Amazon reinvents ‘The Wheel of Time’ for the small screen, with surprising turns

You were supposed to be reading a sort of chatty, funny, and ultimately invaluable introduction to the sprawling world of the series, and its many characters, factions, lands and institutions drawn from Jordan’s books.

We’d traded texts about the Wheel of Time primer she was planning to write for NPR.

Instead, you get this comparatively thin gruel — a review, written by me, someone who has never gotten around to reading the books.

Early in the Amazon series, several of our doughty heroes escape from their isolated, bucolic village at night, via ferry.

That certain elements of The Wheel of Time would echo elements of The Lord of the Rings seems inevitable, of course.

Yes, the plot involves the search for The Chosen One — in the lore of the series, the long-prophesied person called the Dragon Reborn, who alone can defeat the Dark One.

But the series introduces a twist, and introduces it early: The Dragon Reborn may be one of four people in the remote village of Two Rivers.

And that “Reborn” business? Turns out the clash between Dragon and Dark One has happened before, many times, and will continue to happen.

But the ultimate effect is to cause the world underpinning the events depicted — the world that always seems to hover just offscreen — to insist upon itself, and always compete for our attention with the story we’re watching.

The sinister Children of the Light, for example, wear cloaks so blindingly and pristinely white, even as they trudge through muddy forests, that you can’t help wondering about their OxyClean budget.

I know Petra had a deep affection for the book series .

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