We don't know when, But S2 is coming.  Based on what you have been reading/watching, where do you think Rafe and team will be taking the show compared to S1 and why?  Your choice in the poll doesn't necessarily mean you think the option is good or bad, given the limiting nature of the responses - but please extrapolate in the thread.  Should be some interesting comments as we don't all get our information from the same places.

On 12/30/2022 at 1:18 PM, mogi68 said:

A work of art is never finished

LOL - don't give GRRM any more encouragement...

7 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

It's more that the guilt, shame and unforeseen consequences of that act continue to haunt the character throughout the series.

Right - guess I oversimplified it.

5 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

I'm re-reading the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant right now. There is only scene involving sexual violence in Lord Foul's Bane (the first book in the series), and while it is a critical plot point for everything that follows in the entire series, it is described in only a couple of paragraphs and hardly in any graphic detail (though the tone is appropriately disturbing). I don't recall any other similar scenes in any of the other 5 books.

 

I haven't read the Third Chronicles, so I could be missing something there.

I did read the first trilogy years ago and only remember the one scene myself describing sexual violence.  IIRC it was brought up many times so that we could all remember what he did - as if forgetting a scene like that would be possible - especially back in the day...

8 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

Indeed. I guess my enjoyment of a thing does not depend on others (especially people I don't know) enjoying that thing.

For sure, I do enjoy discussing it though to see the other perspectives.

10 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

I don't think this is true. But I still think it was a miss by the writers. Instead of making up a wife for him to kill, they could have had Perrin kill Master Luhan on accident, which would have been an even better set up for Perrin's internal conflict. The writers missed quite a few opportunities like this in S1. (Another obvious one would have been to have Lan know that Nyn was sneaking up on him which would have subtracted nothing from Nyn, but would have added tremendously to Lan's badassery).

Yes! 👍

10 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

That being said, writers can and do improve from one season to the next. In fact, some of Rafe's other shows made big leaps in S2 quality. Both "Chuck" and "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D" were noticeably better in S2. I get some of the angst about S1, but it's nowhere near the complete disaster some people seem to think it was.

 

Glad to hear his previous teams improved - hopefully he can keep that trend going.

There are degrees of disaster.  It was not a complete one for me - but near enough.  There were aspects of the show I liked.  But the overall grade was a fail for me.  I know some folks can't understand my dislike; likewise, I can't understand why others liked it so much.  So subjective...

26 minutes ago, Sir_Charrid said:

Nyns driver to becoming an aes sedai, throughout the early books at least, turns into wanting to be able to heal Rand, or at least delay the madness. But I think we can show the start of madness as they do in the books, we know who Lewis Therin is as a character now in season 1 so we can start getting him appearing to Rand much as we see the male channeller talking to himself at the very start. That will be enough to show all is not great with his mind, especially in scenes where we see those Lewis thoughts as internal monologues in the book. In the show we can actually have Lewis there in scene talking to Rand about how Lanfer was always jealous even as she is talking to rand, then, every now and again Rand repeat what Lewis has just said to him? 

Yup, madness must come sooner and heavier.  It was always there in the books but was such a slow creep (which was fine) but less seasons means acceleration.

14 minutes ago, Sir_Charrid said:

If it is 5 seasons then simply by force of hand Rafe will need to just construct a brand new story from the ashes of the books, loads of new scenes and characters to try and communicate themes that Robert Jordan spent entire chapters on in just a few sentences. At that point the show cant be anything but WOT in name only, and any show runner who is a true fan of the books surely has to walk away. 

I don't see Rafe walking away, despite claiming to be a huge book fan.  Amazon may shut it down, but Rafe is on board until that time.  Just my thoughts...

2 hours ago, Guire said:

I loved the books from the beginning.  In early 80s I read lots of Fantasy and SciFi.  Anything I could find in library or bookstore.  I read all of Tolkien, Dune, Anne Mccaphery, Brooks, Stephen King, more trashy sword and sorcery books than is imaginable.

In 1991 I was on Iraqi border drawing down from Desert Storm.  I had just turned 20.  Found EoTW and TGH in a morale box.  Read them both twice before I left Saudi.  I have always read the  series as a soldiers march to war.  Certain feelings and themes just made sense to me.  Later when I learned that Jordan had been a soldier it made perfect sense.  Even as it dipped into more and more fantastical elements the world always felt real and lived in. After TSR it was like a vacation I took every year.  I would reread each book before a new one dropped.  I have only read AMoL a maybe 3 full times.  The earlier books probably 20 times each for first 7.  Just did a quick reread of EoTW.  Seeing kindly wise stoic Agelmar and revisiting the Green Man were magical.  

Not perfect by any means, but WoT has always been great lit to me.  Never read anything so re-readable.

6 hours ago, Guire said:

WoT youtubers are consistently saying season 3  will be The Shadow Rising.  That will take a full season.  To get there we are going to get lots of story compressuon and cuts.  I think the alternate spining is going to be even bigger here forward. 

 

I don't watch the youtubers - were any of these folks anywhere near the mark on their predictions for S1?  Just wondering at their track record.

6 hours ago, Guire said:

Also I think the 5 season plan has probably kicked in since RoP and WoT have not been consensus hits across the board.

Wow - how is Rafe going to add all his non-canon material in only 5 seasons?  They'll be lucky to reach Dumai's Wells much less the Last Battle.

3 hours ago, phanooglestixs said:

The journey through the parallel world at the start of the hunt, that's probably cut.

Hopefully so.

3 hours ago, phanooglestixs said:

So much of that journey is likely going to be condensed, one episode between Fal Dara and Cairhien.  Might cut out Cairhien, the Stedding and go straight to Falme as well. 

 

Likely - especially with no Thom.

3 hours ago, phanooglestixs said:

Most of season 2 will likely focus on the girls, so mostly training at the tower then the journey to and struggle against the Seanchan for episodes 1-4,

 

Focus on the women would not surprise anyone here.

3 hours ago, phanooglestixs said:

then a transition episode from books 2 to 3, mountains and travel, Caemlyn(again), Illian and many of the various towns will probably be skipped with 1 stop before Tear and wrapping up season 2.  That is a lot left on the cutting room floor.  As far as the Tear transition from season 2 to season 3, I can see season 2 ending with the fall of the Stone and season 3 starting with the darkspawn attack on the Stone. 

 

Much more satisfactory than a cliffhanger.  Finish one arc, the goal is accomplished, then a new challenge rises.

3 hours ago, phanooglestixs said:

They could even condense the journey to Tear, putting the Perrin group with the Egwene group, meeting up on the way south.  Rands journey south needs to stay solo though, they did a decent enough job adding in the terror elements of Ba'Alzamon screwing with them in their sleep (how they handle the mega-important dream realm is going to be a curious hurdle in the future) and Rand has a lot more of that to go through in order to get him in the proper state of mind later on.  Generally, insanity doesnt just happen, it takes work to push someone over the edge into madness, even with spiritually toxic magical energy helping.

I think you might be wrong with what it takes for insanity/madness.  There has already been two miraculous healing bomb events - don't see why Rand can't drop off the edge into madness quickly.  Nynaeve and Egwene have already pulled off the 'impossible' (at the Aes Sedai camp and Fal Dara).  The show needs something they can't do at the drop of a hat without any training - at least if they want to add some credibility to S2.

25 minutes ago, WhiteVeils said:

I think it's possible we do get Tear in the very last episode, if Ishamael flees to Tear to get Callendor and Rand follows, or if Falme was a trap to get Rand to chase him to Tear to get Callendor so Ishamael can take it from him. If that were the case, Tear shows up only from the inside as a single room with Callendor, and we wouldn't see sets of it outside.  

It's equally likely that Tear isn't there at all this season.

Perrin releasing Gaul and the intro of dark hounds happens before Tear. Would really like to see both of those whenever Tear happens. 

18 minutes ago, Sir_Charrid said:

I suppose you could end season 2 on the cliffhanger of the characters in tear and seeing the girls being captured then season 3 opens with the falling of tear. 

Hope not. Prefer my cliffhangers within the season not between. But not my circus…

46 minutes ago, Sir_Charrid said:

I am a glass half full guy, they get season 2 to show they can improve. I like to try and think the best of people and situations. Season 1 for me wasn’t the awful thing others thought it was. 

Thinking the best is great in a new situation with little or no information. But I prefer to judge based on past performance. We have plenty to go on based on a full season. 
 

But glad it wasn’t the awful thing for you that it was for me. 

5 hours ago, Sir_Charrid said:

 

I will caveat that to say, I will accept drastic changes as long as they are written, acted, edited and shot well with good effects etc. 

Agreed, but what from S1 makes you think that Rafe and company can pull that off?

3 minutes ago, Sir_Charrid said:

Problem with tv shows nowadays is that it is a writing room. The days of a single voice, even the show runner, having an overall say is gone. Thinking about it BSG might have been the last show that did that, show runner also lead writer, not sure how it is done on westworld though. 

You're probably right.  They may get back to needing good writer/s when the best shows are the most watched.  I've seen many comments on these forums about 'It's all we've got' or 'At least it's something'.  Which gives me the feeling that they are settling.  If they genuinely like a show - cool.  If they don't - why waste your time?  If people would walk away from sub-par, poorly written shows - eventually they will turn it around.

But if people keep watching it because it is fantasy, or rationalize that this is the best they will ever get - they are correct...

2 minutes ago, Sir_Charrid said:

But who is a proven fantasy screen writer? Who has done it really well ever? I can’t really think of a really strong fantasy series, GOT is the closest but that feels more and more that the highs where sheer dumb luck lol. 

It doesn't have to be a good fantasy writer.  But a good writer would be excellent.

52 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

 

Which world? Forgotten Realms? Ebberon? Grey Hawk? What's cannon in D&D?

 

According to WoTC, the Drizzt and Elminster books are not cannon to D&D forgotten realms. 

 

In most of those cases, the movie/show fans out number the source material fans, and the whining about every little detail is drowned out by the Movie lovers admiring America's Ass. 

Or it could just be a call for quality rather than whining...

2 hours ago, Sir_Charrid said:

What I want is that moment with faile, where he tells her about the wolf (it always felt a little flat that was the only reason he felt he couldn’t be with her after all they had been through), it becomes more about him telling her about Laila, telling her that he killed her, that the wolf in him came out and he did that, and if he did that to Faille, he would never live with himself. Then her accepting him has even more emotional investment. 

I still don't get any connection between killing Laila and the wolf coming out.  He was in a battle for the first time in his life, had no idea what to do, and accidently killed an ally.  I understand how that can make him depressed (and worse) but what does it have to do with wolves?

3 hours ago, Sir_Charrid said:

Perrin killing someone makes perfect sense to the need in TV storytelling to show something dramatic that can't be mis interpreted in the short time available. It sets Perrin off on his arc from the very start, scared that he will hurt people, afraid of his power and strength and feeds into his fear of the wolf connection. I think the community has largely got on board with.

But they had to get on board - one of many things folks had to talk themselves into accepting

3 hours ago, Sir_Charrid said:

I know from people I know who have never read the books Perrin was the one character they connected with because of this single scene. It helped them understand everything else that went on later on (in my wifes case he is the one character she vocally expressed about during scenes talking to the TV telling him to tell someone). So the writers process worked. It also works for the future, when viewers question why he just doesn't get involved with Faile, when they worry why he sends her away and no one else it can be clearly understood it is because he has already seen one women he loved die because of his choices, he will not lose another. 

 

The writers' process worked for some.  Maybe most - guess that's all they could hope for.

3 hours ago, Sir_Charrid said:

Now the question comes from who should have been the one to die and this I am far more open to debate on. My initial sense after seeing it was "why create a wife when he has family, or the Luhhan's to kill", but in terms of story it also makes some sense. Later on the Luhhans play a big role in being taken by Fain and the whitecloaks and needing to be rescued. They also then form the support network around Perrin after he finds out his entire family are dead. His family are all killed by Fain, those 2 events are key to his development later on as a leader. 

So creating a wife and having him kill her becomes the logical way to get him emotionally to where it takes RJ 2-3 books to get him, get the viewer invested in him as a character and set up the Faile relationship later. 

 

Nah - Laila could have just been killed by a trolloc that he couldn't stop in time (assuming he needed to be married at all).  Him losing his love in the battle to shadowspawn would have been more than enough to set up his relationship with Faile.  

3 hours ago, Sir_Charrid said:

On Mat, the character in season 1 feels far far closer to the mat we see in the books (ignoring book 1 which I think is accepted is not a real reflection of the story RJ wanted to tell overall). before and more so Once he gets cured of the dagger Mat spends pretty much all his time gambling and chasing girls. That is a vast leap from the character we see in book 1, given the time that has gone while this change happens I always felt it made no real sense to me. There must have been more of that in mat then just the boy who pulls pranks. 

Yes - I had no problem with the changes to Mat.  He was a thief in the books (even if it was just pies).  And he definitely was always after whatever woman was amenable.  The show just advanced his story line and I think did it well.

35 minutes ago, expat said:

You can argue about the specifics, but this is one of the best decisions of the show.  Jordon really missed the mark on EF.  If we assume about 1700 era technology, a hard scrabble town on the edge of civilization would NOT be manned by a bunch of 20 yr old, sweet, naive, country bumpkins.  Literally, they would all be married with children by that point.  In order for the town to survive, you started early and had lots of kids.  Also, in a town that size, there would be the resident drunks/abusers/gamblers/not nice folks.  EF as described, was too pretty, too nice, and too naive. The only realistic part was that the town would lack knowledge, so would be country bumpkins. Yes, he wanted the boys to have their coming-of-age arc, but it was unrealistic for the time/place he chose to begin it.

 

I had no problem with advancing Egwene and Rand’s relationship. Also liked the change of Mat’s parents and Mat himself. Both were improvements on the book in my opinion. But Perrin killing his wife was a complete miss. No development between them and unnecessary to Perrin’s development through the season. Accidentally killing anyone would have accomplished the same. 

35 minutes ago, expat said:

 

On ROP, I found it to be pretty, but boring.  I watched it with my brother and was constantly looking at the clock to see how much time was left in each episode.  I didn't like much of the main casting, like Galadriel and Elrond.

 

I also don't understand anyone who read the original and liked ROP but thought that WOT wasn't faithful enough to the book.

I didn’t think there was an original that the show was based on. Thought this show was made from whole cloth with some hints from a bit of background material- nothing nearly extensive as WoT. RoP had some lore to point a general direction vs. WoT which is a complete story beginning to end. 
 

35 minutes ago, expat said:

 

  Two of the major subpots were invented out of whole cloth and added to the actual story to fill (waste) time, since the original story is so thin that there isn't enough material to fill 5 seasons.  The harfoot/stranger subplot didn't exist at all in the original material.  The elf/human interaction subplot also didn't exist at all in the original material.  It's like if multiple episodes of WOT were devoted to stories about the Tolloc War.  Might be interesting, but not relevant to adapting the story.

You mention a thin story without enough material, but then complain about added material. If there isn’t enough story, more needs created. 

1 hour ago, Spiritweaver1 said:

Well I have been away for a while.  Between Thanksgiving and Christmas I did a head to head binge comparison of Rings of Power and Wheel of Time.  As a reminder I am a big fan of both book series but have  previously given Jordan the nod because of his more detailed world building in terms of exploring various cultures.  I also very much appreciate  his inclusion/exploration of strong female characters.  This watching of Wheel of Time season 1 was my fourth.  The Rings of Power was the second.  Interestingly enough this watching of Wheel of Time blunted some of my previous problems with the adaption in terms of its departure from the book tale.  I feel that this was probably because, at my advanced age, there is some stronger form of recency bias at work.    

 

However, in comparison with Rings of Power, the plot was much more difficult to swallow in spite of having excellent source material for the screenplay.  Rings of Power on the other hand had to make up most of their story.  Again it isn't so much about deviations from the original it is, can I believe that the characters would behave as they do.  Matt turning around at the waygate is a prime example.   The GGI was better in the Rings of Power but given the difference in budget between the two shows that only makes sense. WOT was not bad mostly.    I felt the characters were better developed in Rings of Power.  That is one of the worst things and the place where the departures from the original story was still a sharp stick to the eye.  A lot of the problem seems traceable to the decision to widen the dragon reborn candidate list.  So much of the character development was on feints  and misdirection.  

 

In summary, I am looking forward to season 2 of Rings of Power far more than season 2 of Wheel of Time.  I have, upon my rewatch, decided to actually commit to at least 3 episodes of the new WOT season whereas before I wasn't so sure I would.   Hopefully the writing team will have realized that the strategy should be to leverage the strengths of the source material and focus on tightening up the story to fit the series outline and adapt to the screen.  Making up new stories and character arcs clearly isn't the  writing team's strong point.  

Don’t know that the writing team has a strong point, but hopefully they learned from what did/didn’t work in S1. Everyone can improve 

1 hour ago, wotfan4472 said:

Agreed.

 

Star Trek Into Darkness was the worst cinema experience I have ever had.

 

I have not watched ROP, because I have all the alarm bells from the trailers that I got with Into Darkness, but ignored.

Many of us had the same alarm bells with WoT from trailers and promotional shots, but there is no way that would have stopped me from watching the show - at least until the show proved the fears were warranted...

55 minutes ago, lordofsoup said:

I originally stopped a few episodes in but I had the misfortune of visiting relatives for Christmas, so I watched the rest of it.  Tarwin’s gap was possibly the worst interpretation of a piece of literature that I have ever seen.  I am very disappointed.  

I managed to avoid episodes 5-8.  Tarwin Gap was horrifying enough reading its description here.  Glad I didn't actually see it.

6 hours ago, Guire said:

The geography between show ans book is very different.  Charge in books could be accounted for by different circumstance.  But yes fortifications are better.  Reconfigured story after covid break was just not up to par.

 

I jotted down a rewrite of 7 and 8 in about 30 minutes one day.  A more complex battle that was probably more tell than show like in some early GoT seasons.  However it would have given us much more emotional pay off with characters like Agelmar and Amalisa.  It would have been easy to meet covid restrictions.  Also had a few sympathetic butch lesbian soldiers,  a better Uno and Yakota, better reason for Perrin to stall out with Fain.  No fake out deaths. And used a few borderland sayings as thematic payoffs.  Only thing lost would have been no slaying of patriarchy and you go girl moment for Moraine, Lan being a Hallmark Christmas special, and the throuple drama.  

 

Professional writers should have done as well unless Amazon execs just wreck ip developement.  That may be case.  At this point i dont know and may never know if Rafe is problem or only thing saving us from WoT prime being really bad instead of just mediocre.

Send your ideas into Rafe. Show him how easy it is before they start S3. Maybe he’ll even be inspired enough to fix some stuff from S2 in post production. 😜