Review: The Wheel of Time season 1
Let’s clear the air before I start: there is a very high chance that fans of Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time book series are going to disagree with my review of the show. So, please read my opinion with that in mind. I think the Wheel of Time television series is good, actually, despite its many problems and weaknesses.
As a warning, this review contains spoilers for both the television series and for Robert Jordan’s book series.
The disagreement between fans of the books and fans of the show has been playing out across the Internet since the series premiered on Amazon Prime in November 2021. In conversations with friends, we came to the consensus that the show improves on some parts of the books’ narrative, with the books feeling a lot like the first draft and the show a tighter, cleaner version. The show streamlines and trims deadweight. And, most importantly for me, it works very hard (maybe not always successfully) to correct the book series’ gross sexism, queer erasure, and problematic binary gender essentialism.
I have to confess that I never finished reading Robert Jordan’s original series. I wish that I could blame the uncomfortable sexism that touched everything in the book, but what turned me off from the book had more to do with form and execution. I was, and honestly still am, used to cutting through heterosexism to get to sword and sorcery epic fun. But I found the books unnecessarily plodding with too much attention to unnecessary details that didn’t actually build character or drive the narrative. Please note, I say that as a life-long fan of The Lord of the Rings. By the time I tapped out of Lord of Chaos (book #6), I could no longer keep track of which character was where and what they were doing. I kept forgetting characters had already been introduced. And the end of the world, quite honestly, no longer felt urgent and threatening, it just felt boring. This was 20 years ago, before Jordan had died and there was hope he would finish the story during his lifetime. Currently, I am making a second attempt at reading the book series, partly inspired by how much I enjoyed the TV series. We’ll see if I do better coming at it with a more mature and critical eye. I’m also at the point in my life where I enjoy reading things just to overanalyze them, so be warned that I’m probably just coming for Jordan’s beloved books to tear them apart.
The first season largely adapts The Eye of the World (book #1) but also works in some of the early action and broader themes from The Great Hunt (book #2). For example, a lot of the Aes Sedai politics, the Amyrlin Seat, and even the White Tower itself are very important in the first season, but the books do not introduce them until The Great Hunt. The final episode also includes Paidan Fain’s theft of the Horn of Valere, which is the inciting incident in The Great Hunt. This makes sense in television terms: it lays the thread for the next season’s plot. This first season also makes use of some of the information and character development introduced in the prequel, New Spring. Also, because the series is a sprawling 14 books (plus a prequel), it is a lot to expect each season to hew closely to just one book. So, on the one hand, these choices are smart because streamlining is necessary for a remediated adaptation. It’s not realistic to expect and plan for The Wheel of Time series to run 14 or 15 seasons. The business of TV doesn’t work that way unless you’re Law and Order or NCIS. On the other hand, there’s a lot going on in this season, which makes the focus sometimes feel scattered.
When it comes to the TV series, at a fundamental level I agree with Rob Bricken over at Gizmodo who argues that the show works because of the changes showrunner Rafe Judkins makes to the source material “not despite them.” Judkins has said in a Q&A that the show’s creators knew that the show would not appeal to hardcore mega-fans of the series, so they did not make the series with those fans in mind. They wanted to bring in a new audience. Which, on one hand, is bold. Many recent media adaptations seem to be trying to capitalize on a built-in fan base to market to. But, on the other hand, not appealing to mega-fans is perhaps business as usual these days, as more and more production companies try to emulate what HBO did with Game of Thrones: build on existing content to attract new audiences to new genres. I feel like I’ve read this discussion before, but I can’t find it now. Additionally, Brandon Sanderson, who completed the original book series after Jordan’s death in 2007 who is a producer, has also been generally positive in his responses to the final product on his blog.
That’s not to say that the show is perfectly polished and without its problems. Several reviewers have criticized aspects of the production. We also need to acknowledge the elephant in the room: Amazon Prime does seem to be trying to create its own Game of Thrones. Chaim Gartenberg at the Verge criticizes the show for just this attempt. He writes The Wheel of Time is “dragged down both by its unwieldy source material and its efforts to twist itself into a second coming of Game of Thrones.” Aside from source material and production motivations, there are also concerns with some of the narrative choices made in the adaptation. Brandon Sanderson responded to the first four episodes on his blog, so you can see his criticisms there, which generally focus on “grimdark” choices at both the production and narrative level. This attempt at grimdark, including things such as overly graphic violence, are part of what earned the series the description “second-rate Game of Thrones.” The addition and treatment of Laila Dearn perhaps best demonstrates the impact these decisions have on the TV series.
In the show, Laila Dearn (Helena Westerman) is married to Perrin Aybara (Marcus Rutherford). All of the Emond’s Field main characters have been aged up from their book age of late teens to around twenty, and Perrin and Laila run the smithy in Emond’s Field. This differs significantly from the books, where Perrin is Master Luhhan’s apprentice and Laila is never a romantic interest. In Leavetaking (1x1), Emond’s Field is attacked, which plays out in extended action as characters fight and flee for their lives. While defending himself, Perrin accidentally kills Laila in the process. In the confusion of the fight, no one else witnesses the tragic accident, and Perrin does not confess that he killed her until much later (Blood Calls to Blood 1x5). Laila’s death sets up the narrative for Perrin’s struggle with violence, which is central to his character development in the book. But to create a wife for Perrin whole cloth, have him kill her in the first episode, and then make it a driving character motivation is unnecessarily grim and perpetuates the problems of violence against women that recur in fantasy media and pop culture more broadly. There are other ways to streamline Perrin’s own struggle with violence, war, and defending himself and his loved ones that don’t perpetuate tired sexist tropes. It’s just one example of how the TV series lean into grimdark storytelling makes it fall short of correcting the book series’ sexism.
Many viewers have also criticized how Mat Cauthon (Barney Harris) was written. Harris’ portrayal of Cauthon has been praised, but many fans feel that the TV series version of Mat lacks the care-free, playful spirit that Mat had in the books, especially before he takes the dagger from Shadar Logoth. As Andrew Cunningham of Ars Technica notes: “The show sucks the carefree roguishness from Mat’s character and doesn’t replace it with anything. It’s not as immediately frustrating as ‘giving Perrin a wife just so he can accidentally kill her and then feel awful about it,’ but in the long run I think it’s been a liability.” I noticed in Sanderson’s own recaps of each episode that he thinks more grimdark, less likable characters are a problem more broadly with the writing in the show: “Not to sound like a broken record, but that’s the running theme of the show for me. Great dialogue, good visuals and adaptations, but everyone is unlikable and kind of an asshole.” Although, in my personal opinion, everyone in the book was kind of an unlikeable asshole, except for Loial (played in the show by Hammed Animashaun). Mat is honestly the only one in the show that I noticed a shift in character tone, mostly because they wrote out his penchant for practical jokes and introduced him in a situation of desperate poverty, family addiction, and domestic abuse.
Where I feel the series really shines is centering Moiraine (Rosamund Pike). The show effectively restructures the narrative to present Moiraine as the the main character of season 1. Some die-hard fans have complained that Pike is not short enough to play Moiraine. Sidenote, people said the same thing about Hugh Jackman and Wolverine. 1) I feel this criticism is nitpicking and 2) I wonder how effective Jordan’s attempt to juxtapose the power and gravitas of Moiraine Damodred with her diminutive stature actually is in the books. I feel like this was one of the ways that Jordan attempted to create a feminist character (a powerful female character who was physically still feminine) that came across feeling like a half-measure. But Pike plays Moiraine masterfully. Every inch a driven, powerful woman who understands social politics but who is inscrutable and unreadable to those around her. And, honestly, Pike is still shorter than nearly all the men in the cast, so she physically looks up to Lan, Rand, Mat, and Perrin in those early episodes. She is just no longer the size of a child. The showrunner’s also show Moiraine and Siuan’s romantic and sexual relationship explicitly in the series. Their relationship is exquisitely revealed in The Flame of Tar Valon (1x6), which might be my favorite episode of the season. Sylas Barrett has written an excellent recap of this episode for Tor. As Barrett explains, in the show we see two middle-aged gay women who are clearly in love but who both carry the burden of duty. This goes a long way to addressing the very weird “pillow friends” innuendo from the books; the insinuation that Aes Sedai might have casual same-sex relationships as novices, but these were never serious, emotional attachments and absolutely did not mean that any Aes Sedai were gay. To see the TV series redress the queer erasure in the books is incredibly important.
By making Moiraine the main character of the series, it leaves the question of who is the Dragon an open mystery throughout the first season. It makes the fear and confusion felt by each of the Emond’s Fielders more palpable, as they worry about the situation they’ve been pulled into and the strange dreams and changes that are happening to each of them. Also, the fact that the Dragon’s gender on rebirth isn’t determined goes a long way to addressing some of the essentialism in the books. It also elevates Egwene and Nynaeve in the first season to where they really should be. They are two of the most powerful characters in the entire series, and honestly, in The Eye of the World, they really got pushed to the side. This is something that bothers me about the book, especially when it comes out in The Great Hunt that the Aes Sedai cannot find enough girls to train as novices. [I almost wrote Force-sensitive here.] While, yes, Egwene and Nynaeve eventually become powerful, influential characters and are always important to the narrative, they still weren’t the Dragon and the narrative focus in The Eye of the World in a lot of ways diminished their power.
Unfortunately, the TV series didn’t completely stick the landing. The final episode feels incredibly rushed. There is a lot of information in the last episode that is introduced, likely to lay threads for season 2, but it’s more of a breathless climax rather than a complete denouement. That said, the scenes between Rand (Josha Stradowski) and Ba’alzamon (Faras Fares) are incredible and heart wrenching. I’ll get to those in a moment. Just like in the book, the TV series didn’t quite seem to know what to do with Rand before he realized he could channel. Everyone else was getting cool powers, but Rand was just a shepherd with a sword. Although, I don’t want to discount the lengths Rand goes to caring for Mat as the dagger makes him more and more sick. When Rand finally realizes he’s the Dragon Reborn, he claims it, and he chooses to sacrifice himself to save his friends. In the books, a teenage Rand denies and avoids it, and is tossed around by the tides of prophecy for nearly three books. In the show’s climax, Rand faces Ba’alzamon, who tries to tempt him with a vision of a future married to Egwene (Madeleine Madden). We see Rand waver. The longing for that future is clear on Rand’s face. Stradowski does an excellent job showing us a Rand al’Thor who cares deeply and is devoted to the people he loves. But Rand also denies that future, because he knows it’s not the future Egwene wants. He doesn’t want that life if Egwene does not also want it. I think this caring and devotion could be a strength as the series explores Rand’s relationship with destiny, free will, and what it means to be a male channeler in a world where that’s a death sentence.
There are a lot of other strengths that I haven’t gotten to cover, that I think each deserve their own treatment at length elsewhere. Lan and Nynaeve’s relationship is handled so well in this season. Álvaro Morte’s Logain is full of so much potential that I want the series to deliver on in future episodes. Child Valda and Liandrin Sedai are two of the best bad-guys-pretending-to-be-good-guys out there, and I am loving hating them. And finally, The Dark Along the Ways (1x7) has one of the best TV cold opens ever. Period. End of discussion. It’s excellent and you should watch the entire first season just for that cold open.
