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EXCLUSIVE: “The Wheel Of Time” Costume Designer Sharon Gilham Talks Season 3

As longtime readers of this blog will know, it is my humble opinion that Amazon’s The Wheel Of Time boasts some of the most ambitious and exciting costume design on television: from rainbow-hued Aes Sedai gowns and pantsuits to Aiel desert camouflage, from insect-like Seanchan armor and headdresses to high fantasy bondage gear, every costume is a gamble that pays off in spades. Costume designer Sharon Gilham and her team (pictured below) have played a key role in establishing The Wheel Of Time’s iconic look and feel, and I had the great honor of speaking to her ahead of the series’ third season.

A large group of people (The Wheel Of Time costume department) standing on three levels of a warehouse filled with costumes, all posing for a photo.
The Wheel Of Time season three costume department | Provided by Sharon Gilham

Leith Skilling: What drew you to The Wheel Of Time?

Sharon Gilham: To be honest, I was a bit of a newcomer to the fantasy genre. I hadn’t worked on anything like The Wheel Of Time before, and certainly not on such a huge scale. Not only was it a great challenge in terms of the number of characters and nations to create, but I realized, after my initial meeting with Rafe [Judkins, showrunner] and Marigo [Kehoe, executive producer], that it was going to be an absolutely incredible experience creatively.

Rosamund Pike as Moiraine Damodred, standing on a beach. She has long dark brown hair. She wears a long-sleeved white button-down blouse and a dark blue dress. On her left hand, she wears a gold ring with a large blue gemstone.
Moiraine Damodred | Jan Thijs/Prime Video

LS: Of the costumes you’ve had to try and adapt from page to screen, which has been the most difficult to get to a place where it feels like what the books described but is still practical?

SG: I remember when Rafe first mentioned the Aiel culture to me partway through shooting season two. He described how the Maidens of the Spear — Aviendha, Bain and Chiad — lived a nomadic life and had to carry everything they needed with them, including many weapons. I thought ‘How am I going to make this work dramatically and practically when the spears are 2/3 of the height of the actresses?!’ It was a real challenge but through a process of trial and error and many hours problem solving with the combined skills of Rob Goodwin (couture leather maker), armorers and the props team, we finally created a series of holsters and quick release panels that meant the spears and bucklers could be anchored to the girls’ backs, creating an aesthetically pleasing ‘fan’ shape, and at the same time have a practicality to them.

(Left to right) Maja Simonsen as Chiad, Ragga Ragnars as Bain, Ayoola Smart as Aviendha, and Marcus Rutherford as Perrin Aybara, walking through a desert. Aviendha, Bain and Chiad all have long reddish-brown hair. They wears very similar outfits: sand-brown hoods, black scarves, brown leather armor over sand-brown tunics, skirts and trousers, with short spears strapped to their backs. Perrin has short dark frizzy hair and a beard, and wears a dark green woven-leather vest over a faded red long-sleeved shirt with olive-green trousers and brown boots.
(Left to right) Chiad, Bain, Aviendha, and Perrin Aybara | Jan Thijs/Prime Video

LS: Something I adore about the costumes in The Wheel Of Time is the timeless quality they possess; you can’t lock them down to a specific era, because there’s such a wide range of fabrics and materials on display, as well as techniques. How much freedom do you give yourself in that regard?

SG: The scope of The Wheel Of Time is so huge. Robert Jordan’s detailed descriptions of the cultural references that make up each nation (Cairhien = French/Japanese; Seanchan = Mesoamerican/Imperial Chinese, for example) make for a very rich starting point. The first thing I did was start to collect fabrics, accessories, trims, etc., from the actual cultures described so that we had the authenticity of those fabrics at our fingertips. I shopped in markets in France, in vintage shops in the UK, and suppliers internationally. I tried as much as possible to use all these fabrics directly in the manufacturing of the costumes, which gave them a real sense of being grounded or anchored in reality.

Sometimes it was only a scrap of fabric that was available, so I was lucky enough to be able to enlist the help of our incredibly talented textiles department, who were able to recreate the fabric. This could mean either screen-printing the fabric on our 5m long printing table (the Seanchan culture, the Whitecloaks’ undergarments), hand painting onto silk (Suroth’s kimono, Adeleas’ colorful kimono), or applying foil directly to the fabric (Lanfear’s part-Japanese, part-French coat). One of the cornerstones of the philosophy behind the design process for The Wheel Of Time is that the costumes should feel as if they have been created using pre-Industrial Revolution manufacturing techniques.

The sense of freedom comes from being able to move through different periods of time in our history and find inspiration from those time periods. Everything has a reference and a significance but you can pick and choose your moments and your movements. For example, the Seanchan triangular print which features in all of the costumes of that society from the soldiers to the da’covale to the High Lords and Ladies is based on an Anni Albers design from the 1960s combined with an Alexander McQueen-esque reptilian print. Anything and everything is possible.

Daniel Francis as High Lord Turak, standing in front of a pink stucco wall. He is bald. He wears an intricate collar of bone over a black feathered mantle, over a black-and-gold scale-patterned robe with a long dark blue train. The first two fingernails on both his hands are extremely long and bladed.
High Lord Turak | Jan Thijs/Prime Video

LS: The character of Lanfear has become a fan-favorite in no small part because she’s always so fabulously dressed. My jaw literally dropped when she was revealed in the World of Dreams for the first time at the end of season two, episode five [Damane]. How did you reach that iconic look?

SG: Lanfear — like the other Forsaken — comes from a time when the world was more developed: the time before the ‘Breaking’ when the world collapsed. As such, the Forsaken have the most futuristic style costumes. In the scene you’re describing, Lanfear is at her most devastating, fetishistic, dominatrix self, so it made sense for her costume to reflect this. The design of the bodice is deliberately asymmetrical to show how unbalanced she is, a theme that is often echoed in the Forsaken costumes. I wanted her to have a dramatic headdress which referenced her symbol of the moon and a vicious weapon simultaneously. It also plays with the dual concepts of saidar and saidin, the male and female halves of the One Power, similar to yin and yang. She is at once terrifying and compelling. It is so much fun to incorporate as many of the layers of symbolism in The Wheel Of Time books as possible, even in a single costume.

Natasha O’Keeffe as Lanfear, descending from a stone dais in the middle of the desert, upon which stands a circular throne. She has short jet-black hair under a black crescent-moon headdress. She wears a black leather harness over a black dress wit thigh-high slits and one sleeve covering her right arm, with thigh-high black lace-up high-heeled boots.
Lanfear | Provided by Sharon Gilham

LS: Each of the seven Aes Sedai Ajahs has its own highly individual philosophy. How does that come across in their costumes? And, with a character like Liandrin, how do you convey through clothing that she’s not only Red Ajah but also belongs to the undercover Black Ajah?

SG: When I first started on The Wheel Of Time, I wanted to expand the iconography behind each of the Ajah groups, to give them a kind of rationale relating to color as well as their role within the White Tower. In the books, the Reds are the law enforcement, the Blues spies, the Yellows healers, and so on. I took those colors and those roles and made a series of ‘rules’ about the type of fabrics or shapes of clothing that would be worn to more explicitly demonstrate the connection between the color and the role within the White Tower society and the Wheel Of Time world as a whole.

The Reds have more restrictive clothing and materials — leathers and structured fabrics like wools and heavy cottons — and the Blues have more fluid fabrics that suggest how they flow through the landscape in their search for the truth, and so on. Liandrin’s costumes in season two become gradually more militaristic, almost gestapo-like. In season three, the black even begins to spill into her costume physically. As we move through season three, I wanted her costumes to move away from the physical black into a manifestation that felt even more dangerous, which will become more apparent in later episodes.

Kate Fleetwood as Liandrin Guirale, standing in a stone doorway, looking up. She has long blonde hair. She wears a red-brown leather vest over a long-sleeved red coat, with a red stone hanging around her neck.
Liandrin Guirale | Amazon MGM Studios

LS: What are you most excited for fans to see in season three?

SG: So many things! There are epic events in almost every episode, there are so many incarnations of so many characters, new worlds and scenarios that unfold and reveal new characters within them…but there is one character that I can’t mention here, that I think fans of the books and Wheel Of Time novices alike will be very excited to see.

LS: On a more personal note, is there any specific film or costume designer’s body of work that inspired you to become a costume designer?

SG: I have been inspired by many films along the way, from Peter Greenaway films like The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, Chen Kaige’s Farewell My Concubine, Wong Kar-wai’s In The Mood For Love, Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, Eiko Ishioka’s costumes for The Fall, Linda Muir’s work on films like Nosferatu, and Michele Clapton’s work on Game Of Thrones, which really pushed fantasy into a new era. You can see where the costume designer has been allowed a kind of freedom, which results in a really strong visual aesthetic to the work. This was the case for me on The Wheel Of Time.

Poster of Priyanka Bose as Alanna Mosvani. She has dark hair pulled back in braids. She wears brown leather armor with a collar over a dark green dress with thigh-high slits. Her body and clothes are dissolving into leaves. Text reads “The Wheel Of Time: New Season, March 13th”.
Alanna Mosvani | Amazon MGM Studios

LS: And finally, of the seven Aes Sedai Ajahs, which would you belong to and why?

SG: Well, it has to be the Greens. Partly because these days more than ever women need to embrace and manifest the warrior inside; and partly because I was given a green Aes Sedai ring as a birthday present from my team and it was personally presented to me by none other than Moiraine Damodred herself!

The Wheel Of Time returns for its third season on March 13th, only on Prime Video.

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Tanchico Comes To Life In “Wheel Of Time” Season 3 Promo

SPOILERS FOR THE WHEEL OF TIME BOOK FOUR: THE SHADOW RISING, AND POTENTIAL SPOILERS FOR THE WHEEL OF TIME SEASON THREE, AHEAD!

Amazon’s The Wheel Of Time would need a much larger budget to visit every single location from Robert Jordan’s fourteen-volume series of books, but the show has managed to cover a fair bit of ground in just two seasons; and the upcoming third season looks to be the most ambitious yet in that regard, with characters scattered in every corner of the world, from Emond’s Field to the Aiel Waste, from Tar Valon to Tanchico. Each of these locations has a history and a culture that shows through in every aspect of the lavish production design, set design, VFX environment design, costume, hair and makeup design. Via Nerdist, we now have our first look at how The Wheel Of Time is bringing the city of Tanchico from page to screen, with new images to pore over and discuss.

Zoe Robins as Nynaeve al'Meara in The Wheel Of Time, walking down a busy street in Tanchico. She has long dark hair pulled back in a braid. She is wearing a beaded black half-veil that covers her eyes, and a red-black-and-gold pantsuit with shoulder cutouts, with a bag slung over her shoulder.
Nynaeve al’Meara | nerdist.com

Tanchico is the capital city of the nation of Tarabon. Before that, it was the capital of Balasun, a kingdom that ceased to exist when it was annexed by the emperor Artur Hawkwing; and before that, it was named Mainelle, and was the capital of the kingdom of Aelgar, which arose out of the Breaking of the World. Tanchico is thus considered to be one of the oldest cities in the world, and indeed there are sections of the city that date back to before the Breaking, including the foundations of the palace complex sprawling across the hills above the city, where the ‘Panarch’, one half of Tarabon’s ruling diarchy, resides. The Panarch is always a woman, elected by the Assembly of Lords to counterbalance the male King whose power is inherited. Among other duties, the Panarch oversees the court system and civil affairs in Tarabon, while the King commands the nation’s army. Tarabon is locked in a perpetual power struggle with its neighbor to the north, Arad Doman, over Almoth Plain (the unclaimed territory between the two that encompasses the free city of Falme), and with its neighbor to the south, Amadicia, which is ruled by the Whitecloaks. In the books, the Whitecloaks who fought at Falme were there not to liberate the city from the Seanchan, but to try and set up a vassal state of Amadicia on Almoth Plain, which would have put pressure on Tarabon from both sides to submit to Whitecloak rule, if they had succeeded. That nuance was sadly lost in the show, and frankly, I wouldn’t expect most of what I’ve just written to make it into dialogue or anything, but I think the context is valuable regardless.

The Panarch’s Palace in Tanchico is also home to the world’s largest collection of pre-Breaking artifacts, many of them ter’angreal — objects sculpted from the One Power itself by the Aes Sedai of ages past, designed to fulfil specific tasks. Among these are the ‘Domination Bands’, comprised of a collar and two bracelets, which in both function and design very closely resemble the a’dam, the mass-produced ter’angreal which the Seanchan use to control female channelers. Just as the a’dam consists of a collar that prevents the woman wearing it (called the damane) from independently accessing the One Power, and a matching bracelet with which another woman (called the sul’dam) may wield the One Power through the damane, the Domination Bands are meant to be worn around the throat of a male channeler and the wrists of not one but two female handlers (because, for reasons I refuse to believe are anything but sexist, both the base level and ceiling for male channelers are much higher than for female channelers). Where the Domination Bands differ greatly from the a’dam is that with time, the collared male is able to gain the same power over the woman/women wearing the bracelets that they possess over him (again, feels sexist), and neither collar nor bracelet can be removed without the cooperation of the collared and braceleted: essentially meaning they’re on for life. And because male channelers tap into a strain of the One Power that is ‘tainted’ by the Dark One, invariably leading to a fatal madness that can be transferred through the Domination Bands, those lives will be short and painful for everyone involved.

Donal Finn as Mat Cauthon, Kae Alexander as Min Farshaw, and Ceara Coveney as Elayne Trakand, walking down a busy street in Tanchico. Mat has short curly dark brown hair under a long black lace veil adorned with flower appliques. He wears an oversized semi-transparent frilly maroon coat over a low-collared saffron-yellow shirt with high-waisted brown floral-patterned trousers. Min has jet-black hair in a slicked-back mullet, with a camouflage headwrap and half-veil covering the lower half of her face. She wears a black leather bolero over a black-and-gold top with a long gray dress, and carries a throwing knife in a scabbard on her belt. Elayne has long reddish-gold hair under a white turban with a gauzy white half-veil covering the lower half of her face, and wears a leopard-patterned jacket.
Mat Cauthon, Min Farshaw, and Elayne Trakand | nerdist.com

Nonetheless, the Domination Bands are coveted by many for the potential they might have to decide the outcome of the fast-approaching Last Battle where Rand al’Thor, the strongest male channeler since the Breaking of the World, will face the Dark One. A woman or two women wearing the bracelets could theoretically prevent Rand from joining the Dark One on that fateful day, or alternatively, force him to do just that (obviously, Rand’s free will goes out the window in both these scenarios, but neither side is particularly concerned about that, to be honest). In book four, The Shadow Rising, Liandrin Guirale of the Black Ajah — an underground faction of the Aes Sedai made up of women sworn to the Dark — arrives in Tanchico on a mission to obtain the Domination Bands for the Dark One, with designated ‘Black Ajah hunters’ Nynaeve al’Meara and Elayne Trakand hot on her heels.

Nynaeve and Elayne have help in the books from the gleeman Thom Merrilin, the rat-catcher and reconnaissance man Juilin Sandar, ship-captain Bayle Domon, and Seanchan warrior Egeanin — but while two of those characters, Thom and Bayle, have shown up in the television adaptation, so far only Thom is confirmed to be returning for season three, and as for Juilin and Egeanin, we have no idea if they exist in this ‘Turning of the Wheel’. I feel pretty confident that the man in the black hat seen speaking to Nynaeve in one of the first look images released recently is either Juilin or a character based on Juilin. Egeanin, on the other hand, is someone I would have expected to see introduced in season two if she had made the cut. In place of these missing characters, the show is roping Mat Cauthon and Min Farshaw into the Tanchico subplot: a consequential (and controversial) change with many potential downsides and fewer immediately apparent upsides – except the fact that Mat gets a long-overdue costume change as a result. And on that note…

The Wheel Of Time‘s costume design has always been eclectic, reflecting how the world of Robert Jordan’s novels was pieced back together again after the catastrophic Breaking in its ancient past, with people having to build entirely new cultures by sharing freely what was left of the old. Even so, most of the cultures we’ve glimpsed in the show have had one or two prevailing real-world influences – Franco-Chinese in Cairhien, Andalusian in Ghealdan, South Asian in Arafel, Southeast Asian in Tear, etc. Tarabon as a whole may have a single real-world influence (in the books, I’d say it has a vaguely Eastern Mediterranean vibe), but the city of Tanchico is a melting pot, and this is apparent in its fashion, with its inconsistent silhouettes and panoply of fabrics. There’s only one rule in effect: regardless of age, class or gender, everyone wears veils or half-veils. Costume designer Sharon Gilham has outdone herself with the disguises being sported by the main characters — from Nynaeve’s uncharacteristic but oh-so-gorgeous red-and-gold pantsuit and beaded black eye-covering to Mat’s whole garish ensemble, a frilly maroon coat worn over a saffron-yellow shirt and a black lace veil adorned with flower appliqués.

Wide shot of the Tanchico waterfront at night. Wooden walkways wind between wooden houses with thatched roofs. A tall black statue of a man wearing a collar stands in the middle of the image, pulling focus. At its base, a young girl with blonde hair, wearing a bloody white dress, cradles a baby in her arms.
Tanchico | nerdist.com

Less lavishly dressed, what appears to be a young Liandrin Guirale is shown cradling a baby at the foot of a statue that depicts a one-armed man in chains, with the a’dam collar around his neck. While it’s not confirmed to be Liandrin, she was canonically born in Tarabon, we know she’s going back there (so if ever there was a time for flashbacks to her origins it would be now), and it would also line up with the backstory invented for her character in the show; where she has a son from an arranged marriage she was forced into as a young girl. Perhaps this scene, or the longer sequence it’s part of, will show how Liandrin came to be recruited by the Black Ajah for love of her child…setting up the heel-turn I predict from her late in the season, when Nynaeve al’Meara, whom she regards almost like a second child, will be in danger (just a guess on my part, not a spoiler; Liandrin in the books is a very different character, with no redeeming qualities).

So that’s our first look at Tanchico. How does it compare to what you imagined from the books? As always, share your own thoughts, theories, and opinions, in the comments below!

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“The Wheel Of Time” Drops First Look Images Ahead Of Season Three

MINOR SPOILERS FOR THE WHEEL OF TIME THROUGH BOOK FOUR: THE SHADOW RISING, AND POTENTIAL SPOILERS FOR THE WHEEL OF TIME SEASON THREE, AHEAD!

The best (and most criminally underrated) fantasy series on television, Amazon’s The Wheel Of Time, is returning for its third season in less than two months, and the streamer has dropped first-look images showcasing new locations and characters, key moments from the pages of Robert Jordan’s The Shadow Rising, and a wardrobe’s worth of bold, beautiful costumes designed by the absolute madwoman (complimentary) that is Sharon Gilham. Rand al’Thor and the rest of the Emond’s Field Five feature heavily, while characters like Alanna Mosvani and Liandrin Guirale are nowhere to be seen, indicative of the series-wide shift in focus away from the Aes Sedai (including Rosamund Pike’s Moiraine Damodred) onto the younger cast led by Josha Stradowski’s Rand, happening in season three. This shift, which doesn’t occur in the books because Rand is the clear protagonist from the get-go, is something some fans have eagerly anticipated and others have dreaded, and I am very interested to see if The Wheel Of Time can achieve a healthy balance. Let’s see what we can glean from the new images.

Josha Stradowski as Rand al'Thor, Marcus Rutherford as Perrin Aybara, and Donal Finn as Mat Cauthon in The Wheel Of Time, standing in the common room of an inn. Rand and Perrin are leaning against a square stone pillar. Rand has short reddish-brown curly hair and wears a dark blue jacket over a lighter blue shirt. Perrin has frizzy dark hair and a beard, and wears a dark plum-colored coat over a plaid vest. Mat, out-of-focus in the foreground, has short dark brown curly hair and a patchy beard, and wears blue.
Rand, Perrin, and Mat | Twitter @TheWheelofTime

Rand, Perrin Aybara, and Mat Cauthon get together for drinks, something they haven’t had a chance to do since they left Emond’s Field in season one, episode one. This shot has to be from very early in the season, because the three boys’ storylines obviously haven’t yet diverged, with Rand heading off to the Aiel Waste, Perrin returning to Emond’s Field, and Mat apparently accompanying Nynaeve al’Meara and Elayne Trakand to the city of Tanchico. Based on the architecture, the setting is probably the city of Tar Valon, which tracks with what we know (from descriptions of footage shown at CCXP in Brazil) about one of the first major set-pieces in season three, a battle between the Aes Sedai and a mutinous contingent of Darkfriends led by Liandrin Guirale that moves from the White Tower out into the streets of Tar Valon.

Ceara Coveney as Elayne Trakand and Ayoola Smart as Aviendha, drinking together and smiling. Elayne has long reddish-brown hair and wears a gold dress. Aviendha has long reddish-brown hair in locs, and wears a sand-brown hood made from a coarse fabric, with lightweight brown leather armor and fingerless gloves.
Elayne and Aviendha | Twitter @TheWheelofTime

In what looks to me like the same tavern in Tar Valon, Elayne and the Aiel warrior Aviendha are seen sipping drinks and staring into each other’s eyes. This image immediately caught my eye for the simple fact that I’m queer, and like many queer readers, felt that there were definite undertones between these two characters even in the books, where Elayne and Aviendha come to regard each other as “first-sisters”, an Aiel term for two women who are not of the same mother but are as close as if they were kin. In Robert Jordan’s expansive world, there are a fair number of female characters one might be tempted to categorize as canonically queer characters, although unfortunately, nine times out of ten, I feel it would be more accurate to describe these characters as overtly heterosexual women thrust into homoerotic situations by their creator for no other reason than that he was a straight man who was not particularly subtle about his fetish for women making out with each other (that, and women being spanked: there’s so much spanking in The Wheel Of Time). So in spite of all the evidence that would seem to support queer interpretations of Elayne and Aviendha’s characters and relationship, I genuinely do not think Jordan himself thought of them as anything but straight.

That being said, the television adaptation has already canonized one relationship that was ambiguous in the books, between Moiraine and Siuan Sanche. Jordan wrote that the two women were ‘pillow-friends’ during their youth — the Wheel Of Time equivalent of saying they ‘experimented in college’ — referring to a practice amongst the isolated female Novices at the White Tower of finding comfort in same-sex partners: only, Jordan emphasizes, because there are no men around. It’s understood in the books that Novices are supposed to ‘mature’ out of desiring these same-sex relationships, with those who don’t often framed as having sinister motives. Moiraine and Siuan, however, are middle-aged women in the show, and their love is portrayed as just that, love, not a ‘phase’ either woman is looking to outgrow. There are also several other explicitly queer characters on the show, both male and female. So I have faith that fans of the “Avilayne” pairing will not be let down.

Natasha O'Keeffe as Lanfear, standing in a doorway, looking over her shoulder with a slight smirk. She has short jet-black hair and dark eye makeup. She wears a black-and-white cloak or mantle, and around her ear she wears an ornament in the shape of a three-headed black snake.
Lanfear | Twitter @TheWheelofTime

Although it’s hard to tell for certain where this shot of the Forsaken Lanfear fits into the timeline we’re piecing together, I’m going to put it here because the architecture in the background feels more like Tar Valon than any of the other locations we know we’ll be visiting in season three, and it would be very much in-character for Lanfear to stalk Rand while he’s out with friends. I’m gonna tell you my theory: Lanfear is keeping just enough distance between herself and Rand so as not to make her presence near him known to the other Forsaken who may be watching, but Rand notices her in this scene – and this is the moment she turns away, with an almost sorrowful expression on her face that says she could protect him from what’s coming, if he only let her back into his heart. By the time he reaches the door, she’ll have vanished, of course, leaving him shaken up. You can remind me come March if I was right or if this shot is from an entirely different scene.

Sophie Okonedo as Siuan Sanche, throwing her arm out and channeling red and gold threads of the One Power into a spiral weave as she battles an unseen opponent. She has short dark hair under a lofty headdress made of gold lace and baubles, and wears a gilded coat.
Siuan Sanche | Twitter @TheWheelofTime

Siuan Sanche, the Amyrlin Seat of the Aes Sedai, throws out her arm and channels a complex weave using red and gold threads of the One Power in this image, which I feel pretty confident in saying is from the aforementioned battle with Liandrin and her cronies. The woman beside Siuan is Alanna (yes, I lied when I said she was nowhere to be seen, though to be fair, it is only a bit of her shoulder; but those gold epaulets are clearly the same ones she’s wearing in the teaser trailer, shown below). Siuan is channeling upwards in this shot, which leads me to believe that Liandrin is on the mezzanine encircling the round Hall of the Sitters, or has brought the roof down on their heads.

Priyanka Bose as Alanna Mosvani, weeping over someone's body. She has long dark hair covered in ash. She's wearing a green dress with gold epaulets and a gold collar.
Alanna | youtube.com
(from left to right), Ceara Coveney as Elayne Trakand, Madeleine Madden as Egwene al'Vere, and Zoe Robins as Nynaeve al'Meara, on horseback. Elayne has blonde hair in a bun, and wears a gauzy green dress with gold armor. Egwene has short dark hair under a gold tiara and wears gold armor over a long gold gown with a serpentine flame pattern. Nynaeve has long dark hair, and wears a padded silver vest and armor over a yellow dress.
Elayne, Egwene, and Nynaeve | Twitter @TheWheelofTime

This striking image of Elayne Trakand and Nynaeve al’Meara flanking Egwene al’Vere, all three on horseback and wearing impractical armor over luxurious gowns, can only be from one of the two Accepted Tests we haven’t yet seen, Egwene’s or Elayne, and I’m gonna take a wild guess and say it’s Egwene’s based on the fact that she’s front-and-center, and dressed as the Amyrlin Seat (Flames of Tar Valon are emblazoned on her armor and embroidered on her gown; she’s also wearing a ring identical to Siuan’s; the gemstone necklace is a curious accessory, unique to Egwene but with no immediately apparent symbolism). In the books, the last of the three alternate universes Egwene enters during her Accepted Test is one in which she is Amyrlin and must preside over the trial and gentling of Rand al’Thor, a captive of the Red Ajah.

The sense I’m getting from the show’s version, or at least from this still-frame, is that Egwene and her companions are hunting Rand themselves, and will engage him in battle. Whereas in the books, this stage of the Test is built around Egwene’s fear of Darkfriends amongst the Aes Sedai, I think the show will make her greatest fear the future that awaits Rand (not to mention the whole world), if she can’t figure out how to stop him from going mad like all male channelers before him: and to that end, I think Rand will kill the alternate universe versions of Elayne and/or Nynaeve in his madness, with Egwene narrowly escaping.

Josha Stradowski as Rand al'Thor and Daniel Henney as Lan Mandragoran in The Wheel Of Time. They stand back-to-back on a mountaintop, practicing sword forms. Rand has short reddish-brown curly hair and wears a gray shirt with rolled-up sleeves and dark trousers. Lan has black hair in a top-knot. He wears a gray long-sleeved shirt and gray trousers.
Rand and Lan | Twitter @TheWheelofTime

Next up, we see Rand practicing sword forms with Moiraine’s Warder, Lan Mandragoran — a scene from the first chapter of book two, The Great Hunt, that didn’t make it into season two, although Rand did pick up a few moves from an elderly blademaster in the city of Cairhien, and Lan taught him one of the better-known forms, ‘Cat Crosses The Courtyard’, before his audience with the Amyrlin Seat. Fans of their relationship will be pleased to have the sword training subplot picked up again, and hopefully afforded a little more time and space, in season three. This was one of two clips shown to the audience at CCXP (the other being a preview of the battle in Tar Valon), and descriptions of the footage place Moiraine and Egwene in the same scene, suggesting that this takes place during their journey from Tar Valon to the Aiel Waste.

(From left to right) Nukâka Coster-Waldau as Bair, Synnøve Macody Lund as Melindhra, Daniel Henney as Lan Mandragoran, Björn Landberg as Rhuarc, Josha Stradowski as Rand al'Thor, and Rosamund Pike as Moiraine Damodred, standing on a rugged hilltop in a desert under a cloudless sky. Bair has long white hair and wears a white dress with a hood and shawl. Melindhra has blonde hair under a brown hood, and wears lightweight brown leather armor, a skirt of tassels, and brown pants, with three short spears strapped to her back. Lan wears a gray hood and baggy gray tunic. Rhuarc has red hair under a sand-brown hood, with brown leather armor and trousers made from a coarse brown fabric. Rand has short curly reddish-brown hair and wears a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, dark trousers, and a sword strapped to his back. Moiraine has long brown hair under a large hat, and wears a brown shawl over a sand-brown top, with a long gray dress.
(left to right) Bair, Melindhra, Lan, Rhuarc, Rand, and Moiraine | Twitter @TheWheelofTime

This reverse angle of the opening shot from the teaser trailer gives us our first look at several new characters from the Aiel Waste, including Nukâka Coster-Waldau as the Wise One Bair, Synnøve Macody Lund as the Malkieri refugee turned Maiden of the Spear Melindhra, and Björn Landberg as clan chief of the Taardad Aiel, Rhuarc. The teaser reveals that they’re looking out over Rhuidean, a city built shortly after the Breaking of the World, the ruins of which have been put to use by the Aiel as a testing ground for women training to become Wise Ones and men looking to become clan chiefs. The city is home to several ter’angreal, magical constructs with specific functions, including one that shows visions of possible directions a person’s life may take, and another that allows a person to relive historical events through the eyes of their ancestors. Rand’s journey to fulfil the prophecies of the Dragon Reborn will lead him through Rhuidean, while Moiraine will learn there what steps she must take to keep him alive until the Last Battle.

Rhuidean is widely regarded as one of the most memorable sequences in the entire fourteen-volume book series, and while I expect it to play out a bit differently in the show for a number of reasons (namely, the apparent absence of Mat Cauthon and the inclusion of Moiraine’s perspective), I hope what we get from the adaptation is similarly rich and immersive. The show has tried to simplify Robert Jordan’s complex magic system and worldbuilding for general audiences, but three seasons in, if you’re still watching, chances are you’re already invested in the story and won’t be turned off suddenly by an influx of new information.

Rosamund Pike as Moiraine Damodred, standing in a desert, channeling golden threads of the One Power into a glowing orb she's holding out in front of her. She has long dark brown hair, and a blue gemstone on a slender gold diadem sits upon her brow. She wears an intricate gold lattice-work chest-piece over a sleeveless blue dress.
Moiraine Damodred | Twitter @TheWheelofTime

Moiraine channels golden threads of the One Power into a glowing sphere, potentially a miniature version of one of the two enormous crystal balls that collectively form the ‘Choedan Kal’, a sa’angreal (an object that allows a channeler to channel more of the One Power than they would normally be able to). The Choedan Kal is the most powerful sa’angreal ever made, and requires two ter’angreal to unlock it, referred to as access keys. I suspect what we’re looking at in the image above is Moiraine attempting to unlock the Choedan Kal using just one of the keys,  possibly during a confrontation with Lanfear or another of the Forsaken.

Olivia Williams as Morgase Trakand and Shohreh Aghdashloo as Elaida, walking side-by-side down a corridor in the White Tower, between rows of soldiers in red-and-gold uniforms and Novices in white dresses. Morgase has short blonde hair under a gold tiara encrusted with rubies. She wears a large white heart-shaped lace collar, and a long-sleeved white lace coat over a long dark red gown. Elaida has short jet-black hair. She wears a crimson coat over a dark red gown with a heavy gold necklace, large gold earrings, gold bracelets on both arms, and multiple gold rings.
Morgase and Elaida | Twitter @TheWheelofTime

Queen Morgase Trakand of Andor and her Aes Sedai advisor Elaida do Avriny a’Roihan make their debut in this shot of the two entering the White Tower, presumably looking for Morgase’s daughter Elayne, who as far as they’re aware is still missing after being kidnapped from the Tower by Liandrin in season two and whisked away to Falme on the other side of the world. By the time they arrive, I fully expect Elayne to be long gone from Tar Valon, this time on a top-secret mission to the city of Tanchico, hunting Liandrin and her cabal of Darkfriends (more on that in a minute). The ensuing stand-off between Morgase and Siuan is only recounted after the fact in the books, but leads to Elayne giving Mat Cauthon a letter to take to her mother in the city of Caemlyn before she sets out again, which ends up being a surprisingly fun little subplot; not crucial by any means, so I won’t be shocked if it’s cut from the show, but what is crucial is the emergence of Mat’s luck (he’s essentially got the same powers as Marvel Comics’ Domino), through episodes like the quarterstaff fight with the Trakand boys, the chase across the rooftops of Tar Valon, and the encounter with Aludra the Illuminator, which are all part of this subplot.

Morgase’s advisor Elaida, an Aes Sedai of the increasingly powerful Red Ajah that oversees the systematic extermination of male channelers, is someone to keep an eye on – and not just because The Wheel Of Time was fortunate enough, speaking of luck, to nab Oscar-nominee Shohreh Aghdashloo for this role. Elaida is one of the most important characters in the entire series, a complex antagonist to Siuan Sanche who sees herself as the leader the Aes Sedai desperately need if they’re to defeat the Dark One at the Last Battle: because they’re sure as hell not going to rely on a male channeler like Rand al’Thor, not if Elaida has any say in the matter. The White Tower she’ll be returning to in the show, after years of living in Caemlyn, is one that will have just been rocked to its foundations by an attack from within. The Red Ajah, which Liandrin belonged to, will be eager to pin the blame on Siuan, but needs a charismatic representative with no connections to Liandrin to make the argument. There’s no better moment for Elaida to step in and fill that role.

Donal Finn as Mat Cauthon, Zoe Robins as Nynaeve al'Meara, and Kae Alexander as Min Farshaw in The Wheel Of Time, standing in a smoky room amongst a crowd of colorfully costumed revelers, speaking to a man in a black hat who is handing them something wrapped in a cloth. Mat has short dark brown curly hair and a patchy beard. He wears an oversized frilly maroon coat over a low-collared saffron-yellow shirt. Nynaeve, standing beside him with her hand on his arm, has long dark hair in a braid and dark eye makeup. She wears a red, black and gold long-sleeved dress with shoulder cutouts. Min has black hair in a slicked-back mullet, with a black-and-white headwrap. She wears a black leather bolero over a black-and-gold top, and a gray dress with pockets. She has a throwing knife in a small scabbard on the front of her belt.
Mat, Nynaeve, and Min | Twitter @TheWheelofTime

In the books, book three to be precise, Siuan assigns Egwene, Nynaeve, and Elayne with a top-secret mission: following Liandrin to the city of Tear, where (unbeknownst to Siuan) Liandrin is going to try and capture Rand with the help of the Forsaken Be’lal, who is disguised as a High Lord of Tear. Mat, as I mentioned, goes to Caemlyn to deliver Elayne’s letter to the Queen, but while there, learns that the girls are walking into a trap, and makes his way to Tear in the company of the gleeman Thom Merrilin. Liandrin ends up escaping to the city of Tanchico, where Nynaeve and Elayne continue their hunt for her in book four, The Shadow Rising, with Thom as their escort, while Egwene goes to the Aiel Waste with Rand. The television adaptation is, as far as I can tell, having Nynaeve and Elayne head straight to Tanchico from Tar Valon, bypassing Tear entirely, and Mat will be joining them – though whether from the outset of their adventure or, as in book three, after realizing that they’re in danger and coming to save them, remains to be seen. There’s a very strong chance that Tanchico is where we’ll be reunited with Thom, last seen on the show in season one and presumed dead by much of the general audience, but returning at long last for season three. And obviously but rather oddly, the seer Min Farshaw is here as well.

Tanchico is the capital city of the nation of Tarabon, which in recent years has been torn to pieces by a civil war instigated and prolonged by the Whitecloaks in neighboring Amadicia, who hope to destabilize the region (in the books, the reason why the Whitecloaks are in Falme is to try and set up another vassal state north of Tarabon with which to slowly blockade the larger nation into submission). Tarabon has two rulers, a male King and an elected female ‘Panarch’, who governs from a palace complex in the hills above Tanchico. This palace houses the world’s largest museum, containing relics dating back thousands of years to before the Breaking of the World – including several ter’angreal. Is one of these the object wrapped in cloth that Mat, Nynaeve and Min are seemingly looking to purchase or barter for in the image above? And who is the man they’re dealing with, anyway? My bet’s on Juilin Sandar, the rat-catcher whom the girls hire to spy for them in Tear.

Well, that’s everything. What I’m hoping to see from the next batch of images released by Amazon is our first look at what’s going on in the Two Rivers, along with some more new characters like Faile Bashere and Gawyn Trakand, and familiar faces like Thom Merrilin, Tam al’Thor, Liandrin Guirale, Moghedien, Verin Mathwin, Dain Bornhald, and Logain Ablar. How about you? Who or what got you most hyped out of these new images and who or what are you still hoping to see before season three arrives this coming March? Share your own thoughts, theories, and opinions, in the comments below!

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“The Wheel Of Time” Casts Faile; Aiel Warriors, Wise Ones

MINOR SPOILERS FOR THE WHEEL OF TIME THROUGH BOOK FIVE, THE FIRES OF HEAVEN, AHEAD!

Wheel Of Time Wednesdays are back! And according to Amazon, they’re here to stay, at least until the premiere of The Wheel Of Time‘s third season on March 13th, a little less than two months away. We still don’t have a full trailer for the fast approaching season, but we have been receiving casting announcements left and right over the last couple of weeks: Shohreh Aghdashloo and Olivia Williams are among those joining the epic fantasy series’ sprawling ensemble cast, which also boasts Oscar-nominees Rosamund Pike and Sophie Okonedo. And today, Amazon welcomed five more cast-members — Isabella Bucceri, Nukâka Coster-Waldau, Salóme Gunnarsdóttir, Björn Landberg, and Synnøve Macody Lund — all of whom will play significant roles from the pages of Robert Jordan’s saga. As has been the case with every casting announcement thus far, all five of these actors and actresses were already known or rumored to have been cast in the series, and some, like Bucceri, had already been linked to the characters they’re actually playing, but there are also some interesting new details tucked away in Amazon’s press release that hint at changes fans could not have predicted.

Black-and-white image of Isabella Bucceri, wearing a black leather jacket. She has long black hair.
Isabella Bucceri | Twitter @WoTUp5
Image of Björn Landberg. He has short white hair with dark eyebrows and wears all black.
Björn Landberg | filmmakers.eu

While there are over 2700 named characters in The Wheel Of Time, and it’s extremely easy to get them mixed up, no one who’s read the series will need to be reminded of Faile Bashere, the character Isabella Bucceri will portray in season three: everyone has an opinion on the sharp-tongued Saldaean adventurer who becomes Perrin Aybara’s love interest, and those opinions range anywhere from “love her, would die for her” to “hate her, please die” with people like myself falling somewhere in the middle; I generally like Faile individually, but her and Perrin together are unbearable to read about for more than a few sentences, in large part because the book versions of their characters are, like, sixteen, seventeen, and incapable of having a conversation without Perrin putting his foot in his mouth because he inadvertently ‘smelled’ Faile’s emotions (one of the drawbacks to having heightened senses) and confidently misinterpreted them, causing her to get angry, in turn causing him to get angry, and for them both to storm off, the one mumbling that ‘women are so confusing’ and the other grumbling that ‘men are such idiots’. I have to trust that one of the reasons for aging up the characters in the show was to avoid the mind-numbingly repetitive teenage angst that The Wheel Of Time is unfortunately notorious for, but then again, there was a random (and mercifully short-lived) love-triangle subplot between Perrin, Rand, and Egwene in season one, so anything’s possible.

In Amazon’s press release, as in the books, Faile is described as a Hunter for the Horn whose search for the artifact has led her to the Two Rivers. This presumably means we’ll lose the bit where Perrin tells Faile to stay in the city of Tear while he goes to check on things back in the Two Rivers because it’s too dangerous for her to go, she’s just a woman, blah blah blah — advice which she ignores. But otherwise, her description reads the same. Faile is introduced as a Hunter for the Horn in book three, The Dragon Reborn, and interestingly, tells Perrin about her theory that the Horn could be found in the Two Rivers amidst the ruins of the ancient kingdom of Manetheren. In the books, the Horn is already on its way to Tar Valon for safekeeping by that point, but the show made a subtle but potentially significant change when they had Amaresu, one of the Heroes of the Horn, take the Horn from Mat Cauthon at the end of season two: meaning that for the time being, it is somewhere in Tel’aran’rhiod, the World of Dreams, and not in the physical world.

Speaking of the World of Dreams, the next two characters — Bair (Coster-Waldau) and Melaine (Gunnarsdóttir) — are both ‘dreamwalkers’: women with the ability to enter the World of Dreams at will, and to an extent navigate its ever-changing paths. The ability to dreamwalk does not only manifest in women who can channel the One Power; Melaine cannot channel, while according to Amazon’s press release, Bair can (an odd change from the books, where it’s the other way around). Both women belong to the red-haired, desert-dwelling Aiel people, and hold positions of great status in their respective clans. They are called ‘Wise Ones’, and their words hold equal weight to those of their clan chiefs. There are many Wise Ones with the ability to channel and/or dreamwalk (likely outnumbering the Aes Sedai) but some can do neither and still be held in high esteem. Whereas Novices training to become Aes Sedai often spend years preparing for the perilous Accepted Test that decides whether they can advance any further, women who seek to become Wise Ones are immediately expected to pass a test very similar in structure, which involves entering a ter’angreal in the ruins of the city of Rhuidean that will show them the possible routes their lives may take.

A similar test awaits Aiel men who intend to become clan chiefs. With permission from the Wise Ones, these men will enter a separate, inverse ter’angreal in Rhuidean which forces them to relive events from their ancient history through the eyes of their direct ancestors. In this way, they will learn the truth of the ‘Sin’ that led to the Aiel becoming a patchwork of warring clans banished to the Wasteland beyond the Spine of the World. Few men return from the ter’angreal, fewer still with their sanity intact, but those who do come back bearing a dragon tattoo on their arm that marks them as their clan’s new chief, and are forbidden to speak of their experiences in Rhuidean. The current chief of the Taardad clan is Rhuarc (Landberg), an experienced warrior who has two wives, both Wise Ones. You’ll see more of the Taardad Aiel in the show than any other clan (besides the especially violent Shaido), as the Taardad are the clan to which Rand al’Thor’s parents belonged, and in which he would have been raised if he hadn’t been born on a battlefield and adopted by Tam al’Thor of the Two Rivers. Aviendha is also a member of the Taardad Aiel, though her friends Bain and Chiad belong to the Shaarad and Goshien Aiel, respectively.

Black-and-white image of Synnøve Macody Lund. She has short blonde hair and wears a long-sleeved top with black pants.
Synnøve Macody Lund | imdb.com

Probably for simplicity’s sake more than anything, the show has also chosen to make the character of Melindhra (Macody Lund) a member of the Taardad Aiel rather than the Shaido, but that isn’t even the biggest change that’s been made to this Maiden of the Spear’s backstory. The press release describes her as a Malkieri refugee who was taken in by the Taardad, setting her up to have a very different role in the show than in the books, where she’s romantically involved with Mat Cauthon for a short while. While there’s no evidence that Mat will go to the Waste in season three, we know that Lan Mandragoran, faithful Warder to Moiraine Damodred and heir to the lost throne of Malkier, will go there alongside Moiraine, Rand, and Egwene al’Vere. It seems obvious that, with Melindhra being a former citizen of Malkier herself, the two will bond. The question is: will their relationship be purely platonic, or is The Wheel Of Time overlaying Mat and Melindhra’s romance onto Lan and Melindhra? And if they do go that route, what does that mean for Lan’s ambiguous relationship with Nynaeve al’Meara? And what is Mat doing in season three if he’s not going to the Waste, where much of his character development occurs in the books?

I’m very curious to see how The Wheel Of Time answers these questions when the series returns, but in the meantime, I’d love for you to share your own thoughts, theories, and opinions, in the comments below!