5 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

I don't understand the question. Who is not being permitted to see negative reactions? And what do you mean by "the formula". 

@Raal Gurniss Yeah man, you might have to chill. The mods here are great. You realize that over on r/WoT the moderators are banning anyone who says anything negative about the show. In some cases, they're banning people who made normal comments but who have previously posted in r/Whitecloaks (the reddit home for show detractors). Dragonmount is literally the only place on the internet where a balanced discussion of WoTtv is even possible. 

7 minutes ago, Blackbyrd said:

Bruh that's the line in the sand- if Aiel ain't 6-5 Michael Jordan on average show is some BS

What's definitely gonna be some BS is if they don't at least make the main Aiel characters fairly tall. You can't do this for everyone, but you can do it for the important players and achieve a similar effect. 

8 minutes ago, VooDooNut said:

This is an opinion. I can't, nor would I want to try to, dissuade you from your opinion.

Can we just collectively acknowledge that everything on this forum is an opinion and that forums, in fact, are designed as a place to discuss opinions? 

(A glimpse of a forum without opinions) 

"This scene has acting!" 

"This episode had action!" 

"That character is wearing a costume!" 

Yaaaaaawn. This "That's just your opinion" response is so tired and I wish we could all just move on from it. 

3 minutes ago, Cauthonfan4 said:

you're satisfied that the three boys got less character development COMBINED then either Nynaeve or Egwene did?

Forget that, they didn't even get half the character development that Stepin did. Meanwhile Nynaeve and Egwene were given more development than in the books, and the boys were left with the leftovers. 

20 minutes ago, DojoToad said:

Yet when short Loial made his show premiere.  It was all comments about how the actor nailed Loial's speech pattern, the make-up was great, or that it is okay he isn't as tall as he is supposed to be.  No more talk about perspective and cameras.  It all turned to - I like it anyway...

 

It's hard to remember back to 3 whole months ago, but no one NO ONE thought it even remotely feasible that Tarwin's Gap would be given to Amalisa. Everyone was talking about how excited they were to see Rand go ham on the trollocs.

Everyone was saying how the changes are small, necessary for adaptation, that big character moments would be respected, that the destination would be the same just with a different journey. 

And yet here we are. What next? That's the question that makes me nervous. 

If the writers did this to Tarwin's Gap, why should I believe they won't do the same at Falme, Dumai's Wells, the Stone of Tear, or any other of WoT's big moments? 

And still people are apologizing for Rafe and making excuses for the show and the writers. Unbelievable. 

6 minutes ago, Skipp said:

Because it made for excellent discussion among nonbook readers.  It had them talking and theorizing about the show between episodes.

They still could have done this by focusing the mystery on Rand, Mat, and Perrin. I have yet to hear a solid defense for including Egwene and Nynaeve other than Rafe's own stated motivations to make the show a feminist fantasy. 

43 minutes ago, ilovezam said:

I think the average viewer is a lot more intelligent and literate than Rafe gives them credit for. 

 

I'm with you here. Rafe seems to be under the impression that his adaptation is walking some kind of middle line between scene-for-scene fidelity to the books and wild, unreasonable deviations. 

In that case, I would love to get some sort of idea what his definition of "too different" from the books is because to me it seems that what he did went beyond mere compromise. 

Based on quotes from Rafe regarding Sarah Nakamura and Sanderson's involvement with the show, it seems pretty obvious that Rafe's mindset was to push this adaptation to the absolute limit of what he could get away with and still call it WoT. 

2 hours ago, Truthteller said:

It’s funny, because as stilted as the dialogue was, I thought the draft was way better than what they actually did.  
 

All the bad parts are still there, but at least you get the opening, the menace of the figure in black, the scene at the farm, etc.

Yeah, reading that script was a really eye opening experience. It really seemed like they removed as many good things as they did bad things. 

Almost like Rafe can't tell the difference. 

"If you want to write erotica, fine. I like reading erotica, sometimes. But if you write erotica using my characters and post it, I WILL find you, and I will come down on you like the Hammer of God." - Robert Jordan

(Gee, wonder what RJ would have thought about a certain cut scene from Rafe's original screenplay involving Mat?)

Question: Do you ever use ideas that fans send in to you in regards to the WOT storyline? Even little ones?

RJ:

No. Not even the little ones. It's my story, guys. If you have ideas, write your own stories.

(*cough cough*)

4 minutes ago, Skipp said:

I know people are still harping on the guitar,

You are a god, my good sir. 

This one pun (accidental or no) is better than WoTtv in its entirety. 

6 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

As if you or anyone of us know anything of that. ?

Pretty confident that if Rafe had been willing to deviate from his vision for the sake of the story, he wouldn't have given Tarwin's Gap to a side character or introduced the absolutely world-breaking concept that the Dragon could be male or female or chosen to totally sweep the gendered nature of the One Power under the rug like a coward. 

Just a hunch. 

6 minutes ago, Katherine said:

Then when they were told they had an 8 episode limit, they just didn't adapt well. Sort of like when a Football coach has to switch from his Throwing QB to his back-up QB who is a natural runner... you either change the game plan or falter. 

 

An inability to adapt is Rafe's biggest failing, and I mean that in every possible way. Rafe had his vision and when push came to shove, he refused to deviate from it no matter the consequences. Ironic, considering how willingly he deviated from the source material at almost every conceivable juncture. 

https://everydayshouldbetuesday.wordpress.com/

Not a video, but this blog treats the show very fairly and was my personal favorite breakdown even back when the author liked the show and I didn't (spoiler: episode 8 changed things). 

He's also doing a sort of Chapter by Chapter re-read of the original series where he posts about the books as he goes through them. It's a dang good time, and he just finished TGH. 

11 minutes ago, EmreY said:

I agree with all except your unconscionable desire to get rid of the Fair Rosamund.

I loved this casting choice when it was first announced. But now that I've seen the lengths that the show has to go in order to account for her star power, I just don't think she's worth the trouble. I would have rather they found a talented but relatively obscure actress to play Moiraine instead, scaled down season 1's budget and production to something more modest, and built stars out of the characters the same way that GoT did (after Season 1). 

28 minutes ago, CanisNoir said:

Rafe has said he's adapting the series, not a book, and so he has an 8 season plan which means much of the 15 books will be cut\altered. This is not because he thinks he can write better story, but because the realities surrounding a 15 Season TV show just don't exist.

Your entire post was very well reasoned an intelligent. I'll just respond to this short bit here. 

Having seen the finished product, I think this was the wrong approach, at least with regards to Season 1. I think a much smarter, more effective way to approach the adaptation would have been to keep Season 1 straightforward and then gradually increase the deviations from the source material as the series went on. 

Here's my hot take: 

I would have rather had 4-6 seasons of a show which more faithfully adapted the source material and then totally collapsed under its own weight then whatever this show was. At least then I'd have some fond memories to comfort me. 

23 minutes ago, Ralph said:

5 maybe not Hurin but someone else, and I'm not convinced they will have portal worlds at all. 

6 do you mean the portal stone visions? 

3 unlikely, 7 no chance

Yeah 7 was a bit of a meme haha Definitely not happening, though the degree to which the show has to bend over backwards to account for Pike's star power is a little annoying. 

I do mean the portal stone visions, but then again, you definitely have a point that they might not even include the portal stuff at all. Personally, I'd be pretty bummed if there wasn't an "I win again, Lews Therin" thing at all in season 2. IMO, they've got to figure out how to facilitate that somehow. 

Were I in charge of the show ( a pipe-dream, I know), I would have the following priorities for Season 2. 

1. Sell Rand as a character. He is so under-utilized in Season 1 and there are still many show fans who think that he's a red-herring for the Dragon. He's terribly under developed and no one really cares about him. 

2. Bring back Ba'alzamon (The Man, or whatever stupid thing they call him) in Rand's dreams but have them talk more. Really build up this relationship in preparation for the confrontation at Falme. 

3. Find someone, anyone who can teach Rand how to use a sword so that he can kill the blademaster at Falme. They sacrificed the option to have Lan do this for the sake of a pointless cliffhanger, but they can at least have someone teach him. Unless Rafe doesn't think the moment of Rand earning his heron is cool and decides to skip it which is entirely possible. 

4. Block Nynaeve and focus on depicting their story very accurately to the book. Of the characters, their situation most resembles the place they occupy at this point in the books and their story can proceed accordingly. In TGH, they have 14 viewpoints between the two of them, that's it. You can easily show that material in an 8 episode season without condensing too much.

5. Introduce Hurin and send Perrin off on the Hunt. You can't undo the damage they've already done to the myth of the Horn, but they can at least have this story progress like in the books. Rand can accidentally activate a portal stone in the blight, wander through the other world, find Lanfear, and pop out in Caerhein where he serendipitously meets up with Perrin and co. and the story resumes. 

6. IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY PLEASE don't cut Rand's visions of alternate lives. They kind of stole this moment's thunder a bit with the vision that Ishy shows Rand in episode 8, but I'd still make this a huge moment, probably the end of Episode 7.  

7. Kill Moiraine in episode 1. Honestly, given the degree to which Rosamund Pike's presence is derailing the story, I would rather just get rid of her unceremoniously than have her steering the plot for another 2 seasons for the sake of her Lanfear moment. 

To expand on my idea above, I would feel the same way if the show started randomly giving big Nynaeve/Egwene moments to minor male characters for seemingly no reason (Tarwin's Gap, for example).

Like, if for some reason it was Mat and some random dude who rescued Egwene from the Seanchan in Season 2 (assuming that even happens), I would be equally frustrated that such a cool moment was taken from Nynaeve, Elayne, and Min. 

WoTtv seems to be operating on the logic that WoT is a series of events (Eye of the World, for example) and as long as someone defeats the Trollocs and the Horn of  Valere is somewhere around there, then its all gravy and they've been "faithful" to the source material. 

I just expect a little more than that, is all. I think details matter. 

1 hour ago, AdamA said:

I'll bet you almost anything if that scene gets translated to screen exactly as-is, we'll have a bevy of complainers on this forum talking about wonder girls and castrating Rand because he needed her help.

Yeah no problem here from me. 

A woman saving a man in a show is fine and cool. However, changing an pre-existing story to give moments which belonged to certain characters in the books to other characters in the show is something else entirely. 

If these instances were rare in WoTtv, then I would be much more forgiving of them. Instead, the showrunners willingness to do these swaps is so prevalent that it's a much bigger surprise when something happens in a way which hasn't been overtly tampered with. This is where problems arise IMO 

27 minutes ago, VooDooNut said:

Right, but the TV show is an adaptation of those books. Books written for a 90s audience. In a 90s reality. This adaptation has been made for a modern audience with modern expectations of verisimilitude.

Yeah because modern audiences never watch period pieces where the characters operate in societies with values and standards alien to our own. Give me a break. 

Forget period pieces, freaking Stranger Things is set in the 80's and the characters act like they're from that 80's and that didn't seem to break anyone's "modern expectations of verisimilitude." 

2 minutes ago, Weird_Old_Lady said:

Not me. I'm really happy we get THIS STORY from this perspective. It makes the characters decisions much more realistic. 

WoT characters do act realistically in the context of their own world. They act in line with their own personalities and motivations, even if those aren't exactly what we, in our world, would call "realistic." If WoT characters were reading a story about you they would probably also complain that you don't act realistically. 

1 minute ago, Weird_Old_Lady said:

Exactly. And how is she being portrayed? 

Pretty accurately to the books. Which is what most of us want in the first place. Just give us book-accurate characterizations. That's all we want. 

Just now, fra85uk said:

Just for say, if i could choose one DF encounter from Eotw i would go for the one in the inn with the skinny owner, it was full of tension.

Rafe: *nervously googles "tension"*

18 minutes ago, Weird_Old_Lady said:

Yes. Those are fine. It's the fact that we didn't get it the other way round until 2021 that makes it kinda gross.  We are not evicting you from the field, we just are gonna play too now. As long as you wear protection your balls will be fine. Honest.

Okay cool. So we don't disagree haha 

My comments are aimed at the people who act like there was something inherently wrong about that stuff to begin with but have no problem when it's reversed. 

That isn't you, and I apologize for misunderstanding where you were coming from in the first place. Please accept this totally radical (and sanitary) fistbump.

*fistbump*

12 minutes ago, Weird_Old_Lady said:

Dear Ball-Havers,

 

Just because we want to play too does not mean we are evicting you from the field. Calm down. Your own personal balls are safe.

Lol This is good. 

All I'm saying is that WoTTV should have been WoT. If the WoT showrunners wanted to push their own ideas, they should have made something original or picked another property to adapt which already suited those goals.

I welcome non-ball-havers. I've long said that I prefer media with female characters because 9/10 I'd rather watch a lady doing something than a dude (The other 1/10 is the WNBA). 

But WoT could have been an empowering show for women while also representing the characters accurately. The fact that changes were made seemingly to compensate for an inequality which didn't really exist in the books shows that if anyone is insecure, it's the WoTTV writers.