One thing Prime Video‘s adaptation of The Wheel of Time is going to do is to make the simmering queer subtext of Robert Jordan’s massive fantasy series literal text on screen. Case in point: The Wheel of Time Season 3 Episode 1 “To Race the Shadow” lets one fiesty Far Dareis Mai and the Daughter Heir of Andor actually kiss…and more.
**Spoilers for The Wheel of Time Season 3 Episode 1 “To Race the Shadow,” now streaming on Prime Video**
About two thirds of the way into The Wheel of Time Season 3 Episode 1 “To Race the Shadow,” Elayne Trakand (Ceara Coveney) and Aviendha (Ayoola Smart) share a quiet drink on a Tar Valon roof that soon evolves into an all out hookup. The sexy moment is understandably sending shockwaves through the fandom. In later Robert Jordan Wheel of Time books, the two characters become incredibly close, sharing a bed, kissing, and even stripping down naked for a sacred bonding ceremony. While some readers thought this read as totally platonic behavior, others — including yours truly — intuited that Jordan meant for the reader to glean a romantic connection between the two characters.
The Wheel of Time Season 3 Episode 1 not only shares the latter interpretation, but also wastes no time establishing this relationship between the two powerful heroines. It’s a decision that Wheel of Time stars Ceara Coveney and Ayoola Smart “absolutely” and “definitely” loved.
“It’s something that we know the fans love and it was so special to bring it to screen,” Coveney said. “To set the tone for the season and set that relationship up from early.“
“I think having it take place so early kind of really just establishes that this is what this is, and this is where we’re going with it,” Smart said. “Which I think it’s quite nice in a way, because it provides that so early on that we were just like, ‘Cool. Great.’ Because there’s so much happening.”
“By the end of Episode 1, they’re all going in their own directions again. So we’ve kind of put this little seed in place that we know we’re going to come back to. And I think, yeah, it’s just really lovely to film it and take the ambiguity out of the books,” Smart said.
Elayne and Aviendha’s connection with each other isn’t the only seed planted in The Wheel of Time Season 3 premiere. Both characters also share scenes with Josha Stradowski’s Rand al’Thor, aka the Dragon Reborn. In one, the politically savvy Elayne offers the former farm boy from the Two Rivers sage advice, while Aviendha challenges the wetlander meant to be the Aiel’s sacred Car’a’carn, the chief of all chiefs, fated to save and destroy the Aiel.
“I mean, the relationship between the Dragon and Andor, she’s been raised to know that that is a very important relationship and something, in her political mind, she really wants to nurture and knows is very important for the future,” Coveney said. “So I think that’s what’s there.”
Both actresses noted that Elayne and Aviendha are two women raised to “understand duty,” which further illuminates, and complicates, their relationships with Rand.
“I think she obviously has such an innate sense of duty, having been brought up in Andor and being raised to take the throne, and she sees this duty being thrust upon him,” Coveney said. “I think she really, really empathizes with Rand in that moment, but equally wants him to step up.”
“I think for Aviendha, the Car’a’carn was always meant to be the answer to all of their problems or the prophecy, potentially bringing devastation to the people,” Smart said. “So there’s this kind of like ongoing internal struggle with what that means.”
“I think in the same way that Elayne has grace for that, Aviendha meets him being like, ‘You’re meant to be this person and I don’t see how you could possibly do this.’ So I think she finds him triggering,” Smart continued. “I think it is more triggering also in the sense of Rand, as a person, separate to the Car’a’carn, is struggling to step into what he’s meant to be doing. And I think Aviendha is also struggling with that in a different way with her own stuff, which we come to understand later on in the series.”
Smart is referring to a storyline that begins to reveal itself in The Wheel of Time Season 3 Episode 3 “Seeds of Shadow,” wherein we learn more about what spurred Aviendha to cross the spine of the world to find the Car’a’carn in the first place. Aviendha might have found the Car’a’carn in Rand, but something tells us she’s probably more excited about discovering Elayne.
The first three episodes of The Wheel of Time Season 3 are now streaming on Prime Video.
