I almost started typing the answer until I remembered about your spoiler request. All I can say is that your question will be answered by the books. The characters haven't figured it out just yet either. Calandor is unique and the flaw isn't necessarily a flaw.

Well, I wasn't referring to who else could have finished the books. I thought the last book was horrible in both content and writing.

Honestly, I just felt like tone of the characters was  too optimistic for how poorly it was going for the good guys. Rand was almost too at peace... I get that he had his veins of gold moment but that didn't make the situation less desperate. If you ever read Mistborn, it almost felt like Rand became Kelsier. That said, AMOL had it's moments: Lan vs Demendred, Egwene vs Taim (I generally dislike Egwene, but she's always interesting in a fight), Birgitte getting taken out and then her saving the day after the horn... Olver and the horn.

I also found how Rand ultimately dealt with the DO to be both interesting and fitting within the way the entire series was about balance... Dark/Light, Male/Female, Saidar/Saidin, White/Black tower, OP/TP...

Generally speaking though... even though it took up nearly an entire book the Last Battle itself felt a little rushed. The wins & losses weren't really felt due to the fact that it was pretty much onto the next fight (which to some extent is how war is).

That is why people like me do not come to the DM anymore. LOL maybe we are too old and do not understand the modern tastes. I mean comparing apples and oranges do not come even close. what people find refreshing I find revolting. While Rj's writing is replete with moments where you just have to put the book down and take a deep breath. BS will never give you a moment where yo have to have retrospection and or revelation. Show me one moment in Bs's writing to match moiraine's story of Menthren or Nyn's journey through Borderlands garnering support for Lan. Just to name two of the events of which there were countless examples. Then there was subtle foreshadowing, where he let things hang trusting his readers to find the answer. On the other hand BS was about blatant as slap in the face. He will tell yo a certain thing and keep rubbing it in your face. If you like that kind of stuff. Yo are reading the wrong series. You should try  some ghost or vampire stories. 

I'd argue that there is some of that in BS's own books, but you are right in that there really isn't much of it from him in WoT. I got a little bit of that in ToM in several scenes from Rand. 1st when he asks Tam for forgiveness and second where he saves Maradon. Whether those were RJ or BS, who knows. I could also say Aviendha's trip through the ter'angreal would quality a bit too.

I absolutely agree on subtlety though. RJ was the master at that. Especially with Matt and his PTSD. It's not blatant but if you are familiar with it it's there. I can only attribute it to RJ's experiences (personal and via fellow soldiers) in vietnam. Brandon obviously never had anything close to that.

A lot of it depends on if you believe that when RJ first wrote Taim that he was Demandred in disguise. I think somewhere or other Terez shared some early notes stating that at the time it was written it was Dem posing as Taim, but later changed it due to being frustrated by how easily fans figured it out.

So if that's the case then (obviously) he was always a DF.

On the other hand there is a good argument to be made for each case. The man was brutal and ruthless when it came to pushing and training the male channelers. He almost always seemed to be a cross between cocky and ticked off. While those don't necessarily make him a DF the fact that he turned out to be in the end makes the argument for him always being a DF hold water.

On the other hand, in addition to the quotes Magneto listed... Rand treated him horribly. He was never kind to him so it would be easy to say that Rand basically drove him to it as well.

sending coulading to rhuidean wouldn't have changed anything,

sevanna understood as early as alcair dal that coulading wasn't

the car'a'carn,just a stupid shaido with two dragon tattoos on his

arms,prancing like a clown and ranting about days of glory.

70 days after his fleeting moments of grandeur at alcair dal,couladin was dead,

yet it didn't stop nor deterred sevanna from continuing with her grand

plan to rule all aiel by marrying rand ha!

Without Couladin to be a false HWCwtD, it would have been advantageous for Savana to be as close to Rand as possible. It would have been more realistic for her goal of marrying Rand to be part of the clans than to separate. She still would have been an antagonist, just more along the lines of Lady Colavaere in Cairhein. Rand would have seen right through it in all likeliness and Egwene would probably not and assume something about Rand's arrogance.

Still, as Sabio stated Couladin's main purpose was to force Rand to reveal the Aeil's true past.

I also agree that after Dumai's wells the Shaido through-line should have been over with (would have avoided Perrin being boring for several books).

The simplest solution would have simply been for the wise ones to allow Couladin to enter Rhuidean. No way he would have survived it. At that point there wouldn't have been a "false" He Who Comes with the Dawn. Savanah would have likely followed Rand out of ambition.

nothing ever said that the Bond had to be between a channeler and a non-channeler. that's just how it's always been 'as far as anyone knew'. Which could just as easily mean they didn't know than that it wasn't possible.

 

The fact that the Aiel had a system that allowed non-channelers to bond through the aid from channelers means that at least sometime in the past the knowledge must have existed.

A lot of knowledge of what was possible with the Power or how to do things with the Power was lost to the Aes Sedai over time.

 

Personal agenda's, secrecy, greed, jealousy, possessiveness or the simple passage of time in which things weren't done. All of these can account to the loss of knowledge over the course of 3000 years.

To go along with this, several things that the "current day" channelers were doing surprised the forsaken. Bonding was one of them. Unraveling weaves was another.

While volumes of knowledge were lost during the breaking and over the course of the 3rd age, one of the themes of the series seemed to be that new weaves could be discovered/created... it was often a matter of having the need to go along with the skill/talent to accomplish it.

One could argue that the Age of Legends became a victim of their own success in a way. They had progressed so far that they had certain ways to do things to such a degree that they tended not to deviate.

I always took it as a cross between the Aiel "sister" bonding and the AS warder bonding.

A few things to keep in mind:

1) The trolloc attacks before Rand and co re-discovered traveling/skimming so things took longer in terms of passage of time. It was easier to predict where/when Rand would be and plan / set traps accordingly. 

2) As Melindhra proved, there are Aiel darkfriends and they could have helped either guide or manipulate things to allow them to get them there and remain undetected

3) While they can't Travel, they do have 2 forsaken to use the power for other means of keeping them hidden.

4) The waste is a big, huge, mostly empty place. With a knowledgeable guide it might be fairly easy to get that far without being detected by avoiding populated areas.

As someone who is not an Elayne fan, I don't really consider her to be a weak link overall. In a fight, I'd rather have Egwene, Nyneave, or Aviendha with me for sure, but as far as being an overall character I don't think she's weak. I think she may have chosen her Ajah incorrectly based on her talents which would put her more of Blue/Grey (or Brown depending on how you classify ter'angreal creation).

As boring as she is to read once she gets to Caemlyn, she is a decent and fair ruler. She's a decent diplomat.

Those things round her out, and while boring definitely don't make her weak.

I'm also one that thing BS did as good a job could have been expected. People forget that we'd be complaining about certain aspects had RJ not passed and completed the series (there are/were plenty of complaints about lots of things). 

My issues with BS are less about content and more about tone, and this mostly comes to light in AMoL... where the characters were a little too upbeat and optimistic whereas RJ they were more realists and concerned about their fates. AMoL Rand to me read like Kelsier, who was very much an optimist. 

Sorry if this has been covered. I couldn't find anything on it. Was rands madness needed as a ta'veren in order for veins of gold to take place and all the good things that happen afterwards? The pattern is balance, and as Rand slides deeper into madness only bad things are happening for the most part. Is this almost like an investment in his ta'veren nature? Is the pattern "spending" all the bad things that occur due to him being ta'veren in order for him to have a store "return on investment" of good possibilities after his moment on Dragonmount?

 

Mat and Perrin experience this to a lesser degree. Mat spends a significant amount of time being infected and almost dying due to the Shadar Logoth dagger, gets hung by the Eelfin, dies in Caemlyn, and has to deal with the gholom. Perrin has to free Faile twice, is betrayed by Aram, and must deal with the invasion of the two rivers along with Luc/Isam. Obviously this is not all inclusive.

 

Are all these bad events needed for them to be able to bend chance in ways that support their battle against the shadow?

I would say that Rand's madness was not part of the pattern due to it coming from the taint, which is from the Dark One who is anti-pattern. If you remember Nyneave's delving of Rand in tear to see his madness he had the same "thorns" as the Ashaman she healed, just that his were surrounded by "Light" so she opted not to heal his due to believing it being some sort of intervention.

So in my opinion "Veins of Gold" was really a creator-esque intervention to counter-balance the taint.

The Games do, not so much the books. The majority of people(outside of Eastern Europe) who know of the series probably know it from the games not the books. 

The Games do, not so much the books. The majority of people(outside of Eastern Europe) who know of the series probably know it from the games not the books. 

The games do, and the books have picked up a lot of steam in the states due to the games. I've read them and they are excellent.

Surprised that no one has said Moiriane. Pretty much from the moment she heard the fortelling as an accepted she made her life about finding and guiding TDR. Always doing what must be done for the right reason, even when it means she has to do some very morally grey things. She takes out 2 forsaken one of which was at great cost to her (which she knew ahead of time and did it anyway).

She's one of my all time favorite characters. Wish the series had more of her.

I've always been an optimist, but I've got the feeling that if Harriet is involved then this is going to be good. My concern at this point is everyone deciding parts are good for TV/Screen, what parts are not, and whether or not all of us fans like the results.

I'm much less concerned about set & special effects. Those have come far enough the the point where even the low budget Scifi shows aren't bad for the type of magic that the One Power is.

Oddly enough I think the story would be better told by someone who isn't a fan

 

The story as is, is too long to tell unabridged, and I would guess it would be easier for a none fan to make the needed cuts without bias towards favourite characters/sub-plots. I can see a fan trying to tell the whole story, and I'd rather get the full story from some characters/sub-plots and drop some all together then lose a little from everything. And although I have my favourite and least favourite subplots I won't mind which are cut so long as the ones left are told well

 

Things I'm wary of,

 

characters in general and Mat in particular losing their/his subtlety (thing various portrayals of Mrs Bennett or Mr Collins from pride and prejudice, or pippin in lotr)

 

Looking cheap or cartoony (id rather ignore the Aes sedai ageless look and just give a general gravitas type thing for those characters then have something look badly done)

 

Trying to tell the story word for word

I wouldn't worry too much about that. Almost every fan has several sections (and many of them the same sections: Books 8 & 10) that they would either take out, gloss over, or streamline.

What it really comes down to is whether or not the content is both entertaining and necessary to the plot. At any rate in the 18ish pages of this thread a lot of that has been discussed to death already so I won't say anything more on it.

Sony Pictures Television is really what I am researching here. They do have a decent track record for 1 hour long dramas:

Justified (FX)

Better Call Saul (AMC)

Bloodline (Netflix)

Breaking Bad (AMC)

Outlander (Starz)

So I'm not upset it's them that is running with this.

Well, it's officially happening...

http://www.ign.com/articles/2017/04/20/wheel-of-time-tv-series-sets-showrunner-production-studio?abthid=58f83c2a6fadfc0c2100002c

Not a fan of Agents of Shield, but I did enjoy Chuck and Hemlock Grove.

Not sure what "Consulting Producer" means but I'm glad that Harriet is a part of this. Hopefully it's more than just an honorary credit and it helps to keep the show less cheesy than Shield / Chuck.

@dexterryu it isn't about competent women it is about how almost every single woman acts the same. Usually arrogant or at least without gratitude it seems like he had one template he based his women off of and just adjust arrogance slightly. The characters are not varied nearly as much as every other great author's characters are.

You could say that there was a lack of gratitude of all characters, in general. 

In general I lump all the AS bickering and politics along with the same stuff that the general nobility did throughout the series. I always took it as satire towards our own political systems where even in the face of the end of the world that those in charge would allow greed to rule their decision making.

I also think that there were plenty of competent women in the series... also plenty of idiot men in the series. However, as others have said the ability to channel safely has swung the gender war towards women in this world and put them into political prominence making the scenario I mentioned above more of a focal point.

 

 

 

Lol, I understand why people wouldn't like BS. I just meant RJ was getting really stale in his writing and dragging on with boring and plots. BS came in an increased the pace of the books and rounded up the books in a quite satisfactory way, maybe better than RJ could have...

I disagree, simply because he made 3 books out of what RJ had only intended to be 1...RJ definitely had started dragging out the plot, but apparently the last book was supposed to be really action-packed

Just going by the foreshadowing that was fulfilled in TGS and TOM, I'm not sure how it would all have fit into one book and include the Last Battle. Now, you could definitely make an argument for TGS and TOM being streamlined into one book, but you could say that about several books in the series.

 

 

I remember RJ being quoted as saying it was gonna be 1 book even if Tor Books had to invent a new way of binding the books or if it had to have it's own library cart, lol

 

Actually, what I think would be a great thing to do with ebooks would be to re-release a new edit of the entire series as a single giant chronologically re-chaptered e-book. While the first several books would be pretty much unchanged, their are several timeline overlaps covered in different books. While their is the obvious Tam/Perrin timeline confusion in ToM, it could also smooth out things like dumai's well's which had already concluded in book 6 but was rehashed in book 7. Same with the cleansing... it had already happened when Egwene and the AS were sensing it. 

As for RJ vs BS, I like and dislike both authors for different reasons. RJ had a much better talent with subtlety and I did a better job of making the characters feel real. BS had a much better overall pace of storytelling but his version of the characters all seemed a little too upbeat. Rand after VoG felt a little too much like Kelsier (if you've read Mistborn). RJ had a lot of over description (skirt straitening, etc...) and pacing later on in the series.

 

Lol, I understand why people wouldn't like BS. I just meant RJ was getting really stale in his writing and dragging on with boring and plots. BS came in an increased the pace of the books and rounded up the books in a quite satisfactory way, maybe better than RJ could have...

I disagree, simply because he made 3 books out of what RJ had only intended to be 1...RJ definitely had started dragging out the plot, but apparently the last book was supposed to be really action-packed

 

Just going by the foreshadowing that was fulfilled in TGS and TOM, I'm not sure how it would all have fit into one book and include the Last Battle. Now, you could definitely make an argument for TGS and TOM being streamlined into one book, but you could say that about several books in the series.

For me, one of the most frustrating things in the entire series is the general lack of communication both when characters are in proximity to each other and not using gateways. 

I watched the first ... 3 seasons, I think, of game of thrones. I read the first few books as well. I think perverts of all kinds are a little (hopefully a whole lot, but maybe I'm too kind) over-represented in the show and in the books. They seem to enjoy causing suffering to others and a decadent life for themselves. Morality and good intentions, even some degree of it, causes them to die horrible deaths in that story. In any case, it doesn't make me enjoy the story as much as if there'd been some little hope for humanity, or for the reader to have something decent to cling to when reading. The occasional boob would have been acceptable, though. 

 

Wheel of time certainly have some horrible things happening, and the good guys (there are such in WoT) usually make it out alive. Some die, of course. They would be reborn in the endless wheel (they or the same soul, at least), so maybe that's a glimmer of hope. I don't feel that WoT makes it out as a pleasure to read about the specifics of each horrific event that happens, but that's me and maybe others feel differently.

The characters of focus are different in GoT. It is primarily on the nobility/royalty that are vying for power and position. It would be like a series based on Cairhien from the time of TGH through TFoH, which is basically the nobility fighting over the Sun throne. As for morality and good intentions during that, doing so really leaves you vulnerable. In GoT (both the show and first book) Ned gets himself killed because he's stubbornly honorable. All he had to do was play the game for the right reasons (Pretty much like Rand does) and a lot of the mess that makes up the series could have been avoided.

 

 

 

Ah, HBO, the tv for virgins and perverts...  but 'everybody' call this quality in these days...

 

Virgins and perverts? If you’re blinded by boobs and an occasional f-bomb then you might be the virgin...

 

I have to agree. HBO puts out some good series. While many of it's shows don't shy away from Sex/Nudity, Skinimax it is not. I think most of the cable networks have realized people get that sort of stuff from the internet now and have focused on making good series.