Wheel of Time Had a Second Season, and It Wasn’t Bad
Wheel of Time promotional image
I watched the first season of the Wheel of Time show on Amazon and reviewed it here.
They have a second season. I have watched it. Here’s the trailer for the season:
I still haven’t read the books, but I am pleased to say that I remain surrounded by people who have, and a great joy of the series for me is arguing about it with them.
My first observation about this season is that the first two episodes were *ROUGH*. Like, one of my dear friends who was really into the books was telling me “Jaybird, just don’t watch the show. It’s awful,” and I was tempted to follow his advice. As it turns out, the season turned around in episode 3 and got surprisingly good. I found myself engaged with the characters and finding them interesting and complex.
The funny part was that whenever I’d mention that I liked this character or that character, my buddies would explain “oh, yeah, she’s not particularly interesting in the book” or “yeah, he was barely a character in the book… more of a boogeyman” or, and this one surprised me, “Yeah, she’s not in the books at all.”
My friend Dman told me, “I look at the show like this: It’s another turn of the wheel. This has happened a thousand times and it’s going to keep happening. There is always overlap between turns of the wheel and this is going to be one of the turns that is similar, but not identical, to the books that we all loved.”
And so coming at it like that allows him to enjoy the show even though, dang, they changed a *LOT*.
If you want to avoid spoilers, just hit “back” right now and know that the season gets better after the 2nd episode.
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Still here? Okay.
I found myself vaguely irritated that they split the party. “They keep introducing dozens of new characters that I have to keep track of,” I complained to Maribou. “OH YOU HAVE NO IDEA,” she told me.
Like the people in the tower? There were a whole bunch of new Aes Sedai that I had to keep track of. “I like Liandrin, I guess,” I told my friends. “She’s interesting. Has interesting motivations.”
“Oh?” they asked. Not wanting to spoil me. “She wasn’t that interesting in the books. Actually, I think that she was dead by this point in the books…”
We met Moiraine’s little sister and saw that Aes Sedai age much more slowly than normies do. We saw the dynamics that existed between this matriarch of a minor noble house in the big city who was on the bubble of becoming a major noble house in the big city and how she had mastered the politics of the big city in a way analogous to Moiraine’s mastery of the politics in the tower.
“Oh, yeah, she wasn’t in the book at all,” my buddies told me. “They handled that part well, though.”
As it turns out, the books have Moiraine dealing with a *LOT* of political intrigue in the tower. Tons. And there are dozens of Aes Sedai in the tower for her to make temporary alliances with or be stabbed in the back by. And, apparently, it’s all kind of confusing. So the show said, “you know what? We can capture 90% of the whole dynamic by having her deal with a younger sister who has visibly aged past her who has influence in the city that is a different kind of influence than the kind that Moiraine wields.”
And you know what? It works. People who are sticklers for “what happens in the books” will, I’m sure, be flabbergasted that these seven different Aes Sedai don’t show up and this new character does but I very much enjoyed seeing Moiraine playing against someone capable of outplaying her and who wasn’t really a rival or an enemy but an ally with different goals. And, yeah, apparently that captured the dynamic in the tower.
We meet a bunch of Darkfriends in season 2 and the show does a good job of getting into this or that motivation of this or that darkfriend so I asked about the darkfriends in the books. “Oh, most of them aren’t that interesting”, I was told. “There are *SOME* that see it as more of a social club secret society fraternity kinda thing, but then a Forsaken shows up and reminds them all what their vows actually mean.”
“Wait, so what’s the motivations of darkfriends in the books?”
My buddy shrugged. “Some darkfriends are evil. Some darkfriends are stupid. Sometimes the light wins, sometimes the dark wins. Some darkfriends just wanna be on the winning team.”
I was also really taken by Lanfear. “What a great character!” I told my friends. “Yeah, well, she wasn’t half that interesting in the book.” I thought Ishamael was interesting. “Well, in the books, he’s mostly just a big dark scary figure. Most of the Forsaken don’t have much of a personality at all and it’s only in the chapters where they talk about how much they hate the other Forsaken that we get a glimpse into what they’re like at all (other than being boogeymen).”
So the Forsaken that were so very interesting and nuanced in the show are mostly just scary big bads in the books.
And so I’m in this weird place where my favorite parts of the show are things that just don’t happen in the books.
I can’t wait for Season 3.
Season 2 was a significant step up from season 1, agreed, and if the show runners continue this trajectory we could, honest to God(ess?), be looking at a series that IMPROVED on its source material. The only one of those that springs to my mind was the Hunger Games where the movies solidly improved on the books.
Now, season 2. Interestingly I feel like you and I enjoyed a lot of the same parts. In particular for me is the subject of the Forsaken. Lanfear was absolutely stunning but I was actually especially particular to Ishamael who was incredibly improved from the charred zombie he was in the books.
While I could jabber on about this and that particulars what I really loved about Ishamael in particular but also all the Forsaken was their look and vibe. These are people from the golden modern age of this world. They are now in a ruined medieval primitive version of that same world millenia on from said golden age. And they look it! The way they dress, the way they move, the way they act. They are moderns, barely able to keep from wrinkling their noses as they pick their way over the dung choked streets.
Ishamael, for instance, plays along with the Seanchan social dynamics gamely enough in public but the instant he’s in private his utter contempt and disdain for that cultures entire modus just shines through.
This also plays out in how they look at each other. The Forsaken very much view each other- fellow moderns- as the only “real” people in the world and the only “real” threats. The way Ishamael and Lanfear circle each other and maneuver around each other throughout the season?
That’s been really well done in this season to dwell on just one facet of what has been surely one of the most improved TV series outstanding right now.Report
They are moderns, barely able to keep from wrinkling their noses as they pick their way over the dung choked streets.
Holy cow, you’re right.
Now a question for you: Was “Atlantis” part of the books?
OH! And another thing: Nynaeve went into the arches, right? And got stuck. When Egwene came in and started charging them up again, Nynaeve plopped out. I asked my friends about this scene and they all told me “Yeah, I didn’t get that out of that scene at all.”
But that’s how I, someone who didn’t read it, took it.Report
Some mildly potential spoilerish musings follow:
Atlantis is not directly mentioned though the Atha’an Miere, or People of the Sea, have a name that sounds within a rock throw of Atlantis. To be even more lore geeky there are suggestions in the books that the Age of Legends (which is the second age) takes place in the distant future of -OUR- earth. So in that case Atlantis would exist but utterly in the pre-history of the third age and we’d be living in the “first age” so to speak.
The show dramatically changed the lore regarding the arches. Whereas the TV version of the character stayed behind for years, the books’ Nynaeve passed the test and stepped through after just momentarily faltering. The arches closed only for a few seconds, and were immediately called back after only a moment’s hesitation. Thinking about the people that needed her helped Nynaeve recall the portal.
So the show wildly changed up the story. I don’t, however, feel it’s particularly egregious though some WoT lore nerds are badly outraged “the way appears only once!!11!!oneone!!”
Having rewatched it a couple times, though, I agree that it’s implied that Nynaeve escaped the arches because Egwene and Elayne powered them up.Report
I don’t mean *OUR* Atlantis. I just mean did the books have glimpses into “The Great Civilization That Had Flying Cars And Robots And Mister Spacely And That Got Destroyed By The Evil One Last Time Around”.Report
Ahhh I see!
So the books do give you a little info on it. Predominantly this is by a small handful of visions experienced by Rand when he’s interacting with certain caches of ancient treasures that have been set aside. There’re also occasional musings by the Forsaken comparing the Age of Legends to the present time (never kindly towards the present). So you get a general vibe of what things were like but you never experience first person PoV chapters that go into great detail.
There was a LOT of bioengineering using the One power. Both for good and very emphatically for ill.
Prior to the Dark one it was very peaceful. The sword arts were basically just a vestigial olympic sort of sport.
They did have flying cars though IIRC they were presented more as individual person glider/ornithopter setups rather than whole vehicles.
While bioengineering was common it doesn’t seem like constructs in the line of robots were at all common.
They had a lot of fantastical buildings and they’ve done a fabulous job of showing their ruins to us.
But, really, this is mostly for the good because, by being vague, Jordan didn’t have to get into a lot of the nitty gritty of the Age of Legends in detail.Report
Hmm in further thought, though, we’ve seen more flashbacks to the AoL in the 2 seasons of the show than were in any of the matching books. So it is not outside the realm of the possible that the show is going to give us a lot more glimpses of “Atlantis” than the books did.Report
Okay. That answers my question.
I kind of get the feeling that The Dark One has been around as long as The Dragon but The Forsaken are somewhat more recent. I mean, sure. They’ve all been around since the last turn of a wheel, but, like, they don’t go back further than that (beyond the sense in which everybody keeps coming back).
Like, I get the feeling that they’re a new move by The Dark One and we still haven’t internalized how much they’re going to change the playing field.
But I am basing that on vibes, mostly. How Lanfear said that she was in love with the previous incarnation (but not the one before that).Report
I won’t offer any book spoilers but I’ll say your instincts as expressed in the first sentence of your second paragraph is both technically correct but also fundamentally wrong and you’ll have a great time learning how as the series progresses!Report
Well, based on the show, Lanfear talked about the previous incarnation and *ONLY* the previous incarnation and Ishamael mentioned that she got the gift of eternal life.
So, like, not “we all got the gift of eternal life”. But she did. So he can stay alive so long as he’s canny (and he can be pretty canny, so long as no Heroes of Legend are involved) but, like, Lanfear can be stabbed and her head almost cut off and it’s not going to throw her back into the penalty box until the next Turn.Report
What you’re touching on is an intriguing departure from the book wherein the Forsaken are talking to our Rand like he’s Lews Therin reborn, yes, but far from the first rebirth of Lews Therin they have clashed with since the Age of Legend. It’s been a while since I read the Wheel of Time but my recollection is that’s new.
You’ve definitely seen Lanfears’ gift of Eternal Life, of course, she popped up from having her throat slit after only a brief time of discomfort and inconvenience. It’s well established that the Dark One can, and does, bring the Forsaken back when they are killed but Lanfear doesn’t even need his direct intervention at this stage. Interestingly, though, the way Ishamael died at the end of this season seems to imply that he somehow escaped from the cycle as he desperately wished to. Probably he was just being dramatic though.Report
Well, everybody comes back… but they seemed to hint that, in the previous turn of the wheel, those three were all besties until, you know, The Last Battle.
Ish got sedated and Lews went on, presumably, to lose very, very badly.
But he managed to tie up all of the Forsaken first.Report
It was a kind of win and lose. He “patched” the Dark ones’ prison and imprisoned the Forsaken at the cost of the male half of the source being tainted which, in turn, led to the near destruction of the world.
But, again, the implication is that Lews and the Forsaken have ridden this ride more than once in the TV show and I’m quite interested to see where they go with it.Report
Oh! And Perrin! My buddy Dman thought that Perrin was the most interesting character in all the books.
Watching the show, I am not getting that. He told me that they are *SERIOUSLY* giving Perrin short shrift. The dude has a rich inner life and there’s this whole “axe/hammer” thing in the book that only tangentially got mentioned in the show.
I mean, I’m a Mat guy. I doubt I’d read the books and become a Perrin guy instead. But the show isn’t showing me any reason to be a Perrin guy instead of a Mat guy.Report
Perrin and Rand had a rich inner life of being self hating idiots and rather dim witted ones at that (especially regarding women). Frankly a lot of that element had to go to make the show a) any good and b) remotely palatable to audiences.
But Perrin was always the least well defined and contoured character of the three in the books if you ask me; I am looking forward to seeing what the show runners do with him.Report
In response to your not having read the books, I will just say I didn’t read your post, nor have I watched season 2. Regardless, the show remains trash. Season 1 was terrible and could only be improved by someone inventing time travel and going back in time to stop the whole thing from ever being made. <3Report
From the essay: “My first observation about this season is that the first two episodes were *ROUGH*. Like, one of my dear friends who was really into the books was telling me “Jaybird, just don’t watch the show. It’s awful,” and I was tempted to follow his advice.”Report
Now somebody should try to adopt the Belgariad and see if they can thread the needle between 21st century multicultural beliefs and the racial/religious issues in the Belgariad.Report
They totally could.
I don’t know that they could have two years ago… but I think they could now. They just need a disclaimer.
I’m playing a game called “The Sinking City” and it’s based on works by H.P. Lovecraft. It opens with the following:
How difficult would it be to throw together something like that for The Belgariad? “These books were written during the Cold War and have prejudices that were common during that era. Instead of pretending that they didn’t, we’re going to make the Murgos Arabs and we’re going to make the Malloreans Chinese. Don’t like it? Go back and rewatch Season 8 of Game of Thrones.”Report
If the real world issues about the author weren’t so terribly terribly bad someone might have. But I think we’re past the window of peak TV where is was ever remotely possible. The Belgariad doesn’t bring enough to the table now.Report