The Wheel of Time Season 2 finale brings all of our heroes and villains to Falme where Rand al’Thor (Josha Stradowski) faces down Ishamael (Fares Fares) in the midst of an epic battle between Seanchan and Whitecloaks. Egwene (Madeleine Madden) is forced to fight for the Seanchan as an enslaved damane, unaware that friends Nynaeve (Zoë Robins), Elayne (Ceara Coveney), Perrin (Marcus Rutherford), and Rand are all plotting separating to free her. Lanfear (Natasha O’Keeffe) continues to make mysterious moves for (or against?) the Dragon Reborn, while Mat (Dónal Finn) is forced to face the temptation of the ruby dagger again. So what happens in The Wheel of Time Season 2 finale on Prime Video? And why were there so many changes to the books?

**Spoilers for The Wheel of Time Season 2 Episode 8 “What Was Meant to Be,” now streaming on Prime Video**

In The Wheel of Time Season 2 finale, Rand seemingly walks into Ishamael’s trap. He goes to the tower in Falme to free Egwene (who winds up liberating herself in the end), only to have High Lady Suroth (Karima McAdams) order her offshore damane to shield him. Mat escapes Ishamael and Padan Fain (Johann Myers)’s trap by cleverly using a makeshift staff and torn leather to fashion a spear with the ruby dagger as the point — without touching the cursed object. After Mat makes his escape, he runs into Perrin, Loial (Hammed Animashaun), and the Aiel Maidens of the Spear Aviendha (Ayoola Smart), Bain (Ragga Ragners), and Chiad (Maja Simonsen). They give him the Horn of Valere to bring to Rand. When Mat is trapped by Seanchan soldiers, he blows the horn, revealing he is a Hero of the Horn.

When Mat arrives at the Tower, he throws his new spear at Ishamael…but it phases through the Forsaken and into Rand’s side. Egwene defends the boys from Ishamael for as long as possible, ultimately receiving help from Perrin who is carrying one of the Heroes of the Horn’s shield. Nynaeve and an injured Elayne then arrive and the Daughter-Heir uses the One Power to patch Rand up (since Nynaeve is blocked and can’t channel). Finally, Moiraine (Rosamund Pike) uses the One Power to blow up the Seanchan fleet, freeing Rand so he can kill Ishamael. She uses the fire from those weaves to create the banner of a fiery dragon to soar above Falme.

So everything’s hunky dory for our heroes? Not so fast! In the final moments of The Wheel of Time Season 2, Lanfear discovers that Ishamael released the rest of the Forsaken before dying…

But who are are the Forsaken? Why is Mat a Hero of the Horn? Who lives? Who dies? And what changes were made from the books? Here’s everything you need to know about The Wheel of Time Season 2 finale…

At the very end of The Wheel of Time Season 2 Episode 8, Lanfear struts her way into Ishamael’s room to get what she believes are six unbroken cuendillar seals, each imprisoning a member of the Forsaken. Her plan? Give them to trader Bayle Domon (Julien Lewis Jones) to drop in the middle of the ocean, ensuring that no one else can get between her and her beloved Dragon Reborn.

What Lanfear missed, however, was that Ishamael broke the seals offscreen after realizing she had betrayed him by messing up his plan to break Rand al’Thor. We saw him wiping dust off his hands in one scene and now we know why. He freed the six final Forsaken we know will be in The Wheel of Time show.

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How The Wheel of Time writers infused the Forsaken with... By Meghan O'Keefe @megsokay

The Forsaken are a group of incredibly powerful channelers who pledged themselves to the Dark One during the Second Age. In the books, there are thirteen of them. However, there will only be eight Forsaken in the show. We’ve already spent a ton of time with Ishamael and Lanfear, heard Graendal and Sammael name-checked, and now have officially met Moghedien (Laia Costa).

“Moghedien becomes one of the biggest and most important Forsaken in the book that immediately follows this one. So we really wanted her to be the first insight that you get to this world of Forsaken,” Rafe Judkins told Decider. “I mean, I love Fares Fares and Natasha O’Keeffe, so much who play Ishamael and Lanfear, and I think it’s hard to even in your mind imagine Forsaken that might be more interesting than those two are. So we wanted someone who came in and in one scene made you go, ‘Oh my God, what is going to happen in Season 3 now that all of these people are out?'”

During the Second Age, Moghedien was known as Lillen Moiral. She wasn’t seen as much of a talent by her peers, so no one saw her as a threat. Because of this, she was able to strike at enemies from the shadows. She was named “Moghedien” because it is a reference to a deadly spider who would hide in corners and trap its victims in a web during the Second Age. It is meant to be an insult. “Softly, softly in the shadows” is how Moghedien describes her own strategic process and we hear in the show that it, too, was originally an insult hurled at her by Lanfear.

Moghedien is the one Forsaken who is even better at manipulating dreams in Tel’aran’rhiod (aka the World of Dreams) than Lanfear. Hence Lanfear’s horror at the very end of the scene.

Rafe Judkins added that they also wanted Moghedien to provide a promise that there’s an incredible backstory behind each of the Forsaken. “Because each of them are just as messed up and just as interesting and just as, like, lovably evil as Lanfear and as Ishamael are,” he said. “So I think Laia’s version of Moghedien just like perfectly gives you the dose of that at the end of the season where you can’t wait to meet the rest of the Forsaken.”

Throughout The Wheel of Time Season 2, many characters have been searching for a stolen MacGuffin called the Horn of Valere. Tradition holds that the Horn of Valere must be blown at the Last Battle so that the Heroes of the Horn can come to the aid of the Dragon Reborn. Some buy into this prophecy hardcore while others think it’s a fairy tale.

When Mat Cauthon finds himself at the mercy of the Seanchan, he blows the Horn of Valere in desperation. Not only is he joined by a group of legendary heroes, who have been reborn into the Pattern time and time again, but he regains the memories of all of his past lives. Mat realizes that he has been a Hero of the Horn this whole time.

While fans have speculated that Mat was a Hero of the Horn — and author Brandon Sanderson hints at it during the final Wheel of Time book, A Memory of Light — this particular exchange with Artur Hawkwing happens with Rand in the second book, The Great Hunt, and not Mat.

Rafe Judkins explained the change to Decider like this: “The main thing we wanted to do with Mat’s moment of blowing the Horn of Valere was try to make sure that it was tied as much as we could emotionally to his character arc this season on the show.”

“One of the most iconic things about Mat in the books is that he is constantly and consistently struggling with believing that he’s a hero. He never thinks that of himself. I think it’s really important to bring that to the screen in a clear way and show the audience that. And so I think that this storyline really sets you up to understand what Mat thinks about himself and what’s really inside him.”

Mat does eventually regain the memories of his past lives in the books, albeit through a much different method. Still, book fans had to have gotten a thrill seeing Mat raising a makeshift spear, shouting, “Dovie’andi se tovya sagain!” (It translates to “It’s time to roll the dice” in the Old Tongue.)

Another switch from the books? Including Uno (Guy Roberts) as a Hero of the Horn. In the books, Uno survives all fourteen books and fights in the Last Battle. The show kills him off in Season 2 to underscore the danger of the Seanchan as well as for a practical reason.

“There’s a lot of characters in the books that just sort of continue forever and it’s very happy that they all make it to the Last Battle, but we can’t really carry a cast that large,” Judkins said. “So we try to, as much as we can, give people a big chunk of time where they’re really involved in the show and then bring their time to a close and really give them a good payoff.”

However, Judkins gave Decider a hint that Uno isn’t just a Hero of the Horn, but perhaps a specific one fans know from the books.

“I think that people will notice that we have combined Uno with another character by the weapons that he’s using when he’s a Hero of the Horn helping Perrin. If that, if that’s not too much of a spoiler,” Judkins said.

That’s not the only bit of theory fodder Judkins threw fans’ way. While the blonde archer known as Birgitte Silverbow is one of the most iconic Heroes of the Horn in the books, the show gives priority to another female warrior, Amaresu (Hélène Tran), because Judkins loves the existing fan theories about her.

“We are kind of obsessed with her and we’re obsessed with the actress who played Amaresu. She’s just incredible in the fight. You just wanted each of those heroes to feel iconic in their own way,” he said.

There’s another reason why Birgitte gets a smaller cameo than she gets in this sequence in the books. “We showed Birgitte, but also, as you know, Birgitte plays a really large role in the books to come,” Judkins said. “So we want to someday cast an actress to play Birgitte who can really, you know, bring Birgitte to life in the way that she has to function in the show.”

Hardcore fans will remember that Birgitte has already been name-dropped in Season 1, when little Helga Grinwell (Robyn Betteridge) offers Mat (Barney Harris) her Birgitte doll, whom she says protects her when she sleeps.

Another key change from the Robert Jordan books in The Wheel of Time Season 2 finale involves Rand’s Banner. In the books, there is a literal dragon banner that Rand finds alongside the Horn at the Eye of the World. Here, though, Moiraine uses the One Power first to blow up the Seanchan fleet — thus liberating Rand of his shield so he can channel — and then to create a large fiery dragon to soar above Falme. Decider had two questions for Judkins pertaining to this.

First: Is the villainous Seanchan Darkfriend High Lady Suroth dead? A cagey Judkins teased, “I mean, unless you see a body, Meghan.”

Second: Why turn the banner into a fiery dragon?

“In terms of Moiraine, one of the things we really wanted to do is have this exuberant outpouring of the One Power from her in the finale because we’ve had to spend a whole season of her unable to use the One Power,” Judkins said. “So to have Moiraine destroy the Seanchan fleet and then take that same fire that she used to save Rand and basically lock in his future with it in a way that, you know, would he have wanted that? I don’t know, we’ll find out.”

“But it’s Moiraine pushing her own agenda at the end with her own power. I think keeping her as a character that has her own drives, her own agenda to match up with Rand, who is his own character, who has his own drives and own agenda. That beat at the end of this season sets that relationship up really well for who’s in really in control of what the world knows about the Dragon River reborn.”

While Rand and his friends might win the day, many characters wake from the dream, as the Aiel would say.

The most devastating loss has to be Hopper, who defied Perrin’s wishes and joined the Wolfbrother in the heat of battle. Geofram Bornhald (Stuart Graham) kills Hopper — who was in the middle of attacking the horrible Eamon Valda (Abdul Salis). After watching Hopper die, Perrin brutally murders Geofram Bornhald in front of his son Dain (Jay Duffy).

Egwene manages to collar her sul’dam Renna (Xelia Mendes-Jones) during the battle, revealing that sul’dams can also channel, albeit only a small bit. Egwene chokes Renna until the Seanchan woman releases Egwene from her collar. Then, true to her word, Egwene does nothing to help Renna, thereby killing her.

Ingtar (Gregg Chilingirian) dies fighting the Seanchan in order to give Loial, Perrin, and Masema (Arnas Fedaravicius) an opening to save the Horn. Rand uses the One Power to kill High Lord Turak (Daniel Francis) and his court.

Finally, Rand uses the One Power and his father’s sword to kill Ishamael. In a perverse twist, this is what Ishamael has wanted — to die.