“It’s about my story, isn’t it? That’s what this is all about. He didn’t want to publish my story. And we all know why—because my hero is a colored man.”
—Benny Russell, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, “Far Beyond the Stars”“Momma! There’s a black lady on TV and she ain’t no maid!”
—Caryn Elaine Johnson, age 10, watching Star Trek in 1966, 16 years before becoming Whoopi Goldberg
Last week the producers of Amazon’s Wheel of Time television adaptation announced the cast for what can reasonably be called the show’s main protagonists, insofar as a 15-book series with over 2000 named characters and 147 unique point of view characters has main protagonists. In the books, the five characters announced today serve as the reader’s eyes for over 40% of the action, whether counting by words or by POVs. These characters matter—they are among the most famous characters in all of Western fantasy, with over 80 million copies of the Wheel of Time novels sold in the past thirty years.
Three of the five actors are of African ancestry or are Aboriginal Australian.
The announcement has sent shock waves across much of the fandom, and for an important reason: it serves as explicit rejection of an implicit promise made a very long time ago.
I.
From near infancy I have been a sci-fi fan. I gorged on Star Wars and Star Trek in my earliest memories; mandates for lightsabers and Vulcans are in my DNA right next to the bits that say I need oxygen. Fantasy took a bit longer. My first steps into fantasy as a literary genre were taken as a sixth grader alongside Lucy Pevensie, as the coats in The Wardrobe gave way to the forests of Narnia. I liked the Narnia books, some better than others. I thoroughly enjoyed The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, because the story’s main character arc is that of Eustace growing from obnoxious little bastard to a pretty decent kid; I liked The Magician’s Nephew because I love seeing competent villains struggle to do their thing when out of their element; I liked The Last Battle because I enjoy watching the hero slowly realize the imminence of the eschaton. I am not sure whether it was Lewis or me that correlated the most compelling scenes with male protagonists but the result is the same. And I knew what they looked like. They were English, and the book cover clearly showed them as white.
(Cover art by Roger Hane; Collier Books, 1970)
After finishing Narnia I moved on to Middle-earth, blithely unaware that Tolkien and Lewis were probably continuing some argument in a celestial pub somewhere in the afterlife. Once again, travelers from England—sorry, the Shire—went off on grand adventures, prevented the end of the world, and struggled to reintegrate back home after their quest. They were English, and they were white.
(Cover art by Michael Herring; Ballantine Books, 1983)
I was in seventh grade when I finished Lord of the Rings, and I needed some fantasy to read next. I ended up with Dragonlance, which was good enough for me, and it was well timed. I had just discovered character sheets and THAC0, and Krynn contained something neither Narnia nor Middle-earth could countenance: a main character who gets laid during the narrative.
(Cover art by Larry Elmore; TSR, 1984)
Tanis, the main character, is white (you can tell; that’s him on the left, above). The barbarians are white (one is there in the center). Sturm, the warrior on the right, is white. As best I can remember, all of the relevant characters are white.
I finally finished Dragonlance after some struggle and my friend Matt (hah!) insisted I read the far superior series he was on at the time. It was longer than the other books—I knew this because Matt was reading them in class and those hardbacks were huge. And he had every book in the series. All four of them. This was 1992.
I had to catch up; the series was surely ending soon because they were coming out at a book a year and somebody at the Waldenbooks said there were only going to be six. My dad had a copy of The Eye of the World in paperback because in my lifetime Tor has never released a paperback that eluded my father’s bookshelf. The cover promised many things: a seemingly hot female wizard; a ridiculously badass warrior; other, more useless party members; and a journey. All of the essential elements were there, plus one: something about the people on that cover felt…familiar? Safe? Not weird? Not…other?
They had two arms and two legs, were clearly human, and just looked normal and not particularly worthy of comment for anything beyond what was clearly their assigned character class. Like the background noise of cicadas buzzing in the woods, incredibly loud and yet utterly unnoticed, they shared some trait—right below the threshold of perception—with Frodo, Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, Samwise, Bilbo, a dozen dwarves, the Seven Dwarves, Willow Ufgood, every Narnian human, Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, my parents, my preacher, every president ever, my teachers, all of them—all of the people who had mattered in my life at the time—all of the people who had mattered, anywhere.
Some of those works had heroic people of color in them: Lando Calrissian, Lieutenant Uhura, that one Calormene officer who comes to Aslan at the end of The Last Battle. But those works weren’t about them. Neither was this one. I knew, because the cover made that very obvious. Well, maybe not so obvious. The fighter dude up there looked kinda maybe brown, but that’s to be expected because those sorts of people are more likely to want to fight. That’s just how they are; everybody knows that. Anyway that woman was without a doubt the person really in charge here. No doubt I thought this because she is the one with a magic staff. That was, of course, the only reason my South Carolinian brain would think this. Oh look! This author lives in Charleston and went to the Citadel. How interesting.
Somewhere, a cicada buzzes.
II.
There is a doctrine in contract law called promissory estoppel. It arises when there’s a sort of agreement but no actual contract. Here’s an example: A tells B, “If you bring me 4 fantasy paperbacks from the bookstore, I will buy them from you, but don’t bring me any Piers Anthony because I cannot stand puns.” A doesn’t tell B this, but A thinks that B, a known cheapskate, will get 4 used books for a total of $10. B, seeing an opportunity, instead gets 4 paperbacks for $30 hoping to sell them to A for $40. A has sticker shock, so A refuses to pay. A and B never agreed on a price, so there’s arguably no actual contract that was ever formed. However, B did reasonably rely on A’s promise, so under the doctrine of promissory estoppel he is entitled to his costs back—just not the profit he was hoping to make, which he might be able to get under a full breach of a valid contract. A owes B $30. The purpose of promissory estoppel is to recognize that people can and do make investments when they perceive something is comfortable and low risk—even when they aren’t relying on promises presented as contracts.
There is another doctrine called course of dealing. Here’s an example: Suppose you have a good relationship with the pizzeria across the street. Every Friday night at 6 PM sharp you show up and ask for a large pepperoni and pineapple pizza. You do this for two months straight. Eventually they see you walk in and they don’t even take your order. They just ask, “the usual?” and you say “yes” and they ring you up. Another two months of this pass by, and the pizzeria now just has a pizza ready for you in a box already marked with your name on it thirty seconds before you walk in. Arguably, after 26 straight weeks of this, you and the pizzeria have a pretty solid course of dealing with each other. They know exactly what you want, and you know exactly how they’re going to give it to you. If one of you deviates from that course, the other one is likely to get upset, because their expectations have been thrown awry. Maybe not too upset, hopefully, because this is just a pizza.
What if you keep promising me the main characters are going to be white and you keep delivering that over and over and I come to trust it? What if you keep promising me that what’s on a cover matches what’s in the book? What if you don’t actually keep that promise? What if I thought I didn’t care about that, and I suddenly realize I do?
Who is the aggrieved party here? Is it me? Is it the publisher? Maybe the author?
III.
I consider myself relatively woke on racial issues and I would definitely consider myself an ally of people of color. Nevertheless, dear Reader, I saw Zoë Robins as Nynaeve and Marcus Rutherford as Perrin and I was annoyed. Not merely disappointed. Annoyed. After Rosamund Pike’s casting I had gotten my hopes up and now I saw that I had been betrayed.
I’d been had. I’d been took.
I’d been hoodwinked.
Bamboozled. Led astray. Run amok.
This is what they do. This is what these Hollywood types do; they pander and they sacrifice the art and I wish they would just change their minds and make—
What was I about to say there? What was I about to think there? I wish they would make what exactly?
Why, exactly, did I like Eustace Scrubb as a character when I was 10? Was it because he was a male or was it because he was a piece of shit who let the scales come off and become a better person? I hear the voice of Jean-Luc Picard in my head: “We think we’ve come so far. It’s all ancient history. And then, before you can blink an eye, suddenly it threatens to start all over again.” Picard again: “If we are to be damned, let us be damned for what we really are.” I am ashamed of myself and I force myself to uninterrupt the thought I’d short circuited.
I wish they would just change their minds and make them white again.
Why? Why do I care about this? It is true that I want the characters to be true to what they were on the page. So what were they on the page? I know for a fact they are white; I have read The Eye of the World probably seven times since I was a seventh grader. Where is the passage? Ah, here it is:
Elaida had put down her knitting, Rand realized, and was studying him. She rose from her stool and slowly came down from the dais to stand before him. “From the Two Rivers?” she said. She reached a hand towards his head; he pulled away from her touch, and she let her hand drop. “With that red in his hair, and gray eyes? Two Rivers people are dark of hair and eye, and they seldom have such height.” Her hand darted out to push back his coat sleeve, exposing lighter skin the sun had not reached so often. “Or such skin.”
What the hell? Two Rivers folk are at minimum darker than the untanned parts of white boys. They have dark hair and dark eyes. I flicker back to the casting photos. Yeah, ok, Zoë and Marcus definitely have dark hair; flicker; they definitely have dark eyes; flicker; their skin is darker than Josha Stradowski’s Rand; flicker; flicker flicker flicker flicker.
They pass Elaida’s test but they don’t pass my test. Why not? Not one thing in Elaida’s description says that Two Rivers folk are white. Elaida just says that Rand is an alien there and is too light to be normal there.
But it’s not just Elaida:
There were Marwins and al’Dais, al’Seens and Coles. Thanes and al’Caars and Crawes, men from every family he knew, men he did not recognize, from down to Deven Ride or up to Watch Hill or Taren Ferry, all grim-faced and burdened with pairs of bristling quivers and extra sheaves of arrows. And among them stood others, men with coppery skins, men with transparent veils across the lower half of their faces, fair-skinned men who just did not have the look of the Two Rivers.
Where did I get this idea that Two Rivers folk must be white?
I realize it immediately. It comes from two sources. As the Two Rivers themselves come from the Mountains of Mist, I realize this error has come from one source through two channels that warped my perceptions as a 12-year-old. I just never corrected it in all of this time.
First, the book covers by Darrell K. Sweet expressly and repeatedly depict the Two Rivers folk as white. Every time. All of them. Perrin may be a Wolfbrother but there is no brother to be seen on the cover of The Dragon Reborn:
That is a Definitely Not Black dude on the cover of Winter’s Heart:
This is a council of white folk here on the cover of Knife of Dreams:
Now look at this by Raymond Swanland from the e-book for Towers of Midnight:
Look at that face. That face could easily be Idris Elba. Can Marcus play Swanland’s Perrin rather than Sweet’s Perrin?
“It was about a man whose family was taken from him, but who stood tall in his sorrow and protected those he could.” @Marcus_Rudda as Perrin Aybara #WoTWednesday #TwitterOfTime pic.twitter.com/4UTcqdpySA
— The Wheel Of Time (@TheWheelOfTime) August 14, 2019
Yes. End of analysis. Yes.
Now here, you should be asking “well, you say ‘Sweet’s Perrin vs. Swanland’s Perrin,’ but what really matters is can Marcus play Jordan’s Perrin?”
This goes to my second river: I envisioned the Two Rivers as white because everything before it was white. The Shire was white, Tatooine was white, my neighborhood was white. Rand views Emond’s Field as home, and my twelve-year-old self mapped a schema on top of that and said “THIS IS HIS HOME AND IT’S A QUEST STORY THEREFORE HOME MEANS THE DEFAULT AND THEREFORE LILY WHITE, THOSE ARE THE RULES, SEE THEY EVEN DO A BEL TINE DANCE WHAT COULD BE MORE WHITE THAN THAT?!” and that was pretty much the end of it. Yes, all caps is how the Dark One talks and that is exactly how this shit gets propagated—the voice enters your head from seemingly all directions and no direction all at the same time. The default is white. The default is white. The default is white. Any deviation from the default must be explained and justifiable, therefore any deviation from white must be explained and justifiable. If you don’t have a justification then you should just be white. And if you can’t be white, because you aren’t white, you need to justify yourself further.
I asked above, who is the aggrieved party when Rafe and the Awful Producers alter the deal and tell me to pray they don’t alter it further? I will tell you who the aggrieved party is.
Buy the Book
Warrior of the Altaii
The aggrieved party is every twelve-year-old black kid in my class who over the course of several months saw me tearing through my copies of the The Eye of the World, The Great Hunt, the Dragon Reborn, and The Shadow Rising which, by my count, combine in their cover art to depict a perfect record of twenty-four out of twenty-four white folks. The aggrieved party is the person who looks at fifteen consecutive book covers and says: That is a world in which people like me are not normal and have to be explained. Singing manbat vampires and armored goatpeople seem to be easily ignored elements of the milieu, but people like me don’t even exist in that world as far as I can tell.
Rafe Judkins and the producers of The Wheel of Time on Amazon have explicitly rejected the opportunity to repeat Tor’s mistake. They are openly and loudly and proudly repudiating the implied promise that we, the dear white demographic that so dominates the fantasy market, can comfortably rely on our status as the Real World default when we visit Their World.
We’re not the default on the TV show. It doesn’t matter. Yes it stings to have relied on that promise—that acquiescence—that assumption that we are the ones to be catered to by the art and the marketing and the money people for no better reason than that we are the default, and that we define ourselves as the default on the basis that we have settled on some definition of exclusion which we call “being white enough.”
In the days since the announcement I’ve seen many who try to sidestep this issue by saying they picture the Two Rivers folk as Mediterranean, and that’s light enough to count as white, while Marcus is too dark, so they object to his casting. And then they suggest instead somebody like a young Val Kilmer because Robert Jordan did once, as if this is evidence that Jordan actually cared about this issue. Yet right next to his suggestion of Kilmer as Perrin is his suggestion of Sophia Loren as Aviendha, which proves one of two things: either Jordan did not care about skin tone in his books, or he didn’t care about skin tone in a screen adaptation. Either way, the argument most heavily relied upon by the angsty fans—that this casting desecrates Jordan’s vision—has already been ruled upon and discarded by Jordan himself in his revealed preferences.
Angsty Rand finally had his moment of self-honesty on Dragonmount. Angsty white fandom should do the same. I do agree that it is bittersweet that the images I made of the characters I’ve loved for 30 years are now about to be replaced, just as Elijah Wood demolished my early mental picture of Frodo. But that’s ok. We’ve been told since day one that these images would fade into myth and eventually entirely out of memory.
The Wheel has turned. I welcome the new crew.
An earlier version of this essay appeared on Billy Todd’s personal Facebook page prior to publication on Tor.com
Billy Todd is a Starfleet officer stranded in the 21st century who escapes notice by hiding in plain sight as a corporate attorney. He further advances his cover identity by serving as the track director for the Brandon Sanderson Track at JordanCon. He occasionally violates the Temporal Prime Directive by posting on social media at Facebook and on Twitter @Billy_Todd.
“As best I can remember, all of the relevant characters are white.”
Maquesta Kar-Thon and Theros Ironfeld would like to have a word with you.
Brilliant essay, well said and truly said.
I wonder if this is something you live through once and get over? I’ve paid enough attention to the representation debate over the years not to get worked up over the race of people I assumed were white (sometimes in direct contradiction of the text) because I’ve seen people get upset about non-white actors so many times already.
I don’t want to be in same group as the people who were offended by Rue being a black girl in The Hunger Games movie or that Heimdall was played by a black man, so I choose not to be concerned about the race of actors. But if one missed those little dramas, then one might be ambushed by unexpected expectations. Next time, one would be better prepared.
I had a similar conversation in my head, but with less reason and less thought out. “hmm, interesting cast choices, I figured more would be white.(potential spoiler) Eh, two rivers used to be manetheren and this is the dystopian esk future, Rand is pale enough this works for me. Perrin needs to bulk up though” that’s the jist of how it went down. oh, and “Bella better be pimpin”.
My first dissonance at the pictures is that I thought the actor playing Rand was cast as Perrin. Then I read it was Rand. The actual Perrin actor was ok. Then Nynaeve was clearly black, and yes, I imagined her as white in the books because that’s what our culuture and society have trained me to do. But it only took me a second to say, ok, I wasn’t expecting that, but it’s cool. And I scrolled on.
I didn’t even want to mention race in my comment to the original post. I made a disclaimer that said I’m fine with them casting who they feel is right. For me, it was simply anticipating the weirdness of not matching my mental image. Then Leigh’s post came, and I felt I might as well just weigh in on race since everyone was talking about it. I tried to stress that A) No proverbial two fans can really agree on what the races are really “supposed” to be in WoT based on the text and not the Darrell Sweet covers; B) This is an adaptation so it literally doesn’t matter at all. Race wasn’t the point of the story. They’re not making American History X or Zulu or whatever. Thousands of things will be different. Race can be to, if fans can even determine that it really is. The books will still exist as a separate entity if you really care that bad.
I want to say I really don’t care about their color, except I do care in the sense that I’m GLAD they cast a diverse group. I’m glad they pushed the boundaries of fan expectation for the sake of representation. Because blood and bloody ashes, non-whites want to be in flaming movies and tv shows too.
My issue with the race is that it’s not consistent. If they were all dark of skin except Rand then cool. But Mat’s a white boy. This is a small village in the middle of friggin no where and as someone who has moved to a small town in the middle of nowhere any differences stand out. This is an era that travel is horrible on a good day. Cart and horse – you don’t make cross country treks like you do these days. You don’t relocate to a completely different area unless there is a good reason. They just needed to remain consistent in their Two Rivers nationality. Because that’s what it is. RJ spends a great deal of time telling us what things look like we should utilize it.
Excellent deep dive on the knee-jerk reactions to the casting by the fan base. Even if I was embarrassed by the same reactions – I’m sincerely excited to see what kind of world they can build. I still think Nynaeve looks a bit too YOUNG to be 6-8 years older than the rest, but that’s Hollywood’s forever preference.
Yeaaahhhh, Tai’shar Manatheren!
Race doesn’t matter and it never did. What matters is that the people of the Two Rivers are generally isolated from the rest of the world and have been for 1000+ years. In that amount of time the gene pool is going to be generally homogenized. In other words, people are going to look generally the same. Rand looks different but not completely different, otherwise, the Cenn Buies and Congars would have a field day with him. Rand feels like he belongs and he doesn’t feel out of place in the slightest, as evidenced by him being thunderstruck that he may not be from around there. The casting decisions do not support the story. The general sameness of the populations (hence you can tell that people from Tear look a certain way, Arad Doman, Illian, Cairhein, etc…) in the beginning brings the jarring chaos to the front and center once the Dragon proclaims himself. It doesn’t make sense that Mat is cast as lilly-white and Egwene is cast as much darker in complexion, not if you have the “old blood of Manetheren” as part of the story line. And if you don’t have the “old-blood of Manetheren” and all that stems from it in the story line, what do you have?
And by the way, your second example of the skin color of Two Rivers Folk is from after the Seanchan invasion of Arad Doman, thus you have coppery-skinned Domani refugees living in the Two Rivers. I’m guessing you are quoting from the part where Perrin is taking people from the Two Rivers to rescue Rand in Lord of Chaos. Kind of proves my point.
Thank you for this. I’m black myself and the default setting of white is so strong that I was also shocked by the casting. Not that I wasn’t happy about it after a few minutes, but still a few minutes were required for me to adjust (not seconds, minutes). Given, I was raised in Quebec, Canada by an all-white family so I might be somewhat conditionned to the white default.
But after looking at the cast with a raised eyebrow for a little while, I asked myself « why not? ». This is a fictional world after all, so there should not even be an issue of providing faithful representation, even had the text been specific on the caracters being white, which your post shows is not quite the case.
So this just goes to show that we constantly need to check our prejudices and biases and ask ourselves « why not? ».
@3/noblehunter: “I don’t want to be in same group as the people who were offended by Rue being a black girl in The Hunger Games movie or that Heimdall was played by a black man”
Those are different situations, though, because Rue was overtly and repeatedly described as black in the original book. That’s how you can tell it’s not really about “fidelity to the source” but just racial bias — because the complainers are so trapped by their white defaults that they can’t even recognize it when they’re explicitly told a character is black.
Really it comes down to one thing. Were the actors cast because they were the best actors for the part, or were they cast because “I is woke so diversity yay”? From what Rafe has said so far, and from what I’ve heard online from people who have managed to watch these young actors in different roles, I think it’s the former. Now if I sit down for the first episode and Perrin is talking in a squeaky voice or Nynaeve is sporting an afro and speaking in memes, then there’ll be a reason to complain. But if these actors can properly embody the characters and the show offers the viewing experience that I’d expect from the adaptation of a series that I’ve read and loved for 30 years, I can almost guarantee that by season 2 most people’s head-canon of these characters will be the ones from the show, just like when I reread ASOIAF I see Tyrion as Peter Dinklage and the Stark kids as much older than they should be.
Perfectly said. I mean it covers almost all the bases.
The one base it doesn’t cover is a complaint I’ve seen that the Two Rivers, being as isolated as it is, should consist entirely of people with the same skin tone and facial features. The argument goes “they can be non-white, but they should all appear to share a racial background, and it’s clear that Zoe Robins and Marcus Rutherford have a different racial background than Madeleine Madden and especially Barney Harris.”
Some go further; “The Two Rivers peoples cannot be black because Rand is clearly a pale-skinned ginger who believed Tam to be his birth father. If his father was black, he would have to know he was not Tam’s natural son.”
Okay, this isn’t wrong, exactly, but I do think people are demanding a weirdly slavish devotion to the text. Even within the context of the Two Rivers being isolated, the fact is that they descended from a vast empire that was likely a cultural and ethnic melting pot. Now, it’s been a millenia or so since Manetheren was whittled down to become the Two Rivers, and all we know canonically about the Two Rivers is that its people are dark of eye and hair, and apparently of skin. That’s it. We don’t know if there are variations to that, but there easily could be.
A lot of people insist that the Two Rivers are completely isolated and never mingle with the outside world. This simply isn’t the case, as they have known exports and the people of Taren Ferry regularly cross the river and trade and deal with other folk. Some Two Rivers folk even have been to Baerlon! (gasp) Emond’s Field is pretty insular, but we know it consists of several families, not all of whom get along, and we know there are inter-marriages with folk from other villages in the Two Rivers. So while they’re likely all some shade of brown, that doesn’t preclude that their facial features are all similar, nor that they have to have exactly the same shade of skin.
In short, in the fictional world as presented, can I believe that Zoe Robins, Madeleine Madden, Barney Harris and Marcus Rutherford all come from the same isolated rural village? Yes. It’s that simple.
Now, as for Rand, I’m fairly sure the actor playing Tam will look more like Madden or Harris. There’s no reason at all that a guy like, say, Manu Bennett couldn’t play Tam, and be believable as the man everyone, Rand included, assumes to be Rand’s natural father.
However, I do hope that Rafe and co. haven’t decided to go ahead and make the rest of Emond’s Field plain old white. Let’s not be afraid to make the entire village darker-skinned, please.
@7 – The actress playing Nynaeve is 26, the same age as Nynaeve in the books.
@@@@@ Billy
Congrats on getting your excellent essay moved to the TOR platform!
Love your bio blurb.
Well said. They are all human, as far as I can tell. I, as many have said, am more concerned with the “what to leave in, what to leave out” aspects of story construction…and the “what will be totally different” question. And I can’t wait.
Well said. It was becoming more and more frustrating to read comments from fellow WoT fans who expressed anger, frustration or betrayal based upon the casting of brown people for characters that do not even have a definitively expressed skin color in the text!
As I’ve mentioned previously (and as I see @3 states above) this is reminiscent of the Hunger Games casting of Prue and Cinna. The blatant disgust and somewhat less blatant hints of racism by various commenters were pretty awful to read online. It just wasn’t a good look for people who claim to be diehard “fans” of the novels, but only interpreted the source material to reflect people that looked like them, even when there was no evidence to support that.
And various SFF fandom communities continue to display similar behavior through the casting of Heimdall in Thor (yes he may be different then the classic Viking description, but then again isn’t Thor supposed to have red hair and Loki supposed to be the mother of an eight-legged horse while also being the father of a wolf and a world-serpent?), or the casting of Hernione Granger in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, or the talk of casting Idris Elba for James Bond.
At the end of the day, the skin color/complexion of our Superkids (other than Rand, of course) plays no impact on the plot, the story or any aspect of the actual characters themselves. It definitely has less of an impact than Moiraine being played by a 5’8” blond woman; but the outcry on that was significantly less than the pearl clutching when the Superkids casting was announced.
Anyway, shouldn’t the expectation of WoT fans be to wait until we see how the actors play their roles in the actual show before declaring that this casting has ruined WoT and their childhood memories forever?
Why couldn’t the Two Rivers people be Latino, or Basque? Jordan did a pretty good job of creating a world with a variety of peoples from a variety of places, the Sea Folk and the Sharans stick out in my mind. Also, Rudda had better bulk up quite a bit if he is going to play a convincing Perrin.
@14 And should look younger since she’s already Slowed a little. If we’re being sticklers for textual accuracy.
That was a good and enlightening read. Thank you.
Bravo, Billy. As I said before, you prove your worthiness for the Starfleet uniform by speaking truth. Appreciate the self-reflection here. Thanks, Tor, for giving this piece a wider viewing.
@6: Barney Evans is not white. He might not be as dark as the others but his features are quite middle-eastern, something akin to Persian if my wildly-uneducated-about-features-in-the-middle-east assessment is correct. If you google for photos of him that are in color he’s clearly non-white, and dark enough to be believable as coming from the same peoples as the other three.
I think you are writing by the point that a lot of people have. Everyone screams “racism” at the first sign of disagreement. The fact is most people are unhappy because Edmons Fielders are supposed to be heterogeneous. Secondly, are you really surprised that books written by English white men are filled with white heroes and white characters? I would just as easily expect characters written by a Nigerian author to resemble traits from his culture.
Thank you Mr. Todd. I would like to say that I was completely accepting of the casting at first blush. Maybe not at first blush but about the same as my reaction to Rosamund Pike. There my first thought was “Isn’t she too tall?” but, realizing that if they (the producers) want to stay canon to the books, i’m sure they can make her appear shorter (Hobbits anyone). Along different lines, my initial reaction went in the order of how the casting was presented …1. Never heard of this guy before. Is Josha Stradowski tall enough to play Rand and how will he look with red hair? 2. Never heard of this guy before. I always pictured Perrin as being darker of skin tone. Can Marcus Rudda bulk up enough to pull off Perrin’s size/strength. 3. Never heard of this guy before. Barney Harrision has a little bit of a mischievous look about him. Ok, let’s hope he can pull off Mat. 4. OMG Zoe Robins is gorgeous! Never heard of her before. She has braids! (although lots of little ones instead of one big one). I had not picture Nynaeve like that but she works! Wish I could play Lan. 5. Never heard of her before. Madelaine Madden is beautiful but different enough from Nynaeve (Zoe) to make the comparisons to Egwene work. I hope she can pull of the character development that Egwene shows throughout the books.
My point overall is that there is definitely a lot of truth in what you wrote. I haven’t researched/seen any opinions on the casting except for your information and the comments on this page so I haven’t witnessed any real anger about the casting choices. All told, I was not disappointed in the casting choices at all but did have to overcome some pre-conceived notions.
Nice read :)
@25 Nick:
>most people are unhappy because Edmons Fielders are supposed to be heterogeneous.
I would agree that some people (though definitely not most, in my experience) objectors to the casting have raised this issue. I’ve repeatedly asked for citations from the text and nobody has given me one. The only way I am aware of that they are homogeneous is in that none of them are white enough to be Aiel.
>are you really surprised that books written by English white men are filled with white heroes and white characters?
No, but there is a difference between Not Being Surprised vs Realizing the Default.
I don’t really care about the race of the actors. I’m already suspending disbelief. I remember how James Earl Jones played an author in Field of Dreams, loosely based on J.D. Salinger. It didn’t matter. Any actor should be “allowed” to play any role regardless of race. The only time it should matter is if race itself is truly central to the role. In this case it isn’t. The actors are all playing a fictional race anyway. They could have cast Asian actors for all I care.
You know what’s hilarious about all this. If the show does well, then everyone is going to picture THESE faces from the show as the way the characters look. At least I will
@9 Aaron
> And by the way, your second example of the skin color of Two Rivers Folk is from after the Seanchan invasion of Arad Doman, thus you have coppery-skinned Domani refugees living in the Two Rivers. I’m guessing you are quoting from the part where Perrin is taking people from the Two Rivers to rescue Rand in Lord of Chaos. Kind of proves my point.
The point is this phrase:
“fair-skinned men who just did not have the look of the Two Rivers.”
@9 Aaron
I misunderstood the original poster’s point with that paragraph also, at first. But if you look at the last sentence of the quote, that’s the important part (emphasis mine):
I’m fine with the casting except my first knee jerk reaction was that the guy playng Perrin looks like he couldn’t pick up a blacksmiths hammer much less swing it all day long
Thank you. This, from start to finish, could have been plucked wholesale from my experiences, thoughts, emotions, and reactions. Almost beat for beat. To the point where I now wonder if I’m just an older clone of you sent a couple years back in time. Like, is my whole life a lie???
Anyway, thank you. Absolutely exactly my take. Warts and all.
My only remaining doubt about the casting is that “their Rand” looks insufficiently ginger. I’m pretty sure that can be addressed.
@6 if you remember in the books Nyneave slowed early so she is 26 , but still supposed to look 20,
Would anyone complain about unrealistic diversity if people in a remote European village had different hair and eye colors? Those are much more obvious physical differences than whether someone is tanned or naturally dark-skinned. It is just politics that make skin color seem somehow different from other ways in which people can look different. It has nothing to do with genetic plausibility.
Very well stated Billy. Thank you for addressing Mr. Jordan’s casting posts so directly. I’m already tired of seeing it used as some type of justification.
For those saying Marcus – i.e. Perrin can’t swing a blacksmith’s hammer. Those hammers are by & large 2 to 4 pounds. Hammers that can be used for hours at a time. Most blacksmiths are not actually “built.” Even Medieval blacksmiths did not have the widest shoulders, rather they did have a higher bone density. The strength of endurance.
Don’t believe me? Watch Forged in Fire. Yes, my blacksmith of a husband will tell you there are some odd forgings at work. But the overall body types are not Mr. Universe material. Even the ones doing traditional methods. Those that don’t have power hammers.
The actor is 6’5″. The guy is going to look large no matter what. Actors are know for changing their bodies to fit roles. I don’t think he’ll need to add much to make the role work. It’s not like we get many shirtless scenes with Perrin. The ones I can think of all happen later in the series. Clothes can do amazing tricks for the body image.
@9 Aaron
Rand looks different, but not completely different, otherwise the Cenn Buies and Congars would have a field day with him.
BUT RAND WAS BULLIED.
I refer you to a part of the text I quoted in another post:
Chapter 4: The Gleeman
“(…) Blue eyes peered out from under bushy white brows, drilling whatever he looked at. Rand stared at the man’s eyes almost as much as at the rest of him. Everybody in the Two Rivers had dark eyes, and so did most of the merchants, and their guards, and everyone else he had ever seen. The Congars and Coplins had made fun of him for his gray eyes, until the day he finally punched Ewal Coplin in the nose; the Wisdom had surely gotten onto him for that. He wondered if there was place where nobody had dark eyes. Maybe Lan comes from there too.”
Rand was bullied because he didn’t fit in. Everyone had dark eyes, except for him. The Congars and Coplins made fun of his eyes until one day he couldn’t take anymore and hit one of them. Now they don’t this, at least in front of him anymore. They probably still refer him as something derogatory behind his back. I know bullies, I know how they work.
Love the article although I will say I only had/have three issues with the casting.
One egwene had incredibly curly hair in the books. That can be easily be portrayed with hours of hair time in preparation. Second I was stoked about Zoe by the headshot at least because that look is what i pictured BUT she is 5 8. Nynaeve was short so gonna have to find the camera crew that Tom cruise uses and make her look shorter rather than taller. Third perrin. In my list for characters as the books carried on and my personal life changed he became my favorite. Perfect look by headshot however gonna have to pull a Jacob from twilight. He is not buff enough. Not saying cut but big. Its doable but I got feel a for him. That’s alot of working out. I never gave a crap about color.
Oh and matrim is not at all like a pictured but we shall see it was more of his characters personality that stood out I honestly can’t really remember what image I had of him. It’s the traits that these characters were defined by. I think as long as acting is on point and the traits are displayed I will be happy
Great job Billy. What I am concerned about is that all of them appear excited to be playing the parts, and to be fans of the series. And Rafe and the producers appear to feel that these folks are up to the job. Now I am anxiously awaiting pictures with costume and makeup.
And look how most stories of Japanese authors portray mostly Japanese characters, too with the Chinese, and Koreans, and everyone else. Double standard.
But that is not the problem, diversity is good, the problem using these characters makes no narrative sense. They all hail from a small village isolated for centuries, one imagines they would more closely resemble one another.
Except for Rand, and the casting of Rand makes the choice for mat the least fitting of all. Mat is visibly paler than Eand, yet it is often mentioned Rand is noticably paler than other Two Rivers folk.
This is the kind of inattention to detail which makes me expect the people in charge will be just as sloppy in all other aspects of worldbuilding and story telling.
They could have had all the Two Rivers folk be Black, or all be Hispanic, or Asuan, or they could have all been white and found diversity in other major characters like Moiraine or the Andorian royal family, instead they forced it into the one place in the series everyone would have long since become homgenized.
.
Here’s the thing.
The world of The Wheel Of Time is definitely factually represented as if it were subject to all the real-world laws of physics and chemistry, save for the presence of the magical elements.
Characters’ racial, cultural and attitudinal types should thus jibe with their geophysical realities, especially in a milieu in which widespread travel is not commonplace in mixing genetic heritages.
Any deviation thus relegates the whole story to ‘a tall tale from a flat earth held on the back of four elephants riding the back of a turtle’!
This must be the purview of the author &/or screenwriter.
The thing I am curious about is the hair. I think our protagonists’ hair serves as a measure of their growth and departure from Edmund’s Field. The hair is important. Rand’s love interests having distinct hair is important, who braids and doesn’t braid their hair is important, who grows a beard, all have meaning in the story. I personally was told once that the Two Rivers folk looked south east asian, and that stuck in my head. A red head would stand out. I always pictured the Sharan as African. That said, I expect this casting will do just fine, as long as they get the hair right.
A- the cartoony characterizations in this series lend themselves more to an anime than a live action series (braid tugging and excessive spanking anyone?). I have low expectations for this show, despite having been a fan of the books since 1999. Hopefully the actors are good enough to put their own unique spin and salvage it.
B- Regarding race, just be consistant and believable. As in, relatives should have similar shades of skin, ala genetics… Breaks immersion otherwise.
B- My real fear is that this cast is just a bunch of attractive actors chosen for, well, their attractiveness, as has been the case for every forgettable sci-fi or fantasy series ever. Without acting chops, the writers and producers will have to rely on ‘twists’ and CGI spectacle to carry the show. At least this show has plenty of material to draw on, so perhaps it won’t become a Riverdale. Speaking of Riverdale… anyone ever notice the parallels between Archie and the gang, and Rand at al?
Where does it say that Eg has curly hair? She wears her hair open instead of in a braid, but not because it is too curly for a proper braid. For her it is a symbol of her new life outside her little village.
Why are so many people so caught up in having actors meet the exact physical specifications of the character, down to the last inch of height, the right shade of skin, and the exact type of hair? That’s sounds harshly unrealistic to me. Is height so important that they will waste time and effort and money using different camera tricks to make someone appear a few inches taller or shorter? The character in your head is not going to jump out onto the screen. It’s impossible.
Good essay. I agree with the overall perspective, however I am still angry at the choices in this case.
Not in that black actors are playing our beloved characters, but that it is mixed race within emond’s field. I would be completely and utterly happy with all of emond’s field to be black, or any race for that matter.
The problem is the continuity of the world that the story takes place in. Jordan made it a very diverse place and challenged notions of culture verses what people look like. Irish dessert people, Arab sailors that are open with their bodies, African samurais etc etc…
Emond’s field and the two rivers were isolated for generations. Tam leaving and coming back with a outsider wife and child was a big deal. The people of this area kept to themselves not trusting anyone. After the characters start the journey everytime we see the two rivers we see more opening up and more diversity. Heck, Matt seeing Toun for the first time. She was different and he liked that. Now when Matt meets her she isn’t so different.
By making the main cast diverse they are losing out on the overall lesson the story drives with culture and diversity as a whole.
A good essay with good points. A few quibbles though:
“as if this is evidence that Jordan actually cared about this issue.” Well, your dismissal of Jordan’s picks is based on what? He made conscious choices and one would have to assume these were based on his mental images. If one was submitting evidence in court that would be very strong coming from the author. “The best evidence rule is a legal principle that holds an original copy of a document as superior evidence.”
Jordan did discuss the covers and some of his frustrations but the end products were for the most part as he wanted them to appear.
“people like me don’t even exist in that world as far as I can tell.” That is simply false, there are multiple ethnic groups with distinctive charactersistics from Asian to African etc. Tuon is a prime example. She is explicitly described as dark.
However, I look forward to the actors portrayals and believe that their acting will prove the correctness of their selections.
To be quite honest given a choice between how an actor looks vs how the actors ability to be the character I would always choose the second. It’s a whole lot easier to accept how a character looks as long as the acting is good. It’s when the acting is mediocre or bad that the other flaws come out.
In my initial read through of WOT I admit to the same flaws as the author of this article. I’m on my fifth time through now and my thoughts have changed. At the root of it all the most important part is that rand and by relation the Aeil stand out from the rest of the population and can be identified as such. Really the rest doesn’t overly matter as long as the story is right.
Dark hair, dark eyes, skin darker than a gray eyed redhead…. No I don’t see a problem here. Except Mat’s eys. He has lifht eyes and that’s wrong. But hey, if everything else is right I’ll overlook it.
@60 Jon:
>If one was submitting evidence in court that would be very strong coming from the author. “The best evidence rule is a legal principle that holds an original copy of a document as superior evidence.”
I love it! There’s a problem though: the Best Evidence Rule is about copies of documents vs originals, not interpretations of those documents. The Best Evidence Rule helps resolve questions about what the text of a document contains.
That is not the issue here. Everyone agrees what words are in the text (copy edits between editions notwithstanding). Here the dispute among the fans is about what the text means through interpretation. If we were to apply a legal doctrine, it would be the Parol Evidence rule, which (and here I oversimplify) says that statements about how to interpret the document are not admissible if they contradict the plain text of the document.
Set aside the question of what Jordan was actually doing with those casting picks (and Maria Simons, who among all living humans would know, has given her views on that elsewhere). Assume that when Jordan made those casting picks he was taking into account the skin color and other physical attributes of the choices. Even with that stipulation, the text of The Wheel of Time contradicts Jordan’s casting picks.
To be clear, I do not dismiss Jordan’s casting picks. Quite the opposite: I think the picks he made demonstrate that he did not deem these things very important, and that the objecting fans overstate their case when they imagine injury to his vision.
>“people like me don’t even exist in that world as far as I can tell.” That is simply false, there are multiple ethnic groups with distinctive charactersistics from Asian to African etc.
Quite right, but as I took pains to state, virtually none of this is shown in the 15 book covers. A person who violates the rule and Judges These Books By Their Cover will have no idea of Randland’s diversity.
@63 Average Joe:
>At the root of it all the most important part is that rand and by relation the Aeil stand out from the rest of the population and can be identified as such.
I once said I don’t care if the Two Rivers folk are cast as freaking Daleks as long as Rand is clearly Not Dalek.
When I seen the pictures for those who were cast so far, they match the images I already had. Rand was described as tall with red hair and the Aiel as being tall with blue or green eyes with sun gold & red hair. Pale skin Carhenians, Domanis with honey skin complexion and beaded braids and dark skin. Tairens and others from the southern coasts as having dark skin. The casting so far seems like they’re staying close to how Jordan has portrayed the characters in his epic instead of worrying about the characters in a preconceived opinion along racial lines.
I shouldn’t have been surprised at the reaction some people had when such a fuss was made for the casting of the little Mermaid as a person of color when everyone knows that Merfolk are green. I have a suspicion that the strongest opposition to these casting decisions are coming from a certain segment of society and it had nothing to do with the world building of Robert Jordan and they likely haven’t read any of the novels
Or maybe he was remembering that Aviendha is fairly tanned?
The Fires of Heaven, Chapter 52
According to Theoryland, Jordan was only asked about casting once (apparently), and he suggested Patrick Stewart or Sean Conney for Thom. The casting you’re referring to apparently comes from Robert Jordan’s notes, and it isn’t completely clear whether these were meant to be castings, or aids that he was using to help visualize the characters. Neither way, it’s rather unnecessarily dismissive of the actual creator’s actual thoughts on the question.
I need Rand to be a tall, grey-eyed redhead and I need the Two Rivers folk to be short/average dark-eyed/haired. I was cool with casting people who weren’t white or who were mixed (even Tam can be dark skinned if it’s explained that Kari was a fair woman with bright red hair) until I saw it wasn’t consistent. Mat has always been an outlier as a character, but if you’re going to have a “look” for a certain region, even if it isn’t 100% totally isolated and occasionally sees outsiders, then he needs to follow that look, too. Make him a black dude, and not a green-eyed, fair-skinned ambiguously maybe-not-white dude.
As for people who wonder what could POSSIBLY be all the fuss if it’s not just confronting internal biases, consider that the production crew has already confirmed that there will be serious changes from the source material. I’m worried about what parts are getting hacked off and thrown out, and what parts are gonna be blended down to tv shorthand so people unfamiliar with the series aren’t lost. I’m HOPING it’s just the middle books with the PLOD and the Andoran civil war, but what makes these books so amazing is the worldbuilding detail that Jordan immersed us in, and I’m scared for it tbh. Im scared precious bits of detail that flesh out the series and the world these charaters inhabit will be merrily sliced away and tossed aside. They’ve ALREADY told us that there Will Be Changes, and now there are changes that aren’t even internally consistent. It does not Bode Well.
To conclude: I’m more pissed at Mat’s casting then anything, although Rand, for all his eyes, looks distinctly non-Irish/Nordic. And don’t @@@@@ me with the “He’s Danish”.
-Considering the caliber of writing associated with Power Rangers, I am entirely too hyped for Zoe Robbins to be Nynaeve. The idea of a woman who can kick ass playing my favorite character is too good to be true.
-Dude playing Perrin needs to start lifting and working on his beard growing chops. He also looks like a guy I work with, and I have been caught staring.
This is horribly miscast, i give it two seasons.
Truly, Thom himself could not have contrived a better trail of head turning and earbending intrigue than this living breathing plot twist of race swapping our beloved heroes. Consider how the unindoctrined public at large may be thinking this genre is beat after the success of GOT and then combine that with the ultra tense racial and cultural aspect currently under way. It shocked me at first but i now realize this move may cause many, many more people to give this story a look.
Besides, the wheel has surely spun our heroes out in every shade of color possible right?
@@@@@ billytodd
The closest thing I can think of in human history (although I am sure that there are more) to Manetheren and the Two Rivers is this: I remember hearing of groups of Huns that settled in remote Swiss valleys during the waves of migration at the end of the Roman Empire. You can see evidence of this by a curious birthmark on their lower back that is similar to birthmarks typically seen in Mongolia. After 1500 years, you don’t see much in the way of physical variation from family to family or valley to valley.
Now, I’m trying to picture this, and maybe you can help me out: A pivotal moment early in the EOTW is Moiraine’s speech to the people of Emond’s Field. She is going to tell a positively diverse group of people that they’ve been isolated from the rest of the world for over a thousand years and they are all that remains of what was once the great Manetheren. Now, I know how a Punnett square works, and presumably you do as well. Pretty sure most of the people that watch are also going to know that racial differences go down to almost nothing inside of a few generations. Here, we are talking about 20-30 generations. To me, this just seems basic. It would bug the hell out of me if the writers were trying to get me to buy into something that they didn’t care enough about to actually think out the plausibility of the picture they are painting. What gets me is that RJ did. Very much.
Good essay, by the way. Still feels like fitting a square peg in a round hole, though.
The two rivers folks always had dark features. RJ hinted at a lot of “secrets” that turned out to be nonsense. After creating the BEST fantasy series through the first six books, he got lost after Dumais Wells.
Randland was a world with different cultures. It is perfectly understandable there were different ethnicities . Does anyone think Tuon was white?
So let us celebrate that our favorite series is being brought to life in imaginative ways. Time to stop sniffing and tugging on skirts or braids.
Does anyone know if Brandon Sanderson has made any comments about the show? Just curious.
Lots of talk about race. Now lets talk about age.
How come the Nynaeve actor looks younger than the the Egwene actor?
I’m glad there is diversity in the main cast. Unless race were a specific character of the character it’s irrelevant as far as the story goes. There are so many matters with these books that are worth concern; all of the cities and towns, will they be included or will we get a sliver of what was there?
Can they show the battles in the scale needed? Can they show the creatures? What will the special effects be like?
Really, the only thing that matters about these actors are: do they get the characters? Do they understand them and can they convey this well?
Okay okay. I like where you took this. At first I thought you were tearing Perrin and nynaeve down and all but well rationalized if a bit lengthy. However, the seanchan are definently black. Something I didnt realize until my umpteenth reread and when I did. I fucking loved it. It really emphasized how far away seanchan really is. So, then i started to wonder? Why not keep the color scheme accurate to robert Jordan’s idea (like come on Perrin is not black) (even though I’m cool with it) cus if you did. The emergence of an entirely african American army appearing from across the ocean as powerful as they are would imho made it just that more impactful and epic. Like, the seanchan woulda dominated the world if rand and co. hadn’t been involved
Like I’m gonna be upset if I see any white dudes as seanchan. Way more upset than nynaeve or perrin being black. But then I’ll start to wonder, does that mean perrin and nynaeve or seanchan? Obviously not but your average casual might begin to speculate
Disclaimer: it’s 5am here and it’s been years since my last re-read.
I thoroughly agree with your assessment in most parts and wholly support the majority of the casting decisions thus far announced. Having the Two Rivers folk depicted by people of colour would not detract from the immersive experience that I would expect. However, I am interested to see how they spin Matt Cauthon as not having the same skin tone as the rest of the descendants of ancient Manetherin. I also hope that they continue to flesh out the extras and tertiary characters in the Two Rivers by casting other people of like race. There are many instances in the series where physical traits allude to their country of origin. Carhenians are short and pale, Saldeans have large noses, Aiel are tall, etc. In a world where such assumptions can be made commonplace it would seem that there are few integrated societies of people from different lands. Even among large cities Tar Valon would probably be one of the few places where you would find more than just a transient population of “foreigners”.
Tl;Dr: what’s up with Matt?
Great article!
It’s always going to be difficult saying goodbye to your mental images of favourite characters. These images can be very strong, for example I have always imagined Egwene to have blonde hair despite knowing that she was definitely dark-haired! Just impossible to get rid of once it is fixed in your mind.
And it’s not just the characters; despite Jordan’s elaborate descriptions of just about anything, everyone will still have a very different mental image of how Emond’s Field looks, how the palace in Caemlyn looks, the Stone of Tear, Tar Valon and the White Tower….. I have quite vivid images of Shadar Logoth and the Ways, will they look very different on screen? Most likely. How about Loial? Can we really all agree on what Loial looks like? I don’t think so.
Can we even agree what parts of the story should be ignored for the TV adaptation? Obviously, the books are too long and complex to include every single detail and story arc. Many people seem to hate the so-called ‘PLoD”. Myself, I could do without (potential spoilers) the Matt-Tuon story arc, and especially without the whole Elayne-Aviendha rebirthing/sister-wife-thing, and Elayne complaining about having to drink goat’s milk. Others will dislike yet other scenes and story arcs, and the producers will simply have to make a decision. I’m sure I won’t like all of their decisions.
We can only wait and see. As much as I’d want the entire series to look EXACTLY like how it looks in my mind when reading the books, there is zero chance of this happening. And if it did, no one else would be happy because you would say I got it all wrong.
There is only one thing I would be extremely disappointed with, and that is if it would be too much like Game of Thrones, i.e. constant brutal violence, rape, etc. For me, though WOT is often dark and sinister, it really does have the LOTR-type fantasy feeling. The story, including all of its earth-shattering moments, can definitely be portrayed in a way that is suitable for under 16s, in a way that doesn’t make you want to throw up or look away from the screen all the time. Here’s hoping for a gentle but beautiful Wheel of Time adaptation, where none of the characters look like how I imagined them (or maybe just a little bit) :-)
“And among them stood others, men with coppery skins, men with transparent veils across the lower half of their faces, fair-skinned men who just did not have the look of the Two Rivers.“
That means there exist fair-skinned men who do have the look of the Two Rivers, thus implying that the people of the Two Rivers are relatively fair-skinned (just not as fair as an untanned Aiel) and homogeneous (they have a distinct “look” beyond just being fair-skinned).
I’m lucky, I’m not a visual reader and I forget physical descriptions almost as soon as I’ve read them (I don’t really take them in to start with) so I have no idea what characters look like beyond what is repeatedly rammed down our throats. I have no idea whether any of these actors look right because I don’t know what they’re supposed to look like except for Rand, but the text gives us dark hair, dark eyes and at least comparatively fair skin.
The biggest issue for me wasn’t that Perrin, Egwene, and Nyneave were POC, it’s that Mat apparently wasn’t. Rand wouldn’t stick out as much if there are other people that look like him in the TR. And that “outsider-ness” was part of his character, and part of the TR’s appeal was that nobody seemed to care(except the Congars and Coplins)
@80 Frost:
I monitor Brandon pretty closely (see my bio above) and he has both fully endorsed the casting and speculated that Jordan would have also.
A couple months ago, I realized in my mental image all the characters were default white. But given a broadcast audience is potentially larger than the readership, I knew it didn’t have to stay that way on screen. In fact, it shouldn’t just based on the simple economic needs to bring in a large audience.
I had already decided Perrin was very logical to be a person of color. He’s big, strong, moody, honorable, and there’s nothing about him that suggests being non-white makes an iota of difference. Mark, from clips of his performance in Obey, IS Perrin. He’s so completely Perrin that he’s already my head canon as I’m reading Path of Daggers.
Egwene and Nyneave are pleasant surprises. I think both actresses are beautiful. Full stop.
Now I’m curious about Lan and the other Borderlanders. And the rest of Emond’s Field. There’s mighty potential here to put a great mix of people on screen together. And make it just look like a normal life.
The problem isn’t that they cast black people. I think that’s great. The problem is they all, except Rand, aren’t black. Mat is just completely wrong with this cast. The rest are fine, but as a group it’s just wrong.
@@@@@ 86 / 87 Erik
The Seanchan are diverse. They don’t have only one ethnicity, they’re an empire spanning one or arguably two continents. The whole western hemisphere.
So Tuon is clearly described as black, as is Bethamin (Mat compares them in CoT). But Almurat Mor (the seeker), Seta (the sul’dam) and Selucia are blonde and blue eyed. Egeanin is dark haired and blue eyed. Suroth and Turak’s skin aren’t commented upon.
In Crossoroads of Twilight, chapter 1, when Mat sees the Seanchan colonists and settlers he remarks that one of them could be from the Two Rivers, except for his clothes. One of the Seanchan guards he meets a guard who has tawny skin, but tilted eyes like a Saldaean.
Mat to me looks absolutely perfect for someone who is going to be sick as hell for the first three seasons. Those cheekbones!
I just want the show to he good and do justice for the books.
As others have said, the issue is not the fact that they race changed the main characters … it’s that they inconsistently race changed main characters. The Two Rivers is repeatedly described as the back end of absolutely nowhere. It’s the Randland equivalent of the backwoods of Tennessee. They’re so isolated that they don’t even know which kingdom they belong to, and the highlight of the year is when the peddler comes by. This group should be as homogeneous as it gets. Make them all black, make them all white, or make them all anthropomorphic poodles for all it matters. But they should all be the same.
Matt being the token white boy from the Two Rivers makes him stick out even worse than Rand, the only one of the group who is supposed to stand out.
Good essay!
Also, I’m very glad someone in the comments pointed out that the actor playing Mat isn’t actually as white as he looks in the picture that came with the casting reveal.
My biggest issue with the casting was the fact that they all had dark skin except Mat who looked mega white. My doubts have now been resolved, knowing he would not look at all out of place between the others.
The most important thing for me is that I can actually tell which actor is supposed to play which character, even if I did not have that informatin in advance.
What I actually care about is… When will the show air?? Can’t wait!
I dont give two hoots what color any of them are just font fuck up my story all I’m saying
It will be interesting to see if the show runners have the guts to make the Aiel white and redheaded or if they’ll default to the cliche of Middle Eastern looking desert dwellers.
This essay was really delightful to read.
I’ve mostly said my piece elsewhere, but if the actors/show do their job, they will become the character in our minds, just like other literary adaptation. I am a little interested/concerned to see how they’ll handle Rand’s ‘other-ness’, but we shall see.
@103 Princessroxana
>It will be interesting to see if the show runners have the guts to make the Aiel white and redheaded or if they’ll default to the cliche of Middle Eastern looking desert dwellers.
On the other hand, I give them my blessing to cast Alexander Siddig as whoever they want and if it is Rhuarc or even Morgase so be it.
Started off right with “…a seemingly hot female wizard; a ridiculously badass warrior,” and just got better. You manage to turn the ‘flicker’ from something that turns one’s stomach or makes you cry into something that makes you giggle. The genius of “Yes, all caps is how the Dark One talks and that is exactly how this shit gets propagated—the voice enters your head from seemingly all directions and no direction all at the same time,” is impressive: I’m still laughing! Danke, shokran, spacibo, grazie, ta, fanks!
@105, billytodd.I got to agree with you, there Alexander Siddig would be a wonderful Rhuarc.
Aaaaaaand I totally agree, ignoring some of the überlogic discrepancies in their big picture casting choices (Manetheren descendant pocket would be homogeneous) and of course height stuff (my initial reaction after loving Rosamund Pike’s look for Moraine was exactly that: “But she’s too tall!” [With the “But I was going to go to Tachi station to get some power converters!” whine — still rolling my eyes at myself]. As with LoTR, if they stay true to the spirit if not every single tiny letter of it (and if they take the lesson learned from that: draw it out and go in deep, make every single chapter its own episode, and you won’t have to try to make it up at the end by ballooning a teeny tiny book out into three movies or whatever, after having crammed a trilogy in 5 Books into 10h… oy, vey!), they’ll have a society-changing milk cow (OMG, I’m Data: is that the term for something that keeps raking in the dough?) phenomenon on their hands. Spanking notwithstanding, we as a people are starving for something with a backbone of integrity.
To those who are worried about skin color, remember that Zoe Saldana does not have green skin, Karen Gillan does not have blue skin, and Josh Brolin does not have purple skin. But when the movie played, it certainly looked realistic. With everything that can be done these days, skin color is not worth worrying about.
Yeah, how many fantasy adaptations do we have to look at? Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, The Seeker, Game of Thrones and The Shannara Chronicles.
Out of those that followed the source material for their story presentation and character choosing? Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter (from what I know) and Game of Thrones. These were all commercial successful and while had some complaining from the fans, were well appreciated.
Of the other two adaptations neither got past the 2nd season and neither were well accepted by the fans. Both deviated from the source material drastically and neither followed the descriptions of the characters in the books.
The key problem with Legend of the Seeker wasn’t so much character portrayal, I mean no one would ever pick Craig Horner as Richard Rahl, but more with the story adaptation. It was more of Legend of Hercules retelling then The Sword of Truth. There wasn’t any cohesive story told. It was miserable and it failed because of this.
Now the Shannara Chronicles did exactly what Rafe is proposing to do. Add people of color, add more women, add more LGBQT+ representation and made changes to the story line. This failed epically and the 2nd season lost viewers by the time it ended.
The most telling statistic though of both of the above shows?? I can’t find a reader who actually enjoyed either series.
So you’ll have to excuse me if I’m not jumping for joy when a series runner completely tosses the book in the trash and produces Rafe Judkins “Wheel of Prime” vs. Robert Jordans “Wheel of Time”.
Nice article, making very keen and astute points, however I do question, James, yes, James Oliver Rigney Jr. is our beloved author’s name.
I am sure he was supplied with numerous advanced copies of illustration, cover, and book art. Thus, if the author, THE only one, maybe Mrs. Rigney knows? If the characters were not in his mind as what appeared in the illustration, then James chose satifying the ignorance and ill perception of his prodominetly caucasian audience to satisfy the dollar over his integrity? I don’t know one way or another, and perhaps, again coupled with my ignorance I credit James being of high moral ground. Perhaps due to my time that I invested traveling within James literary mind to satisfy my desire to delve deeper into his fantasy.
Yet, shall it matter the color of skin? A true craftsman skilled at his trade may make an audience believe, live, hate, cry through sadness or joy over their portrayal of the character.
Time will tell, regardless in a literary fantasy world, one in which the voyage was mapped for us, the reader, it is within our own minds that step after step we continued. Nothing can pair as we envisioned the master’s words delivered to our perceptions & understanding.
Some will love it, others shall hate it, and many in between. But the Wheel shall always turn….
@116 Nate:
Lord of the Rings had some pretty major changes to it that were very controversial among fans at the time. Among them:
1) Elijah Wood was 18 years old when cast as Frodo, who was 55 when he left the Shire in the books. See also: the other Hobbits.
2) Tom Bombadil was completely erased, as were barrow-wights, the Old Forest, and other elements of The Fellowship of the Ring.
3) Arwen’s role was substantially upgraded vs the book.
4) Balrogs don’t look like that, according to some fan interpretations.
5) All of the actors were far too tall to play Hobbits or Dwarves.
All of that is just from Fellowship. The omissions of Shelob from The Two Towers and especially the Scouring of the Shire from Return of the King were also soundly criticized by fans at the time.
None of that ended up mattering, and history has treated the LOTR films very well (the Hobbit films, not so much).
Time will tell on how well Rafe adapts WOT for the screen. I have always had extremely deep reservations about the ability of anyone to adapt WOT to the screen in a way that keeps it high quality. But one thing is certain: if Rafe doesn’t adapt the story – in profound, visible, and inevitably controversial ways – that series will never succeed.
@118 ScotIcky13:
>If the characters were not in his mind as what appeared in the illustration, then James chose satifying the ignorance and ill perception of his prodominetly caucasian audience to satisfy the dollar over his integrity?
RJ (or, as you say, JR) did not approve the covers in advance and was not happy with them. If he did approve the covers, then this entire argument is irrelevant because it would mean he did not care how the characters were depicted if he was fine with a 40 year old Rand.
For the most part, I don’t think race or ethnicity need to play as large a role in the show as they seem to in the books. Yes, the Aiel are described as being tall, fair skinned (the parts that aren’t tanned by the sun, at least), light of eyes and generally with reddish hair, but I think it’s more important that the show accurately portrays the cultural differences through accent, clothing, and behavior of the various nations and peoples.
So long as Domani women wear silky, tantalizing dresses and behave in such a way as to make men fawn over them, I think it’s less important that they be “coppery skinned.” Tinkers can come in as many shades as Thom’s cloak has patches, so long as their clothing and wagons are a bright, bold mismatch of colors.
There are some descriptions they really should stick to, though. For instance, I’ll be disappointed if Siuane Sanche doesn’t have blue eyes, and Tuon better be dark-skinned with a shaved head, but if every land and culture ends up looking like a multitude of races, that’s perfectly fine with me. Just make sure families look like they actually would be families. Tam, because no one has any reason to doubt he actually is Rand’s biological father, especially Rand, should look similar enough that the audience can accept it – and that means matching their ethnicities. If the whole of the Two Rivers is multiethnic, the odd traits that Rand has should be his height and eye and hair colors. His skin color won’t matter if it isn’t a focus of what makes him distinct.
There are several race cultures in the WOT. Tuon is definitely black. The two Rivers could be Mediterranean or darker. They should stick to everyone from two rivers being the same skin color as they are portrayed that way. But Rand should be portrayed as he is in the book as he is not two rivers born. Aiel people are red headed and fair skinned for the most part. Casting matt as white just doesn’t fit. But i have waited so many years to see this story on screen that at this point i don’t care so much. Yes i wish they would stick to the storyline more, but we all know they rarely ever do. So we have mixed races in all cultures in this world they are building. We’ll get used to it.
Very well said, couldn’t agree more. I’m a white male from a majority black area, and as a teen I pictured Rand as white as that’s how it was written. I pictured the others as white because that’s how it was painted. Even in my world where white was not the default, media so unerringly told white centric stories that it became my default anyway.
One of the things I like about the Lightbringer series by Weeks is that the norm is black women in power, followed by black men. It doesnt do so arbitrarily though, the prevalence of dark-skinned people in that world is explained by the magic system. Why? Because, as NKJ reminds us, white readers have trouble connecting with black female characters, to put it extremely diplomatically.
The people from the savage lands of the Blood Forest (read as: Aboriginal) seem almost Celtic, and the Celtic-fairy-esque pigmies that I had initially thought were described as black (as my stomach revolved) are entirely inhuman and blue, with permanent smiles. I appreciate this kind of upturning of the expected norm.
Also, everyone read Chinese fantasy and sci-fi please. Pretty please.
I’ll put this here, even though I copied and pasted from a similarly minded post from Leigh Butler’s. It’s relevant here it seems…
The main problem I have with many “White people’s” opinions about the consistency of skin with people of color is that they generally have absolutely no clue or idea how diverse those colors can be, even in isolated regions. If you come from a culture that is racially diverse and become isolated, guess what? Your bloodlines are still going to be racially diverse.
“I had a similar discussion about diversity of bloodline in a post our esteemed Leigh had in her original reread. Many of the “White People” didn’t get it then either, because they truly don’t have an apt frame of reference to pull from… or they were several something else’s altogether. Anyways, a hint Y’all! When your bloodline is mixed in color, even if isolated for 1000 years, you have no idea what your kin’s actual skin color is going to be. Or their hair. Or their eyes. Or even how they are physically built. You just don’t.”
“Large cities are always culturally diverse with a couple exceptions. For instance, any City in China, which is a fairly large Country, will and does have almost purely ethnic Asian people’s living in those cities. But look closer and you’ll see all of the variations of coloring. Some very pale, some near South American in complexion. Which implies regional ethnic traits that have formed over time despite the Chinese’s long isolated culture and bloodlines. Generally, there in China northern Chinese are lighter in color than southern. And even the western regions have coloring and skeletal traits all their own. Not always but predominantly. In the past it was this way. But now those bloodlines are becoming more mixed. As a whole they still generally isolate themselves, but internally some change is becoming more prevalent.
Here in the state of Maryland, there’s a town called Frederick. 30 years ago, it was nicknamed Fredneck, it was so startling White in racial makeup. I know that is very derogatory, but it was as it was. Now it has the highest population percapita of interracial children in the state. It happened quickly, with many low income people of color moving into Frederick as the real estate boom was ongoing, looking for cheaper housing. Now you go to Frederick and you see some of the most stunning children you’ve ever seen in one place. That is now their cultural makeup. And they are very isolated as a town over 40 miles from DC over the foothills separating the suburbs of Gaithersburg ne’ Washington DC and the rural makeup of Frederick.
My point is, as isolated a place as Frederick is, once upon a time there was nothing there but a slave agricultural town. When the slaves were freed they moved south to the city, leaving it very White. Now it’s racially mixed. Who knows what can happen during the life of an isolated town or region. It can grow, usually meaning outsiders moving in, or die meaning a slow long decline as the majority of the youth move on and those who stayed behind dwindle as the town declines.
This is likely Emonds Field. Occasionally growing slowly as outsiders move in over the years. But mostly, they are the remainder of a large cultural hub destroyed during a vast and terrible war displacing many. Did you expect that they were all one color? Really?”
@@@@@ 127: A rather well-thought post.
The only thing I don’t agree with is the rather bizarre assumption that dark skin color is prevalent in South America. The South American population is extremely diverse, and I do mean EXTREMELY.
I feel you because I felt the same way when I started reading these in HS and there were six books. I mostly felt that way because of the cover art. In reading these books through several times since them I’ve noticed that many, many descriptions of the characters don’t support that art, and not just the examples you listed. When I realized that this was supposed to be our distant future the pictures in my head began to change. The Matrix trilogy really helped me there.
In the Matrix movies most of the characters from Zion not born into the Matrix are not white. There are some white people, some black people, but the vast majority of the characters are light-skinned people of various ethnicities. A lot of people you can’t tell their exact ethnic background. I didn’t know what they were and I didn’t much care. In a way I thought it was a brilliant outlook of a future where races are all kind of mixed together. It’s obviously deliberate and I thought it was a great creative decision. I kind of see WOT this way now. Characters from different nation’s can have similar traits like height and skin tone but in my eyes I see reasons for this other than their exact genetic makeup. In the end I care more about how Amazon tells the story than who they cast.
That said, I do admit I see Andorans, at least the ruling houses, as lily-white, Borderlanders as Asian and the Aiel as A bunch of tall, blonde, tanned surfers. Seanchan looks the most like present-day USA.
China is a multi-ethnic empire. Japan has a myth of ethnic uniformity, but that isn’t really true (at least the Ainu in the north are different from southern Japanese).
It might have been nice if the rest of the Two Rivers folk looked more cohesive, but as long as Rand looks distinctly different from everyone in his region and fits the Aiel profile (and Aiel fit the Aiel profile!), I’m good. His “otherness” is a big plot point, after all.
When—hopefully—we get to the Seanchan, race matters. When we actually have characters who are explicitly defined as people of color, it would be shameful to cast them as white. There’s little enough representation for them in sf fiction! Glad that is changing.
Disclaimer: Yes, I’m white.
What I don’t want to see is homogeneous populations outside of isolated Two Rivers. There is obviously a lot of blurring of color lines:red headed Saldeans, blond Taraboners, Domani who aren’t quite so copper skinned etc. And the Seanchan, ruling an entire continent, are very mixed indeed.
The funny thing is, I never could see Perrin as he was on the original covers as I read, no matter how hard I tried. It wasn’t until I bought the e-books that I had an image that ‘fit’ with what I was reading.
As someone else said, I just want the show to do the story justice; I’m looking forward to seeing what the cast does with this story. :)
Yeah, it actually didn’t bother me at all. I was a little surprised by Nyneave, but not at all by Egwene for some reason, and Perrin didn’t surprise me because he was black, but because his face just didn’t sit right. I’ll have to hear him talk and BE Perrin to know for sure.
That said reading the book I did imagine them all as white. Partly because of covers, and also because they seemed like the most English country folk ever, and that’s what English country folk are in my mind. But I think the reason it didn’t bother me, was just how much color Jorden put in his world, I immediately thought “Oh yeah I can totally see how mixed they could be, they weren’t always country folk, and Arad Doman is like right over there, of course.” Also the first thing I thought of was Old Cenn Buie, who was always this truly leathery brown, which yeah could have been just an old farmer’s tan. But it wasn’t. He was an old black man, it’s pretty obvious.
The Nyneave they cast isn’t my Nyneave, that woman’s image is firmly entrenched in my mind, but she isn’t offensive to me, I can accept her as A Nyneave. Matt looks like Matt. Perrin I don’t know yet, but I’m open to the performance to change my mind. Egwene somehow feels like Egwene. Rand… I actually feel nothing off the actor, I’ll have to see him act too. But Rand’s a really hard one, his personality changes so much, and he’s kind of generic in the early books until he loosens up a bit and we see the real him peak out from all the crazy trauma he’s enduring, then by the end he’s a very deep character but often see as though from far away and through many barriers.
All in all I’m quite satisfied. Though am I crazy for thinking Nynaeve “should” look more like a fair skinned Indian woman? Just imagining one long thick braid of glossy black hair, and I’m like yeah that sounds like her.
Little note about Tolkien’s hobbits (another set of clearly English folk) he often described them as having nut brown skin, dark curly hair, and broad features. I’m not saying the hobbits were black or PoC (I think there are pale descriptors in places too) but I don’t think they were intended to be quite as Elijah Wood lily white as most imagined them.
Wait, in the thing with the contract: They made a verbal contract, just as binding as a written one, just harder to verify. A committed himself to buy the books off B. He broke that commitment. The price would be subject of mediation and there it would be limited to realistic limits. But A has to buy the books or break the contract.
So I’m posting this comment here because I need to get this off my chest and I don’t use social media, haven’t been involved in the fandom for more than 10 years, and I miss wotmania. I don’t know where else to post my little rant! Anyway:
First of all, the people of Emond’s Field were always a brown colour, and Rand was always tanned enough to be able to pass at first glance (if not second). Without any official visuals provided (even those terrible portraits in The World of the Wheel of Time where “artistic interpretations”) the exact shade of brown was left up to the individual- even if some individuals chose the shade of brown that was “white”. There were enough hints dropped throughout the text to illuminate the issue if you wanted, or to ignore if you wanted that too.
Another huge clue is in the name of the place they are from- The Two Rivers. There is a part of the world called The Two Rivers in real life too. Robert Jordan was not an unintelligent person, and he knew exactly what references he was pulling from. The original Two Rivers refers to the River Tigris and the Euphrates and the land between them- which is in Iraq, AKA Mesopotamia AKA the Cradle of Civilisation. The people there are brown, you know. You can be sure RJ was aware of it.
Now I’m going to say something which may make some stop reading. But, I myself am a very solid sort of brown. My grandparents were from the Indian Subcontinent. I live in London, one of the most diverse places on the planet- and a lot of my white friends tan to a shade much darker than me, and I don’t tan at all. Give these people dark hair and eyes, and they’d all look “ethnic” rather than “white”. As it is, in the summer it can take more than a few glances to figure out who is “white”. (As an interesting aside, a lot of Indian Subcontinental people can be light enough to pass as white…even I get confused as to where people are from)
So- the Emond Fielders are a sort of brown, with the exception of Rand who can tan a brown to match his village-folk. It’s actually not extraordinary.
A lot of complainants are saying they don’t mind the issue of *race* per se, but how on earth can these *diverse* people be from one village? Well, in the context of the third age, what does diversity even mean, anyway? And why is this apparent “diversity” so unacceptable to some? At the absolute closest, the world of WoT is more than 6000 years from our own. In the intervening time, there has been massive movements of people and huge shifts of ethnic definitions- if the current ideas of ethnicity and race haven’t been debunked as fallacious. Different communities came together and dispersed, staying together for decades or millennia. “Our world” terms obviously cannot hold.
Presumably, the complaining readers were able to suspend their disbelief over all sorts of fantastical magic. Yet they can’t understand or believe that it is possible for brown people (and even some white ones)-whose looks originate from different regions of the planet in our time, to be present together in one semi-isolated village, at a time thousands of years removed from our own. “But the actors all look different!” they say… this will be shocking to the racists, I know- but not all members of so called “homogeneous ethnic groups” look the same.
It is in fact very *unlikely* that ethnic groups, as we know them today, will remain the same even 500 years into our own future, let alone in a fantasy story with tenuous connection to real people today
//End rant! Even if no one reads this I can rest easy finally having said what I want to say.