Review of S1 E4 of The Wheel of Time, “The Dragon Reborn.” Spoilers for the episode and light spoilers for the books.

We got a wizard battle in this episode! And more than just fighting, we saw many other uses of the One Power: healing, shielding, silencing, and alerting. There is great depth to how channeling is used in the books so it was cool to see some of that on the screen. This is what sets WOT’s magic apart from the Force in Star Wars.

We also see that not all Aes Sedai are alike. They have different color-coded societies, called Ajahs (see below). There are a variety of personalities, as portrayed by Kerene, Alana, and Liandrin––all very different from Moiraine. And there’s different political factions and conflicts. All of which puts Moiraine between a rock and a hard place: she wants to find the Dragon Reborn, and what if it’s Logain? Does she free him?

This sets up what is often a central theme of Wheel of Time: good versus good.

All throughout these books, there are different characters, groups, or nations that believe they are serving the Light and fighting the Shadow. The only problem is…they disagree about how to do this. So they fight each other, often leading to tragedy. And this happens time and again within the White Tower, the organization of the Aes Sedai.

Here’s a simple way to break down the Ajah system:

• Reds are enforcers
• Yellows are doctors
• Greens are soldiers
• Blues are activists
• Browns are researchers
• Greys are mediators
• Whites are philosophers

CHEERS

All the ways the One Power was used. Gorgeous SFX. Gives me a lot of hope for how this series will play out on screen, because channeling is a central feature to the story. The way the arrows were stopped, soldiers were blown up, Logain broke free and turned those axes into shrapnel, the way the sisters linked and gentled him…all of it was spectacular to watch.

You immediately understand from body language alone that the Red Ajah don’t like anyone, and everyone dislikes them back.

Logain’s backstory, and how he got the king of Ghealdan to swear fealty to him. This has echoes of how the (real) Dragon Reborn gains the allegiances of kings in the books. Seeing Ghealdan was really cool, too, because it’s barely explored in the books. Seeing the madness visualized as voices whispering to him, which he mistakes for past Dragons, was effective and creepy as heck. We only see him at a distance in Book 1, so it was great to have this extended time with him, which stays pretty consistent to book-canon. And bookending the episode with his rise and fall was fantastic storytelling.

Smart use of Kerene (a minor character who was killed off-screen in the books) to help us understand certain details about the Aes Sedai.

The extended time we got to spend with the Tinkers (aka Traveling People / Tu’athan). They are an honest portrayal of a pacifist society, and essentially a “steelman argument” for non-violence. Obviously this story is an epic fantasy so there’s going to be tons of battles. But I actually appreciate that in the middle of this, the story has you look in the mirror and examine violence itself.

Robert Jordan was a Vietnam vet, after all, so he’s certainly given plenty of thought to the matter. Perrin is Jordan’s conscience as it pertains to violence, and it’s punctuated by Ila’s speech about the Way of the Leaf: “What greater revenge against violence than peace? What greater revenge against death than life?” It’s a genuine longing, albeit one that will only ever be made true in Christ. For he is the one who will “turn swords into plowshares.”

By contrast, it was incredible to see all the scenes with the Warders: practicing, joking around, and fighting. For anyone worried that Wheel of Time is overall negative towards men, I present these characters to you. Lan getting ribbed by other Warders was hilarious. As readers, we always put Lan on a pedestal of awesomeness. But to other Warders, he’s just another dude.

Thom’s explanation to Rand about how the One Power became corrupted, combined with all the scenes where we see Logain’s madness personified. Excellent balance of showing and telling. Moiraine’s warning to Liandrin about not “burning out.” All of this provides enough detail for you to understand the basics of the One Power and want to know more. The magic in this world is fraught with peril.

Lan and Nynaeve. Every interaction between them is gold, even though it’s all show-canon. It’s a good expression of how their relationship develops. Their subtle teasing of each other. The flash of jealousy and confusion when Lan retires to Moiraine’s tent. Her curiosity about his prayers and backstory. Him teaching her the Old Tongue. Her holding back her feelings. Him standing in front of her when the arrows are launched. Her fury at him dying.

The battle between the Aes Sedai Logain and his army isn’t shown in the books; we only ever see him as a defeated foe. At some point, the Aes Sedai had fought him and even lost some of their number, and so it’s much more fun to see this on screen, than to merely hear about it in the past tense. Moiraine wasn’t involved with that, but canon-wise nothing changes by her being there. And we as the viewer are a lot more invested in this sequence of events by having our main characters there. So overall, that was a win.

There’s a great line in Book 1: “Logain was a king in every inch of him. The cage might as well not have been there.” And that was perfectly portrayed in this episode. And WOW! That ending scene where he breaks free and then gets gentled. What a powerful sequence.

GROANS

Still no Elyas, and no wolves this time either.

It’s confusing that when Logain channels, there are both black and white threads, but with Aes Sedai there are only white ones. When we first saw Moiraine channel in Ep 1, I assumed white was the color of saidar. And so with Logain I assumed his channeling threads would be black, for saidin. (Saidin and saidar are the black and white counterparts in the “ying-yang” like symbol in Wheel of Time.) But the visuals make it seem like the show is saying that both men and women use the same undivided Power, and the black tendrils are the Dark One’s taint on the True Source. That is not the canon.

Logain should not have been able to see Nynaeve using saidar.

It’s frustrating that they still haven’t even used the words saidin and saidar. The episode clearly shows us why men are not supposed to channel the One Power, but without the finer details, we are left to wonder whether the problem is with men, rather than saidin. Thom almost made it sound like the entire One Power was corrupted, and yet women somehow have a special ability to use it. Whereas the canon is that the One Power is gendered (because souls are gendered), and it’s the male half that is corrupted. This is an important difference. Because otherwise it would mean that the Dark One’s corruption lies on the Y chromosome, or the male gender identity.

The synchronized hand motions when they gentled Logain were awkward.

Yes, in the books, Aes Sedai and their Warders often share a bed. And Green sisters usually have more than one Warder. And yes, Alana is known for polyamory. I don’t remember her Warders being bisexual, though. Pretty sure that was retconned. I’m also giving a groan for the polyamory, although to be fair, that is the show being true to the books. But this is sort of an overall groan here about how show is fine with preserving some sexuality and gender details, but feels at liberty to change others. Notice how that always goes in one direction?

Again, we get the ambiguity about the Dragon Reborn’s gender, which is never a thing in the books. Between this and the lack of clarity about how the Dark One’s curse is on saidin, the show canon is running the danger of unweaving the Pattern. It’s flirting with the idea that a soul is not gendered, and so the soul of the Dragon Reborn could be reincarnated either as a man or a woman. There’s only one time we see something remotely like this happening in the books: when the Dark One reincarnates a bad guy into a woman’s body. And importantly, that particular person thinks of himself as a man. He doesn’t ever believe he’s female, and he channels with saidin as before.

A system where souls are un-gendered has nothing to do with the books and everything to do with modern, gnostic gender theories. This kind of ideological colonization would be terrible for the story, because there are countless aspects to the canon that depend on gendered souls and a gendered magic system. The show has been presented as “a new turning of the Wheel.” But this kind of fundamental change would be akin to an entirely new Wheel.

In my opinion, this purposeful ambiguity is more than just for the purpose of holding the viewer in suspense. It is a politically-oriented calculus, because “this is 2021 so of course audiences won’t accept that the Chosen One has to be male.” And yet, we just saw DUNE blow that sentiment out of the water (or sand). The massive success of that movie, which unapologetically features a male messiah figure, tells us that audiences are not as sensitive about these gender concerns as certain screenwriters think.

The show needs to have more courage in staying true to the books. Because Robert Jordan has said explicitly: “The soul of the Dragon Reborn is always going to be male.”

RAMBLINGS

“Nothing is more dangerous than a man who knows the past,” says Thom. This is a reoccurring theme in Live Not by Lies, by Rod Dreher. He chronicles how totalitarian regimes are always in the business of wiping out history or re-writing it. They destroy culture and atomize individuals so they can be swept up in collectivistic movements. But it’s always the men and women and families who hang onto the past—who remember life before—that were the most resistant to communist takeovers. That is the true importance of a gleeman, both in the WOT world and our world today.

At first, I thought the Shadar Logoth curse on Mat (passed to him by the dagger) had caused him to kill that family, but looks like it was the Fade’s doing. (It took a second viewing to notice that the Fade’s sword was bloody, whereas Mat’s dagger was clean.) Still, the image of him standing over an entire dead family sure does bring up the reference to the Dragon being Kinslayer. We as the viewer, however, know that his weird behavioral changes are not from the madness of channeling, but from the “hitchhiker effect” of Shadar Logoth.

Mat’s uncanny ability to sense the Fade points to another meta theme in the story: evil vs. evil. Shadar Logoth came to its doom because it hated evil more than anything else. There are a lot of evil vs. evil scenes on a smaller scale in WOT. I remember this kind of dynamic being pointed out in the Left Behind series. Wheel of Time excels with multi-factional conflict.

Rand doesn’t know the Shadar Logoth knife is what is making Mat act weird, because he doesn’t even know Mat took the knife. So that’s why Thom convinced Rand that Mat is a male channeler. It’s a good misdirection.

Nynaeve being the short-term fulfillment of what Moiraine said about the Dragon being like the “raging sun” was another clever red herring. But she’s not the Dragon Reborn, because the Dragon is a man. Her spontaneous channeling that Healed everyone was pretty cool though. There is a similar moment to this in the books but I can’t remember it offhand. The important thing here is the fact of the spontaneous channeling itself: yes, this is consistent with book-canon. It’s often how someone first learns to channel, by some act of desperation. IOW it’s not the same as Rey instantly and expertly knowing how to use the Force. Nynaeve will still require training, and she has a limitation for a while that she can only channel when angry. This event is simply the “spark” of her channeling ability waking up.

What Egwene experienced with Moiraine in Episode 2 was guided channeling, in contrast. And there was a brief mention between Lan and Moiraine about how powerful Egwene could be with the One Power. She’s a super important character to the entire story so I’m glad they’re planting seeds about that now.

“I don’t think the Dark One has any more idea who the Dragon Reborn is than we do,” says Moiraine. Except he does. Only Rand, Mat, and Perrin have had the nightmares. He’s at least narrowed it down that far.

“In the last Age, our people supposedly knew a song that brought harmony to the world,” says Aram. Confirmed: Wheel of Time takes place on a future Earth, millenia after Bill and Ted—the Wyld Stallions—brought peace to the world with their music.

THEORIES

It’s funny now that we’ve heard Baerlon and now Whitebridge get mentioned, but our gang hasn’t visited either. And at halfway through this season, I doubt we will. But we’ve now had important events that took place at both cities transposed into new locations, including Thom sacrificing himself to let the boys get away. So I’m pretty sure we won’t go to either of those towns.

Mat being given the Birgitte doll was just lovely foreshadowing. I wonder if we’ll get a glimpse of her this season?

Perrin using a hammer, both in Rand’s nightmare, and in the Tinker camp—another great foreshadowing. Perhaps we’ll see him pick up the hammer in this season, coupled with Aram’s (self prophecied) departure from the Tinkers. They are an interesting pair of contrasts in the books: one who exchanges the axe for the hammer, and one who exchanges the leaf for the sword.

Spontaneous channeling usually comes with a cost, called “channeling sickness,” which we should see in the next episode with Nynaeve. Be looking for this with other characters, too.