What would it feel like to live in Middle Earth? What’s the atmosphere on Arrakis? How would people act, dress, and talk on Terminus? 

In its adaptation of Robert Jordan’s classic series, Amazon Prime immerses viewers in the world of The Wheel of Time (WoT) as well as any television or film production in recent memory. For those unfortunates who haven’t read all fourteen volumes, WoT could be described as a mix of Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones, along with a touch of Party of Five. There’s magic (the One Power), orcs (Trollocs), a Dark One, and political intrigue aplenty, with hints of more teen romance to come. WoT is set in a medieval world filled with a variety of kingdoms, creatures, and conjurers (all of whom are far more attractive than those of us in this reality). The series just wrapped season two and, luckily, more is on the way. (Warning: Spoilers Ahead!)

Like the best of Game of Thrones or The Expanse, the latter a sci-fi epic adaptation also on Amazon, WoT creates entire civilizations, each with their own unique costumes, speech patterns, and hierarchies. At the highest level, WoT tells the story of a young man, Rand al-Thor (Josha Stradowski), who has been endowed with enormous power to battle the Dark One, who wants to break the world and remake time and humanity in his image. Rand’s personal journey takes place against the backdrop of the larger battle between good and evil, Light and Dark, that repeats itself over thousands of years as the Wheel of Time turns, spanning continents, ages, and around 1,800 named characters.

Jeff Bezos has spent his money well. The majestic Aes Sedai, a sort of omnipresent European Commission filled with rivalrous women who can “channel” the One Power, look, act, and dress very different than the Aeil, a fierce nomadic people akin to Dune’s freman, or the terrifying Seachan, an invading empire that literally leashes and enslaves women. The scenes of a Seachan slaver “training” one of the show’s stars, Egwene al’Vere (Madeleine Madden), are among the show’s most intense, compelling, and disquieting. The bad guys, the “Forsaken” and their associated Darkfriends, are not monoliths, but rather have their own ambitions and charms. Indeed, one can appreciate the hero Rand’s attraction to the seductive Lanfear (Natasha O’Keeffe) who, despite using the One Power to explode a few heads here and there, seems like an adept and enjoyable travel companion.

WoT succeeds in the most fundamental requisite of any adaptation: it tells an interesting story that stays true to the source material. Any televised version of any book will, of course, have to make choices—no studio has infinite time or budgets, nor do viewers have infinite patience. Jordan’s sprawling narrative presents a particular challenge. For all its strengths, Jordan does not exactly present a tight plot in his fourteen books and 11,898 pages, about 793 pages per book. At times, numerous major characters follow very divergent and sometimes isolated storylines. At one point in season two, Rand’s buddy Perrin Aybara (Marcus Rutherford) enters a dreamworld with wolves while his friend Nynaeve al’Meara (Zoë Robins) navigates the politics of the Aes Sedai in the White Tower, even as Rand himself learns to control his world-shattering power from the “false Dragon,” Logain Ablar (Álvaro Morte), an inmate at an asylum. How in Light’s name could anyone film even a portion of this story while staying true to the epic’s major plot points and characters?

WoT’s showrunner, Rafe Judkins, pulls it off, often spectacularly and almost always at least defensibly. In a crucial choice, the television series centers on Moiraine Damodred (Rosamund Pike), an experienced Aes Sedai who guides Rand and his friends and helps to train them for future battles. In the books, Moiraine is a central character but not the main character, yet by focusing on her, rather than Rand, the series gives the viewer a broader perspective on the WoT’s universe, history, and political intrigue. Amidst a number of strong performances, Pike’s Moiraine stands out as a strategic thinker, tough as nails, but in season two, also vulnerable (think Jeane Kirkpatrick with the ability to conjure walls of fire). Even as WoT’s look and feel translate perfectly from page to screen, WoT rearranges many events and disclosures from later books to provide more context. These choices help to tell a story that, while expansive, moves along and helps build empathy for the characters.

Not every choice makes complete sense. In the books, Mat Cauthon (Barney Harris and Donal Finn), another Friend of Rand, is a swashbuckling gambler and adept fighter (think Han Solo who always has a good feeling about everything). In the series, however, Mat is a grim figure who abandons his friends at a crucial point in time. Why rewrite Mat’s character? In both the books and the series, Moiraine’s love interest is a minor plotline, and at times oblique, but in the series, her choice of consort is much more explicit and very much in line with certain modern progressive sensibilities (and, for now at least, different from how it ends in the books). Again, it isn’t clear that choice advances the story in any meaningful way (note to showrunners: please bring back Thom Merrilin [Alexandre Willaume], the gleeman, one of the most reliably entertaining characters in the books).

WoT also could do more to help viewers follow the story. For someone who read the books many years ago, lingering memories provide some context as to various plot points like the Ways, the Builders, and the relationship of Lews Therin Telamon (Alexander Karim) to Rand and others. For viewers without that background, such crucial details might seem as mystifying as President Biden’s references to Corn Pop. A little more exposition and repetition could help viewers follow the story, as would some onscreen maps—where exactly are some of WoT’s key locations in relation to one another, such as Falme, the Two Rivers, and the White Tower?

Despite these quibbles, WoT far surpasses several other recent adaptations both in storytelling and in fidelity to the source material. Season one of Amazon’s Lord of the Rings prequel, The Rings of Power, failed to retain viewer interest. Despite all its hype and billion-dollar budget, only about 37% of viewers who started the series slogged their way through the end—and no doubt some high percentage of those did so out of a sense of duty rather than out of enjoyment. In a word, Rings of Power was, well, boring. It spent so much time on worldbuilding that it neglected to populate its world with interesting characters and events.

In a different way, season one of Apple TV’s Foundation series also fell short of its classic source material, which relays the fall of the Galactic Empire and the use of “psychohistory” to create its successor. Several choices mystify. For instance, the television series rewrote multiple lead characters in nearly every particular aspect other than their names. Critical plot points, such as the location of Second Foundation, were changed for reasons that are not readily apparent. As part of any adaptation, the book’s fans should have a reasonable tolerance for some plot and character revisions to accommodate a different medium, but seemingly needless changes have a tendency to offend the sensibilities of those who loved the source material in the first place.

Unlike some other shows, WoT also manages to avoid unsubtle political moralizing. WoT’s problems and politics differ quite a bit from our own and the show makes no effort to connect the two. The Dark One, who has yet to make an appearance, does not appear to be a contemporary presidential candidate. The Forsaken bear little resemblance to congressional Republicans or Democrats (though Rand al-Thor could pass for a younger, taller Rand Paul). In fact, if anything, both liberals and conservatives should cheer this story, in which the good guys fight an expansionist, authoritarian overseas power that has little respect for women’s rights—or for that matter, border security.

More broadly, The Wheel of Time contains lessons that transcend any contemporary partisan squabbles. Every storyline involves the virtues of friendship and faith, and virtually every character confronts the costs of unhealthy ambition. Rand, Perrin, Mat, Egwene, and Nynaeve support each other, risk their lives for one another, and persevere through very difficult times, including imprisonment and the temptations of their newly discovered powers. Other characters, especially the Forsaken and Darkfriends, allow their ambitions to override their humanity, often with terrible consequences for themselves and their loved ones. As in real life, few characters are all good, or all evil, but have mixed motives and strive to do the right things as they see fit, often falling short but often achieving some success along the way.

Audiences also might appreciate one of WoT’s central themes, the notion that history repeats itself, for good or ill. Despite the best efforts of the Dark One, the Wheel can’t be broken, humanity can’t be perfected, but each age and generation can improve and grow bit by bit. Today’s partisan hostilities have happened before (see the 1930s, the 1960s, the 1790s, etc.) and probably will happen again, with different players and different crises du jour, but at any time in history, and as in The Wheel of Time, loyalty, friendship, wisdom, and perseverance can prevail in the most challenging of circumstances. And a little bit of magic can help.