Things fold together better than you might think.  There is reason to be concerned, but it does fit. 

I don't know how they'll do it for sure, but I imagine:

1. Rand will go off on his own, encounter possibly the Aiel, but definitely Selene, and go to Cairhien.  He is hardly in The Dragon Reborn, and little or none of his activities will be from that book. He may fall off a wall and meet Elayne from The Eye of the World as an event, but most of it will be The Great Hunt or new stuff.

2. Perrin will go with the hunters for the Horn and along the way have some of the things happen that did in The Dragon Reborn like rescuing an Aiel from a cage.  He will be a part of some of the things from The Great Hunt. Elyas will replace Hurin and teach him about being a Wolfbrother, and he may kill some Whitecloaks like in Eye of the World.  This is a lot of story, but they can keep it pretty compact with a focus just on Perrin here.

3. Moiraine and Lan will find out more about the seals and the prophecies.  The future of the bond when Moiraine dies becomes an issue. They will meet up with Rand in Cairhien and from there, travel together.

4. Egwene and Nynaeve will meet Elayne in the Tower and go to Falme like in the Great Hunt. They will not be sent to hunt the Black Ajah, but will learn of them from Moiraine or Verin because of their encounter with Liandrin.

5. Mat may have some more significant differences. He could be in the tower with the girls and leave with them, or leave /after/ them when he finds out they're in trouble.

It won't have everything, but it does roll up. 
 

Maybe...?

We first learn of Compulsion in The Dragon Reborn when it is used in Tear on the Wonder Girls.  So there's certainly  a chance we see it in S2.  I think overall we'll get a lot more explanation about the power this season...not everything, but more.  That's why we will see colors in the threads this season...Egwene and Nynaeve are actually learning about the different elements.

Agreed. It's not that hard to connect the dots if you do it right.  You don't need all of Tigraine's stuff here,  but there's a fair bit we can learn.

They have already set up things for Moiraine and Lan to do and they have a plot already available that is in the books but occurred off screen there.  We only see the aftermath.  I imagine we will see it put on the screen here.  They've done the setup for it.

1. In the books, Moiraine knows about the seals of the Dark One's prison already, and has a good idea about the Foresaken and what actually happened at the Eye of the World. In the show, she does not really know much about Ishamael, or the seals, or the prophecies about the Last Battle and the return of the Dragon.  She only knows a little.  She will go to someone (Likely Adeleas and Vandene, but maybe Verin or maybe the library at Cairhien) to learn more.  This lets her research explain to us, the viewer, a little more setup instead of all the exposition at once.

2. In the books, Moiraine set up Lan's bond to move to Myrelle before The Great Hunt.  In the show, something will happen that, combined with what happened to Steppin in S1, will make Moiraine realize that her current course of action will likely kill her, and that she does not want Lan to die because she does.  She wants his bond to move to Nynaeve, but Nynaeve is not there and Accepted can't have warders anyway.  During her time researching, or before or after, an event happens, like an attack, that really rubs it in, and this happens before or during a time when Alanna and her warders are with Lan and Moiraine. Moiraine conspires with Alanna to move the bond to Alanna in case of her death.  There is considerable suspense during the season about whether or not he will find out.

3. Moiraine wants her powers back. In her research or because Alanna makes clear that Lan is still alive (and if she had been stilled, Lan would have gone mad - per the books), she knows she's been shielded, not stilled.  That shielding must have been with Saidin.  She does not know how to fix the shield, but she knows Rand can at least see it, so he could try.  She meets up with Rand. He can see the shield, but maybe can't fix it, so she writes to Siuan asking for help with it in Tear.  The shield may not even be resolved before the end of the season, though it will be a subplot.

Anyway, that's my idea for a setup.

7 hours ago, Terry05 said:

Good question!

I had assumed 3 would be filming before 2 airs (which I think will be Jan-March 23). You would think they would need to know how many episodes they are filming during the writing process? 

They are writing S3 now, so could write them longer if they have already received word that they could.  If they have heard already that they might get more for S4, they can be making changes now.

On 8/5/2022 at 9:24 AM, nsmallw said:

I was going to make a post about the lack of dream sequences in season 1. If I recall there were only 3? and one for each of the boys. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong on this one. Don't recall one for either of the women which considering the whole "Who is the Dragon?" mystery was odd to me. 

Is there a fuller discussion of the lack of dreaming in the show ? Thanks. 

Mat didn't have a dream sequence, and Rand had his 2 + 3ish?

I think dreaming is very very tricky to include much of, especially early on. It would be very cheesy to a non-reader audience if there was too much of it.  It already had a fair start and we'll get more.  Those dream-related arcs just haven't started yet, and may not really move in earnest until S4 with just hints in S2 and more in S3.

On 8/6/2022 at 1:00 AM, Dagon Thyne said:

I remember RJ saying once that the reason the female Aes Sedai refused to help LTT was because they didn't like the idea of using the OP to directly imprison the DO.  And they were right.  Using Saidin to try to hold the DO in his prison allowed him to taint it just like the TP is tainted.  They knew the TP existed, and that it was a corrupted, but undivided version of the OP used by the DO.  It's why they drilled the bore to begin with.  They like feared a possible taint like that of the TP if the OP were used directly on him, and that's exactly what happened.

 

Rand realized this and realized that the TP could be used to shield the OP from being directly touched.

I remember reading that too.  It's not a change, just a trivia buried in Jordan's notes that is suddenly actually more relevant.  The female Aes Sedai are more talk than action, so it's hardly a surprise that they don't take decisive and successful action to stop Lews Therin, even if they think this might be a result.

Even though there are only 8 episodes in S2, I'm glad they will be longer. Hopefully S3 can get up to 10 episodes...I think that'd be about perfect for the amount of story this has to tell.  I wish we had 10 episodes for S2, but c'est la vie. I don't think we needed 10 for S1 -- they trimmed it down well, though 9 would have been nice.

On 8/5/2022 at 12:08 AM, Andra said:

The problem there is that Fain had the dagger with him already when he followed Moiraine's party into the Ways.  Which means it was already in his possession when Mat turned back.

He didn't need Mat to tell him about it. 

 

And if Mat had felt it calling to him, he would have followed Fain into the Ways the same way Fain followed (apparently) Rand.

It is important to remember Fain is a prick. 🙂  My current hypothesis is that Fain meets Mat outside the Waygate, as Mat is turning around to head back to Tar Valon and the Two Rivers (and his sisters).  Fain wants Mat alive, because he thinks he'll turn to the Dark, but wants Mat contaminated with the dagger to help him along.  He stabs or nicks or otherwise uses the dagger on Mat in a non-lethal fashion, then enters the Ways after the others. Mat is hurt now and recorrupted, and doesn't have a means to follow Fain even if he wanted to.  He survives and staggers back to Tar Valon, and that's why he looks so corrupt and awful in that shot of him.

At least that's what I hope happens.

2 hours ago, Andra said:

One possibility would be in keeping with the way villages got their blacksmiths in the real world.

In the books, Perrin was an apprentice.  Unless you're in a city or large town, there's generally only one blacksmith around.  When an apprentice is ready to advance, they leave to find their own place.

Unless an apprentice happened to reach that point conicidentally right when their master is ready to retire, which Master Luhhan clearly wasn't, they wouldn't take over the forge there.  

A smith almost never grew up in the village where they run the forge.

 

That would mean that, if Perrin is the blacksmith rather than Laila (the only one we ever see actually working in the forge) his family lives somewhere else.  Could be Taren Ferry, could be one of the other villages nearby in the books that haven't been mentioned in the show.

 

We don't see the Aybara farm or family because they were never there.

Great point. They can, of course, both be blacksmiths:  It is common for a smithy to require several smiths.  Keeping the fires the right temperature and the physical labor is great enough that it works better with more than one skilled smith.

I expect very different things.

I'm going to guess:

Forsaken waking in the bore when the seal is cracked cold open

Bayle Domon cold open

Padan Fain/Mat cold open

High Lord Turok/Lady Suroth cold open

White Cloaks Cold open (Pedron Niall and Geofram Bornhold politics something something)

Dark Friend Social cold open (since that was already said)

Elayne/Morgaise/Galad/Gawyn/Elaida and maybe Thom cold open

One age of legends cold open, focusing on the forsaken. (NOT Illeyana yet)

I can see combining some, of course.

On 7/26/2022 at 12:47 AM, Riamus said:

I'll go ahead and add in some of the more glaring things that really annoyed me in the shows.  Keeping in mind that I am open to changes being made that have meaning or are necessary to the adaptation.  I am not open to changes just for the sake of change.

My goal here is to provide the explanations for why these changes were probably put in. You may have whatever opinion you have about the overall effect...I'm not going to change your mind. But you say you are not open to changes just for the sake of change, so I'm offering the explanations. If you are a Television writer and creator doing your own adaptation, you might choose differently, but there are legitimate reasons this showrunner made the choices he did.  I hope that if you have counters to specific points, they can be spun out separately. 

Change 1

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The main characters were aged up in the TV series. 

In the books, the characters are 20 years old (Egwene a couple of years younger), but act about 15 compared to most viewers sensibilities.  This is fine in a book...we accept that naturally.  But in Real Life, and so also on television, if we meet a 20 year old man acting like a 15 year old, it is neither appealing or cute. This is the college sophomore hanging out with and behaving like high school freshmen. It comes across as creepy to the viewers, an instantly makes that person unlikeable to many. There are even movies built around this premise. Instead of thinking about this person coming of age, the audience is left wondering what is wrong with that person.
The showrunner therefore had to make a choice:  Make them 20 and acting like a 20 year old, or make them 15 and acting like a 15 year old.  A cast of 15 year olds would have problems with the later arc stories, and would mature too quickly physically to do a multi-year show.  At 20, physical maturity slows enough their appearance wouldn't change much.  That said, the Showrunner still included the sheltered nature of the Two Rivers, having Moiraine commenting on it, showing Mat and Rand's gape-jawed awe at seeing Tar Valon, and other aspects of their innocence to retain some of the coming of Age story. 

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As everyone has apparently commented on, Perrin should not have been married. 

A major theme of the books is Perrin's internal issues with Violence.  He feels great anxiety and stress about killing Whitecloaks early in the series and this haunts them throughout the books. In modern fantasy television and film, most heroes depicted would not have any problem killing or injuring such obviously bad people.  So we need to understand Perrin's thinking as to why this bothers Perrin so much, why he has trouble with fighting 'the bad guys', and his relationship with violence. But in TV, we are not privy to Perrin's thoughts. Perrin is also largely a silent character: he keeps his feelings to himself.  Without an inciting incident, that whole aspect of Perrin would just be him looking sad at times and never telling us why.
Having Perrin commit a great act of violence and killing a loved one by mistake means that the directors can just show or mention an axe and have that carry huge emotional significance that lets us know this whole aspect of what is going on in Perrin's head without requiring any further setup at all.
He could have done this by having Perrin kill another character; Master Luhan, for example. But time in each episode is at a premium. To have the same impact with Master Luhan, you'd have to spend valuable time setting up that relationship, explaining who they are to each other and how they feel, and so on. All of which is unnecessary just by just making it his wife. It is also age appropriate for the Two Rivers.  Time is at a premium so shortcuts have to be used.
 

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Perrin should not have a beard at the start of the story

Some stories must be cut for time. There are way too many subplots to keep all of them in an 8 season series. The subplot of Perrin's beard isn't vital and can afford to go on time to make room for other more important plots. Him having a beard also keeps him visually distinct from the other EF5 and other characters, and visual identity makes it easier for the audience to recognize each character quickly as they watch.

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The TV series completed eliminated Elyas

Elyas has been cast and has likely been combined with the character of Hurin. There are a maximum number of characters that can be introduced per season and per episode (7 for a  pilot) or it waters down the characters we do get.  The Showrunner made a choice to introduce this character later when they would have more than a few minutes with each other to interact before they meet the Tinkers.

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The TV series paints him (Mat) as untrustworthy

The Showrunner is building additional tension in the audience with a 'will he/won't he' dynamic, giving Mat a distinct identity separate from Rand. This tension helps make Mat more unique and memorable to a viewing audience in very few scene segments.  To counter the untrustworthiness, the Showrunner /also/ added that Mat was the one who acted as the glue for their entire friend group, noticing Perrin's pain and going to him after the trolloc attack, giving Perrin his knife and talking about Laila, talking Rand down when he was yelling at Moiraine, repeatedly acting to lighten the mood and lift up his friends. Many non-book readers observed this repeated pattern and had Mat be their favorite character because of it.  The untrustworthy+greatest heart makes a compelling character and helps counteract the dagger-sickness persona.

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Mat's father, Abell, is also changed from a well-respected horse trader into the worst of the worst for no good reason. 

Changing the character of Abell and his family gave Mat an element of dynamic tension to begin with, just like the other characters gain in the first episode.  (Rand+Egwene, Nynaeve vs. Moiraine, Perrin+Laila). It gives the audience of the show an immediate point of empathy to connect with the character of Mat quickly and make him 'a good guy'.  Also, in the books, a major theme for Mat is how he does not believe that he is a hero 'I'm no bloody hero', while still doing heroic things.  We know this from his thoughts, but can't tell it from his actions.  In the show, all they need to do is use the word 'prick' and we will hear Natti's statement and know Mat is thinking about his Father.  Another thing in the books with Mat is how much he cares for children like Olver.  Having this family situation will make that emotionally resound more clearly when Mat encounters a child, like it did when that child bumped into him on the way to Tar Valon.  Without knowing how much he cares for his sisters, the snapping when he gets bumped into wouldn't mean anything, but with it, in just one quick shot, we can see how much the dagger has changed him. Later in the series, I will expect other impacts of this: Changing Abell means that Perrin has something and someone we /feel/ changed when he transforms Two Rivers into something that can fight back against the  Whitecloaks and Trollocs.  Otherwise, we're left wondering why they didn't rally themselves. 
As to why the Woman's circle didn't 'take care of it', this happens all the time in the real world, and no one 'takes care of it'.  If you want a full explanation on how this could occur, though, you can find a version here.

 

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(Nynaeve)'s too powerful too early and with too much control

In the show, she has no control at all over what she does.  And she has not reproduced any effect that she has created in the show. Nothing indicates she can channel whenever she wants.  She has had two bursts of power under extreme emotional circumstances.  You just do not remember the show correctly here at all. 

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The books started out with a great background story told as Tam and Rand are heading back into town after the Trollocs attack their home. 

This was shown late to preserve a mystery as to who the Dragon is. In the books, Moiraine does not know who the Dragon is, so this gives that mystery to the viewer. This helps the viewer empathize with Moiraine and not think she's stupid.  It also provides a matter of discussion and speculation...buzz...for the audience to help make the show gain viewership, and for this purpose it worked well. A show that gets no buzz or prompts discussion does not get made for 8 seasons, which is a good reason to include it.

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The TV series decided to change it so that they continued to be interested in each other throughout the entire season with some ups and downs along the way. 

Yes, love and loss are interesting to people, and yes, such arcs are needed to build audience. A story without relationships are interesting to some, but the goal for the show is to build a broader audience beyond hard core book nerds.  Also, the complexity of choosing love or career is experienced by many viewers, and echoed very much in Egwene's late plotlines with Gawyn. Rand also suffers many conflicts of 'can I love and also be the Dragon'?  This smaller version keeps dynamic tension, draws different audiences, and gives hints at greater examples of these conflicts later. Nothing cheap about it...they were very well done and appeal to many.

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The intimate interactions between them will greatly reduce the huge impact of the igloo scene from the books

Sex has a huge impact and can be very powerful and important to the lives of the participants even if the participants are not virgins.  In fact, if they are virgins, sex is often very awkward and rather uncomfortable as both parties are trying to figure things out. The igloo scene, if they do it, was never about and did not include how awkward Rand and Aviendha were about not knowing where everything goes or what they were doing. It was a moment of desperation and passion.  Making Rand and Egwene have limited experience takes the emphasis off the 'virgin' and puts it on 'passion'.  It also is age appropriate. 

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What happened to Baerlon?

Every single set and location costs a large amount of money to build, extras to hire, costumes to create, shots to establish and so on. Any adaptation will want to try to minimize the number of built sets, especially large town sets for money reasons. 

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What happened to Min?

Min has a larger role in the show than she has on Eye of the World. In the first book, she sees some things about the boys, and that's it...then they leave.  It would be 1 episode, if that  In the show, she is the one who helps Rand verify for sure he is the Dragon, and she is in two episodes. She will have a greater role in future books, and the show even showed us that she is going to continue to be important by taking the time to show us how she is departing Fal Dara.

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What happened to Caemlyn?  What happened to Elayne, Gawyn, and Galededrid? 

Camelyn is another huge and expensive set used for a very tiny portion of the books.  Elayne, Gawyn, and Galad  are three characters we are supposed to get to know and really care about, so they deserve a strong introduction and time spent with them.  However, a TV series can't introduce too many ongoing characters, because the viewers get overwhelmed and forget who is who. The show is moving those 3 characters to S2 where we can spend more time with them and make them more important than they would have been in just a quick 'drive through' meeting.

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Rand at the White Tower in Season 1?

Aes Sedai politics is a major theme of the books and sets them apart from Lord of the Rings.  They aren't a faceless order of Wizards, which is how the audience would 'read' them in the show early on.  They have complex politics.  They also appeal to a different segment of the audience, one more interested in politics, intrigue, etc, than just 'plain trope LOTR fantasy.  In order to broaden the appeal of the show to that audience, the Showrunner had to show that that existed in the first place in order to be able to film into Book 2 and 3 where it is shown more in the text. By taking Rand to Tar Valon, he shows that. Also the Tar Valon set will be reused again and again throughout the series, in every season, so it is a fine investment to build early as opposed to Camelyn which is rarely needed. 
 

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Only Rand and Moiraine at the Eye of the World? 

The climax of the books says 'It was about all of them'.  The story being about all 5 of the EF's is the core of the series.  The Showrunner wanted to show that, as much as he could.  So he is intentionally splitting the 'victories' of some of the early seasons from Just Rand to Rand + the rest of them. In EOTW, they do not work together...everyone except Rand gets knocked out, and then Rand does a half-dozen different things.  Everyone else is useless.  There is no companionship. With the way they split it up, it means that Rand can do a heroic thing, and Egwene and Nynaeve also can do a heroic thing. Perrin and Mat lost out  this season (In part due to COVID and Barney Harris leaving) but I bet they make up for it at Falme.

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Whitebridge is gone and Thom's fight with the Fade is moved to some random mining town instead

See above: More sets, bigger sets = more money. Boats are even /more/ money, and hard to film on.  Domon has been cast and shows up later. Cuendillar is introduced in Episode 8, where we also see the first seal of the Dark One's tomb. The show introduced these elements in a stronger and more memorable way than Bayle Domon talking about his knickknacks.

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Yet instead of these two simultaneous epic battles, with the culmination of Rand's power defeating the enemies at Tarwin's Gap, we get a lukewarm "confrontation" between Rand and Ishamael where Rand just denies forcing Egwene to be his love instead of going her own way and automatically wins the battle at the Eye of the World

The finale was significantly impacted by COVID, but is still strong. The end of EOTW is a confused set of teleporting and blasting and does not tie to the major themes in the books. Jordan himself said he had problems with it.  In the Show, the finale is a direct foreshadowing of the showdown with the Dark One found on Memory of Light, with Rand and the Dark One choosing between fates of the world and the role of consent and free will. It is also done in a way so the audience can see and understand what is going on, and recognize these themes when they come up later.

I already wrote about 'splitting up the victories', though I see no difference between Rand blasting an army of Trollocs and 5 women, including 2 of the strongest Channelers in 1000 years, being forced to channel to the point of death to blast an army of trollocs to the point where they retreat. Doing this this way splits up the victories, adds 'stakes' to creating circles to directly explain why Aes Sedai don't just link to do whatever they want, and gives the battle at Fal Dara in the books with Fal Dara winning anyway. They just have /more/ people die in the Show than in the Books, raising the stakes and tension.

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Moiraine is stilled?!! 

Moiraine is not stilled. She is shielded with a tied off weave.  Tying off a weave is not a broadly known magic tech in the show universe, most likely.  This was done to give Pike and Henney a storyline in S2, which focuses on the Great Hunt.  They are expanding out what is there, but these two big name actors are a major draw for a show, especially for a significant market segment, and the Showrunner doesn't want to lose it by having the characters never appear all season (and risk losing the actors).

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Yet the Questioner in the TV series refers to himself and those like him as Questioners.

Questioner makes it clear the audience what they are and what they do. Having multiple names for the same thing is confusing for the audience, and the goal is to make things as simple and memorable for the audience as possible.

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In the TV series, you have to use the One Power to open the waygate. 

We will see more of this next season, but the Waygates can also be opened with a terangreal that looks like a leaf key...In a cut clip (probably for time) we see a shot of Padan Fain holding one. So the Ogier used them when they used the ways, though they likely have been lost or stolen over the years and the Trollocs have ahold of them.  This can be shown in later seasons.

But I think they are using the One Power to open the Waygates primarily so that they combine the magical transportation system 'Waygates' with the magical transportation system 'Portal Stones'. Wheel of Time has at least 5 different magical transportation systems. (Waygates, Portal Stones through a parallel plane, Portal Stones teleporting directly, Skimming, Gateways, and Tel'eranriad).  This is a /lot/ for a short series to incorporate and expect viewers to understand.  By having magic open Waygates, then Rand could, potentially, try to open one in a pinch and do it wrong, creating/rediscovering the Portal Stone use and 'flicker flicker' even.  They may not go that way, but it helps cut down on the magic systems.

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He's much shorter/smaller than he should be, though admittedly that's just easier to portray without CGI than to make him the size he's meant to be.  He also doesn't have the large ears that are described.

The Showrunner had a choice:  Show Loial and other characters closer to the books, but have their time on screen very much restricted so that CGI can be done (and complained about whenever it wasn't realistic enough), or use prosthetics to be able to show him as much as possible and have it be as realistic as possible to the viewer.  He chose the later because he likes Loial and wanted more of him.

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Yet, in the TV series, Moiraine just dismisses teaching Rand by saying essentially that he'll use it automatically when it's time.  Nothing about the fact that she can't teach him.

Saidar and Saidin are separate, and Moiraine says she can't see men's weaves earlier in the show.  There is a whole extra feature about their separation. Moiraine hardly ever admits to weakness or not knowing something. If Rand lived and she lived, Moiraine would want to be Rand's mentor and his advisor. Telling him she can't teach him doesn't start her how in a good position to be his advisor...he can just tell her she can't teach him anything.   And she may not even be able to tell him she can't teach him anything...maybe she can teach him some things, technically.  But she doesn't have time to find out what the limits are and she hasn't thought about it yet.

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So, apparently the writers of the TV series can't figure out how many ta'veren there are.  The show said there were 4 and also that there were 5.  In reality

The ones who know how many ta'veren there are are the Darkfriends...the Dark One has been telling them in their dreams. The Blue spy network most likely got the information out of a darkfriend at some point, which is why Moiraine knows.  Moiraine knows the age. So '4 t'averan, all the right age' does not imply that there can't be '5 ta'veran, 4 the right age and 1 the wrong age'.  In any event: The Showrunner changed it to 5 because having someone like Egwene being a Ta'veran gives a storytellter shortcut for some leaps of logic that are otherwise harder to accept. Why does Egwene become Amerlyn?  Seasons of complex plotting that all need to be shown on screen to even make sense, or little bit of complex plotting + Ta'veren.  That's easier. Why is Nynaeve the strongest in 1000 years just by happenstance?  Weird coincidence...or Ta'veren. Jordan uses Ta'veran to cover all sorts of weird circumstances for the boys. Expanding it to the girls lets the Showrunner use it for them too.  It does not weaken their power at all...no one says they're stronger than the boys because the boys are Ta'veran.  The only thing it does is say that, in this universe, the Pattern can choose and work through women too.  The showrunner answers questions ahead of time just by including it.

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The reason the Dragon Reborn is feared is because the Dragon Reborn will be male and therefore tainted by the dark side of the One Power - Saiden. 

The Dragon Reborn is feared AND desired because the Dragon Reborn could destroy the world or save it.  Or both.  It didn't need any more than that.  But more than that, a theme in the stories is that knowledge is incomplete. The Aes Sedai are not omniscient. Prophecies can be wrong.  The Seanchen prophecies and the Dark Prophecies and the Karethon cycle are all being interpreted by people in different ways (think 'bowing to the Crystal Throne'). This incomplete knowledge of what will be is a theme throughout the books, so the Showrunner is including it here in the first season so we know the Aes Sedai don't know everything.  Suian's dream about the Dark One at the Eye was false...a trick to make Rand break the first Seal. She was wrong.  Moiraine frets she doesn't know who the Dragon is, because she's intelligent enough to know that their understanding of the prophecies is incomplete.   She can't rule out Egwene or Rand, because she just doesn't know, though she hopes for Egwene.  It's not changing the story to be inclusive (though inclusivity is a GREAT GOAL. The Showrunner WANTS a broader audience to get more people to want to watch the show so it is renewed and women are over 50% of the population.)  Its bringing those themes of the untrustworthiness of what Moiraine knows or doesn't know forward so that we in the audience can continue to wonder what the Aes Sedai really do know or don't know and question it as it goes on in further seasons.

"Weaken the story" is an opinion exclusive to an individual viewer.  For others, many of these things strengthen the story.  "Break Plotlines" depends on which plotlines from the many in the books the Showrunner moves forward on, and which he chooses to cut, for there will be many cuts.  It also depends on how he adapts the remaining plotlines to those changes in the future.  Every Adaptation has many changes, as shared above. The Showrunner's clear goals (not in any order) are 1) Adapting the story as well as possible, especially by focusing on the broad themes of the whole series rather than all the individual subplots or minor elements.  2) Broadening audience appeal to more audiences than would just watch niche fantasy 3) Saving money by building fewer sets 4) Using practical effects over CGI. 5) Making sure that the audience can keep track of what is going on and who the characters are by combining or narrowing where possible 6) making the characters themselves more emotionally appealing and memorable so the audiences identify with them even more.

Riamus:  You have done what I hoped someone would do and make a list of all the changes that you have problems with and don't know a reason for, so I love that! Thank you!  This gives me an opportunity to go through and explain why each change was done.  You may not agree with the change, and that's fine, but there are explanations for all of them.  I will go through them with my next post (which may be a while.)

Before I tackle that beast, though, I do want to address a couple of things from your intro.

Each individual reader of a series carries away from it different elements that they latch on to the most. Any person creating an adaptation is going to adapt it to the elements that they connected to in the story.  Those elements will not be your elements, ever.  Your individual takeaway is not the only, nor the correct, one. There is no correct one.

There are many kinds of adaptations.. The quality of an adaptation (whether it is good or bad) cannot be judged on its fidelity to the source material: many horrible adaptations (like, say, Winter Dragon) are perfectly faithful to their source material, while many great adaptations are extremely different from their source material.  The quality of an adaptation is determined by how successfully it brings its themes and elements to a new medium.

The problem, I suspect, some have with the show is that their expectations about what would be included in the show from the book and how it was translated were not met.  The problem is with the expectation.

A much more thorough breakdown of this aspect of adaptations can be found here:

Secondly, you also may not be aware of how Writers Rooms work in film and television.  One person does not 'write' an episode of a show. A team of writers work together in a writers room to write a show.  Some of those in the writers room, like the Showrunner, have read the series many, many times. Some have read it a couple of times. Some specialize in dialog, some in action, some in drama. And one or two have not read the series.  The reason to have writers in the writers room who have not read the series is so that they can look at the script as it is being developed from the perspective of those who have not read the series, forcing the other writers to make sure they include the necessary exposition to explain how they got there. They /need/ those writers.  But those writers do not, alone, write the script. Only one or two writers get credit on a particular episode, but that is because  that's how writers share the credit and advance their careers, but that doesn't mean they wrote it alone.

Finally, Season 1 was extremely well received.  It had very high viewership, a long 'tail' (which means viewers who watched it after the initial run finished), a good International Market presence especially in India, was Amazon's #1 premier at the time, competed well and beat Marvel flagship series, and far exceeded Amazon's expectations. Professional reviewers ratings were very solid for the series for the most part.  Amazon is aware that it got review bombed, as have many big media tentpoles in the year since, especially any ones that seem to be feminist and inclusive.   Media, like the rest of us, are victim of the culture wars.  But other than that,  the early approval for S3 well ahead of the release of S2 indicates ongoing confidence in the property.  (If you want the actual Neilson's for the show I can dig them up, but they're available out there).

I'll breakdown the explanations for your big list of differences later. ❤️

3 hours ago, Nik said:

Perrin gets the axe off a whitecloak perhaps? 

Maybe?

Discussion Panels recording:

(2+3 in the links)

That looks like Perrin's axe, doesn't it?

Rafe also answered a ton of questions in this thread:
 

There were two Origins clips, as well as confirmation that there will be more Origins episodes (those are the animated mini-episodes) starting in August.

Here was a trailer for one of the clips, which was on the origins of Malkier.

There was a great Behind the Scenes clip which had a TON of stuff in it I want to pick all apart here:
 

And they confirmed Season 3 has been greenlit and Rafe will be going to London to start work on the scripts in 2 weeks. Season 3 will primarily cover The Shadow Rising.

VFX Breakdown

Other observations I made about costumes that aren't in Lezbi Nerdy's videos:

1. Egwene's hair tie at the end of her braid is not just one color, there are multiple little ribbons for it.  Maybe one per ajah?

2. Tom's coat is corderoy and Pez calls this out as 'cloth of the king', pointing out that in clothing design it was originally used to dress the ruler or the rulers high servants to wear something less than velvet but still looking like velvet. She says this hints at a relationship between Tom and a king or queen.  The other person with any corderoy on is Mat, where it is the collar of his coat. This makes a visual tie between Mat and Thom and is a little foreshadowing of things to come.

3. Most costumes use the Asian asymmetrical collar, and following Eastern tradition the left half always overlays the right half. However, the only ones who have the right half overlaying the left half is The Dark One/Ishamael and Lews Therin.  Cause when we see them in the present time, they're long dead.