Except for the fact that he nearly sacrificed his life for Mat. It does encourage trust. In any event....whether it is enough or not depends on how they do it. And things will get cut or combined. So we can't know until we get there.

I think e8, and in part e7, did hurt a lot. I agree with the decision to split the climaxes/Power moments so Rand gets one and Egwene and Nynaeve get one. I think Rand's climax was great, better than the book, though I didn't like the way they did the blight much and the place that they originally planned to use was much better. I did like that it looked a bit like mold on bread though. I wasn't crazy about some of the dreams Rand had before the end, though they did the job ok. I think Egwene and Nynaeve's hero moment taking out the Trollocs as an idea was great, but the limitations of Covid hit it very hard. No stuntmen, no close contact, and having to act 6ft apart in front of a green screen really damaged the way it came off. I didn't like Nynaeve's final speech...it seemed forced to me even if it called back to the beginning. The healing would have been much better if it had been the CPR originally planned. More establishing the level of tech in the world and vital for the last book anyway like everything in this episode prefigured. The makeup was too much and I hope the writers do follow it up with consequences on Egwene and Nynaeve, such as Nynaeve's block and Egwene's inability to heal. That will give it weight. Lan's story was really weak...the actor was mostly unavailable for filming. They did get most of the You are a Lion speech in and people lied the relationship. I wish it could have been a Lan/Perrin story with Perrin using his Wolfie powers for the first time. That would have been much better and I think was the original intent...no tell required. Perrin's story was making the best of a shit sandwich. Between Covid restrictions but mostly because of the tragedy of Harris leaving at the last minute. That exact scene done with Mat and Loial, with Loial wandering off to investigate something and returning to find Mat stabbed, and Fain giving a similar version of the speech to Mat as he's clutching his wounded chest...I think that would have been awesome. They couldn't do it, and getting the Horn plot started was more important than having Perri do his Wolfie powers so Perrin had to do Mat's story. They tweaked things...made Moiraine have a tell, had Loial be stabbed, has Perrin get some development at least with the talk about the axe, but it's not as good as it would have been. But it got finished. That counts for a lot. I don't think the show is perfect. I guess I just get pendantic when I see the levels of complaining and scrutiny used when I feel people dont understand the challenges involved or use their personal opinions as statements of universal fact.

We don't know yet in the series that Tam even is a Blademaster. We don't know how long it's been since he fought, and he was being directly targeted by the attack and was being overpowered. Non-Readers remarked right away how skilled he looked compared to the other villagers. His ending up wounded and Rand killing a Trolloc in that fight matches up with the books. As for why only one: Because the trollocs used practical effects: Stuntmen on stilts. A stuntman on stilts with a weapon in a sword vs sword combat within a set built like a small farmhouse with furniture and three combatants is incredibly difficult and dangerous to film as is (as you'd know if you did any stagefighting at all). It would be very very much more difficult if there were multiple trollocs in the fight, or even trolloc bodies on the floor. And it would take more time. Time in the first episode was at a premium...they needed every second. That one trolloc fight told us everything we needed to know and did everything the books needed from it: Tam has a cool sword. Tam fights way better than a two rivers man. Rand killed a Trolloc. Tam gets badly hurt. The Trolloc gets killed and Rand manages to escape into the night pulling the heavily wounded Tam. There is nothing in that it doesn't need, and everything it does. Fighting any more trollocs is just wasted time in a very dangerous rig. Nynaeve clearly only defeated the trolloc because she took him by surprise. That was a 1 on 1 fight in a larger space, and gave her a badass moment. Happened in the books. In the books, Moiraine was able to detect Nynaeve sneaking up on Lan in the equivalent scene, because she could sense the ability to channel. Lan was surprised. Not a change. Lan was interpreted by Rand, who is not the best judge of emotions, for starters. And in the series, much of the time Lan was very stoic and not radiating much emotion, but being very subtle about it. Slight turns of the head, etc, do show much larger emotions. However, in the show we see Lan through Moiraine and Nynaeve's POV, and neither of them see Lan as at all emotionless. They both know he has profound and deep emotions, and they both have had those emotions expressed to them. Look at the times in the show when Lan is showing emotion. Is Rand there? This is POV. That scene showed the Whitecloaks are not a monolithic organization with all one point of view. We don't know how close Valda and Bornhald is...their relationship has not been explained yet. We see that Bornhold has some distaste for Valda, but is forced to comply with him as one of the Questioners. And Valda does not just seize Moiraine et al even though it's clear he suspects them strongly...he doesn't dare make a direct accusation with Bornhold there. And because of how Bornhold answers, we know that not all Whitecloaks kill Aes Sedai...that some just try to avoid them. And we know that it is unlikely that Bornhold knows the extent of Valda's activities. This isn't a writing error....this one line tells us a huge amount about the Whitecloak command structure and opinions of the world. This will play out in different seasons. Just because you think something is a mistake doesn't mean it is. You may just not realize the reason for that change or way something is done.

Rafe has the passion to do it right and knows how to do big shows well. He did good work with Agent of Shield. Winter Dragon was utterly cringe-worthy.

Those were complaints people made on the message boards when LOTR came out. I just phrased the same changes with the same hyperbole that people are phrasing similar changes in WOT. I didn't exaggerate the changes. IE: People complaining that Mat is a thief when he was selling Fain a bracelet we don't know the specific provenance of, vs. Pippin and Merry literally stealing vegetables. If you have an agenda to want to interpret a change as badly as possible, you will.

Of course they tried to cater to the population of Brazil. They had a huge presence and Brazil's Comicon. Fantasy is incredibly popular in Brazil. A fair bit of the Tar Valon architecture is similar to South American inspiration. The Tinker clothing was based on the cultural clothing of peasants in Peru. The show even had a Parrot! That said, it was good and it did appeal. We don't have specific patterns for falloff for Brazil, but worldwide the falloff for Wheel of Time was much better than many other shows, including Rings of Power, so they succeeded at what they wanted to do.

I was starting to refute point by point, but arguing these same things gets so tiresome. But, we can do this! We don't know what Logain sees. We know, because they did say it, that he doesn't see Nynaeve's weaves. But he can see light (regular light as a side effect of the spell). He can see people healing all together. And, for my favorite theory, he can see Ta'veran. From the books, we know that ta'veran glow to those who can see them, and that different strength Ta'veran glow in different amounts. There is no reason they can't glow different amounts at different times depending on how much they are touching the pattern. Nynaeve in the show is Ta'veran, and Logain can see Ta'veran, and she was doing something very powerful that is not normally possible. Why couldn't she have been powerfully touching the Pattern at the time? Why wouldn't she have looked brilliantly bright at that moment for Logain, who can see Ta'veran-ness? And why do non-readers need an explanation for what he sees anyway? Why wouldn't they or couldn't they just presume that he sees light, like they do? In the books, he had feelings for Egwene. It's consistent. He has guilt over his wife in the story, and Machin Shin lies to you. Egwene's been sleeping in his arms in not the distant past. It's not bad writing if the story is not done...not every plot thread from S1 needs to be wrapped up in S1. There is nothing non-feminine about Egwene being Ta'veran. She has just as much agency and interest and strength, but she's not swordfighting or doing she doesn't do in the books. She still was the first to volunteer to be a hero, the most decisive, and the most forward-thinking. They expressed this in many of her actions. They made her Ta'veran and potential Dragon to do 3 things: Make it faster to get her out of the 2 rivers, explain why she left, and to fill some of Jordan's plotholes that are made worse by the show going to Tar Valon instead of Camelyn. The show has to cut and condense. They needed to get everyone out of 2 Rivers in about 3 sentences of talking (by the end of Episode 1). They didn't have time to have a big argument about why Egwene shouldn't go because the trollocs weren't threatening her. Having her 'one of them' means she doesn't need a separate explanation. They don't need to explain why her mother and father let her go, or why she abandons her devastated village when she's the only available healer left. All those things are nipped in the bud by the chage. It's 15 books in 64 hours tops. Things need to be cut and condensed. It also fills one of Jordan's biggest plotholes: Why take Nynaeve and Egwene to Fal Dara when they are supposed to go to Tar Valon. They're novices. The Ways go straight to Tar Valon and Loial wants to go there. They could even leave them safely in Camelyn and no one would be the wiser. They have no business in Fal Dara...unless they could be the Dragon. It fixes that. It also allows the story to take Egwene into very unlikely places with less explanation required. Why is it so easy to make her Amyrlin? Ta'veran. Why is she a Dreamer? Ta'veran. It'd be very hard to give the time to explain those things in the hours we have. Ta'veran solves all of it without changing her character a whit. It is wrestling with those important questions. But they aren't 'hook' questions. Those are questions that take actually viewing the series to figure out. They are there. They need hook questions that can be asked in a sentence of newsprint in a TV Guide article. Who is the Dragon also is a hook question that makes each party member equally important. In the books they all are important at the end, but it's not apparent in the beginning because of the focus on Rand. If you only care about Rand because he's the only important one, stories like that of, say, Perrin and Egwene and the tinkers look like a complete waste of screentime, no more relevant than Stepin's. By making the Dragon unknown, it means the audience is paying attention the clues surrounding each character, like, say, changes in the behavior of the wolves, and those things are interesting, not a distraction from the 'plot'. Also, as I said, the mystery shortcuts a lot of explanations, like, say 'Why take everyone to Fal Dara'. It also shows a very important thing for later in the season: That Moiraine can (and often is) wrong, and Moiraine doesn't know everything. Bookreaders know this is true from her first explanation at the beginning, but it's showing that her lack of omniscience is important through the whole series. And the mystery worked...people liked it and speculated on it. There's more points, and I'm sure I'll have to go through them all again, but there's a start.

Thank you. As explained previously...the audience is not only rigid book fans. Also, it's not necessarily possible in the show for the Dragon to be female. Moiraine and Suian just thinks that it is a possibility. This is introducing from the beginning to everyone that Aes Sedai can be wrong. Even casual fans can google who dun it for mysteries, and yet, mystery shows still continue to have mysteries in them. And people like them. A mystery about the Dragon was a way for the show to make sure that the non-book reader audience recognized that all the EF5 are equally important in this series, otherwise they would dismiss all storylines in S1 that don't focus on Rand as distraction. It's preparing them for what comes later too. You're going to have to prove that it made none of them compelling. There's plenty of evidence that many viewers found many of them compelling. Rand was considered the least compelling one. Thank you for rolling with it. Lan is a main character, as are Nynaeve and Moiraine. That short period of time revealed things about their characters (Like that Nynaeve cares deeply about everyone, not just EF folks, that Lan has a stoic surface that has strong emotion beneath, and of course many things about the nature of the Bond that are vital). With that screenshot of dead Stepin, they can can include that in a 'previously on' clip whenever a life is in danger or someone is bonded, and the audience instantly will remember the important details of Warder bonds in a way that talking about it never could. Image over words is vital for a TV series...much more than a movie, because things have to be remembered across multiple years. You missed it, but it's definitely there. Why would Perrin feel jealous of Aram dancing with Egwene if he never saw her as anything but a little sister. Rand has many opportunities to show his enormous power throughout the series. He does it at least once a book. He has many opportunities to be feared....he is feared often through the books. Egwene doesn't get to display her actual level of power until the Seanchen take the White Tower. Nynaeve never does. She does half the cleansing of the source, but she's doing it in unison with Rand so it doesn't seem like the Power has to be hers. We know it as readers because we read about it, and people say it, but we don't /see/ it. This was an ideal time for Egwene and Nynaeve to show their power early. It also lets us know that they aren't just throwaway characters And reveal their villains too early and make them more boring. Holding back and letting the mystery grow is a recognized technique used in multiple seasons...and something Jordan does in the books. All fans in identical demographics and relationships to the books. And with different opinions of the show too...Naeblis and Unravelling have retracted as they have gotten over the shock if dealing with differences. It's hard to deal with change. It is a makeup mistake. It's not bad writing. Even if she were dead (and she never was...she just looked more dead than intended), it wouldn't be bad writing because the scene where someone says 'death cannot be healed' has not happened in the show. You can't have a contradiction to something that has not happened yet, and you can't say something won't work in the future until you see how the show deals with it. How Nynaeve lives, how Loial lives, what happens due to the dagger...they aren't bad writing...they are part of a story we have not seen the ending of. They can be resolved in future seasons. I think the Nynaeve makeup thing was a genuine mistake....and also something that the show can incorporate and adapt to in the future in a couple of cool ways if they want to. Loial was hasty writing (I'm sure it was supposed to be Mat), but I'm also sure that that will be explained in S2. Just because we don't know EVERYTHING in S1 doesn't mean there is no explanation within the show universe. The books have a TON of fakeout deaths. If 'fakeout death' happening is the standard for bad writing, then Jordan's writing is bad and by keeping fakeout deaths the show is being /more/ loyal to Jordan's writing. The story is not over yet. You'll have to wait and see like the rest of us.

I watched the video. Very very little of what she cites is a problem with the writing. It is all differences she does not like compared to her interpretation of the book, or (and this is more common) her wanting explanations for everything now when those explanations could be coming in later seasons. Even though she says she likes some of the changes, it doesn't mean she does not feel rigidity in others. Basically, nothing she says is about the writing. There are parts that I do think have bad writing. But it's not the things people complain about at all. It's bits where the dialogue is clunky, or the pace is rushed. There are those spots. The wedding vows scene I think was pretty poor writing, for example, though I understood what they are trying to do. Maybe if that scene were done outside the chamber of sitters, and then Siuan came in and told the whole chamber that the vow had been administered, it wouldn't have seemed that Moiraine was saying such a personal thing 'off script' in the hearing of everyone without anyone calling her on it. I assume that was not done for the purposes of time. But that's writing that is completely unrelated to the books or my own expectations of what the series should be based on what I read.

Maybe Gimli and Legolas would be made lovers. Much more likely, Sam and Frodo would be made lovers. And some viewers certainly could have that interpretation of the text. It's not mine. But it's not ridiculous if someone did take that interpretation and made a movie of that. It's their interpretation. The Asian influence was an example of a change made to appeal to a different demographic...not a change you objected to. That said, the inclusion of Lan as an Asian guy and the Korean mourning ceremony were definitely heavily critiqued. People complained tons about the costumes and sets...in particular the cleanliness of the costumes and the brightness of the colors. But clean costumes and bright sets are the expectations in Asian fantasy. If you watch any Wuxia or Bollywood, that's obvious.

LOTR, Harry Potter, and some of the Dunes (Haven't seen the most recent) vary /widely/ from the source material. There were huge complaints with all of them from fans of the books, back on the message boards of the day. They were successful adaptations though, and so people forget how much of a change they were....many of the people doing the complaining about WOT now watched LOTR before reading the books, for example, so they don't care or even take note of the critical differences that the bookreaders experienced when the movies came out. WOT is much, much more difficult to adapt than LOTR or Harry Potter. So many of its important themes are based on people's thoughts as described through the POV chapters. In other works, thoughts aren't as essential to the character development of the story. How do you convey thoughts in a TV media? The mechanism for WOT allows for multiple turnings of the Wheel, so it's just as adaptable in its world setup as comic books. But I think you miss the most essential reasons why they are doing this. They're not doing it to 'get' the book reader audience....the audience is small, for starters. The part of the book reader audience whose vision of the books contrasts with the showrunner's vision of the books is smaller still. The part of the book reader audience whose vision doesn't align with the showrunners AND can't handle the changes that are needed to make the books into a show is smaller. The part of the book readers that handle the changes necessary to bring that story to a new audience is very very small indeed. In exchange for that small number of book readers as an audience, this version opens the story up to new US and International audiences, including audiences in many, broader demographic groups than the original books' audience. The themes of reincarnation, for example, are very appealing to an Asian audience, but would any Asian audience outside the US care about the show enough to reach those themes unless there are Asian leads in the show? Unless they make the themes very apparent in the first episode in a way that makes it clear the show is honoring those themes not denigrating them? How do you do that? You add the Lantern scene. You make Lan the amazing Daniel Henney. You use Asian theme costuming. That audience is many times the size of the US audience...of course Amazon will care about them more. The story for Wheel of Time has broader appeal when presented well, but that's not the reason Judkins is making it. He /loves/ these books. He has since a child. They spoke to him, as a young gay boy growing up in Utah, in a different way than they might speak to another reader. But he loves them. He wanted to bring what he loves to the world, and he is. You can choose not to like the show, you can decide you can't handle the changes. That's your choice. But was the adaptation financially successful for Amazon? Absolutely. Does it convey what the showrunner wanted to convey? Mostly...there were Covid-driven problems in the last couple of episodes that he wants to fix, and he wanted 10 episodes with a 2 hour pilot and Amazon wouldn't let him. Does it bring across the major themes of the series very well? In my opinion, yes, it does. It carries all the themes from EOTW across very well. Does it give the essence of the EOTW plot, albeit with changes? Yes. It has 5 young men and women from a remote village who are dragged out of that village by a woman with great magical powers and her guardian to protect them, knowing that one of the five will have to face the Dark One who plans on destroying the world. They travel with her, get separated, one gets corrupted with an evil dagger, one learns he can communicate with wolves, two learn that they have great magical power inside them, and one learns he is the Dragon Reborn, who will face the dark one. He goes to do so at the end of the season, thinks he defeats him, but, we all suspect, he didn't really. The rest of the series will show us all how much more will be involved. That's literally the plot of Eye of the World. But...oh, Merry and Pippen met Sam and Frodo on the road in the show instead of meeting properly in Buckland. And Jackson made them /thieves/. Thier characters are ruined now. And it was important that they set up that Frodo was really moving to Buckland because otherwise the hobbits would have looked for them. And Sam didn't see the elves on the way to Buckland, so how does Frodo know they are leaving Middle Earth anyway? Would Sam do the same things if he didn't see them? And then no Old Man Willow? Thom Bombadil was my favorite part....it's important to show not everything can be controlled by the ring. And everyone knows Tomatoes are from South America and Middle Earth is supposed to be England so that's obviously wrong. And Aragorn just finds the magic swords lying around? What is he? A graverobber? And that's not even getting to how they massacred Gimli's character and turned him into cheap comic relief! Yeah, like that.

Yep. And that is a very reasonable place to get to. Saying that no one should be allowed to make an adaptation that is not faithful to their own personal interpretation of a work is not a reasonable position to take, so I felt I needed to call it out.

You're right. However, citing things that are simply changes from the book as being examples of bad writing fails to make the case.

If you liked the Marvel movies, or, say, the many, many versions of the Batman stories, then you like adaptations that are not faithful to their origin stories. They can still be very good. One person's interpretation and memory of the books is not a sacred temple that is defiled when someone else reinterprets it. The books are there. If you want a version that matches your own interpretation and memory, and values the things in the original you value most, make your own show.

Wild guesses mostly.

Some of it I've gotten from Rafe Q&As or other sources like behind the scenes comments or reveals. Some I've put together. Like the scene in Episode 1 where Nynaeve was teaching Egwene that was cut but we have some promo materials showing the location + Rafe Q&A talking about having to change the script due to COVID and how the makeup on Nynaeve was way more than intended, and the timing that people weren't allowed on set and every set had to be stripped down to the very minimum number of persons to get the scenes done we've gotten from director interviews. Like that.

No stone of Tear battle this season, most likely. That doesn't mean we never go there...we just don't go there this season. Egwene didn't heal death....there was an unfortunate problem where the makeup was too strong. Right now, based on some hints given by Sarah Nakamura, I think what Egwene did was use a very primitive version of the Flame of Tar Valon weave to 'heal' Nynaeve's pattern from the brink of death. However, since this is not correct or standard healing, she won't be able to heal anyone else until she figures out what she did at the very end of the last season. It may be a running theme with her...keeping her healing in line with the books (which is poor) because you can't learn a weave you've learned 'wrong'. What happened in the finale was not great....there were serious changes made day of filming because a sudden lockdown meant that the intimacy coaches couldn't be on set, and even Nynaeve and Egwene's actors couldn't be on set together that day of filming. Egwene was supposed to heal Nynaeve with literal, plain old, CPR and/or herbs. But that didn't work because of the Covid lockdown and they had to substitute a dummy and use magic healing. The Flame of Tar Valon weave will be a bit of a justification after the fact, but it could work well and foreshadow the end anyway. Just a different part of it...not Nynaeve and Alanna, but Egwene's final arc. I don't know if we get Callandor in S3 or not. We will probably start hearing about it, though.

Some of the changes in S1 are to shorten things this Season. But I can make a few solid predicitons on this stuff if you like. They will, but not likely to a place where Rand is. We saw a screenshot of a magnificent Suian getting out of a carriage. It may be returning to Tar Valon after Camelyn or some cold open, but it is Suian. Perrin is traveling with Ingtar. We will see Ingtar's story with Perrin's story arc. We don't know when/if Rand will intersect that. Hurin is not in it. His character will be combined with Elyas. We've seen screenshots of Elyas with Perrin's group, and he can teach Perrin about Wolfbrothers. I don't think Abell Cauthon counts as an important character, and the actor wasn't hired for S2. We'll see and advance his character in S3. Plus this isn't in the books on screen anyway. We don't know. It is a very popular sequence and people want it, but it is also something extremely difficult/impossible to film. So we don't know what they'll have there. My personal belief is that they will combine portal stones and Waygates so there are fewer magic transportation systems to deal with, but I have no evidence except the different shape of the Waygate for the show. From the episode names, she almost certainly will be present in some format. This will be the climax of the season. Book 3 will only have limited parts of it in the season that have been pulled forward: Likely, Mat's arc and Perrin/Gaul. Maybe a few other things. The end of the season will be to start towards a more-book similar Shadow Rising in S3. So what we mainly need to get to is: Perrin acknowledging his wolf powers to a degree and ready to head home to the Two Rivers. Whitecloaks ready to hunt Perrin in the Two Rivers. Mat having a bit of his dice luck and some sort of memory loss or trauma that would drive him towards the Redstone Doorframe. Also, likely, Mat having blown the Horn of Valere. Rand publicly acknowledging that he is the Dragon Reborn and being ready to go to the Aiel to figure out the next step/make his own army. 'The World' having seen that the Dragon really is Reborn. Egwene ready to go with the Aiel Wise Women, likely because she's already been identified by them as having a dream talent. Nynaeve and Elayne having had some interaction about Black Ajah and more ready to hunt them than to go back to the Tower. Everything else is pretty variable.

Here is a few predictions I have for what they're worth, especially with regards to changes:

The last two episode titles have been held back, yeah. They're there and they've been filmed.

These are currently looking like the legitimate episode names, but not in order.

I don't /know/ the reasons, but I can guess a few: 1) Visual interest: Just pure mono white is not very defining on the screen unless there's an important point to be made with it (see #2) 2) Contrast from Selene and Whitecloaks. Especially Selene. If Selene is there and going over the top white, then a less 'overthetop' white for novices makes the Selene 'BIG WHITE' stand out better as weird, which is what it should be. 3) Draws attention to the apron itself, which draws attention to the task. We are supposed to understand very clearly from these images that Egwene is not 'just in the kitchen' casually. She is washing, preparing food, and serving. She is being treated as a servant in the White Tower. It's a visual symbol of her status in the Tower. With that image, no text, the apron, and Madden's expression, we can 'read' exactly what she is thinking -- "I came to the Tower to train in magic to help save the world, and I am here, working in the kitchen exactly the same as I was doing in my mother's inn."

That sounds good. I would love a good Tuon Redemption and a good Mat/Tuon arc. Jordan died before he could write Outriggers, and Sanderson wrapped the series up as quickly as he felt he could, so that redemption was cut out. But I think it actually shortens and simplifies aspects of the story to have a Tuon redemption arc, so I hope that's what they choose to do.