That additionally places Josha Stradowski, the actor who performs Rand on Prime Video’s Wheel of Time present, in a novel place: In a present full of girls channelers, Rand is the one male channeler with any actual longevity on the sequence. Season 3 marks an enormous change for him, touring with Moiraine (Rosamund Pike) and extra keen to simply accept his function because the Dragon Reborn — and, with it, the burden of studying channeling.
However because the third episode exhibits, the reality is — for as a lot as she is prepared to information him — Moiraine might by no means have the identical relationship with channeling that Rand does. Whereas she says she understands the “thirst” he feels, his description pushes deeper; for him it’s not simply “dying of thirst” and coming upon a pond the place “water tastes like life itself” — it’s gorging on a candy poison that leaves him bitter and consistently threatens to tug him below. The concern they each really feel about his metaphor appears palpable. However nonetheless she has to encourage him to discover a relationship to channeling.
It’s a small scene, however an necessary one to each Pike and Stradowski.
“I feel that was one of many scenes we wrote along with Rafe [Judkins, Wheel of Time showrunner], as a result of this season, aside from exhibiting the channeling differently, I additionally wished the characters to speak about it,” Stradowski tells Polygon. “There’s so many presumptions about what it could be like, however they haven’t actually spoken about it collectively.”
For inspiration about the place Rand was at, Stradowski says he considered Mike Tyson, and the way he “didn’t like the one that he wanted to turn out to be with the intention to do no matter he did within the ring.”
Which is, sadly, precisely what Moiraine is left to council Rand with. “You won’t just like the individual it’s essential be, however it’s essential love each components of it,” Pike says. “You want to have the ability to love the shepherd and the explosive energy hub that you simply’re going to turn out to be.”
That’s to not say it’s not with out its dangers: As Pike says of that last episode of the week, Moiraine feels decidedly on the surface of Rand’s development, without delay frightened of him tipping nearer to insanity (or, presumably, already there and taking it out on Egwene), but additionally understanding he wants to coach. For Stradowski, the bodily act of performing channeling is one thing he’s trying ahead to creating, with Rand’s type being presumably a bit extra singular than that of the ladies round him.
“I hope we get to discover extra as a result of the channeling is so attention-grabbing,” Stradowski says. “It’s on a mobile degree within the books — there’s a second the place they attempt to heal males which have gone mad due to channeling. And so they look inside their mind and attempt to get the insanity out.
“And so they look inside Rand’s mind they usually simply don’t even dare to go there as a result of it’s so tousled. In order that’s the place we need to go.”
The primary three episodes of The Wheel of Time at the moment are streaming on Prime Video. New episodes come out each Thursday.