Spoilers

What is the nature of evil? Is it hurting others? Is it being happy with violence? Is it, at root, anger which leads to hate which leads to suffering?

Is evil a lack of good? What even is good?

As we finish season 1 of The Wheel of Time we are shown that the story here has always been building to this idea of what, in this world, evil might be.

Each question the characters have been asked, each challenge, has been a shadow of this final discussion, a layering of what they face in these final moments. The Way of the Leaf. Non-violence. Care. Altruism. Doing what is right because of duty, because there is no other choice.

The show has put it there on the screen and built towards this final episode in which Rand, finally revealed as the Dragon Reborn, learns what kind of fight he is actually having to engage in.

Is it Trollocs rampaging down a mountain intent on killing everyone or is it about being loyal and true?

It is about seeing through the lies and acting differently or is there something deeper going on?

The show lands Rand in a deeply tropey scenario – the hero, face to face with the enemy, tricked into believing in a different kind of world and then told all they need to do is make it true and everything will be fine.

Except all of this is then subverted by a superb bit of moral philosophy. Rand isn’t told there is good or bad, only that he can have what he wants. And what Rand wants isn’t evil. He wants something many people would recognise as a good life. There doesn’t even appear to be a catch – just make the world be this way, make it good, take the life you want to lead.

The vision of the life Rand wants isn’t lavish or one where he’s powerful – it’s just to lead a life with those he loves. Simple, plain and loving.

All through the season we have watched Rand struggle with the choices others make. Whether it’s Mat deciding to abandon them or to shut him out, whether it’s Nynaeve insisting her anger is where she belongs or Egwene following a path which means she’ll give up that which she loves for something she feels is more important. At each stage he’s felt left behind, ignored and lost.

I can see Rand observed as boorish by others but I think that’s perhaps because we understand only too well what it’s like to be in Rand’s shoes. We know there’s so often nothing we can do as friends choose lives which take them away from us – as if the bonds we share have no power.

So when he’s offered the chance to make the life he wants we see not only his own weakness we see the very definition of evil – egotism. You might argue that egotism is an excessive regard or focus on one’s own interests but I’d suggest that much moral evil can be categorised as preferring the self to the other and The Wheel of Time puts Rand in this position.

Is it evil or excessive to want a good life? To want a life that satisfies? No. Of course not. Except it can be. For Rand he realises that to have the life he wants, to have the good life, he would need to ignore the desires of those around him, to overrule them and force them to conform to his own.

His way out is not to realise it’s a lie but to realise the choice he’s been given suggests that he’s the only one who matters. That, for me, is egotism, behaving like I am the only one who matters. Rand rejects this sense of evil, that all other people are just there to help him live the life he wants. He prefers the Other to himself. It’s a profound choice – it’s much more than simply saying he won’t overrule Egwene’s dreams for her own life. In choosing her he makes it clear that for him the good means acknowledging that other people are as real as he is, that their wants have claims over him and that he has an obligation to privilege them over his own desires if those desires would stifle their life.

He does this not knowing whether they, in return, would do the same for him. He can hope, he can speculate and trust but he does not know. This is how love opposes evil, this is how good defeats bad – by loving the Other.

In a show where the heroes are refugees, where the choices they’ve been given mean that they can choose themselves or they can continue giving up what they wanted for the sake of others, this is a tremendously powerful statement.

We see it everywhere else as well. Each of the characters are asked what they would do when faced with choosing themselves or losing those they love. Nynaeve finally makes her choice and it’s wonderful to watch. We see Moiraine similarly faced with such a decision and despite the stakes and everything she loses she chooses to let Rand live his life.

Finally, we see Perrin, lost and alone, desperate to help and not knowing how, thrust up against the choices he’s made and asked if they were nothing more than a fashion or were they truly something he holds to.

If the special effects were a bit shonky in the big battle they were irrelevant to the power of this episode and the true battle – whether we choose to make ourselves happy or choose to help others, to lift them up, to see them thrive even if it costs us our dreams.

There’ll be those who argue for enlightened selfishness, who argue that if we do truly privilege others we open ourselves to being abused or exploited and one can rebuff those childish strawmen pretty easily but this isn’t the place for it. One can argue for what is right with those who disagree or one can do it – in my mind it’s the latter that’s more effective, that I wish I could do more often and which this show, through the choices each of its characters, calls out as the truly good life.

Verdict: Remarkable and wonderful stuff.

Rating? 9 heartstones out of 10

Stewart Hotston