What are they doing to Canon?

[Elder_Haman]

4 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

My suspension of disbelief takes a blow every time I see an "ancient society" where it's not commonplace to have a half dozen children for family, but seeing values that are clearly the product of a very specific historical situation elevated to universal constants hits particularly hard.

But there's magic. And only women have it. That changes the entire equation.

[king of nowhere]

1 hour ago, Elder_Haman said:

But there's magic. And only women have it. That changes the entire equation.

and after 3000 years, they are still stuck in that sort of halfway state where women are struggling for parity without getting it fully?

 

anyway, aes sedai locked in a tower does not change the demographic equation. the world needs children. actually, what changes the equation is highly effective herbal medicine. it appears mortality rate is much lower than it is in real ancient societies, wisdoms and their other equivalents are a lot more effective than ancient doctors

[Elder_Haman]

14 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

and after 3000 years, they are still stuck in that sort of halfway state where women are struggling for parity without getting it fully?

What "halfway state" are they locked in? Women have significant political power in almost every culture Jordan describes.

[Guire]

9 hours ago, Vervayne said:

As a female reader I found both Perrin and Faile exhausting and often would skip their chapters completely.

 

When I experienced the audiobook version I did not skip their chapters, and found their storyline to be the most difficult to get through. Faile overly pushy, Perrin overly whipped. Ugh. 

That is a good perspective.  If I had to guess this is mostly a cultural and generational issue.  Modern western society is very much at adds with martial culture.  I think a conflict between Two Rivers traditional agricultural environment and a martial culture designed around survival more than gender equality would be offputting.

[king of nowhere]

39 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

What "halfway state" are they locked in? Women have significant political power in almost every culture Jordan describes.

i refer to clashing for gender roles. like, rand wants to protect women by keeping them in the kitchen, while egwene wants to go out and do dangerous stuff. in our world, we got this fight when we transitioned from the first to the second value. in wot, the conflict is permanent and it never resolved into either "women must stay safe in the kitchen" or "women can go do stuff". it's a general attitude, more subtle than political power.

[Elder_Haman]

I have never seen Rand as wanting to “keep women in the kitchen”. That’s not the same thing as thinking that women should not have to risk themselves in battle, which is Rand’s hang up. 
 

You are grossly simplifying the gender dynamics. 

[Guire]

29 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

i refer to clashing for gender roles. like, rand wants to protect women by keeping them in the kitchen, while egwene wants to go out and do dangerous stuff. in our world, we got this fight when we transitioned from the first to the second value. in wot, the conflict is permanent and it never resolved into either "women must stay safe in the kitchen" or "women can go do stuff". it's a general attitude, more subtle than political power.

I will have to go look for it in books but I dont remember Rand trying to put anyone in the kitchen.  He had an over concern for women in general and ones he cared for specifically.  I dont think this was any kind of political statement but more about an inexperienced leader whose good intentions were misguided.  

[WheelofJuke]

On 10/2/2023 at 2:30 PM, DigificWriter said:

I said this in the chat of WoTTuber KritterXD's most recent Wheel and Chill Show Livestream, but am going to repeat it here: with their TV adaptation, Rafe and his team of writers have taken all 15 books of The Wheel of Time and created a Remix.

Yeah, only we ended up with Girl Talk and not Raekwon....:(

[Chivalry]

Didn't the Aiel of the books consider wetlander women oppressed?

 

In the last episode, IIRC, Aviendha asked Perrin if his ring meant that he was someone's property. Have they turned this stereotype upside down?

[Scarloc99]

On 10/3/2023 at 6:58 AM, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

I'm not sure which option is more terrifying, that you are right or mistaken.

 

It is one thing to want to be appreciated without having to tell someone that you want appreciated, another to know that your partner loves you, means well, would do nearly anything for you, but to punish him for not acting in a way that you want him to, in a way he cannot possibly know that you want him to, and point-blank refuse any communication about it no matter how often he asks, no matter what he tries. 

 

Trying to see this as a difference in perspective, but it is really difficult. But obviously we disagree no the extent I don't really think discussion is possible, our views are too far apart. So probably just best to leave it at that.

Oh she has flaws, and with all fiction those are made more extreme, but I have yet to meet any 15/16 year old who is emotionally mature, and that is how old she is when she marries Perrin in the books (something that readers seem to choose to skip over, she is 14 when she meets him). So yes she acts like a love sick teenager, because she is one. 

 

On 10/3/2023 at 9:27 PM, Chivalry said:

Didn't the Aiel of the books consider wetlander women oppressed?

 

In the last episode, IIRC, Aviendha asked Perrin if his ring meant that he was someone's property. Have they turned this stereotype upside down?

Not oppressed, prudish, with odd traits like caring how they look, and wearing fancy clothes. 

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

Aiel misunderstood wetlander customs, just as wetlanders misunderstood Aiel. Aviendha in the books makes several comments about herself and Aiel customs that show she thinks wetlander women, like all wetlanders, are soft, and that they must meekly obey their husbands. Though given the context and Aviendha's personality, these are probably extremems of the Aiel view. In the show, Aviendha misunderstanding wetlander marriage is not so out of place, she likely would misunderstand the roles of either party in a wetlander wedding.

[Mirefox]

3 hours ago, Scarloc99 said:

Oh she has flaws, and with all fiction those are made more extreme, but I have yet to meet any 15/16 year old who is emotionally mature, and that is how old she is when she marries Perrin in the books (something that readers seem to choose to skip over, she is 14 when she meets him). So yes she acts like a love sick teenager, because she is one. 

It isn’t much different emotionally but she meets Perrin when she’s 18.  She was born in 981 and met Perrin in 999.

[Guire]

6 minutes ago, Mirefox said:

It isn’t much different emotionally but she meets Perrin when she’s 18.  She was born in 981 and met Perrin in 999.

I got sense in books her administrative training then adventuring had gotten in the way of having much romantic experience.  So she was both wordly and naive at same time. 

[Scarloc99]

30 minutes ago, Mirefox said:

It isn’t much different emotionally but she meets Perrin when she’s 18.  She was born in 981 and met Perrin in 999.

 

Perrin is about 20 when the series starts. Ewin Finngar was fourteen, according to chapter 2 of tEotW. As for Faile, from the prologue of LoC:

Faile blinked in surprise. Those three were hardly boys. Dav and Elani were as old as Perrin, and Ewin was her own age.

It was about a year after they Perrin left the Two Rivers that he met Faile (he left in what should have been spring, they wintered in the Mountains of Mist after Falme, and he met her when they came out of the mountains into Ghealdan). So that would make her 15 to Perrin's 21. 

Now I have seen it mentioned that RJ admitted this was a mistake and he aged her, but I have not seen that direct quote exactly. 

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

13 minutes ago, Scarloc99 said:

and Ewin was her own age.

But surely this falls under unreliable narrator? It does not say that she compared the years of birth with Ewin, it only says she thought they were the same age. And Perrin did not recognise Ewin because he had aged so much in the year he had not seen him, so one could imagine easily that with his deep voice etc., he could appear older.

 

But the age is not so important, as surely we have to take that whatever the characters literal ages are, that in the books they are emotionally developed enough that we are not partaking of child abuse, and that they are to all intents and purposes, adults fully capable of consent. I really cannot imagine the point of arguing otherwise.

[zacz1987]

I think Faile's age is just something that fans ignore and look over. She is definitely meant to be that much younger, the fact that she is too young to marry is something that is brought up by her Father when he meets Perrin and Faile in Caemlyn. 

 

 

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

11 minutes ago, zacz1987 said:

I think Faile's age is just something that fans ignore and look over. She is definitely meant to be that much younger, the fact that she is too young to marry is something that is brought up by her Father when he meets Perrin and Faile in Caemlyn. 

 

 

Not sure how this answers my post. The author has stated that she is older, the books do not any definitive mention of her age that I know, and whatever her actual age, we have to assume that she is emotionally and intellectually an adult. Because the alternative is? That RJ was advocating child marriages?

[Scarloc99]

On 10/4/2023 at 8:16 AM, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

But surely this falls under unreliable narrator? It does not say that she compared the years of birth with Ewin, it only says she thought they were the same age. And Perrin did not recognise Ewin because he had aged so much in the year he had not seen him, so one could imagine easily that with his deep voice etc., he could appear older.

 

But the age is not so important, as surely we have to take that whatever the characters literal ages are, that in the books they are emotionally developed enough that we are not partaking of child abuse, and that they are to all intents and purposes, adults fully capable of consent. I really cannot imagine the point of arguing otherwise.

Like I say I am sure Robert Jordan stated he made a mistake here, which indicates the statement is right, Robert just forgot how old his own side characters where, but I have not seen the exact RJ quote, only people claiming he made it. 

The most important thing here though is that regardless of the world these are all presented as very innocent naieve characters learning about life while also trying to save the world so to expect an adult level of maturity in how they manage there relationships is to just ignore the theme of the story, a theme that explains pretty much all of the behaviour of Failes you refer to. 

 

On 10/4/2023 at 9:02 AM, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

Not sure how this answers my post. The author has stated that she is older, the books do not any definitive mention of her age that I know, and whatever her actual age, we have to assume that she is emotionally and intellectually an adult. Because the alternative is? That RJ was advocating child marriages?

An 18yo in the real world is generally not intellectually or emotionally an adult, I would say I couldn't really call myself intellectually or emotionally an adult until I was in my late 20's early 3-'s and most of my friends looking back would agree that they themselves think that (about themselves not me lol). 

There is no magic switch that happens when you turn 18, it is a process of years of life happening to a person and shaping there experiences and how they make decisions. Age is important the EF5 are immature and inexperienced, they are constantly being looked at with amused grins, or raised eyebrows by the adults around them for the things they do, it is made clear throughout the books that they are in the position they are in in spite of there ages, and it is only the powers they wield that give them the ability to command these experienced adults around. The characters are all immature in many many ways, they are meant to be it is how RJ wrote them. 

 

 

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

16 minutes ago, Scarloc99 said:

The most important thing here though is that regardless of the world these are all presented as very innocent naieve characters learning about life while also trying to save the world so to expect an adult level of maturity in how they manage there relationships is to just ignore the theme of the story, a theme that explains pretty much all of the behaviour of Failes you refer to

I have to respectfully disagree, being naive explains nothing of Faile's character, she is making deliberate decisions about how to treat Perrin that are not mistakes due to lack of experience. If they don't have an adult level of maturity they should not be getting married. I do not understand where you get the theme of the books is children becoming sexually active, getting married and running states, waging war, all sorts of fun. Young adults are not children, and are fully responsible for their actions.

[SinisterDeath]

5 minutes ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

I have to respectfully disagree, being naive explains nothing of Faile's character, she is making deliberate decisions about how to treat Perrin that are not mistakes due to lack of experience.

The two aren't mutually exclusive things.

A person can be niave/make mistakes due to lack of experience, and make a deliberate decision on how they treat someone.

 

6 minutes ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

If they don't have an adult level of maturity they should not be getting married.

lol

There are adults Today that don't have adult level of maturity that still get married and shouldn't. 😉 

 

7 minutes ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

I do not understand where you get the theme of the books is children becoming sexually active, getting married and running states, waging war, all sorts of fun. Young adults are not children, and are fully responsible for their actions.

EF5 and the main cast are between 18 and 25, they aren't children, they are young adults. I don't think @Scarloc99 called them children? You did? And they definitely went from few to no sexual activity to lots. Getting married and running states/waging war... Yeah, they are responsible for their actions. They have to grow up. That's why this is a... coming of age story... Where people grow up. They make mistakes. They grow. They change. They adapt. They go from being selfish assholes who only have one world view to being selfless people who have an expanded world view...

 

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

On 10/4/2023 at 9:34 AM, Scarloc99 said:

An 18yo in the real world is generally not intellectually or emotionally an adult, I would say I couldn't really call myself intellectually or emotionally an adult until I was in my late 20's early 3-'s and most of my friends looking back would agree that they themselves think that (about themselves not me lol). 

OK.

 

So what we need to remember is that Faile is 15, even though RJ says she isn't.

 

And actually it does not matter, as even if she was 20, she would still be not an adult.

 

And this explains everything about her. 

 

No, no it doesn't. You are using it as an excuse, but it does not explain or justify. Lots of readers have had an issue with Faile and the relationship, and the key to understanding it is to realise she is young? Which every reader was already aware of? This is not an argument. Why mention her age when even you don't think it is important?

 

But anyway, I don't see this discussion going further I am officially withdrawing from it with my closing statement that you have failed to convince me that Faile is the most realistic female character in the book, and her relationship with Perrin is also the most realistic relationship.

 

I can see that I have likewise made zero impression on your opinions, and I think we should call it a day at that.

 

If you aren't an adult then you are a child. I think it is splitting hairs to call someone not emotionally and intellectually an adult, and to somehow claim that would not be calling them children. 

[Scarloc99]

On 10/4/2023 at 9:40 AM, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

I have to respectfully disagree, being naive explains nothing of Faile's character, she is making deliberate decisions about how to treat Perrin that are not mistakes due to lack of experience. If they don't have an adult level of maturity they should not be getting married. I do not understand where you get the theme of the books is children becoming sexually active, getting married and running states, waging war, all sorts of fun. Young adults are not children, and are fully responsible for their actions.

It is clear you have an absolute view of the characters in the books that they are somehow mature and experienced and know everything and so when they make mistakes naivety can't be used as an excuse, despite the fact that all the main characters show exactly these same traits repeatedly. Many Many Many people fall in love and get married when they are not mature enough to, it happens in every coutry all the time, and young adults are not children, but, they make dumb mistakes and do things they shoudn't because of a lack of maturity. Go to any university campus and you will see loads of examples of that all over,  I at no point said it is about Children, But it is about immature young people coming of age and discovering about the world, I mean in the books I am pretty sure all of the EF5 are virgins, and by the end they all are not, Egwene behaves like a giddy school girl with Gawyn and often shows her age and immaturity, Matt probably ages the fastest, but he has lots of old men living in his head, Rand's efforts to woo and then run away from the 3 women in his life is at times just childish. Nynaeve is slightly better, but then she is older, but still acts immature with Lan, and lets not get into the wonder 3 acting like petty school girls while trying to hunt the black Ajah. Elayne sends the 2 letters to Rand like some lovesick child, something that adults would look at and shake there head at, she then tries to be a bit more grown up about it but still repeatedly acts irrationally compared to older characters around her.

 

I could go on, but the "stable" relationships in the books are generally those involving older people, Gareth and Siuan, Egeanin and Bayle, all the adult Aiel,  Robert Jordans writing is constantly pointing out that the main characters are young and because they are young they sometimes make dumb choices, especially when it comes to personal matters like love etc. 

 

 

You can't suddenly expect Faile, who whether it is 5 years, or 2 years younger then perrin, is still younger then Perrin to be some mature adult when it comes to relationships when I imagine in your own life there are 30 year olds who still have not learnt how to do adulting properly. The importnat thing is that over the course of the books Faile learns and changes, she has an arc, and her early actions are explained rationally in the books as a combination of jealousy, not knowing how to process her emotions, a lack of understanding as to how Perrin is acting and just not knowing how ot be adult about things. Oh, and cultural indoctrination that has told her that what she has is not what she thinks a marriage should be. But her and Perrin then have the talk, after a year of marriage, a year in which alot has happened, and they clear alot of things up, Perrin stops hiding things, Faile opens up and shares all about her, and they are stronger then for it. You would almost think there is a life lesson being told there in that story, who would have thunk it. 

 

 

 

On 10/4/2023 at 9:59 AM, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

If you aren't an adult then you are a child. I think it is splitting hairs to call someone not emotionally and intellectually an adult, and to somehow claim that would not be calling them children. 

I think every university student would be offended if they where called children, but many would also happily admit they are not adults yet in how they act, think, behave, and they shouldn't be. Here in the UK university is seen as much as the place you go to grow up and start to become an adult, as it is for academic purposes. Having spent a year in America when I was myself a student I can say that 18-21 yo Americans, in my experience, where generally even more immature and had even more growing up to do, I wonder anecdotally if it is because in the UK we are treated as full adults at 18, but that is a whole other thread. 

Edited October 4, 2023 by Scarloc99

[Cipher]

6 hours ago, Scarloc99 said:

I think every university student would be offended if they where called children, but many would also happily admit they are not adults yet in how they act, think, behave, and they shouldn't be. Here in the UK university is seen as much as the place you go to grow up and start to become an adult, as it is for academic purposes. Having spent a year in America when I was myself a student I can say that 18-21 yo Americans, in my experience, where generally even more immature and had even more growing up to do, I wonder anecdotally if it is because in the UK we are treated as full adults at 18, but that is a whole other thread. 

Historically people were considered adults when they came of age in a culture, e.g. bar mitzvah for Jewish males at age of 13 which signifies that they are an adult. That may have varied from culture to culture, but we’re expected to act far more mature than “young people” do in western societies in our present day. @HeavyHalfMoonBlade is from a Nordic country? (I.e. The people of Nordic countries may be more mature on average than people in the USA or other western countries?) And may have a different cultural take on Faile and Perrin. I have heard phone techs from India are trained to expect a 10 year deficit in maturity for USA callers.
 

RJ actually signaled the time in which he wrote WoT by the fact that many of the characters act far too immature for their age.  I guess it was a recurring plot device that he used it to cause drama, tension, and situations in which the reader will know better than the characters.  I think Wheel of Prime has retained that method in some ways.

 

But I look past that and read Faile and Perrin much as you do.

Edited October 4, 2023 by Cipher

[JosephBurns]

On 9/6/2023 at 8:20 AM, Agitel said:

 

Fifteen books and six to eight seasons that it's being planned for because HBO and actors wouldn't commit to 15-20 years of production.

 

Imagine if the two partner Dune movie had to be squeezed into a single film? Or if the ASoIaF series only got 3-4 seasons instead of 8. That's the kind of crunch they're working with at this time if they plan to do the whole thing, that's the buy in from Amazon.

 

We have a hunt for the horn and Perrin catching up on his wolf abilities. We have Mat recovering in Tar Valon. We have Rand on a solo journey (TDR) with the introduction of Selene. We have Nynaeve's accepted test, Elayne's introduction, and the three girls in the Tower. We have Moiraine studying at Adeleas' and Vandene's Verin's. The plot threads are being laid out hitting similar beats to the book and heading in similar directions.

 

This isn't my dream adaptation, but it's what we get at this time.

 

And compared to season one, the production value and execution of what they are going for, at least, is much improved.

 

I'm glad I took your advice.  Canon is way out the window, but I'm enjoying the show much more after our discussions and minimizing my expectations.  Thanks for the perspective!  

[Mailman]

Season 2 really poo's on the canon. (since I can't use another word.)

 

On 10/4/2023 at 8:49 AM, zacz1987 said:

I think Faile's age is just something that fans ignore and look over. She is definitely meant to be that much younger, the fact that she is too young to marry is something that is brought up by her Father when he meets Perrin and Faile in Caemlyn. 

 

 

The quote actually says "Zarine still isn't old enough to marry without her mothers permission, which she never asked, much less received". This indicates that it could just be a Saldean custom and also seems to indicate that woman are married at her age as long as they have permission of the mother.