A couple months after a juicy teaser, Prime Video has finally released the full official trailer for The Wheel of Time season 3, and it is, in my humble opinion, looking delicious. Take a gander below:
When last we left our heroes, Rand al'Thor (Josha Stradowski) had declared himself as the messianic Dragon Reborn for all the world to see, which is going to cause some major ripples. Some people will want to follow them into the Last Battle against the Dark One, some want to control him, others to kill him.
This all leads to the events of The Shadow Rising, the fourth book in Robert Jordan's epic fantasy series and widely considered one of the best. I see lots of big moments from the book in that trailer I know fans are eager to see, including:
- Turmoil within the White Tower of the Aes Sedai. Elaida, an Aes Sedai of the Red Ajah played by The Expanse veteran Shohreh Aghdashloo, will have a lot to do with that.
- Rand al'Thor and several of his companions travel to the Aiel Waste, where he attempts to win over the warlike Aiel to his side. We see his dragon tattoo at 1:07. Also, the Aiel woman Aviendha (Ayoola Smart) is giving him a hard time, just like she does in the book.
- Rand and Moiraine visiting the ancient Aiel city of Rhuidean, where they see some crazy visions. "Each step forwards is a step backwards through time." This could be good. In the books, we don't actually see what Moiraine sees during her visit to Rhuidean, but it looks like the show will go there.
- The Forsaken sorceress Moghedien, who was freed at the end of season 2, gets creepy with Nynaeve at 0:50. These two have a memorable clash in The Shadow Rising.
- Perrin returns to the Two Rivers, where he and Rand and the rest of the Emond's Field five lived back when this story started, and shit gets incredibly real. We have ourselves an old-fashioned fantasy battle on our hands, complete with a guy telling a group of archers to "LOOSE!"
This all looks exciting to me! I know some Wheel of Time superfans haven't liked the way the show has deviated from the books, but as someone who's just read them casually, I've been enjoying the show's interpretation, and I think that season 2 was a marked improvement on season 1. If that keeps up...
The Wheel of Time season 3 premieres on Prime Video on Thursday, March 13. If Prime Video is true to form, they'll drop the first three episodes all at once, with the remaining episodes coming out once per week after that. There will be eight episodes this season.
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