This has to be the best casting decision for entire show. I largely did not like many of their decisions but she would kill as Elaida.

It is a large exaggeration and was directed personally to the poster in the form of "people like you." No one is making entire channels to hate on the show. The poster came here to discuss it with other fans of the material. It is fine for people to like the show. I heavily dislike it but I state often that I am happy that some folks like the show. I do not tell folks who like the show to be quiet or that they are flushing their lives down the drain.

"The time ppl like u waste ranting & making entire YT channels to hate on a show is just flushing ur lives down the drain."

Feel free to personally attack the poster. At least people who criticize care about the material enough to engage. It is far worse when apathy strikes a brand. Life is too short to be told you have to accept whatever they give you and like it or just switch it off an be quiet.

I am sure they will write a metric load of content that never appeared in the books and focus on side characters etc. They have plenty of runtime to hit some major areas but you can see from seasons 1 and 2 that they will add a lot of their vision and filler.

They cannot recover at this point.

Thank you! Modern TV series where you go a year between seasons is awful. We used to get 22 eipides or 800-900 minutes of content with 3-4 months between seasons. We are now lucky to get HALF that amount of content and have to wait 1-2 years between seasons. Production values do not compensate.

The core main characters in book 1: Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene, Nynaeve, Morraine, Lan. The core supporting characters in book 1: Thom, Loial You can also make an argument that the following characters were critical to introduce in book 1: Min, Tam, Elaida, Bayle, Elayne, Galad, Gawin. Meeting Rand was one of the core reasons Elaida performed the tower coup. Instead, were got a lot of characters that did not matter for season 1 like Liandrin and Logain, and even Siun. People argue that introducing Elayne in season 1 to have her wait around. Well, what about Logain. He does not become important until the coup and escape to Salidar while Elayne, Bayle, and Thom all had major roles in book 2. They added a load of trash that never happened into season 1 while ignoring core characters and core supporting characters.

Great list! You should check out the following: Eureka Burn Notice Warehouse 13 12 Monkeys For all Mankind Silo Babylon 5

There is a lot of free will. Tigraine was given a choice by Gitara. It was not a great choice, but it was a choice. Morraine was given a choice by the wise ones to go to Rhuidean. They saw possibilities in the Dream. The portal stones all showed different choices and decisions.

I just go back to the fact that the show seems dead. Amazon was all fired up regarding getting the merch rights etc and they have done nothing with it. Ta'Veren Tees was better in every way. It is not marketed and you do not continue to see buzz around the show. Even here the forums are quiet.

High Castle is a great show. It has an intriguing premise and it is well written and acted.

I think your thread is the only thing keeping this forum alive right now. This may also prove the lack of ratings point.

There it is again. Directs insults of ignorance and then the tired gatekeeping argument that gets trotted out to malign anyone who disagrees with the elites who want to tell you what you should like. I can play the same game here. I have a degree in publishing with focuses on creative writing and screenwriting. I have worked in the field for a long time. I find the writing on the show lazy and poorly done. Does my education suddenly make my opinion more worthy and less ignorant and naïve?

I agree, which is why I said that those arguments detract from the point of the thread.

I have never made the argument that the showrunner hates Jordan. Rafe did change his narrative over time. I do not think he hates Jordan but he definitely has moved the goalposts over time. As for ideological agendas, yes, Amazon does have them and so does a huge swath of the television industry. I think it is fair to comment on them if you see it as having a serious impact on the quality of the show. I do have a real issue when people argue that you're dislike of content is due to ignorance or bigotry as if you should just accept it and be glad for what you received. I have never argued that anyone is wrong or stupid because they like the show.

I se this argument used in excess to defend this show. The showrunner has come out to say that this is his version of the turning of the Wheel. It is not complicated to hew closer to the books. The writers have written entire episodes that have no connection to the events in the books. The writers have not even tried to be internally consistent either. It has nothing to do with how television writing works. The showrunner and writers have made purposeful decisions to change things and not to suit the needs for television but rather to suit their own vision of the story. The argument that people are either not smart enough or not "educated" to the realities of TV writing is a bit insulting.

The contracts I have been part too all include non-disparagement clauses. I think Sanderson has been very political in how he criticized the show. He also has more resources than Harriet. I am not saying that any positive statements she has made have been forced. I am not making that argument; however, Harriet has not really made a lot of comments either. She may love the show but she is not a routine supporter that regularly defends it. I do think that this discussion detracts on the core theme of why they do not follow the books more closely. For instance, Moraine losing her powers did nothing for the show. It was weak and took away from screen time that could have been used for storylines that were actually used in the books.

To be fair, I think that is the implication and most contracts do carry those types of clauses to prevent people from damaging the product.

Are you implying that this show has a lot of buzz? It does not. There may be a subset that watches it when they need streaming content to burn but the show is not driving traffic. There are a handful of media articles. There was a lot of bot-driven social media posts when season 2 dropped; however, there is not a sustained WoT stream of social media traffic. I looked for information about increased book sales. I saw one article that said "The Wheel of Time (Finally) crosses 100 million sales." That is not a ringing endorsement of millions of new fans chasing the series. There was a spike in interest leading up to the show and then Sanderson broke the internet via Kickstarter. Let's also look as merchandise. I cannot even find decent WoT merchandise since Amazon took over. You sure cannot find it on Amazon. If the show was doing well, then you would see a lot of merchandise. There is less now than when we still had Ta'Veren Tees. WoT (TV) is not even serving the existing fanbase and it is certainly not driving the creation of a new fanbase. I would argue that the show is highly derivative of existing "modern" tropes in TV. It is fairly lazy writing and design by committee to make sure it meets certain goals and to be as inoffensive to the social media mob as possible. I wish we'd see a rabid new fanbase. I do not see one happening and it looks more like Star Wars and DC. An aging fanbase, divided, and slowly dying off.

It usually has to reach 10k.

They have done the same with LOTR. There are multiple instances of cast interviews, media stories, and social media that are used to intentionally divide the fans or malign fans that dislike the show. They will create a narrative that dislike of a show is due to hate of race or gender. This narrative is then use to create an internal war within the fanbase and deflect from actual discussion. The tactic has been used as far back as the BSG remake but was deployed in force with Star Wars and it very present with Rings and WoT. It is an actual marketing strategy. Whereby marketing departments use bots, seed media stories, etc.

This seems overly harsh. Why is gatekeeping a thing these days? I see this term thrown around whenever people complain that they do not enjoy what is happening with a franchise. It happens here and in the Star Wars fandom. I do not see people complaining about the treatment of WoT as gatekeepers. I want to see MORE WoT fans. I want to see more people enjoy the series. Instead, I see predatory companies like Amazon purposely dividing the fans because, hey, hate watching is still views and clicks. It may damage the brand long term but who cares. It is the same as people demanding that someone explain how they would write something as an argument in order to form a gotcha moment where they can pick it apart. I think a lot of people are tired of being burned by writers and showrunners who believe they can tell the story better or the "we have to update it for modern audiences." The modern audiences trope never works because those audiences would prefer 60 second shorts. At most, they will use the show for memes or soundbites yet they will never be fans. Sure, if a show does not toe the party line, they will campaign on social media but they will not actually watch it. I really wanted to like this show; however, the writers pulled the same "I know better" and "it needed to be updated" and there was "no way it could be adapted without changing things." They chose to spend time on stores and characters that never happened while saying that they had to cut to tell the story. The anger is not just about the adaptation. It is about the constant bait and switch.

What constraints forced them to write entire episodes that never happened in the books? I could understand if there were budget issues that forced them to cut content but they also added a lot of content at the expense of better written scenes and material from the books. I think they like to use excuses like budget to number of episodes to distract from poor writing or a desire to tell their version of events.

Agreed. The Wheel of Time is cyclical. There is always some type of Age of Legends and someone always seeks too deeply and recreates the Bore. It is never the same story. Perrin and Rand are not tied to the Wheel. Their souls were weaved into the third age and they may have become Ta'Veren specifically because of their close bond to Rand.. They may have earned a place among the heroes and it is clearly shown that has happened in the past but the events unfold differently in each age because the Creator does allow for free will.