14 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

 

annyway, after the first season was successful enough, the executives decided it may be worth gambling more money into this, so we are - apparently - getting improvements here. at least, special effects on channeling are much improved. I heard voices that episodes will be a few minutes longer, but can't confirm. anyway, it shows that the people in charge at amazon are willing to bet some more money that improving quality may turn in more profit. that's all we can ask for; they are running a business, not a charity.

 

S2 was greenlit before S1 dropped - so the decision to carry on had nothing to do with the show's success

16 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

 

"we spent 100 millions on a project, involving some pretty famous actor too. the result is not great, not terrible. let's just not air the series then. [or, let's only air the first half and stop it there]. we'll tell the fans we canceled it because we didn't like it enough"

best. management. ever! (sarcasm mode)

 

reality check, please. I can understand shelving something if it is terrible, like asylum-level terrible. like, star wars christmas special terrible. the kind of stuff that the fans will try to forget and the actors will try to hide their involvment in.

this is not the case. wot S1 is far from perfect, but I enjoyed it and a lot of book fans enjoied it, and every single non-book-fan I know who watched it liked it.

is that bad enough to cancel a project in which you already invested lots of money? to tell the fans "sorry, we didn't like the product" after hyping them for two years? to tell the young actors for whom this was their first important role than they spent a lot of working time and now won't get any recognition or anything to put in their resumee? what actor would still want to work with you afterwards?

Batgirl movie was cancelled after spending $90 million.  Tax reasons or whatever, but it does happen.

14 minutes ago, Sir_Charrid said:

For a second there I thought, "could he have stopped the Death Star 🙂 

LOL.  Alderaan or Endor?

5 minutes ago, Samt said:

That's fine.  But the question should be, "What needs to happen to tell the story?"  Not, "What can we have this character do so that the actor gets some screentime etc.?"  And the reality is that it seems the second question drove decisions in season 1 and will likely drive decisions in season 2.  That is a problem.  

 

Maybe they want to accelerate Elayne's political arc and show more of that early on.  Or maybe Mat needs to heal earlier to he can meet some foxes and snakes.  I can see how that might help compress the story.  But adding things so that the characters have something to do doesn't compress the story. 

Right, they did a lot of not compressing in S1...

1 hour ago, Samt said:

Well, in fairness, neither of them does much during The Great Hunt.  I think a good adaptation of WoT has to been comfortable with not all of the characters having something to do all of the time (literally every character is effectively absent for entire books in the series).  The need to give everyone something to do has already led to some questionable decisions.  It's realistic that sometimes people are healing, travelling, or doing other things that just don't make it into the larger story.

They are also compressing the timeline from 14 books into 8 or fewer seasons.  There is something they can have all the major characters doing - assuming major characters in the books stay major in the show.

22 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

My wife watched every time with me 😉

Always nice to have a co-conspirator.

1 hour ago, Sir_Charrid said:

One thing to remember about these articles is that they are made to happen by whatever it is she is promoting at the time this might include that company paying the publication in some way to get the mention. So I imagine whichever production company/studio worked on all those programmes is possibly linked to this story being published. 

Also, this is an article attacking someone Amazon may have clauses in Pikes contract that state she can't throw shade in there name so there may be a very specific reason they are not mentioned. 

Could be.  I was more surprised than mad.  I just don't know how the industry works.

On 8/6/2023 at 6:52 PM, Sir_Charrid said:

Yeah mat isn’t the best with reading letters he really should. Lol

For real.  Could have made a difference for Andor...

14 hours ago, Sir_Charrid said:

Am holding judgement until I see it, it certainly looks more polished, which goes to emphasise that Covid undoubtably had a large impact on the 1st season. But, I am seeing more and more diversion from the story here. Rand and Logain meeting in book 2? That suggests he will be travelling with Siuan when they go to see Rand. How this then translates into Logain escaping the tower with Siuan, Min and Leanne I am not sure. Looks like we will get Nynaves testing, which is great, so my guess is, as I have been postulating for a while the girls will travel to tar valon and then leave only the once (until Egwene is made Amirylian Seat). This suggests that characters will learn much faster and not have to have the rigours of lessons they do in the book possibly. 
 

How much training do they need?  They already have healing bombs and can take out entire armies.

4 hours ago, Lightfriendsocialmistress said:

Wondering what will become of loial and crew based on the finale of season one. Did the trailer for season two ever show them?

Loial did not appear to grow any taller between seasons.  🤣

1 hour ago, DaddyFinn said:

One final rewatch before S2. I watched S1 10+ times in 2021-2022

And my wife makes fun of me for re-reading the books multiple times...

5 hours ago, Sir_Charrid said:

For me it is one of the most real relationship in the books. 2 people who are very opposite in terms of personality but clearly love each other battle to try and find their place with each other. Faile has left where she grew up determined to escape duty and be free of her obligations. She then finds herself time and again being drawn back into the role she was trying to escape. 
 

Perrin has been brought up with a very traditional idea of the roles of men and women based on what he thinks he sees in the interactions growing up. He has no one to explain all the intricacies and what goes on behind the visual facade. 
 

so you have 2 people who have conflicting views on things, in a world with human eating trollocs, magic and other horrors. 
 

I personally find Failles development across the series to be one of the best in terms of the side characters she actually develops, grows and changes. 

I don't have any problem with Faile or Perrin as characters (their arcs on the other hand...).  As you pointed out, they were both born and raised with very different expectations of gender roles/responsibilities - which was a fine way to add tension and give each character the opportunity to grow and change.

My initial comment to the OP was just pointing out that if the OP couldn't stand reading their interplay in tSR, they would like it even less as the story advances.

15 hours ago, JeffreyBoring said:

I really wanted to like Faile, and maybe the character is written better later, but I just can't with her. She is so enormously awful. Selfish and mean about every single thing. And Perrin is the one that got strapped with her? She's horrible to him, bullying and even abusive in nearly every interaction. I'll grant that Perrin is obnoxiously "protective" of her to the point that he steals her personal agency trying to keep her out of any danger. That's also gross. However, they are easily the most toxic "good" relationship I've read in ages, and it's nearly enough to quit reading to avoid this narrative.

It gets worse...

16 hours ago, Sir_Charrid said:

I feel that apart from the way the series ends, having reread it again recently I have realised just how bad the writing gets in the last 3 books, and how much Brandon changes the tone and voice of the characters and the overall story. I don’t blame him for that, it was an unenviable position, but it just sours the series for me now. 
 

I also always have more then one book on the go at once so alongside WOT I am reading through the Horus heresy series, the reading the Thomas covenant series (I think marginally better then WOT) and picking up random one off books as well. 

I actually appreciated the change and how the series wrapped up.  Though I continued to like the series, Jordan dropped the ball for me on the Shaido arc (both Perrin and Faile's side), Luca's circus, Andor succession, and the split Tower.  Though there was some material to enjoy in each arc, for me, they were too long and had too much superfluous material that I didn't care about.

I fear had Jordan lived long enough we might have ended up with 20 books.  He just seemed to have lost his way...  I think even I would have soured by the end.  Tone and voice changes aside, I didn't feel I was slogging through Brandon's books.

5 hours ago, Jima said:

I usually read books online to save money.

My wife is starting to switch over to electronic books.  Don't think I ever will though.  I look at a screen enough for work.

Some nice foreshadowing early on in this book I hadn't noticed before.  Siuan and Moiraine were discussing their plans regarding the Dragon reborn - and specifically consequences.  As part of their training they had to memorize all Aes Sedai that had been stilled along with their crimes.  Aes Sedai were usually put out of the Tower after being stilled.  But not if they were also Amyrlin Seat.  They were kept in the Tower as an example - after all, she couldn't be a potential rally point if you saw her doing menial tasks each day - such as scrubbing pots in the kitchen...

Nicely done Mr. Jordan.

On 7/21/2023 at 5:43 PM, A Memory Of Why said:

Trailer song was good, I'm not to fussed with music in trailers. I'm more interested in the visuals, music should complement it thematically, which it does.

 

Really enjoyed the old Tongue music we got in season 1, not sure how I'd feel about modern songs getting thrown in.. maybe make them renditions with the old tongue 😋

 

In saying that, I found this banger the other day.

 

 

That was flipping awesome

Looked good to me. Specifically liked the costuming better.  

Possibly because they were working without the Hall?

2 hours ago, zacz1987 said:

 

Honestly there is not a huge amount to reduce. Its more that Perrin and Faile only got a few chapters each book which made it drag on over multiple books and then the plotline had to be reintroduced each book and the recapping made it overly repetitive.

 

If the timeline was reduced (For example all the Perrin and Faile stuff happened in a single season with a portion of each episode dedicated to it) it wouldn't feel so bad.

Yes. In book-form, it was a never ending cliff hanger. 🤮

Luca’s circus

On 6/15/2023 at 10:01 AM, Elgee said:

 

 

Why is Mat weeping?

 

Because people keep mistaking him for an Ogier - it's the hair!

We must relearn what we ‘know’

Different for all channelers. Some went mad very quickly, others kept it under control for years. Given the time frame covered in the books, I don’t think this is a problem. 

The lack of diversity in language never bothered me and was barely noticed on multiple readings. RJ’s world is a magical place, why would the same rules apply there as here?