"Second seasons can be rough. Producers and writers might have several years to write the first season (or the pilot) and just months or even weeks to write the second season."

Which really, really doesn't bode well for this show, considering the state of the writing in the first season. I sincerely hope that they've managed to turn this thing around and actually do something that even comes close to being worthy of the books.

Rafe really needs to let go of his pride and actually tell Robert Jordan's story, rather than something he made up himself. He simply doesn't have the talent to "modernize" what Jordan wrote.

I really, REALLY want season 2 to be fantastic.

However, after last year's debacle, I am not holding my breath.

Season One was fine.  It wasn't great and it wasn't bad.  I expect Season 2 to be the same and I will be content.

Unfortunately, book fans (in general) seem to be an incredibly touchy lot when they don't get a near literal translation on Film or TV versions. 

Personally, my favorite adaptions are shows that ADD something interesting to the original.  For examples...Yen's backstory in The Witcher TV show and The Emperor clone story in Foundation.  Admittedly, new material can just as well fail...the whole Witcher 2nd season Baba yaga (sp?) thing.  Take the bad with the good and move on.

It seems there is no middle ground.  Shows are either great or awful.  Non readers tend towards the former....book fans the latter.

I've read a lot of the WoT complaints.  Many (most?) are hung up on details and then go on to say details are critical!.  Well...yes and no.  World building details?  Sure!  Cities and their locations are important.  I can't be the only one who thinks Jordan's description of every room and article of clothing is maddeningly overbearing however. 

Complaining about minor changes that don't drive significant plot points seem silly though.  Perrin being married from the start, (witcher) Eskiel minor plot change...etc.  Go ahead and complain if Perrin is made a Darkfriend or Eskiel is the Emperor of Nilfgaard.  Now those would be changes to justifiably raise eyebrows.

Does the WoT TV show need more braid tugging?  Dress smoothing?  Bosom references?  Women!  Men! comments?  2000 characters? 

Take the bad with the good.  Enjoy it or simply tune-out.

18 hours ago, Miso Beast said:

I've read a lot of the WoT complaints.  Many (most?) are hung up on details and then go on to say details are critical!...

 

Complaining about minor changes that don't drive significant plot points seem silly though...

It's not the details that are the problem, it's the fact that the whole thing was completely rewritten, and not in a good way! And I wouldn't really call things like Egwene healing death without even breaking a sweat as a "minor change." That changes the entire magic system of the story!

The frustration is that there was a brilliant story already there. Yes, it would need to be heavily edited down. But not changed completely. There is barely a single scene or conversation in season 1 that is actually in the book.

On 5/25/2022 at 9:52 AM, Irvyne said:

It's not the details that are the problem, it's the fact that the whole thing was completely rewritten, and not in a good way! And I wouldn't really call things like Egwene healing death without even breaking a sweat as a "minor change." That changes the entire magic system of the story!

 

The frustration is that there was a brilliant story already there. Yes, it would need to be heavily edited down. But not changed completely. There is barely a single scene or conversation in season 1 that is actually in the book.

Was the whole thing rewritten? In the novel Moiraine arrives at the Two Rivers, recruits a bunch of youngsters to help her save the world and takes them to do that, via visits to Shadar Logoth, the Ways, Fal Dara and the Blight, where it is revealed that Rand is the Dragon Reborn. In the TV show the exact same thing happens. A lot of the details have changed for reasons understandable (cost, time) and unfathomable, but the broad strokes of the story are the same.

It doesn't help that the show does present things confusingly, though. Nynaeve was probably simply severely injured and Egwene was able to Heal her by drawing on Nynaeve's own strength (linking?), but Nynaeve's injuries did look severe enough so that people could confuse her with being dead.

I wonder where the limitation of 8 or 9 seasons came from. Does anyone know? I think 10 would give the show enough time to hit on the important points while consolidating some things and reducing the amount of time spent on unnecessarily drawn out plot lines. 
 

With the exception of the finale, I am quite pleased with the show so far. And I am willing to give the finale a lot of leeway after learning about the shitstorm that they were forced to deal with, including the devastating blow of losing one of the primary cast members. I am honestly struggling to understand why so many other book readers are so insistent on being so hard on the show. As far as fidelity goes, S1 stuck to the books VERY closely compared to most book to screen adaptations, again excepting the finale, which was understandable. 
 

It’s obvious that MANY things will have to be changed, whether because of logistics, time constraints, budgetary constraints, or the fact that some things just don’t translate from the written word to the screen. There’s a reason that it’s taken so long to get a screen adaptation of this series. It’s DAMN hard to do! But the entire writing and production team are doing their best to tell the heart of the story, going so far as to hiring Maria, who knows every aspect of the story every bit as well as RJ did, to make sure that they tell the story correctly as much as possible. They check every single change with her to make sure that they can make it work with the story as a whole. They also have Harriet closely involved in decision making processes. As production and writing teams go, these are genuinely trying their best!
 

My main wish is that they get approval to extend the seasons to 10 episodes, because it’s probably not realistically possible to introduce the necessary lore in an understandable way with such short seasons while simultaneously having to consolidate plots and characters. 

On 6/11/2022 at 8:46 AM, Wise One Yenna said:

As far as fidelity goes, S1 stuck to the books VERY closely compared to most book to screen adaptations, again excepting the finale, which was understandable. 

Sorry but I do not agree. Rather I believe the opposite, this adaptation is not faithful but very loose which is why many fans are critical and unhappy. Game of Thrones Season 1 was way way more faithful to the source material than the Wheel of Time Season 1, also the Lord of the Rings movies were more faithful adaptations and similarly the first few Harry Potter movies. You can be pretty sure that Season 2 of the Wheel of Time will be way less faithful than Season 2 of Game of Thrones was.

Some Wheel of Time fans don't mind, some even want more changes and prefer a loose adaptation, but many fans are unhappy because they want to see a true adaptation of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time (and yes, some changes are always necessary for the visual medium, but not what many deem almost amounts to fan fiction in the same universe). Dropping say Rivendell in the Lord of the Rings movies but having Frodo travelling to Mordor with the One Ring would also keep the 'heart of the story' but would still make many fans frustrated/critical and rightly so. The trailers for the coming Lord of the Rings tv show indicate another loose adaptation with many changes to that world and its lore which many fans already criticize on Youtube. Some would say all this is a product of our times.

Season 1 of the Wheel of Time had many problems reg. writing, choices, changes, pacing, lack of necessary lore etc and also too few episodes as you mention, and even fans who enjoyed it as a separate version of canon mostly agreed this was a new Turning of the Wheel. For fans of the books who want a faithful adaptation it does not bode well that everything points at Season 2 and onwards deviating even more from the books. As everyone knows the more changes you make at the start, the worse it becomes later with storylines deviating etc. The end result easily becomes totally different than it should have been. One therefore must take care not to make too many changes too soon.

One should not be surprised that a portion of the fanbase are deeply concerned. Personally I think this adaptation needs at least 10 seasons or more and needs lots more episodes pr season than any other current fantasy adaptation because of the huge source material which f.ex. dwarfs Game of Thrones as is mentioned above. I have through the years doubted whether this story could or should be adapted to the screen because I have feared it is too difficult to do sufficiently well because of the enormous source material (14 books), much internal POV in the books, incredible detail and sophistication which I feared would be overlooked by showrunners or changed, but I was moderately excited when I heard there would be a tv show and thought I would give it a chance.

Now having experienced Season 1, which was ok but far from what it could have been, I am still highly uncertain whether it is possible to do this momentous fantasy story justice or whether the task is simply too huge especially within a thin 8 season 8 episode framework. I will watch Season 2 next year and see how that goes - and I too do believe the showrunners have the best of intentions with their work, more a question of ability and choices and fidelity to canon - but like many fans I am concerned and uncertain if this will ever do Robert Jordan's majestic work and legacy justice.

10 seasons would be a pipe dream. Remember that Amazon cancelled The Expanse after season 6, in which they reduced the number of episodes from 10 to 6 due to "financial considerations". The Expanse was a favorite of Bezos, yet that didn't seem to matter. Remember that Amazon is spending huge amounts of money for the The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power series. My guess is that they'll end up going about 4-5 seasons, and by then the most loyal WoT fans will have stopped watching the show and given the show so many negative reviews that Amazon will just end the series before wrapping up the story. Personally I hope we get 10 seasons, but I wouldn't bet on it.