Rafe, Josha, and Madeleine: Happy birthday! Happy birthday Dragonmount! Happy birthday, woop!

Dragonmount (Humberto): Hello guys my name is Humberto and as I said I work for Dragonmount which is the oldest Wheel of Time website

Madeleine: Yeah!

Josha: Oh that's sick!

Rafe: It's OG Wheel of Time!

Josha: I love that 

DM: Last time we spoke with you, Rafe, you said that the Wheel of Time fandom is statistically the greatest fandom ever. How do you feel? Does it still hold up or do we need some spanking?

R: Statistics are statistics! They don't change.

M: Statistics don’t lie!

R: It's still the greatest fandom statistically. But I think it's, you know, what they found when they were looking at the statistics was that the response to our show is more positive. I know sometimes it doesn't feel like it in the echo chamber of the internet but like actually the response amongst fans is more positive than almost any other adaptations that are out there and that the fans are more welcoming to people outside of the fandom than any other fandoms and so I think that that's always been a nice thing about Wheel of Time. You guys created that with Dragonmount way before the show ever existed, that this was a fandom who wanted to have people come into it instead of wanting to have people stay out of it, and I think that that’s true for the show too now.

J: And that’s also nice that we're here. We have you in the room because—we just spoke about it—but over the last years everything has been on Zoom, or we weren't able to do any kind of press This is actually the first time after four or five years that we can engage. That's lovely.

R: Yeah, that’s nice, that's nice!

DM: Last time, you said that your favorite dinosaur was the pachycephalosaurus?

R: (laughs) That's what I said, apparently!

All laugh

DM: So now I feel obligated to ask the cast of The Wheel of Time: what's your favorite dinosaur?

J: I mean, T-Rex!

R: That’s what the Dragon Reborn would say!

M: Destruction! There was this one… I worked on a show called The Ark and it was all dinos, dinos, dinos. And there was one, I can't remember the name, but it’s got these spikes on their backs and they can regulate their temperatures through their little spikes and I thought that was really cute. So I love them. The spiky one!

DM: And speaking about dinosaurs and creatures and monsters, one of my favorite things about the Wheel of Time is the shadowspawn like the Trollocs and stuff like that. And in the show we've seen the Trollocs, the Fades but there's still one creature that I really like that we haven't seen it yet. And I think in the Shadow Rising there's a scene with Rand and the Draghkar. . . Can we expect to see other creatures in season three or later in the show?

R: I will say that, every season… well, not the first, but in both season two and season three the Draghkar has been scripted as happening in the show, and then eventually gets removed when we talk to the VFX department and they’re like Rafe, Rafe Rafe, we can’t do this for one scene.

DM: So, not yet. . .

R: We would like to get it in there! And the Draghkar has a real, I don't know if I should say this, but in the writer's room we always joke about the Draghkar being like a car full of drag queens, so when the Draghkar arrives it's just like beep beep motherfuckers!

M: Get in, bitches!

J: But there will be other creatures, right?

R: Yeah! We have a new shadowspawn this season. . .

DM: Nice! So I had lots of questions prepared for you guys, and then I saw the trailer and I had to scrap everything to just talk about what I saw! There's Rhuidean, and there's the Car’a’carn and the Aiel Waste and so many cool things for the book fans. And I would like to ask which scene was the easiest to adapt from the book and not have to say: ‘oh we have to change this and we have to change that.’ Just look at the book and say: ‘ah we can pretty much do this as it is.’

R: I think one scene that was really easy to do this season—and I've been really excited to get to it for a while because I think it's such a beautiful scene—is a scene with Matt and Siuan Sanche and, you know, we don't often get to because we're compressing so much from the books and we have to change little things along the way so we don't often get to have exactly the group of characters, and exactly the place that they were in the books, saying exactly the words that they said in the books. We don't get all three of those things very often and that scene is pretty much exactly the characters, exactly where they were, and saying very close to exactly the words. So it was easy to write that because you just type it up!

M: Copy and paste!

DM: And I want to talk about Egwene a little bit. On the previous seasons Egwene was this character that had a lot of the world building and the concepts about the show and the book being shown through her eyes like the Seanchan and the damane and I believe in the next season we have the World of Dreams and Tel’aran’rhiod. I don’t know if you can talk about it, but how is it to play this character that so much of the world building and core concepts that have to be shown to the audience goes through your eyes?

M: Oh, It's amazing because I get the privilege of you know exploring these different worlds through her eyes and you know we've traveled to some amazing locations like on this show and you know I wouldn't be able to do that if I wasn't playing her. And exploring the different cultures and meeting the people that exist in those worlds has been really wonderful to learn more about the world and her, and who she is, and what her abilities are. You know, I think even with season two in the damane cells you know you're never actually like in there with her? She's telling Min what has happened when that's happening. . .

R: . . .In the books, yeah. . .

M: . . .and so to be able to have a whole episode just to like deep dive into it has been fantastic and it's the same sort of thing with the dream walking (in season three).

DM: That’s perfect. And I think, I don’t know, this is my first time doing this! But it’s just that one minute left. . .

R: Oh no that’s ok! One minute left!

M: Yeah, yeah!

DM: (to Josha) I know this is not your first time in Brazil.

J: It’s not, no

DM: And what about you guys?

M and R: First time!

DM: Please come film here!

All laugh

M: We’re so down!

R: We would love to! You call us and let us know about a government rebate and we’re here!

All laugh

DM: It was great talking to you!