On 8/31/2020 at 7:40 AM, johnnysd said:

 

To be honest I thought in the books one of the sort of inside jokes was that Elayne cursed almost as well as UNO, I don't remember her being inexperienced.

 

One fun way to handle cursing and to emphasize the different Ages in the story would be to have the Forsaken curse using modern curse words, but keep the Randlanders using the WoT curse words, and the Forsaken can make comment on it

Elayne is the main reason I asked this question. I think that we will get a different impression of her character if at first we think of her as a regal prissy princess and then the moment she's away from authoritative eyes she's an expert at "Sailor talk," and I think that will only come across if they are using real word curse words.

13 hours ago, Harldin said:

Inexperienced might be a better word, never heard it in the Palace but once outside she began to hear it a lot more and took a while to learn the Proper meanings and use the correct words at the correct pretext.  
Like in telling someone to go away, you might say Bl***y off instead of f*** off if you know its a swear word but don’t know the meaning.

Or she could try over using them in the wrong place, like kids do when they first learn them. But is was also her mom that said she had a saucy tongue.

1 hour ago, mistborn82 said:

I hope they keep the made up swearing as context usually means you can figure out what it corresponds to. Also it would be hilarious for Elayne's inept swearing and I don't think the real words would have the same effect. I won't not watch it if they change the swearing but it will be jarring.

Is she inept at swearing? I thought she had a "Saucy tongue." 

Related to this, what do you think they are going to do about the swearing. If they are going to have nudity and violence, there's no reason to hold back on the explicit language other than the fact that the books have their own version of swear words, which are going to sound really cheesy if they put those in the show. If you had a choice, would you rather they put book swears or modern swears in the show?

On 8/20/2020 at 6:28 PM, Thrasymachus said:

Yeah, she could be a prodigy and be younger than 30, but it's not very likely.  The only other clue I've found regarding her age is that she moved with her family to London when she was 10, but it doesn't say what year.  Someone could do a little digging and see if there's any publicly available info on her dad or mom that specifies what year they moved, but that's getting into creeper territory, imo.

I felt guilty about trying to look up her age, and worse when I got to a page that had her relationship status and list of Ex's. Still feel dirty about that. I did find a video of her doing stand up for five minutes, so that was fun and I retract saying she looks too serious.

I was watching the Patrick Stewart version of Macbeth, and lady Macbeth is so hauntingly creepy in it that I couldn't help but think she would make the perfect Lanfear. She's so hauntingly terrifying in the role, and still darkly beautiful. Anyways, I looked up the actress, and it's Kate Fleetwood who's been cast as Liandrin. Sorry for the interruption.

44 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

You know it's funny. I cannot find that actresses age at all. Aside from her film career (which isn't tiny!) she's a ghost. She could be 20, or she could be 30.

I probably shouldn't have assumed I knew her age. I thought the lady playing Siuan was in her late 20's/early 30's and not 52.

With Kae Alexander as Min, I like that they got someone who's proven themselves as a stage actress, and didn't go for any model type. I do have some concerns, that could be proven null and void by the time the show actually comes out. One, she looks very serious, which makes me worried that she won't be the snarky lovable regular gal of the series and more of a slow talking oracle type. And the only concern I have with her looking significantly older is that it might hint that they are going to kill her romantic storyline. If they keep it, awesome, good for the show featuring an older woman and younger man being in love. My concern is that they won't do that, and Elayne and Aviendha will be in a polyamorous relationship with Rand while Min will be more of a background advisor role. 

Still, excepted that the roles have been cast. Ready to move on to a future where I can come home from work and finally watch the premiere. 

This is more of a theoretical question than a practical one, since it revolves around the events of the later books, but I want to get your guy's opinion on this.

Obvious, it will be extremely heartbreaking when we see Madeleine Madden as Egwene collared as Damane, and triumphant when she's freed. It's a horrifying concept. However, in the books, if feels like when the main characters make uneasy alliances with the Seanchan, the Damane get used a lot for the cause of our heroes. Tylee uses them to help free Faile in Malden, and they are all over the last battle, Mat even using one to make a gateway so he can see the battlefield. 

My question is are we going to get to a point where the audience is just going to accept seeing women wearing collars being used for the cause of good? The alliance with the Seanchan makes sense, in that they can't fight an empire based on slavery and the existential doom of everything at the same time, but it feels like it's easier to read about a Damane doing things on the page that to see a woman on a leash being asked to do things by one of peoples favorite characters, and his reaction being "This is neat, why didn't I think of this before." 

So how would you like this handled? Should we show the characters being uncomfortable around them? Should they free them all? Or will it just look better if instead of being connected by the neck the A'dam gets connected wrist to wrist? 

Want to hear your alls thoughts...

35 minutes ago, Jsbrads2 said:

More Spoilers, Rand was right later when he was like we have to balefire them all. 
I very dislike “the good guys” letting very destructive people escape rather than killing them.

Also stilling isn’t that big a deal anymore because healing it is known. 

Agreed, though there's no evidence that any of the good guys have tried learning it, and is one of the forsaken likely to want to rescue Semirhage and heal her?

And agree on good guys. It's excusable that Nyneave let's Moghedien escape the first time, but Elayne knocks out the black sister who was tormenting Amethera and then just leaving her was stupid. Does it sound disturbing that I wish she would have taken her belt knife to stab the woman?

Leads to the heartbreaking line "He's already moved passed it." In his mind, hand's gone, move on.

Honestly, they should have balefire'd her in anyways. Or stilled her on the spot, so they could keep her alive and mostly harmless. Heroes in the series tend to do a lot of leaving the villains alive and hoping that other villains kill or enslave them for failing. 

3 hours ago, SinisterDeath said:

What about one of the sisters in book 2? That Moiraine goes and visits?

Also I imagine this as Cadsuane:

Honestly, I can't see this face and not think Elaida. 

How we feel about Tilda Swinton as Cadsuane? 

14 minutes ago, Dovie'andi se tovya sagain said:

 

I like that idea, I also think Kathy Bates would be a great Verin.

This would be perfect if Verin looked her age. Maybe some deaging effect that doesn't look creepy will be in order. 

Are they going all Harry Potter with the casting and not bringing in any American actors? I decided I really want to see Zooey Deschanel as Lanfear. It would be someone who is beautiful, but doesn't scream evil with her presence so that makes the character that much more fascinating. 

7 hours ago, Harldin said:

A bit if trivia for you.

There is actually a character in ASOIAF named 

Trebor Jordayne of house Jordayne,

Martin and Jordan were actually good friends, so a pretty fair chance there is some influences from WOT in ASOIAF, mind you that won’t stop some of the Show viewers claim that some stuff like Daes Da’mar has been stolen from GOT. 

I'm sure they were friends, just like I'm sure Martin would have loved to know Tolkien. But I think that the main Characters don't take the political theater in WoT as seriously as they should, and Martin would have wanted to show the consequences of that.

This is not fan casting, which is why I wanted to put this thread in the book section. I can't get into why Min is my favorite character right now but she is, even though a lot of what I love about her might be fan fiction I've written in my head. And I wanted to talk to everyone, especially the ladies on here, and get their thoughts on a possible body image crisis Min Farshaw might have had that kind of got ignored.

Book 6 & 7 is when Min finally get's to be with Rand, and even though she's still wearing coats and britches instead of dresses she makes an effort to make her attire more feminine and appealing to Rand, even though she struggles with the idea of changing herself for a boy. Kind of an annoying section in the book is when she slut shames Berelain and then immediately decides to get low cut blouses made for her. To a lot of fans minds, she's become the silly lover girl that she promised she wouldn't become. 

Lord of Chaos comes out 1994. A Game of Thrones comes out 1996, and we meet Arya Stark. I think George RR Martin was keeping up with WoT, and there are things in ASOI&F that respond to it. Firstly that in WoT, Daes Dae'mar is ridiculed by most of the protagonist throughout the series, and they usually prefer to use strength rather than play in this deadly game, so GRRM decided to show us what happens when someone is strong and noble, but bad at playing politics. We can dig deeper into that another time. But more importantly for this discussion is Arya Stark, who shares a lot of attributes with Min. It's not just that they both are tomboys, but that they have a kind of egalitarian sense of justice, both are smart, both seem to have an easier time making friends with old rough men than women their own age, and they both pretty much grow up having to look after themselves, although Min has her Aunts I guess. But it seems like GRRM wanted Arya to be a Min Farshaw with more integrity, that follows through on not being a damsel or lover girl. And so far Arya has followed through on this, on the books and the show.

Which brings us to Maisie Williams, who had the responsibility of bringing this character to life. The thing is that she was not only great playing Arya, but she was a fun personality off-screen, and talked freely about whatever was on her mind. So I want to draw your attention to this article that you guys might have seen already if you're GoT fans.

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/maisie-williams-arya-stark-game-of-thrones-affected-her-body-image

Basically playing a character that was supposed to be devoid of sexuality, and was suppose to be disguised as a boy while going through puberty effected her body image, and her relationship with femininity. After writing all this, I realize this might be a stretch in the point I was making, but it get's me thinking about the mixed messages women get about how to feel about the feminine. 

Reading the article about Maisie Williams is what got me thinking that maybe Min was having a kind of weird body image crisis in these two books that never got addressed. In fact, sadly, a lot of Min's trauma is never addressed, so I just kind of assumed it's always been there and that Jordan just forgot to tell us. The first conversation she hands with Rand does not leave us feeling like "Hey, Rand just talked to this pretty girl who gave him a prophecy, I wonder if they'll get together later" as much as "Rand just talked to this psycho lady who uses the same words the dark one used." Later on she's acknowledged as being pretty "despite" wearing boys clothing, and she seems like she appreciates being acknowledged for her looks, and being acknowledged as a sexual being, after resisting being this way for so long. Personally, I'm not a fan of the heeled boots, and would have loved it if Rand had just told her she could be herself at any point, but her changes in a way point to almost exactly what happened with Maisie Williams.

I'm not sure if I've described this as clearly as I would hope, and there might have been a key piece I left out, but I want to hear from you all. When I said particularly the ladies, that was mostly because I assume that Min is not as popular among female fans because she is the only major character in the books who's role is entirely dependent on their S/O, and also because I have the nerdy cliche in my head of nerdy fan girls who suddenly put on make up and dresses for the first time and are suddenly noticed by everyone around them. 

PS. It just got me thinking that someone like Daniel Radcliffe or Maisie Williams or Kit Harrington could be hired as consultants to tell Joshua Stradowski what it's like to have people only care about getting you to fulfill a destiny "completing a movie or Tv series of a beloved property" and not being acknowledged as a human being. Be good for preparing him to be dark Rand and whatever horrors being in a beloved property brings onto him.

I'd watch it

Out of curiosity, do you think they could possibly hold back the identities of Elayne and Min until the air date? If they got big names, the reveals might be kind of fun but kind of distracting. 

I say that if that's what they decide to do, they do it well. It would piss off everyone if they cast a female actress to play her and then pull a "Let the right one in" and just say she's trans. They'll have an uphill battle to win people over.

Same if they decide to make Aviendha a guy and have that character have a loving sibling relationship with Elayne. 

57 minutes ago, mistborn82 said:

@SammuelI think people are trying to make Min transgender based solely on the dresses like a boy thing unless I missed something official. Whereas Min just doesn't play by society roles and appearances of women in that world. If anything, I could see them giving Min more action scenes based on the fact she's not a shy retiring lass. I also think making Min transgender would do a disservice to her character.

totally agree. Without going to far off course, I do want her to be more action-y but I appreciate that she's not a channeler and doesn't have warrior training. The one thing I do want her to be able to do, and I don't know why it's not in the books, is her ability to see Darkfriends. I do wonder if they are going to do something queer with Rands character, based solely on the fact that the actor has done some queer cinema. 

1 hour ago, johnnysd said:

I think there are probably even within the WoT production crew differences of opinion and then it needs to be balanced against Amazon's own wishes.

 

In terms of Amazon, there does not seem to be a prevalence of gratuitous nudity in their original series even in very adult shows like The Boys despite tons of very sexual situations. On the other hand, the two most successful fantasy shows GOT and The Witcher have TONS of nudity and "sexposition". I doubt Amazon has not noted the correlation. Also, keep in mind that they are also doing a LOTR TV show and it would make sense to keep the PG-13 element that the movies had.

 

If the show were on HBO or Starz it would definitely be very sexual and tons of nudity. But even Netflix seems to be shying away from nudity in their shows, sort of like Amazon.

 

In many shows it now seems more acceptable to show male nudity than female nudity probably as a reaction to exploitation of women.

 

Rafe has said that he wants the show to be "adult, but accessible". He has also said that if something is really adult in the show there might be alternative ways to watch that episode in a more family friendly way. The casting has been very diverse and I think sexual orientation will be very diverse and well represented as well in the show. He has said that there would be "pillow friends out the wazoo" and that Rands love life will not be polygamous but polyamorous.

 

Now we know outside of Rosamund that most of the main characters will require nudity. 

 

The initial write ups seem to make it a point to appeal to women.

 

So in the end I think that Amazon in a bold move might actually have two versions of the show, one TV-MA and one TV-14 with the TV-14 one maybe syndicated as well to more restrictive markets.

 

From what Rafe has said in his vision I don't think they are going to show a lot of frontal female nudity and explicit sex scenes. I think we will see a lot of butts both male and female, side boob, and mostly bra and strategically placed sheet sex, with maybe some very brief boobs. I don't see them going full frontal, and I suspect if they do it will more likely be male than female. There will be male-male sexual relationships which are only broadly hinted at in the books. My personal theory is that Rafe has transgendered Min.

 

However, it is also possible than Amazon will push more for the GOT and Witcher appeal, so if they do create an adult and a "more accessible" version, the TV-MA version might have much more nudity and sexual scenes that are either extended scenes or scenes that could be cut entirely.

 

I am sure it is a bit of a tug of war. The interesting thing about WoT is that it is sort of an X-rated, NC-17 show told from a PG-13 standpoint so they can do the show successfully at any point in that spectrum.

 

 

 

I just watched the conversation on the Dusty Wheel about this: 

I think that there are two ways they can go. First way, all the nudity is only related to sexual situations, and that it's just butt and boobs and suggestive shots. Second way, if they want to show all the ritual nudity and situations related to characters being shamed, then just go full front with it and don't act like you're trying to hide anything. A lot of the ritual nudity is problematic, because it mostly revolves around the women, and at the same time there's this weird dynamic where all the female channelers need to remain chaste while the men at the black tower are allowed to have families, but that's a different discussion, but there's a lot of fetishized nudity in the show, and they can either exploit it and suffer the outcry or pull back on it. 

I have to confess I am uncomfortable about the suggestion about Min being transgendered. It's better than not having her in the show at all, which I've heard suggested, but she is my favorite character in the series, and I'd be anxious about this change up until the show is actually aired. And I honestly am not sure if this makes me a bad ignorant person. 

(By the way, and I've mentioned this before, Min is the only major female character that doesn't get a non-sexual nudity scene, and most of that non-sexual nudity feels like it's meant to disempower and humble powerful women like Nyneave, Faile, and even Siuan. I have a feeling that Min doesn't get this treatment because she's not a powerful character, in that she's not a channeler or a ruler, so doesn't need to get humbled. But she does used a lot of bondage language though for some reason.) 

On 7/26/2020 at 10:03 PM, Leighla said:

I'm listening to Towers of Midnight right now and I CANNOT stand the voice she uses for Min. Why did she change it all of a sudden? Now every time Min starts with "Rand..." my nerves get frayed just a little bit more. That's the voice she should have used for a character we are supposed to hate.

I had a job that allowed me to listen to the audiobooks, and without it I might not have been able to read the series, although conversely if I hadn't had Wheel of Time and other audiobooks, I probably wouldn't have stayed at that job for so long.

They do some weird stuff with the voice changes, and It's really fascinating to me. Particularly Min, who Kramer made sound like a straight up villain in the first book. It's an amazing contrast to the scene in LoC where she says she can spy on the lords by draping herself on him and feeding her grapes. I kinda wish they would do that for the TV show, make the audience feel uneasy about her. Could be fun.

Maybe they won't do it because the show is coming out but I would love if they did something similar to the His Dark Materials full cast audiobooks. Those were great.

I'm wondering how many important settings are going to be in Season one. It's probably going to be hella inconvenient if they they have a new setting per episode. If I think back on GoT season 1 mostly had 4 or 5 major settings. eye of the world, because it's a journey, should have"

The Two Rivers

Baerlon = can be cut if they put Min some in Caemlyn, but need to include her,

Shaddar Logoth

The inns Rand and Mat go to, although it could be the same building and they shoot a different corner each time.

Caemlyn

Shinar

The blight

If they continue into the great hunt, then it will show Tar Valon and probably Cairhien. What can be cut to reduce budget cost, so that they can deal with them later?

On 7/10/2020 at 10:54 AM, Elder_Haman said:

 

And what about Natalie Dormer for Selene/Lanfear?

I love that. She has that kind of evil beauty about here, and the only worry is that she'll think it's too similar to her GoT character. 

There are some characters I kind of want an unknown for, which is a gigantic risk for the story but hopefully turns out to be worth it. Min is definitely one of those cases. I remember first reading the books and just completely overlooking her significance to the future of the story, which fits well with her character. Probably too risky to do. The lazy answer for Min would be another GoT actress, Maisie Williams, but I'd kind of like seeing Kelly Marie Tran, the lady that plays Rose Tico in Star Wars, if that experience has not traumatized her into retirement. 

Also, I think Hailee Steinfeld for Faile might work.

3 hours ago, SinisterDeath said:

First post in "introduce yourself"

Specifically this link on that first post.

@Barmacral

Much Obliged

I've been starting of a reread of the books this month, and it seems like the threat of spankings is more prominent than actual spankings, and like a lot of you said, it's usually women on women. 

I think there's a strong SM theme that runs throughout the series, even down to females surrendering to Saidar versus the men fighting with Saidin. (Honestly, there will probably be people upset about the gender binary nature of this world. There's no spectrum of Saidin and Saidar.) There is also a great amount of female nudity that has nothing to do with sex, but does have a lot to do with humiliation and disempowerment, and that's going to get a lot of people upset. There was a line in "Good Omens" about how most books of witches describe them as always doing their rituals naked because most book about witches are written by men, and I think that applies here. 

If they put this stuff in the show, it will get complained about. They will also get a good number of people interested in the show because of it. So are they going for a Game of Thrones type of gritty show with nudity and blood or are they making a wholesome family show? It's streaming, so the limit of what they can do is high. 

So if they are going to put spanking and nudity imbalance in the show, they should try to make it make sense instead of making in stand out, even if it was in the original source material. If a novice get's punished, do some knuckle wrapping. Let Siuan have a shift after her stilling. Have the Aiel allow their new Gai'shain to change once they get back to camp. 

On 6/5/2020 at 10:12 AM, Thrasymachus said:

More importantly, the races that Jordan does describe don't have real-world counterparts.  They're a mishmash of various cultures and races, in configurations that don't have real-world counterparts.

That's a thing that Jordan does brilliantly. I love the way the Aiel resemble the biblical hebrews, and it could work with the . I've seen a lot of fan art as Lan with a vague Japanese appearance, and I'd be down with an Asian Faile. 

I really wonder what they are going to do with the Seanchan. If they commit one ethnicity to playing them those people are probably going to get mad.