Here’s the character The Wheel Of Time‘s showrunner is dying to get on screen
Rafe Judkins isn't just a showrunner and a former Survivor contestant. He's also a long-time Wheel Of Time superfan
TV Features Wheel Of Time
For almost 25 years, The Wheel Of Time was in motion. The book series created by Robert Jordan published 14 books over its almost 23 year run, making it a prime candidate for a TV adaptation. Now, it’s finally come to fruition, with Amazon Prime’s new series launching this weekend.
Along for much of that 20-odd year ride was Rafe Judkins, who serves as showrunner on the new series. A fan of the show since he was a boy, Judkins was thrilled to get to bring it to life, even if that meant taking script notes from another Wheel diehard: His mom.
Judkins was first given the books by his mother, telling us in the video interview above that “I think it speaks really highly of the series that a young gay teenager and his middle aged mom could read the book together and both find things that they both love in it.”
When he got the call for the show, his mom started calling him with her thoughts, something he says extended beyond even his immediate family. “My brother had a friend at work who heard that I was doing the show and sent me a preemptive set of notes of what I should do and what I might be doing wrong and how I should fix it.”
Judkins, of course, has his own thoughts on all of those issues, plus a few hopes and dreams for the series as it goes forward into subsequent seasons. When asked which of Wheel Of Time’s 2700-plus named characters he’d like to someday get on screen, he named Aviendha, who’s one of the world’s strongest living female channelers. “I’m really excited to see that character get to screen,” says Judkins. “She was one of my favorites when I was reading.”
The Wheel Of Time premieres on Amazon Prime Video this Friday, November 19.
11 Comments
I wanna see that ogre thing
i can do a good impression of him from the audio books. rayyynd
I’ll take that as “consent”
*unzips*
Yes! I would love to see Aviendha. Imo, she’s one of the best characters that doesn’t get introduced until a few books down the line. (And maybe also Tuon – if only because she’s such a great foil for Mat.)Heh, I love that his Mom called to give him notes. WoT fans can be pretty diehard.
Aviendha’s great. I look forward to people saying “she’s just a ripoff of Ygritte from Game of Thrones” (tough red-headed warrior woman who keeps telling the main dude that he’s a bonehead) so that I can tell them that Aviendha’s first appearance in print was several years before Ygritte’s.
I’m wondering if they’re going to keep her original appearance the same. Desert-dwelling redheads was already a weird mental image.
I’d be a little sad if she varied too much from her description in the books, but that’s the least important thing about her. (But yeah, a fair-skinned redhead from the desert…?)
haha every time the red hair/blue eyes came up I was like “oh yeaaaah.” I do realize the Aiel looking like that is a major plot point though….
Any chance of a pre-air review of this? Or, dare I say, episodic reviews?
Man, the only thing that there Fellowship is missing is Uni the Unicorn!
I think it speaks more highly of his mom than the series, personally. I’m jealous; my mom read me a few books of The Chronicles of Narnia when I was 3 or 4, and that was pretty much the end of that. Years later I still remember a random conversation I once witnessed back in undergrad, wherein my a GIS professor of mine, who grew up as an Arab Christian in Jordan, was discussing Middle Eastern culture with another student, and he said something to the effect of “Look, Arab moms and grandmoms are not like yours, they’re not reading Dostoevsky”, at which point I literally burst out laughing (somewhat embarrassingly as it was a little eavesdroppingesque), the image of my mom reading anything more contemporary than the Apostle Paul, or my grandma anything more involved than the headline article in last Sunday’s “Parade”, being too absurd to even comprehend, I think my brain just short-circuited at the very thought of it. Anyway, this guy is lucky, it would’ve been awesome to have a parent sharing any sort of interests or even just a few cultural reference points.