A Female Dragon? Examining the Evidence

[king of nowhere]

But hey, want to promote some ridiculous idea because of some butchered interpretation from the trailer?

Hear this. Moiraine will be black ajah. It's certain.

 

The first scene, as she's swearing the oaths, she says she wows to not use the power as a weapon. She says nothing of self-defence. It's not even truncated for the trailer, you can tell from her voice that she stopped speaking there.

So, it means they made all aes sedai pacifist followers of the way of the leaf, because in these days pacifism is trendy. It's a certain fact, the trailer can't be interpreted in any other way.

But then moiraine is using the power as a weapon in other scenes. Which means for sure she's a darkfriend.

Well, or possibly she still wasn't raised at the time, and in this turning of the wheel she's a runaway novice who stole a ring. Possibly one of those collected by eamon valda.

 

Prove me wrong.

[RiKToR]

15 minutes ago, swollymammoth said:

This is some BUUUUULLLLLLLLLLLL CRRRRAAAAAAAAPPPPP 

 

And I'm not afraid to say it. 

 

Why? Literally why? The "It's one of the boys but Egwene and Ny'naeve come along too because Moiraine senses they may be important too" setup from the books is FINE. There was nothing about that setup which needed to be changed in order to adapt the story to TV. 

 

Just yesterday I was listening to a podcast with the Dune director and Christopher Nolan, and the guy just kept talking about how the source material was the bible to them while working on the move, and all I could think was, "Why couldn't we get someone like this to do WoT?" No talk of an "interpretation" or "another turning of the wheel." Just a straightforward adaptation. Put the source material on the screen with the goal of recreating the experience of the books as accurately as possible in another medium. 

 

Apparently that was too much to ask from Amazon. 

The ultimate reason for a straight adaptation is that you would have too many viewers turn off the TV two episodes in to the EotW content.  Its pacing is slow, it would appear very derived from LotR to people who are only familiar with other TV and movie fantasy shows. Alot of people get turned off by the initial books based on pacing alone. 
I was one of these people and owned first printing paperback that I never could get into. It wasnt until over a decade later that I tried the audio version that I finally pushed through.  Even then there was still the slog on the later books. A straight adaptation would be closer to the Winter Dragon pilot that was just awful. 
In the end if there are no viewers, they cannot sustain the amount of seasons they would need to tell the whole story. Also, we dont have Nolan running this show who would literally bring viewers in based on his name alone. 

[DaddyFinn]

16 minutes ago, swollymammoth said:

Put the source material on the screen with the goal of recreating the experience of the books as accurately as possible in another medium. 

That's what they are doing... Have you even read the books?

[swollymammoth]

On 10/27/2021 at 2:31 PM, Elder_Haman said:

Yes, Rafe has said some things about feminism and whatnot. Fine.

Rafe invited this reaction in the fandom when he decided to publicize his intent to change the series to accommodate his own politics. We may be wrong, but if we're wrong then it's only because we took Rafe at his word. We have plenty of evidence (Black Widow, Captain Marvel, Star Trek: Discovery, Star Wars) that when creators talk like Rafe has, they usually mean it. 

 

It could be a marketing ploy, but I doubt it. Woke is great marketing, yes, but stuff marketed that way pretty much always ends up woke. 

 

Like, you didn't hear this stuff leading up to the release of Dune because the people who made that movie were dedicated to the source material and always made that clear. 

 

That being said, the trailer was actually pretty fine. 6.5/10

 

[DaddyFinn]

6 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

But hey, want to promote some ridiculous idea because of some butchered interpretation from the trailer?

Hear this. Moiraine will be black ajah. It's certain.

 

The first scene, as she's swearing the oaths, she says she wows to not use the power as a weapon. She says nothing of self-defence. It's not even truncated for the trailer, you can tell from her voice that she stopped speaking there.

So, it means they made all aes sedai pacifist followers of the way of the leaf, because in these days pacifism is trendy. It's a certain fact, the trailer can't be interpreted in any other way.

But then moiraine is using the power as a weapon in other scenes. Which means for sure she's a darkfriend.

Well, or possibly she still wasn't raised at the time, and in this turning of the wheel she's a runaway novice who stole a ring. Possibly one of those collected by eamon valda.

 

Prove me wrong.

 

00:36 Rafe mentions self defence. Debunked. Otherwise Alanna and Karene would also be Black.

 

If you were just joking, that's a good one.

Edited October 28, 2021 by DaddyFinn

[SinisterDeath]

3 minutes ago, swollymammoth said:

It could be a marketing ploy, but I doubt it. Woke is great marketing, yes, but stuff marketed that way pretty much always ends up woke. 

Oh light forgive us, how dare they shove that dirty satantic LGBTQ agenda down our throats by having gay and lesbian characters, of mixed ethnicity! /s

[swollymammoth]

2 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

That's what they are doing... Have you even read the books?

The key part of my thing is "with the goal of recreating the experience of the books as closely as possible." They have stated that this is not their goal. Yes, the experience of a TV show will always be different than the books, but there's a difference between an adaptation like LotR, Dune, or Pride and Prejudice (2005) which feel loyal to the original and one like the Amazon Cinderella which recycles recognizable elements to create an experience whose only similarity to the original extends no further than shared iconography. 

[king of nowhere]

4 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

 

00:36 Rafe mentions self defence. Debunked. Otherwise Alanna and Karene would also be Black.

 

 

rafe is obviously lying in the commentary, it's a clever misdirection to hide what they've done.

and yes, alanna and karene are also black in the adaptation, that should have been clear.

 

Quote

If you were just joking, that's a good one.

well, duh, of course i'm joking.

well, not exactly joking, more parodizing. as all those people predicting the most awful changes in the name of woke are based all their arguments on a few lines taken out of context and "lack of contrary hard evidence", I want to showcase that if we take that kind of approach, we can come to any conclusion.

 

 

 

 

[DaddyFinn]

2 minutes ago, swollymammoth said:

The key part of my thing is "with the goal of recreating the experience of the books as closely as possible." They have stated that this is not their goal. Yes, the experience of a TV show will always be different than the books, but there's a difference between an adaptation like LotR, Dune, or Pride and Prejudice (2005) which feel loyal to the original and one like the Amazon Cinderella which recycles recognizable elements to create an experience whose only similarity to the original extends no further than shared iconography. 

They have stated that they intent to keep the core story and characters intact. Changes are inevitable.

[Elder_Haman]

11 minutes ago, swollymammoth said:

Rafe invited this reaction in the fandom when he decided to publicize his intent to change the series to accommodate his own politics.

I want to see the quote where Rafe says he's going to change the series to accommodate his own politics. Please share it with me.

 

 

[DaddyFinn]

2 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

rafe is obviously lying in the commentary, it's a clever misdirection to hide what they've done.

and yes, alanna and karene are also black in the adaptation, that should have been clear.

 

well, duh, of course i'm joking.

well, not exactly joking, more parodizing. as all those people predicting the most awful changes in the name of woke are based all their arguments on a few lines taken out of context and "lack of contrary hard evidence", I want to showcase that if we take that kind of approach, we can come to any conclusion.

 

 

 

 

Sorry, can't remember who is in what bandwagon. ?

[king of nowhere]

5 minutes ago, swollymammoth said:

The key part of my thing is "with the goal of recreating the experience of the books as closely as possible." They have stated that this is not their goal.

and I hope so.

my "experience" upon first reading the prologue was "what's that nonsense all about?"

and my "experience" upon first reading the first half of eye of the world was "this looks like yet another LotR ripoff"

i'm not sure why i continued reading long enough for the book to come into its own.

so, if they want to change the "experience" of the book, i can only support them

[DaddyFinn]

Remember that they adapt the book series as a whole. Not one book at a time.

[Elder_Haman]

3 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

"this looks like yet another LotR ripoff"

Fortunately, I was young enough when it came out that my reaction was, "kick ass something exactly like LotR!" 

[swollymammoth]

11 minutes ago, RiKToR said:

The ultimate reason for a straight adaptation is that you would have too many viewers turn off the TV two episodes in to the EotW content.  Its pacing is slow, it would appear very derived from LotR to people who are only familiar with other TV and movie fantasy shows.

I wholeheartedly disagree, at least with the first point. Having only recently read EotW again, it's probably the fastest paced book of the entire series. A recent podcast I listened to with Brandon Sanderson even had Brandon talking about this. It can feel long while reading because it takes something like 80 pages (which really isn't even that long) for the Trollocs to attack, but all that stuff could fit into a single episode easily. From that point on, Rand and co. are constantly on the run, being attacked, escaping, learning and seeing cool things, meeting people etc. There's not a lot of channeling or awesome sword fights or battles, but I was shocked by how exciting EotW is upon the reread. 

 

Side note: A lot of people associate "pacing" with action. This idea is false and should die. Those 80 pages before the action starts in EotW are incredibly paced even though it's mainly people talking. 

[swollymammoth]

10 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

They have stated that they intent to keep the core story and characters intact. Changes are inevitable.

The Amazon Cinderella also kept the core story and characters in tact, and yet is totally different. I'm not interested in retaining iconography. What makes an adaptation is  whether the people doing the adapting are "adapting" or "reimagining." Rafe and co. are expressly doing the latter. 

[king of nowhere]

5 minutes ago, swollymammoth said:

I wholeheartedly disagree, at least with the first point. Having only recently read EotW again, it's probably the fastest paced book of the entire series. A recent podcast I listened to with Brandon Sanderson even had Brandon talking about this. It can feel long while reading because it takes something like 80 pages (which really isn't even that long) for the Trollocs to attack, but all that stuff could fit into a single episode easily. From that point on, Rand and co. are constantly on the run, being attacked, escaping, learning and seeing cool things, meeting people etc. There's not a lot of channeling or awesome sword fights or battles, but I was shocked by how exciting EotW is upon the reread. 

 

Side note: A lot of people associate "pacing" with action. This idea is false and should die. Those 80 pages before the action starts in EotW are incredibly paced even though it's mainly people talking. 

I can agree with that.

But the point stands that a lot of people are saying that they didn't like how the first book is presented. they didn't like how the prologue is incomprehensible until you've read up to book 5, and how it feels very much like LotR.

Several fans are saying it. not casual people, fans. if we, who liked this story enough to post in a forum, still harbor a significant minority of people who didn't like how the first book was introduced, how many other potential fans were lost because they put the book down after 200 pages?

 

And this means, it's probably one of the parts where the books can be improved.

[Rose]

5 hours ago, Agitel said:

 

That specific quote, if kept in the show, sounds like she's trying to usher the group along, not drop lore on the Dragon Reborn.

 

I do think it's possible Egwene might be floated as a possibility in more specific circumstances, but the inclusion of Nynaeve in a broad statement I'm just taking as what I said: "I'm not lore dropping, we just have to go."

 

Yes, if anything, the inclusion of Nynaeve is further proof that she's just being cagey. There's zero way she thinks Nynaeve could be the Dragon. Therefore, that's not what this statement means, and there's a good chance her other statement about one of the 4 is similarly misleading.

 

The truth an Aes Sedai speaks may not be the truth you think you hear.

Edited October 28, 2021 by Rose

[swollymammoth]

18 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

I want to see the quote where Rafe says he's going to change the series to accommodate his own politics. Please share it with me.

 

 

Rafe Judkins
I’m a feminist and it’s very important to me that the show is feminist in today’s context. So a lot of those things will be changing

 

So I paraphrased. Big deal. But Rafe is clearly stating that he will be changing anything which doesn't agree with his politics in this regard. If he has this mindset, why would he stop there? Answer: he won't. He'll change anything that he disagrees with. For example, Rand is going to be polyamorous in this series, not polygamous. Rafe has said this. This changes nothing about the story, but Rafe has decided to make this change because one of those words makes him uncomfortable and one doesn't. 

 

I'm totally against incest, but if I'd have been the showrunner of GoT, I wouldn't have taken that out. I don't like gratituous nudity or violence in TV, but I wouldn't have dulled Oberyn Martell's death scene just because I was uncomfortable with it. Rafe has no such qualms, and he's stated it clearly. This isn't gonna be RJ's WoT on TV, it's gonna be Rafe's. 

[swollymammoth]

34 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

Oh light forgive us, how dare they shove that dirty satantic LGBTQ agenda down our throats by having gay and lesbian characters, of mixed ethnicity! /s

It's not about that, and you're deliberately misrepresenting me. I only ask that things be accurate and faithful to the source material. When people got mad about Netflix de-gayifying Shinji and Kaworu's relationship in their Evangelion translation, they had a right to be upset because that was there in the original. The problem isn't that the writers are using WoT as a vehicle for the LGBTQ agenda, it's that they're using it as a vehicle for ANY agenda at all. 

 

I've said this before, but if Rafe was a die hard Catholic who decided he was uncomfortable with how the Children of the Light are portrayed in the books and decided to change them into a more heroic force, I would be pissed. EVERYONE would be pissed, and rightly so. 

 

This is my point: Changes in an adaptation should be made for only 1 reason: to make the story work in the new medium. Injecting your personal beliefs into someone else's story is not a valid reason to make changes, no matter what those beliefs are. That is all. 

[king of nowhere]

14 minutes ago, swollymammoth said:

 For example, Rand is going to be polyamorous in this series, not polygamous.

was the word "poligamy" ever used in the books?

not once. I just checked in the ebooks.

the word "poligamy" was used in commentaries because at the time "poliamory" still wasn't in use.

 

which further proves that at least 90% of this whole "woke" train is just people seeing what they want to see.

Edited October 28, 2021 by king of nowhere

[Elder_Haman]

9 minutes ago, swollymammoth said:

So I paraphrased. Big deal. But Rafe is clearly stating that he will be changing anything which doesn't agree with his politics in this regard.

 

It is a big deal. Because your paraphrase changed the context. In this answer, he was specifically talking about all of the spanking that goes on in the WoT books and addressing the fact that the female villains are treated differently from the male ones. He is decidedly not saying that he is going to "change anything which doesn't agree with his politics". 

 

If you think that the spankings and humiliation of female characters are a core part of the story that need to stay in the television show, that's cool. Defend those elements as key to the story. But let's not pretend that the decision to change these specific elements can somehow be extrapolated to "Rafe is intent on making lore-breaking changes" like degendering the One Power or including a female Dragon. They can't. 

 

11 minutes ago, swollymammoth said:

Rand is going to be polyamorous in this series, not polygamous.

Honestly, I think Rand was polyamorous in the books. He didn't marry any of his ladies that I recall. There may be other changes to these dynamics, but they should be evaluated on a case by case basis not lumped together and discarded as "trash" just because you don't share Rafe's politics.

 

The problem is that you can't wait to see the finished product and decide. You've decided already because you believe your politics compels you to "take a side". But there aren't any sides to take yet, because we've seen nothing of the actual writing.

[swollymammoth]

1 hour ago, king of nowhere said:

and yet, they changed a lot compared to the book

 

Am I just terrible at communicating? 

 

My point isn't that I don't like changes. Changes are fine and a natural part of adaptation. But the reason behind making those changes matters. If the changes are in service of translating a story from one medium to another, that's great! LotR makes tons of changes and its awesome! 

 

I AM NOT ANTI-ADAPTATIONS OR ANTI-CHANGES. (But it seems like everyone who responds to me is set on reducing me to that so that they have a strawman to knock over). 

 

But if you're changing a story so that it more closely falls in like with your own beliefs, that's not okay. And unfortunately, that's what Rafe and co. have said they are going to do. I'm not okay with this. 

[Maximillion]

12 minutes ago, swollymammoth said:

Am I just terrible at communicating? 

 

My point isn't that I don't like changes. Changes are fine and a natural part of adaptation. But the reason behind making those changes matters. If the changes are in service of translating a story from one medium to another, that's great! LotR makes tons of changes and its awesome! 

 

I AM NOT ANTI-ADAPTATIONS OR ANTI-CHANGES. (But it seems like everyone who responds to me is set on reducing me to that so that they have a strawman to knock over). 

 

But if you're changing a story so that it more closely falls in like with your own beliefs, that's not okay. And unfortunately, that's what Rafe and co. have said they are going to do. I'm not okay with this. 

 

Ordinarily I would say there would be no chance of the DR being Egwene or Nynaeve, but with this guy in charge of the adaptation, I can see it happening - and Rand becoming some useless bumbling character (similar to how Jon Snow in GoT turned out).

 

[king of nowhere]

1 minute ago, swollymammoth said:

I AM NOT ANTI-ADAPTATIONS OR ANTI-CHANGES. (But it seems like everyone who responds to me is set on reducing me to that so that they have a strawman to knock over). 

 

But if you're changing a story so that it more closely falls in like with your own beliefs, that's not okay.

yes, we agree on this part. but how can you decide whether the changes are made to fit the story or to promote a political agenda, based just on a single decontextualized line?

Quote

And unfortunately, that's what Rafe and co. have said they are going to do. I'm not okay with this. 

 

your problem is here. You took Rafe's quote and warped it to give it the worst possible meaning.  And then you are taking another quote, from the trailer (and we all know the trailers often have lines that are not in the actual movie!) and based on that, and following your worst interpretation of rafe's misquote, you declare that this will be a woke pastiche.

 

You are jumping to conclusions. Conclusions that are completelu unsupported by anything.

 

To throw your line back at you:

I AM NOT PRO-USING A STORY TO PUSH A POLITICAL AGENDA.

It's just that I don't see any actual evidence that they have done it

 

Oh, by the way: the actual quote from rafe was on the line of "wot had themes that were feminist for its time, but they are not so now; I want to adapt that".

And that can mean everything and nothing. it certainly does not mean that he will change the story to push a political agenda.

For now, the only real evidence we have is that the women are put more in the front from the beginning. considering that they are extremely important characters anyway, it's not a problem