Why didn’t Mat go with the group on The Wheel of Time?

The most recent episode of The Wheel of Time, “The Flame of Tar Valon,” ended with Moiraine leading the five Emond’s Fielders through a Waygate, a magical means by which they can reach the Eye of the World and potentially stop the Dark One before he can rise again and threaten the world. That plot beat will be familiar to anyone who’s read Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time books, with one crucial difference: on the show, Mat Cauthon (Barney Harris) stays behind.

This is a big change from the books. So why did it happen? Well, we don’t know for sure, and probably won’t until someone working on the show blabs, but we have our guesses.

Why did Barney Harris leave The Wheel of Time?

You see, before the first season of The Wheel of Time premiered, we learned that the part of Mat was getting recast for season 2. Barney Harris was out, and Irish actor Dónal Finn was in.

Mat is a hugely important character in the books, so this change is a big deal; the show couldn’t have made it lightly. For the record, we don’t know why Harris was recast — maybe it was a personal issue on set, maybe it was scheduling, maybe it was something else. But whatever the reason for his exodus, we guessing he left before he was done shooting the first season, meaning the team didn’t have someone to play Mat for the whole shoot. Therefore, they had to write him out of the final stretch of the season.

We’ll see if this theory is accurate when we see the final two episodes. If Mat isn’t there, that would seem to confirm our suspicions. If he has some kind of new subplot, it could be something else.

New episodes of The Wheel of Time drop Fridays on Amazon Prime Video.

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