How different is too different?

[ilovezam]

19 minutes ago, notpropaganda73 said:

how do you think fans would feel if it was adapted from source material in which Vander was an all-wise flawless unbeatable-in-combat leader of the Undercity and he gets beat by some kid hyped up on Shimmer in the show? Or how he never betrayed or let anyone down in the source material, yet in the show he tries to drown his own brother Silco?!

That's an interesting hypothetical. I would say good writing goes a really long way. Changes have to be an improvement for the story you're trying to tell. The advantage Arcane has is that it grabs a bunch of lore and world-building from a game, not a novel. They had a lot of room to flesh out characters and add stuff that wouldn't be from the game, but present no contradiction to existing knowledge. I would think that if you're adapting a novel, and Vander was an entirely different person from that story than the character you end up writing, it might be best to write a new character for that role entirely, like they did with Silco.

 

I think with Vander and Viktor, the show added a lot of complexity for their arcs and characters. Even with extremely flawed and problematic characters like Silco, you get a clear picture of why they hold those views, and why they might think they are correct and justified in holding those beliefs.

 

For Lews Therin, a lot of complexity and nuance was removed from him, in service of... I don't know what. Same with Agelmar. He is not nuanced. He is an arrogant douche, and outside of maybe three seconds, he is literally 100% completely in the wrong with regards to how he treats Moiraine and his sister, and how he assessed the situation, and the actions he took. At best, Agelmar was turned from a boring good character to a boring bad character. Thematically, it hurt the themes of balance - he literally proves a Red/Black Ajah's take right! Robert Jordan's biggest theme, IMO, is that men and women often hold prejudiced views against one another and refuse to work together, to their own detriment.  We learn that those views are wrong and unfair, and they could achieve great things if they came together.

 

And of course if you're exclusively tweaking a bunch of male characters to be less virtuous, less skilled, less honorable, less competent, then there better be a damn good storytelling reason for it. Nerf the women too!

 

19 minutes ago, notpropaganda73 said:

Or if, in the source material, Mel was white? Or Vi and Ekko were in love originally, but that gets changed for the show? 

For this stuff, I'd generally say don't change it. I've mentioned this before elsewhere, but as a Chinese person, anecdotally many of my very yellow friends agree on this: if you make Shang-Chi white, it's terribly insulting; if you made Tony Stark Chinese, it would be terribly insulting to us too. We are perfectly capable of enjoying entertainment as they were conceived, thank you very much, whether it be Japanese protagonists from anime, Sung Jinwoo from manhwa, Gu Yue Fang Yuan from xianxia, Indians from Bollywood, African characters from the Rage of the Dragons, etc.

 

I think generally it seems a bad idea to make changes and decisions in service of real life ideals, and if you have to do it, it has to be not too obvious, and it has to make sense, and feel organic. Storytelling wise, there's no good justification to explain why making Vi lesbian would make her relationship "better" that doesn't alienate people who want heterosexual relationships. If they could write Vi and Cait well, they could do it with Vi and Ekko too.

 

Ian McKellen is like my favourite actor, ever, but I imagine if they restricted the casting call for Gandalf to only hire gay actors, it wouldn't have gone over so well, even if they still hired Ian McKellen. It wouldn't have felt authentic, and it must also mean that his competition for the audition effectively shrank by a good 90%. That's... not a good look, nor a good message to send.

[ArrylT]

11 hours ago, Juan Farstrider said:

Jeff Garlin trashing his own show is a different thing altogether. Brian Cox, whose stage resume and career makes him very secure in his career, calling Johnny Depp over rated should not be surprising for many reasons. But you make fair points.

Saying people are going to be people cuts equally the other way too though. If you think they are genuinely calling it as they see 'em and not hyping the show (which could be for any number of reasons), then there you go. I can't imagine anyone, let alone a writer, hearing "she has a tell" in the last episode and not cringe. 

 

I have not gotten past Ep4 yet (just too much good WoT content out there) - anyways they have not posted an Ep8 podcast yet because they were/are dealing with covid.  So I guess we'll see. ?  For this podcast I am more interested in how they discuss the adaptation process, the predictions they make about future episodes (which I can then contrast to the how the episodes play out), and give me insight into how decisions involving the show could have potentially been made.  I focus less on whether they like or dislike such changes, so honestly I could not say if I recall if they like every change or not.    I've already learned more about the process of making a television show than I had expected.  

 

I certainly would not dissuade anyone who listens to the podcast and feels that the podcast gives a positive review of the show/changes made, only that I doubted that most people would avoid giving criticism over that kind of worry.  I mean Daniel Greene was brought to the official Premiere and he still gave a 5.5 to Ep 8.  WotsUp, who is quite vocal about loving the show, still gave Ep 8 a 5 based on their grading scheme, and (imo) he relies heavily on inside sources for his off-season leak videos.   

 

[EmreY]

13 minutes ago, ilovezam said:

That's an interesting hypothetical. I would say good writing goes a really long way. Changes have to be an improvement for the story you're trying to tell. The advantage Arcane has is that it grabs a bunch of lore and world-building from a game, not a novel. They had a lot of room to flesh out characters and add stuff that wouldn't be from the game, but present no contradiction to existing knowledge. I would think that if you're adapting a novel, and Vander was an entirely different person from that story than the character you end up writing, it might be best to write a new character for that role entirely, like they did with Silco.

 

I think with Vander and Viktor, the show added a lot of complexity for their arcs and characters. Even with extremely flawed and problematic characters like Silco, you get a clear picture of why they hold those views, and why they might think they are correct and justified in holding those beliefs.

 

For Lews Therin, a lot of complexity and nuance was removed from him, in service of... I don't know what. Same with Agelmar. He is not nuanced. He is an arrogant douche, and outside of maybe three seconds, he is literally 100% completely in the wrong with regards to how he treats Moiraine and his sister, and how he assessed the situation, and the actions he took. At best, Agelmar was turned from a boring good character to a boring bad character. Thematically, it hurt the themes of balance - he literally proves a Red/Black Ajah's take right! Robert Jordan's biggest theme, IMO, is that men and women often hold prejudiced views against one another and refuse to work together, to their own detriment.  We learn that those views are wrong and unfair, and they could achieve great things if they came together.

 

And of course if you're exclusively tweaking a bunch of male characters to be less virtuous, less skilled, less honorable, less competent, then there better be a damn good storytelling reason for it. Nerf the women too!

 

For this stuff, I'd generally say don't change it. I've mentioned this before elsewhere, but as a Chinese person, anecdotally many of my very yellow friends agree on this: if you make Shang-Chi white, it's terribly insulting; if you made Tony Stark Chinese, it would be terribly insulting to us too. We are perfectly capable of enjoying entertainment as they were conceived, thank you very much, whether it be Japanese protagonists from anime, Sung Jinwoo from manhwa, Gu Yue Fang Yuan from xianxia, Indians from Bollywood, African characters from the Rage of the Dragons, etc.

 

I think generally it seems a bad idea to make changes and decisions in service of real life ideals, and if you have to do it, it has to be not too obvious, and it has to make sense, and feel organic. Storytelling wise, there's no good justification to explain why making Vi lesbian would make her relationship "better" that doesn't alienate people who want heterosexual relationships. If they could write Vi and Cait well, they could do it with Vi and Ekko too.

 

Ian McKellen is like my favourite actor, ever, but I imagine if they restricted the casting call for Gandalf to only hire gay actors, it wouldn't have gone over so well, even if they still hired Ian McKellen. It wouldn't have felt authentic, and it must also mean that his competition for the audition effectively shrank by a good 90%. That's... not a good look, nor a good message to send.

 

I think I agree, though I have hardly any idea what you're referring to. ? 

[ilovezam]

Just now, EmreY said:

I think I agree, though I have hardly any idea what you're referring to. ? 

Go watch Arcane, it's phenomenal! 

[notpropaganda73]

29 minutes ago, ilovezam said:

I think generally it seems a bad idea to make changes and decisions in service of real life ideals, and if you have to do it, it has to be not too obvious, and it has to make sense, and feel organic. Storytelling wise, there's no good justification to explain why making Vi lesbian would make her relationship "better" that doesn't alienate people who want heterosexual relationships. If they could write Vi and Cait well, they could do it with Vi and Ekko too.

 

I find this interesting because you see it so often in theatre, where race-bending or gender-bending happens which brings a different lens through which to view a character/relationship/story arc. Having the founding fathers all be POC in Hamilton has a point. Flipping these things don't need to necessarily make a story "better", but can serve to bring a different energy to a character or to make a wider point to the audience, holding up a mirror and all that. 

 

Maybe theatre is just a better medium for that sort of thing though, I dunno. There aren't too many Shakespeare diehards angry that Ruth Negga has played Hamlet because "no way would a mixed race woman be Prince of Denmark!" hahaha

 

You're right in that Arcane has an "easier" job in terms of the adaptation because they could play with the character stories a lot more than adapting from a novel. There's no doubt the writers of S1 are supremely talented though, I'd guess they would have done a great job with WoT as well. 

[Truthteller]

I would add that one of the differences between notpropaganda73’s view and mine, as it relates to the view of the whole as I see the “story” driven changes and the “agenda” driven changes as linked.  
 

The mystery of the DR is an important story element because they wanted the DR to be inclusive, at least in theory.  This desire for inclusivity then drives the story changes. 
 

Same thing with Ta’varen, the ensemble cast idea, or dividing up the big moments, the opening monologue, etc. None of these decisions are driven by the intrinsic needs of the story, they are driven by externalities, which makes combining them into a good story more difficult (even impossible).  
 

It was always going to be difficult to do a good adaptation of a story this long with this many elements, but they made it so much harder in themselves with these decisions. So I don’t see it as a problem if execution, good execution was never on the table, because the story was never the priority.  

The biggest challenge was always going to be how do you turn 14 books into 8 seasons, and yet somehow after one season we are only one book into the series, so with all the changes they haven’t even begun to cut.  
 

And it makes me sad, not simply because it means the series will never happen, but because the books are being tarnished/replaced in the process.  

[Truthteller]

2 minutes ago, notpropaganda73 said:

 

I find this interesting because you see it so often in theatre, where race-bending or gender-bending happens which brings a different lens through which to view a character/relationship/story arc. Having the founding fathers all be POC in Hamilton has a point. Flipping these things don't need to necessarily make a story "better", but can serve to bring a different energy to a character or to make a wider point to the audience, holding up a mirror and all that. 

 

Maybe theatre is just a better medium for that sort of thing though, I dunno. There aren't too many Shakespeare diehards angry that Ruth Negga has played Hamlet because "no way would a mixed race woman be Prince of Denmark!" hahaha

 

You're right in that Arcane has an "easier" job in terms of the adaptation because they could play with the character stories a lot more than adapting from a novel. There's no doubt the writers of S1 are supremely talented though, I'd guess they would have done a great job with WoT as well. 

I just read an article on a new version of MacBeth staring Francis McDormand, which presents Lady MacBeth in a more modern,  sympathetic, and far less hysterical way.  And yet they do it without changing the dialogue at all.  
 

There is lots of room for interpretation and nuance that shifts some of the emphasis, adds depth to certain characters, etc. without taking a sledgehammer to the entire story.  

[EmreY]

1 hour ago, notpropaganda73 said:

Maybe theatre is just a better medium for that sort of thing though, I dunno. There aren't too many Shakespeare diehards angry that Ruth Negga has played Hamlet because "no way would a mixed race woman be Prince of Denmark!" hahaha

 

Ah, but Shakespeare is not popular culture.  If the first page of a ninth draft (later discarded) had surfaced of a show where she was rumoured to have signed on to play Superman, who knows what the reaction would have been.  The arbiters of the zeitgeist keep the gates closed.

 

If only the internet had been around when Sarah Bernhardt played the title role in Hamlet (not the first woman by any means, btw) when TV and film did not exist.   I'd love to have seen/heard their reaction to her (reported) words:

 

Quote

I cannot see Hamlet as a man. The things he says, his impulses, his actions, entirely indicate to me that he was a woman.'

 

Even without that, many of the reviews were scathing.  Hilarious to (most of) us today, but are certain critics all that different today?

 

1 hour ago, Truthteller said:

The biggest challenge was always going to be how do you turn 14 books into 8 seasons, and yet somehow after one season we are only one book into the series, so with all the changes they haven’t even begun to cut.  

 

I can't remember much from Books 9, 10 and 11 except that I was growing progressively more exasperated - something that has not changed on re-reads - so I'll just proffer those on the altar of cuts to be made.

Edited January 17, 2022 by EmreY

[Raal Gurniss]

1 hour ago, ilovezam said:

Go watch Arcane, it's phenomenal! 

I enjoyed it….But if you compare to something actually phenomenal like Akira, you realise that Arcane is down the pecking order to something make decades previously.

[ArrylT]

1 hour ago, ilovezam said:

I think most Hollywood shows would have jumped at the chance to show at least glimpses of badass action moments, and I cannot, for the life me, figure out why they wanted to make Tam lose to one. Is it to make Trollocs appear more scary? No, because right after we see a bunch of geriatric farmswomen kill one. Is it to make Tam be less competent because of old age? Maybe? But why?

 

 

 

Actually that is incorrect.  The very next scene, after Rand kills the Trolloc (so does Rand killing the Trolloc make Tam weak?), is Egwne & Nynaeve facing off against a Trolloc, whom physically overpowers both of them, but is destroyed by a weave by Moiraine.  Moiraine then goes on to throw her fireballs at other Trollocs, followed by other fighting involving her & Lan.  Then comes the scene with the people attacking the lone Trolloc.  To me, the scene of the women attacking the Trolloc as a group, is inspired by Moiraine & Lans actions.  

 

The fact that you call them geriatric farmswomen (which includes Daise Congar) suggests to me that perhaps you do not have a real love of the Two Rivers.  It also gives off an impression that you have a dislike of rural farmers & older women because of the definition of geriatric. Not that Daises age is listed anywhere or is it suggested she is "old".  Perhaps only in your head canon.  In any case the group is led by Daise, who is well described in the books as being quite capable of doing something like this..  

 

Spoiler

Daise is armed with a long pitchfork. Later, when the Whitecloaks fail to help and the women join the battle lines, she kills a goat-snouted Trolloc through the throat with her makeshift weapon.[3]

 

That alone could suggest she was "weakened" down.  Personally I take it as maybe the next time she sees a Trolloc she'll have enough experience to fight it 1 on 1 rather than as a leader of a group meant to showcase the stubborn fighting spirit of the Two Rivers, and hopefully foreshadowing the return of Manetheren.  

 

Also, the very first person, that I can seem way back at the beginning of the Winternight fight to defend themselves against a Trolloc in any way is a man (34:20-34:25).  

 

Plus it should be noted that Tam was already injured (you can see a wound to his back) prior to getting the heron marked blade. 

 

I am not going to discuss space, apart from saying that I think a smithy will have a lot more open space (remember it was room enough for 2+ Trollocs, the forge & Perrin & Laila), than a room in a typical farmhouse.

 

Personally I think that it would have been nice if Ep1 had been a little longer, allowing for say a group of 3 Trollocs (2 of which could have been killed by Tam), or edited in a way, that showed Tam having killed 1 Trolloc, but I simply do not see him as being weak for not having done so.  As far as I am aware, Tam never fought a Trolloc in his life prior to Winternight (as per Wiki), so expecting a man who last used a sword regularly 20 years ago (even if he may have practiced on occasion) to know how to remember all of his sword expertise and use it against a creature he never faced before successfully is a bit far fetched imo.  While I would have liked to have seen it, I can still see it not being portrayed realistically on TV.  Some things in books simply do not look as believable on TV, but that is for each to determine.

 

Not to mention the majority of people watching the show would have no idea that Tam was a soldier, since this does not get revealed til later, so there is no point in making Tam look "weak", even if that was the intent, for the show to do so.  If a person is unaware of a characters origin story, then how can they be shown as inferior to what they were.  We do not see Tam again until Ep7.   

 

Unfortunately I have no way of verifying but it seems implausible that the first thing non-book readers thought when they saw him (as part of Mins flashback vision) was "Oh this is the weakling who could not defeat a single Trolloc".  In any case, to me, that says more about the person viewing the show, if their first thought upon re-seeing a character was to think negatively about them.  I for one thought Tam Al'Thor came off as very well shown in the show, and quite enjoyed the reveal that he helped Tigraine give birth to Rand, giving him more of a connection to baby Rand.  So that is what I got from S1 re: Tam.   

 

If the show had started with Blood Snow, and/or we had seen Tam having success in battle and/or getting the heron marked sword from the King of Illian, then sure I could see how Tam was now portrayed in a negative light.   Actually, it could even be said that the show is doing Tam a favor, because all the new readers will see Tam as the EOTW book portrayed him after they saw him in Season 1.  

[Ralph]

Not bothering to go over the same arguments we have had a thousand times - 

 

Just would like to see this quote from Rafe where he says he wants to "make the show more appealing to a feminist agenda" 

 

Many of you have mentioned this, but I haven't seen it

 

Or do you mean where the interviewer asked him about the "problematic" gender divide, and he replied "as a feminist that is something very important to me to update", or something like that. 

 

I find that quite different. 

 

And I think anyone who read that quote and immediately thought it meant that is definitely suffering from confirmation bias 

 

 

Edited January 17, 2022 by Ralph

[Gothic Flame]

42 minutes ago, Ralph said:

Just would like to see this quote from Rafe where he says he wants to "make the show more appealing to a feminist agenda" 

Rafe's own words:

“One of the things about the books is that they were probably quite, quite feminist in the ‘90s when they came out, and so I want to stay true to that and make them feel feminist for today,” Judkins says. “I think if we took some of the things that happened in the books and put them on screen today, they would not feel as feminist. There’s a 30-year gap between when those [first books] came out and the [series] end.”

 

Deliberately changing stuff because the books weren't feminist enough...wtf..

 

[fra85uk]

Rafe, please do more!

Also your series could be not enough feminist in 30 years, so you should NOW desacr...ehm adapt WoT thinking how much the world will be feminist in 30, no 40, no 100 years.

[Cauthonfan4]

37 minutes ago, Gothic Flame said:

Deliberately changing stuff because the books weren't feminist enough...wtf.

A series loaded with powerful women, including queens, warriors, and magic users, and it wasn't feminist enough.

 

[Andra]

7 hours ago, Gothic Flame said:

Considering that in the book it was Lan that sneaks into the tent that held Perrin and Egwene when Valda had just dropped a sharp rock to encourage an escape attempt. Lan in a couple of moves knocks Valda out.

Point of clarification:

In the book, Valda is still hundreds of miles away near Tar Valon when Perrin and Egwene are captured by Bornhald's troops in the abandoned stedding on the Caralain Grass.  The sharp rock was dropped by Jaret Byar, Bornhald's lieutenant.  In the books, neither Perrin nor Egwene ever meet Valda.  And Bornhald didn't have any Questioners with him.

 

Also, in the show, Valda tells Egwene to call him "Child Valda."  In the books, not only does he never refer to himself that way, he actually bristles when one of his superiors calls him that.

[Gothic Flame]

14 minutes ago, Andra said:

Point of clarification:

In the book, Valda is still hundreds of miles away near Tar Valon when Perrin and Egwene are captured by Bornhald's troops in the abandoned stedding on the Caralain Grass.  The sharp rock was dropped by Jaret Byar, Bornhald's lieutenant.  In the books, neither Perrin nor Egwene ever meet Valda.  And Bornhald didn't have any Questioners with him.

 

Also, in the show, Valda tells Egwene to call him "Child Valda."  In the books, not only does he never refer to himself that way, he actually bristles when one of his superiors calls him that.

I get Valda and Byar confused..

[Andra]

8 hours ago, ilovezam said:

They removed the position of leadership from LTT, gave it to Latra, and had her talk down to him. She was dismissive, yet at the same time she was 100% right in her assessment of the situation, and LTT almost deserves her disdain. Rosamund Pike says in an interview that the Breaking is to highlight arrogant men abusing their power, which is a huge departure from the books. Again, why change that?

 

8 hours ago, notpropaganda73 said:

 

Again, I don't see LTT as being deserving of her disdain in the scene. When I see any character behave that way on screen, I'm instantly thinking "they need taken down a peg or two". It's hard here because we are coming at it from the books POV. So maybe that also colours how I read the scene. Because I know that LTT needs her to listen to him and if they worked together in this very moment, maybe they would succeed. But she dismisses him, so I'm thinking she has as much blame here as he. They are both suffering from the same flaw (to me). 

 

My primary objection to that scene isn't the way she dismissed his idea or with who was the authority and who didn't.  It's the REASON she dismissed his idea.

 

In the book, it's a desperate attempt to end the war that was devastating their civilization.  In that, it actually works - the Dark One's prison is actually resealed, and serendipitously all the Forsaken

Spoiler

except Ishamael

are actually trapped with him.  So LTT ends up being correct - as far as anyone knows at the time.

 

In the show, she dismisses it not just as being dangerous, but as being unnecessary.  As it appears on screen, the War either hadn't started yet, or hadn't gone far enough to warrant desperate measures.  It isn't just the Breaking that hadn't happened yet.  Paaren Disen was completely unscathed - and we know from the books that it was repeatedly attacked in the War and abandoned because of how badly it was damaged.  Damage that happened BEFORE the attempt to seal the Bore.

 

The show makes it sound as if their attempt to "cage the Dark One" and remove evil from the world is what causes the War in the first place.

 

 

 

Ironically, it's probably the case that if women had joined him, it would have tainted both Saidin and Saidar.  

Spoiler

As we learn at the end of the books, the attempt didn't fail because it only used Saidin.  It failed because it touched the DO with something besides his own power.  Anything other than the True Power would have ended up tainted by touching him.

 

Edited January 17, 2022 by Andra

[ilovezam]

6 hours ago, notpropaganda73 said:

 

I find this interesting because you see it so often in theatre, where race-bending or gender-bending happens which brings a different lens through which to view a character/relationship/story arc. Having the founding fathers all be POC in Hamilton has a point. Flipping these things don't need to necessarily make a story "better", but can serve to bring a different energy to a character or to make a wider point to the audience, holding up a mirror and all that. 

 

Maybe theatre is just a better medium

 

Think you're spot on with that example, in that Hamilton's cast seems universally loved without managing to come across as forced to just about anybody. I think that first of all LMM stated that he cast the crew for their rapping ability, and that the musical's genre has a strong cultural affinity with black people, and they knocked it out of the park. I don't think he set out to exclusively cast black people for just diversity reasons for many of the main characters. 

 

But I think a bigger difference for me is that a musical on stage is this hyper stylised thing where people overact things while they do crazy choreographed song and dance in a way you would not expect anyone to see in "real life". I remember picking up the biography for a bit after fanboying Hamilton for a few months, and while reading the book, I could not and did not visualize the characters from the more historically account as the same people from the musical adaptation - it's like the musical I love so much takes up a different space in my head entirely. I suspect it would look pretty darn ridiculous if they were featured in film as they were in the musical, costumes and hairstyles and all. 

 

Film and shows, on the other hand, seem to present a window through which we could look and immerse into a world as it's events are occurring. The vague imagination of the reader comes to life and it seems a lot harder to separate the adaptation and the prose. I suspect most of us imagine the cast as the actors from the films when re-reading LOTR, and so it's extra important for it to feel authentic and real, whereas Hamilton never had to quite worry about that. 

 

4 hours ago, ArrylT said:

The fact that you call them geriatric farmswomen (which includes Daise Congar) suggests to me that perhaps you do not have a real love of the Two Rivers.  It also gives off an impression that you have a dislike of rural farmers & older women because of the definition of geriatric. Not that Daises age is listed anywhere or is it suggested she is "old".  Perhaps only in your head canon.  In any case the group is led by Daise, who is well described in the books as being quite capable of doing something like this

What? I'll admit I have no recollection of who Daise Congar was from the books before I Googled her more recently after the show, and I think that would have been true even if I did several rereads. 

 

The actress is 66. She is 100% shot to sound and look to old. That's what geriatric means. The fact that you manage to infer disrespect to actual rural people is telling and entirely on you. Try again. 

 

Also think it's neat that you care about her book feats in a discussion about the violation of the very same thing for a book blademaster. 

Edited January 18, 2022 by ilovezam

[ilovezam]

4 hours ago, Raal Gurniss said:

I enjoyed it….But if you compare to something actually phenomenal like Akira, you realise that Arcane is down the pecking order to something make decades previously.

I'll take your word on that! I'm sure they're both really really good pieces of entertainment, unlike Rafe's WoT

[ilovezam]

3 hours ago, Ralph said:

Just would like to see this quote from Rafe where he says he wants to "make the show more appealing to a feminist agenda" 

He doesn't quite say exactly that, but here's another quote on Rafe speaking of his intentions to make "fundamental", "rippling" changes to the lore to reflect modern values. 

 

Quote

It's a very fundamental change actually to make to the book series, and it has a lot of ripple effects, and we’ll continue to do things like that I think are more reflective of what hopefully Robert Jordan would be writing if he was writing today.

 

Edited January 18, 2022 by ilovezam

[Andra]

5 hours ago, ArrylT said:

The very next scene, after Rand kills the Trolloc (so does Rand killing the Trolloc make Tam weak?)

Rand killing the Trolloc doesn't make Tam weak.  Tam needing Rand to kill the trolloc for him does - at least weaker than even a retired blademaster should be.

 

5 hours ago, ArrylT said:

Plus it should be noted that Tam was already injured (you can see a wound to his back) prior to getting the heron marked blade. 

 

The wound is simply a mark from being thrown back against the fireplace mantel.  The trolloc hasn't stabbed or clubbed him or anything else.  It shouldn't have been in any way debilitating, and in the show his movement doesn't seem affected by it at all.

 

Also: while he wouldn't have ever faced a trolloc before, he absolutely knew what one was, and how hard they were to kill.  He told Rand about them that night.  Nor was he really surprised by them showing up in the book, since he put on the sword before they broke in.

 

The Tam in the show and the Tam in the book aren't the same guy in this respect.

Edited January 18, 2022 by Andra

[ilovezam]

20 minutes ago, Andra said:

The Tam in the show and the Tam in the book aren't the same guy in this respect.

Yeah... I get that some people don't mind the change that much, but for all the mental gymnastics used to justify the change, I have not seen anyone put forth a good explanation to why they did it. It's also not a stunt team or COVID thing either because Rafe had him lose to one Trolloc from his original script from 2018.

 

It's such a cool thing that this universe features a concept like blademasters, and I think it would have been really cool if we get to see Tam do something, especially since they made it a whole point to really highlight the heron. We see him "know how to use the sword", but not any more than a regular soldier might be expected to. I've seen show only audiences speculate that the heron is a sigil to show that he was once a soldier or something. 

 

I still like Tam because he's got good lines and the actor's great, but it's such a wasted opportunity. 

 

 

[VooDooNut]

13 minutes ago, ilovezam said:

Yeah... I get that some people don't mind the change that much, but for all the mental gymnastics used to justify the change, I have not seen anyone put forth a good explanation to why they did it. It's also not a stunt team or COVID thing either because Rafe had him lose to one Trolloc from his original script from 2018.

 

It's such a cool thing that this universe features a concept like blademasters, and I think it would have been really cool if we get to see Tam do something, especially since they made it a whole point to really highlight the heron. We see him "know how to use the sword", but not any more than a regular soldier might be expected to. I've seen show only audiences speculate that the heron is a sigil to show that he was once a soldier or something. 

 

I still like Tam because he's got good lines and the actor's great, but it's such a wasted opportunity. 

 

 

I think this is just another case of WAFO. I have a feeling Tam, the heron blade, and sword masters will be visited upon in season 2. Fortunately, all the mental gymnastics required for that is being patient. 

 

*keeps checking for season 2*

[ilovezam]

5 minutes ago, VooDooNut said:

Fortunately, all the mental gymnastics required for that is being patient. 

I could live with that!

[Andra]

12 hours ago, notpropaganda73 said:

Again, we just have different perspectives on this. When I watch S1, I'm most frustrated at the EF5 not getting enough development through the season, and that's all 5 of them.

And speaking of "too different"...

Going by the show, we can't call them the EF5 anymore.  They are the "TR5."

 

The village isn't Emond's Field in the show, it's Two Rivers.  Because it's no longer on a field.