i'm not going to debate the general point on "too different", on some levels it is. but mentioning elaine is actually a prime example of a justified change. namely, why would the tv show need to devote a lot of screen time - after already cutting a lot of important plots - to something that has no real consequence? you can cut away the early caemlyn sequence and it has absolutely 0 impact on the plot, everything that happens afterwards works the same. you recognize the importance of cutting something, that's one of the first things you can cut. besides, there are problems with hiring actors for an early cameo. you hire elaine for season 1, now you have an actress for her, which you'll need in season 2. except that maybe she'll be hired for other projects and she won't be available, so you have to pay her extra to gain the right to call her. and morgase, and gareth bryne, and elaida. you have to hire a bunch of actors, and pay them to turn off future contracts. it's a big cost, and a big hassle. those early cameos for characters that would be important later worked great in the books, where the characters wouldn't need to be paid. in tv format, it's terrible. add in the need to cut stuff, and how they were already short in characterization... that was a good change.

frankly, the more time passes without announcements, the more i expect the show will be canceled after season 3 or 4. they can't go on with a season every 2 years anyway. the protagonists will be 40 by the time it's done

yeah, it's not like you actually need rafe's assent to say "the books are canon"

thinking some more about it, though, i came to the conclusion that the original prologue may have worked better. a modified version of the original prologue. see, if the problem is that the prologue was confusing because of all those obscure names and references and flowery speech, just remove all of that and have ishy be a bit more direct, give the viewers a bit of an easier time picking what's important from what's meant to create an ominous atmosphere. of course, given that the show tried too hard to create a dark atmosphere, it may just have focused on the wrong stuff. I'm now picturing a black palace with walls painted black, with black burn marks, with dried blood (blood turns black after a while), which a black-clad ishy, because we must use lots of black to show we're serious. to show ltt is the champion of the light, they would put him in just a grey robe. dark grey, we don't want people to think this is a children show! really, i've seen some trailers that actually made my laugh by how much they abused the dark palette.

you are right, those were good scenes. probably what kept me hooked until i got to the later books. i liked perrin, once we got to know him better when he's separated. i liked tam and thom, and was sad to see them put on a bus. i had a strong dislike of early mat. pranksters like him tend to hurt people. as a teacher, i had to deal with several such people, and they're all like "but it was a joke, i didn't think people could actually get hurt". back when i first read wot I wasn't a teacher yet, but i still had the same dislike. i didn't feel strongly for rand either way, but he was always very antagonistic to moiraine, even when she wasn't doing anything wrong. i mean, there's this guy in your dreams, he could be the dark one, and you don't ask the aes sedai for help? i understand mistrust, but come on, it's like having an armed robber in the house and not calling the police because you heard they are all fascists. not to mention believing his lies and holding them against moiraine. in short, i have little patience for fools, and that includes most of the main cast. i liked them better later.

that's an important point. by now, i know that if there is a prologue to a long piece of epic fantasy set thousands of years in the past, my reaction should be "heh, don't worry about any of that. it will make sense later". on a tv show, with a public not accustomed to reading fantasy, it's less likely to work. incidentally, all my memories of the first part of the first book are bad ones. it starts with a huge wall of name-drops that left me confused. then the action moves to a bunch of rural characters doing nothing interesting whatsoever for several chapters. i don't think i liked any of the main characters at first? and i remember spending the first few hundred pages feeling like it was a lord of the ring ripoff. i'm not sure what made me want to continue reading until I got to the good parts. i said it many times: the whole beginning of the wheel of time is rather weak. changing it is generally good, though not all the changes were well executed.

how is that self-contained and not confusing? the prologue drops several dozen names out of context, and you have no way of knowing which will be relevant. the first time i read the prologue, i didn't got anything about any of that. my reaction was something like... so, there was this crazy guy... who clearly had been someone important, before going crazy... and there is this other guy... from the way he acts, he appears to be a villain... and here they are dropping a bunch of names that i have no idea what they are... tain? ilyena? shai'tan? betrayer of hope? dragon? ring of tamyrlin? nine rods of dominion? what is any of that? and now it seems it was the crazy guy who killed his wife? so he commits suicide with some kind of magic? who is this guy? who is the villain guy? and how is any of that relevant to a first chapter that starts thousands of years later? perhaps the prologue introduced those concept you say, but they were mixed with so many other stuff, it didn't stick with me. maybe now i'd be more experienced and i would be able to pick what's important in that prologue aside from what's fluff. but at the time i first read, i could not.

i remember a thread years ago on that point, and it was highly controversial. while some fans loved that, others - myself included - found themselves utterly confused by the name drop and lore drop, and had no idea what happened. now, after reading the whole book saga three or four times, i can appreciate the original start and all its subtle calls to the wide lore. but as a new reader? not at all. for every spectator that would have been hooked, there would have been another that would stop the view and review-bomb the show for being utterly uncomprehensible

the stepin story arc was extremely well received among non-book readers. at least, that's anedoctical, but i have a handful of friends who didn't read the books and agree on that. so, you'd have removed one of the most successful story arcs, and put in its place... I don't know, maybe 20 minutes of nynaeve pulling her brain and egwene sniffing instead? to be more faithful to the books? frankly, your answer is not an answer. it doesn't address any of the points i raised, and the one actual suggestion - removing stepin's arc - would likely have a negative impact.

that said, the AI will follow instructions. with how the books are, probably most of that AI adaptation would be characters standing still with a voiceover for internal monologue. not sure it would be better than the rafe version. however, take cuts from both versions and you may get your dream adaptation after all

I'm concerned about the lack of news about season 4. if they want to air a season before greenlighting the next one, they won't be able to launch more than one season every 2 years. which is way too slow

they are still filming? too slow pacing. they will never get 8 seasons at this rate. I bet it will be canceled between seasons 3 and 5

yes, i do agree that those dialogues should have been included, as they were important. i still think, though, that major changes would have been inevitable anyway. the things you mention would have helped, but they can only go so far. and when condensing the plot, you can't just cut out parts, you have to create something new to move the characters in the same way but less screen time. finally, some parts of the books needed changes because they were genuinely bad. yes, i am looking specifically at the end of book 1. as poorly as it was performed in the first season, it's probably still an improvement over the book. making people in relationship not seem insane is another step up.

lan is not a stoic man of action who shows little emotion. lan is a stoic man of action who shows little emotion but has depth. you can totally show lan being stoic, but you lose all his character. he just becomes another stereotype. besides, Lan was an example for a general, very common theme: almost every single character in the books is good at keeping a very straight face while undergoing inner turmoil - which we know by pow or are informed in some other way. if you show them on show with a straiught face, you miss the inner turmoil. it was a direct response to your comment that showing rand kneeling in front of siuan completely changes his character, because he allowed his insecurity to show. well, in tv, if a character does not show visible reactions, then he's not reacting. in the book, often the pow character muses on how the other guy is slightly flicking the finger, which indicates great surprise because it broke their perfect mask for a second. in tv, 99.9% of viewers would miss the clue, the remaining one will think it a nervous tic of the actor.

so, in the book we were in his mind and we saw him maintain a strong face while he was crapping himself. great. how exactly would you show that in the tv show? if you show rand maintaining a strong front, the viewers will never know he's in trouble. in fact, they may think he's an idiot who don't know the danger. this is another of those cases where a scene just doesn't work in a different media. hence it must be adapted with something else. In the same way, I wonder how a book accurate Lan would work in tv. I guess they could just sculpt a human figure out of granite and put it in front of the camera; it would have the book accurate facial expressivity and they would save the money on hiring an actor.