Ways

Ways
Appears in	The Wheel of Time TV series
Type	Extradimensional realm
Location	Accessed through Waygates
Inhabitants	Machin Shin

The Ways is a world created by channelers that is connected to the primary world through Waygates. Traversing the Ways allows for huge distances to be traversed in a short amount of time, but it comes with a huge amount of danger.

Overview

Due to their extreme danger, hardly anybody uses the Ways to travel, usually being only used when there is extreme pressure to travel somewhere quickly. The Ways can allow someone to traverse a continent in the space of a single day.

The Ways are accessed through a Waygate, and various Waygates exist in the Westlands. A Waygate can be opened by channeling. There exists an artefact which allows Waygates to be opened without the use of channeling.

The Ways is inhabited by the dark entity Machin Shin, which will drive people insane. Channeling inside the Ways will attract its attention.

History

Pre-series

The Ways were built in the time when legendary knowledge of the One Power still existed, and its passages connected the many steddings of the Ogier. The Ways were once filled with light and lush vegetation, and it was a paradise for the nature-loving Ogier. Fruit trees and flowers were always in season and blooming, and there was always food for those traveling through the Ways. However, at some point, the Ways became corrupted. They became bleak and lifeless, and were haunted by an evil entity known as Machin Shin.

Shortly before Winternight in 998 NE, the Guidings began to be defaced by agents of the Shadow, and Shadowspawn began to use the Ways. This allowed the Two Rivers to be attacked by Shadowspawn, far away from where they are usually found in the Borderlands or Great Blight itself.

Season 1

Moiraine Damodred decides to use the Ways to travel from Tar Valon to the Eye of the World with the five potential Dragons Reborn, Rand al'Thor, Mat Cauthon, Perrin Aybara, Egwene al'Vere, and Nynaeve al'Meara. After being exiled from the White Tower, she gathers the five before the Tar Valon Waygate with Lan Mandragoran and Loial, and uses the One Power to open the Waygate. Seven of the party of eight enter the Ways, but the Waygate closes before Mat can enter.

Season 2

Liandrin Guirale uses the Ways to take Egwene, Nynaeve and Elayne from Tar Valon to an area near Falme. While inside the ways, Nynaeve briefly awakes, though with Liandrin shielding her. Nynaeve asks about how Liandrin could have attacked them with such power under the Three Oaths, and comes to learn that she is in fact not bound to the oaths at all as a member of the Black Ajah.

Liandrin escorts the three young women to a Waygate near Falme, where she deposits them to High Lady Suroth on the orders of the Shadow. Liandrin and Suroth argue about the nature of damane for some time, and Liandrin cuts Nynaeve from her restraints before she departs through the Waygate. She returns to Tar Valon some time later, being met by Verin Mathwin in the Tower, who picks up on Liandrin's conspicuous absence and quick return.

Appearances

The Wheel of Time appearances	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
Season 1 episodes						✔	✔
Season 2 episodes					✔		✔	✔

Quotes

Rand

We've all heard of the Ways in stories, but none of us know what they are.

Loial

Ancient pathways, out of time and space. One step in the Ways could be a hundred miles in our world. One breath the equivalent--

Moiraine

It's the fastest road to the Eye of the World.

— Season 1 episode 6 The Flame of Tar Valon

Loial

There cannot be any use of the One Power within the Ways. To do so would be to throw yourself at Machin Shin and ask it to feast on your soul.

— Season 1 episode 7 The Dark Along the Ways

Behind the scenes

• The look of the was Ways was inspired by the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland.

Changes from the book series

The Ways are adapted from the realm of the same name  (book spoilers!) from the book series.

• Horses - In the books, horses taken through the Ways by Moiraine's party. However, they are dismissed outside the Tar Valon Waygate in the television series. However, Liandrin is still able to take horses through the ways, perhaps because she is a more experienced traveler.
• Lightning - The lightning in the Ways is original to the television series; in the books, there is no lightning in the Ways, or anything akin to a sky.