Is the Wheel of Time impossible to bring to TV? Is AI our only hope?

[Samt]

27 minutes ago, Kaleb said:

He just did. The Ravens chapter is foundational to Perrin's character in the books.

This claim has been made before in this forum and I’ve quoted the actual dialog from the book that could have solved this problem word for word.  Perrin has a discussion with Elyas where he explains his inner turmoil and Elyas talks to him about leaving the axe when he no longer fears using it and such.  It would be a great scene that would have explained a lot and easily developed the character.  

[Kaleb]

23 minutes ago, WoTwasThat said:

Okaaayy… and all that internal dialogue could be replaced with two or three sentences spoken to Egwene. “Gee I’m really sad and upset about violence. Woe is me. Etc.” It’s not that hard. This is how you adapt a book to screen. 

That... is one reading, I guess?

 

Another massive internal dialogue theme in TEOTW is Rand's struggling over the Winternight revelation that Tam is not his biological father. I can't recall a single time he even mentions this to another character, but it's a huge part of the story for him. 

[Kaleb]

1 minute ago, Samt said:

This claim has been made before in this forum and I’ve quoted the actual dialog from the book that could have solved this problem word for word.  Perrin has a discussion with Elyas where he explains his inner turmoil and Elyas talks to him about leaving the axe when he no longer fears using it and such.  It would be a great scene that would have explained a lot and easily developed the character.  

I agree in part, and wish they would have done something like that. They could have done it with a scene where Perrin discusses killing Leila with Elyas. But if we skip the fridging, it would still fall short of the self-loathing that Perrin falls into based on the Ravens scene, so they would have to devote serious time to some other terrible thing Perrin did or contemplated doing.

[WoTwasThat]

1 hour ago, Kaleb said:

That... is one reading, I guess?

 

Another massive internal dialogue theme in TEOTW is Rand's struggling over the Winternight revelation that Tam is not his biological father. I can't recall a single time he even mentions this to another character, but it's a huge part of the story for him. 

Again, a few lines of dialogue… to anyone but most likely Mat while they’re on the run (which was entirely excised from the show’s EIGHT HOURS of screen time) would have fixed this. This is how you properly adapt a book to screen. Internal thoughts - if they actually matter - are converted into dialogue with another character. It isn’t as hard as you guys are making it out to be. 

Edited June 25 by WoTwasThat

[WoTwasThat]

1 hour ago, Kaleb said:

I agree in part, and wish they would have done something like that. They could have done it with a scene where Perrin discusses killing Leila with Elyas. But if we skip the fridging, it would still fall short of the self-loathing that Perrin falls into based on the Ravens scene, so they would have to devote serious time to some other terrible thing Perrin did or contemplated doing.

Killing two whitecloaks was enough. It certainly was in the book. But… they cut it from the show. They omitted Elyas from season one. So: for those keeping score at home, Rafe devoted 1/8th of his screen time to a story in Tar Valon about a made up warder, and excised an actually interesting story from EOTW about an actual former warder who actually sets Perrin’s arc in motion. Why was this change necessary? Only Rafe knows.

 

Gee, it almost seems like it would have been way easier to just tell the darned story. Change begets change begets change.  

Edited June 25 by WoTwasThat

[Kaleb]

13 minutes ago, WoTwasThat said:

Again, a few lines of dialogue… to anyone but most likely Mat while they’re on the run (which was entirely excised from the show’s EIGHT HOURS of screen time) would have fixed this. This is how you properly adapt a book to screen. Internal thoughts - if they actually matter - are converted into dialogue with another character. It isn’t as hard as you guys are making it out to be. 

S1E3 and S1E4's Rand/Mat scenes are a great distillation of the on-the-run scenes from TEOTW. The Darkfriend Dana scenes at the Four Kings inn are some of the best writing in all of S1.

 

Internal thoughts matter A LOT to this story. I'm not arguing that writing them is a some impossible challenge, but you're hand-waving them away as minor and irrelevant, which is in contradiction to your contention that they needed to "just tell the darned story." T

[Mailman]

18 hours ago, WoTwasThat said:

Obviously I was exaggerating for comedic effect. But there really isn’t any internal dialogue that’s all that important in EOTW. If so, name it. 

I don't really think you did it for comedic effect and if so it was a total failure. It is still an absolutely insane overexaggeration.

 

Rand and Perrin IMO were the 2 characters that benefited most from internal dialogue in EOTW. Rand with his father issues and Perrin with the wolves and violence. Would it be impossible to do that work in another way absolutely not. Establishing both these narratives is absolutely core to their characters. Could it be done with just a few lines I highly doubt it as this would leave it feeling incredibly shallow. The almost complete removal of Tam from Rands storyline is a terrible disservice to the original story.

 

Does RJ repeatedly have the boys thinking their friends are more accomplished at talking to women yes, however it is usually a single line only and then moved past.

Edited June 26 by Mailman

[WoTwasThat]

1 hour ago, Mailman said:

I don't really think you did it for comedic effect and if so it was a total failure. It is still an absolutely insane overexaggeration.

Lol ok bub. You do you. It was a joke. But like all good humor premised in a kernel of truth. The “X is much better at talking to girls” is a running gag throughout the early books. I think I counted it at least 6 or 7 times in my recent reread of EOTW.

 

As for the rest of your point, again, this is how books are adapted to screen. You replace inner narrative with dialogue. It isn’t that hard when you have an ensemble cast on a journey. And WOT - at least the early books - does not have an inordinate amount of internal dialogue. (The internal dialogue gets much worse when all the Aes Sedai skirt smoothing / politicking really picks up in the later books and, guess what, that should have been massively trimmed in the show). Pretending this was hard or unusual is just dumb. You’re making excuses for a bad adaptation. 

Edited June 26 by WoTwasThat

[LTL]

47 minutes ago, WoTwasThat said:

You’re making excuses for a bad adaptation. 

 Yeah Mailman, I know you love the show but you really gotta stop doing this.

[Mailman]

35 minutes ago, LTL said:

 Yeah Mailman, I know you love the show but you really gotta stop doing this.

You got me I am the king of making excuses for the adaption I am famous for it on here. LOL

 

1 hour ago, WoTwasThat said:

Lol ok bub. You do you. It was a joke. But like all good humor premised in a kernel of truth. The “X is much better at talking to girls” is a running gag throughout the early books. I think I counted it at least 6 or 7 times in my recent reread of EOTW.

 

As for the rest of your point, again, this is how books are adapted to screen. You replace inner narrative with dialogue. It isn’t that hard when you have an ensemble cast on a journey. And WOT - at least the early books - does not have an inordinate amount of internal dialogue. (The internal dialogue gets much worse when all the Aes Sedai skirt smoothing / politicking really picks up in the later books and, guess what, that should have been massively trimmed in the show). Pretending this was hard or unusual is just dumb. You’re making excuses for a bad adaptation. 

I did not say they did it well or that it was impossible i took affront to you saying that the internal dialogue in the EOTW was largely useless and almost entirely consisted of a single thing which was blatantly untrue.

 

There are very few people on this board who are more critical than me of the way the "adaption" was handled.

[Raal Gurniss]

2 hours ago, Mailman said:

 

There are very few people on this board who are more critical than me of the way the "adaption" was handled

 That is because those that were had been chased off....

[king of nowhere]

22 hours ago, WoTwasThat said:

Killing two whitecloaks was enough. It certainly was in the book. But… they cut it from the show. They omitted Elyas from season one. So: for those keeping score at home, Rafe devoted 1/8th of his screen time to a story in Tar Valon about a made up warder, and excised an actually interesting story from EOTW about an actual former warder who actually sets Perrin’s arc in motion. Why was this change necessary? Only Rafe knows.

 

Gee, it almost seems like it would have been way easier to just tell the darned story. Change begets change begets change.  

is that 1/8th also exaggerated for comedic effects? 

stepin has 10 minutes of screen time, 15 at most.

and elyas is an interesting story only if you get the full wolfbrother picture. which clearly they wanted to wait to introduce.

 

and i will say that i know a single non-reader who watched the show and commented on stepin, and was very positive about it. 

[Samt]

Mat doesn’t have any POVs until book 3.  Not including the ravens prologue (which wasn’t part of the original publication) Rand and Perrin have almost all of the POVs in book 1.  Nynaeve has a few and Moraine has a paragraph at the end of the book.  But if you are arguing that we need inner monologues to understand early Mat or Egwene, you aren’t being fair.

[king of nowhere]

On 6/26/2025 at 5:26 PM, Raal Gurniss said:

 That is because those that were had been chased off....

this is a really bad thing to say.

this forum doesn't ban people on opinions, and there are posters on both sides of the argument. every discussion I've seen has been civil and respectful. nobody is banned for expressing opinions respectfully.

 

what kind of people are chased off by civil discussion?

I guess those that would like a discussion to be something like 

 

"

- the tv show is turd, ruined by rafe being a woke flagbearer!

- yes, rafe better not show his face around here!

- we should burn his house!

- we should hurt his family!

"

 

Yes, I can see how such people would be put off by a civil discussion. 

And frankly, such people should reexhamine their life and try to find some purpose - if they need their safe space to hate something as harmless as a tv show without contradictory, there's something deeply wrong with them.

people tend to congregate with those of similar opinions, and to an extent it's unavoidable and positive. But when people can't stand having someone challenge - respectfully and with arguments, no less! - their opinion on a tv show, it goes too far. it means those people can't think and can't form reasoned opinions.

 

Even in the best case, some of those people are simply there to vent some rage at the world in general. some people go to the gym and punch a mattress to unwind after work, some people go on the internet and rage at random stuff. 

even in that best case, i'd argue those people's opinion do not count, as they are merely venting - just like the guy in the gym punching a punching ball is doing it because it makes him feel good, not because he really wants to punch someone.

Hopefully.

Edited June 27 by king of nowhere

[Cipher]

On 6/24/2025 at 6:27 PM, Yamezt said:

 

A lot of East Asian animation makes use of internal dialogue, and occasionally, live-action dramas from the region do too. In contrast, inner monologue seems relatively rare in Western TV/movie. I know I’ve come across them before, but none springs to mind immediately that I've seen recently.

 

One of my favourite web novels, Lord of the Mysteries (which spans over 1,400 chapters), is being adapted into an animated series. The first 200 chapters will be condensed into just 13 episodes, airing this weekend. (For comparison, Wheel of Time has only around 700 chapters.) I’ve been thinking about how the adaptation will handle inner monologues, since the protagonist frequently uses internal thought to solve occult mysteries - a key part of the novel’s tone and depth.

 

I recently saw a trailer where the main character walks the streets while his inner voice is narrated, which gives me hope that they’ll retain this important narrative device. Whether the adaptation will succeed overall remains to be seen.

 

But it also makes me wonder: Could Wheel of Time have been better adapted if it leaned more into internal dialogue rather than shying away from it?

I have always thought an animated series would suit this series best, but might be difficult to get adults to sit and watch such a thing in the west.  Additionally as you pointed out western style doesn’t suit itself to that self talk as well as Anime.  May be with the right creators it could work.

 

I really like the art style of Arcane and think that would be a perfect fit for WoT.

Edited June 26 by Cipher

[Raal Gurniss]

4 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

7 hours ago, Raal Gurniss said:

 

this is a really bad thing to say.

this forum doesn't ban people on opinions

Didn't say they did, would have said that specifically if I intended such, sorry but I am just  not interested in hurling combative accusations at each other over comparatively insignificant things.

 

I would rather just go.

[WoTwasThat]

4 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

this is a really bad thing to say.

this forum doesn't ban people on opinions, and there are posters on both sides of the argument. every discussion I've seen has been civil and respectful. nobody is banned for expressing opinions respectfully.

 

what kind of people are chased off by civil discussion?

Um. For a while there was at least one mod on here banning accounts just for using the word “woke.”

[Mailman]

5 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

this is a really bad thing to say.

this forum doesn't ban people on opinions, and there are posters on both sides of the argument. every discussion I've seen has been civil and respectful. nobody is banned for expressing opinions respectfully.

 

what kind of people are chased off by civil discussion?

I guess those that would like a discussion to be something like 

Yes, I can see how such people would be put off by a civil discussion. 

And frankly, such people should reexhamine their life and try to find some purpose - if they need their safe space to hate something as harmless as a tv show without contradictory, there's something deeply wrong with them.

people tend to congregate with those of similar opinions, and to an extent it's unavoidable and positive. But when people can't stand having someone challenge - respectfully and with arguments, no less! - their opinion on a tv show, it goes too far. it means those people can't think and can't form reasoned opinions.

 

Even in the best case, some of those people are simply there to vent some rage at the world in general. some people go to the gym and punch a mattress to unwind after work, some people go on the internet and rage at random stuff. 

even in that best case, i'd argue those people's opinion do not count, as they are merely venting - just like the guy in the gym punching a punching ball is doing it because it makes him feel good, not because he really wants to punch someone.

Hopefully.

I am going to ask why you have placed those statements that appear to be totally made up in quotes as if they actually exist on this forum.

[Kaleb]

15 hours ago, WoTwasThat said:

Um. For a while there was at least one mod on here banning accounts just for using the word “woke.”

Highly dubious assertion. Your account was started after the show was cancelled, and I have seen every post on this board since that time and nothing even close to that took place. Maybe you were banned on another account and that's what you're referencing, but from what I've seen for the past four years the mods here do a great and very fair job.

[Mailman]

27 minutes ago, Kaleb said:

Highly dubious assertion. Your account was started after the show was cancelled, and I have seen every post on this board since that time and nothing even close to that took place. Maybe you were banned on another account and that's what you're referencing, but from what I've seen for the past four years the mods here do a great and very fair job.

[Raal Gurniss]

46 minutes ago, Mailman said:

Don't like doing this, it just stirs trouble up that I don't want, so I will redact a few bits and bobs...

 

Posted November 15, 2021

  On 11/15/2021 at 12:58 PM

I suggest you listen to a podcast by Jordan Peterson on Economic principles

------

Ahahahhahahahha! No.

 

Thread is Locked.

"W" Discussion is done, you've all had an opportunity to vent it out, and we lost a member because of it.

 

Starting Today, any posts that start talking about "W" will be removed/edited.

Don't like it, take it up with the other admins.".

 

.........

 

 

There are a fair few more examples, I mean many people weren't happy with how the show was going, people were going to be critical...Things like that happen, they WERE NOT well received.

 

Personally I just thought the show wasn't very good.

 

 

 

Edited June 27 by Raal Gurniss
Edited to remove names, it keeps showing despite editing

[Kaleb]

22 minutes ago, Mailman said:

My bad, I just noted that this user had a post count in the single or low double digits when the cancellation news broke, and I had never noticed their username in all the many debates over the last few years.

 

People have been using the word in this forum. From what I've seen, the mods have been fair.

[king of nowhere]

35 minutes ago, Raal Gurniss said:

Don't like doing this, it just stirs trouble up that I don't want, so I will redact a few bits and bobs...

 

Posted November 15, 2021

•  

  On 11/15/2021 at 12:58 PM

I suggest you listen to a podcast by Jordan Peterson on Economic principles

------

Ahahahhahahahha! No.

 

Thread is Locked.

"W" Discussion is done, you've all had an opportunity to vent it out, and we lost a member because of it.

 

Starting Today, any posts that start talking about "W" will be removed/edited.

Don't like it, take it up with the other admins.".

 

.........

 

 

There are a fair few more examples, I mean many people weren't happy with how the show was going, people were going to be critical...Things like that happen, they WERE NOT well received.

 

Personally I just thought the show wasn't very good.

 

 

 

weird. i didn't knew that, and i've seen people use the word woke since then. 

maybe it was an instance of the word used as an insult that triggered and excessive reaction that was later tempered.

 

I've certainly seen people express very strong criticism of the show, and nothing bad happened to them - except perhaps this forum seem to appear to have a majority of people who liked the show, so people arguing against would get less votes.

Edited June 27 by king of nowhere

[Raal Gurniss]

2 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

weird. i didn't knew that, and i've seen people use the word woke since then. 

maybe it was an instance of the word used as an insult that triggered and excessive reaction that was later tempered.

Perhaps, best not speak about how things are "M" word either though, its another taboo subject best not spoken about, just creates grief, even this may be too much.

 

Think its even against terms and conditions of using the site.

 

 

[WoTwasThat]

5 hours ago, Raal Gurniss said:

Thread is Locked.

"W" Discussion is done, you've all had an opportunity to vent it out, and we lost a member because of it.

 

Starting Today, any posts that start talking about "W" will be removed/edited.

Don't like it, take it up with the other admins.".

 

.........

Thank you for locating this. This is what I was referring to. One particular mod went off and started banning people just for using a perfectly acceptable (and appropriate, in my opinion) word for a while. Thankfully, this practice no longer appears to be in effect. And I think critics of the “woke” adaptation have been largely vindicated at this point.