cut away and leave them to their lovemaking, the unshakable, headstrong Nynaeve we adored is back.

Even in Jordan’s world, the Pattern comes undone sometimes, but it always finds a way to correct itself. That process usually involves ta’veren in the books, but seeing as Amazon Prime Studios doesn’t just have one of those hanging about the place to help out (that we know of, at least), the combined talents of Rafe Judkins and his creative team will make up for the lack of cosmic intervention.

And of course they’ll make mistakes sometimes, but keep in mind that this and the next episode had to be rewritten in the middle of a pandemic to accommodate the absence of a lead actor, so the ending we got is not the ending that Judkins wanted to give us, and the slightly lower quality of these last two episodes is not indicative of where The Wheel Of Time is headed, only of how many obstacles had to be surmounted in order for this first season to see the light of day.

Episode Rating: 6.9/10

December 22, 2021

“The Wheel Of Time” Episode 6 Goes Gay, And It’s Wonderful

**SPOILERS FOR THE WHEEL OF TIME EPISODE SIX AHEAD!**

I appreciate that, in vaguely acknowledging the existence of queerness at all, Robert Jordan was far ahead of many of his straight white cisgender male peers in the fantasy literature scene of the 1990’s when it came to LGBTQ+ representation, but I think that speaks more to how low the bar was at the time for mainstream fantasy than to any particularly strong or noble effort by Jordan to write queer characters and relationships into his Wheel Of Time novels. And women in fantasy and in speculative fiction at large had been raising that bar for decades before Jordan, so I’m not sure how many points he deserves for giving us…”pillow-friends”.

Ah, the infamous pillow-friends – a bit of queer(ish) terminology unique to the Jordan lexicon, and therefore conveniently flexible. In and of itself, the phrase was seemingly so self-explanatory that queer readers could choose to interpret it as representation without straying too far into head-canon territory…but because the term was never explicitly defined, others could very easily dismiss those interpretations as frivolous, and find textual evidence for their arguments.

What was never in question was that pillow-friends were women (always women) who slept with other women on occasion, but Jordan seems to have been intent on over-complicating what could have been as simple as that by insisting there had to be rules to these relationships. Pillow-friends are almost always shown to be straight women who, temporarily deprived of their access to men, turn to other women for comfort – as seen in the environment of the White Tower, where the term originated to describe the relationships formed between young Aes Sedai Novices out of necessity and almost universally abandoned as these women grow older.

Some of the most prominent Aes Sedai in the books had pillow-friends as Novices, but the list of Aes Sedai who try to maintain these relationships as adults or are otherwise depicted as being romantically/sexually attracted to women, is far shorter, and includes a troubling amount of “man-hating” sadists and sexual predators from the antagonistic Red (and later the straight-up villainous Black) Ajahs. A handful of minor lesbian characters are scattered among the other Ajahs, but the general rule is that the heroines eventually grow out of their “gay phase” and find fulfilling relationships with men while the villains don’t.

Throughout The Wheel Of Time books, there’s a repeated theme of straight women in same-sex relationships being heavily fetishized for the straight male gaze, while actual queer women (especially lesbians) are chastised – as if the latter have chosen to be inaccessible to straight men. Among the Aiel people, there’s a time-honored tradition of straight women becoming “sister-wives” if they both love the same man and decide they want to share him romantically and sexually. Naturally, there’s no equivalent for straight men in love with the same woman.

If you’re wondering where queer men fit into Jordan’s world at all, well…they don’t. The Wheel Of Time features 2782 named characters, only two of whom are canonically gay men – both extremely minor characters, of course, and both added into the final books in the series by Brandon Sanderson, who completed The Wheel Of Time after Jordan’s passing. Amazon’s Wheel Of Time series has already done slightly better in that regard.

Not having known the late author personally, I’d like to assume that Jordan had good intentions with his queer representation, and by all accounts he did. That’s great. It’s also irrelevant to whether he wrote that representation well, but good luck telling that to the Wheel Of Time purists who claim that Jordan’s books are already so progressive for their time that Amazon’s adaptation shouldn’t need to modernize his questionable depictions of queer people. You’d think that if said purists actually cared that Jordan had good intentions, they’d want to be see better LGBTQ+ representation in Amazon’s series.

But judging by some of the outraged reactions to The Wheel Of Time‘s sixth episode, apparently that’s not the case (*pretends to be shocked*). Undone by an authentic depiction of queer loved rooted in the subtext of the books, the most blatantly homophobic of these purists are claiming to have abandoned the series and its gay agenda. Ah well, their loss. The Wheel Of Time is moving merrily along without them, and it is gayer now, which I see as an absolute win.

To be fair, it’s been at least a little gay since Rosamund Pike as Moiraine Damodred first appeared onscreen and started hurling fireballs left and right. But in the books, it’s also canon that Moiraine was the pillow-friend of another Aes Sedai, Siuan Sanche (Sophie Okonedo), when both were Novices at the White Tower – although neither woman is confirmed to be queer, and their relationship appears to have ended after both obtained their Blue Ajah shawls. Not so in showrunner Rafe Judkins’ vision for The Wheel Of Time, where the backbone of Moiraine’s entire character arc is revealed to be her epic love-story with Siuan.

Like many star-crossed lovers of myth, Moiraine and Siuan are held apart by forces beyond their power to control – but in a refreshing twist befitting Jordan, the master of subverting tropes and clichés, it’s not because they’re queer but because Siuan is the Amyrlin Seat of the Aes Sedai. Her political duties must always take priority over her heart’s desires, and both women understand that this is not only for Siuan’s benefit but for the good of the world. Only by exploiting the power and influence of the Amyrlin Seat have Siuan and Moiraine been able to secretly orchestrate their plan to find the Dragon Reborn and throw them into battle against the Dark One.

At this point, much of the responsibility falls on Pike and Okonedo to locate the grain of human truth in this fantastical story of political intrigue, and The Wheel Of Time is lucky to have two actresses so fully immersed in their characters that the subtlest nuances of their physical performances speak volumes when words would be too dangerous or too clumsy. Outwardly, it’s through their raw, desperate, excruciatingly swift exchanges of eye-contact or the gentle collision of fingertips yearning to hold, to cling to what must always slip away, that we experience the magnitude of Moiraine and Siuan’s bliss and misery around each other.

These moments of modesty and restraint lend real emotional weight to the one sexual encounter they share when they’re finally given an excuse to meet in private. Director Salli Richardson-Whitfield’s decision to keep the camera close to Moiraine and Siuan’s faces throughout the entire scene is noteworthy for how it accentuates expression, individuality, and humanity above all – in stark contrast to how sex scenes between queer women (particularly one involving a queer Black woman) are often filmed, with a dispassionate focus on dehumanized body parts. The effective characterization is what makes this scene sensual.

Unfortunately, they’re only allowed a few hours in each other’s arms before Moiraine informs Siuan that as Amyrlin Seat, she has to do what’s best for both of them and officially banish Moiraine from the White Tower – taking some of the pressure off of Siuan from her opponents who claim that she’s soft on the Blue Ajah, while giving Moiraine the freedom to continue her mission. Their dangerous love is built on a mutual tenacity and trust that Siuan draws on to perform the punishment, and that gives Moiraine the strength she needs to continue moving.

In the universe of The Wheel Of Time, destiny comes for everybody regardless of whether they’re strong enough to meet it in the field. All the characters can do is try and figure out the part they’ll be required to play, and be prepared to go through with it even if it’s not the part they wanted or expected. Moiraine and Siuan’s preparations for the inevitable Last Battle have forced them to make hard choices at the cost of their own personal happiness, something Siuan indirectly laments later in the episode while advising Nynaeve al’Meara (Zoë Robins) and Egwene al’Vere (Madeleine Madden) on how to face their own destinies.

It’s no coincidence then, that this is also the episode in which Moiraine finally uses her most iconic quote from the books – “The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills”. Although the phrase implies some level of sentience on the Wheel’s part, Robert Jordan was adamant that the the Wheel of Time is much like a computer, in that it was programmed (by a vague and nameless Creator) to achieve a purpose, that being the preservation of the Pattern of history. Woven into this Pattern are the people and events the Wheel requires to combat the unending threat of the Dark One and continue turning.

In the books, there’s a name for certain people chosen by the Wheel to influence and even shape the Pattern around themselves – ta’veren. When the Pattern is at risk of coming undone, one or more ta’veren are spun out depending on the severity of the situation, and for as long as they are needed they change the world wherever they go simply by existing. Jordan’s books revolve around the deeds of three prominent ta’veren, although in Amazon’s adaptation I suspect the number will increase slightly; if not to exaggerate the scale of the current threat to the Patten, then at least to diversify the group (the ratio of men to women among ta’veren is…statistically perplexing).

Fans will be able to guess the identity of at least one ta’veren after episode seven, but throughout episode six Moiraine is still keeping all of her options open…something that becomes significantly more difficult as her agenda clashes with those of the Emond’s Field Five. Only Egwene trusts her wholeheartedly and seems genuinely in awe of the Aes Sedai at this point (even trying to be on her best behavior to impress potential mentors), which makes Moiraine’s refusal to share the details of Egwene’s friends’ whereabouts with her particularly hurtful – although I suspect she did so to prevent any of them teaming up and fleeing Tar Valon.

To be fair to Moiraine, Nynaeve did just straight-up leave the White Tower without telling anybody to go find Rand al’Thor (Josha Stradowski) and Mat Cauthon (Barney Harris) in the city below. It’s classic Nynaeve, on so many levels. Put in any situation where she’s scared or overwhelmed, her instinctive reaction is always to fight her way out tooth-and-nail, so her simply ignoring Moiraine’s instructions to stay put is very in-character. She’s then drawn directly to her friends as if by an internal compass. And she doesn’t tell Moiraine, because frankly she doesn’t trust Moiraine or anyone but herself to keep her friends safe.

We learn a lot about Nynaeve through that incident alone; including that sometimes she doesn’t know what’s best for her friends and she can’t keep them safe by her traditional methods, which terrifies her. Mat is almost lost to the cursed dagger from Shadar Logoth because Nynaeve didn’t even consider going to Moiraine, much less any of the other Aes Sedai. It’s only when Moiraine takes action and sneaks in to see Mat after Nynaeve leaves him (Rand’s there, but he’s useless even with a cool sword) that she’s able to perform the necessary exorcism to save his life.

Is it technically an exorcism? It involves Moiraine pulling a veiny rope of sentient, wriggling darkness out of Mat’s throat and allowing it to clamp over her mouth and start sucking on her soul before…absorbing it into herself, I think…so yeah, I’m gonna call it an exorcism because honestly, I don’t know what the proper surgical terminology for any of that would be. It’s not fun to watch, whatever it is. Meanwhile, over on the other side of Tar Valon, Moiraine has arranged for a whole bunch of Yellow Ajah sisters to tend to Perrin Aybara (Marcus Rutherford)’s wounds while he sleeps tastefully half-naked in a greenhouse.

With all the coming-and-going this episode, it’s no surprise that others besides Moiraine and Siuan eventually learn of the Emond’s Field Five. Frustratingly, it’s Liandrin Guirale (Kate Fleetwood) who hears of them first from her eyes-and-ears, but her jealousy of Moiraine is so strong that she wastes time gloating to her when she could have been quietly wrangling potential Dragons. Moiraine in turn casually informs Liandrin that the latter’s boyfriend, a male channeler Liandrin had been hoping to hide from the Red Ajah…yeah, turns out he’s not so well-hidden as all that, and also Moiraine has the Red Ajah on speed-dial.

Although that shuts Liandrin up pretty quickly, the unwanted attention forces Moiraine to leave town with her companions. The group seeks out the ancient Ways, a network of interdimensional passages across the world that Moiraine hopes will take them straight to the Eye of the World for a prophesied confrontation with the Dark One. In the books, Waygates were designed to be used by the Ogiers, and could only be opened with a rare Avendesora leaf. For reasons that will soon become clear, the Waygates in Amazon’s Wheel Of Time are activated by channeling, which sadly undercuts Loial (Hammed Animashaun)’s role.

It’s here that The Wheel Of Time appears to have run out of footage of Barney Harris, who abruptly left the show midway through filming, leaving Amazon with no choice but to write around his absence for the final two episodes before recasting the role heading into season two (Dónal Finn will be our Mat from here on out). A temporary exit is therefore hastily and somewhat awkwardly arranged for the character at the end of episode six. As the others file into the Waygate, he stands a long distance back and just…waits there, without moving, turning around, or walking away, until the door closes.

The scene is very choppily-edited. On the one hand, that’s to be expected seeing as Harris doesn’t seem to have been called back in to film any more appropriate reaction shots before his departure, so his face is blank and expressionless throughout what’s intended to be a very dramatic scene. But honestly, it’s the other characters standing just inside the wide-open Waygate and yelling ineffectively at Mat to follow them that ruins the emotional impact we might have felt more deeply if they hadn’t noticed Mat’s absence until the door was already closing behind them.

Until Amazon or Harris himself say more regarding the matter, I have no interest in speculating as to why he left. Hopefully he’s in good health, and I appreciate the hard work he put into establishing the character of Mat Cauthon throughout this season. Obviously it’s upsetting that at such a pivotal moment in his character arc he’s suddenly rushed offscreen, but this isn’t a situation where much could have been done differently. And I’m actually glad that Amazon took their time to recast – it indicates that the creative team behind The Wheel Of Time thought long and hard about finding the right actor for this crucial role, and I trust that Finn is that actor.

Because I get a feeling of satisfaction out of coming around full-circle in any post involving The Wheel Of Time (it’s just so fitting, you know?), I’ll leave you to ponder the question of whether Finn’s Mat will be canonically bisexual as many fans have been hoping to see, some for literal decades. I’ll be honest, I was surprised to learn that of the Emond’s Field Five, Mat is the most commonly head-canoned as bisexual (if anybody ought to be bi in that group, it’s clearly Perrin and Egwene), but I hope that the show doesn’t stop at confirming Moiraine as queer. Jordan’s world could stand to get a lot gayer.

Episode Rating: 8.9/10

December 19, 2021

“The Witcher” Returns Stronger Than Ever After Two Years

MINOR SPOILERS FOR THE WITCHER SEASON 2 AHEAD!

With the universe of The Witcher expanding at the rate that is, and Netflix investing in live-action prequels, anime spinoffs, and even a kid’s show (I have…so many questions about how that’s gonna work), there was a lot of pressure on The Witcher‘s second season to validate that level of support from the streaming service. The first season was good, don’t get me wrong, but it takes more than “good” for Netflix to bank so heavily on any of their original franchises – especially one with a large budget and a star whose salary doubled between seasons.

So it’s fortunate indeed that The Witcher season two gleefully one-ups its debut season at every opportunity and on every level. Showrunner Lauren Hissrich has consistently proven in her social media interactions with fans that she’s always willing to listen and engage with valid critiques of her work on season one, and in season two it appears that she and her team have taken great care to evolve in response to those critiques while staying true to her over-arching vision for the series. The process of achieving that delicate balance begins in the writers room.

That’s where it must have been decided to stick to just one timeline from now on, after audiences responded poorly to the gradual reveal in season one that the show had been jumping between three timelines without warning. To be fair, that reveal works better on a rewatch, when you can pick up all the clues that the writers cleverly planted in early episodes, and I hope season two will be equally as rewarding on successive rewatches; because on a first viewing, to someone who hasn’t read the books or played the games, I think it’s the politics that are going to be most challenging to follow in season two.

I encourage anyone new to The Witcher to find themselves a detailed map of The Continent online before settling in to watch season two, because whether you can keep up with which kingdoms are fighting over what, much less play along with all the political intrigue on your own, will largely depend on how fast you can figure out where the kingdom of Redania is in relation to Cintra and where everything is in relation to Nilfgaard. Most fantasy stories on this scale will have some character in-universe unfurl a map to help out the audience – The Witcher is not most fantasy stories, so you’re gonna have to bring your own.

If you can get past that hurdle, the political intrigue of The Witcher is well-executed, satisfyingly complex…and integral to this season and the forward direction of the series. If Yennefer (Anya Chalotra) was your favorite character in season one because you loved exploring the world of the Mages with their secretive individual agendas and allegiances, you’ll find much to enjoy in season two as the Mages clash with new characters like Dijkstra (Graham McTavish), a man with an almost Machiavellian cunning, and old characters with new goals, like the ostracized Nilfgaardian Mage Fringilla Vigo (Mimî M. Khayisa).

In other words, this season of The Witcher was tailor-made for me. Political intrigue is one of my favorite tropes in fantasy, and as much as I love seeing Geralt (Henry Cavill) hunt monsters, especially now that Ciri (Freya Allan) is in on the action with a sword of her own and some very cool magic abilities, I’m always gonna gravitate more towards the cloak-and-dagger stuff, the conspiracies behind closed doors, the plots and the political maneuvering enriched by the addition of a magical element in this case. But rest assured, monster lovers, The Witcher hasn’t forgotten you.

Following complaints that season one was suspiciously light on monsters for a show about a monster-hunter, season two brings a number of new beasts off the pages of Andrzej Sapkowski’s books and into live-action. By the end of the season, The Witcher is just about testing the limits of its expanded budget (without getting into spoilers, there are several basilisks in the finale, each a little less convincing than the last), but you can tell that the show has more money and resources to allocate towards CGI, because the fight-scenes are longer and better-lit, showing off the cool monster designs rather than hiding them in shadows.

There are monsters where there don’t even need to be monsters in season two, which is an improvement over almost no monsters at all. The Bruxa (a bloodsucking shapeshifter) and the Leshy (a malevolent tree) are by far my favorites; both enigmatic, both hauntingly beautiful, and both absolutely terrifying. If there’s a tiebreaker between the two, it’s the Leshy’s relative lack of screentime and personality that pushes the Bruxa into the lead. I’d say it’s impressive that the Leshy made any impact on me at all in just forty-five seconds, but that’s actually very telling of how much I love evil trees.

The Witcher and its monsters are deeply rooted in Slavic (specifically Polish) folklore, and even monsters original to the Netflix series are designed with the same cultural influences in mind. Season two introduces a haggard demoness named Voleth Meir (Ania Marson, a Polish screen legend), nowhere to be found in Sapkowski’s books but immediately familiar to fans of Baba Yaga (me, again). At first she’s just a creepy witch living in a hut in the woods, but then the hut lifts itself up and…well, if you know the Baba Yaga myth, you know what’s underneath.

Voleth Meir is one of several characters in season two linked to events that took place long before The Witcher, which will presumably be explored further in the live-action prequel series, Blood Origin. A sneak-peek at Blood Origin is attached to The Witcher‘s season finale as a mid-credits scene, and with how much worldbuilding there is in regard to Elven bloodlines, the mysterious black monoliths scattered across the Continent, and the fabled Conjunction of the Spheres, I imagine that a lot of fans will want to check that out to see how closely the two series’ are intertwined (also because it stars Michelle Yeoh).

In much the same way that a map is important to understanding the political intrigue elements of The Witcher, I feel that Blood Origin may be essential viewing to figure out what actually happened in this season at all – and there’s a big difference between expecting viewers to look at a map and asking that they watch two series’ (one of which isn’t out yet) just to understand the one they actually came for in the first place. By contrast, Nightmare Of The Wolf is complimentary to The Witcher and fills in some gaps regarding our knowledge of Vesemir (Kim Bodnia), but you needn’t have watched it to understand his character’s actions.

Thankfully, even as its plot occasionally strays towards the past, The Witcher is anchored in the here-and-now by a trinity of exceptional performances from Cavill, Chalotra, and Allan. Throughout season one, Chalotra did most of the dramatic heavy lifting for the trio, it has to be said. And I will argue that even in season two, she’s still given the most compelling material to work with, but the burden of “carrying the show” is more evenly divided between the three when the season opens, Cavill’s Geralt and Allan’s Ciri having already met at the very end of season one.

It’s the first time in her flight across the Continent that Ciri has paused long enough to have a proper conversation with anybody, but Allan is able to quickly and deftly mold a three-dimensional heroine out of her character, who was little more than a plot-device in season one. As she gives voice to her trauma and inner tumult, we explore more facets of her personality beyond the poise and shy politeness hammered into her by her grandmother – including a ceaseless hatred for her family’s enemies that burns within her body, manifesting itself in violence that both terrifies and mesmerizes Ciri.

Disappointingly, the one element of Ciri’s character that didn’t quite make it to the screen in this season is her bisexuality. Several deleted scenes apparently exist of her crushing on the Mage Triss Merigold (Anna Shaffer), along with one that would have confirmed the Witcher Lambert (Paul Bullion) as a bisexual character. That these scenes were removed so methodically is obviously frustrating. As for the bard Jaskier (Joey Batey), his character is more overtly queer-coded than ever, but the only evidence that he harbors any unrequited romantic feelings for Geralt is one confusingly emotional break-up song about the Witcher.

Deprived of his muse, however, it appears that the bard has lost his touch for clever, catchy songwriting. The break-up song, titled “Burn”, disappoints immensely and is even ridiculed in-universe by some of Jaskier’s audience. It’s certainly not a worthy successor to “Toss A Coin To Your Witcher”, Jaskier’s stirring hymn to Geralt that became a smash hit in real-life and on the Continent, where a star-struck fan even boldly approaches Jaskier with his extremely meta criticisms of the bard’s other work, including one song with too many “different timelines”.

It would certainly have been ironic if The Witcher‘s second season had continued the analogy by falling as flat as Jaskier’s new songs. But happily, this is one series that just keeps getting better across the board, and I’m very excited to see whether season three can raise the bar still further.

Series Rating: 8.5/10

December 16, 2021

“Wheel Of Time” Episode 5 Takes Us To Tar Valon

**SPOILERS FOR THE WHEEL OF TIME EPISODE FIVE AHEAD!**

If there’s one criticism that should not be leveled against any streaming series developed by Amazon, one of the biggest and most valuable companies on the planet, it’s that it’s low-budget. And to be fair, Amazon’s The Wheel Of Time isn’t actually low-budget, not by any stretch of the imagination. $80 million dollars, even spread across eight episodes, is a sizable amount of money, roughly on par with what Netflix allocated to The Witcher‘s first season. But The Wheel Of Time uses at least as much CGI as The Witcher, if not more, and that puts a strain on the budget.

And inevitably, sometimes that does result in The Wheel Of Time looking cheaper than it has any right to. I’ve been disappointed in the show’s lackluster production design, poor costuming choices, and occasionally wonky CGI. But while I absolutely hope that Amazon has increased the show’s budget after seeing the strong reception to season one, the silver lining in this situation is that watching the first season, you can admire how the creative team behind The Wheel Of Time have clearly had to think outside the box and find clever solutions to challenges and problems at which they can’t just throw millions of dollars to make them go away.

And that’s how we find ourselves standing before the gates of Tar Valon early in episode five. If you were hoping to read Robert Jordan’s Wheel Of Time books concurrently with the show’s adaptation of each book, this is probably the point where you’re gonna have to choose one or the other, because this is a far more significant deviation from the source material than the show’s decision to cut out the pit-stop in Baerlon on the road to Shadar Logoth or the river-boat journey to Whitebridge. It’s also a bold choice made for practical reasons that not only works in theory, but in execution works better than the books’ equivalent.

In the first book of The Wheel Of Time, the characters aren’t reunited in Tar Valon, but in the city of Caemlyn. They don’t even reach Tar Valon until book two. But in Amazon’s version of events, it’s the other way around; the characters’ paths converge in Tar Valon, and presumably it won’t be until season two or later that we get a chance to visit Caemlyn. The only real downside is that we lose Caemlyn as a location in season one, but that’s not a terribly hard loss to endure. In the first book, it’s only significant as the home of Elayne Trakand, her mother Morgase, and her brothers Gawyn and Galad.

And down the line, when Amazon’s adaptation has room to introduce those characters, that’s when we can expect the show to stop by Caemlyn. But The Wheel Of Time is still in its first season, and still trying to acquaint new fans with as few characters and locations as they absolutely need to understand the story right now. With so much of the story woven around the Aes Sedai sorceress Moiraine Damodred (Rosamund Pike), whose role has even been upgraded in the show from a major supporting character to the lead, it makes total sense to visit her home-city, Tar Valon – the center of Aes Sedai power, and the axis upon which Jordan’s fantasy world rotates.

Swapping out Caemlyn for Tar Valon also allows Amazon’s adaptation to begin weaving a through-line of Aes Sedai political intrigue into this first season, a through-line that fans will follow until the very end of the show. Political intrigue is a major element of Robert Jordan’s Wheel Of Time saga (and, incidentally, one of my favorite tropes in genre fiction), but that’s something that only becomes clear around book two. By contrast, the first book in the series is a fairly straightforward quest narrative styled after The Lord Of The Rings, with little to no politics.

As Amazon’s Wheel Of Time has wisely accentuated the differences between the two series’ (and even discarded some of Jordan’s most…shall we say, overt homages to Tolkien), playing up the intricate machinations of the Aes Sedai in Tar Valon is a far more efficient use of screentime than spending a full episode in Caemlyn, Jordan’s generic fantasy city stand-in for Tolkien’s Minas Tirith. Even outside of the White Tower in which the Aes Sedai live, Tar Valon feels distinct, with a bright and colorful visual aesthetic blending cultural influences from Byzantine Constantinople, Renaissance-era Rome, and medieval Avignon; all cities presided over by religious authorities.

The Aes Sedai are the closest equivalent to the Catholic Church that exists in Robert Jordan’s world – and that’s even taking into account all the intentional similarities between the Whitecloaks and the fanaticism of the Spanish Inquisition. Although their political power doesn’t extend far beyond the shores of their island city, within its walls the Aes Sedai are still revered and respected by the common people. They wield an intangible influence that can alternately be used as a shield or a sword, crafted through centuries of tradition, ritualism, and subtle manipulation of faith, fear, and superstition.

The result is a culture of adoration that exists to keep the people of Tar Valon in check and demonstrates the efficiency of Aes Sedai methods. But the city itself is largely insignificant. Sure, the Aes Sedai entertain their people every so often by parading a gentled False Dragon through the streets and allowing him to face the wraths of their followers, but everything of importance happens inside the echoing hallways and sparsely-decorated chambers of the White Tower, where women from all seven Ajahs work on expanding their influence across the entire world. Tar Valon is only a testing ground.

Sadly, there’s not enough time for Amazon’s series to explore all the nooks and crannies of this rich environment, as the story requires that most of the main characters be escorted into the White Tower at once. Moiraine, we learn, has been away from the Tower for two years, and the Aes Sedai won’t let her leave again without an explanation for her long absence, while Nynaeve al’Meara (Zoë Robins) is of pertinent interest to everybody after her incredible power display in the previous episode. Simultaneously, we see Lan Mandragoran (Daniel Henney) open up in an effort to comfort his fellow Warder Stepin (Peter Fránzen), still reeling from the loss of his Aes Sedai.

The latter subplot is probably the least integral to the overarching storyline of season one, yet in the brief time that we’re given to know Stepin (before he chooses to die by his own hand, finding peace in the belief that he and his beloved Kerene will be reunited in another life), his struggle with the isolating anguish of grief is beautifully intertwined with The Wheel Of Time‘s philosophies on love, death, and life. Perhaps more than any other fantasy series currently running, The Wheel Of Time is first and foremost concerned with regular people, whose stories of everyday pain and joy fill the series of small, intimate vignettes that run throughout this season.

And in a story as vast and epic in scope as this one, it’s truly a testament to The Wheel Of Time‘s masterful writing and direction that it’s able to ensure that the focus remains right where it needs to be, on the characters of the Emond’s Field Five, Moiraine, and Lan. As the story begins following the latter two more closely in episodes five and six, both are understandably humanized – partially due to our expanded access to their private conversations, and partially because they are written to be less stoic and guarded than they were depicted in Jordan’s early books.

I find it interesting that this has proven to be one of the adaptation’s most controversial changes to the source material, because it makes complete sense to me that Moiraine and Lan (and all Aes Sedai/Warder groupings, for that matter) would feel everything more strongly than other people as a result of their empathetic bond. They’re each a sounding-board for the other’s emotions; every flutter of love, every crashing wave of sorrow, every sudden joy. We see this demonstrated during Stepin’s funeral, when Lan is asked to ritually act out the grief of his fellow Warders, but it’s through Moiraine’s tears and the tremble in her hands that we actually feel the weight of his loss.

I certainly don’t feel that Lan is out of character in that scene as some have argued, and I don’t even want to address the bizarre claim being espoused in all the darkest corners of social media that Amazon’s version of Lan has been “emasculated” (that word alone…blech). The irony isn’t lost on me that the men jeering at Lan for being sad at his best friend’s funeral are the same men who will nonetheless describe themselves as “advocates” for mainstream depictions of platonic affection between men in response to literally any representation of queer men onscreen.

Personally, I have a feeling that the bigots in this fandom are still too blinded by their rage over the mere suggestion that Rand al’Thor (Josha Stradowski) could be queer to notice that the only openly queer men in The Wheel Of Time so far are the fairly minor characters of Maksim (Taylor Napier) and Ihvon (Emmanuel Imani), who are part of an adorable polyamorous throuple with their Aes Sedai, Alanna Mosvani (Priyanka Bose). Apparently they also overlooked the fact that Lan and Stepin’s relationship, the crux of episode five, is totally platonic.

We’ve seen varied and highly individual expressions of romantic and sexual love throughout The Wheel Of Time (and even so, only a sampling), but platonic love is a kaleidoscope of vibrant colors too. The tranquility that Moiraine and Lan feel around each other, that allows them to ease into a form of platonic intimacy built on trust and understanding, is distinct from romantic attraction – but at the same time, it’s nothing like the at-times prickly platonic love that Moiraine and Alanna share, or the mutual platonic affection that Lan and Stepin can’t quite bring themselves to voice.

All the Emond’s Field Five are knit tightly together by a kind of platonic love-pentagram, but after this episode it’s clear that we’re supposed to see especially strong bonds of trust and familiarity emerging between Rand and Mat Cauthon (Barney Harris) and between Egwene al’Vere (Madeleine Madden) and Perrin Aybara (Marcus Rutherford). To be honest, I still don’t see it with Rand and Mat. Stradowski and Harris are the weakest links in the ensemble cast, but this episode gives them nothing to work with, not even a proper conversation to communicate the self-loathing and horror that Mat is struggling with, or Rand’s confusion and desperation to help.

But while those two reach Tar Valon in the first few minutes and proceed to wander around aimlessly, Egwene and Perrin take an unexpected detour before they can enter the city and come out the other side with a clearer understanding of themselves and of each other, at a place in their relationship where one can easily imagine them developing their own form of the bond that Moiraine and Lan share. Abducted from the Tuatha’an caravan by fanatical Whitecloaks lurking outside the city gates, Egwene is brought before the Questioner Eamon Valda (Abdul Salis), who tortures Perrin to try and force Egwene into confessing to being a channeler.

The horrific ordeal forces Egwene and Perrin to lay bare all their fears and insecurities in front of each other if they’re to survive, something neither had been able to do up until this point. Shedding the self-doubt that had plagued her, Egwene finally reveals her ability to channel, while Perrin brokenly admits to accidentally killing his wife during the battle of Emond’s Field (in-universe, and specifically as far as Whitecloaks are concerned, the two are comparable crimes). Perrin doesn’t quite have time to explain what the whole glowing golden eyes thing is about, or why he’s being followed around by wolves now, but that’s a story for another day.

Funny story, my notes for this review contain a lengthy critique of The Wheel Of Time‘s CGI-enhanced wolves that will never see the light of day, as I have recently discovered that the wolves are…well, real. I mean, they’re not really wolves, they’re actually wolfdogs, but nor are they CGI, not even a little bit, which means that the problem I had with the level of distance between the human actors and the wolves is apparently not attributable to VFX artists digitally inserting wolves in post-production. I don’t even know why I’m surprised. Honestly, it would be more shocking if The Wheel Of Time had money to afford hyper-realistic CGI wolves.

So basically I still feel it detracts from Perrin’s character arc that the wolves don’t seem to fully inhabit the same space as him and the other actors, but I’m no longer sure what to chalk this up to and I’m sure as hell not gonna blame the wolfdog actors who are all doing a lovely job. Maybe these are just the realities of working with animals on any film or TV set, and I admire the show for once again choosing the practical solution to the challenge of adapting Jordan faithfully, as they’ve done with the beastly Trollocs, the terrifying Myrddraal, and in episode five, the scholarly Ogier Loial (Hammed Animashaun).

Loial trended on Twitter the night of his debut, and for good reason. The Ogier is a fan-favorite, whose meandering dialogue and bemused reactions to humans make him a quaint outlier in a story growing increasingly darker all around him. Acting through several layers of facial prosthetics and reciting what could have been extremely stilted dialogue, Animashaun brings Loial’s endearing awkwardness to life while maintaining his own dignity and successfully conveying that the Ogier has a more solemn side we may get to explore in later seasons – by which point, hopefully, Amazon will have dialed back his prosthetics a bit.

Something that I remember realizing when I first read The Wheel Of Time, only to later forget and realize all over again when watching the show is that Loial is also very clearly inspired by Treebeard. I’m not complaining…I really like Treebeard, and I really like Loial, but it is interesting that his characterization from the books is kept intact in the adaptation process and ironically it leads to a momentarily jarring tonal shift. The rest of the episode is spent untangling an intricate political intrigue narrative while dealing with all these weighty themes, using Jordan’s later books to inform the tone and style, and then here comes Loial.

Personally, I think showrunner Rafe Judkins and his team have proved they’re more than capable of handling the challenges thrown their way, even by their own source material. But at the same time, I’m kind of okay with keeping Loial exactly the way he is. Is he a remnant of the sometimes unsubtle homages to Tolkien that filled the pages of Jordan’s first book? A little bit, yeah, but The Wheel Of Time is otherwise so comfortably situated in its own skin by this point that I think the show can get away with it.

Episode Rating: 9/10