Encouraged or dissalusioned? Post trailer feelings

[Agitel]

45 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

Tarwin’s Gap

 

Yeah, but we only see it in the books from a great distance. They could show more in the show, but the main cast is not personally involved.

 

50 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

Is Falme the first big one?

 

Whoops, I forgot Falme. That's bigger. Still, they could focus on Rand and the girls escaping and close up shots rather than have lots of battle stuff.

 

They could probably get away with that for the Stone, too, given its close quarters.

 

What I had in mind as a big battle that's on a large scale would be the siege of Cairhien. They could expand on things for the show, of course. But Cairhien is the first really detailed, huge battle that comes to my mind.

 

Am I missing something else?

[JenniferL]

If you are comparing budgets and production quality, make sure you are looking at the first few seasons of GOT. The later ones, after it became the biggest thing on TV had budgets similar to blockbuster movies. Think more about the epic battle between the Starks and Lannisters in season one that they never actually showed onscreen. Or the Battle of Blackwater in season two which takes place mostly on a couple yards of beach in the dark because they saved all the budget for a big explosion. HBO did not open up the checkbook for things like Hardhome and the Battle of the Bastards until the show was a proven hit. 

[AusLeviathan]

1 hour ago, JenniferL said:

If you are comparing budgets and production quality, make sure you are looking at the first few seasons of GOT.

The per episode budget for season 1 of WOT is already higher than any season of GOT other than season 8 and even then the per episode budget for GOT season 8 was only slightly higher.

 

The thing is though that the huge amount of CGI/costumes/makeup required combined with the large diverse cast and the fact that these are actually heavily part of the plot means that $10-15 million per episode won't actually go far.

 

I'm not convinced that WOT being a big success would result in Amazon drastically increasing the already near record budget. I think that there's a limit to how much they're willing to spend per season and they're already pretty close to it.

Edited October 11, 2021 by AusLeviathan

[Guest redgiant]

2 hours ago, DaddyFinn said:

I'm not sure if I would like it more with a normal mouth/teeth and no screeching. It's fine, gives some Pennywise vibes. At least it looks enough like a human with it's mouth closed.

 

To be honest, everyone would shit themselves if they met that face to face in the real world. ?

 

I hate, hate, hate the lizard-mouth silliness.

 

Nowhere do the books state or even imply that a Fade has a mouth or teeth like that.

 

Not only would it certainly be included being so utterly prominent a feature (even more than being "eyeless") ... somewhere in all of Jordan's evocative descriptions, but the attacking of a Fade with teeth like that would definitely include biting, tearing or some form of use of all those teeth. I mean, a creature does not have a mouth like that and not use biting or ripping of flesh as a primary form of attack. Yet nowhere in the books does that ever happen.

 

You'd have an easier time convincing me that was the mouth of a Dragkhar maybe, and claim its "kiss" was being mauled by 1,000 vampire teeth (j/k, you could never convince me that lizard mouth was on any of Jordan's creatures he described).

 

What do those teeth do to the Fade's voice and characterization? It is supposed to speak a lot with a raspy, grating voice. How do you speak with a mouth full of those, and not make *that* look or seem cheesy?

 

Speaking of budgets and saving money on omitting or radically altering actual book scenes like Camelyn or A/B and Someshta at the Eye, how about saving all that teeth CGI budget for those scenes instead? A skull-like head with no eyes seems a lot easier and cheaper to do, and is like the books too.

 

Hence, it looks nothing like a Fade in the books.

[DojoToad]

I didn't like the mouthful of teeth or the screech either.  But can live with it if it is not prominent in the show.  Just because it was in the trailer doesn't mean it will be in the show at all - though likely it will be.  I don't want Fades to be another Sci-fi/fantasy monster e.g. Blade, Stranger Things, It, etc.

 

The fear for me came from their silence, eyeless stare, preternatural grace, and chilling words (when they needed to speak).  Maybe the screech from the trailer was a signal to the trollocs for attack?  If they aren't linked, maybe an outward signal is required.

 

Again, waiting for the show before deciding the Fades are awful...

[Elder_Haman]

13 hours ago, redgiant said:

I think this should be TV-MA for one thing. Or at the very least TV-14 with a V for violence (I could care less about boobs or nudity or language - at least English language cursing). But violence should abound in certain scenes, and that alone makes me wonder why this isn't in the same ratings camp as GoT.

You're going to get your wish. It's absolutely going to be TV-14.

Now, addressing some of the other criticisms:

 

11 hours ago, 550456 said:

In one of the teasers, we can see someone jumping off a cliff/rock into a river. That's the first thing shown in that video. Maybe my memory is bad, but I've read the series multiple times, and can't think of what scene in the books that might be. And it's the first thing we see in that video. That's naturally going to give an impression for the rest of it

You are correct. The first scene of the teaser shows us Nynaeve pushing Egwene into a river. Nynaeve whispers, "be strong" just before shoving Egwene off the cliff. This scene is not in the books. I think this was meant as a message to us - the fans of the books - to be strong in the face of obvious changes from the source material.

 

Context clues from the Winespring Inn clip tell us that this scene likely has to do with a ceremony. The ceremony is likely Egwene's initiation into the Women's Circle (or maybe just womanhood). Her hair is unbraided when she's pushed, but when we see her in the Winespring Inn later, her hair is braided. 

 

Why add a ceremony that isn't in the books? Isn't that just proof that they are deviating from Jordan's story? No. The ceremony will allow the writers to communicate lots of nuance about Two Rivers culture:

• The importance and primacy of women and the Women's Circle
• The concept of a Wisdom, and what the Wisdom does.
• The importance of braided hair and what it means.
• Possibly rudimentary things about the One Power. 

It will also allow us as an audience to spend some time with two of our main characters: Egwene and Nynaeve and to begin to understand what drives them.

 

11 hours ago, 550456 said:

The Myrddraal's teeth. Other people have already said it, but I found it ridiculous. The Myrddraal are supposed to be ominous and terrifying. They get their power largely due to fear, and while a monster like that would certainly be frightening, it's not the same. What we saw invokes a horror movie monster that eats people, not a sinister intelligence that creates feelings of dread simply by looking at you. I also don't agree with the argument that such an effect couldn't be done on screen. Lighting and music are well-known ways to create emotional responses in the audience, and a discussion between characters could be had to further clarify what happened. If I recall correctly, such a discussion actually exists in the books already

I disagree with the idea that the Myrddraal isn't ominous and terrifying. The rows of teeth gave me a very "Mouth of Sauron" vibe. And the Mouth of Sauron is, to this day, one of the most memorable and disturbing things I've ever seen on screen

 

I agree with you that the Fades need to be depicted as intelligent, not simply horrific creatures. But one "impact shot" of a creepy mouth screaming does not provide enough information to conclude that they got it wrong. (Indeed, I don't recall any description of what a Fade's mouth/teeth look like at all). So long as the creature isn't just a shrieking baddy, this design has amazing potential. (Also, as an aside, I'd be totally fine if they lost the Dragkhar entirely and gave the Fades their soul-stealing capabilities).

 

11 hours ago, 550456 said:

Moiraine and Lan. They seemed completely at odds with what their characters are supposed to be. They've been traveling for years looking for the Dragon Reborn, and we know that Moiraine liked to keep a low profile doing so. She, reasonably, wanted to keep their mission secret from Darkfriends, and even after the ta'veren are found she tends not to make her position as Aes Sedai known. But here, we see her and Lan deliberately draw all attention to themselves and announce exactly who they are to everyone. The timing of this bothers me as well, because the way it affects events seems like it will inevitably take away from some of the mystery of her character. Now, do these things drastically affect the overall story? Maybe not, but when our first look at the characters shows them being the opposite of what we know they should be, it is very concerning.

This is a change made in service of better storytelling. Yes, it is a deviation. I explained the reasons for the deviation over on Reddit as follows:

Quote

 

Think back to how you - as a first time reader of the Wheel of Time - learned about who and what the Aes Sedai were and what the One Power was. There was a great deal of exposition and expositive dialogue deposited over multiple books. Jordan weaved his world building in through these methods brilliantly, so that the world of the Wheel of Time unfolded in front of you like a tapestry as you read. But - and it's a big but - at the very same time, and from nearly the very beginning the One Power is used by the characters. Likewise, the Aes Sedai exist and take decisions of major consequence from the outset. And so the people who are developing the tv series have to be able to communicate important concepts visually, rather than through dialogue.

Expositive dialogue requires context, which requires a scene, which requires time. Time to write, time to film, and ultimately impacts the length of each episode. You simply can't develop these core concepts in the same way Jordan did and expect people to understand what's going on.

The changes in the story: Moiraine coming openly into the Two Rivers and Marin recognizing the great serpent ring both serve the purpose of communicating important information through images and brief interactions. So let's examine how:

In the books, Moiraine enters town "disguised" as a traveling historian. She uses this deception to subtly question people in town to learn where to find the boys she's seeking. But she knows exactly who she is looking for - a boy of a certain age. But she is only able to remain disguised for so long because the Trollocs attack on Winternight, forcing her to reveal herself in defense of the town. In the interim, she is able to speak with Rand, Mat and Perrin and provide them with their coins.

Moiraine's introduction in the show is obviously different, but the impact on the plot is minimal and functions on several different levels to develop the concept of Aes Sedai without need for exposition. The expositive dialogue is four words long.

So what does the show really change? Here, Moiraine arrives in the middle of a rainy night, following a day of celebration when nearly everyone in town is going to be at the Winespring Inn. Moiraine would know this, would understand this tradition, and would be smart enough to take full advantage. So, when Moiraine enters the room - she immediately becomes the focus of attention. This, by the way, is absolutely in keeping with Moiraine's character. There is no question she could walk into any farming village in Andor and immediately command the attention of an entire room. She ignores Nynaeve with a disdainful glance (a great bit of character development for Nynaeve too) and marches right to Marin telling her what is going to happen in a firm but friendly way - again, perfectly in character. She flashes her ring in a manner she's obviously done before (again, perfectly in character), then maneuvers to the place in the room where she has the best view by pretending to warm herself at the fire. From there, she scans the room and locates the boys she wants to talk to. In this one scene, Moiraine accomplishes everything she came to town to accomplish in a minimal amount of screen time and fundamentally, nothing about the story changes.

The entrance gives us more information, however. The brief interaction where Moiraine flashes her ring and Marin says "of course, Moiraine Sedai" communicates volumes. (1) the Great Serpent ring is a symbol of power and authority; (2) it is associated with people called "Sedai"; (3) the "Sedai" are intimidating - Marin is clearly nervous and the inn starts twittering at the mention of the word. These things may seem small, but they are little building blocks that will help establish who the Aes Sedai are the kind of power and influence that the Aes Sedai wield.

The Aes Sedai are extremely important to the show. If the magic flops - either because it doesn't look good, or the audience doesn't understand it - the show will be a failure. Use of the One Power is central to the series. The audience has to buy in immediately. I suspect one of the central themes in Season 1 will be whether the Aes Sedai can be trusted (obviously something that is prevalent throughout the books as well). So it's smart to introduce Moiraine as an Aes Sedai as a vehicle for driving tension. (And let's be honest - as readers - we never really believed that Moiraine was an historian.)

The upshot is that these changes all seem to serve a purpose. They aren't just changing things for the sake of changing them. They are the type of changes that I want in an adaptation (we didn't need to see Frodo moving to Crickhollow either) because they are in service of the story, even though they depart from it.

 

As to your other concern: 

 

12 hours ago, 550456 said:

show me the frames where we can see the books coming to life on screen

Well... Rand's look of adoration for Egwene; Perrin's slow, careful approach to Rand obviously thinking before he speaks; Mat flirting with a girl, then giving Moiraine a head to toe glance - checking her out as she comes into the Inn; Egwene serving drinks; Lan absolutely stoic with a blade to his throat; a Fist of Trollocs being led by a Fade on a horse; Mat eyeing the dagger; Nynaeve protecting Egwene with her dagger.

All of these things bring the book to life on the screen for me.

[mogi68]

I feel better about the show after seeing the Winespring clip tbh. I think the main cast will do a good job with the material they're given, and that will make up for a lot of aesthetic changes that would otherwise trigger me severely

Edited October 11, 2021 by mogi68

[king of nowhere]

i like the myrdraal mouth.

yes, ok, i understand that it's not like in the book. and yes, i would have liked if they could have kept it the same.

but! myrdraal are supposed to preject fear with their stare. how the hell do you convey that through a screen? No, just ominous music won't cut it, and you can only do the creepy atmosphere when the situation allows it. I can easily see the show trying this, and the public complaing it looks cheesy to have this stupid monster with ominous music every time it shows up. It could actually become a meme. Like frau blucher in frankenstein junior.

 

Instead, they made its look more terrifying. I believe it was the right decision.

Edited October 11, 2021 by king of nowhere

[Tim]

The extent of changes (from the books) implied by the teaser and the Winespring clip are pretty much exactly what I would have expected.

 

It's pretty clear that the first episode is going to encompass the equivalent of the first 10-12 chapters of the first book. That's a pretty mammoth task, and a lot of decisions regarding minor plot deviations will have been driven not solely by how difficult it is to show something rather than tell it, but also how much time it would take both to "show" something in a manner that more precisely reproduced the book and to do so in a way that would be able to be remembered and pieced together by new audiences.

 

In relation to the Winespring clip, while I agree that Moiraine and Lan's arrival felt a bit hammed-up, the decision to have them immediately announce who they are and impress their authority and alienness on the entire village immediately struck me as sensible, mainly because it makes it a lot easier to get through all the key events of Winternight and the following day in one episode.

In the books, there are repeated references (including a lot of misinformation) to Aes Sedai in chapters 3 and 4, primarily through Fain's announcements regarding Logain and the Village Council's reaction to it. This establishes that Aes Sedai are feared - recognised as the only people who can deal with male channellers, but otherwise considered not much better than them - but not really respected. The cavalcade of melodramatic, contradictory village gossip also establishes that the villagers don't really have an educated understanding of who Aes Sedai are and what they do. 

This is all well and good, but it involves several chapters of a lot of rather confusing chatter and mixed signals. It also doesn't always make a lot of sense: there's a long discussion (after the villagers learn about Logain) between Rand, Mat and Perrin about Aes Sedai possibly being darkfriends given they "caused the Breaking" (Rand does not distinguish between male and female Aes Sedai for this purpose), but then later they all ride off with Moiraine and Lan with barely any discussion required? In the books, the effect isn't so jarring because the transition is spread out over a long section of text.

 

In a single episode? That would be incredibly confusing. It also relies on audiences being able to hold onto, process and synthesise everything said by every stray character to form a confusing-but-more-complete picture. When you read a book, you can go back and read a previous page if you want to go over how things fit together, but TV is not designed for that (except amongst the most rabid fans).

 

It makes much more sense to have Moiraine and Lan arrive in a form consistent with how they surely will end the episode: respected, feared, generally obeyed but not trusted.

 

I think it's helpful to think back to the opening stretch of the LOTR film in this regard. While we all remember the decision to excise Tom Bombadil, it's easy to forget the number of other changes that were made - no Crickhollow, no conspiracy between Sam, Merry and Pippin, no long discussion between Frodo and the elves. I remember when I first watched it, what bugged me the most was not the removal of those scenes, but almost the opposite: the film still had simply too much going on, too many plot developments it had to squeeze into a film span, and the effect was that the dialogue often served no point other than to relentlessly drive the plot forward, with limited regard for how to make the characters' motivations and choices seem rational or authentic. Why do Merry and Pippin continue on with Frodo and Sam once they cross the river? Who knows? It's never discussed. Why do the hobbits throw their lot in with Strider so easily? Hey, don't ask irritating questions! Why does Gimli switch from shouting "never trust an elf?" to calmly joining the Fellowship within a matter of minutes. Don't worry - there's no time to dwell on it!

All of the above plot developments are (broadly speaking) consistent with the books, but they made for an often very clunky film (one reason The Two Towers is a vastly superior film is that it only covers about two thirds of the second book which was already the shortest, and you already know the characters, so the character interactions are dramatically more real-feeling and believable, even though the film spends an inordinate amount of time dwelling on Helm's Deep). 

Whether or not WOT does better than Fellowship of the Ring in this regard remains to be seen (the Winespring scene actually reminded me a lot of Fellowship, so the jury's out), but I'd be willing to bet that a lot of the decisions to depart from the plot of the books will be driven by the question "how do we compress hundreds of pages of text into single episodes without making the behaviour of the characters seem utterly random?"

[Rose]

2 hours ago, Tim said:

The extent of changes (from the books) implied by the teaser and the Winespring clip are pretty much exactly what I would have expected.

 

It's pretty clear that the first episode is going to encompass the equivalent of the first 10-12 chapters of the first book. That's a pretty mammoth task, and a lot of decisions regarding minor plot deviations will have been driven not solely by how difficult it is to show something rather than tell it, but also how much time it would take both to "show" something in a manner that more precisely reproduced the book and to do so in a way that would be able to be remembered and pieced together by new audiences.

 

In relation to the Winespring clip, while I agree that Moiraine and Lan's arrival felt a bit hammed-up, the decision to have them immediately announce who they are and impress their authority and alienness on the entire village immediately struck me as sensible, mainly because it makes it a lot easier to get through all the key events of Winternight and the following day in one episode.

In the books, there are repeated references (including a lot of misinformation) to Aes Sedai in chapters 3 and 4, primarily through Fain's announcements regarding Logain and the Village Council's reaction to it. This establishes that Aes Sedai are feared - recognised as the only people who can deal with male channellers, but otherwise considered not much better than them - but not really respected. The cavalcade of melodramatic, contradictory village gossip also establishes that the villagers don't really have an educated understanding of who Aes Sedai are and what they do. 

This is all well and good, but it involves several chapters of a lot of rather confusing chatter and mixed signals. It also doesn't always make a lot of sense: there's a long discussion (after the villagers learn about Logain) between Rand, Mat and Perrin about Aes Sedai possibly being darkfriends given they "caused the Breaking" (Rand does not distinguish between male and female Aes Sedai for this purpose), but then later they all ride off with Moiraine and Lan with barely any discussion required? In the books, the effect isn't so jarring because the transition is spread out over a long section of text.

 

In a single episode? That would be incredibly confusing. It also relies on audiences being able to hold onto, process and synthesise everything said by every stray character to form a confusing-but-more-complete picture. When you read a book, you can go back and read a previous page if you want to go over how things fit together, but TV is not designed for that (except amongst the most rabid fans).

 

It makes much more sense to have Moiraine and Lan arrive in a form consistent with how they surely will end the episode: respected, feared, generally obeyed but not trusted.

 

This is a great analysis, and the more I think about it, the more convinced I become that the show has excellent writers. The clip and the teaser trailer showcase several decisions they've made about how to handle the adaptation and while initially I was kind of put off by many of them, I'm really coming around as I think them through and understand why those decisions were made and what impact they'll have on the show.

 

It's really not an easy task, from a writing standpoint, to concisely convey information about the world, the characters, their relationships and history, and set things up so we understand what's happening, what's at stake, and why it matters. You basically need every single shot to do double- and triple-duty not only to show the scene that's currently unfolding, but help us understand the backstory of it and prime us for what will happen next.

 

One really great example of this is the whole Logain breaking out and killing Kerene sequence. It establishes so much of the world and the stakes and sets up things that will pay off books later by showing us how dangerous male channelers can be, demonstrating that it's possible to break a shield, helping us understand what happens to a Warder when their Aes Sedai dies, possibly (if Logain is then gentled on the spot) showing how horrible gentling is, and if I'm right about this theory, planting the first clues about the Black Ajah (I'm convinced Liandrin messes with Logain's shield on purpose).

 

From a fan point of view, I find it jarring when things are different and I have a hard time adapting. But from a writer point of view, they're doing a stunning job.

Edited October 12, 2021 by Rose

[Elder_Haman]

19 minutes ago, Rose said:

One really great example of this is the whole Logain breaking out and killing Kerene sequence. It establishes so much of the world and the stakes and sets up things that will pay off books later by showing us how dangerous male channelers can be, demonstrating that it's possible to break a shield, helping us understand what happens to a Warder when their Aes Sedai dies, possibly (if Logain is then gentled on the spot) showing how horrible gentling is, and if I'm right about this theory, planting the first clues about the Black Ajah (I'm convinced Liandrin messes with Logain's shield on purpose).

EXACTLY! If what you’re after is an engaging show that establishes Jordan’s world as feeling real, laying the groundwork for Magic and its “rules” has to happen right away.  

[Tim]

 

4 minutes ago, Rose said:

It's really not an easy task, from a writing standpoint, to concisely convey information about the world, the characters, their relationships and history, and set things up so we understand what's happening, what's at stake, and why it matters. You basically need every single shot to do double- and triple-duty not only to show the scene that's currently unfolding, but help us understand the backstory of it and prime us for what will happen next.

 

That's an excellent summary of the kind of approach I'm hoping the writers are taking when thinking about plot adjustments - and yeah, based on what we have seen, I think the decision to directly incorporate Logain into the plot from early on makes perfect sense in this regard.

I think another benefit here is that making a fight with a false dragon a central part of the story early on will make both Rand's initial self-loathing upon realising he can channel and might be the DR, and the long arc of almost no one being willing to give him the benefit of the doubt make much more visceral sense (as well as making Logain's redemption arc more powerful). This is not merely a world where male channelers are feared, but also one where persons who hold themselves out as the DR are assumed to be false, and to be harbingers of destruction without positive benefit. But nearly all of that happens off-screen for the first 3 books.
 

Arguably the books never quite managed this, given the extent to which so many fans seem befuddled as to why so few characters were prepared to just get out of the way and let Rand do his thing (with particular ire reserved for Egwene).

 

I don't think this stems from any failure on RJ's part, so much as being a structural issue that arose from the first two books being told primarily from Rand's perspective, such that readers became primed to take his side, understand his motivations, give his decision-making the benefit of the doubt in the context of a world where nearly every single character is primed to do the opposite. You can see RJ effectively realising the problem that's arisen, and trying different strategies to deal with it, from The Dragon Reborn onwards.

 

It's obviously difficult to say just how different things might have been if the books had started in the same form that they took from about book 5 onwards (from which point female channelers' POVs easily form >50% of the narrative), and I expect having so many POVs immediately might have detracted from the charm of the first few books, but one thing it would have done is feed into the central narrative of the series from the outset: ultimately, WOT is not just about "how does one guy deal with the fact that he is required to save the world but is likely also to go mad and destroy it"; it's also and much more about "how does a world deal with the fact that the guy who is required to save the world is likely also to go mad and destroy it."

The two biggest changes evident from what we've seen so far are introducing Logain's story earlier, and making it clearer from the outset that female channelers are the key structuring social power. Both seem like changes designed to ultimately support Rand's narrative arc rather than detract from it.
 

[Anders_nilsson]

12 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

myrdraal are supposed to preject fear with their stare. how the hell do you convey that through a screen?

 

I think they made it good in lord of the rings with the nazgüls staring.

[Rose]

6 hours ago, Tim said:

I think another benefit here is that making a fight with a false dragon a central part of the story early on will make both Rand's initial self-loathing upon realising he can channel and might be the DR, and the long arc of almost no one being willing to give him the benefit of the doubt make much more visceral sense (as well as making Logain's redemption arc more powerful). This is not merely a world where male channelers are feared, but also one where persons who hold themselves out as the DR are assumed to be false, and to be harbingers of destruction without positive benefit. But nearly all of that happens off-screen for the first 3 books.

 

Yeah that's a very good point. They need to prime the audience so that when it's revealed Rand can channel and is probably the Dragon, we're terrified, both of him and for him. Because we know he's going to be hated and feared. He's not going to be believed. He's going to be hunted to be gentled. He's going to go mad and hurt characters we love. He's probably going to die. In this world, finding out you can channel is a horrible death sentence for a man, and without all of Jordan's exposition and inner monologue and also the prologue pulling its weight in that regard, we need other ways to convey that so that the reveal hits as hard as possible. Discovering that Rand is the Dragon Reborn isn't a moment of triumph, it's a moment of horror. That's so central to the way in which Jordan turned the Chosen One trope on its head. If the TV writers can capture that, it will show they have a deep understanding of the series at its core.

[king of nowhere]

3 hours ago, Anders_nilsson said:

 

I think they made it good in lord of the rings with the nazgüls staring.

was the nazgul stare supposed to be terrifying? that part wasn't conveyed in the movie.

yes, they did a good job of making them scary, but they were boss monster and undead horrors. it's much easier under those premises

[Rose]

20 hours ago, Elder_Haman said:

(Also, as an aside, I'd be totally fine if they lost the Dragkhar entirely and gave the Fades their soul-stealing capabilities).

 

It hadn't occurred to me that they might do this, but it makes sense to condense the shadowspawn this way. They've clearly put a lot of budget into the Trollocs and Fades, so it's very possible we won't get Dragkhar. My only issue with making Fades soul-stealing is that they become a little too reminiscent of HP Dementors. Viewers won't care that HP came after, it'll feel like a rip-off. So far they seem to be trying really hard to make the show distinctive and set it apart from other fantasy series so I'm thinking they might shy away from that. It's not strictly necessary to the plot to have soul-stealing shadowspawn anyway, it just adds to the fear factor.

[DaddyFinn]

Speaking of shadowspawn, why is there so few Darkhounds in the books? Only a few (dozen) were created?

[AdamA]

I'm not a fan of the mouth, but whatever, it's not like Myrddraal are major characters.

 

Most of these complaints feel like people not understanding differences between books and television. Why show Egwene's initiation ceremony? Why make Moiraine's entrance much more explicit? Why show Logain getting captured? These are all things where it worked fine in the books, with the limited first-person narrative perspective of individual characters, to do the world-building as an internal monologue, but you can't possibly replicate that on television. Half the show can't be actor voiceover exposition dumps. It's a visual medium. You show things in a visual medium.

 

They probably will change some other things in a more meaningful way, as opposed to just adding scenes to show us stuff that was only alluded to in the books. Will those hurt? I have no idea, but it is weird to see some of the lionizing of early Game of Thrones, which actually made some crappy harmful changes, such as dumbing down the Dotkraki to make them uneducated brutes, Drogo not being able to speak common tongue, turning Daenerys' and Drogo's love story from a perfectly normal arranged marriage in the books to Daenerys learning to love her rapist in the show, the totally inexplicable scene with Jaime claiming he never cared about the common people when he sacrificed his entire reputation 20 years earlier to save a city full of common people, all the ridiculous sexposition, turning Varys and Tyrion into idiots when the plot suddenly needed Cersei to seem smarter.

 

We have no idea from the two minutes of footage we've seen if stupid changes like that will happen. There is some risk of overdoing the action and having too many unironic superhero poses, but I'll worry about that when I actually see it happen. For now, this looks fine. If the biggest complaint is things don't look like your head canon, that doesn't seem like much of a complaint. People may be a little rosy with the Lord of the Rings memories on that front, too. They may have stayed very close to book art with respect to architecture and city layouts, but casting and plot choices were not universally lauded. There was a lot of grief about Viggo Mortensen as Aragon. Too small, had only played hippies and pretty boys to that point (sound familiar with respect to Daniel Henney?). Frodo was supposed to be near 50 but Elijah Wood looked like a teenager. Cutting Tom Bombadil, leaving behind an Elf army at Helm's Deep and killing off Haldir, killing Saruman early and cutting the Scouring of the Shire, turning the Ents into dumbasses who had to be tricked into fighting. Some of those were pretty major changes, but I don't think they really mattered and the movies work fine anyway. The only one that really bothered me was the Ents.

[Agitel]

To be fair about Elijah Wood and Frodo being 50... Frodo received the ring at 33, which is the age of majority for Hobbits, and with the ring slowing his aging he still looked like 33 at 50. 50 for Hobbits was also more like 30s for humans. And in the movie Frodo was actually still 33 when the adventure begins.

 

*pushes up glasses*

[dssharp]

maybe this is my memory failing me, but when I read the books as a young boy I thought of Gimli as a bad ass, and was a little disappointed by how much he was the comic relief in the movies. (Still LOVED the movies). But that memory -real or not- serves to further the point that even LOTR, which is near universally admired did make some significant changes. 

[Tim]

12 hours ago, Rose said:

Yeah that's a very good point. They need to prime the audience so that when it's revealed Rand can channel and is probably the Dragon, we're terrified, both of him and for him. Because we know he's going to be hated and feared. He's not going to be believed. He's going to be hunted to be gentled. He's going to go mad and hurt characters we love. He's probably going to die. In this world, finding out you can channel is a horrible death sentence for a man, and without all of Jordan's exposition and inner monologue and also the prologue pulling its weight in that regard, we need other ways to convey that so that the reveal hits as hard as possible. Discovering that Rand is the Dragon Reborn isn't a moment of triumph, it's a moment of horror. That's so central to the way in which Jordan turned the Chosen One trope on its head. If the TV writers can capture that, it will show they have a deep understanding of the series at its core.

 

Right! And above and beyond that, there's the fact that (when viewed from the vantage point of the series as a whole) Rand is not morally straightforward. He's an anti-hero as much as a hero, in part because he (understandably) is driven a bit nuts by the perceived weight of personal responsibility and guilt he carries - not all of which can be attributed to the taint or to LTT - and there's at least some evidence in the books (mostly in The Gathering Storm but also before that) that he gives other people ample reason not to trust him, which then makes his job even harder.

This is something I think RJ could have done better: include more interactions with Rand told from the perspective of other characters. There are many moments in the pre-Sanderson books where characters think about Rand, but most scenes in which he actually appears are told from his perspective (of course, he barely appears in Crossroads of Twilight and Knife of Dreams at all).

Some exceptions which prove the rule: it's been a while since I last re-read it, but I recall a scene in Lord of Chaos where Rand visits Mat while he's training the armies of the dragon, and the exchange is told from Mat's perspective, and Rand seems feverish and rambling and paranoid (if I recall correctly, Mat wonders if he is already going insane). There are also the interactions between Perrin and Rand in A Crown of Swords where (again if remember correctly) even though they had planned to stage a fight, Rand almost loses control for real. But these examples are a little too fleeting to really counteract the impression of Rand as the decent hero built up through books 1 - 5, and we, the reader, are inclined to forgive him because we know the pressure he is under by virtue of having been inside his head.

A lot of the character work in the last three books seems like Sanderson trying to bring to the surface in a more explicit manner some of these dynamics: suddenly in The Gathering Storm we see a lot of Rand from other characters' POVs, and he seems terrifying. The impression is that he has gotten dramatically worse ("Darth Rand"), but I rather suspect that it's more that the narrative suddenly focuses, laser-like, on this question, making unignorable an issue that had been present for most of the series.

 

(Rand's heel turn was managed with much better grace than the whiplash-inducing denouement for Daenerys in the show-version of GoT, but there's a hint of the same problem: a character flaw which was probably there all along is minimised, until suddenly it becomes a key driver of the plot and assumes primary focus)

I feel like good TV writing can be well-placed to tell these morally grey stories, because of the capacity to use an ensemble to position the audience's sympathies between the POVs of different characters and groups, as opposed to having to place the audience behind the eyes of a particular character for any given scene.

It's not always easy: I think of Breaking Bad, whose protagonist is is some ways an awful person (ultimately self-acknowledged as such), but which nevertheless garnered a sizeable part-fanbase of people complaining how hard-done-by Walter White is by his family and others, perhaps simply because some viewers are not used to not wholeheartedly rooting for and sympathising with the white male protagonist who drives the plot.

But an example of success for me was Deadwood, whose main character dynamic between Sheriff Bullock and Al Swearingen struck me as expertly-handled: the show opens with Bullock appearing to be the protagonist you will instinctively support and Swearingen as the archetypal villain, but this binary is quickly, progressively destabilised, until both are equal-parts hero and anti-hero. And this is done by showing the interactions between different characters and groups in a manner that disperses the viewer's sympathies and antipathies, in a way that can't readily be reconciled in favour of any one outcome.

If the WOT show can achieve a dynamic like that I will be over the moon.

[Elder_Haman]

27 minutes ago, Tim said:

If the WOT show can achieve a dynamic like that I will be over the moon.

I couldn't agree more!

I've been beating this drum for awhile. If I was writing the show, I would try to make it seem like the climax is destined to be the rest of the EF5 having to come together to defeat Rand at the Last Battle.

 

The Danerys ending, so to speak, should seem almost inevitable. Only a few glimmers of hope should remain by the time we reach Natrin's Barrow at which point, all hope should seem lost. Veins of Gold will be so much more impactful that way.

[Beidomon]

On 10/11/2021 at 9:09 AM, Elder_Haman said:

You are correct. The first scene of the teaser shows us Nynaeve pushing Egwene into a river. Nynaeve whispers, "be strong" just before shoving Egwene off the cliff. This scene is not in the books. I think this was meant as a message to us - the fans of the books - to be strong in the face of obvious changes from the source material.

 

I think that’s a reach. 

 

On 10/11/2021 at 9:09 AM, Elder_Haman said:

Context clues from the Winespring Inn clip tell us that this scene likely has to do with a ceremony. The ceremony is likely Egwene's initiation into the Women's Circle (or maybe just womanhood). Her hair is unbraided when she's pushed, but when we see her in the Winespring Inn later, her hair is braided. 

 

Why add a ceremony that isn't in the books? Isn't that just proof that they are deviating from Jordan's story? No. The ceremony will allow the writers to communicate lots of nuance about Two Rivers culture:

• The importance and primacy of women and the Women's Circle
• The concept of a Wisdom, and what the Wisdom does.
• The importance of braided hair and what it means.
• Possibly rudimentary things about the One Power. 

It will also allow us as an audience to spend some time with two of our main characters: Egwene and Nynaeve and to begin to understand what drives them.

I think you’re right. But it’s a little concerning and annoying that Rafe felt it was a good idea to waste screen time on fleshing out such minor stuff.

 

Expanding Logain’s arc enhances the story. Expanding the Women’s Circle doesn’t. At least not the story I care about. To each his or her own I guess. 

[Tim]

3 hours ago, Elder_Haman said:

couldn't agree more!

I've been beating this drum for awhile. If I was writing the show, I would try to make it seem like the climax is destined to be the rest of the EF5 having to come together to defeat Rand at the Last Battle.

 

The Danerys ending, so to speak, should seem almost inevitable. Only a few glimmers of hope should remain by the time we reach Natrin's Barrow at which point, all hope should seem lost. Veins of Gold will be so much more impactful that way.

Agreed - or at least have it really feel like it could go both ways. The future balanced on the edge of a blade etc.

 

It will be a neat trick to tell the story of Rand's descent and redemption in a manner that is clearly demarcated from parallels in LOTR, Star Wars etc., e.g. in my head I imagined Rand at Natrin's Barrow saying "the victory of the light is all" and Cadsuane saying "Is it? That's been said before, but not by you." But I realised that I was unconsciously transposing the conversation between Gandalf and Bilbo over giving up the one ring onto WOT.

 

If they ever get that far, the veins of gold sequence would present a real challenge, given it's basically all in Rand's head. He'll need an interlocutor to make it work. It seems to me the options are:

 

1. Leave as debate between Rand and LTT but embody LTT. This would be most faithful to the books but I think would be difficult to pull off in a way that didn't seem hamfisted.

2. Rand is confronted by one or more of the EF5 - Perrin would be the obvious choice based on the books, given it subsequently emerges that he was sort of there. But my preferred twist would be...

3. Bring Mat's rescue of Moiraine forward, and have her find Rand and have the debate with him. This would make for some neat symmetry, and also give Moiraine's return a bit more specific purpose than it had in the books.

Post Veins of Gold, I'd be inclined to tamp down on the "Rand is now Jesus" vibes - I think it largely works in the books, but in a tv context I think it will be more dramatically effective to emphasise his regained humanity - i.e. bring the transition slightly more into alignment with the spirit of Sorilea and Cadsuane's original pact to re-teach Rand laughter and tears.

[TheMountain]

I loved Jesus Rand though ?