Amazon has dropped a new trailer for The Wheel of Time season 2! We get out our magnifying glass to scour it for clues about what’s coming.
It’s a momentous time for The Wheel of Time fans! The trailer for the show’s highly anticipated second season dropped yesterday, and we’ve been going through it with a fine-tooth comb ever since.
Siuan Sanche gives advice to Rand! Aviendha fights Whitecloaks! Nynaeve stands before the arches for her Accepted trial and the Seanchan step out in style! There’s so much good stuff in there.
We’re going to break the trailer down shot-by-shot. We’ll be using what we know from Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time novels, so expect spoilers from the second and third books in the series, The Great Hunt and The Dragon Reborn, as we dissect each frame to try to figure out exactly what we’re looking at.
We begin with Moiraine Damodred, played by Rosamund Pike.
The Wheel of Time. Image: Prime Video / YouTube
We can’t be certain of where she is in this shot, but it doesn’t look like the Aes Sedai home city of Tar Valon, which is much more metropolitan, as we see in the next shot:
The Wheel of Time. Image: Prime Video / YouTube
“Everyone has a choice, and every choice has a consequence,” Moiraine says as the trailer opens. She’s got a tear in her eye in this next shot, where she appears to be curled up in a bath tub. Dealing with some of those consequences, maybe?
The Wheel of Time. Image: Prime Video / YouTube
When last we saw Moiraine, she had just lost her ability to use the One Power after a run-in with a mysterious man at the Eye of the World. That wasn’t exactly her choice, but it’s hard to think of too many other things that might have Moiraine in such a state. I also love how this calls back to her season 1 scene in the bathtub with Lan (Daniel Henney). That was a happy moment; this one looks much more somber.
Next we check in with Rand, who’s staring out at a rocky expanse while wearing some very nice threads:
The Wheel of Time. Image: Prime Video / YouTube
The Wheel of Time. Image: Prime Video / YouTube
Where is Rand here? It’s possible this is a dream sequence. But judging by one of the shots later on where we see him wearing this same outfit while he squares off with some Seanchan, I’m going to guess this shot happens when he’s on his way to Falme, where the climactic clash of The Great Hunt takes place.
The Wheel of Time. Image: Prime Video / YouTube
Dangers in the dark
Now we cut back to Moiraine. She looks pretty worried here, and appears to be holding a knife. She’s also wielding one in the poster for season 2. Presuming Moiraine still doesn’t have her powers here, she’ll have to resort to more mundane methods to defend herself. But what is she defending herself from?
The Wheel of Time. Image: Prime Video / YouTube
Probably this Myrdraal, because that’s what you do when Myrdraal are around!
The Wheel of Time. Image: Prime Video / YouTube
The Wheel of Time has played coy about the identity of The Man (Fares Fares). Readers of the book know this is Ishamael, one of the Forsaken, powerful sorcerers and sorceresses who followed the Dark One the last time he was active. The show has gone back and forth on whether to reveal this in the marketing; in this trailer, Moiraine says, “we didn’t defeat the Dark One, we set him free.” But in the season 2 sneak peek we got last year, the line was, “we didn’t defeat the Dark One, we set his strongest lieutenant free.” As book readers know, this guy is the Dark One’s lieutenant, not the Dark One himself.
Ishamael gives a knowing look here before he dissolves into dust. Which isn’t ominous at all.
The Wheel of Time. Image: Prime Video / YouTube
Next we see Egwene (Madeleine Madden), pulling weaves around herself. The channeling magic looks pretty good this season!
Egwene is wearing white, which is the color of an Aes Sedai Novice. In The Great Hunt, she and Nynaeve train at the White Tower in Tar Valon, which is where we’re guessing she is.
If the show follows the books, we’ll spend quite a lot of time at the White Tower this season getting to know the Aes Sedai who live there. One of the big ones is Liandrin (Kate Fleetwood):
The Wheel of Time. Image: Prime Video / YouTube
Liandrin is an Aes Sedai of the Red Ajah, who tend to be pretty militant. Whatever Liandrin’s getting up to, you can bet it’s probably trouble for someone.
Next, we have a brief, intriguing shot of a group of hooded figures sitting around a table:
The Wheel of Time. Image: Prime Video / YouTube
You can just make out Ishamael on the right side of the image, with what looks like a child next to him. Are these the Forsaken? The Black Ajah? A gathering of Darkfriends? Probably the latter, since it would make sense for Darkfriends to be hooded to keep their identities secret from each other. There are a lot of scenes in Robert Jordan’s novels which depict meetings between villains with mysterious identities. This looks like one of them.
The Wheel of Time. Image: Prime Video / YouTube
“No one should have that kind of power,” Nynaeve (Zoë Robbins) says, stubborn as ever. She’s wearing white here and speaking to an Aes Sedai (my guess is Alanna, based on the green clothing, jewelry and hairstyle). There are some bulbs of garlic hanging in the background. Maybe this is in a kitchen or something? Novices are known to have to work in the kitchens from time to time.
Kitchen chores are the least of our heroes’ worries this season though, if the next part of the trailer is anything to judge by:
