Wheel of Time Season 1 - Likes and Reservations

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SPOILER WARNING: This post contains spoilers for the entirety of Wheel of Time Season 1, and potentially all of the books, but especially New Spring and like, Eye of the World through Lord of Chaos. There will not be additional warnings further down the post - read at your own risk. 

So the show has been out in its entirety for a minute now, and I've had a chance to process. Today's post will actually be divided into four parts - new things I lived, new things I have reservations about, old concerns that resolved or improved, and old concerns that have worsened or gone totally unaddressed. This is a follow up to my previous post on Episodes 1-4. 

What I Liked

• Stepin in Episode 5. I had a bad time with Stepin, and I have concerns about the execution, which we'll get to in the Reservations section, but something like this should have happened in the books. Like, around The Dragon Reborn, we should have gotten one of those delightful Jordanian digressions about in the perspective or a warder who lost his Aes Sedai, showing his mental state, behavior, and eventual death by either suicide or extreme risk taking. As it stands, when Moiraine falls through the stone doorway, the stakes, what this means for Lan, haven't really been established. Leaving aside my disagreements with the viewers who describe Stepin as "a character no one cares about", this obviously needed to be done with a character whose death the narrative could afford, and for it to be emotionally effective, the story had to treat him as a real person up to that point. There are tantalizing details dropped in Episodes 4 and 5 that that are never going to be expanded upon. The Forsaken figurines were the only thing left in his mother's house when she died?! There is a whole story that, which we are never going to get, and that's exactly right. 
• The funerals. Both of them were beautiful. Lan, during the second one, was perfect. Other people have written about this more eloquently than I ever could, but taking on that kind of harrowing responsibility for his fellow Warders is emblematic of the kind of strength Lan displays throughout the books, and so far in the show as well. The funeral at the beginning of Episode 5 is stunning, although I have questions about the extremely shallow graves. I'm also not sure if they intended the visual of the Aes Sedai standing near the center of the circle while the Warders stand around the outside. It's uncomfortably reminiscent of servants or junior staff members standing around the edges of a room while the important people have dinner. Combined with Moiraine responding to Nynaeve's concern for Stepin (as conveyed by Lan) by saying "he's strong, he'll deliver Kerene's ring", making it very clear that once he's done so, she couldn't care less whether he survives (to say nothing of the extremely obvious suicide ledge behind the ring melty thing), really highlights how disposable Warders are to everyone except each other (and people like Nynaeve, who don't have it as a cultural norm). I don't like that in the sense of liking it, obviously, but it's effective and it's book accurate. 

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  Siuan and Moiraine. Their relationship back in their school days is unambiguous book canon (on account of the part where they kiss), but I'm so happy that the show is continuing it into the present. I love the sex shack. I love the color symbolism of the nightgowns. Wheel of Time has its whole own color theory. White is for reason and submission. Red is very specifically for lesbianism, and also for the maintenance of or transgression against socially constructed boundaries, including, but not limited to, rank and gender. According to a Tumblr I follow that does statistics on the show, their scene together is 6 minutes and 7 seconds, a huge amount of time for continuous queer screentime in a TV show. The thing with the oath rod is awesome, although I have some questions about whether the show is sticking with the effect of the oath rod on life expectancy as it's established in the books. To those saying that Moiraine's oaths sure sounded like marriage vows, you're not wrong, but there's a thing. Siuan, in this version, has what sure look like Sea Folk tattoos, indicating that either they're combining aspects of Tairen and Sea Folk cultures (valid), or Siuan's ancestry specifically includes the Sea Folk here (extremely valid). According to Sea Folk custom, in which everyone has a specified rank at all times, but one's rank will ordinarily change repeatedly over the course of one's life, in a vaguely meritocratic fashion, the higher ranked partner in a marriage, the one who gives the orders when they're in public, must defer in private. This means that Moiraine's incredibly sexy role reversal with the "on your knees" may very well be an indication that they're already married. Which would be very cool, and would make a lot of sense given that at this point they've been together for something like 25 years. And Siuan being the Amyrlin means that a shipboard wedding, in line with Sea Folk traditions, is the only kind they could reasonably have managed. (The possibility of them being married is also supported by New Spring, in which Moiraine reminds Siuan that they agreed that anything either of them owns belongs to both of them. Property being held in common is like, a huge part of what being married is.). 
  Also the ter'angreal Moiraine uses to get to  the sex shack was from the 1999 computer game, so that's kind of cool. 
• Maksim giving Alanna the fig. 
• Liandrin's Taraboner accent coming through when she's upset. 
• "Bless his heart, he tries."
• The fact that Rand apparently can't sleep well unless he has someone to snuggle with, and this is never talked about, it's just a thing. 

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  Nynaeve meeting Lan's adoptive family. This is another thing that should have happened in the books - although not for establishing the plot, themes, or worldbuilding, just for the feels - they deserved this. 
• Amalisa being able to channel, and having made it as far as Accepted at the White Tower. I have some issues with how she's handled, but in premise it's solid. 
• Machin Shin using people's doubts and fears against them, rather than free associating about how it wants to braid your flesh and make you sing your screams. 
• Lan with his shirt off. 
• Everyone, including and especially Nynave, being less weird about sex. 
• The Episode 8 opening. I like that they were speaking the Old Tongue, even if Katie Brayben does overenunciate like she's in a 201 language class. (This may also have been a deliberate choice about how to portray Latra - I'd need to see more of her, and ideally a few other people speaking the Old Tongue to know for sure). Lews Therin's outfit looking like the Ashaman uniforms was a nice touch. And the baby! Lews Therin and his smushy little baby! Also very pleased that show!Latra actually has a sense of what might go wrong with Lews Therin's approach, rather than just being allergic to plans she didn't make herself. 
• I just love that the Blue Ajah has a special tea balcony. It's I think the only time they have the Ajah coded floor tiles in the show, and I just - they would have a little tea balcony. Only thing that would have improved it is if a pie were visible somewhere. 
• Lan doesn't have the same kind of in loca parentis thing with the boys in general, and Rand in particular, that he does in the books, and that's sad for me, but it doesn't stop Lan from being very parental when he's telling Rand to stop being stupid and put the sword away, and that makes me happy. 
• In the books, the Blue Ajah's job description is so vague that multiple characters actually comment on it. In the show, it's apparently mostly intelligence gathering for the White Tower. And that's actually like, established with words. I'm curious if they're gonna stick with the Blue Ajah being one of the smallest, given that I think a big part of the reason for that in the books was that Accepted and newly raised Sisters have no idea what they actually do. 
• I don't know if I like that Aglemar apparently died, exactly, but I find it encouraging because it's evidence against the show keeping that godsdamn ridiculous Great Captains mind control plot from the books. That whole thing would have been frustrating even if it hadn't become clear to the reader waaaaay too far ahead of the characters figuring it out. Robert Jordan's characters don't often make stupid mistakes, and when they do, those mistakes are usually in line with their established character flaws. Sanderson, on the other hand, seems to have trouble keeping things interesting when everyone is competent and doing their best, or at least he did when he was working on the last three Wheel of Time books (most writers who have this problem grow out of this eventually), so he had to mind control several protagonists and cause a major antagonist to go insane. I'm looking forward to the possibility of seeing those same events play out without such unwieldy contrivances. 

  

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• In the false reality created by Ishamael, Rand does not for a second actually want a reality where Egwene doesn't achieve the things for which she's striving. He goes from confused to distressed as soon as the false Egwene says this is what she wants, and he was only ever playing along with Ishamael to get the information on how to channel. I find this especially encouraging it very much seems as though the script left room for Rand to actually be tempted, making the fact that he so, so clearly wasn't an indication that Josha understands Rand as a character, maybe even a skosh better than the writers do. 
• As both a piece of music and a piece of worldbuilding, al'Naito is amazing. I don't know the music words to talk about that part of it in any useful way, and technically I don't know that this song or any songs except "Weep for Manetheren" and "The Man Who Can't Forget" exist diegetically in the show, without which the worldbuilding implications y'know, aren't. In any event, if you haven't spent a day or so listening to it on repeat, you may not have noticed this, but al'Naito is very easy to learn and pretty darn easy to sing, even if you have no idea what the words mean. It has patterns of repetition that make it easier for someone who doesn't know the Old Tongue to memorize the sounds. It's gonna sound good sung in a group even if most of the singers aren't especially skilled, and there's a lot of room for a soloist to play around with it and show off. These are qualities that it has in common with a lot of hymns. Like, so far, we haven't seen anyone in the show singing it, and the fourth line in the refrain, la'aldrelle kiseri, the glorious daughter of the river, is pretty Siuan-specific, but I wouldn't find it implausible if they just like, change that one line for every new Amyrlin. But I could just... see groups of novices singing this like it was one of those boarding school songs. I would also see this being the actual national anthem of Tar Valon, you know? Anyway it makes me happy. 

What I Have Reservations About

• The handling of Stepin's suicide was beautiful and emotionally effective, but it wasn't safe. There a guidelines for portraying suicide on a screen or stage, of which the most consistent are: don't show the act or means of suicide, include a content warning at the beginning, and provide information about suicide prevention resources at the end. Episode 5 did half of one of these - they didn't show the act, but they did show the method. On other, less universal rules, it's a mixed bag. They didn't suggest that suicide is quick or painless, or a way to solve your problems, but neither did they show the people close to Stepin grieving and, eventually, starting to heal. After the end of Episode 5, neither Stepin nor anything to do with him is shown in any subsequent episode, not even in the recap at the beginning of Episode 6. (Technically, Stepin's legs are visible for a few seconds, but I'm not counting that because unless you, say, repeatedly rewatched Episodes 4 and 5 while working on a fanfic, you probably would not know that they were his legs, and also he's unconscious). Even if this weren't a massive suicide contagion risk, it would still bother me, because as much as Stepin needed to happen for theme, character, and worldbuilding reasons that have nothing to do with him personally, the ways in which he is treated like a plot device rather than a person bother me. The only Episode 5 scene that Stepin's in that ends up affecting anything later is that his melting down Kerene's ring lets us know why and how it matters when Egwene gives Valda's collection to Moiraine, which from a certain perspective make it look like the show agrees with Moiraine that Stepin's death didn't matter any more once he'd done the thing. I, uh, I have some mixed feelings here. I understand that a lot of this was the result of the show not having nearly as much time as it needed, but that being the case, given that apparently they weren't going to kill Moiraine this season after all, they might have done better to leave this until they had time to do it right. And they could at the very least have put up a suicide hotline number at the end of the episode. Seriously, The Magicians, a show that routinely went out of its way to be upsetting, was more responsible about this. 

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  What exactly was Nynaeve planning to do when she want out into the hallway in Episode 5? And why did she, instead of whatever her plan was, go out to the gardens on Liandrin's suggestion? Did Liandrin do her off-brand compulsion thing from the books? What is happening here? 
• I'm not really sure what the Whitecloaks conconsensually bathing Egwene was about, especially (but not exclusively) on the Doyleist level of what are they trying to show us about Egwene, about Valda, or about the Whitecloaks here? It had obvious rapey vibes, and I'm genuinely uncertain what that was supposed to accomplish. 
• I don't feel like I know how sketch Moiraine is meant to be in this version. Her heavy handed bending of the Three Oaths around telling any of the kids that the others were in the city was...certainly a thing that happened, and if there was a reason for it, beyond a general need to be in control, it's never established. She told Nynaeve, "When I find your friends, I will take you to them." She meant that at the time, or she couldn't have said it, and I'd very much like to know what changed her mind. 
• Siuan's handling of Logain was needlessly and inappropriately cruel. Like, my own objections to punitive justice notwithstanding, the punishment for men who can channel is gentling. Efforts to keep them from killing themselves are because not letting people commit suicide is generally the Done Thing, and a little bit so they can be studied - it's not to make an example of them or deliberately prolong their suffering. (Yes, this is different for stilled women, but stilled women are being punished for like, actual things they did wrong. Most men who channel have the spark inborn - they never had a choice about it, and that makes it a very different thing.) This scene also adds like, a multiplier to the suicide contagion factor of Episode 5, especially for anyone bingeing the show. You know how I mentioned making sure not to present suicide as a solution to your problems? "If you're looking for the release of death, you won't find it here" is like, the opposite of that. On that note, she also says "until you lose yourself entirely to the madness"? Are we to understand that in the show, the madness continues to worsen even after a man can no longer touch Saidin? Like, there's some wiggle room in what she said, but if that's the case, it calls into question the ethics of gentling, one of the major functions of which is to salvage the man's remaining sanity. 
• I don't think it's the most likely explanation, but if the situation with Liandrin meeting a man in Northharbor is literally just that she's dating a man and the rest of the Red Ajah would do something bad to him because of it, that's a problem for me. The show is already ratcheting up the villainy on the Whitecloaks, and quite possibly the Seanchan (more on that below), and if they're doing the same thing to the Red Ajah, making them all radfem lesbian separatists who believe that men cause harm just by existing, or that all heterosexual sex is rape... Certainly, those attitudes exist within the Red Ajah in the books, but they aren't like, policy, and the distinction matters. The Red Ajah in the books occupy a space somewhere between cops in cop shows and cops in real life. Like fictional cops, they do a difficult, dangerous, necessary job. Like real cops, the nature of their work has a tendency to attract sadists and bigots, and the people who are neither can have a hard time achieving any status or power within the organization, while those who actually oppose such behavior might face harsh reprisals. There's a lot of nuance there, and they absolutely don't have to put all of that on display in the show, but I would be pretty upset if they were to flatten it out into straightforward evil, and I have no idea how they'd make Egwene's arc work under those circumstances. 

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  Not into the idea that Perrin has had pantsfeels for Egwene this whole time. I'm hoping that his was mostly just Nynaeve being frustrated with the boys arguing and vaguely aware of her own completely inappropriate sense of competition with Moiraine. Or that Perrin had feelings for Egwene like, a ways back, and doesn't anymore, although if that's why Leila wasn't at the party after Egwene's braid ceremony, that was a dick move on her part, and it was unreasonable of Nynaeve ti say that Perrin ought to go back to the forge. Past, present, or imaginary, Perrin's feelings about Egwene are not something Egwene did wrong. 
• Lan and Nynaeve's conversation from the end of Eye of the World, which they have here in Episode 8 doesn't make any sense. I can understand wanting to work it in, in case they didn't get approved for Season 2, but it doesn't work here at all, because Lan uh, did not reject Nynaeve's advances here. They might have left out the first couple of lines, I feel like. I'm hoping this is just gonna remain a weird, out of place moment, because if they try to put Lan and Nynaeve back into some kind of will they or won't they, after what happened in Episode 7, I will actually scream. 
• I would really have likely someone to say out loud what they were planning to do with the Horn of Valere. 
• How did Nynaeve track Moiraine?
• Kiera Chansa, who plays young Siuan, is eight years old. In the books, girls with the spark inborn usually start channeling between the ages of 12 and 16, although any girl or woman who can learn to channel, spark or no, can start as young as 10. (This last seems to be the case for boys as well, even though their natural starting age is later, but that's neither here nor there). In the show, Egwene, who has the spark, doesn't touch the source for the first time until her 20s. Young Siuan Sanche, played by an either year old girl, is already channeling reliable and skillfully, and I have...complicated feelings about this, because I don't know how closely the show is tricking to the idea that girls generally start channeling sometime vaguely in the vicinity of puberty. I think it's kind of important to show that little black girls can be gifted and precocious, and there's not a lot of that in fiction. I'm 99% sure that's what they were going for. But I can't entirely logic my way out if the feeling that this is playing into the stereotype of black women and girls being hypermature and hypersexual, whether it's meant to or not. As with the discussion of black characters in the previous post, I feel I must point out that I am not super qualified to talk about this, and you should not take my opinion as the final word about it. 

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  For the most part, I'm reserving judgement about the Seanchan, but this isn't the "Things I'm Sure Are a Problem" section; it's the Reservations section, and hoo boy do I have some reservations about the small amount we're shown of the Seanchan at the very end of Episode 8. Mostly, my immediate impression is that, as is the case with the Whitecloaks, they're going for something less complex, and more evil, than we saw in the books. The tidal wave, which very much looks like it's going to kill a small child who posed no threat, is the obvious example, but what I want to talk about is the a'dam. In like, The Fires of Heaven, I think, it's established that the chain connecting the bracelet to the collar isn't magically necessary. It serves two functions, one practical and one symbolic. If the bracelet is moved when no one's wearing it, the damane experiences debilitating nausea. The chain, therefore, means that you can set the bracelet down and tether the damane to that spot. The other is as a reassuring symbol of the Empire's control over the dangerous channelers - it's like a Cardassian trial. Here's the thing - it's the position of the Seanchan that the damane are not human. Having sex with a damane isn't strictly forbidden by law and custom because it would in most cases be a colossal abuse of power, it's forbidden because it's considered bestiality. The idea that damane are dangerous animals isn't often, that we see, reinforced or propogandized, because it doesn't have to be. It's is known, and sincerely believed, by everyone from the Empress, may she live forever, all the way down to the damane themselves. Where this becomes an issue is the mouth-covering pieces we see on the damane in the show. Putting a gag on someone, or a muzzle, is dehumanizing in a way that would be totally unnecessary with someone you sincerely believed wasn't human. The damane aren't going to bite people. If this were just about emphasizing that they're contained, they should have bound their hands. That means that someone, maybe the Empress, maybe the highest level der'suldam, maybe both, know that the damane are human, that they're people, and is at some pains to treat them like they're not, which adds a level of deliberate cruelty to the whole thing that was never present in the books. I don't know how you do Renna, much less Mat and Fortuona, in this context. 
• Where is everyone? In the White Tower. In Episode 5, we don't see any Aes Sedai who weren't with the party who captured Logain - the only new Tower-affiliated people we see are the lead Warder, two Novices, and some young women who might be Accepted. In Episode 6, we get Siuan, Leane, the Sitters, those two Yellows, and some Tower guards. Literally where are all the other Aes Sedai? This is one that I am prepared to let go unexplained, on account of Covid, if it changes when circumstances permit, but if the Tower is really this empty, this understaffed, I need to see it talked about. And if it's not, I'm at some point going to need to see the Tower as an institution populated bu people whose priorities often have nothing to do with the plot, rather than just a series of attractive rooms for the people who matter to stand in while they do their thing. 

What I Feel Better About

• The handling of black characters whose names are not Nynaeve al'Meara. I don't feel all the way better, and see above regarding baby Siuan, but grownup Siuan is amazing and was 100% given her due in Episode 6, and I feel like that does a lot. Stepin, one of the whitest people in the show, dying in an unnecessary and badly handled way feels like it goes some way towards balancing Kerene's similarly contrived death. And Ishamael being white, and Liandrin getting more screen time and being more overtly horrible, while Lews Therin goes some way towards evening out the villain ratio. 

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  The rings. Apparently accepted do just have rings without stones, and that works okay. It does mean that they're gonna have to do something a little different when the girls go hunting the Black Ajah, but they can maybe out fake stones in, especially now that we know for sure that the stones are removable. I'd love to know what they do with the stones when the rings are melted down, but I'm not like, stressed about it. 
• This is a thing I already like that was actually improved on, but Moiraine's display of vulnerability in telling Rand about being abused by an Aes Sedai when she was an accepted feels...important. I assume it was Elaida who did this, same as in the books, even though no one's said her name yet in the show.  Part of what works about this is that after being sketchy and secretive during episodes six and seven, this is actually a return to form. Moiraine in the first couple of episodes was actually pretty communicative! She's unconscious in three and part of four, and barely present in E5 (she's a little evasive with Alanna in four and five, but that makes sense, White Tower politics being what they are). Her behavior in six and seven is the departure, and I didn't like it or feel like I entirely understand what it was about. (In particular, she could have allayed a lot of suspicion in seven by telling the kids that she was hoping to figure out which one of them was the dragon reborn before it got to this point). 

What I'm Actually More Worried About

• I'm really going to need an explanation of how circles work in the show. It seems obvious that Amalisa messed up the circle she was using, especially given how different the weaves looked from the circle that gentled Logain. It nonetheless established that circles can be maintained for long periods, and used for purposes other than gentling. All available evidence indicates that circles done correctly don't carry any more risk of burning out than they did in the books, so I have to ask again why weren't they using circles to shield Logain? My best theory is that Liandrin was hoping to get Kerene, Alanna, or both killed, although I don't yet know why she'd target them, but I'm increasingly worried that it will just never be addressed, and that future instances of circles will continue to be inconsistent. 

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  The Whitecloaks. We've added attacking the Tuatha'an and torturing Perrin and Egwene, plus that whole washing thing, to the unnecessary shitty things they've been done, unmitigated by any further indication that there's more to them than that. The establishment (by Valda!) that you don't actually need your hands to channel, and by Moiraine that "when your life is on the line, you'll be able to channel", how has Valda been able to kill so many Sisters? The way Egwene's fireball fizzled in Episode 5 may well indicate that Valda has a ter'angreal along the lines of the foxhead medallion, but the evidence is muddied, because the fireball was a distraction while she divided the flows to burn the ropes holding Perrin. I have faith that this will be explained if Valda keeps showing up, but he very well might be dead, and if that's the case, I don't think this will ever be addressed - it'll just be like "exceptionally evil dude also exceptionally capable for no clear reason", which would be a thematic step away from the books, and not in a direction I like. 
• The Aes Sedai being more overtly classist. This is a tricky one for me, and more...emblematic of a potential problem than a problem in and of itself. Aes Sedai use their last names even less in the show than they do in the books. It's weird to me that they keep their last names at all, but that's largely beside the point. Aes Sedai use Sedai, servant, in place of a surname most of the time. And that's related to the expectation that Aes Sedai should... if not abandon, at least deprioritize their status and responsibilities in the outside world. And needless to say, that carries a little more weight if your last name happens to be Damodred, or Trakand, rather than say, Sanche or Guirale. So when Siuan, in the course of calling Moiraine down for her role in Logain's extrajudicial gentling, addressed her as "Lady Moiraine Damodred", she's not just accusing her of classism, she's accusing her of acting as a Cairhienen High Lady rather than an Aes Sedai, and that's a fairly serious thing. And that all makes sense. It's great, actually. And very well executed. It also directly contradicts the attitudes about social class that the White Tower apparently displayed towards Nynaeve's mentor all those years ago. Now, that was when either Tamra or Noane was Amyrlin, with a smaller but real chance that it was Kirin Melway, and it's technically possible that previous Amyrlins had a less egalitarian attitude, although certainly that couldn't have been the case when Siuan herself came to the Tower. It's also possible that whoever Nynaeve's mentor spoke to turned her away on her own initiative, and didn't actually speak for the Tower. And it's possible that for some reason Nynaeve's mentor lied to her about what exactly happened. I would accept any of those explanations. What I'm worried about, as with most of the rest of this part of the list, is that we won't get an explanation. That the rapid pace and short seasons will mean this kind of inconsistency never gets resolved, and that we'll be expected to just accept it as long as episodes make sense internally. 

Ye gods this got long. We should be moving back to posts about books and writing for a while (including the WoT reread series, I promise), and I'm hoping to get an advice column up before the end of February. Next post will probably be Dresden Files though. Until then, be gay, do crimes, and read all the things!