WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for The Wheel of Time Season 1, Episode 8, "The Eye of the World," available now on Prime Video.
Even viewers who are familiar with The Wheel of Time books had a few surprises in store for them with the Prime Video series' Season 1 finale. The cold open pulled back the curtain on the setting's ancient history, showing not only the choices that led to the Breaking of the World but the advanced society that it toppled. In the present day, a battle with the mysterious Man at the Eye of the World leaves Moiraine cut off from the One Power. Rand goes off on his own, preferring his friends believe he died than see his descent as a man who can channel.
Those who stayed in the city of Fal Dara have their own challenges to face. A sudden attack of Trollocs and Fades spurred everyone into either evacuation or a desperate last stand. Nynaeve and Egwene lend their untrained power to link with several channelers which nearly destroys them. While the Darkfriend Padan Fain escapes with the legendary Horn of Valere, the fates of some characters are left unknown. The very last scene of the episode reveals that a fleet of warships has reached the coast, carrying powerful channelers of a culture that hasn't been seen yet in the show. In an exclusive interview with CBR, The Wheel of Time showrunner Rafe Judkins shed some light on Season 1's shocking finale and dropped some tantalizing hints about what The Wheel of Time fans can expect from Season 2.
CBR: Okay, so first things first -- is Loial really dead?
Rafe Judkins: No. I can't wait to kill surprising people that are going to really pain book fans in their deepest heart of hearts, but Loial is not dead in the finale of Season 1.
That's so good to know.
So, rest easy.
For a moment, I was convinced you might actually kill Moiraine, but I didn't at all expect her to be stilled. What does this mean for her role in the story?
Looking at Season 2 and what's to come for us, the characters who have almost nothing to do in Book 2 is Moiraine, and Lan, who are number one and two on the call sheet. You can't really sideline Rosamund Pike and Daniel Henney in a season of television. So we talked about Season 2 and Season 3 and what they look like in the writers' room while we were doing Season 1, so we could set it up correctly in the finale. That was the biggest story we had to figure out how to tell -- what is the Moiraine and Lan story in Season 2? They don't really have anything in the book.
So we looked at the chapter that they have, and it really is so much about their relationship. Digging into it, and asking, "What's the core that exists there between the two of them when you really, really dive in?" Hopefully, we set them up in a place at the end of Season 1 that will really take that chapter of what they have to do in Book 2, and make you feel like there's a whole season worth of story of their relationship in there, and Moiraine putting back the pieces of who she really is.
Where did you look to think about what it means for a Warder when his Aes Sedai is stilled?
Yeah, so the one thing that's also interesting, you'll see, is that Moiraine masked the bond between her and Lan before the Eye of the World. So that loss of connection between the two of them is something that really is going to play a big role in Season 2 because they no longer have that currency of communication with each other. So what does that mean for their relationship?
Yes, and also, Lan's relationship with Nynaeve.
Exactly. It makes for a very interesting triangle for us.
Speaking about those relationships, I really liked how Moiraine and Siuan's relationship was built on what little of their story we saw in [the prequel novel] New Spring. The Wheel of Time is not really known for romance, so what other relationships from the books did you see that kind of opportunity to build on them?
Yeah, one thing in doing the TV adaptation, I think in TV series, people are really attached to relationships between characters -- both platonic and romantic. But sometimes the books of Wheel of Time do shy away from more from the romantic aspects of the characters' relationships like you don't see Lan and Nynaeve really together until... That scene we have in Episode 8 is at the very end of Book 1. You're like, "Wait, are they together? Do they love each other? What's happening?" And so we've tried to take any of the kernels of romantic relationships that do exist inside the books and lift them for the show. So we haven't created any relationships whole cloth, but we've taken whatever's there and really tried to mine it to bring that to the forefront for TV.
That makes me think of Egwene and Perrin. There was a bit of a connection between them. Does that mean anything for the introduction of Gawyn and Faile?
I think it does.
I think you do see in the books this idea of, "Did Perrin have feelings for Egwene?" We've milked that a little here. I think it will continue. Each of those characters goes on to have very important relationships, Egwene with Gawyn, and then Perrin with Faile. And so those relationships, we will also take those, those are two big relationships that are really foregrounded in the books, and so we'll take them and really run with them too. I think any real romantic relationship that we do have in the foreground, we want to use.
There's one more relationship that's not quite touched on yet, but Min was introduced. We haven't really seen her hit it off with Rand yet, but we did see her leaving the city.
Yeah, we tried to give her, in Episode 7 actually, we wanted to make sure that -- because Min and Rand is a really important relationship later in the books that we see -- the two of them have a scene, just the two of them. And so we gave that in Season 1, Episode 7 so that you could see the kernels of this relationship that ends up being really important for both of them later in the books.
As for the platonic relationships, what did Nynaeve do in that scene when they were linked and channeling that protected Egwene?
Oh, Nynaeve basically took the, when the women are linked, the Power is sort of like pulled through them, and so she took Egwene's link so that all the Power was being run through her instead of through Egwene.
I see, and then when Egwene turned it around, did she heal her just in the same way that Nynaeve healed people by accident in the past?
Yeah, what we wanted to do with that story is, in the very first episode, you see Nynaeve saying to Egwene, "I think you could be a healer someday, I think you could be like me," and so to have that payoff come back around at the end where Egwene really is like Nynaeve and is doing what Nynaeve would have done in the same situation, we thought was really nice.
Yes, that was wonderful. Let's see, catching up with Mat at the end there, was great. I was glad to see him one more time. It looks like he was headed back to Shadar Logoth...
He's headed into, you can see it probably more clearly in the finished cut, but he's headed back to the White Tower and Tar Valon. It'll pick up the story for him that he has in Book 3.
Okay. Moiraine told the story to Rand about an Aes Sedai in the White Tower who used to beat her as a novice. Will we see that character in Season 2, and does she have any connection to Min's vision about the Amyrlin Seat?
I cannot answer any of those. [laughs]
That's exciting too! This episode had a really amazing flashback in the cold open, to Lews Therin Telamon, and that showed us an entirely different setting than the world that we've seen so far. What were some of the influences on the design of the Age of Legends?
We wanted the Age of Legends. What was important was that it felt more modern than our world, but also had timeless aspects to it. So we talk about it as like, futuristic Santorini, like bringing in some of these timeless Greek aesthetics that can feel simultaneously modern and ancient, so when you're sitting in the nursery with them at the beginning, it does feel like 3000 years ago. But there are elements of it that feel almost futuristic still, in that real blend of like, "I don't know if I'm in the future, [or] if I'm in the past," until you finally go out the window at the end and realize, 'Oh, this is actually like our world's future." This was a very futuristic society, and when these characters have been talking about the Breaking of the World, this is the world that was broken, and it was incredibly advanced.
Yes. Did we also see that in Man at the Eye of the World's outfit?
I think you did see that in the Man at the Eye of the World's outfit.
There was one other entirely new culture introduced at the very end: Oh my God, it's the Seanchan! What's the biggest challenge in depicting that culture?
The biggest challenge in depicting the Seanchan was trying to find something -- we have so many different worlds in The Wheel of Time, you have the Borderlands, you have the Two Rivers, you have Tar Valon, you have Tear, you have all these places that are really different within our world, and have different clothes and costumes and makeup and all of this, that we built -- because the Seanchan needed to come in and visually tell the story that they are apart from that world. They are from someplace that is very different than where any of our characters that we've met this season are from, but still feel like they exist within the world of The Wheel of Time, that they don't feel like they're from a different show, essentially.
So that took a lot of really careful modulation the whole way through, to get the aesthetic of the Seanchan correct so that they give to new audience members this flash of -- we always talked about it as like the Spanish galleons coming ashore in the New World. Except our characters are the people living in the New World and seeing these ships arrive and go, "Oh, my God, what is this culture? They seem technologically advanced. They seem incredibly dangerous." And so that's what we were trying to really build with the Seanchan.
And then you'll see hints of all the things that are talked about in the books for them as well. There are really insect-like designs built into every piece of their armor, which was important in the books. So you see the pieces that are there in the books, but that visual read has to be like these people feel like they're foreigners.
Real quick, could you give us a translation of the Old Tongue that was spoken in that scene?
Oh, I do know the translation of the Old Tongue that's spoken in that scene. I don't know, it's basically a command. I can give you that much.
Okay. About the tidal wave, I'm sure.
Yeah, exactly. I think we used half of the command form. So I think they're basically, they're essentially saying "tidal wave."
All eight episodes of Season 1 of The Wheel of Time are now available to stream on Prime Video. Season 2 does not yet have a release date.