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Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/02 15:18:20


Post by: reds8n


https://www.tor.com/2018/10/02/wheel-of-time-picked-up-by-amazon-first-season-to-focus-on-moiraine/


Amazon has ordered Robert Jordan’s fantasy epic The Wheel of Time to series, with Sony Pictures TV to co-produce, and Rafe Judkins serving as showrunner.


The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that Amazon has ordered the series, and gave the following information about the story:

Set in a sprawling world where magic exists but can only be used by women, the story follows Moiraine, a member of the shadowy and influential all-female organization the Aes Sedai, as she embarks on a dangerous journey with five young men and women. Moiraine’s interest in these five lies in the fact that she believes one of them might be the reincarnation of an incredibly powerful individual who prophecies say will either save humanity or destroy it.

This suggests that the first season might be centered on Moiraine’s point of view, as a television series is less likely to switch perspectives per-episode in the way the novels do with each chapter. Judkins has been hard at work on the scripts and sharing his progress week by week. Sharon Tal Yguado, head of event series for Amazon Originals said, “We believe that Rafe’s personal connection to the material and soulful writing will resonate with the book’s passionate fans.”

Rafe Judkins will serve as executive producer in addition to showrunner, with Rick Selvage and Larry Mondragon of Red Eagle Entertainment, Ted Field and Mike Weber of Radar Pictures (Beirut, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle) and Darren Lemke (Shrek Forever After) also executive producing. Harriet McDougal is a consulting producer on the project.

Judkins added, “For so many people, including me, this book series has served as a world to escape to, to lose yourself in, to devour and inhabit completely. And I couldn’t be more honored to be the one finally bringing that world to life on screen, for old fans to lose themselves in all over again and new fans to discover for the very first time.”

Check THR for more news and check back on Tor.com for more WOT updates as the series progresses!





Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/02 17:07:39


Post by: Azreal13


Well, if they stay faithful to the source material it'll probably be me that dies before they make it to the end...


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/02 17:32:33


Post by: Turnip Jedi


Could be worse, you could be waiting for Thrones books...

Might be interesting but there one heck of a lot shows looking to fill the gap the end of Thrones will create

Personally my moneys on The Witcher, likely a Spartacus level of bewbs and wotnot


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/02 17:39:03


Post by: Kap'n Krump


Yeeesh, I never could make it through the WoT series. I'm not sure they'd make the best live action, but it could be decent, I suppose.

I'd prefer a Dresden Files series (that didn't suck), but ah well. Maybe someday!


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/02 19:03:02


Post by: Dynas


Agree. Everyone is looking to take that GoT spot. Witcher could certainly do it. Don't forget the GoT spinoffs we have coming.

But this is just gonna turn into a SJW show with lots of women sniffs and braid tugging.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/02 21:50:45


Post by: BaconCatBug


It's going to end up just like every other fantasy adaptation, butchered and destroyed.

That being said, WoT turned to crap after Book 4 anyway, so no big loss.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/03 00:53:05


Post by: ZergSmasher


I'd love to see a good adaptation of Fred Saberhagen's Swords stories (from the 1980s). Given that we're seeing all these fantasy shows get made, maybe it could even happen. Given the obscurity of the source material, probably not, but a man can dream, right?


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/03 01:05:10


Post by: Ctaylor


Saberhagen's Swords would be great. That's a very underrated series.

WoT strikes me as one of those properties that will be very hard to make. If they are too faithful to the source material, it's going to be very hard for casual viewers to follow and there is a huge problem with the pacing of the middle books.

They will have to deviate and make a bunch o' changes. Not sure how that will go down. It will probably end up like most fantasy TV shows.

Oh, and the Winter Dragon pilot from a few years ago was utter dreck. Like the worst thing ever committed to video tape.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/03 07:49:28


Post by: Bran Dawri


I'd want to see a Lankhmar series. Its somewhat lighter tone would be a welcome deviation from today's "everything must be grittier than everything else" trend.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/03 08:13:51


Post by: RobS


It's going to be very hard to do well and not bore the pants of people. It's hard to read without boring the pants of yourself in some places...

Also
>Larry Mondragon

Seriously? That's the name of a guy who is working on the show?


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/03 12:13:15


Post by: Lammia


Well that's...brave. I seem to recall Robert Jordan not being a huge fan of the idea of a screen adaptation...

I hope they do a excellent job.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/03 12:25:14


Post by: Tannhauser42


As much as I love the WoT series, I'm not sure it can be successfully adapted to the screen. The magic system is such an integral part of the books, how well can they translate that visually? Or will they simply find a way to handwave much of it away?


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/03 12:26:12


Post by: Overread


Screen adaptation can go really well and can go terribly wrong, with the latter being more likely than the former.

Consider the Earthsea adaptations!

A lot depends on the studio and producers that pick up the series and their overall intention. One bonus in current times is that there is more of a push for going for a story based series rather than taking the IP and making it into a "monster of the week adventure" series.


Another aspect is budget. If you've got a big company with lots of resources, skill and talent then you've got more potential to keep things faithful, esp in something like a fantasy series where there's going to be monsters and spells and outlandishly huge buildings etc...


Then there is time, time constraints on both the production time and the episode length. Both can conspire to cripple something. We see it a lot in films where they try to squeeze one long book into a 2 hour or less window of time. Often requiring big cuts; rushing scenes; cutting out the chatting, leaps of faith and totally missing plot elements; and that's before one gets to changing the story focus!

Then there's royalties and payment. Witcher series is tangled up with those where the Author has refused royalties before now for the games and is now getting really annoyed that other groups are profiting in a major way off his IP without him getting big monies. Although its a complicated situation, more than one author has either been goaded into a bad contract or has agreed to terms that are not best in their favour through their own intention (eg oh it won't make much yeah I don't really want to bother with royalties or sales commission etc..) or they just don't hire a lawyer and get confused as to what it is that they are signing (in the worst cases an author can even sign away rights that end up going to death and never get produced, but which are tied to the studio and thus are stuck in limbo)


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/03 13:39:31


Post by: Dynas


 Tannhauser42 wrote:
As much as I love the WoT series, I'm not sure it can be successfully adapted to the screen. The magic system is such an integral part of the books, how well can they translate that visually? Or will they simply find a way to handwave much of it away?


The magic system will not be an issue with todays technology. Look at Harry Potter, GoT, all the Super Hero movies, etc....

They will probably cut a lot of the middle books. If they do 10 episode seasons on the good stuff and do what GoT did for Feast of Crows and make it like 4 episodes for the boring parts they might be ok. Easily hit 10 seasons if its successful.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/03 15:07:53


Post by: Kap'n Krump


 BaconCatBug wrote:
It's going to end up just like every other fantasy adaptation, butchered and destroyed.

That being said, WoT turned to crap after Book 4 anyway, so no big loss.


I think I made it to book 5 before giving up. I had a friend tell me that one later book ended on the eve of some epic battle, and the book after that completely ignored it, and resolved the battle in the book after that. And that minor characters like the boat captain who gave them a ride in book 1 or 2 turn into these major characters later on, and it just drags on and on and on.

He did say that when the male aes sedai corps gets going, though, they're pretty badass, because they have no limitations on magic and can just nuke entire armies.

But I recall the first few books as being decent.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/03 17:32:02


Post by: Ctaylor


Bran Dawri wrote:
I'd want to see a Lankhmar series. Its somewhat lighter tone would be a welcome deviation from today's "everything must be grittier than everything else" trend.


Agreed! Most shows are too pretentious nowadays. I’d rather have something that was having fun with itself.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/03 17:39:46


Post by: ikeulhu


Bran Dawri wrote:
I'd want to see a Lankhmar series. Its somewhat lighter tone would be a welcome deviation from today's "everything must be grittier than everything else" trend.

That would make for a great series. Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are two of the greatest fantasy characters of all time, and the short story format of most of their adventures would translate well into a weekly series.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/03 21:22:10


Post by: Hulksmash


I feel like this is going to be a poop show. But maybe I'm wrong. I don't think I could get past book 4 or 5 (bought the entire series in a single file so no idea really where I was at). They'll have to massively change stuff and streamline just to make it work. So much will come down to the writers adapting it. Low expectations on this one. Granted the Shannara series was actually better than the books so there is a chance.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/03 22:48:35


Post by: Tannhauser42


 Dynas wrote:
 Tannhauser42 wrote:
As much as I love the WoT series, I'm not sure it can be successfully adapted to the screen. The magic system is such an integral part of the books, how well can they translate that visually? Or will they simply find a way to handwave much of it away?


The magic system will not be an issue with todays technology. Look at Harry Potter, GoT, all the Super Hero movies, etc....


It's not a matter of technology or special effects, it's a matter of how so much of what happens in the books is often affected by and even explicitly explained through the use of magic. Entire plot points often hinge on specific ways in which the magic was used. What can be explained quickly in text may not be so easily explained on screen. I mean, sure it can be done by having very obvious colors for each element in a weave, but how often will they have to stop and reeducate the audience each season on what the visual effects mean? How do they explain that normal people don't see the weaves, but we, the audience, can? I feel like the only way to make the WoT's magic work on screen is to, sadly, lose much of the magic that helped make the books magical and just make it handwaves and strange words.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/04 04:02:55


Post by: Voss


But what little magic is in WoT is handwavium and strange words. The audience isn't going to give a crap as long as it looks impressive.

And not one thing is explained quickly in those books. A simple overland trip where absolutely nothing happens takes 500 pages.

Something Jordan never figured out is a lot of stuff didn't require long, rambling explanations or justifications (or that there were ways to characterize women beyond 'snarky and domineering'). A video version needs that sort of thing even less.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/04 05:44:03


Post by: Yodhrin


So there's now a rumour going around that Amazon have passed on the true-to-the-books Conan series that was being developed. If the new management team that came in dropped that in order to greenlight this...that seems like a genuinely huge mistake to me.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/04 10:18:55


Post by: AndrewGPaul


 Tannhauser42 wrote:
How do they explain that normal people don't see the weaves, but we, the audience, can?


By having them onscreen, but have non-magical characters not react to them. Easy enough to do, as they'd be added in post-production anyway.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/04 11:07:40


Post by: Cheesecat


It's Sony Pictures, so high probability of it being gak.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/04 12:14:57


Post by: Ketara


I approve; but where is my Chronicles of Thomas Covenant Live Action series?


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/04 12:40:21


Post by: Dynas


Lock Lamora Series could be good as well. Despite my reluctance I will probably still watch it unless it turns into too much Twlight tone like Shanara's MTV is.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/04 12:54:00


Post by: Overread


 Cheesecat wrote:
It's Sony Pictures, so high probability of it being gak.


*Gets flashbacks to the trailer for Sony Peter Rabbit and shudders*



Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/04 17:08:51


Post by: BaconCatBug


I just realised this is going to be a nightmare for casting. The vast majority of the characters in the book are canonically (for lack of a better word) "Fair skinned". Even the Aiel are canonically fair skinned, just sun darkened (Rand is often said to start looking more like an Aiel when, and I quote, his face has been "darkened" by the sun).

Call me a pessimist, but we're either going to see the usual outrage about "whitewashing" or they are going to randomly cast Halle Berry as Nynaeve.

Also, Rand's particular personality trope that gets dialled up to 12 and a half later on in the books is going to be considered explicitly toxic and bigoted.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/04 18:30:54


Post by: Mysterio


...and don't forget all of the spankings!


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/05 10:13:41


Post by: Bran Dawri


And the switchings. Don't forget those.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/05 10:25:17


Post by: RobS


At least on tv they can just show dresses rather than constantly describing them.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/05 11:33:40


Post by: tneva82


Liked the book series but can't see how it can be made to tv. Books are fast to read so lots of pages no problem.

Also hell of a risk to even follow. Going to take many seasons worth and there's no quarantee you are going to see the end even. Plug might be pulled away waaay before the end. Hopefully they do at least more than 1 season per year then.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/05 12:09:53


Post by: Overread


tneva82 wrote:
Liked the book series but can't see how it can be made to tv. Books are fast to read so lots of pages no problem.



Reading speeds vary a lot person to person; but in general most people will spend longer reading a 400 page book than they will watching the 2 hour film made from that book. Books are basically not limited in hours read and long series like wheel of time are not even that limited in page count as such


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/05 12:16:55


Post by: tneva82


 Overread wrote:
tneva82 wrote:
Liked the book series but can't see how it can be made to tv. Books are fast to read so lots of pages no problem.



Reading speeds vary a lot person to person; but in general most people will spend longer reading a 400 page book than they will watching the 2 hour film made from that book. Books are basically not limited in hours read and long series like wheel of time are not even that limited in page count as such


But you don't make 2h movie out of WoT book...They LOTR turned out into basically 9 hour movie and that's by dropping tons of content out of it. Good luck trying to keep viewer attention long enough and keep in mind what's going on(with books it's easy to remind reader midway). And movie/tv series are easier to put on pause so to speak.

Also production will be nightmare as you will need tons of sets that will keep using through series so you need to store them. Oh and actor ages can become an issue as well as doing some 10 seasons will start to show up in ages. Neither issue exists with books.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/10/05 12:18:42


Post by: Overread


Well a TV series often has a lot more hours to work with than a film as a TV series is more constrained by how many seasons it gets and its seasonal structure. That said even if a season is a single book that can still be 10 episodes at say 40mins long each or longer. So that's a lot more time than a film.


As for sets they can get around that somewhat with a lot of green screens.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/11/11 17:48:18


Post by: BaconCatBug


Welp, interview with the showrunner is out and it's all but confirmed to be butchered.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/11/11 17:52:05


Post by: Overread


links?


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/11/11 19:29:05


Post by: AegisGrimm


I like the Facebook post where the show will be 200 seasons long, and the creators will die after season 175, requiring new writers to finish it out.

I loved the Wheel of Time in the beginning, but man it got too long winded.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2018/11/11 20:13:01


Post by: whembly


 BaconCatBug wrote:
Welp, interview with the showrunner is out and it's all but confirmed to be butchered.

I don't even think any show could do this book any justice.

If I were them, just take the characters and the general framework of that world... and just take the creative license needed to make it work on screen.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/09/12 16:20:43


Post by: Azreal13


Well, holy gak balls it's been a long time, but the first teaser trailer dropped a few days ago.

It's been a long time since I read any of the books (and like many I didn't get all the way to the last one) but I can't say anything in the trailer feels familiar.

That said, it sure as hell doesn't feel cheap..




Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/09/12 18:03:59


Post by: Flinty


I got to about book 8 and couldn’t take it any more. It was actually putting me off reading. If you want to find out the broad plot and character development in a shorter punchier version, try the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. Although I see that has already had a TV adaptation, and it did not go well.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/09/12 18:46:12


Post by: creeping-deth87


 Flinty wrote:
I got to about book 8 and couldn’t take it any more. It was actually putting me off reading. If you want to find out the broad plot and character development in a shorter punchier version, try the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. Although I see that has already had a TV adaptation, and it did not go well.


You made it further than I did. I gave up about a third of the way through book 4. I just couldn't stand to read 'she crossed her arms under her breasts' one more fething time. Jordan just wasn't a great writer, especially when it came to female characters.

I'm hoping the tv show is a little more palatable for me.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/09/13 08:23:08


Post by: StygianBeach


End of Book 6 was amazing, but overall I think there were too many characters threads being followed that were just not that interesting.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/09/13 09:01:52


Post by: tneva82


Heh. For me each book was quick snack so to speak. Last 3 i read day per book


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/09/13 09:38:40


Post by: Mr Morden


Well the trailer looks ok.....and watchable unlike the (IMO) tedium of the books.

I tried the Witcher and finally gave up when the godawful bard arrived.

Shanara and the Outpost were /are much better but will likely give this a try.

 StygianBeach wrote:
End of Book 6 was amazing, but overall I think there were too many characters threads being followed that were just not that interesting.

Sounds exactly like the later Song of Ice and Fire novels.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/09/13 09:58:13


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


Ahh, I am not the only bard loather!

I know he’s meant to be irritating, but they went too hard. From annoying to irreverent, breaking my immersion.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/09/13 14:02:51


Post by: Tannhauser42


What is it about the Wheel of Time that makes so many people so quick to come out of nowhere to tell you how much they didn't like it? I've never seen any book series have this same phenomena, and it's on every single forum I go to.

Anyway, as someone who had read every book on release, I am looking forward to this. I know it won't be 100% faithful, that would be impossible, but I'm still hoping it will hit all the right notes and be fun to watch.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/09/13 14:51:44


Post by: creeping-deth87


 Tannhauser42 wrote:
What is it about the Wheel of Time that makes so many people so quick to come out of nowhere to tell you how much they didn't like it? I've never seen any book series have this same phenomena, and it's on every single forum I go to.

Anyway, as someone who had read every book on release, I am looking forward to this. I know it won't be 100% faithful, that would be impossible, but I'm still hoping it will hit all the right notes and be fun to watch.


It's probably because wheel of time gets mentioned so much on any discussion about fantasy novels. If you're into the genre and you go looking for recommendations, chances are very high you're gonna see the series suggested a lot.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/09/13 15:21:25


Post by: Flinty


I think it might be because the background and characters and world building is amazingly awesome, but you need to wade through so many words to find it all!

As long as they get Lan sorted, the rest will be fine


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/09/13 15:43:22


Post by: Azreal13


Personally, it's because WOT is like what would happen if Tolkein had taken five books to tell the LOTR story, then Jackson had taken 12 movies to adapt it, and the the movies were adapted back into novelisation but with extra padding and waffle.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/09/14 00:38:49


Post by: trexmeyer


I swear every fantasy show other than GoT looks extremely low-budget. The CGI looks fine, but the costumes look like costumes, not actual clothes.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/09/14 01:03:06


Post by: Voss


 Flinty wrote:
I think it might be because the background and characters



Yes, that one angry and stern woman is very, very detailed, seems to be everywhere and has so many names.


The world building is clever, I'll admit. Simply for the way he makes it suggestive, yet very, very vague, and readers can basically fill in whatever they want.

But nothing will ever make me read about a wagon ride with three copies of the same female archetype/stereotype being snarky at each other for 400 bloody pages.
You can do multiple real novels in the time & page count it takes some of the side characters to get from point A to point B, and I've no recollection of where they were going or why. Just that reading it was mostly pain, and a goodly example of the reason why Jordan died before he finished the series. Laborious, tedious yammering about nothing while steadfastly refusing to resolve plot threads AND refusing to stop introducing new ones.

The video doesn't look much like the books, which is no bad thing. That said, it does look a little too much like generic fantasy cosplay in front of Tolkien-inspired matte paintings, and that is a bad thing. Or at least, uninteresting.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/09/14 01:30:06


Post by: AegisGrimm


I never got around to finishing the series when Sanderson took it over, but I probably should. His other stuff is great, especially his new WoT-styled epic series called the Stormlight Archive (where each book is 1000 freaking pages).

I can't wait to see Perrin's story on screen; his parts with Faile were my favorites.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/09/14 01:49:03


Post by: creeping-deth87


 AegisGrimm wrote:
I never got around to finishing the series when Sanderson took it over, but I probably should. His other stuff is great, especially his new WoT-styled epic series called the Stormlight Archive (where each book is 1000 freaking pages).

I can't wait to see Perrin's story on screen; his parts with Faile were my favorites.


I'm about 400 pages into the first book of Stormlight Archives and it's fantastic. It's actually making me want to finish WoT to see what he does with the end of the series, but I don't know if I can stomach more of Jordan's tedium.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/09/14 01:58:17


Post by: lifeafter


Is Bezos going to be Naeblis?


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/09/14 07:08:58


Post by: Mr Morden


 trexmeyer wrote:
I swear every fantasy show other than GoT looks extremely low-budget. The CGI looks fine, but the costumes look like costumes, not actual clothes.


Maybe beacuse they are lower budget? Not sure about this one in terms of budget?


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/09/17 04:25:22


Post by: Dropbear Victim


Ive still got to read the wheel of time. My family had 1-9 and I bought 10-13 and the prequel secondhand in the last couple months. Had to buy a new book 14.
Book 7-13 are all the stupidly large and heavy trade paperbacks.

Hopefully this adaptation is good and does well enough to not get cancelled partway.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/09/17 04:55:50


Post by: Flipsiders


I've never gotten the hate for most of the WoT books. The only one which I've really struggled with so far is the tenth, which I'm currently putting off as I type this. The other ones are fine, with the exception of The Fires of Heaven, as printing that monstrosity has been a net negative for both fantasy literature and the human race.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/09/17 23:02:24


Post by: AegisGrimm


 creeping-deth87 wrote:
 AegisGrimm wrote:
I never got around to finishing the series when Sanderson took it over, but I probably should. His other stuff is great, especially his new WoT-styled epic series called the Stormlight Archive (where each book is 1000 freaking pages).

I can't wait to see Perrin's story on screen; his parts with Faile were my favorites.


I'm about 400 pages into the first book of Stormlight Archives and it's fantastic. It's actually making me want to finish WoT to see what he does with the end of the series, but I don't know if I can stomach more of Jordan's tedium.


Yes, I never realized that what I was missing from my multiple reads of The Wheel of Time (As much as I still love the story) was better pacing, magical power armor, and 6-foot swords that can cut nearly everything in existence, even souls. Go figure.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/10/09 12:29:59


Post by: warboss


I'm not very familiar with the source material (as a dnd here and general fantasy can I'm aware of it but never read it) so I don't know how close this is to the novels but a new trailer dropped.




As an outsider looking in, this feels more like a high budget CW/Shannara style show from that clip than LOTR/GOT in terms of style, asthetics, lighting, and direction. That's not a great first impression. I hope Amazon's LOTR prequel is a better first impression.

For Brits here in the forum, are any of those actors from the UK? No sarcasm intended but the accents sound off to me.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/10/09 14:59:08


Post by: Mr Morden


Hmm that was .....every fantasy tavern ever...so...Ok I guess its for people who know who all these people are......

(plus seriously people shut doors when you come inside)

If it can match Shanara that would be good....



Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/10/09 15:19:26


Post by: Sterling191


The scene is pretty much a line for line take of the associated sequence in the first book. It is however missing a good bit of context, and the last 2/3rds of the actual series of events, which is why it feels a bit awkward.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/10/09 17:27:09


Post by: Aash


 warboss wrote:
I'm not very familiar with the source material (as a dnd here and general fantasy can I'm aware of it but never read it) so I don't know how close this is to the novels but a new trailer dropped.




As an outsider looking in, this feels more like a high budget CW/Shannara style show from that clip than LOTR/GOT in terms of style, asthetics, lighting, and direction. That's not a great first impression. I hope Amazon's LOTR prequel is a better first impression.

For Brits here in the forum, are any of those actors from the UK? No sarcasm intended but the accents sound off to me.


The lead actress is British, Rosamund Pike. She’s known for Gone Girl and Die Another Day among other stuff. I don’t recognise anyone else.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/10/09 19:40:12


Post by: Azreal13


 Mr Morden wrote:

If it can match Shanara that would be good....



I really hope they set their sights higher than "cheap SyFY channel series" even if that's all we end up with. Given the money involved I'd like to see a little more ambition than that cheesy pile.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/10/09 19:47:23


Post by: Albertorius


Well, I mean... the first book does start that way, and the whole of it is mostly generic fantasy fare, for the most part. For me, the series didn't come on its own until later, but I really enjoyed the middle books.

IMHO, it would be best if they fast forward as much as they can through the first book at least.

As to the actual quality of what's shown... well, if feels kinda renfaire, TBH.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/10/09 19:55:37


Post by: Mr Morden


 Azreal13 wrote:
 Mr Morden wrote:

If it can match Shanara that would be good....



I really hope they set their sights higher than "cheap SyFY channel series" even if that's all we end up with. Given the money involved I'd like to see a little more ambition than that cheesy pile.


Each to their own.....


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/10/09 20:09:37


Post by: warboss


 Albertorius wrote:

As to the actual quality of what's shown... well, if feels kinda renfaire, TBH.


On a related note, do they have those (renfaires) in Europe? I always considered that to be a kitschy American thing. I've seen medieval/ancient reenactments of battles and such but when you have real castles, battle sites, and armor/weapons I never considered the desire for the cheap knockoff.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I've been trying to put into words part of why I'm not a fan of that scene (besides the male actor accents which feel off but i may be totally wrong there) and the best I can come up with is that it feels like a set. The kind of fake location someone puts together over the course of a day and says good enough whereas LOTR/GOT had a grimey lived in feeling. This is like the d&d movie with the Waynes brother and not the more carefully crafted Fellowship of the Ring that came out just a year later.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/10/09 20:16:14


Post by: Mr Morden


Lets hope it better than the Witcher....especially the costumes, weapons and armour....and plot....


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/10/09 23:13:18


Post by: StygianBeach


I thought the Witcher was terrible. My 16 year old son loved it though.

I find the ethic mix of the 2 rivers folk a bit distracting even though in the setting it is reasonable. I imagined Lan to be less East Asian and more central Asian looking and bigger.

Something about the costumes looks off to me? Maybe they do not look hardy enough of something, or too much like modern casual wear? I cannot decide.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/10/10 08:04:09


Post by: Mr Morden


Ethnic diversity is here to stay and most of the time its easier in fantasy than some other generes.

I thought Shadow and Bone, the Outpost and Shanara did this element this well.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/10/10 10:15:13


Post by: Albertorius


 warboss wrote:
 Albertorius wrote:

As to the actual quality of what's shown... well, if feels kinda renfaire, TBH.


On a related note, do they have those (renfaires) in Europe? I always considered that to be a kitschy American thing. I've seen medieval/ancient reenactments of battles and such but when you have real castles, battle sites, and armor/weapons I never considered the desire for the cheap knockoff.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I've been trying to put into words part of why I'm not a fan of that scene (besides the male actor accents which feel off but i may be totally wrong there) and the best I can come up with is that it feels like a set. The kind of fake location someone puts together over the course of a day and says good enough whereas LOTR/GOT had a grimey lived in feeling. This is like the d&d movie with the Waynes brother and not the more carefully crafted Fellowship of the Ring that came out just a year later.


Well, we have reenactments and what over here is called "medieval markets", but well, those are set in medieval locations, so...

And we still do have very decent classic metalworkers over here (hell, Toledo is still famous for that), so it's relatively easy to get the good stuff. Some even still do the five tests on swords and everything.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/10/10 10:45:00


Post by: Spectral Ceramite


I am interested to watch this. I remember reading this series as a kid and coming back later to read a few when Brandon Sanderson took over after the main authors passing.

I found the world super interesting and it was on the whole an enjoyable series, but it did drag on a bit and had to many story lines. I remember skipping over entire chapters of characters I hated during the mid books.

If they are going to make a TV series from books from when I was a kid, I would like them to do David Eddings groups of novels. Granted I haven't read his books since the 80's and 90's but as a child they held me in thrall (maybe re-read now and not as much, or maybe more, but I don't want to dispel the illusion... ). However, I still remember today snipits of the books etc and consider that a source of my modern inspiration.



Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/10/10 15:08:28


Post by: Voss


 Mr Morden wrote:
Ethnic diversity is here to stay and most of the time its easier in fantasy than some other generes.

I thought Shadow and Bone, the Outpost and Shanara did this element this well.


Really? I thought Shadow and Bone handled it really poorly. I spent most of the first episode trying to figure out why the various NPCs were being stupidly, blatantly racist at the main (?) character. Particularly since they were mostly fighting Not!Scandinavians or themselves and their Not!Russia seemed to have a bunch of other ethnicities that they didn't mind and weren't treated any differently at all (even if they looked less or more not!Chinese than the main character). And then Not!Amsterdam was stuffed full of a variety of people but only some seemed to get the racism flag, but not others. If you're going to try to handle ethnicity, at least try to be consistent about it- don't limit ethnic awareness just to have folks be bigoted at protagonists.

It was a weird mess even before the 'we hate our magic users who are the only ones who can save us' angle.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/10/10 19:24:53


Post by: Flinty


Spectral Ceramite wrote:
I am interested to watch this. I remember reading this series as a kid and coming back later to read a few when Brandon Sanderson took over after the main authors passing.

I found the world super interesting and it was on the whole an enjoyable series, but it did drag on a bit and had to many story lines. I remember skipping over entire chapters of characters I hated during the mid books.

If they are going to make a TV series from books from when I was a kid, I would like them to do David Eddings groups of novels. Granted I haven't read his books since the 80's and 90's but as a child they held me in thrall (maybe re-read now and not as much, or maybe more, but I don't want to dispel the illusion... ). However, I still remember today snipits of the books etc and consider that a source of my modern inspiration.



I am in the process of reading the Belgariad to my son. I read the whole series when I was about 10 and absolutely loved it. I literally couldn’t put it down. I now realise that The dialogue is terrible and the entire world is built on institutionalised racial stereotypes and lazy sexism. The underlying story is great and very heroic and stuff, but it would need a lot of work to meet modern expectations I think. It is of it’s time.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/10/10 19:37:30


Post by: Overread


Personally I don't mind racism in fantasy stories. Sometimes I even find it grating when everything in the story is presented as if its the modern world social values projected on a society that doesn't seem to support them by nature but has them anyway. Or everything is viewed through the "eye" of modern values. So even if there is racism and such within the setting, everything is seen and narrated as though anything that isn't a modern value is "bad" etc...

It's not that I wish for such things to be a part of modern life, but rather that I prefer fantasy settings to stand firm on their own feet as their own setting. Even if sometimes I might dislike how one character treats another or another race within the setting; that's just part of characters being characters and having their own identity and values.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/10/10 19:49:16


Post by: Flinty


I think I see your point, but in the Belgariad, each country literally and entirely follow their assigned stereotype. It’s like beyond racism in that everyone in the setting knows exactly how people of another country is going to act, and even the people Of that country agree and play up to those stereotypes. It’s all a bit weird, and Murgos basically exist to be murderized by everyone else and they seem to know it and therefore are going for the Machiavellian schemers prize with national level industrious gusto. Also powerful women can only give vent to their anger through hysterical shrieking and localised vandalism.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/10/10 19:56:22


Post by: Overread


Yeah I can see what you mean. It can happen when authors are, to my thinking, a bit too influenced by the "DnD" rule book style of writing fantasy. Ergo everyone fits their stereotype to a fault. It's a very video-game or film style of structure which can flesh out a setting quickly, but which can fall apart in a book if followed too strictly because you end up realising how strange everything is.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/10/10 22:41:09


Post by: StygianBeach


 Flinty wrote:
I think I see your point, but in the Belgariad, each country literally and entirely follow their assigned stereotype. It’s like beyond racism in that everyone in the setting knows exactly how people of another country is going to act, and even the people Of that country agree and play up to those stereotypes. It’s all a bit weird, and Murgos basically exist to be murderized by everyone else and they seem to know it and therefore are going for the Machiavellian schemers prize with national level industrious gusto. Also powerful women can only give vent to their anger through hysterical shrieking and localised vandalism.


Yeah, the racism is one of the aspects that I really enjoyed about that series. At the time I did not notice the sexism though, I did read it in my late teens over 20 years ago, so it seemingly just went over my head.

I did not find the ethnic diversity in Shanara distracting, maybe because of all the post apocalyptic elements?

There are places in Fantasy settings where ethnic diversity makes sense (like port cities), but mostly when I see it makes me think of a modern USA setting, so it distracts me.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/18 16:50:26


Post by: warboss


"it’s almost shockingly devoid of artistry or narrative momentum" (admittedly a bit out of context as part of a simile but still...)

"The younger parts are played by relatively unknown actors who would have been perfectly at home in a CW drama and convey little more than one-note attractiveness."

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/wheel-of-time-review-1235048788/amp/

Just one review so add salt as needed. Regardless, oof.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/18 17:22:08


Post by: Albertorius


Honestly, that's pretty much on point for the first book ^^


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/18 17:51:48


Post by: Voss


 Flinty wrote:
I think I see your point, but in the Belgariad, each country literally and entirely follow their assigned stereotype. It’s like beyond racism in that everyone in the setting knows exactly how people of another country is going to act, and even the people Of that country agree and play up to those stereotypes. It’s all a bit weird, and Murgos basically exist to be murderized by everyone else and they seem to know it and therefore are going for the Machiavellian schemers prize with national level industrious gusto. Also powerful women can only give vent to their anger through hysterical shrieking and localised vandalism.


The Murgos are also 'yellow peril,' which really doesn't help any. And when the wife of one of the secondary characters (Barak) basically accuses him of raping her, in public, the assembled party (and local nobility) don't even blink. It doesn't register to anyone as a problem. The authors penchant for characterizing 40+ year old men marrying teenaged girls as 'romantic' (and desirable by the girls) is also super creepy (this is the one big flaw (beyond cliches) of the Elenium, which is generally the superior series, as it tends to be more nuanced despite being about not!Catholic knightly orders on the surface). Though its sequel series is just... bad).

Like you, reading it as a kid, I loved it. These days... sorry, no. Not much for coming of age stories anymore, and the racism and sexism is framed as far too perfectly reasonable and rational to be comfortable.



----
As for the Wheel of Time review, I'm not surprised. The series itself is inherently pretty tedious (and became moreso over time, as Jordan seemed set on never resolving plot points, just introducing more), and getting that to work even an extended series rather than a movie format was going to be an overwhelming task. Though... I didn't expect it to fail on the basics of set design, lighting, costumes and monster props.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/20 05:40:04


Post by: Dreadwinter


Tried to watch the first episode. Didn't make it through the whole episode. The changes to the characters make absolutely no sense and some of the ones I have seen cause major problems for the future storylines.

Spoiler:
Turned it off when Perrin killed his pregnant girlfriend with the crescent axe he picks up out of the corner as if it means nothing.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/20 10:50:46


Post by: Grumpy Gnome


I liked the books but never finished the series… and read it many years ago so my memory of the books is sketchy.

After seeing the first episode… watchable but disappointing. Better than the Shannara TV series and Legend of the Seeker tv series but not another first season Game of Thrones.

Spoiler:


OK, I know it has been a long time since I read the books but…

The Dragon Reborn might be a woman? What?

Drunken Ladettes defending Two Rivers? What?

Bath scene between Moiraine and Lan? Stoic Lan complains about cold water and Moiraine uses the One Power for something so petty? Is that in the book? It seems very counter to how I remember the characters.

Perrin married… albeit briefly? What a terrible thing to burden a new character with.

What was with the post-apoc modern skyscraper ruins? Is WoT supposed to be post-apoc in a contemporary sense? Or was this a nod to the Shannara tv series which seemed to misunderstand how long ago it’s apocalypse was.

Casting seems hit and miss.

Set dressing is brilliant but costuming is a bit hit and miss. Some great colors, materials and designs but quite a lot of Asian themes and a remarkably diverse population. Perhaps I have been spoiled by the WoT book covers. Not enough distressing on the day to day clothing.

Perhaps over the top but visually interesting battle in Two Rivers. Trollocs look cool when dodgy CGI does not let them down.

I recall Tam doing better than basically getting beaten by a single Trolloc. Given his background this scene seemed off. The Trollocs are in my opinion being shown as too powerful on one hand but then not so much against Lan. Directors seem to get carried away too easily. More is not always better, both the Trollocs and Lan.

Same with Moiriaine’s use of the One Power. At first it was amazing. Then it got a bit much. Then it got over the top. Then it started getting eye rolling. Although it was an interesting image to see it destroy the tavern… a very visible reminder of the price of using the One Power… or magic… or any power for that matter. Collateral damage showing why you can not simply magic all your problems away.

The Fade looked cool.

Much of the world building of Wheel of Time is rather derivative, like Shannara, owing quite a lot to Tolkien. I suspect some of the costuming and casting choices may have been to break from that…. but every time I saw the mountainous vistas I thought of Peter Jackson’s cinematography in Lord of the Rings.

At least this show has so far been better than Jackson’s the Hobbit.

But what did you think of it?





Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/20 13:35:52


Post by: AegisGrimm


Technically, from what I remember all those many years ago that I read them (i.e. before Jordan even died, so I never read the final books), The Wheel of Time world is a post-apocalyptic aftermath of a society much more advanced than ours that used the One Power sort of as a replacement for technology when both genders could use it as much as they wanted. It was destroyed when Shaitan was released from his giant dimensional prison-thing. Several times visions were granted of flying vehicles and advanced buildings from the time of his escape.

I also remember at least one or two mentions in the book of the characters seeing advanced skyscraper-like structures in the far distance as they traveled, and I distantly remember that Mat ends up inside one of them, travelling to some sort of other dimension.

If the screw up Perrin, I will avoid this show like a used syringe on a street corner.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/20 13:44:23


Post by: Baragash


Yeah, it comes across as a magical Jetsons-type society in the bits we get from Lews Therin in the books.

What happened to Rand's dad is consistent with the books too.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/20 14:21:07


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


Never read the books, and don’t really know anything about the plot.

But rather enjoying the show. Actors all seem likeable.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/20 15:20:57


Post by: Dreadwinter


 Baragash wrote:
Yeah, it comes across as a magical Jetsons-type society in the bits we get from Lews Therin in the books.

What happened to Rand's dad is consistent with the books too.


No it isn't. Rand's Dad is a Swordmaster and definitely takes out more than one Trolloc. The entire fight scene at home is abysmal. He does get hurt, but not gravely since he is important to the Two Rivers story arc later.

They were also all 17ish, not 20. Perrin wasn't married/dating and definitely wasn't expecting a kid. He gets his crescent axe from his Haral, who he is apprenticing under, when he is quickly leaving because of the attack. The fact that he is with somebody at the beginning of this really causes problems for his whole story arc later. Did they just get rid of Haral and Joslyn in this?

Also, none of what is happening with Matt's parents is in the first book. At all. I don't even know what is going on there. Further, why was Abell hiding? He is known as a good fighter, second only to Tam in skill, who is a Master Swordsman.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/20 16:37:04


Post by: nels1031


I see in the previews what looks to be a Beastman? How prominent are they in this series?


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/20 16:43:54


Post by: Dreadwinter


Trollocs are very prominent.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/20 17:41:04


Post by: Grumpy Gnome


 AegisGrimm wrote:
Technically, from what I remember all those many years ago that I read them (i.e. before Jordan even died, so I never read the final books), The Wheel of Time world is a post-apocalyptic aftermath of a society much more advanced than ours that used the One Power sort of as a replacement for technology when both genders could use it as much as they wanted. It was destroyed when Shaitan was released from his giant dimensional prison-thing. Several times visions were granted of flying vehicles and advanced buildings from the time of his escape.

I also remember at least one or two mentions in the book of the characters seeing advanced skyscraper-like structures in the far distance as they traveled, and I distantly remember that Mat ends up inside one of them, travelling to some sort of other dimension.

If the screw up Perrin, I will avoid this show like a used syringe on a street corner.


Fair enough, I guess I must have skimmed over those bits and forgotten them. I recall an apocalypse just not that it was from so advanced a society. My memory is going like my eyesight.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/20 17:57:13


Post by: Laughing Man


 Dreadwinter wrote:
 Baragash wrote:
Yeah, it comes across as a magical Jetsons-type society in the bits we get from Lews Therin in the books.

What happened to Rand's dad is consistent with the books too.


No it isn't. Rand's Dad is a Swordmaster and definitely takes out more than one Trolloc. The entire fight scene at home is abysmal. He does get hurt, but not gravely since he is important to the Two Rivers story arc later.

They were also all 17ish, not 20. Perrin wasn't married/dating and definitely wasn't expecting a kid. He gets his crescent axe from his Haral, who he is apprenticing under, when he is quickly leaving because of the attack. The fact that he is with somebody at the beginning of this really causes problems for his whole story arc later. Did they just get rid of Haral and Joslyn in this?

Also, none of what is happening with Matt's parents is in the first book. At all. I don't even know what is going on there. Further, why was Abell hiding? He is known as a good fighter, second only to Tam in skill, who is a Master Swordsman.

They showed pretty well that Rand's dad is an excellent swordsman, and he'll show up again later, given that Moraine heals him afterwards. And with his wife extremely dead, there's plenty of room for Perrin to marry Faile later. Right now it just serves to put his inner conflict over fighting at the fore, which is a handy narrative device given we're not getting any inner monologue.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 AegisGrimm wrote:
If the screw up Perrin, I will avoid this show like a used syringe on a street corner.

Perrin seems pretty much on point. There's some mild changes in background for Perrin and Mat (Perrin being married to show he's the responsible, solemn semi-pacifist, Mat's family being screwed up to give him, well, any motivation at all in book 1), but it mostly serves to accentuate their personalities and give them some depth at the start of a book where they very much don't get any of that.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/20 18:43:48


Post by: Azreal13


I spent most of Ep1 fiddling with my phone if I'm honest, but the attack was engaging enough that I started to focus on it again, so I'll probably give the other 2 available episodes a run to give it a fair crack, wouldn't be the first show to wobble a bit before finding its feet.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/20 19:07:32


Post by: tneva82


 AegisGrimm wrote:
Technically, from what I remember all those many years ago that I read them (i.e. before Jordan even died, so I never read the final books), The Wheel of Time world is a post-apocalyptic aftermath of a society much more advanced than ours that used the One Power sort of as a replacement for technology when both genders could use it as much as they wanted. It was destroyed when Shaitan was released from his giant dimensional prison-thing. Several times visions were granted of flying vehicles and advanced buildings from the time of his escape.

I also remember at least one or two mentions in the book of the characters seeing advanced skyscraper-like structures in the far distance as they traveled, and I distantly remember that Mat ends up inside one of them, travelling to some sort of other dimension.

If the screw up Perrin, I will avoid this show like a used syringe on a street corner.


There's also references to our world. America, soviet union...others.

Our world is both past and future of wot. Wheel turns etc.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/20 22:39:16


Post by: Mr Morden


Well I definatly enjoyed that the first episode more than the one book I struggled through and much more than the Witcher.

So far on a par with Shanara/The Outpost/Cursed

Good
Rosemund is cool as is her bodyguard
That was a cool beastman attack

not soo good
Not really engaged with many of the others yet.





Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/21 00:44:58


Post by: Voss


 AegisGrimm wrote:
Technically, from what I remember all those many years ago that I read them (i.e. before Jordan even died, so I never read the final books), The Wheel of Time world is a post-apocalyptic aftermath of a society much more advanced than ours that used the One Power sort of as a replacement for technology when both genders could use it as much as they wanted. It was destroyed when Shaitan was released from his giant dimensional prison-thing. Several times visions were granted of flying vehicles and advanced buildings from the time of his escape.

I also remember at least one or two mentions in the book of the characters seeing advanced skyscraper-like structures in the far distance as they traveled, and I distantly remember that Mat ends up inside one of them, travelling to some sort of other dimension.

If the screw up Perrin, I will avoid this show like a used syringe on a street corner.


Huh, really? Perrin always struck me as the character most in need of editorial interference. As in persuading Jordan he's completely unnecessary and saving ~400-500 pages over the course of the series.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/21 09:04:17


Post by: Shadow Walker


After 3 episodes I want to watch at least the entire 1st season. Weirdly enough because with the exception for Moiraine and Lan, I absolutely do not care if others get killed, being so boring and/or predictable. It looks like i am more interested in the world and its secrets (never read the books) than the actual protagonists.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/24 01:12:14


Post by: Grumpy Gnome


I rewatched episode 1 with Mrs. GG so she could catch up.

Spoiler:
I enjoyed it more the second time around. Perhaps the shock of the changes wore off. Mrs. GG enjoyed it although she is not as familiar with, or as much a fan of, the books as I am. She found it darker than I did and the characters/actors less likable. But she agreed to watch episode 2.

The way the Whitecloaks are portrayed seems off to both of us. We both imagined more gritty Knights Templar types than the too pristine almost Elven look. Even the not so Knights Templars of Knightfall were more what we imagined for the Children of the Light.




Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/26 14:23:27


Post by: Dreadwinter


I don't understand these changes. At all. I don't think any of them have been made for the better. I think a lot of them completely ruin future storylines. I am dreading the 4th episode because of changes to Loial.

The first season right now is sitting at a 3.7 on the Amazon Prime ratings.

Dragonball: Evolution has a 3.8.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/26 14:51:47


Post by: AduroT


As someone who has never read any of the books and no idea what’s changed, I’m enjoying it well enough.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/26 15:15:17


Post by: Slipspace


I have also never read any of the WoT series and so far the show is pretty average for me. It's fine, I guess, but nothing that's really blowing my socks off. The acting is OK, the writing is OK, the special effects range from OK to poor and there are entirely too many shots of mountains and plains (it looks like they've stolen a bunch of unused scenery shots from LOTR).

The big problem for me at the moment is I don't really care about the characters, and now they've been separated we're getting even less development of them than we otherwise would have.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/26 16:00:13


Post by: Dreadwinter


I recommend the audio books with Kate Reading and Michael Kramer. They do an excellent job with the characters, as they do in every book.

Nothing against the new audio book with Rosamund Pike, I just haven't heard it and I am a big Reading/Kramer fan as narrators.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/27 05:05:11


Post by: Azreal13


Just finished Ep4 and I really think it's hitting its stride. I read the first 7 or 8 volumes what feels like 20 years ago, and fundamentally lost interest. Consequently any changes are lost on me, I just remember some vague names, concepts and world details, but after a slightly shakey start it is really growing on me.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/27 05:48:56


Post by: AnomanderRake


As a big fan of the books, and someone who's read them multiple times, I think that the show is a masterclass in how to adapt something far too long into a shorter format. They're hitting a lot of the events they need to that are going to matter later, they're trimming out extraneous scenes/characters where they don't matter that much to the wider story, and they're focusing on hitting the right thematic notes and setting up the characters over spurious exposition or unnecessary detail.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/27 07:30:55


Post by: Grumpy Gnome


Mrs. GG and I are unsure how to take the show after what we have seen in Episode 4.

Spoiler:
It was a decent episode in and of itself, very watchable, but the “epic climax“ left us wondering where they are going to go with the whole “no one knows who the Dragon Reborn will be” plotline. Will the show really have the Dragon Reborn be someone different from the books or just try to keep us guessing so it can create tension?


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/29 02:35:16


Post by: StygianBeach


Watched episode 1 and it is enjoyable. Which is enough for me.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/29 04:12:53


Post by: Sterling191


 Grumpy Gnome wrote:
Mrs. GG and I are unsure how to take the show after what we have seen in Episode 4. it was a decent episode in and of itself, very watchable, but the “epic climax“ left us wondering where they are going to go with the whole “no one knows who the Dragon Reborn will be” plotline. Will the show really have the Dragon Reborn be someone different from the books or just try to keep us guessing so it can create tension?


There's a zero percent chance that they're altering a plot point that fundamental. Every character in the series has their part to play surrounding Rand being Lews Therin reborn, and altering that means changing everything else downstream. Readers know a *lot* of things, and the show has been exceedingly blunt about seeding episodes with pretty blatant hints of things to come (viewers are practically tripping over foreshadowing moment after foreshadowing moment in EPs 2-4). It's purely an in-verse conceit. Remember that Rand doesn't kick things off and reveal himself until the end of Book 2.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/29 04:53:39


Post by: Azreal13


Readers may know, viewers may not, so maybe be a little more circumspect with the spoilers about who the Dragon is etc?


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/29 05:46:06


Post by: hotsauceman1


i made it halfway theough the first episode.
I felt like so much was thrown at me that i didnt understand that i just stopped


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/29 21:30:33


Post by: Hulksmash


I'm enjoying it so far. The wife is enjoying it. Outside of some odd casting choices and up aging I'm quite happy with it.

And I'll add that I went back and started reading the series hoping to make it thru this time. I think I made book 7 or so last time. I had forgotten how absolutely nothing Jordan did with Perrin and Matt for development early on. The age up might work out in the long run.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/29 22:53:53


Post by: Azreal13


 hotsauceman1 wrote:
i made it halfway theough the first episode.
I felt like so much was thrown at me that i didnt understand that i just stopped


You get enough of that in real life, amiright?


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/29 23:29:49


Post by: Flipsiders


Huge fan of the show so far, but still formulating my thoughts for Dakka.

I don't see why everyone's so upset about the aging up, though; most of the protagonists are 20 by about book 4 anyway.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/30 01:47:36


Post by: ccs


 Azreal13 wrote:
Readers may know, viewers may not, so maybe be a little more circumspect with the spoilers about who the Dragon is etc?


Oh no, not spoilers for a still popular 30 year old series....


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/30 02:01:55


Post by: Azreal13


Or, and bear with me, a totally new TV show that people might hitherto have been utterly unaware of?

Given the profile of the show, and the fact that plenty of people who might even be aware of the books might not have read or given up on the series, or, like me, were fairly sure they remembered it but were happy to go with the flow, it isn't unreasonable to assume there'll be people reading the thread who won't know the whole story.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/30 16:56:15


Post by: Shadow Walker


ccs wrote:
 Azreal13 wrote:
Readers may know, viewers may not, so maybe be a little more circumspect with the spoilers about who the Dragon is etc?


Oh no, not spoilers for a still popular 30 year old series....

Imagine that some people, including myself, had never heard about those books before this TV show.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/30 17:08:07


Post by: hotsauceman1


 Azreal13 wrote:
 hotsauceman1 wrote:
i made it halfway theough the first episode.
I felt like so much was thrown at me that i didnt understand that i just stopped


You get enough of that in real life, amiright?

More like
Dragon Reborn? Men cant hold power? Braids? Wisdom, meaning of rivers? Huh?
IT was just hard to follow.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/30 17:27:19


Post by: Mr Morden


 Azreal13 wrote:
Or, and bear with me, a totally new TV show that people might hitherto have been utterly unaware of?

Given the profile of the show, and the fact that plenty of people who might even be aware of the books might not have read or given up on the series, or, like me, were fairly sure they remembered it but were happy to go with the flow, it isn't unreasonable to assume there'll be people reading the thread who won't know the whole story.


Agreed - I could not get past the first book - although I am not bothered by spoilter - others often are.

Seemed standard fantasy tropes so fine - my 75 year old mother was fine with it all....What i got from the show

Dragon Reborn?
Like I said standard Chosen one and Dark Lord at the moment

Men can't hold power?
The one apparently hardline witch-lady said men should not have the power, they make it filthy and it sends them mad....but she may not be a trustworthy narrator

Braids?
Seems to be a coming of age thing for women.

Wisdom,
Village Witch

meaning of rivers?
Huh? Stream of life....maybe - did not seem that important at the moment



Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/30 17:52:34


Post by: Azreal13


 hotsauceman1 wrote:
 Azreal13 wrote:
 hotsauceman1 wrote:
i made it halfway theough the first episode.
I felt like so much was thrown at me that i didnt understand that i just stopped


You get enough of that in real life, amiright?

More like
Dragon Reborn? Men cant hold power? Braids? Wisdom, meaning of rivers? Huh?
IT was just hard to follow.


Have you never watched a show that didn't explain literally every term they used that was in the slightest bit unusual in the first episode? That didn't expect you to take it a little bit on faith that answers would come?

That aside, they literally did explain why men can't hold power, and if you can't infer what braids and the river meant from context then I don't know what to tell you.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/30 22:20:22


Post by: Dreadwinter


I don't think you can spoiler the show with information from the books. They are way off over there, I don't know where they are going. How many episodes is the first season? They have a lot of ground to cover. Like, literally. They travel a LOT in the first book.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/11/30 22:22:03


Post by: Baragash


 Mr Morden wrote:
Men can't hold power?
The one apparently hardline witch-lady said men should not have the power, they make it filthy and it sends them mad....but she may not be a trustworthy narrator


Her description is slightly inconsistent with the books, whether that's because she's unreliable or just meh writing it's not possible to tell - the power is filthy, it taints men the more they use, hence why they go mad.

TBH the first two books are pretty poor, you have to suffer through them to get to the good stuff, after that it really picks up for a while.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/01 05:33:59


Post by: nels1031


Just finished the first episode. I’m digging it.

Not interested in reading the books, but this first episode was cool enough to make me want to watch more.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/01 17:33:56


Post by: Mr Morden


 nels1031 wrote:
Just finished the first episode. I’m digging it.

Not interested in reading the books, but this first episode was cool enough to make me want to watch more.


I would imagine that is exactly the reaction the makers want - pretty much mine as well


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/01 19:32:04


Post by: Sterling191


For those having issues following specific things, I highly recommend looking at the X-ray Trivia category. Jordan used a *LOT* of footnotes and glossary entries to explain his world, and a great deal of those have been adopted where appropriate for the show. They don't quite go so far as Villenueve did for Dune with regards to keeping exposition somewhat limited in relation to the source material, but they have more than two hours to work with so there's time to sneak some in on-screen here and there.

As to Liandrin, she's very much in the spirit of her novellic counterpart even if minor details have been updated. The entire philosophical debate amongst the sisters in EP4 over what to do with Logain is precisely to tee up just how militant and divergent the Reds are becoming.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/02 23:51:00


Post by: AnomanderRake


 Mr Morden wrote:
meaning of rivers?
Huh? Stream of life....maybe - did not seem that important at the moment



The river is a metaphor that shows up a lot in narration in the books. Don't worry too much about the literal importance of the river, but if you're trying to do any literary analysis here the metaphor of the river ties back into a lot of the central themes of the story.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/04 12:26:35


Post by: Dreadwinter


Sterling191 wrote:
As to Liandrin, she's very much in the spirit of her novellic counterpart even if minor details have been updated. The entire philosophical debate amongst the sisters in EP4 over what to do with Logain is precisely to tee up just how militant and divergent the Reds are becoming.


I absolutely hated this scene. It was completely unnecessary and I am not sure what it had to do with the plot at all. Why are we showing the Reds this way? Yes, SOME of the Reds are less than ideal, but the whole Ajah is not going nuts or defecting in such ways. Nor was the gentling of Logain handled in such a way.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/05 05:52:32


Post by: Arbiter_Shade


As someone who has read the series multiple times I absolutely love it so far. Yes they make some changes but let's be honest, the first book could have taken multiple seasons of a show in order to get ALL of it in. Cutting some stuff while focusing on the most important parts is just part of adapting books to other media. The only problem with it is the fact that people who are not familiar with the source might be confused why certain things were added in because they tie into something later, AKA Shadar Logoth.

I am watching it with my wife and she has never read the books and she is learning it all as we go along. So far she is really enjoying it as well.

The one thing that she brought up that did ruin one of the changes she made is the fact that in the show they say the Dragon Reborn can be a man or a woman, but if the Dragon was reincarnated as a woman then they would have the power of the Dragon without the tainting of the one power. I laughed about it because I was okay with almost every change they have made so far but that one was such a lapse in judgement that it creates a massive plot hole that didn't exist in the books.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/05 12:39:51


Post by: Dreadwinter


Shadar Logoth is going to be an issue in the future because they spent exactly 30 seconds explaining it. Considering it is pretty important to the story down the road, I think it deserved a little more.

The whole "Who could the Dragon Reborn be?!" is pretty irritating. You know who it is less than halfway through the first book.

Making them all 20+ kind of makes a coming of age story, well, pointless.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/05 13:53:07


Post by: Lance845


When Game of Thrones was something people gave a gak about the people who read the books shut the feth up about the red wedding until after people had watched it. And after it was done they shut the feth up about lady stone heart because they were waiting for it to happen in the show and people who didn't read to catch up (it never happened but that is beside the point).

Just because the show COULD be different, doesn't mean you shouldn't shut the feth up just in case the same things happen.

The GoT readers were very good about this.

Just my 2 cents on whether people should feel comfortable spoilering a blah blah year old story.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/06 03:17:59


Post by: Arbiter_Shade


 Dreadwinter wrote:
Shadar Logoth is going to be an issue in the future because they spent exactly 30 seconds explaining it. Considering it is pretty important to the story down the road, I think it deserved a little more.

The whole "Who could the Dragon Reborn be?!" is pretty irritating. You know who it is less than halfway through the first book.

Making them all 20+ kind of makes a coming of age story, well, pointless.


In reference to Shadar Logoth, yes they will need to explain more of it if the series reaches that point but that is something that they can easily do later on in the show. It is possible for their to be an in character explanation that will give the viewer a better understanding of it.

The mystery they are trying to force of the Dragon Reborn is to much of a cynical drama stereotype to keep the uninitiated watching and I would bet anything that they will only reveal it at the end of the first season because of course they will....


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/06 04:25:36


Post by: Flipsiders


 Lance845 wrote:
When Game of Thrones was something people gave a gak about the people who read the books shut the feth up about the red wedding until after people had watched it. And after it was done they shut the feth up about lady stone heart because they were waiting for it to happen in the show and people who didn't read to catch up (it never happened but that is beside the point).

Just because the show COULD be different, doesn't mean you shouldn't shut the feth up just in case the same things happen.

The GoT readers were very good about this.

Just my 2 cents on whether people should feel comfortable spoilering a blah blah year old story.


The difference is that people generally don't feel forced to mention Lady Stoneheart when explaining the core conceit of the entire ASOIAF series to a new fan. Not only is it excruciatingly obvious who the Dragon Reborn is by the end of the first Wheel of Time book, but it's also half the thematic appeal of the series.

There's nothing wrong with the show's decision to keep the characters wondering, but pretending that the audience doesn't know who the Dragon will be simply from a storytelling trope perspective is pretty far-fetched.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/06 04:41:50


Post by: Azreal13


GoT, TWD, probably several others I can't recall, the Dakka convention is that if there's existing source material that's being adapted, people who have knowledge of that material use spoiler tags when discussing it.

This works, is polite and respectful of others and requires almost zero effort.

This really shouldn't even be up for discussion.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/06 07:29:01


Post by: Grumpy Gnome


The more I see of the Whitecloaks in the tv show, the further they get from how I read them in the book and part of that is down to their costuming.

Spoiler:
When the Whitecloaks were first introduced my wife asked me, “Is he supposed to be a teaboy? I mean in-the-creepy-inappropriate-kind-of-way-tea-boy?” Same kind of thing with the forced bathing scene in a later episode. They do not come across as monastic, they come across as creepy.

Granted the latest episode got a couple things in, one being some religious fundamentalism in the dialogue and the other some skilled martial horse riding but they still come across too effete. It is one thing to have a specific high ranking figure in fine clothes, quite another to have even the rank and file in posh robes. Also, for being religiously dedicated to fighting Darkfriends and the forces of Evil they sure seem to scare easy.

Poor writing in my opinion.

Making them look weak does not help to make standing up against them look heroic.

That said I do like a lot of the other costuming and set design. I like how Lan’s horse comes across as a proper warhorse compared to the other horses of the group. The White Tower does not look as I imagined it but it looks pretty cool.

https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/improv ... me-design/

I am also glad at this point that I have forgotten much of the books. It has made it easier for me to avoid getting even more annoyed by changes.


For some reason I am struggling to like any of the characters other than Moiraine and Lan.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/06 10:16:12


Post by: AduroT


 Flipsiders wrote:
 Lance845 wrote:
When Game of Thrones was something people gave a gak about the people who read the books shut the feth up about the red wedding until after people had watched it. And after it was done they shut the feth up about lady stone heart because they were waiting for it to happen in the show and people who didn't read to catch up (it never happened but that is beside the point).

Just because the show COULD be different, doesn't mean you shouldn't shut the feth up just in case the same things happen.

The GoT readers were very good about this.

Just my 2 cents on whether people should feel comfortable spoilering a blah blah year old story.


The difference is that people generally don't feel forced to mention Lady Stoneheart when explaining the core conceit of the entire ASOIAF series to a new fan. Not only is it excruciatingly obvious who the Dragon Reborn is by the end of the first Wheel of Time book, but it's also half the thematic appeal of the series.

There's nothing wrong with the show's decision to keep the characters wondering, but pretending that the audience doesn't know who the Dragon will be simply from a storytelling trope perspective is pretty far-fetched.


They’ve already covered the entire first book in four episodes?


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/06 13:04:10


Post by: Sterling191


 Grumpy Gnome wrote:
They do not come across as monastic, they come across as creepy.


That's entirely intended. The Children are basically the mid 16th century catholic church taken to a more militant extreme. They control one of the major nation-states, have a sizeable standing army and are a general pain in the ass to everyone at all times.

 Grumpy Gnome wrote:

Granted the latest episode got a couple things in, one being some religious fundamentalism in the dialogue and the other some skilled martial horse riding but they still come across too effete. It is one thing to have a specific high ranking figure in fine clothes, quite another to have even the rank and file in posh robes. Also, for being religiously dedicated to fighting Darkfriends and the forces of Evil they sure seem to scare easy.


At this point in their history the Children are extremely decadent, despite their claims to humility and piety. It's an intentional contradiction.

As to scaring easy, I imagine if a large coordinated
Spoiler:
sentient and very angry
pack of wolves descended on my house I'd probably be a bit peaked too.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/06 14:47:39


Post by: ingtaer


Book spoilers are to be put in spoiler tags please, it is only common courtesy.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/06 15:24:44


Post by: Grumpy Gnome


The Whitecloaks deal with channeling adversaries. The show so far has not shown them to be credible combatants against competent opponents.

Spoiler:
Now I have to admit I took my image from the books a long time ago but white cloaks and tabards, conical helmets and breastplates is what I seem to recall. That and someone claiming to quote Robert Jordan saying the Teutonic Knights inspired him. Whilst flashier than Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon they were hardly decadent.

That said, doing research for this post I came across this…

ROBERT JORDAN
For Children of the Light, the Whitecloaks were inspired by the Inquisition, the SS, the Teutonic Knights and others. In fact, they were inspired by all those groups who say, "We know the truth. It is the only truth. You will believe it, or we will kill you."

https://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=211

https://library.tarvalon.net/index.php?title=Robert_Jordan%27s_Blog

I can see how a costume designer not intimately familiar with the books might read that quote and come up with the costumes we see in the TV show. That and the show seeming to go out of its way to limit Western European imagery in the show.

Don‘t get me wrong, I like seeing quality sets and costumes with Eastern influences but it does jar when you have already mental images from the book and supporting media prior to this. Again, Jordan has spoken about his inspiration for various locations.

http://www.steelypips.org/wotfaq/3_sources/3.14_countries.html

I have attached images a quick google search turned up for how I, and others, imagined Whitecloaks to look like. These images show costumes that to me convey military competence and function over comfort.


EDIT: I apologize if anything I have written is perceived as a spoiler. I have tried to avoid writing anything that I thought would spoil a surprise.

[Thumb - 0436BB9B-A5DB-4115-91E4-13ED6A45B4C0.jpeg]
[Thumb - 5E0B8D13-E184-479B-BC41-BC94FA9ABAE0.jpeg]


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/06 16:05:36


Post by: Laughing Man


Well, whoever drew that last one definitely didn't want them confused with good guys, by the Schutzstaffel insignia on the cloak.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/06 16:18:54


Post by: Ensis Ferrae


 Grumpy Gnome wrote:
The Whitecloaks deal with channeling adversaries. The show so far has not shown them to be credible combatants against competent opponents.


EDIT: I apologize if anything I have written is perceived as a spoiler. I have tried to avoid writing anything that I thought would spoil a surprise.



One of the things I found interesting/bothersome about the whitecloaks:

Spoiler:
in the books, the way they are described, there was a clear visual difference between the Questioners and the other, combatant type soldiers of the order. In the show, they seem to all generally look the same, and you kind of have to be told who's who in that group



And WoT was always a fun world for me to think of, because the way Jordan describes the world, you the reader can basically say, Ohh well, Caemlyn has the visual elements of these three world civilisations from these other time periods. Lan, and many of the other warders fought in the books with what I read as being katanas (i guess the typical white boi fetish of the japanese sword???), but the show does handle that differently, and not in a bad way.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/06 16:58:50


Post by: Lance845


 Flipsiders wrote:
 Lance845 wrote:
When Game of Thrones was something people gave a gak about the people who read the books shut the feth up about the red wedding until after people had watched it. And after it was done they shut the feth up about lady stone heart because they were waiting for it to happen in the show and people who didn't read to catch up (it never happened but that is beside the point).

Just because the show COULD be different, doesn't mean you shouldn't shut the feth up just in case the same things happen.

The GoT readers were very good about this.

Just my 2 cents on whether people should feel comfortable spoilering a blah blah year old story.


The difference is that people generally don't feel forced to mention Lady Stoneheart when explaining the core conceit of the entire ASOIAF series to a new fan. Not only is it excruciatingly obvious who the Dragon Reborn is by the end of the first Wheel of Time book, but it's also half the thematic appeal of the series.

There's nothing wrong with the show's decision to keep the characters wondering, but pretending that the audience doesn't know who the Dragon will be simply from a storytelling trope perspective is pretty far-fetched.


Sure. So has the first season/book of the show wrapped up yet so that the audience of the show is on the same page as the readers of the first book? Have we reached the Eddard Stark gets beheaded point of the show/books?

Or are you 4 episodes in and just talking about the end of the first book before it's had a chance to play out?


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/06 17:06:14


Post by: StraightSilver


I'll point out that I haven't read the books. It's one of the few fantasy series I just never got around to.

I was obviously aware of the books and some of my friends rate them highly.

So when I watched the first 3 episodes I was seriously underwhelmed.

I'll admit the show is now growing on me but it still feels very derivative and feels like a BBC production (that's not meant to be a criticism, but I was expecting more).

It just feels too "clean" but also feels rushed, as if they are skipping quite a lot of the story.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/06 18:22:38


Post by: Grumpy Gnome


 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
 Grumpy Gnome wrote:
The Whitecloaks deal with channeling adversaries. The show so far has not shown them to be credible combatants against competent opponents.


EDIT: I apologize if anything I have written is perceived as a spoiler. I have tried to avoid writing anything that I thought would spoil a surprise.



One of the things I found interesting/bothersome about the whitecloaks:

Spoiler:
in the books, the way they are described, there was a clear visual difference between the Questioners and the other, combatant type soldiers of the order. In the show, they seem to all generally look the same, and you kind of have to be told who's who in that group



And WoT was always a fun world for me to think of, because the way Jordan describes the world, you the reader can basically say, Ohh well, Caemlyn has the visual elements of these three world civilisations from these other time periods. Lan, and many of the other warders fought in the books with what I read as being katanas (i guess the typical white boi fetish of the japanese sword???), but the show does handle that differently, and not in a bad way.


I very much agree with your spoilered point.

Spoiler:
The difference seems very i portent to me from a narrative standpoint so should be reflected in the costuming.





Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Laughing Man wrote:
Well, whoever drew that last one definitely didn't want them confused with good guys, by the Schutzstaffel insignia on the cloak.


I seem to recall the books mentioning the use of lightning bolts as rank insignia. It matches the quote of Jordan saying the SS were one of his inspirations.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
StraightSilver wrote:
I'll point out that I haven't read the books. It's one of the few fantasy series I just never got around to.

I was obviously aware of the books and some of my friends rate them highly.

So when I watched the first 3 episodes I was seriously underwhelmed.

I'll admit the show is now growing on me but it still feels very derivative and feels like a BBC production (that's not meant to be a criticism, but I was expecting more).

It just feels too "clean" but also feels rushed, as if they are skipping quite a lot of the story.


It has been increasingly growing on me and Mrs. GG as well with each new episode but yeah, I hear you on the BBC production feel. The production values also remind me of The Witcher. The WoT book series felt derivative to me at first but gets better over time. Perhaps this show williger better over time as well. There have been some good scenes at least.



Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/07 01:44:24


Post by: Dreadwinter


So uh, I am very confused by this last episode, are we completely skipping... (Book and Show spoilers ahead)

Spoiler:
Caimlyn and Fal Dara? There are several important characters in Caimlyn we need to meet, unless we are just skipping the entire plot of the first book?

Also, Loial is almost 10 feet tall in the book. Where is Elyas Machera to start Perrin's journey? I guess I shouldn't be surprised since they cut out Mashadar.


Very very confused.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/07 05:47:24


Post by: Flipsiders


 Dreadwinter wrote:
So uh, I am very confused by this last episode, are we completely skipping... (Book and Show spoilers ahead)

Spoiler:
Caimlyn and Fal Dara? There are several important characters in Caimlyn we need to meet, unless we are just skipping the entire plot of the first book?

Also, Loial is almost 10 feet tall in the book. Where is Elyas Machera to start Perrin's journey? I guess I shouldn't be surprised since they cut out Mashadar.


Very very confused.


Spoiler:
I haven't gotten around to watching episode 5, but keep in mind the important events in Camelyn require Logain to be their to have their full impact. If he isn't there by the fifth episode, Rand and Mat won't be either.


 Lance845 wrote:
 Flipsiders wrote:
 Lance845 wrote:
When Game of Thrones was something people gave a gak about the people who read the books shut the feth up about the red wedding until after people had watched it. And after it was done they shut the feth up about lady stone heart because they were waiting for it to happen in the show and people who didn't read to catch up (it never happened but that is beside the point).

Just because the show COULD be different, doesn't mean you shouldn't shut the feth up just in case the same things happen.

The GoT readers were very good about this.

Just my 2 cents on whether people should feel comfortable spoilering a blah blah year old story.


The difference is that people generally don't feel forced to mention Lady Stoneheart when explaining the core conceit of the entire ASOIAF series to a new fan. Not only is it excruciatingly obvious who the Dragon Reborn is by the end of the first Wheel of Time book, but it's also half the thematic appeal of the series.

There's nothing wrong with the show's decision to keep the characters wondering, but pretending that the audience doesn't know who the Dragon will be simply from a storytelling trope perspective is pretty far-fetched.


Sure. So has the first season/book of the show wrapped up yet so that the audience of the show is on the same page as the readers of the first book? Have we reached the Eddard Stark gets beheaded point of the show/books?

Or are you 4 episodes in and just talking about the end of the first book before it's had a chance to play out?


Spoiler:
While I'm willing to follow your request, I do want to note that you don't actually learn who the Dragon is by the end of the first book; you only learn that Rand is capable of channeling. My point was that it's pretty expected that the super-important protagonist who is also one of the only two men in the setting capable of magic will also be the prophesized world savior. In fact, most show viewers should be able to deduce the dragon is either Rand or Nynaeve by now through Main Character Syndrome alone. It's not exactly a murder mystery, folks.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/07 11:10:32


Post by: Dreadwinter


 Flipsiders wrote:
 Dreadwinter wrote:
So uh, I am very confused by this last episode, are we completely skipping... (Book and Show spoilers ahead)

Spoiler:
Caimlyn and Fal Dara? There are several important characters in Caimlyn we need to meet, unless we are just skipping the entire plot of the first book?

Also, Loial is almost 10 feet tall in the book. Where is Elyas Machera to start Perrin's journey? I guess I shouldn't be surprised since they cut out Mashadar.


Very very confused.


Spoiler:
I haven't gotten around to watching episode 5, but keep in mind the important events in Camelyn require Logain to be their to have their full impact. If he isn't there by the fifth episode, Rand and Mat won't be either.


 Lance845 wrote:
 Flipsiders wrote:
 Lance845 wrote:
When Game of Thrones was something people gave a gak about the people who read the books shut the feth up about the red wedding until after people had watched it. And after it was done they shut the feth up about lady stone heart because they were waiting for it to happen in the show and people who didn't read to catch up (it never happened but that is beside the point).

Just because the show COULD be different, doesn't mean you shouldn't shut the feth up just in case the same things happen.

The GoT readers were very good about this.

Just my 2 cents on whether people should feel comfortable spoilering a blah blah year old story.


The difference is that people generally don't feel forced to mention Lady Stoneheart when explaining the core conceit of the entire ASOIAF series to a new fan. Not only is it excruciatingly obvious who the Dragon Reborn is by the end of the first Wheel of Time book, but it's also half the thematic appeal of the series.

There's nothing wrong with the show's decision to keep the characters wondering, but pretending that the audience doesn't know who the Dragon will be simply from a storytelling trope perspective is pretty far-fetched.


Sure. So has the first season/book of the show wrapped up yet so that the audience of the show is on the same page as the readers of the first book? Have we reached the Eddard Stark gets beheaded point of the show/books?

Or are you 4 episodes in and just talking about the end of the first book before it's had a chance to play out?


Spoiler:
While I'm willing to follow your request, I do want to note that you don't actually learn who the Dragon is by the end of the first book; you only learn that Rand is capable of channeling. My point was that it's pretty expected that the super-important protagonist who is also one of the only two men in the setting capable of magic will also be the prophesized world savior. In fact, most show viewers should be able to deduce the dragon is either Rand or Nynaeve by now through Main Character Syndrome alone. It's not exactly a murder mystery, folks.


Pretty sure you learn who it is by the time you get to Caemlyn because of...

Spoiler:
Min and the repeating of the Karatheon Cycle, also learning the birthplace and actual backstory of the character. Which we learn in Book 1. We 100% for sure know who it is by Fal Dara, which is also in the first book.


But, they are skipping things to make "drama" in a book that didn't use this as a story hook.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/08 00:50:25


Post by: Ensis Ferrae


 Dreadwinter wrote:


But, they are skipping things to make "drama" in a book that didn't use this as a story hook.


They are either skipping things, or, like a casino card dealer, shuffling things around to mix things up a bit. As the show is a different medium, the show runners are perhaps wanting to focus on different things. As such, it may make sense for things to be different from the books to the show.

Spoiler:
For instance, in the books, Perrin is described as always being slow. . . yet in the show, it is hard to really portray that, so we "force" that aspect of his character, by making him married, and then killing his own wife.

I dont recall when we actually meet Elyas, but perhaps in the show, he is still coming, as Perrin as yet has not fully manifested the super-bark abilities. . . i mean, his eyes only changed a few instances thus far in show, so he doesnt seem quite fully aware of whats going on yet.

We also don't have any sword training montage scenes between Rand and Lan, which are pretty important pieces of the early series. . . so far, absolutely NOBODY has noticed this kid carrying one of the "super badass" swords that all the sword-bros drool over, and thus, no body has called him on it, yet book readers know what the sword is/is supposed to mean.


I've a feeling that some things will be coming out of order for the sake of "better" on screen story boarding, rather than staying 100% true to the source materials. Undoubtedly these decisions will affect viewership, as Id wager some of the truly die hard readers will rage quit the show before it gets going. . . however, the audience that NEEDS to be sold on the show, and watch the show, are the people who have not read the books, or only have a passing interest in fantasy stories (as i am sure that Amazon will be using a similar viewership metrics to what Netflix does when it determines whether this show is worth continuing or not)


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/08 03:59:14


Post by: Flipsiders


Mixed feelings about the sword:


Spoiler:

Rand and Lan's sword training isn't too relevant to the plot until the beginning of book 2, since Lan's teachings and technique are instrumental to Rand winning against the Shadow at Falme. With that in mind, it makes sense that they wouldn't broach the subject until most of the important aspects of the first book have been taken care of. Some people have mentioned feeling overwhelmed by the information in the show already, which gives that decision a lot of legitimacy.

However, as Ensis pointed out, it's extremely strange that the Heron-Mark blade hasn't even been mentioned by name as of yet. I believe Tam tells Rand about its significance before he even leaves the Two Rivers, and he covers the blade multiple times throughout the first book to avoid unwanted attention.

Even before the first episode released, I remember a lot of people being confused about the sword's general design: For some reason, the herons in the actual prop are placed on the base of the blade, rather than the hilt. Rand is supposed to be marked by the Heron by gripping the hilt too hard, so why are they on the blade instead? Is that entire scene going to be removed? If so, why include the Herons in the first place? It's pretty baffling.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/08 04:59:31


Post by: Voss


The Wheel of Time is a massive story, spanning 15 books, 704 total chapters and a whopping 4.4 million words.


I think you're getting caught up in minutiae in a series that has _way_ too much of it. By necessity, the move to a different format is going to take an axe to a lot of 'stuff.' Sword porn button trivia is a good thing to cut.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/08 05:36:03


Post by: Flipsiders


Voss wrote:
The Wheel of Time is a massive story, spanning 15 books, 704 total chapters and a whopping 4.4 million words.


I think you're getting caught up in minutiae in a series that has _way_ too much of it. By necessity, the move to a different format is going to take an axe to a lot of 'stuff.' Sword porn button trivia is a good thing to cut.


Spoiler:
Rand's involvement with the Heron-Mark blade, including his scarring from the hilt, is actually an extremely important part of his character development starting as early from the second book. There are some deuteragonists who you can argue could be taken out more easily than this aspect.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/08 07:25:22


Post by: Grumpy Gnome


Voss wrote:
The Wheel of Time is a massive story, spanning 15 books, 704 total chapters and a whopping 4.4 million words.


I think you're getting caught up in minutiae in a series that has _way_ too much of it. By necessity, the move to a different format is going to take an axe to a lot of 'stuff.' Sword porn button trivia is a good thing to cut.


It is hardly sword porn button trivia.

But I do not like characters being cut either.

If I like a book I want the movie of the book to stay as true to the book as possible.

Spoiler:
I fail to see how killing his wife is movie speak for Perrin being “slow”.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/08 23:29:15


Post by: Dreadwinter


Voss wrote:
The Wheel of Time is a massive story, spanning 15 books, 704 total chapters and a whopping 4.4 million words.


I think you're getting caught up in minutiae in a series that has _way_ too much of it. By necessity, the move to a different format is going to take an axe to a lot of 'stuff.' Sword porn button trivia is a good thing to cut.


The Heron blade is pretty significant to the story. It's not even sword porn, at the time they are teaching them to fight so they can survive the monstrous beasts chasing them through the world trying to eat them. But also...

Spoiler:
The marking by the Heron is one of the first steps in the Prophecy of the Dragon in the Karatheon Cycle, which we have learned next to nothing about. He gets two marks eventually, these marks are supposed to identify him as the Dragon. We learn this as early as the first book. Next they will cut out the dragon tattoos he gets at Car'a'carn or the banner itself. Who needs a Horn of Valere anyways?

I have next to 0 faith they will get the Green Man, Forsaken, or the Eye of the World right in any way.

It really doesn't feel very Wheel of Time.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/09 00:46:56


Post by: Ensis Ferrae


 Grumpy Gnome wrote:


Spoiler:
I fail to see how killing his wife is movie speak for Perrin being “slow”.



It seems we are both familiar with both the book and the show, so I'll expand some of my earlier thoughts:

Spoiler:
In the books, Perrin isn't described as "slow" but more that he's "slow to act". .. . Like, he's definitely depicted as being the bigger and strongest of the youths his age. In the books he does not want to hurt anyone, and acts slowly in order to avoid hurting others.

In the series, it seems that they are unable/unwilling to write that out effectively, so they provide a wife to kill off quite quickly. . . And so, we are seeing a grieving bloke who seems to be getting toward the "slow to act" because "my quick actions in the past killed someone I loved dearly"

Maybe I'm not seeing it the right way??? But it does seem to me that they are getting Perrin to a point where he was in the books: prefers to think things through, doesn't want to hurt anyone, and as a result is slow to action. . . Which isn't the same thing as "slow". . To me, the Perrin of the books may come to the same quick acting decision as say, the impulsive Mat. But Perrin has a strong need to think the situation through, like Jordan takes great pains to reference the previous blacksmith's twisted metal logic puzzles, especially when dealing with the character of Perrin.


I dunno, again, maybe I'm just seeing things differently/wrongly?


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/09 02:01:34


Post by: Voss


 Dreadwinter wrote:
Voss wrote:
The Wheel of Time is a massive story, spanning 15 books, 704 total chapters and a whopping 4.4 million words.


I think you're getting caught up in minutiae in a series that has _way_ too much of it. By necessity, the move to a different format is going to take an axe to a lot of 'stuff.' Sword porn button trivia is a good thing to cut.


The Heron blade is pretty significant to the story. It's not even sword porn, at the time they are teaching them to fight so they can survive the monstrous beasts chasing them through the world trying to eat them. But also...

Its a super-katana. Its basically the definition of sword porn, written when fanboys would rhapsodize for hours about their crappy Muramasa knock-offs.

[Its also weirdly at odds with later books, where Jordan starts fetishizing the quarterstaff instead)

Spoiler:
The marking by the Heron is one of the first steps in the Prophecy of the Dragon in the Karatheon Cycle, which we have learned next to nothing about. He gets two marks eventually, these marks are supposed to identify him as the Dragon. We learn this as early as the first book. Next they will cut out the dragon tattoos he gets at Car'a'carn or the banner itself. Who needs a Horn of Valere anyways?

Yeah, see, that's all gibberish.

Its literally this:
https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/fiction_rule_of_thumb.png

Complete with bonus apostrophe word salad that even GW grew up enough to discard. Its a literary sin that Jordan was really egregious about (something he learned churning out trash Conan novels in a rush in the early 80s), but its not something you want to retain if you want to keep an audience for a show. You want to engage them, not bury them under a flood of bull-gak terminology.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/09 07:04:08


Post by: Baragash


Voss wrote:
Yeah, see, that's all gibberish.

Its literally this:
https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/fiction_rule_of_thumb.png


Jordan definitely leans heavily into this, but there's no examples of that in the sentence you've quoted.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/09 07:30:42


Post by: Grumpy Gnome


 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
 Grumpy Gnome wrote:


Spoiler:
I fail to see how killing his wife is movie speak for Perrin being “slow”.



It seems we are both familiar with both the book and the show, so I'll expand some of my earlier thoughts:

Spoiler:
In the books, Perrin isn't described as "slow" but more that he's "slow to act". .. . Like, he's definitely depicted as being the bigger and strongest of the youths his age. In the books he does not want to hurt anyone, and acts slowly in order to avoid hurting others.

In the series, it seems that they are unable/unwilling to write that out effectively, so they provide a wife to kill off quite quickly. . . And so, we are seeing a grieving bloke who seems to be getting toward the "slow to act" because "my quick actions in the past killed someone I loved dearly"

Maybe I'm not seeing it the right way??? But it does seem to me that they are getting Perrin to a point where he was in the books: prefers to think things through, doesn't want to hurt anyone, and as a result is slow to action. . . Which isn't the same thing as "slow". . To me, the Perrin of the books may come to the same quick acting decision as say, the impulsive Mat. But Perrin has a strong need to think the situation through, like Jordan takes great pains to reference the previous blacksmith's twisted metal logic puzzles, especially when dealing with the character of Perrin.


I dunno, again, maybe I'm just seeing things differently/wrongly?


I just think you are being too generous.

And you are likely more familiar with the books than me. My memory is not what it used to be. But the bits I do remember matter to me. I remember them precisely because they had an impact on me when I read the books.

Spoiler:
I think of Perrin as thoughtful and slow to act shown well enough in the book. Having him his wife in blind fury is more like the writers are trying to foreshadow his “mysteriously more bestial” nature and his difficulty coming to terms with it. I was surprised they did not have him immediately follow the pacifism presented so well to him as a means to deal with the horror of killing his wife.

Let me put it this way, the writers managed to show Loial as “slow” without having him murder anyone. Maybe the writers wanted to differentiate Perrin from Loial but I think it could be done without creating and then killing a wife. I would have rather seen Perrin work on twisted metal logic puzzles.

I think part of my problem is that when folks make a movie of a book, I really want a movie of THAT book. Not a different version of the book or something like the book. If I liked the book I want to see the book. I realize that probably makes me different from most folks.

I do not want to yuck your yum, but I want to be clear about what I like and do not like in order to be honest and in hopes that more things will eventually be made the way I like them.



Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/09 08:49:52


Post by: Flipsiders


Voss wrote:
 Dreadwinter wrote:
Voss wrote:
The Wheel of Time is a massive story, spanning 15 books, 704 total chapters and a whopping 4.4 million words.


I think you're getting caught up in minutiae in a series that has _way_ too much of it. By necessity, the move to a different format is going to take an axe to a lot of 'stuff.' Sword porn button trivia is a good thing to cut.


The Heron blade is pretty significant to the story. It's not even sword porn, at the time they are teaching them to fight so they can survive the monstrous beasts chasing them through the world trying to eat them. But also...

Its a super-katana. Its basically the definition of sword porn, written when fanboys would rhapsodize for hours about their crappy Muramasa knock-offs.

[Its also weirdly at odds with later books, where Jordan starts fetishizing the quarterstaff instead)

Spoiler:
The marking by the Heron is one of the first steps in the Prophecy of the Dragon in the Karatheon Cycle, which we have learned next to nothing about. He gets two marks eventually, these marks are supposed to identify him as the Dragon. We learn this as early as the first book. Next they will cut out the dragon tattoos he gets at Car'a'carn or the banner itself. Who needs a Horn of Valere anyways?

Yeah, see, that's all gibberish.

Its literally this:
https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/fiction_rule_of_thumb.png

Complete with bonus apostrophe word salad that even GW grew up enough to discard. Its a literary sin that Jordan was really egregious about (something he learned churning out trash Conan novels in a rush in the early 80s), but its not something you want to retain if you want to keep an audience for a show. You want to engage them, not bury them under a flood of bull-gak terminology.


Have you read the actual Wheel of Time book series? I don't mean this as an attempt at gatekeeping; I genuinely understand how the Heron-Mark Blade can look superfluous from an outsider's perspective.

Spoiler:
Setting aside all the plot stuff other users have mentioned, both the blade and the scars which Rand receives from it are some of the most thematically resonant symbols in the entire Wheel of Time series. Rand al'Thor's character arc throughout the series is centered around the weight of responsibility, and how having the power to change the world will by necessity be a form of torment for any virtuous person. The blade represents Rand's legacy, as well as the violence which he is forced to endure and commit.. It is no coincidence that all discussion of the blade is coupled with Rand's training with Lan, who teaches Rand that a life of violence is a living hell, yet still a burden that the just are at times forced to endure. Rand both literally and figuratively sacrifices himself multiple times throughout the series, and is simultaneously tormented by the sacrifices that others make for him, and the Heron is a symbol of that loss. The Heron is literally a symbol of violence: That's why it's emblazoned on the sword, and that's why the status afforded by wielding a Heron-Mark blade draws violence towards oneself.

The marks represent the weight of violence upon Rand's psyche the same as the blade does, but simultaneously are representative of the agony which he experiences by performing his duty for the world. Rand suffers multiple incurable injuries throughout the series, both mental and physical, and each is a reminder of the strain and sacrifice which he undertakes almost against his will. There are multiple instances in each book in which Rand is temporarily overtaken by the pain of his wounds, and this physical pain forms a parallel to the pain of rememberance which he is also stricken with throughout the later novels. Rand often suffers under the stress of nearly literally carrying the weight of the world upon his shoulders, or the guilt stemming from the legions of innocents which have either died to save him, or worse, serving him at his command. The mark of the Heron is a symbol that Rand, powerful as he may be, is not an enviable or aspirational figure, and instead be the object of the reader's pity.

No matter what you think about the Wheel of Time as a series, the quasi-literal symbols which Jordan adds (such as the Heron, or Mat's dice and Perrin's struggle between the axe and hammer) are some of the most emotionally resonant and thematically rich aspects of the story, and are crucial elements of any good adaptation. Neglecting to at least mention them would be like creating a performance of Macbeth with no mention of masks, or an adaptation of Watchmen without any clocks.

TLDR: Thematic elements in a piece of literature (yes, even fantasy literature) are not "sword porn."


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/09 13:56:39


Post by: Dreadwinter


I don't think he has. Otherwise he wouldn't have made the fetishizing quarterstaff later in the series comment.

Jordan definitely does that from Book 1.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/09 20:58:56


Post by: Voss


I have.

And...
No matter what you think about the Wheel of Time as a series, the quasi-literal symbols which Jordan adds (such as the Heron, or Mat's dice and Perrin's struggle between the axe and hammer) are some of the most emotionally resonant and thematically rich aspects of the story, and are crucial elements of any good adaptation.


They're not. They're thematically pointless, because as you say, his pain, suffering and sacrifice is constant. It doesn't need symbolism, because its omnipresent in the story, and he's got so many other symbolic wounds and BS going on that its just wasted wordage.
It reminds me of the joke story (well, character sketch) that Moorcock wrote after Corum, where the title character is missing so many body parts and has so many replacements (each with their own names and backstories), its obvious he knew where his own flaws were as a writer. Jordan never got that (or at least, it was never apparent in his writing). What he most needed was an editor, preferably one armed with a machete.


@Dreadwinter-
Oh no, I forget when exactly in 4 million words staffs happen. That's some good evidence.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/09 21:24:23


Post by: Dreadwinter


Yeah, I wonder what else you are forgetting or reducing for your own purposes from a 4 million word story you don't seem familiar with.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/09 21:26:25


Post by: Mr Morden


So watched the first five episodes and still enjoying (unlike the books...)

I don't quite get how the Whitecloaks can roam around doing their torture the witch thing in sight of the White Tower or how the main torturer has survived so long unless he is immune to magic or something (?) hopefully not the usual trope that he is a magic user and doesn;t know it....

Still finding it hard to care about any of the youths - especially Mal - he seems a dick and now he is shadow possessed or something - but angry village witch is still too stupid to do anything sensible and will doubtless keep him hidden until he starts a killing spree.

Morein and Lan I like, as well as most of her sisters and the warders....

I think we all know that adapting a book has to change some things - often condensing characters, time, plots etc to make it work within a limited period. Game of Thrones had this - alot of their trimming worked - some upset people - I personally could care less about most of the stuff was cut but others did want Lady Stoneheart etc. On the other hand the last two seasons I hated....so....

Likely lots of this I am getting wrong - I don;t care about spoilers but others will!


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/09 21:33:09


Post by: Dreadwinter


The Whitecloaks should be pretty useless that close to the White Tower. I don't know why the show is portraying the Aes Sedai as powerful when dealing with male casters, but useless when dealing with normal people.

Spoiler:
In the Books the Whitecloaks wouldn't be this bold because Caemlyn or one of the border nations would come down and stomp them for getting gakky with the Aes Sedai. In the books the Whitecloaks are generally only this ballsy in areas of their control, which is one small country, or when they are so far out in the wilderness nobody is going to know what they have done. Not within spitting distance of the White Tower.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/10 20:42:20


Post by: Grumpy Gnome


I agree with you Flipsiders.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/11 00:06:14


Post by: Flipsiders


Voss wrote:
I have.

And...
No matter what you think about the Wheel of Time as a series, the quasi-literal symbols which Jordan adds (such as the Heron, or Mat's dice and Perrin's struggle between the axe and hammer) are some of the most emotionally resonant and thematically rich aspects of the story, and are crucial elements of any good adaptation.


They're not. They're thematically pointless, because as you say, his pain, suffering and sacrifice is constant. It doesn't need symbolism, because its omnipresent in the story, and he's got so many other symbolic wounds and BS going on that its just wasted wordage.
It reminds me of the joke story (well, character sketch) that Moorcock wrote after Corum, where the title character is missing so many body parts and has so many replacements (each with their own names and backstories), its obvious he knew where his own flaws were as a writer. Jordan never got that (or at least, it was never apparent in his writing). What he most needed was an editor, preferably one armed with a machete.


Frankly, I don't entirely understand this argument.

Often, the point of symbolism in a story is to allegorically express what is literally already there. Take Dawn of the Dead: The zombies represent consumerism, but since the movie is supposed to take place in a version of the real world, complete with malls and everything, the consumerism is clearly already there in-universe. Similarly, going back to the example of Watchmen, the story uses depictions of clocks and watches in its imagery to convey both the immutability of time and the oncoming threat of nuclear annihilation ("doomsday clock," etc.), but both of those things are also mentioned countless times in the actual story. They're the entire motivation of the story's antagonist, for God's sake. It's one thing to dislike the repetition or overuse of the symbols, which is a valid argument that I happen to disagree with, but I am genuinely confused by your claim that they shouldn't be there at all.

Spoiler:
On the topic of repetition, while there are times in which it's a genuine flaw in Jordan's writing, but it can also be extremely helpful in creating an oppressive atmosphere for the reader which mirrors the experience of the cast. Rand keeps narrating about his wounds over and over again, for instance, because they are literally an omnipresent aspect of his life. Every action Rand makes is made with those feelings in the back of his mind, so reiterating them helps place the reader in the same position as he is. It's an unconventional literary trick, to be sure, but not an unprecedented one.


There's obviously nothing wrong with critiquing Jordan's writing, because there is certainly a lot to critique. However, I don't see the train of thought between, say, removing the atrocious "arguing on roadtrip" subplot in the fifth book and straight up ejecting pieces of symbolism because they represent things which are also described.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/13 23:01:41


Post by: Dreadwinter


https://www.reddit.com/r/WoT/comments/qxt9h5/some_thoughts_from_brandon_episode_one/

It appears I wasn't alone in my complaints about Perrin and Abel.

I am considering this not to be an adaptation of the book, but instead one of those parallel universes in the series. That would explain the grimdark for sure.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/14 21:23:05


Post by: Mr Morden


 Dreadwinter wrote:
https://www.reddit.com/r/WoT/comments/qxt9h5/some_thoughts_from_brandon_episode_one/

It appears I wasn't alone in my complaints about Perrin and Abel.

I am considering this not to be an adaptation of the book, but instead one of those parallel universes in the series. That would explain the grimdark for sure.


I think thats wise and likely accurate (and for most adaptions)


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/15 01:32:30


Post by: AegisGrimm


So far the only thing that REALLY grates on me is the Ways in the recent episode. Some of the characters are understandable tweaks for television (as such lacking inner monologue of the books), but now the Ways are 100% different. Now they are a One Power-activated stargate into a black cave of stalactites, riven with distant lightning and thunder?

I sincerely hope they take on at least a half-way recognizable form in the next episode. They were one of the great sinister and melancholy parts of the books, as a halfway-understood relic of a bygone era, slowly falling apart.





Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/20 14:51:25


Post by: Grumpy Gnome


 Dreadwinter wrote:
https://www.reddit.com/r/WoT/comments/qxt9h5/some_thoughts_from_brandon_episode_one/

It appears I wasn't alone in my complaints about Perrin and Abel.

I am considering this not to be an adaptation of the book, but instead one of those parallel universes in the series. That would explain the grimdark for sure.


Thanks for that link, very interesting.

Yes… parallel universe, that seems to be the best answer these days.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/20 18:20:34


Post by: Mr Morden


Enjoying the show alot - but having trouble caring anything much about the "five" - seem the least interesting characters.

The Ogre guy was quite fun.

Egwene seems to be the only one with grasp of whats going on and is def the least worst
Perrin is ok - the death of wife was well done and he is obviously in PTSD but just doesn't do much
The "Wisdom" seems anything but - being sulky, with a huge chip on her shoulder
I liked Rand a bit but seems to be getting worse - likely due to influence of
Mat who I hope (likely in vein) the red ladies deal with (permently)


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/21 02:59:15


Post by: warboss


Finished the Witcher S2 today and just started WOT. I never read the books so I'm curious how I'll take this. I wasn't a fan of the trailers but I'm open to my mind being changed.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/21 08:35:34


Post by: Mr Morden


 warboss wrote:
Finished the Witcher S2 today and just started WOT. I never read the books so I'm curious how I'll take this. I wasn't a fan of the trailers but I'm open to my mind being changed.


I was unimpressed with the Trailers too but enjoyed the show.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/21 15:51:57


Post by: warboss


Well, I watched the first episode yesterday and my feelings are mixed but not in the way that the trailers would have indicated.

First off the good... the sets are nice and the world feels more lived in that I thought in the trailers. It could use a bit more grime as it comes off as a Shannara teen drama a bit (especially in terms of the costumes styling and cleanliness). The acting is decent and no real complaints there other than Rosamund Pike coming across as overacting a bit in her seriousness. The other actors do what they can with the scripts and direction they're provided. The practical monster effects are commendable and the actors and makeup artists do a good job in selling the beastmen/trollorcs with only a couple times them ending up looking like actors in fur suits on stilts.

The bad... wow... those special effects look substandard when Rosamund is casting her spells. I know Amazon spends a ton of money on their shows but it doesn't show in that. It's just barely above the modern day equivalent of Sharnado and Xena/Hercules in that regard and worse than the equivalents in the Witcher that I just watched (and much worse than the Amazon scifi Expanse) in terms of quality.

The cringe. Killing your pregnant wife in episode one? It would have been nice if they had built up that relationship a bit on screen to put some meaning to her death beyond a few hugs and pregnant belly rubs. Are they doing that (and incorporating the multisex bathtub.. a first for me as a viewer since Starship Troopers!) to edge up the show for the GOT crowd? I was under the impression that WOT was a book series, that while enjoyed by adults, was also readable by tweens. Was I wrong in that outsider assessment? Then there is the blatantly hypocritical sexism which I'm not sure if its from the books or a new addition by Amazon. They gave up the rights to Conan to make this show specifically because of that reason and then they turn around and do the same thing in reverse killing men just for being men and multiple women only power structures. Lol. It doesn't bother me (hence why its in cringe and not bad) but the opposite would likely not have been incorporated in the show regardless of whether its in the books or not.

So those are my thoughts as an outsider whose most detailed experience with the series being liking the original book cover during the heyday of oil painting fantasy art in the 80s/2nd ed D&D.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/21 19:22:12


Post by: Albertorius


The five from Aemon's Field (except Ninaeve) are teens in the book, around 15 IIRC, so no, Perrin's wife is completely new, and Egwene and Rand weren't an item yet.

Personally I don't like the fridging, but seems that the rationale was to show why would Perrin be skittish regarding violence, and as a foreshadowing for some other stuff.

The "sexism" of sorts is there in the books, due to stuff xD. Look, it's a fething big book series ^^, so I could be saying that for a while.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/21 21:48:18


Post by: warboss


 Albertorius wrote:
The five from Aemon's Field (except Ninaeve) are teens in the book, around 15 IIRC, so no, Perrin's wife is completely new, and Egwene and Rand weren't an item yet.

Personally I don't like the fridging, but seems that the rationale was to show why would Perrin be skittish regarding violence, and as a foreshadowing for some other stuff.


I think they could have accomplished that with childhood trauma ala your fellow Spaniard Inigo Montoya or waiting another episode or two before having him accidentally/recklessly kill her after more establishing what seems like a new character just for that purpose.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/22 00:38:27


Post by: Ensis Ferrae


 warboss wrote:
Then there is the blatantly hypocritical sexism which I'm not sure if its from the books or a new addition by Amazon. They gave up the rights to Conan to make this show specifically because of that reason and then they turn around and do the same thing in reverse killing men just for being men and multiple women only power structures. Lol. It doesn't bother me (hence why its in cringe and not bad) but the opposite would likely not have been incorporated in the show regardless of whether its in the books or not.



Jordan devoted probably as many pages to "ugh, men" thoughts as he did describing the women's buttons. Sure the Aes Sedai are currently a ladies only club, but within the novels/expanded lore, twas not always so. And the show runners very briefly (really, it felt more like a nod/fan service to those who've slogged through the books) bring in the women's circle in Aemon's Field/Two Rivers, and in the case of the women's circle, they dont even touch on the "men's" side of things where the innkeeper is basically the mayor, and there's sort of a "men's circle" which acts as a counterbalance to "women's business" or some such.

But to your point of the Reds "killing men just for being men" isn't quite accurate, although the show-runners, again because of medium, can only go so far in exposition in telling you about who the Reds are and what they are actually about (in the books, a few, rare Reds do take Warders. . . and the Greens aren't really portrayed in the books as sex-fiending orgy-ists with a penchant for fighting)


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/22 00:58:38


Post by: warboss


Thanks for the explanation. Yeah, they're limited by time in the medium they're in but it is telling what they chose to show and what apparently according to your post they don't. Fortunately the second and third episode (so far) don't seem to lean so heavily on that.

Instead, I'm left wondering things like how a old timey country bumpkin healer on foot can catch up with supposedly hard riding horseback travelers who destroyed the only easy way across a deep river. I don't know if they'll explain that later via her special wisdom powers or if we're just not supposed to ask. Also, boo on the cgi trollocs! I just complimented their practical effects and then they add quick cgi shots that could have been done the practically either on location with a few extras.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/22 03:37:31


Post by: Ensis Ferrae


 warboss wrote:
. Also, boo on the cgi trollocs! I just complimented their practical effects and then they add quick cgi shots that could have been done the practically either on location with a few extras.



Yeah, first time we saw Trollocs on screen, I legit thought they had gone to Austria and just grabbed up as many Krampusnacht runnners as they could find, that's what so many of the Trolloc costumes reminded me of, but I guess that at some point, numbers being numbers they "had" to go cgi? (which is a shame really)



Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/22 06:38:09


Post by: tneva82


 warboss wrote:
They gave up the rights to Conan to make this show specifically because of that reason and then they turn around and do the same thing in reverse killing men just for being men and multiple women only power structures. Lol. It doesn't bother me (hence why its in cringe and not bad) but the opposite would likely not have been incorporated in the show regardless of whether its in the books or not.


They kill men because of the magic power of men being tainted by dark one(the ultimate evil) dooming any men tapping into the source going eventually mad and go berserk(and note it's not like you can avoid that. The moment you first time touch the power you are doomed. You literally CANNOT avoid using it more and getting mad. You can delay with utmost self control...but ultimately once you touch it once you are doomed. Question is just when and how much damage you do to those around you. The dragon originally killed everybody he could find with his blood(ie relative) in his madness and prophecy says when he comes back he will destroy the world(along with saving people from the dark one).

So there's actually reason those men are killed. Albeit red's are doing it bit too vigorously erring on the side of "better kill innocent than take risk of madmen escaping". So their goal is actually understandable. Just over the millenia's went overboard.

And yes there's women only power structures. Also men only. Except for magic wielding for above mentioned reason. They are feared and hated so any attempt for them to organize would be stamped. Entire armies will take to field to hunt down even single men who wields powers(and often are needed entire armies to take them down). And to have power structure you need stability. If the guys trying to form power structure go insane and die constantly it makes kinda hard to form power structures eh?


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/22 14:28:43


Post by: Mr Morden


I thought the show covered all the points pretty well very early:

* Men using magic is bad and dangerous as its sends them mad, Red ladies hunt them down and deal with it. Easy
* Women using magic is ok there is a support struture for it but also there is politics and social staus complications. Easy

* Religious (?) loonys believe that all magic is bad except for the militant guy who is happy to say (in front of the really loony witch hunter) hey go and vist a I-Sadai to get healed....not quite sure why these guys are allowed to exist but thats religious fanatics i guess

* Some Red ladies enjoy the power trip or are just very hardline.

* Men seem to be in positions of power but just not with regards to magic for what seems to be sensible in universe reasons. Easy

My 79 year old mother had no issues with anything so far so not sure what the issue is...its not a complicated story so far at all.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/22 15:46:32


Post by: Albertorius


 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
 warboss wrote:
. Also, boo on the cgi trollocs! I just complimented their practical effects and then they add quick cgi shots that could have been done the practically either on location with a few extras.



Yeah, first time we saw Trollocs on screen, I legit thought they had gone to Austria and just grabbed up as many Krampusnacht runnners as they could find, that's what so many of the Trolloc costumes reminded me of, but I guess that at some point, numbers being numbers they "had" to go cgi? (which is a shame really)


As I understand it, the production was heavily disrupted by Covid, so maybe they had to do some of those.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/22 15:59:29


Post by: warboss


tneva82 wrote:

They kill men because of the magic power of men being tainted by dark one(the ultimate evil) dooming any men tapping into the source going eventually mad and go berserk(and note it's not like you can avoid that. The moment you first time touch the power you are doomed. You literally CANNOT avoid using it more and getting mad. You can delay with utmost self control...but ultimately once you touch it once you are doomed. Question is just when and how much damage you do to those around you. The dragon originally killed everybody he could find with his blood(ie relative) in his madness and prophecy says when he comes back he will destroy the world(along with saving people from the dark one).

So there's actually reason those men are killed. Albeit red's are doing it bit too vigorously erring on the side of "better kill innocent than take risk of madmen escaping". So their goal is actually understandable. Just over the millenia's went overboard.


I didn't say there wasn't an in-universe reason for it but rather that it boils down to men + one power = death sentence. Heck, the blonde red Aes Sedai states the reason as she is about to kill him referring to him being lost in the madness. Can you really imagine a scenario where a show based on flawed but still supposedly good tough love team of mystically powerful men hunting down and psychologically maiming or physically killing every woman who tries to wield that same power makes it to air in 2021? I don't.

And yes there's women only power structures. Also men only. Except for magic wielding for above mentioned reason. They are feared and hated so any attempt for them to organize would be stamped. Entire armies will take to field to hunt down even single men who wields powers(and often are needed entire armies to take them down). And to have power structure you need stability. If the guys trying to form power structure go insane and die constantly it makes kinda hard to form power structures eh?


But they choose not to show those parallel (and obviously lesser by default) male power structures you and Ensis mentioned. The only one hinted at so far (four episodes in for me) is the White Cloaks who are obviously being at least initially portrayed as closeminded witchhunter baddies who (again.. so far) are exclusively male so far in their power structure (again... going off of what they've show by episode four). That's not equality. They gave up a show (Conan) in part because of the sexist optics and went instead with a show with gender based violence and sexist power structures. Lol. I don't have an issue with that in a fantasy or scifi setting but I notice real world hypocrisy.

For example, while reading some reviews of the show apparently in the books the dragon reborn is exculsively male but the show in the first episode has Moraine (sp?) specifically correct someone that it could also be a female and apparently the bar maid love interest for the shephard (sorry bad on names so far) is a candidate for the dragon reborn to de-masculinize that role. I don't have an issue with that but if they were trying to make things equal then they should have also made the Aes Sedai non-genderbased either (and obviously have the madness associated with power affect anyone potentially and not just males). That's equality. Combined with all the above, it seems like the pendulum is only being yanked one way.

Regardless, thankfully this type of cringe seems to be mostly front loaded into that first episode as the rest of it is better so far. I'm actually enjoying the show more since the first episode. There are some gripes that I haven't previously stated and some that continue. The fx still look substandard for the budget that they obviously have on the show. Moraine looks like she's doing exaggerated Tai Chi when calling on the power (Turn the wheel of time like it was a gigantic butter churn in order to call on its power!). Perrin is supposed to look like he's suffering from PTSD but he just looks like a big dope with his mouth hanging open at all times even when he's in the background and I'm surprised he's not drooling. The shephard is annoyingly mercurial and I'm not sure if he's supposed to be. And there sure are lots of tell don't show exposition lines along with sweeping drone shots. At least the production is getting their money's worth from that amazon purchase with free prime shipping! And the fx for the dark lord make him look like a scrotum version of a grey alien with glowy eyes... not sure if that's as described in the book but frankly his Fade servants are both more impressive and terrifying to me. YMMV.

The other two candidates for the dragon are probably the best in terms of acting (along with Morraine's manservant two legged lapdog samurai!). The bard/gleeman seems like an interesting addition to the cast. And the crazy middle eastern guy who thinks he's the dragon looks like an interesting addition as well. Looking forward to tonights episodes! But I'll have to catch up on the finale of Hawkeye first though.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/22 19:18:53


Post by: Klickor


I think the biggest problem with the show is the lack of explanations. I as a book reader have no problems in filling out all the blanks but I have to explain things for my brothers all the time who havent read the books.

My brothers don't really know what the threat to the world is yet and why it matters who the Dragon is. The Dark One has been mentioned but unlike the books he seems more like an inconvenience in the show. In the book the Dragon reborn AND the dark one is seen as world ending catastrophes and it is established as early as in the prologue and chapter 1 of the book. It is like a christian hearing the devil is actually walking around the world in physical form in preparation for the end of the world.

It wouldn't have been much of a problem if they had focused more scenes to explain the world building rather than all the filler content there is in episode 4,5,6 and 7 that do nothing to develop the main cast but instead are building up and then killing off side characters or showing characters that arent even in the first few books or characters that isn't important to show even if they are in the books later on.

So far there is perhaps 2h of content not related to the first book or the main characters in the first 7 hours of the show. That alone makes it a really weird and bad adaption. They lack time and have no idea on how to manage it. In a more loosely based adaption it wouldn't matter much but WoT is 14 massive books and you can't really deviate from the main conflict and still be WoT. Other properties or even other timelines in WoT can be more loose but not the main conflict really. The whole conflict is so ingrained in the world building that I don't see how they can fix this in the later seasons in a good way. They are already so off track that the other 13 books are more and more becoming a problem than a resource in continuing the story.

It can still be an average to good story for non book readers for a few seasons I think but the more they go on like this the less likely it will be able to last long enough to get to the good payoffs in the books. There is no way they will get to go more than halfway through the story.

They should have done the prequel book if they wanted Morraine as the main character or done a different story set in the universe if they wanted to put in all this extra content and focus on other characters than the 3 main characters (Rand, Mat and Perrin). Like do Manetheren, Artur Hawkwing or explore Seanchan or anything not the main story line in the books. Would piss off less book readers and give them way more leeway in how to do things and not be as restricted. They of course won't get as much hype and as large as an audience if they did that though. Which is the reason why they went after the biggest fantasy series they could get their hands on. to get an established audience, to tell their (not Rober Jordans) story without building up a new audience and reputation. Scummy thing to do and I hope it backfires and it looks like it will.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/22 19:28:11


Post by: Mr Morden


Klickor wrote:
I think the biggest problem with the show is the lack of explanations. I as a book reader have no problems in filling out all the blanks but I have to explain things for my brothers all the time who havent read the books.

My brothers don't really know what the threat to the world is yet and why it matters who the Dragon is. The Dark One has been mentioned but unlike the books he seems more like an inconvenience in the show. In the book the Dragon reborn AND the dark one is seen as world ending catastrophes and it is established as early as in the prologue and chapter 1 of the book. It is like a christian hearing the devil is actually walking around the world in physical form in preparation for the end of the world.

Really? What did they need explaining? I am confused.

The Dark One is so obviously (or appears to be) a Sauron style superpowerful Dark Lord style villian so what else do we need to know? Its been explained several times in the show - what have your brothers not understood that my mother did?

Not a book reader - didn't get past the first one.

Ughh Gods is Mat staying the in show - I suppose he will make a good villian for the other villagers to agonise more over....


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/22 19:32:39


Post by: Azreal13


As I've mentioned, I read the first few books decades ago, remember basically nothing about them except a few names and the odd scene.

Literally nothing in the show has felt in need of further explanation to me, outside that which was obviously a device to show the viewer there was more to something than fist shown.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/22 19:56:02


Post by: Klickor


 Mr Morden wrote:
Klickor wrote:
I think the biggest problem with the show is the lack of explanations. I as a book reader have no problems in filling out all the blanks but I have to explain things for my brothers all the time who havent read the books.

My brothers don't really know what the threat to the world is yet and why it matters who the Dragon is. The Dark One has been mentioned but unlike the books he seems more like an inconvenience in the show. In the book the Dragon reborn AND the dark one is seen as world ending catastrophes and it is established as early as in the prologue and chapter 1 of the book. It is like a christian hearing the devil is actually walking around the world in physical form in preparation for the end of the world.

Really? What did they need explaining? I am confused.

The Dark One is so obviously (or appears to be) a Sauron style superpowerful Dark Lord style villian so what else do we need to know? Its been explained several times in the show - what have your brothers not understood that my mother did?

Not a book reader - didn't get past the first one.

Ughh Gods is Mat staying the in show - I suppose he will make a good villian for the other villagers to agonise more over....


Your mother can understand the basic plot of the show and that isn't really hard. I bet she can't explain what a Wisdom is(sure this one isnt important at all but they mention it like it is), what a Ta'veren is, what the one power/saidin/saidar is, what the Dragon is, what the Dark one is, what a Forsaken is etc. What is up with Perrin and his yellow eyes? What is that dagger Mat has? None of that is explained really. What even happens when a man channels and why is it so bad? What is a Fade and why are they so dangerous? I am also guessing she has no idea they have travelled like 2 000km from their village to Tar Valon.

The Dark One is way worse than Sauron and not really a Dark Lord style villain. He is more a force of nature that will eventually mold the world(not just the planet) to his own making rather than what the Creator(God) made. Which is why the notion of them killing the dark one at this point at the eye of the world(he isn't even there) is laughable and Morraine and Siuan should know that. As a book reader it is obviously just a bad setup for a trap and Siuan have been manipulated easily in a dream. Remember how Morraine in ep2 said they should be careful about dreams because the Dark One can influence them?

They did not understand who or what the Dragon is. The thing with the Dragon is that he is destined to destroy the world and save it in the best case scenario and while doing so most likely kill everyone he holds dear. That is the good scenario. The bad is literally the end of the world. People pray to not be born in the same era as the Dragon. The show doesnt set it up very well because if they did they would have to ruin the mystery of the dragon. They also didn't know what Ta'veren is and why Rand, Mat and Perrin matters to the story. Morraine is obviously the main character of the show and Egwene and Nynaeve look far more useful than the boys.

I had to explain to them what the prologue was. They did not understand that the guy was really dangerous because he had turned mad due to the one power and would sooner or later kill everyone around him and the red Ajah is an "order" hunting down men so they don't destroy the world again. They just thought they had a beef or he was a bad guy. And it was also really badly done and contradicts information we get later on(not just what is in the books). The red Ajah is not allowed to severe men from the power out in the field and need to take them to Tar Valon just like they did with Logain. Here they casually just gentled a male channeler without good explanation or even consequences even though Morraine witnessed it.





Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/22 20:38:05


Post by: tneva82


 Mr Morden wrote:


* Religious (?) loonys believe that all magic is bad except for the militant guy who is happy to say (in front of the really loony witch hunter) hey go and vist a I-Sadai to get healed....not quite sure why these guys are allowed to exist but thats religious fanatics i guess
l


Plenty of real world examples of religious groups getting in power.

Getting rid of white cloaks isn't that easy. We are talking about not so insignificant military force with nation under their control more or less. Going all out war over them isn't easiest solutions.


Especially when they are ostensibly good guys. Support for military campaign against them isn't quaranteed.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/22 21:29:11


Post by: Klickor


Book white cloaks are definitely more good than show white cloaks. Books make it clear there are a few bad apples and the rest is more misguided than malicious. Intent for the most part is good. Show make it seem they are mostly evil with 1 stupid man, the guy who recommends a "witch" healer in front of a questioner on a crusade.

The show does too many things at a surface level and only focus in on rather irrelevant things. Like Siuan Sanche, Logain(most of the Logain stuff is irrelevant), Steppin or Shael. They should probably have cut some of those things and properly introduced some of the things. Like they could have cut out the white cloaks entirely, which I thought they would, since Perrin kills his wife.instead of any white cloaks. Would have given more time for setting up more important things.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/22 22:47:27


Post by: Albertorius


 warboss wrote:
I didn't say there wasn't an in-universe reason for it but rather that it boils down to men + one power = death sentence. Heck, the blonde red Aes Sedai states the reason as she is about to kill him referring to him being lost in the madness. Can you really imagine a scenario where a show based on flawed but still supposedly good tough love team of mystically powerful men hunting down and psychologically maiming or physically killing every woman who tries to wield that same power makes it to air in 2021? I don't.

Well, no death penalty per se, but gentling. They cut them from the one source so that they can't channel no more.

Of course, in most cases that leads to suicide, but still.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/22 23:03:15


Post by: warboss


 Albertorius wrote:
 warboss wrote:
I didn't say there wasn't an in-universe reason for it but rather that it boils down to men + one power = death sentence. Heck, the blonde red Aes Sedai states the reason as she is about to kill him referring to him being lost in the madness. Can you really imagine a scenario where a show based on flawed but still supposedly good tough love team of mystically powerful men hunting down and psychologically maiming or physically killing every woman who tries to wield that same power makes it to air in 2021? I don't.

Well, no death penalty per se, but gentling. They cut them from the one source so that they can't channel no more.

Of course, in most cases that leads to suicide, but still.


True though in my defense I hadn't actually seen that yet in the show and was basing it on the first episode opening scene execution. It was mentioned however in exposition (hence my inclusion of "psychological maiming" in the same post) but now I've seen the mystical castration in the show as well as the suicidality that results.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/23 00:22:19


Post by: AduroT


Klickor wrote:
 Mr Morden wrote:
Klickor wrote:
I think the biggest problem with the show is the lack of explanations. I as a book reader have no problems in filling out all the blanks but I have to explain things for my brothers all the time who havent read the books.

My brothers don't really know what the threat to the world is yet and why it matters who the Dragon is. The Dark One has been mentioned but unlike the books he seems more like an inconvenience in the show. In the book the Dragon reborn AND the dark one is seen as world ending catastrophes and it is established as early as in the prologue and chapter 1 of the book. It is like a christian hearing the devil is actually walking around the world in physical form in preparation for the end of the world.

Really? What did they need explaining? I am confused.

The Dark One is so obviously (or appears to be) a Sauron style superpowerful Dark Lord style villian so what else do we need to know? Its been explained several times in the show - what have your brothers not understood that my mother did?

Not a book reader - didn't get past the first one.


Ughh Gods is Mat staying the in show - I suppose he will make a good villian for the other villagers to agonise more over....


Your mother can understand the basic plot of the show and that isn't really hard. I bet she can't explain what a Wisdom is(sure this one isnt important at all but they mention it like it is), what a Ta'veren is, what the one power/saidin/saidar is, what the Dragon is, what the Dark one is, what a Forsaken is etc. What is up with Perrin and his yellow eyes? What is that dagger Mat has? None of that is explained really. What even happens when a man channels and why is it so bad? What is a Fade and why are they so dangerous? I am also guessing she has no idea they have travelled like 2 000km from their village to Tar Valon.

The Dark One is way worse than Sauron and not really a Dark Lord style villain. He is more a force of nature that will eventually mold the world(not just the planet) to his own making rather than what the Creator(God) made. Which is why the notion of them killing the dark one at this point at the eye of the world(he isn't even there) is laughable and Morraine and Siuan should know that. As a book reader it is obviously just a bad setup for a trap and Siuan have been manipulated easily in a dream. Remember how Morraine in ep2 said they should be careful about dreams because the Dark One can influence them?

They did not understand who or what the Dragon is. The thing with the Dragon is that he is destined to destroy the world and save it in the best case scenario and while doing so most likely kill everyone he holds dear. That is the good scenario. The bad is literally the end of the world. People pray to not be born in the same era as the Dragon. The show doesnt set it up very well because if they did they would have to ruin the mystery of the dragon. They also didn't know what Ta'veren is and why Rand, Mat and Perrin matters to the story. Morraine is obviously the main character of the show and Egwene and Nynaeve look far more useful than the boys.

I had to explain to them what the prologue was. They did not understand that the guy was really dangerous because he had turned mad due to the one power and would sooner or later kill everyone around him and the red Ajah is an "order" hunting down men so they don't destroy the world again. They just thought they had a beef or he was a bad guy. And it was also really badly done and contradicts information we get later on(not just what is in the books). The red Ajah is not allowed to severe men from the power out in the field and need to take them to Tar Valon just like they did with Logain. Here they casually just gentled a male channeler without good explanation or even consequences even though Morraine witnessed it.


Since you’re a book reader, knock it off with the goddamned book spoilers. I didn’t need to know the bad guy was obviously not where everyone in the show has been saying the bad guy was and that it was really just a trap.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/23 03:11:54


Post by: warboss


Question for those who read the books regarding this iconic book cover...



Is that Morraine and her Warder at the front? Is that size difference reflected in the novels or just a quirk of the art? As a kid in the 80s, I just figured she was a hobbit on a pony because she and her horse are so much smaller than the guy and his ride next to her.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/23 05:11:18


Post by: Baragash


According to the wiki Lan is 6' 5" and Moraine is "short" so it's not entirely ridiculous.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/23 08:11:03


Post by: Grumpy Gnome


Ah how those books covers influenced my view of the world…. And helped sell it to me. I really, really wish the costume department had stayed true to those images.

I understand the showrunner wants to subvert book reader expectations to evoke a sense of surprise or suspense. I get the theory but I do not like it. It feels too much like meddling, trying to fix something that is not broken. It is bad enough when something gets cut, like Jackson cutting Tom Bombadil from Lord of the Rings, but this show wants us to not be sure if Frodo is Ringbearer, whether it will be Aragorn or Boromir who will succumb to the Ring and has a female Elven love interest to conflict with Legolas, The Dragonslayer… oh, wait… err.

At least Lan is cool and Moiraine reminds me more of Gandalf with every passing episode.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/23 08:50:13


Post by: Klickor


 AduroT wrote:


Since you’re a book reader, knock it off with the goddamned book spoilers. I didn’t need to know the bad guy was obviously not where everyone in the show has been saying the bad guy was and that it was really just a trap.


Well it is show information that it is most likely a trap. It isn't information from the books. Morraine says the dreams can't be trusted and they bet everything on her lover's vague dream. Can't really be more obvious than that. In the books the Dark One isn't at the eye of the world. But I wouldn't be the least surprised if he is actually there in the show. Would be one of the smaller location changes and would actually be an acceptable change. They don't even see Tar Valon in the book for example yet they spend an awful lot of time there so the Dark One being at the Eye of the World is quite plausible. Shayol Ghul, the dark ones prison, and the location of the Eye of the World in the books aren't that far from each other after all. In the books they do go there and for an entire different reason and it isn't a trap. Why I think it is a trap is because it would create more tension and drama in the show. Like the fake drama around everyone but the dragon will die if they go there which obviously isn't true for a multi season series. Can't kill 6/7 main characters just like that after all. They didn't build up the tension well during episodes 3-6 so they forced it in so they can have tension in 8.

They have deviated a lot from the books, the only thing that really is the same are names of characters and places, so the plot or character arcs isn't something even book readers can accurately predict at this point. Up until ep 7 quite a few of us weren't even sure they would let Rand be the Dragon Reborn and it isn't even conclusive at this point he is the only Dragon.

My prediction is that they actually defeat the Dark one in season 3. Of course they can't do it in season 1 if they are adapting a 14 book series, really thick 800 pages volumes, that have been renewed for a second season. It is like if Gandalf said at Rivendell "Let's go kill Sauron in Moria using the one ring" and you knew there were 2 more movies and they set up the ring can't be used like that.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/23 09:19:37


Post by: Albertorius


...I've never seen that cover in my life xD


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/23 09:43:33


Post by: Mr Morden


I always thought that book cover looked truely bizare.

Wisdom is(sure this one isnt important at all but they mention it like it is), what a Ta'veren is, what the one power/saidin/saidar is, what the Dragon is, what the Dark one is, what a Forsaken is etc. What is up with Perrin and his yellow eyes? What is that dagger Mat has? None of that is explained really. What even happens when a man channels and why is it so bad? What is a Fade and why are they so dangerous? I am also guessing she has no idea they have travelled like 2 000km from their village to Tar Valon.


Peronally we don't need to know everythng - I am also told there is copious notes available with the show on Amazon if i want to read it?
Wisdom just seems to be a wise woman with powers who leads the women also a bit like a minor cult - do I need to now more? It works fine for me.
The Dark One as said several times - its a Dark Lord and at the moment pretty normal for it.
Foraskaen - major servant of the Dark One - all this was specicially said in the show.
Perrin is obviuosly connected to wolves/wilderness - they could not have made it more obvious
Dagger is from the shadow city and "contains darkness from it" again fairly standard fantasy trope and specifically spoken about
Man channels - he goes mad - its been explicity shown and told us mutiple times - both with the "dragon reborn" and the idiot mat
Of course we know they are long way from home are they specifically say they have travelled for more than a month - the only thing more explciit would have been a red line crossing a map.

Its a fantasy show with lore - but so are all the others.

The Dark One is way worse than Sauron and not really a Dark Lord style villain. He is more a force of nature that will eventually mold the world(not just the planet) to his own making rather than what the Creator(God) made.
How is that different from Sauron?

They have already said that it is their End Times - several times

Spoiler:
They did not understand that the guy was really dangerous because he had turned mad due to the one power and would sooner or later kill everyone around him and the red Ajah is an "order" hunting down men so they don't destroy the world again
If people did not understand this from the first couple of episodes - I am surprised - its spelled out with actual dialogue....repeatedly from the very first scene


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/23 10:39:53


Post by: Flipsiders


Klickor wrote:
Book white cloaks are definitely more good than show white cloaks. Books make it clear there are a few bad apples and the rest is more misguided than malicious. Intent for the most part is good. Show make it seem they are mostly evil with 1 stupid man, the guy who recommends a "witch" healer in front of a questioner on a crusade.


The books suggest pretty straightforwardly that the Whitecloaks are 33% percent misguided, 33% malicious, and 33% idiotic.

Spoiler:
Example: Niall, the Whitecloak leader who captures Morgase, is a pretty decent fellow, but he's murdered for no reason by the legendary idiot Valda. There's a clear sense that the rational, good-hearted Whitecloaks are under constant attack (sometimes literally) from members of the organization who lack one or both of those traits.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/23 10:59:09


Post by: Klickor


Wisdoms normally don't have power and they don't lead people in a cult. They are mostly just the village healer/herbalist without magic. Also part of the female village council like how Rand's and Egwene's fathers are part of the male village council.

All the others are also very shallow understanding of things on a surface level that doesn't really tell you much. The way they are set up in the show most of them could just have been removed because they don't explore the reason to why they matter.

Perrin can communicate with wolves and run a huge risk of turning feral and start acting like a wolf. Wolves are also connected to dreams and dreams in this world are quite important. He really risks losing himself to it and it scares him. Show make it look like a neat wolf controlling power.

Many of these things are not just background lore just like any fantasy world but important parts of the characters, the actual plot and the antagonist. Nynaeve's character is closely linked to her being young for a Wisdom. Mat's dagger is extremely important for book 2 and a lot of plot points in the story. It has nothing to do with the dark one or just any everyday magic object found in a fantasy novel with a curse on it.

The heron marked blade Rand carries for example is very important to the plot, Rand's growth and Tam's backstory. None of that is really used in the show and they even messed up one of the most important things with the sword in ep1.

The only reason many of these things are in the show is because so they can check off things on a checklist so they can say the follow the story while not following the story. They aren't there to do what they did in the book anyway. I think the show would have been better with just cutting out the whole dagger(and all plot related things to it) or wisdom (just call her herbalist) parts for example and instead focus on the other parts of those characters personalities and journeys.


Sauron is just a dark lord who sure would suck if he won but he would just control that continent as a tyrant. He wouldn't destroy the world or be able to do it even if he tried. He isn't much different than the Wizards or Balrog or Smaug. Him winning isn't the end of the world. Many of the elves don't even really care because they can just leave the continent. If Eru or the Valar wanted to they could just take a trip to Middle Earth and remove Sauron at will. The Forsaken in WoT is closer to what Sauron is or used to be under Melkor. Strong servants but they can be defeated by others at the same level. There are after all two different tiers of beings above Maiar
like Sauron. Valar and Eru/God. The Dark One in WoT is a being on an entirely different level than Sauron and more like a evil mirror to an almighty God who created the universe. There are restraints to him but if he wins time itself might cease to exist. This isn't portrayed at all in the show but the Aes Sedai(at least the Amyrlin and Morrain) should know that which is the reason that they think they can just take the Dragon Reborn there and kill him off like he is just a weakened mortal being is laughable in the context of the world. If they really set up things they wouldn't be able to try do such a weak plot in the show.

This is the reason I don't think the show will last unlike the books. They haven't tried setting up things so you can have payoffs later. They are just plot points and weird side stories(like Stepping and Siuan Sanche) and the audience will lose interest after a while. You need deeper themes and characters if you want to do the 8 seasons they claimed.



Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/23 11:02:30


Post by: Flipsiders


Klickor wrote:
Sauron is just a dark lord who sure would suck if he won but he would just control that continent as a tyrant. He wouldn't destroy the world or be able to do it even if he tried. He isn't much different than the Wizards or Balrog or Smaug. Him winning isn't the end of the world. Many of the elves don't even really care because they can just leave the continent. If Eru or the Valar wanted to they could just take a trip to Middle Earth and remove Sauron at will. The Forsaken in WoT is closer to what Sauron is or used to be under Melkor. Strong servants but they can be defeated by others at the same level. There are after all two different tiers of beings above Maiar
like Sauron. Valar and Eru/God. The Dark One in WoT is a being on an entirely different level than Sauron and more like a evil mirror to an almighty God who created the universe. There are restraints to him but if he wins time itself might cease to exist. This isn't portrayed at all in the show but the Aes Sedai(at least the Amyrlin and Morrain) should know that which is the reason that they think they can just take the Dragon Reborn there and kill him off like he is just a weakened mortal being is laughable in the context of the world. If they really set up things they wouldn't be able to try do such a weak plot in the show.


First of all, tag your spoilers.

Second of all,

Spoiler:
Ishmael intentionally hams up the Sauron role in the first three Wheel of Time books, and that's why the show is portraying him that way right now. Remember: He's the one who's appearing in the protagonists' dreams, not the actual Dark One. The entire point of their mutual plan is to use Ishmael as a front to make the real Dark One seem less intimidating.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/23 11:09:42


Post by: Klickor


 Flipsiders wrote:
Klickor wrote:
Book white cloaks are definitely more good than show white cloaks. Books make it clear there are a few bad apples and the rest is more misguided than malicious. Intent for the most part is good. Show make it seem they are mostly evil with 1 stupid man, the guy who recommends a "witch" healer in front of a questioner on a crusade.


The books suggest pretty straightforwardly that the Whitecloaks are 33% percent misguided, 33% malicious, and 33% idiotic.

Spoiler:
Example: Niall, the Whitecloak leader who captures Morgase, is a pretty decent fellow, but he's murdered for no reason by the legendary idiot Valda. There's a clear sense that the rational, good-hearted Whitecloaks are under constant attack (sometimes literally) from members of the organization who lack one or both of those traits.


Exactly. The book white cloaks can be set upon the path of good with competent leadership(or turned bad with evil leaders) while the show make it look like they are already turned bad. Like their beef with Perrin in the books is actually quite justified.

Book white cloaks also come off as more realistic. People looking for a cause in a world where real darkness exists. Joining an armed force trying to bring the light. Having actual well armed soldiers. Biggest problem is that they see dark friends everywhere. Bit like how some people look for Nazis everywhere and thus see Nazis everywhere on the internet. But these guys have actual weapons and military might and can abuse it unlike Twitter activists. Show white cloaks look more like a group of fanatical witch hunters that go for a more ceremonial look than practical armour. Not an organisation that can rule a country and project military might outside its borders.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/23 14:14:19


Post by: warboss


 Baragash wrote:
According to the wiki Lan is 6' 5" and Moraine is "short" so it's not entirely ridiculous.


Possibly and thanks for the info. Speaking as someone who is almost that height barefoot (just frations of an inch under), she'd have to have the frame of a 10 year old girl to match those proportions.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Grumpy Gnome wrote:
Ah how those books covers influenced my view of the world…. And helped sell it to me. I really, really wish the costume department had stayed true to those images.


Yeah it's pretty iconic for 80s fantasy oil painting art along with alot of d&d covers for me. It's what I most associated with WOT until this week frankly.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/23 14:18:29


Post by: Sterling191


 warboss wrote:
 Baragash wrote:
According to the wiki Lan is 6' 5" and Moraine is "short" so it's not entirely ridiculous.


Poss and thanks for the info. Speaking as someone who is almost that height barefoot (just frations of an inch under), she'd have to have the frame of a 10 year old girl to match those proportions.


Mandarb (Lan's warhorse) is also canonically *jacked*, so that somewhat syncs up as well.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/23 16:09:16


Post by: warboss


Sterling191 wrote:

Mandarb (Lan's warhorse) is also canonically *jacked*, so that somewhat syncs up as well.


Well, that part I can't comment about as I very little experience with horse riding but it definitely could add to the scale discrepancy. I'll just consider him a primarisized warden.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Albertorius wrote:
...I've never seen that cover in my life xD


That's odd that they didn't use the cropped version also for the Spanish edition. While I can't guarantee that it is the only cover they've used, it's definitely the only one I've ever noticed since the 80s.



Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/23 16:16:45


Post by: Mr Morden


Everything looks out of proportion to everything else....its awful.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/23 17:18:51


Post by: tneva82


Out of curiosity has Verin showed up? She had nice story with hints plotted from get-go subtly. Doubt show manages building that as well though


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/23 17:29:57


Post by: Sterling191


tneva82 wrote:
Out of curiosity has Verin showed up? She had nice story with hints plotted from get-go subtly. Doubt show manages building that as well though


She has not. With the
Spoiler:
Mat + Dagger plotline getting truncated (for various reasons including COVID), her Book 1 niche has come and gone. She's a significant player in his arc in Book 2 though, and I would be highly surprised if we don't see her in some capacity in Season 2.


 warboss wrote:

Well, that part I can't comment about as I very little experience with horse riding but it definitely could add to the scale discrepancy. I'll just consider him a primarisized warden.


It's not an inaccurate analogy. The lad (like all of the named horses in the series) has serious plot armor.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/23 18:01:15


Post by: Albertorius


 warboss wrote:
Sterling191 wrote:

Mandarb (Lan's warhorse) is also canonically *jacked*, so that somewhat syncs up as well.


Well, that part I can't comment about as I very little experience with horse riding but it definitely could add to the scale discrepancy. I'll just consider him a primarisized warden.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Albertorius wrote:
...I've never seen that cover in my life xD


That's odd that they didn't use the cropped version also for the Spanish edition. While I can't guarantee that it is the only cover they've used, it's definitely the only one I've ever noticed since the 80s.



Ah, Lan is a witcher, I see.

The first spanish edition of the whole series used these covers:



The current edition is similarly designed, but each cover has a different illustration:



And they're releasing bundles now, on a different edition:



The first edition was by Timun Mas, and the current ones by Minotauro. First publisher tended to publish cheaper editions, while Minotauro usually makes high end ones.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/23 18:55:39


Post by: warboss


That first edition cover looks very sad... Like a self published POD romance novel. The newer ones are stylish and elegant though.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/23 19:18:54


Post by: Grumpy Gnome


 Mr Morden wrote:
Everything looks out of proportion to everything else....its awful.


I disagree.

I love the artwork of Darrell K. Sweet. His work is among my most loved.

He did the covers of several Wheel of Time books as well as the covers for many other books I have enjoyed over the years.

https://www.tor.com/2012/04/20/a-darrell-k-sweet-wheel-of-time-tribute-including-a-memory-of-light-sketch/

Another image I associate with the Eye of the World is this one… which I have cited to the folks at Dwarven Forge for what I would like to see their upcoming Cities 2 Kickstarter help create.


[Thumb - 4E09EA4B-A6C1-496A-8B3D-E6E7FF297987.jpeg]


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/23 19:48:38


Post by: Albertorius


Seems perfectly OK, perspective, wise

But Moiraine is teeny tiny. And her horse is a pony. Actually, is more the horse than her.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/23 19:53:04


Post by: tneva82


Guess artist went really heavy with her tinyness(she is described as small like cairhiens tended to be)


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/23 20:24:56


Post by: Grumpy Gnome


I do like the effort the show made to differentiate LAN’s warhorse compared to the other horses.

In my mind’s eye Moiraine was Carrie Fisher sized.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/23 20:47:07


Post by: Laughing Man


 Mr Morden wrote:
Ughh Gods is Mat staying the in show - I suppose he will make a good villian for the other villagers to agonise more over....

Yes and no. The actor had scheduling conflicts, so he's being recast in season 2.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/23 21:51:35


Post by: Tannhauser42


 Grumpy Gnome wrote:
 Mr Morden wrote:
Everything looks out of proportion to everything else....its awful.


I disagree.

I love the artwork of Darrell K. Sweet. His work is among my most loved.

He did the covers of several Wheel of Time books as well as the covers for many other books I have enjoyed over the years.


Amusingly, I've strongly disliked Sweet's covers for the books since the very beginning. I think you're the first person I've encountered who has used the word "love" in response to his work on WoT.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/23 22:36:54


Post by: Dreadwinter


 Albertorius wrote:
...I've never seen that cover in my life xD


It is one of the US book covers for Eye of the World. I have a dustcover for my hardback using this art.

I find it odd that different countries use different books covers. If you go looking at book covers in other countries, you will quickly realize that US book covers suck.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/23 22:47:47


Post by: warboss


So Christmas Eve (tomorrow) is the finale? Are they already committed to a season 2? I see there is a listing for s2e1 on IMDB which is owned by Amazon.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Apparently production started for season 2 before this one premiered. Ballsy...

https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/wheel-of-time-amazon-hunters-1235141456/

And apparently they recast the actor for Mat?

Spoiler:
Is that why he didn't go through the gate? Or is that how it is in the books as well?


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/23 22:56:12


Post by: AegisGrimm


I associate all the original covers with the Wheel of Time, as all of the books I have (they were up to 9 when i fell away for a while) all have that same artwork.



Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/23 23:17:07


Post by: Sterling191


 warboss wrote:

And apparently they recast the actor for Mat?


Barney was unable to come back due to COVID related issues. They basically had to shut down and shoot EPs 7 and 8 separately, and he wasn't able to rejoin the production.

Spoiler:
Mat does not stay behind in the novels, but it's not an insurmountable issue as his arc in Book 2 effectively begins back in the White Tower.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/24 00:28:42


Post by: warboss


That sucks for him if it was suppose to be his big break. The shutdown prior to the filming of the last two episodes explains his relative absence and plot development there but less so tye recasting for next season.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Are they mostly adapting the overall books structure into the seasons (i.e. Book one = season one) so far?


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/24 00:50:23


Post by: Sterling191


 warboss wrote:
That sucks for him if it was suppose to be his big break. The shutdown prior to the filming of the last two episodes explains his relative absence and plot development there but less so tye recasting for next season.


Believe it or not he actually did more with the character than there was in the first novel. Mat (and to a lesser but still present degree Perrin) are characters that flounder quite a bit in the early books. Barney did a solid job giving depth to the character in the time he had with him, and I genuinely hope his career survives COVID.

 warboss wrote:

Are they mostly adapting the overall books structure into the seasons (i.e. Book one = season one) so far?


S1 (with the caveat that I havent seen the finale) appears to pretty squarely cover the events of the first book. What S2 will look at is anyone's guess, but a similar take on book 2 seems the plausible starting point.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/24 02:54:54


Post by: warboss


Sterling191 wrote:

S1 (with the caveat that I havent seen the finale) appears to pretty squarely cover the events of the first book. What S2 will look at is anyone's guess, but a similar take on book 2 seems the plausible starting point.


I have to admit that option felt like the less likely one to me (again from a position of complete ignorance regarding the books). I figured with the adaptation for the screen and so many novels that they'd pick and choose from the first three books what felt/flowed right to the writers. I'm a bit impressed that they didn't do that.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/24 03:43:13


Post by: Sterling191


 warboss wrote:

I have to admit that option felt like the less likely one to me (again from a position of complete ignorance regarding the books). I figured with the adaptation for the screen and so many novels that they'd pick and choose from the first three books what felt/flowed right to the writers. I'm a bit impressed that they didn't do that.


I adore Jordan for the world he created and the series was an integral part of younger Sterling's life...but you could cut about 2-300 pages from each book with little to no impact to the overarching stories involved. Managing to fit the salient events of the first novel into an 8-hour run is quite the feat of adaptation.

That being said...
Spoiler:
events in the finale (and I'm being deliberately vague even behind a spoiler tag until folks have had a chance to catch up) open the door for some significant divergence of several major arcs going into book 2 (and possible book 3). Thats not to say that I think they're going to just smoosh those two together for S2, rather that we might see some bleed of events as we finally make our way out of the "prologue". There's a lot of threads to pick up and reconcile.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/24 10:31:32


Post by: Shadow Walker


Finished the last episode. Still I like Moiraine and Lan. Still I do not care about the 5 (Wolf boy useless as always). Will I watch the season 2? Yes, because the ending scene was promising.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/24 10:38:00


Post by: Baragash


I wonder how combustible the book purists will be about

Spoiler:
Lews Therin being referred to as the Dragon Reborn rather than the Dragon in the flashback sequence


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/24 10:46:07


Post by: Shadow Walker


 Baragash wrote:
I wonder how combustible the book purists will be about

Spoiler:
Lews Therin being referred to as the Dragon Reborn rather than the Dragon in the flashback sequence

Never read the books but that one sounded strange even after having the knowledge only from the show.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/24 11:19:47


Post by: Grumpy Gnome


 Tannhauser42 wrote:
 Grumpy Gnome wrote:
 Mr Morden wrote:
Everything looks out of proportion to everything else....its awful.


I disagree.

I love the artwork of Darrell K. Sweet. His work is among my most loved.

He did the covers of several Wheel of Time books as well as the covers for many other books I have enjoyed over the years.


Amusingly, I've strongly disliked Sweet's covers for the books since the very beginning. I think you're the first person I've encountered who has used the word "love" in response to his work on WoT.


I am hardly alone in loving his work.

Again… for the curious his cover illustrations for the various WoT books are here…

https://www.tor.com/2012/04/20/a-darrell-k-sweet-wheel-of-time-tribute-including-a-memory-of-light-sketch/

Also from the link I posted is this…

“Harriet McDougal, Robert Jordan’s wife and editor said, “Darrell was a great pleasure to work with, painstaking for accuracy to the text (well, his trollocs, not, and yet wonderful), and what color and energy in his work! There is nobody like him.”

He was an inspiration to a generation of artists as well as readers. Hugo award-winning Donato Giancola hangs a Sweet painting proudly in his living room, “Darrell’s work became an integral part of my development as a professional artist. I intently studied dozens of his works on the novels I purchased and read, mostly for his wonderful cover illustrations.” Greg Manchess stated, ” I was fascinated by his comfortable, gentle rendering that lent a lovely, believable light to all of his pictures.”



Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/24 11:42:36


Post by: AduroT


Were there supposed to be captions/subtitles for that opening scene or were we just to guess at the context?


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/24 11:47:00


Post by: Klickor


 AduroT wrote:
Were there supposed to be captions/subtitles for that opening scene or were we just to guess at the context?


There are subtitles for that scene and they honestly just make it much worse.

All you need to know is that the guy is Lews Therin Thelamon, The Dragon and he is discussing with the leaders of the female Aes Sedai what to do about the Dark One and they do not agree.

They actual say stuff that besides flat out contradicting the books also is a bit weird for in show reasons.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/24 15:38:49


Post by: warboss


Wow.. that was not good. I'd say it rivaled the first episode for the worst in my opinion. Wow.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Is the scifi aspect of the flashback from the books or a new addition by the show? I'm not opposed to that part in particular but was curious. Was the character there called the Dragon Reborn because he also wasn't the first (and the current reincarnation won't be the last either as the Wheel turns)?


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/24 15:54:44


Post by: Sterling191


 warboss wrote:

Is the scifi aspect of the flashback from the books or a new addition by the show? I'm not opposed to that part in particular but was curious. Was the character there called the Dragon Reborn because he also wasn't the first (and the current reincarnation won't be the last either as the Wheel turns)?


Spoiler:
It's an accurate depiction of the Age of Legends. The descriptions of that era don't really roll out till far later in the books, but it's consistent. The amount of awareness Rand has of his past life is significantly higher than it is in the books at this point, so I expect we'll see more stingers from back in the day (his relationship with the individual who may or may not be the Dark One for instance is foundational to parts of the conflict and I genuinely hope we'll see that explored more).

As to Lews Therin's title, that's a change. The cyclical nature of reality is the likely justification. It's a foundational metaphysical aspect of the setting.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Baragash wrote:
I wonder how combustible the book purists will be about

Spoiler:
Lews Therin being referred to as the Dragon Reborn rather than the Dragon in the flashback sequence


Oh theyre utterly livid, and it's delightful.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/24 16:33:30


Post by: AduroT


I always enjoy the cliche in fantasy stories where the ancient ruins end up all high tech. Another anime I’m watching right now did that as well.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/24 17:18:51


Post by: tneva82


Those covers were what were on finnish translated books i started with(though each book got split to 2-3 so 2nd/3rd books had new covers)


. (i was surprised when i found atm there was just 10 english books. In finnish it was closing to #30)


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/24 21:25:23


Post by: Dreadwinter


 Baragash wrote:
I wonder how combustible the book purists will be about

Spoiler:
Lews Therin being referred to as the Dragon Reborn rather than the Dragon in the flashback sequence


I haven't watched it yet, but I doubt it will bother me and I am a book purist.

Answer with a little more depth and spoilers:

Spoiler:
Lews Therin is not the first Dragon and Rand will not be the last Dragon, the Wheel turns


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/24 22:53:39


Post by: warboss


Sterling191 wrote:
Spoiler:

As to Lews Therin's title, that's a change. The cyclical nature of reality is the likely justification. It's a foundational metaphysical aspect of the setting.



Thanks. Good to know that it wasn't a mistake!

It's Christmas so I don't want to be a grinch in reviewing this finale episode. I'll just say that I'm glad to see the arrival of the fire nation and I'm curious to see if Prince Zuko will be able to handle the madness. The tsunami to handle one six year old girl was a bit excessive though!



Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/29 08:34:27


Post by: Grumpy Gnome


Well we finally got to see the season finale. I disliked it more than Mrs. GG did…. but yeah… very disappointed.

All that money spent and either they hired an incompetent military technical advisor or ignored their competent one. All of the battle stuff was just terrible. Like, worse than Jackson’s Battle of the Five Armies bad. I do not want to spoil it but if you have seen it you know what I mean.

This episode, more than any of the others so far reminded me of the disappointing TV adaptation of Shannara.

There was just so much I did not like with the writing and the interactions between characters. So much. Our heroes, meh. Padain Fain and his pet Fades… meh. Disposable secondary nameless (or forgotten) characters… meh. Meh, meh, meh. Just meh.

Edit: OK, one thing I did like was the actor playing “the big bad.”


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/29 16:15:10


Post by: warboss


 Grumpy Gnome wrote:

All that money spent and either they hired an incompetent military technical advisor or ignored their competent one. All of the battle stuff was just terrible. Like, worse than Jackson’s Battle of the Five Armies bad. I do not want to spoil it but if you have seen it you know what I mean.


I don't understand. What militarily was wrong with sending in the first wave of suicidal asians and then lining up the ablative strong independent women of color behind them? Sure... the messaging was a bit off when you write it out factually like that but it worked against the xbox 360 in game horde of beastmen.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/29 18:30:04


Post by: Grumpy Gnome


Yeah.

Spoiler:
Or why a pike block would run to that gap wall as a handful of mounted nobles gallop, just to then have the commanding officer hidden away as just another crossbowman in a wall littered with arrowslits (unlike any historical fortification I am aware of but I am happy if someone can point out a historical precedent) that allows Trolloc pyramids to have easy access at the lowest level. No oil. No dropped stones. No caltrops. No moat. No seige engines on the main fortification but a bunch instead unprotected on the walkway to the gate of the city. Ugh. I mean I know kids who have only played Total War a few times that could build better defenses.

And the Trollocs were no better. The big plan was pointless Trolloc diversion with Trolloc pyramids just so moustache twirling Padain Fain can do some exposition? No clever ploy to circumvent the gap wall? No better equipment?

Worse than meh. At least the costuming was interesting.

Even Mrs. GG was like… “Why we’re the men in front of the channeling women?” during the scene and she almost never speaks during a show.

Here is a link with an interview that has the showrunner explaining the changes they made from the book and why. I dislike the changes and the reasoning behind those changes.

https://decider.com/2021/12/24/the-wheel-of-time-season-1-ending-explained-showrunner-interview-seanchan-moiraine-amazon-prime-video/

Ensemble piece? Utterly meh.





Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/30 22:44:55


Post by: Mr Morden


Well finished it and still enjoying

In terms of the last episode

Spoiler:

* I liked the bit with the older high tech (or high magic?) civilisation.
* Battle at the Gap - why split your forces and have your heavy hitters (including all the artillery) behind the lines waiting for their menfolk to be slaughtered in a pointless battle. Also sending refugess away only a few hours ahead of a rampaging horde is stupid - True its nowhere near as bad as the endless stupidity of the Battle of Winterfell - but it would take so much to be worse than that!
* Happy with the Trollac charge - it seems to be just a distraction and Dark Lords are never short of brutal but stupid minions.
* Nice bit with the bad guys walking in, monologuing a bit and then walking off with the magic horn - the battle of the gap being a distraction?
* Yeah they really should have killed Mat when they could.
* Child on the beach being attacked by an entire fleet reminded me of scenes in the Malazan book of the Fallen - I am expecting her to be more annoyed than threatened.....but could be wrong.
* Hurrah they got rid of the sulky, annoying "Wisdom" - oh wait she is main cast and gets healed - no one else though....
* Ogre guy going down was a surprise but it seems like he is not actually dead.
* Morrain still in though - hurrah.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/30 23:11:13


Post by: Baragash


@Mr Morden
Spoiler:
IIRC.....In the books the Horn is found by Rand at the Eye of the World, so the Battle of the Gap isn't a distraction, then he teleports to the Gap and wastes all the Trollocs, so the "keeping the big hitters at the back" doesn't happen


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/31 22:34:15


Post by: Dreadwinter


Alright, considering we are definitely getting a Season 2 no matter what, I have some questions for the book readers about the future of the show. So if you are reading the books now after watching the show and care about those things, beware

Spoiler:
So, that was quite an ending. The show has changed up quite a bit, but it seems that they are sticking with Rand as the Dragon.

Now I am curious how they are going to play out these new changes. Specific changes that have important roles to play in Book 2 as well as down the line. I am probably missing a lot of major plot twists, but these struck out to me.

- The Ways: Any ol aes sedai can open them up? That is going to make the world a lot smaller.
- Camelyn: We are still missing 2-4 pretty important characters from Camelyn right now, with all the changes we have had so far. What can we expect here?
- Shayol Ghul?: Does it exist? The Eye of the World is the prison now, but is that Shayol Ghul now? What about the seals, are they a thing? Moiraine was shocked to see cuendillar.
- The White Tower: Is the Amyrlin Seat part of the Black Ajah?
- The Seanchan: How will they be portrayed? What about their monsters? Their armor looked neat.
- Moiraine: She got gentled? Um, what? That is a big change from the books and I gotta say, her not having powers is huge for the plot itself.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2021/12/31 23:53:18


Post by: Baragash


Points and replies in spoilers

Spoiler:
- The Ways: Any ol aes sedai can open them up? That is going to make the world a lot smaller.

It's the opposite. In the books anyone can open the ways assuming the leaf hasn't been removed from one side or the other, because they were built for the Ogier. Limiting them in theory to Aes Sedai limits who can use them.


Spoiler:
- Shayol Ghul?: Does it exist? The Eye of the World is the prison now, but is that Shayol Ghul now? What about the seals, are they a thing? Moiraine was shocked to see cuendillar.

The difference in the EotW and SG seems consistent at this stage between the books and the show, so this isn't really a question. Moraine was shocked that the Cuendillar was breakable since it's meant to be unbreakable - much like the Ways degrading it's meant to be because of the taint on Saidin when it was created. It looked like they took artistic license with the seal, ie the big mural on the floor was a seal, but no sign of the small discs they could carry around that Rand uses to count down to the Final Battle



Spoiler:
- The White Tower: Is the Amyrlin Seat part of the Black Ajah?

The Black Ajar is more subtle than that, I don't want to go into detail because it's potentially a large part of the story to spoil


Spoiler:
- The Seanchan: How will they be portrayed? What about their monsters? Their armor looked neat.

They're pretty faceless until later in the books when the main characters get to interact with them


Spoiler:
- Moiraine: She got gentled? Um, what? That is a big change from the books and I gotta say, her not having powers is huge for the plot itself.

More likely it's just a Shield that Ishamael tied the weaves on.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2022/01/01 00:29:16


Post by: Dreadwinter


A lot to unpack, just leading to more questions.

Spoiler:
Only people who had knowledge of that could use it, which was even smaller than any aes sedai that exists. So I disagree. Not everyone knew of the leaf, in fact it was right in front of many peoples noses and none of them used it ever.


Spoiler:
The difference between SG and EotW is not consistent at all with this stage of the books/show. The EotW is a pool of pure saidin for the Dragon, also housing a dragon banner and the horn + One green man. SG is the actual prison. She already knows it is breakable, since she knows at this point in the books that seals have already broken. She shouldn't be shocked at all, but she is which is a deviation of the books. Which means she either does not know about the seals, they do not exist in the shows, or she does not know they can actually break.


Spoiler:
I mean, they definitely aren't, especially in the books. They fled in the middle of the night without masking their identities and looted as much stuff as they could grab before getting caught. That is as subtle as a brick to the head. They cause a civil war where one side is definitely the black ajah and one isn't.


Spoiler:
The main characters deal with them in the second book, which will be the second season. Egwynn is about to go through some gak, maybe.


Spoiler:
I doubt it, he has the ability and power to outright gentle her. Is this saying he is still imprisoned? He shouldn't be, Ishamael was never fully imprisoned and has been doing a lot of gak in history. He also shouldn't be there, it should be Aginor and Balthamel. Where are they now?


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2022/01/01 16:51:48


Post by: tneva82



Spoiler:
The difference between SG and EotW is not consistent at all with this stage of the books/show. The EotW is a pool of pure saidin for the Dragon, also housing a dragon banner and the horn + One green man. SG is the actual prison. She already knows it is breakable, since she knows at this point in the books that seals have already broken. She shouldn't be shocked at all, but she is which is a deviation of the books. Which means she either does not know about the seals, they do not exist in the shows, or she does not know they can actually break.


Spoiler:

just because you know seals are going to break doesn"t mean it won't shock you to actually see it in your front. Irrefutabie evidence. All hope of being wrong crushed. Breaking, and maybe end, of the world looming.


Spoiler:
I mean, they definitely aren't, especially in the books. They fled in the middle of the night without masking their identities and looted as much stuff as they could grab before getting caught. That is as subtle as a brick to the head. They cause a civil war where one side is definitely the black ajah and one isn't.


Spoiler:


There were black and non black on both sides fanning the civil war.




Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2022/01/04 16:41:41


Post by: Aash


So I’ve started watching this, having read the series a while ago but after the final book was published. I read the series one after another, so I don’t really have any clear memory of the individual novels and where they begin and end and only a vague recollection of the overall story.

That being said I’m enjoying the series well enough so far (I’ve watched the first 3 episodes). The production value seems all over the place, sometimes looking high quality but at other times like fairly cheap SyFy channel stuff like Xena or the Shannara adaptation. I’m not a huge fan of Roasamund Pike at the best of times and she’s ok in this but I’d enjoy it more if Morraine wasn’t the pushed forward as the lead character in this adaptation. Either that or a more charismatic actress in the role. The cast for the youths seem out of their depth on the whole, but hopefully they’ll grow into their roles.

Overall its good enough that I’ll watch the res of the season and I’ll probably watch the next season as well if the standard doesn’t drop, but I was hoping for better. Perhaps it’ll improve as the season progresses, or in the second season.

As for differences from the novels, ageing up of characters is pretty much a given in tv land for adolescents, so I’m fine with that. As for the rest, I don’t remember enough detail about the books to feel there has been anything particularly jarring or that I dislike especially. Adaptations are always going to make changes when they change medium. Personally I don’t think there is any benefit in delaying the reveal of who the dragon reborn is, or to make it seem like it could be one of the women.

Someone earlier in the thread mentioned that it’s almost like a parallel reality compared to the books.elaborating on that, I can see this being a portrayal of a different turning of the wheel showing the same age, similar to the film version of the dark tower compared to the books.

After all there are no beginnings or endings in the wheel of time and the wheel keeps turning.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2022/01/04 17:09:47


Post by: warboss


For me as someone who never read the books, the overall season was ok with the book ends (first and last episodes) being the weakest for me personally.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2022/01/07 18:48:35


Post by: Grumpy Gnome


Was it just me or was the entire “The Flame and the Void” thing missing?

As well as… “Duty is as heavy as a mountain, death is as light as a feather.” I mean that is like “Winter is coming” as far as IP marketing material.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2022/01/07 18:55:27


Post by: Albertorius


 Grumpy Gnome wrote:
Was it just me or was the entire “The Flame and the Void” thing missing?

As well as… “Duty is as heavy as a mountain, death is as light as a feather.” I mean that is like “Winter is coming” as far as IP marketing material.


Probably they didn't want to quote Imperial Japan, which is the origin of that particular phrase.

As to the flame and the void, unfortunately it only appears tangentially in a single instance in the series, as far as I've seen.


Wheel of Time coming to Amazon (Book chat in spoilers please) @ 2022/01/07 20:55:25


Post by: Klickor


“Duty is as heavy as a mountain, death is as light as a feather.” Becomes a bit awkward with how show Lan is as far away personality wise you can almost get from the book version who is the one who uses that line the most and lives up to it the most besides Rand.

Just as well they didn't even bother. His lines to Nynaeve that were directly taken from the book at even uttered at the same place as in the book almost had the opposite meaning due to how different Lan and their relationship is from the books.

They would probably botch it and have it mean Rand needs to go to Dragonmount(you know a literal mountain) and avoid any people wearing feathers as ornament because they are deadly to the Dragon Reborn. Maybe even worse than that but definitely not better than my guess.