It’s finally here, my friends, the third season of The Wheel of Time. When last we saw our heroes, they were standing, battered but victorious, over the city of Falme, as a conjured dragon of fire curled around them, proclaiming the coming and identity of the Dragon Reborn. But although Rand, Egwene, Perrin, Mat, and Nynaeve have found their way back to each other, it remains to be seen what ultimate fate the Wheel has in store for them.
Recap
“To Race the Shadow,” the first episode of season three of The Wheel of Time, opens with rain on Tar Valon. Siuan (Sophie Okonedo) looks down over the city, while Moiraine (Rosamund Pike) stands in the street, looking up at the White Tower.
Liandrin (Kate Fleetwood) is called to the floor at a Sitting of the Hall. Siuan denounces Liandrin as a Darkfriend, and therefore someone who can lie, and produces Nynaeve (Zoë Robins) as witness. Caught, Liandrin calls upon other Darkfriend sisters in the Hall and a great battle ensues in which several Aes Sedai are killed and Liandrin escapes.
Elsewhere, Verin (Meera Syal) brings Adeleas (Nila Aalia) and Nyomi (Rachel Denning) to guard the secret Thirteenth Depository and the objects of power known as sa’angreal and ter’angreal. Nyomi reveals herself as also being one of Liandrin’s, incapacitating the other sisters and taking the objects. She joins Liandrin’s group in the streets, where they are confronted by Alanna (Priyanka Bose) and her Warders. Ihvon is killed.
Siuan is attacked and shielded by two Black Aes Sedai. She is saved by a hidden Moiraine. Lan finds Nynaeve alive and cradles her in his arms.
Later, Elayne, Nynaeve, Rand, Perrin, and Mat discuss Moiraine’s desire for Rand to go to Tear and retrieve the sa’angreal known as Callandor, one of the events that the Prophecies of the Dragon describe. Bain, Chiad, and Aviendha are following Rand, who they believe is the Aiel car’a’carn, and who must be protected and brought to the Aiel Waste, aka the Threefold Land. Rand and Aviendha don’t get along.
Moiraine is visited by Lanfear, who also wants Rand to obtain Callandor so that he can protect himself from the other Forsaken. She wants Moiraine to frighten away Rand’s friends, because they are holding him back by tying him to his past.
Siuan visits Nynaeve and Egwene, urging them to return to the Tower. Egwene agrees to return if she is allowed to go through the Accepted test. In the Arches, Egwene experiences herself as the Amyrlin, hunting down the now-insane Dragon Reborn along with Elayne and Nynaeve. Egwene returns out of the Arches covered in blood, takes the ring that marks her as Accepted, and declares that Siuan no longer has the power to keep her in the Tower.
Elayne makes alcohol and gets drunk with Mat, Loial, Bain and Chiad. Bain and Chiad play Maiden’s Kiss with Mat while Elayne and Aviendha sleep together on the roof. Elsewhere, Rand and Egwene struggle with their own desire to be intimate, but Egwene’s trauma at Renna’s hands gets in the way.
Later in the night, Nynaeve finds Mat still drinking, and he admits to something being wrong. In addition to suddenly being able to speak the Old Tongue, Mat now has memories from different times, most of which are violent and bloody.
In his room, Perrin is attacked by his own axe; he, Loial, Bain and Chiad struggle to fight it off. Egwene and Rand are attacked by multiple versions of Rand, which emerge from the mirrors. Nynaeve is attacked by a strange gray, corpse-like person while Mat stands nearby, mesmerized by the movement of pictures on his deck of cards. In another room, Moiraine and Lan listen to the screams and do nothing.
Loial is able to stop the axe and Rand shatters all the mirrors, but Nynaeve nearly dies before Lan, drawn by her cries, comes and kills the attacker. Mat snaps out of his reverie. Moiraine Heals Nynaeve.
Later Moiraine confronts Lanfear, who was behind the strange events, but Lanfear claims that Nynaeve’s attacker was a creature called a Gray Man, sent by Moghedien.
Rand decides he must leave the city, but many of his friends realize they can’t come with him. Perrin, Loial, Bain and Chiad are going to the Two Rivers, Nynaeve is returning to the White Tower and Mat is staying with her, while Egwene chooses to stay with Rand.
At the docks, Rand tells Moiraine and Lan that he isn’t going to Tear—he is going to the Aiel Waste.
Somewhere in a dark dungeon, Moghedien (Laia Costa) tortures a Whitecloak soldier. She tells him that he can be something other than Light or Dark—something gray. She forces him to ask to be gray, and then transforms him into a Gray Man.
Commentary
“To Race the Shadow” certainly starts off with a bang. The battle in the Hall of the White Tower is a really enjoyable watch. One of the gifts of the novels is the fact that all Aes Sedai are female, and it’s wonderful to watch an action scene that is almost entirely women. The fight between Liandrin, Alanna, Ihvon, and Maksim is particularly well-done, and the fact that there are physical weapons involved helps lend weight to the scene. Several times Liandrin is nearly defeated; she survives only because of the interference of her followers and the Healing performed by the Yellow Sister, leaving the audience on the very edge of their seat each time it seems that she might be defeated. Events culminate with Ihvon’s death and Alanna and Maksim’s grief, giving us a lot to key into even before we return to find out how things have changed for Rand and his friends since the events of Falme.
The battle also serves to return Liandrin to the status of important bad guy. One could almost have forgotten about her as more powerful Darkfriends like Ishamael and Lanfear came into play, and Liandrin does take orders from the Forsaken, after all. But in the fight in the Hall of the White Tower, she is framed as a leader to her followers in parallel to Siuan, commanding the same loyalty, shielded by their Power and their bodies when necessary, the first to receive Healing when injured.
We witness, in this opening conflict, the bonds of loyalty and devotion that exist within the halls of the White Tower: the devotion of Aes Sedai to their Amyrlin; of Warders to their Aes Sedai; and even of Black Aes Sedai to their own leaders. Nyomi’s betrayal of Verin is starkly contrasted with these displays of loyalty; she is the only Black Ajah member who (as far as we can see) is confronting a close friend. Not only does Nyomi betray and try to destroy Verin, and succeed in destroying the mind of Adeleas, she also goes out of her way to tell Verin that she has always resented their acquaintance. This is someone who Verin watched grow up, someone she trusted as much as she trusted her own sister; through Nyomi’s betrayal we understand just how personal and emotional the revelation of the Darkfriend Aes Sedai, so much more numerous than anyone seems to have anticipated, is. This is more than just a grave threat. It is also the revelation that some very close relationships and ties were, in fact, fraudulent. There are probably many sisters in the Tower who have just learned that someone they considered a dear friend was not their friend at all, but rather, a friend of the Dark.
One can’t help but contrast this scene with the conflict between Moiraine and Siuan in the previous season. Each felt betrayed by the other, each was trying to do what was right, what she felt she must, for the good of the world, but even though Moiraine was right and Siuan was making a mistake (from the audience’s point of view, that is), there was never any malice in either woman. The tragedy of the conflict was the fact that their personal desires were perfectly in line; each one simply interpreted her duty in a different way, and each wanted nothing more than for the other to understand.
Not so with Nyomi and Verin, and not so with the Black Aes Sedai who confronted Ihvon and Maksim trying to enter the Hall. When the Warders of Jeaine (Olivia Popica) are killed, she enjoys the feeling of their deaths, even revels in the sensation. Maksim and Alanna, on the other hand, are distraught at losing Ihvon, and we know from the previous seasons how profound their bond together was. These Black Ajah members are presented as the antithesis of everything we understand about the Aes Sedai, and it is a quite effective presentation.
I have to give credit to the writers for Ihvon’s death because it came as a surprise to me, and may have to other fans of the books. In the novels it is Owein, Alanna’s other Warder, who dies, and in a different scenario. I wondered if her plotline in the television show would include the death of a Warder, but assumed that it would be Maksim who died. In hindsight, however, Ihvon is the more interesting choice for the show. We know that he was Alanna’s Warder first, and that Maksim was drawn into the trio because he fell in love with Ihvon, and then grew to love Alanna afterwards. We also know that Maksim prefers to have his Bond with Alanna masked most of the time, except in battle, which is different from the way Lan or Ihvon experience their bonds.
In a way, therefore, Ihvon formed a connection between Alanna and Maksim, even as Alanna was the center of the literal Warder bond. Ihvon was also the most calm, stolid, and thoughtful of the three, while both Alanna and Maksim are playful and occasionally hot-headed. Without Ihvon, one can imagine an instability developing in Alanna and Maksim’s relationship, and expect they might struggle greatly with both their collective and their individual grief. This seems to be a theme the show explores in a different way each season. In the first, we saw Stepin lose his Aes Sedai, a loss so great and terrible that he eventually took his own life. In the second, Lan was cut off from Moiraine, who stopped confiding in him. Lan struggled to understand what it meant to be Moiraine’s Warder in that context, feeling left behind and abandoned. Now, in season three, we will see how the loss of Ihvon will affect both his Aes Sedai and also another Warder to whom he was connected.
However, the Aes Sedai are not the only ones to struggle with loss, betrayal, and grief. Rand, Perrin, Egwene, Mat, and Nynaeve spent a good portion of the last season apart; only in the eleventh hour were they able to find their way back to each other in time to prevent calamity. In the beginning of the episode they are resolute in their intention to stay together, to stay with Rand, no matter what, but circumstances conspire against them once again—and once again they are forced to separate. They don’t know that Moiraine (and Lanfear) are part of these circumstances, of course, but while the “fake” attack may have pushed Rand to make a decision, it’s hard to imagine any of the others choosing differently.
One does wonder, however, how quickly Moiraine’s little alliance with Lanfear will backfire, and whether the strife between her and Rand will grow.
The episode also introduces and re-introduces a lot of important information, and struggles as usual with the need to dump a lot of information quickly in a way that is clear to the audience. Mostly it succeeds, I think, but a viewer has to be quick, and have good ears, to catch it all. The existence of Callandor is one such piece of information that is dropped in several times, but the explanation is difficult to follow for those new to the story. The existence of the Thirteenth Depository introduces the concept of ter’angreal and sa’angreal, objects which allow a channeler to wield more of the One Power than they normally can. Egwene then explains why Moiraine wants Rand to obtain Callandor, the sword-that-is-not-a-sword, but is actually a powerful sa’angreal. Not only will it give Rand a weapon against the Forsaken, it is also part of the Prophecy of the Dragon that he will obtain Callandor. This same section of the Prophecy, which Loial reads out to Rand, mentions the People of the Dragon. Rand deduces that this a reference to an army, dedicated to him, and believes that the Aiel are meant to be such an army. Whether he is right, and whether this has anything to do with the Aiel prophecies of the car’a’carn, remains to be seen.
The Aiel’s belief in the car’a’carn is another detail that isn’t well explained to the audience. Aviendha told Perrin about her search for the car’a’carn, which is why she came to the wetlands, as the Aiel call the area west of their desert home. At some point in season two it was confirmed that she believed Rand was the car’a’carn, but I honestly can’t remember when, and wouldn’t expect anyone who hadn’t read the book to remember it either. A little bit of a reminder, and perhaps a clearer explanation, would go a long way, I think, especially for viewers who haven’t read the books.
On the other hand, I am ecstatic at how the show is treating Elayne and Aviendha’s relationship. The two are very close in the books, but they are not actually said to be romantically in love with each other, just as Moiraine and Siuan were not. However, many fans, myself included, feel that the writing continually suggests that their relationship is romantic and should be sexual as well, as was true for Moiraine and Siuan. It is very good to see this representation in the show. There are some lesbians in the Wheel of Time novels, but it is generally suggested that most sexual relationships between women are only to fill a temporary need, during times of strife or until a man is available. Having not just Moiraine and Siuan but also Elayne and Aviendha in true romantic and sexual relationships feels vindicating in many ways, as does Ihvon and Maksim’s relationship.
I am very excited to see more of Moghedien, and I like that the show has decided that she is responsible for the creation of the Gray Men. In the books, all the Shadowspawn—Trollocs, Myrddraal, gray men, and others—were created by one singular Forsaken. This change gives Moghedien a more active role to play, and fits with her identity as the “spider.” In the books she is called the spider by the other Forsaken because of her tendency to create complicated plots—her “webs”—and to watch from a distance as they ensnared her prey. But the show has taken that idea and made it more literal, showing how Moghedien’s weaves look like webs, and create a sort of webbing around her prisoner. Even her body language is somewhat reminiscent of an arachnid or insect, and I am truly enchanted by Costa’s performance.
Egwene’s journey in season three also promises to be an interesting one. She’s shown in this first episode to be harder, more determined, and stronger too, willing to stand up to Moiraine and Siuan and whoever else she needs to. Despite being plagued by nightmares, she faces her demons straight on, and even her costume speaks of how much she has changed as a person. The leather in her outfit does seem to suggest a nod to Renna and the outfits the Seanchan sul’dam wore—perhaps a reminder of the trauma that still haunts her, but also a reminder that she won out over Renna in the end, that Egwene’s will was stronger and, in some ways, she may feel that she has taken Renna’s place in that hierarchy. Egwene is no sul’dam, but she does outrank them.
Though small, one change I don’t particularly care for is the fact that in this episode, Lan gives Nynaeve his mother’s ring. In the novels it is the ring of the kings of Malkier, not her last queen, which I think carries more weight and is more symbolic of how Lan is willing to tie his identity to Nynaeve, to almost literally place it in her hands. As it is, the moment is cute but also a bit trite, the standard gifting of a family wedding ring that could occur in just about any clichéd love story.
The good news is that two more episodes have already dropped—join the discussions for episode two, “A Question of Crimson” and episode three, “Seeds of Shadow”.
Looking for more on The Wheel of Time? Find all of our episode recaps and discussions here, plus additional articles and news about the television series. You can also follow along with Sylas’ read-through of the books!
