For the past several weeks, Rafe Judkins, showrunner of Amazon Studios’ The Wheel of Time television series, has instituted #WoTWednesday on social media: He’ll share peeks at scripts (just the episode titles, alas) or his marked-up copies of Robert Jordan’s books, as he and the writing staff embark on the epic undertaking of adapting this beloved fantasy series for the small screen.
This week, Judkins was in Fiji, and so for #WoTWednesday he talked about eastern religions and philosophies, most notably reincarnation.
[Note: Mild spoilers ahead for Book 6.]
In an Instagram post at the Sri Siva Subramaniya Temple in Nadi, Fiji, Judkins got to thinking:
For #WoTWednesday this week, since I’m in Fiji where 30% of the population is Hindu (and the 10 dollar coin is actually a mandala of the Kalachakra or “Wheel of Time”) I thought I’d talk a little about the philosophy of the books and what I want to bring out in the series. One of my favorite things about the books is how they embrace eastern religions and philosophies and put them into an epic fantasy context in a way we haven’t yet seen in tv or film. I plan to lean heavily into the concept of reincarnation in the books and have spent a lot of time talking to people who believe in reincarnation to get a feel for how that affects not only your philosophy of the world, but also the every day way you live your life. I’d love to hear, too, about some of your favorite moments from the books that deal with reincarnation or being spun out again by the wheel of time (mine is Birgitte Silverbow’s return
). Obviously, yin and yang and balance and duality are important eastern philosophical concepts from the books that I want to bring out in series, but we will save discussions on that for a future trip to China ;)
If he’s mentioning Birgitte he’s obviously on the right track, but what new aspects regarding the Hindu concept of reincarnation might Judkins bring to the internal struggles of our main characters? Interesting food for thought….
It’s an interesting concept, one that everyone in WoT seems to believe. Other than Birgitte, the only characters I can think of who actively considered this concept was Rand and Ishy. It actually tied heavily into Rand’s final transformation on top of Dragonmount. And of course, it was Ishy’s raison d‘être. Other than Ishy, I don’t remember sensing any fatalism in the characters.
I really, really hope they can do well with this. I just dont know how you can show the intricate detail of weaving the elements together to cast the spells.
The forsaken were reincarnated but in a very perverse fashion, wondering if the director plans to show that off and much it contrasts with Birgitte’s appearance in TAR. Will be interesting to see how the show covers Lews Therin in Rand’s head, speaking of Book 6, Kinslayer is plays a pretty big role by the end
@1 The Heroes of the Horn talk about being reincarnated as the Pattern deems them grand enough to directly serve. Gaidal Cain and Birgitte at least talk about reincarnation, not sure if Hawkwing has ever been spun out before he was Hawkwing, BUT I also was never clear on whether Noel/Jaim was the actual Jaim Farstrider or if Noel was his latest iteration or just a fake name.
@Mitch – that’s probably my biggest worry as well. My internal imagery for weaving means I would be severely disappointed without that as a visual component.
@2, 4:
Doing that right would be really, really expensive, so prepare to be disappointed. But for the most part, the need to show weaves at all would come in later seasons, so here’s hoping they even get to face that problem.
We certainly won’t see any weaving at all in the first season, only the effects of that weaving. If we DO see weaving in the first season, I expect I won’t enjoy this show very much.
Noal/Jaim/Jain were all one person. Not reincarnated versions.
Everyone gets reborn, but I got the feeling that only the Heroes were reborn with any sort of regularity. Everyone else was sort of hit and miss, or it took a couple full turns of the wheel, etc.
I always got the sense that Egwene was the last queen of Mantheren reborn. And Mat showed signs of being reborn even before he went to the foxes and snakes.
Some aspects of the whole rebirth thing don’t make any sense to be with regards to Balefire. How similar are the repetitions of the Wheel? Do all those Balefired Forsaken get subbed out for similar minded jerks who don’t cause the plot to change that dramatically?
I really love Matt’s ability later in the books to be able to recall the knowledge of all his past selves.
Every time Mat Cauthon utters the Old Tongue is due to his reincarnation (and comprise some of my favorite moments). Same with Egwene’s almost recognizing it sometimes. It happened before the doorways, during his healing (and waking) in the Tower. And it happened before Mordeth, Jordan was careful to show it before then (Carai an Caldazar!).
This is the first genuinely hopeful news about the show that I’ve seen in quite some time. Judkins is thinking about how to differentiate himself from other fantasy epics, and he’s hit on something quite central (and way less problematic than putting the focus on gender). Digging into how the characters’ worldview affects their psyches is a great start. Also, if this is central, then it bodes well for creating an authentic Ishamael who can’t be mistaken //hopefully not even temporarily, because the slow burn reveal of how original he is and even that he isn’t the Dark One may take WAY too long for TV patience// for Generic Dark Lord Flavor of the Month.
@7,8,9:
I’m afraid not. The reason given in-text for Mat speaking in the Old Tongue in tEotW and tDR is the strength of the “Old Blood” inside him. So, while its possible that it was instead caused by memories of a previous incarnation bleeding through, the reason given by Moiraine, and later some random Brown Ajah was the strength of the blood of Manetheren that ran through his veins. In essence, the Two Rivers was so isolated that they are basically the pure stock of Manetheren. There is no reason to doubt the text in this case.
Regardless, Mat doesn’t remember any previous lives, not for sure. All of those memories of battles that he remembers post-Rhuidean are from warriors who lived during the 200 years of the Trolloc Wars. He comments once on the time frame being about 200 years of history, and that he remembers being a young general dancing with an Atha’an Miere, and then later, being an older man who kills the first man in battle, or maybe I’ve got the old man and young man part backwards. At any rate, the point is, some of those lives overlap. They can’t be reincarnated memories, unless the same soul was alive as different people at the same time, which makes no sense, and completely destroys the entire concept of reincarnation.
Mat’s memories come from people who entered the twisted ter’angreals and had dealings with the Snakes and Foxes (Well, almost assuredly the Snakes, given the time period). The Snakes and Foxes trade their gifts (Telling future “truths” and granting wishes) for access to the human’s memories. They “taste” them. And obviously keep some sort of access to them. When Mat wished for the “holes in his memory” to be filled while within the ter’angreal in Rhuidean (the holes which were caused by his time carrying the Shadar Logoth dagger in tEotW), the Foxes granted his wish and filled those holes with the memories they had pilfered from those ancient visitors.
The big exception to this is one instance, while he is being Healed from the Shadar Logoth dagger in the White Tower. He has some sort of episode where he is directing a battle during the Trolloc Wars, speaking fluently in the Old Tongue. This is either a) an ancestral memory, carried through his bloodline, or b) he is remembering a previous life. But we don’t know which, because Jordan abandoned this storyline in favor of introducing the Foxes.
I was all set to counterpoint until I got to your last paragraph LOL. Mat is such an odd mix of old blood, shadar logoth, influence, ta’veren, snakes and foxes and possible reincarnation that we don’t really know what to attribute to each.
Maybe have some sort of periscope/bubble vision that only channelers of own gender can see. The rest of people can just see magic happening like floating/throwing objects, flame/lightning, healing. But channelers in their bubble vision will see a)glow to indicate ability to channel and b) glowing threads of different colors for each thread ending up with a result like green lantern creating stuff. If the result needs to be purposely visible like /Rand’s flame sword in Shadow Rising/. Ta’veren should not be visible to anyone, but if someone with Talent can see, they can just say so or show flashback with glow. Min’ vision should’ve like hazy images on FastForward above character’s head. And like video games once users get used to rules of games it becomes obviously easy to understand.
I am wondering how diverse the cast would be. I am rereading books now, and there were whole lot of Asian, central Asian, middle-eastern, and Indian cultures thrown in for cultures/food and so on. White/European characters seem limited to Andor and Aiel.
Shienar is very close to Japanese culture, Cairhien to Chinese, Arad Doman to India/Korean food?, Tanchico to Middle east/central asia with it’s lamb dishes, Aiel is eastern European/Baltic, Andor is England, Saeldea is Mongolia, Tear =India/south south america?, Seanchan is Africa.
@14 I’ve always seen Seanchan as more America than anything else – but it’s kind of a pre civil war, greek style slavery America, not modern America. The clothes might not fit, but a lot of other things do.
I mean, it’s a multi – ethic nation founded by colonists from another continent, driven there in part by religious fanaticism (Hawking’s thing about the channellers, which is a good parallel for pilgrims). They have both chattel slavery (Damane) and a indentured servitude style slavery , which also is a significant part of their economy, and as a result they have both pseudo religious/ philosophical arguments for keeping their slaves and strong economic imperatives to do so (as a lot of the power of the crown also derives from Damane), kind of like the pre-civil war south.
Their role in the story is very American as well – They essentially arrive as an invading colonialist power in order to spread peace, order and their system of government in troubled foreign lands.
AND, to top it all off they place very strong cultural values on competency over bloodline as grounds for promotion, despite having a hereditary ruling class.
@15, never thought about it that way, but it makes sense, I always had a bit of a Byzantine/Persian feel from them myself.
@14, I always got a 16th C Spanish vibe from Tear, an 18th C French vibe from Cairhien and a Greco/Roman vibe from Illian, but otherwise, yeah. I also got a slightly colonial Indian feel for the way Emonds Fielders were described.
Of course, Jordan wasn’t one for single influence cultures, there is definitely everything you two said in there, but I noticed other elements. Now I’m wondering what else other people have noticed?! And damnit, this all just makes me more excited for the TV show!
@15 Even though they have colonial history like America, the majority of them are very dark skinned looking like African, most of light skinned ones are either direct descendants of Hawking’s army or more recent arrivals, from conquered and absorbed nation’s. Africa had more than it’s share of colonialism and slavery dating back before European conquests. Noticeable the nature of slavery evolved in Seanchan both damane and da’cavole and so’jin was not brought in by Hawking’s armies but seemed to be native to Seanchan and adopted by their conquerors. What Hawking’s brought was desire for conquest and hatred of channelers.
@16 I based my Cairhien = Chinese culture based on description of clothes and appearance, military men shaving half of their heads, deceptively simple and modest yet expensive and elegant clothes for aristocracy with strict rules like # of slashes for rank. As for game of thrones thing, Chinese royal court had that too aplenty. But yes, Jordan did merge cultures, yet after watching documentary on Chinese emperors, it reminded me of ancient China more than medieval France.
Jordan definitely mixed the influences of the various cultures and nations so one should ber careful to avoid over-simplifying.
But Tear definitely has Spanish influence and Cairhien also gave me French, Lois XIV Versailles court, feel. The dresses, the hair styles, the plotting.
As a Eastern European the Aiel gave me Zero impression of having any such influence whatsoever. Shienar in some ways comes across as Japanese but in others it is fundamentally different. The same of for the Tinkers/Tuathan and the Roma/gypsy people. And so on.
But again, none of the peoples of WOT are cut and paste of real world cultures. We can recognise some aspects from existing ones but the cultures of the WOT stand entirely on their own.
There is definitely no one-to-one analog between real world cultures and WoT cultures. It’s a complete hodge-podge culturally. Which will be — interesting to see how it’s handled in today’s #twitter world. I can’t even imagine the kind of backlash the show would get if they cast Shienarans as light skinned with the asiatic cultural influences they have. It might be best to intentionally mix all kinds of skin colors into each culture. Although I can’t imagine a place like the Two Rivers not being solidly one ethnicity.
My take on the visibility of channeling is that it should be dictated by what POV that specific chapter or section of the story it correlates to. If it is a scene that, from the book narrative, is from the perspective of a non-channeler, the weaves should be as invisible to us as it is to them. That would benefit the audience tremendously in helping feel like we are along for the ride just as the characters are. The easiest example is how all the various forces of Light and Shadow react to the Cleansing of saidin.
Also, it should be taken into consideration that male and female channelers don’t see each other’s weaves, and men don’t see weaves at all. They sense them, as they sense their peers power and strength levels. I’ve always pictured it as a sort of shimmering in the air, emanating from them like heat waves, warping the air. Women are way easier. They glow like Dragonball Z characters, but without the wind….
@19, The people of Two Rivers are described as dark haired and dark eyed and probably olive skinned as Rand is considered pale. Fair skinned people are common in Andor but most everywhere else people are shades of brown sometimes deepening to black. The exceptions are Cairhienin who are short and pale and the Aiel who are tall and fair colored.
Feels like he’s overemphasizing the wrong things. Yes, they’re all on board with reincarnation, but what is emphasized more is the theme of light and dark in the beginning. Nobody likes to think about it beyond the hope of rebirth in the Light. It doesn’t go meta until much later on in the series. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.
I’d always envisioned the Aiel as almost stereotypical viking types. Culturally, Andor is very English…And I thought that the Two rivers it’s equivalent to Wales. I thought that Cairhein was closest to rennaisance Italy…Venice in particular, with it’s masked festivals.
The scene I’ve always wanted to see for the channeling is Nyn and Moggy’s first battle. From their points of view we see weaves being flung back and forth. Then a maid walks by and we get a view of two women seemingly having a staring contest. Then back to the fight.
Kind of like the toy train scene from Ant-man.
In WOT, is everyone reincarnated or only special people (i.e. the Dragon, the Heroes of the Horn and forsaken)? I am not sure if it was ever discussed that everyone has past lives, or only special cases. The Dragon Reborn is a big deal but other than Bridgett and the other Heroes, I don’t think there is ever any discussion of anyone else having a past life.
The Forsaken coming back to life from the “lord of the grave” suggests that there is an afterlife. So does the existence of “ghosts” .
Or am I just forgetting how this was dealt with?
@11
Anthony Pero, I LOVE that scene in The Dragon Reborn.
‘ I am my own man Aes Sedai. I’m no Aes Sedai meat.’
I’m caught up in the romanticism of all 3 Ta’veren being reincarnated souls, but having the other two diverge from being defined by that rebirth, the way Rand could not.
Perrin’s identity crisis is bound up in learning he is a Wolfbrother. While Mat gets a concrete backstory his mind can rationalise & accept, to add to the Romantic Notion of ‘The Old Blood Sings in his Veins’. Given how hard he ran from the notion of being a General, despite being able to reason out why, I shudder at the thought of how he would have reacted if Jordan had let his story meander in the more ephemerally prophetic way it started.
26. Gregor Lewis and many others. While we are discussing the books in general so to speak, we are speaking on a theme in the books and not necessarily actual spoilery details. Please refrain from doing so for those still reading the series.
Researching the way people in the real world react to and think about reincarnation is a huge mistake when dealing with a scify book series that happens to have a form of reincarnation in it. In some cases it is not even reincarnation. If you are going to turn TWoT into a series, either with RL actors or animated, just follow the books. It is not necessary to add aspects of the real world into it. Things like this piss me off.
I’ve never taken reincarnation as a sure thing. After all, people swear “By the Light and my hope of rebirth and salvation…” then you have the Heroes, who are explicitly tied to the Wheel and definitely reincarnated, but then Rand is surprised to see how few of them there are — only about a hundred. Average everyday Randlander probably doesn’t get to live again. If anything, Randland rebirth might be the exact inverse of Buddhist and Hindu conceptions; everyone goes back into the collective soul of the universe, new lives are spun out but are not the same souls, while a select few stay bound to the world and separate.
CireNaes@22
It concerns me as well. The manichean-style dualism (although not of the gnostic variety) is far, far more prominent a theme than anything regarding reincarnation. As pointed out by @29, reincarnation for the masses is not viewed as a sure thing in the cosmology of The Wheel of Time. The credo found in the various sworn oaths refers to a hope of rebirth, not its inevitable eventuality.
In a culture that truly bought in to reincarnation the way that Rafe Judkins seems to want to explore, the choice to become a Darkfriend would be one to give up the assurance (not the hope) of rebirth for a promise of eternal life that may never come to pass. You’re trading sure eternal life for a lesser assurance that your current body would live forever, a fool’s trade. In the case of Darkfriends earlier than the period we are in, you’re trading the surety of eternal life through reincarnation for only the possibility that the Dark One might break free within your lifetime. The prevalence of Darkfriends alone speaks against a firm cultural belief that every soul is reincarnated regularly.
The Wheel of Time has some of the trappings of Far Eastern religions, but it borrows more heavily from Eastern philosophy than Eastern mysticism or cosmology. And the sensibilities of these characters are firmly Western.
Kyle@25:
There is not really consensus on your question. But for the reasons you mention, I’m pretty firmly in the camp of “Rebirth is possible, but not inevitable, and it doesn’t happen to everyone all the time.”
And the fact is, I don’t necessarily believe the things Ishamael says in the first half of the series. We are told many, many times by the other Forsaken that Ishamael “Half believes himself to BE the Great Lord of the Dark,” so much of what he says about the never-ending battle between himself and Lews Therin can be reinterpreted through that lens — its not the Dragon and Ishamael who fight a war again and again, but the Dragon and the Dark One. Just because Ishamael believes that he has been the Dark One’s avatar in every turning of the Wheel doesn’t make it so.
Robert Jordan wasn’t only mixing his influences for the cultures and nations in building the world of WOT. More knowledgable than I posters make it seem to me pretty likely that the show runner has fallen in the same trap many of us readers. He has placed too much weight on one aspect.
Falling into this so called trap is quite easy. Cairhien is a good example. I still stand by my view of the 18 century French influence- plus if Andor is fairly fantasy vanilla Anglo-Saxon, it makes sense the people bordering it to be a little different- like French (or German, Dutch, etc) not very utterly different like Chinese. But of course it’s not so simple- the poster above laid out some Chairienin characteristics that seem borrowed from Chinese culture.
So people will see one influence and fail to see another or ignore it, and vice-versa.
In books the differentiation can be fairly subtle but in TV or cinema they tend to be heavy handed if they choose to portray differences. E.g. the differnces between Gondor and Rohan soldiers were much subtler in the books than in the movies.
The implications for the motivations of Darkfriends are also worth considering. Reincarnation isn’t necessarily appealing to everyone, either in the real world or in Randland. Most reincarnation theologies do not permit any memory of the past self to survive (which raises legitimate philosophical questions about the continuity of personhood). Likewise, normal people in Randland do not remember their past lives: Birgitte is a very rare exception, and Rand is. . .well, Rand’s got a metric crapton of stuff going on in his poor tortured head that I don’t think can be reductionistically explained to just “remembers exactly one past life but none of the others”. So, if mainstream religious belief seems to involve some notion of karma and improvement through rebirths (Moiraine’s prayer at Tamra’s funeral strongly implies this), but that, as in mainstream Hinduism and Buddhism, the conscious soul does not remember previous lives. . .some people likely aren’t going to like the mainstream. Eternal life with continuity of consciousness might start to look really good. //Good enough to explain the extremely high proportion of the overall population who logically must be Darkfriends. Big enough to supply 20% of the White Tower when only 1% of the population can channel. That’s not a rare sect. That’s a massive alternative underground religion.//
Leaning into the non-Western theology will also really help keep the Whitecloaks from descending into lazy writing. They share elements with the Inquisition, yes. . .but they do so in defense of what appears to be mainstream reincarnation-based, deist rather than theist theology. Originality points once again, and no simplistic one-to-one correspondences. //Any more than Rand literally dying for three days and rising again. I had a pact with myself that if that happened in any REMOTELY literal way I would throw the book against the wall. Mercifully my walls are intact.//
I am pretty sure that reincarnation for everybody is a fact in Randland – it is repeatedly stated in the series itself and Jordan’s answers to readers’ questions also confirmed it as well, IIRC.
The difference between the Heroes of the Horn and the rest is that the Heroes always become the same sort of adventuruous, heroic person when reincarnated and, of course, exist in sentient non-corporeal form and remember their former lives when between incarnations. Normal people don’t remember their previous lives, and their personalities when alive are more mutable due to outside influences.
Nor is there, necessarily, a conflict between belief in re-incarnation and choosing to serve the Dark One, particularly when he is supposed to be sealed away, even if imperfectly. Immortality is still quite attractive, because reincarnation of the soul doesn’t provide the continuity of mind and memory. Certain knowledgeable people actually turned to the DO _because_ they wanted a definite end when he won. Nor did all or even most of the Darkfriends necessarily believe that the Dark One could actually get at their souls when they joined – or that the end of their Age would come in their lifetime. A lot of them just thought that they were joining a criminal organization that would allow them to get ahead, etc.
padan_fain @20:
Male channelers do see each other’s weaves when they become proficient enough – what they can only feel and not see is when the other man holds the One Power.
@31 Anthony
My take has always been that there is a pool of souls and they are selected based on the needs of the Pattern. The exceptions to this are the Heroes of the Horn who go to the World of Dreams upon death waiting to be spun out again and those who go to the dark side and promise their souls to Shai’tan. A common mistake is thinking that balefire destroys your soul. RJ said that wasn’t true. It prevents Shai’tan from grabbing the soul at the moment of death, so Rhavin and Be’lal, for example, couldn’t be put in a new body like Balthmel and Aginor were. But the soul is not destroyed by balefire.
How frequently souls were spun out is anyone’s guess. If I had to guess, I would say it was random. Population is low now. It was probably in the billions in the Age of Legends. And I would speculate that new souls are created all the time as well. So, a soul could be spun out every century or could not be spun out for a full turning of the Wheel depending on the needs of the Pattern.
@20
Men see weaves of other men. Women see weaves of other women. Advanced channelers can be invert the weaves to hide them. Men feel a chill when women channel. Women feel nothing when men channel. Women can feel the power of other women just by being near them. Men feel a presence of power only when other men are channeling or holding the power. Men tend to be stronger in Earth and Fire, women stronger in Water and Air. Both are equal in Spirit. Spirit is the only one that can be used when sleeping. Women tend to be more deft and able to split their weaves more finely. Men tend to be stronger overall. Women submit to saidar. Men control saidin. Women can form a circle with other women up to 13. Men need a woman to form a circle. To go beyond 13 a man is needed. There always needs to be more women than men except for 1 man/1 woman, 2 men/1 woman, and 2 men/2 women. Any other differences I am missing?
@19 Regarding the twitter-people, I seriously hope the people in charge of the show will just ignore all fabricated outrages and focus on staying true to the source material. The way Jordan mixed cultural influences and ethnicities around was wonderful, but you can bet there’s going to be drama about “cultural appropriation”. There will be people who will get offended no matter what, but the important thing to remember is that they are not that numerous and shouting on twitter won’t make them anything other than a vocal minority. There’s already a loyal fanbase, so sticking to what’s already there is the most foolproof way to succeed, since you CAN’T please the types who love to get offended at everything.
@21 The people of the Two Rivers are described as dark haired and eyed, yes, but their skin tone is still most probably a tanned, southern European caucasian. An important thing to remember is that Rand was still similar enough in appearance that him being completely unrelated to the village genetically was a total surprise and a shock to him. The most prominent differences were his hair and eye color, which were explained with him “getting them from his mother’s side”. A generalization that feels the most fitting in my opinion is that Rand (and the Aiel in general) are the pale Irish type while the rest of the Two Rivers are more Italian.
Ishy isn’t the DO’s avatar (although he might half think he is), that’s Shaidar Haran.
There are two different kinds of duality in WoT. The Creator/DO is a Manichaean good/evil duality, while saidin/saidar is a Taoist complementarity where neither is better than the other.
While I’m glad he’s thinking seriously about the themes I also find myself hoping he’s not going to box himself into one area too tightly. Reincarnation was never something I took to be a main focus – yes, it’s a feature. It definitely plays heavily into Rand and Birgitte’s psyches, although they are both special cases. But I hope he also broadens that out the wider cyclical themes, as well as the dualist/balance philosophies.
I also hope he doesn’t make it TOO Eastern because one of the other important aspects for me in these works is how Jordan has blended several cultures and drew on many different influences to give us a an alternate view of our world.
I haven’t read the novels but am interested in the Series.
I have to wonder whether blending different cultures doesn’t just result in agnosticism, at least from the narrator’s point of view. I’d actually be more interested if the characters clearly believed in reincarnation and made life choices that were in accordance with that, rather than having it just be a “point of view”.
But I don’t know if that’s what the novel(s) are really about.
@40:
Agnostic would not be an accurate descriptor of the belief system in the Wheel of Time. There is no question whatsoever presented at any time, by any of the 130+ viewpoint characters that a Creator exists, and that the DO exists. There is also no question in anyone’s mind that the Creator created the World, spun the Wheel, and that he takes no part whatsoever after that. Its straight Diest theology, as far as that goes. There are no unbelievers, no alternate theories. Nothing.
Good for them! That makes the show potentially more interesting for me. Even though I myself am agnostic! :)