Thus a 100% unnecessary change that didn’t further the narrative in any way or help in changing the medium of the story.

Rafe degendered souls because gender ideology is more important to Rafe than fidelity to the source and this is a perfect case in point. The Wheel of Time wouldn’t exist without the dragon being male; a massive part of the story revolves around the taint and the inevitability of the Dragon going insane (again).

Did they use the “he will take you back and destroy you” language?

Her tone alone was defiant. That can matter.

It was a nonsensical comment. If my kids ever talk to myself or my wife like that, there is at the very least a reprimand. Acting respectful and acting reverent isn’t merely about following the letter of the law or finding loopholes. At the very least, everyone should at least be able to agree that she didn’t respect or revere the position of Amyrlin in that moment; whether or not that was within character or their should have been repressions can be debated, I suppose.

It’s weird that I remembered him as being there. Either way, do we know if he’s going to be in the show?

Do we know if Bryne is going to be in this show? They dropped his name but we haven’t seen him. I missed his presence in the Matt/Trakand fight.

Does she, though? Maybe eventually, but she’s a pawn at first. Either way, it can maybe make sense in the show vacuum but as you can see, it rubbed a lot of us the wrong way because it just wasn’t fitting with the way the Amyrlin’s power has been ingrained in our memories for decades. It also screams of one of those “style over substance” moments where they wanted to show Eggy as a bit of a badass so they did it at the expense of the Amyrlin. Ah well.

I forget, have we been given the words of the Aiel prophecy in this show?

Sure, I’ll grant that it does those things. That said, in the books it is clear that you respect and revere the Amyrlin, and when it doesn’t happen, it is noticeable and a shock. Further,

I think it is important to also consider that what you are seeing is a history of the Aiel. While Rand is tied to that, this pertains to the Aiel more than it does the Dragon.

Deference and respect to the role of Amyrlin was a big deal in the books and it went far beyond following the rules. How the Amyrlin is perceived and how her authority is treated is a huge theme through the book for various reason. This scene neutered that.

This is what I was asking about earlier and it seems that many viewers were a bit confused, so don’t worry, you’re not alone. As I mentioned, it was confusing for the the first time through the books, too, and I’m not alone, there. I think they summed it up for you nicely here, but it is essentially a reverse history lesson.

We have seen the AoL once before. I think it was a cold open, but I don’t remember.

That was a good episode. I am curious, though, how it is received by non-book readers. Even in the book the time jumps took a little effort to follow at first. I still wish they’d clean up some of the unforced errors. For example, why was Janduin fighting and killing without a veil? They then make the point of explaining veils later in the episode. Why explain lore and worldbuild but then break your own rules?

I hope we get to see Leanne 2.0 because it will be such a stark character shift.

I was thinking the same when Avi faced off with Lan. There was some whooping in the background (I sounded like from one Aiel), but the camp felt empty.

I liked seeing Rand training and explaining the flame and the void. They need to drop the “I look like them [Aiel]” thing, though. Aside from the way they dress, the Aiel are completely heterogenous in this show, so why continue to write lines about their distinct looks? I don’t care if that’s how they wanted to cast it, but then it makes comments about how Rand looks come across as poorly written.

Yes, there is some subjectivity to it. My response was to a claim that something is an adaptation no matter how far removed it is from the source material. For what it’s worth, sometimes when my firm is dealing with infringement suits we do have to objectify changes, which can be interesting because you sometimes have to deconstruct music or stories into smaller elements for comparison purposes. That can be an undertaking, though, and helps when you have the original creator’s input.

Holy crap, your high school creative writing teacher said it? It must be unassailable gospel, then.

No, but there is a spectrum among which the derivative work moves from an adaptation into a new work build off the framework of the original and probably benefiting from its IP. The more the derivative creator overwrites intrinsic themes and tones to insert his or her own, the further away from “adaptation” that work becomes.

Because it shows that at least some of the intent isn’t merely adapting the book to a visual medium, which would of course have necessary changes, but that there was an intent to change themes, ideas, characters, etc. to something that the show creatives wanted them to be rather than what Jordan intended them to be.

You seem to be confused between adaptations and archetypes/inspiration. And The Lion King has plenty of detailed development history that clearly shows the origins and evolution of the story independent of Hamlet. Star Wars was inspired by Arthurian Legend and also Kurosawa and just the general Hero’s Journey archetype. It also isn’t an adaptation. Words have meaning; “adaptation” has meaning; it isn’t an arbitrary limitation, but a specific definition.

This is nonsense. An adaptation is making changes or alterations to change one medium into another, not an umbrella term that excuses unlimited changes to incorporate the adaptor’s works into the original. Adaptation implies fidelity to the original and at some point of the adaptor had altered the original more than is necessary for the change of medium, the product goes from an adaptation to a derivative work “based on.” Further, following a common story archetype does not make a creative work an adaptation. Read the history of the development of the Lion King sometime if you want and it went through years of creative before someone noticed that the product was beginning to resemble Hamlet. Coincidental resemblance is not adaptation. You continually claim to have not read the books here so you have no basis to comment on fidelity to the books but these shows are more a creation of the writers than of Robert Jordan so calling it an adaptation is questionable at best. Further, it is on record that Rafe Judkins has stated his desire to adapt the themes to a more modern sensibility, which is why we get some things like the Avi/Elayne hookup (because polyamory is good, I guess, and sex sells), vs. the polygamy from the books (because patriarchy is bad, or something). We are clearly way outside of the realm of adaptation at this point and pretty firmly in the realm of fan fiction where we are seeing RJ’s story as filtered through how the writers want the story to be for themselves, just to fit into a coherent story in an alternate medium.

I don’t recall anything like that in the books but it’s an awesome idea to be so powerful that you have some sort of persistent weave that just works automatically on anyone around you.