1 hour ago, ilovezam said:

I mean he... answered "Yeah" to the question "Doesn't it feel like "The Dragon," this world-saving force for good we've heard so much about, is really all of them?"

Where "this world-saving force for good we've heard so much about" is the appositive beside the noun "The Dragon".

He then asks if Matt and Egwene are ishy and Lanfer in this turning, which discredits the point you are trying to make 

2 hours ago, ilovezam said:

Not sure if this is been posted around here yet, but Rafe seems to have semi-confirmed the Power Rangers theory in this new interview here with the last question, that the Dragon was "all of them". This also explains how ineffectual Rand has been across both seasons.

 

https://ew.com/tv/the-wheel-of-time-season-2-finale-showrunner-interview/

Rand hasn't been ineffectual, but the books where always about the 5, I never saw Rand as the sole main character. Rand is one part of the last battle, but, if there is no Egwene, Nynaeve, Matt and Perrin then the last battle is lost regardless of Rand and the DO wins. Rand is the tip of the sword but the others are equally as important. 

8 hours ago, LightHelpMe said:

This one has me upset too. I know a big part of his arc is his struggle against battle rage and fearing becoming more wolf than man. But in the books, he never outright murders anyone. Dain has no legitimate cause to hate Perrin in the books. He wasn't even there when his father died. It was Child Byar who misinformed Dain and kept egging him on. Geofram was one of only two really decent Whitecloaks in the books (the other being Galad). But the books aside, the show's depiction of him is also that of a reasonable man (for a Whitecloak) whom Perrin had no good reason to kill. He'll know that too, when the dust settles, so now on top of everything else, he has to carry this guilt.

It isn't murder though, it is in the middle of a battle an he was attacked by a whitecloak prior to Hopper dying, in many ways it is far clearer then in the books when there was no battle happening. His defence now is battle lust in the middle of a fight so what he did is not murder, is not illegal.

15 hours ago, Mirefox said:

Almost nobody I know has watched it.  Between my parents, siblings, and cousins, there are about a dozen people who watch nearly everything and talk about it.  We’ve had lengthy gripe sessions about RoP.  None of those dozen outside myself has watched WoT.  I have three friends who read the books and they all loathe the show with the fury of a thousand suns.  My kids are too young to watch and my wife doesn’t care for fantasy.

Wonder if there is a case of echo chamber here,  i am surrounded by people who loved it and so I am probably a lot more forgiving of things, if I was surrounded by people all saying it was awful and focusing on any kind of negativity then maybe I would be less forgiving of it? This is not a knock on you or your situation it is more just a general comment. If you where hearing from lots of people that they loved it do you think you would be so negative of it still? 

1 hour ago, Mirefox said:

Lol.  I just pictured it as a funny Family Guy scene.

I am Spartacus, I am also spartacus, looks around, sees no one else has stood up, umm, actually you know what, I am just going to sit down over here, yeah, thats the guy you want, I'm a different Spartacus. 

14 hours ago, Scarloc99 said:

I am Rafe Judkins 

was really hoping for more people to jump on this bandwagon, now I know how Spartacus would have felt if only him and his mate stood up 🙂 

8 hours ago, Yamezt said:

Me too! 

 

I am surprised I still had my Dragonmount account LOL - decided to login to see what people think after binging of S2 (i waited till all episodes are up before I sub to prime).

 

S2 was a fun ride - I enjoyed more than S1. Though to be fair, I hated Eye of the World. I always thought eotw was an awful book. So the adaptation probably reasonated less with me. The ONLY reason i got through eye of the world was that I already bought the subsequent books and gritted my teeth through it.

 

Enjoyed book 2 onwards (and actually love the dreaded 7-11 books - no accounting my awful taste in books!)

7-11 are some of my fav books as well, in fact my love of the series is a bell curve, book 1 for me is one of the weakest, followed then by Sandersons 3, then 2 and 3 so yes the 6 books that bookend the series for me are the weakest of the series, and yest I keep coming back lol. 

2 hours ago, Ralph said:

https://www.tvinsider.com/1107366/the-wheel-of-time-season-2-finale-book-moments-moiraine-lan-mat-seanchan/

 

confirmed Aiel waste

That is such a fluffy interview that really goes into nothing, really hoping that we get some more detailed discussios at some point, I do disagree with most of Rafe's comments here. 

4 hours ago, VooDooNut said:

My stance is that if I can’t avoid ads, either by

 

a) paying directly for a service, like Prime (used to be) or,

 

b) other means…

 

then I won’t partake in the service. It’s not worth the brainwashing to me. 

But prime your not just paying for TV, your paying for Amazon music, free delivery, I think some audible stuff (never used audible), and maybe other extras that prime membership gets you. 

4 hours ago, Ralph said:

 

and I expect them to expand on Elayne thinking Rand killed her mother, which fizzled out in the books 

I mean it doesn’t fizzle out, she never believes Rand killed her mother. 

Just now, Joe B said:

Car’a’carn? They declared him Chief of Chiefs right there in the Stone did they? No they did not. It’s more than semantics, they were looking for and believed him to be He Who Come With the Dawn. 
We will have to WAFO to see if they change the Rhuidean Prophecies in the show. Maybe HWCWtD isn’t a thing and prophecy says you will know the Car’a’carn when you see the fire dragon atop a rower . That would make sense.

I mean he who comes with the dawn is the same thing the same person, or at least has the potential to be the same person, he needs to pass the trial, but I think we are getting caught up with semantics here, all the titles mean chief of chiefs. 

On 10/7/2023 at 7:22 PM, VooDooNut said:

I won't be subjected to ads. I avoid them like the plague. It's sad to see that people who already pay so much for Prime get squeezed even more. As @Mirefox said, I believe this will jeopardize the quality of the show, even if it adds to the production budget.

How do you want your TV to be made? It needs to be paid for and streamers have demonstrated that subscriptions alone can’t pay the bills and keep the lights on. Let alone pay for quality tv. Disney plus is generating immense losses, Netflix is making money but not as much as it should be, and who knows what the Amazon model is. 

Linear cable tv paid for big budget tv through selling tv ads on top of the subscription you paid to watch. Why should streamers be different? 

On 10/7/2023 at 6:43 PM, Mirefox said:

I know it is all about money, but this decision is also like shooting yourself in the foot; ad breaks destroy the integrity of a show.  When you are actually making the show yourself, you are doing two things.  First, you are building in to your show distractions that break the immersion.  Second, you are forcing the showrunners to create a show that has natural ad breaks; which can be jarring.

If it is like other streamers it won’t be during the show, you will get mandatory ads at the start before the show plays. 

On 10/8/2023 at 12:53 AM, Averlan said:

 

See I always felt those 2 forsaken were important more for Rand seeing Nyneave,Egwene totured and well basically snapping which is how he ended up channeling the Eye, and basically being mad with grief explains how he did some of hte things, he honestly didn't know how to do at the time.

 

On the other hand i can see how there is only so much screen time and maybe shortcuts are needed. I think they did the end of S1 wrong, because the army was killed, and no Shienarians had seen a man channel, which i believe made it easier for them to become dragonsworn when they did later. However that is not the end of the world.

 

Mat's character is a totally change imo, he was a jokester/trickster but not someone who would endanger another until he started carring the dagger with a piece of what turned a stalwart city of light into a festering pit of suspiscion and evil.  then he had a ton of holes in his memories,  but still would help his friends. others have different opinions obviously, but the characterization of Mat and the end of S2 are the 2 biggestest misses in the series so far.

People really do not remember the boos as well as they think, Matt in books 1 and 2 was gollum, sinking into despair and becoming more and more evil. You don’t get the Matt you love until really book 5/6, although there are glimpses in book 3

On 10/8/2023 at 1:25 AM, Averlan said:

 

Well if you have read the series it comes out later that the Aes Sedai especially the Red Ajah have a metric ton of things to fear from Logain, hence the reason they kept him locked up

I mean no, even in the books no one has anything to fear from him, not until Siuan starts her lies to bring down Elaida. 

On 10/7/2023 at 11:18 AM, Uncontested said:

I was genuinely confused by the show trying to make the Seanchan seem like good guys. I caught that as well.  I always had a weird obsession with the Children of Light growing up so it was kinda cool to see them also kinda-sorta being portrayed as good guys, of course until the commander had to kill Perrin's wolf, ugh.   

 

And for as much  progress they made in the show this season.. That awful CGI dragon at the end... ugh.  Can they just fire who ever is in charge of the CGI art direction at this point?   I really hate that they're spending boatloads of cash on this show and it looks and feels like a CW show... 

 

I REALLY thought they'd go hard in the GoT vien of art direction, gritty and non-cheese... seeing as how that won over literally millions of viewers.. I still remember my hopes all crashing down when I saw that awful "battle" in season 1 with random dudes running around in a forest being called an "army."  Sigh.

No to the GOT version of the story, WOT has the potential to be so so dark, rape, of men and women, compulsion used to make sexual slaves and human centipedes, torture, generic nakedness of slaves, gaishin, in sweat tents, the writers could have leaned into all of that and really dialed it up to 11, they may still lean into some of that later on but I am very pleased with the balance so far. 
 

yes season 1 needed improvements editing, dialogue, to much exposition, effects not as good as they should have been. Season 2 improved on they immensely. 

On 10/8/2023 at 6:30 PM, Elder_Haman said:

Yes.

I am Rafe Judkins 

On 10/6/2023 at 6:24 PM, grayavatar said:

The explanation for why the story doesn't stick to the books is limited time and limited seasons allocated. This meaning that more than one book will need to fit in each season. But is this true? I feel that these two season demonstrate that they had the capability to stick much more closely to the books.

 

Many people were saying "Lol, these fans expect the story word for word". If anything I feel that we got too many words.

I truly feel that if you took most of the dialogue from the first two books you would end up with less dialogue than what we got in the show. The books are thick but it's mostly descriptive text.

 

For most of the 16 episodes approx 16 hours of runtime what we got was a meandering Days of Our Lives drama. Warders lounging around and chatting, almost every male character being emotional or weeping on the floor. Darkfriends and Forsaken frolicking with Trollocs and chidren showing what nice guys they really are. Ishamael and Selene flirting? c'mon! Falme was the time for Nynaeve to shine, instead she spent most of the time staring at Elaynes leg. Selene and Liandrin had way too much screen time.

 

Where is the urgency, the tension? Where are the stakes? Is the importance of the prophecies understood by the audience? Ishmael's actor should be an extra at this point with very limited dialogue. Anytime he is shown he must be menacing. (Think Darth Vader) Suroth should have been flat on the floor begging for mercy, instead she was trying to boss one of the Forsaken around. You can't have a story like this without actual bad guys. The Seanchan where almost portrayed like good guys, which at this point of the story they should not be. The Whitecloaks were the towns liberators. Where was Ingtar's reveal and redemption?

 

One very great issue with this show is that they take too long to establish some concepts while the rest of the story lags.

What are Damane?

This should have taken 10 minutes at most. You could establish this by putting Eqwene in a 1 meter wide partition in a room with many such partitions. Have her pull at the adam bracelet like it is Marvel Thor's immovable hammer. Have her given a pet name and be patted on the head. Have her punished/ rewarded with the adam like training a puppy. I could demonstrate this in 5 minutes or less across 2-3 short scenes. Renna had way too much screen time.

 

What are warders and what does the bond do?

Have one of the boys, while training with Lan, ask "why not just have an army of warders?"  and then Lan succinctly explains the benefits and limitations. I think this one scene alone would eliminate about 4 episodes of show content. Maybe more !

 

Costs

Many of the actors that played roles of background characters should have had limited dialogue and been little more than extras. Alanna's warders should be seen and not heard. Verin's warder was portrayed well.

I feel way too much effort was put in to practical effects for the Ways in season 1 only to CGI it better in season 2

The adam don't need to be CGI'd to this extent. Show the leash, have the sul'dam tug on the leash, this will have greater effect on screen. How are damane supposed to report to their masters or beg for forgiveness if they have a sucker in their mouth? The blonde Seanchan damane almost seemed like she was giving orders with her stance and attitude. Head held high, shoulders back.

The novice quarters in the White Tower are ridiculously large and elaborate. They should be almost cells.

What was that giant throne on top of a pyramid that was somehow dragged in to a forest where there are no roads? LOL. Does it have a retractable bulldozer. Completely unnecessary.

Building an entire village on that river where Perrin gets captured? As people move to cities there are many underpopulated vilages and towns in europe. There are many cowboy western sets in the USA that can be repurposed. Not every house needs thatched roofs. Even Emond's Field had some roof tiles. In Rand's dream where he was married to Egwene how much did it cost to build that house with the round timber roof?

Barthanes, a very minor character in the books is the second most powerful lord in Cairhien, yet an entire set was built for him to sit and eat among the kitchen servants? Really?! As far as I can tell this is the only time they used this set. I hope they didn't build the location for the party in Cairhien because that scene was so inconsequential (and slow and boring) compared to the books.

 

Pacing

The first season should have been a desperate escape from Emond's field via Shadar Logoth, reuniting in Caemlyn and rushing to Fal Dara. Tar Valon should not have been shown yet as it bogged the story down.

Season 2 should have been an adventurous gut clencher chasing after the horn, "Lord Rand" should not have been glossed over. Culminating in Falme with Min rather than Avienda. The scenes inside Falme with Ingtars party should have emphasized stealth with the battle happening later OUTSIDE the city using CGI to multiply the soldiers on each side in to 2 large armies. The battle took the whole final episode in the show but it should have only been about 10 minutes at most. Mat on a roof facing 2 dozen Seanchan waiting in a line to charge him was utter nonsense. I laughed so hard at this and then I laughed harder when the heroes appeared. It was filmed like a high school production and then some high school productions might do better. Very much an unimpressive anticlimax. Birgitte should have been CGI'd riding through the clouds and shooting  arrows that set ships on fire. Instead we got some no-personality cosplayers standing in a line.

Season 3 is where the white tower should have been introduced. Hunters for the horn. Faile. Mat with Gawyn Galad. Everyone heading to the stone and meeting Aiel along the way.

 

I feel the story has been mixed like a salad and landed in the same spot as in the books, only the plot has been sacrificed along the way in exchange for a strong focus on what should be background characters. There is just so much that could have been cut out of the show and replaced with actual story.

Many of the more interesting aspects from the books have been suppressed while bolstering all the boring stuff.

 

There was so many times the story was bogged down in useless drama where I wished I could physically give it a push to move it along.

 

I have a friend who works in wales for bad wolf, the company that make dr who and adapted his dark materials amongst other things, I happened to be out with him when I saw this post and I asked him, and he actually laughed and said what you have written takes no accounting of the realities of making a good tv show, he has read wheel of time, about as much as me, he loves the tv show, he said the adaptation has come out about as well as he expected it to. The changes he thought where creative and while some didn’t land as well as they could in season 1 he absolutely understood why the choices where made. Friends of his in the TV industry apparently feel the same way, he said th issue with a statement like yours is that it is written with a complete disregard for how a tv show or movie is produced and shot, how the maths work of transcribing book page to script page and then to screen. How something in a book at takes 2 minutes to read has to become. 20 min hate set peace on the screen to make any sense. And how trying to turn exposition and description into something visual leads writers to having to change the story to get the same information across in a better way. 
 

I tend to take the opinion of someone who actually works in TV over anyone on here who sits back and says “I could have done better” if that was the case go and get a job in TV. 

On 10/7/2023 at 11:18 AM, Uncontested said:

I was genuinely confused by the show trying to make the Seanchan seem like good guys. I caught that as well.  I always had a weird obsession with the Children of Light growing up so it was kinda cool to see them also kinda-sorta being portrayed as good guys, of course until the commander had to kill Perrin's wolf, ugh.   

 

And for as much  progress they made in the show this season.. That awful CGI dragon at the end... ugh.  Can they just fire who ever is in charge of the CGI art direction at this point?   I really hate that they're spending boatloads of cash on this show and it looks and feels like a CW show... 

 

I REALLY thought they'd go hard in the GoT vien of art direction, gritty and non-cheese... seeing as how that won over literally millions of viewers.. I still remember my hopes all crashing down when I saw that awful "battle" in season 1 with random dudes running around in a forest being called an "army."  Sigh.

I always saw the Seanchan as misguided good guys from the books, they leave lands in a far better state then they where in and largely respect all local customs, for some reason as much as I hatred egwene and other channelers being collared the concept of Damane made sense to me as an option to control out of control channelers. 

Ok I will go away from stats which people seem to be disagreeing with and go with anecdotal, I only know 2 other book readers among my friends but all of them watched season 1 and all enjoyed it to varying degrees, all have, or will be watching season 2. One of the book readers read the books after season 1 and after seeing season 2 told me they wish they hadn’t bothered reading the books because the show is so much better. She couldn’t stand Robert Jordan’s writing, and then liked the last 3 books even less. 
 

The other book reader is similar to me in that they understand the changes made, agree with some disagree with others but overall are enjoying it for what it is, a tv show about magic and a locked away dark one and, in there words, you and the rest of you on Dragonmount take it all far to seriously and really should put all your efforts into worrying Anita things that actually matter in the world. They have read the series multiple times they just don’t see the point in caring about it that much (and I think the vast majority of book readers will be the same). 
 

of the rest universally, they enjoyed season 1 those who have started season 2 love it far far more, the friends who have got to the end as of today all said they got emotional at episode 8, hoppers death brought one friend to tears, they will go to war to say Perrin did the right thing, Matt earnt positive reactions when he blew the horn and generally they can’t wait for season 3 all of them are excited and want more. Although not enough to go through the books yet. 
 

So yes that’s the experience of the people I know who watched it. To me that is as valid as trying to work out what % of people went on IMDB and gave a good rating, I am pretty sure none of my friends would ever rate anything they watch online ever. 

4 minutes ago, Joe B said:

Fair enough. How do you feel about her individual belief that he is car’a’carn. To me, it doesn’t make “book-sense”. I don’t see how she, or any Aiel, would straight-up believe that at this point. However, this is the show and maybe they are foreshadowing? Maybe she is a dreamwalker and has already seen him 

  Reveal hidden contents

arrive from Rhuidean with the markings

and recognizes him.

I mean in the books they have come into Randland to find him, that is why they are in tear, they declare him as that in tear, they declare themselves as his people. I don’t see how her expressing out loud what any Aiel looking at that would think was a massive stretch. 

7 hours ago, ilovezam said:

I'm pretty sure after Season 1's finale everyone in my circles started talking about it, even people you would never expect to ever be interested in fantasy

Game of thrones had 2 key differences, it was shown on linear tv which meant if you didn’t record it you had to watch it that week really, especially early seasons. And it was riding on the back of the really really successful tudors tv show, I mean it was basically the tudors with a little bit of magic added. Tudors was sexy and bloody and tense drama with knights and warriors and swords etc. It was easy to sweep up that audience. 

On 10/6/2023 at 8:54 PM, Jaysen Gore said:

A: this is true

B: GOT had that there hard R / HBO / Skinemax vibe happening

C - GOT has better early source material to draw on. 

 

I actually feel that WOT will turn out better than GOT. We now have an accurate reflection of how the writers are going to adapt the series - for good or ill - but they have the whole series to work to. Rafe has gone off script, but still has to get to the sample place.

 

With GOT, D&D didn't go offscript - they ran out of script. and so far, I prefer Rafe's independently created content more than D&D's

 

Streaming vs linear tv as well, linear tv makes something like GOT a community thing, everyone tunes in at 10:00 pm on a weds night and watches and then talks about it tomorrow. Streaming tv is very different, about half the people I know who watched season 1 where waiting for season 2 to drop before binging it, while also lining up Ashoka, One piece and other tv shows, they are going to get to it but the immediacy of having to watch it now because it will not be on TV again anytime soon is gone. 

My experience of streaming shows in general is that the water cooler moments are long gone, while I am watching WOT a workmate has that shortlisted but has been devouring foundation, and another has been invested in Changling, or that airplane Apple TV show, or they are catching up on Mrs maisel. We no longer all watch the same things at the same time. 

57 minutes ago, DreadLord31 said:

The reason I think you’re predictions are very good is: 

 

A) We know Elaida has been cast in S3 and is a big-time Amazon actress, so she will play a significant role. 
 

B) They left us at the end of S2 with the beginnings of a real feud for Perrin, Bornhald, the Whitecloaks, and the Wolves — and with Fain fleeing and having a feud with Matt (thank goodness that’s finally getting back on track)

 

C) We got a little bit more of Aiel, the intro to Ji’eh’toh & the Carn’a’carn. We’ll definitely get more there. 
 

D) Moggy and the rest of the Forsaken being freed is the big cliff-hanger. Moggy is a creep with power who isn’t going to miss when she takes her shot at Rand. She’s gonna take a shot in S3 or their writing is bizarre. But we also need to meet more of the Forsaken. 
 

E) We know we have Camelyn and the Lion Throne as a set. I would think, then, that they’re going to have Rahvin & their going to change the Morgase plot to be a lot shorter - but their will be Elayne & Egwene & Avi & Rand relationship drama. And we will get Elayne’s brothers. So I too think we’ll get the iconic Matt fight in Camelyn. 

We need to see and care about Morgase before we see her corrupted by Rahvin otherwise there is a loss of emotional connection there. Having seen how dark they went with the Egwene storyline in Falme I am very excited to see much more creepy Rahvin compulsion on Morgase and others is played. I do not think this will be the likable Ishy vibes at all. 

1 hour ago, Guire said:

I agree with you on lots of your assessment.  However, there was many places where show team made poor choices that led to lots of less entertaing TV that so far hasnt paid off in advancing story.  You can argue books made mistakes.  Show made more.

And this is something I am happy to debate, what was cut and what was included we can talk about, I happen to think that overall the right choices where made, season 1 just executed them poorly, season 2 showed that the fans can be far more forgiving if the overall quality is better. 

But my non book reading friends who have no point of comparison loved it, my neighbor and her family just rewatched episode 8 of season 1 to get set for binging season 2 now it has all dropped, she commented she had forgotten how amazing the episode was and it made her really excited for season 2. My wife got very emotional at scenes in the last 2 episodes because of the time spent in building things up over the previous 6, episode 8 of season 2 was probably the most vocal and physical I have seen her get at a tv show in a long time, grabbing my hand, shouting at the tv screen. 
 

That is all anecdotal but it shows that the choices the writers made did affect a set of viewers in the way they wanted.