How does Egwene escape the Seanchan in The Wheel of Time?
By Daniel Roman
The Wheel of Time season 2 is speeding toward an epic conclusion on Prime Video. This week’s episode, “Eyes Without Pity,” featured a crucial sequence from Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time books: the torture of Egwene al’Vere (Madeleine Madden) at the hands of the Seanchan.
The Seanchan enslave women who can channel and treat them as less than human, calling them damane. Once a woman channeler is collared, they are linked inextricably to a handler (called a sul’dam) who forces them to use their magic for battle and other purposes to benefit the Seanchan empire. The process of “breaking” a damane is awful.
We saw just how awful in “Eyes Without Pity,” as Egwene’s sul’dam Renna (Xelia Mendes-Jones) tortures her physically, emotionally, and magically until Egwene accepts on a subconscious level that she cannot harm her sul’dam. It was darkest sequence in The Wheel of Time to date. Is there any hope for Egwene to escape Renna and the Seanchan?
Fortunately, the book series by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson has been out for years now, so we do have some answers. SPOILERS ahead for the second Wheel of Time novel, The Great Hunt.
The Wheel of Time: How does Egwene escape the Seanchan in the books?
Egwene’s capture and torture on the show has been very faithful to the source material. Just like in the show, Egwene is handed over to the Seanchan by Liandrin Guirale, where she’s tortured and enslaved by Renna. While the show dramatizes things slightly differently, many elements such as Egwene’s struggle with the pitcher and Renna ordering her to burn a tree are drawn directly from the pages of The Great Hunt.
Egwene fans will be relieved to know that she does eventually make her escape from the Seanchan, and just like so many other great parts of The Wheel of Time, it’s made possible with a little help from friends. Due to the nature of the a’dam collar, Egwene is unable to free herself. Instead, Nynaeve al’Meara eventually figures out the trick to opening these horrible collars, and she and Elayne come to Egwene’s rescue during the chaos preceding the Battle of Falme, a huge event we’re expecting to see during the show’s season 2 finale. On her way out, Egwene gets a chance to show Renna just how she feels about being treated as a damane slave.
We’ll see whether Egwene escapes the Seanchan in a similar way when The Wheel of Time airs the final two episodes of season 2.
Next. The Wheel of Time proves its mettle in “Eyes Without Pity”. dark
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