21 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

I wouldn't be so certain. There are a lot of other factors in play.

For example, most murdered women are killed by men, so by this metric one may assume sexism is at play.

But then, one can see that most murdered men are also killed by men, so it's got nothing to do with sexism, it's just that most murdered are men.

In general, men are more likely to be nerds, men are more likely to be violent (verbally or otherwise), and so men have a greater likelyhood of being internet trolls.

 

So, I'm not surprised at all that a majority of men are insulting SN. I am not convinced that they would not equally insult a man in her place, though.

 

I do hope that Sarah is receiving a lot more supportive messages than she's receiving hateful ones. There's always going to be a few bad apples, and the internet makes them stand out. but there's also a lot of decent people.

Except if she as the token book fan on the series and lowest person on the creative totem pole has confirmed that she is receiving particular kinds of DM's and the male showrunner at the top is not, that's the ball game. That means it's because of all these chickensh*ts hiding behind their keyboards who wouldn't dare say what they're saying in person's to someone's face, or even be willing to sign it, so she could expose them publicly.

2 minutes ago, VooDooNut said:

Thanks for the reply @Jaysen Gore In the books, yes, that's pretty much the case, but I'm curious to see if they strengthen the DO's influence over male channelers in the show to the point that the weaves themselves are constantly being corrupted. We don't yet have many examples to base that theory on, other than the scenes I mentioned above, but it will be interesting to see how this develops in season 2.

I can't see it, because IMO, WOT is about agency, and having something that reduces that agency in men would cause a lot of problems politically.  It would change what male channeller's suffer as a result of the taint from madness to inescapable enslavement to evil, and further justify the way the world has treated them over the last 3000 years.

Consider it like a repetitive strain injury - it is the cumulative exposure to the corruption that cause people to slowly lose their minds - the more they channel, the more of those little hooks get into their brains. This can display as either a lose of rational thought, or in the weaves not functioning the way they want (loss of motor control, effectively)

But there is also a RNG component, since it is shown repeatedly in the books that at any time a male channeller's mind is subject to complete breaking from the taint without warning, and without a direct relationship to the previous level of decline.

I do not think the taint is sentient, or even a tool of the dark one; there is no outside will in it. The above scene is either a visual manifestation of madness, or as has been posited is in fact a couple of forsaken. But it's not the DO or the taint directly.  The taint is not the strings of the puppetmaster, in other words; it might be alcohol, removing inhibitions, or PCP, causing disassociation, or LSD, causing hallucinations, but there's no one else driving.

As I said in another thread, I doubt there is anything that would make me so pissed off that I would quit watching in protest; Amazon gets my money either way, so it doesn't save me anything. 

But what it would take is for them to bore me (like imagine not fixing the slog in an 8 season show), or reassign plotlines to different characters - Nyn as Amyrlin, Perrin with the dagger, Egwene becoming the general, Tuon as one of Rand's girls - or to just so badly damage the characters that I simply shrug and go back to the books. Some people are at that point already, I'm not. I'm having fun speculating as a mental exercise about what they're doing. But I am not emotionally invested in these characters specifically.

I still prefer to look on the bright side - for example, we now have the Horn of Valere. We know Suroth and Turok have been cast. We know Falme is a filming location. So we can safely assume that 75%+ of the Falme plotline is intact. My only real question is whether or not Rand is there, or if it's Perrin and Turok.  And in this case, the plot will drive the characters, which is okay, because we know the characters full journeys.

On the LOTR discussion, let me point out one major advantage that WoT has as a result of being cheaper - Amazon can afford to let it run longer, make changes, try and shift focus, course correct, etc,. while still serving its core audience. It may be less important, but that also makes it a lower risk.

OTOH, if LOTR bombs, we may not see a second season, because even for Amazon Prime Video, a $250 million dollar loss would be too much to tolerate long term.  And the production quality expectations being set means that we won't get a Divergent level direct to video conclusion to the show; it'll just be gone.

That lower risk profile is why I'm fairly confident that if season 3 of WoT gets approved, we will get the entire series. If we get s3, we get Rhuidean, which will generate enough buzz to get us to Dumai's Wells, which is really WoT's Red Wedding. And at that point, not only will the audience (however big or small) be committed to the series, but it will have broken even even if subsequent seasons don't make money. So Amazon will be justified in finishing it in order to build it's content catalogue and maintain the intellectual property rights which might have a conclude or sell clause in it.

34 minutes ago, Gothic Flame said:

Yup.

Amazon is likely going to go to the wall in every way to ensure a hit series.

If I recall the average...insane (yes, insanity is what I see as average here...just don't ponder on that) advertising budget is somewhere between $20mil and $30mil, which is what it is for a big budget movie.

It needs to be a success.

The standard hollywood metric is that the marketing and advertising budget globally is equal to the production budget. So it would not surprise me if LOTR will come in at a $25 million / episode budget. Nuts

But, the marketing budget for an MCU film, for example, is into the 9 figure range. another order of magnitude entirely.

1 hour ago, Andra said:

Also amusing is that his interpretation in Christianity isn't all that similar to his interpretation in Judaism.  Which is supposedly where Christianity got him from.  In Judaism, he's more like a prosecutor in a trial.  With various prophets being defense attorneys, and God being the judge.  Or possibly with God being the defense attorney, and some unidentified watchers being the jury. The difference isn't really clear.

 

An interesting take on the concept within Christianity (and therefore naturally rejected by most Christian authorities) is the apocryphal Gospel of Judas.

The idea being that if Jesus actually came here to be a sacrifice, then the person who enabled the sacrifice to happen was not only NOT the worst of the evil, he was actually the best of the good.  Jesus trusted him with the most difficult task of all the Disciples.

A task that was the equivalent of the Hebrew High Priests that carried out the sacrifices that the people needed for their salvation.

 

Another version in popular fiction was Snape killing Dumbledore.

Or my personal favorite interpretation - Sammael is the prosecutor, the prophets are the defense attorney, humankind is the jury, and God is in fact the defendant. 

Because, to your point around Judas, in service to his Lord, he commits the only unforgivable Mortal sin due to his guilt resulting from one of the most important actions of the new testament, and is damned to hell for all eternity as a reward for ensuring Jesus makes it to the cross.  That is the reward he receives for his service from his beloved Creator.

It's like if Rand had to kill the DO, replace him in the abyss, and then close the portal from the other side. in order to remove the DO's touch on the world. That would be some reward from the Creator for his service.

And yes, it is dependent on the legal system difference between an adversary (specifically Satan = Adversary) and an enemy. 

Kind of amusing, but this is in fact one of the objections of Satanists; if he fulfills the same role in Christianity that the DO does in Randland, then he is both absolutely necessary to the adoption of free will, and performing the task he was created to fulfill. So if that's the case, can he truly be considered evil?

15 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

I don't believe I said that was his entire relationship with violence.  I said the only reason the death of those two whitecloaks matter to Perrin is because they're the first time he fought in a rage and gave into the wolf.  He didn't kill them completely in control so to speak, but by embracing the wolf.  Which starts the seeds of fear that the wolf will overcome him or that giving into his rage and violence will risk his humanity.

And it was always a bit of a debate on if it was a good point or not to use justifiable self defense killing as that catalyst.  I remember people debating it back in the early 2000's and all the way up to when Sanderson took over.

And I would add the context of RJ being a soldier in Vietnam to any discussion around the gray morality behind the necessity for violence. I'm not going to get into a debate over the theory - in the books, Perrin goes berserk, kills two people protecting "people" he loves, spends 11 books reconciling himself to the fact that sometimes violence is the only solution, and calmly shows that belief, and willing to pay the moral price of doing so.

28 minutes ago, Truthteller said:

Here the reduction of Rand makes a huge difference.  While many of the characters undergo some kind of reconciliation of the different parts of themselves, the template for this is Rand.  Rand is the one who has the power, Rand is the one who has to come to terms with the implications of violence, Rand is the one who needs to learn he needs others.  
 

The tv show has demonstrated no awareness of this.  Rand is able to learn the lessons he needs to learn because of the way he was raised and his relationship with his father and his father figure (Lan and Thom).  The show ignores these relationships, relationships that are the bedrock of his character.

Just as I have no proof that the show will address this, you have no proof they won't. you believe they won't. fine, but you can't say they HAVE obliterated it until after the show is done.

28 minutes ago, Truthteller said:

And it isn’t a one off thing,  Perrin and May are Tavaren because they are part of Rand’s thread, they have to do things he cannot do.  Egwene has a different thread, which is at least partly to oppose Rand, here her role is similar to Tuon in Rand’s journey.  Making her tavaren is just more of the dragon can be a man or woman nonsense, and demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding. 

Perrin and Mat are Ta'veren because they are Ta'veren. Linked to Rand yes, but not part of his journey. And as @KakitaOCU pointed out, making Egwene Ta'veren doesn't not change the fact that she both loves Rand - more than in a brotherly way - and is opposed to him going alone.  All this women can be Dragons talk is smokescreen BS for TV marketin, and does not impact the story. BECAUSE THE DRAGON IS RAND AL"THOR.

32 minutes ago, Truthteller said:

Or Lan, his journey is parallel to Rand’s, and yet show Lan seems to have learned these lessons already.  Early book Lan would not laugh and smile at a campfire, tv Lan would never say “duty is heavier than a mountain, death is lighter than a feather.”

 

May is a gigolo?  I mean there is a parallel with Tylin, but the context is entirely different, and so the effect on the character is entirely different.

 

Perrin kills his wife by accident?  How is this analogous to killing the whitecloaks?

 

Bizarre love triangle? Whose character is made more interesting by this?

 

What happened to the traditional Emond’s Field, where woman kill Trollocs with their bare hands and have sex whenever they feel like.  This is an entirely different place, but the place is at the core of the major characters, so now the major characters are entirely different.  

Lan's journey does not impact Rand's journey in any way. I'm not going to defend it, but I assume you despise the Lord of the Rings just as much, yes? for doing this to Aragorn? Or to Faramir? How about Hal Jordan as Green Lantern? Or Jason Mamoa's Aquaman? Hmm? What makes al'Lan Mandragoran so special?

Mat is a thief, not a gigolo. If he were a gigolo, Fain could sell the necklace, because it was a fair trade between Mat and Dena. And yes, now Mat has farther to go to show that yes, "he is a Bloody hero", after all. He has farther to go, but the road is the same

Perrin - be mad at Hollywood. But now there is even more symmetry to his story - it begins with a woman he loves in a berserker rage, and ends with a woman he doesn't in cold blood. And a man terrified of violence for a very good reason needs to learn that sometimes it is absolutely required.

Love Triangle - I got nothing so far, and I hate it. But I don't think it is what it appears to be.  And doesn't have a thing to do with the overall story I described, and that you agreed with.

And your last paragraph is, well, I don't know what to say. If you think that the changes in Edmond's Field obliterate any possible opportunity for them to successfully deliver on the the themes of the Wheel of Time as a whole - that a lack of fidelity to 133 pages can destroy the value, plot, themes and characters that evolve over 14,000 pages, then there's not much else to say.

Thanks for posting your honest feedback.

17 minutes ago, Truthteller said:

The WOT books were about something, and that something has been obliterated by the series. And in the name of what?  

See, this is the kind of reaction that makes it hard to discuss. Because for me, WoT is about a world where the balance between Light and Dark, and men and women is fundamentally broken, and the Creator and it's guiding hand (the pattern) has spun forth the Chosen One to bring it back into balance. But for the Chosen One to succeed in that, he (the individual) needs to accept that it is in fact the Chosen Ones (the plural they) who need to undertake the actions that return balance. He is not responsible, and in fact cannot, succeed on his own. In book terms, he cannot carry the mountain alone. No one can.

I concede they have changed the emphasis on the characters, decreasing the importance of the Chosen One. They have moved story elements around, so things we learn in book one will be learned later (Saidar with the Girls, Saidin with Asmodean, the Prophecies with Moiraine and Verin, etc, etc, etc)

But what is it that you think they have obliterated so badly that there is no way for the series to convey the same themes as the books? Because I'm just not seeing it.

What I always thought of for the 7 towers of Malkier. This is the town of San Gimignano in Italy, and even has 7 towers.

The reality warping thing is the exact opposite of Ta'veren.

As Ta'veren, the pattern forces the boys (now with more girl power!) to certain places so it can then bend every other thread around them. The pattern is the cause

with the reality warping thing, Rand is where he is, and wishes that something in the pattern changes (pipe from unlit to lit). The pattern is the effect.

4 hours ago, Spiritweaver1 said:

Great new perspective.  I might just add that there is a possibility that we see Moraine killed off at the docks, perhaps not as per the books.  In this scenario she would be replaced by another name actress in the role of Cadsuane and you would see her and Rand meeting earlier with perhaps a different relationship in the beginning.  I am also interested to see how much love the Aiel wise women get and the portrayed relationship between them and the so-called experts the Aes Sedai.  If I could order up my own changes I would bring in some Aiel background stuff and ensure I covered Ji and Toh.  I appreciated how, in the books the wise women take the captured Aes Sedai in hand and teach them humility amongst a host of other things.  

I like this, and I'm not above wishing her dead to reduce the number of fake out resurrections in this show, of which there have already been at least 3 too many. BUT...don't forget that Moiraine also works with Egwene at Merrilor.  So even if Caddy is being Rand's, well caddy, you still need to build a trust relationship with Egwene as well. Hence, I expect the scene to occur more or less as written.

And don't worry about the Aiel; we're going to get lots of them, and if Rafe is smart, he's on the phone with Denis Villneuve right figuring out which elements of Ji'e'toh look the least like Fremen culture, so he can emphasize them.

19 minutes ago, Gothic Flame said:

You're a little too late for that.

Not sure this is fair, since aside from Perrin, I don't think anyone's character arcs have even started yet. 

10 minutes ago, ashi said:

Sadly, I think he has drowned in the rivers of his own ridiculous meticulous character integrity.

you misspelt gravy. By like, a lot.

2 minutes ago, Spiritweaver1 said:

Perhaps I may be indulged in taking this thread slightly off topic but I would be interested in peoples opinion about the TV show Elementary vs ACD's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.  I love mysteries almost as much as fantasy.  I loved The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and so it was with considerable trepidation that my spouse and I dove into Elementary.  We gave it our customary three episode chance after missing a couple of the initial episodes.  For those who didn't see the show.  Sherlock Holmes is a British detective who is a drug addict.  He moves to New York where he gets a sober companion who is a woman ex doctor.  Anyway we decided it was excellent.  A few of the stories are clearly adaptations of an ACD story but most of it is made up present day stuff.    I classify it on a based on series although some are clearly adaptations.  In any event we watch it every few years if we can't find a good Detective story.  

 

My point, for this forum, is if you have good acting and good stories and characters we care about an can relate to a lot of other weaknesses fall away.  Anybody else got any thoughts on this pairing/

It's writers aren't really smart enough to make engaging SH stories. It's fan fiction. The actors are good - and I don't care about the gender switch - but it's kind of generic police procedural, and not different enough to stand out from the profiler, the closer, better L&O episodes, some CSI stuff, etc.

Now, the BBC's Sherlock, which is a more literal adaptation of existing works, even though in the modern world, is much better, and with much better actors. But there's only 9 episodes of that, I think. Mainly because they only get made when their two movie star actors are free.

48 minutes ago, ashi said:

Heh, for all the accusations of meandering plot, FeastDance is quite a bit tighter than Path of Winter's Twilight, isn't it?

Prove to me GRRM isn't done meandering and we can discuss. ? 

1 hour ago, notpropaganda73 said:

 

Well if it was aimed for by GRRM, the show did a great job of adapting that character haha. Not to say I didn't like him, I just didn't understand why everyone in the show seemed to be so enamoured by him. He just sort of becomes the Nights Watch leader and gets Wildlings to follow him... just because. Although my main issue with the final seasons was that none of it felt earned and it was all so rushed, rather than the actual story beats. 

 

Ha, thank you for the heads up on the writing style. It was a long time ago and maybe I was just impatient as I wanted more story in that world, but I definitely think I will avoid the series until I know it's completed. 

 

The last line that I've bolded is interesting to me. Does how it ended leave a bad taste with how good it initially was? I wonder about those sorts of things. Is Star Wars negatively impacted as a whole for the really poor entries to the Skywalker Saga over the years? Would Arcane S1 be negatively viewed if future seasons take a significant turn for the worse? My inclination is to say no - although I have no desire to rewatch early seasons of GOT, so maybe my actions speak louder than my words there! 

It didn't leave a bad taste in my mouth, because I had long stopped being emotionally invested in the characters, and was all about the plot. And once I knew how the story had ended - not that I would have done what they did  - I had little interest in discussing it further.  It became a bad whodunit, and once I know who done it, I done didn't care.

Spoilered for more speculative details off topic from WoT, but kind of related to the adaptation issues:

Ultimately, I don't think any of the major characters except Arya and Jamie ended up how they did based on how they started. and the story as a whole is broken as a result. 

1 minute ago, Ralph said:

I never watched GOT. I saw trailers and clips etc, but although I loved the first few books, I felt he lost his way drastically, and I didn't see any chance he would finish. 

 

Although I wanted to see the non-reader reaction to Ned's execution and the Red Wedding and other bits, by the time it came on I was really not interested in the whole thing, especially because it was obvious the end would not be GRRM anyway. 

Oh, you should have. It was glorious to see people's reactions as it happened.

Hey - a thought for the Bookcloaks out there - for all the nuance, detail, and spoilers that are out there about Wheel of Time among our community, HBO was able to completely surprise people with THE RED FREAKIN' WEDDING. So the audience for tv shows just don't care to research the way we do. (Sean Bean's death shouldn't have surprised anyone; he's in the top 10 of most killed actors on screen, and removing him makes this the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe with sex.)

12 minutes ago, notpropaganda73 said:

Yeah I strangely have no desire to get in to Witcher S2 at the moment and I really enjoyed S1 in spite of being totally lost at times. I'm not really sure why I haven't put it on as yet, as I'm not really watching any shows at the moment having just finished Arcane (which is honestly, one of the best things I have ever seen on screen full stop). 

 

In terms of GOT, I never read the books. I gave the first novel a go after I was hooked on the show and waiting for a new season to drop, and I honestly found GRRM's writing style sort of boring and wasn't engaged in the book at all, so I gave up. It's something I've sort of been interested in picking up again, but I probably never will unless he actually finishes the series. 

 

But for the show, the early seasons and especially S3 & 4 were top tier television, without a doubt. HBO makes great television. But as has been mentioned, they very much leaned away from the more fantastical elements and even when watching the show, I found the threat of the White Walkers plain boring at times and wanted to get back to the storyline of Lannister vs. Stark.

 

he Wildlings and the Nights Watch was a more interesting storyline to me than the White Walkers but in saying that, I always felt that Jon Snow was a character I was constantly told I should care about but I simply didn't. I was more interested in what was happening around him really.

I think your feeling about Jon was both natural, and aimed for by GRRM. Everything about him screams Chosen One trope, but he is someone to whom the story happens, not who makes it happen. He is the every man witness, not the hero.  And I think that was one reason why everyone was so pissed at Season 8.

If you think GRRM's writing style was sort of boring in book 1, be glad you didn't get to later books. If you think the WoT slog is bad, let me tell you about Dany's Dornish cousin, the intricacies of Iron Island politics, or Tyrion's adventures with the other dwarfs for a book.

And I completely agree that Season 1-4 taken in isolation might be the best fantasy show ever aired. But...it didn't end there.

2 hours ago, rowdie said:

So, AT WHAT POINT,  do you quit watching the TV series??  are the changes just too much??   Is there Line?   If so what is it??  Has it been crossed already?

When it bores me - love or hate is better than indifferent

Not at all

Yes, there is a line.  It probably entails assigning EF5 plotlines (not moments, but entire plots) to different characters. So, for example, Egwene as DR would have been over it. Nynaeve as a Wolfmother, or Lan with the Dagger. 

No, it hasn't been crossed; as I've said repeatedly, I think I can see what they're doing, and can speculate why they're doing it. So until I lose touch with their possible logic - as I did with GoT - I'll stay involved.

1 hour ago, ArrylT said:

Apparently this person feels the same way about the Witcher as some do about WoT:

 

And this is an account that has 150k followers (so obviously not an account made for the purpose of trashing Witcher intentionally).  Just thought it was an interesting contrast

 

 

I'm not a woke equal rights type, but even I know that someone using the word wahmen in their review is probably biased

21 minutes ago, fra85uk said:

 

More About the what is About the how.

 

GoT, even in its best seasons, has a few weak points but the main strengths of the show are so good that you forget/forgive the defects.

The  problem of WoT-show in comparison to GoT is that there is not one single thing in which it is excellent. 

I would argue that both the cast and the costume design of WoT are objectively excellent. Too soon to tell if the kids can grow to match the more older, more experienced roster that GoT had to work with, but I have more hope for the cast of WoT than I had for the Stark kids, for example.

I will grant that there is no one on the show of Dinklage's quality, but he was SAG / Independent award nominated before GoT, with the Station Agent. We knew who he was going in. And I do think the difference in the FX budgets reflect in the GoT actor roster, since they got much more established actors for their supporting cast.

And based on the overall feedback on GoT based on the outcomes of season 8, I would suggest this is now the exact opposite - people are so overwhelmed by its atrocious defects (sexposition, WTF main plots, sub-plots that go nowhere, bad late series acting from J/D/A) , that the main strengths (supporting acting, GRRM writing, subverting expectations) are being downplayed. 

Here's one I thought of - what didn't happen to Egwene in S1E8 will mirror what happens in S8E6, but the intervention won't happen.