The Winx Saga Characters Were Recast In Season 2

Summary

• Bloom, a chosen one like Harry Potter, navigates a magical world in Fate: The Winx Saga, facing challenges and foes.
• Scheduling conflicts led to major recasts in season 2, bringing new actors into key roles for fresh storytelling.
• Fans voiceD displeasure over whitewashing and character representation in the show, impacting its eventual fate.

Fate: The Winx Saga recast major characters for season 2. Inspired by the popular Winx Club animated series, Fate: The Winx Saga stars Abigail Cowen as Bloom, a teenager who discovers she has inherited the power of ancient fairies. In Fate: The Winx Saga, Bloom found herself plunged into a realm of fairies and monstrous Burned Ones. There are striking parallels between Fate: The Winx Saga and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter franchise, with Bloom compared to Harry himself. Like Harry, she is essentially a “Chosen One” figure who grew up in the normal world and is introduced to magic when she attends school.

In Bloom’s case, though, Fate: The Winx Saga deliberately chose to turn this idea on its head by literally killing off the Dumbledore figure. Farah Dowling was murdered at the end of Fate: The Winx Saga season 1, and in season 2 the school was taken over by her killer, a powerful fairy named Rosalind. It’s a bold twist, ensuring the story feels fresh and original rather than derivative. However, The Winx Saga recast several characters in season 2. Miranda Richardson replaced Lesley Sharp as Rosalind, and she wasn’t the only recast character in what turned out to be the final season of the show.

Why Were Rosalind & Ben Harvey Recast In Fate: The Winx Saga Season 2?

Scheduling Conflicts Are To Blame

There doesn’t seem to have been any animosity.

The Winx Saga recast appears to have resulted from scheduling conflicts. Production of Fate: The Winx Saga season 2 was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, not starting until almost two years after season 1. Lesley Sharp had a number of other commitments, including Channel 4’s Before We Die, Disney+ UK’s The Full Monty series, and the COVID-19 drama Help, and she seems to have been unavailable. Miranda Richardson stepped into the role.

It’s likely Alex Macqueen left for a similar reason. Macqueen was one of the stars of Downtown Abbey: A New Era, which filmed in mid-2021. Filming for the movie likely overlapped with The Winx Saga, which filmed in August of the same year. Macqueen then went to work on the series Becoming Elizabeth. It’s likely he simply couldn’t fit The Winx Saga into his work schedule at that point. Daniel Betts took over the role for season 2.

There doesn’t seem to have been any animosity, thankfully, as the recasting boiled down to working actors being booked on many other projects.

A Different Recast Might Have Helped Save Fate: The Winx Saga

Fans Were Unhappy With Whitewashing Of Characters

Sadly, The Winx Saga recast was not enough to save the show after the second season. Netflix canceled Fate: The Winx Saga after its two-season run. One of the biggest complaints about the show’s first season surrounded the casting of specific characters. Many fans of the original source, the animated series Winx Club, seemed disappointed with the dark and outdated costuming, especially since the cartoon was always bright and colorful. However, the loudest complaints came in the area of representation when it comes to people of color in the series.

In the cartoon, the members of the Winx Club were more diverse and had deeper backstories and characterizations. The Netflix show mostly used white actors in roles that were initially drawn as other races in the animated series. Whereas the cartoon had characters representing viewers of all sorts, Fate: The Winx Saga did not initially offer that to fans.

One of the characters The Winx Saga added in season 2 was Flora, with Paulina Chavez taking on the role. She was a main character in the animated series who didn’t appear in the first season in live-action, with Terra (Eliot Salt) being the Earth fairy of the group instead. Bringing Flora to the show helped make a lot of fans happier. With that said, there was one other The Winx Saga recast that didn’t happen that could have fixed some of the problems fans had with the show.

Musa in Winx Club was a musical fairy with a rich East Asian background. However, the Netflix series cast Elisha Applebaum as Musa, an ethnically ambiguous actor. This caused an uproar among the fans since Applebaum did not share Musa’s East Asian heritage. Iginio Straffi, the Winx Club creator, even once said he based Musa on Lucy Liu (via Polygon). While the fact The Winx Saga cast Flora with a more diverse actor to reflect the cartoon, doing it to others, especially Musa, might have gone a long way toward saving Fate: The Winx Saga from its eventual fate.

What The Cast Had To Say About The Casting Changes

Cast Additions Were Received Positively

Discussing the recasting of with The Radio Times, star Abigail Cowen spoke highly of both the actresses who portrayed Rosalind. While Rosalind was initially presented as an antagonist for Bloom, the character became instrumental for the growth of Cowen’s character.

“They’re both lovely, lovely actresses and lovely people,” she said. “And I absolutely enjoyed my time with Lesley, and now absolutely enjoyed my time with Miranda. Miranda had shoes to fill, and she did just that and did an incredible job, and was just a joy to work with.” Rosalind had a particularly important role, becoming Bloom’s mentor and revealing the truth about the Dragon Flame, the ancient power that returned – and that ultimately flared out of control in Fate: The Winx Saga season 2.

While fans of the live-action series were not troubled by the recasting between seasons, fans of the animated series raised an outcry about the possible whitewashing of the animated characters on the live-action series. Cast members were willing to comment in an interview with Digital Spy (though the interview is no longer available through their site). Applebaum, for one, just wanted fans to be open to the actors that were on the show in the first season.

Applebaum explained that she, “wasn’t involved in the casting but I hope that what they’ve seen and how I’ve portrayed Musa was to their liking.” Following the premiere of the first season, she also said, “I’ve only seen great reviews back from them so they’ve been open-minded from what I’ve created, so I hope that it continues to be that way.”

We’re making the change happen. It’s a process.

Of course, the cast expanding to include Flora in the second season did allow fans to see that the show did aim to include diverse actors in the roles. Even when the first season was released, Salt was hoping for Terra and Flora to be able to appear on screen together. She explained to Digital Spy as well, “I think it’s really important that we do see [Terra and Flora together] and if we’re lucky enough to get a Season 2 that’s my greatest hope.” Her wish and the fans’ wish were granted.

When Chavez spoke with Digital Spy after joining the series, she was excited, but also admitted to feeling the pressure for fans of the show. She said, “at the end of the day, we have a Latina on the show, and that’s so important and so good! We’re making the change happen. It’s a process.” Though fans won’t get to see the actors again in a live-action Fate: The Winx Saga project, the stories do continue in graphic novel sequels.