Rands power growth, and why it should not match the books

[EmreY]

I think part of the issue is that - as people have stated here - the opening books were sometimes all over the place regarding power levels.  And not just Rand's by the way, but everyone else's, as witness the change in power ranks (we got three scales), not only in absolute terms, but sometimes relative as well.  For example, Lanfear started off stronger than Semirhage, then they equalised, etc.

 

The other part of the issue - at least for me - is that I know how strong Rand is, and not just in channelling, and so how ridiculous everything has been up to this point.  I just want the TV series to hurry up, give me the full eight years or whatever it's going to be, so I can get to Veins of Gold and then the end. 🙂 

[Deviations]

On 10/11/2023 at 12:53 PM, Elder_Haman said:

No. The people you refer to recognize that Rafe Judkins is creating a television show and that Robert Jordan was writing novels and that those are two different things.

 

Rafe isn’t ‘creating’ a TV show.  He’s adapting novels to TV.  It may seem like a minor distinction but it’s certainly part of the problem for me.

[DaveDanny]

I get that the TV show needs to stand on its own parts, but I felt like how the Eye of the World was portrayed was poorly done. And I didn't like how Moraine said from Episode 1 that one of the people from Emond's Field was the Dragon Reborn, so by the finale, Rand has to hear it from her, even though he doesn't believe it at first and thinks he's doomed to die an awful death. Also, in the books, Rand's battles with Ishamael were more epic, Jordan used a lot of illusion compared to the TV show making the entire confrontation a mind battle. Teasing Rand as the Dragon Reborn for the larger world within the books at the end of The Eye of the World worked for me. 

[Samt]

On 10/12/2023 at 8:46 AM, Elder_Haman said:

This and the plot hole with the dagger is why it’s just best to treat 108 like it never happened. 
 

Aside from that episode, the show holds up quite well. 

Even if this were true, that's a huge thing to have as an "aside."  A season finale is supposed to bring together the threads and deliver payoffs for the seeds have been planted.  We can't just pretend it didn't happen.  What are we supposed to assume is in its place?  A good show?  Why do we need TV at all?  Let's just pretend it's a good show.  

[Storeebooq]

 I think the show is doing a fantastic job of having Rand's journey be more realistic and him come into his own with the power. We see little sparks of how powerful he is (like when he takes out Turak, and he seems surprised after like "holy shit did I just do that?"), but he doesn't have the control and it's made very clear with the Aes Sedai shielding him like he's a child. It's very believable, and I think it fits well with a TV show.

 

In the books, we had patience (mostly) to deal with RJ's inconsistencies with the power levels. RJ had to retroactively add in challenges to the hero's so that their power levels didn't just make things too easy. Madness and sickness for Rand. Block for Nyn. Duty, capture, and apprenticeship for Eggy. Duty for Elayne. Etc. It made things a little confusing at times because there would be chapters of struggle that were suddenly resolved by a quick power blast moment from one of the heroes. And they have the challenge of having to make the struggles visible...where-as in the books we had the luxury of inner dialogue to exemplify the struggle. 

 

I also like how they are subtly showing the different channeling strengths, styles, and talent in the show. As well as context. I hope non-book readers are picking up on these things and are really trying to question why the Forsaken seem so fast and talented compared with the Aes Sedai. I hope they give us more moments of Rand seeming to 'remember' a complicated weave and then be surprised (again like the one he did with Turak, that was later repeated by Ishamael so clearly seemed to be drawn from an AoL memory.), and then unable to repeat the weave at a later time.