As I stated, even if you take this as not the literary device of Unreliable Narrator, people misunderstanding pretty much everything is a major theme, not just the prophecy. Facts becoming stories, stories becoming legends, legends becoming myths, the point is hammered home over and over again. Birgitte talking about her lives compared to the stories, Thom talking about the evolution of stories, and of Mosk and Merik fighting with spears of fire (iirc), for example. Even down to the prejudices that people like the Aiel and Sea Folk had for each other was all based people believing and spreading inaccurate information. I cannot think of a single part of the book that is not affected by this, hence why I call it a major theme. Genders working together were noticeably out of whack at the beginning of the story due to the Dark One's taint on saidin. People had to learn to work together - which meant women had to let go of their grip on power. I don't see how the show turned that on it's head, and we will never see how it would have resolved this now. Claiming it showed how gender roles made us whole is completely wrong, in my opinion. Jordan made up societies with completely different gender roles - showing that they are completely arbitrary and the opposite of necessary. You criticise "our overly sensitive society" while sounding rather sensitive yourself to see viewpoints that you are not comfortable with. It seems a common thing for people to claim that the show entered politics into the story, when they mean that their politics prevent them from enjoying the show. I did not see the show treating the main themes differently than the books.

Good luck with your journey 🙂

Welcome back, Starla 🙂 Pretty sure this is not a fever dream, but perhaps don't take my word for it, lol. It is always awesome to see returning members. Come join the Social Orgs, we still have a few dinosaurs that roam about since your first time around, like the ancient @Cairos for example. Always boring us youngsters with stories about the old days ^^

Have you factored in the Dark Prophecies? There is no reason to think they are any less Foretellings than those of the Light. It is never made clear if Rand dies if that just means that the Fourth Age will be a bad place to be, or if the Pattern will prevent that or correct it somehow. The Pattern must seal the Bore, otherwise there would be a paradox. The DO needs Rand to submit, so possibly the requirements for that are the same as sealing the Bore. That is why the Shadow isn't going all out to destroy Rand, that isn't their goal. They are possibly actually (when following the DO's orders at least) trying to set up exactly the same situation as Rand is trying to. The battle could be seen against the allies of both who are trying to derail their plans either through ignorance or selfishness. The main problem for Rand is everyone in the Light thinks they know more than him, the main problem for the DO is he wants to destroy the Wheel, his followers think they want to control the Earth. Only Ishamael is a true believer.

The bit that bugged me was Tam and Perrin being taken out of sync. Especially as it would be so easy to fix - where Tam is taken away by Nyn to have some quality time with Rand and stays with him, but then when we go back to Perrin for nearly the whole of the next book, Tam is still there while Perrin does his training montage in TAR for the showdown 2.0 with Slayer. It seems like it would have been trivially easy to have Tam come back to finish some stuff off, or just remove him from the Perrin arc and have Abel or someone in that role. But it was hardly that big a deal, it just caught my attention and then irritated.

Not through lack of trying, it must be said, lol.

I agree. It just felt to me a lot of the story was really for the long haul - the Black Tower for instance seemed to need years and years to be functional. The schools Rand was setting up - seem a little pointless if it is only five minutes before the apocalypse. A lot of things just seemed to be panning out over the long term, processes of evolution rather than quick stop gaps (this could be me entirely reading it wrong), and then suddenly someone looks up at the skies and says, "Ooh, look at those clouds, we'll be having a Tarmon Gai'don in about two weeks." Caught me entirely off-guard, though possibly was entirely meant to be the effect, or I was just getting too comfortable in my cosy little soap opera about the EF5 and did not want it to end. Obviously it did have to end eventually, regardless of the author or their health. Just such a shame though that will always be such a "what if"...

Yup, absolutely, lol. As I said, no one has any subjective opinions that they are unwilling to bend on. I see you caught the vibe immediately. Read the books? What a novel idea. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the show. I cannot say I really agree on much of it, especially not your unhappiness with casting. Especially especially your disappointment with the attractiveness of the female cast and your disappointment with the Chosen. But there is always going to be issues when our visual head canon meets a live action adaptation. But it is undoubtedly a shame that so many fans of the book did not like the show.

It is totally chill. No one holds any sort of strong opinions that they are unwilling to bend at all, lol. Just all a bunch of pussy cats 😹

Welcome, Lanfeared 😁 Always great to meet another fan 🙂

Also I would say it was clearly in the notes. The detailed story about what happened with the Finns to Lanfear and Moiraine. The subplot of Thom and Moiraine (though this Jordan never seemed to flesh out much, along with the letter and I'll tell you who killed your nephew lines, perhaps Jordan would have changed this, but Sanderson could hardly ignore such a big point in the notes). I agree it does seem a bit abrupt but also that it was rather inevitable. Maybe it should have happened earlier so she had more chance to critical in story? I dunno. For me, alot of the ending feels rushed and possibly this is just down to the story's exponential growth being brutally reined in so that it wouldn't go on for another 14 books.

I'm not sure. The publicity ones are probably contractually stipulated and very much in the actors best interests. Once it has been cancelled, it is questionable how much it is. There are probably NDAs and any anecdotes that an A list celebrity might get pumped for could be dangerous to the actors or their colleagues. I don't see outlets giving time to in depth analysis of cancelled shows, and the actors themselves putting stuff out on social media or whatever probably would be advised against anything except the most generic to be professional.

Discussing things is not the same as throwing out pronouncements of opinion. You are accusing of people of bending over backwards to defend Jordan rather than accepting they have different opinions. You appear to be behaving exactly like my ex where she would constantly assume that everyone actually agreed with her and if they pretended differently they were doing it for ulterior motives, because obviously she was always right, by definition. You do see how accusing of people of bending over backwards to stop themselves from seeing your truth is not discussing different opinions about something?

His blood on the rocks of Shayol Ghul? Rand setting philosophers to work on them and reading untold translations and commentaries? Brigit talking about her past lives and how they were reported on stories? While I get you can argue whether this falls technically as unreliable narrator (as in the literary device) I'd say the things like the difficulty of interpreting prophecy and foretelling (Andor's Royal Line?), people using their own takes on the situation (Niall's beliefs about the Final Battle), Mat being Odin and Perrin Thor/Perun, Seanchan beliefs about Artur Hawkwing, etc., I would argue that the message being lost, corrupted or misunderstood, especially over time, is probably the most common theme in the books. It is the only real implication of cyclical time that is explored as far as I can see.

Random thought: why does my autocorrect offer the options of "So", "I" and "Cucumber" to start? On topic: you really don't have a clue, do you? Unreliable narrator is hard coded into the story, the Prophecy, the in-world stories based on real events, becoming legends, fading to myths... It is explicitly mentioned throughout the books, over and over again. Ideological agenda? I see obviously missed that gender relations was also a major theme in the books. And you take it upon yourself to be the true voice of the all fans of the books. Making an adaption of the books is hateful? That is so nonsensical. You are the guy that claims Jordan did a disservice to his fans by cashing in and churning out pointless filler instead of finishing the book when he was terminally ill. And you call other people hateful just because they don't align with your narrow and inflexible view of the world. Absolutely charming.

Thank you. And you are more than welcome to your opinions, and I apologise if I am misreading your posts, but very often you appear to be stating your opinion as fact. That the books you don't like as much are objectively bad, rather than that being your opinion. That characters you don't like are awful and should have been scrapped. Like I hate the end. It amazes me that so many people love it, or parts of it, but I don't think that I am right and they are wrong in some objective way. Wot is such a complicated story that we all take different things out of it, different takes on characters, different themes and different priority to those themes. As I say I apologise if this is not how you mean it, but you are coming on a little strong.

What is you guys' problem? Why do you repeatedly present your opinions as fact and claim that anyone that disagrees with you as saying that Jordan is the perfect writer? The opinions on this forum are varied. There are many people that love the first three books, there are many people that hated them and very nearly did not continue reading (often only doing so as the books were on the shelves of a family member). There are those that hate the slog, there are those that find those the best books in the series. There are those that disown the Sanderson books, there are those that think his input lead to a great improvement. There are those that think the Forsaken are two-dimensional and unbelievable and those that absolutely love the Chosen. I could go on and on. There is even one person that claims that Faile and Perrin's relationship is the most realistic they have ever seen in literature. Takes all sorts. Many of us have grown up with the books and the characters have been our constant companions throughout our lives. The fact that you think that you are the sole arbiters of the one true truth about the Wheel of Time is hilarious.

It is classic fantasy. That the fantasy scene has arguably matured (or changed depending on your perspective) since WoT, does not in my opinion mean that this changes WoT to YA. Though I would have to question why anyone would care about an arbitrary label.

One of the main themes, if not the main theme, of the books is unreliable narrator. Moiraine thinking that the Dragon could be a woman changed nothing. The implications for Egwene and Nynaeve are something else, but as Rand was the still the Dragon nothing fundamental changed with respect to that. Again people are desperate to claim that there was an objective reason to hate the show. Why is your confidence in your own opinion so low that you have to pretend that it is a fact?

I'd imagine it was just for simplicity's sake. Having Ajah guild houses in every country let alone every population centre would split up the story line something awful. And you would have the possibility of the Black taking them over, and the Tower would have a huge presence in every corner of the land which would really affect story lines involving the Forsaken and the main characters. Think of all the extra characters and political manouverings. In world the reason would be that the rulers and populaces did not trust the witches and Artur Hawkwing penned them all in on their island that his successors found appropriate. Remember most rulers who had an advisor kept it secret and those who didn't suffered political resistance because of it. The Tower is more a concept, in my opinion. The Ajahs don't make any sense if you examine them too closely. A lot of the political infighting doesn't either, why would the heads of the Ajahs risk the fall of the Tower just to pull a it more power away from the elected Amyrlin? That seems odd as they are not rivals or enemies. The world of WoT is just too large to fully flesh out everything, IMHO.

Again your post addresses nothing that I said.

But you think twisting words is helpful in discussions? I fully clarified what I meant in that post, with clear arguments about what was objective and subjective. Nothing you have said in anyway contradicts what I wrote. That there were deviations from the source material is fact, as I clearly agreed. However this says nothing about the quality, necessity or how they affected someone's enjoyment of the series. These are subjective concepts, and yet many try to wriggle out of that by claiming deviations are objectively bad. They aren't. I don't see that preempting any discussion about the show is helpful. If the show was "objectively" too far from the source for you to enjoy it, that is a shame. But don't pretend that isn't a subjective opinion or that anyone that disagrees with you is objectively wrong.

There is a bit of dialogue about the badger at another point in the story, too, "I wonder what Dav did do with that badger". Or was that the same scene, lol, could have been, hehe. My favourite joke wasn't really that funny (though I did like how Jordan strung out the "Good Night's Ride" joke), all the way back in Eye of the World. Egwene (innocently): Who is Elayne, Rand? Rand: She is the Daughter Heir of Andor. Egwere (angrily): Well, if you won't be serious for one moment... storms off Rand: I wish was Mat or Perrin.... Not that funny at all but it tickled me as a teenager. Shame it didn't make it to the show, and they didn't carry on a bit of silly humour like "ooo, Mat, the hero who didn't wear a coat when it was slightly chilly". Mat's letter as well, Thom and Mat were a good pairing, Mat and anyone was good, but too often his partner had too much of an advantage over him (like Tuon, Alludra, etc) but Thom was pompous enough that he sometimes over did it and Mat's quick mind and quick fingers could get revenge.

Too much of the romances were driven by Foretelling, which skipped the whole building the relationship stage. Even with Aviendha, where there was groundwork it was just her trying to get away and then giving into her womanly passions. I don't think the way Rand is portrayed is love is particularly convincing either. It just seemed to me Jordan didn't have, or want to give at least, the pages to develop proper romances. He had the three women at his funeral pyre but then never found the room to properly develop the idea.

Agree with your list. Alanna being torn up with grief at the death of her warder just seemed to mean that she was constantly irrational which did not lead to great characterisation. Though I guess that was a deliberate choice. I'd add Silvianna and Anaiya to the list of favourites, it was nice to have Aes Sedai that had admirable qualities.