On 1/31/2022 at 4:26 PM, Deviations said:

 

 

“We're really enjoying working together. I couldn't ask for a better partner in terms of the love [story]line. We're excited about where that's gonna go.

 

 

That's the best either can say in this article.  Not, "Oh my god, how good is this story", or "The fan reaction has been so strong", or "just wait till you see what's coming next season, I'm not allowed to say but you won't be disappointed".....

putting aside the objections that were already raised....

seriously, do we really need to have actors say "Oh my god, how good is this story" in every interview? because i get the impression that it's what they say in every single interview. Kinda make me hope somebody somewhere will say "no, we're doing total crap, but we're paid for it"; i may watch that show just for the honesty ?

Just earlier today, a friend of mine was complaining how he's looking for a job and every single enterprise he checks claims in their site to be leader in their sector, to hire the best people, and somesuch. And interviews here are the same. the same garbage. we don't need the same old trite sentences on how good something is. our society could do with less gratuitous superlatives

And this is the best, deepest, most poignant post in the entire forum. I'd say just "in the entire discussion", but you may take it as a sign that I'm not really all that confident in my opinion if I couldn't say anything better....

18 hours ago, Andra said:

Another few inconsistencies/continuity errors:

 

According to the map in Amazon's bonus materials, the layout of the major geographic elements of the continent is approximately the same as the book.  Ghealdan is south of the Two Rivers, Tar Valon is northeast of them on an island in the middle of a north/south river, and Dragonmount is to its west.  Tear is all the way south, with the Fingers of the Dragon on the coast.

 

And yet ...

Though it's clearly at least early summer in the Two Rivers and Shadar Logoth, it snows during the burial scene after Kerene's death.  Approximately "three hours southwest" of Shadar Logoth.  Now granted the attack was a couple days after they met up, but it looks like they hadn't moved from the spot where Logaine's cage was kept in a cave.

is it clearly summer? I get no indication of weather anytime except during the burial, but everyone seem dressed heavily, which is more consistent with winter. mat even complains about cold. bel tine is also supposed to happen in winter.

Quote

The Fingers of the Dragon is a river delta.  In Siuan's cold open, their riverside shack is next to several mountains.  Which river deltas don't have.

the extras say that the river delta cuts through some limestone cliffs.

I'm not sure how much geologically plausible it is. I know that they only put cliffs there because they look good.

By the way, is it possible to edit the thread title?

Whenever i see "where is bella", i envision an unholy wot-twilight crossover ?

6 hours ago, Sir_Charrid said:

See you have this opinion, I have tried 3 of Brandons own books now, the only author I cant actually finish, I find his stories contrived, don’t like his world building and find his books generally feel like teenage fiction not adult fantasy. I would possibly dislike a Brandon tv show based off his own writing. 

I won't dispute artistic preferences, because tastes cannot be argued, but there is one point i have to ask:

You like wot, with the whole concept of the pattern causing the most contrived coincidences to happen to - we could call it to "railroad the plot". With ta'veren being focuses for all those unlikely coincidences to happen, and the whole plot moved by that.

And yet you find sanderson's books to be contrieved?

otoh, i never liked the whole "eye of the world" business in the book. it appears in book 1 as a sort of macguffin, it's used in a poorly explained scene, then - excepting that rhuidean flashback - it's never seen or mentioned again. and i'd argue that none of what happened there was all that important or had long-term consequences on the plot. rand gets a surge of power to temporarily defeat ishy. rand is handed a couple of plot items that he could have gotten somewhere else.

i always felt the eye of the world was there only because rj needed some kind of resolution for book 1.

56 minutes ago, Jaysen Gore said:

 

 

IT's like he's trying to make a 64 episode binge-able series for the ages, where - after all is said and done - the emotional beats of the series won't be tied to the production schedule at all

Yes, he's trying to do that.

And it's good. It's quintessentially wheel of time. RJ also decided to write a bingeable book series where the emotional beats are not tied to production schedule, and he did, and most fans like wot that way.

That may or may not work with tv audiences

Or maybe they did know the dragon would be man in the AoL, but the knowledge got lost - or at least became uncertain. As the argument between moiraine and siuan went, they are translations of translations of translations, who knows what got mixed up?

11 hours ago, SingleMort said:

come on man enough with the derogatory names for people. You'll call them something, they'll call you something back and it just goes on and on and on. If you want people to find common ground stop giving them the finger. Much as I disagree and was surprised at someone finding episode 8 their favourite I did actually agree with most of the other points they discuss.

 

Personally I'm not sure Brandon could have done it better. Brandon is a good writer but that doesn't necessarily mean he'd make a good showrunner because books and TV are very different mediums. I think the best option would be if Brandon was more involved with the show if he was an active part of the writing or at least someone who could be in the "room" (physical or virtual) with the writers. But I also understand that might be tough because he's got he's probably very busy with his own stories and can't afford to make WoT his fulltime job.  

Actually, i wasn't aware that bookcloak was derogatory. I heard that they have their own reddit subforum where they call themselves thusly, so i figured it was a neutral designation.

And i agree that brandon may not be the best scriptwriter. But he's an awesome storyteller, so they should probably listen to him for plot structure.

When brandon descrived nyn and egw fighting at fal dara, realizing they are not trained enough to be effective, lan helping nyn and protecting her like he did moiraine... I though, what a wonderful chance we missed

Brandon: I think rafe has done a good job

All the rest of us: but Brandon could have done it better

This, I think, is where supporters of the show and bookcloaks can find common ground

9 hours ago, Andra said:

 

I would say that the simplest explanation is that in Rafeworld there's no such thing as male or female sa'angreals.  There really has been no clear messaging in the show that they use separate powers and would therefore also use different "amplifiers."

 

Even the explanations for why men can't safely channel don't actually say it's because they draw from a different Source.

 

So Moiraine brought something that either one could use, regardless of who it ended up being.

Doesn't hold. If moiraine had a sa'angreal that she herself could use, then she herself would have used it, in emond field.

The show did sacrifice a bit of consistency in the name of what looks good, but there's no plot hole of that level of magnitude, and i trust the writers that far: if moiraine had a super oowerful weapon, she'd have used it.

Now, the writers not having thought of a backup plan for a woman dragon, that's the kind of lesser plot hole i totally think they can make

1 hour ago, ilovezam said:

Then why bother getting a sa'angreal for Rand?

the simplest explanation there is that moiraine had access to a male sa'angreal. perhaps it was just another object in the storeroom and nobody else knew what it was. perhaps she could sneak it out with siuan complicity.

female sa'angreal, on the other hand, are very coveted by the aes sedai, and moiraine could not have snuck one out of the tower.

It's certainly not a matter of "bothering to get one". moiraine would have certainly gotten a female angreal for her if she could have gotten her hands on one.

1 hour ago, AdamA said:

It's the kind of thing you can't replicate on television, at least not easily. Arguably, Dark did a pretty good job, but that was also a long-time passion project where the writers had spent over a decade developing the idea before ever turning it into a television show. Trying to keep that level of internal consistency is difficult, it not impossible, when you've got 20 writers and 20 editors that need to stay in sync and they've got a few months every year to deliver a season's worth of writing on time before filming begins. They can't just take however long it takes to get it right the way an author can. I don't believe Rafe and company have any realistic chance to write something up to the task of being called Wheel of Time if they try to do it on their own following only the path of hitting every major event but freewheeling it on how we get there. Doing that is exactly what killed the last few Game of Thrones seasons, and those writers and show runners had a lot more on their resumes and proved they can do good work previously, which I don't see from the Wheel of Time TV team.

alas, you made the most compelling argument for the show never being able to live up to the books. the bookcloaks calling the show any kind of crap didn't faze my general enjoyment of it, but a clear analysis of why it's almost impossible for the writing team to do any better than what they did? ouch!

on the plus side, there are great scenes and plots and i will merge them with the book canon. when padan fain recounts of logain conquering ghealdan, i will envision his badass scene on the castle. when rand is born on the slopes of dragonmount, I'll see the blood snow fight. when ila defends the way of the leaf, i'll take her tv version - she did a much better job than the book version. the visual representation of the trollocs beats any description the books could make.

so, even if the show stays at the current level of mixed quality, i'll have something to be happy about

33 minutes ago, Cauthonfan4 said:

I definitely agree, [change] was probably a better decision

Unfortunately they have failed to execute

 

isn't it the same thing I expressed? good ideas, passable execution.

7 hours ago, ilovezam said:

And yet Twitter is just about the only place where you can find people who think that the book series needed to be given a feminist makeover like Rafe said he would. I think most of us just want a good coherent show.

no, gender dinamics is a top complaint about wot among critics. you may claim critics also don't represent the majority, and it's true, but then, nothing does represent that silent majority anyway, you've got to base your judgments on something.

anyway, the portrayal of gender was terrible; the "why I gave up reading wheel of time" review sums up perfectly the problems with it.

The show does genuinely improve on it; there are several things in the show that are genuinely better than their book counterparts. Unfortunately, the show also ended up turning every male character into a useless moron; here the books did better.

Ultimately, I believe there are a lot of changes that the show does that are improvements over the original books; expanding the scope of the world early, rather than having a classic fantasy quest, improves the story. Making moiraine the main character improves the story, she's a lot more interesting than three paesants. Showing Logain improves the story, he's got some very cool scenes. Not presenting all men as quiet and stoic, and all women as manipulative, improves the story.

Unfortunately, Rafe and his writing team are nowhere near as good narrators as RJ was. Furthermore, TV is not a good medium to show an expanded story in a large world with multiple characters and a lot of introspection. And Rafe&coworkers have fallen victims of the common pitfalls of movies, i.e. prioritize what looks good over what makes sense.

so, wottv ends up as a potentially better story than the books, but more poorly narrated.

I often see comparison with the witcher, and I just finished watching S2, and I'm pretty underwhelmed. I liked S1, but the whole plot is messed up.

It's actually very similar to WoT: a lot of hype, good acting, a lot of good moments, but there's something you feel is missing. Except in wot I can tell why they did stuff, and in witcher I cannot. Also, in wot they may have given weak characterization to the main characters, but in witcher I couldn't even recognize most of the secondary characters.

it's very rare to find a good battle in television. they prioritize what looks good over what makes sense.

I can only find good surprises there, because I expect very little.

Ok, rand is revealed as the dragon, moiraine brings him to the eye, rand asks what he's supposed to do, moiraine hands him a male sa'angreal. basically says, with this you'll be super strong, point it to the DO and shoot

but what if the dragon had turned out to be egwene? moiraine certainly does not have a female sa'angreal, or she would have used it in battle. so she would have told... take your puny untrained power, point it to the DO and shoot? what would moiraine have done with a female dragon?

7 hours ago, JenniferL said:

My guess is that they will announce season three closer to the release of season two. 

But is that feasible? If they want one season per year - they must, if they don't want the actors to get too old - then they must start production soon enogh. And if they start filming S3, there's no way it won't leak.

Conversely, if S2 airs and still nobody is working on S3, it would mean cancellation

8 hours ago, Cauthonfan4 said:

I think he's referring to the hobbit. Which frankly is a terrible deflection.

no, I'm talking that the wottv didn't adapt just the eye of the world, it pulled in plots from other books. all the parts concerning the aes sedai, which in the books are not introduced until later.

the point was raised in the past, somebody even made the calculation of book words to minute of screentime, and wottv had twice as much words per minute of footage.

the show had a lot of good, a lot of weaknesses, many of those weaknesses stem directly from reduced screentime. it is a commonly held opinion - not just mine, but shared by many recensions i read - that the show could have done a lot better with 10 hours instead of 8

9 hours ago, SingleMort said:

It's a nice idea but I think the biggest problems with the show are not due to length. A review I saw mentioned the Lord of the Rings movies and how the whole trilogy is about as long as this first season of WoT but those movies flowed so much better and felt so much more epic and grand with much better writing. It's not just how long something is that makes it good or not it's what you do with that time. LoTR movies cut a lot of stuff from the books but all the scenes they left had weight and purpose and built the story to an epic crescendo. The characters were fleshed and inspiring and the audience was invested in them and the special effects still hold up today 20 years later. I think there should have been more episodes to WoT but there were many things they need to improve on that have nothing to do with length.

no, the main problems were not due to lenght, but lenght contributed. do not forget that lotr adapted a single book into 9 hours, and there's still a special extended edition adding two hours to that. while wot adapted the first book and also other plot threads from later books.

Sure, the writing could have been better and that would not be fixed by more time, but a lot of other problems could be

12 minutes ago, Spiritweaver1 said:

 

One of the actual strengths of the books are the diversity of cultures and attitudes portrayed even if it was sometimes a bit laborious.    The show, so far, seems to be trying to eliminate all of that. 

 

actually, there is some of that. you can see that different regions are influenced by different real-world cultures. the woman in charge of making costumes even has a map of randland divided by cultural influences.

aside from that, we have seen the two rivers, the tinkers, the aes sedai, the borderlands. all those places are different and show different cultures.

if the show is losing some nuances - actually, it is losing a lot in worldbuilding -, I am more likely to pin it to tv being inadequate to represent such things for time and pace reasons.

23 minutes ago, Cauthonfan4 said:

Sarah nakamura literally defended episode 8.

Literally this site is full of people defending literally everything you could point out.

The writing has been defended. 

The lack of development of the men has been defended. 

The crappy lighting and outfits have been defended.

The super power ranger nynaeve has been defended.

Even "moiraine has a tell" was defended.

The changes to EF and the EF 5 have been defended.

The 4th Oath was defended.

The aes sedai bad politics were defended

Even making men incompetent has been defended. 

Nonono, don't try to turn the table. 

There isn't a single fan here who wouldn't acknowledge the problems with the show. I haven't seen anyone doing what you describe here. 

Sure, a lot of fans defend the show. We like it despote the limitations. And we can "defend" some of them, in a "here i see what they wanted to achieve, they missed the mark", "what they did here actually works", "this other thing is not a big deal". But literally nobody denies the show has weaknesses.

The bookcloaks, though? 

"The show is crap"

"The show is horrible"

"The show is appalling"

"The show is vomit inducing"

"They didn't get a single thing right"

"Everyone who says anything posite on the show is a fraud"

I can easily produce dozens of relevant quotes. Don't you try to pass the other people as the prejudiced ones

i don't care about how different it is; i must have a limit somewhere, but i can take a lot more than the changes they made in the show. worst case, i could watch a show and enjoy it without considering it an actual adaptation of a book.

what i do care is if it's well done.

2 hours ago, Gothic Flame said:

Compare; books vs tv show. The variable = respect for men.

Books...more

TV show...not so much.

 

in several aspects, the tv show treats men a lot better than the books. for example, men are not dim-witted about women in the tv show. And they also don't have all the stupid bravado and toxic masculinity that the book tries to depict as innate for men. warders in the tv show are depicted as true companions; in the books, their interactions basically amounted to out-staring each other.

however, the tv show has made men a lot less capable. tam losing to a single trolloc. the women of emond field killing a trolloc. lan entering shadar logoth without a plan for dealing with mashadar, without even telling anyone of mashadar. nynaeve getting lan at dagger point. stepin accidentally giving logain the chance to break free. lan failing to prevent stepin's suicide. egwene doing all the job when escaping eamon valda, perrin not even throwing a punch when freed. Lord Agelmar turned into an incompetent leader, getting killed with all his men, and five women destroying the whole trolloc army.

None of those episodes is problematic by itself; each and every one of them can be justified.

But, when weighted all together, they all point in the same direction. It's not as bad as men only being damsels in distress - Lan was really badass protecting moiraine in emond field fight, thom merrilin was totally cool in everything he did (we didn't get enough of him), rand and mat handled themselves competently when isolated. Still, most awesome moments were given to women, and most blunders were made by men.

So, the show is treating men better than the books in some regards, worse in some others.

It is, however, treating women a lot better than the books. I haven't noticed a single sniffing or hair-pulling in the whole show

8 hours ago, Pembie said:

Is it worth watching or is it too far from the novels I hope they miss out a lot of the political stuff that really bogs the story down for me 

Depends on tastes. They changed a lot, but kept the major plots from the book. The execution sometimes is good, sometimes is not. The acting is good.

In the end some fans liked it, some hated it. We can't say where you would fall in that. So i suggest you try watching it and decide.