The Behind-the-Scenes Battle to Keep “Weep for Manetheren” in Amazon’s ‘The Wheel of Time’

You can find all available episodes of The Wheel of Time streaming on Amazon Prime Video. For even more Wheel of Time, check out the epic book series, also available on Audible. 

Prime Video‘s The Wheel of Time has the lofty task of adapting Robert Jordan’s gargantuan book series for the small screen. Characters’ backstories inevitably have to be changed. Key moments in the books find themselves cut. And the introduction of certain characters now happens in a different, more streamlined way. However there was one moment from Robert Jordan’s first novel The Eye of the World that showrunner Rafe Judkins fought to keep in Episode 2, “Shadow’s Waiting.” That’s the moment the Aes Sedai Moiraine (Rosamund Pike) tells Mat (Barney Harris), Egwene (Madeleine Madden), Perrin (Marcus Rutherford), and Rand (Josha Stradowski) about the fall of Manetheren.

The Wheel of Time Episode 2 “Shadow’s Waiting” opens with Moiraine and her Warder Lan (Daniel Henney) leading the youths out of their hometown of the Two Rivers. The group is hunted by monstrous Trollocs, haunting dreams, and a fundamentalist army bent on capturing One Power-wielders like Moiraine. During a rare lull in their journey, Mat begins singing an old song about something called Manetheren. The rest of his friends join in, unnerving Lan, but inspiring Moiraine. She says it’s good to remember Manetheren. When Mat reveals they have no idea what that even means, she tells the story of an ancient stronghold that once existed in the Two Rivers — Manetheren — and how almost the entire civilization fell defending their city alone from invading Trollocs.

“Weep for Manetheren” is a four minute long scene wedged in the middle of an action-packed episode and it is glorious. It opens with an a cappella folk song and ends with a three minute plus monologue delivered on horseback. It’s the kind of slow, careful world-building that often gets left out of lavish fantasy adaptations and it’s one hundred percent true to the soul of Robert Jodan’s books. And it almost didn’t make it to the screen.

“It was an uphill battle from day one to put that in the show because it is crazy to have your lead actor sit in a horse for an entire day and for four minutes of screentime doing a monologue about a city that doesn’t exist inside of the show,” The Wheel of Time showrunner Rafe Judkins told Decider. “So, it was flagged by the other writers in the room, the studio, and the network. Every single person who encountered it throughout the process asked me to pull it. But I never pulled it.”

Judkins explained his fervor for the scene came not only from his personal love of the moment, but the fact that when he asked fellow book fans what they remembered, “the speech about Manetheren was something that always registered with people and stuck with them.”

“I think there’s sometimes intangible things in books that make you fall in love with them and there’s something intangible about this Manetheren speech that makes you fall in love with this world,” Judkins said. “I just fought for it every step of the way, through script and shooting and the cutting process because I felt that it was something that was part of the heart of Wheel Of Time.

Marigo Kehoe, one of The Wheel of Time‘s executive producers, confirmed to Decider that higher ups “wanted us to shorten it.”

“The fact is, it’s a very emotive, very important story beat,” Kehoe said. “You know, she’s telling these key moments and giving history in the second episode. There’s so much exposition, it’s lovely to be able to do it in that way, which is a really interesting way to have it, and Rosamund [Pike] just holds the screen, I mean. You know?”

Rosamund Pike’s performance might be key to the scene’s success, but even the Academy Award-nominated actress and Wheel of Time EP was one of the skeptics. “You know, I worried about it. Even when we had all the cast and crew, I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, is anyone going [to watch]? Is that where Amazon’s gonna have everyone switching off?'” Pike said. “But they reassured me that it does hold your attention.”

Getting “Weep for Manetheren” into Amazon’s The Wheel of Time was one battle. Shooting it was another. According to Judkins, director Uta Briesewitz concocted a new way of shooting on horseback to capture Pike’s performance in a more naturalistic way. Kehoe detailed the extraordinary lengths the production went to finding the right location — an escarpment — and making sure all the different threads of the scene wove together.

“[The actors] all had riding lessons, and then actually, spending a very long time getting the song written and the words right, and then finding out that the cast could all sing? I remember that that was an extraordinary moment,” Kehoe said. “[The actors] sang for real on the day and we recorded them.”

Rosamund Pike wasn’t the only Wheel of Time star taken slightly aback by the demands of the scene. Marcus Rutherford said, “Yeah, I remember getting an email saying, ‘Can you sing?’ and I was like, ‘What have I signed up for?'”

“It was really lovely,” Rutherford said. “It was a really lovely scene that day. It was freezing, absolutely freezing but then that was just Rosamund as well, just that absolute professional. She just delivered it in such a beautiful way and you can kind of see us hanging off of every word that she said.”

“Fun fact,” Daniel Henney said, “That was the coldest day on set since we’ve been working on it the whole time.”

“On horseback,” Pike said. “We were… yes. It was the day I discovered boot warmers, and realized I didn’t have to have toes that were blocks of ice.”

Pike continued: “Moiraine is also, she’s struggling at that point. She’s also not knowing how long she’s going to last because she’s taken this terrible wound at the end of Episode 1, and she’s struggling. And I think she needs these young people on the journey to step up.”

Rutherford saw it just that way. “She’s describing this really in-depth description of this world and this culture before our time,” he said. “And I think the characters are slowly starting to realize that this journey is a lot bigger than themselves.”

“We know that the ‘Weep for Manetheren speech’ is obviously a very, very beloved moment for fans of the books, and it’s this moment where Moraine really instills in the people of Two Rivers what it means to come from that seemingly secluded village and how deep the — what she calls — ‘the old blood runs’ in those mountains, and how this amazing story of people with tremendous courage and fight fought for their home and their people years, years before the residents of the Two Rivers,” Pike said. “It’s a very important moment in Episode 2 when Moiraine tells these kids she’s taken on a journey, that they have more reserves, I think, than they’re aware of.”

“That the old blood runs deep in them and it might prepare them for what’s coming,” Pike said.

Indeed it does. The scene not only represents a loving tribute to the world that Robert Jordan created, but it also sets the stage for the scope of Perrin, Mat, Egwene, and Rand’s journey to come.

“Everyone does like it now when they see it,” Judkins said, “but the path of getting it seen was a really hard one.”

The Wheel of Time Episode 4 “The Dragon Reborn” will premiere on Friday, November 24.

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