How did the show hold up for you?

[divica]

3 hours ago, Gothic Flame said:

If I recall, Rafe & Co. (i.e. Amazon) had this slotted/scheduled in a spot with little competition. It had this timeframe to play "flavor of the month" to win over an audience...and keep them. Word of mouth is the best advertising because that pulls in new viewers in a competitive timeslot. (That's where the work gets the big payoff I believe. Imagine if it knocked the much touted "Mandalorian" down a couple of notches)

The upshot is that I don't believe it's been successful at all in any of the above except to show how fast it lost viewers.

That is also my opinion. 

The initial numbers were great and as the series didn't live up to the books it started losing viewership.

And then the witcher happened and it brought some weird desperation to make people think wot is as good as the witcher...

 

The problem is that I don't even think that the target audience of the witcher and wot is the same. The witcher is clearly a show for a mature audience while wot is a cw show with great visuals...

[Truthteller]

1 hour ago, EmreY said:

 

Verily, I have.  266 responses so far.  99 like or love; 131 dislike or loathe.  

 

This is supposed to mean something?

I’ve been trying to avoid getting drawn into this, but those poll results are a damning indictment.  This is a primed audience of people who desperately want to love the series.  That more than 50 percent of the people most inclined to like the series actively dislike it is incredible.  

[ilovezam]

On 1/4/2022 at 1:36 AM, EmreY said:

On 1/3/2022 at 11:34 PM, Dew21 said:

whatever agenda they are trying to promote.

 

Do you mean maximising earnings from across as many different markets as possible?

I never really understood this take. Every female book reader YouTuber I follow loved Rand as a character and hated the show, and every male reader of Mistborn that I know of adores Vin. The idea that you could increase the overall appeal by downplaying important characters of a specific gender just doesn't ring true to me.

Edited January 4, 2022 by ilovezam

[EmreY]

10 minutes ago, ilovezam said:

I never really understood this take. Every female book reader YouTuber I follow loved Rand as a character and hated the show, and every male reader of Mistborn adores Vin. The idea that you could increase the overall appeal by downplaying important characters of a specific gender just doesn't ring through to me.

 

Ah, sorry, I should have been clearer.  Gender politics plays differently in different countries; readers of fantasy in even the most mysogynistic countries on earth might perhaps view things differently, as they're not that interested in the very specific conversation that most people here seem to be having regarding Rafe's "wokeness", perceived or actual, good or bad.

 

Amazon will presumably be dubbing this show in every country it streams in - which it claims is pretty much worldwide (unlike the books).  The reactions to perceived or actual biases will naturally be different, and may surprise us.

Edited January 4, 2022 by EmreY

[EmreY]

33 minutes ago, Truthteller said:

I’ve been trying to avoid getting drawn into this, but those poll results are a damning indictment.  This is a primed audience of people who desperately want to love the series.  That more than 50 percent of the people most inclined to like the series actively dislike it is incredible.  

 

In a forum dedicated, say, to lovers of Coke, I think you will inevitably find more people upset with any new flavour, so I disagree. ? 

Edited January 4, 2022 by EmreY

[Elder_Haman]

40 minutes ago, Truthteller said:

I’ve been trying to avoid getting drawn into this, but those poll results are a damning indictment.  This is a primed audience of people who desperately want to love the series.  That more than 50 percent of the people most inclined to like the series actively dislike it is incredible.  

Not really. Any page-to-screen adaptation is going to cause division among the most rabid fans of the source material. I would expect the reaction of hard core book fans to track (roughly) as an inverted bell curve with strong reactions at the edges. Which the data seems to bear out.

Edited January 4, 2022 by Elder_Haman

[EchoSnowman]

13 minutes ago, EmreY said:

 

In a forum dedicated, say, to lovers of Coke, I think you will inevitably find more people upset with any new flavour, so I disagree. ? 

COKE makes new flavors but NEVER changes COKE Classic.. a writer's whole creation should not have cherry flavoring added because some I.D10.T thinks he knows better...<cough, Rafe, cough> LOL 

[Elder_Haman]

4 minutes ago, EchoSnowman said:

COKE makes new flavors but NEVER changes COKE Classic

Um, but they did tho. They had to reintroduce Coke Classic.

[EchoSnowman]

7 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

Um, but they did tho. They had to reintroduce Coke Classic.

That's so funny. ... I removed "Except that one time..it nearly broke them" from my original post because i wasn't sure if I was remembering that right! ? thanks for keeping me on my toes... lol

 

Also, this kinda makes my point.....changes to the original is a crap idea. Look at Coke. ?

Edited January 4, 2022 by EchoSnowman

[EmreY]

How often do people drink Coke versus re-read WoT?

 

But seriously, "Classic" Coke is different in different countries, mainly due to different types of sugar as well as different sweetness levels.

 

Which kinda proves my point. ? 

[Deviations]

21 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

Um, but they did tho. They had to reintroduce Coke Classic.

Proves the point.  They thought they needed a change to box out the sweeter Pepsi product.  Turns out people don't always like change so much. (that and your body really likes the specific caffeine vehicle it's addicted to). 

[Elder_Haman]

1 minute ago, Deviations said:

Proves the point. 

I mean, to an extent. But the applicability of the analogy is extremely limited.

[EmreY]

2 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

I mean, to an extent. But the applicability of the analogy is extremely limited.

 

Yes, I could have come up with a better one to begin with.  

[RextheDog]

1 hour ago, Truthteller said:

I’ve been trying to avoid getting drawn into this, but those poll results are a damning indictment.  This is a primed audience of people who desperately want to love the series.  That more than 50 percent of the people most inclined to like the series actively dislike it is incredible.  

 

 

not really, lets be honest here, we are also more likely to be hyper critical at any small inconsistency.

[Gothic Flame]

56 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

Um, but they did tho. They had to reintroduce Coke Classic.

Oh my yes...quite a drop off in stock value.

[Cauthonfan4]

So For the most part I really did not like this series for quite a few reasons.

 

lets start with the whole "the dragon can be either a man or a woman".

if the Dragon is a female there is no

Threat of the Dragon going Mad and Destroying the world.

Tension between the Dragon and the White Tower.

the Dragon being untrained and struggling.

 

Then lets talk about them basically making the men all but incompetent and unlikeable.

Not only did they basically just make Rand completely bland, but Perrin spends half the season being mopey.

Then they take Mat and basically make him all dark and brooding, and then him not traveling the ways and beyond.

Not to mention what they did to one of the Jagad.

And then ofcourse they literally steal Rands thunder of him wiping out the trolloc horde and give it to the women. Seems like any time a man got a chance to have the spotlight they literally threw it away.

meanwhile Nynaeve and Egwene pretty much become the walking personification of awesomeness.

 

On top of that we have the Romances developing way too fast and feeling very forced to the front.

 

Don't even get me started with the Dragons cold open where Lews is talking about his plan where the woman says "if you do this the dark one will taint the power, you'll go crazy, the world will be wrecked, and men will be hunted". there was absolutely no way she could have known that. They literally just make Lews look incompetent to be incompetent.

 

Lets also talk about the inconsistency with the magic of the show.

Moiraine has to literally tear down a building to fight off some trollocs.

later on a group of trained Aes Sedai are hard pressed against a small army of humans.

final episode - Nynaeve, Egwene, and 3 others literally wipe out an entire trolloc army of thousands.

 

And the Cherry on top? let's talk About Siuan. no. not her and moiraines relationship (though i wasn't a fan of that small change). i'm talking about her 4th oath. You know, the one that Liandrin thought up and was basically one of the final straws to her coming down? And she didn't even use it? and Yet here we have Siuan using it.

 

Then there was the plethora of minor changes that just felt like change for the sake of change (Like a backwater people knowing Aes Sedai, using the power to travel through the ways instead of that being an Ogier thing).

 

And for the love of god Rafe literally knew he was doing this too. he literally said he knew he was making changes that book fans would hate, but that you'll always have stuff people hate. Here's my problem. if you're going to make something to cater to a group, shouldn't you cater to the group who asked for it in the first place?

 

Furthermore, look at Game of Thrones. the first 4 seasons or so are considered masterpieces. and what did they do? follow the source material.

Same with Harry Potter. it mostly followed the source and people loved it.

Same with LotR. mostly followed the source and people considered it great.

 

now look at stuff that sharply deviated. say the second half of GoT. or Dark Tower. Heck there are PLENTY Of examples of Fantasy deviating from the book and being awful. Did I expect a 100% copy? heck no. But we didn't get anything close to that.

 

The show wasn't a 1 out of 10 bad, but i would be hard pressed to rate it higher then a 6 on my best day.

Edited January 4, 2022 by Cauthonfan4

[Spiritweaver1]

11 hours ago, Gary Reborn said:

 

 

The end I thought was great Ishy was perfect and the book was I think originally written as this huge victory because it was supposed to be a one book series but then when RJ decided to do 3,6,9,12 books he retconned the first book as them all getting manipulated and freeing the forsaken and more of a sinister manipulation to set up the later stories rather than a decisive victory so I like that they took the later approach to that battle because they also are telling a bigger story.

 

Overall though I think the main thing I would do is just stop with the death fakeout scenes they get cheaper the more they do it and on rereading things there is a fair amount of this in the books already so there isn’t a lot of room to do more of this without it starting to get really old. I wish we got a cavalry charge but with the 6’ rule and having to change the ending I thought they did a good job with what they were able to show and I think they are setting up to have a nice battle at Falme we know the horn is coming, Seanchan and Ishamael is great so I’m excited to see where they go with it.

 

 

I don't understand this statement.  In  TEOTW Aginor and Balthamel are just escaping and have come to tap the eye's power to restore themselves.   In the books there  are multiple seals which are focal points for the real energetic seal.  Our plucky band uncover one, which is broken. hidden in the Eye once Rand drains it of it's power.  They do nothing to release any of the Forsaken who appear out of the woods.

 

"Were bound." Aginor smiled; his yellowed teeth had the look of fangs. "Some of us are bound no longer .  The seals weaken, Aes Sedai.  Like Ishamael, we walk the world again, and soon the rest of us will come.  I was too close to this world in my captivity, I and Balthamel, to close  to the grinding of the Wheel  ..."  

 

This is an example of them deviating from the book plot for no reason that I can deduce.  The whole  bit  about a sa'angreal that Moraine has that apparently either males or females can use seems to indicate their will be no saidar and saidin as in the books.  They could have just as easily had Rand use the energy in the Eye to defeat Aginor and Ishy.  If they needed to save money they could have ignored the Green Man and maybe only have Aginor and Ishy.   

Edited January 4, 2022 by Spiritweaver1
remove more of the quotation

[Skipp]

26 minutes ago, Spiritweaver1 said:

This is an example of them deviating from the book plot for no reason that I can deduce.  The whole  bit  about a sa'angreal that Moraine has that apparently either males or females can use seems to indicate their will be no saidar and saidin as in the books.  They could have just as easily had Rand use the energy in the Eye to defeat Aginor and Ishy.  If they needed to save money they could have ignored the Green Man and maybe only have Aginor and Ishy.   

 

There is not a lot of reason to assume this.  The words Saidin and Saidar have been said.  Moiraince said the Sa'angreal was made by MEN channeling their power into it.  There is not any evidence that women would be able to use it, otherwise why didn't Moiraine use it when defending the TR.

 

Edited January 4, 2022 by Skipp

[Spiritweaver1]

18 minutes ago, Skipp said:

 

There is not a lot of reason to assume this.  The words Saidin and Saidar have been said.  Moiraince said the Sa'angreal was made by MEN channeling their power into it.  There is not any evidence that women would be able to use it, otherwise why didn't Moiraine use it when defending the TR.

 

Perhaps you are correct and Moraine had another one attuned to women.  Remember, until that morning Moraine has no idea who the DR is.  If she had a female attuned one she would have brought it to the "last battle".  I have seen little evidence that there are two separate powers.  There was a golden opportunity to clearly introduce the topic when Rand asks Moraine to teach him.  We could have got the fish can't' teach birds to swim or birds can't teach fish to fly speech or some variant to make clear we are talking differences.   I don't see, if you were going to have clear gender definition of the one power, why you would wait until season 2 to mention it.  It is pretty foundational.  I confess little of what I see makes much sense to my confused wits.

[Raal Gurniss]

1 hour ago, RextheDog said:

 

 

not really, lets be honest here, we are also more likely to be hyper critical at any small inconsistency.

In this instance it’s not such a small inconsistency.

[Skipp]

10 minutes ago, Spiritweaver1 said:

Perhaps you are correct and Moraine had another one attuned to women.  Remember, until that morning Moraine has no idea who the DR is.  If she had a female attuned one she would have brought it to the "last battle".  I have seen little evidence that there are two separate powers.  There was a golden opportunity to clearly introduce the topic when Rand asks Moraine to teach him.  We could have got the fish can't' teach birds to swim or birds can't teach fish to fly speech or some variant to make clear we are talking differences.   I don't see, if you were going to have clear gender definition of the one power, why you would wait until season 2 to mention it.  It is pretty foundational.  I confess little of what I see makes much sense to my confused wits.

While Moiraine could have had a second Sa'angreal I believe her plan was to link with the Dragon had they turned out to be female.

 

While I agree that moment would have been a great time to add that line, and the show had already missed several similar opportunities, I think we will get more of the differences in power as both our female and male leads start to learn to channel.

[Raal Gurniss]

1 hour ago, Cauthonfan4 said:

So For the most part I really did not like this series for quite a few reasons.

 

lets start with the whole "the dragon can be either a man or a woman".

if the Dragon is a female there is no

Threat of the Dragon going Mad and Destroying the world.

Tension between the Dragon and the White Tower.

the Dragon being untrained and struggling.

 

Then lets talk about them basically making the men all but incompetent and unlikeable.

Not only did they basically just make Rand completely bland, but Perrin spends half the season being mopey.

Then they take Mat and basically make him all dark and brooding, and then him not traveling the ways and beyond.

Not to mention what they did to one of the Jagad.

And then ofcourse they literally steal Rands thunder of him wiping out the trolloc horde and give it to the women. Seems like any time a man got a chance to have the spotlight they literally threw it away.

meanwhile Nynaeve and Egwene pretty much become the walking personification of awesomeness.

 

On top of that we have the Romances developing way too fast and feeling very forced to the front.

 

Don't even get me started with the Dragons cold open where Lews is talking about his plan where the woman says "if you do this the dark one will taint the power, you'll go crazy, the world will be wrecked, and men will be hunted". there was absolutely no way she could have known that. They literally just make Lews look incompetent to be incompetent.

 

Lets also talk about the inconsistency with the magic of the show.

Moiraine has to literally tear down a building to fight off some trollocs.

later on a group of trained Aes Sedai are hard pressed against a small army of humans.

final episode - Nynaeve, Egwene, and 3 others literally wipe out an entire trolloc army of thousands.

 

And the Cherry on top? let's talk About Siuan. no. not her and moiraines relationship (though i wasn't a fan of that small change). i'm talking about her 4th oath. You know, the one that Liandrin thought up and was basically one of the final straws to her coming down? And she didn't even use it? and Yet here we have Siuan using it.

 

Then there was the plethora of minor changes that just felt like change for the sake of change (Like a backwater people knowing Aes Sedai, using the power to travel through the ways instead of that being an Ogier thing).

 

And for the love of god Rafe literally knew he was doing this too. he literally said he knew he was making changes that book fans would hate, but that you'll always have stuff people hate. Here's my problem. if you're going to make something to cater to a group, shouldn't you cater to the group who asked for it in the first place?

 

Furthermore, look at Game of Thrones. the first 4 seasons or so are considered masterpieces. and what did they do? follow the source material.

Same with Harry Potter. it mostly followed the source and people loved it.

Same with LotR. mostly followed the source and people considered it great.

 

now look at stuff that sharply deviated. say the second half of GoT. or Dark Tower. Heck there are PLENTY Of examples of Fantasy deviating from the book and being awful. Did I expect a 100% copy? heck no. But we didn't get anything close to that.

 

The show wasn't a 1 out of 10 bad, but i would be hard pressed to rate it higher then a 6 on my best day.

Why would they make it for the fans of the book? We were going to watch it regardless..

 

Basically the fanbase were exploited.

[Cauthonfan4]

1 minute ago, Raal Gurniss said:

Why would they make it for the fans of the book? We were going to watch it regardless..

 

My GF and I both agree Season 2 won't be watched. Many other fans i know are also opting to not see the rest of the show.

[fra85uk]

51 minutes ago, Skipp said:

 

There is not a lot of reason to assume this.  The words Saidin and Saidar have been said.  Moiraince said the Sa'angreal was made by MEN channeling their power into it.  There is not any evidence that women would be able to use it, otherwise why didn't Moiraine use it when defending the TR.

 

The words Saidin and Saidar have been said in extra and after one season the gendered nature of magic has not been addressed in-show, with the position assumed by the showrunners being really coward and foggy.

They are just trying to get away by not touching the subject because let's face the truth...the honest options would be:

1) hey, in this fictional world magic and souls are gendered, that's how it works. End.

2) try to "modernize"  everything in a convincing way. Which I would not be against if done with the same level of thought that RJ put in his system...but this is extremely difficult to do.

But, if done correctly, would not be cool for example to have the leader of the Red Ajah be a trans woman who hunts down saidin users (generally men) because she knows what does it mean touching saidin?

 

However, while option 1 would be easier, both options are risky:

1) imagine saying to the twitter brigade "ehm look in this world not only souls and magic are gendered  but...yes yes there is a gender-neutral form of power of course, ehm it's just that ehm it comes from the devil itself...but look there are  trans characters, it's only that putting a male soul in a female body is again something done by the devil" ----> petitions on twitter to boycott the show 

2) officially degendering the magic and soul system of WoT means A LOT OF WORK and talent to recalibrate everything...you'd better want to create your own fantasy series than trying to "fix" WoT on that.

 

So the genius Rafe has come up with the gamechanging solution of the dust under the carpet:

Put some 2 mins clip on saidin/saidar in an extra but then nonchalantly act as that distinction does not exist in the main show. 

 

 

[WoTwasThat]

2 hours ago, Cauthonfan4 said:

So For the most part I really did not like this series for quite a few reasons.

 

lets start with the whole "the dragon can be either a man or a woman".

if the Dragon is a female there is no

Threat of the Dragon going Mad and Destroying the world.

Tension between the Dragon and the White Tower.

the Dragon being untrained and struggling.

 

Then lets talk about them basically making the men all but incompetent and unlikeable.

Not only did they basically just make Rand completely bland, but Perrin spends half the season being mopey.

Then they take Mat and basically make him all dark and brooding, and then him not traveling the ways and beyond.

Not to mention what they did to one of the Jagad.

And then ofcourse they literally steal Rands thunder of him wiping out the trolloc horde and give it to the women. Seems like any time a man got a chance to have the spotlight they literally threw it away.

meanwhile Nynaeve and Egwene pretty much become the walking personification of awesomeness.

 

On top of that we have the Romances developing way too fast and feeling very forced to the front.

 

Don't even get me started with the Dragons cold open where Lews is talking about his plan where the woman says "if you do this the dark one will taint the power, you'll go crazy, the world will be wrecked, and men will be hunted". there was absolutely no way she could have known that. They literally just make Lews look incompetent to be incompetent.

 

Lets also talk about the inconsistency with the magic of the show.

Moiraine has to literally tear down a building to fight off some trollocs.

later on a group of trained Aes Sedai are hard pressed against a small army of humans.

final episode - Nynaeve, Egwene, and 3 others literally wipe out an entire trolloc army of thousands.

 

And the Cherry on top? let's talk About Siuan. no. not her and moiraines relationship (though i wasn't a fan of that small change). i'm talking about her 4th oath. You know, the one that Liandrin thought up and was basically one of the final straws to her coming down? And she didn't even use it? and Yet here we have Siuan using it.

 

Then there was the plethora of minor changes that just felt like change for the sake of change (Like a backwater people knowing Aes Sedai, using the power to travel through the ways instead of that being an Ogier thing).

 

And for the love of god Rafe literally knew he was doing this too. he literally said he knew he was making changes that book fans would hate, but that you'll always have stuff people hate. Here's my problem. if you're going to make something to cater to a group, shouldn't you cater to the group who asked for it in the first place?

 

Furthermore, look at Game of Thrones. the first 4 seasons or so are considered masterpieces. and what did they do? follow the source material.

Same with Harry Potter. it mostly followed the source and people loved it.

Same with LotR. mostly followed the source and people considered it great.

 

now look at stuff that sharply deviated. say the second half of GoT. or Dark Tower. Heck there are PLENTY Of examples of Fantasy deviating from the book and being awful. Did I expect a 100% copy? heck no. But we didn't get anything close to that.

 

The show wasn't a 1 out of 10 bad, but i would be hard pressed to rate it higher then a 6 on my best day.

I share your disappointment with all The Big Changes. But remember, these are explained by: #BecauseCovid #OnlyHad8Hours #BarneyJumpedShip

 

Hope that helps. :)