Not sure if you have read the other Abercrombie books after this First Law Trilogy.

 I think Best Serves Cold comes next. I liked it, but not as much as the trilogy.

 The Heroes comes after that and that is my favorite book of all of Abercrombie.

 Red Country is pretty good, I didnt like that there was some blatant Clint Eastwood ripoffs.

 Half a King series was OK. His newest series (forgot the name) is OK as well.

 Dresden Files is pretty good, the imagination is impressive. I am currently re-reading just for something to read and enjoying it.

 Anthony Ryan has some good books. The first two are really good, 3rd is ok.

Brent Weeks Night Angel trilogy is good, but it traumatized me. It is like a very hardcore Mistborn.

His first few books in the Prism series are FANTASTIC, but the last two books kinda ruined it.

 I am a pretty big fan of Bernard Cornwell, historic fiction. If you have seen the show on Netflix "The Last Kingdom", it is based on one of his series the Saxon stories.

 Raymond Feist has been a large part of my fantasy reading. I will admit that I enjoyed it more when I was younger, but the books are fantastic and should be read by anyone who enjoys fantasy.

 as someone above mentioned "The Lightbringer" series. That is what I called the Prism series by Brent Weeks. The first 3 books are freaking incredible. They are so good that I dont regret reading the entire series even though I hated the ending.

 Lews Therin never speaks to Rand. Rand speaks to himself. He created the "Lews Therin" persona and voice because that is how he dealt with the memories. The memories happen because of the taint. The madness manifested in Rand in a way that he remembered his past.

 Lews Therin  was only mad at the very end.

 seal his whole and people forget. Channeling is discovered. The dragon is born, learns to channel. One of the idiots want more power, drills into the bore forcing the Dragon to attempt a seal. Seal is imperfect and Dragon dies... Dragon is reborn, is tainted and remembers his past, knowing what he did previously helps him to know how to fix the seal perfectly. Rinse wash repeat.

14 hours ago, Deviations said:

GoT started the first episode with a fairly clean story line.

1.  A scene with something obviously scary - The trolloc attack is later in the WoT ep 1 rather than the beginning.  The original book open with Lews Therrin & Isshy would have suited better in my opinion

2. A scene finding direwolves matched to the Stark children - obvious foreshadowing and engages us with the Stark children - who doesn't love wolf puppies? - Nothing like this in WoT ep 1

3. Momentous occurrence with the king & family visiting -Trolloc attack in Wot ep 1 somewhat fits this bill

4.  Likeable characters introduced and made likable immediately.  The tone in GoT got dark a bit later....  WoT characters were whiney & troubled from the get go.

4. should have been Bran being tossed out a window in the first episode. That makes everyone want to see vengeance enacted... instead we get one of the main characters killing his own wife.

5 minutes ago, WhiteVeils said:

The waygate exterior scene was already struck AND the Tar Valon set was already struck by the time it came to begin filming Episode 7. What was done with the end of Episode 6 was not filmed outside the Waygate, but spliced with footage filmed from INSIDE the Ways during the filming of Episode 7.   Nothing outside the Waygate was filmed after Harris had left the show.  That's why he doesn't respond much to their shouting.

Not simple at all. 

 

They didn't just use Loial to open the ways not to explain why they couldn't get Mat, but to give a reason why the Trollocs could use the Ways that people can put together. If they only have Loial do it, then it doesn't make much sense that Moiraine could with the power /AND/ Fain/the trollocs can with a leaf /AND/ the Ogiers could too. They could simplify it to just Moiraine for getting in and getting out, and they did.

 

 

You can choose not to like that...that's fine.  But it was a reasonable choice to limit options, and it doesn't change anything.

 It is very interesting how you manage to come up with so many ways to defend the show, but simple things to make it better is so elusive to you.

5 hours ago, ArrylT said:

https://rationalnerd62.tumblr.com/post/673512984165908481/the-wheel-of-time-screentime-season-1

 

A complete breakdown of S1 screentime.  Breakdowns by character, gender & episode and so on.   Extremely detailed imho.  Links in the post to all data and episode by episode breakdowns.  

 

When viewing through the lens of all screen time given to all WoT characters - Stepin got less than 3%.

 

My favorite revelation:

 

• Rand is the top character for solo scenes and duo scenes. He had 10min more duo scenes than Moiraine, and 27min more than Egwene. While it’s okay to be disappointed by his development in the show, especially for those who love book tEotW Rand, it’s factually wrong to say he had no more development than, say, Stepin or another recurring/secondary character (which is an exaggeration I’ve been told quite a few times).

 

However it is true that Perrin had the least potential for development due to limited # of solo / duo type scenes.   Mat looks like he would have had top 5 screentime if he had not been written out of the last 2 episodes (mostly) due to what occurred.

 So basically he had a lot of screen time where he did a bunch of nothing and/or supported other characters (hello Egwene).

10 minutes ago, EmreY said:

 

If the shooting for the Tar Valon part of the episode had not wrapped up before his departure, sure.

 That would have been in the episode AT the gate. New shooting.. Mat not there..

 Moiraine: Where is Mat?

Lan: too sick to ride, still recovering. hid him at the local inn under a fake name and told him do not leave until we return.

 Moiraine: Looks like we must continue without him.

 It is really that simple.

5 hours ago, expat said:

I am one of those people who think that EF wasn't portrayed well in the book.  A small, remote, farming town in a dangerous land with minimal medical (Nyn's healing being a unicorn) resources need all the kids as possible because many wouldn't survive.  There is no chance that the normal 19 year old wouldn't be married and have kids.  For example, England in the 1700's had a marriage age of 12 for women and 14 for men.  There is no reason to suppose that EF would waste so many fertile years by delaying marriage so long.

 Yeah no doubt about it. They all would have been married with kids at their ages. I never liked that aspect of the books either. I was fine with them "aging" up the EF and/or giving them more mature roles.

 I wasnt a huge fan of book 1. The hook(s) for me were the prologue and the prophecies. From those I knew we would leave behind the LoTR ripoff eventually and turn into a different story.

On 1/14/2022 at 12:03 PM, Deviations said:

I almost laughed the first time one of my kids tried that with me.  For the Am Seat to fall for it is an issue.

 Just another example to pile on top of the plethora of examples of really bad, lazy writing. Rafe was/is completely unprepared for this project, and the writers he brought on are as bad as he is.

2 hours ago, nsmallw said:

I believe that episode was finished before the covid shutdowns, so the idea that they couldn't spring for more logain troops/tower guard doesn't fly at all. Amazon just didn't commit enough money to season 1. If they'd given 25 percent of what they've given to the LOR TV show , then the season would have been much better

Or  you have a completely inexperienced showrunner who is taking on a mammoth and blew his budget on things he could have done differently.

 Why would the cut out the Faile/Perrin slog.. didnt we just get an entire season of Perrin slog?

 Scene 1 Perrin mopes.

 Scene 2 Perrin mopes.

 Scene 3 Perrin mopes.

etc. etc.

1 hour ago, EmreY said:

 

I think we all know that, despite his intentions to the contrary, had RJ lived, we would now be on Book 20 or so of the series, the Seanchan having been attacked by their long-standing enemies from the south, the sudden change in weather patterns having caused a small ice age (cue 400 pages on the logistics of feeding refugees), Egwene's babies would have been kidnapped, etc etc

 Well we do know he had planned outrigger novels following Mat and Tuon.

Pretty sure I read Algemar had already moved on to something else. Instead of replacing the actor, they just killed off the character and they have the next actor/character already set up.

 So far I think Boba Fett is really boring. I keep losing interest in it and I have tried to watch it multiple times. I am 50 years old and Star Wars was impactful on my youth. Boba Fett was one of my favorite figurines.

1 hour ago, Katherine said:

Yeah, Watching and enjoying The Witcher as a non-book fan while watching and bemoaning WoT as a book fan is extremely interesting and DOES go to show just how difficult it is to adapt books in a way that feels natural and right. 

 

So while I feel like RJ2 was not up to the task, I will concede that the task was far greater than maybe I understood. 

 I binged Witcher right after it came out on Netflix, inbetween episodes of WoT. I was thinking about that the whole time I watched it. I knew Witcher bookfans would be having meltdowns but I was thoroughly enjoying the show. I tried to carry that over to the next episode I watched of WoT and while I did have moderate success with that frame of mind, I also couldnt help noticing there seems quite abit more cheez in WoT than in Witcher. Even as a non-book reader I wouldnt be able to help noticing the cheez, weak dialogue and lazy writing. No doubt there was some of that in the Witcher (almost all fantasy has some), WoT definitely has a lot more overall. I have maintained an overall score for WoT season 1 as a 6/10, or a 3.5/5.  If I were searching for a tv show to binge, 6/10 wouldnt be high enough to really draw my attention.

 I feel like Rafe wanted to blow up his career ala GoT D&D, but learned his lesson that if the show is too close to the book, the author gets most of the credit. He wants to write his own mediocre story using the Wheel of Time name for the funding and the WoT fanbase for publicity and a big audience right away. I think he figured by the end of the season enough viewers that he could take the story any where he wanted.

 Bloody Nine

Jimmy the Hand

Vin

2 minutes ago, notpropaganda73 said:

 

Honestly, you will exclude 99% of screenwriters with that requirement. Where do you draw the line in terms of who should be involved? Do actors, editors, directors, prop makers, all need to have read the source material? It's a completely unreasonable expectation for a production. 

Huge different in actors reading their lines and the scene descrip and the people who actually write those lines and describe the scenes. So yes, I think if the job came with "it is required to read Eye of the World to apply for this job... there would have been plenty of writers busy reading in order to apply.

 If you would like, I can take a picture of some of the manuals and text books that I not only have to read, but learn for certifications for my job.

2 hours ago, Gothic Flame said:

Wow...she pretty much deconstructs and destroys the whole season.

 

 Personally, I feel like anyone who is truly being honest knows this show is easy to deconstruct and destroy. Too easy with all the bs flung against the wall.

Yeah I disagree completely. If you dont read the source material you shouldnt be writing on the show.

23 minutes ago, Sir_Charrid said:

Actually I think it is a fair reflection of book 1. When I first read WOT Lord Of Chaos had just come out in Paperback in the UK, I was looking for books to take on our family holiday, 6 weeks in a caravan in France so bought the first 6 books (I didn't realise at the time that the series wasn't over). I think, had I not bought all 6, I would have stopped at Eye of the World for many of the reasons this reviewer gives. Many of the people I have leant Eye of the World to have told me they won't be carrying on, some didn't make it half way through that book. RJ has talked about how the book was written as an homage to Tolkein and for me, who reads Lord of the Rings roughly once a year or so, that leaps off the page for me. In fact it wasn't until books 3 and 4 that I really started to love the series as opposed to reading it because I had nothing else on holiday with me. 

 I have always felt sorta the same way... I read the prologue and thought oh yeah, this is going to be good. Turned the page and boom we are in a LoTR book. I didnt especially care for it, BUT, I knew the pay off was the prologue so I pushed through the LoTR section to get to the real books.

 Something people need to keep in mind also... back then there was ONE template for fantasy. If you wanted to be published in the fantasy genre, you had best follow that template... and of course that template was based on the only truly successful fantasy books written, LOTR. So in some ways that was a requirement. Look at almost all of the notable fantasy books around that same time period, you will notice they all have very similar aspects.. LOTR. Once he was published, then he was able to write HIS story.

 Once again, the prologue made a huge difference in expectations.

2 hours ago, RextheDog said:

 

WC meetings can be flipped though...

 

Book Lan did a bad boo boo at Baerlon,  until Moiraine HAD to reveal herself to deal with just six whitecloaks because book lan couldnt

 

yeah?no?

 

you reckon he nailed it in Baerlon?

 

 You mean when they were rushing out of the city through the ONE AND ONLY gate they could pass through?

 Yeah, that is exactly the kind of circumstance I meant when I said there were hundreds of ways to write it so they had to confront white cloaks that wasnt just lazy writing. Thanks for a perfect example.

 Any of you know about book sale increases? I am curious how it is being effected.

 I was just at Books a Million with my grandson, he was buying manga books with his gift card. Next to the manga section (in the middle of the main aisle) was a table that said TV and it had Witcher, Hobbit, Wheel, and Shadow and Bone books. There were 3 employees near the table, so I asked them.. "Has there been a spike in sells since Wheel of Time tv show came out?"  They looked at me like I was an alien or something so I repeated myself "The Wheel of Time, have sells spiked since the show came out?" Still all looked confused so I asked "You do know there is a Wheel of Time tv show right?" one answered "No, had no idea".

 We get up to checkout and I hear the cashier talking to the customer in front of us "Since the tv show came out the books are selling like crazy." So I ask, "What show are you talking about?" and she said "The Witcher"...

 She did say WoT was selling but nothing like the Witcher.

 The last two non book reader friends (married couple) finished the series. Liked it overall but they said they would most likely forget about it before season 2 came out. They would watch season 2, but they arent anticipating it or excited about it. All my other non book reader friends gave up on it at different points in season 1.

6 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

1: That's not growth, he's semi supportive of a young man, he does that in New Spring, that's him being a basically decent person, not development.  Ultimately it's a one note situation as he never shows that type of support again, not really being with Lan until book 4 and then leaving at book 5.   His situation with Nynaeve is not development, it's a out of nowhere reveal.  I'm fine with people pointing out Rand's viewpoint is the source, but there's no shown development of this, it just randomly pops up.

2: What combat prowess was reduced?  He has one bad horse story, which is not the same.  Nynaeve only got found by them because Moraine sensed her in the books, not because Lan noticed her.  If you mean poor sentry in the ways, it's a multi day travel, he had to sleep at some point.  Blame Moraine for not placing any wards (Which she did in the books and which she conveniently couldn't do in the show).  We also don't know if he could or couldn't track her, just that his normal method for keeping tabs on her was no go and Nynaeve offered help.  

You're looking for reasons to claim he's diminished.

 It isnt character growth because why? because you have declared it not character growth? roll my eyes.

 what combat prowess was reduced? you have been on this board long enough to see the numerous ways his combat prowess has been reduced, even if you refuse to accept it and come up with elaborate reasons why you are right..

 not even sure why I am responding to you at this point, it is known you will spin every single thing to something eye roll worthy to defend every detail of the show.

21 minutes ago, Skipp said:

 

I do believe this was an intentional change and not a subtitling error as they have used the term The Dragon Reborn like this in interviews.  But in the grand scheme of things this seems to be on the nitpicky side of things.

 The Creator makes the world, seals the DO into his prison where is influence is next to nothing, just enough to give the people free will and make choices. Thousands of years of peace and tranquility, learning and growing. War is not even a thing. Someone looking for more knowledge/power discovers the prison, drills into it and opens it so the DO is touching the world. They have to learn war, they have to learn how to fight and survive. One person stands above the rest, leads their armies, fights the shadow, they call him the Dragon (a name a honorific). He leads an attack against the DO at the bore, he manages to force the DO back into his prison and places and patch upon the seal. The DO counterstrokes by tainting saidin. The men go mad and destroy the world. While this is taking place, people begin to have foretellings. They tell of the time when the patch weakens and the DO once again is touching the world and when that happens the Dragon will be reborn to save or destroy the world.

 Thousands of years pass by, scraps of knowledge and legends are all that remain, the prophecies survive and the Dragon being reborn is known. When the time comes the Dragon is reborn and once again leads the armies and people of the world against the fight against the DO. Using the knowledge he has gained from his current life AND his past life, he learns how to create the perfect seal and seals off the DO.

Peace comes once again to the world. War is forgotten, tranquility, learning, arts, and growth over the next few thousand years. There are no prophecies or legends that remain from the time before, the DO is forgotten. After five thousand years.. someone finds the seal to the DOs prison, in pursuit of knowledge and power they drill into the hole and release the DO to touch the world. They have to learn war, they have to learn how to fight and survive, and during this, one person stands out, leading the armies of the worlds, leading the fight against the shadow, and they call him the Dragon...

rinse wash and repeat... rinse wash and repeat.

 now, you say "its nitpicky" or blow it off like its not really a big deal, but there is a reason the Wheel of Time was one of the greatest series ever written and it isnt just because "its a good story". The details, the physics, the rules, the worldbuilding so on and so forth....

Walking Dead was an entertaining story, had a good premise, but the writing was lazy and mostly stupid and 17 million viewers watched it.