This Thursday, Prime Video will finally premiere the third season of The Wheel of Time, its sweeping epic fantasy series based on the beloved books by Robert Jordan. The Wheel of Time follows Rand al'Thor (Josha Stradowski), a reincarnated hero known as the Dragon Reborn, as he goes on a world-spanning quest to prepare himself to face an enigmatic evil known as the Dark One. Guiding him is Moiraine (Rosamund Pike), an Aes Sedai sorceress determined to see him fulfill his destiny. Rand and Moiraine are at the center of season 3, but they're only two in a sprawling cast of characters, each of whom has a vital role to play in the story.
Adapting a series like The Wheel of Time is no small task. Jordan wrote 12 books total, including the prequel novel New Spring. After his death in 2007, Mistborn author Brandon Sanderson was tapped to write three more Wheel of Time books to close out the series. That's a lot of source material for a television show, especially in our current age of eight-episode seasons for most prestige TV series. The Wheel of Time is only expected to run for around eight seasons, which means it's inevitable that the show will have to make some difficult choices about how to best bring the tale to the screen.
We've been interviewing cast members from The Wheel of Time ahead of its third season, but now it's time for something a little different: an interview with Rafe Judkins, the showrunner of the series and one of the key players when it comes to deciding how the show adapts the book series. In terms of adaptation, The Wheel of Time is one of the most fascinating productions on television at the moment, and it was a thrill to hear Judkins speak about the show's approach to adaptation, how it will handle the cadre of memorable villains known as the Forsaken, and how it will approach the Stone of Tear, a key part of the book series that is being reworked for the television show.
Watch our full interview below, or read on for a transcription.
DANIEL ROMAN for Winter Is Coming: What are you most excited for people to see this season?
RAFE JUDKINS: Oh my god, there's so many things. I think one of the things I'm most excited about is [for] people to see more of the Forsaken. It was one of my favorite parts of the books, and just the interplay amongst the different Forsaken...and then the incredible actors that we have playing them. I think it's one of the pieces of the books that I love the most and that I think we really pull off well on the show.
WiC: Quick question: in your opinion, which Forsaken is the scariest?
RJ: It's an impossible question, I could not possibly answer it. I always found Moghedien to be the scariest because you knew if you saw her, that was probably the end. And anytime she was in a scene with a character, that was probably gonna be their last scene in the books. And so we've tried to keep that spirit alive for her in the show, and most of the time she's on screen this season she's killing someone we know and love. [Laughs]
WiC: Obviously, in terms of adaptation, bringing The Wheel of Time to screen is about as challenging a task as I can imagine. When it comes to adapting a work like this, how do you choose which pieces from the books to keep, which to alter, and which to cut out?
RJ: I mean, for me it's always about trying to find the emotional throughlines for the characters. That's the core that we always come back to, is "do you need this thing from the books to understand this character's throughline?" There's a few things beyond that that we'll still find a way to put in, like there's this fight scene in the books between Mat and Gawyn and Galad, Elayne's two brothers, that is so iconic in the book that we just can't not do it. And so for that we found a way to fit it into Mat's emotional throughline, and sort of like put the pieces together in it differently so that it became a very important part of Mat's emotional throughline.
But that's the core. We have so much that we can't do because the books are so massive and you know, it's not even like Game of Thrones where you get 10 episodes a season, like we just have eight. So our timing is so limited, that I am always picking something of, "does that help tell the emotional story that this character is on in this season and across the series as a whole?"
WiC: That's interesting to think about. So I have seen the first two episodes, and there's another one of those emotional throughlines that I thought about, which was Callandor. It gets referenced here, but obviously we don't see the Stone of Tear this season. Is that something you're still hoping to do later in the series?
RJ: Yes. I can say we have plans of how we want to approach Callandor and Tear, and you can see the pieces of it being set up in season 3. But we have a really clear plan, and always have had a really clear plan of how we want to do it. It just doesn't fall out in the storyline exactly how it does in the books.
A huge thank you to Rafe Judkins for taking the time to chat with us about The Wheel of Time!
The first three episodes of The Wheel of Time season 3 premiere March 13 on Prime Video. Seasons 1 and 2 are currently available on the platform as well, so you can refresh your memory before the new season drops later this week.
We'll be covering The Wheel of Time season 3 extensively here at Winter Is Coming, so if you're as excited as we are for it, make sure to check back!
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