I think when audition tapes were leaked, the character names were Nadie (Nynaeve), Eliza (Egwene) and Phineas (Padain Fain). So all characters who were cast had a code. The site that leaked these latest castings probably just had access to the casting database in which only the code for 'Steve' was available in the spreadsheet or something. 

From the casting we've seen so far, I think only Rand's description (tall, redhead, with light eyes) was a limitation.

All the others went basically either through color-blind casting or were named Rosamund Pike, and got the job because she was the most famous and talented actress they could find for that big role.

There were audition tapes of actors that didn't make the cut for Nynaeve, Mat and Padan Fain released in the net (and taken down later). Guess what, there was a white actress trying for Nynaeve that looked like most of the fanart (braid included) and a black guy trying for Mat. And Rafe chose the black actress for Nynaeve and the white guy for Mat. My guess is that the actors that were chosen were simply the best ones that fit for that role, all description aside, just by personality.

Let's see other deviations:

Lan - east asian actor for a character that's described as having blue eyes

Eamon Valda - black actor for a white character

Cenn Buie - white actor for a black character (dark as roots Jordan described him)

Padan Fain - black actor for a white character

Ms Grimwell - brunette actress for a character that's described as the first blonde person Rand meets in his life

Siuan - black actress for a character that's described as pale (but was drawn as dark skinned in the New Spring comic, which had lots of input by Jordan while he was alive)

And so on.

Do you see a pattern? The only pattern is the lack of pattern. It's color blind casting, something that happens a lot in theater plays. And it's happening here. So people should adjust their expectations, race-wise. On the other hand, with talent being the only determinant for who gets which role, we're probably going to get very good acting. Considering what happened with Sansa in the A Song of Ice and Fire - Game of Thrones adaptation, I prefer it this way. Sophie Turner kind of looked like Sansa once she dyed her hair, but boy she had trouble acting.
 

According to cover art (from The Eye of the World and New Spring) Moiraine should've brown hair. No other artist has drawn her like that except for Darrel Sweet. So we shouldn't trust him so much. Also let's hope trollocs don't look anything like Sweet drew them in the covers of books 2 or 5, because they're described as entirely different inside the books.

I'm also relieved that the K-POP singer rumor turned out to be just a rumor. I much prefer this actor, who has appeared in lots of episodes of TV series (and dubbed many movies as well).

On 8/19/2019 at 8:57 AM, SinisterDeath said:

Heavy armored troops cost more coin, than lightly armored troops.
Randland basically went for big, lightly armored Armies, over heavily armored, smaller armies...

 

http://personal.ars-informatica.ca/paul/wot/wot.htm
This shows that Breastplates were fairly common in Randland.
Full plate armor, not so much.

 

That said, I've always pictured a large portion of the Seanchan as wearing some of the heaviest armor in Randland.

 

Something to contemplate is that the Two Rivers long bow is a relatively new concept for these people. Most of the standing generals thought the idea of training anyone that long to use a Long bow was silly. That you'd never get the numbers necessary for a bunch of Longbow archers to be effective. (and you'd have to pay them more!)

The majority of randlander armor is able to protect, relatively well from Aiel Bows, and other low draw weight bows used by other armies.

Combine this with a relative lack of war for the last 500-1000 years, with the last major conflict being a unifying fight against the Aiel. 
 

Contrast this with European history, where there was already a war every season in some part of Europe. Randland acts more like a 1 war a generation. This doesn't exactly spur innovation in Weapon/Armor Design. You have Aes Sedia constantly meddling to prevent wars, not create them. (So they act like the Pope in Europe)

 

I don't know how true it is that there's basically only one war each generation. Tam al'Thor served the Illian Companions by participating in many wars with Tear. And then he went to fight the Aiel at the Battle of Shining Walls.

Some nations seem to have conflict basically each generation, like Arad Doman x Tarabon, Tear x Illian, Tear x Cairhien, Cairhien x Andor, Amadicia x other people (the Whitecloak War).

Don't forget that the Borderlands also is in a state of constant conflict with the Blight, and Shienar apparently also with the Aiel (that's why Masema hated Rand at first).

My guess of why technology didn't seem to improve much until the end of the series was the theme that Wheel of Time had of decay. The Dark One's touch is getting stronger on the world / Pattern, and this is seen in large tracts of land becoming unihabitable (like the Caralain Grass). It's not that they become deserts, it's just that the crops fail and people can't live there anymore. The Compact of the 10 Nations was basically the technological and logistical peak of the Third Age. After that Mat notices that his memories have armies that become smaller. They become bigger again when Arthur Hawkwing united all the Westlands, but by the time the series starts the size of the armies is a fraction of what it was before, like comparing the Middle Ages with Antiquity. 

We also see that with the White Tower, with how empty it is compared to the centuries before, how people have forgotten a lot of weaves and what ter'angreal do or how to make them. It's a whole theme of decay that grows stronger until our main characters come to the rescue of the world.

On 8/19/2019 at 3:09 AM, Polskija said:

 

The early years are mostly because of the armor. People even in battles are mostly seen wearing chainmail and hardly any use plate armors and even Shienarans don't use full plate armors, which in our world became more and more prominent in 1200's and up. Earliest gunpowder weapons (as we see in books) were invented in 1000's. 

From what little I understand from clothing is what the women wear there are examples of high collared dresses of renaissance 1500 and later. 

 

edit: Sort of off-topic, but I'm also a bit frustrated with the lack of shields on the nations. A lot of them are using light armour and two handed weapons while bows and even (TR)longbows exist. Shields only started to leave the picture when armor could withstand arrows. 

People used armour and shields because they were efficient protection and if you had the money (as at least the lords and professional soldiers would have), you'd have the best protection you can afford when going into battle. 

Regarding the lack of shields:

Japanese warriors didn't use shields. Their amored sleeves (kote) were bigger to compensate that. So Randland is something like Japan not only in people using swords that look like katanas and sword forms that have outrageous names, but also in lacking shields (until the Legion of the Dragon uses pavises).

13 minutes ago, JenniferL said:

I have always wondered if that meant Tam and Morgase met during the Aiel War. 

I thought about that too. Maybe it'd have been expanded upon on the Tam prequel.

3 hours ago, DemandredFO said:

When RJ wrote EotW, which along with the white actor list, is being used to justify racism, it was still meant to a trilogy and not everything in there should be taken as canon. Like several of Min viewings in there do not happen, we never see Egwene sisters and I'd think the Amirlyn's sisters would mentioned and named if only in passing and there are other details. So everyone who does it just stop trying to justify the difference between light black and dark white based on vague descriptions which may or may not be accurate.

Not only that, that list could predate the publication of TEOTW and Jordan could've changed his mind in the meantime.

In that list there's a blue eyed actress to play Nynaeve and a blonde actor to play Perrin. Yet Jordan wrote (and published in its final form) that NOBODY in the Two Rivers had light eyes and that Ms Grimwell was the first blonde person Rand encountered in HIS ENTIRE LIFE.

Jordan did change stuff on previous books when there were mistakes (like Kari al'Thor's apparition conjured by Ishamael having dark eyes, which could totally be justified with Ishamael not actually knowing what she looked like, or Jain Fairstrider having disappeared in 994NE in the Glossary when the text says it's been about 2 decades) or when he just wanted to change things (like Alsbet/Elsbet). Here's a link with a few examples

http://www.encyclopaedia-wot.org/main/errata.html

Yet he never changed those parts that contradict the supposed casting list. So what's wrong, the list (if the list is actually true or was useful to Jordan at all) or the printed words in our official versions of books?

2 hours ago, SinisterDeath said:

Question.

If the two Rivers is 100% Isolated with Tam being the one outlier in the last 2000 years, How would Elaida even know what a Two Rivers person looks like?
AFAIK she's never stepped foot within the Two Rivers or Emonds Field. Moraine is probably the last Aes Sedia to go there since the Queen of Manetheren died!

 

Agreeing  with you. Morgase says she wouldn't believe Rand was from the Two Rivers, except for his accent. How would the 40-50 year old Morgase know how a Two Rivers accent is except if, you know, met one person from there?

7 hours ago, solarz said:

People get too hung up on skin tone. What bothers me a lot more is the fact that these people in no way looks like they're from the same small village that had been isolated from the world for 1000 years. It's not just their skin tone, but also their facial features that just screams they're from different parts of the world. The actor for Perrin also does not seem burly enough.

 

Of course, costume and makeup can go a long way toward rectifying the above, so I am perfectly happy to wait and see.

I don't know, I can buy it. In Brazil (where I live) there are small villages that haven't received a new wave of immigration since the 1600s. Most of the people in these villages look like a mix of the 3 main Brazilian races (Portuguese, Africans and Native Brazilians), but sometimes you see people who look more like one than the others. So you see full Black, full Native and full Portuguese looking people in small villages in the middle of the Northeastern region, sometimes in the same family! My wife and one of her sisters look like full blooded Native Brazilians even though the last Native in the genealogy tree was like, 200 years ago, and even though she's only 20% Native according to a genetic test we did for fun (23andme).

On 5/28/2019 at 6:59 PM, RDY said:

I wonder if they'll keep the part about Two Rivers people not being lily-white, race-wise. I mean, Rand says he's surprised to see someone with blonde hair for the first time in his life when he meets Else Grimwell's mother. And some people bullied him because he had grey eyes, which only peddlers or other foreigners had, no Two Rivers person had that. 

 

I wonder how the fandom will react to having lots of Latinos or Middle Easterners for the main cast, for example (not Rand, since he's clearly a foreigners, but basically everyone else in the Two Rivers). 

Just quoting this to say that some part of fandom did react very badly, but I'm proud how the other part of fandom is slowly being aware that the text actually supports the nonwhite Two Rivers cast.

There's a problem with that Robert Jordan list of actors.

In the Eye of the World chapter 31 Rand remarks that he has never seen a person with yellow hair (blonde) in his life before he met Ms Grinwell, Else Grinwell's mother.

The list puts Val Kilmer as Perrin.

I don't know if you noticed, but Val Kilmer is blonde. If Jordan was casting whoever he wanted in his head, why write that Rand had never met a blonde person in his life and then cast a blonde actor to play Perrin, one of his closest friends?

The list also has Jacqueline Bisset playing Nynaeve.

Rand remarks in chapter 2, when he meets Thom, how unusual it's to see two people with blue eyes in the same day (Lan and Thom). Everybody in the Two Rivers had dark eyes, according to Rand, with him being the exception and having been bullied before due to it (by Congars and Coplins). 

Jacqueline Bisset has blue eyes.

Again, is that list true or not? Lots of inconsistencies with the books.

So, is that list true or not?

On 6/2/2019 at 9:51 AM, Rednalloc said:

 

It's a common misconception that people from the Two Rivers have "brown" skin (which is a fairly useless description but whatever). They in fact have fairly light skin, just slightly darker than Rand's. This is specifically stated regarding Egwene, she has to spend months in the Aiel Waste to get tan enough to pass for Aiel (and she already had a farmer's tan to begin with). They do indeed have dark hair and eyes, just like pretty much all of Southern Europe. They are most likely intended to look like Europeans living close to the Mediterranean, such as Italy, southern France or Spain.

 

Now, I don't care how they cast the show as long as they keep to the iconic appearance of Rand and the Aiel and there is some realism in that the Two Rivers people look somewhat homogenous, different from Rand but not so different to make it laughable that Rand could believe Tam is his father. I have myself suggested Southern Europeans or Latinos (which fundamentally tend to overlap) could work perfectly fine. I don't think people would mind as long as it doesn't feel forced and is coherent with the books.

I imagine them to be like this picture of the Tunisian soccer team. Notice that redhead in the middle? Tunisian. His name is Fakhredine Ben Youssef.  If you ask any European they'll say that it's very easy to differentiate Tunisians or other North Africans, on average, from Europeans. But sometimes you have someone like Ben Youssef there.

Anyway, I doubt the casting this time will go this way, with people who look North African as the Two Rivers people. They'll not even cast people with Southern European ancestry, like Italian Americans. They'll probably cast people from England to make the show familiar, even though the text doesn't support it that much once you get down to it.

I wonder if they'll keep the part about Two Rivers people not being lily-white, race-wise. I mean, Rand says he's surprised to see someone with blonde hair for the first time in his life when he meets Else Grimwell's mother. And some people bullied him because he had grey eyes, which only peddlers or other foreigners had, no Two Rivers person had that. 

I wonder how the fandom will react to having lots of Latinos or Middle Easterners for the main cast, for example (not Rand, since he's clearly a foreigners, but basically everyone else in the Two Rivers).