WoT Behind the Scenes clip

[mogi68]

He might still have the cloak...we've only seen one tiny shot of the guy

[Rose]

This might also be too make is less creepy when 

Spoiler

he ends up with Moiraine later. Like yeah she's in her 40s but still, he's probably at least 20 years older in the books? And Rosamund looks younger anyway so they needed Thom to not look like her dad.

 

Edited October 19, 2021 by Rose

[Elgee]

I never thought of Tom being 70. Is that accepted lore?

[SinisterDeath]

3 minutes ago, Elgee said:

I never thought of Tom being 70. Is that accepted lore?

Nothing cannon.

Morgrase said he was about "twice" her age, while they were doin' there thing.
He could legitimately be anywhere between 55 and 75.

[Borderlander]

7 minutes ago, Elgee said:

I never thought of Tom being 70. Is that accepted lore?

 

I grabbed it from this, from wot.fandom.com/wiki: 

 

Thom's age is not specifically given in the novels. He is said to be white-haired, but still attractive enough to attract considerably younger women such as Dena, whilst Elayne notes that he is still handsome. At one point Morgase muses that Thom was "twice her age" during their relationship,^[3] presumably in 984-85 NE when Morgase was 27 (turning 28), which would have made Thom around 54-56 at the time (and therefore about 70 at the start of the series) but at another point Thom is described as being "in his prime" at that time, suggesting a younger age.^[4]

 

Robert Jordan's notes on Andor attempt to be more precise, saying that Thom is about 19-20 years older than Morgase. This would had made Thom in his late forties during his relationship with Morgase and about 60 or 61 when the main series events begin. The contradictory information is presumably why Thom's age was not canonised in The Wheel of Time Companion.

 

I'm embarrassed to say I didn't read the bottom part the first time around, though, saying he could be as young as 60. My bad!

 

And a guy in his early 60's could look like Wilhaume in that clip... I guess I have to eat my words on that one! ?

 

1 hour ago, mogi68 said:

He might still have the cloak...we've only seen one tiny shot of the guy

 

For this one, I think Rafe hinted that the Wardrobe Team came up with a creative solution to incorporate some element of the iconic gleeman attire (I have heard the suggestion that the inside of his jacket could have some patchwork design to it, perhaps) which tends to suggests they are not going with a full-on rainbow-colored cloak. I think Rafe's words were something along the lines of 'they nailed it' in regards to this. As with so many things, will have to wait and see.

[Tim]

Another factor is that this show show may be filming for another ten years - an actor who was seventy or even sixty five now would be a lot older at conclusion. Whereas the timeline of the books is very short.

[king of nowhere]

i always imagined thom as between 50 and 60. older than that, he would be much less believable.

 

aside from that, making a character 10 years younger is not a big deal, not as much as 20 years younger.

 

I don't see what was wrong with the patched cloak, though. it was just a mark of trade.

[TheMountain]

Generally, when I see individual differences between the show and the books, the reasoning offered up here by forum goers and redditors seem plausible. What is killing me is how consistent of a pattern it constitutes. Almost nothing we've been shown is as described in the books. To me it displays a complete lack of a desire to be faithful to the book descriptions. Somebody clearly took Rafe's "heart and spine" and *really* ran with it.

[Elder_Haman]

4 minutes ago, TheMountain said:

Generally, when I see individual differences between the show and the books, the reasoning offered up here by forum goers and redditors seem plausible. What is killing me is how consistent of a pattern it constitutes. Almost nothing we've been shown is as described in the books. To me it displays a complete lack of a desire to be faithful to the book descriptions. Somebody clearly took Rafe's "heart and spine" and *really* ran with it.

 

Well, there is a lack of desire to be faithful to the book descriptions. Rafe addressed this at the NYCC panel.

Quote

Amy: Well, Rafe, I wanted to ask you, The Wheel of Time, the world has so many, just beautiful cities made all the more kind of incredible because our main cast is a very small village. What was it like bringing that to life? Based on Robert Jordan’s very good descriptions, but still words on a page to, “Wow, here’s the White Tower!”

Rafe : You know, he had extremely thorough descriptions of a lot of places and rooms and cities the whole way through the series. And so we always would use those as the starting point for it and really, try to — our book researcher who’s on the show has read the books 30 times, she would create a document for any place that we go to, with all the details that are listed in the books, and passages from the books and you get a little chunker on every city that we go to for everyone to read and know what the book said — and then I think, from there, it’s important that people put their own artistic bent into it. Like we have this unbelievable production design team led by Ondřej Nekvasil, and I think it’s important that people really take what’s there and then find a way to put something of themselves into it. And I think that when you have that happening, it creates something more beautiful that we all get to work and play in, and if we were all just trying to recreate everything word for word from the book it would actually feel a little more stale, and I think the Wheel of Time is such an emotional series like having the people making it emotionally invested in it is actually pretty important.

 

Agree or disagree with his reasoning, but there is thought behind it. People at the top of their craft normally don't want to come in and be tasked with duplicating someone else's work. They want to be able to do their own thing. There's nothing inherently wrong with that.

[TheMountain]

They can do that with an original IP then, not an adaptation, especially one so richly described as Robert Jordan's. LotR had it right when they hired the illustrators (personally approved and selected by Christopher Tolkien as the best representations of his father's work) as concept artists. Take a look at the illustrations vs the filmed scenes. 

 

I have a feeling that somewhere along the way, the WoT production team decided that following the book descriptions for certain things was going to be too expensive, so rather than have some stuff stick out like a sore thumb, they decided to have a field day across the board...

 

If anything, they should relabel the show as "inspired by" rather than as an adaptation. 

Edited October 20, 2021 by TheMountain

[Elder_Haman]

50 minutes ago, TheMountain said:

If anything, they should relabel the show as "inspired by" rather than as an adaptation.

 

Because the visuals don't match the book descriptions? No. Hard pass.

They are adapting the story. Same characters. Same general plot. Same themes. That's an adaptation. Not faithfully recreating the descriptions is a minor artistic change that doesn't really impact anything that is crucial to the story.

 

[Tim]

8 hours ago, TheMountain said:

 

 

 

Would you extend this logic to a faithful scene by scene recreation of Crossroads of Twilight? Replete with lavish displays of aes sedai riding dresses (ideal being sky blue, with cream slashes, and rosebud embroidery over the breast, not obscured by folded arms for obvious reasons), and absolutely zero plot to speak of? 

[TheMountain]

I'm not dumb. I realize the need for streamlining and certain plot changes for the sake of adaptation. What is really rubbing me the wrong way is the across-the-board changes to RJ's intricate *visual* worldbuilding. For @Elder_Haman, it's extremely minor and barely worth mentioning, for myself and I believe many others, the beautiful visual tapestry Robert Jordan has woven in our mind's eyes (and yes I'm aware that head canons will be different...) is a major part of what makes the Wheel of Time unique.

[Elder_Haman]

2 hours ago, TheMountain said:

I'm not dumb. I realize the need for streamlining and certain plot changes for the sake of adaptation. What is really rubbing me the wrong way is the across-the-board changes to RJ's intricate *visual* worldbuilding. For @Elder_Haman, it's extremely minor and barely worth mentioning, for myself and I believe many others, the beautiful visual tapestry Robert Jordan has woven in our mind's eyes (and yes I'm aware that head canons will be different...) is a major part of what makes the Wheel of Time unique.

I respect this point of view, by the way. If Jordan’s descriptions are what emotionally connects you with WoT, then these changes will be extremely jarring. 
 

For me, stories are about the characters and their journey. The descriptions sort of slide past me most of the time. 

[TheMountain]

18 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

I respect this point of view, by the way. If Jordan’s descriptions are what emotionally connects you with WoT, then these changes will be extremely jarring. 
 

For me, stories are about the characters and their journey. The descriptions sort of slide past me most of the time. 

Thank you @Elder_Haman, I respect that as well. 

 

I just wish that the show approached everything from a point of "let's see how much of the original we can keep, and only make changes when necessary."  Everybody has different things in WoT that are important to them. If the show approached it from that perspective, instead of drawing a line in the sand and saying "X is important but not Y," all those people could at least find something of the books that they loved in the show.

 

There would be something in it for everyone. 

Edited October 21, 2021 by TheMountain