The show makes more a concerted effort to tell its own story with mixed results.
I’ve spent a lot of time in these reviews talking about how faithful the Wheel Of Time show has been to its source material. Obviously faithful is a subjective not objective point there have been plenty of omissions and diversions from the original text so far and we can argue over how many of those changes were necessary. But the basic structure of the show is on the whole almost shockingly close to The Eye Of The World. As someone who grew up watching television shows mangle books I loved maybe am overselling just how impressive that is. But the first four episodes have done a great job in reassuring me that yes the people making the series have read the novels and they likely even took notes.
Still an adaptation can not be entirely faithful. Different formats have different needs, and budgets and as Jordans books spiral outward its inevitable that the television version would have to find ways to streamline and adjust and find something like an essence in all that world building. Eye is relatively straightforward as fantasy novels go, and most of Blood Calls Blood is still sticking to the books basic arc, as Nyneave Rand and Mat are reunited by a new friend and Egwene and Perrin suffer horribly at the hands of the Whitecloaks. But the reason I am opening with all this adaptation talk is that Blood also offers a subplot which is as far as I can remember completely original to the series.
It springs off the fallout from last weeks attack on the Aes Sedai camp as the warder Stefan struggles to deal with the death of the sister he was bonded to. Once Moraine Lan and the others arrive at Tar Valon, Stefan talks with his fellow warders about his grief and they make plans for him to be bonded again with an Aes Sedai from the Green aja. There is a low key but funny joke about how Stefan is not sure how he will handle being bonded along side two other men I appreciate that the show has made an effort to establish gay relationships in this world something notably absent from the novels. He goes to Nyneave for a sleeping drug to help him get through the night but its ruse he drugs Lan and goes off alone to kill himself. The next day we see the men and women of the Tower mourning his death.
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