The Wheel of Time season 2 premieres on Amazon Prime on Friday, September 1st and today we got our first deep look at how the season will unfold. There’s a lot in here for readers of the book series to dig into. Especially in regards to what elements from The Great Hunt—Book 2 of The Wheel of Time—made it onto the screen. Here are 12 (just 12?!?) things that delighted me about the trailer for The Wheel of Time’s second season.
The Darkfriend Social
The prologue of The Great Hunt is somewhat infamous to Wheel of Time fans. It’s our first glimpse of how the Big Bad Ba’alzamon and the Forsaken in general conduct their business, into what societal structures their reach has already extended, and how far ahead of the heroes they are. It’s also so dramatic and vampy and so delicious that it’s been known as “The Darkfriend Social” in the WoT fandom since before time existed. (Leigh Butler explains its origins here.) Ba’alzamon can’t just send an email. Everything is a meeting.
You’ll catch a Whitecloak on the left there and to avoid egregious spoilers that’s where I’ll stop. But suffice to say most of these hooded weirdos are known characters and at least one of them is seen in full later on in the trailer.
I’m just really happy to see this scene in the show. It’s not super necessary from a storytelling standpoint, as we see plenty of more obvious machinations from Ba’alzamon later on, but it’s fun and it bodes well for the manner in which this season takes from the books.
This Spooky Customer
HOW DO YOU GET COMPLETELY DRENCHED IN BLOOD LIKE THA… you know, it’s fine. I can definitely wait for the show to answer that question for me.
(Sidebar: Who is this? My guess is A Certain Forsaken but on rewatch it seems like it could also fit in with Nynaeve or even Egwene’s visions. But it’s probably who we think it is.)
Accepted Test Time!
Hopes and dreams pencils down, class! Here we see Sheriam, Liandrin, and Verin administer the Accepted test to Nynaeve so that she can enroll in The White Tower and start learning how to be an Aes Sedai. (And/or control her power and do amazing things. She hasn’t chosen a major yet!) I’m glad the show will focus on the tests since they are a good excuse to cram some character building and exposition in… along with being almost alluringly torturous. Later on in the trailer we see Egwene and Nynaeve hugging, presumably after they’ve both taken their tests and seen horrific alternate versions of themselves. This episode is clearly going to be giggle city.
(Sidebar: Book readers will spot that every single Aes Sedai in the room with Nynaeve is of a specific allegiance and this tickles me to no end.)
Moiraine States Her Purpose
One of the biggest departures the TV show made from the book series (if not the biggest) was Moiraine getting stilled at the end of season 1. In the books this is a big forking deal, as it is completely irreversible* and puts a channeler through so much suffering that they typically end up taking their lives soon afterwards. Unless. They find a strong alternate purpose to keep going. It seems that for season 2, and possibly forevermore in the series, getting Rand in one piece to The Last Battle is Moiraine’s driving purpose. (I mean, it’s that in the books too but now it’s even more so?) Good thing Rand will make that easy! Right? Right. RAND NO.
*The irreversibility of being severed from the One Power is of course a plot point, but not until much, much later on in the series when the entire context of the setting has shifted to something different.
WEAVES HAVE COLORS NOW
Oh! Oh! No more jail for show! No more jail for One Thousand Years!!!!
I think I enjoyed season 1 of this show more than most WoTketeers but the mono-colored weaves from that season bothered me. Here we see red fire weaves, golden-brown earth weaves, wispy white air weaves, and what might be green spirit weaves in this trailer. The visible magic in this show needed this kind of differentiation; especially since magic users will only multiply as the show progresses. It’s a veritable rainbow of destruction and I’m here for it.
Hahahahahaha
It’s just nice to see Rand’s canonically poor decision-making, is all.
Yo Logain Ablar You Really Need To Focus Up
As mentioned previously, severing a channeler from the One Power does not make for a fun life afterwards. Here we see Logain practically delirious from suffering following his gentling in season 1. Smart to have Rand ask him what it’s like to be a male channeler, as the two do not cross paths until wayyyyyy later.
Also I find the face Rand is making at Logain here to be objectively hilarious.
Turak Gets The Horn
I’m pretty sure that’s what in the box that Seanchan High Lord Turak opens here, and why he says the world is “ours” right afterward. Because, well, yeah it basically is if you have the Horn of Valere. Considering what we see of the Seanchan later on in the trailer—attacking Egwene and co. and having Ba’alzamon chill with them—Turak and the invading Seanchan are shaping up to be one hell of a villainous focal point for Moiraine, Rand, and the gang.
Egwene Puts Up A Fight
Hey, it’s Elayne! But mostly it’s Egwene getting dropped on by a Seanchan patrol and tapping into a bit of the storm that she’ll unleash to a terrifying and awesome degree later on in her… career.
Book readers know what the result of this scene is. (We see it later in the trailer, as well.) But it’s nice to see the show advancing the characters in much the same way that the early Wheel of Time books did. Overall, this trailer shows us a LOT of fairly straightforward adaptations of notable chapters from The Great Hunt.
Aviendha!
She doesn’t show up until Book 3 in the series, but showrunner Rafe Judkins has been very open about portions of that book showing up in this season. She seems to be helping Perrin out with some Whitecloaks in the trailer here, and I’m curious how these two plotlines—Aviendha and the Aiel’s quest into the Wetlands and Perrin’s conflict with the Whitecloaks—will mesh. (At the very least it gives Perrin something to do this season… And someone to chop in half that isn’t his wife.)
Just In Case You Didn’t Think The Obviously Evil Character Wasn’t Evil
Lol to Liandrin walking cloaked through the streets of Tar Valon while Moiraine’s voice-over intones “There are many paths to walk through the night.” Okay she’s evil we got it!
Big acclaim to actor Kate Fleetwood, though, for making Liandrin so compelling in the show. Liandrin kind of just becomes an irritant in the books, but Fleetwood really elevates the menace of the character onscreen.
(What’s in that picnic basket, L?)
You Are a Special, Special Boy… Who Has No Choice in How You Live Your Life
It’s a pretty common trope for a main character to be scooped up into a high stakes war and told that no! You aren’t a nobody! You are a special special person who is the only one that can bring an end to evil! Hooray! And I love how it appears that Siuan Sedai is saying that to Mr. Dragon Reborn here when really she’s just pointing out how little control he will have over his life’s journey and how much things are going to suck from this point on. (This is, of course, a major theme through the course of the series.) It’s a nice subversion of the hero’s journey, and a doom-filled sensation that we can all relate to.
Chris Lough is the Director/Editor-in-Chief of Tor.com and has never been able to escape the gravitational pull of The Wheel Of Time. He’s not on Twitter but he is on Threads? Okay.
