I'm definitely in the camp that thinks that it's an atrocity if the majority of writers are not intimately familiar with the source material. Otherwise, even calling it "based on" is a stretch.

That said, truly, what matters usually is the show's bible. I don't know how this process always works but at least in the Star Trek universe, there was a seasonal bible which would call out any new canon (since canon was important) and how to write to it. As was called out, writers do just have jobs and work for managers and theoretically at least follow the bibles/guidelines.

I'd really like to know what the showrunners' guidance was to the writers, because I think that's the missing piece of the puzzle.

I'd like to see this fixed for season 2. The casting was quite good. Maybe they could all step out of some kind of waterfall/shower and find that the previous season was a dream?

I know let's do a new adaptation of WoT. And in this new adaptation of TEotW, Rand, instead of being a sheepherder, will be the captain of a starship on a five year mission called the SS Bella, NCC-1701. His crew will follow him on a five year mission to explore the galaxy. They will meet a new member of the Q continuum named Moiraine and her ""warder", Lan. Nynaeve "Bones", the ship's doctor will be quite smitten with him, while she will be strangely ageless.

The problem with "re-interpretations" is that you expect some fixed points in the re-interpretations. I expected the Two Rivers folk to be good farming people that you would always root for. I expected the fundamental thesis of how magic works in Randland (Saidin/Saidar/the taint) to have been kept. I did expect the fundamental major points of each of the boys' destinies to be maintained (Rand's three loves, Mat's run-in with the dagger was kind of OK although Moiraine saying that it was bound to him because of an innate darkness was not, Perrin's marriage and killing of his wife would seem to be a huge problem, as was not meeting Elias).

The extra diversity (racial) was a wash for me. Whatever. The extra sexual diversity - Aes Sedai are all female for no particular reason evidently, whitecloaks male also for no particular reason evidently, even though the dragon can be male or female, even though only men are tainted?? or something like that? Does that make sense? The WoT was criticized for making the women overpowered from the beginning, which I can see but don't really agree with. If you're on the modernist gender-fluid kind of thinking, where does the male taint fit in any more at all? I feel like the removal of the Saidin/Saidar differentiation was not well thought out. It's a narrative simplification, instead everything is complicated, even if Egwene and Nynaeve couldn't have ever been the dragon.

Season 2 will either be a reboot or the final season like what happened with the Sword of Shanarra series ("what? there's a SoS series? Well, kind of. Sort of."). At least with David Lynch's Dune, Baron von Harrkonnen really flew around a lot and Sting was pretty wild on stage and who doesn't actually like Kyle MacLachlan? The casting of Lan and Nynaeve were really good I'd say and they did a good job of showing Rand really looking the odd man out in the village which didn't hit me in the books.

I am full of sadness.

I just repeatedly looked the other way for each episode as we saw parts of the story brought out for the dog-and-pony-show. But also constantly confused and saddened by both what was omitted as well as what was changed.

I was kind of OK with the first episode rearranging the introduction of the characters, but... Perrin's married? Wha? Mat's an actual scoundrel? Rand and Egwene are doing what? But they are nice kids!

Complete lack of mystery about Moirane and Lan but yeah, we're compressed on time. Where's Thom?

From there it just was a mass of chaos. Dashing quickly from Emmon's Field, check. But the stealth to avoid detection? Lan's expertise as a hunter was not on display, so that Nynaeve's circumvetion of it was not really on display as it could have been.

Credit where credit is due, I think that most of how they spun Nynaeve's story was quite good, although I did expect to see some braid pulling and serious sniffing.

Wasn't Moiraine's name clearly called out in the pronunciation guide as "mwah-raine"?

Saidar/Saidin. Grumble grumble. This is bad.

Meeting the Whitecloaks this early? OK, they're jerks. Amplifying the hunting of Aes Sedai, yeah, whatevs.

Shadar Logoth. What a cluster f. A pivotal moment. No wards around where they are resting. No real warnings about the problems there. No meeting with the personification of Mashdar. Mat taking the dagger because of his inclinations to steal rather than because he felt it was a payment for his work.

Ummm... where's Elaine? Meeting her, climbing the wall? Sleeping under hedges with Mat? Rand's a good boy, what the heck is going on with him?

And Perrin? OMG! Needless!

The ways in like 15 minutes?

OK I'm going to stop now, my sadness is deepening. I can only play Stardew Valley nowadays.

@eva.reves, dude, this kind of censorship sucks. I'd like to see what the management of the dragonmount site here has to say about this topic overall. Quoting and being accurate to the books has to take precedence over social preferences.

I came here because the public copy of the WOTFAQ is 11 years old now and doesn't include anything post-RJ's death. I'd love to volunteer to help with the update but I only stopped at book 9 when RH died. (I was waiting for the series to complete; I had always re-read the series from book 1 each time I read a new book. The last re-read took a year so I was waiting for more new books before I started over again...)

Since everything is done and the TV series is coming out I figure now is a time to start the Final Re-Read. In the past, the WOTFAQ was an amazing resource when I was confused but now I'm going to have to have to ride without safety wheels. (Well probably 9 or 12 months from now I will.)

But let's not let the trolls stop goodness from happening. Unless the trolls are institutionalized.