The Wheel of Time actors helped design how it looks when they channel

The Wheel of Time is barreling forward with its second season of Amazon Prime Video. Fans seem to be taking to the new season more than to the old, and no wonder; it’s tighter, richer and looks better, in part thanks to VFX supervisor Andy Scrase, who joined the show partway through production.

Scrase talked to Screen Rant about updating the look of the series, starting with the channeling. In the world of The Wheel of Time, some people can tap into the One Power and control weaves of magic, visualized on the show as long tendrils of varying color and consistency. For season 2, Scrase wanted to focus on the way channeling was portrayed, including by adding in more color and variety.

“When I came onto the show, I thought it might be a good idea to speak with cast members who could channel,” Scrase said. “For our main channeling cast, I’d just speak to them about their feelings on channeling, and what they felt when they were channeling. I also asked them their own interpretation of their character. Not the fans’; just their own interpretation. That led to me thinking, ‘Well, is there a way that I can differentiate a channel that reflects a personality more?'”

"I think we’ve been successful in that, definitely, [with] someone like Liandrin. If you notice some of her threads, everything’s quite tight and taut around her. She’s holding her power back. She’s sort of rigid; like a viper ready to strike, essentially. So, yeah, I think it’s something I tried to do; I tried to carry on a characteristic from a person into the way they channel.Then, on top of that, we also have different styles for the different groups of people who can channel. We have our Aes Sedai, we have our damane, we have our male channelers, and then we have our Forsaken. I wanted to put a geometric, futuristic feel to it, so you’ll find there are tauter, tighter threads, and the shapes they form are a little cleaner."

Damane vs Aes Sedai vs the Dragon Reborn — Why channeling looks different depending on who does it

The damane are one of the most memorable additions to The Wheel of Time this season. They’re women who can channel who have been enslaved by the Seanchan people. So although they use their power, they are not really in control of it.

“With our damane, they can channel, but we really wanted to have a different feel to them when they channel,” Scrase said. “So without [changing] the look of the threads, because that’s our way of communicating the physical, visual form of using the One Power, that was a case of the layout and how it moves around the person. With the damane, it’s very much a metaphor; the channeling kind of forms a cage around them. Pulling a cage around their arms felt like an interesting visual to execute and to show to the audience. I’ve seen a few people pick up on that, and the cages that appear around the damane when they channel, so I’m glad that’s been noticed. Then, obviously, with the male channeling, we have the black corruption that slowly builds up as they channel.”

That’s different from how, for example, Rand al’Thor looks when he’s channeling. Rand is the Dragon Reborn, the most powerful channeler in the world. But he has no idea what he’s doing, which is reflected in the way his weaves look.

For Rand’s weaves, Scrase went to the source: actor Josha Stradowski. “I asked him about his input, and he said, ‘It’s there and then it’s gone. He’s just got no control over it.’ Especially with his channeling earlier on in the season, you’ll notice the channeling is kind of broken up around him; it kind of comes in waves around him. That’s really to communicate how he’s not fully connected and in control of the One Power. It comes in and fits and starts around him. So, again, it’s just another way of us trying to use the One Power to show the relationship between the channeling and the One Power itself.”

Are the Seanchan animals cut from the show?

Scrase is in charge of the VFX for more than just channeling, of course. There are special effects everywhere in this show; some of the grand cities are built partly out of VFX, for example.

But there are some VFX challenges that apparently the show thought would be too taxing. For instance, in The Wheel of Time books by Robert Jordan, when the the Seanchan invade Falme, they bring with them a variety of bizarre creatures from over the sea, huge reptilian beasts they ride or use as attack animals. Screen Rant asked if these animals were cut for budget reasons. Or maybe they didn’t even make it into the scripts?

"I mean, a whole range of things is discussed, especially when it comes to script time. With the Seanchan, they’re particularly menacing in themselves. With the way they look and with the helmets they have on, they’re pretty intimidating. If you’ve got that scary element already, sometimes it’s nice just to let that speak for itself. With the damane in this season, we got to make things scarier as well. From an early stage, it was about capturing the essence of a character or a group of people, as with the Seanchan who are a pretty formidable, scary, dominating force in themselves."

I get the idea that the crazy Seanchan animals were never seriously considered for the show. That makes sense; they’re not that important to the story and would cost a bundle to render onscreen. Maybe we’ll get an easter egg at some point.

“The books are my starting point” for the visual design of The Wheel of Time

There’s a lot of The Wheel of Time’s story left to tell. As season 2 ends and we look forward to season 3, Scrase plans to always consult the books when designing some new visual element. “For any sort of design on the show for me, doesn’t matter what it is, the books are my starting point,” he said. “From there, I might feel like it would look a little bit more interesting if we tweaked something here or there, but if I’m going to design something, it always goes straight back to the books. It always goes back to Robert Jordan’s original material.”

The Wheel of Time airs new episodes on Fridays on Amazon Prime Video.

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