The first season of Amazon Prime Video's The Wheel of Time led viewers to assume that Fares Fares' mystery figure in black was the Dark One, an ancient malevolent force threatening to destroy the world and remake it in his image.
Those who have read Robert Jordan's fantasy novels were somewhat confused when it wasn't revealed that Fares is playing Ishamael, one of the Dark One's Forsaken - a group of 13 powerful Aes Sedai from Lews Therin's (the first Dragon and the strongest Aes Sedai of all time) time who betrayed the light and joined the dark.
So, is this a case of the TV show playing fast and loose with the source material, or are they aiming to deceive viewers?
In the first trailer for The Wheel of Time's second season, it appeared as if the show was still trying to lead audiences to believe that Fares was playing the Dark One with Rosamund Pike's Moraine Sedai uttering, "We didn't defeat the Dark One. We set him free."
However, a new teaser trailer has been released which now has Moraine stating, "We didn't defeat the Dark One. We set his strongest lieutenant free."
Perhaps season 2 is attempting to bring the television adaptation closer to the source material?
To find out, we'll have to wait until season 2 begins on Friday, September 1. To celebrate the show's return and reward fans, Amazon Prime Video will release three episodes on that date.
Amazon released new episodes on Sunday during the first season and has yet to officially confirm whether the show is making the switch to Fridays permanently, or if that's simply the day the show will premiere before going back to its Sunday format.
Amazon has already renewed The Wheel of Time for a third season.
The first season naturally covered the first book in the series, The Eye of the World. However, the teasers and trailers released so far for season 2 seemingly indicate that while it is primarily based on the second installment, The Great Hunt, there are some leftover storylines from The Eye of the World that will get resolved along with a few elements from the third book, The Dragon Reborn.