A Costumer’s Look At The Wheel of Time: Ep. 6, Color Choice
I try to constantly drill into my students’ heads that costumes can also represent a change in a character’s life or outlook, and we are not just talking about widows wearing black here. I would like to look at two costume changes in Amazon’s adaptation The Wheel Of Time that symbolize a character’s changing mental state. One was set up way back in Episode One and comes to fruition in Episode Six, and the other happens fairly quickly in this episode. And warning, some minor spoilers for previous and upcoming episodes.
The first one I would like to talk about is the change in Nynaeve, happening almost immediately upon her arrival at The White Tower. It is also a wonderful example of costuming used as foreshadowing and is also a nod to the books. In the books Nynaeve wants to join the Green Ajah but she doesn’t and chooses Yellow, which makes more sense, since she is a healer at her core. Think of Ajah as a fraternity or Harry Potter Houses — the sisters of the same Ajah have rooms in the same wing, they have the same mission or goals. Liandrin alluded to this when talking to Nynaeve about Red sisters and what they stand for.
With that information we are going to head back to Episode One at Beltane, since they have no chance to change on the road, Nynaeve has been wearing a green coat the whole time, and like coats do it is covering her clothes underneath. When she reaches White Tower they have been through an ambush from the Trollocs which was terrifying but add to that getting attacked by the army of Logain, where many were injured and killed and one Aes Sedai even died, ending in Nynaeve using the One Power to heal a whole cave of mortally wounded people. She pretty much watched Lan die in her arms. Zoe Robins (Nynaeve) did an amazing job of conveying just how horrifying, traumatic and overwhelming the situation would be to a character like Nynaeve in this situation. Sure, she has been through hardship, watched people die, but most were probably not as violent as these were. This has been the first time she has gotten a taste of war and she doesn’t like it. She is seeing what a Green Aes Sedai deals with, being the battle Ajah, and while she loves the healing part, it definitely seems like the battle part is not for her.
She gets to the White Tower, the seat of all Aes Sedai, and the first thing she does is take off her green coat to reveal … her yellow shirt and yellow blouse. The costume designer is foreshadowing to the viewer that Nynaeve, once trained, will likely be a Yellow. The director has her remove the green at just the right point in just the right location for an observant viewer to get punched in the gut by what this all means for Nynaeve’s character development. My heart sang at this moment, as for me as a costumer and book lover it all fit together so perfectly.
The second change I want to draw your attention to happens to Moraine. It hits you like a brick and gets you ready to encounter the true inner Moiriane.
To set the scene we get Moraine in her nightshirt in her room at the tower and even though it is just a shirt it screams emotional armor. The color just makes her washed out and ethereal, almost ghost-like. The nightgown is made of stiff fabric, possibly linen, which has its own connotations as a sleeping garment. It has long sleeves and falls to the floor; it even has a collar that makes it look like a button up shirt. I can’t even say it’s Elizabethan because at least those garments have a small ruffle around the collar’s edge. This garment has no softness to it at all, it is beyond not being frilly or fussy it is plain and austere.
But we soon understand why she is dressed this way; she is going to see Siuan. She doesn’t know how this interaction is going to go, they haven’t seen each other for a while alone and the meeting they already had did not go great. We as the audience don’t really know how their relationship works at that moment. The evening with Siuan goes well, and the next time we see Moraine, she is wearing something much more like a nightgown. Made of much looser fabric, which while it has a much higher neck it is open at the sides, something you can actually sleep in. The color is much warmer and compliments her skin much more than the stark white of the linen. She seems to be more at ease. Her and Siuan’s relationship has been re-established and you can even see in her manner that she is more relaxed in situations and in this nightgown. In the Tower, she needs to hide herself and her true mission, but with Siuan she can speak freely and be herself.
Costume changes can generally go unseen, as people in the real world change clothes everyday and in all types of situations. I’m absolutely not saying that all costume changes mean something, but sometimes, in the right moment, a costume change can give you a better idea visually of what a character’s state of mind is more quickly than lots of exposition. This is where a costume designer can shine, condensing what would take a lot of screen time into a simple action for those keen enough to pick up on the changes.
