Did This The Wheel Of Time Season 2 Fight Scene Channel LOTR's Fellowship Of The Ring?
Contains spoilers for "The Wheel of Time" Season 2
"The Wheel of Time" Season 2 starts with Moiraine (Rosamund Pike) struggling to come to grips with her recent stilling at the hands of a Forsaken. She's also feverishly doing all she can, even in her new, restrained form, to prepare to fight the Dark One. At one point, she rides off without telling Lan (Daniel Henney), and her Warder discovers her disappearance a tad too late. Lan follows after his Aes Sedai, catching up with her just in time to save her from a group of Fades who are ambushing her in the dark. What follows is reminiscent of nothing so much as Aragorn beating down the Black Riders on Weathertop in "The Fellowship of the Ring."
When Lan arrives, the demons have already attacked Moiraine, and she's on the ground, stabbed and bleeding, in a circle of old standing stones. (Sound familiar?) Her enemies are standing over her, about to strike again, but Lan leaps into the fray in the nick of time, fighting off all of the cloaked figures one after another. Admittedly, there are differences from the Aragorn scene. For instance, Lan only succeeds with some timely help from another Aes Sedai, named Verin, and her Warder's flaming blade.
Nevertheless, the resemblances between the two scenes are uncanny. A wounded and helpless hero is stabbed by cloaked villains in a circle of stones before being saved by an exiled royal who fearlessly engages with his terrifying, ghoulish foes. Regardless of whether it was purposeful or not, the scene is a sweet homage to the trilogy of films that started the modern fantasy era twenty long years ago.
There are plenty of Lord of the Rings parallels in The Wheel of Time
The fight scene in the ring of standing stones in Season 2 is hardly the first time "The Wheel of Time" has exhibited Tolkienesque undertones. From Moiraine's Gandalf-like wisdom to the warped nature of the Trollocs to marked blades, exiled kings, nameless enemies, and unlikely quests that rip innocents from their quaint rural homelands, there are many similarities to be found between "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Wheel of Time."
To be clear, this is a compliment, not a criticism — "The Wheel of Time" isn't flat-out copying anything. Both the books and Amazon Studios' series march to the beat of their own drums, and as the story grows, Rafe Judkins's adaptation will differentiate itself from Tolkien's texts more and more. But the underlying similarities still remain.
The Oxford professor's example has inspired countless creators over the years, and some of them, like Jordan, have used that jumping point to create their own massively successful worlds. Most of the time, the influence bubbles under the surface, manifesting in its own distinct and unique ways. Every once in a while, though, it shows up in an undeniably recognizable manner. It's fun to see that, even as "The Wheel of Time" show takes off, it's still channeling that inner Tolkien, whether it realizes it or not.