FANCIMES: The Wheel of Time Season 2's Show Time to Collide with The Rings of Power's?

Season 1 of The Wheel of Time series is one of Amazon's most successful shows: the most watched one of 2021, and one of the five most watched shows in the history of the platform (Prime Video).

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Filming for Season 2 is halfway through and is expected to be completed by the end of February 2022; After that, the film will need about 6-8 months to do post-production. However, the release date has not been announced as the producer is considering the fact that The Lord of the Rings Prequel series (The Rings of Powers) has been set to be released in September 2022.

The Lord of the Rings Prequel series consists of eight episodes, with an estimated production budget of $450 million. If the huge copyright costs are included, this could be the most expensive TV series in the history of world cinema, surpassing HBO's Game of Thrones. Amazon will probably have a preference for Lord of the Rings Prequel and avoid parallelizing it with The Wheel of Time season 2, as that would hurt the viewership of both shows.

Some critics predict that The Wheel of Time season 2's release date is likely to be moved to 2023.

The Wheel of Time series is based on American Robert Jordan's high-profile fantasy novel series, consisting of 14 Books, 1 Prequel, and 2 companion books. Season 1 of the series is mainly based on the first book titled The Eye of the World which was published in 1990.

After watching season 1, books readers realize that the series does not strictly follow the content of the novel, but has many variations that are sometimes quite different from the original literary. Therefore, predicting the content of The Wheel of Time in the next season will be impossible, even for those who have read the novel series.

However, Season 2 of the series will essentially be based on the second Book of the novel - The Great Hunt. Based on some relevant information, we can still predict some possible developments in Season 2.

Rand will have Elayne Trakand as his new love

In the final episode of Season 1, Rand overcomes the Dark One's temptation to have a happy family with Egwene, and shows respect for her wish to become an Aes Sedai.

After defeating the Dark One, Rand decided to stay away because he believes that the corrupted male One Force would drive him crazy and harm those he loves.

In the Books, on a solo journey later (possibly to Andor), Rand will meet a noble lady and fall in love with her - Elayne Trakand. This looks likely to happen as it has been confirmed that actress Ceara Coveney has been cast as Elayne Trakand in season 2.

In fact, the character Elayne Trakand already appears in Book 1 of the novel, but the filmmaker did not portray her in Season 1, perhaps to fully polish Rand - Egwene's first love.

The Horn of Valere and the Undead

The horn that Padan Fain, a Darkfriend of the Dark One, stole from Fal Dara's palace in the final episode of The Wheel of Time season 1 is of central importance to the coming story. It has the ability to call upon heroes of the past, i.e. ghosts, to fight in the Final Battle against the Dark One.

This army of ghosts is likened to the Wild Hunt of European folklore, and reminds us of the army of the dead, Dunharrow, that Aragorn summons in The Lord of the Rings.

What remains unclear is whether anyone with the horn can summon an army of past heros, or only the Dragon Reborn has the power to do so.

The Return of Mat Cauthon

In the final episodes of Season 1, the character Mat Cauthon had a lackluster role: he did not participate in the journey to the Blight nor the Fal Dara's resistance to the Trollocs.

In the novel, Mat's fate is largely tied to the aforementioned the Horn of Valere, so he will definitely need to rejoin Two Rivers team to find back this artifact.

Behind the scenes, actor Barney Harris left the role of Mat after season 1. The reason for this departure is rumored to be due to the actor's "anti-Covid-19 vaccine" approach, and his refusal to get vaccinated making it difficult for the film crew to work. Amazon already cast Donal Finn to replace Barney as Mat in Season 2.