THE WHEEL OF TIME TV Show: The braid tugs, as the writing wills [BOOK SPOILERS]

[Krishtotter]

Well, they are certainly a good looking group of young actors (not that that's anything to go by). 

I've never heard of any of them before but having done a quick perusal online, it looks like most of them have eminently decent acting skills. 

It would appear that, as with GoT, they are casting relative unknowns for the younger leads and reserving more A-list or famous 'stars' (i.e. Rosamund Pike) for the maturer roles. 

The choice for Matt Cauthon seems an ideal fit for the character described in the novels. One to watch, I think. 

Nynaeve actress - very beautiful, could see her embodying 'wisdom' in spite of her youthfulness. Her past body of work indicates that she's got acting chops. 

Rand - looks like a male model, shows promise. 

Perrin - good fit, maybe needs to bulk up a little with protein shakes. 

Egwene - another beauty, easy on the eyes, quite different from how character is described but based on the little I've seen of her online, appears to be a talented young actress.

Already, I'm seeing the expected fanfare of people bewailing "wheel of diversity" with all the usual political slurs - 'forced diversity', 'SJW, 'wokeness'......it's The Witcher casting for Yennifer and the Black Elves all over again, and I find myself tired already with the contingent of fans obsessed with the skin colour of the actors as opposed to the question of how capable they might be (or not) of embodying the role....

[Gertrude]

Yeah, my first reaction to seeing the headshots was - oh, this is gonna cause some conversations.

Actually, my very first thought was looking at the Rand actor and thinking - huh, he doesn't look fair. I wonder how they are gonna make him stick out in Emmon's Field enough. Then once I saw them all, my thought was that Rand was fine, but Matt, possibly Egwene looked too European. (nah, she good)

I have only seen the black and white head shots and am judging from that. I prefer good actors above all, but I do actually kind of want to visually see Rand sticking out and then - aha! He looks a lot like these other people, I get it now. It's not a big deal, and I trust the showrunners have put a lot of thought into this though, so it's all good.

I agree that Mat seems to be the one who best matches his book description.  It's hard to say from just a photo. He's all about his charm and cheek.

edit: nm about Mat, I found a photo of Barney Harris that shows his coloring better, maybe. I like that they went this way to punch up the differences in Rand. I would be lying if I didn't also appreciate the fact that they chose to give more of the juicy roles to POC to balance out the trend for fantasy to be European centric. This series already had a lot of built-in space for a diverse cast (say, compared to GoT and LoTR) and I'm glad to see them lean into it.

[fionwe1987]

I was a little troubled Mat stood out compared to the other Emond's Fielders, too, but he IS a brunette, and they can take care of the eyes. I, too, am glad people of color are gonna take center stage. I had no hope they'd do this, so I was mostly thinking they'd bring in more diversity in the secondary cast. I'm thrilled they proved me wrong. 

 

The actress playing Egwene has absolutely huge eyes. Of all the main character features, I thought that would be the one they wouldn't match. I'm surprised at how closely she resembles how I pictured the character in my head.

 

Of course, how well they act is going to matter a lot more, but I find this an encouraging start. The show will look utterly distinct from GoT, which can only help.

[karaddin]

Yeah I'm really encouraged by this casting and I hope they all turn out great. Looking at Egwene and her prior work and was surprised to see she's probably Australian, probably shouldn't be though as there's been so many young actors from here landing roles in the last 5-10 years and doing well.

[fionwe1987]

Just went through some of the Reddit threads. Wow.

[Valandil]

Interesting that they’ve gone mixed race for the two rivers look. I guess they were always described as dark, but in the books that was more dark haired and dark eyed Caucasian like “black Irish” as in Rigney’s “Fallon legacy” series. Always had two rivers folk pegged as 17th -18th century Irish culturally/ societally. The important thing is they keep it consistent whatever they go with so Rand stands out etc. there’s obviously a lot of ott criticism gonna happen but once their costumed up and hair etc, it will fade. 

Rosamund pike looks a lot less like book moiraine than any of these guys/gals! 

[Gertrude]

1 hour ago, Valandil said:

 there’s obviously a lot of ott criticism gonna happen but once their costumed up and hair etc, it will fade. 

About Moiraine, I saw a post on Reddit where someone was upset that Nyneave and Moiraine were cast too tall. He argued it was important for their characterization to show how so much power resides in such a small package. *eyeroll*  I keep remembering the drama when Jaime was originally cast. Oh no! His nose is not straight - he's not pretty enough to be Jaime! You are right - if the actors are good, it will fade. But right now all people have are superficial things to latch onto - and latch onto they do.

[Maia]

20 hours ago, Krishtotter said:

Already, I'm seeing the expected fanfare of people bewailing "wheel of diversity" with all the usual political slurs - 'forced diversity', 'SJW, 'wokeness'.....

Which is so odd, because from their description in the text, the Duopotamians might well have been PoC - tan skin, dark hair and eyes, to such an extent that there have _never_ been a light-eyed, light-haired person in residence in living memory until Kari al'Thor and Rand arrived, etc. Yes, the Andorans are North-European in appearnce, but the Two Rivers people look very distinct from them, which is even a plot point. If anything, they probably should have cast PoC as all the 2 Rivers folks, both main and minor - the Caucasian, light-eyed Mat actor might detract from Rand sticking out there as much as he did. I very much doubt that they'll make him wear tinted lenses, because this is almost never done.

Not to mention that, hypocrtically, nobody seems much bothered by the fact that Rosamund Pike looks nothing like the book description of Moiraine.

[Rhom]

1 hour ago, Maia said:

If anything, they probably should have cast PoC as all the 2 Rivers folks, both main and minor - the Caucasian, light-eyed Mat actor might detract from Rand sticking out there as much as he did.

I would say that having Perrin and Mat at least have the same racial coloration as Rand plays into the narrative that Moiraine wasn't initially sure which of the three was the Dragon Reborn though.  Pretty easy to see how this Perrin doesn't fit the prophecies.  In the scheme of things, that's a pretty minor plot point though.

[SpaceChampion]

1 hour ago, Maia said:

Which is so odd, because from their description in the text, the Duopotamians might well have been PoC - tan skin, dark hair and eyes, to such an extent that there have _never_ been a light-eyed, light-haired person in residence in living memory until Kari al'Thor and Rand arrived, etc.

Both Kari and Tam don't have to look anything like Rand really, since he's a foundling.  If they're different, more the better to note Rand's oddity.  So that it's not that he's different from even a minority of Emond's Fielders, but different from his own supposed parents.

One might argue that would make it too easy to track him down as the Dragon Reborn, but I think it's sufficient to hide him on a remote farm in a backwater than rely on him looking like Kari's coloration to obscure his foundling status.  Most Emond's Fielder probably wouldn't give out information to outsiders, so it's hiding him relying on a dearth of information from the area would be much more believable.

[Joey Crows]

49 minutes ago, Rhom said:

I would say that having Perrin and Mat at least have the same racial coloration as Rand plays into the narrative that Moiraine wasn't initially sure which of the three was the Dragon Reborn though.  Pretty easy to see how this Perrin doesn't fit the prophecies.  In the scheme of things, that's a pretty minor plot point though.

Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t remember the prophecies saying anything about what the Dragon Reborn would look like. So I don’t think that really played into Moraine not knowing which of the 3 was him. It was the age and location of the boys that she was focusing on.

[Rhom]

21 minutes ago, Joey Crows said:

Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t remember the prophecies saying anything about what the Dragon Reborn would look like. So I don’t think that really played into Moraine not knowing which of the 3 was him. It was the age and location of the boys that she was focusing on.

They did know he'd be Andoran royalty and obviously knew enough for them to convince the daughter heir to head out to the Aiel waste to make a love connection...  

[SpaceChampion]

How long was Moiraine unsure though?  Given all three are ta'veren she was motivated to bring them all along.

[David Selig]

1 hour ago, Rhom said:

They did know he'd be Andoran royalty and obviously knew enough for them to convince the daughter heir to head out to the Aiel waste to make a love connection...  

Gitara Moroso sent the daughter heir to head out to the Aiel waste, Moiraine had nothing to do with it and didn't know about it. And even Gitara didn't know that said daughter-heir would be the Dragon Reborn's mother.

[Darth Richard II]

13 hours ago, fionwe1987 said:

Just went through some of the Reddit threads. Wow.

Don;t look into the abyss

[Quijote Light]

3 hours ago, David Selig said:

Gitara Moroso sent the daughter heir to head out to the Aiel waste, Moiraine had nothing to do with it and didn't know about it. And even Gitara didn't know that said daughter-heir would be the Dragon Reborn's mother.

He might be thinking of Elaida’s foretelling that they would be critical in the Last Battle. Although she turned out to be wrong in who it pertained to, and I doubt she shared the information. 

[The Anti-Targ]

19 hours ago, fionwe1987 said:

Just went through some of the Reddit threads. Wow.

Lemme guess: "WHY AREN'T THEY ALL WHITE??? WAAA WAAA WAAAA. WHITE GENOCIDE!" etc etc.

I do think they made a mistake with Matt. Rand has to be different, because he's not actually Two Rivers folk, but in terms of the rest of them "one of these things is no like the other" which is kinds odd, Two Rivers natives should all have somewhat of a similar look to each other. So I guess I don't approve of the race [un]bending of Matt?

[Krishtotter]

10 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Lemme guess: "WHY AREN'T THEY ALL WHITE??? WAAA WAAA WAAAA. WHITE GENOCIDE!" etc etc.

Yeah, with a bunch of "SJW, forced diversity & woke" slurs thrown in there for good measure.

I was grinding my teeth so much reading through those Reddit threads, I suspect I now need an urgent trip to the dentist.

[Corvinus85]

I'm hoping the rest of the two rivers folk are also mixed. Tam should probably be white. And on Nynaeve, there will be the tugging of many braids.

[Starkess]

16 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Lemme guess: "WHY AREN'T THEY ALL WHITE??? WAAA WAAA WAAAA. WHITE GENOCIDE!" etc etc.

I do think they made a mistake with Matt. Rand has to be different, because he's not actually Two Rivers folk, but in terms of the rest of them "one of these things is no like the other" which is kinds odd, Two Rivers natives should all have somewhat of a similar look to each other. So I guess I don't approve of the race [un]bending of Matt?

Yes, but I think that the Matt actor is actually a bit darker--easier to see if you look at other photos besides the B&W headshots released. It's his light eyes that are really unusual for TR, but I think that's fine. Like maybe light eyes or something pops up in TR from time to time, but the whole combination of Rand being light-skinned, light-haired, AND light-eyed makes him a real sore thumb.