New user, came to vent.

[Goathill]

On 12/13/2024 at 10:59 PM, bringbackthomsmoustache said:

In the books they are no more threatening than the Saxville-Baggins' in LOTR.  In the show they have added heavy drinking, womanising, gambling and an implication of Mat acting as a thief or gigolo (depending on your interpretation of how he got the jewelry he sells to Padan Fain).  Overall a far more gritty two rivers compared to the shire-ish view in the books.

 

You don't get it RJ was from the rural south, then ad in the setting of EF in WoT. Small isolated villages do not tolerate outright criminals unless they are all criminally inclined. (Tar and Ferry) For the EF 5 to speak openly about the low character of the Congars and the Coplins speaks volumes.  

[expat]

2 hours ago, Goathill said:

 

You don't get it RJ was from the rural south, then ad in the setting of EF in WoT. Small isolated villages do not tolerate outright criminals unless they are all criminally inclined. (Tar and Ferry) For the EF 5 to speak openly about the low character of the Congars and the Coplins speaks volumes.  

Or just indicates prejudice.  People look down on the folks on the other side of the tracks all the time. Any reasonable sized group of people will have both good folks and bad folks.  I found the black or white vision that all the EF5 and their folks were good and all Congars and Coplins were bad was a major indication of the bad writing of EF in the book.

This was why I liked the mixing of good and bad characteristics for the EF5 side of town (e.g., Mat's dysfunctional family) was a vast improvement from the book.  It was much more realistic.  It also justified why Mat was the one and only jerk (e.g., trickster, gambler, drinker, womanizer, reluctant hero) from the EF side of town, which improve his characterization.

[expat]

One of the most interesting things coming out of the series is that it has given me a greater insight into the books.  The changes from the books caused me to think about why the writers made the change and if they were good or bad. I realized that there were a lot of things in the books that I just read causally and never really thought about.  I found instances where there were things that made me like the book better, but I also found instances where the books were weak that I had just brushed off earlier by ignoring them.  Thinking through the issues made me feel I had a better understanding of the books.

[Kaleb]

11 minutes ago, expat said:

Or just indicates prejudice.  People look down on the folks on the other side of the tracks all the time. Any reasonable sized group of people will have both good folks and bad folks.  I found the black or white vision that all the EF5 and their folks were good and all Congars and Coplins were bad was a major indication of the bad writing of EF in the book.

I don't think it's bad writing, but I fully agree with this point. The idyllic small-town feel might mesmerize those who are from there, especially the town gentry (mayor/innkeeper, prosperous farmer) who are fully invested in it, but a visitor might well take a sleazier impression of the place.

 

I think there are lots of clues in the text of EOTW that all is not well in EF/The Shire, and I'm very glad the show found some shorthand ways to bring those forward. Mat's the most obvious character to do it with... why is the main character's best friend always pulling fairly serious pranks? Maybe things aren't all that great at home with his horse trader dad... in 20th century terms, that's a used car dealer. And sure, his friends all love to see him get one over on the out-of-towners, but they've likely all found themselves on the short end of the stick a few times too. Jordan never says any of this, of course, but his strongest suit as a writer is giving characters their own biased perspectives: the things they notice that others don't, as well as all the unwritten things they miss, things we only see later in cases where we have another perspective on the same event.

[fearbrog]

6 hours ago, expat said:

Do you agree that there are elements of the books which are not perfect and can be improved?

No way. Especially not by those authors. 

 

6 hours ago, expat said:

ending of book 1

Ahahahaha. Cool one, it's was soooooo important that audience see as little Rand actions as possible.

 

6 hours ago, expat said:

Since they are trying to produce and interesting TV series, important book material that doesn't work on screen needs to rewritten so that it makes interesting TV while keeping the story moving forward.

I guess Rand being innocent hero doesn't work this day and age so now he must have sex. Cause sex makes story interesting and mature. Hove thoughtful of showrunner.

 

6 hours ago, expat said:

New scenes are needed to fix book problems. <...> Just putting bad book stuff on screen is not the right answer.

I wonder what is bad book staff was actually filtered by show staff. Is Battle in the sky bad? Rand's whole travel to Falme must be bad cause showrunner wouldn't remove main character's lessons on responsibility and leadership for no reason. Him fighting cool duel with sword must also be bad and we all know swordfighting won't make interesting TV, only good in books. What about Nyn and Elayne saving Egwene? Is woman being saved by women as "problematic" as being saved by men, or just "bad" (Authors didn't have any problems with Rand being saved multiple times in 2nd season).

Edited Monday at 05:02 AM by fearbrog

[fearbrog]

32 minutes ago, expat said:

It was much more realistic.

Now this is extremely silly. People always justify changes to source material by saying "It's fantasy, why <something> can't be in story?". So here's my question: "It's fantasy, why town full of good people can't be in story?" Why this needs to be realistic?

[DigificWriter]

Re-reading this thread has reminded me of a generalized response that I told myself I was going to use whenever somebody criticized anything about an adaptation and didn't care to - or wasn't willing to - explain their criticisms in anything but broad declarations of negativity: "Things are not wrong just because they are new!"

 

It's a snippet of lyrics from my favorite musical and is really the only appropriate response for the kind of negative comments that this thread is filled with.

 

[fearbrog]

1 hour ago, DigificWriter said:

"Things are not wrong just because they are new!"

It would be fine if show actually be "new", but it's not just "new". It's fanfiction based on existing story with clear biases towards certain characters. If only showrunner actually created some new original show there wouldn't people comparing it to some book. Then he could have all the sex, make his own rules to magic and wouldn't be burdened with 3 to 5 characters less appealing to him

[DigificWriter]

All adaptations add new things; that's just a stone cold truth. You can either accept it and be open-minded or obstinate and closed-minded, in which case you'd be far better off just ignoring the adaptation and contenting yourself with only the original source material.

 

My broader point still stands, though: new stuff in an adaptation is not wrong or bad simply because it is new.

Edited Monday at 05:42 PM by DigificWriter

[Kaleb]

44 minutes ago, fearbrog said:

It would be fine if show actually be "new", but it's not just "new". It's fanfiction based on existing story with clear biases towards certain characters. If only showrunner actually created some new original show there wouldn't people comparing it to some book. Then he could have all the sex, make his own rules to magic and wouldn't be burdened with 3 to 5 characters less appealing to him

The books have a lot of sex and Jordan as an author has a lot of fun gently mocking the professed prudery of our Two Rivers heroes through other characters with more sex-positive cultures. It's clear that the polyamorous writer did not share the culturally conservative views of sex that a lot of his readers presumed. The show is de-emphasizing the "hayseeds get worldly" theme in the book, and angst about sexuality is one of the elements of that theme that they faded out. Totally ok not to like it if that was a theme you wanted to see more of, but I am one book reader that feels the show writers made a good choice here.

 

The magic system has no major changes, the only confirmed one is that in the show circles can burn a channeler out, which helps the show by quickly explaining why Aes Sedai don't do it all the time. There's debate about whether the Three Oaths have been changed for the show, but I don't see anything definitive one way or the other. And of course we haven't had the big lore dumps about saidin vs saidar, but they seem to work just as they do in the books.

 

The show certainly seems to have all the same main characters as the books playing the same roles in the story, not sure what you're on about here. We've seen less Rand than the books because the show adopted the ensemble POV of most of the books from the get-go. And the show is not overpowering Rand with massive end-of-book climactic battles doing things that he can't do again. Jordan spent a lot of time in Rand's head giving readers the feel that his internal battle was over control more than access, and that wrestling with the temptation and revulsion of saidin was important to the books for sure. But giving that struggle its due time would make the other characters' stories much paler in the given time for the show, so pulling back and making Rand's power growth more of an access and knowledge issue where we see him trying to connect with a mentor is a good adjustment in my view.

[fearbrog]

23 minutes ago, DigificWriter said:

new stuff in an adaptation is not wrong or bad simply because it is new

How about it's wrong and bad because it take valuable screen time from staff show decided to cut.

[fearbrog]

6 minutes ago, Kaleb said:

The magic system has no major changes

AoE heal, resurrection, a'dam not working for some reason. 

 

9 minutes ago, Kaleb said:

We've seen less Rand than the books because the show adopted the ensemble POV of most of the books from the get-go. And the show is not overpowering Rand with massive end-of-book climactic battles doing things that he can't do again. Jordan spent a lot of time in Rand's head giving readers the feel that his internal battle was over control more than access, and that wrestling with the temptation and revulsion of saidin was important to the books for sure. But giving that struggle its due time would make the other characters' stories much paler in the given time for the show, so pulling back and making Rand's power growth more of an access and knowledge issue where we see him trying to connect with a mentor is a good adjustment in my view.

What about Rand sword fights, about his leadership, aboud his friendships, about valuable lessons from Ingtar or Thom. He can't have all these, but Moiraine can have sister. He must be put on his knees and be saved multiple times a season, but Egwene don't need any help from noone. He can't be heroic at all, he doesn't even present himself as Dragon Reborn in Falme, Moiraine did. It looked more like Aes Sedai's false dragon project rather genuine step in Dragon's prophecy. Showrunner clearly prefers Egwene and Moiraine over Rand(cut content), Mat(remade to be a thief) and Perrin(killed his own wife). If only those three wouldn't be in story others would shine even brighter.

[Kaleb]

11 minutes ago, fearbrog said:

AoE heal, resurrection, a'dam not working for some reason. 

AoE heal = Nynaeve in the cave in S1? I thought that was a bit of stretch too, but it doesn't represent any change to the magic system, it's just showing how a super-powered but untrained channeler is able to do something impossible in a passionate moment, which happens throughout the series.

Resurrection didn't happen, straight up. Bad makeup and covid restrictions allowed the scene to be done with any ambiguity at all, they had to use a mannequin on a same-day re-write. So, a flub by the show for sure, but not a change to the magic system at all.

A'dam mechanics were inconsistent with the books, but again, not a change to anything fundamental. A'dam are just a tool that uses the power.

 

16 minutes ago, fearbrog said:

What about Rand sword fights, about his leadership, aboud his friendships, about valuable lessons from Ingtar or Thom. He can't have all these, but Moiraine can have sister. He must be put on his knees and be saved multiple times a season, but Egwene don't need any help from noone. He can't be heroic at all, he doesn't even present himself as Dragon Reborn in Falme, Moiraine did. It looked more like Aes Sedai's false dragon project rather genuine step in Dragon's prophecy. Showrunner clearly prefers Egwene and Moiraine over Rand(cut content), Mat(remade to be a thief) and Perrin(killed his own wife). If only those three wouldn't be in story others would shine even brighter.

Rand defeated Ishamael at the end of S1 by himself, with Moiraine literally helpless and on her knees. Just because we know it was a false victory doesn't diminish his heroism in that scene. Mat's literally a thief in the books, him stealing the dagger is the key thing he does in the first two books and makes him most first-time readers' least favorite character until he's healed and starts to turn around in book 3. Perrin killing his wife is a big change for sure, but it makes his behavior with women and especially Faile so much more believable - sucks that it's a trope. I also am one who thinks the show should have leaned into making Laila a Darkfriend, I still think that scene looks like she was about to take a swing at him, and there's the previous scene in their bed where she looks suspiciously thoughtful about him. Could have been interesting. 

 

Anyway, there's plenty of great story in the books for all of them and the show can only give us a fraction of it. Everything indicates that season 3 will be where Rand takes the reins from Moiraine as the obvious main character, with Perrin sure to shine in the Two Rivers arc. Mat will likely have to wait til season 4 to have his big moments, but there are some indications that they're going to do the snakes and foxes in some form, so I'm just crossing my fingers until we see what happens. Which I loved doing reading the books and waiting for the next one to come out, so this is a very WoT experience for me.

[fearbrog]

1 hour ago, Kaleb said:

AoE heal = Nynaeve in the cave in S1? I thought that was a bit of stretch too, but it doesn't represent any change to the magic system, it's just showing how a super-powered but untrained channeler is able to do something impossible in a passionate moment, which happens throughout the series.

Resurrection didn't happen, straight up. Bad makeup and covid restrictions allowed the scene to be done with any ambiguity at all, they had to use a mannequin on a same-day re-write. So, a flub by the show for sure, but not a change to the magic system at all.

Those two things is bigger than anything in the books apart from two mountain scenes and cleansing. Egwene literal nobody heals Nyn no that different for other non-sedais after destroying army of trollocs. Maybe Tarwin's gap had pool of saidar?

 

1 hour ago, Kaleb said:

not a change to anything fundamental. A'dam are just a tool that uses the power.

A'dam most harmful thing known to Egwene and yet she managed to willingly collar other person. Ether a'dam doesn't prevent from harming others or she had outside help from Dark One

 

1 hour ago, Kaleb said:

Rand defeated Ishamael at the end of S1 by himself, with Moiraine literally helpless and on her knees. Just because we know it was a false victory doesn't diminish his heroism in that scene.

He literally didn't defeat him, he didn't submit but we know he didn't take W. He didn't even get him wound from fair fight with Ishamael, he was stabbed by Mat. Mighty heroic from him. And heroic fight with Turak is gone. 

 

1 hour ago, Kaleb said:

Mat's literally a thief in the books, him stealing the dagger is the key thing he does in the first two books and makes him most first-time readers' least favorite character until he's healed and starts to turn around in book 3.

He didn't steal in EF. He was seduced by riches but it's different character flaw to me.

 

1 hour ago, Kaleb said:

Anyway, there's plenty of great story in the books for all of them and the show can only give us a fraction of it

There plenty story for Egwene and Nyn and Moiraine in the books, but show created for them new feats and storylines. By taking away Rand's screentime. Now he doesn't train with sword, Nyn does. He doesn't defeat trollocs, Egwene does

1 hour ago, Kaleb said:

Everything indicates that season 3 will be where Rand takes the reins from Moiraine as the obvious main character

Show's history of sidelining Rand doesn't indicate it. For all we know he would be trapped in Rhuidean in ep1 and Moiraine would not only save him but defeat Asmo if he even exist in show canon. Anyway, there's plenty of great story in the books for Rand and show needs to use Moiraine as much as they can

1 hour ago, Kaleb said:

Perrin sure to shine in the Two Rivers arc

Or maybe Faile would be commander and hero, after all she is royal and Perrin just blacksmith and it wouldn't be realistic for him to be capable leader. Watchers today like realism in their fantasy. Anyway, there's plenty of great story in the books for Perrin and show needs to establish Faile like Eg and Nyn in s1.

Edited Monday at 08:24 PM by fearbrog

[Kaleb]

I'm glad that we understand one another on the changes regarding innocence and sex. I don't understand much of the rest of what you wrote in this last message other than as a reductio ad absurdum and it's not persuasive.

[fearbrog]

Despite both Rand and others have great story in books, Rand's story MUST be sacrificed. Rand cool moments given to Egg, Nyn, Moiraine and Perrin. He was sidelined for 2 seasons, so not everything indicates he will be central hero of season 3. A'dam doesn't work. Everyone but Rand much more powerful with One Power. Is this more understandable?

[expat]

20 hours ago, fearbrog said:

No way. Especially not by those authors. 

 

Anyone who says that 14 books and 12000 pages is perfect and has no problems which an adaptation should address is not arguing in good faith.  Deciding beforehand that the books should be filmed as written and refusing to think about the "why" for specific changes doesn't promote useful discussion.

 

Liking the specific changes that try to address potential problems (book issues, POV characterization, dialogue/scenes that don't work on screen, structural filming issues) isn't necessary to understand why the writer's made changes and didn't just film the book. 

[Andra]

On 12/14/2024 at 11:36 PM, Elder_Haman said:

Fortunately, I have never suggested such a thing. 

No, but the comment you replied to was in response to someone doing precisely that.  It wasn't just from out of the blue.

[Elder_Haman]

1 hour ago, Andra said:

No, but the comment you replied to was in response to someone doing precisely that.  It wasn't just from out of the blue.

Nope. It sure wasn’t. 

[fearbrog]

2 hours ago, expat said:

Liking the specific changes that try to address potential problems (book issues, POV characterization, dialogue/scenes that don't work on screen, structural filming issues) isn't necessary to understand why the writer's made changes and didn't just film the book. 

Well than, explain to me, please, why was it necessary for Rand to be helpless and saved by different characters multiple times during season, but showrunner changed Egwene escape? What was so bad about being saved by Nyn that author needed improve RJ vision? I truly don't understand

[king of nowhere]

10 hours ago, fearbrog said:

Well than, explain to me, please, why was it necessary for Rand to be helpless and saved by different characters multiple times during season, but showrunner changed Egwene escape? What was so bad about being saved by Nyn that author needed improve RJ vision? I truly don't understand

non sequitur.

you are trying to bring some examples of bad changes as an argument that all changes are bad by principle.

you are trying to bring some examples of unnecessary changes to argue that there is nothing whatsoever that needs changing.

 

which would be like arguing that since a few blokes were hurt by wrong medicine prescribed mistakenly, then all medicine is bad and nobody would ever need any doctor under any circumstances. and you just keep bringing that up instead of bringing up actual arguments. "but if someone has a broken leg, he will need splinting" "then explain why joe was given talidomide".

no, whether some changes were unnecessary and/or poorly done is completely irrelevant on whether some changes are necessary, and you are letting your frustration with some changes cloud your judgment on changes in general

[Kaleb]

19 hours ago, fearbrog said:

Despite both Rand and others have great story in books, Rand's story MUST be sacrificed. Rand cool moments given to Egg, Nyn, Moiraine and Perrin. He was sidelined for 2 seasons, so not everything indicates he will be central hero of season 3. A'dam doesn't work. Everyone but Rand much more powerful with One Power. Is this more understandable?

Robert Jordan wrote The Wheel of Time and NOT Rand al'Thor and the Wheel of Time. Every main character is having their story pared back because the show has much less space to tell the story. It may feel like we're seeing more non-Rand characters in the show than the books, but that's because Rand's POV was so uncharacteristically dominant in The Eye Of The World and The Great Hunt, which are the main sources for the show's events so far.

 

In the early books, many of the key scenes involve Rand. Given production circumstances (covid, Mat's S1 actor leaving mid-season), major changes to the scripts were necessary, and some of these involved giving those key scenes to other characters so they could happen in some form. I'm thinking of the flies hallucination from The Great Hunt... my understanding is that Rand and Mat were supposed to be with Perrin and the Shienarans and that would have been Rand's vision as in the books, but the show had to make a massive rewrite since Mat was no longer in the book location at the end of S1, and they made choices to deal with it. It's ok to not like their choices, but it's silly to accuse the showrunners of having some vendetta against Rand's character because of it. My strong belief is that S3 will make Rand's centrality obvious, but if you disagree there's no point arguing it until we see the episodes. Bookmark this post/thread and come back to it in May if you want.

[expat]

12 hours ago, fearbrog said:

Well than, explain to me, please, why was it necessary for Rand to be helpless and saved by different characters multiple times during season, but showrunner changed Egwene escape? What was so bad about being saved by Nyn that author needed improve RJ vision? I truly don't understand

I never disparaged anyone for not liking specific changes.  I don't think that all the changes worked, but I can understand why they made the change in most cases which is good enough to let me enjoy the series for what it is instead of reflexively hating it because "it's not the books".  My argument has always been that the books COULD NOT BE FILMED as written, so major changes were unavoidable in any adaptation.  Like any other human endeavor, those changes could be good or bad, necessary of unnecessary, well written or poorly written.  Any argument that begins and ends with make it closer to the books, all new material is bad, are irrelevant.  So hate (and discuss) on what you think are bad changes but understand that these changes were a necessary part of the adaptation process.  

[Elder_Haman]

11 minutes ago, expat said:

I never disparaged anyone for not liking specific changes.  I don't think that all the changes worked, but I can understand why they made the change in most cases which is good enough to let me enjoy the series for what it is instead of reflexively hating it because "it's not the books".  My argument has always been that the books COULD NOT BE FILMED as written, so major changes were unavoidable in any adaptation.  Like any other human endeavor, those changes could be good or bad, necessary of unnecessary, well written or poorly written.  Any argument that begins and ends with make it closer to the books, all new material is bad, are irrelevant.  So hate (and discuss) on what you think are bad changes but understand that these changes were a necessary part of the adaptation process.  

Exactly correct. For example, I think it was a bad idea to frame season one the way they did. “Who is the Dragon?” just didn’t work. I think it was probably someone’s too clever by half attempt to get people invested in the characters, but the story just isn’t structured to make that a viable choice. 
 

That one choice was likely responsible for some of the most disliked aspects of the season (Nyn’s mass rez, for example) and had the effect of skewing away from Rand. 
 

One can be critical without resorting to insane ad hominems against the showrunner or hysterical, performative whinging about RJ rolling over in his grave.
 

The hyperbole that comes from some of the show haters is just cringe inducing and it signals a lack of interest in any actual discussion. 

[BookMattBetterThanShow]

36 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

Exactly correct. For example, I think it was a bad idea to frame season one the way they did. “Who is the Dragon?” just didn’t work. I think it was probably someone’s too clever by half attempt to get people invested in the characters, but the story just isn’t structured to make that a viable choice. 

I agree, all of the non book people I recommend to watch the show had it figured out to be Rand by episode 2. Which surprised me, thought it would have taken non book people longer to figure it out. Wonder if this was just the people I recommend it to or was this pretty common?