Diksha Sundriyal
Prime Video’s high fantasy series, ‘The Wheel of Time,’ has returned for a second season, and its first three episodes give us a glimpse of where our protagonists stand and how far they must go. At the end of the last season, it is revealed that Rand is the Dragon Reborn, and to spare his friends from dying, he goes with Moiraine alone to fight the Dark One. They thought they had killed it, but it turns out that this was just the beginning. The second season begins with all five friends separated but still tied to each other through the conflict that is brewing in their world, which will ultimately lead to the fight against the Dark One. SPOILERS AHEAD
The Dragon Reborn and His Friends Hone Their Powers
Having lost her powers, Moiraine has become even more reserved. With the bond between her and Lan gone, even he is shut out of her feelings. He is frustrated because she refuses to talk to him about what’s going on in her head and what she’s secretly doing. They have found refuge in the house of two retired Aes Sedais. She meets all sorts of people every day, one of whom brings her something that might finally mean something. It’s a poem, the nature of which is not revealed. She also discovers that the Fades have caught up with her. They almost kill her when she tries to run away at night, but Lan saves her. With the Fades chasing her, Moiraine realizes that things are far worse than she’d imagined. She tells Lan to go back to the White Tower while she goes somewhere else.
At the Tower, Nynaeve and Egwene are honing their skills as the novices. While Egwene is dedicated and eager to learn, Nynaeve hasn’t channeled since the battle at the end of the last season, where she was almost killed. While the others have been getting frustrated with her stubbornness, Liandrin believes that a good teacher can bring out the best in Nynaeve. She takes the novice under her wing, even when her superiors have doubts about it. Meanwhile, Egwene befriends a new novice, Elayne, who is the Daughter of Andor.
Elsewhere, Perrin has joined the Shienarans and is looking for Padan Fain. He is still dealing with his feelings for Egwene, the loss of their friend Rand, and being far away from all his friends for the first time. On top of this, his powers have been getting stronger, and he struggles to separate visions from reality. He finds another man like him but hesitates to open up about his powers. He is distracted from all this when his team crosses paths with the Seanchans, accompanied by Ishamael.
Meanwhile, Mat is imprisoned by Liandrin and is being held at the Tower, though Egwene and Nynaeve have no idea about it. He has not touched the knife in months and wonders why he is still being held. He tries to find a way out by carving an opening into a wall of his prison, but it opens up into another cell, where he meets Lin, the fortune teller from last season. They befriend each other, but later, it turns out that Lin is not telling him the whole truth about why she was in prison.
Having fought the Dark One, or some form of it, in the last season, Rand is focused on keeping himself from falling into the madness that will inevitably come for him. He is plagued by disturbing dreams, and the voices linger around him. To stop himself from going mad, he looks for the only person who can help him: Logain.
The Wheel of Time Season 2 Episode 3 Ending: How Does Nynaeve Come Out of the Arches?
After resisting for a long time, Nynaeve finally decides to give her powers a chance. Liandrin tries to win her over and get her to take the red robes when the time comes, but before that, she has to be Accepted. For that, she has to survive a trial. She needs to go through the Arch three times. Each time, the Arch will present her with a challenge and give her a window to leave just once. She’ll be stuck there if she doesn’t take that window. She is also warned that she cannot access her powers in there.
The first time Nynaeve steps into the Arch, she is greeted with a vision from her childhood. This was when the Trollocs attacked her village, killing her parents. She finds herself turned into the little girl she was back then. This time, when her parents leave her in the basement to hide, she is tempted to go out and help them, but then, the door appears, and she realizes she must leave. When she returns, she asks if anything could have changed had she intervened, but she is asked to keep her experience to herself.
The second time, Nynaeve finds herself back home in Two Rivers. When the five of them left with Moiraine, the village was taken over by an illness for which there is no cure. Nynaeve finds Rand’s father on his deathbed. She tries to heal him, but she cannot use her powers. She is tempted to stay back and help her people, but the door appears, and she knows she must leave. This time, the vision gets to Nynaeve because she thinks that this is what’s really happening in Two Rivers. She tells Liandrin and the others to save her people, but they refuse to listen to what she saw there.
In the third go, she has trouble remembering her vision, but when she comes out, she realizes she has harmed Lin. Heartbroken by it, she decides not to follow the Aes Sedai blindly and leaves the Tower, even if it means she will not be allowed back. On the way, she meets Lan, who has left Moiraine, and he agrees to join her. They decide to return to Two Rivers, but the door appears. This time, Nynaeve doesn’t go back.
When Nynaeve doesn’t come out of the Arch, everyone assumes she is gone. Anyone who didn’t take the door when it appeared to them has been lost in the Arch forever. While Liandrin is disappointed in Nynaeve, she also feels bad that she thought the young novice was ready for this. When Egwene finds out about it, she tries to bring her friend back, but no matter how powerful she is, no one has ever been able to bring a loved one back from the Arch.
In there, Nynaeve continues her life with Lan. They get married and have a daughter. Egwene has become Aes Sedai and is fighting the Dark One’s armies. Perrin and Mat come to her house and talk about how things have been getting worse out there. At night, they are attacked by Trollocs, and the three men die, which breaks Nynaeve’s heart. She is devastated when she sees Lan dead, leading her to do something no one has ever done.
Nynaeve channels the light and uses her powers inside the Arch to kill the Trollocs. This leads the door to reappear. She crosses it with her daughter but comes out alone on the other side. While Egwene is relieved to have her friend back, Nynaeve cries for her daughter and her life with Lan, even if it was not real. Her using powers inside the Arch also means that the true extent of her powers has not been imagined yet. What else can Nynaeve do when faced with an impossible situation? Can she kill the Dark One? Time will tell.
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