I’ve got to spread the word about the casting for one of the shows I’m looking forward to most: The Wheel of Time on Amazon Prime. Earlier this week, for #WOTWednesday, Amazon’s @WoTonPrime Twitter account announced the casting for the show’s main characters. We haven’t yet learned who’ll be playing Lan, Tom Merrilin, and Padan Fain, but we’ve got Moiraine, Egwene, Nynaeve, and the three boys: Rand, Mat, and Perrin.
Playing Moiraine Damodred will be Rosamund Pike, who you may remember from the movie Gone Girl.
Playing Rand al’Thor will be Josha Stradowski, who is a new face without much on his resume. I approve.
Marcus Rutherford will play Perrin Aybara.
Mat Cauthon will be played by Barney Harris
Nynaeve al’Meara will be played by Zoë Robins, who played Zora in The Shannara Chronicles.
Egwene al’Vere will be played by Madeleine Madden.
Seeing the still photos only gives us so much, but as much as I love the book series, the release of a Wheel of Time television series is a big deal for me.
I’m not sure exactly how I feel about the casting. On the one hand it is great to have a racially diverse cast, but the 5 young ones are supposed to be from a geographically and culturally isolated village that should all look the same except Rand. They should all be descendants of the ancient blood of Manetheren, so they have the same ancestors. That is the point of why they are the way they are.
Luke – I thought about that too. But here’s my take. Ancient Manetheren was a highly developed empire with Aes Sedai acting as Servants Of All and in general a far more built-up culture than anything post-breaking. That means lots of travel and lots of diversity. I’d think that ancient Manetheren had a very diverse population. This makes the whole thing work.
Here’s my take. The PC version of the story. Why in the hell do we have to be PC with story’s. Oliver did not write his characters as black in the village. He did have black people in his story. He even had people from India back ground. BUT NOT AS THE MAIN CHARACTERS. Luke is right. Only Rand should look different and not by much. Mainly how tall he is and how his hair is red.
And Perrin was a big guy. Almost as tall as Rand and was very broad chested. This guy is a little wimp to that.
So Yeah stop PC with story’s you just ruin them.