Table of Contents
Warning: Spoilers ahead for The Wheel of Time
Season 3 of the Wheel of Time is out today. The fantasy series, based on the novels by Robert Jordan, raises new stakes in its third season for Our Heroes. Ahead of the new episodes, let’s take a look at where each main character ended up in Season 2—and what they will face as Season 3 unfolds.
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Rand al’Thor
After discovering his lover in Cairhien is none other than the Forsaken Lanfear (Natasha O’Keefe)— known as the most dangerous of the immortal and powerful channelers sworn to the Dark One—Rand (Josha Stradowski) plays a risky game of cat and mouse with her, banking on her love for his previous incarnation as the Dragon to keep her from killing him. After his capture by Siuan Sanche (Sophie Okonedo), the Amrylin Seat and leader of the Aes Sedai, Rand escapes with help from Lanfear and Moiraine (Rosamund Pike) and goes to the city of Falme, currently held by Seanchan invaders. After a battle between the Seanchan and the Whitecloaks, Rand confronts Ishamael (Fares Fares) with Mat Cauthon (Dónal Finn), who accidentally stabs Rand with the evil dagger from Shadar Logoth while trying to attack Ishamael. Elayne Trakand (Ceara Coveney) partially heals Rand’s wound from the dagger, but is unable to do so fully. Despite his injuries, Rand defeats Ishamael for good this time (hopefully?), and is declared the Dragon Reborn to everyone in the city.
Moiraine Damodred
Believing herself to be stilled (cut off from the One Power forever) by Ishamael at the end of Season 1, Moiraine battles the suicidal despair this causes by focusing on her main goal: protecting the Dragon Reborn. First from afar, as she gathers information and eases his passage through Cairhien, and then with him, rescuing Rand from Lanfear’s clutches and then later collaborating with Lanfear in order to free him and take him to Falme. In doing so, she betrays not only her own beloved, Siuan Sanche, but her Warder Lan (Daniel Henney), pushing him away and handing off his bond to the Green sister Alanna Mosvani (Priyanka Bose). However, Lan reunites with her before they go to Falme, and guides Rand to remove the shield Ishamael had left in place around Moiraine, restoring her ability to channel the One Power. During the battle in Falme, Moiraine defeats the Seanchan damane (leashed women who can channel) who are shielding Rand, and generates the massive dragon of fire that publicly declares Rand the Dragon Reborn.
Egwene al’Vere
Egwene (Madeleine Madden) does not have a good time in this season, having spent most of it as a captive of the Seanchan invaders, who force her to be a collared damane to the sul’dam Renna (Xelia Mendes-Jones). Renna nearly breaks Egwene with torture in order to make her a compliant slave, but underestimates Egwene’s strength. She withstands the brainwashing inflicted upon her in time to free herself from the a’dam collar and put one on Renna instead, proving (to Renna’s horror) that sul’dam can channel too, before killing her. Egwene reunites with Rand, and helps protect him from Ishamael while he is shielded by the Seanchan, holding her own until Moiraine is able to free Rand and he can battle Ishamael himself.
Nynaeve al’Meara
After her traumatizing experience during her test to become Accepted, she, Egwene, and Elayne are betrayed by the Red sister Liandrin (Kate Fleetwood), who is revealed to be Black Ajah and a Darkfriend, and who takes them to the Seanchan noble (and fellow Darkfriend) Suroth (Karima McAdams). However, Liandrin’s lingering affection for Nynaeve (and contempt for the Seanchan practice of enslaving women who can channel) leads her to free and revive the girls before she leaves, allowing Nynaeve and Elayne to escape. Egwene, however, is captured, and Nynaeve and Elayne infiltrate the city of Falme in order to rescue her. They eventually work out how to use the a’dam collar and capture a sul’dam, Seta (Jade-Eleena Dregorius). However, Nynaeve’s block against channeling renders her largely useless in the battle that follows, and her frustration leads her to cross lines she would not have before.
Perrin Aybara
Perrin (Marcus Rutherford) spends most of the season learning about his status as a Wolfbrother from Elyas Machera (Gary Beadle), who like Perrin has golden eyes and can communicate with wolves. Perrin is wary and reluctant to embrace his abilities, but makes friends with one wolf in particular, Hopper. Along the way he frees a captured Aiel, a Far Dareis Mai (Maiden of the Spear) named Aviendha (Ayoola Smart), who tells him she and the other Aiel are looking for the Car’a’Carn (Chief of Chiefs), but accompanies Perrin instead to pay off her life debt to him. Perrin, Hopper, Aviendha, and two more Maidens, Bain (Ragga Ragnars) and Chiad (Maja Simonsen), arrive in Falme and reunite with the Ogier Loial (Hammed Animashaun) and the surviving Shienaran soldiers who had been taken captive by the Seanchan earlier in the season, and who have gotten the Horn of Valere back from the Seanchan. While battling the Seanchan in the streets, they literally run into Mat, who uses the dagger from Shadar Logoth to burn open the box holding the Horn and takes it to Rand. Perrin is nearly killed by the Whitecloak Valda (Abdul Salis), but Hopper rescues him, at the cost of his own life by the leader of the Whitecloaks, Geofram Bornhald (Stuart Graham). In a rage, Perrin kills Geofram, an act witnessed by Dain Bornhald (Jay Duffy), Geofram’s son. Perrin then helps Egwene protect Rand on the tower from Ishamael.
Mat Cauthon
After being freed from his prison in the White Tower, Mat runs away with fellow prisoner Min Farshaw (Kae Alexander), unaware that Min is being coerced by Liandrin and Ishamael to engineer the reunion of Mat with Rand. Mat is indeed reunited with Rand briefly in Cairhien, but Min confesses to him about her visions of the future, in which Mat is destined to stab Rand with the Shadar Logoth dagger, so Mat ghosts Rand and leaves him to go to Falme without him. However, Lanfear then kidnaps Mat and brings him to Falme anyway, where Ishamael gives him a special “soul tea” he claims will help Mat connect with his former lives. Mat is wary, but drinks the tea, and is assaulted by visions of himself doing horrible things over and over. Ishamael tells him the only way to free himself from the endless cycle of pain is to turn to the Dark, and makes Padan Fain (Johan Myers) tempt Mat with the dagger from Shadar Logoth, in order to help Min’s vision come true. Mat instead ties the dagger to a staff so he doesn’t have to touch it, and escapes. When it seems all is lost, Mat blows the Horn of Valere, summoning the Heroes of the Horn, and in so doing remembers he was a hero throughout his former lives. He fights his way to the tower and Rand, and hurls his spear at Ishamael, but accidentally strikes Rand instead, to his horror.
The Bad Guys
Ishamael is to all appearances dead at Rand’s hand by the end of the season, partially owing to Lanfear’s betrayal when she assists Rand instead of him. Ishamael gets the last laugh, though, as Lanfear discovers that before he died, he freed the remaining Forsaken from their prisons, including Moghedien (Laia Costa), who threatens both Lanfear and “all five of them”, meaning, presumably, Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene, and Nynaeve, before disappearing.
So that’s where we are. Now where are we going?
What’s at stake in Season 3?
Episode 1 of Season 3, “To Race the Shadow”, sets the stakes and establishes the major obstacles Rand and his compatriots will face over the course of the season. It’s clear that the theme of the season will be about leadership. The Two Rivers folk are no longer naïve and untested, but they still have much to learn before being able to meet the increasing responsibilities thrust upon them. They must learn how to be leaders, and some current leaders, like Moiraine and Siuan, must learn to cope with the possibility that their roles may one day be reversed.
With the (literally) explosive results of the reveal of the Black Ajah (Aes Sedai sworn to the Dark), The White Tower, once a bastion of the Light and the surest defense against the Dark, is suddenly on precarious ground, weakened and left reeling by the betrayal of so many of their number. Siuan Sanche and the other Aes Sedai will have to contend with maintaining control of an institution in crisis, and battling corruption from within.
Moiraine, in her devil’s deal of an alliance with Lanfear and the gradual erosion of her control over Rand, will continue to be tested in just how far she is willing to go to fulfill her mission. She has fought for decades to find the Dragon Reborn and help him declare himself, but now that she has succeeded, will she be able to step back and take a subordinate role to him?
Having now been publicly declared the Dragon Reborn, Rand will need to both discover what he needs to do next, and avoid his enemies, both of the Light and of the Dark, who will seek to stop him from fulfilling his purpose. He has learned to partially control his channeling,, but he has a long way to go. And of course, the more he channels, the more he will be affected by the encroaching madness it brings. Whether it’s the right move or not, h takes a step towards asserting control of his fate at the end of the episode, when he decides to go not to Tear, as is prophesied, but to the Aiel Waste.
Egwene, made both stronger and more fragile from her experiences as a damane, is also foreshadowed to struggle with the need to aid Rand versus the need to protect others from him. Her Accepted test, in which we see Egwene confront a maddened Rand as the Amrylin Seat, may or may not be prophetic, but it is another indication that at some point Rand and Egwene may not end up on the same side.
Perrin is headed back to the Two Rivers, but he may soon find that going home may not be at all what he expects. His fears over his Wolfbrother attributes, particularly his own ability to do violence, will surely be put to the test there.
Nynaeve’s decision to remain in Tar Valon and learn how to break her block against channeling shows her growing maturity, and may be an acknowledgment that her former charges are growing up as well. She is letting them go to take care of herself, which is praise-worthy, but in so doing she is remaining in a White Tower which may still have agents of the Dark lying in wait, hiding in plain sight. She may be forced to learn to navigate the elaborate politics that she has formerly disdained.
Mat is also remaining in Tar Valon, in the hopes that Nynaeve will be able to help cure him of his affliction, plagued with memories not his own. Mat will likely have to contend with the knowledge that he was a hero – possibly many heroes – in his former lives, and with his (so far) distinct lack of heroic tendencies in this one. He is beset not just by memories, but by the spectre of addiction – to gambling, to alcohol, to the dagger, even to the Horn – which could present major obstacles to him in the future.
And all around them, their enemies gather. Once determined to stay together, Our Heroes have instead split apart, and will soon be scattered all over the world. Only (The Wheel of) Time will tell how long it will be before they are all together again.
