Season 2 finale was so cringy, how are you all not upset? (Spoilers)

[Elder_Haman]

17 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

tv does some things better, books do other things better.

And movies do some things better than tv. Big battle scenes, complex CGI, wall-to-wall action/adventure all work better on the big screen than on the small. 

[Requiem]

4 hours ago, grayavatar said:

Of course not. I would rather have protracted scenes of Lan taking a piss on a tree or Barthanes talking about making sandwiches. The heroes of the horn are not important, who cares about the Horn of Valere

 

Ultimately in the books the Heroes of the Horn aren't very important nor is the horn of Valere which sits gathering dust in the White Tower for the next dozen books.

 

I just reread The Great Hunt, 4 of the heroes are named when the horn is blown and this is the first time we hear about most of them.

 

I'd much rather spend time with characters who actually matter to the plot and are acting on the world around them, than a bunch of dead heroes most of whom don't appear until the horn is blown again at the last battle.

[Samt]

I enjoyed the show as light hearted, mindless entertainment. It doesn’t feel like a worthy adaptation, but it’s okay TV.  
 

I do think that it has serious time-management issues. The show has wasted so much screen time that any claims of not having enough time to tell the story feel unserious.  
 

And yes, the books spend lots of time on random things that don’t feel entirely necessary. But they weren’t going to run out of paper.  

[mogi68]

I am upset, but there's little I can do about it so I started an audiobook reread beginning with TEOTW 🙂

[Sabio]

16 hours ago, The Bandit Queen said:

Certain things also make sense to be cut. Igtar being a dark friend and his speech was awesome in the books. It would have fell flat on screen though because there isn’t enough time to build that arc up.

They had time, they just wasted the time on other stuff.  How long did they spend on Nyn in the street unable to heal ELayne?  Season 1 they spent a whole episode on a warder thatthey killed at the end of the episode.  They waste a lot of time on needless stuff and rush through the important stuff.  They could have added more for Igtar during the season but instead wasted it on Rand fetching wine for Logain, Min meeting Ishy etc.  Things that added nothing and went nowhere.

[Scarloc99]

On 10/7/2023 at 10:14 PM, Mirefox said:

You and I are often at odd on this show and it is pretty clear that we just don’t understand each other.  I’m curious about something, though.  Set aside the fact that you’re enjoying the show - that’s completely subjective and you’re completely justified in liking it as much as others are justified in not liking it.  Setting that aside, as a book fan, are you disappointed that so much of the story is being changed, rewritten, or made up for the show?  You can be and still like the show.  I’m genuinely curious because we definitely don’t get each other.

 

The bottom line for me is that I think Robert Jordan is an immeasurably better writer than Rafe Judkins and his team of inters and wherever I see them changing the story or making their own things up it melts my brain as how much lesser it is than the source material.  The show is not made in Jordan’s voice, it is made in Judkins’s, and it is worse off for it.

 

Let me be clear that Judkins is the figurehead but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if some of the changes came from some suits in an Amazon board room who wanted to make WoT the next GoT.

You can't take a book and translate it into a TV show, yes it might all sound great having some intricate TV scene where Matt blows the horn and the heroes (I guess hundreds of them) storm the city and take everyone down, but where is your budget to film that? How do you explain to non book readers what the horn is and how it works and who these heores are without some long exposition. 

I watched the scene with my non book reading wife and she actually cheered at that moment, at Matt suddenly realising he was a hero, it got her emotionally invested in him as a character, that one moment. She went from telling the TV screen, run away matt, run away, they are going to kill you, to "whats going on, time has stopped why hasn't her,, to like I said cheering. Other non book readers I have spoken to have all said they had the exact same reaction. They loved it. 

You might not be enjoying it, but please saying that X is a worse writer then Y really makes no sense, lets all be very very honest here for a moment, Robert Jordan was a great world builder, but a lot of his writing was average, there are some great moments, but if he was this amazing writer you would not have so many people lamenting about so many aspects of the story as being "boring", "repetitive", "pointless","generic". Yes we all come back in spite of these flaws, but we have to accept the flaws for what they are. 

Robert Jordans voice is there, it exists in the show, the lore an the details are there, but please understand, in order to make the TV show it was going to have to be cut and changed. 

I had a sudden moment of clarity today, and am going to make a post about it will link it here when it is made live, but it compares season 1 and 2 of WOT to the start of the fellowship of the ring. 

 

[Scarloc99]

21 hours ago, Agitel said:

I'm not upset with some things being changed, but I do agree a lot of S2E8 felt cringe to me. Part of that may just be trying to translate parts of the books to screen, I find the ending of TGH a little awkward in that respect, but I think a lot of it involved some sloppy writing choices after what I feel was a mostly improved S2. 

 

S2E8 didn't burn me the way S1E8 did. I'm still invested. But I'm hoping the quality doesn't peak here. I hope it continues to improve.

I think trying to combine books 2 and 3 into this one moment was tricky, U understand the reasons why they made that choice, it is clear that Rafe wants to get to book 4, when WOT proper begins, for season 3, and he therefore needed to get the characters into the emotional and experience point they are in book 3 much sooner. I did think the "avengers assemble" feel of the scene on the tower was a it cheesy, but it's hollywood,, and the great thing it did was isolate Moiraine out as a side character moving forward. 

[Scarloc99]

13 hours ago, Samt said:

I enjoyed the show as light hearted, mindless entertainment. It doesn’t feel like a worthy adaptation, but it’s okay TV.  
 

I do think that it has serious time-management issues. The show has wasted so much screen time that any claims of not having enough time to tell the story feel unserious.  
 

And yes, the books spend lots of time on random things that don’t feel entirely necessary. But they weren’t going to run out of paper.  

I am really intrigued when people say this, what screen time was wasted, what elements would you have cut out? 

[Scarloc99]

14 hours ago, Elder_Haman said:

And movies do some things better than tv. Big battle scenes, complex CGI, wall-to-wall action/adventure all work better on the big screen than on the small. 

Ahh but TV does battles so much better when it relies on theartre of the mind, usually battles in the dark, involving people wearing dark clothes, and every time the main characters look like they are about to be swarmed by say, zombies, the camera cuts away to return to them later un harmed 🙂 

I will say so far nothing in WOT has matched the truly abysmal season 8 of GOT. 

[Samt]

3 hours ago, Scarloc99 said:

I am really intrigued when people say this, what screen time was wasted, what elements would you have cut out? 

To be clear, when I say wasted, I mean in ways that didn't actually tell the story.  The whole Lan/Moiraine/Alanna plot this season was pretty pointless.  It was clearly put in to use characters/actors that were available rather than to tell the story.  It was generally seen by most commentators I have heard as weak, confusing, and not important to the story.  

[notpropaganda73]

4 hours ago, Scarloc99 said:

I am really intrigued when people say this, what screen time was wasted, what elements would you have cut out? 

 

honestly, if we weren't going to get the Ingtar-as-DF reveal, I would have preferred for them not to spend any time on him this season at all. I realise that isn't a huge amount of time anyway, but without his mini-arc, what was the point in having him around? 

 

In fact, this will likely be quite controversial, but considering how poorly I felt the entire "hunt" was done, why bother with the Horn of Valere at all? 

 

 

 

[Ralph]

the horn is there only for mat

 

I suspect they had Ingtar reveal, and then unfortunately got cut

[Ralph]

58 minutes ago, Samt said:

To be clear, when I say wasted, I mean in ways that didn't actually tell the story.  The whole Lan/Moiraine/Alanna plot this season was pretty pointless.  It was clearly put in to use characters/actors that were available rather than to tell the story.  It was generally seen by most commentators I have heard as weak, confusing, and not important to the story.  

 

book readers or non? 

[notpropaganda73]

14 minutes ago, Ralph said:

the horn is there only for mat

 

Remove the Horn from S2 and what do we actually lose, story and character wise? 

 

What do we gain, time wise? 

 

I think the entirety of the hunt and the "reveal" of the heroes is sort of what I fear for the show going forward. Things are said occasionally over a few episodes but nothing feels established properly until a rush for the season finale when we sort of get the thing from the books but it doesn't quite land as you'd hope because it doesn't feel earned, or authentic, or whatever. 

 

I realise this is all subjective but I don't think the Horn is really that important overall to the story, so why not cut it and focus in on more Perrin and Elyas scenes, more of Rand, more of Mat, Nynaeve and Elayne. More Verin! For anyone worried about the Heroes, they are still in TAR, they can be called to the Last Battle by Callandor or whatever

 

 

As for Ingtar, I think these are decisions to make early in the process. If you know the DF reveal is going to be cut, then cut the other threads through the season with him in it. As I said, it's not a huge amount of time, but as that is one of top favourite moments from the books, I would have preferred it not being teased it at all. As I mentioned in the ep8 thread, give his moment to Lan protecting Moiraine instead. 

 

[Elder_Haman]

32 minutes ago, notpropaganda73 said:

I realise this is all subjective but I don't think the Horn is really that important overall to the story,

The Horn gave Mat his memories back. Him blowing it is how the writers are going to level Mat up, give him his luck, make him a better fighter, etc. That was the purpose.

 

[Joe B]

6 hours ago, Scarloc99 said:

and the great thing it did was isolate Moiraine out as a side character moving forward. 

Don’t bet on it.

[DaddyFinn]

On 10/8/2023 at 6:40 PM, Vartija said:

Rand ... didn't learn anything ... yet was still able to do ... intricate weaves ... when the plot needed it.

Sounds kinda like the books, right? Channelers (not just main characters) could do random and very complex weaves just because they wanted to achieve a specific thing in the moment. 

[Sabio]

8 hours ago, Scarloc99 said:

I am really intrigued when people say this, what screen time was wasted, what elements would you have cut out? 

Ran fetching wine for Logain,  Ishy meeting with Min, the Ishy giving Mat tea was rather useless, some of the Liladrian backstory hiding her son could have been removed.  They often spend more time covering a secondary character then they do the main characters.  To me that's just a few examples of wasted screen time.  

[Sabio]

2 hours ago, Elder_Haman said:

The Horn gave Mat his memories back. Him blowing it is how the writers are going to level Mat up, give him his luck, make him a better fighter, etc. That was the purpose.

 

The problem is, for someone who hasn't read the books they have to be wondering why the horn was so important.  He blew the horn, some ghosts, showed up, Uno and Mat are heroes of the Horn, Mat gave the Horn away, and they fought the bad guys.  Why exactly is that so important to defeating the DO?

Edited October 9, 2023 by Sabio

[Elder_Haman]

4 minutes ago, Sabio said:

Why exactly is that so important to defeating the DO?

Think this is meant to be a WAFO. I’m reasonably confident we will get some more info on this from Mat next season. 

[Scarloc99]

48 minutes ago, Sabio said:

Ran fetching wine for Logain,  Ishy meeting with Min, the Ishy giving Mat tea was rather useless, some of the Liladrian backstory hiding her son could have been removed.  They often spend more time covering a secondary character then they do the main characters.  To me that's just a few examples of wasted screen time.  

Rand fetching wine for Logain was kind of key to Moiraine finding him, by taking him to the party. Lanfer made Rand an important figure, him burning the invite meant that the spies where put on him to watch him, and then when he went off with Lanfer Moiraine could be told where he had gone. 
 

The logic and the connections of that scene were brilliant, and it gave a very logical reason for Moiraine to turn up at the hut and rescue Rand. If none of that had happened then we would have been asking “how did anyone know”. 
 

Liandrin again, modern audiences are used now to Villains with nuance, with texture with a backstory. Marvel have amongst others done that (sometimes really well, black panther, thanos, and sometimes not so), but also GOT got fantasy fans more used to complexity.  villains in the tv show had to be deeper and more rounded, they needed motivations to explain the choices and decisions they made otherwise the show comes off like a bad 90’s show where the baddies are “just bad so deal with it” and in this day and age that would be an awful tv show. 
 

Ishy giving the tea was a great character moment. My wife was really invested in Matt through these scenes 

 

The ishy and Min stuff I am not so clear on, it was a step to far, but it did show that Mins visions are all about context, she saw Matt stabbing Rand, the vision didn’t show it would be an accident. 

Edited October 9, 2023 by Scarloc99

[Ralph]

Ishy and min was needed so we know mat stabbing Rand was Ishy's plan. we only know it from there 

 

we still don't know how he knows about it though. or what he meant that he knows who kills him - I suspect not this but he means he himself as Moridin in s8e8

[LightHelpMe]

On 10/7/2023 at 5:14 PM, Mirefox said:

who wanted to make WoT the next GoT.

If they really wanted to make it the next GoT they would have given it 10 episodes per season. There is just too much to cram i into 8 episodes. And if we don't get 8 seasons? It will definitely fail.

[LightHelpMe]

On 10/9/2023 at 12:56 PM, notpropaganda73 said:

don't think the Horn is really that important overall to the story,

It is very important to the last battle which is what the whole series is building up to. TGH haves us an introduction to it and showed us what to expect. It also reinforces the cyclical nature of time and people being spun out over and over again. They look different with each incarnation and have a different name, but it's the same soul, which is how Hawking recognized Rand. (Although that k particular point is lost in the show.)

[Maximillion]

On 10/8/2023 at 4:40 PM, Vartija said:

I hope they take a critical look at the pacing for future seasons. I think both seasons suffered from a rush to the finish line type of approach. They take their time building some storylines early in the season like it was a 10+ episode season and then end up cramming too much into episodes 7 & 8. The internal logic suffers when they have to force a conclusion to every storyline in 60 minutes.  

 

Also they should do a better job landing the storylines they've developed during the season. We spent a fair bit of time with Elayne & Nyn coming up with a plan to save Egwene only to have her save herself from the a'dam. Ingtar was hinted at as a DF but then we didn't get the reveal which made much of the (admittedly) little buildup with him useless. Likewise we spend precious time with Rand finding wine for Logain but in the end he didn't learn anything from him, yet was still able to do two intricate weaves in the final episodes when the plot needed it.

The example you gave of Elyane and Nynaeve coming up with their plan to save Egwene is a good one. It was given significant time including getting the collar, a dead Aes Sedai and her warder and placing the collar on a sul’dam.

 Then it just hits a dead end.

 Story arcs that end up meaning nothing are common in this show. Maybe that’s by design, who knows.

 But it doesn’t make sense to me at least given they have so little time to tell a vastly expensive story.