The Show Has Been Cancelled

[Elder_Haman]

Just now, Jaccsen said:

All of this could have been easily handled in the show.

All of this would have bored people to tears. 

[Jaccsen]

Just now, Elder_Haman said:

All of this would have bored people to tears. 

Not at all. It does not have to be exposition. Heck, they could have shown a flashback to the Eye being created as the world broke around them and tasking the last of the Green Men to guard it. That would have been great TV.

[WoTwasThat]

8 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

(a) “pretty clearly” is subjective and doing a lot of heavy lifting. (b) the book explained via exposition. Exposition makes for boring tv and is one of the biggest barriers to entry to the genre. 
 

As mentioned above, average people don’t care about the lore. They hate listening to characters talk about people and things that they don’t know about. They don’t want to feel like they have to do a bunch of homework to understand what people are talking about. 

The “lore” is what lifts WOT head and shoulders above so much pulp fantasy. It is the backbone of the series!!

 

Of course we’ve all heard the adage “show don’t tell” for visual media. But there was plenty of room for a little more exposition in an eight hour runtime.

[Elder_Haman]

5 minutes ago, Jaccsen said:

The Eye is the pool of Saidin and it was created because of prophecy that it would be needed.

The first thing that needs to be established. How are you gonna do this? A flashback? How are you setting up the flashback? Is it a cold open? You’ve got about 3 minutes. 

 

6 minutes ago, Jaccsen said:

The entire Eye was set aside after the taint to be ready and waiting for the reborn Dragon.

The second thing. Same questions.  Linking this to number One? Fine. But now you also need to know about the taint. Where are we setting that up?

 

9 minutes ago, Jaccsen said:

They talk about the Green Man multiple times in Eye.

Okay. New character. How are we introducing him? Dialogue with Moiraine? When?

 

9 minutes ago, Jaccsen said:

need has always played a part in those who have found the Eye.

Okay. We are introducing the idea that if we need something enough, we will find it. Tricky. How are you doing that? Dialogue? When?

 

10 minutes ago, Jaccsen said:

Morraine does not say it around the boys because she does not want them to know that one of them is the Dragon Reborn.

Tricky. Oh, we are doing this all in a “quick aside to Lan?” Yeah I’m sure that dialogue will feel very natural. 

 

12 minutes ago, Jaccsen said:

It is because Lews Therin knew how to use it. The overwhelming source of pure Saidin was used at a subconscious level. Rand could not consciously control it but he was not.

Shoot. That’s sort of complicated to portray. How are we supposed to do that  in a visual medium? Seems tricky to pull off. How do you want to get that across?

 

13 minutes ago, Jaccsen said:

As for the forsaken, they felt Saidin, they were drawn to it and the seals were weakening.

There’s some more new characters we have to introduce. When? Are we following them there? How do we build any tension with them? Or do they just randomly appear and we explain it later?

 

14 minutes ago, Jaccsen said:

Rand arriving at the Eye was a beacon.

How are we showing this to the viewers? Seems tricky. Especially if we haven’t been following the Forsaken. 

 

15 minutes ago, Jaccsen said:

It was not difficult.

I kinda think it was. 

[Elder_Haman]

8 minutes ago, WoTwasThat said:

The “lore” is what lifts WOT head and shoulders above so much pulp fantasy.

That doesn’t make it less of a barrier to entry for people not inclined to enjoy speculative fiction. In fact, it’s an actual turn off. 

[Elder_Haman]

14 minutes ago, WoTwasThat said:

Of course we’ve all heard the adage “show don’t tell” for visual media.

We’ve seen it in action. In this series. There’s a reason E4 was so popular. 

[Kaleb]

5 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

We’ve seen it in action. In this series. There’s a reason E4 was so popular. 

Rafe pushed hard for E4 and explained that he took the writing credit in his own name to give the show a better chance to get the expenses for it approved by the suits. He did it because it's universally acclaimed as one of the best set pieces in the books, it's foundational to the story. The ending of EOTW is not as important nor is it as widely loved by book readers as Rhuidean. Do we all wish many other scenes from the books had been made with the same reverence as S3E4? Of course. But doing that takes a lot of money and time from every other part of the story's production, and any producer/showrunner will have to pick their battles. 

[WoTwasThat]

1 hour ago, Elder_Haman said:

The first thing that needs to be established. How are you gonna do this? A flashback? How are you setting up the flashback? Is it a cold open? You’ve got about 3 minutes. 

 

The second thing. Same questions.  Linking this to number One? Fine. But now you also need to know about the taint. Where are we setting that up?

 

Okay. New character. How are we introducing him? Dialogue with Moiraine? When?

 

Okay. We are introducing the idea that if we need something enough, we will find it. Tricky. How are you doing that? Dialogue? When?

 

Tricky. Oh, we are doing this all in a “quick aside to Lan?” Yeah I’m sure that dialogue will feel very natural. 

 

Shoot. That’s sort of complicated to portray. How are we supposed to do that  in a visual medium? Seems tricky to pull off. How do you want to get that across?

 

There’s some more new characters we have to introduce. When? Are we following them there? How do we build any tension with them? Or do they just randomly appear and we explain it later?

 

How are we showing this to the viewers? Seems tricky. Especially if we haven’t been following the Forsaken. 

 

I kinda think it was. 

@elder_haman - every time you’re pressed on these issues, you essentially resort to “it’s harder than it looks.”

 

Look - if you’re going to demand that we furnish you an alternate screenplay before you’ll accept that you’re wrong, that’s not gonna further the discussion.

 

Instead, I’ll give you an example of another series built on fantastic lore - GOT. In that case mostly family lore. And the show did a wonderful job incorporating it, which is one of the reasons why the show is so highly regarded (until it ran out of source material). How did they explain that lore? An occasional flashback, but mostly exposition. Whether during a horseback ride or touring a crypt or sipping wine. Because that’s what you can do when you let the show breathe by not filling your precious runtime with a bunch of made up crap.

 

[Elder_Haman]

9 minutes ago, WoTwasThat said:

I’ll give you an example of another series built on fantastic lore - GOT.

I'm glad you mentioned that. Because you are correct. So what was it that GoT did so successfully with the lore in that show? They made it integral to the plot - the Game of Houses. They made it mysterious and wrapped it up inside little plot points and character moments. They made learning about the lore a plot element of the show that was revealed to the viewers drip by drip.

 

And what was that lore? Not grandiose prophecies about things no one knew or cared about (other the A'zor A'hai prophecy, which everyone simply assumed meant the winner of the struggle for the throne). Rather the lore was about people. Simple stuff - my ancestor did this, their ancestors did that. There was not giant magic system to explain. There weren't magic items, and seals, and overlapping prophecies or a whole philosophical structure upon which the whole story was built.

 

GoT basically asked audiences to accept two things in S1: Zombies and Dragons. That's it. The rest of the magic was kept intentionally vague and of questionable efficacy with the biggest 'magic' being sneaking Stannis into Renly's tent. These things made it more accessible - more 'normal' if you will - to general audiences.

 

So you're correct. The writers of WoT should have tried to duplicate GoT in that they should have gotten the audience invested in the lore, then dripped it out to them in a way that left them seeking it instead of fast forwarding or tuning out when it was brought up. You absolutely could not do that and keep the ending of EotW as written.

 

29 minutes ago, WoTwasThat said:

every time you’re pressed on these issues, you essentially resort to “it’s harder than it looks.”

LOL. No. You just retreat back to 'books good, show bad' and 'the Stepin arc sucked!' as the answer to everything. And yeah, since the show is over, If you think you can do better, I'd like to see your brilliant ideas. But it's much easier to sit back and smugly play the role of Monday morning quarterback.

[WoTwasThat]

It’s easy to Monday Morning QB Season 1 because it didn’t just suck a little. It was TERRIBLE.

 

And again, I have given numerous examples of where Season One screwed up. I will do so again. The EotW has a number of major set pieces:

1. The Prologue. Show nixed it.

2. Winternight. Show did well.

3. Shadar Logoth. Show gave it about 5 minutes in one episode.

4. Caemlyn. Nixed.

5. The Ways. Again, less than 5 minutes of one episode.

6. The Eye. Neutered and rendered unrecognizable.

 

If you’re keeping score at home, the show properly executed one of six major set pieces. Skipped two of them entirely. Horribly truncated the remaining three.

 

And why? They built the darned sets for Shadar Logoth and the Ways. Let those scenes breathe! Maybe add some of that dreaded “exposition”!

 

Develop the magic system the same way it was developed in the book - when Moiraine gave Egwene her first lesson, for example.

 

To say that WOT was harder to adapt than GOT because WOT had a complicated magic system is just lazy and defeatist. It isn’t that complicated, and the lore is interesting, but the writers and producers lacked the courage to tell that story. 

[Goathill]

4 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

but the main reason i say your argument is irrelevant is that 90% of readers never grasp the lore.

You have a very low opinion on people that will commit to a 14+ book series.

 

In my experience people that read fantasy tend to take the lore pretty seriously. 

[Elder_Haman]

6 minutes ago, WoTwasThat said:

It’s easy to Monday Morning QB Season 1 because it didn’t just suck a little. It was TERRIBLE.

I don't know why you keep insinuating that I am somehow saying that S1 was great and should stand unchanged. That's never been my position. My position has been that you can't just 'do the books'. I didn't think it was great. I thought it was ... okay. Better than much of the fantasy on tv, but worse that the good shows.

 

As for your list:

8 minutes ago, WoTwasThat said:

1. The Prologue. Show nixed it.

I would have nixed it too. At least in terms of making it the Prologue. As I've said over and over, I would have opened the show with the Dragon being reborn juxtaposed with Gitara's prophecy. I would choose this to center the audience on what the series is going to be about: this boy, this prophecy. And I would have used it to provide a visual and thematic connection for my B plot centered on the Tower's efforts to capture Logain.

 

10 minutes ago, WoTwasThat said:

2. Winternight. Show did well.

I actually thought they only did it alright. The battle lasted a little too long. We got Perrin killing his wife, which I pretty much hated. (Though I'll admit they managed to pull that thread through his relationship with Faile pretty nicely.) We got the lame "women's circle badassery". We got Nynaeve dragged off. Didn't like any of that.

 

12 minutes ago, WoTwasThat said:

3. Shadar Logoth. Show gave it about 5 minutes in one episode.

I didn't mind the way the show did Shadar Logoth. On rewatch, it was probably the strongest episode. And you're probably not remembering the episode correctly if you think they only spent 5 minutes there. It was the majority of the episode.

 

25 minutes ago, WoTwasThat said:

4. Caemlyn. Nixed.

This one I understood from a practical standpoint. It's pretty expensive to build a full on city set that you're only going to use for about an hour of show time. I probably leave it in and hope to get away with interiors and some CGI for Tar Valon in Season 1.

 

28 minutes ago, WoTwasThat said:

5. The Ways. Again, less than 5 minutes of one episode.

Again, your memory is messing with you. The episode spent the majority of time in the Ways and actually wasn't bad. I didn't like "Machin Shin is drawn to channeling" too much, or the changing of the key to channeling.

 

30 minutes ago, WoTwasThat said:

6. The Eye. Neutered and rendered unrecognizable.

Impossible ending that needed to be changed. What they came up with was dog water. (I'm interested to see the original script before Barney left). I would have played the whole season as a psychological thriller where Ishy was purposefully leading Rand there and Moiraine was unknowingly bringing him right where Ishy wanted. 

 

I would have left the Green Man as a surprise and a guardian of this place of rest. But just when it seemed they had a moment of peace, Rand follows Ishy's call, finds the seal, and is tricked into destroying it. The seal breaks, Ishy is free, Rand and Mo have to fight to survive. 

 

Meanwhile, in the b plot, we drip hints about the Horn throughout the Season, maybe even weaving together the calling of the Hunt with the takedown of Logain. Lan knows that the Horn is, in fact, hidden in Fal Dara. We have a big set piece where they foil the plot and take Fain captive. We end with Fain scrawling on his prison wall. 

[Sabio]

3 hours ago, WoTwasThat said:

Yeah… I’m not gonna get into a debate about whether LOTR was a more faithful adaptation of the books than WOT. It’s a waste of time to try to “prove” something that (1) is unprovable but (2) we all know damn well to be true.

 

Same goes for arguing that EOTW was harder to adapt in eight hours than the entire ring cycle. SMDH. 

I'm just pointing out the Tolkien estate hates the Jackson movies to the pint that ROP was forbidden to use anything from the movies or even reference the movies.  Fans might've liked the movies, but the Tolkien estate didn't like his changes.

[Mailman]

7 hours ago, Jaccsen said:

 

As for the forsaken, they felt Saidin, they were drawn to it and the seals were weakening. Rand arriving at the Eye was a beacon.

 

The forsaken could not enter till Mats dagger was inside. It was clearly explained that the dagger was the thing that they had followed. Ishy clearly knew about the Eye as he had discussed it at length throughout the book.

 

I agree with all your other points that the eye got numerous mentions during the book.

[Mailman]

The prologue should have been the start of the show.

 

It allows you to set the stakes of the entire series.

It sets the epic nature and timeline of the series.

It gives you an epic set piece start that allows you to set the violence level of the series. You showcase your channeling CGI.

You establish that male power users are doomed to insanity.

It should have been the most detailed and expensive piece per minute in the entire first season to set the hook for non book viewers.

 

Unbelievable mistake to replace it with Liandrin hunting a Rando male channeler.

[WoTwasThat]

19 minutes ago, Mailman said:

The prologue should have been the start of the show.

 

It allows you to set the stakes of the entire series.

It sets the epic nature and timeline of the series.

It gives you an epic set piece start that allows you to set the violence level of the series. You showcase your channeling CGI.

You establish that male power users are doomed to insanity.

It should have been the most detailed and expensive piece per minute in the entire first season to set the hook for non book viewers.

 

Unbelievable mistake to replace it with Liandrin hunting a Rando male channeler.

Agree 100%. There’s a reason RJ made that scene the prologue. 

[Elder_Haman]

Just now, WoTwasThat said:

Agree 100%. There’s a reason RJ made that scene the prologue. 

There absolutely is. That reason is that he was writing a book, not making a tv show. 

[HeronMarkedBlade]

10 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

first, i was answering several things simultaneously, it would have helped clarity to delete from the quoted section the things that you weren't replying to.

 

on to the point, you are failing to make your point in any meaningful way, and you are getting many details wrong anyway.

 

so everyone in randland knows the prophecies? not really. they know that the prophecies exhist. in the beginning of book 1 we see people in the two rivers mention the prophecies, and being very hazy on what they entail, some even claiming the dragon will serve the dark one and destroy the world iirc.

even noblemen and other learned people don't know much about the prophecies besides "the dragon will be reborn, he will save the world, but deal so much collateral damage in the process, you'll wish he didn't". 

Even Moiraine, who dedicated her WHOLE LIFE to searching the dragon, and made her WHOLE LIFES WORK to find him, and was literally right there for the foretelling of the birth of the dragon, is absolutely clueless about most details in the prophecies. 

the prophecies said that the dragon will be "of the ancient blood, and raised by the old blood". moiraine had absolutely no idea what it meant, to the point that it took her 20 years to go to the two river to look for someone with red hair. 

moiraine had no idea rand would be half aiel and half andoran prince, she had no idea he would have to go into rhuidean and lead the aiel, she didn't even knew what "born to a maiden wedded to no man" meant! which was actually pretty easy, if one had any superficial grasp of aiel culture. 

 

Let's face it, even moiraine, who was one of the world foremost experts on he dragon, knew little besides the basics. 

so, making the change that they would know even a bit less, and be unsure whether the dragon would be a boy or girl? a little thing, mostly. 

 

but the main reason i say your argument is irrelevant is that 90% of readers never grasp the lore. you are used to your internet forums with a few dozen equally hardcore fans discussing the minutiae as if they were the biggest thing, but in truth, the casual readers - that make up a majority of readership - never even notice those details. 

and in a tv adaptation, you always lose a lot of lore. lore is the kind that makes things complicated and requires a lot of exposition, and most people don't get anyway. besides, tv audience generally has a shorter attention span than book readers. 

so, while knowing that the dragon will be a male - doomed to go crazy from the taint - is a mildly important fact in the overall lore, very few people in randland know the full prophecies enough to know the difference between "the dragon will destroy because he will go crazy" and "the dragon will destroy because he will be naughty". adding a whole additional layer of uncertainty on the aes sedai themselves hoping the dragon could be a woman, therefore one they could better control, doesn't change the story much - in fact, it helps to show why the red ajah is still adamant on gentling every male channeler, and why the majority of aes sedai aren't hot on bending their knee to the forgotten sign.

and all this goes completely over the heads of the majority of people actually watching the show. the ones whose viewership numbers decide whether the show is successful or not. 

 

 

I disagree. 

The end of book 1 felt like a long sequence of ass pulls. "and then a bunch of unexpected, unforshadowed things happen", over and over again. rand spends the whole book running from a forsaken, then he get angry and burns him? just like that? 

when you go outside of the "fantasy readers" social bubble, and see what others say about fantasy, you'll find that kind of stuff "the plot being inexplicably solved by a sudden burst of magic" to be the number one complaint against fantasy literature. 

You’re literally writing long winded nonsense that says absolutely nothing. 
 

of course she didn’t know every detail about the prophecy, it’s prophecy, that’s the damn point. 
 

But EVERYONE in the world knows the prophecy exists, and knows it’s a male channeler.  Pretending the world didn’t know the dragon reborn would be a man is straight up lying. Everyone, the whole world, had a fear of the Dragon because he was a male channeler. 
 

you bring up all these details that make no sense. It doesn’t matter that he’s half Aiel. Nothing you mentioned changes that the world knows the prophecy and that it refers to a male. Pretending Moiraine not knowing extremely personal details about Rand before she met him in any way changes that she and the whole world would know it was a man is complete nonsense. It was one of the most ridiculous charges to the first season that caused a major spiral of nonsense that was specifically created to further write down the importance of the three main characters. 
 

From the very first scene it was clear that Rafe wanted to butcher the story for the nonexistent “Modern Audience”, and he made the whole show worse for it. 
 

There is not a single change the writers made that was for the better. We all know you have to cut content to create a TV series, but there is zero reason to change the worlds lore. And he did it from the very first scene. “When you touch the source you make it filthy!” Ummm… What? It just went completely off the rails from there. After thet made Egwene the hero of the Eye, taking that moment from Rand, it was clear they had no intention of telling the story of the WoT, and it got two too many seasons after that. If they don’t want to respect the source material, they should fail.

[WoTwasThat]

32 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

There absolutely is. That reason is that he was writing a book, not making a tv show. 

Well that’s just silly. Prologues work just as great for TV. Sometimes better. 
 

Oh, and I was off on the length of Shadar Logoth and the Ways, but not by much. I went back and checked.

 

Shadar Logoth got about 15 of screen time in one episode, and that’s if you count the time outside the wall. Episode 2. 

 

The Ways got 10 minutes. Episode 7.

Edited June 3 by WoTwasThat

[Elder_Haman]

12 minutes ago, WoTwasThat said:

Prologues work just as great for TV.

Yes. But this prologue would be a terrible way to introduce a tv audience to Wheel of Time. 
 

Nothing that happens in the prologue is developed in any meaningful way by the plot of EotW until the very end. 
 

It would be an odd, stand alone scene with no connection to any of the characters or places the audience would experience. And it would confuse casuals because it would appear to be happening in the future rather than the past. 
 

I really don’t get the love for filming the prologue…

[Mailman]

53 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

Yes. But this prologue would be a terrible way to introduce a tv audience to Wheel of Time. 
 

Nothing that happens in the prologue is developed in any meaningful way by the plot of EotW until the very end. 
 

It would be an odd, stand alone scene with no connection to any of the characters or places the audience would experience. And it would confuse casuals because it would appear to be happening in the future rather than the past. 
 

I really don’t get the love for filming the prologue…

It establishes

The taint and the madness, Shaitan, the Dragon and Ishy. It sets the timeline and the stakes for the series how you could dismiss this as not meaningful is a mystery to me.

 

Why would it be the future and if the that was a concern you could simply have the standard book opening and a 3000 years later.

 

The shows start must have been a tremendous disappointment to you if you thought the prologue lacked development and meaning.

[Elder_Haman]

1 minute ago, Mailman said:

The shows start must have been a tremendous disappointment

Didn’t like it at all. 

 

2 minutes ago, Mailman said:

if you thought the prologue lacked development and meaning.

I didn’t say that. 
Books and tv aren’t the same. Things that work in one medium don’t necessarily work in the other. 
 

It’s not that the prologue wouldn’t work in the series at all. It’s just that it’s not a good beginning in the tv medium. 

[Mailman]

One way to link it would be

 

3000 years ago. Prologue into the creation of Dragonmount with the shadow touching the Island of Tar Valon then either a straight time jump or if it could be done well a fast forward of destruction sweeping the lands and then the building of Tar Valon.

 

2980 years later. The Mountain still casting it shadow on the shining Walls. Then doing the Gitara prophecy scene and introducing Moiraine and Siuan.

 

Then 20 years later. Show Moiraine arriving in the Two Rivers or focus on Rand.

 

The only drawback to this start is that it could be 15 to 20 minutes before we get to the Two Rivers.

 

You can even have a sweeping visual of the Aiel battle outside the walls as you move into Tar Valon to focus on Gitara.

Edited June 3 by Mailman

[Elder_Haman]

15 minutes ago, Mailman said:

One way to link it would be

 

3000 years ago. Prologue into the creation of Dragonmount with the shadow touching the Island of Tar Valon then either a straight time jump or if it could be done well a fast forward of destruction sweeping the lands and then the building of Tar Valon.

 

2980 years later. The Mountain still casting it shadow on the shining Walls. Then doing the Gitara prophecy scene and introducing Moiraine and Siuan.

 

Then 20 years later. Show Moiraine arriving in the Two Rivers or focus on Rand.

 

The only drawback to this start is that it could be 15 to 20 minutes before we get to the Two Rivers.

 

You can even have a sweeping visual of the Aiel battle outside the walls as you move into Tar Valon to focus on Gitara.

To me, it makes more sense as the cold open to the finale. 

[Kaleb]

2 hours ago, HeronMarkedBlade said:

There is not a single change the writers made that was for the better. We all know you have to cut content to create a TV series, but there is zero reason to change the worlds lore. And he did it from the very first scene. “When you touch the source you make it filthy!” Ummm… What? It just went completely off the rails from there. After thet made Egwene the hero of the Eye, taking that moment from Rand, it was clear they had no intention of telling the story of the WoT, and it got two too many seasons after that. If they don’t want to respect the source material, they should fail.

 

On 5/28/2025 at 10:04 AM, Kaleb said:

Both Moiraine's initial voiceover with "will he be reborn as a boy or a girl" and Liandrin's "when you touch it you make it filthy" mini-rant should have been a giant flag to bookreaders that the show was foregrounding the disqualifying ignorance of the Aes Sedai due to millennia of Black Ajah subversion, which is a major theme and plot point of the books. That so many fans of the books instead take Moiraine's ignorant belief and the words of a Darkfriend at face value and take offense at those lines is very disappointing to me.