5 hours ago, SinisterDeath said:

Dust has settled on Season 1.

I tried watching it again to see if the expectation of what it should be coloured my opinion of what it was.

Can say it didn't.  The show is just bad.

Terrible directing and story telling.

Poor special effects and most of all, really poor character development.

Interesting that you bold a portion of @Maximillion's post, SinisterDeath, and then start your post with "that argument doesn't hold water. But what I quoted above was the only argument in Maximillion's post. That part you focused on and bolded was clearly stated as speculation, not argument. Especially in a thread about how well the show held up, speculation about delays or reason for them can't really be "THE" argument being made here.  The argument dealt with direction, storytelling, special effects and character development. 

@Dojotoad, in agreeing that the argument doesn't hold water, you are also confusing the actual argument with speculation that had nothing to do with the argument. You are essentially agreeing to miss the point made. 

Her acting is always great. She was on Orphan Black, and I remember her from an episode of Father Ted:
 

10 hours ago, FreshMedlar said:

the line between good and evil is objective

Yep, and that's true even when it's blurry and we can't really figure it out. I think when people are in situations where is no good choice but bad choices, the person in that situation either got there or was pushed their by crossing that line long before. Not always. There are characters in the books, one in particular, who I wrestle with how the character got in such a situation. 

35 minutes ago, FreshMedlar said:

Now I'm curious and excited?.

 

Regarding the Amyrlin, it's true, it was and it will be. I tend to be idealistic, but your point of view is much more realistic.

 

There's an interesting thing about idealism. As a personal trait we often take it to mean wanting the best or expecting a level of perfection that the older see as unrealistic as they become realists. But idealism also deals with the idea that some abstraction is real or more real than reality and the abstraction is both recognizable but unknowable. It is tied to subjectivism. So, idealism and subjectivism are like one thing or on one side, and objectivism and realism (which I don't necessarily associate together, directly) are together on another side.

But these seats of power might not even exist in some platonic realm of forms where the ideal version of things exist (if such a realm exists or even if such a realm is worth entertaining the way imaginary numbers are worth thinking about and using). I mean what's "idealistic" in any sense about someone's power over others? Parents power over their children is fully functional and necessary and purely realistic maybe. I'm thinking aloud (clack clack clack as I type: aloud.) Sorry. 

On 4/1/2022 at 5:05 AM, FreshMedlar said:

The Amyrlin Seat is described to be the most respected and powerful woman, but she act as if on the verge of being overthrown, her servants will be surprised if she doesn't do exactly as expected and no Aes Sedai respect her.

Is this not like the real world? Does not every person with visible power owe a debt to some one or some group that put them there? Roman emperors ended up often only serving at the pleasure of the legions and their top generals. 

I know you will love the rest of the books, but I dare not say more. 

On 4/2/2022 at 4:52 PM, Dedicated said:

 

Well I mean that's just my point. Egwene was probably the most consistently honorable character throughout the series. First 2 gorgeous big city women (one of whom is a going to be a freaking queen) start poking and prodding her relactionship with a boy she expects/hopes to one day marry; all the while making it seem like friendly banter, but deep down inside THEY ABOSLUTELY WERE ANGLING TO STEAL HER PROMISED LOVED. But the pattern, the pattern... I get it... And poor Egwene really has no way to defend herself here. She can't just outright say, "stop trying to steal my man!" to a couple of girls who she wants to be friends with. And remember.. Egwene is basically alone in a world she barely understands. And she's basically a kid. 

We see glimpses of so many instances where Rand and Egwene get together. All seem to me to be when they stay home and see no more than each other and where their potential and growth as people remain as adaptations to their lives in their home. But, once they move on and away, they become different people than they would be than if they had stayed. I think the books show clearly that Egwene learns this. Nostalgia we all share for what could have been, the forces of the world act on most of us just as it acted on them to force them and us out of their and our home towns and adapt to new experiences and incorporate a larger world into our lives. 

@Andra I guess I think of tragic in the "Greek tragedy" sense, where the downfall is from some character defect and the end is a loss. The movie Kingpin is not a tragedy because there's a redemption at the end (literally guy and girl unite and drive off happily ever after), though it has all the hall marks of one until it reveals itself as a "hero's journey". 

@DojoToad I think Egwene's sacrifice puts it in a different category, not a "better" category and not with regard to the ultimate victory but I think every event we read in the books is a contribution to (or attempt to prevent) that victory. I don't know that Rand's ending is all that different than the plot of The Last Temptation of Christ (which the plot of that movie is not the end of that movie). 

I would shudder to think the books were entering a new age or new turning of the wheel where such heroism is antiquated. 

I saw her end as the most heroic of all. Her name would absolutely be on the tips of the tongues of every child and every parent who wants to instill courage in that child. Her memory will stand tall in the minds of all those who come after, and she left a visible monument to maintain that memory.

She didn't just give her all, she gave herself. I can only think of her end as heroic. 

@Revenant13 Thank you very much! 

3 hours ago, DavyDrones said:

GOT is the same as LOTR if we exclude the 6th and 7th season. We don't talk about those. WOT is a pure fabrication and is in the same category as season 6 and 7 of GOT.

My favorite parts of season 6 was the youtubers who were ripping it apart each week. It was cathartic. The end though was painfully bad. Who has a great story takes "she has a tell" and runs with it, off a cliff. Luckily, for WoT to run with "she has a tell" would make it a comedy-- but my dreams of Lanfear's voice being done by Kristen Schaal regardless of who acts her might come true. I might even watch it just to hear "Raand" 

But the idea that Winter is coming, meant to the Bahamas will never stop pissing me off. 

No, but I'll keep improvising songs till it comes along. 

Yes, but I can't separate out just how much I wanted Taim to die even if it was from stepping on a rusty nail or something. 

I agree, and I"m glad you made this post. Matt was a prankster, but the kind of jokes he pulled later on are of a different type and yes I laughed out loud a couple of times. Matt was left in good hands for certain. 

19 hours ago, Andra said:

Only Perrin could have told Egwene "it's just a weave" after all her time learning the Dream.  Only Perrin could have simply shrugged off Compulsion to literally save the world.  Those are things that his very nature led to, that no other character could have realistically carried off.

Yes, and I think something along these lines about as many characters as I can. I'd like to think that all the named characters, a detail some would skip over, and all the potential shaggy dog tails in the books are about how we are all integral to each other and each other's lives and our own personal 'arc' or 'journey' such that none if should be dismissed or forgotten if possible. All those details? These are the things that came together to defeat the dark one and his minions. And what's left? All of us to continue those same journeys as best we can together.

Aviendha's vision of the future of her people, really of the fate of the peace after the last battle, has application to our own lives and world in that we have not just ask for peace but work for it and make it and maintain it. Start erasing things with balefire and the whole thing comes apart. To take these thought further, I'd start drifting firmly into spirituality/theology, but I think there is something on those levels in this. Plus he might have gotten paid by the word. 

15 hours ago, Andra said:

 

I have no idea why you read them that way.

 

His point was only to address your hope that after spending the first season trashing the source material, the show would change course and adhere more closely to the books.  By pointing out that it's completely backwards of what's typically done.

Typically, as demonstrated recently with Game of Thrones or Harry Potter, the early selections stick the closest to the source, in order to draw in the built-in fan base of readers.  Only after that fan base expands to non-readers do the adaptations deviate significantly from the source.

 

I think I know why. His idea is implausible without an explanation of how that can happen. Rather than defend or explain that implausibility, attack is the best defense. 

So you're saying the wolf-brother is a shaggy dog? I like Perrin as a character, a lot. But he ends up in a holding pattern for a while, both in the world and the dream world, and on injured reserve when it all goes down. Why did Rand need Matt and Perrin? Resiliency? Back up? Why do they have the idea of a "sixth man" in basketball? On a personal note, if you are right and if my characterization of that as "well then he's a 'shaggy dog' tale within the books" then my being a fan of his sounds about right. 

So many women, so few Lanfears (one, actually) for them to be cast as. Plus, just as Andra points out, there has to be another staggeringly beautiful woman as Berelain. Morena would be an excellent Berelain, except of I guess the age maybe? That might make her better for Lanfear. The actress who played Mary on Downton Abbey might be a good fit for Lanfear. 

But for laughs I'd love, if only for a moment, for Kristen Schaal to do Selene/Lanfear's voice. 

On 3/17/2022 at 9:54 AM, zacz1987 said:

What makes me laugh is the producers and the fans keep mentioning that they aged the Emond's Fielder's up but it really is only Egwene who has been aged up. The boys and Nynaeve are still the same age they are in the books they have just made them less 'Naive' and more 'experienced'.

 

Removing the naivity of growing up in an isolated village with little outside contact does effect the way the Emond's fielder act and react with things which means the plots cannot play out the same way and still make sense. 

If "aging up" is not the right phrase, then regardless of what the right phrase is, it describes the apprentice blacksmith transformed into the actual blacksmith, and him being married widowed to his second choice. It creates a problem in that the girl woman he loves is with another man but not married, and one must expect that Rand would have married Egwene already. 

This more correct phrase would also have to account for the giddiness over fireworks and a gleeman and everything that they were looking forward to on that fateful night, as well as the immature pranks they still get into, and Rand being essentially a 14 year old boy around Selene. 

It might have to also account for the problems such a choice made by the writers when it comes to those aspects of the characters-- unless we are not, as I suspect, looking at Jordan's characters at all but instead looking at a hybrid at best of original characters created by the writers in the guise of Jordan's characters, telling a story that is as much of those writer's story as they can get in while following the general drift of Rand and his plucky pals/rivals/mentors/enemies to ... well one might assume the final battle but really who knows. 

On 3/17/2022 at 12:01 PM, William Seahill said:

So, gatekeeping via the screen adaptation? Interesting. I’m sorry, but screen adaptations, whether film or television, should cater to anyone and everyone who might be interested, not just to the most hardcore, longtime fans.

 

I’m fine with the narrative differences between the book and season one, as long as season two stays closer to the source material. (Even if it doesn’t, I’ll still watch it.)  

 

Ultimately, we’re each looking for different things in screen adaptations. Where I want an interesting story that brings the world of the source material to life, you want a true-to-the-source retelling.

If that's what you call "gate keeping" then I hope you have no gates to keep. Is this the new manner of discourse in the world, where you intentionally mischaracterize what people say? I did not say I wanted a sentence by sentence enactment of the books on the TV, but that is how you started your previous reply to me because that's an easy strawman to argue against. Congratulations on reading your own mind and not my words. I pointed out that I loved the Logain story line in the TV show, I think it was the best thing they did. But keep thinking I'm so narrow visioned that I can't see anything that isn't a word for word replication of what was already written. 

But here, rather than address what I'm saying that your idea, that somehow you make a show that strays from the source material to get a new audience (for a show that before it airs as by definition no audience at all and the people who are most interested in it have been hoping for a show adapted from the books they loved, that's the biggest potential initial audience possible for the show) and that maybe in next season it will return somehow to the source material to win over what should be their initial and most enthusiastic audience, gets how this is generally and successfully done backwards. Rather than address that, you decide that accusing me of "gate keeping" is a reasonable response. 

Do you think I'm saying "no one who has read the books should watch the show, or watch the show yet, or that they would not like the books or a good TV adaptation of the books? Please find where I said that, because I say a lot of things and maybe I missed where I said something so stupid and something that only maybe your own strawman or voodoo doll of me would say. I think anyone who reads the books could love them, and anyone who watches a show that was a faithful adaptation of the books could love it. Not if they are more worried about things that are not in the books, or if they are more worried about making the books look like other things they've seen, or if they are more worried about some set of criteria they are bringing from their own lives or their own sense of priorities are, that would be "gate keeping" but the gate is their's where stands on one side Robert Jordan's mind, his imagination, his  heart, his story and the world he created,  and on the other side stand with arms folded their mind, their imagination, and their hearts. 

In all seriousness, William, I find your portray of me to be unreal, and I suspect you are very much unreal too. Good luck dude! Love the show. Keep reading the books though, as you already see they are really something else. Once you get lost in Randland you will always find a home there. Maybe it's partly how many books there are and how big they often are, but it's also a tribute to his writing that you will dream yourself in that world. Weird fun dreams. That's partly why I had to stop watching the show: I hate nightmares. Good luck dude. 

7 hours ago, Andra said:

There is a real-world illness with the common nickname "breakbone fever."  Dengue Fever.

 

That he was in Vietnam might be a reason for him to bring this into his world. I don't think I'm saying what I mean very clearly though. 

There is no way any casting will please all the guys who are going to complain about her not being their choice or type. The guys who are willing to get loud about that kind of thing, like the guys who complained about what the actress in Netflix's Cowboy Bebop wore, are going to complain loudly. There's no winning that fight. Artists make choices, those choices eliminate other possibilities, and the artist lives with the consequences. 

What might be possible to avoid that unavoidable destiny, though this would be quite a change from the story, is if anyone saying she isn't the most beautiful woman ever sends her into such a rage that the entire population of every age before and since just has to go along and say she is. 

6 hours ago, William Seahill said:

So you want a show that follows the books word for word, sentence for sentence?

I like you type a statement but put a question mark at the end. Believe what you want. Good luck finding where I ever said that though. Seems odd, or selective anyway, that you chose that to address and not the other ideas I brought up about audience building or what they writers are doing. you think they'll somehow get closer to the books. I don't think that is actually possible, not without really messing with the flow and the (I hesitate to even say it in the context of the show) continuity. 

I did not like the show. At first I more than hopeful. The first episode did not really bother me. Aging the kids up was a choice, but sexualizing Rand and Egwene is going to pull the rug out from under things that would otherwise happen later. So, they made a bigger change to the story than just aging them up and advancing their relationship. Perrin being married widowed also pulls the rug out of a lot that is yet to come. Does it set up ONE way to explain his rage/hesitancy about violence? Yes, but there are many ways to do that, his size and strength are one such way as that is a big part of it in the books. Trepidation over the wolf thing and wanting to retain his humanity is also good enough. But, it also makes you question why are Rand and Egwene not married already if Perrin is married to his second choice? The change just creates more problems than it fixes. The whole Rand/Perrin/Matt understand women better than Matt/Perrin/Rand thing has been removed, but it was kinda hokey anyway. And Faile gets to be jealous over a dead woman, so that's something that might help people-- if that is seen as a reasonable choice. Her jealousy bothers some readers. It also undercuts the way Rand will be lead around like a 14 year old boy by what we're repeatedly told is the hottest woman EV-AH!. So, that's episode one. It went down hill from there, gradually but with amazing acceleration.

I think the show was lame and not worth the time I gave it. By episode five I watched it when it was convenient. By the last episode, I had to talk myself into finishing the season. After giving up on trying to get it play in English lol, I finished it, and I'm be done with it. The show has been cancelled after one season, on my devices. Too many episodes had me saying "what the hell am I watching.

Some cool action sequences, some lame. Logain was great, and his realization that he can't be the Dragon, because Nynaeve blew his mind, was cool. He's a great actor. There was some great acting, some not so great. But as great as I found Logain (and that is very changed from the books, so your initial theory about why I didn't like it (which ignores what I actually said, thank you) needs some retro-fitting) the amping of Nynaeve, the lack of a need for training for all of it, is dreadful and pathetic writing and planning. What is the magic system? With magic you can do anything? May as well be. Some great editing (something you're not supposed to notice unless you seen bad editing or like know just enough about production to notice it), ridiculously bad writing. "She has a tell" ? Nah. That might be the worst line of series. Nynaeve's braid tug was nicely done by the actor. Great gesture work, an often overlooked part of acting, on her part. 

But, my comment was mostly about how you do not go get new fans and then hope to bring in the book readers by swinging back to the books after ignoring them to tell a different story. One reason to stay as true to the source as possible early on is to keep as much of your initial target audience as possible-- readers of a loved, but also not loved by some, niche book series in a niche genre. GoT may have opened the doors for this kind of thing, bringing to TV something less famous than LoTR while still following in Peter Jackson's success, but initial audiences for an established product will be the existing fans of that established product. GoT grew from word of mouth coming from the mouths of happy fans of the books series. What you described, if that is what Rafe is doing, reversed that process: going after new audiences at the decided expense of established ones gets it backwards. But I don't think they are doing that.  

I think he and the writers are doing what I said I think they are doing: wrapping their ideas and their stories in as little of Jordan's story as needed, telling their stories using his landscape and his characters. I won't know for sure though as the show has been cancelled, on my devices anyway. 

1 hour ago, William Seahill said:

How did the show hold up for me?  I can’t wait to see what happens next season.  At the same time, while it’s good that Rafe brought WoT to a broader audience, he’s going to need to follow the source material a little more closely in order to reach longtime book fans and keep them engaged (without driving away that broader audience).  

I’m halfway through EotW, and noticing narrative differences between it and s1.  (For example, Rand and Mat meeting Thom in EF, and not in some mining town after escaping SL.)

That's not the order that kind of thing is ever done though. It is like driving out of your drive way to pick up your drinking buddies for a night on the town, and then circling back to pick up the kids at home to take them to school. The people most likely to start the show from the beginning are not just readers of the books, but lovers of the books. They loved what was in the books, not weird funeral rituals they literally admit had to go find elsewhere from examples in the real world, not all the other stuff Rafe made up. 

I don't think the creators are doing what you think they are doing. I think they have ideas they have not sold as their own original programs or movies and they are using the opportunity to work on a show, any show, to write the show they want to write. It is a bait and switch. Oh, you wanted wheel of time? You're getting their stories inserted into the roughest outline of Jordan's story, using Jordan's characters and Jordan's places. 

2 hours ago, William Seahill said:

My dad couldn’t understand the need for the magic system in WoT to be split Male/Female, I don’t get it either.     

1 hour ago, Raal Gurniss said:

 

Yin-yang inspired and a plot device..It’s one of the core principles of the entire story.

 

I mean you could get rid of it, but you would have to do some considerable re-writing.

In addition to what Raal said, it helps to make Rand more isolated. He has to make it as he goes and can't really trust anyone he might learn from. That males go crazy from it makes all male users potential adversaries to Rand, so it is not just an integral part of the world RJ created but it makes Rand's journey very much his journey. Someone else pointed out maybe in another thread how much Rand fights against the idea of being the Dragon reborn. It's all part of the male/female division in the magic system and the subsequent fact that males were not allowed to just become the menaces they inevitably become.