This past weekend, The Wheel of Time co-author Brandon Sanderson — he wrote the the last three volumes in the 14-book series following the death of original author Robert Jordan in 2007 — teamed up with popular Wheel of Time content creators Matt Hatch of The Dusty Wheel and Daniel Greene to do a first-watch reaction video to the show’s season 2 finale, “What Was Meant To Be.”
The result was…interesting. While this was technically a first watch for all three of them, Sanderson is a consulting producer on the series and read the scripts for season 2 years ago; he then provided feedback to the production team. He pointed out issues he has with the show he’s clearly been thinking about for some time, and he had a lot of issues.
The video comes off mostly like a venting session for Sanderson, with Greene and Hatch trying to keep up. There were some good discussions and fascinating takeaways, but on the whole, it was kind of shocking, especially considering that Sanderson hadn’t even watched the entire season before doing the video. “I’ve read all the scripts, I have not seen the whole season,” he explained. “This is the first chance I’ve been able to sit down and watch.”
I have a lot of feelings about this whole thing, but let’s save that discussion for the end. In the meantime, let’s look at some of Brandon Sanderson’s comments on The Wheel of Time season 2. There will be SPOILERS for the season ahead.
Brandon Sanderson “fought pretty hard” against Moiraine losing her powers in The Wheel of Time season 2
The first large issue that Sanderson raised has been the source of a lot of discussion this season: Moiraine (Rosamund Pike) losing access to the One Power. At the end of season 1, Moiraine was shielded by Ishamael. She spent most of the season being unable to use magic until Rand al’Thor (Josha Stradowski) freed her from the Forsaken’s shield in the penultimate episode of season 2. Quoth Sanderson:
"[Rosamund Pike] is great, by the way…but I fought pretty hard against the Moiraine not having her powers thing. I just don’t think it worked, and maybe again it’s just me looking forward, but…if we’re having people lose their powers and get them back just for convenience of like a few episodes it really detracts from the idea of losing powers, getting powers back. I don’t think we needed it. I tried on that one."
Hatch pushed back, saying he enjoyed how the storyline ultimately turned out. “It does some good things but I think it led to some of the weakest parts of the season, being Episode 1 and 2, Lan and Moiraine,” Sanderson replied. “I don’t think it worked, mostly because it led to a weaker start, which is a problem right? A weak start for Moiraine and Lan, who are two of our strongest characters.”
I can absolutely see both sides of the argument. On the one hand, Sanderson is right that Lan and Moiraine’s early scenes are some of the weakest parts of the season, and they could cause complications down the line. On the other hand, I agree with Hatch that this storyline feels more satisfying having seen the whole season, largely due to the performances and the masterful way it all came together in Episode 207, “Daes Dae’mar.” If you told me a few months ago that I would defend Moiraine losing her powers I wouldn’t have believed you, which is a testament to how well the show executed on the idea.
According to Sanderson, this change with Moiraine and Lan was primarily made because of how little the characters appear in The Great Hunt, the book which formed the basis for season 2. And he just didn’t like it very much. “Again, performances help…but when I read this stuff in the script, it was one of my least favorite parts of the season, was Lan and Moiraine,” he said.
"I don’t want to draw too many comparisons, but it’s kind of the Game of Thrones problem. And I understand the problem that the writers were in: this is your star, right? Rosamund Pike is fantastic. She is your star, you’ve hung your whole first season on her, and what do you do with Great Hunt where she has a much smaller role? And so they wrote in a bunch of stuff to do with her and…they were far enough off book, I understand what they were trying to do, I don’t think it worked."
So that was a big issue Sanderson had, and it came up more than once. But lest you worry that Sanderson just spent the entire time crapping on The Wheel of Time season 2, there was also plenty that he liked:
Sanderson enjoyed Rand, Ishamael, Egwene and Nynaeve this season
Brandon Sanderson did have plenty of nice things to say about The Wheel of Time season 2. He pointed to Rand’s stay in Cairhien as a “tweak” to the story that he enjoyed. He explained why it worked to have Rand walk away from his friends at the end of season 1:
"We have to kind of accept that as the Rand who walked away from his friends in book three. And I can make that tweak. That Rand did exist in the books, he just exists earlier [in the show] and it does fit."
Sanderson also had glowing words for the show’s interpretation of Ishamael, played by Fares Fares. “By the way I love him, just…I love him. I love everything they’ve done with him,” he said. “They took what I did with him in the last books and brought it forward, and I really like that.”
Seconded, Sanderson. The show has a really interesting take on Ishamael, and showrunner Rafe Judkins has said that he and his team moved some of Ishamael’s character development from near the end of the series to the beginning to give him a bit more texture.
Continuing with the compliments, Sanderson named Egwene (Madeleine Madden) and Nynaeve (Zoë Robins) as two of his favorite characters this season. He still had issues with some of their material in the finale, but on the whole he praised how the show brought them to life:
"I was really pleased in the scripts for Egwene all the way through, and Nynaeve all the way through. This is the most we’ve gotten, I feel, of the books since like Episode 1, is the Egwene-Nynaeve throughline in this whole season. And I had almost no notes. I was just like ‘this is great.’"
Sanderson was also a fan of a particular change to Perrin’s storyline. In The Great Hunt, Perrin searches for the Horn of Valere with Rand and Mat. Then, in the following book, he meets an Aiel named Gaul and frees him from a cage. The show combined these ideas, with Perrin (Marcus Rutherford) hunting for the Horn and freeing the Aiel warrior Aviendha, who becomes an important character later on, along the way. She then becomes a part of Perrin’s journey to save his companions in Falme. Gaul’s role is cut, unless the show introduces him differently in a later season.
“I like this change,” Sanderson said. “I like giving Perrin something to do by finding the Aiel. I like how Aviendha shows up.” In general, he feels the “Aiel are appropriately Aiel. Doing a good job with them.”
Brandon Sanderson: Padan Fain is one of the “weaker characters” from The Wheel of Time
Sanderson also talked a bit about Padan Fain. In the books, Fain is a wildcard villain who is feared by Darkfriends and our heroes alike. He plays a large role in The Great Hunt in particular, but had relatively little screentime in season 2.
“He’s so good,” Sanderson said of Padan Fain actor Johann Myers. When Daniel Greene pointed out how different the version of Fain is in the show from the books, since “book Fain” is far too attached to the ruby-hilted dagger from Shadar Logoth to ever leave it with Mat like he does in the show, Sanderson agreed, with a caveat.
"Let’s be honest, book Fain is one of [Robert Jordan’s] weaker characters. Like, a lot of the Forsaken, they’re stronger than book Forsaken only because they have the actors to make good on what Jim did with them, right? And I think seeing them in real life just makes it pop so much more. I think he did a fantastic job with them, but Fain is a little bit weaker. And I’ll say, I was weak with Fain too. I had no idea what to do with Fain. And so, one of the valid criticisms [of my Wheel of Time books]…is ‘Brandon what are you doing with Fain?’ I have no idea what to do with this guy. Did my best, but there are better things I could have done."
Side bar: if you’re confused about who Brandon Sanderson is referring to when he says “Jim,” he’s talking about The Wheel of Time author Robert Jordan. “Robert Jordan” was his pen name. Jordan’s real name was James Oliver Rigney, Jr., Jim for short.
Now, on to more criticisms:
Brandon Sanderson bemoans the loss of the Hunt for the Horn of Valere
Back to things Sanderson
hated
disliked: the way the Whitecloaks just waltzed right into Falme without coming up against any sort of defenses. “They didn’t get the gate closed?” he asked in confusion when the Whitecloaks stormed past the Seanchan guards and into the city. Which is pretty fair. Someone dock those guards’ pay.
Sanderson took issue with a lot of logical leaps like this. He was visibly piqued when Loial showed up with the Horn of Valere later in the episode, since we never see him retrieve it onscreen. “I tried, guys,” he said.
“We basically lost the hunt for the Horn…something had to go. I don’t know, I was pretty sad to not have the actual hunt for the Horn,” Sanderson said. “All of Great Hunt the book…it’s a travelogue trying to get the Horn, get to the Horn, find the Horn. So it means when the Horn gets used, it’s been a centerpiece…it’s been the MacGuffin the entire book.” It’s true that the Horn did not get much focus on the TV show.
What is Rand’s arc in The Wheel of Time?
Another element Sanderson was sad to see left out of the season was Rand’s journey to becoming a blademaster. In The Great Hunt, Rand uses lessons from Lan (Daniel Henney) to train for months while he’s out searching for the Horn of Valere. By the time he faces High Lord Turak during the climax, he beats him in a duel, proving he’s good enough to carry a heron-mark sword, which are reserved only for blademasters.
In the show, Rand obliterates Turak and his guards with a terrifying display of magic. As Greene points out, the show went for an “Indiana Jones” moment, referencing the iconic scene where Indy shoots a guy who tries to sword fight him in Raiders of the Lost Ark:
“I don’t really like it. It’s a cool shot,” Sanderson said. When Greene and Hatch argue that the change works for the show, opining that Rand becoming a blademaster felt too fast to them in the books, Sanderson disagreed. “He’s taught by the best swordsman in the world. In the books, he gets taught to be a blademaster by the best swordsman ever.”
Before anyone gets too sad, we are still going to see Rand train with Lan and become a proficient swordsman. Showrunner Rafe Judkins has confirmed this storyline is “still coming,” but due to the way the cast was split up for season 2 it didn’t make sense for this point in the show. Thus, Rand kills Turok with a magical blast rather than a sword stroke.
“Here’s my problem: what is Rand’s arc in this season?” Sanderson continued. “What is Rand’s arc? What is Moiraine’s arc?” He describes how in The Great Hunt, Rand’s arc revolves around finding something to fight for. In The Dragon Reborn, Rand’s arc is basically that he tries to go off on his own, realizes he can’t do everything himself, and then ultimately has to accept help from others. That sounds pretty similar to what the show did with Rand in season 2, though it’s more detailed in the books. Although he read the scripts, I wish Sanderson had actually watched the season in order to be able to really discuss what the show did with Rand throughout.
Sanderson clearly cares a lot about character arcs, and what happened in season 2 has him nervous for the show’s future:
"The show is doing a lot of things fantastically, and it’s really good at scenes. But one of the things I keep arguing for is, ‘What are the arcs’? What is the theme? And arc and theme seems to fall by the wayside for cool scenes quite a bit, and that worries me. Particularly going into book four, where its the strongest Wheel of Time book and that’s partially because of themes of self-sacrifice and things like this."
Mat and the ruby-hilted dagger
One of the biggest thing Sanderson took issue with in “What Was Meant To Be” is when Mat Cauthon (Dónal Finn) ties the ruby-hilted dagger he took from the city of Shadar Logoth in season 1 to a staff to create a makeshift weapon. If you recall, the dagger infected Mat with a kind of magical darkness, and he needs to stay away from it.
“Sorry. I really tried. I tried so hard,” Sanderson murmured as the scene started. When his co-hosts expressed confusion, he claimed that the weapon Mat just made was “the ashandarei.” This is a reference to Mat’s bladed spear that he wields for most of The Wheel of Time books, which is in no way related to the ruby-hilted dagger. When Greene asked if Mat was just going to keep the ruby-hilted dagger spear as his ashandarei throughout the series, Sanderson said “as far as I know. Maybe they’ll change it, but…”
We’re not going to discuss the details for how Mat gets his ashandarei in the books, but if this is true, it’s a huge deviation from the text. Personally, I’m inclined to take it with a grain of salt. Sanderson told fans on Reddit the morning after this stream that he hasn’t read scripts for The Wheel of Time season 3, and the show’s Wheel of Time book expert Sarah Nakamura seemed to contradict his assessment that this was Mat’s ashandarei on Twitter X. Until we see next season, how exactly the show will handle Mat’s ashandarei remains a mystery.
Putting that aside, Sanderson still had a lot of issues with Mat using the dagger at all in the finale:
"I’m sorry, using the dagger on a spear is the same thing as using it. You’re touching it…it’s a metaphor for using the darkness and accepting it. It’s a metaphor for turning to the Dark Side…it misses the whole point. Mat’s arc is not about weaponizing his darkness. That’s Perrin’s arc, and finding that balance. Mat’s arc is very different from that, and doing this just bothers me. I don’t feel it was built up through the season that his arc would be about weaponizing his own darkness, and walking that line."
Brandan Sanderson has a “big problem” with Egwene’s story in The Wheel of Time season 2
Another thing that Sanderson really struggled with was the moment where Egwene kills her sul’dam, Renna (Xelia Mendes-Jones). Egwene’s torture at the hands of the Seanchan was a major storyline this season. In the books, Nynaeve and Elayne’s plan to sneak into the damane kennels actually works. They find Egwene and free her. In the show, Egwene manages to put a damane collar on Renna and then use the One Power to kill her without help from her friends; she frees herself on her own.
Setting aside the physics of how Egwene could do this when her own collar should prevent her from being able to, Sanderson’s biggest issue is what it means for Egwene’s arc:
"Now, Renna was even more evil…in the television show than she was in the books, but I still had a pretty big problem with this. I will have to see how it goes in future seasons, but Egwene freeing herself really undermines a whole bunch of what’s going on with all of this. Part of the idea that I feel Egwene needed to learn was there are some situations you can’t get yourself out of. That’s a theme of the entire Wheel of Time that goes right up until the ending in my last book. You need everybody. You can’t do it yourself. Jim said that was one of the themes of The Wheel of Time in interviews. And Egwene frees herself and then kills her tormentor…I can see the brutal, kind of more grimdark version being she has to do the killing, plus there’s an argument of, you know, leaving someone as [damane] is crueler than killing them anyway. But I really don’t like that she just got herself out. It’s setting up the heroes don’t need each other. They don’t need anybody."
Sanderson also points out that that by having Egwene free herself, Nynaeve had much less to do in the finale:
"I feel like Nynaeve and Elayne didn’t have a lot to do after the really cool White Tower scenes earlier on, which were fantastic. I loved Nynaeve’s Accepted test. But yeah, if Nynaeve let Egwene go here, then Nynaeve has something, right? And it’s okay, I like that they’re foreshadowing the block, but…"
All that said, I think it’s see how Egwene freeing herself is very empowering, especially to portions of the fanbase who are not privileged white men. This may be an instance of prioritizing a cool scene over magical physics or adhering strictly to the books, but it’s very easy to imagine why the show made this decision. Plus, we get that idea that the heroes can’t do it all themselves a few minutes later when Rand faces down Ishamael.
Brandan Sanderson doesn’t think The Wheel of Time “earned” Hopper’s death scene
Now we come to the pet owner trauma portion of tonight’s program. Sanderson, Hatch and Greene were all struck by the brutal moment in the finale where Hopper, Perrin’s wolf companion, was killed by Whitecloaks. Sanderson said that he “tried” to get the producers to include more scenes of Perrin and Hopper bonding before Hopper died, which also happens in the books, albeit in a different context.
“I don’t disagree with this whole sequence. You’ve gotta accelerate, and you’ve gotta have this moment,” he said of Hopper’s death. “That is good…but we didn’t have enough time with Perrin, or Hopper…to earn the moment.”
This is an interesting criticism. In many ways, Hopper’s death is Perrin’s inciting incident as a wolfbrother. Perrin meets Hopper along with a few other wolves in The Eye of the World, and if anything, the show has given Perrin and Hopper more of a specific connection than they had at this point in their relationship in the books. Hopper is only alive for around 100 pages before the fateful encounter with the Whitecloaks. Hopper does remain relevant for a long time afterward, but most of that development happens after his death.
Next, let’s meet the Heroes of the Horn:
The Heroes of the Horn
At one point in the finale, Mat sounds the Horn of Valere and summons Heroes from the past to help him fight the Seanchan. Sanderson enjoyed a lot about this scene. His biggest issue with it is that he wished “the hunt and the horn had meant more.”
"A lot of the problems with this episode are actually previous episodes, in that the scenes are all good — a lot of them are good — but what you’re having happen doesn’t feel built to, character-wise, for a lot of the characters for me. And that might be me too clouded by the books."
He later expanded on this moment on Reddit. “It was filmed well, it was beautiful, and the music was great. It’s a wonderful moment. However, I feel it’s a completely defensible criticism that I feel it’s just not set up in the show properly. I felt from just watching episode eight that it had no relevance on the plot; it could have not happened.”
Brandon Sanderson fought to include the Heroes of the Horn in The Wheel of Time
Sanderson dropped some interesting facts about the sequence where Mat blows the Horn of Valere. For starters, he revealed that when he was giving notes for the season, he kept arguing that Uno Nomesta (Guy Roberts) shouldn’t be killed off. Uno sticks around for quite a while in the books but is killed by the Seanchan near the beginning of season 2 of the show. Later, he shows up as one of the Heroes of the Horn when Mat blows the Horn of Valere, something Sanderson suggests the showrunner inserted just to placate him:
"I did write, in a whole bunch of my replies to [Rafe Judkins], ‘#saveuno.’ I think he may have done this just for me. Because when I read the last episode and it was there, I was like, ‘Alright fine, you can kill Uno.’"
According to Sanderson, at first, the show wasn’t going to feature the Heroes of the Horn at all. “They weren’t gonna show the Heroes originally,” he explained. “I talked to Rafe about it, and he wasn’t sure they could get them in, he wasn’t sure they could do it. And if there was a thing I actually fought for the most, it was to get the Heroes in. And the thing about that is, when you hear me say that, don’t say, ‘Without Brandon, this wouldn’t have happened.’ That’s not how these things work.”
Sanderson explained that he got the impression that Judkins wanted the Heroes of the Horn in the show but was looking to get broader feedback on it. And we do have some confirmation that this was the case; Sarah Nakamura later explained on the site formerly known as Twitter that, “In writers rooms story beats usually will go up on a white board – you do a season broad strokes first, then story arc, then character development. The Heroes beat was up day 1.” She added that, “The Heroes beat never left the board and was always going to be part of the season 2 finale.”
So from the sounds of things, Judkins and his team probably wanted to do the Heroes of the Horn, and Sanderson also wanted it to happen. Nonetheless, Sanderson still doesn’t think their appearance was set up. “The problem is not the heroes not appearing. The problem is the Horn doesn’t matter. Maybe the Horn should’ve been cut, or maybe they should have done book 3 but ended in Falme.”
Showdown on the Tower
We end at the tower where Rand and his friends face off against Ishamael. Sanderson had a lot of problems with this scene, though he seemed aware enough to acknowledge that some of them could be due to his own personal connection to the source material:
"This is totally just a book complaint: I’ve been waiting for 30 years to see Rand in the clouds fight in one of the best scenes that Robert Jordan ever wrote…and I don’t get it. And that’s okay, right? This has to be its own thing. I’m still allowed to be sad, I think."
I think we’ve all experienced that feeling of watching a show leave out a scene we loved from a book series at one point or another. It’s easy to understand where he’s coming from there, even if it also makes sense that the seeing two people sword fight in mid-air might not have been as tenable on a live-action TV show as what we saw in “What Was Meant To Be.”
Still, some things about the scene piqued Sanderson. “Nynaeve didn’t do anything. Perrin has a shield…Rand didn’t need to be there. Egwene just needed a sword…I don’t want to downplay how good the stuff that’s good in this episode was good. But it still bothers me that so many of the characters didn’t have to be there, and so much of it doesn’t seem to mean anything.”
Sanderson has a reputation for having complex magic systems in his books with very clear rules. The Wheel of Time also has a complex magic system, though Jordan fudged the rules more often than Sanderson does in his own work. This is something the author is concerned about with The Wheel of Time TV show. For example, Moiraine attacking the Seanchan ships seemingly violates the unbreakable oath Aes Sedai swear to never use the One Power as a weapon except against shadowspawn or in defense of their own life or that of their warder.
"I’m worried that they’re gonna start contradicting their own rules real quick…I’ve warned about that…They’re already doing it with channeling. They’ll say one time it has to be a certain way and then other times it isn’t. I warned them about that with teleportation…If [Ishamael] can teleport, why isn’t he behind the shield, the moment she brings it up? The moment you start breaking Jim’s metaphysics, then suddenly you have some big problems every step of the way."
One last criticism of the final scene: Sanderson wished that we had gotten a bit more of a philosophical conflict between Rand and Ishamael on the tower. “How does who Rand is present a contrast in philosophy to who Ishamael is, and why does he deserve to win more than be capable of winning?…I wish the ending had presented a philosophical concept. I wish it had been [Ishamael] vs Rand all through the season, and then a victory for Rand.”
"Either the whole show should lean into the Moiraine drama stuff, or all it’s doing is preventing you from having the time to set up Perrin’s arc, and even Egwene’s arc. Like, Egwene has the strongest arc, but Egwene does so much in this season, and nobody else really gets to do anything. Rand gets to stab [Ishamael], but what does that mean? Like, earlier he wasn’t even using the sword; what does the sword mean to him? He doesn’t draw it to fight the Blademaster, but he draws it to fight the Forsaken? Why?"
Was this Wheel of Time stream disrespectful or refreshingly honest?
I’ve rounded up a lot of Brandon Sanderson’s biggest comments about The Wheel of Time season 2 finale here, and as you can see, the guy had a lot of thoughts. I’ll admit, when I first watched this stream I was in total shock. A quick scroll through the comments on the video is all it takes to see that a lot of people were pretty upset to hear Sanderson talk so much smack about the finale, but honestly I do think that a large part of that was the way the thing was presented. It was marketed as a live first-watch and reaction video, but it’s very clear that Sanderson had already thought about a lot of what he said, since he had already read the scripts, while Greene and Hatch were processing as they went. It’s kind of an odd premise.
Sanderson later explained on Reddit that Hatch pushed to do the video in this fashion knowing that he wouldn’t have a chance to watch ahead of time, but the freeness and confidence with which Sanderson spoke on some subjects — including some where he very clearly didn’t have all the information, such as the ashandarei — was still surprising. Comments like this one come off as strangely disrespectful to the team of the TV show:
"I want to love it, and I like it. I think people are gonna enjoy watching this, I don’t think they’ll come back for it. Cause what brings you back are those moments where things culminate. You don’t come back for cool scenes."
That’s not to say he may not have a point; time will tell, I suppose. But in all my time reporting on TV shows, I struggle to think of a time when a producer on a series was more candidly harsh about their own series while it was still on the air, especially when they hadn’t even watched it all. Many commenters have pointed out that Sanderson read scripts and therefore has insights into the series, and sure, that’s true. But it’s hard to truly appreciate a show from scripts alone. Natasha O’Keeffe’s performance as Lanfear is a perfect example; no matter how well the scripts conveyed her character, you don’t get the full effect without seeing the actor onscreen doing her thing in full costume.
The Wheel of Time season 2 is “hands down” better than The Rings of Power season 1
Let’s end with a few nice comments for the road. Despite his criticisms, Sanderson also praised plenty of things about the show as a whole. He described feeling torn about how the first season of The Wheel of Time stacked up to the first season of Amazon’s other big fantasy show, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. However, he feels The Wheel of Time season 2 is “hands down” better than The Rings of Power season 1. He also had glowing words for the casting of the show, which he called “so fantastic.”
Ultimately, it seems like a lot of the problems Sanderson points out have their root in the fact that the show is trying to adapt an enormously long and complex fantasy series with a relatively truncated episode count. “They really needed, like, double the number of episodes. Then they could spend entire episodes with Moiraine and her family,” Sanderson said. This is a lesson the author is taking to heart for his own series The Stormlight Archive, which it sounds like he’s in the process of trying to get adapted for the screen. “Wheel of Time has taught me, when it comes time for Stormlight, I’m not doing this in 6 or 8 episodes.”
"Good job to the team, by the way, who are making [The Wheel of Time]. This is an extremely hard story to adapt. There’s a lot going on, they only have eight episodes. For me, I’m complaining because I feel like it’s illustrative of my philosophy on storytelling. But at the same time, it’s amazing that The Wheel of Time can be adapted and be this good."
Brandon Sanderson doesn’t think fans will “come back” to watch The Wheel of Time season 2 finale again
What are your thoughts on all of this? Do you agree with Brandon Sanderson’s criticisms for The Wheel of Time season 2 finale, or did you enjoy it? Let’s discuss in the comments!
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