Rafe joined a live panel discussion as part of JordanCon Online. The panel was moderated by Matt Hatch of The Dusty Wheel and Theoryland. Panelists included Shannan Lieb of TarValon.net, Jennifer Liang of JordanCon, Daniel Green and Adam Whitehead.

Did Rafe make any news? Let’s go through some of his takes and answers.

On adaptations: “my job is to protect the spine and the heart of what the books are”

On the current hiatus: they will have all 8 episodes of season two ready before they started prep (which includes costumes, location scouting, etc…).

News: Rafe confirmed season one has 8 episodes. Quote: “we had all 8episodes written going into prep”

On bonding: all the cast do all go to the same gym in Prague. The Slovenia experience where a good chunk of a couple of episodes were shot, it felt like a real bonding experience.

The Runaways: while shooting a scene in Slovenia with Nynaeve and Egwene, on his way to the bathroom trailer, Rafe saw a car which apparently the three ta’veren rented behind everyone’s back. Josha was driving, Marcus riding shotgun and Barney in the back hiding. (This feels right, yes?)

On why he took on the show: “I can’t let anyone else do this”. When he found out about it, he just reached out to Sony right away, living Spain at the time, and said I’m coming to pitch the show to you.

On gender: the book series is more about gender than it is about women and men. The story as-is tackled some modern issues of gender. It isn’t hard as other book series because this stuff is in the books. Trying to “stay true to the intention” of the books. He gave the example of something that might have seemed feminist at the time of publication but no longer by today’s standard, you have to update it to maintain that intent. It’s more about balance between the genders than it is about women.

On the show honoring Robert Jordan: access to Harriet, Maria and Sanderson is the gateway to what RJ thought and believed. They revisit interviews and talks by Robert Jordan quite a bit for pronunciation, answers, thought process, etc…

On behind the scenes stuff: it’s best to watch behind the scenes stuff after you seen the actual scenes. It’s better to see Moiraine for the first time “through the lens of a camera” as opposed to off to the side with a camera, because that is “more authentic” to what they are doing.

Final words: “I’m watching it and watching a bunch of episodes in a row this week… I’m enjoying.. Like I’m excited to see what happens on the next episode”. His hope is people get to enjoy it too. There will be changes. There will be things that’ll make you love and/or hate it but that’s the nature of an adaptation.

Our take: this was very cool of Rafe, excellently moderated. It was fantastic. Thank you panel and JordanCon.

You can watch the session in its entirety here:

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