Months after Prime Video confirmed the Fourth Wing TV series based on Rebecca Yarros' Empyrean book series, fans were finally treated to some big news in October. The streamer had officially found its Violet Sorrengail and Xaden Riorson, and it went over about as good as you would expect.
On Oct. 15, Variety reported Esther McGregor and Emilio Sakrya were officially confirmed to be starring as Violet and Xaden in the upcoming romantasy TV series.
While you’d think that people would be happy that casting is moving along, the last few days have been pretty much a non-stop stream of some fans sharing some displeasure over this casting. I thought that fans might be happy that, after all this time, there's movement on something with this show. It made me realize fans will never be fully satisfied with castings of romantasy adaptations for a couple of reasons.
We all have an idea of what these characters look like in our heads
It’s been about five years since I started diving into the world of romantasy. I’ve read so many romantasy books that it’s almost hard to keep track. I’m still looking forward to all the new releases and adaptations coming out in the next few years. It’s going to be a fun time for book lovers, but it's also going to be frustrating.
The biggest issue with adaptations like Fourth Wing is that these books have been around for a while. Whether you are reading the Fourth Wing books, another novel in the Sarah J. Maas universe, or diving into something new, we all have an idea of how these characters look. With how many of these romantasy characters are described, it's often hard to find their attributes in real, modern-day people.
I don't think an actor or actress will fully live up to the hype we have for these characters in our heads, because we’ve never really seen them in real life. The idea that we’re trying to find the perfect human to replace them is almost laughable, because they are imaginary characters.
It also doesn’t help that some of the pictures of these actors circulating online are some of the worst compared to their characters. That seems to be a little of what happened with the Fourth Wing TV series. If you follow McGregor and Sakraya on social media, you can easily see these two as Violent and Xaden. Makeup and costuming will help bring them to life.
Fans don’t see that at first, because we all have an idea of how they are supposed to look in our minds. And that’s fine. I personally believe it’s a big reason the ACOTAR series on Hulu never took off because finding casting for these characters is next to impossible.
In every adaptation, there are actors cast in these roles, and fans don't think they can pull it off. I’m sure when the Game of Thrones cast was announced, some people didn’t think certain nobodies in the industry could become these all-encompassing, powerful characters. Now, they’re household names, and we think of them as their characters half the time.
The same has happened to characters in other franchises, too, and over time we have learned to love them and see how well they perform. We should at least give the actors a shot before you condemn them.
It doesn’t help that the books aren’t finished
Another big reason I think many actors get criticized online when they’re cast is that, in many cases, the books aren’t finished. With ACOTAR, a few books are still left in the series. The same goes for Fourth Wing. A few other romantasy book series are within that wheelhouse, as well.
Why does this matter? Because fans don’t have the complete story to go off of. We base these castings on the story we already have, and because we don’t know what will happen next, we wonder whether these actors can pull off the unknown, and that’s not really fair.
For the casting of Sunrise on the Reaping, everyone kept saying how perfect the casting was and how much people were loving the announcements, but I think that’s because we already knew the full lore of these characters. We see their full progression play out, and we can envision that process. With Fourth Wing, we don’t know how the story will end for Xaden and Violet, so of course we’re nervous about how these actors will perform, since everything is still up in the air.
That, paired with the looks aspect, makes it really hard for these actors to do their job, and it makes me respect the industry even more. Who are we to judge at this point in the process?
We need to learn to let these actors cook and let the production team handle what they’re doing. Prime Video is usually really good with its adaptations. Look at The Summer I Turned Pretty, Off Campus, and the many others. They haven’t really steered us wrong.
While I know fans will never be fully satisfied with whoever I cast, we can, at least, give these actors the benefit of the doubt before assuming they could never be these characters. Yarros even gave a thumbs up to the casting and creative team for finding McGregor and Sakraya.
Stay tuned for more news about the upcoming Fourth Wing TV series. There are many more casting announcements to come.
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