The Fourth Wing Casting: Why Xaden Riorson Won't Be What You Imagined

On May 11th, 2026, Amazon Studios announced that the television adaptation of Fourth Wing is now in development and has officially been ordered as a full series by Prime Video.

This announcement happened during the Amazon MGM Studios Upfront presentation to advertisers in New York City with Michael B. Jordan, whose production company is attached to the show, and Rebecca Yarros, the author of the novels.

This show is highly anticipated by fans of the popular Empyrean series by Rebecca Yarros, which currently has a total of three books released: Fourth Wing, Iron Flame, and Onyx Storm. There are two more books that will be in the series and have yet to be announced.

Casting Rumors

Fans of the series have a large online presence and are eager to see who will be cast as their favorite characters. Many fancasts for Violet and Xaden have been the leading interest for this series, with actors like Emilio Sakraya and Josh Heuston being some of the leading fancasts. However, with casting for this show happening soon, I don’t think the fandom will be happy with any of its decisions.

Prime just released Off Campus, a show based on a book by Elle Kennedy. In this show, a character, Justin, is played by the popular Xaden fancast, Josh Heuston. On the Off-Campus press tour, there was one question Heuston was asked repeatedly. Good Morning America asked it best:

“Lots of people saying you’ll be cast as Xaden in the Fourth Wing book adaptation. Can you confirm or deny this rumor?”

In the comments on these videos, there is either praise or hate. This question seems to overshadow every single interview question he gets. The fandom is so popular that it has made its way into the lives of actors who have nothing to do with the show.

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What Does Xaden Riorson Look Like?

This brought me to think: Will this fandom ever agree on a Xaden? More importantly, will this fandom ever agree with the casting?

People’s vision of Xaden Riorson is very personal because it comes from their own imagination. There is no true rule for what Xaden looks like because, in the series, he has a very vague description, but not in the way you think. In the book, this is how he’s described:

“He’s tall, with windblown black hair and dark brows. The line of his jaw is strong and covered by warm tawny skin and dark stubble, and when he folds his arms across his torso, the muscles in his chest and arms ripple, moving in a way that makes me swallow. And his eyes… His eyes are the shade of gold-flecked onyx. The contrast is startling, jaw-dropping even, everything about him is. His features are so harsh that they look carved, and yet they’re astonishingly perfect, like an artist worked a lifetime sculpting him, and at least a year of that was spent on his mouth.” (Yarros, p. 35)

This truly is the most described we get. Much of the popular fan art of Xaden online appears to be AI-generated and full of comments that say, “I can only see AI playing Xaden.”

In an interview with Good Morning America, Rebecca Yarros, the author of these books, was asked, “What updates can you tease about the Fourth Wing TV show adaptation? Any non-negotiables for how you see Violet and Xaden?” Yarros answered:

“My only non-negotiable is that Xaden isn’t white.”

This answer is important because it gives the casting team a boundary that could lead to meaningful representation, depending on how Xaden is ultimately cast. But book-wise, it still does not give the fandom one clear image. Xaden has no clear ethnicity, race, or homeland to base his features on. “Not white” is a broad statement, and while it confirms that Xaden should not be played by a white actor, it does not tell readers or viewers what he specifically should look like. This makes his appearance feel even more open to interpretation, which is one of the reasons fans have such different ideas of him.

Xaden is described more through prose, atmosphere, and sensory detail rather than clear physical features, whereas Violet Sorrengail, the main character of the novel, has a more tangible description. Amazon's Audible website describes Violet as:

“… small and fragile, at increased risk for dislocated joints, broken bones, and bruising. She has pale skin, light hazel eyes, and brown hair that fades to silver at the ends, which she typically wears in a braid wrapped around her head like a crown.”

Xaden is not one clear picture. He is a thousand interpretations, all brought to life by Rebecca Yarros’s amazing work.