Brandon Sanderson S2 Finale Reaction Video

[Scarloc99]

On 11/4/2023 at 10:37 PM, fra85uk said:

 

Ok, lack of fluidity in the movements, lack of a nice flow in swordfights, the strength of hits is not sold, editing obliged to cut fast to sell you that something good is happening while it's not, fights almost always in the dark. so you cannot understand again what's going on (because what's going on is not good).

Just for comparison, look at how Henry Cavill plays the Witcher and how believable he is in his fights.

I mean I agree the fight scenes in Witcher are better done, the battle scenes in GOT where also better, but, if people think WOT is not the story of the books, Witcher is so so so far removed from anything that was written that it absolutely is a new and different story. And the rubbish Prequel they made as well is some of the worst fantasy TV that anyone has ever made. 

[fra85uk]

22 hours ago, Scarloc99 said:

I mean I agree the fight scenes in Witcher are better done, the battle scenes in GOT where also better, but, if people think WOT is not the story of the books, Witcher is so so so far removed from anything that was written that it absolutely is a new and different story. And the rubbish Prequel they made as well is some of the worst fantasy TV that anyone has ever made. 

My opinion:

Witcher S1 is not bad (better than WoT)

Witcher S2 and S3 very bad (below WoT)...and guess why? they derailed heeavily from source material, so much that even their star decided to quit.

Witcher Blood Origin is trash.

 

[Mirefox]

On 11/4/2023 at 5:24 PM, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

Appeal to authority is a logical fallacy. I would suggest you come better armed to a discussion with me. 

Come off it with this garbage.  Authority is not de facto fallacious and him offering his experience actually adds cogency to an argument.  What an insufferable response from you.

 

By your illogic, Brandon Sanderson couldn’t argue with you either because his bona fides would be, according you you, a fallacious appeal to authority.

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

4 minutes ago, Mirefox said:

Come off it with this garbage.  Authority is not de facto fallacious and him offering his experience actually adds cogency to an argument.  What an insufferable response from you.

 

By your illogic, Brandon Sanderson couldn’t argue with you either because his bona fides would be, according you you, a fallacious appeal to authority.

However, you might disagree, the rules of logic are what they are. If we were arguing about a quote from the book, it would completely be wrong to appeal to any one as an authority on the book. Not because their knowledge is not worthwhile but because it is not a valid argument. 

 

While being an expert in something can add weight to your opinion, it does not elevate the subjective into the objective. 

 

And also describing what is wrong with something and why is not the same as making a blanket judgement based on being an expert. 

 

And the one issue you are overlooking is that if Brandon Sanderson was arguing with me, he would be wrong 🙂

[Mirefox]

23 minutes ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

However, you might disagree, the rules of logic are what they are. If we were arguing about a quote from the book, it would completely be wrong to appeal to any one as an authority on the book. Not because their knowledge is not worthwhile but because it is not a valid argument. 

 

While being an expert in something can add weight to your opinion, it does not elevate the subjective into the objective. 

 

And also describing what is wrong with something and why is not the same as making a blanket judgement based on being an expert. 

 

And the one issue you are overlooking is that if Brandon Sanderson was arguing with me, he would be wrong 🙂

You reference the rules of logic but in inductive argumentation, appeals to authority are not de facto fallacious and in fact can offer validity.  
 

I love logic.  I won’t cite my experience because you seem to find that fallacious but if you want to talk logic and its rules in the framework of this show we could start a whole thread as this show has more logical inconsistency than most shows I’ve seen.

[Scarloc99]

14 hours ago, fra85uk said:

My opinion:

Witcher S1 is not bad (better than WoT)

Witcher S2 and S3 very bad (below WoT)...and guess why? they derailed heeavily from source material, so much that even their star decided to quit.

Witcher Blood Origin is trash.

 

I thought even season 1 was worse then wot it deviated far more from the source material. 

Edited November 8, 2023 by Scarloc99

[Scarloc99]

3 hours ago, Mirefox said:

You reference the rules of logic but in inductive argumentation, appeals to authority are not de facto fallacious and in fact can offer validity.  
 

I love logic.  I won’t cite my experience because you seem to find that fallacious but if you want to talk logic and its rules in the framework of this show we could start a whole thread as this show has more logical inconsistency than most shows I’ve seen.

I mean it is all opinion, including Brandon Sanderson, and he has since said that it is his opinion that the show is brilliant there are just a couple of issues he has personally in his opinion. 
 

In my opinion Brandon Sanderson is an awful writer who writes mass produced badly edited fiction, I and my friends have tried multiple times to read and can never get through because we find the writing is just bad. However I also respect that is my opinion and lots of other people enjoy his fiction, lots of people also enjoy the twilight books and the books of Dan Brown so sales and earnings and proclivity of writing do not always indicate someone is a good writer just they know how to appeal to the masses. Given that is how I feel about BS I take his opinion with a pinch of salt while accepting his and everyone’s right to have one. But, it is just an opinion. People are mis quoting him as if he is stating facts. It is one of the issues of the internet people are no longer allowed to have differing opinions and the moment someone disagrees they are expected to defend that position factually. People just need to accept that a lot more of us then some are willing to accept actually enjoy the show and think a good job is being done we are not wrong because that is an opinion and in fact Brandon Sanderson is one of those. 

Edited November 9, 2023 by Scarloc99

[Samt]

On 11/7/2023 at 3:01 AM, Scarloc99 said:

I mean I agree the fight scenes in Witcher are better done, the battle scenes in GOT where also better, but, if people think WOT is not the story of the books, Witcher is so so so far removed from anything that was written that it absolutely is a new and different story. And the rubbish Prequel they made as well is some of the worst fantasy TV that anyone has ever made. 

I can't speak about Witcher specifically since I am not very much familiar with that fandom, but I think it's important to realize that not all IPs are equal in terms of the expectation of adherence to a certain storyline, characterization, and universe lore.  Comic books and computer games are generally very open in terms of adding new characters or stories and modifying the lore of the universe.   Batman and Superman are often rebooted and the stories changed.  There are effectively lots of different versions of these characters.

 

Of course, this distinction is quite subjective.  But I think the disagreement between fans around the WoT series is mostly about whether you see the WoT as a distinct specific story or as a set of characters in a universe where stories can be told.  Is Rand Luke Skywalker or is he Spiderman?  

[Scarloc99]

6 hours ago, Samt said:

I can't speak about Witcher specifically since I am not very much familiar with that fandom, but I think it's important to realize that not all IPs are equal in terms of the expectation of adherence to a certain storyline, characterization, and universe lore.  Comic books and computer games are generally very open in terms of adding new characters or stories and modifying the lore of the universe.   Batman and Superman are often rebooted and the stories changed.  There are effectively lots of different versions of these characters.

 

Of course, this distinction is quite subjective.  But I think the disagreement between fans around the WoT series is mostly about whether you see the WoT as a distinct specific story or as a set of characters in a universe where stories can be told.  Is Rand Luke Skywalker or is he Spiderman?  

Witcher is not like comic books it is like WOT in that they took an amazing story and characters and butcherd them, the show runners admitted they didn’t like the computer game or the books. That is far far away from Rafe who obviously loves the books and has read them many many times, and his main advisor who is a savant when it comes to the lore. I hav concerns that the other writers might not have read the books and I have no doubt the directors, who have as much input into the story as the writers and Rafe, probably have never read the books and go from the script/notes those also then making there own changes. 
 

but the basis is out of a love for the books. 

Edited November 9, 2023 by Scarloc99

[Samt]

1 hour ago, Scarloc99 said:

Witcher is not like comic books it is like WOT in that they took an amazing story and characters and butcherd them, the show runners admitted they didn’t like the computer game or the books. That is far far away from Rafe who obviously loves the books and has read them many many times, and his main advisor who is a savant when it comes to the lore. I hav concerns that the other writers might not have read the books and I have no doubt the directors, who have as much input into the story as the writers and Rafe, probably have never read the books and go from the script/notes those also then making there own changes. 
 

but the basis is out of a love for the books. 

I can't really say who is doing what for the show, but I think it's clear that someone with significant influence on the show either doesn't love the books or just doesn't care to actually bother to read them.  

[king of nowhere]

13 hours ago, Samt said:

I can't really say who is doing what for the show, but I think it's clear that someone with significant influence on the show either doesn't love the books or just doesn't care to actually bother to read them.  

I posted somewhere a mathematical analysis to conclude that not only nobody on the writing table but rafe has read the books, but that it is not reasonable to expect otherwise - as there's probably not enough screeenwriters familiar with the book in the whole world.

On 10/8/2023 at 2:31 PM, king of nowhere said:

see, here's a bit of a misconception. Yes, the wheel of time is a bestselling series of books. It sold over 100 million copies worldwide. that's huge, right? everyone must have heard of it.

Then you consider it's 14 books. So divide 100 by 14, you get 7 million copies for the whole saga. already a lot less. You can even double that numer because people may share those books - me and my brother have a single copy, but we both read it - and you get 15 million readers maybe.

In the whole world. Now, we can assume most of those readers are in the western world, which has roughly one billion people, and we get that little more than 1% of your population has read the wheel of time. A few more % have heard of it from someone else, but a good 95% of people never heard about it.

So, while wot is a major bestselling series of books, it's not something like star wars, or james bond, which are major bestselling movies. a major bestselling movies is something everyone heard about - and even non-fans are at least vaguely familiary with the topic. a major bestselling book is something most people never heard.

Then you also get sample selection. we determined that 1 to 2% of the population has read the wheel of time. but that number is skewed towards book readers and fantasy nerds. most movie writers and directors, I'd surmise, are not book readers, else they would have become writers. they are instead movie watchers, hence they went to work with movies. So the percentage of movie directors who actually read the wheel of time could be even lower than in the global population.

You want a writer/director who's familiar with the content? good job, you already excluded 99% of all available creators. I don't think there are enough screenwriters familiar with the wheel of time in all the united states for your needs. And most of them already have other contracts.

As for expecting them to "actually bother to read the books", you talk about that as if it was a small simple thing, like reading an information pamphlet. It's not, it's 4 million words. it takes months to read the thing. and once you read it once, congratulations, you're nowhere near an expert in those books. you need multiple readings to "familiarize" with a lore that big.

and I am pretty sure that even if you could put in a contractual obligation that the screenwriters read the books multiple time, then the final result would indeed be a writing room that positively hates those books.

 

On 11/8/2023 at 9:29 AM, fra85uk said:

My opinion:

Witcher S1 is not bad (better than WoT)

Witcher S2 and S3 very bad (below WoT)...and guess why? they derailed heeavily from source material, so much that even their star decided to quit.

Witcher Blood Origin is trash.

 

On 11/8/2023 at 11:30 PM, Scarloc99 said:

I thought even season 1 was worse then wot it deviated far more from the source material. 

I contest your argument that "it's bad becase they deviated from the source material". The witcher story is nothing special, if I didn't love the characters I would have put it down well before the end.

I must point out that some of the best parts in the wot tv show are not those that adhere to the books exactly, but those that deviate from them - or at least that expand on the lore by showing what was quickly described. the logain scenes were not in the books, yet were among the best. the forsaken scenes were mostly not in the books, but they were fantastic. the third part of nynaeve's accepted test was better than the book version specifically because it took the theme of the book and improved on it. 

I am not familiar with many adaptations, but even in Dune, which is overall pretty faithful to the book, they changed the final scene of lyet-kynes, and it was better than its book counterpart.

 

The idea that adaptations are good if they stick to the source material and bad if they depart from it is completely unfounded. Sure, a lot of adaptations that deviated heavily from the original turned out lackuster, but that's because they were poorly written, not because they deviated from the original. I understand love for the original materials, but books are not holy objects.

[Samt]

3 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

I posted somewhere a mathematical analysis to conclude that not only nobody on the writing table but rafe has read the books, but that it is not reasonable to expect otherwise - as there's probably not enough screeenwriters familiar with the book in the whole world.

As for expecting them to "actually bother to read the books", you talk about that as if it was a small simple thing, like reading an information pamphlet. It's not, it's 4 million words. it takes months to read the thing. and once you read it once, congratulations, you're nowhere near an expert in those books. you need multiple readings to "familiarize" with a lore that big.

and I am pretty sure that even if you could put in a contractual obligation that the screenwriters read the books multiple time, then the final result would indeed be a writing room that positively hates those books.

 

 

I contest your argument that "it's bad becase they deviated from the source material". The witcher story is nothing special, if I didn't love the characters I would have put it down well before the end.

I must point out that some of the best parts in the wot tv show are not those that adhere to the books exactly, but those that deviate from them - or at least that expand on the lore by showing what was quickly described. the logain scenes were not in the books, yet were among the best. the forsaken scenes were mostly not in the books, but they were fantastic. the third part of nynaeve's accepted test was better than the book version specifically because it took the theme of the book and improved on it. 

I am not familiar with many adaptations, but even in Dune, which is overall pretty faithful to the book, they changed the final scene of lyet-kynes, and it was better than its book counterpart.

 

The idea that adaptations are good if they stick to the source material and bad if they depart from it is completely unfounded. Sure, a lot of adaptations that deviated heavily from the original turned out lackuster, but that's because they were poorly written, not because they deviated from the original. I understand love for the original materials, but books are not holy objects.

Trying to create an adaptation of a book that your writers haven't read is insane.  Full stop.  If you can't find writers who have read the books or want to read the books, you can't do the adaptation.  For a proficient reader who is assigned to read the series as a full time job, I would expect it to take 3-4 weeks.  That's not absurd.  

 

I would agree that Lyet-Kynes death is better in the movie, but I don't think it's a huge departure.  It's just adding more action and defiance to the death which works a lot better on screen than the delirious internal monologue from the books that can't be shown on screen anyways.  He/she still dies at mostly the same point in the story and for the same reasons.  

 

I strongly disagree that Nynaeve's accepted test is better in the show.  I've mentioned it before that while it's a high drama sequence and is fun on screen, it makes it very unclear as to what the accepted tests actually are testing and seems to rely heavily on Nynaeve ex Machina.  

 

As far as the Logain and Forsaken scenes being great, I agree that they can be good scenes.  But that's missing the point.  If they wanted to make their own story with their own good scenes, they didn't need WoT to do that.  The goal was to adapt WoT, not to make good scenes.  

[Scarloc99]

On 11/10/2023 at 7:17 PM, Samt said:

Trying to create an adaptation of a book that your writers haven't read is insane.  Full stop.  If you can't find writers who have read the books or want to read the books, you can't do the adaptation.  For a proficient reader who is assigned to read the series as a full time job, I would expect it to take 3-4 weeks.  That's not absurd.  

 

I would agree that Lyet-Kynes death is better in the movie, but I don't think it's a huge departure.  It's just adding more action and defiance to the death which works a lot better on screen than the delirious internal monologue from the books that can't be shown on screen anyways.  He/she still dies at mostly the same point in the story and for the same reasons.  

 

I strongly disagree that Nynaeve's accepted test is better in the show.  I've mentioned it before that while it's a high drama sequence and is fun on screen, it makes it very unclear as to what the accepted tests actually are testing and seems to rely heavily on Nynaeve ex Machina.  

 

As far as the Logain and Forsaken scenes being great, I agree that they can be good scenes.  But that's missing the point.  If they wanted to make their own story with their own good scenes, they didn't need WoT to do that.  The goal was to adapt WoT, not to make good scenes.  

I mean it took BS months to reread and make notes before he started writing a page in anger and as far as I am concerned he mighty as well not have bothered. I mean, maybe I could get through all the books in 4 weeks, but if it was my first read through I would barely be able to tell you about the main story threads at the start by the time I finished it. 
 

So you would rather have the books as written with cartoon like forsaken, Logain a bit part character until he suddenly isn’t and some really dated themes? You really don’t seem to understand what an adaptation for a new medium requires. There are elements about seasons 1 and 2 that I feel are actually an improvement on the story RJ told, and that comes from the fact that RJ had no idea what story he was actually being paid ultimately to write until by book 4 he knew he would be allowed to go crazy. 
 

The writers have a chance to correct the flaws of the series, and there are flaws, read the forum and everyone has things they massively dislike about it and would change, In some ways it is amazing it gets the love it does from so many who read it repeatedly because many of us do that inspite of the fact that at points it isn’t a great piece of literature. Rafe is a fan, like all of us there are elements he likes and doesn’t like, like many of us he thinks sections of the book shouldn’t be in the tv show, now he may disagree with you on what those sections are, but that is a disagreement between you and him, not the fanbase in general. I mean I am pretty sure I could get 2 people who dislike Rafes changes in a room together, ask them to do there own version of the show and pretty quickly one would tell the other they didn’t believe they had read the book. 
 

 

[Samt]

2 hours ago, Scarloc99 said:

I mean it took BS months to reread and make notes before he started writing a page in anger and as far as I am concerned he mighty as well not have bothered. I mean, maybe I could get through all the books in 4 weeks, but if it was my first read through I would barely be able to tell you about the main story threads at the start by the time I finished it. 
 

So you would rather have the books as written with cartoon like forsaken, Logain a bit part character until he suddenly isn’t and some really dated themes? You really don’t seem to understand what an adaptation for a new medium requires. There are elements about seasons 1 and 2 that I feel are actually an improvement on the story RJ told, and that comes from the fact that RJ had no idea what story he was actually being paid ultimately to write until by book 4 he knew he would be allowed to go crazy. 
 

The writers have a chance to correct the flaws of the series, and there are flaws, read the forum and everyone has things they massively dislike about it and would change, In some ways it is amazing it gets the love it does from so many who read it repeatedly because many of us do that inspite of the fact that at points it isn’t a great piece of literature. Rafe is a fan, like all of us there are elements he likes and doesn’t like, like many of us he thinks sections of the book shouldn’t be in the tv show, now he may disagree with you on what those sections are, but that is a disagreement between you and him, not the fanbase in general. I mean I am pretty sure I could get 2 people who dislike Rafes changes in a room together, ask them to do there own version of the show and pretty quickly one would tell the other they didn’t believe they had read the book. 
 

 

Exactly how much should be changed is debatable.  While most readers believe that some things could be improved, there is actual not a lot of agreement as to exactly what should be improved and how it should be done. You even acknowledge this when you point out that most detractors of the Wheel of Rafe don't themselves agree with each other as to exactly what was done poorly. This is a very good argument for simply following the source material as closely as possible.  

 

However, we aren't even talking about that.  Writers who haven't read and understood the source material can't possibly "fix" the problems in the source material. They are just writing their own thing.  

[Scarloc99]

6 hours ago, Samt said:

Exactly how much should be changed is debatable.  While most readers believe that some things could be improved, there is actual not a lot of agreement as to exactly what should be improved and how it should be done. You even acknowledge this when you point out that most detractors of the Wheel of Rafe don't themselves agree with each other as to exactly what was done poorly. This is a very good argument for simply following the source material as closely as possible.  

 

However, we aren't even talking about that.  Writers who haven't read and understood the source material can't possibly "fix" the problems in the source material. They are just writing their own thing.  

But they are not, the essence of the wheel of time is there, the story threads are all there, we can debate what has been removed, added, changed around, but all the bits that make up WOT are present. But as I have said, following the source material as closely as some want, would make for an awful viewing experience for non book readers, and probably for most book readers as well. Especially the character shifts across books 1-3, and having key characters not realy make any appearance until later on in the books meaning TV audiences barely get any screen time to care or emote with those characters. 

 

But we are going round and round in circles. You don't like it, many of us accept and understand the flaws but still love it and see it as the WOT. 

[notpropaganda73]

I've said this a couple of times on this forum but I think there are some unrealistic expectations about what screenwriters do when creating scripts for film and TV. 

 

I would be surprised if any of the writers have read very much of the source material, and I wouldn't expect them to either. And I don't think having the screenwriters read the source material would improve the aspects of writing in the show that I don't like or think hasn't worked. One of my biggest issues with the show is that, in my opinion, it drops in references or moments from the books without doing the work to justify that within the show itself. I would argue in fact that many of those problems are coming from an awareness of what is important in the books and the need to get them on screen regardless of whether it makes sense in the show.