How is Amazon going to cram the 15-book Wheel of Time series into the space of one TV show? Let’s look at the episode titles for season 1 and figure it out.
Amazon is hard at work adapting Robert Jordan’s epic fantasy series The Wheel of Time, and we do mean “epic.” Jordan’s saga clocks in 15 novels, with a sprawling cast of characters all orbiting around Rand ‘alThor’s fight against the Dark One.
With so much material to adapt, we’ve been wondering how Amazon will go about it. How is showrunner Rafe Judkins going to fit these huge series into the space of one TV show? He’s given us hints here and there, saying that while he has had to make “painful” cuts, it’ll probably be “less than most people think.”
"I think it’ll be more of the smaller stories you’ll miss. We can’t have Rand and Mat travel to many many inns on their travels across the countryside for instance. It’s just not producible. So that will be more of what you miss I think, and the books always exist to read for that."
He’s also admitted that there’ll probably be some trimming in the section of the series known among fans as “the slog,” where the story slows down before ramping up to its conclusion:
I mean let's all be honest, I'm gonna be condensing in the latter middle section of books ;)
— Rafe Judkins (@rafejudkins) September 12, 2018
We won’t have to worry about that for a while. What about the first season? Will it give us a full retelling of The Eye of the World, the first book in the series, or will be compacted?
We can find some clues from the episode titles. There will be eight episodes in the first season, and thanks to Judkins and others sharing on social media, we know the titles of the first six. Take a look, but beware SPOILERS below:
- Episode 101: “Leavetaking”
- Episode 102: “Shadow’s Waiting”
- Episode 103: “A Place of Safety”
- Episode 104: “The Dragon Reborn”
- Episode 105: “Blood Calls Blood”
- Episode 106: “The Flame of Tar Valon”
- Episode 107: Unknown
- Episode 108: Unknown
“Leavetaking,” “Shadow’s Waiting,” and “A Place of Safety” are all chapter titles from The Eye of the World, although interestingly they don’t happen in this order in the book. “Leavetaking” is the tenth chapter in the novel, and deals with Rand and some of his friends leaving their home village of Emond’s Field to set out on their epic quest. “Shadow’s Waiting” is Chapter 19, and depicts some of the gang’s adventures in the cursed city of Shadar Logoth. And “A Place of Safety” happens before them both in Chapter 8, which explores some of the aftermath of the Trolloc attack on Emond’s Field.
There are 53 total chapters in The Eye of the World, but the title of Episode 4 is drawn from the second book in the series, The Great Hunt. “The Dragon Reborn” is Chapter 8 in that book, and centers around the Aes Sedai revealing to Rand that he is indeed the Dragon Reborn, a messianic figure destined to save the world.
The there’s “Blood Calls Blood,” which is Chapter 7 of The Great Hunt, and “The Flame of Tar Valon,” which is the very first chapter after the prologue.
So the titles are all mixed up here, but generally speaking it looks like the first half of the season will cover The Eye of the World while the second half will cover The Great Hunt. We can see “The Dragon Reborn” marking the climax of Eye; there may be no chapter with that title in the actual book, but it’s an important phrase that fits with the big finish.
It’s also possible that these titles are only placeholders or that Amazon has since reordered or changed them, but we already know that we’ll at least be seeing characters in season 1 we don’t meet until The Great Hunt. Take the casting of Siuan Sanche, the leader of the Aes Sedai sorceresses. She doesn’t appear until The Great Hunt, but Sophie Okonedo will play her in season 1 of Amazon’s show. It’s looking increasingly likely that this season will cover both books, perhaps with some flashbacks to the prequel novel A New Spring thrown in.
If this is the case, The Wheel of Time season 1 is going to be well and truly packed; that’s a lot of material to shove into just 8 episodes, even if they run long. Whether that’s good or bad remains to be seen, although having read the books I can say it’s probably easier to condense some of this stuff than you’d think. There’s plenty of walking and talking that could be cut, but we’ll have to wait and see what route Judkins and his team take.
The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills.
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h/t The Wertzone