Updating the FAQ would take up at least a year with 20-25 people. Or 6-8 very dedicated fans. But it would be good to updated up to KOD, with things like this (wink) Mary from Niniveh (Nynaeve al'Meara), because 'The Lord Dragon cares for her as for a mother.') Naturally, there are more serious issues than this little joke.
 

WOTFAQ - Sources

'At Easter mass this past spring, I saw an adult baptized for the first time in the Catholic faith. They get the person to kneel, pour water over their head, and say something like "Now you are sealed". I don't recall the exact words, but "sealed" was in it for sure and I recall thinking Jordan must be Catholic. Sounds a lot like becoming Accepted to me. [Judy G.]'

Instead of reports like this one, they should find a book about rituals, and present the real ceremony to us. I don't care about religion, but if you do a job, do it properly. 

Jordan: 'For Piercy, I am Episcopalian, though rather High Church.'

Finally, the FAQ is meaningless now: headcanons dominate on every level. And the TV Show will completely rewrite the series (putting Rand into the background, throwing out every dialogue and many storylines, moreover throwing out whole books, and distorting more and more things...)

Someone mentioned Encyclopaedia WoT: the site should offer the pure Jordan (up to KOD) version (and the tainted one if anyone cares about books not written by Jordan).

A few (rantish) thoughts, if I may.

Before Jordan's death it was so easy. A quote from the books or from an interview, and it was settled (almost - there are many things which can be interpreted in many ways). Now you quote from the books / interviews, and you are called 

gatekeeper (e.g. for saying read the books)

sexist (e.g. according to Jordan the Dragon is never female)

racist (see below)

homophobe (e.g. saying Loial, Rand, Elayne, Aviendha, Perrin etc is heterosexual)

liar (e.g. for quoting Sanderson's own words)

and similar names. 

Plus a ban, naturally, because faithfulness and accuracy to the books recently puts you into very bad light, because 'the books are dated, and modern audience cannot accept WOT in its original form'. I don't know anything about making TV series or 'modern' audience, but I read a lot reviews and posts, and it seems to me the majority of the viewers like faithful adaptations better than 'corrected / updated ones'. I can't defend storylines either because they are bad and boring. According to the recent fandom (especially on Reddit) Jordan's whole series is just a midden heap. (Why do they call themselves fans?) I disagree. 
 

One of the main message of the books that be more open to other cultures, other beliefs, and judging people on their outward appearance etc. is wrong. This is the whole point of WOT: Jordan wasn't a racist saying 'women with olive skins and dark eyes who were certainly not Andoran', he just described a quality, a trait which was typical before the New Breaking, but now thanks to Rand, the whole continent is getting more and more mixed up, and in the end it will probably reach the variety of the Seanchan. (Naturally we don't have many examples of that. Maybe I should say the variety of the Seanchan is unsettled without seeing Jordan's notes. One pov is not enough.) But right now you can easily say this man is from x, this woman is from y. Not just based on the color of his or her skin, but based on his or her facial features etc.

'The redness spread to cover nearly Siuan’s whole face; with her fair skin, it made her look like a sunset.' (Siuan describes herself as fair-skinned. (Almost as fair-skinned as Moirane (Moirane's pov, who is 'too' pale, and you know, she's from Cairhien).))

I got banned for this quote alone (I don't remember the name of the site/board/blog), because 'You are racist.'

As a human being I don't care about Siuan's skin color, eye color, height, garment, behavior etc. As a fan I care a lot about her skin color, eye color, height, garment, behavior etc.

When I replied to the moderators with this:

Jordan uses this expression 'it made her look like a sunset' exclusively for white people (Elayne blushed like a sunset, Nynaeve blushed for two; Nynaeve’s face as it reddened to shame two sunsets. Maybe three; Ten sunsets would not have done for Mat's face; Fiery sunsets paled beside Aviendha’s face; Reanne blushed a sunset)

I became an even bigger racist and a very toxic person, who cannot send even pms anymore.

In a similar way, Jordan uses 'knuckles white' exclusively describing white people.

But now I can't say / quote things like this, because I get immediately branded as a white supremacist. White supremacist my ***. But if you can't digest the fact that the main cast is white in Jordan's books, and the main cast was white in Jordan's head (see his casting choices), then you are the racist. I know that hating dead, white, heterosexual, Christian authors is in vogue in these days (e.g. Jane Austen etc. was/is the pinnacle of racism - this changes weekly), but there are so many other books out there you can read instead of WOT if you are not pleased with the series.

This is getting too long (thanks if you have read this post so far), so let's finish it.

See the case of Edorion who is described as pink-cheeked and plump (Mat's pov, Rand's pov), then he still pink-cheeked but not quite so plump as he had been (Rand's pov), then he became harder and sun-dark since coming north (Mat's pov), and according to Tuon Edorion is a dark, lean man. (Dark as a face that is not light in color, or as sullen or threatening? Maybe both.)

But how many readers care about details like that ones? How many? How many fans know the name Edorion at all? But these things (see Alarys' hair etc.) were important to Jordan. 

'This far north in Altara, they were fair rather than olive-complected, and some even had blue eyes' (Faile's pov)

Again, how many readers care about detail like that one? How many? But Jordan had crystal clear visualization of the people of different places, and it was important to him to write these things down.

maneuvering, apeing, flexible, hypnotize, stygian, catechism, moue, voyage, recalcitrant, unholy, preach, automatically etc. 
 

voyage - naturally, Merriam-Webster tells us the 'First Known Use of', so voyage is not really a young/modern word, but I prefer journey or even travel, because voyage feels so 'un-English'.

apeing - according to Elaida, who is often or rather always wrong, there is no such an animal, and despite what I just said I prefer mimicking, imitating.

catechism, unholy etcetc - 'Christianity' is a major part / foundation of the series, but words like this pull me out of the immersion. Did Jordan use them intentionally? 

On 5/24/2021 at 5:54 PM, DojoToad said:

Yes, you will. 

To be blunt, these numbers are pathetic. Under 2 or 4 million and they talk about gigantic success. But then everything is a gigantic success even when it just got cancelled. Worldwide numbers: when the weakest soap operas from Korea/Turkey/Germany/Italy/Mexico/Brazil can get bigger numbers easily...

The marketing team of The Witcher must be swimming in their sweats right now to fabricate (I mean, they will tell us the exact numbers, not some obscure thing) the proper numbers for S2. (No wonder they fired half of the production team. Yes, their biggest success, sure. Just trying to get the invested money.) 

And turning back to Shadow and Bone for a minute: now there are so desperate articles like this one (themarysue): 'Netflix’s Shadow and Bone Delivers Long Overdue Asian Diversity – The reason why I was drawn in by an adaptation of books I had never heard of at the time was simple: The protagonist, Alina Starkov, would be changed from white to half-Asian.' 
And it looks like the 'Asians' (!) did not tune in to see themselves represented. But, according to the author of the article, Jessie Mei Li is not 'full' (!) 'Asian' (!), just half-Asian (!), so maybe that was the main problem. (She, and the others, cannot act at all, but nobody cares about acting skills anymore. Especially on TV.)
Or maybe they do not like being called as 'Asians', instead of human beings. And it looks like there are zero original books with 'Asian' main characters to adapt, if you want to go on path of racism.

The budget is similar, because the makers of the Tv Show can say anything: x million, y million, z million, we will never know the exact number.

Or the sales numbers. For more than a decade the text next to the covers on Amazon proudly said: the series has sold more than 44 million copies in North America. And now? No numbers. Why? (There is no obligation to present a number, that goes without saying, but they should put out a number.)
 

(After SinisterDeath's message, I've decided that the goal of this thread will be a bigger one.)

1. In TFOH (chapter 39) we can read this sentence: 'Nynaeve saw faces as pale as that of any Andorman and as dark as that of any of the Sea Folk'

I do not want to talk about the truthfulness of this statement, I'd like to get an answer to a simple question from English speakers.

'any' means that every Andorman/Sea Folk, without exceptions, or mostly, or randomly chosen?

2. Sometimes it really takes out of the story when Jordan using words like 'arabesque' and similar words. I remember there was a thread on Wotmania/Theoryland, where native speakers told us that they are really bothered words (from our world) like this. Are you bothered too by 'modern' words, or is it just a minor problem, or that's not a problem for you at all.

3. So maybe we can use this thread talking about things like above.

The stories of Elaida, Egwene, Siuan are so similar to each other. The White Tower needs a new leader, so they choose an obedient figurehead. As the time goes by, they become real leaders. That's the 'official' story. But we see all the time that Aes Sedai principally care their own goals, they do/plot as they want. And they depose the Amyrlin Seat when they want to.

How do you see them: figureheads or real leaders?

Quote

 

https://screendirectors.eu/eu-filmmakers-call-on-global-streamers-to-commit-to-fair-negotiating-conditions-on-remuneration/

 

EU Filmmakers Call on Global Streamers to Commit to Fair Negotiating Conditions On Remuneration

 

 15 February 2021

 

In order to build healthy creative relationships, European filmmakers and their representative organisations need global streaming platforms to commit to 3 essential principles.

1. Transparency: Provide verified viewership figures to allow for fair negotiations

 

We very much welcome the willingness of global streaming services to engage in collective negotiations to set up remuneration models for worldwide exploitation, as entailed by the 2019 Copyright Directive. In this process, the communication of verified viewership data and statistics is essential for all parties involved to be able to assess the value of the rights and remuneration models being negotiated.

Article 19 of the 2019 Copyright Directive seeks to correct information asymmetry in contracts’ negotiation: without information on their works’ actual performance, authors and their representatives are negotiating blindfolded.

 

On 5/23/2021 at 5:55 PM, Thrasymachus said:

So I'll consider the TV series a success if it pushes WoT book sales past Meyer to reclaim the top spot.  I'd consider it gravy if it pushed the books past Chronicles of Narnia fame or began to challenge Tolkien.

Comparing Meyer to Jordan is like comparing Patterson to Joyce.

Has Narnia any fame today outside the UK and US? I think these books belong to the past now.

Challenging Tolkien: (I read many posts about the Tv Show being much more complex than the trilogy, well, Tv Shows still look like Tv Shows even in 2021) incomparable because of the trilogy: the numbers became so skewed.

Just a side note: on Amazon, for more than a decade, there was the magic number, 44 million copies sold in the US, and now it's gone. I wonder why they did it, and what the actual number is today. 

'numbers like “Shadow and Bone” will likely be considered disappointing.'

Don't worry. Marketing teams always find a spin, that's their job. According to them every show breaks records on every week.

Naturally, we will never know the exact numbers, but there are pr materials. (I will not bring it up that the population of the US is 332 million.)

Shadow and Bone, despite being hyped up to the sky, 'racked up 721 million minutes of viewing time (in 3 days), equivalent to an average audience of about 1.75 million viewers (based on its total running time of 413 minutes). It finished second among original series to The Falcon and the Winter Soldier on Disney+ (796 million) and third overall.'

The Boys (Amazon): According to Nielsen the first season of The Boys had attracted 8 million total viewers in its first 10 days of release (This must be a global number, because ‘Jack Ryan S2 topped Amazon’s ‘The Boys’ in viewership, Nielsen says the thriller averaged 4.6 million viewers'). 

According to Amazon, the second season had the most-watched global launch of an Amazon original series ever, with the episodes to date having grown the audience from Season 1 by 89%. 

Or you declare WOT successful, if it will not get cancelled?

And now there are hundreds (or even thousands) posts about the Color-shifting cloaks: suddenly everybody has a revelation that Color-shifting cloaks are stupid and pointless, and  they never made sense, and similar statements.

I have never heard or read anything bad about the Warders' cloaks on the boards since 1998, but now I know that I was wrong in the whole time.

It looks like Jordan's books have nothing else in them only senseless and bad things.

I'm not stirring anything. My first post can't be honest?

Since the announcing of the TV Show, one can't read anything else on Facebook, Reddit and in similar spaces that the writers of the Show have to re-write the whole storylines, the characters, because Jordan's books are awful. TEOTW is not important at all (nothing happens in the whole book), in TGH (only the battle is important) and similar posts. Not one or two posts but tons of them. There's no need of faithfulness to the books at all. And there are more and more posts about totally skipping half the series, because what Jordan wrote is rubbish, but fully filming Sanderdon's book goes without saying, because he's a master storyteller who fixed WOT. (And there's a 'campaign' to the new readers, especially on Reddit, that new readers should skip even more than half of the series: I saw many suggestion that after TGH/TDR one should read summaries then continue the reading with Sanderson's books, because Jordan's books have nothing just boredom, descriptions, more boredom, more descriptions.)

You can try to point out that for example in TEOTW the connection between Rand and Mat is very important, and in 5 minutes you are downvoted to the abyss, and an hour later your post is gone.

But back to the books: every time when you trying to point out Sanderson's errors (there are thousands of them), or trying to point out Jordan's much better prose, structure, handling of characters and similar things with many examples, they are deleted in minutes.
 

I think this attitude and propaganda gives false information to the new readers, and they are feed with misinformation right from the start. When they see posts (upvoted to sky) many new reader will believe thes false claims. And seeing recent events (a report published by the Center for Countering Digital Hate and Anti-Vax Watch suggest that approximately two-thirds of COVID-19 misinformation originates from 12 people), you don't need many people just a few supermoderators and a few aides to spread false thoughts.
 

I don't say that Jordan's books are flawless, they are not, far from it, but seeing all the time the Jordan-scolding and the Sanderson-glorification is really unbearable.

On every Wheel ot Time boards you can say abominable things about Jordan and his books, but you try to say even a mild criticism about Sanderson, your comment gets deleted, or downvoted, or you get banned, which I find ridiculous.

Jordan created WOT, and his books and writings vastly superior to anything written by Sanderson, but yet according these forums Jordan was a pathetic loser, who wrote bad and boring books, and basically only Sanderson's books are worth to read.

I'd really like to get an explanation for this inexplicable phenomena.