The Show Has Been Cancelled

[WoTwasThat]

On 10/8/2025 at 10:48 AM, Skipp said:

 

 

He was also changing things with the thought of future seasons in mind and how much they were going to have to condense.

Ummm… maybe. Can you give me a few examples of changes he made to Book 1 / Season 1 in order to condense things in future seasons? It seems like he added a lot of stuff. 

[Kaleb]

1 hour ago, WoTwasThat said:

Ummm… maybe. Can you give me a few examples of changes he made to Book 1 / Season 1 in order to condense things in future seasons? It seems like he added a lot of stuff. 

I'm slowly working on a long post after I finish a re-read and re-watch, but there are so many. Most of the things that people are upset that "he added" are obviously there to lay the groundwork for future seasons. One example that got tons of hate was foregrounding Alanna as a major character. They did it to make the impact of her betraying Rand by bonding him clearer to the audience, it was a terrible action in the books and it was going to do a lot of the work of justifying Rand's deep distrust of Aes Sedai in the show. They even made Alanna the only Aes Sedai at the battle of Two Rivers so TV audiences would focus on her and have more sympathy for her. She's likable in the show, she's funny, she's sexy, she's wise and powerful, all that was set up for the audience to feel Rand's pain and realize how contemptible Aes Sedai can be, even the ones that are supposedly on his side.

Edited October 9 by Kaleb

[fearbrog]

This is a bit laughable. Noone who read bonding scene said: "Well Rand is a bit unreasonable here." Because we sympathize with him already, we already understand why he distrusts Aes Sedai. Scene in the book already impactful enough. And it would be also impactful if Rand was actually main character and focus of show. But he wasn't because showrunner really wanted focus on female characters instead of male. That's why Alanna more important character, less time to spend with guys who already have WAY to many screentime in the books (and his boyfriend could be in show more).

[Lanfeared]

I recently re-read the first four then watched the show back to back as honestly I was so excited to see the story finally come to life.

 

I really tried to give it a chance, but blood and bloody ashes, the show is just too different and primarily lacking in immersion. Like you watch game of thrones, you feel like you are in Westeros. You feel the winter.

 

Here? There’s a lack of cohesive vision. I think even displaying the world map could have helped, not to the level that GoT does but perhaps a high level zoom-in to where each episode takes place, something to make it  feel like you are actually somewhere rather than nowhere.

 

I couldn’t help but feel both the show runners and several of the actors had not read the source material.

 

There were a few highlights, I think the seanchan was done pretty well, but they forgot the flyers and weird beasts.

 

Probably the best recreation that was done, (and done well) was going back in time to the age of legends when Rand was walking through the pillars. The Aiel waste was accurate. That said, it’s pretty hard to screw up a desert.

 

Mat and the ailfinn/eelfin storyline was not bad, but I felt like the writers focused on mat’s depression too much instead of his cleverness and luck. In the books he is a source of amusement, fun and tragedy, not an emo depression galaxy.

 

Also his “powers” as a warrior were logically inconsistent. like on and off then back on again.

 

I also felt the CGI weaves were not quite right, often too “slow” . There was no  “embracing the source” like I feel the character should have at least glowed or something.

 

instead the actors chose to always spread giant peanut butter sandwiches really really slowly, (which would make sense if doing a massive weave with major power). But the source is also channeled “sharp” and quick, the aes sedai in the show always seemed to have a “charging phase” followed by a “big” release which often turned out to be minor nothingburger.

 

Other than the forsaken with some quick channels, and wilders doing emotional last second desperate shields I dunno, the channelling just felt “off”

 

It also seemed like non channellers could see weaves and this was NBD, meanwhile the female aes sedai forgot to express shock and fear of not knowing when the male source was being channeled.

 

Additionally, the men are known for being able to multitask with weaves significantly more, especially Rand. We never got to see that really at all. It was never properly demonstrated what made him so much more powerful, different and special, nor the difference between saidar, Saidin and the true source. They show the saa in Lanfear’s eyes, but no explanation.

 

Now to be fair I do feel each season should have been minimum 12 episodes, but whoever did the screenplay was terrible at cutting out the fluff and condensing the plot here, like the basics were not being covered.

 

Especially with AI nowadays they could have gotten simple chapter summaries of key events Then used the descriptive fluff Jordan writes with as a user manual on how to set up the costumes, scenes and the CGI world.
 

This would have delivered a much more coherent and compelling outcome .

 

I noticed when reading the books the second time through I’d often skip the descriptive stuff to get to the dialog and events, this should have been the recipe for the show runners.

 

Instead there were really basic fumbles, for example the accents of faille and aviendha were Horrid, like the worst I’ve ever heard. But more ridiculously all the aeil had different accents or simply none at all, completely breaking the immersion in season 3.

 

Finally, the casting was not up to snuff. Many of The actors selected did not resemble, nor even faithfully re-create the characters in the source with the exception of the following:

 

-moraine: good but too old & haggard

-lanfear, good recreation

-Renna (egwayne’s sul’dam) well done

-valda, well acted despite zero resemblance

-Perrin acted well, despite zero resemblance

-Liandrin was very well done, but over represented ( probably because she was the only one nailing it)

decent recreations:

 

-matt (but he had a difficult role which was poorly written, plus recast)

-loial

-Thom

-Elayne, passable

-Rand, passable

-Logain, passable 

-Lan, decent acting but not intimidating and no presence.

 

The biggest let downs

-forsaken, none were even scary 

-egwayne nose wart /no resemblance

-nynaeve annoying/no resemblance

-allanah, no resemblance, seafolk would have been better fit

-aviendha, horrid accent/no resemblance

-faille, horrid acting/no resemblance

-min, no resemblance, not even tomboyish

-siuane, absurd casting choice. Ace Ventura?

-dark one CGI/lack of imagery 
-padan fain, no resemblance 

 

IMO the woman who played Chiad should have been cast as Aviendha, Eliada was cast by a great actress ( I loved her in the expanse) but here she was a poor fit for the role. she Would have made an excellent moghedian 

The Aes sedai are universally described as “ageless” and for the most part VERY feminine and attractive. Literally none of them fit that bill, all 40/50 year old unattractive Karen types, either gaunt or overweight.

 

I really wish the show had simply just been a condensed and faithful recreation of the original, which would have been a challenge in itself… but adding all the changes and focusing on modern social narratives instead of storyline was a recipe for failure.

 

In conclusion I’d say the show runners while unfairly constrained by 8 episodes, ultimately killed the project on day one with the actor choices and plot changes. A classic example of if it ain’t broke don't fix it.

 

The failure lies squarely with the show runner, casting director, and screenwriter, every other problem stems from there.

 

Their adaptation is simply worse and had completely unnecessary social and political messaging rammed in, random sex unrelated to the plot, plus short sighted, major plot changes which did not advance or enhance the storyline in any way.

If you disagree, just go back and read the books then watch the series. It’s undeniable. From The very first episode in my head over and over I just kept saying wtf…ummm….WTF… while staring in complete disbelief and confusion as to why they chose to completely break immersion with main characters that have absolutely no physical or manneristic resemblance to the originals.

 

After awhile you sort of “get used to it” but ultimately it’s an uglified version of beauty, and an irritant.

 

In the future I think we will see a reboot.  Many will disagree, and yes, it will be many years from now but I firmly believe It will happen,

 

why?

 

Because there will be a push in the coming years for Hollywood to drop the political BS and get back to its roots to start making money again.
 

What makes money is good stories and good acting, period.

 

Hollywood has been out of ideas for decades now and this is one of the best stories of all time…still completely untold just sitting there.

We just have to wait for the right ta’veren to make it happen.

Edited October 14 by Lanfeared
Grammar

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

1 hour ago, Lanfeared said:

If you disagree, just go back and read the books then watch the series.

Yup, absolutely, lol. As I said, no one has any subjective opinions that they are unwilling to bend on. I see you caught the vibe immediately. Read the books? What a novel idea.

 

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the show. I cannot say I really agree on much of it, especially not your unhappiness with casting. Especially especially your disappointment with the attractiveness of the female cast and your disappointment with the Chosen. But there is always going to be issues when our visual head canon meets a live action adaptation. 

 

But it is undoubtedly a shame that so many fans of the book did not like the show.

[Ithillian Turambar]

We liked it.

 

Got confused about a few things. But generally we we're happy that we got to see it on the telly.

 

Things are always changed. We watched the Hobbit lol. And don't even get started on Rings of Power. I am very glad I have my in house nerd to make sense of that.

 

 

[fearbrog]

8 hours ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

But it is undoubtedly a shame that so many fans of the book did not like the show.

It is a shame that despite being such a fan of the book somebody changed events and tone of the book so much

[Elder_Haman]

1 minute ago, fearbrog said:

It is a shame that despite being such a fan of the book somebody changed events and tone of the book so much

It's a shame that all this discussion board has left in it is a constant and repetitive rehashing of the same tired arguments.

[Ithillian Turambar]

I think they just enjoy the spirited debate. The show is gone now, but the talking and discussion goes on!

 

It's hard to lose something, even if you didn't like it very much. And losing the show means all the 'fun' chatting gets lost too.

 

You're all more than welcome to come chat in the orgs 🙂

[Raal Gurniss]

5 hours ago, Elder_Haman said:

It's a shame that all this discussion board has left in it is a constant and repetitive rehashing of the same tired arguments.

Was going to say if they had been argued  before the shows release then everyone might have been appeased.

 

But then little was achieved 2nd/3rd season in appeasing both sides.

 

The show created disharmony and division where little existed previously.

[Kaleb]

There's not a both sides.

 

There's a team led by Rafe who created the show and the show would not exist without them.

There's people who didn't know anything about the books and checked out the show and had an opinion.

There's people who read the books and checked out the show and had an opinion.

 

Some of those people in the second two groups wanna argue about whether their opinion is right or not.

 

There's another group of people that read the books (or claim to) and never meaningfully engaged with the show beyond trailers/youtube clips or maybe part of S1 and feel the need to loudly tell everybody else that the show should never have been made, that blahblahblah is an affront to the WOT legacy. As a book-reader since the '90s, that's the group that I feel actual contempt for.

Edited October 15 by Kaleb

[Raal Gurniss]

44 minutes ago, Kaleb said:

There's not a both sides.

 

There's a team led by Rafe who created the show and the show would not exist without them.

There's people who didn't know anything about the books and checked out the show and had an opinion.

There's people who read the books and checked out the show and had an opinion.

 

Some of those people in the second two groups wanna argue about whether their opinion is right or not.

 

There's another group of people that read the books (or claim to) and never meaningfully engaged with the show beyond trailers/youtube clips or maybe part of S1 and feel the need to loudly tell everybody else that the show should never have been made, that blahblahblah is an affront to the WOT legacy. As a book-reader since the '90s, that's the group that I feel actual contempt for.

Disharmony and division.

[Mailman]

10 hours ago, Elder_Haman said:

It's a shame that all this discussion board has left in it is a constant and repetitive rehashing of the same tired arguments.

After all this time barring new announcements it is most unlikely that new insights are going to emerge.

[Elder_Haman]

7 hours ago, Mailman said:

After all this time barring new announcements it is most unlikely that new insights are going to emerge.

Indeed. So everyone just keeps coming back to beat the same dead horse.

 

12 hours ago, Raal Gurniss said:

The show created disharmony and division where little existed previously.

That's just not true. There was plenty of disharmony and division following Sanderson's entry into the series. 

[Raal Gurniss]

6 hours ago, Elder_Haman said:

Indeed. So everyone just keeps coming back to beat the same dead horse.

 

That's just not true. There was plenty of disharmony and division following Sanderson's entry into the series. 

"Where little existed".

 

Not exactly the same extent as Book vs TV, lets be honest.

 

 

[Elder_Haman]

4 minutes ago, Raal Gurniss said:

Not exactly the same extent

Fine. Where does that get us? Is the claim now that Rafe is to blame for all disharmony among the WoT fandom? That's ludicrous.

[Raal Gurniss]

1 hour ago, Elder_Haman said:

Fine. Where does that get us? Is the claim now that Rafe is to blame for all disharmony among the WoT fandom? That's ludicrous.

All of it? No! 
 

A fair bit though...Can you honestly say he's sans responsibility? I suspect the largest influence was due to boardroom meetings where constraints/checklists were made because they thought pandering to the latest trends would boost numbers, thus boost profits!

 

Unfortunately though, the groups they pandered to were not numerous enough and the pandering also drove others away.

 

This is more the fault of Amazon executives, though Rafe played his role also.

 

No fan of WoT came out happy from this, things were wrong.

 

I don't see how that can really be argued with.

 

It is what it is.

[Kaleb]

4 hours ago, Raal Gurniss said:

No fan of WoT came out happy from this, things were wrong.

I am a fan of WoT and I am incredibly happy the show existed and I enjoyed it greatly. It's flawed, just like the books. That's a beautiful thing about this world, it's what gives it so much power in our imaginations.

[Raal Gurniss]

4 hours ago, Kaleb said:

I am a fan of WoT and I am incredibly happy the show existed and I enjoyed it greatly. It's flawed, just like the books. That's a beautiful thing about this world, it's what gives it so much power in our imaginations.

So you are chuffed to bits that it got cancelled part way? 

[WoTwasThat]

On 10/10/2025 at 12:58 AM, fearbrog said:

This is a bit laughable. Noone who read bonding scene said: "Well Rand is a bit unreasonable here." Because we sympathize with him already, we already understand why he distrusts Aes Sedai. Scene in the book already impactful enough. And it would be also impactful if Rand was actually main character and focus of show. But he wasn't because showrunner really wanted focus on female characters instead of male. That's why Alanna more important character, less time to spend with guys who already have WAY to many screentime in the books (and his boyfriend could be in show more).

My thoughts exactly. Alanna was made a major character for the same reason why Siuan and other Aes Sedai were prominently featured in Season One - because the plan was clearly to make the Aes Sedai the center of the show. You don’t need to know a dang thing about Alanna to realize she basically raped Rand. It actually enhances the story that, in the books, up to that point she’s just some rando Aes Sedai who gets her claws into the DR. 

[WoTwasThat]

On 10/14/2025 at 5:15 AM, Lanfeared said:

I really tried to give it a chance, but blood and bloody ashes, the show is just too different and primarily lacking in immersion. Like you watch game of thrones, you feel like you are in Westeros. You feel the winter.

 

Here? There’s a lack of cohesive vision. I think even displaying the world map could have helped, not to the level that GoT does but perhaps a high level zoom-in to where each episode takes place, something to make it  feel like you are actually somewhere rather than nowhere.

 

I couldn’t help but feel both the show runners and several of the actors had not read the source material.

 

There were a few highlights, I think the seanchan was done pretty well, but they forgot the flyers and weird beasts.

 

Probably the best recreation that was done, (and done well) was going back in time to the age of legends when Rand was walking through the pillars. The Aiel waste was accurate. That said, it’s pretty hard to screw up a desert.

 

Mat and the ailfinn/eelfin storyline was not bad, but I felt like the writers focused on mat’s depression too much instead of his cleverness and luck. In the books he is a source of amusement, fun and tragedy, not an emo depression galaxy.

Great write up. Agree with much of it. Admittedly, I gave up after Season 2 Episode 1. I was basically ready to throw in the towel after the Season 1 abomination. But I decided to give season 2 a shot on the off chance that the showrunners had learned something. And then S2E1 Rand is working in a hospital in Cairhien and banging Lanfear. Nope, done.

 

Maybe someday I’ll watch the Ruidean episode since those two chapters of Rand among the columns is the greatest writing in the entire series. Glad to hear you think they did it well.

 

And yeah, the GOT comparison has received much discussion, but I agree. The GOT world looked real. Lived in. I don’t work in the industry so I don’t know how to describe the problem, but everything about WOT’s production looked cheap and fake. The sets looked like sets. The costumes looked like costumes. It looked like crapty television instead of a movie-quality production.

Edited October 17 by WoTwasThat

[Spiritweaver1]

Well so the gang is still here.  I have stayed away a long time.    I will just add to the repetition.  I am a book fan who has read the books through 3 separate times plus the initial interminable wait for the story to be finished. I also listened once through on audio after the show was cancelled.  I struggled a bit with the show in the beginning but began to enjoy it as I released my comparisons with the books and just tried to enjoy the team's work.  I agree with those who believe the show failed because of the lack of world building.  I said before on various threads that the decision to rework various story elements, instead of focussing on smooth cutting of fluff was the show's downfall.  Thus it didn't pull in the non fantasy fans and, obviously, alienated a segment of the book fans.  Too much of the creative team's energy was spent on new material instead of reworking existing material to fit a visual presentation.   Be all that as it may I was very disappointed they didn't get a chance to finish.

 

I also remind folks that there are very few original stories.  Most stories are reworking through the story tellers eyes.  Anybody know what Greek story Romeo and Juliet was adapted from?  Some adaptations may exceed the source material.  Some not so much but quality is always a function of the story receiver's consciousness and judgment. I am sure Shakespeare's plays were not always that well received at the time but they have stood the test of time in the fact that they are still retold as written as well as being adapted in many ways and forms.

 

I also believe, as several others have stated, that this is too juicy a story and world for it to be permanently gone.  "Hollywood" is desperate for good stories and are currently recycling slop that should have stayed gone. I hope that the shopkeeper will give up the IP to a primarily creative group who can take the story and make video magic.  I personally welcome a bit of AI to help reduce the costs of some of the special effects.  Another point which gets discussed here a lot is what exactly makes WOT so great.  Any tweaking must take that into account.  You only have to look at the Star Trek universe to see what happens when things drift off course.

Edited October 17 by Spiritweaver1
Add bit I forgot about original stories

[Raal Gurniss]

18 minutes ago, Spiritweaver1 said:

Well so the gang is still here.  I have stayed away a long time.    I will just add to the repetition.  I am a book fan who has read the books through 3 separate times plus the initial interminable wait for the story to be finished. I also listened once through on audio after the show was cancelled.  I struggled a bit with the show in the beginning but began to enjoy it as I released my comparisons with the books and just tried to enjoy the team's work.  I agree with those who believe the show failed because of the lack of world building.  I said before on various threads that the decision to rework various story elements, instead of focussing on smooth cutting of fluff was the show's downfall.  Thus it didn't pull in the non fantasy fans and, obviously, alienated a segment of the book fans.  Too much of the creative team's energy was spent on new material instead of reworking existing material to fit a visual presentation.   Be all that as it may I was very disappointed they didn't get a chance to finish.

 

I also believe, as several others have stated, that this is too juicy a story and world for it to be permanently gone.  "Hollywood" is desperate for good stories and are currently recycling slop that should have stayed gone. I hope that the shopkeeper will give up the IP to a primarily creative group who can take the story and make video magic.  I personally welcome a bit of AI to help reduce the costs of some of the special effects.  Another point which gets discussed here a lot is what exactly makes WOT so great.  Any tweaking must take that into account.  You only have to look at the Star Trek universe to see what happens when things drift off course.

 

Has Amazon remade any tv shows that it cancelled within the last decade? 
 

Truth is that unless someone can match what Amazon paid, Amazon is happy just to have the IP on paper as a stockholding.

 

Given Amazon paid top dollar...Its going to be a few decades.

[Sabio]

I honestly don't see someone picking it up.  Is it worth the cost?  Look at how much 3 seasons of this cost.  I don't think season 3 costs have been released.  But the production costs for the first two was something like $260 million.   Season three had to be at least $130 million.

 

Not to mention if someone else picks it up, do they start where this left off or at the beginning?  How many seasons would be needed to finish this?  Supposedly the rights have gone to /WOT Production Limited, and they do not have a very good history with things.

[Lanfeared]

On 10/14/2025 at 12:40 PM, Elder_Haman said:

It's a shame that all this discussion board has left in it is a constant and repetitive rehashing of the same tired arguments.

I’m new around here so I’m unaware of the history, but if the same arguments keep popping up I’d say that sounds like perhaps consensus on how the show failed Jordan‘s Legacy

 

On 10/15/2025 at 7:14 AM, Elder_Haman said:

Indeed. So everyone just keeps coming back to beat the same dead horse.

 

That's just not true. There was plenty of disharmony and division following Sanderson's entry into the series. 

There’s no pleasing everyone. But they chose to make Perrin a black, wife murdering tragedy, Matt a clumsy, depressed killjoy who inflicted fain’s dagger wound at falme with the knife duct taped to a stick like a dollar store asharendai, and portrayed min, aviendha and Elayne as lesbians instead of the future wives of the dragon reborn.

 

This is gonna stir things up lol. 

 

It’s like they added politics out of reflex. Jordan’s epic has plenty of diversity and progressive social narratives built in as written. Again, it’s like they never truly read the books.

 

That said, despite lack of resemblance I thought Perrin was one of the stronger actors, he was very believable and did very well. He even lived up to the plot changes in a believable fashion too.

 

But put it this way: a well acted Michael Jackson, if cast as a white actor, is just plain unnecessary and wrong…. And why on earth would you ever change Michael Jackson’s origin story?

 

 

On 10/17/2025 at 11:55 AM, WoTwasThat said:

Great write up. Agree with much of it.

 

Maybe someday I’ll watch the Ruidean episode since those two chapters of Rand among the columns is the greatest writing in the entire series. Glad to hear you think they did it well.

 

And yeah, the GOT comparison has received much discussion, but I agree. The GOT world looked real.

Thanks for reading sir

 

Overall, I think the series should be watched by any fan, despite its flaws and lack of continuity

 

I think the main disappointment for me is the letdown of what it could’ve been, more than anything else

 

Cheers

 

Edited October 22 by Lanfeared