How did the show hold up for you?

[Khan of Shadows]

9 minutes ago, WoTwasThat said:

I think Rafe and crew like the WOT - but not every fan gives as much value to the same story elements. They and/or Amazon want to focus heavily on the “strong female characters” angle. And that is part of WOT. The problem is that they are doing it to the detriment of the male characters, and to the detriment of the fundamental dichotomy between Saidar/Saidin, the taint, and the DR being reincarnated into a world and a magic system stacked against him. So naturally a lot of us are really unhappy about this, but I think it goes a bit too far to say that Rafe doesn’t like WOT. 

Yeah exactly. As I said on here a few days ago, the sad and perverse part of all of this is that the writers clearly are big fans of WOT. 

[fra85uk]

Wait Rafe is probably a fan in his own way but he said that most of the writers did not even read the books...

[Gothic Flame]

3 minutes ago, fra85uk said:

Wait Rafe is probably a fan in his own way but he said that most of the writers did not even read the books...

And this is my shocked face...

[UOweTamASword]

6 hours ago, WoTwasThat said:

I think Rafe and crew like the WOT - but not every fan gives as much value to the same story elements. They and/or Amazon want to focus heavily on the “strong female characters” angle. And that is part of WOT. The problem is that they are doing it to the detriment of the male characters, and to the detriment of the fundamental dichotomy between Saidar/Saidin, the taint, and the DR being reincarnated into a world and a magic system stacked against him. So naturally a lot of us are really unhappy about this, but I think it goes a bit too far to say that Rafe doesn’t like WOT. 

I’d guess Rafe likes WoT in the same way I like aSoIaF (GoT): I’d rather be reading something lighter in tone and my favorite characters aren’t the main ones. But I still enjoy the series a lot by focusing on the parts that are to my liking.

 

Now I’d have to be pretty arrogant to try to adapt GoT by changing the tone and shifting the character attention and plot in the way I would’ve preferred. Those kind of changes may be appropriate on fanfic.net, but not for the official adaptation. Just my opinion.

[itsjodie]

On 12/29/2021 at 2:14 PM, DreadParrot said:

Upon conclusion of season we got no identification of ishamael being the dream visitor. My friend who never read the books was confused as to whether the show was supposed to run one season only cause it seemed like rand just killed the dark one. 

To be fair, that’s basically the note we leave on at the end of EoTW. Rand is confident that he has just killed the Lord of the Dark (just like after Falme) and Moiraine has to explain to him that it was just a Forsaken.

Also helps to build up the power of the actual DO if a Forsaken is scary enough that we think one is the DO.

[king of nowhere]

7 hours ago, WoTwasThat said:

TEOTW is among the top half. Certainly better than books 7-10 and I’d say it’s a sight better than Books 5, 11, and the Sanderson cappers. 

 

I think book 1 is on the same level of book 10. I find elayne talking with bankers and mercenary captains to be more entertaining than rand playing the flute or chopping firewood for a room.

I also like the Sanderson books to the best ones - how much of that is because i prefer sanderson's style, and how much is because the plot finally starts to get solved, is unknown

 

But we'll have to agree to disagree on this.

 

If nothing else, it shows that different people reading the same books will read different things in them. Why should we be surprised when that applies to Rafe and his vision too?

 

Quote

 

Where Jordan “stumbled” was with the challenge of writing a Book 1 that served as a launching pad for the series while also being a complete story in and of itself.

 

On this part, instead, I agree. RJ was under some tight editorial constraints, and a lot of the problems with the book were caused by that. Just like RJ2 is under some tight timing/budget/covid constraints, and a lot of problems with the show are caused by that

 

Quote

The writers had eight hours - the equivalent of a trilogy of feature length movies - to adapt about 2/3rds of one book (after correctly cutting Caemlyn and much of Rand/Mat’s backpacking trip) and they still failed.

they had to add all the stuff with aes sedai politics. They HAD to, because they had to introduce the worldbuilding earlier. As I complained many times, the first books really follow the general "fantasy quest" scheme, which was a good thing back in the eighties, but now it's considered a stale trope. Putting more focus on the larger world, I think it was a correct editorial decision - just like it was a good decision to expand the part of Logain, it was a great way to show the power and the danger of male channelers. Unfortunately, it did take a lot of screen time.

 

[7th age]

I really thought about this for a while now, and all in all I think I land on a 6 out of 9.

 

First up this was never going to be a 10. Deducting 1 point from the scale is the least we can do to be fair to Rafe and the cast. I mean he himself would be the first one to acknowledge that more money and screen time were ALWAYS going to be better (this is not an excuse for AMAZON, if anyone there ever reads this, GIVE RAFE MORE MONEY!!!!! and stop, just stop with giving him ANY time restrictions otherwise I and everyone else in the fandom will immediatly unsubscribe our Prime accounts!!!)

 

For the overall cast Id give 8/10.

There were some smaller standouts, for the short while they are in Logain and the stuntactress that played Shaiel get a flat 10 / 10.  So do the actors for Loial and Moiraine. The fact Loial s costuming is horrendous up to the point it really freaked me out when I first saw him and YET the actor does such a superb job in moving and talking to make me completly forget about that in later scenes says a lot. Same thing with both L. and M. s height. THis has been mentioned for L. but for me this could have been an issue with M.  Ever since reading Mistborn I somehow have a thing for action sequences involving smaller people, somehow that adds to the badassery and in my mind (maybe wrongly???) Moiraine stands at no more then 1 m 50 cm.

Yet the second Pyke comes on screen she IS Moiraine and thats all that needs to be said, really glad she is here with us for the ride.

 

Lan and the rest of the EF 5 land at 8-9/10. There are small things here and there I didnt like and I feel especially Perrins actor really hasnt got the chance to do that much acting( the true breadth of an actor cant shine if your character is mostly locked into just one emotion), but overall they too do FEEL like the characters from the books.

 

Ill also give a 7-8/10 for the channeling and CGI and just overall pictures and transitions (the big landscape shots, the Hall of the Tower shot from above etc.). My biggest fear going into this was that channeling would look super goofy and instantly kill the mood and it most certainly didnt. CGI at times was clunky (SL and ep.8 ) which in part seems to stem from their Covid/time problems so I can be forgiving and hopeful this will only improve in future season.  I would love to see the weaves getting a distinct feel between the elements, either via color or some other way and I feel they could very well make that transition as part of Eg/Nyns training, but thats more a hope not something i reallly expect.

 

Now we get to the writing and here is where some of the trouble lies.

Again it seems obvious, that those 2 episodes Rafe requested really are missing. From a double episode at the start to just those small exposition moments that felt cut short.

-Loial in the ways was a PERFECT opportunity to lean into the whole AoL men going insane / what actually happened there. And it wouldnt have taken that long either, I know because a friend of mine asked for background and I managed to condense the breaking/ogier steddings/the exile/the creation of the ways in a less then 3 min voice chat, ofc onscreen it is a different thing, but still...

- We get some of Lans backstory but the most relevant aspect to the story they leave out (his oath to fight the shadow/his solitary war against the blight, how can you leave this out when it isnt only central to his character, but more importantly central to the next scene he has with Nyn, why in the world would he reject her NOW???)

 

And then are the changes that can not be attributed to Amazon not providing enough recources but fall squarely into Rafe/the writers territory.

NOT a fan of the whole Perrin takes the way of Leaf story line. I can see how they came up with this and it isnt totally out of character (except him becoming a vegetarian just at the time his wolfyness starts to emerge, but they did drop that comment  at the start of ep5. so thats ok)

 

In hindsight the whole ep.5 Steppin becoms a disaster. Dont get me wrong ep.4 Steppin/Kerene were awesome in showing us AS/Warder relations (the whole snark he gives her in their 1on1 scene is better then anything they say after to show that this isnt master/servant but partner relationship) and the actor is fine. But wasting time on a depressing suicide story, that ultimatly goes nowhere and isnt really that impactful as we didnt have enough to time with him to actually care  that much about him, was just bad. It doesnt really give us other important scenes OR that much exposition into AS/Warder relations. I dont think any nonreaders I talked to or watched picked up on the fact that his depression was amplified by the severing of the bond. And considering the time scarcity really hits at other points, as well as the fact that the writer CHOSE this over the simple and booktrue variant of having him go out in a berserkersuicide(or just have him be dead immediatly so even Nyn cant heal him and throw in  a line  about how death cant be healed aka. free exposition fitting in the plot as opposed to...), this is a strike against them.

 

I have other problems related to either changing the cultures in the world or just logical inconsistencies ( most of my nonbookreaders think Padan Fain is a channeler and why wouldnt they, seems to be the logical conclusion of what they show us), but I dont want this to go on forever and just focus on the negatives.

 

All in all this series worked well enough to keep me engaged, prompted several people I know to do so as well (and some of them probably will start reading now) and I realize that watching this means going along for the whole ride including all the ups and the downs.

 

So ill go down 1 point as mentioned before, because this was never gonna live up to what I have in my head -> 9/9 .  One point down because while actors/CGI etc. are good there is room for improvement->8/9. One point down for those changes I think were unnessary and unhelpful ->7/9

And finally one point down for the missed opportunities / generall unwillingness to follow the magic rules / mess that is episode 8  and we land at -> 6/9

 

 

 

Edited January 1, 2022 by 7th age

[DreadParrot]

13 hours ago, itsjodie said:

To be fair, that’s basically the note we leave on at the end of EoTW. Rand is confident that he has just killed the Lord of the Dark (just like after Falme) and Moiraine has to explain to him that it was just a Forsaken.

Also helps to build up the power of the actual DO if a Forsaken is scary enough that we think one is the DO.

 It is how we end EoTW, but EoTW starts with the LTT/Ishy prologue that sets up the fact that one of fhe Forskaen is not bound and is tormenting LTT by granting him lucidity. It puts the breadcrumbs in place at least. 

[Vartija]

1 hour ago, 7th age said:

But wasting time on a depressing suicide story, that ultimatly goes nowwhere and isnt really that impactful as we didnt have enough to time with him to actually care  that much about him, was just bad. It doesnt really give us other important scenes OR that much exposition into AS/Warder relations. I dont think any nonreaders I talked to or watched picked up on the fact that his depression was amplified by the severing of the bond. And considering the time scarcity really hits at other points, as well as the fact that the writer CHOSE this over the simple and booktrue variant of having him go out in a berserkersuicide, this is a strike against them.

I think Stepin going berserk in a suicidal attack against several men during the Logain's army attack could have made for a cool scene. I'm not usually one to clamour for a "cool fight scene" but one could have served the Warder mythos well here. Let him go out axes swinging, take out half a dozen men while battling through injuries of his own (think of Boromir's death but even more intense). Maybe add some kind of visual or audial representation of the warder bond snapping. Kind of like hearing returning after a bomb goes off in war movies.

 

With something like that they could have cut most of the mourning in the next episode and I think it would have looked less like he's just depressed about his Aes Sedai dying.  

[7th age]

11 minutes ago, Vartija said:

Maybe add some kind of visual or audial representation of the warder bond snapping. Kind of like hearing returning after a bomb goes off in war movies.

 This part they actually did if I remember correctly. Kerene dies and then they directly cut to him being somewhat dazed.

 

Maybe should have mentioned this before but what I really like were some of the cuts. From the more visual ones like Danas blood to landscape, to the subtle hints like cutting to Eg the moment after we first get told of burning out in a flash.

Plus there is this somewhat small thing about the nudity. There are quite a bit of scenes later on that if accuratly portraied require nudity in a non gratitious way(aka. the opposite of GoT). They somewhat did this in ep.1 but even better in the ep.6 scene with the first selector.

[Vartija]

15 minutes ago, 7th age said:

 This part they actually did if I remember correctly. Kerene dies and then they directly cut to him being somewhat dazed.

 

Yeah it was there, but I had in mind something a bit more dramatic. 

[Mirefox]

5 hours ago, Vartija said:

I think Stepin going berserk in a suicidal attack against several men during the Logain's army attack could have made for a cool scene. I'm not usually one to clamour for a "cool fight scene" but one could have served the Warder mythos well here. Let him go out axes swinging, take out half a dozen men while battling through injuries of his own (think of Boromir's death but even more intense). Maybe add some kind of visual or audial representation of the warder bond snapping. Kind of like hearing returning after a bomb goes off in war movies.

 

With something like that they could have cut most of the mourning in the next episode and I think it would have looked less like he's just depressed about his Aes Sedai dying.  

Yes, this would have been much better and more time-efficient.  And as a plus, we likely wouldn’t have gotten the funeral scene which was, in my opinion, the worst scene in the entire season.

[RhienneAgain]

1 hour ago, Mirefox said:

Yes, this would have been much better and more time-efficient.  And as a plus, we likely wouldn’t have gotten the funeral scene which was, in my opinion, the worst scene in the entire season.

I completely agree but I'm not sure if the impact of the bond breaking is actually intended to be the same in the TV show as it is in the books.

 

Absolutely no non-readers I've spoken to have recognised that the bond is a magical link (they think either it's an agreement or Warders are special employees of the Aes Sedai) or that Steppin's death was caused by the bond breaking (they think he was depressed by the loss of Kerene and/or his failure). 

 

So that leaves me to conclude that either a) the writers have failed really spectacularly here (especially if the justification for including so much time on Steppin is in set up for the plot points centred on the bond breaking with Moiraine and Lan, and Rand and Alannah), or b) the bond doesn't work the same way in the show.

[ArrylT]

On 12/25/2021 at 2:02 PM, Skipp said:

Overall I am fairly happy with the season and would rate it a 7.5-8/10.  Lots of room for improvement but I feel the soul of the work is there.  Very excited to see where season 2 takes us.

 

And honestly it is very neat to be able to speculate on Wheel of Time again!

 

Yeah I've decided to give Season 1 an 8.5/10, and the show itself a 10/10.    I am grading the season specifically on certain merits and the show itself as a whole with additional merits added.   

[Dagon Thyne]

I liked it overall but I wish Amazon would have been willing to give them a better budget and at least two more hours.  They needed time to develop the characters more, and to include more places to fill out the world.  Right now, it seems like there's like 5 cities on the entire continant, with a bunch of trees between them.

[ArrylT]

On 12/30/2021 at 10:04 AM, Mirefox said:

I couldn’t agree with this any less than I do.  You might as well say that the show expects viewers to read the books to learn the details it doesn’t provide.  It is a massive cop out to leave things out of a show then provide bonus content to explain everything you failed to explain.

 

Just wanted to note that Netflix did the exact same thing with the Witcher - they literally created a website for the show to help explain things.  Not saying anyone is not "judging' The Witcher for this - just that WoT is not alone in doing so.  

 

 

[DaddyFinn]

33 minutes ago, ArrylT said:

 

Just wanted to note that Netflix did the exact same thing with the Witcher - they literally created a website for the show to help explain things.  Not saying anyone is not "judging' The Witcher for this - just that WoT is not alone in doing so.  

 

 

Witcher has like half a dozen different extra BTS and lore on Netflix. Haven't seen those but I suppose they explain a lot of stuff

[ArrylT]

1 minute ago, DaddyFinn said:

Witcher has like half a dozen different extra BTS and lore on Netflix. Haven't seen those but I suppose they explain a lot of stuff

 

Yes I think it all depends on one what is looking for.   Personally the more the better for me.  I am the type of person who has the 4 disc LOTR box set for each movie.  I love having the WoT glossaries and the Companion book(s).   So give me all the bonus content you want. Part of why I am giving the show itself a 10/10 is all the additionals - be it behind the scenes, Origin shorts, after shows, interaction with other fans & so on.   The fact that Netflix did this for The Witcher is a positive for me, even if The Witcher is currently a few tiers below Wheel of Time for me in terms of quality entertainment.  

 

But just noting we should not give a negative (or a positive) to Wheel of Time without doing the same for The Witcher.  

[EmreY]

On 12/26/2021 at 1:05 AM, Spiritweaver1 said:

This is turning into The Legend of Earthsea.

 

No, nothing can compare with that. ?  That series is so bad, I wonder that it hasn't become a cult classic.

[RextheDog]

12 hours ago, RhienneAgain said:

I completely agree but I'm not sure if the impact of the bond breaking is actually intended to be the same in the TV show as it is in the books.

 

Absolutely no non-readers I've spoken to have recognised that the bond is a magical link (they think either it's an agreement or Warders are special employees of the Aes Sedai) or that Steppin's death was caused by the bond breaking (they think he was depressed by the loss of Kerene and/or his failure). 

 

So that leaves me to conclude that either a) the writers have failed really spectacularly here (especially if the justification for including so much time on Steppin is in set up for the plot points centred on the bond breaking with Moiraine and Lan, and Rand and Alannah), or b) the bond doesn't work the same way in the show.

 

 

no offence, but are they on their phones or something whilst the show is being played?

 

edit; just thinking further on this, Jordan takes a lot longer to flesh out the warder bond than the eye of the world, if anything id prefer less focus on the bond than what we got.

 

Edited January 2, 2022 by RextheDog

[Gothic Flame]

7 hours ago, Dagon Thyne said:

I liked it overall but I wish Amazon would have been willing to give them a better budget and at least two more hours. 

As I recall reading recently the 8 episodes cost 90 million to produce.

[notpropaganda73]

On 12/31/2021 at 8:24 PM, fra85uk said:

Wait Rafe is probably a fan in his own way but he said that most of the writers did not even read the books...

 

On 12/31/2021 at 8:28 PM, Gothic Flame said:

And this is my shocked face...

 

This has continually come up as a stick to beat the writers with and I don't understand why. The ability to write a good script incorporating the story beats in the overall series outline is not dependent on having read the books. In fact I would be worried if every one of the writers were book-readers, because it would indicate they held a very narrow criteria for being brought on as a writer.

 

We can discuss the bad writing in the show without saying "and some of them have not even read the books!" as some sort of "gotcha" moment. Newsflash - the vast vast majority of screenwriters in the entire world will not have read the books.

[Gothic Flame]

16 minutes ago, notpropaganda73 said:

We can discuss the bad writing in the show without saying "and some of them have not even read the books!" as some sort of "gotcha" moment.

Considering the utter lack of consistency that doesn't sound better to me...just the opposite.

[fra85uk]

18 minutes ago, notpropaganda73 said:

 

 

This has continually come up as a stick to beat the writers with and I don't understand why. The ability to write a good script incorporating the story beats in the overall series outline is not dependent on having read the books. In fact I would be worried if every one of the writers were book-readers, because it would indicate they held a very narrow criteria for being brought on as a writer.

 

We can discuss the bad writing in the show without saying "and some of them have not even read the books!" as some sort of "gotcha" moment. Newsflash - the vast vast majority of screenwriters in the entire world will not have read the books.

Wait a moment, i think that when you see something like LTT called the Dragon reborn you don't just question if the writers Have read the books but if they just browsed the Wikipedia page. 

Furthermore, wasn't the show supposed to Have a book expert paid exactly to avoid inconsistencies and/or plotholes?

[notpropaganda73]

1 hour ago, fra85uk said:

Wait a moment, i think that when you see something like LTT called the Dragon reborn you don't just question if the writers Have read the books but if they just browsed the Wikipedia page. 

Furthermore, wasn't the show supposed to Have a book expert paid exactly to avoid inconsistencies and/or plotholes?

 

Honestly, a detail like that doesn't bother me at all. It's something that should be caught by someone like Sarah, sure, and maybe it was, we've no idea. But I don't think the entire scene and set up falls apart because they called him The Dragon Reborn, I think the scene doesn't work for a multitude of other problems with the setup of the scene (which is a writing criticism). 

 

Do you really think it's a good idea to have every writer in the room to be book readers? There'd be zero diversity of thought when creating the adaptation. 

 

I'm not defending the writing in the show, I just think this is a really stupid criticism of the writers. By this standard, top quality screen writers would be rejected for not having read the books? I doubt Craig Mazin has read WoT, but I would love for him to be involved (writer of Chernobyl, currently adapting The Last of Us for HBO). 

 

1 hour ago, Gothic Flame said:

Considering the utter lack of consistency that doesn't sound better to me...just the opposite.

 

Sorry, I don't follow. I was saying that the sceen writers' not being book readers doesn't impact the quality of the writing, so I don't understand your response, sorry.