Will the show be good? Our hopes and concerns

[SinisterDeath]

13 minutes ago, Arthellion said:

I could go line by line rebutting you, but until you show you're willing to debate in good faith..there is no point. At every point on this board that I've seen you engage with someone, it has been with snide undertones and little desire to actually understand the opposing viewpoint.

I understand their viewpoint all to well, you can't find a single article or post without that demographic raging about some stupid thing or another.

I also asserted that much of those fanbases are Gen X Incels which is very much the truth. It's not my fault you took that as a personal attack, it wasn't direct at you but at a specific demographic within those fanbases.

 

13 minutes ago, Arthellion said:

I respect that you have different views on these matters even if I disagree, but I don't call those who hold your opinion names or insinuate that only those with weaker moral character hold such views and so they can be dismissed.

Perhaps you should examine this sentence and reflect on it, because that is precisely what fandom has been dealing with for the last decade with the Anti-Woke crowd calling everyone "snow flakes".

 

 

13 minutes ago, Arthellion said:

So yeah. agree to disagree but just know that I won't be responding to your replies unless it's in your capacity as a moderator. No disrespect meant. 

Do as you wish.

 

  

9 minutes ago, Wraith235 said:

so thats what your calling the WoT Fans ? cause its the same time frame

There are 100% Gen-X Incels conservatives virtue signaling their hate for all things liberalism within the Wot Fan Base.

I'm not stating everyone who disagrees, or calls a change Woke is a conservative Incel. But if it quacks like a duck...

 

  

9 minutes ago, Wraith235 said:

Im not talking about Laura Dern - Im talking about everything Johnson, Abrams, and Kennedy have done to the IP 

Noted.

You are aware of the common complaints I referenced before the new trilogy was completed, right? Fandom was inundated with some truly rubbish complaints.
 

  

10 minutes ago, Wraith235 said:

sure that one may have been overreaching a bit but its we the fans who make sure these individuals are still employed

This is also true, But we as fans don't own the story. We can only vote with our wallet whether we like it or not.

 

[Wraith235]

28 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

I understand their viewpoint all to well, you can't find a single article or post without that demographic raging about some stupid thing or another.

I also asserted that much of those fanbases are Gen X Incels which is very much the truth. It's not my fault you took that as a personal attack, it wasn't direct at you but at a specific demographic within those fanbases.

 

Perhaps you should examine this sentence and reflect on it, because that is precisely what fandom has been dealing with for the last decade with the Anti-Woke crowd calling everyone "snow flakes".

 

 

Do as you wish.

 

  

There are 100% Gen-X Incels conservatives virtue signaling their hate for all things liberalism within the Wot Fan Base.

I'm not stating everyone who disagrees, or calls a change Woke is a conservative Incel. But if it quacks like a duck...

Sadly arguing with an admin wont get us anywhere but muted or banned Particularly with the the opinions being expressed and the obvious influences involved in your responses (calling people Gen-X Incels, and referencing Wrongthink for example)

and I would defiantly question your ability as a community admin to be impartial  based on your argumentative stances towards those with opposing views to yours 

as you said - if it quacks like a duck

Edited November 11, 2021 by Wraith235

[Vrath]

12 hours ago, swollymammoth said:

Anyone who can't get emotionally involved with a story because it doesn't features characters of their own identity (race/gender/sexuality etc) is emotionally immature and should not be catered to. 

 

Tons of straight guys had no problem getting invested in Simoun, an anime where nearly all the main characters are lesbians. 

 

I just recently read a book called The Crucible of Time in which all the characters are mantis aliens, and got extremely invested. 

 

My favorite anime of 2020 was Heaven Official's Blessing where everyone is Asian and gay and yet somehow I was able to become emotionally invested in these characters who exhibit none of the characteristics by which I would identify myself. 

 

Fiction is a medium by which we are meant to relate to people different than us through the shared human experience of struggling to achieve our goals. 

Thank you, GoT, arguably the best fantasy show or show ever for 4 seasons, avoided injecting any of our current social or cultural climate into the show.

 

It was beloved by almost everyone and all groups of people regardless of gender, background or beliefs. 

 

It is like can one not get into LotR because they are not a hobbit or can only short folk enjoy it because that's how they see themselves?

 

These fantasy worlds are escapes from reality a break from our current world for 50 mins so we can dream and imagine a different world with different rules and get lost in imagination.

 

As for the WoT for a lot of people, we have loved and cherished the story, characters and world from childhood to teens and now adults.

For over 30 years they been immersed in it. They just want it to be a faithful adaptation where maybe they can feel that magic again.

Very few people come at this from a place of hate, it is a place of love which is why it is so intense and meaningful.

 

[swollymammoth]

11 hours ago, Skipp said:

I have been trying to stay out of the politics talk but this statement is incredibly easy to make when your race/gender/sexuality has been the norm for all media your entire life.

.... So? Arguments should be addressed based on their merits (or lack thereof), not the immutable characteristics of the one who made them. 

 

[SinisterDeath]

7 minutes ago, Wraith235 said:

Sadly arguing with an admin wont get us anywhere but muted or banned Particularly with the the opinions being expressed and the obvious influences involved in your responses

and I would defiantly question your ability as a community admin to be impartial  based on not only your views but also your argumentative stances towards those with opposing views to yours 

as you said - if it quacks like a duck

Be thankful that @Elder_Haman and I are of a like mind when it comes allowing people to vent their frustrations, instead of outright censoring every contrary opinion. 

You really don't want to see what would happen if I were to step down and let Jennifer loose.

[TheDreadReader]

12 minutes ago, swollymammoth said:

.... So? Arguments should be addressed based on their merits (or lack thereof), not the immutable characteristics of the one who made them. 

 

 

Save for the fact that the argument you are responding isn't really about immutable facts about any one particular person or set of traits.   It is based on a set of measurable conditions in the real world that can be analyzed.

 

 

 

[Agitel]

58 minutes ago, swollymammoth said:

Because it's true? Idk what you want from me here. Nothing I said was targeted. Anyone who can only relate to characters who resemble them is immature and should not be catered to. That includes white people, rich people, straight people, men and any other group you can think of. The connection we're supposed to feel from fiction should transcend all of that stuff and reach to the core of the human experience. That's more inclusive than any sort of tokenistic pandering. 

 

It's easy enough to say when you are "the default" in a culture and are not part of a group that have been marginalized by the culture.

[WalterKohl]

1 hour ago, swollymammoth said:

Because it's true? Idk what you want from me here. Nothing I said was targeted. Anyone who can only relate to characters who resemble them is immature and should not be catered to. That includes white people, rich people, straight people, men and any other group you can think of. The connection we're supposed to feel from fiction should transcend all of that stuff and reach to the core of the human experience. That's more inclusive than any sort of tokenistic pandering. 

I don't know.. maybe because you are trying to equate straight guys watching lesbian porn-adjacent as somehow equal to them actually identifying and empathizing with LGBT+ people....  And your response clears up any confusion about what you really think...  

[swollymammoth]

3 minutes ago, Agitel said:

It's easy enough to say when you are "the default" in a culture and are not part of a group that have been marginalized by the culture.

You know what's a really bad look? Accusing someone else of implicit bias in such a way that exposes your own implicit biases. 

 

You just assumed my race and sexuality based on nothing more than the fact that I have a certain opinion. In doing so, you've assumed that all minorities think the same and insulted anyone who might agree with me but doesn't fit into your idea of the "privileged class".

 

Check yourself before you wreck yourself. 

[Elder_Haman]

I'm not particularly a fan of any of the labels that are being casually thrown around. There are good faith reasons that people can find themselves on either side of this debate. Likewise, there is bad faith, stereotyping, and strawman reasoning that occurs on both sides.

 

Everyone take a breath and try to remove the emotion from these discussions. If this devolves further into name calling, I'll lock the thread down and start banning anything that touches on politics.

 

We are here to talk about the Wheel of Time, not as soldiers in the culture war. 

[Ralph]

33 minutes ago, Vrath said:

Thank you, GoT, arguably the best fantasy show or show ever for 4 seasons, avoided injecting any of our current social or cultural climate into the show.

 

It was beloved by almost everyone and all groups of people regardless of gender, background or beliefs. 

 

It is like can one not get into LotR because they are not a hobbit or can only short folk enjoy it because that's how they see themselves?

 

These fantasy worlds are escapes from reality a break from our current world for 50 mins so we can dream and imagine a different world with different rules and get lost in imagination.

 

As for the WoT for a lot of people, we have loved and cherished the story, characters and world from childhood to teens and now adults.

For over 30 years they been immersed in it. They just want it to be a faithful adaptation where maybe they can feel that magic again.

Very few people come at this from a place of hate, it is a place of love which is why it is so intense and meaningful.

 

 

There is an obvious difference between something that is just "not present" and something where the whole concept of the world's system can only make sense if a certain type of person COULD NOT EXIST, and where that is clearly not a conscious change from the real world, but intended as a representation of the real world. 

 

As I have said before, I am truly baffled by the reaction that this has had. 

 

I have many American friends, both in the UK and in the US, and all without exception are non-woke or anti-woke (except a few cousins I barely speak to who work in universities in the US). All vote Republican, all think Biden is a joke, many think transgender is a fiction. 

 

None of them are so violently opposed to someone holding an opposing ideology that the fact that someone disagrees with them would provoke this reaction. 

 

All that has happened is that someone who believes as fact something that you disagree with, has changed the story so as not to offend others who believe like himself. This has not changed the fundamentals of the story, has not sermonised, has not tried to convince you of his viewpoint, has not even presented his viewpoint. He has just changed it to accommodate that possibility. That is all! 

 

And a proportion of the well-meaning fandom go up in flames!! 

 

I genuinely can't fathom where such an attitude comes from. 

 

[swollymammoth]

25 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

Be thankful that @Elder_Haman and I are of a like mind when it comes allowing people to vent their frustrations, instead of outright censoring every contrary opinion. 

Sinister has a point here. There have been a bunch of my posts that I was sure were gonna get censored, but the mods have let them through. At the very least, there is a commitment to open discussion here, and I appreciate it greatly. 

[Gothic Flame]

1 hour ago, SinisterDeath said:

So... you know what the authors intent was? Perhaps... the Author could believe that these woke changes allow for new stories that haven't been told a billion times.

Then perhaps Rafe would do better to tell these new stories rather than treat us us all to his vision of what was already written and how he imagines his interpretation is better.

[TheDreadReader]

1 hour ago, WalterKohl said:

Yeah when people say these reboots are a failure, I think they mean to them personally so it must be a failure to more...  You are correct about the reception to She-Ra, it has been amazingly good overall.  

 

I agree.  

 

To be a little wonky, some of this comes from the whole "Death of the Author" approach in literary criticism/theory.  Centering the text in reader response has a lot of really interesting aspects to it but as it filters through the educational world it creates its own set of problems.

 

Honestly, there are a lot of interesting arguments and points that get made from the "anti-woke" set but they tend to get overshadowed by their (seeming) inability to get past their surface response.

 

For example, buried in some arguments about Captain Marvel is an argument about origin stories that seems to ask the question "Should comic book movies always start out as origin stories?"  That's an interesting thing to think about but it gets overshadowed by all the references to comments that Bree Larson may or may not have made.

 

 

[swollymammoth]

9 minutes ago, WalterKohl said:

maybe because you are trying to equate straight guys watching lesbian porn-adjacent as somehow equal to them actually identifying and empathizing with LGBT+ people....

I mean, I can't really do anything about the fact that you have no idea the place that Simoun holds in anime history, but suffice it to say that you would have to be totally ignorant to reduce the show's popularity and influence to mere fetishism. 

 

That being said, I realize that not everyone is as much of an anime history nut as I am, so I guess it's understandable. 

[WalterKohl]

11 minutes ago, swollymammoth said:

I mean, I can't really do anything about the fact that you have no idea the place that Simoun holds in anime history, but suffice it to say that you would have to be totally ignorant to reduce the show's popularity and influence to mere fetishism. 

 

That being said, I realize that not everyone is as much of an anime history nut as I am, so I guess it's understandable. 

yes how could i have thought this was at all about straight guys wanting to watch lesbians play together.... (from the top five google results for reference)

[swollymammoth]

43 minutes ago, Ralph said:

All that has happened is that someone who believes as fact something that you disagree with, has changed the story so as not to offend others who believe like himself.

 

43 minutes ago, Ralph said:

I genuinely can't fathom where such an attitude comes from. 

 

Let me break it down one more time. 

 

This has very little to do with the nature of the politics that Rafe is injecting into Wheel of Time. It's that he's injecting any politics at all. 

 

Most of the people complaining about Rafe's changes would be just as angry if he were some sort of crazy Catholic who had come out and said that he was gonna remove the pillow friends, eliminate all extra-marital sexual relationships, elevate the Children of the Light to a more heroic role and basically bend WoT TV into something the pope might watch after Sunday mass. 

 

Would those changes be any less extreme than what has already been announced?  Honestly, I don't think so. Would they be "someone who believes as fact something that you disagree with changing teh story so as not to offend others who belief like himself?" Absolutely. 

 

That doesn't make it okay. Some of us are just loyal to The Wheel of Time and want to see it done right while others are fine with changes so long as the show is remade in their own image. (Be honest, how would you react in the hypothetical situation I stated above? Would your same justifications for Rafe's current changes apply if his ideology was flipped?) 

 

Also, I acknowledge that plenty of people here just don't think an adaptation owes anything at all to the original or the fans. That's a valid opinion because at least its a consistent standard which can be broadly applied. 

[Skipp]

20 minutes ago, swollymammoth said:

I mean, I can't really do anything about the fact that you have no idea the place that Simoun holds in anime history, but suffice it to say that you would have to be totally ignorant to reduce the show's popularity and influence to mere fetishism. 

 

That being said, I realize that not everyone is as much of an anime history nut as I am, so I guess it's understandable. 

 

You are right about not knowing anything about the anime.  None of my anime loving friends have seen it but there are plenty of good stuff out there.  I personally love Yuri on Ice and my favourite comic is Sunstone which crudely described as BDSM loving Lesbians.  There is certainly much more to Sunstone than that description but on first glance it is what people are going to see.

 

The problem with using Simoun as an example of liking a story of people different than you is that "Men loving Lesbian content" is its own widely known trope.  Unfortunately there is a subset to that audience that would not watch Simoun if you replaced the female characters with male and it is that reason why it isn't a good example.

[swollymammoth]

10 minutes ago, WalterKohl said:

yes how could i have thought this was at all about straight guys wanting to watch lesbians play together.... (from the top five google results for reference)

Lol Okay, dude. Don't watch the show. Ignore all the LGBT anime fans who cite Simoun as instrumental in their own awakenings. Ignore all the straight people who will tell you that they became more open minded to real life LGBT people as a result of watching this show and others like it (Revolutionary Girl Utena comes to mind). Ignore my own personal lived experience. Just brush it all under the rug. 

 

I'm not saying that there weren't people who engaged with the show on a fetishistic level, but that was their loss. Yes, this art is meant to cater to a certain subset of fan, but it is in no way representative of the show and its handling of its themes or the way that most people engaged with it. 

 

This should be obvious. You are literally judging a book by it's cover right now, and I think that says a lot about your capacity as an analytical thinker at all. 

[swollymammoth]

6 minutes ago, Skipp said:

"Men loving Lesbian content" is its own widely known trope. 

I was unwise in my example, yes. It's association with that trope makes it an easy target. But it was just the one which was personally relevant to me, and I didn't want to talk about anything that I myself didn't have experience with. Thanks for your comment. 

[Ralph]

23 minutes ago, swollymammoth said:

 

Let me break it down one more time. 

 

This has very little to do with the nature of the politics that Rafe is injecting into Wheel of Time. It's that he's injecting any politics at all. 

 

Most of the people complaining about Rafe's changes would be just as angry if he were some sort of crazy Catholic who had come out and said that he was gonna remove the pillow friends, eliminate all extra-marital sexual relationships, elevate the Children of the Light to a more heroic role and basically bend WoT TV into something the pope might watch after Sunday mass. 

 

Would those changes be any less extreme than what has already been announced?  Honestly, I don't think so. Would they be "someone who believes as fact something that you disagree with changing teh story so as not to offend others who belief like himself?" Absolutely. 

 

That doesn't make it okay. Some of us are just loyal to The Wheel of Time and want to see it done right while others are fine with changes so long as the show is remade in their own image. (Be honest, how would you react in the hypothetical situation I stated above? Would your same justifications for Rafe's current changes apply if his ideology was flipped?) 

 

Also, I acknowledge that plenty of people here just don't think an adaptation owes anything at all to the original or the fans. That's a valid opinion because at least its a consistent standard which can be broadly applied. 

 

Ok I understand this argument, although I'm not sure what you define as politics. 

 

So what the changes are are totally irrelevant - you would only accept the change if it is purely to make it work in a different medium. 

 

Why therefore has the specific "wokeness" of this change, in your opinion, been mentioned at all? It is totally irrelevant to the argument. 

 

And I assume you opposed Arwen saving Frodo at the Ford with the same vehemence? 

 

And the loss of Lady Stoneheart? 

Edited November 11, 2021 by Ralph

[Wraith235]

23 minutes ago, Ralph said:

 

Ok I understand this argument, although I'm not sure what you define as politics. 

 

So what the changes are are totally irrelevant - you would only accept the change if it is purely to make it work in a different medium. 

 

a change for the medium would  for example be one of the things that was done in the HBO Series - Chernobyl regarding the female Nuclear physicist who was created as a conglomeration of the 32(IIRC) Nuclear physicists - most of this I didn't find out about until after watching the show
 

Quote

Why therefore has the specific "wokeness" of this change, in your opinion, been mentioned at all? It is totally irrelevant to the argument. 

Sadly it gets brought up because of the current climate in Hollywood and the Nature of some of the changes,  de-gentering something  is inherently a "Woke" argument- Not always but 95% of the time
as well as no accountability for WHY these changes are occuring other than the precieved "Knowing better than Jordan" comments as well as the severity what the changes do to the World and its laws .... so they truly are relevant, 

 

Quote

And I assume you opposed Arwen saving Frodo at the Ford with the same vehemence? 

as far as the Arewen saving Frodo - I have read the books but I dont recall the specifics of that event, I do know there was outrage about cutting Bombadill, I personally was angry that they cut Scourging of the Shire and Many Partings chapters of the books

 

Edited November 11, 2021 by Wraith235
Clarifying and formatting

[Elder_Haman]

3 minutes ago, Wraith235 said:

"Knowing better than Jordan"

This is a weird flex. Jordan wasn’t a screenwriter and I think he’d probably be the first to concede that changes from novel to screenplay are necessary and that Rafe [as a screenwriter] does in fact “know better” in some respects. 
 

 

[Wraith235]

4 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

This is a weird flex. Jordan wasn’t a screenwriter and I think he’d probably be the first to concede that changes from novel to screenplay are necessary and that Rafe [as a screenwriter] does in fact “know better” in some respects. 

Based on the Medium Sure - I'll give you that - however that isn't what Rafe was quoted saying 

Let me find the quote and add it in editing since I have to go find it 

 

Quote

Judkins: I think—well, I can’t tell you all of them, but in the books, there’s an idea that if you’re born as a man in one life, you’d be born as a man in the next life in the show. We’re not doing that. We’re approaching it as you are a soul and you move through different bodies through whatever life that you’re in. So that’s one. It’s a very fundamental change actually to make to the book series, and it has a lot of ripple effects, and we’ll continue to do things like that I think are more reflective of what hopefully Robert Jordan would be writing if he was writing today.

this is the crux of "Knowing better than Jordan" 

Edited November 11, 2021 by Wraith235
wow that quote went wierd

[swollymammoth]

8 minutes ago, Ralph said:

And I assume you opposed Arwen saving Frodo at the Ford with the same vehemence?

You know, actually, (and this is a little embarrassing) I haven't read LotR haha I have no idea how this goes down in the books. In the movie, it works well because it seamlessly introduces Arwen, its excellently filmed, and leads to one of the coolest sequences in the movie. That leads me to believe that enough of the decision making likely centered around adapting the story of the books to the film medium to justify it. It certainly didn't feel like a random "lolgurlpower" scene. Unlike the "I am no man" scene from RotK which I thought sucked waaaay before I learned that it wasn't in the books haha

 

Again, I think changes are a fine and natural part of adaptation. But the reasoning behind those changes matters. Many of Rafe's changes seem to stem less from "this would make great TV" than "This aspect of the original doesn't align with my own beliefs. I'm gonna change it" and then justifying it by claiming that it's what RJ would have done if only he were alive. 

 

So what's the difference in these changes? I think intent actually does matter because ideologically motivated writing tends to be lazy. Like, this is the reason that professors often ask their students to write papers from opposing viewpoints. Many professors will then tell you that the quality of writing in those papers goes up rather than down. Because writing things you disagree with forces you to think. You can't do that on autopilot. 

 

Ultimately, if you're making creative decisions based on what aligns with your own preexisting ideology, you're often just preaching to the choir. No one in the pews criticizes you, and if they do, you can just call them to repentance. Nothing is ever your fault, and you're absolved from any sort of accountability. You were doing god's work, after all.