2 minutes ago, Katherine said:

Yeah, Watching and enjoying The Witcher as a non-book fan while watching and bemoaning WoT as a book fan is extremely interesting and DOES go to show just how difficult it is to adapt books in a way that feels natural and right. 

 

So while I feel like RJ2 was not up to the task, I will concede that the task was far greater than maybe I understood. 

The problem here is that anyone that read the books of the witcher should know that there are things there that are ubber rubish and would never work on tv 

However, if someone is going to adapt a book series they should respect the lore and world building in the books. Because THAT is what allows for complex and gripping storylines that cross several seasons in a way that a tv written show can't.

If the objective is to rewrite a series into what you think the series should be, with a diferent lore and focus on completly diferent things from the books then you shouldn't adapt the series into tv. And I am sorry, but this is what rafe is doing. The more the series goes on the less wot there is on the show...

1 hour ago, ArrylT said:

 

Have now watched E2 of The Witcher.    I will watch it again (like I rewatched E1 2x), but at the moment while the world is more vast in terms of locations used - it still feels smaller than WoT because the majority of locations are sets (imo) with a few outdoors, whereas the large majority of Ep2 for WoT was out in the open and the sets used felt vaster / bigger (Shadar Logoth / Whitecloaks camp).   A lot of the visuals are done from close ups, with the occasional CGI shot of what I am guessing is Aretuza.

 

Witcher definitely has a grimmer vibe after 2 episodes, and I still struggle to find a character I am able to relate to /like.   Obviously Garelt of Riva is good from an acting perspective, but as a person to actually have a connection with - not there yet - sort of like Mat post Dagger - seems almost tainted by his past.

 

Have now met Jaskier.   I think that thread earlier about the bards is misleading in the sense that if you go with first impressions - Thom is so much stronger.   I think that video for A Coin for your Witcher is quite good but that isnt how the song first is shown, nor was it our first instance of seeing Jaskier perform - so on that thread you're sort of grading first impression of Thom vs a glossed up Jaskier promo video.   I did like the contrast of how the audience in Breens Spring is enthralled by Thom while the crowd listening to Jaskier pays him to stfu.   But I honestly cannot see how anyone going on first appearance of each performing music can give the nod to Jaskier.    I'll make sure to re-watch the scenes of both in their episode introduced.   

 

It is still a challenge to grade a show vs. a show 2 episodes.    I think the Witcher is quite entertaining, but when I compare it to WoT and looking through a lens comparing the 2 on specific criteria I do not yet see a category where the Witcher has a major edge.  But I think that comes from ones perspective.    The Witcher world is coming off quite grim and most of the characters seem willing to turn on one another. 

 

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One character is sold for $ by her father.   2 characters are secretly betraying each other to their teachers. 1 character stabs another literally in the back.  

 

Ciri at the moment is more of a "Mary Sue" than Egwene/Nynaeve.

 

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Basically Episode 2 has her constantly ending up getting helped by different characters - including 1 character who helped her in 3 different instances - and her "power" is screaming.  

 

 For those thinking Geralt is a better fighter than Lan well Lan 2 episodes in did not get ambushed from behind and knocked senseless. ? 

 

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Nor does he sleep with people he has been hired to kill

 

Updated:

 

Acting:  Edge to Wheel of Time

Cinematography:  Edge to Wheel of Time has increased

Action:  There is better action in E2 of WOT so they tie up here

Plot: Edge to Wheel of Time

Writing:  Going to say even, as the writing in E2 of Witcher improved for me a bit

Tone:  Edge to The Witcher 

Character attachment:  Major edge to Wheel of Time

World of (how it is shown on screen):   Edge to The Wheel of Time

Believability*:  Edge to The Wheel of Time

Pacing/Editing:  Slight edge to The Witcher (got weaker imo as the 2nd episode went on)

 

Just to be clear - enjoy the show - happy to keep watching it - but looking at it through a critical lens while doing the same with Wheel of Time it is going to be The Wheel of Time a couple of tiers ahead atm.

 

* - Did what happen make logical sense within the world, the way things have been shown,  and we're expected to understand.  

I am sorry, but you have a character that kills a trollock with a little knife without having any training, tracks some people that should be untrackable and puts a sword to the neck of one of the best warrior of the series (without training), heals a bunch of people from near death (without training), shileds against a major threat in the series (wihtout training) and kills thousands of trollocks (without training) and you think ciri is more of a mary sue?

I can understand that you like wot better than the witcher, but there are things in the witcher that are miles above wot. 

3 hours ago, Gothic Flame said:

If I recall, Rafe & Co. (i.e. Amazon) had this slotted/scheduled in a spot with little competition. It had this timeframe to play "flavor of the month" to win over an audience...and keep them. Word of mouth is the best advertising because that pulls in new viewers in a competitive timeslot. (That's where the work gets the big payoff I believe. Imagine if it knocked the much touted "Mandalorian" down a couple of notches)

The upshot is that I don't believe it's been successful at all in any of the above except to show how fast it lost viewers.

That is also my opinion. 

The initial numbers were great and as the series didn't live up to the books it started losing viewership.

And then the witcher happened and it brought some weird desperation to make people think wot is as good as the witcher...

The problem is that I don't even think that the target audience of the witcher and wot is the same. The witcher is clearly a show for a mature audience while wot is a cw show with great visuals...

2 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

They're not wrong, though I don't agree with all points.

And yeah, the small handful of comments (211 is small when the viewership is in the millions) disagree.

You know who doesn't?  Critics.  I see everyone tossing around RT and WoT only have 82% versus things like GoT being higher.  But they conveniently choose to not notice that Witcher is at 81% and Season 1 of Witcher is at 68%.

What I really don't understand is the obsession that because you didn't like it somehow you need to find validation of everyone else hating it too.  It's wierd.

The thing about critics is that most of the time they don't represent what the audience thinks. You just have to look at season 1 of the Witcher to notice that. And then look at season 2 to see how critics tried to compensate their opinions on season 1 and ended up pretty far from the audience's opinion. 

In the end what matters is people's opinion and not critics. And wherever you look it is low. And that is worrying for wot... 

44 minutes ago, Lethira the second said:

 

The trouble is, companies such as Amazon are fickle.  If it's not performing how they want it to, they'll simply pull the plug and then the best laid plans will crumble to dust.

I think the future of the show will depend on the numbers of the second season. 

Because it is obvious the name of the show attracted a lot of people but looking at what people say about the show it is divise at best. I would like to compare the numbers of the premiere with the last ep...

But what I am trying to say is that it is doubtfully that the show will explode in popularity and I would like to know how many people will return to watch the second season... 

9 minutes ago, Ralph said:

But if bringing down men is deliberately in order that the women's comeuppance is all the greater, that is neither consciously nor unconsciously misandrist, but actually an attack on the mistaken belief that feminism requires bringing down men. 

 

One of the main themes of the series is that men and women both look down on the other sec and do not trust them. Everyone discovers that only combined efforts can be truly successful. 

 

If the show makes that only about women's attitude to men, then surely that is anti "bringdownmenism" rather than pro? 

For that to make sense the women would need to be the ones bringing down men. 

However it is the show itself that does that... 

6 minutes ago, Gothic Flame said:

...and faith.

It is like the last seasons of got debate. Everybody knew that what we were seeing was bad but people refused to aknowledge that and kept saying "in the end it will make sense".

I am sorry, but if something is bad now it will almost certainly keep being bad in the future.

The problems with wot won't be corrected unless most of the writing team changes because they are a result of the agenda, interpretation and messange they want to send.

I just anted to leave this link so people here read the comments

Why The Wheel of Time succeeds as an adaptation (and The Witcher fails) - Page 2 (winteriscoming.net)

Basically almost everybody disgrees ith the article. From readers to non-readers...

The problem with that stand is that no matter how you look at it, if it as supposed to inflict heavy losses on the trollock army then it should have been done at the beguining of the battle to give a better chance to the men.

What we had was all the men dying and then 5 women outside the city (for reasons nobody will ever know) casting to kill a whole army. They should have done it at the gap and on the city walls.

What we saw was just amateurish...

There is so much wrong with this ep...

Like, if the 5 pseudo aes sedai were supposed to inflict heavy losses on the trolloc army why didn't they do it at the beguining of the battle?

Why didn't fain kidnap perrin to take him to his boss?

For the love of god, why is eg reviving people? Seriously, what is rafe's obecession with making eg great?

What does rand even do at the end? He is supposed to reseal the dark one but all we see is the seal breaking and rand thinking he did what? How can he think he was sucessful?

Why does moiraine let rand go despite knowing that this was just the first battle and that she will need the dragon again?

what were people thinking when they wrote this? 

whatever we want to speculate about the weaves it is undeniable that the show ignored the effects of rand finding out that tam wasn't his father in ep 1. This makes no sense. And by showing tam confensing this in a few seconds in the last ep it was just an info dump that had no effect on the character.

The whole way they handled the revelation of the DR was very poor and they lost a huge oportunity to give some kind of story to rand by not having the tam scene on the first ep.

They could even have used the fact that the DR is suposed to be born from outside the village to make rand discover he was the DR.

This as was just very poor storytelling...

5 minutes ago, Yojimbo said:

The thing about that Reddit breakdown is that even if the numbers are correct, it's not a positive thing, because even if Rand has been on screen as much as any other character, he's not very memorable.   The actor just doesn't seem to have much if any screen presence.   Neither does the actor playing Perrin for that matter.   They may keep the focus on the women more even now because you really can't have the main character (Rand) be someone the audience doesn't find compelling to watch.   I know that's now my wife feels.   She guessed it was him after the first episode (technically during the watching of the 2nd ep) and to this day doesn't feel any connection to him at all.   

How can he be memorable or relatable when he doesn't have a story? I don't think you can blame the actor when all his big moments were about his relationship with eg...

He had his moments in ep3 and besides that he is the moopy boyfriend that has no interesting quality or story or growth or shiny/heroic moments. 

It is much easier to relate to lan than to either him or perrin and that shouldn't be the case! 

33 minutes ago, Wolfbrother31 said:

Also, I talked to my brother tonight - who doesn't read books (let alone long fantasy books) and he's been watching the show... Really interesting to me how he as a non-reader is reacting.

 

#1] he's still not convinced that Rand is the Dragon (so kudos I guess - I've been super negative about playing up the "mystery of the Dragon" but apparently it really works for people who haven't read the books) because, in his words "he just seems like an annoying lovesick kid". This means the show can legit still have Rand wonder if it's really true. 

 

#2] I thought Blood Snow cold open was AWESOME (my non-reader brother thought it was overtop and unrealistic - and apparently didn't connect the dots that that was Rand's mom/makes Rand the dragon - he forgot about Tam being Rand's dad cause that more than a month ago and apparently forgettable to him).

 

#3] he overall thinks the show pretty good ...not as good as the Flash though (his words not mine - don't hate). 

 

#4] he thinks it would be way better if (like other CW shows he's watched) it got 20+ episodes that were 40+ minutes. 

 

#5] his favorite character in the show is Lan (so -- I'm having some crisis/perspective shift -- because apparently what they're doing is somewhat working for non-readers!)

 

 

 

Actually you just supported most of What I was saying.

Nobody that hasn't read the books believes that rand is the dragon and they haven't given him a story/developed his character besides being eg's boyfriend. How can they make him the dragon who they have built up as the messiah? who wants to see the second season when you don't like the main character?

whatever they wanted to do I think this is a major flaw and I just can't understand why they did rand this way...

And in regards to your prediction about moiraine I think that is the only thing that can save this show. First because the focus of the show should never be about moiraine and second because of the huge amounts of rewriting that they would need to do to make her role worth of rosamund pike in the following seasons. But I have serious doubts...

3 minutes ago, expat said:

Isn't this the whole reason that he appears receptive to the way of the leaf?  His discussion of the way of the leaf in episode 7 seemed very wistful.  It represents his desire for peace with his propensity for violence.  This is very much part of his arc.  Certainly needs to be filled out in season 2, but it is a foundation piece.

They changed him killing the wc to him accidently killing his wife.

That are 2 very different things. 

1 minute ago, Elder_Haman said:

Yes. 
 

 

Not yet. But why must it happen now as opposed to later?

 

No. But why was this important? And is it more important than establishing the foundation for his relationship with Faile?

 

He didn’t accept that in book 1. 

 

No. It really doesn’t. 

I have serious doubts he knows he can connect with wolves. He never talked with them or heard them... He just had the imprension they wouldn't attack them.  It can't really be compared to what happens in the books.

Because the development of the characters is important if you are suposed to connect with them. If a character is undeveloped in season 1 then people don't care about that character...

And what fundation? that he settlled for someone else because he couldn't have eg? that his wife was insecure about eg? That he is in love with eg?

And I am pointing out that his book behaviour against the wc was much more developed and heroic than in the show where they gave that role to eg.

After watching season 1 I don't know how you can use the books to justify any direction the show will take. about 90% of the show is completly diferent of the books...

3 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

Because they had nearly equal screen time? 
 

 

This is still going to be the story of the EF5. Rand is still the Dragon. Egwene will be the Amyrlin. The main beats for all the characters will be the same as they were in the books. 
 

You are grasping at straws here. 

Will they be the same? Perrin's main beats in this book/season were the same? 

Did we have him discovering he could connect to wolves? concisously killing people? trying to deal with the whitecloaks himself instead of egwene? deciding to kill her to save her from a worse death? accepting that he had magical powers?

All of perrin's main beats were ignored in order to make eg better. 

This season proves that what you are hoping for just isn't true. 

And the boys can have had simillar screen times but they certainly talked much less and what they did as secondary or less interesting to their female counterparts.

1 minute ago, Elder_Haman said:

Well, you’re wrong about the “main focus” being on those 3. This is clearly a show about all of the characters that left the Two Rivers. We have spent a similar amount of time will all 7 of them. 
 

Moreover, we know where the story goes from here. They may make changes, but they’re not doing a wholesale rewrite. 
 

 

What would you call the arc between perrin, eg and the whitecloaks? that was a complete rewrite.

what about rand and mat's travel together? or their time in camylin? OR the whole moiraine scenes after she is cured?

The whole show is a rewrite of the books with a few scenes conecting them. Given what they did with season 1 I don't think you can use the books as proof of what they might or not do.

And I would also risk that this is the book with less female focus and turned into a season mostly focused on women...

And how can you imply that mat, perrin or rand received the same focus as moiraine, eg or nym? Of the 3 boys the one that received more focus was clearly rand and even he comes acroos as the bland moopy boyfriend while the females had story arcs where they did things, had their background story exposed, evolved shoed they were special.

Just now, Elder_Haman said:

Okay. But is that bad? Is it somehow horrible that they have chosen to focus some of the female characters first?

I am sorry but I have never seen a show that works as you are implying.

Usually the main characters of the first season remain as main characters during the series unless they are killed. And this happens because the people watch the show because they want to see stories about the main characters.

It would be very strange to change the main focus of the story from moiraine, egwene and nym to give at least an equal focus to rand, perrin and mat. 

4 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

Why am I supposed to care about this?

Because one of the criticisms that is often discussed here is how men are portrayed and less developed in the show in regards to women?

Because it is an example hy rand, mat and perrin are side characters in the show compared to some of the female characters?

2 minutes ago, Arie said:

Let's avoid things like this, as it can be antagonistic. Thank you.

That wasn't the intention. I just really just wanted to know if there was a scene where the reverse happens.

7 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

Good thing that’s not what’s happening then. 

I am sorry but it is.

Or do you think any show only watcher cares more about rand, perin or mat that moiraine, nym or egwene?

Or that anyone thought that any of the men could be the dragon reborn?

11 minutes ago, dwn said:

They're starting Egwene's character arc a bit early, and, without Elyas for exposition, drawing out Perrin's. I fail to see the tragedy.

 

Pairing the scene of Rand's birth with the flashback to Tam's fever dream is an effective way to link the two in an episodic, visual format, where viewers may have forgotten exactly who Tam is or what he looked like.

 

Hyperbole aside, Mat had many memorable scenes through the season until (it seems likely) his actor left the series. I particularly liked the one between him and Helga Grinwald.

What perrin arc? In the book this part of the story was all about him and it got translated into he had yellow eyes and knew the wolves weren't going to attack them in order to further develop egweene. 

And puting the flashback there and having rand ignore what tam said the entire season made sense? Basicaly he had a world shocking revelation and never cares about it? Is this good writing? I could agree with you if we had seen that scene in ep 1 and it had some effect on rand throughout the season. This way it had no meaning to the characters and it was just info dump.

And these are just 2 examples how the show ignored male devolpment in order to be able to spend more time developing female characters. I chalange you to find a situation where the reverse happens.

Just now, Elder_Haman said:

So everything must happen all at once or at the same pace? Perrin’s character isn’t allowed to get more development in s2? 
 

There’s a kernel of truth to some of the things you talk about, but it’s making mountains out of molehills. This is a very solid show, every bit as good as the Witcher. To paraphrase Dominik Hasek, It’s just a show, why you gotta be so mad?

Do you know who liked to say

" you guys are criticizing this now but in the future it will make sense. just enjoy the show." ?

GOT fans that ignored all that was wrong with the show for years and when season 8 happened were shocked.

Whatever happens in the future, the facts are that the show transformed a story arc that was about developing perrin as a character, introducing his powers and making him grow into a series of egweene's moments. 

The same problems can be said about rand. Instead of giving him his own story almost all his story is about being egwene's boyfriend and their relationship. Having tam reveal he wasn't his father had meaning in the first ep. Now? it was just fan service so that they could say that "hey we showed this scene so don't criticize us".

And it is also undeniable that this first season needed to make people care about rand or relate with him in some way. However they choose to only develop female characters and lan ( because as he is important to moiraine and nym's story arcs it was inevitable).

And I would also like to point out that egwene and nym were much less developed in the first book that perrin and rand. So while I could understand making the all the characters important in the show I am completly against the main heroes of the sho being moiraine, egwene and nym and making rand, perrin and mat side characters.

14 minutes ago, FanofKnotai said:

The fact that they have considerably less screen time diminishes their importance to the story tremendously at this point. Maybe they will be more important in later episodes when they all finally get their separate story arcs. But what I don’t think you understand that I’m trying to say is not who had more speaking lines between Marin and Bran but the fact they changed that dynamic in the first place. WHY give Marin the lines that should’ve been Brans?! WHY give Ila the lines that should’ve been Raen’s?! WHY make Lan less of a badass?! WHY change Algemar’s personality?! The only reason I can see is to lessen the men of the WOT world and raise up the women. Marin/Bran/Raen/Ila/Algemar are basically extras in the overall story. So WHY change them from their characters in the books? WHY? Changing these things in the show makes no difference to the overall story. So why do it? The only male in the show that doesn’t seem less than his book counterpart is Thom.  But we’ve only had him for one episode. It seems to me as if they are trying to make the women seem more important in a story where there’s no need to do so. They were already super important! The men seem to be second fiddle to the women. Having Perrin secretly in love with Egwene settling for Layla takes away from his character. While having him kill Layla gives us a visual reason for his later hatred of the ax, him being only married to her because he couldn’t have Egwene makes him a douche. Samurai Batman?! Lan was smart, loyal, wise, and yes BADASS in the TEOTW. His character didn’t need to be softened. That came later when Nynaeve (and yes Rand too) broke through his shell and forced him to open up. Rand didn’t “bumble” through TEOTW. He was just as determined and defiant while trying to make it Caemlyn as they’ve shown Nynaeve to be in the show. But in the show he’s hardly had chance to show his determination.  But all of that is heroine away from the unnecessary small changes the show has made to the men in the books. In the books Egwene wasn’t defiant of the Whitecloaks. She was fearful and pleading. But in the show Perrin was simpering over the death of his wife saying he deserved the torture while Egwene practically spit in Valdas face telling him she was gonna rip him apart or something. As I said however either those things happen, the overall story for Perrin and Egwene is the same so WHY change it? If they would have not changed ALL of the men it would be ok for me. If my Spider sense wasn’t active because of the changes to Raen/Bran/Lan, then the badass Egwene may have not even registered. Then came Rand/Mat/Algemar   But when you take all the superfluous changes as a whole, it paints a pretty biased picture of the men in the WOT show. 

I don't understand why the show turned egwene into this badass mary sue hero that can do no wrong and everybody is in love with. I don't even get why rand had to apologize so much to her in this ep...

Some of her lines should have gone to rand in order to give him a personality that people could get interested in. Because until the last 10 mins of this ep he was eg's boyfriend that was mopping the entire season and then they decided to make a info dump and make him the dragon without spending any time developing his character.

I don't get this...

On 12/16/2021 at 8:59 PM, JeffTheWoodlandElf said:

"It seems like the streamer’s biggest mandate with fantasy adaptations is to make them faithful to die-hard fans. Anyone else who goes along for the ride is a welcome bonus." 

 

Read this in a review of The Witcher Season 2 today and it's really making me with WoT had been adapted by literally anyone but the suits at Amazon. 

 

Say what you like about the adaptation, but it was certainly made with a wider audience in mind first and then any book fans who weren't put off by the changes were invited to come along if they wished. 

 

Netflix's shows aren't always good or satisfactory for their fanbases (Hello, Cowboy Bebop) but it seems like they give their creatives a lot more control over there. 

I don't think we can compare the adaptation process of the witcher  and wot. The witcher fanbase comes mostly from the games and several things about the books are mediocre at best (

On the other hand the wot has fans because of the books that in terms of worldbuilding are very good.

So messing with the book story of the witcher was garateed from the beguining. On the other hand, messing with the story of wot can screw with what makes the books atractive to the audience.

Seeing the show it is more than obvious that it really lacks a strong male main character focus.  However the creators did everything in their power to avoid scenes about the development of male characters and gave too much focus to moiraine, egweene and nym. I would even risk that lan is a better established charated than rand in the tv show and this makes no sense!