Let's get this wheel rolling!
So, on November 19, 2021, the Wheel
of Time is set to premier on Amazon Prime. The series is the adaptation of the
Wheel of Time books, written by the late, great, James Rigney Jr., better known
by his pen name, Robert Jordan. This series is one of my all-time favorites,
and I’ve been excited for this adaptation since it was announced back in 2019. It’s
a story about fate, good facing and overcoming evil, of grand places, of
ancient mysteries and curses, of heroes, villains and those everyday people they
meet and influence on the way. It’s brilliant stuff. But the lore can be a bit…
dense. Jordan created a massive world with a lot of history, most of it fed piecemeal
throughout the books, and I think making the story a little less approachable to
people who aren’t okay with being confused when they start a story. So, I
figured I could feed my own hype by giving a brief history of the history of
the world and doing character profiles for the five main protagonists, to give
those people a peek at the world awaiting them. Oh, and talking about the
monsters, the Shadowspawn, because they’re really neat monsters. I’ll be
getting into spoiler territory, so if you want to go into this completely
blind, feel free to skip my post this month and come back in November when the
show premiers. Let’s get to it.
The classic cover, start of a
grand adventure.
The Wheel of Time was written by Robert
Jordan between 1990-2007, completing 11 main novels and one prequel. He
unfortunately passed due to a cardiac amyloidosis in September 2007. Thankfully,
Robert Jordan had taken an insane number of notes, and his editor and wife
Harriet McDougal hired Brandon Sanderson (writer of the Mistborn, and Elantris,
then, and later the Stormlight Archive novels to name a few) to finish the series.
He took Robert Jordan’s planned final novel, A Memory of Light and broke it
down into three novels, a Gathering Storm, The Towers of Midnight and A Memory
of Light. McDougal and Jordan’s other editors believe they’d have convinced Jordan
to go this route eventually, as even when split into 1/3rds it’s a beefy story.
In total, the Wheel of Time is composed of fourteen novels and one prequel, and
is longer than the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Hobbit, the Silmarillion,
Harry Potter series, War and Peace, the King James Bible, and all 5 published A
Song of Ice and Fire novels combined. Yeah, WoT is 4,900,036 words, and all those
other series are 4,897,222 words. I have a degree in English and even for me that’s
a whole lot of words. Final fun fact, the first two novels, The Eye of the
World and The Great Hunt were published in January and November of 1990, and
yours truly came into this world in December of that year. Yes, the fact the
books have hit their 31st anniversary hurts me.
So… let’s talk about the universe
of the Wheel of Time. WoT takes place on Earth, in the far future… but it’s
also in the ancient past. See, as the name implies, time in this universe is
cyclical. Move far enough down the line of history in the Wheel of Time, and
you’ll end up right back where you started. Jordan explains in additional material
and in interviews that in his universe, Earth has seven distinct Ages. It’s
said that the different “spokes” of the Wheel vary in length, some being hundreds
or thousands of years, others longer. The series takes place in what some would
call the Third Age, the nearly forgotten but often lauded Age of Legends is considered
the Second Age, and we’re living in what they’d call the First. Each of the
novels start with this line “The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass,
leaving memories that become Legend. Legend becomes myth, and even myth is long
forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again,” which I think sums up
the concept best. It’s a very interesting concept, as Jordan has it set up that
the myths and legends of our time are the almost completely forgotten recollections
of the events of the story, and the stories myths and legends are the almost
completely forgotten of the events of our time. For example, the story makes
several references to Lenn, a man who traveled to the moon in the belly of an
eagle made of fire. Now, Jordan stated that this was a reference to a real-world
event. Namely, astronaut John Glenn, who traveled to space and was the first American
to orbit the earth in the Lunar Module aka Eagle. Bonkers, right? Also, the
story goes that Glenn had a copy of the Eye of the World, with a signature and note
from Jordan that he kept until his death. It is really sweet, to me, anyway.
But yeah, there are a lot of stories like that, stories that convey some idea
of the past but get sooo many things wrong.
Ancient Symbol of Aes Sedai. Yes, it is just a
yin-yang without the smaller black and white
circles.
The Magic system of the Wheel of
Time is really important. Magic users are called Channelers, they tap into the True
Source, a metaphysical energy source that is said to turn the very Wheel of
Time, and use the One Power to “weave” magic. The One Power is broken up into two
parts, split into a gender binary. Which isn’t great, but I think I’ll go into
detail about the problems and possible solutions to this system in another
post. Anyway, True Source, One Power, which is then split into two parts. These
parts are called Saidin, a raging power that men need to seize and dominate to
use, and Saidar, a great power that women need to embrace and succumb to, to
use. Yes, gender stereotyped too, and that is also not good. The two powers can
also be broken down further into five parts, Wind/Air, Water, Fire, Earth and
Spirit. Tapping into the power has some fringe benefits, extending the lives of
Channelers for hundreds of years, enhancing their senses while connected to it,
and obviously giving them magic powers. The magic has a ton of uses, from
making fireballs, creating complex illusions, eavesdropping and blocking said
eavesdropping. Channelers can enhance their powers with objects called Angreal,
and Sa’Angreal. These are devices that allow them to draw in and channel more of
the power than they could unadded. Angreal are the more common variety and
boost the channeler’s strength a moderate amount, Sa’Angreal are rarer and more
powerful. There are also ter’angreal, devices that use the Power for various
effects and tasks. Example, there is eventually revealed to be a statue of a
bearded man (modeled after Robert Jordan’s himself) that, when channeled into,
has entire library of information stored in it. Get it? Got it? Good.
So now that you know about the
cosmology and the magic system, let’s talk history. While the story takes place
in the Third Age, the Second Age aka the Age of Legends is very important to
how events in the Third unfolded. Not much is known about the AoL, but details
are sprinkled into the novels to give us an idea. And here that idea is. The
Age of Legends was a paradise by both our current and the Third Age standard.
The world was united in a single government, humans lived long, happy lives,
and the Channelers, called the Aes Sedai, Old Tongue for Servants of All, used
their powers to make wonders for the average citizen. It’s also implied at one
point that we were colonizing space, but that’s not really fully explained. And
while things were undeniably good, there were a few problems, like rising
crime, and a building energy crisis. A group of researchers, though, had potentially
found a solution to the energy crisis. Lead by a researcher named Mierin Eronaile,
they discovered an alternative energy source. It exists outside the Pattern,
their term for the Fabric of Reality, but tests suggested that men and women could
channel it equally and with as much precision as the One Power. They developed
the Bore, a device that let them punch a hole in reality. Unfortunately, the power
they detected wasn’t the only thing out there.
Topographical map of the Westlands.
As it turns out, the power they detected
was the energy of a being of pure evil, Shai’tan, the Dark One. His power was
indeed potent, but the Dark One didn’t hand out this power to just ANYONE, he
only parcels it out to those who serve him well and best. Also, believe it or
not, releasing a sentient, personified force of evil led to a global war. Well,
it did eventually. Immediately after the Bore was opened, the only difference
was that the building in which it was set up was destroyed. But for the next
century or so afterwards, tension and anger began to build and build, pain and
suffering increased until people were openly declaring themselves as servants
of the Dark One. And so, the battle began. On one side were the humans that served
the Dark One, and the Aes Sedai that followed him, later dubbed the Chosen by
the followers of the Dark one and the Forsaken by everyone else. The Forsaken
also created genetic monstrosities, terrors to bolster their forces. Trollocs,
giant chimeric mixes of human and animals, Myrddraal, sickly white, eyeless
horrors that lead the Trollocs, and Drahgkar, enormous humanoid bats that can
eat souls, were the most prominent of the Shadowspawn. On the other side were
the Forces of the Light, made up of humans, their giant humanoid allies the
Ogier, the good Aes Sedai, and were led by the most celebrated man of the age,
Lews Therin Telamon, he who they dubbed The Dragon.
The War of the Shadow (or War of
Power) as it was dubbed raged for ten years. While Lews and his allies put up a
valiant effort, they were suffering heavy losses to the forces of the Shadow.
But the forces of the Shadow also suffered losses. The Forsaken, a group that
once numbered in the dozens if not hundreds were whittled down to just thirteen.
Some of this was the cost of war, though it’s implied a large percentage were
also killed by other Forsaken. The Dark One embraced a “survival of the fittest”
mentality with its followers. Unfortunately, these were the thirteen most
dangerous. There were (the men) Aginor, Balthamel, Bel’al, Demandred, Sammael,
Asmodean, Ravhin, (the women) Moghedian, Graendal, Mesaana, Lanfear, and Semirhage.
And they were led by Ishammael, a former friend of Lews and once beloved
philosopher. Ishammael was said to be nearly equal in power to Lews himself,
and that was before the Dark One began channeling its own power through him. Demandred,
Sammael, and Bel’al were also former friends of Lews that betrayed the force of
the Light, and Lanfear was Lews ex-girlfriend. The other eight members didn’t
have a personal beef with Lews, but joined the forces of evil for their own
personal benefit and a belief that they might rule the new world. So, a weird
mix of frenemies and just regular enemies.
Nation map of Westlands.
The war raging, the forces of Light
had two plans to finally stop the Forces of the Shadow. One side wished to complete
the Choedan Kal, a pair of massive Sa’Angreal, that the Aes Sedai hoped could
overwhelm the force of the Shadow. The other, backed by Lews, was to use seven
seals to force the Dark One back out of the pattern. The Seals would use seven
disks made of the nigh unbreakable Cuendillar metal as focal points for the
seals. Cuendillar, also called heartstone, is a magically created metal that is
unbreakable by conventional means, and channeling at it only makes it stronger.
While time was running out, the two sides continued to buttheads over what
would be the correct course of action. Lews decided he was tired of waiting, so
took his 100 Companions and launched a full attack on the heart of the forces
of the Shadow, Shayol Ghul. Lews thankfully caught the Forsaken during a
meeting with their master, and trapped them all behind his seals. Unfortunately,
there were consequences.
As Lews used the Power to seal the
leaders of the Shadow away, the Dark One reached out, touching Saidin through
Lews. The Dark One’s touch tainted Saidin, fouling the male half of the True
Source. This had several side effects, but the important one right now, is that
it drove all male channelers insane.
The first novel actually begins
with a mad Lews, wandering around his destroyed home, surrounded by the corpses
of his friends, children and grandchildren; calling out for his wife. His wife,
Ilyena, lay dead at his feet. A man in black joins him in his broken home,
looking to gloat. Unfortunately for the man in black, it’s just not fun gloating
to a guy that has no idea what is going on. Using the power of the Dark One, he
heals Lews mind enough to gloat. After a painful purging of the taint from his
mind, Lews sees Ilyena at his feet and howls with the unimaginable sorrow of
one who had lost everything. After finding his beloved dead and their family slaughtered,
and learning that he was the one that did it, Lews made a Gateway and Traveled
to a nearby plain. There, he drew on more of the Power than he could channel
safely, killing himself and causing a volcano to raise to mark his grave. It also
caused a nearby river to divert, forming an island in the middle of the rivers
flow.
Over the next several years, Male Channelers,
driven mad by the taint, used their power to reshape the land. Sinking
continents, leveling mountains, raising new mountains up, and generally throwing
the world into tumult. Eventually, the female Aes Sedai were able to stop their
male counterparts… that or they died from a wasting sickness the Taint creates.
With the help of Ogier stonemasons, the Aes Sedai built a new headquarters on
that island that Lews created by accident. The White Tower, the symbol of Aes
Sedai power built beneath the Shadow of Lews volcano, dubbed Dragonmount, on the
island of Tar Valon.
 |
| Gateway to Adventure! |
As time marched on, nations rose
and fell. As humanity tried to rebuild, a thousand years after “the Breaking” as
it was dubbed, an army of Trollocs, lead by their human Dreadlord masters,
ravaged across the world for a hundred years, killing countless people before
being forced back to the Great Blight in the North. A thousand years after
that, came the rise of Artur Paendrag Tanreall, Artur Hawkwing. Hawkwing conquered
almost the entirety of the known world, known as the Westlands at this point.
All save the White Tower and the nation the city state that formed around it,
Tar Valon. Hawkwing waged a two-decade siege on Tar Valon, trying to bring the
Aes Sedai to heel beneath him. He also sent a large army and two of his sons
across the Aryth Ocean, believed to be an impassable ocean, to conquer the
lands that might exist beyond. A year after, though, Hawkwing died, with no designated
heir. He could have been saved by a Aes Sedai healer, but he refused, and had
the advisors that suggest he get one executed. Dude had some issues with Aes
Sedai. His death led to civil war, the fracturing on his united land and the
creation of many smaller nations.
Between the Breaking and the start
of series, a set of prophecies called the Kareathon Cycle, or the Cycle of the
Dragon, were written. These prophecies foretold the rebirth and rise of Lews
Therin’s reincarnation, the Dragon Reborn. These prophecies, often vague and metaphoric,
have a few concrete signs. One, was that the nation of Tear’s great fortress,
the Stone, would never fall until the Dragon Reborn came and claimed the magic
sword Callendor held at its heart. Callendor being the personal sa’Angreal of Lews
Therin Telamon and one of the most powerful ever created. Others claim he will
break all ties and oaths, and break the world again with his coming. The first prophecy,
and weirdly the one no one seems to consider, claims that he will be born again
on Dragonmount, to a maiden wedded to no man. So, unless your mama told you you’re
born on a mountain, odds seem small you’re actually the Dragon Reborn. But guys
keep claim it. One of the things that sets the Cycle apart from other prophecies,
I should point out, is that Nowhere in it does it say the Dragon Reborn will
win. Or who he will fight for. All it says is that he will be there, and
heavily implies he will die in the battle.
Over the millennia, many men rose
up, believing themselves to be the Dragon Reborn and tried to fulfill the
prophecies, but they were all smacked down by the Aes Sedai and dubbed False
Dragons. Channelers can cut off or block a person from touching the True Source,
the number needed varies but 13 Sisters together can hold anyone, and also permanently
cut people off from it. For men, this severing is called Gentling, and for
women, it’s called Stilling. This is arguably a fate worse than death, as being
unable to touch the True Source but still being able to sense it, inevitably
makes the gentled or stilled person fall into a deep depression and die. So,
the Aes Sedai capture, gentle, and then hold the False Dragon’s as their
prisoners to serve as examples until they die of their magically induced
depression. It’s a rough process.
Twenty years before the start of
the series, a war raged. King Laman Damodred of Cairhien, in his arrogance and pride,
chopped down Avendoraldera, a cutting from the legendary chora tree Avendasor,
to make himself a grand throne. Why was this dumb? Couple reasons. First, the
tree doesn’t make seeds, the only way to make more is to take a cutting and
hope it survives long enough to grow. So, it’s immensely rare. Second, and more
importantly, the tree was a gift from the mysterious desert dwelling Aiel. It
was a gift to the nation of Cairhien for reasons only known to them. With the
tree came the privilege to cross their great desert, the Waste or Three-Fold Land,
to trade with the nation beyond them. Cairhien had made its wealth from this
trade. And dummy-dumb Laman gave his blank check up for a chair! When the Aiel heard
of this, four of the Aiel’s twelve clans gathered, crossed the Spine of the
World mountains and began ravaging the lands looking for Laman. This was the
first time the Aiel crossed the Spine of the World in mass since they went to
the Waste the first time. Fourteen nations of the world faced off against four clans,
and got smacked back, hard. After two years, the Aiel found Laman, killed him
and immediately ended their campaign. They also sacked the city and burned the famed
Topless Towers of Cairhien, but they did start pulling back. The last battle of
the war was just outside the shining walls of Tar Valon, the Aiel being forced
back by the combined forces of the Westlands.
The nation of Tar Valon, magic capital of the world.
While the Aiel left, something
strange happened in the White Tower. In the offices of the leader of the Aes Sedai,
the Amyrlin Seat, her VP, the Keeper of the Chronicle, Gitara Moroso had a “foretelling”
a vision of the future. Typically, Foretellings are of far future events, but in
this case, Gitara seems to be having a vision of the now or of only a few
minutes in the future. “He is Born AGAIN! I feel him! The Dragon takes his first
breaths on the slope of Dragonmount! He is coming! He is coming! Light Help us!
Light help the World! He lies in the snow and cries like Thunder! He burns like
the sun” and she promptly fell over, dead. This last prediction was only heard
by the Amyrlin, Tamra Ospenya, and two second level students of the Tower, the Accepted,
Siuan Sanche and Moiraine Damodred. The
Amyrlin swore them to secrecy and sent them on their way.
Both women, Siuan, a fisherman’s
daughter, and Moiraine, the niece of a king, were best friends (and occasional
lovers, but that’s kinda glossed over) and were both shocked by the prospect
that the Dragon had been Reborn. They tried to put it out of their minds,
focusing on practicing for their test to be advanced to full Aes Sedai, for a
night, anyway. The following day, the Amyrlin gathered all the Accepted and gave
them a task to complete. To celebrate the Aiel’s ‘retreat,’ and to thank the
soldiers and their families, she’s sending the Accepted out to the nearby army
camps to write down the names of all babies born in the last week or so, and
will be given a bounty of 100 gold coins. Most of the Accepted think it’s just
a weird reward, but the duo knows this is an attempt at finding THE baby.
Moiraine and Siuan gather a camp’s worth
of names on the first day, but spend the following 9 days recopying the lists
of other Accepted whom have poor penmanship. This was on the insistence of the
Mistress of Novices, whom thought Moiraine needed time to grieve, as she’d just
heard her uncle, King Laman, and his two other brothers were killed by the
Aiel. Moiraine didn’t really need it, as her father was something of the black
sheep of the Damodred family and his three brothers were absolute bastards, but
there’s no arguing with the Mistress of Novices. Making Lemonade out of lemons,
Suian and Moiraine spend those nine days copying down the names of boys born in
the right timeframe and close enough to Dragonmount to count. They also take note
of several Sisters being brought to the Amyrlin and deduce that each is being
told about the Dragon’s Rebirth and are being sent out to find the baby. Not to
be deterred, they continued copying names, thinking it’s better to help find
the boy rather than just believe the other Sisters will. Their complying was
interrupted by the two being called in for their test for the Shawl of Aes Sedai.
Moiraine and Siuan both pass the
test, but that’s when things get complicated. They both join the Blue Ajah, the
Ajah that focuses on championing Causes and Justice. Moiraine is almost
immediately assigned to distributing the bounty for the baby births, and Siuan
is roped in to apprenticing under the Aes Sedai in charge of their spy network.
They call them “Eyes and Ears,” but… they’re totally spies, or at least informants.
Moiraine’s job, which amounts to signing papers to make sure funds are being
sent, she’s 99% certain is only to keep her in the White Tower until the Hall
of the Tower decides to make her put herself forward as a candidate for Queen
of Cairhien. No Aes Sedai had openly ruled as a Queen in centuries, and Moiraine
is petrified at the thought of being the one to break that streak. She stays in
the tower for a few weeks, signing papers, learning new Weaves and protocols,
and watching friends be raise, until the Amyrlin, Tamra Ospenya, is announced
to have died in the night. When Tamra’s successor, Sierin Vayu made it clear
that the Tower was getting close to enacting it’s plan to make Moiraine a
queen, she quickly gathered her belongings and cheesed it out of the Tower, via
a ship. Moiraine knew she’d be punished for leaving the Tower without
permission, but that felt like a small price to pay to avoid being made a
Queen, and was on her way to find the boy child, the Dragon Reborn.
Moiraine spent three months basically
wandering about looking for a sign of where to look. She looked through her
list of names, but keeps coming up with nothing. She ended up in the Borderlands,
specifically Candor. She is briefly reunited with Suian, who made a special trip
to find her to let her know that all of Tamra’s searchers are dead. The two
women are forced to accept a reality the Aes Sedai have denied for centuries,
that there is a cabal of Aes Sedai Darkfriends, a Black Ajah. They’re hopeful that because they weren’t
mentioned as being part of the search or witnesses to the Foretelling as they…
ya know… weren’t Sisters at the time. They split up again, hoping to check off
two names on their list on the road to Chachin.
A bond that will shake the world.
She makes her way to Chachin, the capital
of Kandor, dodging other Sisters that want to return her to the Tower, and
meets al’Lan Mandragoran, the uncrowned king of the dead country of Malkier. He ends up throwing her into a pond when she
tries to sneak up on and disarm him. She pays back by Channeling the whole
thing at him. She travels with him and his companions, Bukama and Ryne, to Chachin.
On the way, she searches for one of the women on her list, Alvene Sahera, only
to discover that her boy was born too soon and too far from Dragonmount to
count. In Chachin, she’s reunited with Siuan and things come to a head. There,
they discover that a fellow sister and the former Mistress of Novices that
raised them named Merean Redhill is in fact Black Ajah and attempts to kill
them and Lan along with several others. She is killed, along with Iselle Arrel,
daughter to the of a Malkieri noblewoman named Edeyn Arrel, as well as the Prince
Consort of Kandor and his son Diryk. This foil a plot Edeyn had to force Lan to
marry Iselle as part of a bid to revive Malkier, and he ends up being bound to Moiraine
as her Warder. This is a magically enhanced bodyguard that most sisters have
one of, Greens tend to take 2 or more, and Reds none at all.
In the aftermath, Moiraine and Siuan
puzzle out that the Black Ajah know that the Dragon is Reborn, but not WHEN it
happened. The fact that Merean prioritized killing the “lucky” Diryk and his
father over anyone else, and a string of rumored deaths of other lucky men. So,
knowing that the Dragon has been Reborn but not his age, the Black Ajah began
hunting down any man that has been said to be unusually lucky. Why? Well, when people
begin channeling on their own, it’s often to save themselves or others from
harm. They unconsciously weave air to save themselves from falls, or water to
save themselves from drowning and so on. So, extreme “luck” is a possible clue
to a male channeler, and it’d be easier to kill the Dragon Reborn after his
first or second instance of channeling than to weight for him to possibly get a
grip on his powers.
Moiraine and Lan spend the next 20
years searching the continent for the child of Gitara’s prophecy. While their
search was urgent, the belief that the Black Ajah don’t know how old their
quarry is, coupled with the fact Male channelers don’t begin to channel until anywhere
from 18 to 30 gave them time. Eventually, their search led them to an all but forgotten
district of Andor, The Two Rivers, and a sleepy village called Emond’s Field. But
more on that later.
Okay, so that’s the long and short
of it, a brief history of the Wheel of Time, it’s magic system and cosmology.
And you might think that seven pages is hardly short, but trust me, it is. You
can search Wheel of Time on google or YouTube and you’ll find thousands of
pages of theories and hours of video on the history and other content of the
world. I slimmed this WAY down to just give you an idea of the universe you’re
stepping into when you start on this series. The world of the Wheel is vast,
with a deep well of lore and history to play around with. I hope that me
gushing for a few pages helped you learn something and maybe, just maybe, got
you as jazzed for this series as much as I am. I can’t imagine that all of what
was described here will make it into the show, and I have to believe that a
great many things will be shifted and changed to fit the new medium it’s being
presented in. Still, I’m super excited for it and hope that it’ll be as grand
as experience as Game of Thrones was back in the day. Grand dream, I know, but
I truly believe the Wheel of Time show can not only be as big, but bigger. But
only Time will tell. Next time, we’ll talk about the monsters of the Wheel of
Time. I want to gush about Shadowspawn, like sooo much. See you then.
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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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