How did the show hold up for you?

[Daenelia]

The obvious solution to the catfood problem is: make it yourself. I have made per food from time to time to balance out 'bad' petfood in stores. It's really simple: some boiled fish, or some chicken perhaps with somethig green. My dog btw loves broccoli, so I often give him broccoli as an addition because it is good for me.

 

We, as fans, we have the option to write fanfic ?

[DaddyFinn]

12 minutes ago, Daenelia said:

The obvious solution to the catfood problem is: make it yourself. I have made per food from time to time to balance out 'bad' petfood in stores. It's really simple: some boiled fish, or some chicken perhaps with somethig green.

I just give frozen(defrozen before serving) raw meatballs. Easy and tasty.

 

/offtopic

[Gothic Flame]

Rolling Stone review after six episodes

 

The inevitable comparison of GoT should be noted. 

[Sorry,butTheShowSucks.]

I'm trying to stay positive- but after episode 4 it's honestly a very unenthusiastic *MEH* for me.... I had very high hopes, maybe too high I suppose. I should have expected what they were going to do with this epic piece of literature after the great let down that was game of *******. (Suits are always gonna be suits)  I guess for me it's all of the little changes combined that really rankle me about this adaptation.  Perhaps episode 5 will change my unsavory opinion thus far.  5/10 (and that's me being generous.) 

[king of nowhere]

46 minutes ago, Sorry,butTheShowSucks. said:

I had very high hopes, maybe too high I suppose.

that's always the case. enjoyment is more a matter of expectation than anything else. after all, think of the first movies, in black and white, with no sound. people didn't expect anything back then, and they were happy to find something.

 

Me, I'm deeply aware of pitfalls and limitations of tv. I was expecting nonsensical battles, and a plot sacrificed to special effects. Instead the characters are good, they are devoting some time to flash out the world, the fighting has looked sensible enough so far - much better than in most movies i'm aware of, actually.

The main plot points are all there, and more than i was hoping they'd keep - I'd have given the show a 50-50 chance of cutting birgitte because explaining her would be too long, instead the brigitte doll is a clear indication we'll get her later.

 

epic fantasy doesn't lend itself well to tv. epic fantasy requires several hours of exposition just to get inside the world, and this always works better in book format.

 

the show does great in all the aspects that tv does not usually suck on, and that's all i could ever hope to get

Edited November 27, 2021 by king of nowhere

[CaddySedai]

1 hour ago, Gothic Flame said:

Rolling Stone review after six episodes

 

The inevitable comparison of GoT should be noted. 

 

I have never been impressed with Rolling Stone. 

 

They continue to underwhelm. 

 

Not that there aren’t valid statements. But they make such a strange statement that is just indicative of all the reasons I would rather turn to a magic 8 ball then them for reviews or opinions.

 

I will paraphrase:

 

• They say the next Dragon could break the Wheel. 
• The WoT started out 11 years before the first in GoT. 
• Because GoT came out first on TV it conjures images of GoT. 
• So WoT is the derivative one. 

 

Wat?

[JaimAybara]

I had very low expectations and have been pleasantly surprised. All in all there are very few things visually they need to fix for me. 
 

1. The “Dark One” in their dreams. This is my biggest fix at the moment. 

 

2. make the clothing a wee bit more lived in. 
 

3. Touch up the cgi on the Trollocs a bit/ or just go full prosthetic and practical.  With as little cgi as possible. 
 

Those were my visual gripes. Other than that I was very content with everything else. That is pretty darn good.

 

*I’ve watched episode four, three times now, and the fight to me was quite good but could have used a little more finesse behind the camera. Angle trickery. Maybe a little more blood splashing on the white trees for added contrast since it was during the day. I loved the falling leaves. Kinda wanted more of that. More close combat. Fewer wide angle shots since the critique from most was not enough people. The only shot I didn’t like was them running down the hill. (Even in LotR Orcs running downhill or stairs is funny but they did a really good angle trickery for it.) But this again is fixable. And it is still quite good. Whoever did the dude flying through the snag…wow, nice work. Loved that. They have been very creative with different weaves and methods. Also, the arrow scene worked for me now that I know what she was doing. 
 

Narratively, they are improving but I would continue to be mindful of setting paired with character development. The 4th episode worked so well for me because the setting and artistic decision making with build up and film editing acted as a character in itself. The fluidity and natural feeling of the conversations paired with the proper location of the discussions they had was very good and they elevated each other. 
 

-The looking at the stars convo and visual 

 

-Birgitte being handed to Mat (powerful lore building through subtlety) 

 

-Thom talking about Owyn (wonderful acting and the right timing) 

 

-The fade in the shadows (visual dialogue combo.) 

 

-The fireplace discussion with the warders (culture building and great acting, felt more mystical) 

 

-Lan praying  (wonderful interaction) 

 

-Moiraine talking about every day things in profound ways with fellow Aes Sedai. I was kinda hoping she was going to mention how Moiraine was a bit of a prankster herself but it was still quite good. 

 

It is all beginning to feel more mystical because they are being more thoughtful with the placement of interactions and the type of interactions. 

 

 

Edited November 27, 2021 by JaimAybara

[LordyLord]

With all this mixed reviews , Im very much woriied about Season 3 being renewed.

I supect the high viewership we saw in the premiere may have started to dwindle

I hope im wrong but.....

[muffler]

I'm unfortunately (for me) falling into this omega-purist based insanity.  I could barely get through the first episode as the opening leaves ambiguity as to the identity of the DR even as far as to suggest its possibly a woman.

 

I'm not particularly fond of how strongly I feel about this the word Anathema comes to mind....however the reaction was immediate upon hearing Moiraine say "girl" and not hyper analyzed criticism after the fact.  I've done my best to read what the show runners have said regarding what their reasoning was but the "Rhafesplaining" fell short for me.  I know the risk wasn't worth it for me leaving ambiguity to the DR's gender and identity but its paying dividends for others so it's hard for me to even explaining to folks how a fan such as myself isn't enjoying.  Muddying the waters for anyone's enjoyment is not my goal especially when it comes to this series.  

 

I've done my fair share of over thinking on the subject since.  I'm unable to answer why it is I'm so out of touch with a large portion of the Fans who by definition love the series as much if not more than me.  Non-reader crowd is great to hear from and I'm tickled to see people engage with the series who otherwise maybe found it daunting or something they'd "get around to". 

 

It's been pointed out that I'm choosing to see it this way perhaps they're right but they lost me at the opening narration and the sheer volume of questions it placed at my feet.  Weep for Manetheren but maybe just a little pity for me.  ?

 

Sorry for long post !

[JaimAybara]

5 minutes ago, LordyLord said:

With all this mixed reviews , Im very much woriied about Season 3 being renewed.

I supect the high viewership we saw in the premiere may have started to dwindle

I hope im wrong but.....

Amazon is Primed to wipe out competition in the sci-if/fantasy market if they are successful: The Boys, WoT, LotR, Critical Role, etc. So, I feel like many people are hiring journalistic hitmen to try and torpedo some of Amazon’s projects.(maybe a bit tinfoil hat) but, If these all do well, who is going to compete with them? The Witcher? Shadow and Bone? The WoT compared to the Witcher in my opinion is very close already and it’s only halfway through the first season. If they stick the landing of the last 4 episodes I think it will be made evident that it is as profitable, if not more profitable. But that’s just me. 

[Gothic Flame]

21 minutes ago, LordyLord said:

With all this mixed reviews , Im very much woriied about Season 3 being renewed.

I supect the high viewership we saw in the premiere may have started to dwindle

I hope im wrong but.....

I believe you have reason to be concerned.

Critics ripping into the show aren't doing it because of changes made from the books, it's everything to do with making a good show to begin with; script, characterization, acting...a big budget show that invites comparison to the smaller budgeted GoT...and coming up unfavorably as GoT looked very much worth the production value it gave. But then maybe those that like the show prefer the comparison to Shannara. It comes up shining up better...

[Scarloc99]

Ok having sat back, self assessed, read Rafes Q and A and more importantly read the Eye of the World again I have come to a clear conclusion. 
 

Eye of the World is not a unique fantasy novel, it does not make the wheel of time stand out as a fantasy trope. Very little in that book make it different to any other standard fantasy book. In Eye of the World a Wizard/witch type figure goes to a rural location, finds out that the evil force is hunting down individuals looking for something. Leads them out of said villiage. 
 

Magic user has a stoic, skilled, bodyguard who shows little emotion and has some great dark secret. The party travel around the world, meeting people to help and find mcguffin. 
 

I love the wheel of time series but realistically the first 2 books the world

doesn't feel Unique or different for the first 2 books I can see the Tolkien references leaping from the page. That isn’t a criticism but, Rafe needs to get through the fantasy trope bit and to the unique wheel

of time bit as quickly as possible. He needs to avoid exposition explaining the world

to the audience, because exposition bores viewers. He needs to get to the heart of what makes wheel of time different to lord of the rings and so yes, season 1 is about pushing through the setup getting the party to where they need to be for the cool bit of the story to begin. 
 

Rafe has limited time to tell that a story, so far, yes there are some things I am questioning but I am going to wait and see how things resolve. 

[Blackbyrd]

5 hours ago, Gothic Flame said:

Rolling Stone review after six episodes

 

The inevitable comparison of GoT should be noted. 

 

Thanks for sharing this, I read this a week ago and I to would like to bash it. One of the big criticisms is that the characters feel like 'flat-ciphers whose fate feels irrelevant' after 6 episodes- as I know that after 6 episodes with a large cast  I expect fully fleshed out characters. And there fates are of course totally irrelevant except for the heavy hand the show has been using to show that characters fates are tied to the fate of the world ? 

 

Quite literally nearly one half of the article is either talking about GoT or the budget of the show. When one state's that they find characters boring in the midst of writing a boorish one note review then it's a pretty clear sign of a pretty poor critic. For someone like this a live action WoT in this day and age would never get higher than 4 stars even if it were pulled off with pristine perfection- part of that is that though Eye does an admirable job character development it stands alone among the books in being a journey driven novel and a lot of critics prefer character driven things. It's my understanding that even at the time this was a critique of Eye when it was released

 

So even though this critic does hit on some prevalent criticisms including my biggest complaint -that they just show characters arriving at point A then appearing at Point B w/o any sense of time spent- it's still done in the most glossy, surface way imaginable.

 

Interestingly, the article he wrote before this was in praise of the Cowboy Bebop adapation...

 

All in all one thing I've been glad to see is that most of the 2 or below star reviews I've read from critics or inside the fandom are not that sound or well written while many of the 3, 4 or even 5 star reviews I have read have produced some good critiques while also managing to be thoughtfully written.

 

 

I think the condelence I would give to big WoT books fans is that unless this was animated there's probably no way to deliver a proper live action adaptation at this point in time. Today it's Perrin killing his wife and making the DR a mystery- replace Rafe with someone else and you'll have found some other visual that's unappealing or plot points that are unappetizing when you're working from the premise of only having 64 episodes.

 

So our despair shouldn't be that we won't see a season 3, it should be that season 2 and Falme will be amazing and that Amazon will refuse to say- 'alright you can have the 80 episodes you wanted Rafe' as that's probably right around the minimum to really hit all the notes. 64 episodes is surely gonna leave my mouth puckering at more points than I would prefer. Though for sake of art I think all WoT series should go either 101 or the technically correct 114 episodes

 

 

Edited November 27, 2021 by Blackbyrd

[DojoToad]

On 11/27/2021 at 9:34 AM, king of nowhere said:

 

Me, I'm deeply aware of pitfalls and limitations of tv. I was expecting nonsensical battles, and a plot sacrificed to special effects. Instead the characters are good, they are devoting some time to flash out the world, the fighting has looked sensible enough so far - much better than in most movies i'm aware of, actually.

 

Wow. You actually liked the fight scenes?  I’ve never heard a fight scene described as sensible. 
 

I’d say that I can think of dozens of movies with better done fight scenes, but am not sure what you mean by sensible 

[SinisterDeath]

2 minutes ago, DojoToad said:

Wow. You actually liked the fight scenes?  I’ve never heard a fight scene described as sensible. 
 

I’d say that I can think of dozens of movies with better done fight scenes, but am not sure what you mean by sensible 

The fight sequences in WoT are already 10,000x in better than those in sword of truth.

[CaddySedai]

4 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

The fight sequences in WoT are already 10,000x in better than those in sword of truth.

 

Im almost sad we didn’t have fight scenes in Winter Dragon. 

 

You think they might have used puppets? :3

[DojoToad]

On 11/27/2021 at 9:49 AM, CaddySedai said:

 

I have never been impressed with Rolling Stone. 

 

They continue to underwhelm. 

 

Not that there aren’t valid statements. But they make such a strange statement that is just indicative of all the reasons I would rather turn to a magic 8 ball then them for reviews or opinions.

 

I will paraphrase:

 

• They say the next Dragon could break the Wheel. 
• The WoT started out 11 years before the first in GoT. 
• Because GoT came out first on TV it conjures images of GoT. 
• So WoT is the derivative one. 

 

Wat?

Rolling Stone may have gotten much wrong. But I think GoT got more right than WoT: truer to source material for several seasons which kept book and show fans engaged, better casting, better acting. The world felt more real than WoT. 

[DojoToad]

6 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

The fight sequences in WoT are already 10,000x in better than those in sword of truth.

Never saw it, but from what I’ve heard, you aren’t setting a high bar…

[Deadsy]

On 11/27/2021 at 12:29 PM, Sir_Charrid said:

Ok having sat back, self assessed, read Rafes Q and A and more importantly read the Eye of the World again I have come to a clear conclusion. 
 

Eye of the World is not a unique fantasy novel, it does not make the wheel of time stand out as a fantasy trope. Very little in that book make it different to any other standard fantasy book. In Eye of the World a Wizard/witch type figure goes to a rural location, finds out that the evil force is hunting down individuals looking for something. Leads them out of said villiage. 
 

Magic user has a stoic, skilled, bodyguard who shows little emotion and has some great dark secret. The party travel around the world, meeting people to help and find mcguffin. 
 

I love the wheel of time series but realistically the first 2 books the world

doesn't feel Unique or different for the first 2 books I can see the Tolkien references leaping from the page. That isn’t a criticism but, Rafe needs to get through the fantasy trope bit and to the unique wheel

of time bit as quickly as possible. He needs to avoid exposition explaining the world

to the audience, because exposition bores viewers. He needs to get to the heart of what makes wheel of time different to lord of the rings and so yes, season 1 is about pushing through the setup getting the party to where they need to be for the cool bit of the story to begin. 
 

Rafe has limited time to tell that a story, so far, yes there are some things I am questioning but I am going to wait and see how things resolve. 

 

 

Well put. The people who say it would have been easy to adapt this by following the exact story of the books need to open their eyes. Even with the changes people have bashed the first 3 episodes for being a LotR clone. But then say episode 4 changes that. It was brilliant and necessary of them to bring in Logain and the Aes Sedai to try to differentiate the story from LotR. 

Edited November 29, 2021 by Deadsy

[Guire]

4 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

The fight sequences in WoT are already 10,000x in better than those in sword of truth.

I think they are ok but I wished they would have been more true to Warder's and green Ajah character.  I know we see in later books that Aes Sedai are not nearly as competent at battle ajah as they think.  It would have been nice though for extremely trained warders to have scouts out though.  Also realizing target of Dragonsworn raid would be Logain earlier would have been nice.  Battle would have been cooler IMHO if camp had retreated initially closer to cave.  Form ranks of warders ( ideally some Tower Guard) to slow Dragonsworn while sisters mow them down.  Aes Sedai are tanks or mortars  not infantrymen.  Give them some room to work.  Battle could have played out same way with excellent arrow freeze barrage and Dragonsworn trying to flank camp members, except Warders and Aes Sedai would have appeared more proficient and prepared.  

 

Also they should have gone Star Wars and had every extra playing both Dragonsworn and Tower Guard.  Film each side separate than swap gear film other.  Have tighter shots in battle with us thinking we are seeing bigger numbers of combatants.  

[DojoToad]

On 11/27/2021 at 12:51 PM, Blackbyrd said:

 ?

So our despair shouldn't be that we won't see a season 3, it should be that season 2 and Falme will be amazing and that Amazon will refuse to say- 'alright you can have the 80 episodes you wanted Rafe' as that's probably right around the minimum to really hit all the notes. 64 episodes is surely gonna leave my mouth puckering at more points than I would prefer. Though for sake of art I think all WoT series should go either 101 or the technically correct 114 episodes

 

 

They couldn’t get the attempted jail break of Logain right, and you think the battle at Falme will be amazing?

 

44 minutes ago, Deadsy said:

 

 

Well put. The people who say it would have been easy to adapt this by following the exact story of the books need to open their eyes. Even with the changes people have bashed the first 3 episodes for being a LotR clone. But then say episode 4 changes that. It was brilliant and necessary of them to bring in Logain and the Aes Sedai to try to differentiate the story from LotR. 

Clones often work if they are done well. This was not, thus the negative comparisons. 

 

36 minutes ago, Guire said:

I think they are ok but I wished they would have been more true to Warder's and green Ajah character.  I know we see in later books that Aes Sedai are not nearly as competent at battle ajah as they think.  It would have been nice though for extremely trained warders to have scouts out though.  Also realizing target of Dragonsworn raid would be Logain earlier would have been nice.  Battle would have been cooler IMHO if camp had retreated initially closer to cave.  Form ranks of warders ( ideally some Tower Guard) to slow Dragonsworn while sisters mow them down.  Aes Sedai are tanks or mortars  not infantrymen.  Give them some room to work.  Battle could have played out same way with excellent arrow freeze barrage and Dragonsworn trying to flank camp members, except Warders and Aes Sedai would have appeared more proficient and prepared.  

 

Also they should have gone Star Wars and had every extra playing both Dragonsworn and Tower Guard.  Film each side separate than swap gear film other.  Have tighter shots in battle with us thinking we are seeing bigger numbers of combatants.  

Yes, your ideas and several others could have made that scene much better. 

[king of nowhere]

1 hour ago, DojoToad said:

Wow. You actually liked the fight scenes?  I’ve never heard a fight scene described as sensible. 
 

I’d say that I can think of dozens of movies with better done fight scenes, but am not sure what you mean by sensible 

lan is picking off stragglers while moiraine was focusing area effects on specific directions.

tam fighting the trolloc doesn't have stupid moves when one is left wide open to attack.

same for the battle in e4. plus, the power was used in sensible ways.

logain's followers are not fighting in formation, but they are not a regular army, just a bunch of volunteers, so of course they wouldn't know how to hold formations.

 

I haven't seen a lot of movies, but in virtually all of them people swordfighting start spinning, turning their back to the opponent (star wars, i'm looking at you). or they pull the sword arm far back, leaving themselves exposed (the trollocs did it, but they are not smart nor trained). Or they have the mooks standing still, trying to look threatening when they could skewer the hero easily, waiting for their turn (the witcher has some particularly egregious examples, but even something widely acclaimed like LotR falls for the same issues. I haven't seen GoT, but I'm sure it does the same).

Where magic is involved, generally there's no logic nor rules to it, so the various wizards will do flashy stuff and you'll have no real way of figuring out how effective or difficult it is.

 

The only movie i can compare favorably is Dune, and that's only because, with the shields, the way of fighting changes radically, so those moves they use, they make sense.

 

Mind you, I fully expect the show to resort to hollywood tactics and mook chivalry later. I don't expect any kind of sensible combat representation from movies. it's something I'm already ready for, and won't disappoint me when it inevitably happens.

I only regret that I don't have much of a movie culture, so I won't know your "dozens of movies with better fight scenes" to pick them apart.

[Gothic Flame]

When it comes to Lan fighting I would have expected something similar to the Bride in "Kill Bill." Or at least the dual wielding Sunny in "Into the Badlands."

[ArrylT]

Here is a video that may have all the GOT S1 fights in it.  

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAPLiWPgLUQ

 

It should be noted though that GOT had 10 episodes in Season 1.  It seems the only big battles I believe involving large numbers of warriors was done off-screen - ie Whispering Wood.  Most of the fighting in S1 focuses one 1 on 1 fighting - and there has not been any of that in WOT yet.  The first major battle scene depicted in GOT was the Battle of Kings Landing near the end of S2.

 

https://www.vulture.com/article/game-of-thrones-battles-ranked.html

 

Spoiler

Ah, who could forget the decisive battle at the start of the War of the Five Kings, when Robb Stark’s forces ambushed and destroyed the army led by Jaime Lannister, taking the Kingslayer captive? Well, most people could forget it, honestly. Back in season one, budgetary and logistical issues prevented the series from actually depicting massive battles, leading to some … interesting workarounds.

 

In fact most of the articles I've seen ranking GOT Battles mainly focus on S4/5 and later - by which time GOT is fully established.

 

Meanwhile we're only 4 episodes into WOT in the first book which has a limited amount of fighting - to my recollection there have only been 3 fights total - and all have included the one power - which I think makes it very hard to compare stylistically to GOT

 

1 - Winternight

 

2 - Logain attacking the King of Ghealden

 

3 - Logains Dragonswarm attacking the Camp

 

But 2 of those, at least from my perspective, look to be larger in cast & action than those depicted in S1 GOT.   The Sword fighting in GOT S1 may be really solid - but again different story with different narrative.   WOT EOTW was not focused on 1 on 1 sword fighting imo.

Edited November 29, 2021 by ArrylT

[DaddyFinn]

3 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

logain's followers are not fighting in formation

I'm not sure if formations are a good idea against the One Power