It just needed a little bit of confidence, The wheel of time. We had welcomed the new Prime Video fantasy meatloaf with some skepticism, and instead, against all expectations, in the middle of the season the Rafe Judkins series has finally put into gear. With the fourth and fifth episode, which we talk about in this review, The Wheel of Time begins to put aside uncertainties and empty quotations and pushes the pedal to a worldbuilding finally thick, more and more at ease in its most proudly fantasy dimension.
The breakup of the company
At the end of the third episode we left ours comrades divided and scattered along the way to the White Tower. After the incident in the ghost town of Shagar Logoth, Egwene And Perrin joined a welcoming caravan of nomads while Rand And Mat, led by the new arrival Thom, are on the run from the frightening Fade that pursues them. Moiraine and his trusty LanFinally, they came across together with Navaine in a group of Aes Sedai who bring with them an alleged Dragon Reborn. A broken company, then. But it is one fragmentation which is only good for a series that in its first – and very linear – episodes seemed, amidst references and borrowed, too rigid in advancing within its own fantastic universe.
The increased number of settings and narrative lines instead offers the Wheel of Time – as mentioned in the introduction of this review – the possibility of expand your narrative universe and let it air. If the vicissitudes of the first episodes were more than anything else instrumental to the continuation of the plot, now that the young protagonists are separated, the difficulty of their enterprise begins to weigh on their spirits. While the mystery aboutidentity of the Dragon of thickening, we see them all engaged in fighting their own personal battles. So, as the stakes rise, theirs characterization it becomes more specific and interesting, finally three-dimensional. It is certainly not a product that is strengthened by a psychological writing of particular finesse, but at the end of the fifth episode we finally begin to have the feeling of being inside a real and impactful world towards the people who inhabit it – no longer a greatest hits of common and easy places found.
More in depth with mythology
The introduction of the character of Logain, the alleged Dragon Reborn that the Aes Sedai have captured, offers the series the opportunity to further delve into the intricate mythology that underpins it. A first, original piece is constituted by the relationship of the Aes Sedai with the male gender – which due to aancient curse is no longer able to withstand theOne Power without losing your mind. So let’s find out about the deep and romantic-like bond which binds some of these sorceresses to their warder / guardian – like Lan with Moiraine, who for some reason keeps a safe distance from man. Others, like the determined Liandrin, completely repudiate the other sex, relegating it to the lowest levels of their hierarchy of powers. A narrative dynamic, therefore, which inscribes the conflictual relationship between the two genders within a fantasy mechanism with a very modern sensitivity.
Then a complex picture emerges concerning ahumanity increasingly ambiguous, bitterly contested between light and dark. The terrible Children of the Light, a group of extremists who perpetrate a sort of witch hunt against the Aes Sedai, represent the most fearsome and violent pole of this spectrum. To their bloody deeds, on the other hand, the group of nomads that Egwene and Perrin rigidly oppose, like a real pacifist army which responds to blood with its own warm humanity. But no character completely disregards this dichotomy: Mat, for example, begins to lose a few strokes under the influence of the One Power, which awakens in him dark and uncontrollable impulses. The weight of the universal energy that animates the Wheel, in short, begins to be pressing, and for the series it is obviously all for the better.
What is certain is that, three episodes from the end of the season, one is still missing sense of urgency, of impending danger with respect to the future of the world inhabited by the protagonists. There has been much talk of this alleged Dark Lord, but of its terrible power there is not much known for now. It will probably be an attempt at create a further mystery – to be revealed, perhaps at the height of the season. What is certain is that without a clear and unambiguous antagonist, the adventures of the protagonists appear more resized and less important, a simple mission instead of a battle for the salvation of the universe. But, at the end of our review, we still want to trust The Wheel of Time: who knows that in the next few episodes he will not reserve us some other, nice surprise.
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