15 hours ago, johnnysd said:

 

Really not agreeing with much of this to be honest. In my view, WOT is not about battles. There certainly are some key battles, but the focus is really on the progression and change of the characters. The Aiel are in many ways the core of the books, really impossible to take them out. I think the core main players will stay but I think the most vulnerable actually might actually be Elayne and Morgase.  And I suspect large chunks of Perrins and Faile's story gets seriously truncated.  I would expect more of the Black Ajah, Cadsuane earlier, and much less political hopping about. Taim will be Demandred. I think Lanfears and Moiranes story gets changed a lot. And the Forsaken get more screen time.

That's almost exactly what I said.  Focus on the characters and their interactions.

The battles I mentioned are key events to work storylines towards.  For TV, right or wrong, the audience is going to expect something spectacular at the end of a season, and that's where the big battles come in.

Going to copy something I wrote a couple years ago regarding the transition to a TV series:

Toughest part about trying to discuss the potential TV series is balancing what I personally want to see (a very close adaption with corresponding huge budgets to accommodate everything) vs what actually has a chance to happen.

For example, some combination of Nyn, Egwene, Min, Siuan etc can be cut or combined.

But to me, that would lose so much of the WoT feel.

First and foremost I want the characters and their relationships to be carried across to the TV screen.  It's what made WoT so engaging and long lasting.  We knew how the characters thought, what made them tick, and how they related to each other.

I'd keep all the major characters (let's call them the EotW crew plus Siuan and a few others.)  Maybe diminished roles, but have them.

The big decision (and this is all just a random splattering of thoughts right now) is what to do with the Seanchan and Aiel.  Seanchan first.  For budgetary and story conciseness, do you want to have just one big bad (all manner of DO forces) or do you want to mix in the Seanchan?

The Aiel have similar considerations.  Huge new culture, requiring a ton of additional actors.  Is it worth keeping them in?

As readers, the obvious answer is YES.  But I can see how each would be left on the cutting room floor due to budget or story condensing.

Personally, I hope the approach is not to cut characters and peoples but storylines.

Stick to four main storylines, each spreading out as seasons continue.  Rand, Mat, Perrin and Aes Sedai.

What the the BIG events? (i.e season finale's)

Battle in the Blight/Eye of the World visit (probably need to bulk up.  I can also see this being completely changed to a new, more 'massive' TVish ending.)

Battle at Falme

Battle of Emond's Field

Battle of Caemelyn (FoH)

Dumai's Wells

Cleansing

Rand's TGS realization and nearly destroying the Seanchan/WT battle

Some new storyline's will be undoubetdly worked in, but take those and build all storyline's towards them.  (Yes I stopped at TGS, but I figure after that it's just one season that's basically the Last Battle.)

Season 1:  EotW

-Major priority: Establishing the characters, relationships and world (Dream sequences are huge, as are developing compelling villians.  Ishy yes, but if those two forsaken are going to be the big battle at the end, they need development or forshadowing as well.)

Season 2: TGH, with maybe some TDR thrown in

-Major priority: Further character growth, splitting of the team, Rand coming to abilities.  World building.

I'm not going to go season by season because I haven't put much thought into this, but the main point is that I hope the writers etc. build off of and towards main events instead of just cutting characters.  For example, the cleansing being a big event means you have to focus on the Madness of male Aes Sedai, which means some form of Asha'man and the effects the madness has.

Bowl of Winds storyline and most supergirl adventures?  Cut the former, and alter the latter to fit whatever major events you chose and the new storylines to build towards them.

As much as I hate to say it, it would not be a bad idea to leave Thom actually dead after the confrontation in tEotW.  Moraine as well after FoH.  Snakes and Foxes are AWESOME, and I'd leave them in, but maybe think of another reason for Mat to go back, or have it just be Moraine parting some knowledge in Finnland before dying.  (She doesn't do much in the Last Battle anyway.)

Thinking through the big events, Fain is not very relevant.  He can easily be killed off early or not be in at all, and anything major he does be given to someone else.

One of the reasons to possibly cut the Seanchan is to give more development time to the Forsaken, who in theory are going to be the main villains.  (Can you imagine if the show creators can successfully translate the 'Where in the world is Demandred' we all went through to numerous forsaken over the course of the series?  Would make for great intrigue amongst viewers I believe.)

I'm going to stop now, since I could probably go on for about 10 pages.  I don't even know if any of that made any sense.  Forgive the misspelling of names, been a long time since I've reread the series.

I guess the main point is don't cut characters just because there are too many, work the important ones into the storylines, even if it means changing a bunch.  Just try to keep the personalities in tact.

 

[stuff]

 

I think a lot of people are underestimating the amount of streamlining that the camera and a set of actors can do vs a book. For example let's just take EoTW:

 

Ep1 - Prologue through saddling up to leave Winespring Inn.

 

Ep2 - The ride out of Emond's Field - Leaving Baerlon

 

Ep3 - Baerlon -  escaping from Shadar Logoth

 

Ep4 - Rands/Mat/Thom to fleeing the fade at WB.

 

Ep5 - Perrin / Egwene to being captured by the WC + Nyn/Lan/Moiraine preparing to rescue

 

Ep6 - Rescue of Perrin/Egwene + Rand/Mat to Caemlyn

 

Ep7 - Time at Caemlyn to leaving via the ways

 

Ep8 - Ways + Fal Dara

 

Ep9 - Blight + EoTW

 

Ep10 - Aftermath + Amyrlyn arriving.

 

Season 2 I would do Walking Dead style with two 8 episode arcs covering TGH and TDR.

 

Really don't need to start omitting/trimming characters until TSR when the plot really begins to branch.

 

Good point about the streamlining.  The one caveat I would add is that there's still probably a lot of prose that will need to be converted to dialogue, especially inner thoughts (which can be shown to an extent, but some will have to be translated to spoken word somehow,) and that may cancel out some of the streamlining.

Feels good to be back on this board.

Toughest part about trying to discuss the potential TV series is balancing what I personally want to see (a very close adaption with corresponding huge budgets to accomodate everything) vs what actually has a chance to happen.

For example, some combination of Nyn, Egwene, Min, Siuan etc can be cut or combined.

But to me, that would lose so much of the WoT feel.

First and foremost I want the characters and their relationships to be carried across to the TV screen.  It's what made WoT so engaging and long lasting.  We knew how the characters thought, what made them tick, and how they related to each other.

I'd keep all the major characters (let's call them the EotW crew plus Siuan and a few others.)  Maybe diminished roles, but have them.

The big decision (and this is all just a random splattering of thoughts right now) is what to do with the Seanchan and Aiel.  Seanchan first.  For budgetary and story concisness, do you want to have just one big bad (all manner of DO forces) or do you want to mix in the Seanchan?

The Aiel have similar considerations.  Huge new culture, requiring a ton of additional actors.  Is it worth keeping them in?

As readers, the obvious answer is YES.  But I can see how each would be left on the cutting room floor due to budget or story condensing.

Personally, I hope the approach is not to cut characters and peoples but storylines.

Stick to four main storylines, each spreading out as seasons continue.  Rand, Mat, Perrin and Aes Sedai.

What the the BIG events? (i.e season finale's)

Battle in the Blight/Eye of the World visit (probably need to bulk up.  I can also see this being completely changed to a new, more 'massive' TVish ending.)

Battle at Falme

Battle of Emond's Field

Battle of Caemelyn (FoH)

Dumai's Wells

Cleansing

Rand's TGS realization and nearly destroying the Seanchan/WT battle

Some new storyline's will be undoubetdly worked in, but take those and build all storyline's towards them.  (Yes I stopped at TGS, but I figure after that it's just one season that's basically the Last Battle.)

Season 1:  EotW

-Major priority: Establishing the characters, relationships and world (Dream sequences are huge, as are developing compelling villians.  Ishy yes, but if those two forsaken are going to be the big battle at the end, they need development or forshadowing as well.)

Season 2: TGH, with maybe some TDR thrown in

-Major priority: Further character growth, splitting of the team, Rand coming to abilities.  World building.

I'm not going to go season by season because I haven't put much thought into this, but the main point is that I hope the writers etc. build off of and towards main events instead of just cutting characters.  For example, the cleansing being a big event means you have to focus on the Madness of male Aes Sedai, which means some form of Asha'man and the effects the madness has.

Bowl of Winds storyline and most supergirl adventures?  Cut the former, and alter the latter to fit whatever major events you chose and the new storylines to build towards them.

As much as I hate to say it, it would not be a bad idea to leave Thom actually dead after the confrontation in tEotW.  Moraine as well after FoH.  Snakes and Foxes are AWESOME, and I'd leave them in, but maybe think of another reaoson for Mat to go back, or have it just be Moraine parting some knowledge before in Finnland before dying.  (She doesn't do much in the Last Battle anyway.)

Thinking through the big events, Fain is not very relevant.  He can easily be killed off early or not be in at all, and anything major he does be given to someone else.

One of the reasons to possibly cut the Seanchan is to give more development time to the Forsakan, who in theory are going to be the main villains.  (Can you imagine if the show creators can successfully translate the 'Where in the world is Demandred' we all went through to numerous forsaken over the course of the series?  Would make for great intrigue amongst viewers I believe.)

I'm going to stop now, since I could probably go on for about 10 pages.  I don't even know if any of that made any sense.  Forgive the misspelling of names, been a long time since I've reread the series.

I guess the main point is don't cut characters just because there are too many, work the important ones into the storylines, even if it means changing a bunch.  Just try to keep the personalities in tact.

Either way, looking forward to it.

I had a big smile on my face as soon as I saw Mik;s warp :D

 

So true.  Love the theory.  It's gotten to the point where I'm going to be thouroughly dissapointed if Demandred is not actually hiding amonst the Sea Folk.

It's the little things I like so much about this one.  Explaining Bashere's absence and the random servent with the Sea Folk parasol are perfect tidbits that are easily missed (heck, I just got to this part in my re-read literally yesterday, and thought nothing more besides how odd they were,) and something I can easily see RJ doing.

And honestly, explaining the Machin Shin issue via windfinders or Bowl of the Winds is perfect.  Something almost so obvious it's easily missed.  Giant evil wind rushing to kill you and screw with your plans?  Find someone who can control the wind.  Heck, that would almost give Dem defacto control over the Ways, being the only one who can reliably move forces through without fear.

And from Verin's letter at the end of ToM, we know the shadow has used the Ways a second time, and assuming there was a significant force moving via the Ways, someone would have had to solve the Machin Shin issue again.  It's not much of a stretch to assume Dem is in charge of that force, being the last big battle general the shadow has (I think,) so it does make sense that he would have a way around the black wind.  Heck, maybe the attack on the manor served a side role of making sure the Windfiners/Bowl could control Machin Shin as Dem prepared for the big show.

Has there been any mention post cleansing about how various non Aes Sedai societies are treating their newfound male channelers? Aiel used to send them to the blight, not sure about Sea Folk etc., but now that the male channelers will not go mad, has anything been shown on screen regarding them? Would love to see an Aiel Asha'man.

Re-reading The Great Hunt, is it ever revealed who slew the guards at the dog door? I'm assuming Ingtar or the two guards corrupted by Fain, but I can't remember if it's ever revealed.

Also, was it ever confirmed that Moraine was the one behind the initial lockdown of Fal Dara?