Note: Spoilers for The Wheel of Time book series and season one of The Wheel of Time, with musings on what we could see in the second season.
One of the cornerstones of the Wheel of Time series is long-term character development. Over the course of 14 books, we really get to dig into who our protagonists are. There’s something specific Robert Jordan does early on with several of the characters that continues to fascinate me. At some point in the first three books, Jordan’s characters take actions that result in them learning something they find disturbing about themselves, which they’re then forced to reckon with over the course of the series. For Nynaeve, it’s her fear of the One Power. For Rand, it’s the fact that he’s the freaking Dragon Reborn (understandable, really). Two others who share this trait to differing degrees are Perrin and Egwene. They’re linked in the beginning of both the books and The Wheel of Time television show, offering opposite arcs. This push and pull creates tension and serves to draw the reader deeper into the characters.
Perrin is often a fan favorite whose character arc for much of the first books in the Wheel of Time series is an internal struggle with his proclivity for violence. In a moment, we’ll get into how the television series, uh, handles that, but let’s spend a minute with the books. Early on we learn that Perrin has always been overly strong and large for his size; he realized that if he wasn’t careful, he could hurt others. This imprinted on Perrin so deeply that he’s often seen as slow, when he’s really just being methodical. When he’s pulled into Moiraine’s plans and flees his sleepy little village of the Two Rivers, he quickly discovers that on the road there is little time for thought. There are several “near misses” with Perrin and violence, but it’s when he and Egwene are separated from the others that he learns what he’s truly capable of, which shakes him to his core.
On the run from the servants of the Dark One in The Eye of the World, Perrin and Egwene find themselves in the company of a man named Elyas who can speak with wolves (a talent that Perrin learns he shares). A nearby wolf pack tries to help them, but when an unkindness of ravens—servants of the Dark One—discover them they have to flee through open scrubland for deeper forests that could provide shelter. The trio manage to escape, but there is a moment, when several wolves are wounded and Perrin sees other dead animals torn apart for sport by the ravens, that he realizes that if they’re overtaken, they’ll be tortured to death by the birds.
And he can’t let Egwene suffer that fate.
He’s carried the axe he made with his master from the Two Rivers; while he’s had cause to draw it, Perrin hasn’t had to really use it. Now, vastly outnumbered with the ravens closing in and no escape in sight Perrin begins to realize that he may have to use it on his dear friend, rather than let her be torn to pieces by creatures of the Dark One. Luckily, things don’t come to that, but Perrin is sickened that he even considered such a horrific thing. He confesses this to Elyas and tells him how he hates the axe because it’s only use is for violence (unlike say, his blacksmith’s hammer which can be used to forge) and how he wants to be rid of it. Elyas tells Perrin that as long as he hates using it, he’ll use it more wisely than most. It’s when Perrin no longer hates using it that he needs to worry. Reluctantly, Perrin keeps the axe. And it’s a good thing, because no sooner have they slipped out of the Dark One’s fingers than they find themselves ambushed by the Children of the Light. And here Perrin is faced with that moment he’s most feared.
When Perrin and Egwene are captured by the Whitecloaks later in the book, Hopper, the wolf Perrin befriended, attacks them to save Perrin. But Hopper is cut down by the men, and Perrin loses himself in his anger. He slays two with the axe and would have killed more of the Whitecloaks if he weren’t overwhelmed by their numbers. What sickens him later isn’t just that he killed the men, but the fact that in the moment, he wasn’t in control of himself. He relished the fight, the struggle. When the group is reunited in Caemlyn, Perrin shows us the impact this has had on his psyche when he tells the others, “Better we were all dead. Everywhere we go, we bring pain and suffering on our backs.” Perrin’s struggle throughout the series (against Trollocs and Whitecloaks later in the Two Rivers, at Dumai’s Wells, culminating in his encounter with a Shaido Aiel who may know where his kidnapped wife is located) will be the constant tension between using violence to protect others while not giving over to it entirely.
In the television series, the writers tried to shortcut what is an admittedly long, mostly internal conflict with Perrin by having him accidentally murder his wife. In the first episode, he mistakes her for a Trolloc after losing himself in the fight for his life. We could spend the rest of the essay on how that was handled, but I think the less said about it, the better, truly. Brandon Sanderson made some comments on Reddit after the episode aired on how he would have handled it; I think if the TV series had followed those, we all—Perrin included—would have been better for it, but it’s also easy to critique from the cheap seats. In a way, the fridging wasn’t nearly so bad as the little time we had with Perrin after the fact to better understand how this impacted him. While he shares the screen often with Egwene, she gets the lion’s share of the dialogue and action (more on why that’s awesome! in a moment) so while we don’t get much more from Perrin, we definitely grok that he is afraid he’ll lose control, give into violence, and hurt his friends. This is why, in the final episode, he lets Padan Fain’s taunt that Perrin’s first inclination is violence (and a sign of the Dark) stop him in his tracks, allowing Fain to escape with the Horn of Valere.
Egwene is magnificent in the television series. I know some had their issues with aging her up and the maturity that brought into her relationship with Rand, but it was really smart. It takes her character development right to the top from the jump, which is pretty much the polar opposite of what we see in the books. Book-Egwene and TV-Egwene do share the same traits, although they are expressed differently in each medium.
In The Eye of the World, Egwene leaves the Two Rivers because she’s seeking “adventure”, but it’s pretty clear in the opening books that what she’s looking for is the opportunity to prove herself. Because Robert Jordan was juggling so many characters, we really don’t get to see Egwene for the woman she is until the latter half of The Great Hunt and in The Dragon Reborn, where she realizes what it will take for her to achieve what she seeks. Egwene nearly dies several times over between running battles with Trollocs, encounters with Whitecloaks, and being caught up in the machinations of Aes Sedai factions within the White Tower. Her desire to become an Aes Sedai, to prove herself worthy of the title, and to protect her friends leads her into a trap that results in her enslavement by the Seanchan Empire. This torture leaves deep marks upon her psyche, but Egwene never gives up on her goals, no matter the cost. Even when that cost is ultimately forsaking the dreams she had of a quiet country life with Rand. Over the course of the series, we see Egwene forced to sacrifice again and again, first to become an Accepted, then an Aes Sedai, ultimately the Amyrlin herself, and then to lead the White Tower against all comers—even the Dragon Reborn—to save the world until the very end of A Memory of Light.
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In the books, Egwene’s character development takes a minute to get going, but the television series has flipped the script there. Egwene’s first moments on screen are her proving herself worthy of gaining a place within the Women’s Circle. When Trollocs raid the Two Rivers, she’s given a better motivation than mere adventure (and Moiraine’s interest in her channeling abilities) by being included as one of the potential candidates to be the Dragon Reborn. But before that happens, we already see the price she’ll need to pay to achieve her dreams: saying goodbye to that happily ever after with Rand in order to become Nynaeve’s assistant, and one day to become a Wisdom in her own right. It echoes the future choice she’ll make to become an Aes Sedai, but we get it up front, which is a really nice touch.
The rest of the television series lets us see Egwene’s mettle, whether she’s facing down Eamon Valda in Episode 5: “Blood Calls Blood”, to save Perrin and help them escape, or returning some of the fallen Aes Sedai rings to Tar Valon in Episode 6: “The Flame of Tar Valon”. The scene with Valda in particular is a stand up and cheer moment where she overcomes her fear to do the impossible—wield magic—and then follows that up by stabbing the scariest villain of the season. I also like how, right before this scene, Perrin confesses to her that he was the one who killed his wife, not the Trollocs. Egwene is quick to comfort him and point out that he’s berating himself for something that was a pure accident. He doesn’t seem to believe her, but later in the show he’ll defend her to Rand and it becomes clear the two have a deeper friendship than they did before. In the final episode, “The Eye of the World”, Egwene stands with Nynaeve and the other women against the horde of Trollocs despite barely knowing how to channel and understanding that she’s likely going to die.
Where the show excels again is towards the end of the season, when she and Rand reconnect. In the books, Egwene is sort of lovestruck and takes it as given she’ll be with Rand, but she slowly realizes that won’t be the case. They’re apart for so long that by the time they have that conversation, they’ve both moved on. Reluctantly, sure, but they know what lies in their future isn’t each other. In the show, we got a preview of that in the first episode where Egwene tells Rand that she’s decided to be a Wisdom, that she loves him, but she won’t sacrifice her aspirations for him. That conversation helped establish Egwene’s character, but in this moment of reconnection, of possibility, we get what was missing with Perrin: that ongoing struggle. Egwene and Rand have a falling out upon reconnecting, but very quickly the two of them reconcile and get another chance to decide what their futures will be. Egwene makes it clear she intends to be an Aes Sedai, but this time not without Rand. Rand agrees that she must go to the White Tower… but maybe he could be her warder? The two spend the night together and things seem more settled. In the morning Egwene will wake to realize that Rand has left, that he’s the Dragon Reborn gone off to face the Dark One at the Eye of the World, and that she will need to stand with her fellow Aes Sedai. It’s not a once and done thing—it’s repeated sacrifice in order for Egwene to get what she wants. The series is laying the groundwork for Egwene’s future.
The wonderful thing about having both the books and the television series, is that we get to see some of our favorite characters in a different light. What I particularly enjoy is that the writers kept Jordan’s trademark storytelling technique of forcing the characters to react to what they’ve learned of themselves after stepping out into the world, and wrestling with that over the course of books or seasons. If Perrin got short shrift so far on screen, you always have the page, and if you were frustrated by how long it took before we got a lot of Egwene in the books, the show has you covered. In the end, it always comes back to the characters for me, and the Wheel of Time series has them in spades.
Ryan Van Loan served six years in the U.S. Army Infantry, on the front lines of Afghanistan. He now works in healthcare innovation. His debut novel was The Sin in the Steel, the first volume in The Fall of the Gods series; it was followed by The Justice in Revenge and The Memory in the Blood. Van Loan and his wife live in Pennsylvania.
