A few weeks back, Amazon announced that it had cancelled The Wheel of Time, its high fantasy epic based on the books by Robert Jordan. This sucked a lot, since it meant the story ended smack dab in the middle, and because the third season was easily the best yet; we were looking forward to only seeing the show get better and better as it continued to adapt Jordan's sprawling series.
Although Robert Jordan wrote the first 11 books in the series, plus a prequel, he died before he could finish. Brandon Sanderson, himself a hugely respected fantasy author, came in to finish the series. Sanderson also had a hand in the show, but not a big one. "I wasn't really involved," Sanderson wrote in the comments of one of his YouTube videos. "Don't know anything more than what is public. They told me they were renegotiating, and thought it would work out. Then I heard nothing for 2 months. Then I learned this from the news like everyone else."
"I do think it's a shame, as while I had my problems with the show, it had a fanbase who deserved better than a cancelation after the best season. I won't miss being largely ignored; they wanted my name on it for legitimacy, but not to involve me in any meaningful way."
Sanderson had indeed talked in the past about some of his problems with the show, particularly in a long livestream where he picked apart the season 2 finale. It sounds like he sometimes gave suggestions which, as he says, were ignored.
That said, I don't think fans should rush to assume that The Wheel of Time showrunner Rafe Judkins was the only one ignoring them. In fact, Sanderson has told a story about a time Judkins fought to implement one of his suggestions.
One of the most controversial changes happened in the very first episode, when Perrin (Marcus Rutherford) accidentally kills his wife Laila (Helena Westerman) during a Trolloc attack on their village. Perrin's struggles with violence are a running theme in the novels, but nothing like this happens in the books; Perrin isn't even romantically involved with anyone at this point in the story, much less married.
In April of 2024, at C2E2, Sanderson talked about how he pushed back hard on this plotline, and that Rafe Judkins took his concerns all the way to the top and was overruled. "Rafe really went to bat for me," Sanderson said. "I presented a completely different thing to do with Perrin that would still get what they wanted. Minor spoilers for the television show’s first episode - but instead of the first big event that happens, [my idea was] what if he wounds Master Luhhan? He's worried about the rage inside of him - you can get all the same beats without doing the thing that you did, and then he also won't be traumatized for the entire first season. And he can actually go on fun adventures with friends.
"[They] took it all the way to the higher-ups and fought for my version of it, and they said no."
Sanderson also made reference to "certain forces at work." Although he didn't get into great detail — it doesn't pay to get too honest about the very wealthy and powerful people who control Amazon Studios — it sounds like the show had a fair amount of studio meddling, and that's on top of the other problems it faced, like having to shoot season 1 during the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic and having to rewrite season 2 to account for the exit of actor Barney Harris, who played Mat Cauthon in the first season before Dónal Finn came in.
I'm sure Brandon Sanderson had valuable things to contribute. His frustration reminds me a bit of author George R.R. Martin's complaints regarding House of the Dragon, a show based on one of Martin's books; he wishes they were sticking closer to the source material, and it sounds like they're straying over his objections. That said, while I think the book changes made on House of the Dragon have hurt the show, the ones made on The Wheel of Time have mostly been innocuous or paid off, and always seem to be made with the goal of at least preserving the spirit of the story, at least if some plot elements have to be cut or combined. All of that added up to the excellent third season of the show.
And that, of course, is where Amazon chose to cut things off. Let's hope that the fan efforts to save the series bear fruit.
To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and Twitter account, sign up for our exclusive newsletter and check out our YouTube channel.