Mat In Season 1

[Deviations]

15 minutes ago, WhiteVeils said:

Daniel Henney is Korean.  Having a designated mourner, just like this, is an accepted practice in historic Korean culture. 

What the hell does that have to do with the Wheel of Time?  Bury them and give them the last embrace of the mother.  Done.    This isn't a story about Korea.  It isn't a story about now.

 

Why not add these guys to the mix too...

 

 

Even if you go down that road, show me a military burial where anything remotely like this happens.  Stand at attention, dump the body overboard.  NO EMOTION.

 

 

[WhiteVeils]

I explained why they chose to have Warder culture have this kind of funeral. To make the actor for Lan not seem like a robot as he goes into his love story with Nynaeve, but show that he has emotions, even if he does not show them.   I suspect they also chose it in collaboration with the actor based on his own cultural roots, but I don't know for sure. I do know Henney drew on that background for his performance in the scene.

BTW: Designated mourners are part of historically military cultures. Just not Western ones.

This isn't a story about Korea, or the west. It's a story about the Wheel of Time. With plenty of Asian influences in it, as it always had, and no depicted warden funerals that we've seen to know /what/ they do at them. So the show writers could choose to do what they felt fit best with the world from their POV.  There's nothing that contradicts it.

[Deviations]

11 minutes ago, WhiteVeils said:

So the show writers could choose to do what they felt fit best with the world from their POV.  There's nothing that contradicts it.

I read a quote from Jordan where he stated something very close to 'if people want to change this story, they should go write their own'.

 

Why even bother using the WOT as a base?  It's apparently too problematic.  An outdated take on feminism, outdated takes on family structures, out of fashion characters, too many characters and locations for a TV series budget, slow story arcs, a difficult magic system, too many moments of internal dialog, etc.   

[Cauthonfan4]

19 minutes ago, WhiteVeils said:

To make the actor for Lan not seem like a robot as he goes into his love story with Nynaeve, but show that he has emotions, even if he does not show them

Man if only there was a way to make Lan not seem like a robot without adding stuff that didn't happen. You know, like having Lan take an interest in training the boys with weapons and stuff like that. Man wouldn't that have been great. Character development for all the men AND sticking to the source too. But I'm sure rafe knows better then Robert Jordan.

 

19 minutes ago, WhiteVeils said:

So the show writers could choose to do what they felt fit best with the world from their POV.

Maybe the writers should stop doing what they feel is best and stick the source material. 

 

If youre going to call yourself wheel of time don't just change the source material just because you can. Otherwise you're not wheel of time.

Edited February 4, 2022 by Cauthonfan4

[Deviations]

16 minutes ago, WhiteVeils said:

There's nothing that contradicts it

As we've endlessly seen, they don't stick to source material anyhow.  Source material has not stopped them from doing anything to this point so you can't say because source material doesn't proscribe it that its 'allowed'.

[Cauthonfan4]

20 minutes ago, WhiteVeils said:

  There's nothing that contradicts it

Theres plenty of source material that shows mat was anything but the character who suffered the most from his darkness. How much has tgat worked towards keeping them from turning mat into the darkest character?

 

 

[Deviations]

19 minutes ago, WhiteVeils said:

To make the actor for Lan not seem like a robot as he goes into his love story with Nynaeve, but show that he has emotions, even if he does not show them.

They are also losing part of what made this story interesting.  What guy would be crazy enough to be with Nynaeve?  What in the world would make a passionate woman fall in love with stone face?

 

As Cauthonfan pointed out, there were moments in the books that did very well in letting us know Lan had a heart.  They chose to ignore them.

[WhiteVeils]

Then think about those moments and think about why they may have made that choice. Was it too hard to depict on screen? Too subtle? Too dependent on the thoughts of the person approaching the scenario? Would it take too many minutes of screentime to do without doing enough other beats at the same time?  Would it draw in the audience less?

[WhiteVeils]

Tweet just from today from someone who's not at all involved in the WOT community or anything...just watching the show...

 

[Cauthonfan4]

3 minutes ago, WhiteVeils said:

Tweet just from today from someone who's not at all involved in the WOT community or anything...just watching the show..

And yet that episode was one of the worst reviewed of the season. So congrats changes like this tugged at a few heart strings.

 

It also led to some of the worst episodes of the season (5 through 8), spent a lot of time developing a character who we killed off (and reduced core cast development), detailed the main plot of rhe season, and pushed away other people.

 

How many people would have loved to seen more time put into developing our main cast? How many people would have loved to see the magic system thoroughly explained? How many people would have loved to see actual cultures in the world?

 

 

[WhiteVeils]

6 minutes ago, Cauthonfan4 said:

How many people would have loved to seen more time put into developing our main cast? How many people would have loved to see the magic system thoroughly explained? How many people would have loved to see actual cultures in the world?

I, for my part, would have loved to see more time put into developing the main cast.  I did think episode was all about explaining a certain aspect of the magic system, but, for me personally, that aspect of the magic system (actually, very little of the Aes Sedai stuff) is my cuppa tea, so I could have done away with it.  As to cultures, well, this is the culture they were in, so it was interesting to see this aspect of it.

The writers didn't necessarily make the choices I would have 100% picked for myself.  But that doesn't mean I can't appreciate it for what it is, understand why they did it, and see the effect of their choices on audiences that are not me.  Their choices may not have been 100% perfect, either, to be honest....there can be flaws and mis-steps. But I can appreciate /why/ they made the choices they did, and how well the actors, etc, performed in those choices, and I can look forward to seeing how those choices play out further down the line. The show wasn't written just for me, after all.

[JeffTheWoodlandElf]

This discussion on r/television provides a pretty accurate look at the response to the show on a wider level. Niche community sites like Dragonmount and r/WoT or r/wotshow present an image that the show's approval rating is way higher than it actually is. As soon as the discussion gets farther out into the public, the response skews overwhelmingly negative. 

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/television/comments/sjx84r/amazons_the_wheel_of_time_was_the_biggest_new/

 

[Cauthonfan4]

1 minute ago, WhiteVeils said:

But that doesn't mean I can't appreciate it for what it is, understand why they did it, and see the effect of their choices on audiences that are not me

You mean like the 7.2 audience score at best?  Yeah. Their choices are obviously working well.

[Skipp]

5 minutes ago, JeffTheWoodlandElf said:

This discussion on r/television provides a pretty accurate look at the response to the show on a wider level. Niche community sites like Dragonmount and r/WoT or r/wotshow present an image that the show's approval rating is way higher than it actually is. As soon as the discussion gets farther out into the public, the response skews overwhelmingly negative. 

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/television/comments/sjx84r/amazons_the_wheel_of_time_was_the_biggest_new/

 

It not possible that places like reddit also bring out the most negative in people either?

 

5 minutes ago, Cauthonfan4 said:

You mean like the 7.2 audience score at best?  Yeah. Their choices are obviously working well.

Why do you keep bringing this up as if it means something terrible.  The show was good but needs improvement, I think a 7.2 fits well enough ever though I personally rate it higher.

[VooDooNut]

Does anyone else feel like the conversation keeps going in circles with "This metric says this." ... "No, this metric says this!"

 

Think for yourselves, people. Do you like the show based on your own opinions? Great.

 

If you don't like the show, maybe stop watching and participating in show-related discussion? (A suggestion.) I doubt the show will get better for you from here.

 

Back to topic...Mat's actor swap must have really screwed up plans for the final episodes of the show, but I expect Rafe&Co. has a strategy to get Mat back on track starting with season 2. WAFO.

[Skipp]

3 minutes ago, VooDooNut said:

Back to topic...Mat's actor swap must have really screwed up plans for the final episodes of the show, but I expect Rafe&Co. has a strategy to get Mat back on track starting with season 2. WAFO.

 

It will be interesting to see how they proceed with it.  I have seen it bounced around that Mat was suppose to be the one to confront Fain in episode 8.  If that is the case what was Perrin originally meant to do?  People have speculated that he would have been the one to guide Lan to Moiraine but aside from his wolfbrotherness I don't really see anything that would have pointed to it.

 

As for Mat I agree with Daniel Greene in his recent video.  I think he will have tried to infiltrate the tower to recover the dagger.  The Aes Sedai, possibly the Red Ajah will capture him and after poking/proding him they find he can't channel and maybe we get the bigger healing scene for the character.  From there he could easily step into his book 3 storyline.

[Cauthonfan4]

12 minutes ago, Skipp said:

Why do you keep bringing this up as if it means something terrible

Because the show was literally billed as the next game of thrones. And yet has rhe same rating as Shannara chronicles.

 

13 minutes ago, VooDooNut said:

you don't like the show, maybe stop watching and participating in show-related discussion? (A suggestion.) I doubt the show will get better for you from here

So we shouldn't fight for a better show? Sorry you are okay accepting mediocrity.

[Spiritweaver1]

15 minutes ago, Skipp said:

 

It will be interesting to see how they proceed with it.  I have seen it bounced around that Mat was suppose to be the one to confront Fain in episode 8.  If that is the case what was Perrin originally meant to do?  People have speculated that he would have been the one to guide Lan to Moiraine but aside from his wolfbrotherness I don't really see anything that would have pointed to it.

 

As for Mat I agree with Daniel Greene in his recent video.  I think he will have tried to infiltrate the tower to recover the dagger.  The Aes Sedai, possibly the Red Ajah will capture him and after poking/proding him they find he can't channel and maybe we get the bigger healing scene for the character.  From there he could easily step into his book 3 storyline.

How can they heal him when he doesn't have the dagger, Fain has it already.  In the books as you well know they have to get the dagger back so that they can do the whole healing.  Of course in the show they can do whatever which makes it useless to try and predict based on book knowledge. 

[Skipp]

8 minutes ago, Cauthonfan4 said:

Because the show was literally billed as the next game of thrones. And yet has rhe same rating as Shannara chronicles.

 

So we shouldn't fight for a better show? Sorry you are okay accepting mediocrity.

It wasn't billed as the next GoT. Amazon certainly wants it to be the next GoT but I don't believe anything in the marketing material billed it as such.  And let us not pretend that GoT didn't have circumstances for it's release that won't ever be replicated.  GoT was the first big budget fantasy(but not too fantasy) show produced, there was nothing else like it on TV at the time.  It essentially paved the way for BIG budget television.  It also heavily pushed it's "shock" value to the max, "Hey check out this new show, it was gore and r@pe and incest and tits!"

 

While I enjoyed season 1 well enough My wife and I never got past season 4 or 5,  Season 1 was fun but also had some laughably bad dialogue and choreography.  But those things improved as the show went on and I think WoT's issue will be ironed out as well.

 

You are not fighting for anything.  You are screaming into the void that the show sucks and can't be improved. 

 

While no one that I have watched the show with or whom I have read/watched their content are perfectly happy with the show as it is now.  While some are more optimistic than others everyone thinks it needs improvements in some areas if not overhauls in others.  But everyone has their own opinion as to where these need to take effect.

 

We know that certain people were selected to take an after series survey about the show so we know they are interested in feedback.  But we also know that season 2 was halfway through filming before season 1 aired so that feedback can only be used in the editing room and for season 3.

[Cauthonfan4]

5 minutes ago, Skipp said:

You are screaming into the void that the show sucks and can't be improved.

The show absolutely can be improved. I just don't think rafe can pull it off. I've seen what his writing and ideas do to great material. 

 

6 minutes ago, Skipp said:

But we also know that season 2 was halfway through filming before season 1 aired so that feedback can only be used in the editing room and for season 3.

If it even manages to get a season 3. Season 1 ended badly and without changes I dont think season 2 will drive enough interest to keep it going.

[Skipp]

12 minutes ago, Spiritweaver1 said:

How can they heal him when he doesn't have the dagger, Fain has it already.  In the books as you well know they have to get the dagger back so that they can do the whole healing.  Of course in the show they can do whatever which makes it useless to try and predict based on book knowledge. 

A detail that I don't think will matter.  While it is a change from the book it never comes up again so et us say that a full circle can heal him without the dagger.  Does this change anything down the road?

 

We know they want Mat to move onto his book 3 storyline so there is no need for him to be chasing Fain for the dagger.

 

Someone else mentioned that it would be interesting that if when the Red Ajah captured Mat they couldn't get any good information out of him because the show will introduce the holes in his memory.

[WhiteVeils]

I can give my hopes, though I obviously don't know what they'll do.

• I think Liandrin gave Fain the dagger...Fain is the man from North Harbor Moiraine mentioned earlier.
• I think Fain interacted with Mat before Fain entered the ways in a way that got him 're-daggerified' but without the dagger. 
  • If Mat senses the dagger, he'd know that it was not in Tar Valon so he couldn't steal it from there
  • If Mat doesn't sense the dagger, how on earth would he be able to think he can steal it from the White Tower?
• I think Mat went to Tar Valon because he is hurt/stabbed, or simply because it was the closest place to get to and he's too sick to get any further.
• He gets picked up by the Red Ajah while trying to get enough $$ to get back to Two Rivers.
• They hurt him enough (probably by trying to force him to channel so they can gentle him, but possibly by questioning him about Moiraine) that he gets the lifelong fear of Aes Sedai and channeling he gets in the books.
• He gets rescued (preferred rescuer, Elayne), and EITHER
  • Gets fully healed (because the dagger isn't needed)
  • OR, to me more likely, gets partially healed, but partially healed in a way that it doesn't take the full White Tower and the dagger to heal him.
  • This second option would mean, for example, they manage to root all the evil out of him but have to 'encapsulate' it inside him since there is no dagger to put the evil into.  One Aes Sedai could get that capsule out if he gets the dagger in time, but if he fails, he will die.
  • If they do this healing now, he can be happy fun Mat for season 2, but has the ticking timebomb of needing the dagger that you get in The Great Hunt.
• The healing has after effects. He gets a changed face (new actor) though they won't play up that. And he has a bunch of his memories taken, and he's spouting off in the Old Tongue.  These are not all explained, but sort of form around the idea that he was so transformed by fighting the dagger that these are mental and physical scars (and coping techniques.)
• Egwene and Nynaeve show up at the tower, either before the healing or after (I prefer before). 
• EITHER:
  • Mat is stuck as a prisoner of the tower until Egwene and Nynaeve are kidnppped and has to break out to go after them.
  • OR Mat is sent to Fal Dara to join Perrin to go look for the dagger so he doesn't die.

That's how I'd do it anyway.

[JeffTheWoodlandElf]

1 hour ago, Skipp said:

It not possible that places like reddit also bring out the most negative in people either?

See, this is a mindset that I've seen from lots of show-lovers. Almost like you think there's nowhere on the internet where people just watch a show and react positively to it en mass. A negative response to WoTtv was not inevitable. It was not always going to happen. The only reason it happened was that the show isn't very good, even on its own merits. 

 

Take this thread (also from today) about Euphoria and note how different the discussion is. It was posted on the same subreddit, and yet people seem to have no problem being positive about the show. How is this possible if reddit (or the internet at large) is a place which just brings out the most negative people? 

https://www.reddit.com/r/television/comments/skif09/euphoria_renewed_for_season_3_at_hbo/

Also see: Any thread about Arcane. 

Or this thread about Yellowstone. 

https://www.reddit.com/r/television/comments/sjmqje/yellowstone_renewed_for_season_5_at_paramount/

 

The truth is that there are just as many people on the internet who are eager to throw praise at literally anything as there are people who show up just to hate. The scales are tipped by the normal people, a demographic that WoTtv did a less than stellar job at appealing to. Ironic, considering that that's the demographic that Amazon kicked us fans to the dust in favor for. 

[WhiteVeils]

What's a normal person?

[JeffTheWoodlandElf]

27 minutes ago, Cauthonfan4 said:

If it even manages to get a season 3. Season 1 ended badly and without changes I dont think season 2 will drive enough interest to keep it going.

WoT is down to 49 on imdb's TV popularity rankings. Witcher is still at 13. GoT is at 14. Breaking Bad is 24. Expanse is 27. How low will it sink in the next year before Season 2? Meanwhile, decade old shows are outpacing it left and right. 

 

This show is not sticking with people. People are watching it and totally forgetting that it exists. That "if" in "if it gets a season 3" is becoming larger and larger by the day. 

 

https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?title_type=tv_series