The third season of The Wheel of Time has premiered on Prime Video with its first three episodes. The epic television series is adapted from the best-selling fantasy novels penned by Robert Jordan. Since the show’s premiere in 2021, viewers with a keen eye, who are well-versed in Jordan’s written works, will have noticed some variation in the on-screen plot. It is a change that does not exactly sit well with some fans of the franchise, who had hoped for Jordan’s works to have followed the trajectory in the novels. Showrunner Rafe Judkins has since defended the decision to keep making story- and character-based changes in Prime Video’s TV adaptation.
Defending the decision, Judkins in an interview with TechRadar ahead of the third season’s premiere, said the changes were necessary for the show’s audience to “emotionally understand” the characters that inhabit its world. “I’m always focused on the emotional truth of the characters and trying to get that across on screen,” Judkins told the outlet. “That’s where television shines. If you’re doing an adaptation for television, I think you really need to focus your energies [on that] because that’s what the art form of TV does best – it brings those characters across.”
Some of the key emotional connections in the books revolve around Rand al’Thor (Josha Stradowski), Egwene (Madeleine Madden), and Lanfear (Natasha O’Keeffe). Rand’s complex relationship with the Forsaken, Lanfear, will be a point of exploration this season, as would his relationship with Egwene, and Judkins seeks to expand on that more than the novels did. “In this season, for instance, we do a lot with the relationships that Rand has with Lanfear and Egwene,” Judkins explains, “And neither of those are really present in the books. A lot of what we have to do is condensing [stuff down from the novels], but sometimes we need to expand [on what’s on the page].”
Plot Changes a Necessary Evil in ‘The Wheel of Time’
Rand might have been proclaimed as the Dragon Reborn at the end of Season 2. However, if he is to survive the Last Battle, he will have to rely on culturing the relationships he has. One of those is with his guardian, Moiraine Sedai (Rosamund Pike), and their dynamic will equally be explored further as well. Judkins goes on to explain that Rand’s relationship with Lanfear and Egwene will be equally as important. He adds, “Rand has really deep, complicated relationships with these women, but they don’t have a lot of scenes together in this book [The Shadow Rising], so it felt like we really needed those in order to understand the depth of these relationships and how important they are to those characters.”
Judkins, a devoted Wheel of Time enthusiat himself, sympathizes with fan anger regarding the changes but views it as a necessary evil. He adds:
“That’s an [example of] where we’re actually adding something that wasn’t in the books. I’m sure it’ll drive people crazy but there’s a reason why we do it, and that’s because we want viewers to emotionally understand the relationship between these characters and how each one affects the other. It has a huge impact on the story as it moves forward.”
The Wheel of Time Season 3 is currently streaming on Prime Video. Stay with Collider for the latest updates. You can catch up on the last two seasons now on Prime Video.
The Wheel of Time
- Release Date
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November 18, 2021
- Network
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Prime Video
- Showrunner
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Rafe Judkins
- Directors
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Sanaa Hamri, Ciaran Donnelly, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, Thomas Napper, Maja Vrvilo, Wayne Che Yip
- Writers
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Amanda Kate Shuman, Dave Hill, Rohit Kumar, Justine Juel Gillmer, Celine Song, Rammy Park, The Clarksons Twins, Katherine B. McKenna
Source: TechRadar
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