Some people missed the point and didn't realize that Blood Calls Blood was not actually about Stepin, just like they missed the point of the argument scene in The Dark Along the Ways and didn't realize that there was no actual 'love triangle' storyline.

My argument can be summed up thusly: Judging the quality of an adaptation based solely on whether it matches its source material only has limited merit because there is no objective standard for determining the quality of an adaptation relative to how closely it does or does not match its source material and because no adaptation is ever going to be 100% faithful to its source material because the very nature of adaptation as a concept necessitates that changes be made. I used the steakhouse analogy to try and illustrate a further point that no-one should ever go into watching an adaptation expecting that said adaptation will be 100% faithful to its source material and that it is therefore futile to express outrage based solely on that expectation not being met because it ought to have been obvious going in that said expectation was not going to be met.

Yes, TV Tropes has a 'sliding scale of adaptation', but said scale is functionally meaningless because the quality of an adaptation is not determined by how closely it does or does not match its source material. There is also no objective standard for how closely an adaptation has to match its source material in order to still be considered an adaptation, nor should there be.

@Samt Objectively speaking, there is no 'line' when it comes to adaptation. A film, television series, or stage production that, to use a TV Tropes term, is "near-identical" to its source material is as much an adaptation (and just as valid) as a film, TV series or stage production that is so drastically different from its source material that it is best described as being, to use another TV Tropes term, "In Name Only". There is also no objective quality scale that one can apply to any adaptation based solely on how closely it skews to the source material upon which it is based, which is why there's limited merit in criticizing an adaptation based solely on how closely it does or does not match the source material upon which it was based. Another reason why there's limited merit in criticizing an adaptation based solely on how closely it skews to its source material is that, by their very nature (and in direct contrast to something that TV Tropes says), no adaptation will ever be or can ever be 100% identical to its source material. If you ever hear the term 'adaptation' applied to something, go into it expecting that there will be things about it that are different relative to the thing from which it is being derived.

In my analogy, you went to a steakhouse knowing that it was a steakhouse, ordered a steak, and then complained when you were served the steak that you ordered. The Wheel of Time television series is not the Wheel of Time novels nd is not written by Robert Jordan or Brandon Sanderson and is therefore, by necessity, going to be different. Criticizing it based solely on the fact that it is different is where my analogy is applicable because it is obvious that there were going to be differences, just as it would be obvious, in my analogy, that a steakhouse would serve you a steak that you ordered. There is merit (up to a point) in being critical of specific differences, but that is a different kettle of fish entirely from bring critical of the television series solely because it is different.

I personally think that expecting Season 2 to change your mind about the WoT TV series is a fool's errand because you already know what you're getting and you either liked it or you didn't, but "to each their own", as it were.

All adaptations are the adaptor's version of the original creator's story. I've used this analogy in the past elsewhere, but complaining about an adaptation not being a 1:1 retelling of a story is like complaining because a steakhouse served you a steak. You should understand what you're getting going in. If you want The Wheel of Time story as RJ told it, read the books. If you want (or are willing to accept) 'Robert Jordan as interpreted by Judkins' (to paraphrase something that Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey once said about the live-action LotR films), watch the TV show.

People, it's pointless to try and have a logical conversation with @Rsmithboeing about this adaptation. They aren't willing to listen to anything that doesn't align with their "Rafe sucks and isn't really a WoT fan" and "this adaptation is an abomination" opinions and will attack anybody who even tries to counter said opinions. Don't give them the platform they want by responding to their blathering. @king of nowhere Before it was pointed out that all of the scenes in the Ways were filmed prior to the COVID shutdown, there was no reason to question the prevailing idea that the circumstances surrounding the ending of Episode 6 and the filming of Episode 7 were completely changed as a result of Barney Harris not coming back, but with that new information, the simplest explanation ends up being that Mat's absence from the Ways-set scenes was planned and it was only the stuff in Fal Dara that had to be changed. This would also fit with the fact that the post-shutdown filming only lasted a month because if most of Episode 7 had already been shot without Mat's involvement prior to the shutdown, you wouldn't need more than a week or so to do reshoots on that episode and then 3 weeks to shoot Episode 8 (taking into account a slowed-down schedule due to COVID restrictions).

A year ago, WoTTuber Lezbi Nerdy posted a WoT rewatch video titled "Things I Missed in Wheel of Time, Episode 7: The Dark Along the Ways" in which she pointed out something that throws a wrench into what the deeper WoT fandom thinks they know vis a vis Episodes 6 & 7 and Barney Harris' departure. In said video, she points out that in the Episode 7 scenes set in the Ways, Perrin has dreads in his hair but not in the scenes set in Fal meaning that those Ways-set scenes would have had to have been filmed prior to the COVID shutdown, which in turn means one of two things: 1) as Lezbi Nerdy postulates, the scenes in the Ways were filmed with Barney Harris present, necessitating rewrites and re-edits that were far more extensive and complex than anybody realized Or 2) Episode 6 always ended with Mat choosing not to enter the Ways, and he would have probably ended up in Fal Dara separately from his friends (possibly in the company of Padan Fain) Personally, I've been leaning towards Option 2 since first seeing Lezbi Nerdy's video on Thursday evening, largely because it matches with the earlier narrative trajectory of the show and with what the video from Lezbi Nerdy points out better than the notion that there were massive rewrites, rewrites, reshoots, and re-edits required after Barney chose to bow out of the project during the production shutdown.

And there wasn't any in the show, either, which is my point. Rather than recognizing that Nynaeve's accusation towards Rand and Perrin was intended to demonstrate her fallibility and impulsivity, people - both book readers and show-only viewers - took what she said at face value and consequently came away with an erroneous conclusion that the show was saying something about the relationship between the two boys in question and Egwene that it wasn't.

The supposed love triangle referenced here never actually existed. Nynaeve's conclusion was flat-out baseless and wrong, but a lot of the WoT fandom - both book readers and show-only viewers alike - somehow missed that key detail and took her outburst as gospel truth.

I like the pacifier gags because of what they mean symbolically and because they look cool, but I've never, at least consciously, referred to their addition as being a change from the source material. As to the latter point re: Rafe, my only response is "So what"; all creators put their own views into a creative work, be said work an original story or an adaptation of a pre-existing work. People who talk about " not making stories political" or not having stories "push an agenda" are fooling themselves into the false notion that storytelling is or has ever been in any way non-political or agenda-free.

Taking visual artistic license - which is what the new costume designer's addition of pacifier gags is - doesn't constitute a change from the source material. If it did, virtually any Theatrical staging or revival of any pre-existing work or any remake of a pre-existing film or television series in history that didn't faithfully recreate the costuming of the original production - or replicate the original choreography thereof - would be guilty of doing so.

Hmm. Thanks for that. The fact that the show's costume designer added pacifier gags as a visual dehumanization aid does suggest that the damane are being treated more like slaves than pets/tools in this " turning of the Wheel", though.

^ We've already had it confirmed by the costume designer that the pacifiers are gags and not just mouth coverings. She also specifically called them pacifiers and expressly stated that she added them to the damane's wardrobe as a visual demonstration of dehumanization.

I think this is the wrong way to think about damane. They're not valued pets or tools (IMO); they're slaves treated as less-than-human. Forcing the damane to wear pacifier gags that could potentially cause prolonged and long-term physical damage is no different than the many historical examples that can be easily found of masters and overseers beating and raping slaves both as punishment and as a demonstration of dominance and control.

Prompted by this comment, I went looking for historical context, and, based on what i found, I think the point of the pacifier gags as designed is in fact to cause damage to the damane as a form of perpetual abuse and as a show of dominance and control.

Steering this away from posters' motivations and behavior and back towards actual discussion topics, I mentioned elsewhere that the costume designer's inclusion of pacifier gags for the damane - regardless of how 'silly' or out-of-place they might seem to some people - is going to directly impact things that are going to be happening with Egwene and increase the emotional impact both on the audience and on her as a character, which is very much a good thing. For all that some people can quibble - and are quibbling- with the creative choices that Rafe and his entire production team have made and are making, everything that they're doing is purposeful and geared towards making the best possible adaptation of WoT that they can and delivering something that serves both general audiences and the existing WoT fanbase (even though not all of the latter will accept their efforts in that regard).

@Lightfriendsocialmistress I get wanting to be civil, but when a poster comes in here blatantly and baselessly attacking the show and its creators and accusing them - and, by proxy, anyone who isn't outraged by their creative choices - of lying about their love for and familiarity with the novels, it's really hard not to balk at said poster and clap back at their unreasonable and hyperbolic vitriol. And I say this as someone who doesn't even like the novels. Dealing with someone who very clearly doesn't actually want to engage in good-faith discussion and is instead just looking for people to validate their unreasonable and irrational hatred of the WoT television adaptation is not something that I personally have any interest in doing because it's not constructive and accomplishes nothing.

Rafe and his team made two separate but interrelated lore changes that directly impacted the way in which they approached Season 1. The first of those changes is the degendering of souls, and the second deals with the degree to which the people of the WoT world in general - and the Aes Sedai in particular - believe the accuracy of the prophecies about the Dragon and the degree to which the passage of time may or may not have affected the accuracy of said prophecies.

You're asking for a rational justification for an objectively irrational argument.

What I said is true, though. The "Dragon could be a woman" thing isn't a case of "unreliable narrator" syndrome, and Rafe's own words - which, as noted, I was finally able to find - unequivocally demonstrate that. Per the article I found:

I wasn't complaining, though. Also, I found the article where Rafe mentioned the de-gendering of souls, and said article also contains a direct reference to the potentiality of female Dragons. https://gizmodo.com/adapting-the-wheel-of-time-for-tv-is-an-epic-all-its-ow-1848026456

Get over yourself. You're free to dislike the show, but you don't get to set yourself up as some "holy arbiter" of whether or not Rafe and his team are actually fans of the WoT novels simply because you don't like the choices they're making in adapting said novels to television.

I didn't say that these things were bad. Also, why do you doubt the veracity of what I pointed out? The evidence of using the potentiality of Matt, Egwene, Perrin, and Nynaeve being the Dragon Reborn to add layers to their characterizations is there onscreen, and we also have Rafe's own words as proof of the lore changes that facilitated the deepening of those characters' arcs.