It was sunny in Cape Town when Nerdist visited the set of Prime Video’s The Wheel of Time season three with two other reporters. We walked through lines of trailers for interviews, sometimes stepping around residents of Tanchico or Aiel warriors, their cadin’sor blending into the dusty setting. Wind blew fiercely, sometimes causing a pause in filming until dust no longer swirled in the air. The sets transformed the studio and stages into places right from Robert Jordan’s books. After a night of watching the cast film an emotional scene on one such set in the Aiel Waste, Nerdist sat down with showrunner Rafe Judkins. We talked about changes from the books ahead in season three, developing Aiel culture, and a not quite musical episode.
Nerdist: While I don’t want to be too much “what about this thing from the book,” I do want to ask about the Stone of Tear. Especially with its role in the Aiel prophecy.
Rafe Judkins: We have… What can I say? We have a really clear plan for the Stone of Tear, and it’s something that if we’re lucky enough to continue the show, you’ll see how it plays out, but it’s not been forgotten. You get a lot of dialogue about it this season. You hear the word Callandor in season three.
At the end of season two, we learned Mat is a Hero of the Horn. We know he’s part of the Tanchico storyline with Nynaeve and Elayne in the upcoming season. What can we expect from his journey in season three?
Judkins: We were very focused on this being a great season for Mat and giving him a lot of stuff to do, especially with Dónal [Finn] coming in and playing the role and him blowing the horn at the end of season two. It was one of the biggest—I mean people will die, but it’s one of the only big things we’re changing from book four for this season. Especially in comparison with changes we’ve made previously. It’s the only thing moving out of the Aiel Waste storyline
A big piece of that was that Rand’s major relationships in the Aiel Waste that he’s dealing with are Moiraine and Egwene. Then we also wanted to do the storyline of Lan teaching Rand to use a sword, and so if suddenly Mat is there too, then Mat is fourth on the call sheet and becomes a much smaller, less important character. It was really important to have Mat someplace that he is at the forefront of the storyline. We’ve also spent half a season with Nynaeve and Elayne together already at the end of season two and we always want to switch up those dynamics. So pulling Mat’s storyline from book three and having him go after the girls and stay with the girls instead, it gives a totally different dynamic to the Nynaeve-Elayne relationship.
I’m sure that’s highly entertaining.
Judkins: That storyline is just basically a sitcom.
And we know there are a couple things he does in the Aiel storyline that are important. It doesn’t mean that he won’t do those things.
Speaking of the Aiel, their culture is so layered. We learn the ins and outs along with Rand. What was it like translating that to the screen?
Judkins: The Aiel is one of my favorite things in the books. It is a fully formed culture in the books. All of the cultures Robert Jordan did were really beautifully crafted. One of the best things about The Wheel of Time books is how complex and full each of the cultures feels and the Aiel probably more so than anyone else. I felt like we really had a big mountain to climb in terms of delivering that to screen. A lot of attention to detail was paid throughout. We don’t say “the Fifth” on the show this season. You’ll learn about it in a very important thing that the Aiel do in season four. But every single person on this crew knows about the Fifth. They go, “Oh no, she would’ve stolen that from Tear because it’s the Fifth and this is where…” Like, everyone has a fluent knowledge of the Aiel that exceeds what you could ever imagine.
So many important parts of the story happen in the Aiel Waste, not the least of which is Rhuidean. That design, that story… how did you find your way to bringing the beauty and weirdness of it to life?
Judkins: Rhuidean was one of the biggest, hardest things for us to do because it’s a huge swing for a television show to do something like that. But I thought it was a swing that we had to take. We do an episode in the middle of the season where our characters go to Rhuidean and it’s unlike anything you’ve seen before. And it means something too. It talks about why we are who we are, both looking back at our past and looking to our future. It’s really deep what goes on in Rhuidean. Trying to bring that to life and also give a clear story that an audience can understand about who the Aiel are, about what the emotional effect is for Rand of being there, what the emotional effect is of Moraine being there. We really focused a lot of time and our resources this season on creating Rhuidean and pulling that off. It’ll either be the most beloved or the most hated episode of Wheel of Time because it is very strange.
The Aiel Waste, Tanchico, the White Tower. What locations were you most excited to revisit or explore for the first time this season?
Judkins: One of the fun things about reading fantasy books is getting to explore new worlds, especially The Wheel of Time books. It’s our job every season to bring the audience to at least one new world, but hopefully two, and this season we get to go to the Aiel Waste and to Tanchico. And they couldn’t be more different. The Aiel Waste is like basically a Scandi film in the desert. Everything is very quiet and dry and thoughtful, and the conversations are the same and the characters’ lives there are the same. Tanchico is the opposite. It’s vibrant and unhinged and dangerous and funny, and we have characters there who get to experience that as well. Having Mat and Elayne and Min and Nynaeve in Tanchico, you’re in a totally different kind of show when you’re in Tanchico than when you’re in the Aiel Waste. That’s one great thing that Wheel of Time can do that not a lot of other shows can do is… Can I say that? We have a musical episode.
Those are two of my favorite words in the history of humankind.
Judkins: Okay, it’s not a musical episode, but we will see a large number of our characters sing on screen in one episode this season. And you can do that in Tanchico while you’re simultaneously having Rand learn about what it means to be Aiel and Moiraine learn about what it means to know the future that’s headed her way. To be able to balance those things against each other, that was a big piece of the world building we wanted to do this season.
And while we have those locations, we’re also going back to the Two Rivers with Perrin. He’s been out in the world now, he’s seen more of the light and the dark. What’s that homecoming like for him?
Judkins: It’s just joyful to walk back into the Two Rivers. It’s special for all of us on the show because we all started our journey there together. In the same way as the characters, we feel like we’re going home when we go to the Two Rivers. It was emotional for all of us to go back to that set this season, and you definitely feel that emotion for Perrin. But we’re also showing it in a totally different light than what we did in the first season. It’s not just an idyllic place; it is much more complex. We get to spend the whole season there, so we get to learn a lot more about the people there. We get to learn a lot more about Perrin and how he fits into that world and the Whitecloaks and Trollocs, there’s a lot going on there that’s really complicated and interesting.
Likewise with the White Tower, that’s another world we’re spending time in this season, but it’s also a world that we’re seeing in a really different light. Even just in the way that Ciaran [Donnelly] is shooting the White Tower this season—a lot of times in the past it’s been a Mediterranean light, bright beams and a place of peace. This season, we’re always saying it’s a storm outside, it’s rainy, it’s gloomy, it’s scary. As Nynaeve and Elayne are hunting for the Black Ajah, these halls that have felt so beautiful and opulent suddenly feel like they have a lot of shadows. Who’s hiding in those shadows and everything feels more like a political thriller.
You mentioned Trollocs. We have who knows how many Forsaken on the loose now. What are some of the ways we’ll see more of the Dark One touching the world?
Judkins: I feel like you’re also seeing it through this sense of unease that’s reaching everywhere. One thing we are trying to do on the show is you see a gradual darkening of the visuals. That’s true to the books, this idea that as the Dark One strengthens his touch on the world, that it’s darker, it’s hotter, it feels different in the world. We’ve also moved to anamorphic lenses, so you feel more of the reality of the world around you. I think that visual subtext is good for the audience because when you get to the end of season three, four or five hopefully, and you look back at a shot from season one, you will have that feeling of like, oh, the world was such a bright hopeful place and where did it go?
It really did feel that way in season one.
Judkins: And we want that. We want you to have that cutback where you look at the growth that not just our characters have been on, but also this world has been on. Those visuals matching up with what’s happening in the story is really important.
You talked about the cultures in Jordan’s books, but I think one area where the show has developed in its own direction is in how it depicts the Age of Legends. What can you share about what we might see in season three?
Judkins: We see more of the Age of Legends this season. There’s a specific storyline where we go from the future back to the past and rebuild a culture through time. So we spend a little more time in the Age of Legends as we do that and start to really, for the audience that hasn’t come to yet understand what that time was and what it meant to have the world broken, I think at the end of this season, they’ll have a really clear idea of what the Age of Legends was like and what was lost. That’s really important actually to the understanding of what the series is doing as a whole.
Even if you read it, when you see those—sometimes seeing the Age of Legends when we do it feels like the first time I’ve seen it. I don’t know why, but the picture in my head wasn’t as clear reading the books as it sometimes is seeing it on the set. We are finding a language for the Age of Legends across production design, costume, and hair and makeup that everyone feels really checked into and understands. There is an aesthetic to the Age of Legends that’s different than any of the other aesthetics in the show.
We saw Dreamwalking in season two; that’s another area where the series has to develop a certain look. What can we expect with the World of Dreams in this season?
Judkins: This is a huge Dreamwalking season for us. There are only so many things we can tackle every season because when we tackle something, we want to do it well and fully. In the books, Egwene learns about dreaming while she’s at the White Tower. We already had a lot for her to be learning at the White Tower and experiencing in season two. So, we really wanted to treat the dream
ing with the respect it deserves. Egwene’s story in season three is very much about the dream and what the World of Dreams means and the possibility of it, and also the danger of it.
The Wheel of Time season three premieres on March 13.