A Costumer’s Look At The Wheel of Time: Ep. 2, The White Cloaks
There are some logistical things that authors sometimes don’t take into consideration when writing, things like practicality and usefulness. But as a costumer, you need to not only look at things from a budget standpoint but from a storytelling standpoint.
In a previous article about the Amazon Prime adaptation of The Wheel of Time, we looked at Children of the Light, aka White Cloaks, but I think it is something that deserves a deeper dive because we only got to touch on one side of the argument — what showed up on screen. In the books they are described as a heavily armored force of trained warriors; Crusaders if you will. In the show, however, they are more authoritarian, focusing more on the religious zealot aspect, more like priests than threatening tanks. If the designer went with the book’s version, what would that look like, what could we infer, and is there a possibility that we might see the White Cloaks heavily armored in the show?
I needed to do some research about plate armor and chainmail before tackling this subject. After watching an hour of people in armor doing things like jumping jacks, pushups and running, my original argument about the lack of mobility in plate armor was crushed. An armor enthusiast made a good point, that if a person in armor couldn’t keep up with an unarmored person, what was the point of wearing it? They did concede that after an extended period of time, you would probably start to lag. That even a horse is not going to last long under the weight of full armor at a full run for long. An armored White Cloak on a horse is going to be more like a tank and tanks are not very fast.
As a White Cloak you are suspicious of everyone and will chase people down thinking they are darkfriends. The hapless passerby might be a normal person going about their day. They don’t want to get tortured because you thought they looked at you the wrong way, they are most likely going to run. A White Cloak that cannot catch a darkfriend is not very effective and is less effective when pursuing someone in the forest on horseback or foot.
The average suit of plate armor weighs about 50 lbs. (22 kg) and while of course you can train your body and mind to be comfortable with the hot and cold conductive properties of metal as well as the chafing, you are still wearing 50 lbs. while of extra weight, hoping to travel long distances. Even Crusaders did not wear their plate armor while traveling to Jerusalem. Heavily armored troops walking through the woods, as portrayed in Episode 2 of The Wheel of Time show, seems inefficient.
We would also have to assume that while the White Cloaks are an extremely wealthy group, they would break the bank with the cost of all those suits of armor. Plate armor making is a very, very specialized skill and unlike chainmail it is not one size fits most. Plate armor is built for one person — think of it like a well-tailored suit and while it can be handed around, the measurements of the people have to be similar. On the other hand, chainmail takes less skill to make and is forgiving to different builds of people — more like a t-shirt — but making all and setting all the rings takes time. While it will be easier to hand around it is still a very expensive piece of protective equipment. And where is this money coming from, in the Wheel of Time world?
When a knight has to get a suit of armor, technically his workers, serfs, slaves, what have you will produce through their labor the money to acquire it (and he will in turn theoretically keep them safe) but I don’t recall the White Cloaks having land. When it comes to knights, that is just one or two people getting armed. The next place that we would look at for money would be religious organizations and while the White Cloaks are definitely that, we don’t really see any way they are making an income. They don’t hold masses, they might perform a helpful service for a town or person, but even then I don’t think they are making that much money to suit up a whole group.
Will we see the Children of the Light in full armor? I think we could. First, we know from the armor on their left arm that this world does have the capability to create plate armor, and since all of the white cloaks have a sleeve, we can assume they are pretty wealthy. Maybe not full armor for everyone but maybe a mix of chain and plate. The second reason why I think we still have a chance to see full plate armor on the Children of the Light is a reason I have stated previously — this group we’ve seen in the show so far is not expecting anyone to attack them, and their main goal is to move quickly to where they might be needed. I would be very interested to see them in a city, and if they’re more likely to wear armor there. Especially a city where the White Cloaks are not well established and need to show they are a force that you should respect. Where they might be under more threat, perhaps even from the inhabitants, who don’t want them there. The show of a heavily armored force might make villages or towns think twice before crossing them.
Conversely, if they are traveling through the woods, or are established in a town, not feeling as threatened, authority might win over threatening. Another instance where they might bring out their armor would be further into the story where the world, overall, gets more uncertain. We will have to wait and see if we get an army of shiny metal sparkling in the sun with white cloaks blowing in the wind.
While having a heavily armored group would be a really epic sight to see, I don’t think in this instance of a troop walking through the woods, it was a very realistic thing to expect. While the White Cloak costume design is not like the book’s description, authors rarely need to worry about actual people doing tasks in their clothes or how much actual money a person or group would have to shell out to deck out a whole troop of people in armor, much less an army.
