Time doesn’t heal all wounds.
With season 3 of The Wheel of Time only two months away, the holidays were a great time to rewatch the show's first two seasons. This was my third time through season 1 and second time for season 2. I hoped putting distance between viewings would dampen some bad feelings I had about the second season. I don’t want to be that fan who is locked so hard on The Wheel of Time books by Robert Jordan that I can’t enjoy the show. But season 2 pressed my resolve.
As a diehard fan of the books, I try very hard to accept the show as a reimagining of the story. This show has had to overcome more than its share of hurdles, including COVID, a writer’s strike, needing to recast a key actor, a glut of source material, and not getting the respect and support it deserved from Amazon.
Season 1 had some major changes and omissions from the books, but most were done with well-considered intentions. Much of the journey from the sleepy backwater of Two Rivers to the border city of Fal Dara was eliminated in the show. Instead of visiting the metropolis of Caemlyn like in the books, the show took our heroes to Tar Valon and the White Tower, neither of which appear in the books until The Great Hunt, the novel which formed the basis for much season 2.
Part of the issue is that the show is forced to fit a lot of content into just eight episodes. It could make four more episodes per season for less than it costs to do one episode of Amazon’s other fantasy epic, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
Instead of just trimming what was in the source material, The Wheel of Time decided to ADD some content to the show that wasn’t in the books. One episode in its first season focused on the history, capture, and gentling of Logain. This was a smart decision because it was glossed over in the book. Another episode was centered on the White Tower. These two episodes gave the audience insight into the workings of Aes Sedai. In The Eye of the World, the first book in the series, we only meet two Aes Sedai sorceresses: Moiraine and, briefly, Elaida. Considering the importance of Aes Sedai to the overall story, it was essential to expose the audience to them.
The problem was that these two episodes comprised 25% of the season. It didn’t leave much more time to tell the story that needed to be told. Still, the end product was as good as it could be considering all the cast and crew had to overcome.
What changes were hard to swallow in season 2 of The Wheel of Time?
The writers for The Wheel of Time decided to make Moiraine Sedai a much more prominent character than she was in the books. They wanted an established actress to help carry a relatively unknown cast, and Rosamund Pike was a fantastic choice to play Moiraine. She has been incredible.
The issue with expanding that role is that Moiraine is only in a little over half the books. She is barely in The Great Hunt at all. After the first book, her importance to the story slowly diminishes over time. On the show, however, they needed to keep their big-name star active and prominent. Her storyline in season 2 is wholly made up compared to her arc, such as it is, in the second book.
The decision to have her shielded from the One Power was a brutally bad one, and it just didn’t make any sense for the story. It was so unnecessary.
Mat Cauthon’s storyline was also thrown way out of whack. Part of it was bad luck. Actor Barney Harris left the show toward the end of season 1, messing up Mat’s participation at the end of that story arc. It also took him away from the other characters he was still attached to in the book.
The writers figured out a way to get Mat, now played by Dónal Finn, to the right place at the right time for the end of season 2. However, they seemed to move important parts of his storyline from The Shadow Rising, the fourth book, forward in time. On the show, Mat is granted past memories by the Forsaken Ishamael, and appears to craft a spear for himself when he wraps the tainted dagger he took from Shadar Logoth on the end of a stick. In the books, he comes by the spear and the memories in a very different, very memorable way, and now I'm afraid we won't see those adapted. Also, Mat doesn't stab Rand with his spear in the books like he does on the show.
Siuan Sanche’s brief storyline at the end of season 2 was a disaster, too, where she, as the leader of the Aes Sedai, turned against Moiraine. The biggest problem was that it was out of character for her. I have guesses as to why they did what they did, but we’ll wait for season 3 to see if I'm right.
Here are some other changes that didn’t improve upon the source material:
- Min working for the Forsaken? Come on!
- Why kill Uno? While he isn’t a major character, he does have a role in future storylines and offered some comic relief.
- Perrin doesn't save the Aiel woman Aviendha from a cage in the books. In the third book, he saves Gaul, another Aiel.
- There were no Aiel at Falme in the books.
- Ishamael battles Rand sword-to-sword at Falme; in the show, Egwene duels him with the One Power. And the Forsaken isn't killed at Falme as appears to happen on the show.
- The duplicitous Aes Sedai sorceress Liandrin has way too much screen time.
It is pretty apparent that many of these changes will be used to skip over much of the plot of The Dragon Reborn, the third book in the series. It is what it is. Many of the above alternate paths chosen weren’t necessary. They could have stuck closer to the source material but decided not to.
Interestingly enough, they were somewhat faithful to the intertwined arcs for Egwene, Nynaeve, and Elayne, from their training at the White Tower to their time in Falme. While the book and show weren’t exact matches, the story was close enough.
It will be interesting to see where the team behind The Wheel of Time goes with season 3. There are rumors they are sticking to the source material more this season, but probably moreso for The Shadow Rising than The Dragon Reborn.
The Wheel of Time show is still a fun, wild, and and tense adventure. However, super fans of the books still need to work to enjoy the show fully and accept the changes. We can’t get bogged down in the details, so we’ll see how that goes for season 3.
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