The Wheel of Time boss promises “unique and crazy” Forsaken in season 3

The second season of The Wheel of Time wrapped up with a bang in “What Was Meant To Be.” Our heroes reunited during a battle in the city of Falme, Rand revealed that he was the Dragon Reborn to the world, and the Forsaken sorcerer Ishamael died, but not before he released his fellow dark channelers on the world. In season 2, Rand and company had their hands full dealing with two of the Forsaken: Ishamael and Lanfear. From not on, they’ll have to content with a whole group.

In The Wheel of Time books by Robert Jordan, there are 13 Forsaken, all of them powerful channelers who have sworn themselves to the Dark One. So far as we can tell, the show will only include eight. We met one of the newcomers at the very end of season 3: the shadowy Moghedien, played by Laia Costa. Lanfear also mentioned the Forsaken Graendal by name, so we know she’s involved. We also expect to see Asmodean, Demandred, Sammael and Rahvin, although the exact lineup is uncertain at this point.

The Wheel of Time showrunner Rafe Judkins is looking forward to all of these villains being on the loose in season 3. “Once they’re all out, you get two really fun things,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “One, each of these characters is an immortal person of incredible power that has three thousand years of history behind them. Hopefully that scene with Moghedien is a real signal to the audience that you may love Ishamael and Lanfear, but also each of these people is totally unique and crazy in their own way.”

Also, Judkins mentioned that we may not know which characters are Forsaken when we first meet them; remember that Lanfear ingratiated herself into Rand’s life by pretending to be a woman named “Selene.” According to Judkins, this will lead to a “who’s a Cylon”-type storyline in The Wheel of Time season 3. That’s a reference to the show Battlestar Galactica, where humanity was fighting a race of humanoid robots called Cylons who could be indistinguishable from real humans.

“Are there any Forsaken hiding in our world that we’re meeting in season 3?” Judkins asked. “In the books, each of them appears in their own way that’s unique to that Forsaken. And so it’s a really fun thing to unravel in the show because they’re almost like representatives of these different versions of evil. Moghedien’s fun because she is not driven by love in the way that Lanfear and Ishamael are, and she is a much more dangerous character because of that.”

The Wheel of Time tried to “humanize” Lanfear “in every way we could”

Indeed, while Ishamael and Lanfear are driven in part by their affection for Lews Therin Telamon, the last Dragon who has been reborn as Rand al’Thor, Moghedien and the other Forsaken don’t really care about him, which means they have no compunction about hurting Rand.

Lanfear in particular seems hung up on Rand. She and Lews Therin were lovers back in the Age of Legends, and she started a relationship with Rand in The Wheel of Time season 2. The other Forsaken don’t care about that. As we saw in the relationship between Lanfear and Ishamael, just because all of these people serve the same master doesn’t mean they get along or don’t plot against each other.

“Both Ishamael and Lanfear get another shot with this person that they were very close with and ended up becoming mortal enemies of,” Judkins said. “So with Lanfear it’s like, is she trying to recapture love with this man she loved three thousand years ago? Is she starting to fall for Rand, or does she hate Rand and only love the pieces of him that are Lews? That is so interesting and complicated, and that’s a relationship that can sustain a lot of seasons of interest because both of their perspectives on it are f—ed up and unique in a way that is very cool for the show. We get to explore something that you don’t get to explore very often.”

"In the books. I don’t know if you ever believe Rand’s going to be with Lanfear. But we felt like for that character to work in the visual medium of television, you needed to be able to believe that there’s some chance that those two could end up together. So one of the things we did right up front was in the casting process, we did chemistry reads with Josha and potential Lanfears because we were like, you have to feel that there’s something real between these two.”[W]e just tried to humanize her in every way we could because a lot of her stuff in the books is a little bit more straight-down-the-middle evil early on. By the end of the book series, you really come to understand who she is as a woman, which makes her lovable even when she’s doing horrible things. We tried to bring that and put it all in season 2."

The Wheel of Time season 3 is filming now

EW also mentions that in season 3, Lanfear will continue to show off her talent for manipulating Tel’aran’rhiod, the world of dreams. In the books, Moghedien is also very experienced with the dream world, so they could clash.

The Wheel of Time season 3 will mostly adapt the fourth book in the series, The Shadow Rising, although EW says it will also bring in elements from the fifth book, The Fires of Heaven. There are 14 Wheel of Time books in all, so we’re in for the long haul here.

We don’t yet know the release date for The Wheel of Time season 3. However, we know that they’re filming right now. With any luck, season 3 will be out by late in 2024, although we wouldn’t be surprised if it got pushed back into 2025.

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