You nailed it. Very much the way I see things too. I want the show to be good, but IMHO it won't be truly great until they get better writers and showrunner. What I think irritates most of us who don't really like the show is that it could have been much better than GOT as it has better and more complete source material. It is also a story that more people will relate to. However since they gave it to questionable writers who either don't have much talent, or can't shrug off studio interference then we have what we have now. This isn't a problem just with this show. Even Starwars, The Witcher, and Marvel have all taken their turns recently with abysmal writing. You have people like Timothy Zahn and Brandon Sanderson sitting on the bench with hits galore and this is what we get on screen? They could do much better with better writing.

Haven't read through them that many times, but I am listening to the audio books now which are fun. Definitely picking up a lot more and being 20+ years after my first readthrough as a kid. I'm thinking the lack of plot advancement in books 7+ won't hit me as hard as my early 20s. I rage quit ISOIAF too on book 4 when they introduced Asha as the 1000th non-useful POV character. Picked it back up later on audio books and while not as good as books 1-3 books 4-5 did have decent lore. Hopefully being older and having more patience will serve me well like it did you. Now having a wife and kids I can see how his writing of female characters is a bit repetitive, but I don't think it rises to the point of bad, or book breaking. They still stand out as unique and nuanced. I think some of the criticism of Jordan over that an other things is overblown.

I agree with you he was very fair to the show. I haven't fully finished the episode (about 3/4 of the way through) as it is kind of hard to watch 3 guys watching a show that isn't on screen and I don't have much in the way of free time. From what I have seen Brandon was very respectful of the show and even pointed out where he thought it did better than the books. Even the ones he wrote. What he did do however is correctly point out that the writers went for "cool factor" over story and coherent plot. He mentions many times where he tried to tell them not to do things because fans won't like it, or that it didn't make sense, but was ignored. That is what all of us would do if we were in his place. I'm actually even more impressed with him after this show as he could have easily went full melt down on them for ignoring his advice since not only did he write 3 of the books and was a huge super fan, but is probably THE most popular current fantasy writer of today. His skill and experience is much greater than any writer on the show and maybe all of them combined. (For an example watch "The Sword and Pen Reflections" video on S2E1 and trying to figure out Moraine and the Fades. questionable writing, bad editing and directing all around) General question to the thread: Imagine if you were trying to mentor a bunch of new people in wherever you work and saw them making questionable choices on a project related to one you once were in charge of and successfully finished. You being very established in your profession and have direct and relevant knowledge of the project offer them advice when you seem the going towards a trouble spot. Their response is: "no thanks we are good." How would you respond? Most people I know with that much experience and skill would respond much more negatively than Brandon did.

I'm not speaking about people's enjoyment of the show. I have freely admitted that I do not like it and have no problem with people that do. What you are doing is conflating objective truth to opinion. Liking the show or not is opinion. Saying it isn't a good adaptation is objective truth. This shouldn't be a point of contention. You may rationalize the changes and may be ok with them, but they still exist and are many. Change is ok and expected. Changing main plots and characters to the point where it isn't coherent to the larger narrative is why Amazon's WoT it isn't a good adaptation. Even if people like the changes. The 1978 Bakshi Lord of the Rings was nearly a 1:1 adaptation of the books dialog wise, but it is extremely mixed if people like it. Peter Jackson changes way more in his adaptation, but it kept the spirit of the books alive and people consider it one of the best examples of a fantasy adaptation. Saying the writing is low quality is objective truth. That really shouldn't be a point of contention either. In no universe is the writing on this show good. People may like it, but it isn't good. People need to get past the need to say something is objectively good because they like it. I like many shows that aren't good writing. I liked Ready Player One the book. The writing in that book is objectively not good, but I enjoyed it. That movie while ok wasn't a good adaptation either though it didn't seem to go out of its way to twist the entire story. I liked the original dune 1985 movie as well because I was younger and hadn't read the books yet. Doesn't mean that it wasn't fairly poorly written and very cringe. It did at least try to stay true to the story if by taking way to many short cuts to fit into a 2+ hour movie. They freely admit this when they talk about it. That is why they had the Irulan voice over added to the beginning. Which seems to be copied by everybody now. 😄

You will be amazed at how much more you pick up on a re-read. He lays out a ton of stuff for you if you know what to look for. Once criticism of Jordan's writing which I do agree with is his oversimplification of many characters including female characters. Like every female character was based off of his wife, or one of his close female relatives. For instance he likes to describe females as "plump." People may do so in their head, but Elayne describing Else to Lanfear as plump out loud just seemed wrong.

You are correct. I have watched more of the show through other people doing break downs than I have of the show on Amazon. The first episode was THAT bad. I was going to go back and give it a chance until S1 E8 came out and I have no intention of watching it after that travesty. There is literally no excuse for what they put on screen other than malice or laziness. COVID didn't make them completely alter the final battle there and after S2 E8 they just confirmed they are going to keep on doing it. I have had fun watching things from people like The Sword and Pen reflections among others so have seen many scenes from the show. In no way have those scenes made me want to go back and give it a chance. I'm assuming the reply will be how can you judge the show without watching the whole thing? The answer is easy. If I bite into a steak and find out it is actually tofu without seasoning and I don't finish it it the reason is because I ordered steak. I'm not offended by people who like tofu (I even like it with seasoning and vegetables), but when I order steak I expect steak. In this case I ordered Wheel of Time and got something else. This whole trend of updating for modern audiences, or subverting expectations is getting old. The reason why people like classic works is because of the works themselves. When you give them something else why are you surprised when they don't like it?

I appreciate both of your back and forth as it is well argued. Let me point out that using Season 2 ratings as evidence isn't really useful right now due to a lack of sample size. There is such a small sample it actually points to statistical dilution as represented earlier. That makes it hard to draw conclusions as your sample set isn't drawing from the same pool as season 1 so you can't really have a direct correlation. What it may be pointing to is the fact that many viewers didn't pick back up for whatever reason. We will have to wait and see when the final numbers come out.

I have to agree with this point. For certain shows the numbers tend to get skewed, but you can absolutely tell that Amazon sent people out in force to plant many positive reviews of the show when S2 dropped. Same as they did for S1 and Rings of Power (another Amazon stinker). Too many generically positive 10/10 reviews citing things like great adaptation and don't listen to the haters. They also keep the ratio at a certain 3.x or 7.x ratio. As soon as enough real reviews come in to drop the score a half dozen generic fake 10/10 reviews show up to bring it back up. First if you don't like haters don't listen to them. There are definitely some of those reviews that are off base and some people are just there to be negative. They don't add much value, but neither do fake positive reviews. Second I'm truly baffled at people who think this show is a good adaptation. I have no problem with people liking the show, but to think it is a good adaptation is a bit of a stretch.

I'm surprised he is as well since in general he seems to try and be very positive. However his professional integrity was probably taking a hit as the writing on the show is very low quality. He was most likely getting called out by his peers and friends so had to say something. Remember that Brandon was chosen to finish WoT partly because he was a well known super fan and and up and coming author at the time.

Very much give props to the admins here. They allow people to express their opinions which is something WOTShow does not do. I remember seeing a post where someone said can we at least talk about the poor writing quality? That was coming from somebody where the rest of the post was full of glowing comments on the show.

That is nearly 100% of how my experience went with Season 1. Flipped it on for 5 minutes. Got confused on why it was called Wheel of Time as it appeared to be something completely different. Turned it on again later and right back off after Rand and Egwene did the horizontal mambo. It took them 15 minutes to show they missed the entire point of the books. Some people here like it which is great. When I talk to people at work and friends who watch things like GoT and Foundation they are either like what is Wheel of Time?, or watched it and thought it was forgettable, or couldn't get into it. There were no people I talked to that liked it and they watch other fantasy and SciFi shows. Some binge watched it because they were bored, but thought it was generic at best. On the positive side I'm now going through the books on audio and remembering how good they are. Full disclosure I gave up after the 1000th pov side character was introduced in book 7 or 8, but am now jazzed to finish. I last read them 20 years ago with the exception of the comic which was about 5 years ago or so.

Actually some of what I've seen on Reddit is so comically positive that it is hard to believe that 90% of it aren't Amazon employees and probably show staff personally. Even for universally loved shows they usually have a lot of negative Nancy's. That is the way the internet rolls. Evidently not in WotShow since every thing is rosy there and every episode is the best ever. Its ok to like the show, but that reeks of Amazon interference to drive positive show reaction. Much like their IMDB reviews (Amazon owns IMDB) and their own reviews. They absolutely pump it full of fake positive reviews whenever bad ones come in. To pretty much always keep the score at the same point. Well, the Lucasfilm Story Group is the absolute worst people you could be quoting for me. These are the same people that turned a very successful business to one that hasn't made money on movies since Disney bought them and is currently on life support. Some smart people put together what Lucasfilm published for figures in Europe to get tax credits (not what they claim they spent) and did some interpolating on what standard profits are for movies. If they made money on all of their Disney films put together it wasn't much if anything. Remember these are the people that tried to take over the reigns from successful people like Timothy Zahn who sold books in the millions even on re-issue to books that sell in the thousands and Movies and Shows that are mixed at best.

You nailed it spot on. Many of the changes from the book could have been ok if they told a compelling story. IMHO they did not. Unfortunately it is a common problem in too many Movies and TV shows lately. Its like modern writers have never watched the Godfather, or even something as straight forward as The Village from M. Night Shyamalan. Not trying to take away from other people's enjoyment of the series, but I find its plan and direction very poorly thought out. Like they just grab random quotes and try to fashion a story from it without understanding what actually made the story great. If you enjoyed it that is great. Lets look at One Piece. They did a fairly decent job of staying close to the source material, but did cut and change things to fit into a TV show. However they kept the spirit of the show and characters alive. Luffy and Zoro (Nami looked almost exactly like I'd think) may look a bit different than their book and cartoon counterparts, but acted fairly close. Well, at least from my read the manga a while ago memory. The reason they had success? 1) The author was involved. 2) The show producers got destroyed on their previous effort of adapting Cowboy Bebop and decided to take the feedback and course correct for their next show.

I actually look at it slightly differently. Amazon is making 8 one hour episodes per season. However this turns into many more hours of enjoyment of watching videos of people critically deconstructing the episodes and how bad the writing is and how poor they follow the lore. So instead of only 8 one hour episodes I can get nearly unlimited entertainment! There is a very interesting one that is new called The Sword and the Pen Reflections. It is from an editor that is reading the books for the first time and watching the show at the same time. She is completely new to TWOT and judges it on what she sees. It is a very interesting take. I'm happy for the people who enjoy this show, but I'm not one of them.

Definitely would have given the show a chance if I hadn't read the books and the comic and listened to the audio book. However IMHO the show was so poorly done compared to those things it was unwatchable. On its own it may have been a B- level sci-fi/fantasy show that I may have been ok with. However RJ was very smart in his writing. He linked things together through his narratives that show up later in books exactly as he set up. He played around with Societal roles and made comments on them that tried to examine and swap around traditional roles. It wasn't always well done and sometimes simplistic, but he had a plan. His style was not for everybody, but he had a talent for painting a picture of characters and their world. Rafe's version is just a quickly thrown together trope filled stream of consciousness. Even with a WoT expert and Brandon Sanderson he still got TONS of stuff wrong. Things that didn't have to change, but he chose to change because he wanted to put his own spin on things. Unfortunately for me his 'spin' on things was very juvenile and uninteresting. It appears Rafe either lacks talent, or just really doesn't like the books and wants to write his own version. TLDR: Robert Jordan (flaws and all) was a passionate and talented writer. Rafe thinks he is a talented writer, but is really not. IIRC he wrote E1 and E8 some of the most panned and worst structured episodes. Judkins is way out of his talent depth here and it shows. Lets hope he got a lot of studio 'help' for S2.