It’s been magic pretty much non-stop from there: channeling, shadow cities, fades, a False Dragon, a potential werewolf, an “Ogier,” and a tower full of powerful women magicians. It was a medieval setting, with a medieval setting’s concerns the fantasy elements were a slow burn, building and building until the fire claimed King’s Landing.Ĭompare and contrast with The Wheel of Time, which opened with a Trolloc attack on a small village, repelled by a powerful wizard-woman in search of five young people believed to be the reincarnation of a messianic figure. The genius of Game of Thrones lay in how it hit us with the White Walkers in its opening minutes but then allowed the magic of its world to fade into the background, right up until Daenerys Targaryen hatched her dragons. Perhaps the irony here is that even as it establishes its heroine as a human being with a human being’s drives and desires, The Wheel of Time is unapologetically a fantasy. She’s fulfilling a quest, yes, but she’s been a person the whole time. So even when, at the end of the episode, she reunites the five potential Dragons Reborn, you don’t simply have a picture of a questing witch in your mind - you envision a woman, in full. In short, Moiraine is a human being, not just a wizard or a plot device. She likes tea, and she occasionally spills it to keep her position secure. She has an office romance on the down-low. She has co-workers she trusts and some she doesn’t. She enjoys simple and not-so-simple pleasures. If nothing else - and believe me, there was plenty else - this week’s episode of The Wheel of Time (written by Justine Juel Gillmer and directed by Salli Richardson-Whitfield) established the vital but straightforward fact that Moiraine, the powerful sorceress at the heart of the narrative, has a life.
Moiraine, standing on the balcony, admiring the view one last time before she leaves, perhaps forever. Moiraine, sneaking off for a late-night assignation with her secret lover and confidante, who’s also her boss. Moiraine, letting down her hair in front of a mirror at the end of a long day. Moiraine, talking shop with a colleague in a sauna.