Casting Choices - Thoughts?

[Malkeri]

On 7/8/2021 at 6:28 PM, SinisterDeath said:

It Is indeed.

 

Left to right

Mat, Egwene, Nyneave, Perrin, Moiraine, Rand, Lan.

 

Steve took the picture.

How is Nyn going to yank her braid???

[Daenelia]

12 hours ago, Malkeri said:

How is Nyn going to yank her braid???

Ehm, a braid is easily made. And I am sure there can be extensions if needed. I don't think the braid-yanking will go away.

 

Also, I did see a photo of the actress with longer hair and braids. Not an issue.

[DaddyFinn]

Nynaeve has a thicc braid in the teaser trailer. No worries

[Moiraine73]

My only issue is the actress playing Moiraine, who is supposed to be small of stature so that she isn't seen as a threat (in alot of situations in the series) ... However the actress playing the part is not, she's 5'9". 

[DaddyFinn]

1 hour ago, Moiraine73 said:

My only issue is the actress playing Moiraine, who is supposed to be small of stature so that she isn't seen as a threat (in alot of situations in the series) ... However the actress playing the part is not, she's 5'9". 

That changes pretty much nothing

[JaimAybara]

The replacement of Harris in the recasting bothers me more than not looking from some place. Just the lack of continuity etc. it’s a tough thing to deal with. (Hope it wasn’t too serious of a reason for stepping away). Jordan is pretty ambiguous with looks race wise except for a very few characters so I don’t much mind any of that, but if they did recast anyone for that reason Mat is the only one that would make sense. Also, the only character that would truly make me mad in not looking like a certain way would be “you know who”, and they did fine.

However, there are certain physiques and or aspects that are distinctly described. When I saw Nynaeve I was like ahhhh yeah, braid tugs in bound! With Perrin, I just wish he was bigger and overall in better shape, but they will likely have him do a boot camp training and work at that as the show moves along. Would have been better if he was truly imposing as a young lad when we first see him though, just because it is allllways mentioned. His shoulders, arms, and overall size. Again, this is something movie magic can probably take care of too. Also, not really impressed with his beard game, but they can always give him one. From what I have seen so far, it just looks like he has more of a neard/chin hair and a weak mustache. I want Perrin to have his oh so glorious beard when it finally arrives, and it just doesn’t look like the actor can really even grow a serious one. (Disclaimer: I am from the Northwest and we are known beard snobs I’ll admit it and apologize.) 

Moiraine is also indeed far taller than she should be, this gets into the being picky range for some, but there is something to be said about a smaller woman being able to impose her will on much larger folks around her, the juxtaposition between her and Lan and who maintains the power would have been cool on screen. Also think about the scene with the whitecloaks and how the contrast of before and after? 
 

At the end of the day though these are all things we can all get over if they blow our socks off with their acting chops. After seeing Rosamund in Gone Girl, whew, she got my vote! 

 

[DaddyFinn]

11 hours ago, JaimAybara said:

I just wish he was bigger and overall in better shape, but they will likely have him do a boot camp training and work at that as the show moves along. Would have been better if he was truly imposing as a young lad when we first see him though, just because it is allllways mentioned. His shoulders, arms, and overall size.

Perrin is the biggest of the three boys, so that's at least correct. Can't see much about his muscularity but I didn't expect a young Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

 

Edit. Photo from Marcus Rutherford's Instagram

 

11 hours ago, JaimAybara said:

Moiraine is also indeed far taller than she should be, this gets into the being picky range for some, but there is something to be said about a smaller woman being able to impose her will on much larger folks around her,

Egwene and Nynaeve are pretty short so there's that. 

 

11 hours ago, JaimAybara said:

At the end of the day though these are all things we can all get over if they blow our socks off with their acting chops.

This.

Edited October 4, 2021 by DaddyFinn

[JaimAybara]

1 hour ago, DaddyFinn said:

Perrin is the biggest of the three boys, so that's at least correct. Can't see much about his muscularity but I didn't expect a young Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

 

Edit. Photo from Marcus Rutherford's Instagram

 

Egwene and Nynaeve are pretty short so there's that. 

 

This.

He has definitely put on some muscle if that is more recent. Could be Amazon wanted him to keep it under wraps as much as possible. Yeah, Arnold level wasn’t my thoughts but kinda a Henry Cavill physique in Man of Steel. Beard is looking better here too. Nice find! Thanks for the post.

Edited October 4, 2021 by JaimAybara

[DaddyFinn]

13 minutes ago, JaimAybara said:

He has definitely put on some muscle if that is more recent. Could be Amazon wanted him to keep it under wraps as much as possible. Yeah, Arnold level wasn’t my thoughts but kinda a Henry Cavill physique in Man of Steel. Beard is looking better here too. Nice find! Thanks for the post.

It was posted 16 hours ago

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CUkf36gNF9t/?utm_medium=copy_link

[swollymammoth]

On 7/8/2021 at 6:25 AM, SinisterDeath said:

People in Two Rivers don't all share the same grandparents, and definitely aren't the result of generational incest. The "homogeny" argument is tired, and that word is never used in the books. ? 

I'll push back on this. The Two Rivers is a tiny farm community which is comparatively isolated where the people who live there are born there, live their lives there, and die there. The idea of Two Rivers is that it's cut off from the outside world. I mean, it's a big deal when a peddler comes by or that Tam's wife was an outlander. People don't come to the Two Rivers, and people don't leave. Like, Rand never even imagined leaving. He fully expected to die in the Two Rivers because that's what everybody does. 

 

Also, remember that one of the reasons that Moiraine is so interested in the Two Rivers is that its isolation has lead to the near perfect preservation of the Manatheran bloodline. Because there's been very little interbreeding with outsiders. This would naturally lead to the people looking mostly the same or at least sharing similar characteristics. 

 

I think it's totally reasonable/justifiable for a community like this to exhibit a certain amount of homogenization, especially when its been like this for a thousand years. 

 

So even if the word "homogeny" isn't used in the books, everything else is there to strongly suggest that a significant amount of homogenization could certainly be expected among the Two Rivers population. Not to mention that in the real world, isolated towns like the two rivers usually produce genetic homogeneity, especially across long periods of isolation. It's literally science. 

[swollymammoth]

On 9/17/2021 at 3:43 AM, Daenelia said:

Oh yeah. Fat chance that people with 10+ years difference will stay together for oh, 20 years and counting now. I am rooting for Min now, she is my hero right now and the one representing me the most.

 

Yes, I am more than 10 years older than my husband and we have been together for 19 and a half years now. Go figure. So unrealistic that I would be together with him for more than a decade. Maybe I should file for divorce ... ? (Kidding, I know it is not that common this way around. However, do ask yourself if this would be exactly the same problem if it was the other way around. ? )

This is a funny joke, but I hope I don't have to tell you that you've totally missed the point. The point is just that it might look weird if there's a visible age gap between characters who are supposedly the same age and that this could be distracting. 

[SinisterDeath]

9 minutes ago, swollymammoth said:

Also, remember that one of the reasons that Moiraine is so interested in the Two Rivers is that its isolation has lead to the near perfect preservation of the Manatheran bloodline. Because there's been very little interbreeding with outsiders. This would naturally lead to the people looking mostly the same or at least sharing similar characteristics. 

The WoT, is a post-Utopian world, where the entire world was one giant melting pot of Races, Ethnicities, and Cultures living in harmony, and then everyone was scattered across the world.

What "IS" the "Manetheran" bloodline, precisely?
What do we know about the genetic make up of the Mantheran Nation?
Answer: Not a whole lot.

We have a few descriptions of King Aemon & Eldrene, and they resemble Elayne.

Yet, The first Queen of Andor 994 FY, (1144 years after Manetheran's fall, and founded on Manetheran lands), her Mural showed her complexion as dark as that of an Atha'an Miere's. So Elayne looks nothing like the first Queen of Andor. (Interesting!)

During the Trolloc Wars (1200 AB), King Aemon and every man and woman under his banner died protecting the Manetheran capital, allowing the people to flee to safety. Upon his Death, Eldrene exploded the capital city and surrounding area with the One Power, and wiped the region clean of shadowspawn.

The decedents of Manetheran eventually returned to what later became known as the two rivers & Emonds Field. We don't know if it took them weeks, years, or centuries to return... and it's silly to assume the entire population of Manetheran that returned, didn't come back with new wives, children, etc. Also, the Trolloc Wars didn't end for another 300 years.

From there, we have a ton of wars/conflicts in the region recently and hundreds of years ago, that no-doubt conscripted soldiers from the area. Tax Collectors, trade, etc. 

The areas isolation in the grand scheme is relatively new. It became forgotten in just a few generations... and it's people forgot it's past. (Just how reliable is there understanding of the region's history?)

We shave descriptions of a variety of characters in the two rivers that range from "light" to "dark", and the only defining feature most in the Two Rivers share, is their Dark Hairs & Eyes. 

With the 2000+ years of history we know about that region, and descriptions of the few people we knew who lived their in the past, the worlds history as a whole, and even the current descriptions, there just isn't enough time for that kind of ethnic homogeny. 
But there was plenty of time for cultural homogeny. 

Something I'm wondering about the show, is if Rafe will show people of all colors sharing a culture, or if they'll do what they did in GoT and make one culture = one ethnicity.


TLDR:
Everyone in the various regions, cities, and countries in WoT, each have a shared culture, clothing, and local language/terminology that is independent of their race.

[swollymammoth]

On 9/15/2021 at 11:27 AM, CaddySedai said:

I too am of the opinion that while they SHOULD try to find actors and actresses who are both good at acting and also look like their page based counterpart if I am forced to choose between good solid acting and appearance vs the book - I will pick acting every single time. 

So if they'd cast Rand with a 4'10, 75 year old bald woman who was a reeaaaaaaally good actress, you would have been okay with that? Okay, jokes aside. This "as long as they can act" take is such a meme. You would not pick acting over appearance every single time. Nor would anyone. And this isn't a binary decision. There are definitely actors out there who look like the characters as described in the books who are also phenomenal actors. Not that it's always bad for there to be differences between a book character and an actor, but for immersion's sake I think we should agree that appearance maybe matters more than we've been giving it credit for. 

[Elder_Haman]

Why are we still having this tired argument? The show has been cast. Rand sticks out from the rest like he's supposed to. Can we please put this non-issue to bed?

[DojoToad]

9 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

Why are we still having this tired argument? 

Because Amazon isn't giving us anything else to talk about and we're bored.

[Elder_Haman]

2 minutes ago, DojoToad said:

Because Amazon isn't giving us anything else to talk about and we're bored.

Let's talk about something interesting then. Like whether they will combine Falme and Tear into one single location, or whether Bela is the Creator. Anything but this useless navel gazing.

[DojoToad]

1 minute ago, Elder_Haman said:

Let's talk about something interesting then. Like whether they will combine Falme and Tear into one single location, or whether Bela is the Creator. Anything but this useless navel gazing.

But Bela died.  Doesn't that give the dark one an unfair advantage in the 4th Age?

[swollymammoth]

On 10/4/2021 at 1:44 PM, SinisterDeath said:

With the 2000+ years of history we know about that region, and descriptions of the few people we knew who lived their in the past, the worlds history as a whole, and even the current descriptions, there just isn't enough time for that kind of ethnic homogeny. 
But there was plenty of time for cultural homogeny. 

Yeah, you've made a fair argument. I'm not saying that one approach (ethnic homogeneity/ethnic diversity) is definitively the case, just that there's not enough evidence to suggest that either one can be dismissed out of hand. 

 

For example, there's nothing to suggest that the society from the age of legends was ethnically diverse as you say it was. You may think "Oh, utopia=ethnically diverse," and that's fine. But in fact, there's very little which suggests ethnic diversity at all in WoT. As you say, people are described as having "light" or "dark" skin, but that's about it. "Light" and "dark" is totally relative. You could have people with light and dark skin among a group purely consisting of Caucasians or African Americans. WoT places way more emphasis on cultural difference than race which is exactly what an ethnocentric society would do. Like, the only group people in Randland are racist against is the Aiel and it's because they have red hair haha 

 

Lastly, I think that in this discussion, people forget that Randland really isn't that big. It's just one continent (estimates are that it's 3,500 miles from the Aryth Ocean to the Spine of the World. So it's roughly the size of America) not an entire planet, and it's very common for singular continents to not have much ethnic diversity. Africa, Asia, Europe, North America (pre-colonization, obviously). Any assumption that Randland is not also this way is just that, an assumption. 

 

But all in all, there's arguments to be made for both sides. I lean towards ethnic homogeneity in part because WoT doesn't really discuss race which leads me to believe that everyone probably looks somewhat similar in Randland so race isn't an issue. 

Edited October 4, 2021 by swollymammoth

[SinisterDeath]

11 minutes ago, swollymammoth said:

For example, there's nothing to suggest that the society from the age of legends was ethnically diverse as you say it was. You may think "Oh, utopia=ethnically diverse," and that's fine. But in fact, there's very little which suggests ethnic diversity at all in WoT

Gateways.
Travel.
Sho-Wings
And a unified culture/government that was shared across the world. 

All of which imply that people traveled, moved, and weren't stuck on the continent they were born.

 

Quote

Yeah, you've made a fair argument. I'm not saying that one approach (ethnic homogeneity/ethnic diversity) is definitively the case, just that there's not enough evidence to suggest that either one can be dismissed out of hand. 

We have the first queen of Andor being described as "Athan'miere".
We have Egwene being described as "fair skinned", Cenn Buie described as "gnarled and dark as a root", with the biggest common trait among two-rivers as dark hair, dark eyes. 
Nothing there says that they all look like "Italians, Portuguese, Moor, or Moroccan". There's quite a bit of room for interpretation. ? 

 

21 minutes ago, swollymammoth said:

in part because WoT doesn't really discuss race which leads me to believe that everyone probably looks somewhat similar in Randland so race isn't an issue. 

I look at it like "Race" isn't an issue because for ~2000 years the entire world was fighting shadowspawn and male channelers.
After, the fighting was sporadic and mostly over resources/insults rather than race/culture.

 

24 minutes ago, swollymammoth said:

But all in all, there's arguments to be made for both sides. I lean towards ethnic homogeneity

Of course there are arguments to be made on both sides, but I wouldn't say that I've heard many good ones. It's interesting how few people actually quote the books and other references when discussing the two rivers as a homogenous population of brits.

I go with "Cultural Homogeneity", as I believe it is demonstrably inarguable. 

 

[SinisterDeath]

34 minutes ago, DojoToad said:

But Bela died.  Doesn't that give the dark one an unfair advantage in the 4th Age?

Check the Companion.
She lives.

[DojoToad]

38 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

Check the Companion.
She lives.

Really?  I’ll run down to the den…

[swollymammoth]

On 10/4/2021 at 2:43 PM, SinisterDeath said:

Gateways.
Travel.
Sho-Wings
And a unified culture/government that was shared across the world. 

When I say that there's "little which suggests ethnic diversity" in Randland, I only mean that I read nothing in the books themselves, in the interactions between characters, in the descriptions, which outright states that there's ethnic diversity. You're free to speculate about the Age of Legends, but we don't know. That's just headcanon. 

 

Dark as a root is also a very broad range. Some roots are white! lol And even white brits can get reeeaaaaally tan if they're, you know, on rooftops all day in the sun (like Cenn, who is a thatcher). Again, the colors of the skin are all relative to one another. There can be light and dark skin colors among a group which is broadly categorized as white or black or anything else. 

 

For example, I lived in Bolivia for a few years, and Bolivians would call other Bolivians "Negro" (Black) for being just a shade darker than average and "Choco" for being a shade lighter than average. And yet no one would walk around a Bolivian city and call it racially diverse. 

 

In this light, all the descriptions of "light" and "dark" skin are easily reconciled with the idea that the people are largely similar in appearance. 

 

On 10/4/2021 at 2:43 PM, SinisterDeath said:

I look at it like "Race" isn't an issue because for ~2000 years the entire world was fighting shadowspawn and male channelers.
After, the fighting was sporadic and mostly over resources/insults rather than race/culture.

 

Obviously, this is a fictional world so there's no real answer here, but I don't see how this would have eliminated concerns about race (No, don't explain. This is not the place for a discussion about what causes racism to crop up in societies). My point is that this is your headcanon, and being such I can't refute it except with my own headcanon and now we're going in circles.

 

I'm just going off what's on the page. 

 

At the very least, by the example that you used we know that Egwene, at least, is white in the books. Which means they purposely changed her for the adaptation. Which means that the showrunners' first priority was diversity and not fidelity to the source material. 

[Elder_Haman]

7 minutes ago, swollymammoth said:

At the very least, by the example that you used we know that Egwene, at least, is white in the books. Which means they purposely changed her for the adaptation. Which means that the showrunners' first priority was diversity and not fidelity to the source material. 

This logic does not follow.

It is equally (if not more) likely that Madeleine Madden is just an extremely talented actress who nailed her audition and they didn't really care what color her skin was.

[SinisterDeath]

36 minutes ago, swollymammoth said:

Dark as a root is also a very broad range. Some roots are white! lol And even white brits can get reeeaaaaally tan if they're, you know, on rooftops all day in the sun (like Cenn, who is a thatcher). Again, the colors of the skin are all relative to one another. There can be light and dark skin colors among a group which is broadly categorized as white or black or anything else.

True, And that's going to be true whether you're in Nigeria, Brazil, China, Spain, or any number of countries. Light & Dark skin doesn't describe what we call race. 
 

36 minutes ago, swollymammoth said:

When I say that there's "little which suggests ethnic diversity" in Randland, I only mean that I read nothing in the books themselves, in the interactions between characters, in the descriptions, which outright states that there's ethnic diversity. You're free to speculate about the Age of Legends, but we don't know. That's just headcanon. 

RJ was deliberatly vague on a lot of character descriptions regarding race or ethnicity.
What we know about AoL, is everyone scattered everywhere. Post Breaking, it's entirely possible we'll have countries with "Caucasians, Asians, and Latinos" wearing clothing that we'd typically see originating out of Asia. We could see a population of what we'd call African & Latino wearing clothing out of Russia. 
 

 

36 minutes ago, swollymammoth said:

Obviously, this is a fictional world so there's no real answer here, but I don't see how this would have eliminated concerns about race (No, don't explain. This is not the place for a discussion about what causes racism to crop up in societies). My point is that this is your headcanon, and being such I can't refute it except with my own headcanon and now we're going in circles.

Our History as a species, has never had a Unified preternatural enemy like Trollocs or Myrddraal that threatened every nation on Earth.

It doesn't take much "headcannon" to assume that issues like racism, where equating humans with different color skin = not-human would disappear from human consciousness after hundreds of generations of human putting aside their differences and fighting literal inhumane monsters.
 

 

36 minutes ago, swollymammoth said:

At the very least, by the example that you used we know that Egwene, at least, is white in the books. Which means they purposely changed her for the adaptation. Which means that the showrunners' first priority was diversity and not fidelity to the source material. 

Actually no, it doesn't. 
Remember when you said

36 minutes ago, swollymammoth said:

Dark as a root is also a very broad range. Some roots are white! lol And even white brits can get reeeaaaaally tan if they're, you know, on rooftops all day in the sun

Pale, like Dark is relative with a broad range.

 

If anything, Cenn is the most drastic casting choice.

Plus they left him jobless!

 

[king of nowhere]

the argument about the ethnicities being mixed in the age of legends is a good one. What would happen if we mixed up everyone, and then we split up again? Normal evolution suggests that populations left isolated would gradually grow different until they become different races, then different species. But how much time would it take? And how much would those populations need to be isolated? I'd like to talk to a biologist about it. As good as anything else, under the "they're not giving us new material and we're bored" premise.

 

there's also the argument of how mixed was the population in the age of legends. The sea folk are all black, deep subsaharian africa black, this strongly implies that the people escaping on ships during the AoL were black.

 

We also know that there's genetic difference in the populations because some people are taller and some are shorter, sometimes to dramatic degrees. And it's not caused by different nutrition, even the cahirienin nobles are much shorter than the aiel.

 

Please, release some more material, we are really stretching our conversations!