THE WHEEL OF TIME – Episode 304 – (limited spoilers) ⁓

What Has Gone Before:

Leandrin Guirale (Kate Fleetwood) was summoned before the Amerlyn Seat and accused of being a darkfriend. When Egwene Al’Vere (Madelaine Madden), whom Leandrin kidnapped and sold to The Seanchan, is produced as a witness, Leandrin came out as Black Ajah and asked her sisters to join her. Of the eleven sitters in the hall, about half joined her, and after a short battle, Leandrin and her cohorts left the city. Two of the Black Ajah were captured and questioned, but revealed nothing of importance.

It was deduced that Leandrin’s destination was Tanchico, the capital city of Tarabon, and that she is searching for an artefact — an ancient collar strong enough to restrain the Dragon Reborn. Elayne Trakand (Ceara Coveney) and Nynaeve al’Meara (Zoë Robins) followed her there. Mat Cauthon (Dónal Finn) and Min Farshaw (Kae Alexander) tagged along.

Verin Mathwin (Meera Syal) and Perrin Aybara (Marcus Rutherford) returned to The Two Rivers, and found tht the Children of the Light (aka Whitecloaks) had taken Matt’s family hostage to exact revenge against Perrin for killing a prominent Whitecloak (see episode 1.5). Perrin initially wanted to turn himself in, but decided instead to organize the townsfolk, and make them better able to defend themselves. He also resolved to rescue Matt’s family, perhaps with the help of the mysterious new arrival Faile Bashere (Isabella Buoccere).

Rand al’Thor (Josha Stradowski), Aviendha (Ayooa Smart), and Moiraine Damodred (Rosamund Pike), along with Egwene, traveled to the Aiel Waste.

LEANDRIN’S REVENGE

In Tamchico, Leandrin and her fellow Darkfriends locate a wedding ceremony being conducted by the descendants of the man who raped her many years earlier. They kill the entire wedding party, but the would-be underage bride is spared, sort of. Leandrin has one of her people erase the girl’s ‘painful memories’ even though Leandrin is warned that the girl will ‘probably lose more than that’. After the slaughter, they settle in to research the previously mentioned artefact. They don’t know it but they are being surveilled by Moghedian (Laia Costa), one of The Forsaken.

THE TALE OF THE TREE

The Aiel persuade Aviendha that she must become a ‘wise one’, and convince Egwene that she must learn Dreamwalking. (Her Seanchan torturer has visited her in dreams leaving behind convincing bruises. Egwene is told that only a living person can come to her in dreams. Rand and Moiraine decide to enter the cloud-shrouded city of Ruidean after it is suggested to them that they will die if they do not.

Ruidean is abandoned, shrouded in dry mist, and full of little-understood technology from long ago. Like The Silver Arches in the White Tower, it functions as a rite of passage for those who would become leaders, or ‘wise ones’. Inside the city, Rand and Moiraine locate Avendesora, the Tree of Life, and Moiraine enlightens Rand regarding his family history.

“We always knew the Aiel had it [Avendesora], but we didn’t know where,” she explains. “It’s said to be almost 3,000 years old. We used to have one just like it where I grew up. The Aiel entrusted a sapling of Avendesora to Cairhien hundreds of years ago. A repayment of some debt even older…My Uncle Laman when he became King cut it down to build his throne. He wanted a throne that could never be copied, and we didn’t know it at the time but that was why the Aiel came over the Spine. Why they left the Waste. Why the whole Aiel War began. To kill him for breaking his oath to protect the tree and destroying the pledge of peace with it. And they hunted him, burning every city in the Westlands, until finally they caught him on the slopes of Dragonmount and killed him there.”

Rand quickly realizes the implications. “We’ve been connected,” he tells Moiraine, “since before I was born.”

VISIONS — PAST AND FUTURE

In the ‘glass column ter’angreal‘, a place that generates visions of the past, Rand watches his father Janduin find the body of his mother Tigraine. (episode 1.7).

Rand’s second vision explains why Aiel men are called ‘oathbreakers’, and possibly why they went to such lengths to destroy one oathbreaking King on the other side of the Spine. A paternal ancestor of Rand is told that two of the Da’shain Aiel have been taken away by bandits. He and two male friends decide to attempt a rescue and end up killing the women’s captors. For engaging in violence contrary to ‘The Way of the Leaf‘, they are expelled from the community. Some time after that, the Da’shain Aiel have evolved into the Jenn Aiel who built Ruidean as a place to keep objects of power entrusted to them by the Aes Sedai.

Over the objections of Solinda Sedai (Thandi Sebe), Latra Posae Decume (Katie Brayben), an Aes Sedai in the Age of Legends, entrusts the Jenn Aiel leader with a glowing orb called the Sakarnen, an object of power that can be wielded only by women. (The Aiel conceal it within the Avendesora, and Moiraine finds and pockets it.)

Rand’s final vision is of another of his paternal ancestors speaking with Mierin Sedai (Natasha O’Keeffe), who will later take the name Lanfear. They are in a floating globe that hovers above a large wheat field where Aiel servants sing in the Old Tongue and toil happily, bringing in the harvest. Mierin explains she is on the verge of a great discovery.

“Tomorrow,” she says, “everything will be different.” She has found the “thinnest part of the pattern”, a place where a hole can be punched through, making visible what’s “on the other side“. Rand’s ancestor asks what’s there, and she continues: “a power that can be used by men or women. The true power. It will change everything. Can you imagine? Something anyone, anywhere, can use. not just Lews Therin and the Aes Sedai.”

A hole is blown in the floating sphere and it crashes to the ground. Then the sky above cracks open like an egg.

Rand falls asleep and wakes with a dragon tattoo on each forearm. He finds Aviendha, who, along with Moiraine, was suspended inside The Three Rings. She leaves, but Rand remains to collect Moiraine, who is still suspended in the rings where she has a series of visions that likely represent possible futures of varying probabilities.

In rapid succession, Moiraine sees herself, first in Siuan’s fish hut; then cutting Rand’s throat with a weave; ending her bond with Lan; establishing a new bond with Rand; shielding a flaming Lan and extinguishing the flames; comforting Rand, who has been stabbed in the abdomen; killing Rand again; swearing fealty to Rand; having her throat slit by Lanfear with the rest of the Forsaken looking on; having sex with Rand; having sex with Lanfear; refusing to bow to Rand and being stabbed by Lanfear; and finally being killed repeatedly by Lanfear with various weapons in various places.

After all that she is exhausted, and Rand must carry her from Ruidean.

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All episodes of THE WHEEL OF TIME can be streamed on Amazon Prime.