How did the show hold up for non-fans watching with you?

[Windigo]

I have heard from a couple co-workers who have never watched the book, 

First- Spouse is more of a fantasy fan but neither have read the books, both love it. 
Second - Not a reader at all, liked GoT thinks so far WoT is more fun and better since they can watch with whole family who all are enjoying it. 
Third - Was skeptical as not a big fan of GoT (too much politics and soft porn)  or LoTR, but got hooked on it right away likes it is fantasy with real magic and action, but especially that it is without elves. (Specifically asked if elves or dwarfs show up later, as that would be a deal breaker) Will see next week how Loial worked out. 

[Ajaxx]

 Book reading friend and I organized watch parties like we all did with GOT for a large group of friends. At this point it has just devolved into heckling and a drinking game involving candles and crying. No one seems to understand what is happening, or rather WHY anything is happening and no one really cares who the Dragon is at this point. Laughing at cheesy scenes like the barmaid chasing the boys through town is the most fun people seem to be having. 

[DaddyFinn]

Dang, my oldest brother didn't like the show and his concubine(=GF?) couldn't even start because "there's a guy with red hair I can't stand redhairs".

 

My GF's sister is loving the show. She wants to know everything about the world and story and regrets that she started watching middle season because she has to wait for the episodes. ?

[Terry05]

3 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

Dang, my oldest brother didn't like the show and his concubine(=GF?) couldn't even start because "there's a guy with red hair I can't stand redhairs".

 

My GF's sister is loving the show. She wants to know everything about the world and story and regrets that she started watching middle season because she has to wait for the episodes. ?

Damn! That is a strange reason for not wanting to give a TV show a go ?

[DaddyFinn]

1 minute ago, Terry05 said:

Damn! That is a strange reason for not wanting to give a TV show a go ?

Sad but true. 

[Mrs. Yojimbo]

I have not read the books and have watched all the eps with my beloved @Yojimbo. I... have not been impressed. I feel like the show runners have done a poor job of fleshing out the characters: they've broadcast in general who everyone is, but the characters are not showing us who they are in any meaningful way, and so I remain detached from them. I don't blame the actors so much as the director and screenwriter, who seem to have made a choice to tell and not show.

 

They've also done a terrible job IMO of defining the major conflict of the story: the nature of the Source and its two halves, the breaking of the world by the dragon, how the world changed after that event, and what the danger is now with the threat of a new dragon. I can only articulate that conflict because of clarifications @Yojimbo gave me as we watched, and because I finally broke down and started reading the first book in the series, which began with an exciting prologue that set the stage for the coming story. The TV show would have benefitted from opening in a similar manner. (And LOTR effectively used this strategy in Fellowship with Galadriel's monologue/flashback introduction.) Without this clarity, there's no real sense of foreboding to lend meaning/urgency to the search for the dragon or the kids' choosing to go on this quest, leaving their loved ones and the (isolated, insulated) world and everything they've ever known behind (with apparently nary a thought or any wonderment at the larger world they encounter).

[Mrs. Yojimbo]

Having said all that, between intuiting missing bits and Yojimbo explaining stuff, I am finally motivated to read the books and have started the first one--and was instantly gratified to receive a prologue that sets the stage and introduces the evil force that drives the plot.

[king of nowhere]

another one of my friend watched it, and said it was very good

[bobert]

My wife read a few of the books and didn't like them. I have been surprised by how much she's enjoying the show. On the first viewing of episode 5 I was disappointed, but she defended it, pointing out how good all the scenes where with Moiraine and the other Aes-sedai were. I think the changes have been good for meeting today's audience. I also think the show might be more appealing to women then other fantasy stories. I think it's a hidden and underappreciated strength of the show.

[Guest Testeria]

We watch it with my wife.

 

It is not bad but very uneven. The worst so far was the crying festival episode that almost made us stop watching.

We like it (me a little more, my wife a little less) but nowhere close to others like The Witcher or especially Expanse. I think characters in WoT do not yet make much sense for us.

[ForsakenPotato]

I've been with my parents for the holidays and they started watching with me at episode 5...it's been pretty funny because they never went back to watch eps 1-4, have no idea what happened in them, and haven't read the books. I was gone when ep 7 was released but apparently they watched anyway because my dad, on my return said "Rand?? Really? I dunno. Will he be like a real dragon? With wings?" He then insisted we watch the finale tonight as a family. Commentary included "They have orcs in this?".

 

Overall commentary I've heard from other non-reader friends has generally been positive, but also there's a bias towards that because I'm less likely to be having a convo about it with friends who watched just one episode and weren't into it. Most people I know are too busy to consistently watch and discuss something they don't care for.

[Skipp]

My wife and I got together with our best friends to watch the finale tonight.  None of them have read the books before and they were excited to see the season finish.

 

All 3 loved the episode and felt the season overall was quite good.  We spent an hour talking ,after the episode ended, discussing theories and them asking questions and me trying to not spoil them.  It was a wonderful night for me.

 

It was always in the back of my mind that I was afraid they wouldn't like the show but they are all excited for season 2 and are mad about the potential year plus wait.

[TheSmurf]

My kids.... Son would rather watch Witcher S2... He said this was pretty bland. 

 

My daughter liked parts, didn't like parts. I felt vindicated when she said they could have set up 'stuff' better haha

[ArrylT]

2 people who have watched the entire season have now told me (including my SO) that they want to at least try reading EOTW. ?

[7th age]

Fascinating how different perspectives can be.

 

My brother mostly hated it and stopped watching after ep.6  . He didnt like some of the characters, but mostly he was put off because he felt the show was permeated by a manhating agenda(the opening sequence primed him to somewhat watch out for this and as a consequence he kept seeing it this way, I mostly disagreed to no avail).

 

On the other hand my fantasy loving friend and his wife mostly loved it and were rather curious/surprised when after ep.8 I came to the conclusion that there is at least some agenda here.

[rowdie]

My wife has put up with me raving about the books and hearing me wish for a TV series.    Well, after one season, she's interested, but says she needs to rewatch them.  I'm not sure why they've chosen the path they are on?  Why deviate from the books so much.  Is it that hard to tell the story the books tell?  No point in trying to rewrite the whole story IMO.  You have a great story all written out for you....JUST TELL IT!!

[Siraci]

Long time WoT fan. 

My friends and I have been reading it since we were kids. 

 

And personally if there was a petition to cancel the show I'd pay to be on it. 

 

They've messed with way too much of the little important lore things and big time storyline concepts for me to sign off on this. There's been a few cool scenes but I just think it's a butchery of the story with none of the class or poetic/metephorical nature of Jordan. 

Just too many broken concepts that are big plot line pieces later. 

People catching on fire burning out?.. Sounds like they just read the term and added that in. 

Not to mention now 2 Main characters are burnt out first season and that healing isn't discovered till like book 11

Being forced to swear other things on the oath rod... Again.. 11th ish book and also illegal. 

 

All the extra channelling... Ways used by power

 

Tom and camlyn just poofed into smoke. 

 

I'm with all the people that say they should follow the book.  That's what people have been waiting for....the rest are just settling on a moneygrab. 

 

There are neither beginnings or endings

But this should end. 

[SharSheen Veren]

My wife loved it and our friends/neighbors down the street as well!

[SingleMort]

Just want to put this out there as a general question; do we think people are more likely to like the TV show if they haven't read the books or more likely to like it if the have read the books? Not to get off topic but I find it interesting that the Netflix live action Cowboy Bebop show launched around the same time as WoT and from what I have heard about that, on average people who had not seen the orginal series (the anime) enjoyed it far more than people who had seen the orginal. Do you think a similar situation is going on here?

[Vambram]

26 minutes ago, SingleMort said:

Just want to put this out there as a general question; do we think people are more likely to like the TV show if they haven't read the books or more likely to like it if the have read the books? Not to get off topic but I find it interesting that the Netflix live action Cowboy Bebop show launched around the same time as WoT and from what I have heard about that, on average people who had not seen the orginal series (the anime) enjoyed it far more than people who had seen the orginal. Do you think a similar situation is going on here?

 

Yes I do.

 

In fact, if the TV show does NOT have the vast majority of its fanbase be those whom are non-readers of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time, then I don't believe that the show will be a big hit. As it stands now, Amazon is very pleased at the success of the show in all of its metrics for measuring success.

[Ralph]

2 hours ago, GanoesParan said:

 

Yes I do.

 

In fact, if the TV show does NOT have the vast majority of its fanbase be those whom are non-readers of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time, then I don't believe that the show will be a big hit. As it stands now, Amazon is very pleased at the success of the show in all of its metrics for measuring success.

And Rafe has said that they never expected full-on book fans to enjoy the show and are surprised that so many have

[SingleMort]

6 hours ago, Ralph said:

And Rafe has said that they never expected full-on book fans to enjoy the show and are surprised that so many have

I guess that's one way to go if they think that will get them the most viewers and it's good that the TV series seems to have created so many new fans. Apologies if I am getting off topic here, but I kinda always thought the point of adapting an pre-existing IP is because you want to appeal to a pre-existing fanbase of that IP. If the series is not intended to appeal to the pre-existing fanbase would not creating a new IP have been a better idea? Because then the writers are not constrained by anything that has come before and if it was good then surely the same fans here who hadn't read the books would still be fans because they just enjoy what they are seeing in the show?

[TheDreadReader]

32 minutes ago, SingleMort said:

I guess that's one way to go if they think that will get them the most viewers and it's good that the TV series seems to have created so many new fans. Apologies if I am getting off topic here, but I kinda always thought the point of adapting an pre-existing IP is because you want to appeal to a pre-existing fanbase of that IP. If the series is not intended to appeal to the pre-existing fanbase would not creating a new IP have been a better idea? Because then the writers are not constrained by anything that has come before and if it was good then surely the same fans here who hadn't read the books would still be fans because they just enjoy what they are seeing in the show?

 

Realistically, they want to appeal to existing fans while at the same time (since the LOTR movies came out and all the Star Wars stuff) they know that there will always be some fans that are not going to accept any adaptation so there is no incentive to court that group of fans.  You can segment existing fans into two buckets.  The ones who will be reasonably getable and the ones who are not.  Focus on the one's you can get and you're apt to do fairly well.

 

Like a lot of things in business it boils down to the math and numbers have a way of removing  sentimentality out of a lot of decisions.   

 

The whole book purist/new-ip concept is a false either/or really.  Any adaptation will involve changes so there is no effective either/or there.  The trick is understanding the degree of changes that are needed/unneeded and what the positives and negatives are of those changes.

 

 

 

 

 

[grayavatar]

10 hours ago, SingleMort said:

Just want to put this out there as a general question; do we think people are more likely to like the TV show if they haven't read the books or more likely to like it if the have read the books? Not to get off topic but I find it interesting that the Netflix live action Cowboy Bebop show launched around the same time as WoT and from what I have heard about that, on average people who had not seen the orginal series (the anime) enjoyed it far more than people who had seen the orginal. Do you think a similar situation is going on here?

The question is would they have liked it less if it did follow the books? I feel like following the books might be a win-win situation.

[TheDreadReader]

12 hours ago, SingleMort said:

Just want to put this out there as a general question; do we think people are more likely to like the TV show if they haven't read the books or more likely to like it if the have read the books? Not to get off topic but I find it interesting that the Netflix live action Cowboy Bebop show launched around the same time as WoT and from what I have heard about that, on average people who had not seen the orginal series (the anime) enjoyed it far more than people who had seen the orginal. Do you think a similar situation is going on here?

 

One difference between the reader and non-reader is that the non-reader can go into the show without expectations and experience the show as standalone thing.   Us book readers have expectations that can really influence how we receive it.   That to me is why you see a lot of "I liked it better on a rewatch than the first time" from readers.  

 

I only watched the first episode of the Cowboy Bebop show in netflix (I have all the original episodes on both import and us domestic release dvds) but I didn't run into the expectations problem as much as I enjoyed CB far more back in the day than I do now.  So, I may be an outlier on that one.

 

Netflix has the added factor of how many shows they'll killed off quickly though.  It can be hard to become too attached to a netflix show at this point if you know that they'll likely to kill it off after the slightest stumble.