I feel like it was worth a shot, but sometimes you miss the goal whatever your intentions. If other people like it, good for them, and I hope it led or leads them to the real juice inside the pages.

Why did they pick something established? Honestly, they have no clue what to do with the money. Someone comes in with a pitch and they sell it or they flub out. If they sell it and get greenlit, then everyone hopes the audience buys. Actual original stuff is a complete crap shoot. Meanwhile, I bet established stuff gets pitches and not greenlit all the time. One of the biggest differences is people 'inside' with an interest.

And passion. Belief. Corny as it sounds. LoTR, rejected by multiple studios, was considered a massive risk for Shaye and New Line, and Jackson's pitch might've been last ditch... for 2 movies... then Shaye was like 'make it a trilogy.' Ballsy. Then they went all out/all in for Cannes with 2 mil dropped like it was a premiere and Kablooey, the rest is history.

Meanwhile, I don't know about this show's nitty gritty of development... but, ah... Red Eagle sitting on rights for aeons... who sued Harriet... who Mr. Jordan had some er, colorful things to say about their character... yeah. How they were involved in pitching it and all I haven't a clue, but I doubt it would blow anyone's mind, shall we say.

Thankfully I was done with the books by the time of the show, but I think if I read again, it's too ingrained to change. Matt is maybe one of the closer ones to match, I suppose. Definitely not Rand, I pretty much have him as this weird blend of all the cover images Tor used over the years haha. I also don't particularly plan to watch season 2 or the show anytime soon.

I thought it was perfect for her, though I fully felt the tragedy and sympathize. As the ultimate ruthless pragmatist who always did what was needed, she embraced that final needed thing and was the purest and greatest hero (despite not being perfect, but no one is) of the whole story. To me, anyway. All the little girls dreaming of being Aes Sedai for thousands of years after would look to her as the one to aspire to.

When the need of the hour is done, so is the pragmatist, their legend complete...

Let the others coming after drown in the politics and machinations of failure — Egwene was the uncorrupted Flame of Tar Valon, who swallowed balefire and protected Time itself! Look to that crystalline monument on the heights and remember the purest soul of service to humanity's tomorrow, remember her light sparkling bright before the Shadow and stabbing its very dread heart! She suffered as a slave and kept her mettle, she suffered amidst vipers and schemers and plotters out for their own ends, all to a conclusion she foresaw and accepted, all to prove once and for all what Tar Valon, what the Amyrlin Seat — what Aes Sedai truly stood for.

Hold her flame in your heart and by it — through it — she'll never die.

Welcome!

First impressions? Mostly reminded me of an Astral or Ethereal Plane that is in many other fictional settings (I was particularly already familiar with Mage: The Ascension), as well as a general part of real-world mystical traditions/metaphysics. The reincarnation of heroes connection is unique and interesting.

I did like the idea in general of other worlds and shadows of the real one, mostly because of the weird things he threw into them, or that dread for things that 'could've been so easily.' 

I say let him rule.

Thanks for that — cool stuff!

Oh, new perspectives on lots of stuff. The spoilers! I really enjoyed knowing what would happen — why Moiraine was in the Two Rivers for instance, or the details on Padan Faine — and reading it again with the new knowledge. Rand's 'coincidences' meaning far more. It's very, very unusual in being a series I want to re-read.

I think the only other one I'd bother with is Tolkien, since my last read was far too long ago. I tried once. Unfortunately, the characters are tainted now in my head, with the characters of the movies thoroughly implanted. I'll never see them as I once did, and it steals something. Aside from maybe Gandalf. Sir Ian McKellan was basically Every Wizard Ever lol...

ASOIAF, I'd have to re-read if the next book came out, and I don't really want to. I'll leave it as dead as the writer did.

'Well, we gotta do something with this phat budget from Bezos! Does anyone have some cousins with obscure degrees?'

Ha! Those horses think they're the heroes of the story! Thank you for posting that, Gypsum, though sorry about the rough day. 😅

10 hours ago, Lightfriendsocialmistress said:

I still don’t know in what world peoples cheeks constantly change color so noticeably 😂

*reddens even more*

So, I've read the whole thread, here. It's weird to say I both agree that RJ went overboard on descriptions AND that I loved it. Maybe it's the being a writer thing, and getting older and absorbing more information, technique, logical criticisms, etc. But when I was initially reading in my teens, I drank it all in like a boy's first taste of exotic spirits. In my earliest writings I emulated that. I recall an early group I was in, and writing this page-long description of a sophisticated mystical object, and multiple people critiquing were like 'what are you doing?! You can't do that!' 'Oh, sorry.' 😆

I still find myself wanting to add an extra paragraph and gritting my teeth, or one getting long and being like 'damn it! there's more to describe...' but sighing and wrapping it up/squeezing it. In my head I say 'keep the paint brush flowing, don't come to a complete stop.' Heh...

Other than that. I do recall getting a bit exasperated with the Men = Mars; Women = Venus aspect, even younger. Not its existence so much as the intensity of the focus. I think, though, he was reflecting the magnified impressions of his experiences from The Backwoods and isolated, rural pockets, superimposed with historical frameworks and references. In short, the absurdity is understood but presented as what he felt would exist in the setting he built up to. Flawed and fractured and far from 'modern, enlightened' viewpoints. His audacity to do this is forever admirable in a way.

I'm the sort that's read his harshest critics to understand the issues, but still loves his work. The journeys of those characters are eternally special to me and RJ made them so. It's up there with Frodo and Odysseus and Elric and the Skywalkers. Lilith Ayapo. Irremovable pillars of a poor, Southern boy's psyche and imagination.

What actually happened at the Eye of the World is the biggest missed thing. Lan not being a massive, buff dude was impossible to parse, too. I'm trying to think of things changed or added that I liked, but... I guess I liked certain new takes on characters, in this 'well this isn't my story' kind of way. Valda. That flippant, pompous attitude was entertaining in and of itself. And quite Whitecloaky.

Moiraine — it's like, at times it doesn't feel her but she is definitely a perfect Aes Sedai. Logain, I suppose. I don't recall really picturing him well in my mind until later books, so was nice to see him physically realized.

Basically, only my inner theatre kid could be pleased with some castings and performances, while my almost exultant-for-WoT reader brain was just screaming internally forever.

Ah yeesh, this is so cool! Yeah, channeling is something I think you get to learn more and more and more with each book until quite deep.

Ack, don't make me do another re-read! 😄 But yes, Definitely do updates. Following this topic. Cheers!

Salutations, my friends! I hope the title gained a smile or chuckle (and if not, at least the tug of a braid), and lest you think otherwise, rest assured it's well in good humor, as I vehemently adore the works of the maestro of which so many of us were awed enough to brave this virtual isle of his testament. By the blessing and curse of verbosity he had no doubt in part imparted while alive do I impart part of an introduction! 

Alas, I must first confess no wind smoothed my skirt, for I lack one entirely. A betrayal, I know — a lie — but I pray you, forgive me and move on.

I've lurked here and viewed without an account plenty, sometimes with completely random wonderings punched into Google like 'who else hated Faile' or 'wheel of time and spankings', and then eventually along the lines of  'Sanderson vs. Jordan's writing' and 'what is with ____ on the tv show.' Dove into a lot of long threads. Came close to an account a few times, but not quite. Well, here we are!

I began the books due to a science fiction book club (of my Dads) sending which, in ye olden times, they'd send you the books (and the bill) unless you told them NOT to. So I get Lord of Chaos, or maybe it was A Crown of Swords, but either way, I'm amazed and perplexed at a young age... I set that crazy stuff aside. Besides, it's not the first book! Later, I gain an interest in fantasy through LoTR and TTRPGs, so I picked that thing back up and suddenly was vehemently intent on reading this new series. I asked around... lo and behold, a friend was an avid fan, and he immediately offered to let me borrow the whole shebang up to the then-current! The big, bad, beautiful doorstops that they were.

The effect of RJ's writing on me was immense. By some combination of exquisite detail, slow-building reveals, and tangled plots he engineered something unique, weird, fascinating, all in the guise — with the veneer — of classic fantasy. I don't believe anyone will ever do anything even 50% Wheel of Time. I've asked for recommendations to little avail, and perhaps sheer nostalgia is part of it, reading it in my teens as I did. But I hold 0.00% hope, only doubt, to find it's like again. And perhaps that's fine, eh?

I've certainly had my own writing influenced — I've certainly begun many things wanting even to emulate him. Learned it to be far better to mutate it into my own voice in some capacity. I guess for any influence there are some core elements that touch you the most, which you try and preserve. For me, that is the way he simulated and captured moments of detail, obsessed with emulating the moment like reality. Often with minutiae, but also with the feel and emotion of events. What a character obsessed over. Skipping over the simulation of a perspective's happening but rarely once the scene was set. Plenty of world-building, of course, and a very unique, complex metaphysical system.

Easy to say, harder to do, hehe... I'm giving it a shot, though. Feel a bit like a relic at times in this interest, or obscure, washed over by the waves of the New Hotnesses of the internet's literary currents. I've been trying out RoyalRoad while I write, for instance. It seems to just beg me to write something else. Maybe I'm stubborn, I dunno.

Regardless, happy to finally be here and plan to come more often as well as participate. Thanks for the read if you've made it this far — you're a real WoT type indeed, haha... thanks for having me, all, and May the Round Thing Turn and Pop Wheelies, or however that saying goes. ;-D Cheers!