The Wheel of Time boss explains why the finale changed the books

The Wheel of Time season 2 finale, “What Was Meant To Be,” aired last night, and it was quite the barn-burner. Heroes rose, villains were felled, and a new page was turned. The morning after, showrunner Rafe Judkins is making the rounds walking through the major beats of the finale.

Let’s start at the end, with Rand al’Thor killing the Forsaken channeler Ishamael and Moiraine raising the dragon banner above him, announcing to one and all that he is the Dragon Reborn, and that he is back to lead them.

One interesting note is that in the books, a literal banner is raised above Rand…like, one made of cloth. But on the show, Moiraine creates a dragon out of fire and has it fly around the tower where Rand slayed Ishamael. Why is show-Moiraine being so extra? “In terms of Moiraine, one of the things we really wanted to do is have this exuberant outpouring of the One Power from her in the finale because we’ve had to spend a whole season of her unable to use the One Power,” Judkins told Decider. “So to have Moiraine destroy the Seanchan fleet and then take that same fire that she used to save Rand and basically lock in his future with it in a way that, you know, would he have wanted that? I don’t know, we’ll find out.”

"But it’s Moiraine pushing her own agenda at the end with her own power. I think keeping her as a character that has her own drives, her own agenda to match up with Rand, who is his own character, who has his own drives and own agenda. That beat at the end of this season sets that relationship up really well for who’s in really in control of what the world knows about the Dragon River reborn."

Why did The Wheel of Time add the story where Moiraine loses her powers and breaks up with Lan?

Speaking of Moiraine, I suspect I probably speak for a lot of fans when I say that, although this season was strong overall, the weakest part was Moiraine losing her powers and she and Lan having a prolonged fight about it. Those were definitely the scenes where I was the most bored, anyway.

This plotline does not exist in the books, so what were Judkins and co thinking when dreaming it up? “In Book 2 of Wheel of Time, Moiraine and Lan only had one chapter together,” he explained to Collider. “So we really looked at that chapter and tried to see the core of what’s going on there, and what goes on there is this breakup and makeup of Lan and Moiraine. She tries to drive him away, and he is resolute and dogged and will not walk away from her no matter what she tries to do. That’s the story we wanted to tell with them, [taking] the juice of what’s in that chapter and expanding it out to carry across the season.”

"So I think you really do get that feeling from the two of them that the bond they have isn’t just something. It’s like any relationship that you have. It’s not strong because it’s the same all the time. Sometimes it is down, and sometimes it is up, and the strength of their bond is that they’re able to weather anything together, even this. Hopefully, you see that at the end of Season 2 so you really understand emotionally how strong the connection between those two people is going into future seasons."

Eh…I’m all for exploring more about Moiraine and Lan’s relationship, but this felt to me like the show stretching things out unduly, I suspect to give top-billed star Rosamund Pike (Moiraine) more screentime. All that time spent on Moiraine’s self-doubt and Lan’s identity crisis rankles all the more when you consider that it could have been used to adapt some fan-favorite moments from the books that got cut, moments like…

Why did The Wheel of Time cut Rand’s big fight with Turak?

At one point in the finale, Rand confronts High Lord Turak, the Seanchan leader with the three-foot-long fingernails. Turak, who is in possession of a blademaster’s Heron-marked sword, sees that Rand has one too. He draws his sword and says, “Let us see what is required to earn the Heron blade on this side of the ocean,” a line taken straight from The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan.

In the book, Rand and Turak have an epic sword fight. But on the show, Rand just blasts him and his retinue with the One Power and goes on his way. It definitely gives this energy:

So why did Judkins and co cut this bit? “For us, we haven’t really told the story of Rand and Lan training together yet. It is coming. But we hadn’t told it yet. But we still needed to pull off this Rand/Turak confrontation. I think it’s just one of those scenes that’s etched into your mind from the second book that we had to do,” he told Nerdist.

"What we tried to do is combine it with a scene in the third book with Rand where he kills all these men who are attacking him and they all fall to their knees with the One Power. It’s a very disturbing, unsettling scene in book three that puts a question mark in your mind of what path Rand is headed on and gives the audience its first real glimpse of the amount of power he wields, which I think is really important. That’s what we were trying to do with that scene. We wanted to deliver the iconic scene from the books. But Rand hasn’t had that storyline with Lan yet, so this is a way we could bring it to the show."

It’s interesting that Judkins is talking so sincerely about this moment, because I 100% thought it was meant as a little comedic wink to book-readers. Well, at least I laughed.

Why Mat blowing the Horn of Valere was so powerful

Another huge moment — my personal favorite from the episode — is when Mat blows the Horn of Valere and summons the heroes of the past to help him fight the Seanchan army. What’s more, these ancient heroes accept Mat as one of them, which clashes with how Mat sometimes sees himself. With this moment, Judkins wants to underline Mat’s emotional growth as a character, and based on how unexpectedly moved I was, I think he succeeded.

“One of the most iconic things about Mat in the books is that he is constantly and consistently struggling with believing that he’s a hero,” Judkins said. “He never thinks that of himself. I think it’s really important to bring that to the screen in a clear way and show the audience that. And so I think that this storyline really sets you up to understand what Mat thinks about himself and what’s really inside him.”

Among the Heroes of the Horn was Uno, a foul-mouthed Shienaran warrior who died early on this season. In the books, Uno survives to the very end, but Judkins and co opted to punch his ticket early and then bring him back in this scene. “There’s a lot of characters in the books that just sort of continue forever and it’s very happy that they all make it to the Last Battle, but we can’t really carry a cast that large,” he said. “So we try to, as much as we can, give people a big chunk of time where they’re really involved in the show and then bring their time to a close and really give them a good payoff.”

Why The Wheel of Time changed Egwene’s final confrontation with Renna

Earlier I said that Moiraine losing her powers was probably the weakest part of The Whele of Time season 2. For me, the most compelling part was Egwene getting captured by the Seanchan and trained under the brutal Renna. Their scenes together were spellbinding, and I was looking forward to seeing Egwene get some revenge.

That moment comes in the season 2 finale, although it goes a bit differently than it does in the books. On the page, Nynaeve frees Egwene from her magical collar, but keeps her from actually killing Renna, who survives and shows up later in the series. On the show, Egwene frees herself and kills Renna dead.

“For the room, we started to think about what if Nynaeve wasn’t there,” Judkins explained. “We’re deep enough into the show. We need to start to show the audience who these characters are on their way to becoming. Egwene is someone who is, throughout the book series, able to make incredibly tough decisions that have incredibly severe consequences. Starting to show that here was important for us in the overall storytelling of that character. We felt like if Nynaeve wasn’t there, Egwene might do something different than if she was. This is our version of it and something that hopefully lets the audience start to really understand who Egwene will eventually become in the series.”

When Rand met Elayne

A whole lot of important stuff happens on that tower. Take the moment where Rand and Elayne meet for the first time. We get a shot of Elayne from Rand’s perspective, and it’s pretty obvious that he’s having a moment. Book-readers know these two have a long story ahead of them, and Judkins wanted to highlight that.

“We really wanted to flag for the audience that this is a relationship to pay attention to. So having her heal him of this wound that can’t be healed is a way to cement right away for the audience, ‘These two have a connection to each other, and I’m paying attention to what’s going on with the two of them,'” Judkins explained. “The way he sees her, the way that she comes into the scene, it all hopefully is signaling to an audience that’s not familiar with the books that there’s something to really pay attention to there — because there is.”

Can these two kids make it? Maybe, but they’ll have to do it in spite of a team of super-powerful villains trying to kill them:

How many Forsaken are there?

The season 2 finale ends with the introduction of Moghedien, another member of the Forsaken. Ishamael and Lanfear were more than a handful for our heroes this season. We ain’t seen nothing yet.

“Moghedien becomes one of the biggest and most important Forsaken in the book that immediately follows this one. So we really wanted her to be the first insight that you get to this world of Forsaken,” Judkins said. “I mean, I love Fares Fares and Natasha O’Keeffe, so much who play Ishamael and Lanfear, and I think it’s hard to even in your mind imagine Forsaken that might be more interesting than those two are. So we wanted someone who came in and in one scene made you go, ‘Oh my God, what is going to happen in Season 3 now that all of these people are out?’”

"Because each of them are just as messed up and just as interesting and just as, like, lovably evil as Lanfear and as Ishamael are. So I think Laia’s version of Moghedien just like perfectly gives you the dose of that at the end of the season where you can’t wait to meet the rest of the Forsaken."

Moghedien is played by Spanish actor Laia Costa, who does indeed make a strong, creepy first impression. “One of my favorite things in the books is the Forsaken and how they function,” Judkins said. “They’re just really fun. Sometimes, the best bad guys can be the characters that you actually love the most. I think the audience will be sort of devastated to see Ishamael go at the end of the season in a weird way. I want them to be thinking in their minds, ‘How could any of the Forsaken be more interesting than these two?’ And then have Moghedien come in [for us] to declare very clearly and very loudly, ‘You better pay attention to every one of the Forsaken that’s coming because they are each their own kind of messed up. They should each develop their own cult following.'”

"We’re just as obsessed with Laia Costa, who plays Moghedien, shooting Season 3 as we were with Lanfear in Season 2. The fun of the Forsaken is [that] these people are this very human face of evil and do the things that they do from a human perspective, but they’re not afraid to have fun with it sometimes. Hopefully, [what] the audience gets right away from the Moghedien/Lanfear scene is that there is a lot of trouble in store for all of our leads moving forward, and that this victory on top of the tower is just the beginning of a very long road."

But exactly how many Forsaken are there? There are 13 in the books. So far as we can tell, the show is cutting that number down to eight. Like a good Aes Sedai, Judkins is unwilling to commit. “Eight Forsaken could be easier than 13 Forsaken,” he said. “But I will neither confirm nor deny that there are eight Forsaken.

The third season of The Wheel of Time is filming now and will hopefully be out before too long. Dare we hope for a 2024 release?

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.

Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels