Review of S1 E6 of The Wheel of Time, “The Flame of Tar Valon.” Spoilers for the episode and light spoilers for the books.

My previous reviews showed the ways in which certain characters have veered away from their book counterparts. In this episode, the divergence between the books and the show widens, and on a larger scale. We are getting the same places, people, parties, and prophecies, but oftentimes in name only. The meanings of these elements differs greatly. To quote Brandon Sanderson, the show is definitely “another turning of the Wheel.” It is trying to decide if it wants to stay faithful to the books, go in a Game of Thrones direction, or become a vehicle for something else.

The showrunner was asked in an interview if he has plans to update the “rigid” gender binary, or fix other “troubling” aspects of the books. And indeed he does:

“I’m a feminist and it’s very important to me that the show is feminist in today’s context. So a lot of those things will be changing.”

––Rafe Judkins

What’s always been true about the Wheel of Time is the important roles that women play. Since men are unable to use the male half of the One Power safely, only women are magic users. The Aes Sedai society is for women only, so they literally have a monopoly on (magical) power. As well, they hold vast influence over kings and queens. It’s often been said that the Wheel of Time is a matriarchal world. So the important point about Judkins’ comment is the phrase “in today’s context.” As we’ll see in this episode, he has a very different definition of feminism than series author Robert Jordan did.

In short: oversexualized and all-powerful, to the detriment of all others. A zero sum game.

Which brings us to one of the core changes brought about through this episode: the elevation of Moiraine as the central character. In the books, she is essentially Gandalf: a mysterious sorcerer sent to a lonely village to rescue several young people from monsters, then take them on a journey. She’s the assistant to the hero, not the hero herself. Of course, she does many heroic and awesome things, and in the first book she indeed drives much of the plot forward. But she’s not in the spotlight.

Episode 6, by contrast, shines such a bright light on Moiraine that many odd shadows are formed. A few examples of changes to her character for the show:

• She is denied platonic friendships with other women, and is simultaneously turned into an object of desire.
• She heals Mat of the dagger’s curse, alone; whereas in the books the healing requires a full circle of Aes Sedai.
• She alone is given the clue about the Eye of the World, through Siuan, instead of gathering multiple clues from others.
• She opens the Waygate, through channeling, rather than using the Avendesora leaf key, which reduces Loial’s importance.

And being the central character, a number of other plot threads were created for her to drive conflict. But these threads, as interesting as they could have been, were not woven together coherently. So in the end, this new portrayal of Moiraine turns her into someone not only unrecognizable, but unsympathetic. But before we go into more detail, let’s cover the positive aspects.

CHEERS

As much as I don’t like the story implications to the dagger curse healing scene, it was really awesome to watch. In the book, this (initial) use of Healing to (partially) remove the curse is done behind closed doors. We don’t get to see the process of Mat being healed, only the after effects. So getting to see the visuals involved was amazing. Quite like what I imagine an exorcism would look like, if you were able to peer into the spiritual world.

It was neat to see Siuan using the Power as a young girl to help her dad. We’re also introduced to the Tairen society, where channeling is verboten. The Wheel of Time is a world with many different attitudes towards magic, so it’s good we’re seeing some different perspectives. And though this wasn’t explained, we see it symbolized on the door to Siuan’s burned down house: the Dragon’s Fang (essentially the dark half of the yin-yang). It’s how suspected Darkfriends (or anyone targeted for harassment) are called out. Some people conflate channeling ability with allegiance to the Shadow.

When we move back into the present, there are some great moments between Nynaeve and Moiraine and Siuan. Nynaeve never worries about speaking her mind, but is subsequently put in her place. She is a strong character but her strength often gives way to pride and arrogance. Her portrayal is fairly spot-on.

Loial is also so much fun to watch on screen. I wish I could have Loial lead a book club for me and my friends.

We learn about the secret mission Siuan and Moiraine have been on this whole time. Siuan even does a head-fake in her inquisition of Moiraine before the other sisters to further keep it a secret. This is a good element we’re getting to see, that the two of them are in a politically dangerous situation. They can’t allow the Dragon Reborn to fall into the hands of the Red sisters and be gentled. But to keep his existence a secret is borderline betrayal of the entire Aes Sedai society. This is a very complex situation and it’s what makes the story exciting.

Siuan has a great line in the midst of all this: “Our laws don’t exist for our comfort, but to protect others from us.” It has echoes of Spiderman’s famous line: “With great power comes great responsibility.”

At the end, I loved Perrin’s line to Mat: “At least I wasn’t stupid enough to steal an evil dagger.” This kind of banter between the Two Rivers boys is the soul of the entire series. They are good friends who got dragged into terrible danger.

GROANS

I have a lot more to go through in this category, so saddle up!

Siuan’s father sent her to Tar Valon by herself? Even after she pleaded with him to go with her? What kind of a father does that? Also, why do they have tattoos? That’s a tradition among the Sea Folk, not those from Tear. And how is Siuan supposed to navigate a small unpowered fishing upstream, hundreds of miles? This is way too comical and unbelievable as a tragic backstory.

There’s no sense of scale within the Tower, both in terms of architecture and population. No ships in the harbor or on the water. All the rooms look the same. It feels like a set. Even the Hall, with its multiple floors, has no onlookers.

The Tower Hall session felt awkward. No one was wearing a shawl, despite the Amyrlin mentioning, “When you took up the shawl,” to Liandrin. Instead, we get color-coded dresses, which is a bit insulting to the audience. Aes Sedai are supposed to have color-coded shawls to signify their Ajah, and then dresses that are particular to their original cultures.

Also, why are some of the Sisters wearing hijabs? (This is a belated groan.) Is it because the actress is Muslim? Or is Islam supposed to exist in this world? Or is the show borrowing from Islamic culture? Perhaps it’s the latter, but the social messaging being done about this show makes me think it’s one of the former possibilities. It’s all extremely weird, because this is a world without any kind of monotheism. There is a Creator God, but he is uninvolved with human history, so it’s a deist system. It would be just as strange to see a Crucifix or Star of David.

I don’t buy the drama that Liandrin stirred up about Moiraine’s travels, that it would cause this big of a fuss, and Moiraine would have no good answers. The whole scene comes across like a high school cafeteria.

Logain as a weepy, pathetic mess. I mean, it’s basically par for the course for gentled men to dissolve. But that’s not really how Logain handled it. He doesn’t disappear quietly. That’s why he’s a fascinating character. The version we get of him here is shameful.

Everyone is hot for Moiraine. She is not portrayed at all as a sexy character in the books. 

On-screen nudity. Yes, there’s public baths in the books, but there’s usually no graphic detail. This is once again exploitation of the actors. There is never a need to show an actress naked. A friend of mine quit the show because of this unnecessary scene. 

No Aes Sedai in this age can Travel (teleport) because that Talent (ability) has been lost since the Age of Legends (3,000 years ago). Unless the painting is what gave Moiraine the ability to teleport somewhere, in which case it would be a magical item called a Ter’Angreal, which hasn’t been explained at all. But there weren’t any Ter’Angreal known to the Aes Sedai that allow for Traveling.

So the other possibility is that the painting didn’t teleport them somewhere else in the real world, but to Tel’aran’rhiod, the World of Dreams. If so, why didn’t they go to sleep beforehand, and then later went to sleep when they were together? It would have to be because they went to the dream world by physically transporting their bodies there. But doing so is explained as extremely dangerous in the books, as it erases part of your humanity.

Regardless of where they went and how, they’re seriously using this teleporting ability for a hook-up, rather than to accomplish their mission? Worse, why would they later use the extremely dangerous Ways to get to the Eye of the World?

Now, Moiraine and Siuan did have same-sex encounters, for a time, only when they were younger, and they later ended it. (They are described as “pillow friends” in New Spring, the prequel to The Eye of the World.) This was never explicitly on the page, and later on in the books they both end up with men. This change (into them having an ongoing lesbian romance) ignores not only the future development of these characters as seen in the books, it erases what the series author himself has said. From his notes:

“Moiraine was novice and Accepted with Siuan; they arrived on the same day, not a usual thing, and even more unusually, were raised Aes Sedai on the same day. She and Siuan became very close friends. As was common with a good many friendships in the cloistered society of novices, Siuan and Moiraine turned to one another more and more for comfort, and they eventually became pillow friends, continuing up to the time they were raised Aes Sedai and to some extent for a time thereafter. Neither was lesbian; they were simply young women with normal libidos in a situation where they were cut off from the opposite sex.”

—WoT Companion p.497

Setting aside the retconning, they certainly take their time getting on-topic: finding the Dragon Reborn. But we once again get the nonsensical idea of a Gender-neutral Dragon. Or a multi-headed Dragon. Both of which break the reincarnation mechanism of the Wheel. This isn’t simply an adaptation, it’s a canon change. Meaning it’s now a different story world. I’ve taken to calling this show a “Portal Stone world,” which is a term from Book 2, The Great Hunt.

A small nitpick about this scene: there is no in-world sense of a dragon as a creature. It’s only used as the title of a man: Lews Therin Telamon. So to even talk about a gleeman’s tale (prophecy?) of a five-headed dragon is nonsense to the characters in this world. 

We hear about the Eye of the World from a dream Siuan had, rather than the more interesting ways in the book, ex: Jain Farstrider at a stedding, a Tinker in the Aiel Waste, and Ba’alzamon (aka Ishamael, the main with fiery eyes) mentioning it to Rand in his dreams. That reminds me, Ba’alzamon has not spoken once in any of their dreams. That’s a huge thing they cut in favor of whatever else.

Why did Siuan require Moiraine to swear an oath of exile on the Oath Rod? This is actually quite tyrannical. It’s something that other Amyrlins in the books get in deep trouble for. Plus there’s the fact that Moiraine’s punishment in no way fits the “crime” that she’s supposedly guilty of. How did Moiraine know the exact lines that Siuan’s father said to her? Why would she essentially confess her love to Siuan in front of everyone else? Wouldn’t that betray the secret relationship they have?

Why did Moiraine keep the Emond’s Fielders away from each other? Why didn’t they react to that?

The Ways are not supposed to be operated by channeling, but by moving an Avendesora leaf. Loial had no active role in this episode at all. In the book, he leads the party to the Waygate and tells them how it works. Now that the show is establishing that channeling is required to open the Waygate, it means that Ogier have never been able to use the Ways on their own. That is a massive change that creates tons of domino issues. It’s a perfect example of the show “fixing” something that is not a problem, thereby creating actual problems. And all for what…an awesome moment of Moiraine channeling? Elevating her importance artificially?

Btw, this is what the Waygate is supposed to look like:

In the book, they also take their horses with them into the Ways, along with an extra packhorse with pole lanterns. That’s kind of minor, and probably due to filming constraints, so I’ll let it slide.

There’s no setup, however––at all––for why they need to take the Ways. In the book, it’s because Trollocs have them surrounded (in Caemlyn), and three separate accounts have mentioned the Eye, so there’s double urgency. But in the show, the Shadowspawn have effectively disappeared, as have the Darkfriends. But since the main party can’t remain in Tar Valon, something has to propel them outward. Cue the contrived conflict around Moiraine.

The Dark One is not imprisoned at the Eye of the World. There’s no setup at all for what the Eye is. Way too rushed. Mat doesn’t stay behind in the book. These are all major changes. I understand Mat’s actor left the show and is being replaced. But they could have just said he has to stay behind at the Tower to get fully healed from the dagger. Not chicken out.

Overall the show is getting too dark and taking itself too seriously. Worst of all, it is artificially elevating Moiraine to such a degree that all the oxygen is sucked out of the room for the other characters. They are merely Moiraine’s accessories that have no motivations of their own, and rarely do anything. They’re just boring sidekicks.

Is all of this what feminism “in today’s context” is supposed to look like? More importantly, is this kind of ideological foundation supporting a good story?

RAMBLINGS

Logain says if a man had tried a thousand years ago to challenge Tar Valon, he would have been killed. But that’s what Artur Hawkwing did. I’m not sure if that is the show trying to shoehorn in a clever reference, or being oblivious to the canon.

What dropped out of Moiraine’s towel in the bathroom?

What happened to the dagger? It was literally swept under the rug.

I can’t tell if this episode wants me to like or dislike Siuan. It tries to paint her as sympathetic, but also as authoritarian.

Moiraine’s talk about the Prophecies of the Dragon being “translated again and again,” her doubts about veracity, her willingness to consider other bizarre theories…all of this put together reveals another ideological underpinning of the show: postmodernism.

It looks like there was supposed to be a scene (pictured below) with Loial showing the path to the Waygate, like he did in Caemlyn in the book. But guess that scene got cut. Poor Loial is getting sidelined left and right.

THEORIES

Maigan will get captured by whoever is disappearing all the ships.

Liandrin’s man in the north harbor is either a Dreadlord (a Darkfriend who can channel), a Forsaken, or Padan Fain. I’m leaning towards it being Fain, and theorize that he and Liandrin will kidnap Mat and go through the Ways together (because now Fain can’t open the Waygate himself; it requires channeling). Or else Fain will just get Mat’s dagger and run. Except, that would only be part of what is supposed to happen next.

Moiraine being exiled further weakens the Blue Ajah. Liandrin senses weakness and will attack. She’s going to be merged with Elaida and will carry out those same maneuvers, which creates huge canon problems. Liandrin and Elaida are two entirely different people.