tv show spoilers S1E8: The Eye of the World

[EmreY]

51 minutes ago, SingleMort said:

... and not really building his character they've not made many viewers care about him really sold people on him being the DR. If the audience is not invested in Rand in a WoT show that's a problem because yes it's an ensemble, but Rand is the central pillar of the whole story. It's like if you didn't care about Luke Skywalker in Star Wars. 

 

Oh, I think they had a lot of people at "that's not the woman I love" moment.  Admittedly, that has nothing to do with him being the DR, but it does have a great deal to do with what type of DR and is wholly in character, I think.  But I agree that he is as much in the background during this first series as it is possible for him to be and yet retain any semblance of being the DR and I agree with the thrust of your argument and I see how this may just be too much for some people.

 

But, incidentally, 1) I was an Obi-Wan fan to begin with.  2) I didn't get het up about Luke until Episode 8, when I thought his character was far more believable and I loved the changes that were made, both to his character and SW as a whole.

 

Spoiler

Just joking ? about the second part there...

 

But my issue with messiah figures is that if you overdo the introduction then you sort of need to skip to the end because the adventures in the middle are IMO likely to be soggy and saggy.  (I honestly also think that RJ changed his mind as to what he wanted to write at several points in the books too, and that includes his depiction early on of the DR, though that's incidental to the point here.)

Edited December 29, 2021 by EmreY

[WoTwasThat]

1 hour ago, Ralph said:

 

Did you kill Loial?

I didn't kill Loial. Everyone is worried about it. I can say that he is safe, alive and currently shooting for season 2. And that there are a couple people who are at death's door at the end of the finale who are not dead and a couple people who are in fact dead.

Hopefully, the finale will prepare people emotionally for the deaths that will come. Because one thing The Wheel of Time books do so beautifully is they maintain a massive cast of characters for 14 books. And we can't do that in a television show. So, there will be shocking deaths to come, but I can confirm that this is not the end of Loial. 

 

From https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/news/wheel-of-time-episode-8-spoilers-rafe-judkins-interview/

 

I assume this is what you meant by the second one, but I don't think he says that

 

I also recall him early in the series saying he can't wait for people's reactions to some of the (real) deaths in future seasons

Interesting strategy: Deliberately make it look like Loial is killed as a Season 1 cliffhanger. Then immediately give an interview saying “no, no, no, Loial’s fine.”

[Scarloc99]

Just now, Mirefox said:

Yawn.  So many excuses, one after another, for why the poor old show runners simply can’t do what they ought.  It is hard to cast characters so the solution is to kill them off early?  Seriously?  I know, how about the writers do their jobs and instead of reinventing half the story and spending an inordinate amount of time on some background characters they actually write a legitimate reason to keep actors around?  The GoT books have entire books where characters are not present but the writers over there found ways to keep them show-relevant.  If it is really as hard as you want to claim it is then that is further proof that this group of show runners and writers is in way too far over their heads with this IP.

Not excuses just facts, tell you what why dont you go and write and run a multi season TV show. I have a friend who works in TV here in wales, has been involved in his dark materials amongst other things. I asked him about WOT (he is a book lover) a few years ago and how he would convert it, he called it a monumental mess of a book to transfer to TV. he even told me that book 1 would need to be re written massively to make it fit tonally, I remember him telling me it could work really well, but many who love the books will positively probably hate it, but they should never be the target audience because they wont make it economically successful. 

I have seen people throw around the easy ways it could have been done differently, as far as i am aware non of them work in TV and so non of them actually have any idea what they are talking about. 

[Scarloc99]

2 minutes ago, WoTwasThat said:

Interesting strategy: Deliberately make it look like Loial is killed as a Season 1 cliffhanger. Then immediately give an interview saying “no, no, no, Loial’s fine.”

I mean anyone that cares enough will see him named as a character in season 2 and the only people who really care are book fans angry at the thought he might be dead. 

I imagine in the original version it was Matt who was stabbed. 

[Mirefox]

7 minutes ago, Sir_Charrid said:

You know what we are capable of just enjoying the show without holding onto hope or thinking it is better then it is, I have read the entire series 8 times, I have read books 1-10 multiple times more (from books 1-10 I re read every book up to that release again each time there was a release). I am embedded into the world as much as anyone, but, I am also a realist and you now what I enjoyed the series, there are some production issues I found jarring early on. I thought the first 3 episodes felt rushed. But, and this is important, WOT is not a biography,

 

The TV show was always going to have massive changes made to it, it was going to be dumbed down to attract as wide an audience as possible high fantasy does not sell well, GOT did well because it was about as high fantasy as you can get, there was a dragon, but not really any magic, no wizards and witches throwing fireballs all over the place, it is fairly lo magic in it's world. Any TV show that has a ton of rules that the viewer has to remember is asking to fail because you will lose your bread and butter viewer, the binge streamer who is looking for a new fix. As has been said multiple times High Fantasy Lovers are not enough to warrant making good movies/TV, it is why we have to put up with the kind of stuff you get on the Sci Fi chanel. Science Fiction does better in many ways. 

 

Wheel of time the book series has a ton of rules the reader has to be taught, we love that, that is why we stuck with the books, but that make for awful TV. 

 

Amazon needs it to make them cash. It has the characters, it has the broad strokes of the story and the changes that have been made are not offensive to me. Everyone I know who is not a book reader loves it, the several people I know who handed me back book one telling me it was a load of rubbish enjoyed it, it has done exactly what Amazon needed it to do and the words Wheel of Time have a broader audience who might, just might pick up book 1 and you never know they might stick with it through to further books. 

So we cater to the lowest common denominator because fantasy doesn’t work well on screen…Unless you’re Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Game Of Thrones, The Witcher, etc.?

 

High fantasy fails when it is made with that specific mindset.  High fantasy fails when you write The Shannara Chronicles for MTV or Legend of the Seeker for the CW.

Edited December 29, 2021 by Mirefox

[fra85uk]

50 minutes ago, SingleMort said:

No offense but I think you are missing the point. Yes there is a lot of repetition in the books but whether or not Rand fights Ishy is not really the issue. It's the fact that Rand is essentially passive for the whole season which means people aren't going care that much about his character unless they already care from reading the books. I've see many people who haven't read the books genuinely disappointed that Rand is the DR because they wanted it to be Egwene and others who doubt even now he is DR because the "who is the Dragon" plotline has made them think this is all a red herring or false reveal. None of that is particularly helpful towards moving the story forward. 

 

So yes I agree with some of your point insofar as we don't want to have the same fight over and over but by not giving Rand anything substantial to do and not really building his character they've not made many viewers care about him really sold people on him being the DR. If the audience is not invested in Rand in a WoT show that's a problem because yes it's an ensemble, but Rand is the central pillar of the whole story. It's like if you didn't care about Luke Skywalker in Star Wars. 

Or imagine Harry Potter with Hermione, Ron or even Neville and Luna stealing the light from the main character all the time.

 

Or, even worse, imagine Harry Potter adaptation seen from Dumbledore's POV.

 

Or imagine the previous two + the prophecy "one of you will defeat Voldemort but we don't know who he or she might be"

 

That's how bad this abominadaption is.

 

[EmreY]

1 minute ago, Mirefox said:

So we cater to the lowest common denominator because fantasy doesn’t work well on screen…Unless you’re Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Game Of Thrones, The Witcher, etc.?

 

High fantasy fails when it is made with that specific mindset.  High fantasy fails when you write The Shannara Chronicles for MTV or Legend of the Seeker for the CW.

 

LoTR was butchered, butchered I tell you (with no hint of irony or mirth) in Films 2 and 3.

The most soulless HP film was the most faithful adaptation.

The Witcher I do not know.

[Scarloc99]

13 hours ago, Mirefox said:

Since these writers seemingly have a master plan for everything, I wish the cold opens featured LTT more.  There could have been a running theme where they kept the book prologue for the first episode and slowly moved back in time to the LTT prologue In episode 8.  Or they could have done the reverse and done the episode 8 prologue in episode 1 and worked forward to having the boom prologue in episode 8.

 

I would have to go back and watch but if I remember it all, the episode 1 cold open was by far the weakest of them all.

I have mentioned this before, I was really happy they didn't show the prologue at the start of the show, finding out the world used to be Wakanda like from the first scene takes away that really oh my god moment in the books. As it is the actual reveal in episode 8 really lost that wow moment, being treated as a throwaway thing just lost all the impact. 

I really wish they would have held off on any of that stuff until season 2, it felt like rafe was trying to give the fans a glimpse of Lewis to keep us happy but in doing that he lost one of the key moments of the books. The fact he also gave us details of who rands mum is as well means that he has taken away 2 of the key surprise moments of the books and used them cheaply. 

[CanisNoir]

13 hours ago, Mirefox said:

Straight up character assassination.  It was written as a desperate last stand with a tragic ending for the hero.  It was adapted as an arrogant man destroying the world through hubris.  Not an insignificant change.

 

I think you might be jumping to conclusions. We've been told we're going to be seeing more from The AoL in future seasons, which means we'll be seeing LTT more. Most of us didn't know Tam's fever dream took place until a third of the way through Episode 7. That flashback completely re-contextualizes Rands character from Episode 2 through 7. There is still room to paint a fuller picture of LTT character.  

[Scarloc99]

4 minutes ago, Mirefox said:

So we cater to the lowest common denominator because fantasy doesn’t work well on screen…Unless you’re Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Game Of Thrones, The Witcher, etc.?

 

High fantasy fails when it is made with that specific mindset.  High fantasy fails when you write The Shannara Chronicles for MTV or Legend of the Seeker for the CW.

Ok 

Harry Potter - the rules are taught in school as the viewer watches and are not that involved. However they are also stripped right back especially in the later films. Harry Potter is not high Fantasy 

Lord of the Rings has no real rules of magic at all to learn. Yes it is high fantasy but is so very different to modern high fantasy. 

Game of Thrones - Is the Tudors with a bit of magic and undead thrown in, it hit that sweet spot that those historical dramas like the Tudors and (I can't remember the name, there was a roman one) caught, throw in a ton of sex between attractive people and we will get the non fantasy lovers tuning in anyway. 

The Witcher, again not as complicated as WOT when it comes to the rules of the world, especially in season 1. We learn the rules of magic over 3-4 episodes while Jenefar learns them, and we learn the Witcher rules over the course of 8 episodes. Oh and the rule of Surprise. But the world, as shown to the audience is no where near as complicated as the WOT world. 

[WoTwasThat]

6 minutes ago, Sir_Charrid said:

The TV show was always going to have massive changes made to it, it was going to be dumbed down to attract as wide an audience as possible

 

Really? So “smart” science fiction and fantasy doesn’t do well on TV? Somehow GOT did great without dumbing down or making many major deviations from the first 4 books. The first four seasons were EXCELLENT. It’s when they deviated and ran out of material and started dumbing things down that things got bad. 

 

6 minutes ago, Sir_Charrid said:

high fantasy does not sell well, GOT did well because it was about as high fantasy as you can get, there was a dragon, but not really any magic, no wizards and witches throwing fireballs all over the place, it is fairly lo magic in it's world.

 

Yeah LOTR was a total bomb.

 

6 minutes ago, Sir_Charrid said:

Any TV show that has a ton of rules that the viewer has to remember is asking to fail because you will lose your bread and butter viewer, the binge streamer who is looking for a new fix. As has been said multiple times High Fantasy Lovers are not enough to warrant making good movies/TV, it is why we have to put up with the kind of stuff you get on the Sci Fi chanel. Science Fiction does better in many ways.

 

So again, LOTR. But we’re not talking about a ton of rules here. We’re talking about setting out a few basic rules: the One Power is divided into two halves. The male half was tainted in a desperate attempt to reseal the Dark One’s prison. The DR will have to channel tainted Saidin. He will be the destroyer and the savior. The irony is that these “rules” are what set WOT apart from generic “high fantasy.” And Amazon has completely ignored what makes WOT so wonderfully unique in order to make it more generic. 
 

6 minutes ago, Sir_Charrid said:

 

Wheel of time the book series has a ton of rules the reader has to be taught, we love that, that is why we stuck with the books, but that make for awful TV. 

 

Yes, it has a ton of rules, some of which are more important that others. They’re not even hitting the big ones. See above.

[SingleMort]

4 minutes ago, EmreY said:

But, incidentally, 1) I was an Obi-Wan fan to begin with.  2) I didn't get het up about Luke until Episode 8, when I thought his character was far more believable and I loved the changes that were made, both to his character and SW as a whole.

I'm not saying Rand has to be your favourite character. He's not even my favourite character in the books. But I mean there's a difference between preferring other characters to him and being apathetic and I wouldn't blame the show viewers if they were closer to the latter. 

 

10 minutes ago, EmreY said:

But my issue with messiah figures is that if you overdo the introduction then you sort of need to skip to the end because the adventures in the middle are likely to be soggy and saggy.  

 

My worry they are skipping the introduction so it's not really going to be explained stuff like how Rand learned to use a sword or how he learned to channel. If he doesn't have to work to get his power and strength then when he uses it, it's not going to mean as much. To go back to the Star Wars comparison they managed to find time to show Obi Wan giving Luke some training in the very first movie he appears in, and guides him even at his big moment at the end of episode 4 

[WoTwasThat]

10 minutes ago, Sir_Charrid said:

I mean anyone that cares enough will see him named as a character in season 2 and the only people who really care are book fans angry at the thought he might be dead. 

I imagine in the original version it was Matt who was stabbed. 

Oooookay? So make it look like Mat died instead? My only point here is, if you’re gonna play up a possible death as a cliffhanger - which is quite obviously what they were trying to do - why do you “spoil the surprise” a few days later? Rafe is running scared. He sees the blowback. 

[notpropaganda73]

14 minutes ago, Sir_Charrid said:

Not excuses just facts, tell you what why dont you go and write and run a multi season TV show. I have a friend who works in TV here in wales, has been involved in his dark materials amongst other things. I asked him about WOT (he is a book lover) a few years ago and how he would convert it, he called it a monumental mess of a book to transfer to TV. he even told me that book 1 would need to be re written massively to make it fit tonally, I remember him telling me it could work really well, but many who love the books will positively probably hate it, but they should never be the target audience because they wont make it economically successful. 

I have seen people throw around the easy ways it could have been done differently, as far as i am aware non of them work in TV and so non of them actually have any idea what they are talking about. 

 

Honestly, I agree that it is a monumental task to adapt Wheel of Time, and I know a lot of people in film & TV (living in Belfast) so I understand all of the challenges etc... but I don't think you have to work or be aware of what goes in to making these shows and movies to have a valid opinion on how they've turned out. By that measure, only video game creators can criticise video games, only footballers can criticise footballers and so on. I'm not saying everyone has an equal understanding of these things, but all of this is very subjective and I don't think it's fair to say "go write and run a multi season TV show" in response to criticisms.

[Scarloc99]

1 minute ago, WoTwasThat said:

 

Really? So “smart” science fiction and fantasy doesn’t do well on TV? Somehow GOT did great without dumbing down or making many major deviations from the first 4 books. The first four seasons were EXCELLENT. It’s when they deviated and ran out of material and started dumbing things down that things got bad. 

 

 

Yeah LOTR was a total bomb.

 

 

So again, LOTR. But we’re not talking about a ton of rules here. We’re talking about setting out a few basic rules: the One Power is divided into two halves. The male half was tainted in a desperate attempt to reseal the Dark One’s prison. The DR will have to channel tainted Saidin. He will be the destroyer and the savior. The irony is that these “rules” are what set WOT apart from generic “high fantasy.” And Amazon has completely ignored what makes WOT so wonderfully unique in order to make it more generic. 
 

 

Yes, it has a ton of rules, some of which are more important that others. They’re not even hitting the big ones. See above.

ok LOTR there is barely any in world rules to learn, the main characters (the hobbits) are as naive as the viewer and pretty much stay that way throughout. 

GOT built on the success of the Tudors, it showed that if you have sex and knights and swordfights then people will tune in to watch. The only aspects of fantasy in every season of GOT are the dragons and the white walkers. Episode to Episode that series is more like a medieval TV show. 

As for the rules you describe. 
The one power is divided into 2 halves, that has not changed, has that been described yet, not really, does it need to have been, no. 
The fact that the Dragon will be saviour or destroyer has been stated multiple times, Morraine holds a knife to Rands Throat incase he goes the wrong way. 
So it has hit the rules you wanted. 
In addition we know that female channelers (so far) all come from the white tower, either passed as accepted, or failing to show enough talent and being sent home. 
We know that the women of the tower are split into Ajahs
We know about warders. 
The nuances about having a talent, about different types of channelling being harder or easier etc, those rules are not required. But they may still be coming. Nothing has been lost in holding that information back, the casual viewers I know didn't lose anything or find it confusing because of that. None of them have asked me specifics about the magic because they have enough information to enjoy the show. 2 actually told me they are happy there wasn't lots of talk about magic rules. 

[DigificWriter]

It seems to me that a good majority of the criticisms that some of the people who are unsatisfied with the WoT TV series have been voicing since Christmas Eve stem primarily from a lack of understanding of  - or unwillingness to understand - the realities or nuances of how stories are told in a particular medium (in this case, television), which doesn't really expose flaws in the show so much as it does expose the limits of their own points-of-view.

 

There also seems to be a large amount of blowback stemming almost entirely from misplaced expectations about what the concept of 'fidelity to the source material' means, which, again, doesn't so much expose flaws in the show so much as it does communicate a dissonance between what some people were expecting to get versus what Rafe and his team are delivering.

[Scarloc99]

4 minutes ago, notpropaganda73 said:

 

Honestly, I agree that it is a monumental task to adapt Wheel of Time, and I know a lot of people in film & TV (living in Belfast) so I understand all of the challenges etc... but I don't think you have to work or be aware of what goes in to making these shows and movies to have a valid opinion on how they've turned out. By that measure, only video game creators can criticise video games, only footballers can criticise footballers and so on. I'm not saying everyone has an equal understanding of these things, but all of this is very subjective and I don't think it's fair to say "go write and run a multi season TV show" in response to criticisms.

I am not saying dont challenge, I am just getting sick and tired of people on here saying the writers hate WOT, or have never read it, or want to destroy it. Those are the voices this is aimed at, and this commentin particular was aimed at someone who had said that. By all means there are things about the series I think could have been better, it was in no way perfect. I have judged and found it wanting against both the Witcher (which ironically i have never read the books to and a friend who has told me was awful and doubted that the writers had even read the books properly) and See which is an original IP but as a piece of TV is just brilliant. 

 

[WoTwasThat]

1 hour ago, RhienneAgain said:

I agree completely. I think for whatever reason the showrunners have decided the details (even the broad ones) of channeling as a magic system will not translate well to television (maybe they're right and the average viewer isn't interested?) and we really need to let go of pretty much everything we know about the one power from the books.

 

A lot of people (myself included) seem to be getting very frustrated with the show when it ignores the rules of the one power. I think to enjoy this series we need to accept that almost none of the rules or details are part of the TV series world.

Nailed it. But the problem is, these rules are what make WOT so awesome. And even the most basic strokes of Saidar/Saidin have been stripped away or flat out changed (DR can channel Saidar or Saidin). And the best the defenders can muster is “well, there’s clues that they’re still there if you look closely” and “[everybody’s] an unreliable narrator.” Those are thin excuses.

[Scarloc99]

2 minutes ago, DigificWriter said:

It seems to me that a good majority of the criticisms that some of the people who are unsatisfied with the WoT TV series have been voicing since Christmas Eve stem primarily from a lack of understanding of  - or unwillingness to understand - the realities or nuances of how stories are told in a particular medium (in this case, television), which doesn't really expose flaws in the show so much as it does expose the limits of their own points-of-view.

 

There also seems to be a large amount of blowback stemming almost entirely from misplaced expectations about what the concept of 'fidelity to the source material' means, which, again, doesn't so much expose flaws in the show so much as it does communicate a dissonance between what some people were expecting to get versus what Rafe and his team are delivering.

That moment your typing out a response and realise others can make your point far more eloquently ? 

[notpropaganda73]

1 minute ago, Sir_Charrid said:

I am not saying dont challenge, I am just getting sick and tired of people on here saying the writers hate WOT, or have never read it, or want to destroy it. Those are the voices this is aimed at, and this commentin particular was aimed at someone who had said that. By all means there are things about the series I think could have been better, it was in no way perfect. I have judged and found it wanting against both the Witcher (which ironically i have never read the books to and a friend who has told me was awful and doubted that the writers had even read the books properly) and See which is an original IP but as a piece of TV is just brilliant. 

 

 

That's fair, I get very frustrated with those characterisations as well. 

[7th age]

10 minutes ago, SingleMort said:

I'm not saying Rand has to be your favourite character. He's not even my favourite character in the books. But I mean there's a difference between preferring other characters to him and being apathetic and I wouldn't blame the show viewers if they were closer to the latter. 

 

Havent seen Everyday Negroes reaction to ep8 yet. But one comment that stuck in my head. In the (awesome) cold open of ep.7(minute 2:50) :

 

"-middle guy:So are we thinking this is Rands mother?

-guy to the right: gotta be, shes everything hes not.

-guy to the left: thats a fact"

 

right after:

"they say the apple dont fall far from the tree, somebody took that apple and rocket launched it"

 

Now mind you these guys seem to be really enjoying the series(and if you are into reaction videos i found them to be the most entertaining nonreader reactions by quite a bit)

[Scarloc99]

13 minutes ago, WoTwasThat said:

Oooookay? So make it look like Mat died instead? My only point here is, if you’re gonna play up a possible death as a cliffhanger - which is quite obviously what they were trying to do - why do you “spoil the surprise” a few days later? Rafe is running scared. He sees the blowback. 

Lol you seem to assume that Rafe cares what you and other book readers care about, all he cares about are the numbers, and that is right, as a show runner he has a vision and he needs to stick to that or the whole thing becomes a hot mess (or in your case a bigger hotter mess) as each episode is written and directed differently. 

If we assume that a tiny % of book readers are vocal on this forum, then from all I have seen more like it then dont and historically the joys of the bottom half of the internet is that negative voices are always the loudest, generally a loud minority ignored by a silent majority. 

You voice is lost to a sea of positive reinforcement Rafe is receiving from the amazing numbers that Amazon is seeing, numbers that show that the majority love the series and are tuning in. As for those who hate it, are you cancelling your prime membership over it? I imagine most people who have seen it and dislike it will keep paying Amazon there cash anyway so really what you think has no relevance to them at all. 

I have yet to find a TV show that actually changed direction because of fan anger. There are several that got picked up after being cancelled (Chuck is one of those, Rafe was a writer on Chuck). So no Rafe is answering a question that he could have left as, wait until next season, but decided to give a little nod to the TV show fans. Personally I wish he had done a little bit of his own trolling and joked that Loial wasn't important to the story ? 

[WoTwasThat]

7 minutes ago, Sir_Charrid said:

ok LOTR there is barely any in world rules to learn, the main characters (the hobbits) are as naive as the viewer and pretty much stay that way throughout. 

 

The “rules” to LOTR are largely the backstory - that Sauron created the rings of power as a trap, how the One Ring corrupts, the king without a crown, the elves departing - and somehow all of this was told quite well. Mostly in the first installment. 
 

7 minutes ago, Sir_Charrid said:

GOT built on the success of the Tudors, it showed that if you have sex and knights and swordfights then people will tune in to watch. The only aspects of fantasy in every season of GOT are the dragons and the white walkers. Episode to Episode that series is more like a medieval TV show. 

 

 

Um, that’s not a good characterization of GOT. GOT thrives on the complexity of the interaction between the characters and houses, and how most everyone is neither 100% good or bad. Those are GOT’s “rules” and again, the TV adaptation did a marvelous job remaining largely faithful to those intricacies. 
 

The same could be said for HP - plenty of rules, and at least some or enough of them were conveyed to the screen.

 

All of these examples demonstrate what a terrible job WOT has done by comparison. 

[WoTwasThat]

2 minutes ago, Sir_Charrid said:

Lol you seem to assume that Rafe cares what you and other book readers care about, all he cares about are the numbers, and that is right, as a show runner he has a vision and he needs to stick to that or the whole thing becomes a hot mess (or in your case a bigger hotter mess) as each episode is written and directed differently. 

If we assume that a tiny % of book readers are vocal on this forum, then from all I have seen more like it then dont and historically the joys of the bottom half of the internet is that negative voices are always the loudest, generally a loud minority ignored by a silent majority. 

You voice is lost to a sea of positive reinforcement Rafe is receiving from the amazing numbers that Amazon is seeing, numbers that show that the majority love the series and are tuning in. As for those who hate it, are you cancelling your prime membership over it? I imagine most people who have seen it and dislike it will keep paying Amazon there cash anyway so really what you think has no relevance to them at all. 

I have yet to find a TV show that actually changed direction because of fan anger. There are several that got picked up after being cancelled (Chuck is one of those, Rafe was a writer on Chuck). So no Rafe is answering a question that he could have left as, wait until next season, but decided to give a little nod to the TV show fans. Personally I wish he had done a little bit of his own trolling and joked that Loial wasn't important to the story ? 

Um, I’m not pretending for a moment that Rafe gives a fig for what I or other critics think, or that fan anger is going to cause Rafe to change course. Just want to clear that up. 

Edited December 29, 2021 by WoTwasThat

[CanisNoir]

2 minutes ago, DigificWriter said:

It seems to me that a good majority of the criticisms that some of the people who are unsatisfied with the WoT TV series have been voicing since Christmas Eve stem primarily from a lack of understanding of  - or unwillingness to understand - the realities or nuances of how stories are told in a particular medium (in this case, television), which doesn't really expose flaws in the show so much as it does expose the limits of their own points-of-view.

 

There also seems to be a large amount of blowback stemming almost entirely from misplaced expectations about what the concept of 'fidelity to the source material' means, which, again, doesn't so much expose flaws in the show so much as it does communicate a dissonance between what some people were expecting to get versus what Rafe and his team are delivering.

 

When it comes to different adaptation styles, I wonder how much is influenced by having the Source Material actually completed. Game of Thrones was a fairly faithful adaption, until they ran out of source Material, but without the story actually having an "ending" I think they were forced to stick more to the source. Have a complete work to draw upon, you know exactly how your characters get from beginning to end, as well as the important beats to hit along the way. This gives you a lot more freedom to change things around and rewrite to better suit the visual medium. 

Even then, GOT altered itself based upon fan reaction. Tyrion definitely became a fan favorite and the show paid a lot more attention to him because of it. Do we complain that the extra time spent on him took away the time needed to show Dany's descent into madness better? Was Arya really always the one destined to kill The Night King, or was that response to the fact that she too became a "fan favorite"? 

 

I guess I'm in the same camp as a lot of people, there were choices I wasn't fond of, but over all I enjoyed it, and watching non-readers react, I'm seeing a lot of them enjoy it too. In addition, it's given the book series a breath of fresh air and has a lot of people talking about it. I see this as an over all good, and am willing to give the show runners and book expert the benefit of the doubt that they are doing their best, within the confines of Modern TV Production, to bring this amazing story to life. Season 1 had a host of production issues, and it was a first season. I have high hopes for season 2.

 

And at least we didn't get a first episode exposition dump equivelant to Arya listing each characters name and position as they rode into Winterfell :)