Question focusing on specific scenes (apologize in advance if this was already discussed elsewhere)

[Lightfriendsocialmistress]

(Personal opinion about the show as a whole aside) I’m wondering what scenes people were looking forward to seeing and felt disappointed by their absence. On the other hand were there any scenes that weren’t in the books that were enjoyable?

 

I’ll start with just a few of my own examples of each. I was looking forward to the prologue scene. Also to elyas. I was looking forward to baerlon. Caemlyn. More Thom. Real EOTW ending. Really enjoyed logain stuff, and the scene in the snow with Rands mom and tam, and the scene from the age of legends. 
 

anyone else?

[DojoToad]

Favorite added scenes/changes/execution:

• Logain scenes (except for healing bomb)
• Mat's family becoming disreputable (Congar/Coplin vibe 👍)
• Nynaeve and Lan's developing relationship
• Blood Snow - excellent choreography
• Warders and Aes Sedai chillin' in the evening

Not enjoyed added scenes/changes/execution:

• Healing bombs
• Ninja Nynaeve
• Terminator Darkfriend
• Lan/Stepin doing forms together
• Attack on Aes Sedai camp by Logain's soldiers
• Loial being a short muppet
• Trollocs looking like creatures from the Dark Crystal (1982)
• Perrin's wife (but maybe this will go somewhere in S2)

Edited April 22, 2023 by DojoToad

[SinisterDeath]

Scenes I was looking forward to that I wished we saw in the tv series

• Rand going Nuclear at the eye of the world.
• Hopper munching on a white cloak

Scenes added that I enjoyed that weren't in the books

• Yeeting Egwene off a cliff
• Logain's scenes
• Blood Snow
• Nynaeve killing a Trolloc

[Skipp]

Scenes that I was sad to miss

• Rand's post channeling giddiness on the boat
• Fade stalking the boys before winternight
• Mat speaking the Old Tongue as he runs into battle.
• Perrin/Egwene/Elyas' flight from the Ravens
• Rand's introduction to Elyane, Gawyn and Galad.  I am hoping we will get a variation of this in S2
• Rand being confronted by Elaida
• The Green Man in general

New Scenes that I loved to witness

• Battle of Winternight
• Mat and Perrin talking at Shadar Logoth
• Everything Valda
• All of Lan and Nynaeve's scenes together
• Dana in general
• Thom reimaging
• Mat and Thom burying the Aiel
• Ila's monologue, this one scene made me care more about the tinkers than all the books.
• All the Logain stuff
• The Suian and Bloodsnow openers
• I liked Stepin, sue me
• The night around the Warders Fire
• I preferred show Ishammael over the insane Pre-Moridin Ishammael

[RainHarlow]

What actually happened at the Eye of the World is the biggest missed thing. Lan not being a massive, buff dude was impossible to parse, too. I'm trying to think of things changed or added that I liked, but... I guess I liked certain new takes on characters, in this 'well this isn't my story' kind of way. Valda. That flippant, pompous attitude was entertaining in and of itself. And quite Whitecloaky.

 

Moiraine — it's like, at times it doesn't feel her but she is definitely a perfect Aes Sedai. Logain, I suppose. I don't recall really picturing him well in my mind until later books, so was nice to see him physically realized.

 

Basically, only my inner theatre kid could be pleased with some castings and performances, while my almost exultant-for-WoT reader brain was just screaming internally forever.

[Mailman]

Terrible scenes that should never have been in the show

• Egwene being thrown off the cliff.
• Two rivers being turned into a dank hovel. 
• Nynaeve killing the trolloc and being able to sneak up on Lan to the point of getting a knife to his throat.
• AOL scene, if you where going to have a AOL scene it should have been the prologue from the book so much better and also sets the stakes and world building up so much better.
• Butchered all the fight scenes except for the blood snow.
• Healing bomb and Egwene appearing to heal Nynaeve from death (i'm aware they said it's not the case but its what it looked like).

Good scenes

• Blood snow was good apart from the stupid cloak pull.
• Did not hate some of the Logain scenes.

Edited April 23, 2023 by Mailman

[expat]

Not sure if this is what the OP asked, but the feeling I had when reading it:  The tapestry of the world was fascinating, but most individual scenes were meh.  I wanted the feeling of the world far more than any individual scene.  I'm satisfied with the gestalt. 

 

Scene I'm glad wasn't in the show:  The original ending of EOTW - it was a hot mess.

 

The scene I wish wasn't in the show: Episode 8 ending of EOTW - it was a hot mess.

[Lightfriendsocialmistress]

All of the responses so far are great examples and reminded me of more things that I would add to my own list. I won’t repeat anything that was already mentioned but I did just remember something I noticed myself that was not yet mentioned. It’s regarding casting. Overall I was anywhere from satisfied to pleasantly surprised by an even better interpretation of the character than I could have imagined. With one exception, and I can’t quite articulate my reasons, but Min in the show did not seem like my version of Min. 

[RextheDog]

min in my mind was Rose Byrne

 

having said that.....im happy to go with the show on this....

 

things i loved

 

eamons field

Fain

Rands casting, it took a while to grow on me, but hes more Rand to me than the Rand i had in my head all these years, really looking forward to see him slowly change from innocent to...well...the dragon...

world building

tar valon, despite its tackyness, im onboard

aes sedai

alana...i have amiddle aged crush....she hot.

 

things i didnt

 

the cleanliness of the sets just seemed not quite right

one of my favorite periods in all of the books is mat and rand travelling and playing for supper whilst mat slowly turns, that was a massive loss to the show 

Thom...i reckon the casting is perfect....like rand, better than the picture i had in my mind.....just follow the book lore....

no baerlon

loial....he would have been hard to get right to be fair, but seriously, WTF is that?

 

 

[Lightfriendsocialmistress]

I also missed bayle domon and wanted as much of Thom as we got in the books but as with many of the other things i missed, i think they will still show up in some capacity later on. Also Mat’s badger. Why? Just because 😂 I also looked forward to seeing the other forsaken at the EOTW and the interconnected dream sequences. 

On the flip side another thing regarding something not previously mentioned about the show that provided a more enriching experience for me than I perceived when reading was the more human portrayal of moiraine and lan. To me they were more relatable and less like an almost alien figure, vastly different from mere mortals and a somewhat cold/robotic/ distant unknowable mystery. 

[Lightfriendsocialmistress]

Oh! And I also liked seeing how machin chin affected everyone in a unique way 

[expat]

On 4/23/2023 at 6:07 AM, RextheDog said:

things i loved

 

eamons field

Fain

Rands casting, it took a while to grow on me, but hes more Rand to me than the Rand i had in my head all these years, really looking forward to see him slowly change from innocent to...well...the dragon...

world building

tar valon, despite its tackyness, im onboard

aes sedai

alana...i have amiddle aged crush....she hot.

I think that one of the failings of the books was that Padan Fain was criminally misused after book 5 or so.  He started out a potentially great villain and slowly degenerated into irrelevancy.  I want the series to utilize him to his full potential.  He was great in the first season but will it last?  I see him as a "Vashta Nerada" character where he is the menacing speck in your peripheral vision just out of eyesight, but ready to pounce in a moment of weakness or inattention.

[mogi68]

I was hoping for more focus on Rand and his sword. A training scene would have been nice along with an explanation from Lan of what the Heron Mark represents. It would have taken very little screen time imo.

 

I'm hoping that Rand and Lan link back up at some point. Maybe in a couple seasons we can get something like this 😛

 

 

Edited May 3, 2023 by mogi68

[Vartija]

14 hours ago, mogi68 said:

I was hoping for more focus on Rand and his sword. A training scene would have been nice along with an explanation from Lan of what the Heron Mark represents. It would have taken very little screen time imo.

 

I'm hoping that Rand and Lan link back up at some point. Maybe in a couple seasons we can get something like this 😛

 

 

Agreed 100%. It's a small thing in itself but in the book the sword was such a big part of Rand's growing up story and the connection to his father that it's surprising how it was so overlooked in the series. It's strange because they clearly wanted to highlight the Heron mark with the zoom take when Tam was fighting the trollocs but then did almost nothing with it the rest of the season. 

 

Additionally it would have given Rand a bit more character building. It was a bit sad to see so many comments from non-readers how the boys were so boring and dare I say "useless" compared to the rest of the cast. I mean, there's not a whole lot of personality to work with in the beginning but then they also ignored the one thing that Rand took an interest in and eventually excelled in besides his fate as the Dragon. Maybe they'll be able to introduce it later but the obvious time would have been in the first season. 

[Vartija]

Some other scenes I would have liked to see:

- A longer, more faithful to the book scene on the events after Rand drags Tam to the village after the trolloc attack. I really liked the mood in the book where Rand is desperate to have Moiraine heal Tam ("I'll pay any price in my power if you help him. Anything.") I thought that was an interesting setup to Rand-Moiraine relationship that was quite quarrelsome at times. Likewise they could have kept the Heron mark sword talk between Lan and Rand at this point like it was in the book.

- Baerlon and Min's introduction to the story. It's not a huge difference compared to the show, but I liked the mischievous Min from the book a bit more than the series' Min who seemed a bit more world-weary. Also the dancing scene in Baerlon was fun in an awkward sort of way and could have been built upon in the series. 

- I would have liked to see the show's take on Mordeth. I understand not wanting to introduce too much weird fantasy elements early into the show but if done correctly Mordeth could have added a touch of proper creepiness into the story.

- This is not a one specific scene thing, but I would have liked to see some of the bar-hopping "play for your supper" -thing Rand & Mat did after getting separated from the rest of the group. Episode 3 had the makings for this but they went with the chopping wood and serving tables thing instead. I just liked the concept of Thom teaching them the flute and juggling and how it kind of stayed with them throughout the story. Also, simply more Thom and preferably book-Thom rather than the cowboy Thom from the series. 

- Rand's introduction to Elayne and the events in the Caemlyn palace. Especially Gareth Byrne's remarks about Rand and the sword ("It belongs with him. He is too young, but the sword is his.") Again, this would have added some to Rand's otherwise unremarkable character. Perhaps a scene like this will be in season 2 since Rand will have to meet Elayne and Elaida has been cast as well. 

- I really liked the scene after the events in the Eye of the World when Moiraine, Nynaeve and Egwene realize Rand can channel and Egwene first draws back from him in fear but soon embraces him anyway. Also, when Lan joins them and Rand realizes how his demeanor towards him hasn't changed despite knowing who he is. 

 

Some show only scenes or concepts that I liked (there are probably many more but it's harder to come up with specific scenes):

- Rand and Tam's little chat about the nature of the Wheel in episode 1. The lighting of the lanterns was also kind of touching.

- Dana was a pretty good villain and took me off guard a bit. Just hope they had come up with something better than the terminator run to cap it off. 

- The song about the Dragon Thom sings in the tavern. I'm not so sure about the singing talent but I liked the mood and the foreshadowing. 

- Logain's earlier introduction was probably a good thing for the story.

- The scene where Egwene and Nynaeve are introduced to Siuan and she mentions "the most powerful channeler we've seen in a thousand years" and Egwene is surprised to hear it's not her but Nynaeve. Excellent little moment that shows Egwene's pride and ambitiousness.  

Edited May 3, 2023 by Vartija
typos and Thom's song

[Cipher]

On 4/22/2023 at 11:03 PM, Lightfriendsocialmistress said:

All of the responses so far are great examples and reminded me of more things that I would add to my own list. I won’t repeat anything that was already mentioned but I did just remember something I noticed myself that was not yet mentioned. It’s regarding casting. Overall I was anywhere from satisfied to pleasantly surprised by an even better interpretation of the character than I could have imagined. With one exception, and I can’t quite articulate my reasons, but Min in the show did not seem like my version of Min. 

Maybe I need to rewatch episode with Min, but I got no vibes of her being attracted to Rand.  She seemed that may be she isn't attracted to men at all.

 

In EOTW she felt like she was teasing and flirting with Rand when she first met him.