The Wheel of Time Season 2 finally introduces one of the most important characters from Robert Jordan’s iconic fantasy series: Elayne Trakand (Ceara Coveney). Originally introduced in Jordan’s first Wheel of Time book, The Eye of the World, Elayne was cut from the first season of the Prime Video show to streamline the novel’s storyline. Now Elayne joins Egwene al’Vere (Madeleine Madden) and Nynaeve al’Meara (Zöe Robins) as a novice in the White Tower, where all three young women will struggle to master the One Power and become Aes Sedai.
**Minor spoilers for the first three episodes of The Wheel of Time Season 2, now streaming on Prime Video**
When Egwene initially meets her new next door neighbor, she’s less than enchanted. Elayne is the heir to the throne of Andor, a powerful kingdom in the world of The Wheel of Time. She arrives at Tar Valon with a full coterie of servants to doll up her otherwise Spartan quarters. Worse, she wrongfully misreads the entire situation with Egwene, first mistaking her for a servant, then for a fellow newbie, and finally as her “subject.” It’s clear that Elayne isn’t used to hanging out with the rabble and that she has a long way to go in wooing Egwene to her side.
“I think the best way to sort of describe Elayne is not to judge a book by its cover,” Wheel of Time star Madeleine Madden told Decider during a press day conducted before the SAG-AFTRA strikes began. “You see all of her mother’s ladies in waiting, you know, fussing over her and putting pillows in every corner of the room they can. Getting the lion sigils all over the wall. And I think very quickly, you learn that there is more to this girl than what meets the eye.”
One of the moments that makes Egwene reconsider Elayne is when the royal refuses to rat out the Aes Sedai who helped sneak Elayne’s luxuries into the White Tower as a favor to the Queen of Andor. Yes, it turns out she broke a very serious rule by adding some flashy red throw pillows to her room. When Sheriam Sedai (Rima Te Wiata), the head of the novices, asks Elayne to name her accomplice, the royal refuses. Even if it means that she will be physically punished in the woman’s place. It just so happens that Elayne makes this stand in front of Egwene.
“I think the thing about Elayne is, I don’t think she ever truly stops politicking. She’s the Queen to be and she always has that political mind taking over,” Ceara Coveney said during the same pre-strike press day. “But I think Elayne is a deeply honorable woman. She’s very loyal and she is loyal to the people around her. And I think in that moment, I do think it was a genuine kind of act of taking the blame, because she knows her power and she knows her influence.”
“But that being said, I don’t think she ever really stops that kind of politicking. And maybe there was an element in there of letting Egwene see her power.”
Once Egwene sees this other side of the Daughter-Heir, the two become closer and Elayne becomes a valuable friend for Egwene.
“Something that Ceara embodies so perfectly through Elayne is her ability to be such an amazing listener, and be very diplomatic, and give great advice,” Madden said. “I think that’s something that Egwene really needs at this point of her life and this part of her journey at the White Tower, you know. Her relationship with Nynaeve is quite fractured and she doesn’t have that sort of security blanket that she once did with having all of her Two Rivers friends with her.”
Speaking of Egwene and her Two Rivers folks, Elayne does seem awfully fixated on befriending both Egwene and Nynaeve. When Decider asked Ceara Coveney why Elayne was so dead set on being their friend, she admitted, “It can’t be denied that Elayne never truly stops kind of thinking about the politics of things.”
“I don’t think it’s completely a coincidence that Elayne decides to befriend the two potentially most powerful women in the tower,” Coveney said. “But at the same time, you know, Elayne and Egwene are in adjacent rooms. I think a relationship between them is always naturally going to form. I think it’s just a coincidence that Elayne and Egwene really kind of find themselves together at a moment where both of them are very much fishes out of water in a sense of where they are at that point in their journey. So they really kind of bond in that moment.”
“Building this relationship with Ceara was really fun and working with Thomas [Napper], our director of block one, he’s just so incredible at tapping into the psyche of your character. He’ll sit on the floor with you and talk to you like you’re one of the girls having a drink with him,” Madden said. “So, you know, it was really exciting to explore that side of Egwene and build that relationship with Ceara.”
Egwene might have a new friend and confident in Elayne Trakand, but where does Nynaeve fit in with this new potential clique? We’ll just have to continue to tune into The Wheel of Time Season 2 on Prime Video to find out…