The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose above the great recap pages of Multiversity Comics. The wind was not the ending. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the Wheel of Time. But it was an ending.
Today, we will look into episode eight, “The Eye of the World,” the first season finale.
As a side note, a vast amount of lore was explained through “Origins” episodes only on Amazon Video, and not within the episodes themselves, or explained through closed captioning and the like, so it will also be brought up as if viewers have seen it.
1. The Age of Legends
For our cold open, we begin 3,000 years ago, in the Second Age, better known as the Age of Legends.
To clarify, the nomenclature of the Age is one in which it is common to have three-word names, with formal speech using all three, slightly more common using only the first two, and intimate familiarity or insults keeping to only the first. The second of these three options is the most common of all.
In a futuristic society (complete with flying cars and more), Latra Posae Decume, the Tamyrlin Seat (predecessor to the Amyrlin of the Third Age), warns Lews Therin Telamon about imprisoning the Dark One (which would leave the Source open to corruption). She instead decides to split men from women, with women behind to “pick up the pieces” should the men fail.
Latra Posae is not deliberately identified as the Tamyrlin Seat in the source material (in fact, it is Lews Therin who wore the “Ring of Tamyrlin”), but it is less important, as is her friendship with him (she was one of his most ardent detractors in the books) than the content of the discussion.
Interestingly, Lews Therin and Latra Posae speak in a non-English language, presumably the Old Tongue (roughly equivalent to Latin or some other ancient language in the Third Age). It bears wondering whether or not the writers came up with a complete language (or at least a framework), given there is limited writing to even use.
Oddly, Latra Posae calls Lews Therin the Dragon Reborn, rather than simply “the Dragon,” as he was called elsewhere. This change seems strange and largely unnecessary and confusing, as the idea of the “Dragon Reborn” is that they were him reborn, not that the Dragon is a repeated identity in and of itself.
2. Attack on Fal Dara
Egwene is distraught about Rand running off, but is comforted by Perrin, who reassures her that things are still alright between them despite what Nynaeve said before.
Speaking of Nynaeve, she helps Lan to track Moiraine (who she claims has “a tell” that let her track them in the first place), given the Aes Sedai had masked the Warder bond. This was done on the condition that Lan bring Rand back. Nynaeve also states that she may not be a Wisdom if she goes to learn at Tar Valon, meaning she would be exempt from the requirement that “a Wisdom never weds.” In return, Lan gives grand romantic overtures, which on the whole feel extremely rushed given we have not seen nearly enough time with them together.
Some time later, Egwene listens to the wind, hearing an approaching army of thousands of Trollocs (with 60 Fades/Eyeless, that puts them at roughly five to ten thousand). She, Nynaeve, and Loial all go to see Min, who has a viewing of the battle to come, which thereafter ensues. The men of Fal Dara are sent to defend Tarwin’s Gap, while the women and children are kept behind to defend Fal Dara itself using everything in the armory they have available.
The women do hold after the Gap falls, but many burn from the inside out due to excessive channeling of a lightning storm. Being important (and also main characters), Egwene and Nynaeve of course survive, but how exactly that worked, with Nynaeve seemingly taking Egwene’s flow, is unclear.
Continued below3. Padan Fain and the Horn of Valere
During the fighting, Perrin and Loial help the soldiers left behind to uncover a hiding space under the throne, wherein lies the Horn of Valere, a war horn for the Dragon to sound and bring heroes of Ages past to the Last Battle. Even if we were to ignore that finding it then would by necessity indicate that it is not the Last Battle (since why would Rand not have it with him?), it does seem odd that such a relic would be in the castle and nobody have ever taken it, especially if common soldiers apparently know where it is. It never having been even alluded to, let alone mentioned, until now may be in keeping with the books, but it still comes across as a meaningless plot device at present.
The fact that Padan Fain (who, surprise, is still alive and evil) took it is more a testament to him having half a brain than them having it in a genuinely secure location. Him coming by and Perrin leaving, but the soldiers still not stopping uncovering the Horn just expands the process to outright ignorance for the sake of plot.
On top of the rest, Fain does finally explain a term from the first episode: ta’veren. They are focal points for the Wheel of Time itself, and it seems all five of them (Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene, and Nynaeve) are examples all within a single village, while usually there are only one or two in any one generation for the entire world. According to Fain, some will likely turn to the Dark in the name of balance, a phrasing stated while the scene shown is Mat arriving alone at Shadar Logoth. With Perrin unwilling to fight, Fain simply walks off with the chest holding the Horn, having killed all of the guards inside with the help of several Fades.
4. The Blight and the Eye
Traveling through the Blight with Rand, Moiraine finally explains the Blight, a “rot which spreads from the Dark One’s prison and consumes everything in its path.” This does sound like a blight indeed, but the fact that it manifests as a twisted forest does not help.
The two see the Seven Towers of Malkier, and Moiraine notes that they used to be miles from “Tarwin’s Gap” (again, no explanation for that term, though later explanation seems to show it means the gap between the mountains near Fal Dara), indicating that perhaps they were being moved outward. Such a notation does not help with the “day’s walk to the Eye” time frame, but does show some semblance of power for the Dark One, making Him seem a bit more pressing.
Rand has a dream of the man with the blazing eyes, who he knew as the Dark One. Escaping the dream by self-injury after seemingly impressing the man with his heron-marked blade, Rand tells Moiraine about the experience, but also that he did not believe a word of what was said.
Moiraine gives Rand a sa’angreal that would call on the power of ancient channelers to increase his own a hundredfold to help fight. The fact that he has no idea how to channel consciously or information regarding any weaves seems irrelevant (though it really should not be), and this seems roughly equal to giving a child a weapon of mass destruction in terms of forethought. Even Rand seems to acknowledge that he has no idea what he is doing or now to put away the Dark One.
In the same conversation, Rand deduces that Moiraine thought that Egwene was the Dragon Reborn, hence the attention given to her, but such a conclusion, even if true, makes very little sense. Women and men cannot teach one another to channel (especially given they cannot even see one another’s weaves), so how would Moiraine have taught a man to control his power without the madness? Furthermore, the madness only afflicts men, so if the Dragon Reborn were female, the situation would not be nearly as dire. The fact that she refers to controlling the One Power as “grabbing” it also feels telling, as the wording seems much closer to how Rand and Logain use their power than her careful manipulation of existing flows, making the worldbuilding all the more confusing.
Continued belowAt the Eye itself (a deep pit in the Blight), Rand states his familiarity with it. He also realizes that Moiraine’s statement that anyone with the Dragon Reborn would die at the Eye includes herself, but when he asks her to stay, she refuses.
On reaching the bottom, he finds the “Eye” itself, of which Moiraine says the White Tower has no information regarding the original importance (seemingly a contradiction of the prior certainty, but far from the first time). The “Eye” looks like a yin-yang symbol, with the white of yang indicative of the women’s Power, and the black of yin of men’s Power, intermingled. The symbol itself, without the black, looks similar to the Flame of Tar Valon, and is likely its origin.
Rand notes having fought the Dark One in the form of a man there, seemingly the very same man he saw in his dream. As he does, he passes out and descends into another vision, one of him living happily with Egwene, with whom he had a child (seemingly the same one from Min’s viewing). According to the Dark One, this vision can be reality if he gives in to His power.
Outside of the dream, Moiraine confronts the Dark One, who uses a strange alternative form of Power, apparently golden, to reverse her weaves and keep her from using her strength against Him, seemingly severing her as Logain had been by Liandrin. The effect seems to be permanent.
When Rand rejects the opportunity to remake the world, he obliterates the image of the man and stands up both in his vision and in reality. There is absolutely nothing left, not even a scrap, indicative of him perhaps not even being present.
Fearing madness brought on by the taint on his power, Rand tells Moiraine to tell his friends he died, and goes off into hiding.
As Moiraine tells Lan after he arrives, while holding the seemingly unbreakable material cuendillar (heartstone), this was not the Last Battle (and honestly if it were, it would be rather pathetic for an apocalyptic event), but the “first.” The fact that we only just heard about the material “heartstone” right now says a lot about the pacing of this finale, let alone season.
As such, it is blatantly obvious that either a) that was not the Dark One, or b) the Dark One is even more of a horrible, pitiful mite than we were unintentionally led to believe. And given information preemptively provided by Amazon Prime’s captions (and the pacing of the books themselves, where this revelation would not come for another two books), it is the former.
5. The Threat from the West
On the far western shore, an armada peaks the horizon, buffeted by channeled waves that they send into a tidal wave to kill a single little girl on the wide shore. Its people include apparently captive channeling women, and they speak a foreign language.
Until next the Wheel wills.
