As soon as I saw that Amazon had fired Jennifer Salke I thought that would probably spell the end for Rafe's Wheel of Time. Rafe was the wrong person for the job. His limited experience was in short form episodic television. On top of that he was hired for his ideological views not for his ability to produce good television. According to Brandon Sanderson the guy didn't know how to make a long form story television show. Sanderson said Rafe didn't bother with planning and writing a whole season but just basically winged it from episode to episode. That was why the show was such a disjointed mess. It's a wonder it lasted as long as it did.

I have the Michael Kramer and Kate Reading audiobooks ( except New Spring ) and I listen to them often. I'm currently listening to Eye of the World again. I tend to skip over the parts I don't like or that don't interest me though.

" Which female characters in female fiction do you love. " Very interesting question ! Well in Wheel of Time I loved Min of course but then who wouldn't she was so easy to be with. But then she wasn't a complex female character like Aviendha, Egwene or Nynaeve. So Min wasn't very realistic. And in Song of Ice and Fire I loved Brienne of Tarth. I thought she was a most poignant character. Because of her size and strength she wasn't accepted as a woman. And when she rebelled and became a warrior she was ridiculed for it. But she was really a sensitive girl at heart. Poor thing. But then they cast Gwendoline Christie as my beloved Brienne in the TV show ( I had pictured Ruth Wilson from the TV mini-series of Jane Eyre as Brienne ) and absolutely ruined it for me ! Then I would go way back to Jane Austen. I loved Fanny from Mansfield Park, such a gentle and true soul. Molly Gibson from Elizabeth Gaskell's Wives and Daughters superbly played by Justine Waddell in the 1999 TV mini-series. Lizzie Hexam from Charles Dickens Our Mutual Friend also superbly played by Keeley Hawes in the 1998 TV mini-series. Again though these are all idealised female characters rather than realistic ones. A flawed female character I loved was Dorothea Brook from Middlemarch by George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans). She got herself into quite a marital mess because of her obstinate contrariness and ended up paying the price for it. But she was a good hearted and likable woman in spite of that. It helps if there has been a good TV or film of the character because it provides a living breathing person to see and experience which makes it easier for me to relate to. In Battlestar Galactica ( 2003-2009 ) for example I loved Sharon Valerii who was just lovely and ironically a wonderful human being who was treated so badly, although not without reason. I also had a soft spot for Kara Thrace ( Starbuck ) even though she was an awful person in many ways. But she couldn't help herself as she was a tortured soul because of being severely physically and emotionally abused as a child.

Yes Tell-I-On-Re-Odd the world of dreams was another great one ! Not overly fond of the Woof Brothers myself but then I'm not a doggie person.

Really ? You would leave Crossroads of Twilight alone ? And you think it was a better book than The Eye of the World ?

Actually I am a big fan of Wheel of Time. I prefer it to Lord of the Rings. But WoT though great is flawed. And I don't think there is anything wrong in talking about those flaws, in fact I think it is healthy. So long as that is not all a person talks about. People who only want to hear things that they agree with are doing themselves and others a disservice I believe. It can lead to a narrow mindedness and a tendency towards gatekeeping among other undesirable things.

Mine was the concept of Ta'veren. Such a clever creative plot device with a truly fantastic multiplier effect. A piece of real creative genius from Robert Jordan.

I remember seeing a little clip of Josh (Rand), Marcus (Perrin) and Barney (Mat) sitting at a bench on set and Rafe was standing there smiling and talking to them. Josh and Marcus were smiling back and interacting with Rafe in a " Yes boss, whatever you say boss !" kind of way but Barney wasn't responding at all. Make of that what you will.

The IMDb page for Barney Harris says that his next job after leaving Wheel of Time in 2021 was The Severed Sun in 2024. So on the face of it he doesn't seem to have left WoT for another acting role.

This is a bit late but if you search around on Youtube you should be able to find The Eye of the World audiobook read by Michael Kramer and Kate Reading. Either all of it or part of it. Enough to tell whether you like it or not anyway.

My take on this is that Robert Jordan and his publishers sold out for the money by larding the books with filler. More words equals more books equals more money. It's as simple as that. George R R Martin and his publishers did the same thing with A Song of Ice and Fire. A Feast for Crows was Martin's Crossroads of Twilight. So no Robert Jordan didn't "waste" the remaining years of his life. On the contrary he was busily cashing in. But he did let his fans down, badly. Both by selling them the inferior later books and by depriving them of his ending to the series. Still at least Brandon Sanderson came in to finish the series which from the look of it is more than the ASOIAF fans are going to get.

I don't think it was Olver who was really the one obsessed with bosoms. Robert Jordan himself was clearly a big fan of bosoms, and spankings. He just used Olver as another set of eyes so to speak.

Among the main Aes Sedai I didn't have any favourites. Many of them were admirable and did their duty no matter what. But they weren't the kind of people I would want to spend time with outside of business hours. Siuan, Verin and Leane had their amusing character traits so I viewed them more favourably than Moiraine who was very mission focused. Anaiya was genuinely nice but she was a minor character. To me that was a flaw in Robert Jordan's WoT. The Aes Sedai were very important players and there should have been a handful of the significant ones who were likable as well as admirable. RJ managed it with at least one of the Wise Ones so I don't know why he didn't do the same with some of the main Aes Sedai.

True enough. Elayne was the standard beautiful princess 'falling in love instantly with the handsome hero' trope. No argument there. But early on Elayne had some intelligence. In Tear when she was advising Rand on statecraft and earlier slapping Egwene's face when she went too far in her bitchiness towards Nynaeve. But later Robert Jordan had her fawning over Thom which was kind of odd. And after she got pregnant her brain seemed to turn into goo.

Lorddrid Galadedrid Damodred has a nice ring to it I think.

I sometimes find myself thinking of a spoof Wheel of Time TV show where the Aes Sedai are literally on wheels, which are covered by their long dresses. So that when they move they appear to "glide along". But as nothing is perfect in Robert Jordan's WoT the wheels will squeak. And that all of the table and chair legs in Randland are uneven and wonky so that people are in danger of being pitched out of the chairs. And that ALL of the crockery is unmatching and chipped. And most of the beggars have heron marked walking staves. And the street urchins proclaim loudly that whatever food they have just gotten from a street vendor is the best they have tasted for a thousand years ! And every time Rand meets someone, anyone, they slap his face as hard as they can ! And if he is meeting a group of people they form an orderly queue and wait their turn.

On my first read of WoT Nynaeve used to annoy the hell out of me. I liked Elayne a lot at first but I was disappointed with what Robert Jordan did with her in the later books. Egwene I was neutral about. She had both her good and bad points in about equal measure. On re-reads I grew to like Nynaeve more and more when I realised that she was supposed to be funny. Which she is when you start looking at her that way. It took me a while to clue into Robert Jordan's sense of humour but when I did a lot of the books became even more enjoyable. I began to wonder if that was what he was going for with Elayne after she became pregnant. Elayne with baby-brain making all of those stupid decisions. It seems like the sort of thing RJ might have done.

Yes I've heard this line from George R R Martin too. Don't rewrite my Song of Ice and Fire write your own books instead ! Well yes nearly everyone can write but not many people can write at that level. I have had a go at writing but I realized that although I can string a sentence together pretty well I am not a creative writer when it comes to ideas for plots, settings and characters. And I'm not much good at the descriptive stuff either. And I wasn't serious about actually rewriting the whole of The Wheel of Time because that would be a massive undertaking. But it's fun to talk about changing things up in a hypothetical sense. It's a talking point for opening up discussion isn't it. Which is what this place is for I would have thought.

I know I do ! One of the changes I would make is to Elaida. Robert Jordan set her up as the character we all love to hate with her pride, arrogance and her unfailing ability to make a tremendous hash out of everything. Naturally for me as a contrarian I want to rehabilitate her. So I would combine her with ................... drum-roll......................Cadsuane ! No wait, listen to me ! Instead of being a combination of the two insufferable bitches from hell I would make something new and better from the amalgamation. At Camelyn when she meets Rand instead of dreaming of sticking him in a dungeon and putting him to the question she notices that he resembles Tigraine and is further alerted by the disparity between where he says he comes from and his appearance. Moiraine whisks Rand away. Elaida goes to the Tower where she is well thought of. She starts to dig around for information and in speaking to Egwene and Nynaeve she realises that something is up with Emond's Field. She tries to get information out of Nynaeve, Egwene, Min and Siuan but they aren't talking. So Elaida Marple starts to put two and two together ! When Moiraine is taken out by Lanfear and Rand kills Gaebril in Camelyn enough is enough ! Elaida deposes Siuan and interrogates her. In doing so she realises that she misinterpreted her foretelling and had the wrong Royal line. Rand is the key not Elayne. So Elaida steps up and starts to help Rand. Not by treating him like a dimwitted boy and regularly slapping his face very hard but by giving him advice and material aid and so on. One of the deficiencies to me with Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time is that the White Tower doesn't get enough attention. The politics, the scheming and so on.

I thought ' Winter's Heart ' ( Book 9 ) was a good read except for the Perrin and Faile chapters which were boring and tedious to me. On the other hand I thought ' Crossroads of Twilight ' ( Book 10 ) was 90% useless filler. On re-reads I only read the last chapter and skip the rest. Robert Jordan and his publishers should have been tried at Nuremberg for this crime against humanity !

That doesn't alter the fact that Egwene was criticising the Tower Aes Sedai for doing something that she was planning to do herself.

What was that all about ?

I would have started the show with Lan and Moiraine riding into Emond's Field and seeing a huge United Nations orgy in progress on the village green. Moiraine rolls her eyes and she and Lan turn their horses around and ride back out of Emond's Field. Then the air shimmers and Rafe Ballz'em'all appears and says " I win again Lews Therin ! "

Well as it was written in the books nowhere did it say in Tower Law that the Amyrlin had to be an Aes Sedai, which is why Egwene was able to be elected. Did the Rebels have the right to raise Egwene to Amyrlin ? Did Elaida have the right to depose Siuan ? Did the Seanchan have the right to claim Randland ? Did the Aiel have the right to take the fifth ? And so on.

Yes that is true but all the Tower had to do was send a messenger to tell the Rebels that Elaida was gone. And Egwene scolding the Tower Aes Sedai for wanting to depose yet another Amyrlin was sloppy writing because that is exactly what Egwene was trying to do herself !