The Wheel of Time is one of the biggest fantasy blockbusters of all time, and I have read and loved the fantasy novels for decades. I was beyond thrilled to see that an adaptation was coming to Prime TV, and now that it’s here, I thought it was worth looking at the show from a Christian worldview perspective. I will have reviews of the series on my other site, Eclectic Theist.
“Blood Calls Blood”
In Pursuit of Righteousness; Evil
One of the most obvious themes so far in the series is how easily the pursuit of righteousness can turn to evil. Child Valda exemplifies this quite clearly, with both his viciously cruel ways of harming women he deems “witches” and, somehow worse, his willingness to torture innocents to death to see if he’s found someone he thinks deserves death. Unfortunately, Christian history has many examples of people doing this type of thing in the name of Christ. When we allow zeal to overcome our obedience to Christ’s commands to love our neighbor, we err. It is easy for Christians to look at egregious evil and point it out, but what of lesser evils, such as rejecting care for others in ways that lead to their suffering and death? It is easy to hide behind a seemingly righteous shield like civic righteousness or forcing others to take responsibility, but to do so is sinful.
A House Divided
The Aes Sedai weave plots within plots, and it is becoming clear that some of these might even work against each other. The Red Ajah operate exclusively to capture, still, or destroy men who can channel. But of course this goes against the prophecies that there must be a Dragon Reborn if (in the world of the TV show) that person ends up being a man. Of course, there’s some confusion over whether the Dragon ought to be resisted or assisted if found, anyway. The Green Ajah are the battle Ajah, but the Blue seem to be devoted to plots, communication, and trying to discover prophecy. All of these add up to the question of how to accomplish the major goals of any one of these groups. Jesus spoke about how a house divided against itself cannot succeed and will fail (see, for example, Mark 3). It will be interesting to see how these divisions among the Aes Sedai play out. Will they unite and persevere or will they fail?
Links
The Wheel of Time– Read all my posts on the series, both the books and the TV show.
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SDG.
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J.W. Wartick - Reconstructing Faith 
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