What to keep, what to drop?

[Maedelin]

5 hours ago, dexterryu said:

 

They could still keep them as 3 lovers, just not 3 ongoing simultaneous lovers. Relationships end amicably and they remain friends/allies.

 

That's a really good idea, Dex.  I'm not all that invested in most of Rand's relationships for many reasons that are not necessary to get into here, so I'd have no complaints about it, though some shi

[Dagon Thyne]

It seems Amazon is planning on basing the first few seasons on a book by book basis.....

 

Season 1; Eye of the World

 

Season 2; The Great Hunt

 

Season 3; The Dragon Reborn

 

This is fine, since all of these books have enough to keep them interesting, especially if they have some added scenes, that are implied, but not shown in the books.  

 

There are several books in the middle of the series that can be merged.  

 

And I would also say that TGS, ToM, and AMoL can be merged into a single season as well.  So the whole of the series could be done in 7 or 8 seasons.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ryrin]

Those are my favorite books!

[tkarrde421]

I don't know why so many people believe that they'll censor or omit the Rand three-way relationship.  Not that I would mind, much, since Min is the only obvious choice ?. But I think you're forgetting that a TV audience is looking for as much titillation as you can cram into an hour-long program.

 

Let's face it, most of WoT is (at best) a PG-13.  Almost all of the sex and excessive violence takes place off-screen.  In fact, this was one of the things that attracted me to the series in the first place.  As a teenager, I was exhausted by all the overly-adult themes all around me, including contemporary fantasy.  It was refreshing to find this series that felt family-friendly while still telling a grand and epic story (like LotR, with a lot more action).

 

However, I think the TV series will need every little "gasp moment" that they can find.  And the comparisons to LotR will be inescapable for the first book, as well.  If anything, they'll probably wanna play up these titillating moments a la Game of Thrones.

 

It's not what I want, but I think it'll be hard to gain a new audience without it.

[dexterryu]

On 11/9/2018 at 1:05 PM, Maedelin said:

 

That's a really good idea, Dex.  I'm not all that invested in most of Rand's relationships for many reasons that are not necessary to get into here, so I'd have no complaints about it, though some shi

 

For most intents and purposes, this is how it was in the books. I don't think Rand ever really spent time with more than one of them at a time for any length of time... and he definitely wasn't "with" more then one at a time.

 

Really the only odd thing about it, from the point of view of our culture, is that all 3 were not only OK with it but friends with each other.

[haycraftd]

I'd think concerning the Andoran royal family's stories (Elayne, Gawyn, and Galad)--the STORY that should be dropped is Gawyn's, the PERSON should be Galad.  Make Gawyn's story Galad's.

 

Sure, Galad doesn't have as much screen time as Gawyn, but Gawyn's story is of a disillusioned warrior becoming the Warder of the woman he loved--unimportant plot-wise, and Gawyn is obtuse and jealous throughout.  I was always frustrated with him--he never saw sense.  

 

Galad's story is of him joining the evil Whitecloaks, growing up, and then bringing the Whitecloaks to the Light.  We don't see too much of him--(Galad's disappointed when Perrin disappears because Perrin is one of the few military leaders he has ever been able to talk to)--but Galad's a fairly significant leader in the end.

But Galad isn't the crown prince of Andor while Gawyn is.  So drop Galad's name, drop Gawyn's story.

Edited January 10, 2019 by haycraftd

[Man Landragoran]

That's a good idea just sort of getting rid of Gawyn. He really didn't add anything to the plot that matters in a TV sense. I think his plot is somewhat interesting in book form as it muddies the waters of who supports Elaida during the split in the White Tower, making it less of a good/evil scenario, but in the TV series, they can just rely on the complexities of the Aes Sedai on each side to convey the same feeling.

 

I think what you're describing in general is going to be the direction they'll take - collapsing multiple characters' plot lines into a single character to reduce viewer confusion, a lot like what they did with Game of Thrones. They can also eliminate a whole ton of unnecessary filler without really dumping any important plot lines by not naming and concentrating on every major and minor noble in Cairhien, Tear, and Andor, cutting down on the number of named Aes Sedai Egwene has to scheme around to climb the ladder, and cutting the amount of time watching Elayne try to take the Lion Throne, which just goes on and on and on in the books. Even the books stopped doing most of that at some point. After Rand seizes Illian, you never hear a word about any nobles from that country, because even Robert Jordan had to realize that they're BORING.

[Lethira]

I do not think there is much that actually needs cutting, paring back -yes but outright cutting I'm not sure.

 

I think the more pressing question is character cutting, obviously a lot of the named Aes Sedai etc. could be combined -TV has a different way of describing the scope of the world; we do not need to know everyone's names.

 

If handled right, then the 3 lovers could work well; it is far enough into the series they will have time to gauge audience reactions and if necessary, adapt.  The books have an innocence about them that IMO most TV audiences do not expect.

[tkarrde421]

1 hour ago, Lethira said:

The books have an innocence about them that IMO most TV audiences do not expect.

 

It's that very "innocence" that I'm worried might sink the show.  People who are trying to compare this to Game of Thrones are seriously delusional.  Many people joined the GoT band wagon only because of the sex and brutal violence.  I'm not in any way demeaning the actual content of the show (and books), but it's a different audience that will appreciate the almost-Romantic vision of Jordan's pre-industrialized world.  I think many of those people were tricked into liking a fantasy series (perhaps for the first time).  The brilliance of WoT lies in foregoing cheap "jump scares" and "overly mature themes" in favor of creating a living, breathing alt-reality with amazing new rules ... and then proceeds to show us how heroes/villains can cleverly break (or bend) those rules.  For this reason, I feel it's more Harry Potter than GoT.  I'm hoping that the show succeeds without sinking to artificially-darkening the series.

[Maedelin]

44 minutes ago, tkarrde421 said:

 

It's that very "innocence" that I'm worried might sink the show.  People who are trying to compare this to Game of Thrones are seriously delusional.  Many people joined the GoT band wagon only because of the sex and brutal violence.  I'm not in any way demeaning the actual content of the show (and books), but it's a different audience that will appreciate the almost-Romantic vision of Jordan's pre-industrialized world.  I think many of those people were tricked into liking a fantasy series (perhaps for the first time).  The brilliance of WoT lies in foregoing cheap "jump scares" and "overly mature themes" in favor of creating a living, breathing alt-reality with amazing new rules ... and then proceeds to show us how heroes/villains can cleverly break (or bend) those rules.  For this reason, I feel it's more Harry Potter than GoT.  I'm hoping that the show succeeds without sinking to artificially-darkening the series.

 

Well said, tkarrde. :)  We'll have to hope that the series will be able to balance all the requirements that fans want, and newcomers will expect.

 

I am tired of cheap titillations.  I was never too fond of the GoT series, though I did read the books and watch a few of the seasons.  I have never found it as deep or compelling as WoT did.  The world building, the explanations, and the perspective are all so very different.

[Lethira]

I really hope that they don't go down the road of overly sexualising/presenting us with wall to wall carnage.  It is a difficult balance to strike when you have stakeholders wanting the best results for their money.  

 

I hope they keep Robert Jordans version of swearing -blood and ashes! Fishguts! etc. for me, that is a staple of the world building. 

[Guest]

11 hours ago, Lethira said:

I really hope that they don't go down the road of overly sexualising/presenting us with wall to wall carnage.  It is a difficult balance to strike when you have stakeholders wanting the best results for their money.  

 

I hope they keep Robert Jordans version of swearing -blood and ashes! Fishguts! etc. for me, that is a staple of the world building. 

 

If Amazon does not keep RJ's version of swearing, then I'm going to start a petition that WOT fans everywhere ship off to Amazon all the bloody ashes and fish guts we can find!! 

 

Seriously though, RJ's vocabulary for his characters are one of the reasons that I can re-read this series time and time again. I hope that the tv writers will stay true to the book's vocabulary in the characters' dialogues. 

[Man Landragoran]

On 1/11/2019 at 7:30 AM, Lethira said:

I really hope that they don't go down the road of overly sexualising/presenting us with wall to wall carnage.  It is a difficult balance to strike when you have stakeholders wanting the best results for their money.  

 

I hope they keep Robert Jordans version of swearing -blood and ashes! Fishguts! etc. for me, that is a staple of the world building. 

 

I agree. The first time Mat yelled "blood and bloody ashes" and whoever he said it around acted all shocked cracked me up. It throws you for a loop the first few times, that people in the story react as if that's a terribly offensive thing to say, but their reactions reinforce it until it genuinely feels like swear words after a while.

 

[skoog]

I think that allot of the content in RJ's writing style is vivid descriptions of the way people and places look. That will all end up in set and casting. I am reading book 4 as i write this and So much of the writing is about voice inflections and inner thought. it will be interesting to see how they adapt that to screen writing. I'm super excited for it though, Its another way to immerse myself in my favorite fantasy world.

[skoog]

On 1/11/2019 at 6:30 AM, Lethira said:

I really hope that they don't go down the road of overly sexualising/presenting us with wall to wall carnage.  It is a difficult balance to strike when you have stakeholders wanting the best results for their money.  

 

I hope they keep Robert Jordans version of swearing -blood and ashes! Fishguts! etc. for me, that is a staple of the world building. 

 

I don't see why they wouldn't keep the lingo but i assume they're gonna sexy it up. whether we like it or not sex sells, and they NEED money in order to continue the show. People need to be paid and sets bought. I plan to buy allot of merch in order to support the show (so long as its good) Just like i bought the hard cover copies of the books. Every purchase is a vote in order to support the WoT universe. The more they make the higher the budget will get. Which will be necessary to finish the books when they need arrmies and such.

[dexterryu]

On 1/11/2019 at 7:25 AM, tkarrde421 said:

 

It's that very "innocence" that I'm worried might sink the show.  People who are trying to compare this to Game of Thrones are seriously delusional.  Many people joined the GoT band wagon only because of the sex and brutal violence.  I'm not in any way demeaning the actual content of the show (and books), but it's a different audience that will appreciate the almost-Romantic vision of Jordan's pre-industrialized world.  I think many of those people were tricked into liking a fantasy series (perhaps for the first time).  The brilliance of WoT lies in foregoing cheap "jump scares" and "overly mature themes" in favor of creating a living, breathing alt-reality with amazing new rules ... and then proceeds to show us how heroes/villains can cleverly break (or bend) those rules.  For this reason, I feel it's more Harry Potter than GoT.  I'm hoping that the show succeeds without sinking to artificially-darkening the series.

 

On 1/11/2019 at 8:30 AM, Lethira said:

I really hope that they don't go down the road of overly sexualising/presenting us with wall to wall carnage.  It is a difficult balance to strike when you have stakeholders wanting the best results for their money.  

 

I hope they keep Robert Jordans version of swearing -blood and ashes! Fishguts! etc. for me, that is a staple of the world building. 

 

One of the things,  IMHO, that added to the cultures of the world RJ created was that different countries had very different views of things when it came to sex & nudity.  I think that should be preserved. The Two Rivers was ULTRA conservative in this regard. When  the group first got  to Sheinar, they were all shocked by the bathing practices. This helps distinguish Sheinar and also acted as something that kept them from being a generic super honorable soldier culture from peasant to lord.

 

Looking through the series sex is used a lot, but also in a much more subtle way. Just because it wasn't on screen doesn't mean it wasn't there. This is especially the case once Rand accepts and truly takes up the mantle of TDR. Berelain and many of the High Lords/Ladies try to find ways to seduce him. Lady Colavare in Cairhein tried to do the same. It's even implied that that's what the Wise Ones were up to with Aviendha. A big part of who Rand is and how his personal morals and honor works is that he never gives in. On the flip side, chasing women is a big part of who Mat is... and let's not forget about Tylin.

 

So just because the books aren't filled with sex scenes doesn't mean that things weren't stronly implied to be going on off screen. RJ saved his on screen nudity/sex for more key moments like Rand/Aviendha.

 

All in all, just sticking to what's on the pages will sexualize things plenty. The only thing that's tricky about it in WoT is that it doesn't show up in the first book much at all, which is somewhat opposite from shows/movies in that it's usually there in the first few episodes to help get people watching.

[Dagon Thyne]

I want to focus on Eye of the World for now, but there are many things they can drop for time  There is no reason to have the entirety of Mat & Rand's travels after Whitebridge.  It can be all belded into one or two scenes where they encounter a nameless darkfriend.  

[wotfan4472]

Four Kings is far too important of a moment to cut out though. That has to be in, and Rand suffering the aftereffects of that in the Barn needs to be included as well. That could be done in two or three episodes, but Mat's changes are important to his story and character later. That journey has to be shown.

[Thrasymachus]

How many episodes are going to be in the season?  It used to be that seasons were 22 or more episodes long, now we see seasons with 11 to 13 episodes.  You can do a lot more in a 22 episode long season than you can in an 11 episode one.  With 22 episodes, I don't think much of anything would have to be cut.  Even side characters like Else Grinwell and Paitr Conel can be shoehorned in.  It might be a bit slow in the middle, though.  With only 11 episodes, there's a lot that might have to be cut.

[Dagon Thyne]

I would say that there needs to be 7 or 8 episodes per season.  Similar to how GOT looks.  Amazon has already announced that for the first few seasons they will doing one book per season.  So, Season one is Eye of the World.

 

However, they are for sure going to add scenes.  They are gonna show many scenes that are implied in the books, but never shown.  For example, they may have scenes of the Trollocs' movements through the Two Rivers as they search for Rand.  Maybe one showing the fade giving orders, before you find out what it is.  

[Pandemonium]

7 or 8 episodes per season wont cut it, only the last 2 got seasons bad that few episodes.  wot is considerably denser than got.

 

as for nudity, i think will definitely appear.  there are some very adult themes and actions happening in between the lines of text.  RJ was a master of subtlety and an expert at crafting the imagination.  however, tv typically leaves very little to the imagination these days.  sure, not all scenes need to display nudity, but many do.  

 

nudee scenarios include the shienar bathhouses, the aiel saunas, birgitte appearing nude from tel'aran'rhiod, graendals orgies, lanfear stripping nude for rand and getting cockblocked by asmodean, aviendha running naked from rand and creating a portal to seanchan, tylin stripping matt (if they even include ebou dar), lini getting it on with basel gill (jk), tuon stripping down for matt as if its just a matter of state, morraine running nude from her visit to rhuidean (maybe blur the nudity by the sun), shadar haran burning the clothes off the forsaken (just skip over the next part), and probably way more i cant think of right now.  thom and matt alone have too many exploits, and just adding a'rangar is too much to contemplate.  pillowfriends? min stripping for rand in the bath?  berlain's antics with both rand and perrin, myrelle and lan, logaine getting it on with his controlling aes sedai bond, matt naked when bitten by a darkwolf. so many scenarios and i havent read the books in 10 years so probably missing many more

[DemandredFO]

Just dropping all of Valan Luca and having physical scenery instead of description will cut down. Combined Ishy and Be'lal since B shows up and gets killed, I wish I knew if RJ intended more for B. Oh and you need Narg, Narg smart. The Tylin story I think will be cut because WOT doesn't need a rape controversy. I think the travelling people could be cut down or left out entirely since they don't add much. Also I think the latter seasons will diverge more as books get cut down and there's time to expand on stuff Brandon either left out or had to edit for time, like adding seanchan and AS together at the tower. If you include that Min vision, the WT/seanchan lack of resolution has to change.

Where you need to add though is the OP battles because the descriptions sound cool but you can have 5 mins of Nyneave and Moghedien do a staredown in an ancient museum

[Dagon Thyne]

I don't think they will have any issue having nudity, since there are plenty of scenes where people are naked in the books.....There is the dream Nynaeve has that she's naked and beong chased by one of the Forsaken, which is somewhat important to her character development.   

 

There are the public baths in Fal Dara.....The Aiel bathing tents............

 

I doubt they will have GOT style dull on sex scenes, but nudity is quite possible

[Thrasymachus]

It will probably be on Prime, so they can make it as "mature" as they want.  Still, I can't think of any scene where nudity occurs that it must be explicit.  Side-boob and butt crack, and bare shoulders and hips, is as far as they really need to go.  And they may be thinking of future syndication on broadcast or mainstream cable tv, so they may be wanting to go for a more "PG-13" vibe that would allow them to bring in a wider audience, that would also allow them to show a little more violence and special-effects, as language isn't going to be an issue if they stick to the in-universe cursing.  The story doesn't need explicit nudity anywhere, and where explicit nudity might enhance the story, the risks of overdoing it or having it overshadow the emotional import of the scene are quite high, unless very tastefully and subtly done.  This isn't some late-night Skin-emax flick, after all.  We don't need to see Aviendha's nipples to know that she and Rand are gettin' down in the Seanchan igloo scene.  We don't need to know whether Amys' curtains match her drapes to know the Aiel sweat in their sweat tents in the nude.  We don't need full-frontal on Nynaeve as she's fleeing that Forsaken, breasts glistening with sweat and heaving in fear...wait, you know what, nevermind.

Edited February 8, 2019 by Thrasymachus

[Dagon Thyne]

The only reason I can think of to make nudity explicit is if they want to show the implied sex scenes, such as Rand and Min, Rand and Aviendha, Rand and Elayne, Mat and random Darkfriend Aiel whose name I can't remember,