It's been a hard few weeks for fans of The Wheel of Time. Prime Video's fantasy show wrapped up its third season in mid-April to much fanfare, delivering what was easily the best season of the series yet. But then Amazon did the unthinkable: it cancelled the show. Despite being very happy overall with the direction of the series and its reception, the financial numbers for the series weren't as good as the studio wanted.
Fans have been fighting tooth and nail to save the series ever since, with a coordinated effort forming around the website SaveWoT.com, which has a multitude of ways people can get involved in the campaign to bring The Wheel of Time back from the brink. That includes a petition which has garnered over 110,000 signatures as of this writing, aimed at either convincing Amazon to reverse its decision or another streamer to pick up the show.
While I do hope this fan effort pans out and The Wheel of Time follows in the footsteps of The Expanse as one of the rare TV shows to get a second lease on life after a cancellation, I can't help but feel some grief over this whole thing. I've read all of The Wheel of Time books and was thrilled at how the team behind the show was creating a televised version of the series that was both fresh and familiar. Adapting Robert Jordan's borderline unadaptable series is no small task, and despite plenty of speed bumps along the way, The Wheel of Time had firmly found its footing by season 3 and proven it had what it took to tell the story in full. To see it cancelled at this point is a tragedy.
On a personal level, it also frustrates me to no end because the fifth book in the series, The Fires of Heaven, is one of my favorites, and the show was poised to adapt it in season 4. There are a bunch of scenes in The Fires of Heaven that are among the best in the entire book series, and could have blown excitement for the show off the charts. And since I can't plan on watching them now, I'm going to vent about what could have been so you can share in this agony, knowing the insanely cool stuff that was right around the bend when Prime Video axed the show.
Beware FULL SPOILERS for The Wheel of Time through book 5, The Fires of Heaven, beyond this point.
1. The Stone of Tear
Our first moment isn't from The Fires of Heaven, but it's a crucial sequence from earlier in the books that the show had to skip over, which seemed likely to finally show up in season 4. I'm talking about the Stone of Tear, the massive fortress where Rand claims the sword sa'angreal Callandor. Rand's capture of the Stone of Tear with the help of the Aiel is the climax of book three, The Dragon Reborn. The show had to shuffle the timeline a bit. Rather than having Rand capture the Stone of Tear and subsequently go to the Aiel Waste in search of allies, he instead went to the Waste first and gained the loyalty of the Aiel, with an eye toward capturing Tear afterward.
I'm betting that season 4 would have started with Rand capturing the Stone of Tear, which is near the border of the Aiel Waste, before moving on to the rest of the campaign he and the Aiel wage across the Westlands in The Fires of Heaven. Showrunner Rafe Judkins told me during an interview ahead of season 3 that he had a plan for the Stone of Tear, so we know for certain it was coming in the show. This fortress is one of the most iconic locations in the entire Wheel of Time world, and it's a shame we didn't get to see it.
2. Rand and Aviendha
Rand al'Thor has a very complicated love life in The Wheel of Time books. The show has kept things a little more focused so far, having him torn between his childhood sweetheart Egwene and his forbidden Forsaken lover Lanfear. In the books, he doesn't end up with either of those people. Instead, Rand has something of a polygamist romance with three women: Aviendha, Elayne, and Min. It's not exactly my favorite aspect of the book series, but the show has done a much better job with polyamorous romance than the source material, so I think if it had the chance to chart its own course with Rand's late-series love life, it would have done it better.
That probably would have kicked off in season 4. In The Fires of Heaven, Aviendha is charged with teaching Rand about the Aiel, and feels an extra obligation to watch over him thanks to her loyalty to her close friend Elayne Trakand, who has a budding romance with Rand. But Rand and Aviendha have their own romantic tension which builds over the course of the book, and bubbles over when Rand accidentally walks in on Aviendha bathing. She instinctually opens a Gateway which spits her out into a blizzard on the Seanchan continent. Rand chases after her, saves her life, and builds an igloo shelter for them with saidin. The two then finally give in to their feelings and have sex.
It's not clear if the show would have handled this all exactly the same, but I do think the pieces were in place. Aviendha and Elayne have their own romance in the TV series, but the Aiel have normalized polyamory in their culture and Aviendha herself tells Rand at Cold Rocks Hold that insisting someone be with just one partner might be asking too much. And while Aviendha and Rand were often butting heads during the season, it's clear she was beginning to warm to him after watching him with the Aiel girl Alsera. If the show had gotten a fourth season, I think we would have seen the beginning of a true romance between Aviendha and Rand, which could have very naturally led into a broader polyamorous relationship with Elayne down the line.
3. Nynaeve vs Moghedien
One scene I was shocked not to see in The Wheel of Time season 3 finale was the duel between Nynaeve and Moghedien that happens at the Panarch's Palace in Tanchico during the fourth book, The Shadow Rising. This is one of Nynaeve's most iconic scenes in the entire book series, and I was puzzled the show cut it.
On reflection, it made more sense. The books waffle back and forth about the mental block that prevents Nynaeve from accessing her magic; sometimes she gets past it, others times she is stuck. Her duel with Moghedien is one of those rare instances where she manages to work through the mental block, because it's life or death and she has no choice. Instead of adapting that, the show pulled forward a scene from later in the series where Nynaeve is trapped underwater and finally overcomes her block for good, probably because that's a little cleaner for audiences to follow than the back and forth.
On top of that, Nynaeve also duels Moghedien at the end of The Fires of Heaven, this time in Tel'aran'rhiod. It seems pretty likely that The Wheel of Time TV show was planning to condense these two different duels between Nynaeve and Moghedien into one blow-out fight, which probably would have shown up next season.
4. Moiraine and Lanfear go through the door
Another utterly iconic Wheel of Time scene from The Fires of Heaven involves Moiraine Damodred and Lanfear. Late in the book, Lanfear attacks a caravan filled with ter'angreal in Cairhien, where Rand and his army have taken up residence. Among those ter'angreal is a twisted redstone doorframe like the one Mat went through in the season 3 finale, beyond which is the dimension of the Eelfinn and Aelfinn.
As Lanfear prepares to attack Rand in earnest, Moiraine tackles her through the redstone doorframe. It explodes behind them, trapping them in the dimension of the Finns and seemingly killing them both. It's later revealed that this fate is one which Moiraine saw for herself in the rings of Rhuidean, but it doesn't make it any less painful. After this, Rand has to find his way without his oldest advisor, as enemies close in around him and he slips ever closer to madness. It's a crucial scene which the show had already heavily foreshadowed, and it's irritating we won't get to see the payoff.
5. Rand's showdown with Rahvin
After Moiraine and Lanfear go through the redstone doorframe, Rand decides he's had enough of slow military campaigns and uses magic to transport a strike force directly into the heart of Caemlyn, where the Forsaken Rahvin has taken over the throne by using Compulsion on Elayne's mother Queen Morgase. What follows is one of the most mind-blowing sequences in the entire book series. Rahvin uses magic to lash out at the invading force, killing many people — including Mat and Aviendha.
Rand then pursues Rahvin into the palace. Rahvin tries to slip into Tel'aran'rhiod to escape, but Rand follows. A desperate battle ensues, with Rand utilizing a deadly weave called Balefire, which not only kills a person but erases their presence from the Pattern, making it as though they never existed. How far back their influence on the world is erased is dependent on the strength of the Balefire blast that erased them. The blast that Rand uses is massive, eradicating Rahvin and his very existence back so far that it revives Aviendha, Mat, and everyone else who the Forsaken killed mere minutes earlier.
I won't lie to you, I love this ending with Rand and Rahvin. It broke my brain the first time I read it, and it's always stuck with me as one of the coolest finales to any Wheel of Time book. The show set up multiple aspects of this showdown, such as introducing Balefire in season 3 and establishing that Rahvin had taken control of Andor. The pieces were all in place to pull off this epic sequence, and I'll forever be haunted by imagining how it might have played out in the show.
Unless The Wheel of Time is saved, of course! Then we'll get to see all this and more in season 4. Come on Apple TV+ or some other streamer, get on it!
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