The Wheel of Time

 Despite being an avowed fantasy fan, I think I'm actually far more exposed to the genre through games than I am through books. I've read the Lord of the Rings (and the Hobbit - actually first) and of course Stephen King's Dark Tower series. But there are a few staples of the genre that have eluded me. I've never read the Narnia books (somehow as a kid I was bored by The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe but not Lord of the Rings) or the Earthsea books. And I've never read The Wheel of Time.

So, poser than I am (I say that mostly ironically) I've now watched the first three episodes of Amazon's adaptation of the series.

As a review in the AV Club noted, the Wheel of Time is a sort of pre-deconstruction fantasy story. Today, we're awash in darker, subversive takes on the genre like Game of Thrones or the Witcher. So, my impression of the Wheel of Time is that it's obviously a post-Tolkien fantasy story (I believe the first book came out in 1984 - the 80s actually being quite the era for fantasy films and thus the genre as a whole) but from an era in which no one would roll their eyes at the big bad being called The Dark One.

Which is to say that there's some unabashed nerdery going on in this show, which I count as a point in its favor.

Not knowing the books, I cannot say how accurate the show is in plot and in tone, but I have heard that many viewers familiar with the books think it's highly faithful.

A quick summary:

There's an idyllic town in the mountain called The Two Rivers, and it's here that a group of young adults live in a little rustic utopia - well, perhaps not quite utopia, as there are still issues with alcoholism and adultery, and a religious order that seems to demand celibacy among its female Wisdoms.

Things get turned upside down when Moraine, an "Aes Sedai," which is some kind of wizard-like spellcaster, shows up in town. She, and her Warder Al'lan (yes, this is old-school fantasy, so get ready for a lot of apostrophes) show up looking for the reincarnation of The Dragon, a figure of monumental importance, who could be the savior of the world.

The title of the series refers to the notion that this world exists in an endless cycle. And in each of these cycles, the Dragon arises and, I believe, fights the Dark One, but also the Dragon is potentially really scary, so... I'm waiting on more clarification. Souls return to the world, reincarnated, and civilizations rise and fall. There's a shot early on that I think (unless I was misinterpreting what I saw) even implies that this massive valley full of karsts is actually filled with ruined skyscrapers - I'm not sure if this is meant to be our distant future (or distant past) but it's an interesting note.

In town, we are introduced to our adventuring party. Rand is an upstanding kid who lives with his widowed father (played by the guy who played Roose Bolton - it's nice to see him playing a way more sympathetic character) and is in love with Egwene. Egwene has just been initiated to train as a Wisdom - and it's here that we learn that it seems only women have the potential to use magic (or at least, only women are allowed to). Egwene is torn between this path - to become the kind of mystical healer of the town, or at least apprentice under the current one (who is only like 6 years older than she is, so it'll likely be a long apprenticeship). Mat, then, is the somewhat desperate... shall we say "rogue" of the group, who, it turns out, is the one who has to take care of his little sisters given that his dad spends his time sleeping around while his mother (or maybe step mother) is perpetually inebriated. Finally, Perrin is the town blacksmith, who works alongside his wife Laila, and we'll see how his angst develops in the next paragraph.

Each of these four, Moraine has identified as possibly being the Dragon reborn, and so she wants to take them to the White Tower, where her order are headquartered. But, with zero warning whatsoever, The Two Rivers is suddenly attacked by trollocs. Trollocs are, it seems, the rough equivalent of orcs. They're big horned humanoid monsters with goat-like legs and follow the orders of a "Fade," which is an insanely creepy shrouded figure with a lamprey-like mouth and no eyes. The trollocs massacre townsfolk while a panic sets in. Amidst the carnage, a couple of them break into the blacksmith shop, and Perrin and Laila fight them off. But after he has just killed one trolloc in a blind panic, Perrin accidentally swings the axe around and hits his wife in the abdomen, killing her.

Moraine and Al'lan show up and fend off the trollocs, with one spell eventually pulling the stones from the town's tavern to hurl at the beasts - which does drive them off, but also sees what was clearly a centerpiece of the town destroyed.

Moraine reveals that the trollocs came for the four potential Dragons, and so she convinces them that they need to come with her in order to keep the town from being attacked again. Thus, we strike out on a grand adventure!

There have already been some cool set-pieces. Though we don't stay there very long, the utterly uninhabited "ruin" (except all the buildings are intact - just empty) of Shadar Logoth is super cool-looking (and honestly looks a lot like a location in a Dark Souls game).

Pretty early on, the group gets split up, which I think is an opportunity for us to get a little more time to get to know our various characters. Of the main four, I think Mat has the clearest personality and motivations, though he's also the token "hey, this adventure is stupid and we should go home" member at this point. Perrin also has some stuff going on involving a wound on his leg and some kind of strange connection to wolves, but I find myself shocked that there hasn't been more time spent on people comforting him over the loss of his wife - he clearly feels insanely guilty for killing her, and I can understand why he hasn't told anyone - allowing everyone to think it was just one of the trollocs that got her, but unless the mystical awakening that may or may not be happening with him is tied to that, I sort of want to... you know, at least acknowledge and deal with the fact.

It's funny, there's a moment when we see (and I guess this is a spoiler, so beware) that Nynaeve (the town's Wisdom) was dragged off by one of the trollocs during the attack and he takes her to what appears to be another wounded trolloc. There was a moment where I thought that it wanted her to use her healing abilities to help the other trolloc, which was going to add a really interesting wrinkle to this situation, but then the one that had taken her started eating the wounded one's intestines, so... not so much. I think these are the kind of "no-guilt kill-on-sight" monster bad guys.

Anyway, I'm enjoying it, and will be continuing to watch it. After kind of getting burned out on Foundation (I wonder if I'd enjoy the show more had I not actually read the books) I'm happy to have another epic genre show to get into.