Screen Adaptations and Fan Responses

Wheel of Time

Whenever a beloved book series is adapted to screen, there will be changes to the source material. To account for the change of medium, and pragmatic logistical reasons like actor availability, locations, sets, and budget. Beyond these necessary and pragmatic changes, there are also creative changes to source material. These changes often concern plot points or story arcs that are changed, but sometimes they also encompass changes to a character’s intrinsic traits. Such changes can make a cast of characters more inclusive by making them more diverse in terms of race, cultural heritage, gender identity or sexuality. Especially these kinds of inclusive changes tend to receive mixed reactions and be divisive among established fanbases.

In this section, I will examine the television adaptation of the Wheel of Time, which premiered November 19th 2021 on Amazon Prime Video. Specifically, I will look at the way different ethnicities of the series are portrayed on the small screen and how fans have responded. The Wheel of Time is a high fantasy series written by James Oliver Rigney Jr. under the pseudonym Robert Jordan and finished after his death by Brandon Sanderson. Spanning 14 books and a prequel novel, it is one of the largest fantasy series ever written with roughly 4.4 million words according to Barnes and Nobles’ statistical breakdown of the mammoth series. Since the publication of the first book, the Eye of the World, in 1990, the series has become one of the best-selling fantasy series ever.

The online fan space of Wheel of Time spans across many platforms and is far too vast to comprehensively examine in a short article. So, this piece focusses on online articles written by media critics, the amazon reviews, reddit comments of the r/Whitecloaks subreddit, which has a decidedly negative tone, and YouTube videos of the established group of Wheel of Time focussed content creators who tend to respond positively to the adaptation. By looking at the opinions expressed by these specific sections of the fan community, I will create a cursory overview of the reception of characters’ ethnicities in the television series.

Robert Jordan excelled at creating complex and rich cultures and characters that have become beloved by many fans worldwide. The television adaptation has the difficult job of condensing and streamlining this seemingly endless story into internally consistent episodes of television. Showrunner Rafe Judkins has been adamant from the start that some things will be changing, starting with the ethnicity of the core cast, the so-called “Emond’s Field Five.” In the massive series, these five characters account for 40% of point of view chapters and words, so they are arguably the most significant, and in the books, it is easy to assume that all of them are Caucasian. The castings for these five characters were among the first to be announced, and they surprised fans. Two actors – Zoe Robins who portrays Nynaeve Al’Meara, and Marcus Rutherford who plays Perrin Aybara – are of African descent, and Madeline Madden who plays Egwene is of Australian aboriginal descent. Barney Harris and Josha Stradowski – portraying Mat Cauthon and Rand Al’Thor respectively – are both Caucasian.

It is not hard to find out that this decision – among other changes – has divided the fanbase. Indeed, as is often the case when changes happen in adaptation, the reviews of the series show that there are two clear camps. Amazon’s review page for the series lists 27.850 global ratings of the series as of February 4th 2022. 48% of those are 5 star ratings, and 35% are 1 star ratings, leaving only 17% for the proportionally far too small middle ground.

The mixed reactions largely stem from the fact that there is an assumption in fantasy that the protagonists are white unless otherwise stated, especially if they are from a small, isolated village like the protagonists of The Wheel of Time. Billy Todd calls this an “unspoken promise” in his article on Tor.com. He concludes that the casting announcement sent a “shock wave” through the fans, because this diverse core cast breaks the implicit promise. Tayla Blaire, a writer for refinery29, adds that fantasy authors often cannot really imagine a place for characters of colour in fantasy, so they often occupy the roles of side characters or are excluded altogether. She cites Game of Thrones as an example where characters of colour are often slaves or savages, and the Witcher for its tokenistic approach to diversity.

Rafe Judkins is adamant about his aim to portray the diversity inherent in the book series in the core cast. In a tweet posted early in the production process, Judkins shows a note on the script saying that "race in the world of Wheel of Time is much less defined than in our world." He wants the casting to reflect the demographics of the US as they might be in a few hundred years: "A beautiful mix of white, brown, black, and everything in between." This shows his dedication to diversity and his American perspective on the portrayal of it.

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There has been a minority of fans who dislike the casting of the core five because of the previously discussed implicit expectation of Whiteness. A pervasive argument is that the books have enough diversity as is, and the core cast should not have to be diversified further. Judkins’ tweet is readily taken out of context. One reddit user who goes by the screen name of Aurondarklord states:

“They don't want diversity to be DEscriptive, showing the world as it actually is instead of one group being unfairly overrepresented, they want it to be PREscriptive, a tool to teach people how they think the world SHOULD be, and train them to see that as the norm. It's propaganda.”

 This type of language; “propaganda”, “woke,” or “leftist,” is not uncommon in the more critical space of Reddit and is used in a decidedly derogatory manner. Another main argument against the diverse casting of the core five, is that the area where these characters come from is isolated and should be homogenously Caucasian: “The raging diversity spoils the illusion. Human societies, including those in Randland, tend to become rather homegenous by some shared descent,” as Reddit user by the name of U/Realistic-Fondant claims.

YouTuber Daniel Greene took it upon himself to collaborate with Matt Hatch, host of “The Dusty Wheel” on YouTube and beta reader of the last three books of the series, to counter these arguably racist arguments. Explaining how diversity is genetically reasonable in the isolated area of the Two Rivers, digging through notes from Robert Jordan that very few people have access to and quoting the books extensively, they persuasively argue that it is not only possible for this small village to be diverse, but that it is even written as such. Tayla Blaire has a similar perspective, stating that “the casting matches […] descriptions; the whiteness was just assumed.”

In the books, race is not even a main source of tension between characters. “This is a world in which racism does not exist,” YouTuber Jen, aka “Lezbi Nerdy” observes. Instead of skin colour, nationality and cultural background are the basis for most tensions between characters. Tayla Blaire comes to a similar conclusion in her article. While there are people that tend to have certain ethnicities like the dark-skinned Atha’an Miere seafolk, the coppery-skinned Domani, or the honey-skinned Seanchan, there is diversity within each culture in Wheel of Time and skin colour is unlikely to accurately pinpoint a character’s country of origin.

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The result of the diverse casting of the core characters is a series that does not just use diversity as set dressing like Game of Thrones or the Witcher tend to do. Instead, it enables actors of colour to portray some of the most extensive and detailed character arcs ever written in fantasy. Tayla Blaire praises the Wheel of Time for showing its awareness of Othering in small remarks, like Liandrin’s comment on Nynaeve’s braid and her accent, but not lingering on it too much. Instead of focussing on discrimination based on ethnicity, Tayla Blaire points out that diversity is used to enrich the series more than anything. Details like the fact that actress Zoë Robins who plays Nynaeve, was able to incorporate her natural hair texture in the iconic braid of her character are incredibly significant. The natural hair of Black people is often straightened to make it more Caucasian in appearance, and this authentic hairstyle is a beautiful expression of Black culture that is often omitted in fantasy. To make it even better, it is incorporated in a way that still fits seamlessly in the world Robert Jordan created. In her video responding to the small controversy that surrounded the casting announcement, YouTuber Lezbi Nerdy expresses her delight as a Black woman to see herself represented in some of her favourite characters.

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To me, it is a very good sign that large-scale fantasy series like the Wheel of Time are starting to include actors of colour in significant roles, not just as tokens or side characters. It is unfortunate to see a specific set of fans reject this positive development for reasons that only thinly veil the structural racism that these comments are based on, but it is good to see the recognition and positive response that counters these sentiments.

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