Welcome to our weekly feature where we walk you through the latest episode of Amazon’s The Wheel of Time and fill you in on how it differs from The Wheel of Time book series by Robert Jordan. In the latest episode, “The Dark Along the Ways,” our heroes make a journey through darkness and danger to reach the fortress city of Fal Dara, where revelations are abundant.
Tam al’Thor
In the show: In this episode’s cold opening, a pregnant Aiel warrior battles Illianer soldiers on a snow-covered mountain known as the Dragonmont. She’s deadly with a spear but it’s clear she’s struggling, and close to giving birth.
Taking a knife wound, the warrior fends off her enemies before preparing to have her baby amidst the blood and snow. Distracted and in pain, the scene ends with Rand’s father Tam al’Thor putting his heron-marked blade at her throat.
Near the end of the episode, it’s revealed Tam told Rand about this event while delirious after fighting a Trolloc in the first episode. Rand confirms the truth of it from Min, who crossed paths with Tam as a child and saw a vision of an Aiel woman dying while giving birth to a baby boy. Tam, who rescued that baby, raised him on a comfortable farm in the Two Rivers.
In the books: The backstory of Tam al’Thor is pieced together through various chapters in The Eye of the World. Speaking with Nynaeve in Baerlon, Rand learns that a young Tam left the Two Rivers and joined the army of Illian. During the Aiel War, he rose high in the ranks and earned the title of blademaster. Afterwards, he returned to Emond’s Field with a wife, who later died, and a baby boy.
During the attack on Winternight, a wounded Tam speaks in a fever dream as Rand brings him through the woods to safety:
". . . battles are always hot, even in the snow. Sweat heat. Blood heat. Only death is cool. Slope of the mountain . . . only place didn’t stink of death. Had to get away from smell of it . . . sight of it. . . . heard a baby cry. Their women fight alongside the men, sometimes, but why they had let her come, I don’t . . . gave birth there alone, before she died of her wounds. . . . covered the child with her cloak, but the wind . . . blown the cloak away. . . . child, blue with the cold. Should have been dead, too. . . . crying there. Crying in the snow. I couldn’t just leave a child. . . . no children of our own. . . . always knew you wanted children. I knew you’d take it to your heart, Kari. Yes, lass. Rand is a good name. A good name."
So the show more or less adapted this accurately, although it told us about it later on in the story.