Season 2 casting announcements

[AdamA]

I think it was Natasha O'Keefe people speculated might be Lanfear, but I think Elaida is more likely. If Lanfear shows up in season 2, it's just going to be as Selene, who will be younger and not permanent cast, not someone worth announcing, probably appearing at most in two episodes. Forsaken coming out of the wordwork is probably not until at least season 3.

[Katherine]

So I said I hoped they would cut the prophet story line in another thread. Guess we aren't!

 

Uno looks amazing and I hope he is the comedic relief in the show that he was in the books. Loved him!

[Katherine]

Also completely forgot about Ingtar. That was a great character, and I am glad they are including him. Maybe this means that the Battle at Falme will be as epic and it needs to be! 

[DaddyFinn]

7 minutes ago, Katherine said:

Also completely forgot about Ingtar. That was a great character, and I am glad they are including him. Maybe this means that the Battle at Falme will be as epic and it needs to be! 

He will break hearts if his story stays somewhat intact ?

[Katherine]

9 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

He will break hearts if his story stays somewhat intact ?

In the best of ways. 

[Pandemonium]

32 minutes ago, Katherine said:

Also completely forgot about Ingtar. That was a great character, and I am glad they are including him. Maybe this means that the Battle at Falme will be as epic and it needs to be! 

hopefully.  some are saying there will be no battle of falme, only Tear.  truthfully Rand only needs to proclaim himself once so we shall see.  I can't imagine they will have Ingtar and not have his sacrifice.

 

Also I'm wondering at what point Fain will steal the dagger.  Is it even reasonable 5o still think Fain will take the dagger at the same time as the horn.  not sure, lots if wild cards 

[swollymammoth]

I mean, I guess this is a dead horse at this point but I think I owe it to all the people who thought that everyone who was mad about the casting was racist to say that I'd always imagined the Borderlanders as being Asian and I'm bummed that there's white people here. 
 

I get what they're going for with the multicultural casting, but I still think it's really distracting and I would have preferred each country to be different. Like, make the people from Tear and the other seaside nations darker skinned, make the Andorians and Cairheiners white since they're British and French inspired, respectively, and then the borderlanders can be played by Asian actors. 

 

Boom. Just like that, you've got a super multicultural world, just not from episode 1. But if there's anything that season 1 has taught us about Rafe, it's that he and the other writers are very, very impatient. Instead of creating a more natural feeling diversity and letting it unfold as the characters explored the further reaches of the world, they just shoehorned it all in at the beginning with the ironic result of completely homogenizing the world. 

[swollymammoth]

38 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

He will break hearts if his story stays somewhat intact ?

Judging on what we've seen so far, this is an absolutely enormous IF. 

[swollymammoth]

23 hours ago, mogi68 said:

Guy Roberts looks like he'll make a proper Uno

 

Can't wait to see Uno crying when he stubs his toes and giving young boys a sterling example of positive masculinity. 

[Ralph]

3 minutes ago, swollymammoth said:

completely homogenizing the world. 

 

Only in terms of skin colour, which RJ barely mentions. Have you seen the BtS about the costumes? 

Edited December 7, 2021 by Ralph

[swollymammoth]

6 minutes ago, Ralph said:

Only in terms of skin colour, which RJ barely mentions. Have you seen the BtS about the costumes? 

I just can't buy it ? When I see a bunch of people who all look totally different wearing similar costumes, to me that looks more like a horde of cosplayers at a convention than a believable society. I get that there's people who all they need is to see clothes and that's fine, but I can't do that. I need more than that. 

 

Also, RJ barely mentions skin color, but he creates strong distinctions between the different cultures with his writing. TV can't do that. It's a visual medium. Hmmm... what's a visual way to reinforce distinctions between cultures? You can do costumes, but if the people don't also look somewhat similar, there's gonna be extra dissonance there, like it or not. Believe it or not, in the real world people from the same place have traditionally looked basically the same and our brains are used to thinking that way. 

 

Like, are these two people from the same place? They're wearing similar clothes! You might say, "Well, that's a picture from the real world. This is Wot," but when you see two different looking WoT people, you still have to suspend your disbelief to accept they're actually from the same place because your brain is used to categorizing people that way (whether you like it or not). I'm saying they could have avoided placing this extra barrier to immersion there in the first place and still accomplished their goal of diversity in the long run. They were just impatient and wanted to market the show as diverse from the outset. 

[Katherine]

23 minutes ago, swollymammoth said:

I mean, I guess this is a dead horse at this point but I think I owe it to all the people who thought that everyone who was mad about the casting was racist to say that I'd always imagined the Borderlanders as being Asian and I'm bummed that there's white people here. 
 

I get what they're going for with the multicultural casting, but I still think it's really distracting and I would have preferred each country to be different. Like, make the people from Tear and the other seaside nations darker skinned, make the Andorians and Cairheiners white since they're British and French inspired, respectively, and then the borderlanders can be played by Asian actors. 

 

Boom. Just like that, you've got a super multicultural world, just not from episode 1. But if there's anything that season 1 has taught us about Rafe, it's that he and the other writers are very, very impatient. Instead of creating a more natural feeling diversity and letting it unfold as the characters explored the further reaches of the world, they just shoehorned it all in at the beginning with the ironic result of completely homogenizing the world. 

 

Yeah I think Amalisa and Lord Aglemar look SPOT ON. Wondering why everyone else is white lol. 

 

[SinisterDeath]

1 hour ago, swollymammoth said:

I just can't buy it ? When I see a bunch of people who all look totally different wearing similar costumes, to me that looks more like a horde of cosplayers at a convention than a believable society. I get that there's people who all they need is to see clothes and that's fine, but I can't do that. I need more than that

AoL/Breaking scattered people into the wind, and where they settled, they developed a new culture. There's only a "few", that are generally the same "race/ethnicity", and that's the Aiel & Seafolk.

 

In Fallout 4, all the brotherhood of steel wear the same kinds of clothes. The fact that there are Whites, Blacks, Asians, men and women in their rank, doesn't detract that they've developed their own "culture".

 

WoT Cultures =/= Real world.

This plot point/world building will lead to "controversy" in our reality as we'll inevitable get articles decrying it as "cultural  appropriation".

[AdamA]

I really don't get the diversity complaints at all. It makes sense for a depiction of an actually medieval earth, but not for this. Any city on the planet that I've ever been in (grew up in LA, currently live in Dallas) is already a mix of people from everywhere. Thousands of years in the future, that will seemingly still be the case, even more the case. What will make each place unique is exactly the culture, dress, mannerisms, food, language. It won't be skin color. British and French people right now include plenty of Asian and Black people.

Edited December 7, 2021 by AdamA

[swollymammoth]

32 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

There's only a "few", that are generally the same "race/ethnicity", and that's the Aiel & Seafolk.

 I've said it before, but this is head canon. It's also head canon that everyone is at least racially divided by nation (my stance). Both points are equally unconfirmed by the text. 

 

However, this is one case where I would have preferred liberties to be taken in adaptation. If we're gonna dress all the Aes Sedai like colored markers so that the audience can tell them apart from one another, then just giving a coherent look to each nation/region is a nice, easy way to visually represent where they are from and also better communicate to the average viewer a sense of realism. 

 

IMO, the idea that the entirety of Randland has the demographic spread of a liberal arts college is ludicrous even given that travel and mixing was occurring during AoL.

 

However, that's not my point. My point is that our brains are trained to see people that look alike and group them together. Now, I know that in 2021 it isn't cool to talk about reality, but this is the case, and having every nation consist of the same racial demographic is going to strain disbelief. Like, outside of a focus group, there's almost nowhere on earth you can go that's gonna have the diversity of Randland. That kind of world rings false to most people and creates an unnecessary barrier to engagement. 

 

It's kind of like Egwene's mole. There's nothing wrong with having a mole, but every time I see it I can't help but cringe, and the show would be a better experience if it was gone.  

[swollymammoth]

41 minutes ago, AdamA said:

It makes sense for a depiction of an actually medieval earth, but not for this. Any city on the planet that I've ever been in (grew up in LA, currently live in Dallas) is already a mix of people from everywhere. Thousands of years in the future, that will seemingly still be the case, even more the case.

Right now, diversity on earth is incredibly localized. Even in America and Europe, it's centralized to the cities. But go to the countryside and already you've left the diversity bubble. Have you ever visited a city in Mexico? Bolivia? Ghana? Japan? Most places are pretty ethnocentric (neither good nor bad, just a fact). 

 

As for your prediction regarding the future, it's quite optimistic considering that we're not even a century into the multiculturalist experiment and already minorities are crying "we want out!" and calling for spaces to be carved out in society where they can live and not have to interact with white people. 

 

And why shouldn't they? 

 

While minorities make up the diversity in a population, they are also benefit the least from participating in the system and face the constant threat of assimilation and the erasure of their cultural identity through exposure. This leads to disenchantment, and - if anything - the current trajectory would seem to suggest a voluntary return to ethnocentricity on the part of minorities in the name of solidarity and preserving their identities rather than dying on the altar so that white people can gloat about the "diversity" in their communities. 

 

But hey. That's just my assessment of things. Thought I'd chip in since we're all bringing our totally unfounded predictions for the far off future into this discussion about creative choices in a TV show. 

[AdamA]

I'm ethnically Mexican and yes, I've been to cities in Mexico. I'm not sure what makes you think they aren't diverse. Mexican national ethnic identity has been explicitly mestizo or mixed race ever since the fall of the Spanish Empire. We've run the gamut of skin colors from fairly pale to very dark for centuries.

 

If this bothers you so much, I don't know what to say other than get used to hating television for the rest of your life. I think the days of racially restricted casting calls for a majority of roles are largely behind us.

 

You seem to have read the books and are seemingly aware that the Age of Legends was completely free of war or evil and didn't even have militaries or law enforcement. I doubt there was a whole lot of ethnic strife and oppression of minorities.

Edited December 8, 2021 by AdamA

[Elder_Haman]

This is getting way off topic. Let’s stick to the subject matter, shall we?

[Whittle]

The 2 actresses cast as unannounced characters have got to be Elaida and Verin right?

Also strange that no Faile casting has been announced since a mashup of book 2 and 3 is expected for season 2. What about Aviendha and Gaul? They are introduced in book 3. Will Juilan Sander get cut from the adaptation?

Edited December 8, 2021 by Whittle

[Skipp]

4 hours ago, swollymammoth said:

 I've said it before, but this is head canon. It's also head canon that everyone is at least racially divided by nation (my stance). Both points are equally unconfirmed by the text. 

 

However, this is one case where I would have preferred liberties to be taken in adaptation. If we're gonna dress all the Aes Sedai like colored markers so that the audience can tell them apart from one another, then just giving a coherent look to each nation/region is a nice, easy way to visually represent where they are from and also better communicate to the average viewer a sense of realism. 

 

IMO, the idea that the entirety of Randland has the demographic spread of a liberal arts college is ludicrous even given that travel and mixing was occurring during AoL.

 

However, that's not my point. My point is that our brains are trained to see people that look alike and group them together. Now, I know that in 2021 it isn't cool to talk about reality, but this is the case, and having every nation consist of the same racial demographic is going to strain disbelief. Like, outside of a focus group, there's almost nowhere on earth you can go that's gonna have the diversity of Randland. That kind of world rings false to most people and creates an unnecessary barrier to engagement. 

 

It's kind of like Egwene's mole. There's nothing wrong with having a mole, but every time I see it I can't help but cringe, and the show would be a better experience if it was gone.  

Yeah..... you kinda lost all credibility with this post. Should probably avoid this topic from now on.

[JenniferL]

Yeah, the United States is kind of weird in how racially segregated we are. It’s an echo of the enforced legal segregation a few generations ago. But it would be really silly to think that’s how the rest of the world “naturally” works. If a place is racially homogenous there’s usually a reason for that. 
 

But let’s move off from the race of cast members because that conversation never goes anywhere fun. 

[ArrylT]

Oh man Season 2 cannot come fast enough - this guy is Uno!

 

 

[flinn]

 I absolutely love The Last Kingdom. When I run out of shows to watch I will replay it just for background noise while I am reading or doing other activities. I always pictured Masema to be more weathered and grizzly than the actor that is going to be playing him.

[Terry05]

It might just be me but the pictures of Natasha O'Keefe with red hair could be a good match for Aviendah. Most seem to think either Lanfear or Elaida but I'm backing her for Avi

[Sabio]

I'm guessing Falme will happen if we are already getting rumors of "ships disappearing in the West".  So anxious to see what the Seanchean look like.