Wheel of Time Worldbuilding Analysis: Part 2
Last week’s post looked at the big-picture worldbuilding in the Wheel of Time: the magic system, the language, and how Robert Jordan established the physical and temporal reality. But every good worldbuilder knows reality is a product of specificity. You need to have rules for your world (and follow them), but the details you include are what bring the world to life.
Of course, in a world this size, there are a lot of details. In this post, I’ll focus on the ones that I see as the most distinctively Wheel of Time and the most interesting from a worldbuilding perspective.
(As with part 1, this post contains some spoilers for Wheel of Time books 1-7, so if you want to avoid those it’s best to stop reading now).
Rand’s Hero’s Journey
How well a hero adheres to the Rank-Raglan scale is a good indication of how much their story is rooted in mythology. The short answer for WoT is: a shit-ton. But let’s go ahead and put a number on it for the main heroic plot thread of the Dragon Reborn’s journey to prepare for the Last Battle.
The Rank scale focuses on the first half of the hero’s life, so let’s look at that for now. This 12-point scale was based on the Oedipus legend and applies to a wide range of other mythic heroes, particularly those from classical mythology.
Here’s how Rand fits the 12 steps in the hero’s journey as outlined by Rank:
Child of distinguished parents. Rand’s birthparents were Janduin, clan chief of the Taardad Aiel, and Shaiel, the Aiel name of Tigraine Mantear, who would have become Queen of Andor if she hadn’t run off to join the Aiel. I’d say that fits the pattern.
Father is a king. While it’s reiterated more than once that an Aiel clan chief is not a king, it’s the closest thing they have. I’ll say it fits.
Difficulty in conception. Rand’s conception seems fairly fast, actually, given the timeline set out by the info we’re given. However, it could be construed from Tam’s fever ramblings about finding Rand that he and Kari al’Thor had difficulty conceiving, one reason he decided to bring home the baby he found on the slopes of Dragonmount. So a semi-fit on this one.
Prophecy warning against birth. There are at least five separate prophecies of the Dragon Reborn, or the Coramoor, or the Car’a’carn, or whatever they call Rand in Shara. These influence the decisions characters make in much the same way as prophecies in classical mythic tales, and with about the same ratio of accuracy to dramatic irony.
Hero surrendered to the water in a box. One of the few places Rand diverges from the Rank scale; he’s left exposed to the elements on a mountain, about as far from a box in the water as you can get (though boxes play into his story later, certainly).
Saved by animals or lowly people. Tam al’Thor is just a young soldier from the backwater Two Rivers when he finds Rand, and takes him back to be raised as a shepherd, so it holds the pattern.
Suckled by a female animal or humble woman. Kari al’Thor is around long enough for Rand to have memories of her, so I’ll say it counts.
Hero grows up. Kinda hard not to fit this step of the pattern, so yup.
Hero finds distinguished parents. Rand’s distinguished parents are dead by the time Rand leaves the Two Rivers, but he does find the Aiel and learn about his true lineage, so a slant following of the pattern.
Hero takes revenge on the father. This is the most significant place Rand’s journey differs from the Rank pattern. Rand is never in opposition to his royal father; if Janduin had still been alive it’s likely he would have become a close advisor, similar to the role Rhuarc ends up taking. I suppose you could say Rand fulfilling the prophecy to break the Aiel is revenge against his father in a broad, metaphoric sense, but without that kind of stretch it’s a no.
Acknowledged by people. By the end of book 7, Rand is unequivocally accepted as Cormaoor by the Sea Folk, and as Car’a’carn by 11 of the 12 Aiel clans. While not everyone is sold on Dragon Reborn in the Wetlands, he’s taken enough countries to safely call him fully acknowledged.
Achieves rank and honors. While Rand hasn’t declared himself king in any of the Wetlands nations he rules (yet), he commands their armies and sets their laws, so it’s a matter of semantics, really. By the end of Book 7, he commands a larger army than any known force save possibly the Seanchan and has Aes Sedai kneeling to swear fealty to him. Rank and honors, check.
All told, Rand fits 10 of the 12 steps of the pattern outlined by Rank for a hero’s early life. The truth is, though, you don’t need this proof to see that Earth mythologies are woven throughout the series, and not just the Dreamtime mentioned in part 1. Like other high fantasy writers, Jordan draws a significant amount of inspiration from mythologies of Europe, sometimes obviously like the Wild Hunt and the Green Man, sometimes in more subtle ways.
These mythological references could be just Jordan’s inspiration, but they could also have a deeper implication. We know that there are seven ages and have seen only two. We also know that world’s geography has been completely reformed at least once, during the Breaking. Finally, there is evidence of symbols and concepts enduring from times before the Age of Legend. Thom rattles off the names of heroes from the First Age at one point, and there are even some archaeological remnants from ages before the Age of Legends. A collection of these are gathered in the Panarch’s Palace in Tanchico and described in book 4. This includes skeletons that sound suspiciously like a giraffe and sabre-tooth tiger, as well as what sounds like the hood ornament of a Chrysler (“a silvery thing...like a three-pointed star inside a circle, made of no substance she knew; it was softer than metal, scratched and gouged, yet even older than any of the ancient bones…”).
My belief is that this Third Age is a far future—and far past, given the cyclical time—version of Earth. I’m certainly not the first or only one to think this, so I won’t say it’s “my theory” (if you want more evidence and discussion, just take a quick schlep over to Reddit). If this is correct, though, then the molding of Rand’s life to mythological conventions is likely very intentional. It’s one of the bread crumbs Jordan leaves to give that sense of familiarity, linking this hero to the many who have come before him stretching all the way back—and forward—to our present.
The Ogier
The Wheel of Time universe is rich in unique cultures but light on non-human races. There is only one that’s naturally occurring: the Ogier. Ogier combine elements common to more familiar fantasy races. Like elves, they have a deep love for the natural world, particularly trees, and are reclusive, living in communities known as stedding outside of human society. They are also expert stonemasons, like dwarfs, and exceptionally long-lived though not immortal—the main Ogier character, Loial, is considered barely an adult at 90.
The long lifespans and relative isolation of the Ogier means they serve as a repository for otherwise lost knowledge. They represent a connection to the past, allowing the reader to see how society has changed over time thanks to their perspective on how things used to be. This is seen every time Loial laments over a lost grove, or when Elder Haman cries while marking the locations of now-destroyed cities.
Another way this manifests is in the phenomenon of the Longing. When the Ogier wandered after the Breaking of the World, they separated from the stedding where they live. Eventually, they began to suffer from a kind of withdraw because of that extended separation, to the point that Ogier in the modern day can’t be away from a stedding for more than a few years without illness and, eventually, death. They are linked to their homes in a way the humans aren’t, and this has shaped their development and culture in deep and internally consistent ways.
Ogier are apparently unable to touch the One Power—there is at least no mention of Ogier Aes Sedai, and the One Power can’t be sensed or touched within the stedding. This is a subversion of expectations, in one sense; in fantasy worlds, nature spirit archetypes are normally the ones with the strongest magic, or even the source of said magic. The Ogier do have other abilities, however, such as Treesinging, which is exactly what it sounds like: they sing to trees and make them “grow” an object. This suggests there is a complimentary magical force related to the earth and nature that the Ogier have access to and humans can’t sense.
Aside from Loial, the Ogier appear only briefly in the first seven books, but when they are shown they are used very effectively as a foil to human society. The stedding where the Ogier live pre-date the Breaking, where humanity is on their third set of nations and cities in that same span. While humans know Ogier mostly for their stonework, the Ogier themselves are prouder of their groves. The magical among the Ogier work with nature and the earth, as opposed to the intangible weaves and energy of the One Power.
It is also interesting to note that Jordan shows the Ogier as universally trustworthy and good, at least in the current age. There is no hint of Darkfriends existing among the Ogier. They’re also just about the only people that everyone gets along with, trading freely with the Aiel and welcome in any nation. Hints are given about them being formidable warriors, and certainly Loial holds his own in a few fights, but if someone manages to make an Ogier angry there’s a strong sense they deserve whatever they get.
The Shadowspawn and the Nym
One fun thing about the Wheel of Time universe is that, while it’s definitively in the genre of high fantasy, there are science fiction elements. One could argue, looking at the long-view timeline, that the whole series is a post-apocalyptic dystopia. The strongest sci-fi elements, though, come from our glimpses of the Age of Legends, whose scientific advancements included the creation of living constructs that are, by all apparent indications, intelligent and sentient beings.
The only humanoid construct the reader knows about from the Age of Legends are the Nym, plant creatures with hazelnut eyes who used the One Power to increase the yield of crops and gardens. They were also apparently very long-lived. The last Nym, Someshta, didn’t die until the end of book 1, by which point he was known as the Green Man who guarded the Eye of the World. He may well have gone on living well after that, too, if he didn’t sacrifice himself to take out Balthamel.
Readers are more familiar with the constructs that were created at the tail end of the Age of Legends, during the War of Power, when the laws of civilized society no longer applied and constructs were made using human and animal stock. This was when the Forsaken Aginor, who’d been a geneticist during the Age of Legends, created the creatures now known as Shadowspawn.
There are shades of Tolkien Orcs in the Shadowspawn. In Tolkien, the Orcs are elves corrupted by Morgoth through dark magic and torture. In Wheel of Time, Aginor conducts horrific experiments, killing an estimated 50 million people, using a combination of scientific knowledge and the One Power. The Shadowspawn, especially the Trollocs, also serve a similar function in the narrative to Orcs, serving as the disposable armies of the Dark One.
Shadowspawn come in a variety of flavors. Trollocs are the most numerous but also the least dangerous, hulking humanoid chimeras with parts and pieces of other animals in a seemingly random mix. They’re strong, large, and scary-looking, but they fight with the standard swords and axes and are pretty dumb, on average.
A step above the Trollocs are the Myrddraal, who look like men but eyeless with pasty pale skin. Interestingly, Myrddraal are the only Shadowspawn not directly created by Aginor, instead produced as a kind of “genetic throwback” offspring of Trollocs. They’re also among the most intelligent, and have unique powers, like the ability to travel via shadows. Other fun features include corrosive blood and swords forged with a human soul that kill with a scratch if the wound isn’t healed by the One Power.
Shadowspawn also come in dog form (Darkhounds), singing bat vampire form (Draghkar), and invisible zombie form (Gray Men). Perhaps the most interesting of the Shadowspawn, though, is the gholam. They were made with one purpose: to assassinate Aes Sedai. Understandably, they terrified the Forsaken, too, and only six of them were ever made. Gholam are immune to the One Power and can’t be wounded by normal weapons, either. Their bones can’t be broken, because they have no bones, able to squeeze under doors or through other tiny spaces. They’re basically the Terminator V2 of the WoT universe, but thankfully only one is known to still be alive and active at this point in the Third Age.
The gholam are unique from other Shadowspawn in another interesting way: they’re the only type that can survive going through a gateway, the opening made to travel using the One Power. All other Shadowspawn die instantly if they do so. I’m sure there’s some in-world explanation for this (or at least plenty of theories), but I suspect it was more of a functional decision. It answers the nagging question of why the Forsaken don’t just zoom around the map with an army of Trollocs, resorting to sending them through the corrupted Ways instead. But the gholam are the ultimate big baddies aside from the Dark One himself, the creatures that even the other big baddies are wary of, and allowing them to travel the map at their leisure only enhances their terror.
The Aiel and the Tinkers
When the reader is introduced to first the Tinkers and then the Aiel, they seem about as opposite as two peoples can be. The Tinkers are staunchly non-violent nomads known for their colorful attire who wander mostly around the Wetlands, singing and dancing and fixing pots. Conversely, the Aiel are fierce warriors who wear drab, brown clothes meant to blend into their landscape, are rarely seen outside the Waste, and only sing when they’re going into battle; their version of a “dance” is dancing the spears.
The disparity of these two groups sets up a very satisfying surprise when their shared origins are revealed in book 4. Both groups are the descendants of the Da’shain Aiel, servants of the Aes Sedai during the Age of Legends who followed a non-violent code of honor known as the Way of the Leaf. During the Breaking of the World, the Aes Sedai gathered the remaining Da’shain Aiel and entrusted them with objects that used the One Power, sending them to find a place they could live in peace. The search for that refuge lasts generations, over which time the Da’shain Aiel splintered into three groups:
The Tuatha’an, commonly called the Tinkers, called “the Lost” by the Aiel. They abandoned the charge given them by the Aes Sedai and instead decided to search for the Song of Growing they’d once sung alongside the Ogier and Nym to grow crops.
The Aiel, who abandoned the Way of the Leaf after the departure of the Tuatha’an, taking up arms in self-defense. They continued to travel alongside the other Aiel, serving as their protectors.
The Jenn Aiel, or “True Aiel”, who kept both the Way of the Leaf and their promise to the Aes Sedai, and died out sometime after the founding of Rhuidean.
Jordan’s restraint in how he wrote both the Tinkers and the Aiel up to that point is quite admirable, and the first lesson for big-world writers to be learned here. He sprinkles in enough bread crumbs that the reveal doesn’t feel jarring, but the full meaning of these clues is obscured enough it’s not obvious or distracting for a first reader.
One way he accomplishes this is by having the Tinkers and Aiel sustain different traditions from their shared ancient ancestors. The Tinkers kept the pacifist Way of the Leaf, and still travel in wagons like the Da’shain Aiel did during the Breaking of the World. The Aiel, meanwhile, kept the traditional Da’shain attire, the cadin’sor, as well as the honor code aspect of the Way of the Leaf, though renamed as their system of ji’e’toh.
This can only work, though, because of the other big lesson to be learned from these two cultures: despite their differences, both have an internally consistent history that follows a logical series of steps. The reader can see the clear motivation for each change that took place in the Aiel’s development. We don’t get the same deep dive into the development of the Tinkers, but we can infer what happened. Without the guiding motivation of guarding the Aes Sedai’s legacy, the Tuatha’an lost their purpose. As a result, they’re still wandering in wagons, eternally searching for something that no longer exists.
The history of the Aiel also serves to highlight the way prophecies about the coming Dragon Reborn influenced the course of the entire Third Age. A series of cause-and-effect steps can be drawn connecting the Breaking of the World to Rand’s birth. The Aes Sedai sent the Aiel on a mission, preserving their bloodline so it could eventually produce the Dragon. Along the way, they encountered the ancestors of the Cairhienin, giving them the Tree of Life sapling that an arrogant king would cut down three thousand years later, give or take, prompting the Aiel to cross the Dragonwall to kill him, allowing for Rand to be born on the slopes of Dragonmount. Having that clear through-line connecting the past to the present helps the reader navigate a story with such a broad scope without getting lost or overwhelmed.
The Seanchan
The Seanchan are another study in how parallel cultures can evolve in very different ways, although their origin story starts a bit later than the Aiel. They are the descendants of the armies of Artur Hawkwing, the king who united the entire wetlands (except for Tar Valon) for the only time in the Third Age. He tried to take more, too, invading the Waste and sending fleets to both the west and east. All his attempts to push east failed, but the western fleet led by his son Lothair reached Seanchan, roughly 1,000-ish years before the events of the book.
It took most of that thousand years for descendants of Hawkwing’s armies to consolidate all of Seanchan under one ruler. While Luthair’s descendants ultimately prevailed as the land’s rulers, though, much of the Seanchan culture pre-existed his arrival, like their strict caste system and their use of exotic wildlife in battle. This device allows Jordan to create a culture that is foreign for everyone on the main continent, and makes the Seanchan a puzzle to be solved in-world as well as for the reader.
One of Artur Hawkwing’s defining character traits was a distrust for Aes Sedai, a sentiment he apparently passed on to his son. It was under Luthair’s rule that the first a’dam was created, starting the Seanchan practice of leashing women who can use the One Power. But Jordan also reinforced the in-world believability of this by giving the Seanchan a caste-based culture. The damane aren’t the only people kept as property in Seanchan. There is an entire caste of slaves, the da’covale (“one who is owned” in the Old Tongue). The system of sul’dam and damane is the logical result of marrying Luthair’s inherited hatred of Aes Sedai with the Seanchan social hierarchy.
It's not just the people of Seanchan that are different. They’ve also got their own wildlife, and it’s much more interesting than the familiar beasties found elsewhere in the WoT world. An Earth-inspired fantasy world’s fauna can be made different from our current reality in multiple ways, and Jordan uses several approaches in the Seanchan bestiary:
- Omission, where animals familiar to modern humans are completely unknown to the characters. Elephants don’t exist in the Wetlands or Waste, but they do in Seanchan, apparently, and show up as the s’redit
- Resurrection, where now-extinct animals are brought back. The predatory human-sized flightless birds called corlm bear a strong resemblance to terror birds (or Phorusrhacidae, for the sciencey types) that lived during the Cenozoic era
- Insertion, where the world is populated with known creatures from folklore, myth, or other pre-existing sources. The flying lizards called raken are an iteration of the European-style dragon (though, interestingly, never called dragons, and the Dragon banner is always described as “serpentine”, much more of an Asian-style archetype)
- Creation, where the author makes up a completely new creature. Many of the made-up Seanchan creatures follow a theme: three-eyed, hairless, and predatory. This includes the bear-like lopar, the frog-like grolm, and the scaled cat-like torm.
All of these creatures are completely novel for the non-Seanchan characters. For the reader, though, it’s a mix of discovery and delighted realization. You feel smart when you recognize the s’redit as elephants, while invented creatures like the grolm work the reader’s brain in a different way by having them imagine something completely new.
Snakes and Foxes
Astute WoT readers probably noticed an omission from my section on parallel worlds in part 1: the doorway ter’angreal that lead to the realms of the Aelfinn and the Eelfinn. These alternate realities differ from the others in two key ways:
They are completely separate landscapes from the main reality, and both time and space seem to have different rules.
They are populated by unique humanoid beings.
We meet the Aelfinn first. They’re described as snake-like. Humans who go through their doorway can ask three questions, which they’ll answer truthfully, so long as the questions don’t concern the Shadow—those tend to make people go mad or die. The Eelfinn have fox-like features, and grant three wishes to any human who comes through the doorway, though they do so for a price. If that price isn’t negotiated beforehand, the Eelfinn will set their own price, usually one that results in madness, injury, or death (you can sense a theme building here).
Humans can use each doorway exactly once in a lifetime. There are other limits on entry, too: no iron, no light sources, and no musical instruments. These conditions were set in a treaty with humanity, though whether that was made during the Age of Legends or earlier isn’t known. This concept of a fairy realm that can only be reached under certain conditions is certainly familiar from Earth mythologies. Fairies in European folklore are often weak to iron and connected to music, so this could be another bread crumb woven in to hint at this being a far-past/far-future Earth.
Most people in the Third Age are unaware of the Eelfinn’s and Aelfinn’s existence. Their treaty with humanity still lingers in the collective consciousness, though, in the form of a children’s game called Snakes and Foxes. It’s a chutes-and-ladders-style game, though with a more complicated layout that looks like a web. The humans start in the center and have to get to the outside and back to win. There are also pieces for the snakes and foxes, and if one of these touches the human pieces, they lose.
One fun thing about the game Snakes and Foxes: it’s impossible to win without cheating. Given what we’ve seen of the Eelfinn and Aelfinn realms, it’s safe to interpret the children’s game as memories of people trying to navigate and escape these other dimensions. Space seems to fold there, with paths curving back on themselves and rooms seeming to jump from one place to another; a map of that realm likely would look more like a web than a traditional diagram.
If this is true, the game also contains a warning: the only way to escape the Eelfinn or the Aelfinn is to cheat. And the way to go about cheating may also be included in the game. Players start by saying the phrase “courage to strengthen, fire to blind, music to dazzle, iron to bind.” Tellingly, three of the four of those are on the banned list for doorway entrance to the Finn dimension.
Clearly, Jordan is setting something up here. By the end of book 7, the reader doesn’t necessarily know what that is (though they’ve probably got a theory, if they’re paying attention), but it’s clear that we will see the Aelfinn and Eelfinn again. Putting these hints into something as mundane as a children’s board game was a smart way to keep this mysterious dimension lingering in the reader’s mind without hitting them over the head with foreshadowing. This kind of clue-dropping also builds a mystery for the reader to solve, engaging them with the text in a deeper way.
You could easily fill a whole book analyzing the worldbuilding of the Wheel of Time series (and I’m sure someone has, even aside from the accompanying official encyclopedia). The things I’ve highlighted over these two posts are the most striking in my view, but there are plenty other areas worth taking a deep dive into.
The bottom line is, Jordan has created a fully realized, inhabitable, and complex world, and while the series is a time investment, it’s worth it for anyone who wants to create fantasy worlds of their own.
See similar posts: