Why not follow the books more closely?

[Samt]

36 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

Correct. But that doesn't eliminate his thread, does it?

You're just going in circles.  You responded that some things will have to be cut for time, but we're not even talking about things that were cut.  This is something that was added.  Abel doesn't even really figure into tEotW at all.  If this was about time, Abel could have just never been cast or shown.  The show runners chose to add this storyline in, so your comment that there are only so many episodes and lots of words doesn't make sense to me.

 

My original reference to losing the thread wasn't about specific storylines as threads anyways.  Losing the thread is about changing so much that you forget what the original point is. ie. If you just start changing things because you subjectively think it makes the story better, pretty quickly you just have a different story.  And maybe it's even subjectively better.  But it's no longer the WoT.  Why do you need source material if you don't want to follow it?

[SinisterDeath]

3 minutes ago, Samt said:

Abel could have just never been cast or shown.  The show runners chose to add this storyline in, so your comment that there are only so many episodes and lots of words doesn't make sense to me.

Yet, Abel and Tam are important character(s) in the Shadow Rising arc when Perrin returns to the two rivers, Correct?

 

You can "add" story for a character who becomes important later, if you're trying to show character growth. While at the same time cutting other content, or moving/merging said content to later seasons.

[SinisterDeath]

9 minutes ago, Samt said:

And maybe it's even subjectively better.  But it's no longer the WoT.  Why do you need source material if you don't want to follow it?

Here's a thought experiment.

 

What weaves would Ishamael know in the Eye of the World, that Robert Jordan didn't know existed when he wrote the Eye of the World?

[expat]

32 minutes ago, Samt said:

You're just going in circles.  You responded that some things will have to be cut for time, but we're not even talking about things that were cut.  This is something that was added.  Abel doesn't even really figure into tEotW at all.  If this was about time, Abel could have just never been cast or shown.  The show runners chose to add this storyline in, so your comment that there are only so many episodes and lots of words doesn't make sense to me.

 

My original reference to losing the thread wasn't about specific storylines as threads anyways.  Losing the thread is about changing so much that you forget what the original point is. ie. If you just start changing things because you subjectively think it makes the story better, pretty quickly you just have a different story.  And maybe it's even subjectively better.  But it's no longer the WoT.  Why do you need source material if you don't want to follow it?

I don't know why the showrunners made the change to Abel's story, but I can explain why I think it helps tell the story (in addition to making the EF scenes more realistic).  It relates to beating the dead horse of POVs again.  Mat's book growth into the reluctant hero is based almost entirely on internal monologues.  Abel's weaknesses gives a hook into a non-POV rationale for his later character development.  He has grown up protecting his sisters from his father, so he has developed at least some feeling of responsibility toward other people.  This hook can be used later as a genesis of him fully transforming into the reluctant hero.  You don't want that to come out of the blue with no backstory.

 

From the show perspective, it allowed him to foreshadow his eventual character in the first episode when he rescues his sisters.  The show wants people to like him as he is a valiant hero.  Overcoming adversary to do a good deed gave viewers a chance to have a good first impression, which at least partially cancelled him stealing/seducing his way to the bracelet.

[Samt]

41 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

Yet, Abel and Tam are important character(s) in the Shadow Rising arc when Perrin returns to the two rivers, Correct?

 

You can "add" story for a character who becomes important later, if you're trying to show character growth. While at the same time cutting other content, or moving/merging said content to later seasons.

The key word here is add.  You're planning to add something.  Add is another word for change except that it also means you can't justify it based on runtime concerns.  

 

34 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

Here's a thought experiment.

 

What weaves would Ishamael know in the Eye of the World, that Robert Jordan didn't know existed when he wrote the Eye of the World?

What would this accomplish? Is there a published list of weaves that Robert Jordan knew existed when he wrote the Eye of the World anyways?  Why do we need to be able to identify specific weaves to explain what Ishamael is doing or did?  We get some basics rules on limitations on weaves (no bringing people back from the dead, etc.) and then it's pretty open from there (both early in the series and actually later as well).  

[Scarloc99]

3 hours ago, expat said:

I agree that isolated and primitive communities aren't automatically hellholes, but in every community, rich or poor, there are a subset of troubled people.  Pretending that everyone, but the throwaway group on the wrong side of the tracks (e.g., Conger and Caplins), are good people is not realistic. There will be drunks, wife beaters, violence prone people, invertible liars, and other troubled souls within the community.  This type of writing just diminishes the emotional impact when the community does heroic things later in the books.

 

The pattern doesn't care about putting Rand in a favorable upbringing situation.  It cares that Rand is ready to assume his responsibility as the Dragon Reborn.  Making EF a little less cartoonish wouldn't have changed anything in respect to him becoming the Dragon.

Actually in the books at least one character (might even be rand himself) says that Rand was spun by the wheel to go to Emonds Field because of the kind of place it is and because of the upbrining it would give him. It is suggested that every aspect, including who would raise him was pre determined, which makes a lot of sense given the convoluted set of events that had to happen simply to get a boy born of a maiden on the slopes of dragonmount in the first place. It isn't much of a step to believe that everything including ging to Eomonds Field was pre determined for specific reasons. 

A point is also made that the fall of Mantheran had to happen in order to create a land where Rand would grow up isolated but with people who had a strong blood, and you can take this deeper, mantheran also had to fall because the events that led to it's fall directly linked to the creation of Shadar Logath which was required by the pattern to clean the taint on Saidin. So suggesting that the pattern didn't care about every small detail seems to ignore the facts as defined in the book, everything had to happen the way it did in order for Rand to be able to reset the wheel. 

[Scarloc99]

3 hours ago, SinisterDeath said:

Internally, some show are greenlit for a second season if it tests well with their screeners & their execs particularly like it. (Bezos being a fan of WoT might have helped)

As King of Nowhere mentioned, Contracts can also come into play.
Before streaming on broadcast TV when "showrunners" and "Writers" put "real money" behind their show, they'd often get greenlit to start shooting a second season before the first  has finished... but even that could have the pug pulled if the first season performed extremely bad, or the execs could gamble and hope Season 2 performs better before green lighting a third season.

 

 

To balance these two points...
As a TV show, the Two Rivers didn'tt need to replicate the cartoonishy goody two shoes nature of "The Shire", but it also doesn't need to go full "Game of Thrones" dark and gritty" either.

 

We'll just have to WAFO, to see what they do with the "Cauthon's" in later seasons, right?

Matrim isn't well educated, he is a charming rogue.
e gambles and does some morally questionable deeds along his journey's.

He also Marries the Seanchan Empress, and it remains to be seen what if anything Mat would do about the Damane situation...

(So to put it another way. He comes from this great moral upbringing. But he's totally fine with Slavery. Right?)

I mean there seems to be this revisionist idea that Mat is pro the Damme, he makes it absolutely clear in his own internal monologue during the last battle that he knows things have to change, he makes that start when insisting Tuon call the Aes Sedai by their title and not Mathra Damme. he also has an internal battle about the Damme he captured, but, seeing as he is in the middle of a battle with the other greatest tactical mind in the world, the result of which will determine the fate of the whole world, he kind of prioritises that over a single Damme, who seems perfectly ok with her new position anyway. Or trying to fix everything. 

I will also say, I don't see the whole Damme situation as heinously as others, You have to look at why it was needed, in Seanchan lands the Aes Sedai where almost as bad as males who went mad, they fought between themselves, formed empires and killed at will. They tormented the whole continent, the only way of brining about peace potentially was to enslave them as the Seanchan did. yes we find the idea abhorrent, but, the fact that in seanchan lands Women who can channel willingly put on the collar shows that it is an important part of that nations culture and ending it in a second could well send the entire world into chaos as freed Damme go crazy and just destroy everything. but that is an entirely different post. 

[SinisterDeath]

1 hour ago, Samt said:

The key word here is add.  You're planning to add something.  Add is another word for change except that it also means you can't justify it based on runtime concerns.  

Yes, and the keyword you're missing is that they subtracted a LOT of content.

They subtracted Caemlyn

They subtracted Baerlon.
They subtracted White Bridge
They subtracted Bayle Domon's boat.

 

When you Subtract a large portion of the middle of the book, you can add/change things that allows future content to be more impactful.

Abel Cauthon plays virtually no role in the first book.
Why include him at all? Why cast him?

Why show him? Why change him at all?
There must be a reason right?
Expat talks about how those changes impact Mat's character development due to the lack of internal monologue in a TV series. Other's have talked about how this one change, allows for Abel's return in a future season gives his character a redemption arc, something that will be far more impactful for TV audiences then what we strictly got from the books.

 

Quote

What would this accomplish? Is there a published list of weaves that Robert Jordan knew existed when he wrote the Eye of the World anyways?  Why do we need to be able to identify specific weaves to explain what Ishamael is doing or did?  We get some basics rules on limitations on weaves (no bringing people back from the dead, etc.) and then it's pretty open from there (both early in the series and actually later as well).  

I want you to actually think about it.
RJ wrote this series at the seat of his pants.
When RJ wrote tEotW, he planned it to be a Trilogy, maybe 4 books. He thought aMoL would be book 3 or 4. The "magic system" in the series didn't start to get fleshed out until books 4 & 5, before then, the "magic" system was a lot softer.
 

Some food for thought.

Rand didn't learn about "Gateways" until Book 5.

Moiraine briefly talked about "Travelling" in the first book and that it was "lost".
By book 5, Rand acts surprised at seeing a Gateway, even though he basically created the exact same thing just before he went "nuclear" on that Trolloc army.

Those same "gateways" were also what Ishamael was using against Rand in the Stone... even though he didn't call them that.

 

Later, much later we learn about "Dreamshards", and whether this was a creation of RJ or Brandon I have no idea, but their existence explains "what" was going on during Rand's fight with Ishy in the Stone. 

There are certain concepts like "inverting" weaves, and the True Power that would completely change how the forsaken could operate so openly for as long as they did before being discovered.

Then we weaves like "Compulsion" that didn't "exist" in the Eye of the World. Something like that would have completely changed how someone like Ishy could have operated from the shadows throughout the years.

People arguing about Moiraine being "stilled" in Episode 8, didn't pay attention to Ishy's words and compared those to what Mohedien did to Liandrin...

 

40 minutes ago, Sir_Charrid said:

I mean there seems to be this revisionist idea that Mat is pro the Damme,

I'm still working on my re-read so it's been awhile, but I will say the idea isn't without merit. Among the EF5, Mat is the most anti-Channeler of them all.

 

42 minutes ago, Sir_Charrid said:

I will also say, I don't see the whole Damme situation as heinously as others, You have to look at why it was needed, in Seanchan lands the Aes Sedai where almost as bad as males who went mad, they fought between themselves, formed empires and killed at will. They tormented the whole continent, the only way of brining about peace potentially was to enslave them as the Seanchan did.

It's almost as if a certain forsaken played a hand in that.

 

1 hour ago, Sir_Charrid said:

A point is also made that the fall of Mantheran had to happen in order to create a land where Rand would grow up isolated but with people who had a strong blood, and you can take this deeper, mantheran also had to fall because the events that led to it's fall directly linked to the creation of Shadar Logath which was required by the pattern to clean the taint on Saidin.

Timeline's off.
Manetheren fell after Aridhol fell and became Shadar Logoth.
It was Manetheren's soldiers that discovered the city was abandoned of all life, sensing only evil...

 

1 hour ago, Sir_Charrid said:

So suggesting that the pattern didn't care about every small detail seems to ignore the facts as defined in the book, everything had to happen the way it did in order for Rand to be able to reset the wheel.

I'd say the wheel didn't care. RJ did though.

 

[Samt]

1 hour ago, SinisterDeath said:

Yes, and the keyword you're missing is that they subtracted a LOT of content.

They subtracted Caemlyn

They subtracted Baerlon.
They subtracted White Bridge
They subtracted Bayle Domon's boat.

 

When you Subtract a large portion of the middle of the book, you can add/change things that allows future content to be more impactful.


 

I'm not sure if I'm having trouble being clear or if you're intentionally being obtuse.  You can add all kinds of things. You can add a three-legged dog named "Mittens" if you want.  But if you didn't want to tell the story as originally written, why didn't you just make your own original story?  

[SinisterDeath]

1 hour ago, Samt said:

I'm not sure if I'm having trouble being clear or if you're intentionally being obtuse.  You can add all kinds of things. You can add a three-legged dog named "Mittens" if you want.  But if you didn't want to tell the story as originally written, why didn't you just make your own original story?

Again.

When you have to subtract a ton of locations to save time & money, that allows you to add or change minor things.

You're acting like changing Abel to a drunk is the same as moving Episode 6 from Caemlyn to Tar Valon.

 

You're confusing the spec for the log in your eye.

[expat]

53 minutes ago, Samt said:

I'm not sure if I'm having trouble being clear or if you're intentionally being obtuse.  You can add all kinds of things. You can add a three-legged dog named "Mittens" if you want.  But if you didn't want to tell the story as originally written, why didn't you just make your own original story?  

Because you CAN'T tell the story as originally written due to production constraints (cost, time, availability of actors, medium differences) and the structure of the books.

 

What I mean by the structure of the books is:

1. Too many characters for TV viewers to relate to.  A good example from the books is the ending of the EOTW.  We get two random Forsaken in the concluding battle, but they appear out of nowhere and then just die. 

2. Splitting the books into 4 main concurrent stories along with multiple side stories fractures the continuity because individual stories take several books (series years) to conclude.  Television viewers will get bored like the book readers did with the seemingly forever Perrin/Faile abduction thread. 

3. POV is the main driver of character development

4. Characters, even main ones, disappearing for books and reappear randomly.  You can't guarantee actor availability and the audience doesn't remember them and won't have a clue who these new/old characters are.  At the minimum, TV requires that the main characters and some of the semi-important ones (e.g., Min, Eladia, Suian) must have something to do each year.

5. There is a lot of repetition due to the length of the series.  Some of it is the inevitable recapping, but it also repeats themes. This is shown in things like the Sea Folk who are a pale imitation of the Aiel.  Their important plot points are that the Aes Sedai don't know everything, the AS are not as tough as they claim, there are channelers outside the influence of the AS, and there are prophecies outside the Karaethon Cycle.  Each of these things are already shown by the Aiel, so add time, but no additional story element.

6. Sporadic world building in the books.  The books don't use a logical, structured way to introduce the necessary world building. It gets dropped into the books when needed, but using this format for TV will leave lots of viewers confused.

 

The showrunners options are not to do the series since you can't film it as written or make a lot of changes to try to tell a complete, condensed version within the allowed time and money constraints.

[Samt]

50 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

Again.

When you have to subtract a ton of locations to save time & money, that allows you to add or change minor things.

You're acting like changing Abel to a drunk is the same as moving Episode 6 from Caemlyn to Tar Valon.

 

You're confusing the spec for the log in your eye.

 

49 minutes ago, expat said:

Because you CAN'T tell the story as originally written due to production constraints (cost, time, availability of actors, medium differences) and the structure of the books.

 

What I mean by the structure of the books is:

1. Too many characters for TV viewers to relate to.  A good example from the books is the ending of the EOTW.  We get two random Forsaken in the concluding battle, but they appear out of nowhere and then just die. 

2. Splitting the books into 4 main concurrent stories along with multiple side stories fractures the continuity because individual stories take several books (series years) to conclude.  Television viewers will get bored like the book readers did with the seemingly forever Perrin/Faile abduction thread. 

3. POV is the main driver of character development

4. Characters, even main ones, disappearing for books and reappear randomly.  You can't guarantee actor availability and the audience doesn't remember them and won't have a clue who these new/old characters are.  At the minimum, TV requires that the main characters and some of the semi-important ones (e.g., Min, Eladia, Suian) must have something to do each year.

5. There is a lot of repetition due to the length of the series.  Some of it is the inevitable recapping, but it also repeats themes. This is shown in things like the Sea Folk who are a pale imitation of the Aiel.  Their important plot points are that the Aes Sedai don't know everything, the AS are not as tough as they claim, there are channelers outside the influence of the AS, and there are prophecies outside the Karaethon Cycle.  Each of these things are already shown by the Aiel, so add time, but no additional story element.

6. Sporadic world building in the books.  The books don't use a logical, structured way to introduce the necessary world building. It gets dropped into the books when needed, but using this format for TV will leave lots of viewers confused.

 

The showrunners options are not to do the series since you can't film it as written or make a lot of changes to try to tell a complete, condensed version within the allowed time and money constraints.

This is a weird sort of motte and Bailey argument where any change is justified so long as it was impossible to leave everything exactly like it was in the books. Like I said, it’s like saying it’s fine to burn your house down because the toilet was dirty.  

[SinisterDeath]

1 hour ago, Samt said:

This is a weird sort of motte and Bailey argument where any change is justified so long as it was impossible to leave everything exactly like it was in the books. Like I said, it’s like saying it’s fine to burn your house down because the toilet was dirty.  

 

Can we try to think about it like this?
They remove Caemlyn, Baerlon, and White Bridge because that's a lot of sets to build.

Now they have to remove all the dialogue associated with those locations, correct?

Okay. Now you have a bunch of continuity issues if you just ctrl-f and remove any and all dialogue that references those locations. 
Now you have to re-write those events so they make sense.
But they're not just changing events in S1E1, they're changing events that happen in S2E1, and S3E1.
They're not just changing things by the seat of their pants. These things are planned. They're making changes in Season 1 so things make sense in Season 8. ^{(At least, that's the hope.)}

 

So IMO, the the idea that they can't add something just because they had to cut something out to save time, is just is just silly.

If you want a LotR reference, they "changed & added" several things that never happened in the books, while removing entire chapters that never made it to the screen. (Tom Bombadil and the Scouring of the Shire come to mind as scenes that were cut, with Gimli attacking the ring, and Saruman being yeeted out of the tower as scenes that were added that never happened in the books)

[DaddyFinn]

I wouldn't even want someone to "just film the books". The way Rafe&Co have approached it seems good so far

[expat]

2 hours ago, Samt said:

 

This is a weird sort of motte and Bailey argument where any change is justified so long as it was impossible to leave everything exactly like it was in the books. Like I said, it’s like saying it’s fine to burn your house down because the toilet was dirty.  

You have a very absolutist view of the world.  Your argument that if you accept any changes than you have to accept all changes is not really a thing.  The showrunners can and did mess up some of their adaptation decisions, for example episode 8 was bad.  You can criticize individual changes as being poorly thought out or poorly executed as well as groups of change.  While I liked the Abel change, many (most?) people didn't which is a valid viewpoint.  Blind objections to all changes because you somehow think that the series can be perfectly "faithful" to the books is not a valid viewpoint.  I think a modified phrasing of the old chestnut of "I don't object to changes because some are needed in an adaptation, I just object to that change (for every change mentioned) seems to describe your postings.

 

Like SinisterDeath's hypothetical, I challenge you to try to adapt a complex arc (e.g., Perrin hammer v ax) that is handled by POV in the book to a non-POV TV friendly version without major changes somewhere. It can't be done.  Thinking though an exercise like this is a good way to get a grip on the amount/types of changes that are inescapable in the series.  

[Samt]

2 hours ago, expat said:

You have a very absolutist view of the world.  Your argument that if you accept any changes than you have to accept all changes is not really a thing.  The showrunners can and did mess up some of their adaptation decisions, for example episode 8 was bad.  You can criticize individual changes as being poorly thought out or poorly executed as well as groups of change.  While I liked the Abel change, many (most?) people didn't which is a valid viewpoint.  Blind objections to all changes because you somehow think that the series can be perfectly "faithful" to the books is not a valid viewpoint.  I think a modified phrasing of the old chestnut of "I don't object to changes because some are needed in an adaptation, I just object to that change (for every change mentioned) seems to describe your postings.

 

Like SinisterDeath's hypothetical, I challenge you to try to adapt a complex arc (e.g., Perrin hammer v ax) that is handled by POV in the book to a non-POV TV friendly version without major changes somewhere. It can't be done.  Thinking though an exercise like this is a good way to get a grip on the amount/types of changes that are inescapable in the series.  

Mostly I've just been objecting to the Abel change.  But yes, you are correct that I think there are tons of bad changes made in the adaptation.  Beyond that, the point I am trying to make is that regardless of how you feel about these changes, I don't think you can make a compelling argument that they were all required for the narrative to work or for the series to be adaptable to screen.  You could have filmed it without Abel or with an Abel that was more in line with his character in the books and it would have been a coherent story that could have met the budget.  

In regards to Perrin's hammer vs. Axe, I don't think it's all that difficult.  I'm not going to go through scene by scene, but there are some critical moments that can help develop that storyline that aren't impossible to film mostly faithfully.  Book Spoilers:

Spoiler

1.  Perrin kills Whitecloaks while defending/avenging wolves.  Then later we can see him struggle with this by having nightmares/flashbacks of killing the whitecloaks.

2.  Elyas and Perrin have a conversation about the axe and how he should give up the axe once he enjoys it. Perrin can relate his fears of losing himself and hurting those around him.  He can talk about how people always think he is slow, but he really is holding back because he is afraid of hurting people.  This dialogue between Perrin and Elyas does happen in the book, but it might make sense to expand it a bit and have Perrin say some things that he actually only says internally in the book.  

3.  Perrin and Hopper hunt together in Tel and Perrin tells Hopper about how he is afraid of losing himself.  Hopper doesn't understand.  

4.  Perrin forges the hammer.  He tells Faile how even though he can kill people with it just like the axe, he feels better with the hammer because the hammer can build, too.  Once again, we're taking an internal monologue and making it a dialogue that he tells someone, but it doesn't feel ridiculous for Perrin to share this with someone close to him and fits easily into the narrative.  

5.  Perrin chops off a Shaido hand and later throws away the axe in horror.  

 

Etc.  The point is that a lot of this actually happens in dialogue and through action sequences. The bits of internal monologue that are important can be inserted into some appropriate dialogue.  

 

 

I'd add that the idea that we needed Perrin to have a wife so that he could kill her in order to convey this narrative is rather strained.  Even if you think having him accidentally kill someone on Bel Tine night is a great shortcut, there is an entire village of people for him to kill without inventing a wife.  And Perrin's fear of hurting those around him is not at all limited to those close to him.  It's actually triggered by him killing the whitecloaks, who were his adversaries at the time.  Making it just about hurting those he loves cheapens it, in my opinion.  

[A Memory Of Why]

@SinisterDeath pretty sure RJ said it would be a trilogy but the publishers, who knew him said he'll need six books. I swear I read that on a theoryland interview.

 

As for the heretical changes described above, I'm holding back and seeing if they pay off. Some already have in my opinion..

 

Matt's delinquent change really worked for me, he's a bitchy annoying side character for two and a half books. Barney & co really did make it feel like mid book Matt early on which I can appreciate.

 

Nyn though.. this one bothers me, her growth throughout the series is something incredibly special that the vast majority of fans can agree with. 

 

Having her be "the bomb" early on really detracts from this growth and IMO could really hurt the character.

 

I love hearing new peoples perspectives of her change as they go through the series and even on reread.

 

And with the show.. well, it bothers me is all. Maybe they can pull it off.. maybe.. but I feel it isn't a reflection of Nyns "growth".

 

P.s. "no need to scream like a cat!"

Edited August 11, 2023 by A Memory Of Why

[Scarloc99]

10 hours ago, SinisterDeath said:

Yes, and the keyword you're missing is that they subtracted a LOT of content.

They subtracted Caemlyn

They subtracted Baerlon.
They subtracted White Bridge
They subtracted Bayle Domon's boat.

 

Manetheren fell after Aridhol fell and became Shadar Logoth.
It was Manetheren's soldiers that discovered the city was abandoned of all life, sensing only evil...



 

My mistake, in my head for some reason I had it the other way round 🙂, I think I am thinking of a different story entirely not WOT related. 

In terms of the stuff they removed I think you can argue there are valid reasons for all of it. 

Caemlyn was replaced by Tar Valon, I can understand that, Aes Sedai play a major role throughout the story and you can only have budget for one major city. Also you don't lose much, other then a brief meet between Rand and Elayne which is good in the book but taking time out of the TV show when you can have them meet later and still have all the same interactions I understand. 

Baerlon again you need to make the set for what is really robert jordans version of that scene in LOTR where the Wraiths stab empty beds. It is a brief stop in what is a perpetual run from A to B, Rafe decided to cut that full escape right down and I think thats a good thing. 

Whitebridge, again a need to make or CGI this impressive bridge when the important thing about that scene is Thom seemingly dying and sacrificing himself for the boys. Thom did what he needed to do in season 1, he informed the viewer what male channellers suffer after Aes Sedai get their hands on them. I actually thought the way they did this scene was far more impactful, the farmyard, the children killed, the toy it helped to develop things far better then whitebridge does in the books. 

Bayle Domans Boat, ok I like Bayle Doman, I enjoy the character and I am happy we will get to see him in the series, but, in book 1 he is a taxi driver. Who's only narrative purpose is to relieve Rand and Mat of their silver coins and somehow has one of the dark lords seals. The moment you remove the silver coins you remove the need to waste TV time on just more running but now we are on a boat. 

[DigificWriter]

Several of the things that have been brought up here in the last few posts (Caemlyn, Bayle Domon, Elyas) have either been explicitly confirmed to be - or are highly suspected to be - part of Season 2, rendering arguments about their lack of inclusion in this adaptation moot.

[SinisterDeath]

7 minutes ago, DigificWriter said:

Several of the things that have been brought up here in the last few posts (Caemlyn, Bayle Domon, Elyas) have either been explicitly confirmed to be - or are highly suspected to be - part of Season 2, rendering arguments about their lack of inclusion in this adaptation moot.

I mainly brought them back up as contrast to the changes to Abel's character.

E.g. because you had to cut so much content due to time and $$, you can't "add" content due to "time". I think that's nonsense. 

 

I talked about how if you ctrl-f all references to those locations and events within the shows dialogue, and delete, you would have continuity issues. That you would need to fill in those blanks somewhere.

 

I've mentioned Abel's changes now are most likely their for his character to have a redemption arc in Season 3 when Perrin returns. Giving the character some on-screen growth beyond "Oh look, there's mr. baddass Abel Cauthon shooting Trollocs in the eye from 600 yards again", what a scamp!

[Rsmithboeing]

I completely understand the need to reduce the content due to the limitations on budget. I can't understand however, why the books weren't followed closer. It's really difficult for me to watch season 1 again before season 2 is released because, so many alterations were made to the amazingly well written books.

 

Will season 2 head in the current direction of changing what was written or will it re-adjust and, get back to the roots of what was witten by Robert Jordan and, Brandon Sanderson, (who picked up and finished Jordan's works extremely well)?

[expat]

Check the thread on Adaptation.  This is the main topic.

[DigificWriter]

10 hours ago, Rsmithboeing said:

I completely understand the need to reduce the content due to the limitations on budget. I can't understand however, why the books weren't followed closer. It's really difficult for me to watch season 1 again before season 2 is released because, so many alterations were made to the amazingly well written books.

 

Will season 2 head in the current direction of changing what was written or will it re-adjust and, get back to the roots of what was witten by Robert Jordan and, Brandon Sanderson, (who picked up and finished Jordan's works extremely well)?

 

Two things:

1) How closely Rafe and Co. have "followed the books" is not an objectively quantifiable thing and has nothing whatsoever to do with the things that they've changed or added

 

2) Slavish adherence to source material does not actually fit the definition of the term "adaptation"; true adaptations absolutely deviate from the material from which they're adapted and do so as a matter of course 

Edited August 12, 2023 by DigificWriter

[DojoToad]

On 8/10/2023 at 8:03 PM, SinisterDeath said:

Again.

When you have to subtract a ton of locations to save time & money, that allows you to add or change minor things.

You're acting like changing Abel to a drunk is the same as moving Episode 6 from Caemlyn to Tar Valon.

 

You're confusing the spec for the log in your eye.

Dang - going Biblical!  Wouldn't have expected that from you.

[DojoToad]

I personally liked the Abel change though they were a bit ham-fisted about it.  Mat being a bit of a scoundrel also good.  Other changes not so much...