Amazon's new animated companion to The Wheel of Time series can be tricky to find if you don't know what to look for—here's how to watch The Wheel of Time Origins on Amazon Prime Video. Based on Robert Jordan's epic fantasy novels, The Wheel of Time live action adaption has been in the works for a long time. The books, finished by Brandon Sanderson following the original author's passing in 2007, includes 14 main novels and a prequel novella, New Spring.
Amazon’s adaptation of The Wheel of Time does a good job of showing a lot of the details about the immense world created in the books. However, there are regularly references to events, ideas, or people that are not fully explained in the main series when they first arise. Robert Jordan’s books included glossaries at the back to help keep track of the multitude of elements that he crafted for this world. Fortunately, Amazon is providing additional backstory and explanation for The Wheel of Time in their own unique way—a series of animated shorts entitled The Wheel of Time Origins.
These animations provide useful backstory and explanation for anyone who might be feeling lost, but are also beautifully illustrated and help to make the history and lore of The Wheel of Time come to life. However, a simple search for the new Origins companion won't immediately bring it up. In order to watch The Wheel of Time Origins, viewers must open the latest episode of The Wheel of Time proper on Amazon Prime Video, select the X-Ray feature on the pause screen, and then select "Bonus Content". The animated shorts are particularly hard to find, as they are not available through Prime Video apps on platforms such as Roku or Playstation, and must instead be found on a computer web browser or through a phone or tablet.
The Wheel of Time Origins release every week alongside the main episode. The animated shorts have covered topics such as the fall of Manetheren, the Breaking of the World, and rules and abilities of the One Power and how it functions for men and women with a fuller explanation of saidar, saidin, and the Dark One’s corruption of the One Power. Other stories work to set up possible future scenes. For example, one of The Wheel of Time Origins animations tells of a Warder who bested thousands of enemies but was defeated by a farmer with a quarterstaff, which could hint that they will include a fan-favorite Mat scene from The Great Hunt in The Wheel of Time season 2, where that legend is discussed in the books.
The choice to include these pieces of history and lore for The Wheel of Time in a separate series of shorts is narratively interesting. The Wheel of Time Origins animations deal with relatively important parts of the story that have been glossed over in the main series. While they are given more attention in the books or are further described later in the series, they are often examined during slower exposition scenes, prologues from different time periods, or included in historical excerpts or songs that would be harder to explore in the TV series. Ultimately, Amazon's series of animated shorts are a welcome addition to the main series, as long as viewers can actually figure out how to watch The Wheel of Time Origins.
The Wheel of Time releases new episodes Fridays on Amazon Prime.