The Wheel of Time

[Rucket]

@raemira & @Runescryer

Yeah I know, it's just that the show is taking a bit of a different take than the books since in the books the Dark One's prison is at Shayol Ghul. I guess I'll take a watch again and see what the X-ray stuff is saying during that conversation as I don't have it up all that often, usually just when seeing who side characters are.

[Arkandel]

@runescryer said in The Wheel of Time:

Yeah, I think the best way to go with a WoT game would be to sell it as 'a different Turning of the Wheel'; which is basically what the show is doing. Have a lot of the basics (The One Power, the Dark One, the Dragon, the Forsaken, etc.), but also make some changes for the game to be more playable (men can be Aes Sedai; both men and women can be corrupted by using the One Power, just not as severely as in the books...)

There is no best way. It's a way. For example I really don't like several of the notions in that very list you mention.

Not that there's anything wrong with them, but they don't fit what I'd like to play. As, I imagine, you - or others - wouldn't like the vision that I have of what a WoT game should be about.

[Rucket]

@arkandel said in The Wheel of Time:

As, I imagine, you - or others - wouldn't like the vision that I have of what a WoT game should be about.

You've made me curious, what is your vision? I promise to only be as judgy as an MSB poster can be (but not really because I think any WoT MU concept can be fun depending on factors :P)

[Raemira]

@runescryer said in The Wheel of Time:

@arkandel said in The Wheel of Time:

@dvoraen said in The Wheel of Time:

This thread makes me want WoT MU*s to be a fad again.

The problem with WoT MU*s is that we as fans disagree on just about everything about how they should be done.

Yeah, I think the best way to go with a WoT game would be to sell it as 'a different Turning of the Wheel'; which is basically what the show is doing. Have a lot of the basics (The One Power, the Dark One, the Dragon, the Forsaken, etc.), but also make some changes for the game to be more playable (men can be Aes Sedai; both men and women can be corrupted by using the One Power, just not as severely as in the books...)

I played on AngrealMOO II, Tales of Ta'veren and eventually became staff there, and I ran Cuendillar. I was very young when I ran Cuendillar. I made a lot of mistakes. There's so much I would change in how I approached things now that I have more experience GMing and running a game in general.

However, the major theme all three games had in common is that they always approached playing them as a different setting than the books, not so much turning of the Wheel, because that was a possibility with the Portal Stones taking you to different dimensions that allowed for a different weaving of the same timeline. Even Tales of Ta'veren II, which took Rhonda's and Tabbifli's existing game setting and code base, did the same thing - but in their case they were a Portal of the original Tales of Ta'veren. We didn't want to follow the roadmap already presented in the books.

This allowed us to still have male channelers and even the Forsaken, and allowed us to create our own Heroes and/or manifest them to become the Dragon should we wish, without needing the major book characters as the main characters in our setting.

There's a whole LOT a person can do with a Portal Stone setting, where anything is possible and the events that happened on one 'dimension' may not necessarily be the same as the 'other dimensions' through the stones; and the same people might not even be alive.

[Arkandel]

@rucket said in The Wheel of Time:

@arkandel said in The Wheel of Time:

As, I imagine, you - or others - wouldn't like the vision that I have of what a WoT game should be about.

I'd make a L&L take on the Wheel of Time. Set at the time of the books leading up (but never quite reaching) Tarmon Gaidon, probably around book 3-5, focused either in Andor or Cairhien.

No playable book characters but only where they would enhance the plot in some way as NPCs. All of the 'rules' from the books being active. Asha'man and male wilders are playable but application-based. Female channelers more open but on a shorter curriculum - it shouldn't take nearly as long to go from Novice to Accepted as in the books dur to gameplay reasons.

That gives every playable 'good guy' faction. Nobles of course but also Aiel, Aes Sedai and Warders, Asha'man, tua'thaan, Whitecloaks, Band of the Red Hand and Dragonsworn.

I'd allow darkfriends but heavily controlled by staff-controlled, NPC Forsaken. Some IC paranoia is good.

Do I think that's the 'best' way to do it? Of course not! It's just how I would do it.

Another fun way would be to set it six months after the last book. The politics, major Houses, the condition of most factions etc are still known - players wouldn't need to figure too much out on their own - but with the whole Last Battle thing out of the way there'd be more room for plotting and scheming, especially in a world wrecked by war. It'd be harder to figure out how to keep the tension going without the constant threat of being eaten by monsters, though.

[Wizz]

@rucket said in The Wheel of Time:

yeah, that shit was dope.

Just to be super clear I loved it. Surprised me in the best way.

***=Things I really enjoyed***

click to show

Moiraine and Siuan as lovers is SO GOOD. Like, vast improvement from the books, and makes a lot of sense. It made the exile actually something painful, as well as something they needed, which is amazing.

The concept of a soul embodied as multiple people is REALLY COOL and I absolutely hope that's actually where they're going with the Dragon reveal. Kinda reminds me of the indie RPG Serpent in the Staglands, where you play a moon god/dess and can choose to incarnate as one or more avatars at a time.

Yes please, five-headed Dragon.

Last but not least, Mat getting separated from the party. WHAT. WHAT ARE THEY PLANNING. I love a good twist for fans of the book in adaptations, how fun.

[Rucket]

@wizz This is and is not a spoiler I guess, it's a weird thing but putting it in tags anyway. Not a book spoiler:

***Mat***

click to show

Covid broke up filming between Episodes 6 and 7/8. Mat's actor did not return to the set when filming resumed, so Ep6 is the last episode with Mat in it, until S2. At least that's based on everything I've read.

[Wizz]

@rucket said in The Wheel of Time:

@wizz This is and is not a spoiler I guess, it's a weird thing but putting it in tags anyway. Not a book spoiler:

***Mat***

click to show

Covid broke up filming between Episodes 6 and 7/8. Mat's actor did not return to the set when filming resumed, so Ep6 is the last episode with Mat in it, until S2. At least that's based on everything I've read.

Yeah, the departure was mentioned earlier in the thread even, but man I didn't realize it was so sudden, like mid-filming for this season. That's wild. I just wonder what they'll do with the character.

[Derp]

***Episode 6 Spoiler Content in Here***

click to show

@wizz said in The Wheel of Time:

Last but not least, Mat getting separated from the party. WHAT. WHAT ARE THEY PLANNING.

My guess that I am stealing wholesale from a friend and is in no way my original work goes as follows:

***=Predictions About the Rest of the Season Here***

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Someone still has to go back to the Two Rivers and deal with the Trollocs. In the book, this was largely Perrin, but I think that they are going to have Perrin lean more heavily into the Hammer in this series, not the axe. Wolfbrother or no, he's going to spend more time with the Tinkers and learn their stuff, which is why his wife being included and dying was very, very necessary. He has every reason to reject the axe and embrace the hammer.

Which leave Mat to be the General, which you only need one of. Given his stuff as the reborn King of Manetheran, this makes complete sense, and with the fact that his sisters are in the Two Rivers, him going back and kicking ass is easily achieved.

It's all been set up to branch off hard into AU stuff already, so these are a friend's totally my and nobody else's plagiarized predictions.

[Arkandel]

***=Spoiler-warnings!***

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The Siuan/Moiraine couple was good, and it wasn't a departure from the book characters so I liked it.

Now, I don't think they will go with anything other than "Rand al'Thor is the Dragon Reborn, full stop". Anything else is surely redirection, playing coy to preserve the mystery.

However if they did anything else, I'm out. I won't watch another minute of the show if they departed from the plot that much.

[Derp]

@arkandel

...why?

I mean -- really. Why? If that were to happen, why would you leave behind a show that is otherwise doing very well at tellign an entertaining story to hear a story that you've already heard?

That would be like someone just giving up on G. R. R. M. if he writes something in his books different from what the HBO series went into, assuming that we ever get the others. That would be kind of silly, IMO.

I mean, YMMV and all, but that seems a rather strange path to take, to me, and I'm curious what the reasoning there is.

[WildBaboons]

@arkandel
The power of friendship was the real Dragon all along!

[Arkandel]

@derp said in The Wheel of Time:

That would be like someone just giving up on G. R. R. M. if he writes something in his books different from what the HBO series went into, assuming that we ever get the others. That would be kind of silly, IMO.

I'll give you two reasons. Again, this is just a personal preference; I don't think people are terrible or anything for being okay with the same things I'm not.

So I'm fine with relatively departures which are perfectly plausible within the context of the original work (such as the relationship we saw today in WoT Ep 6). This didn't happen in the books but there was no reason that it couldn't have.

I'm also entirely fine with changes made to accommodate the story in the format it's being told. The most obvious example here is in Lord of the Rings where Tom Bombadil - an important but not strictly relevant-to-the-plot character was taken out entirely. It'd have added another good half hour to an already long movie - it was the right call to make.

On the other hand I wouldn't watch a Silmarillion series where Morgoth is killed by Beren. I wouldn't want to watch Lord of the Rings either where Saruman makes his own Ring of Power and the characters have to go take it from him. Either of those might make for a great fantasy movies - but it wouldn't be Tolkien. It'd be too different from the books for my tastes.

Now I'll put some spoiler tags and I'll explain my reasoning for the identity of the Dragon Reborn specifically.

***=You've been warned!***

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Changing the identity in any way has a massive - and cascading - effect on multiple characters.

For starters Rand, obviously, would be completely different. The whole 'brooding, weight of the world is on his shoulders' thing goes away.

Then plot points set up would all be messed up. Rand's Aiel identity would be cheapened; who would the Car'a'carn be, even? Five different people? Who picks up Calandor? If the Dragon Reborn was a woman would she create the Black Tower?

And then start looking at how other characters need to be altered, too. What about Rand's three romantic interests? Aviendha's relationship would be different. What's Min going to comfort him about? Other characters' arcs would be derailed - you can't just make say, Perrin or Egwene the Dragon Reborn and keep their existing plots the same; what happens while Egwene is damane? Perrin has to deal with being wolfkin and a male channeler now?

It's not just a change. It's a bunch of them, each pushing the other forward. It'd be fan fiction loosely based on the books. It might still be fun! But not for me.

[Rucket]

@derp said in The Wheel of Time:

...why?

I'm not Arkandel, but I have some thoughts on this.

***Book Spoiler Talk***

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Firstly, having the Dragon be a woman makes me feel like it lessens Egwene & Nynaeve. Egwene and Nynaeve do a lot in the series without being The Dragon Reborn. Let them stand on their own, let them be them. Egwene as Amyrlin is a bright lamp that sets up the Aes Sedai for a better future after the Last Battle. She single handedly reunites the broken tower and makes it whole in order to bring the Aes Sedai to Tarmon Gai'din. These are massive accomplishments, and makes her impressive in her own right not just being "The Dragon Reborn". She also stands up to balefire disintegrating the pattern and gives up her life to heal the damage to the pattern and to kill the Forsaken who was doing it and becomes a crystallized monument forever more. Honestly, her one mistake was Gawyn, but that's because I hate Gawyn, lol.

Nynaeve is the greatest living healer in the world. She healed stilling, something the goddamn Aes Sedai in the Age of Legends couldn't do. She is 50% of the power used in healing the male half of the source, something that most people when hearing about it.... either disbelieve or believe the Creator did it. She also heals men who have gone mad, which is an incredible feat. It's very likely that she is not just the greatest healer of the current age, but if she lived during the Age of Legends, she would have been one of the greatest Aes Sedai of that time. Plus her story with Lan is incredible, and I feel swells of emotion when she ports his ass to the Borderlands and makes him ride the entire width of the continent while she goes out and puts the clarion call that the "Golden Crane flys for Tarmon Gai'don." I think her being the Dragon Reborn would diminish a lot about her character.

Now, for the men.

Perrin. Whew, man. Yeah, Perrin needs some help, especially between Lord of Chaos and Knife of Dreams, but that doesn't actually take away that Perrin has a chance in a series that can tell a tighter story to be a badass. While not a major part of the prophecies, there's a line about the Wolf King carrying the Hammer. And the way they have set Perrin up so far, it's clear that he has the internal struggle between the axe and hammer in a fiercer way than he did in the books. This is great, I want to see him struggle with who he is, and then embrace it. Let him slowly grow into the Wolf King and let him use the good doggos to fuck up all the bad guys out there, because doggos are good boyes and girls and I love them. Still, he has a story that I think can be told very well and let it develop without all the bullshit of being the Dragon Reborn.

Mat. Mat's the greatest general of this age and while it takes time for him to fully embrace his role. Admittedly I'm not a big fan of who he ends up marrying, but I highly enjoyed watching their top general watching Mat work and be like "Who the fuck is this guy?" lol. Which it seems like a lot of people have that reaction to Mat, which is hilarious and fun. And that's his character. Constantly trying to duck responsibility but always being dragged into it by people around him or the pattern. He has a great character arc in the books (especially from Book 3/4 onward), and I think there's enough there to let him shine as a character without making him the Dragon Reborn.

Then Rand. What is Rand's role/story without being Lews Therin reborn? I mean, they could combine him with Mat/Perrin's stories, but again I want those characters to stand on their own. I want people who have never read the books to love Mat and Perrin like I did when I read the books. I want all of the Eamon's Fielders to stand on their own stories like they did in the books on their own merits without changing who the Dragon Reborn is.

Besides -- The show has already made it abundantly clear that Rand is the Dragon Reborn. So I'm not worried about it, but I thought I would still share my mindspace about WoT plot.

[Raemira]

@Wizz

***= ** Book Spoiler Reply to Your Spoiler *****

click to show

It was hinted in A New Spring that Morraine and Suian Sanche were pillows sisters, and that they had conspired together on so many different levels as young Sedai and first staged their fight / enmity to throw people off the scent for their collective search of the Dragon Reborn. The prophecy exact details of the prophecy only they got to witness was revealed in this book too, among other things.

[Raemira]

I think there's something to be said for the fact that both Harriet and Brandon are also very heavily involved as consultants. The show /doesn't/ have to use them. Once a contract is signed giving up your rights, producers usually pay authors (or their representatives) a stipend as consultant, and just don't consult them. They essentially pay them hush money and tell them to go away; every author ever will tell you this.

These two are the rare elite, like Diana Gabaldon with Outlander, where they have people willing to listen to them and allow them both to sign off on all the scripts and give notes that might be heeded. This is largely why I'm sitting back and comfortably watching things play out as they are. I think if they are as willing as they are to heed Jordan's wife and the person chosen to finish out the story, the major plot points will still be hit somewhere, even if the getting there is different than in the books.

[Runescryer]

@raemira And yet...

In an AMA, Brandon Sanderson was asked about the 'Perrin's wife' thing. He said he objected to it, felt it was completely unnecessary, and suggested that Master Luhhan could fulfil the role of shocking Perrin in the same way, without being problematic. And he was ignored.

Just because they're listed as consultants, doesn't mean they're being listened to. Or have any real input.

William Gibson was a consultant on the film adaptation of Johnny Mnemonic, and that was horrible. Because the director didn't listen to Gibson at all.

Sometimes, the consultant gig is only a rubber stamp to keep fans quiet.

[Derp]

@runescryer

Luhan would not at all be the same. A mentor as opposed to a lover with a rocky relationship you are attempting to fix who may or may not be having your kid? No contest.

People keep saying this is fridging. It’s not. This was, so far as I can tell, an important plot point and departure from the standard timeline to show the true weight and cost of battle against someone you care for intimately in a show that already passes the Bechdel test by leaps and bounds.

Bad things happen to people. It is not problematic because the sacrificial character was a woman. If you want to talk campy tropes, let’s talk ‘man strapped to table and tortured so another can hear his screams as leverage’. Because that one is overdone too. To a person of color, even, by a literally whitewashes black man.

Guys. Luhan would not have been just as good. Of
You’re gonna nitpick on stuff, do it for all of it.

[kk]

***=***

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Did Moraine really get exciled in the books or did they add that? I am trying to read the books, but I am a slow reader! I don't remember her being exciled but maybe I didn't get there yet.

[Raemira]

@kk

I had to skim through Eye of the World for reminders. It's been a long time since I read the books.

***=Book Spoilers***

click to show

In the first book they never made it to Tar Valon. They all met up in Caemlyn, Rand meets Elayne, Perrin meets Elyas on the way to Caemlyn - another Wolfbrother - and learns some things about his gifts, and somewhere they all meet at Master Gil's inn. Afterward, the main group used the Waygate in a basement of a building where an Ogier stedding used to be located to travel to Fal Dara to the Eye of the World, after hearing of several threats to the area while in Caemlyn.

They don't actually make it to Tar Valon until Book Two - The Great Hunt - or Three - The Dragon Reborn.