On 10/6/2023 at 9:51 PM, bojesphob said:

Afternoon, all. Just finished the last episode of the show for this season, and figured it had been a long time since I was on here, I'd stop in and drop some thoughts into the thread. I'm an old school fan of the series, and was on here a bit back in 2012 when Memory of Light was released. Can't remember if I was on much before that, but I do still have a few posts from back then LOL

 

Anyhow, a little background: I started with reading about the time book 4 came out. I have read the first 4 books 11 times through, and each book after that one less time (I reread the entire series each time a new book was released, and reread the entire series again after finishing Memory of Light). I played the PC game when it came out several times. I have a signed copy of Knife of Dreams from Robert, and a signed version of Memory of Light from Brandon. My hope, though, is that when I say what I say, I'm not mentioning any of that to say that I have some sort of ownership of the series, or that my opinion is the only one allowed, I know there are strong feelings both ways about this, just like any other adaptation that's ever come out.  I'm going to "spoiler" my longer piece here so you don't have to read all of it if you don't but you're free to if you'd like.

 

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With that out of the way, I was concerned when they said they were going to do Wheel of Time as a series, much as I was about the Rings of Power series, and much as I have been about a myriad of other book adaptations. I wanted the Golden Compass to be good. It was not (at least nowhere near the source material). The same with Eregon. Or even the Shinara (sp?) TV series. They took a vague premise from the source material and just made everything else up as a way to make money while spending as little as possible, and the end results were all lackluster and forgettable. When the Lord of the Rings movies came out, I decided that I was going to go into those movies with the goal of letting the filmmakers tell the story the way that they were going to tell it, and enjoy the story how they envisioned it. I came out of those movies excited, because I knew that they did what even the cartoon wasn't really able to do, which was to care about the characters and really get people involved in the story, even those who would have never read the books. I found that the things that were changed or omitted didn't bother me, because I let them decide how to tell the story in that form, and my expectations didn't go unfulfilled as I had none to begin with. While I did wish some things were included (that in LotR's case the extended versions fixed a lot of), and they changed some things, I loved every minute of them because I didn't just have to rely on my imagination to see the story being told, I could actually see it being told. His Dark Shadows was now the same way, not a scene for scene, word for word remake of the books, but exceptionally enjoyable and completely blew away Golden Compass. Eragon.... I wish they'd redo that one... I did luck out, however, because I didn't even start reading Game of Thrones until well after the second season was out, so I had nothing to compare against. I enjoyed it, for the most part, until the second half of the last season, but, well, you could tell Martin had no idea what he wanted for the ending, and what the producers came up with was... well let's just say a severe letdown from the rest of the show. But, having gone back and read a lot of the books since, the TV series, while close to the books, was more of a loose translation like Lord of the Rings and His Dark Shadows.

 

That's a long introduction for me to just say....

 

I can say there are several things I haven't liked about the WoT series. The burning out thing at the end of Season 1 bothered me at Tarwin's Gap, although I do understand why they had the Aes Sedai doing it instead of Rand. Loial being stabbed by the dagger and being ok (of course, since having been acknowledged as being a mistake because of the COVID stuff going on, which now doesn't bother me as much). At first I also had an issue Moiranne not being able to channel after the end of S1, but S2 rectified that for me. What I have found is that even though there are some things I would have done differently, I am enjoying the series. I knew there were going to be massive changes. I also knew there were going to be things added that I might not like. I also knew there would be things omitted that I didn't like not being there. And when I accepted that and decided to let the show runners tell the story and leave my expectations out of it, I realized that I am getting to see a version of the story that I spent hundreds of hours pouring over in the books. Not exactly the same, and to be honest, I'm rather glad it's not the same (I couldn't imagine how boring books 9-10.5 would be on television o.O). The major beats of the story are there, but in a different order and some in different forms. I actually teared up a little bit at the end of this last episode because, while it was different than what I had envisioned from reading, it brought the story to the same point in the books at Falme.

 

Again this is all my own personal journey with it. It's easy to bring in expectations that are either unachievable or just wouldn't work in a real sense in the medium of television, and a few times I had to smack around the voice in my head that wanted to bring my expectations into the fray when all it would do was reduce my enjoyment of what the show is.

 

Whether you enjoy it or not is completely up to you. Whether the show meets your expectations, also, is up to you. Rafe and team are making the story that they know how to make, and are trying to do so with the limitations placed on them, and from what I can tell are trying to do so with as much reverence to the source material as they can muster and still work within the constraints that they have. Many other properties can't say the same. I mean, we could have a Nicolas Cage Ghost Rider level bad for this, or Shinara, or Golden Compass. But, we have far better than that.

 

I will admit, though, it's not perfect, and as they get better at their story telling, it will also improve. I mean, I already feel Season 2 is FAR better than Season 1, and I enjoyed Season 1. I love the casting, and boy was Moghedien creepy at the end of this last episode! Maybe you don't agree, and that's fine, but even with GoT's and how well it was done, this is the only attempt we'll probably ever get to see this in live action, for good or bad. My thought is, why not enjoy it for what it is, then to not enjoy it for what it isn't? Anyhow, I may join in on some of the more in depth discussions at some point when I have time, as I do miss having plot discussions on here!

Just as an aside did you see the BBC adaptation of his dark materials, I thought is was brilliantly done, so much better then the movie. 

48 minutes ago, Sabio said:

Ran fetching wine for Logain,  Ishy meeting with Min, the Ishy giving Mat tea was rather useless, some of the Liladrian backstory hiding her son could have been removed.  They often spend more time covering a secondary character then they do the main characters.  To me that's just a few examples of wasted screen time.  

Rand fetching wine for Logain was kind of key to Moiraine finding him, by taking him to the party. Lanfer made Rand an important figure, him burning the invite meant that the spies where put on him to watch him, and then when he went off with Lanfer Moiraine could be told where he had gone. 
 

The logic and the connections of that scene were brilliant, and it gave a very logical reason for Moiraine to turn up at the hut and rescue Rand. If none of that had happened then we would have been asking “how did anyone know”. 
 

Liandrin again, modern audiences are used now to Villains with nuance, with texture with a backstory. Marvel have amongst others done that (sometimes really well, black panther, thanos, and sometimes not so), but also GOT got fantasy fans more used to complexity.  villains in the tv show had to be deeper and more rounded, they needed motivations to explain the choices and decisions they made otherwise the show comes off like a bad 90’s show where the baddies are “just bad so deal with it” and in this day and age that would be an awful tv show. 
 

Ishy giving the tea was a great character moment. My wife was really invested in Matt through these scenes 

The ishy and Min stuff I am not so clear on, it was a step to far, but it did show that Mins visions are all about context, she saw Matt stabbing Rand, the vision didn’t show it would be an accident. 

3 hours ago, notpropaganda73 said:

I see what you're trying to say with regards to the point in the overall story, but the Fellowship movie is an excellent adaptation even with all of the changes up to Rivendell. We have established the ring's power/danger, we have established Gandalf, we have established the four hobbits and they're relationships with one another and their own personalities, we have established Strider and his willingness to protect the hobbits, and we have established the danger of the Nazgul as well. 

 

Yes we don't have any barrow wights or Tom Bombadil (and I was so sad not to see Tom), but if you are looking at an adaptation and limited time, do you need the Hobbits to face more than one extreme danger on their way to Rivendell? What is the most key incident on that journey? It's Weathertop. It establishes Frodo being stabbed, what happens when he puts on the Ring, the other three Hobbits showing their bravery to try and save him, and Aragorn coming to the final rescue. Barrow wights and Tom Bombadil are world-building elements, bits of LotR that fans adore and maybe upset not to have, but are they key to the overall story being told? No. 

 

So far I think the WoT show has done an ok job of getting everyone to "Rivendell", so to speak. But have they managed to establish our characters as effectively along the way? I would say no, personally.

 

Film and TV are different mediums, there is less material to adapt for LotR, so I do think it's an easier job in all honesty. And as a fan of LotR, the only movie I really like out of the Jackson movies is Fellowship. Return of the King in particular is verging on just a bad movie for me. 

Lord of the rings is excellent in hindsight, trust me at the time people like me where accusing Peter Jackson of all sorts when fellowship came out. That experience has led me to sit back and say let’s wait and see what the whole looks like.

3 hours ago, Mirefox said:

What will be the end-season climax?  

Rand and Asmo fight and unmisting of rhuidean, 

2 hours ago, mogi68 said:

I generally agree with the OP's predictions. However, I think that Siuan will die in the coup and not survive.

 

 

Moiraine and Lanfear scene at the docks IMO

Who then teaches Egwene? There is no sense to Siuan dying, she acts as the power behind the throne and then hands that power willingly over when she sees egwene is powerful enough.

If Amazon cuts this short they are not just impacting this show, they are putting themselves at a disadvantage for any IP they try and bid for the rights on in the future. Hello Mr Author we want to make this "book series" into a massive sweeping epic tv show, what like you didn't with WOT, thanks but no thanks. 

But I agree with others, you are conflating books 4 and 5 to much. 

Season 3 Rafe has told us is Book 4, so, we are not getting tear at all. I am leaning into the idea others have had that Callandor replaces the bowl of the winds, so no Sword in the Stone moment. 

Everyone heads to Cairhien, this is so we can understand the issues between Aiel and that city, allows everyone to meet the Amirylian seat, Liandrin is outed and allows Verrin to hammer the nail into that coffin so as to "assure everyone she is a good aes sedai". Matt will be properly cured and the dagger will head to Tar Valon (hoping the horn does as well), the dagger wil be intercepted by Fain who will be with the whitecloaks who escaped Falme leading them to the 2 rivers.  Moiraine and Siuan will not reconcile fully, but Siuan will accept the need for Rand to complete the prophesies, and so will allow them all to "escape" leading to the accusation that lead to the coup. Egwene, Nynaeve and Elayne will all go back to the tower, Egwene and Elayne will become accepted and then, before the coup, be sent off to Tanchio to hunt for signs of Liandrin. 

We will see the cracks in the tower leading to the coup in episode 7 or 8. 

Matt will travel with Rand and Egwene to Rhuidean, but accept that they might have him go in a different direction, but I do think we are getting the doorway and the Finn in one form, just not both doorways. 

Rand will continue learning, either Logain will join him, but more likely we will get Asmodean, who trains him in season 4, so Asmodean will be the main male protaganist in season 3, endng with the battle at Rhuidean and Asmo shielded, much in the same way Moiraine was (Rand has learnt that weave now having cut it). 

We will get at least 1 hopefully 2 fights in the 3 fold land, the Aiel attacked by trollocs ovenight, allowing us to see just how well Aiel fight as a massed group, and then the battle of cold rocks hold where Rand saves Avihenda and we see our first site of Draghkar, Pretty much all of this will follow the storyline of the book, Matt will play Maidens Kiss, and get it on with a dark friend maiden, Rand will go through the crystals, Avi and Moiraine through the hoops and Matt through the doorway, this could be a whole episode, showing Matt and Rands journey. 

Asmo will double dragon Couladin, he and Lanfer will be in the 3 fold land, Asmo "keeping an eye on her". That will end badly for him. 

Perrin will team up with Verin and Alanna and go to Eomonds Field, Bain and Chiad will travel with Perrin in place of Avi who is being called back to the 3 fold land, I hope we get Gaul joining them, possibly stating that if perrin allows the 2 maidens to look after him one will end up tripping him over with her spear, or some other such Aiel joke. That story will run as it does in the books more or less. 

 

3 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

I understand that fantasy cities in movies are meant to look good, to provide striking visuals, not to be particularly realistic.

still, would it really kill the production to show some farmland around? so far we had 3 cities shown: tar valon was placed in the middle of mountains, with no single sign of human presence outside of it. fal dara instead was in the desert. and now falme, also desert.

what is it about a nice green grassland that makes it so unsuitable to settling a major city? are fields of wheat or corn so ugly that the production must eschew them at all cost?

my poor suspension of disbelied is suffering.

Alas it is an issue with many fantasy depictions, go to the return of the king and try to find the farmland around the city. 

It is actually something i have to keep reminding myself everytime I create a habitation in my DnD campaigns, manly because I have players who think like you and who ask, the first time they reach a settlement where is the food and water coming from 🙂 

So there is a lot of discourse on here about adaptations, how bad WOT is compared to others and Lord of the Rings is shown as how it should be done. 

I think if we do a side by side comparison of the 2 series and what the TV show has done so far people are right, but not for the reasons they expect. 

If you compare the 14 books series to the 3 book LOTR then you can argue that EOTW, TGH and DR are effectively the first bit of the fellowship book, they are in effect the hobbits finding out about the ring, and then getting to Rivendell for the formation of the Fellowship and Frodo's "I will carry it" line. 

By the end of Book 3 the characters are fully introduced, all of them have gone through a journey to reach this point, Rand has finally accepted he is the dragon reborn and wants to be the hero, for that matter each of the EF5 have. Gandalf is soon to go missing in action, and the ancillary hero's have been introduced. 

Now people are debating and arguing, rightly, that a lot of the first 3 books has been chopped, changed, removed and made different, characters have shifted and changed, and whole sections removed. 

If we compare that to the Movie of Fellowship, from the intro to the party arriving at Rivendell, then in many ways the movie has no comparison to the books. The introduction of Merry and Pippin is entirely different, the whole story of Frodo leaving the shire, the events that happen on the way, the cutting of Bombadiel, the great forest, the barrow wights (who's sword in the books is key to killing the witch king), I was making exactly the same arguments about the start of the fellowship movie when it was released  as you are all making about the opening of this series. 

As has been mentioned several times in the forum, and then ignored by many, books 1-3 of WOT are not the story that Robert Jordan ultimately ended up writing, or maybe even the story he really wanted to write in the first place. We all know that book 1 was a Fellowship Homage, both because that was what his publisher asked for, but also that was what he wanted to write at the start. We know he though it would be a trilogy and then at some point in the writing of book 2 realised it would be longer, we know that by the end of book 3 he has taken the reader through 3 "declarations" of the dragon reborn, has re fought the same battle 3 times, and finally has figured out the book he wants to write, and has shifted and changed his lead characters accordingly. 

This means that, as far as Rands story is considered, Tear is Rivendell, it is where he sends Perrin to the 2 rivers, where he, Matt and Egwene go to the 3 fold land and where Nyn and Elayne go off to hunt the black ajah. For RJ it was were he truly found his own voice, and that of most of his characters. So, as painful as it is, and trust me this is the 2nd time I have been here with an adaptation, you have to look at all the stuff in books 1-3 that does not directly get the characters to where they need to be at the start of book 4, as excess fat. Just as Bombadil, the Wight Barrow, meeting the elves (although a version of that that was in the directors cut) and all the build up to leaving the shire was fat that could be cut by Peter Jackson in order to start the story properly at Rivendell. 

 Yes it feels longer and is harder to stomach, because it is 16 hours of TV covering 3 books, as opposed to about an hour or so covering the first quarter maybe, of one book. But I think there is equivalence. 

14 hours ago, Elder_Haman said:

And movies do some things better than tv. Big battle scenes, complex CGI, wall-to-wall action/adventure all work better on the big screen than on the small. 

Ahh but TV does battles so much better when it relies on theartre of the mind, usually battles in the dark, involving people wearing dark clothes, and every time the main characters look like they are about to be swarmed by say, zombies, the camera cuts away to return to them later un harmed 🙂 

I will say so far nothing in WOT has matched the truly abysmal season 8 of GOT. 

13 hours ago, Samt said:

I enjoyed the show as light hearted, mindless entertainment. It doesn’t feel like a worthy adaptation, but it’s okay TV.  
 

I do think that it has serious time-management issues. The show has wasted so much screen time that any claims of not having enough time to tell the story feel unserious.  
 

And yes, the books spend lots of time on random things that don’t feel entirely necessary. But they weren’t going to run out of paper.  

I am really intrigued when people say this, what screen time was wasted, what elements would you have cut out? 

21 hours ago, Agitel said:

I'm not upset with some things being changed, but I do agree a lot of S2E8 felt cringe to me. Part of that may just be trying to translate parts of the books to screen, I find the ending of TGH a little awkward in that respect, but I think a lot of it involved some sloppy writing choices after what I feel was a mostly improved S2. 

 

S2E8 didn't burn me the way S1E8 did. I'm still invested. But I'm hoping the quality doesn't peak here. I hope it continues to improve.

I think trying to combine books 2 and 3 into this one moment was tricky, U understand the reasons why they made that choice, it is clear that Rafe wants to get to book 4, when WOT proper begins, for season 3, and he therefore needed to get the characters into the emotional and experience point they are in book 3 much sooner. I did think the "avengers assemble" feel of the scene on the tower was a it cheesy, but it's hollywood,, and the great thing it did was isolate Moiraine out as a side character moving forward. 

On 10/7/2023 at 10:14 PM, Mirefox said:

You and I are often at odd on this show and it is pretty clear that we just don’t understand each other.  I’m curious about something, though.  Set aside the fact that you’re enjoying the show - that’s completely subjective and you’re completely justified in liking it as much as others are justified in not liking it.  Setting that aside, as a book fan, are you disappointed that so much of the story is being changed, rewritten, or made up for the show?  You can be and still like the show.  I’m genuinely curious because we definitely don’t get each other.

 

The bottom line for me is that I think Robert Jordan is an immeasurably better writer than Rafe Judkins and his team of inters and wherever I see them changing the story or making their own things up it melts my brain as how much lesser it is than the source material.  The show is not made in Jordan’s voice, it is made in Judkins’s, and it is worse off for it.

 

Let me be clear that Judkins is the figurehead but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if some of the changes came from some suits in an Amazon board room who wanted to make WoT the next GoT.

You can't take a book and translate it into a TV show, yes it might all sound great having some intricate TV scene where Matt blows the horn and the heroes (I guess hundreds of them) storm the city and take everyone down, but where is your budget to film that? How do you explain to non book readers what the horn is and how it works and who these heores are without some long exposition. 

I watched the scene with my non book reading wife and she actually cheered at that moment, at Matt suddenly realising he was a hero, it got her emotionally invested in him as a character, that one moment. She went from telling the TV screen, run away matt, run away, they are going to kill you, to "whats going on, time has stopped why hasn't her,, to like I said cheering. Other non book readers I have spoken to have all said they had the exact same reaction. They loved it. 

You might not be enjoying it, but please saying that X is a worse writer then Y really makes no sense, lets all be very very honest here for a moment, Robert Jordan was a great world builder, but a lot of his writing was average, there are some great moments, but if he was this amazing writer you would not have so many people lamenting about so many aspects of the story as being "boring", "repetitive", "pointless","generic". Yes we all come back in spite of these flaws, but we have to accept the flaws for what they are. 

Robert Jordans voice is there, it exists in the show, the lore an the details are there, but please understand, in order to make the TV show it was going to have to be cut and changed. 

I had a sudden moment of clarity today, and am going to make a post about it will link it here when it is made live, but it compares season 1 and 2 of WOT to the start of the fellowship of the ring. 

 

23 hours ago, Irvyne said:

Yep, totally agree with this. There are (in my mind) ICONIC scenes in the first two (or three?) books that I was so excited to see realised on screen. And they've just been removed. Ignored. They're never going to be there. What's been put in their place is boring, inconsequential soap-opera stuff that has no bearing on the actual plot. I had kind of come to terms with this after season 1. Okay, I thought, it's just the team getting to grips with how to tell the story. They will have learnt their lesson. But then they went and did it all over again in season 2! >_<

 

There are elements of the show that I feel like have so much potential if they were handled properly. For the most part, I think the cast is great. Egwene, the new Mat, Nynaeve, Verin, Lanfear, all really great. I would love to have seen them given better material to work with. (Though Maddy really shone with those damane scenes!)

 

The characters have barely been given any real space to develop. Take the last episode, for example. Each "party" of characters would be on screen for a few seconds. Maybe say a line or two if they're lucky. Then the action would switch to someone completely different. Then switch again. This is the kind of technique that can work really well at a climax (think of Lord of the Rings) IF the characters are well-known and developed by this point, and the audience knows what their stories are. But Aviendha, Elayne, even Mat, have barely had anything at all to do this season! They audience hardly even knows who they are and what they're trying to do!

 

I'm sure I'll watch season 3. This show drives me crazy, but it's Wheel of Time, of course I'm going to watch. I just wish someone at Amazon could recognize that having a room of writers who don't actually know anything about the characters or world that they're writing about is sure to cause problems down the line. Maybe time for some fresh faces in the writers' room...?

Because in the grand scheme of things books 1-3 are repetitive, in terms of TV will be boring, and the "iconic moments" don't really tell the key story of seasons 1 and 2, how do the EF5 get to the emotional point of the end of book 3. How does Rand go from farmboy to library scouring ruler to be, How do Egwene and Nynaeve go from wisdom and apprentice to Black Ajah hunters, How does Matt change from Gollum wannabe into the Master of Battles, How does Perrin become angry wolf talking emo boy. 

Yes it would have been great to see some of those moments, but, given that there where only about 16 hours of TV, and there is so much information that needs to be included for the TV viewer to understand, and so many side characters we need to give an arc to to make the TV viewer care about them. It was always obvious that those moments where not coming back. Books 1-3 are the prologue anyway, they are not the story that RJ ended up wanting to write, the tone, the themes, the very essence of some of the characters are changed and retconned, he tries things and then decides to never revisit them (portal stones) because he doesn't like how they fit in his world. Book 4 is where WOT proper begins in terms of the actual story that RJ wanted to write, and given we are getting all of book 4 in season 3 I am absolutely ok with moments being cut early on. Books 1-3 are really, in essence, the story of the hobbits getting to Rivendell and forming the fellowship, and just as Peter Jackson cut out vast swathes of that part of the story to get to the actual story of the lord of the rings, so the writers realised that all the early stuff, as cool as some of it is, needed to be cut out because it would either be to expensive to shoot, or require effort and time better spent on actually telling the linear story of how the EF5 get to the last battle, which is the ONLY story that matters here. 

On 10/6/2023 at 8:50 PM, fra85uk said:

Not wrong, her subplot was the worst part of S2 and honestly Rosamund Pike acting was way below her standards.

But she is producer of the show...so she will stay central.

No 2 major events in season 2 moved Moiraine to the role of regular and not central, the first was giving Rand the choice to enter the dream world with Lanfer, telling him "this is your choice" the second is having her miles away from the massive fight on the tower and giving the EF5 plus Elayne there avengers assemble moment. 

13 hours ago, Samt said:

I’m not sure that the 1.16 billion number is right. Someone wrote it in another thread.  My point was that 15 million reliable viewers is not some sort of drop in the bucket.  GoT had 10 million viewers at its height.  WoT definitely doesn’t have that level of viewership. 
 

I’m not suggesting that you don’t try to make a show that non-readers can still understand and enjoy.  But a big part of the success or failure of this show will come down to getting book readers to watch and keep watching the show.
 

I also don’t know how the economics of streaming works.  It’s hard to believe that Amazon is actually making money on this since it’s included in a subscription and there are no ads.  

I have always found the actual number of WOT book readers debatable, how many actually made it to the end, how many made it to the end and enjoyed the finish, I know I was disappointed in the final 3 books, and remain so. How many had re read the series since and thought it was dated, or disliked the repetitive prose. Lets be honest, as much as I am a massive lover of the series, and i did a thread about this on the book forum, there are major issues that really mean I shouldn't be, it is in-spite of all these issues I keep returning back. But then you also need to then ask, what %of the book loving audience will actually want to watch any TV show, how many of them actually want to sign up to Prime? I think when you whittle it all down you will find that the potential book reading audience is tiny. 

Non book readers are the bread and butter of any shows audience, you have to make the TV show for them first, especially considering that with streaming WOT will always be up there, always ticking along increasing viewership in a way that traditional linear TV never could. But also, the idea that all book readers dislike the show is patently false, just on this forum alone many more enjoy it then don't many more have returned for season 2 and will be there for season 3 then have not. most book readers don't care enough about the books to come onto a forum and discuss it, and therefore will care far less about any changes made to the series. 

The fact of the matter is that in reality, the people on this forum don't really matter, I am here because i love to discuss and talk about it, but actually our opinion makes no difference, and this is in part because we don't understand the business model for Prim TV, I don't have prime for it's streaming service, I probably would not have Prime at all if it was only a streaming service, I prefer AppleTV, Disney+ and netflix overall. I own Prime because of the free postage and next day delivery. We will never really know what Bezos business thinking is behind Prime, in terms of the whole Amazon organisation nowdays he could close down the shopping website and the TV arm and probably wind up making more profit overall as a whole, pretty much most of the revenue comes from the AWS arm. I wonder sometimes if Prime TV is created as a live shop window for the other streamers and that is the purpose, after all, Netflix, Disney +, now TV, HBO Max, APpleTV and almost every other TV streamer only uses Amazon Web Services to store and stream all there content. Amazon hosts and runs the entire streaming infrastructure for the world, think about that, you could end Prime today, take out a subscription to netflix, and Amazon will still be making money off you as Netflix will pay Amazon to serve you your TV. 

13 hours ago, Mirefox said:

Actors are given extensive training.  Combat training, dialect training, etc.  I read something regarding the show Yellowstone where all the leads went through a week of grueling cowboy training.  Why is it too much to ask the writers to read the book?  Or how about a getaway where they all listen to the audiobook together?

 

I understand that there are 14 books, but it is clear that some writers didn’t even read the first.  That should be a basic job requirement and really shouldn’t be too much to ask.

I mean the first book always had to be changed, thematically it is so very different to the rest of the series, it is written differently, the way the characters are presented in it Robert Jordan actually changes them when he realised he was allowed to write more books. RJ himself has sated that EOTW is an homage to fellowship of the ring, you have all the main charcters, Rand as Frodo, Matt as Sam, Perrin, Egwene and Nyn as the othe rhobbits, Moiraine as Gandalf, Lan as Aragorn, Fain as Gollumn. The story is very Rand centric, it is mainly just them all running across Randland together, it gives you very little lore, very little back story, nothing about Aes Sedai politics. Had Robert Jordan been told, here is a 3 book or longer deal then EOTW would have been different. As it was he had to write a self contained story that had the option of going longer if he got the deal. 


Season 1 had it's issues but as has been said many times by many all the story changes where understandable, even if sometimes the choices made where not what I might have done. 

But I do agree the writers should be reading the books, they are not a hard read, I can get through a book a week easily. 

47 minutes ago, bluetear111 said:

I really enjoyed this episode, the best in the whole show so far for me, a much better finale than season 1.

 

However i do have one big bug bear, why did Ishmael just let Rand kill him?  Ishy is one of if not the most powerful forsaken right?

 

This bit just didn't sit right with me.

I think we clearly need to WAFO, Ishy said that they had done this many times before and could do it many times again, he told Suroth that he could just die and come back on the next turning to try again, so he knows his gambit has failed, so it is onto plan 2, Rand thinks he beat him, but there is much worse coming and Ishy knows he will come back in the next turning of the wheel. Now, we know that the Dark Lord in fact punishes Ichy and returns him as Moridin. 

On 10/8/2023 at 10:08 AM, Lightfriendsocialmistress said:

I don’t think I’ve seen this mentioned yet but it’s a long thread so I might have missed it…um, birgitte is definitely one of the heroes!

also is there going to be another hunt for the horn because it looks like it’s taken from mat by one of the heroes 

Just realised this, does this mean no Olver? 

46 minutes ago, ilovezam said:

 

This is a very bizarre post. Your wife's opinion on the scene and how it allows Egwene to achieve what she wants doesn't change the fact that it goes completely against both book and show lore.

How does it go against show lore? Using the collar is not attacking a Sul Damane, it is collaring a potential Damane, that is not against the rules of the show as stated. Now is this a change from the books, yes, and I am happy having a debate on the pros and cons of that, personally I really don’t care as long as lore on show is maintained. 
 

My point was that my wife, who is unimpewded by “book lore” absolutely understood how a Damane could collar her Sul Damane and it not count as “attacking” her and so bypassed then jug. The whole point was that Egwene could not use the jug as a weapon, the collar is not weapon, in fact there are 2 similar arguments you could make, the first is that the collar can’t be a weapon because a Damane can’t be a Sul Damane and so it won’t be stopped, or Egwene attached the collar not fully knowing if it would work and so did not see it as a weapon. Both ways allow her to avoid the “jug” problem and make absolute perfect sense. 

2 hours ago, Mailman said:

She intended to use it to hang her that sounds like as much like a weapon as a water jug.

At this point Renna is no longer a Sul Damane, but also, hanging her was causing Egwene immense strain and pain, she fought through that and managed to keep up the hanging. It was not an easy thing, maybe a line of blood from her eyes or nose might have shown the strain much better. 

2 hours ago, Rhaze said:

 Yet, killing one of the forsaken doesnt give them the final death... he needs the wheel broken. The dark one controls the grave and there is no escape for Ishy except for breaking the wheel entirely. Rafe read the books, Rafe didnt understand the books. He barely scratches the surface and it is easy to see. Rafe was the wrong person to take on this series and if it makes it to season 4 it will be shocking. Looks like they will be wrapping it up in season 3 to me.

Rafe is not going to come out and “spoil” a pretty big reveal for non book lovers, in the books Ishy dies, Rand asks him what his punishment was for dying, and he tells him resurrection. That feeds directly into this moment, ishy has died, for a moment. 

4 hours ago, DigificWriter said:

 

She was crushed to death by debris.

 

 

Not necessarily.

I mean the major character and plot points have largely been there. As we discussed at the start of the series the dagger being so weak was a mistake in season 1 and it is as fatal as the books, Liandrin is a black ajah, Ishy died, Moiraine has now been stepped back to supporting cast member, the writers purposely removed her from the final big fight scene to shift it to become the EF5 show, Moiraine was not stilled, Ishy died,  yes there have been changes made to the prose, but the major character motivations and arcs are all still there as per the books. Moridin will probably be revealed in season 4 or 5 (if they happen).

15 minutes ago, zacz1987 said:

Honestly I don't think Sarah is being listened to at all. She is just there for them to say they have a book fan to help with continuity but I don't think they really consult her or actually act on anything she says.

I do worry if the writing team are more on the Witcher end of the scale then not, Sarah said in her q and a that getting the writing room to understand Aiel and Seanchan culture was hard, so do we have a room of non book readers being given 2nd hand info by Rafe and Sarah? 
 

You then have the individual directors who actually make the episodes, are they book lovers or are they just filming a script that is 3rd hand lore now? 

6 hours ago, The_Watcher_And_Wanderer said:

What in the hell is a “covid mistake” exactly? Is it using covid as an excuse for bad writing? Because that’s sure what it sounds like. 

It was the sudden rewrite needed at the last minute to redo the last 2 episodes due to a major character walking out on the show. 

They had to rewrite the whole thing basically on the fly, while also trying to figure out how to film it under Covid conditions and still have the battles and fights they wanted. 
 

So you know what, I am going to give him a bit of lattitude here, 

5 hours ago, Sabio said:

COVID is why they had to change the Tarwins Gap fight, the actor leaving changes what they were going to have Mat do in Episode 1.  It should have zero to do with making the dagger do totally opposite things when it hits someone.  

No Barney leaving meant they didn’t have to it make small changes, but rip up the scripts they had and completely re write them, with very little notice, while also having to rewrite entire scenes due to Covid restrictions only allowing a certain number of people on set at any one time. 
 

Barney leaving also meant they had to rip up season 2 and rewrite it again from scratch based on the changes to season 1 finale. The original season 2 script followed TGH with the boys chasing the horn, the moment Matt had to stay in tar Valon Rafe and the writers had to shift the story to split the boys up. So yes, a major character dripping out for what was for him going to be some major scenes at the end did impact things and so in the moment they went with loial being stabbed, we don’t know if it was a writing decision, a decision made on the day by the director, who it was that did it and how it slipped through both Rafe and Sarah, but I will take on face value that all of the above led to the mistake, Rafe has owned the mistake by saying “it was a mistake” and is moving on without wasting effort retconning it, I am fine with that .

5 hours ago, Lewstherin28 said:

I am just curious about when will mat take her future wife besides him and lost his eyes. It was must before season 2 finale but not happened yet.

I hated season 1 and i love season 2 but why writers changed the book a lot.

Matt has no wife and 2 eyes in book 2 and 3, people really seem to forget who Matt is in the books, and just when his arc happens. He doesn’t get married/lose the eye until near the end so season 7 probably .

5 hours ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

I accept your apology and admission of defeat 😁

I mean my wife, a non book reader, got it the first time as she watched it. 
 

Egwene can now see Renna as a Damane and not her SulDamane as she can channel. As a Damane she can attach a collar herself to a channeler, it is built into the “magic”. 
 

So in collaring Renna she is actually achieving one of her purposes. 
 

Once collared, hurting Renna caused her immense pain, did you not see on her face, in her eyes, she was in agony, but was handling it far better then Renna because she knew Renna was weaker then her. She was strong. She had survived and never broken. Pain is just pain, it is a lesson she learns in the books and so this moment is going. To really play out well for when she is laughing while being beaten in the future. 
 

Like I said my wife explained all that really clearly, but if you can’t get that from that scene and all that has been laid out in the second season then maybe you should re watch because your blinkered view is clearly meaning you are not getting the details. 

7 hours ago, DreadLord31 said:

So the things that encourage me the most about this season are: 

 

#1. the actors/actresses, for the most part, knock it out of the park when they’re given something decent to work with. 
 

#2. the bad guys are so much more believable, even likeable, that I’ve been won over to the dark. #teamLanfear 

 

#3. the CGI was slightly better than the Video Game quality bad Trollocs and channeling of the S1 Finale. 
 

What truly worries me is: 

 

#1. Other than the cold open of S1Ep7, they’ve consistently shown they don’t know how to direct/edit good action sequences IMO. The “biggest battle in Tv history” felt somewhat lame with all their quick cuts (even though the lighting didn’t suck for once). 
 

#2. it continues to feel so rushed. 
If I assign my students an 8 page paper & they turn in a 30 page paper, they get it back with a “You have an 8 page max.” If they then take that same paper & just try to cut out 22 pages worth … that’s going to be an F paper even if the 30 page paper was really good. Hard core WoT fans might be pissed… But if you’re given an 8 seasons, 8 episodes parameter — you can’t try to squeeze in everything; you have to write a new story. And they’re doing an “ok” job of that, but still trying to squeeze in too much and give all these winks at book readers. Like the Ingtar stuff. 
 

#3. WoT is most known and loved as a fantasy series for its world building and its intricate magic system. You can’t keep conveniently breaking even your own shows rules within the show WoT when it comes to the magic system. 
 

For example(s): the Egwene/Renna stuff made no sense. We argued for a whole week how, “If the collar only comes off if the Damane dies…how is Egwene going to get free & not be a “fake-out” death. Egwene becoming Renna’s Suldam at the same time she’s Renna’s Damane??? What? 
 

The damane shielding Rand from the ships made no sense. Within the rules of the show you have to be in sight of the person & actively channeling. 
 

Moiraine got tired/injured fighting like 20 Trollocs … now she can fire blast an entire fleet from miles away? 
 

The Shaddar Logoth dagger can melt through metal & instant kills now? Didn’t last season. 
 

The Horn of Valere box is easily opened by Turok & then just set aside and unguarded even though “With this, the whole world will be ours.” Really? But then Loial just has it & they can’t open it, without the dagger?
 

And where did Fain go? Is he corrupted by the dagger or not? In the show it corrupts whoever touches it, but Fain just sets it aside for Matt … just because we need Matt to “have it” but not “touch it”. 
 

 

Yeah the biggest battle in tv history, maybe he should have added the caveat “that you can see” as the battle of winter fell I guess was bigger (although the scene of the Dothraki dying is still epic and is better then the whitecloaks charge). 
 

Having said that battle of the bastards was bigger, and that you could see so. 
 

Rafe has apologized on X for the dagger end season 8 so I think we stop calling that out. He has stated it was a Covid error that he wants to just move on from. 
 

as a long term book lover, Robert Jordan kept changing his magic system as the books went from a trilogy to 5 to many, and the rules have not been broken, who has stated that you must be able to see the target to shield and still them? 
 

The collar I get the confusion, but the whole point of that scene was that it was hurting Egwene, she just was showing the strength to grit her teeth and accept the pain. That is going to stand her well in the 3 fold land. 
 

Fain doesn’t have the dagger at the end of book 2 either, and yes him putting the dagger down confuses us book fans but in the world of the show can be explained because his addiction to it has not been explained. 
 

15 hours ago, Mailman said:

So the dagger can cut through metal and does leave incredibly infected wounds yet it had no effect on Loial at all? What is it a Disney wars light saber FFS.

Rafe has addressed this, he stated in his twitter Q and A that a Covid mistake was made, and that sometimes you should just move on, I am happy with that. 
 

He has also stated that Barney quitting in season 1 meant they had to entirely re write season 2, he originally wanted to have the 3 boys together hunting the horn because he loves that, but once it was clear Matt would have to stay behind all of a sudden season 2 changes. 

13 hours ago, Elder_Haman said:

I'd say that if there is near universal agreement on anything, it's that Tarwin's Gap was the worst part of season 1.

While not coming out and saying it straight Rafe has made enough comments about the end of season 1 that I think he equally is disappointed in himself. The fact he said that Loial being stabbed by the shadow blade and no effect was a covid mistake, and that the saving of Nynaeve by Egwene using herbs (which if it had landed would have been a great bit of foreshadowing) landed badly shows he has had a long hard look at that episode. Personally I had no issue with the artistic choices, to have the girls at the gap for instance while Rand fought Ishy, my issues with it where all to do with production, editing and dialogue.