5 ways The Wheel of Time improved the books (and 5 ways it failed them)

Improvement: Keeping the identity of the Dragon Reborn a mystery

For most of The Wheel of Time season 1, we’re wondering after the identity of the Dragon Reborn, a messianic figure destined to either save the world from the threat of the Dark One or doom it to a new age of misery. Moiraine comes to the Two Rivers in the first place to find this person and mold them before the Dark One either kills or — worse — converts them.

In the books as in the show, Moiraine knows that the Dragon Reborn is in the Two Rivers but she doesn’t know exactly who it is, so she takes a bunch of these precocious village kids on a tour around the world. The difference is that, in the books, we know who the Dragon is even if no one else does: it’s obviously Rand, because so much of the book is told from his point of view.

It’s a strange reading experience, because we have to wait for the characters to solve a mystery we’ve already figured out. The show, on the other hand, has a more omniscient point of view, or else it sticks close to Moiraine’s; on the series, the Dragon could be any of the Emond’s Field Five, which adds some tension.

I imagine some readers found this tiresome, but I saw plenty of folks who hadn’t read the books earnestly wondering who the Dragon was; Nynaeve healing a roomful of people hurt by Logain added a nice bit of ambiguity. If anything, I thought they revealed that Rand was the Dragon a bit early; I would have brought the whole group to the Eye of the World and solved the mystery as part of the climax, but overall I liked how this choice added layers to the adventure.

Failure: Too many death fake-outs

I just mentioned Nynaeve healing all those people in Episode 4, “The Dragon Reborn;” she even brought some, like Lan, back from death. That was a really cool moment. But by the time Egwene brought Nynaeve back to life after they helped decimate a Trolloc army in the season finale, it was old hat.

Resurrections are a tricky thing. You don’t want to have too many or it starts feeling like death has no consequence. Why should we ever feel scared for the characters if someone can just wave their arms and bring them back? Egwene’s resurrection of Nynaeve went too far.

And it looks like we’re going to have another death fake-out at the top of season 2. In the season 1 finale, Padan Fain stabbed Loial the Ogier and seemingly left him for dead…only he isn’t dead; Judkins himself confirmed that he’ll be back for season 2, which is lame. Why make it look like Loial was in danger if the show didn’t plan to follow through?

Hopefully the series breaks this habit before things gets anymore out of hand. You’re on watch, show.