11 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

nobody yet mentioned mat being forced to become tylin's lover...

That was #4 for me. #5 was return of the Shaido, but Balefiring Faile cleans up a lot of that.

Speaking of map, should also preferably not he bordered on the East and North by two perfectly straight mountain ranges…. Maybe the male Aes Sedai had a little OCD during the Breaking. 

Alright, here’s the deal. You get to eliminate three storylines from the TV series. You only get three. And like Balefire, be mindful of its possible impacts.

I’ll go first. 
1. Faile. Yes, everything.

2.  Elayne’s Andoran Succession. God I hated virtually every page devoted to this.

3. Bowl of the Winds.

Yes, I think this could speed up and improve the series immensely. 

16 hours ago, lt;(^-^)gt; said:

For something that hasn't yet been mentioned, one small-ish thing I've been excited to see depicted is the politics of the Ajahs and their different roles. I fell in love with the concept when I first read it, and it's something that I think they can do justice to on the screen, with some good writing, acting, and cinematography.

I agree that some inter-Ajah squabbling will add some spice and intrigue. One of the many nice things about WOT is the revelation as you go deeper into the series just how divided the White Tower is and how frankly stupid and petty a great many of the women can be. It adds some depth to their characters. Mwa-Rain is about as close as they come to a Gandalf-like figure. 

But don’t overdo it with the seasoning. If they try to give me an entire COT’s worth of  Aes Sedai and Andoran politics, that’s gonna kill me. In fact, I could do without the Elayne Succession storyline altogether.

23 hours ago, Wolfbrother31 said:

Warning: spoilers if you haven't read EotW.

 

For me, my top 10 (not necessarily in order) that I'm really excited to see in the show is:

 

1) Winternight: Lan fighting Trollocs. Pretty sure this has got to be in episode 1 right?! 

 

2) How they portray the One Power being used: are we gonna see it in Episode 1 from Moiraine's POV?

 

3) Shadar Logoth: I hope it's horrifying! Likely episode 2 " Shadow waiting" ? Right? 

 

4) What they do with Logain: there's quite a bit they could creatively add without actually ticking off fandom. Logain was an interesting and important character that we could have gotten more from earlier. Do that. 

 

5) The Ways: like Shadar Logoth I think they can make this cool & scary & entertaining. 

 

6) Aiel. Don't think we're getting to see them hardly at all in S1. But surely they're gonna be big part of S2. And I still think the prologue opening scene for the show should be the Dragon born on Dragonmount and the prophecy being given to Suian, Leane, and Moiraine. 

 

7) Forsaken: I think they cleverly cast Lanfear & Ishy under the guise of the Grinwells. Really hope we get 3D antagonists who are well developed in S1. 

 

? 8. Padan Fain: honestly, he was one of the better written characters of EotW. I think they'll do an excellent job with him. 

 

9) The character quirks: if Nynaeve isn't braid tugging and cursing and sexist & if Matt isn't dicing and joking and a wanna-be ladies man, and Rand isn't trying to be the protective, small-town, perfect gentleman... I'm going to be pretty disappointed... This was definitely one of RJ's strengths in protraying characters. Brandon Sanderson's comments make me think they did a good job with the characters. Looking forward to seeing it. 

 

10) The sets: we definitely are getting Emonds Field and Shadar Logoth, and likely getting Fal Dara; but I hope we also get Tar Valon & Whitebridge. 

 

@Elder haman @Borderlander@Asha'man Shar'aman @Beidomon@king of nowhere

@mistborn82 @Illian Tear @Arie

 

What are you looking forward to seeing on screen?!

 

Thats a terrific list. Nailed it. I’ll add The Blight and broken towers of Malkier and the Eye. 
 

Oh and can’t wait to see a Myrdraal!!

On 8/9/2021 at 4:46 PM, imlad said:

 

Not sure what books you were reading. We've got a world where a person's skin color, or the fact they are a woman, does not make them a second class citizen. We have two arguably bisexual characters in prominent roles (Moiraine and Siuan) for the plot, and there are undoubtedly other LGBT characters in the series. The power dynamics of the world are much more balanced between men and women than were seen in just about any other Fantasy literature at the time, or even now (as far as I can think of off hand), if not leaning a bit towards the women's side. You've got at least one culture that the woman controls who gets married, and when (the Aiel). There at least two Body Positive cultures in the series (Aiel and the Fal Darans), if not a third (the Domani). The Domani economy appears to be dominated by women instead of men. At a time when women were still not allowed in combat under US military regulations, Jordan had female warriors taking center stage numerous times in this series..

 

All this starting 30 years ago when none of this was taken lightly or considered common place.

 

So, exactly what the FRAK is "not woke" about this series? Or are you just being an antiWoke troll, with misogynistic, homophobic, racist and/or transphobic tendencies (as those are the only reasons to object to "wokeness")? I'm not accusing you of those, mind, I'm just asking if your motivation for saying "don't go woke" is because you're antiWoke, and thus have one of those mental disorders.

 

Finally, you live in the 21st Century. This Century is FRAKKING WOKE. GET USED TO IT, cuz that ain't going away. It's called progress, that's what happens as civilization grows and evolves, and becomes more mature, not the petty little boys club those who object to wokeness want it to remain. That's the realm of nematodes like Putin, Stephen Miller, the Proud Boys, and Trump.

Wow. That was really something. I’m gonna just bow out of this one. 

I’d tell Rafe….

1. Don’t go woke, bro. Tell The Story. The Story ain’t woke. So Don’t. Go. Woke.

2. Give the characters more depth.

3. Make the bad guys actually scary. And competent.

4. Us fans know The Story - now we want to SEE it. So try to make it look rich and real!

If you look closely at the poster, I think there’s more than “weaving” there. There’s also some black sooty substance - Mashadar?

13 hours ago, Ararana24 said:

Haven't posted here in a long long time and had to recreate my account, so my apologies if this has been discussed, but with the show around the corner I've been paying closer attention. Can anyone tell me if this article been debunked?

 

https://boundingintocomics.com/2020/02/06/exclusive-amazons-wheel-of-time-features-big-change-to-perrin-aybaras-character/

 

That is umm... errrr... yeah no thanks. I'll be skipping this show. I already had very little faith that any TV or movie adaptation would do any justice encompassing the huge world WoT is, but to make changes like that...

If it means no Faile - perhaps one of the most insufferable characters and central to a “subplot” that wasted about a thousand pages - I can maybe get behind this. 
 

Consider, if RJ hadn’t conceived of Faile, might he have finished the series? Probably?

13 hours ago, thoughtless said:

Here's a hot take: Robert Jordan's decision to hand over the series to Brandon Sanderson is the definitive one in terms of what constitutes canon, rather than some random fan on the internet. Honestly it's pretty weird and disrespectful to look to disregard what amounted to a dying wish. You're allowed not like the Sanderson books, but you really don't get a say in whether they count as authentic.

It’s like, just his opinion, man. Let’s just chill with all the disrespecting a dying wish stuff, k?

4 hours ago, Agitel said:

 

I have to disagree a little on the ASOIAF adaptation. In my opinion, D&D lost their vision, phoned in some of the writing, and really changed the type of show they were making. By the end things were just happening to happen, and the pacing, character focus, even the psychology and sociology of the show just changed. And I have to attribute the drop in quality of the show to this rather than to just the fact that they were condensing and adapting. Really, the show jumped the shark for me with the Dornish plot in Season 5. In keeping with the earlier seasons they could have still had Jaime and Bronn go, but on a diplomatic mission, with a loose adaptation of the Dornish plot from Feast but with just Jaime instead of Ser Arys. Or anything else, really. Having Jaime and Bronn's fantastic super secret agent adventure and the sand snakes was just the laziest and least in keeping with the tone of show choice they could have made.

 

Not as bad as the blatant fan servicing “let’s take all the favorite character on a hunting trip to catch an ice zombie - just think of all the great banter” episode. That was the show’s zenith. Or maybe it was turning the Night King into a level boss. Or… damn those last couple of seasons just got so bad. 

21 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

 I am also sure, if jordan had been around to finish writing, his own final books would be very different from his own notes too.

Not to quibble, but Jordan was never going to finish this series. It was both expanding and slowing down almost logarithmically as he aged. Another famous fantasy series comes to mind….

On 7/1/2021 at 11:18 PM, johnnysd said:

Also this show has about a $200 million budget for a single season and many people have said that the show has the most epic sets they have ever seen.

Source? That would be stunning if true. 

On 7/2/2021 at 12:13 PM, johnnysd said:

And I just do not like them. They read as fan fiction regardless of whether they are official or not so I choose to ignore them.

I think Sanderson did a remarkable job cleaning up the mess, but I have to agree that his entries do read like fan fiction. I’m not saying anyone could have done a better job, though. 

Looks like high value. I certainly couldn’t do that in MS Paint. But the dragon isn’t eating its own tail…. Maybe “in this turning of the wheel” the dragon doesn’t do that. 

4 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

do keep in mind that wot is a big story, and making moiraine the protagonist of a season does not mean making her the protagonist of the whole story, usurping rand's place.

or giving logain an episode and having him "protagonist" of that episode, again, it means nothing for the whole story. just like in the books you have multiple pow characters, in the show you can have episodes focusing on a character.

Agreed. Moraine was a big character, especially in EOTW. Not necessarily concerned about that. But that is very different from the show going “woke.” We will see. 

8 hours ago, Wolfbrother31 said:

And honestly, I don't mean to attack you...so don't read into this. I love the fans who are posting on DM!

 

But

I think expanding Logain's role as a protagonist in S1 would be an example of a really good change for the TV adaption to introduce the non-book reading audience to a number of things:

 

1) The concept of worldwide fear of men who can channel and specifically the idea and significance of the Dragon Reborn. 

2) That major world events are in motion whilst our Emonds Fielders are small town folk who are oblivious apart from the little news that Padan Fain, the peddler, brings them. 

3) Some different factions positions on the Dragon and men who can channel or men in general (they could use Logain to introduce the Red/Blue/Green Ajah conflict in the White Tower).

 

Logain, in my opinion, is one of the best choices of a WoT character who is a secondary protagonist, but of huge significance, that the books didn't do as much with early on.

He's one of the more complex and interesting characters - which I think is why Sanderson (expanded...improved?) his role and perhaps Rafe will give us more of him up front. 

 

For example, 

Imagine if in the first season we got to see Logain's army fighting and him channeling and the horror/reactions of different people/nations. Or if we got to see Logain's capture by Red Aes Sedai. Or if we got introduced to the WT through Logain's stilling. Or all of the above? 

I don't think those are bad choices or would go against WoT canon. They would be good "changes". 

Agreed. An area where the show could actually improve on the books. 

On 6/25/2021 at 11:07 AM, Wolfbrother31 said:

Sanderson's interview really does NOT assure me ... I take his comments as ... "As a book superfan/author I was surprised and didnt like the changes. But then I accepted the fact that this is a new turning of the wheel and they aren't making the books... And if I take the show as something completely different than the books, then I can enjoy the fact that Rafe is a good storyteller, and is looking at the bigger picture, ECT..."

 

That's what I heard. And I think that's what @Thrasymachus heard too and hence his disgust. He wants it to fail because he wants the books on screen?? But Thras, it's impossible to get such a thing from WoT. It's too massive and detailed. We have nothing to compare it to...WoT is what, 3 or 4x longer than GoT? We will have to see what we get, but I really think this is our 1 shot at getting WoT on screen. So I really really want it to be good!

Yes. This is the point I made about 50 posts ago. Then there was this weird feud for the past couple pages.  Man, that escalated quickly! LOL….

So again, I've been very clear that I expect and even encourage the screen adaptation to depart from and truncate the source material. And I really liked the LOTR adaptation. But there is potentially a BIG difference from "another turning of the Wheel" and the typical changes necessary for an adaptation.

When I hear that, it brings to mind the excuse given for the Dark Tower "adaptation" - that this was actually "Roland's next cycle of his journey to the Tower." And we saw what a turd that was. When I hear "is it a good introduction to the Wheel of Time for people who haven't seen it," that was another excuse given for the crappy Dark Tower adaption!! You know what a good introduction is? The first friggin' book. The Gunslinger was a masterpiece and would have made for a great standalone movie. Same goes for Eye of the World.

WOTTV better be the story. By all means, adapt as necessary. But this cannot be a different incarnation. Not a different "turning." And not a  "let's weave together a little bit of this and that from all over the place to give people a good introduction." This is one of the biggest problem with showrunners and screenwriters and studio execs: they have no faith in their audiences and they think they're smarter than the damned source material.

What's done is done. The first season is in the can. And I am likely reading way too far into this. But the "different turning" nonsense is a definite trigger for me after the DT Debacle. /rant

Ummm… “another turning of the wheel” is exactly the kind of thinking that gave us that shitstorm of a Dark Tower movie.
 

I’m not trying to be overly negative - in fact I remain guardedly optimistic - and I also fully understand and even encourage the show to depart from and truncate portions of the series, but this kind of comment does NOT provide reassurance. 

The other thing GOT had going for it besides HBO was that it appealed to a broader audience. It was basically just sex, swords, and political intrigue for nearly all of the first season. The series really eased into the supernatural / fantasy elements. With WOT, you are much more immersed in the fantasy from the very beginning - from Trollocs to the “magic.”

And the next rebuttal is “that worked fine for Lord of the Rings.” And again, WOT ain’t LOTR. Fantasy can be a tough sell for broader audiences. 
 

I’m not trying to be overly pessimistic - I’m just saying the odds are against WOT to begin with, and Amazon isn’t the strongest springboard. 

14 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

You've never heard anyone rave about Invincible? The Boys? Good Omens? The Expanse?

 

I dunno what kind of viewership Disney+ is actually getting, but content wise Prime/Netflix have more (Netflix has the best quality-quantity content, Amazon just has quantity). Disney+/HBO Max are a watch and dump streaming service. The only reason I've kept Disney+ for as long as I have, is we bundled it with Hulu.

Nope, never heard of any of those shows except for Good Omens, and that was because I had already read the Gaiman book and happened to see the ad for the show on Amazon. 
 

Again, I don’t care what Amazon’s misleading numbers suggest - I’m pretty sure Disney+ is kicking the crap out of Prime because of their Star Wars, Marvel, and Disney catalogs. Amazon’s numbers are almost surely massively inflated by the free shipping crowd. 

I think the single biggest hurdle for WOT TV is that it is on Amazon instead of Netflix or Disney+. I suspect that Amazon’s viewership numbers are extremely inflated. Anecdotally, I know a great many people with Amazon Prime memberships for that “free two-day shipping” but I’ve never heard anyone raving about the latest shows on Prime. It is always Netflix and Disney+. Always.

One reason GOT took off is it was on HBO. Which at the time the series started was still a major player in original content creation for cable. GOT quickly became HBO’s flagship series, which played a significant role in viewership (no, this isn’t a chicken and the egg situation - HBO promoted the hell out of GOT).

Amazon is hoping WOT can likewise be a flagship series that increases Prime viewership, but I kind of doubt it will work that way. The book audience isn’t big enough. Mandalorian worked for Disney+ but that was Star Wars. WOT ain’t Star Wars.

So we will see.

On 10/2/2020 at 1:19 PM, Elder_Haman said:

It seems that most are in agreement that there will need to be some major changes made to the Forsaken for purposes of the tv show. I'll take a shot at predicting what they'll do with each.

 

Aginor: I believe Aginor will be at the confrontation at the Eye. He is a good character to use to explain the creation of the shadowspawn and since he is in the text, it makes sense to keep him. I would write him as being clearly in service to Ba'alzamon - furthering the idea that Ba'alzamon = the Dark One.

 

Asmodean: I would keep Asmodean's arc basically the same, though he will die in the confrontation with Rahvin. No balefire resurrection.

 

Balthamel: He's out. Including his incarnation as Aran'gar.

 

Be'lal: Also out. I'm going to give his role to Rahvin. Moiraine will injure, not kill him in the Stone - forcing him to retreat. 

 

Demandred: He's Taim. 

 

Graendal: I'm going to combine her with Moghedien. Yes, they have wildly different personalities. But for purposes of the tv show, you can combine the two story arcs. She can still capture and torture Nynaeve. She can still be captured and still escape. She can then be subjected to the mind trap. She can then start messing around in Arad Doman. She will die at Natrin's Barrow, but can be resurrected, named Hessalam, and given to Slayer for the last battle. 

 

Ishamael: His arc remains basically untouched. (Although, I remove him from the Eye altogether. Rand can believe he's killed the Dark One when he kills Aginor)

 

Lanfear: She stays. She never becomes Cyndane though. She's just rescued by the Dark One and remains Lanfear. Her arc - including her final fate - are otherwise unchanged.

 

Mesaana: I'm combining her with Alviarin. Egwene reveals her as a darkfriend after Verin dies, not realizing that she's actually Mesaana. Alviarin escapes (leaving the other black sisters to their fates) then dies in the confrontation with Egwene in T'a'R. 

 

Moghedien: See Graendal.

 

Rahvin: He stays in the same role. I might eliminate the time bending via balefire at the end of their confrontation. (I dislike too many resurrections, they lower the stakes)

 

Sammael: His plot stays in. But he's no longer one of the Forsaken. He's just a friend of the dark with a ton of political and military power.

 

Semirhage: She stays, but amplified. Since she is so good with the Mask of Mirrors, she can become a shapeshifting villain. It might be fun to combine her with the gholam. As fun as Mat's final encounter with the gholam is, it isn't strictly necessary. 

 

Anyway, that's just a few thoughts. Interested to hear what the rest of y'all think.

 

 

Could do a lot worse than these suggestions. I might cut it down a bit further but all this is really pretty good.