The Wheel of Time

[Rucket]

@wildbaboons said in The Wheel of Time:

Is this what sports fans feel like watching their teams play when they just don't perform like they could?

Even if you the seasons are terrible I am still going to watch them. I'm invested in the material and want to support it. I'll just be angry about it.

Really really hoping season 2 gets more money/time so maybe some of the issues can be fixed but I've a feeling it will just dig in more.

Well, I'm not angry about it, I'm mostly just confused about some decisions, especially with rewriting metaphysics. Like there's no way people should have been burned out while in a circle. As I said in my Ep8 response post, I can get why some shit happened like it did. From my reading 7 & 8 were made post-COVID break and they had a lot of issues getting certain people back on set (and this isn't even just Mat's actor). So I'm more than willing to forgive all that because my aunt works in Hollywood and she told me how much COVID sucked for production and editing teams.

I'm definitely looking forward to Season 2 and hoping that things can come together nad make more sense.

[Derp]

@rucket said in The Wheel of Time:

A lot of that was theorizing by Ishamael

It's not theorizing by Ishamael. Ish remembers as many lives as Rand does. It's part of the reason why he's so freaking insane. He wants off this ride, and the only way he can do it is to break the wheel.

He remembered lives, hundreds of them, thousands of them, stretching to infinity. He remembered love, and peace, and joy, and hope.

• VoG

@rucket said in The Wheel of Time:

Also an excerpt from the books:

"And the Shadow fell upon the Land, and the World was riven stone from stone. The oceans fled, and the mountains were swallowed up, and the nations were scattered to the eight corners of the World. The moon was as blood, and the sun was as ashes. The seas boiled, and the living envied the dead. All was shattered, and all but memory lost, and one memory above all others, of him who brought the Shadow and the Breaking of the World.
And him they named Dragon."
— From Aleth nin Taerin alta Camora, The Breaking of the World. Author unknown, the Fourth Age

Note, however, that this excerpt explicitly marks it as being from the Fourth Age. Not that it would matter. Naming someone Dragon doesn't exclude the idea they could be the Dragon Reborn. Naming them dragon at all would be a necessary prerequisite to this.

[crayon]

I kind of feel like the show is making a concerted effort to dumb down plot elements and to preemptively defuse some of the gender conflict that was canon to the series, which is understandable but I'm kind of pessimistic about their ability to do it without watering the whole story down? The opener for episode 8 just kind of gave me bad vibes across the board.

[Arkandel]

(Moved it to the right thread!)

Now that Christmas is behind us I feel I can rant a bit.

But first a couple of disclaimers: I honestly hope other people enjoyed the show more than I did - as I really wanted to. And also, although not adhering to the books' plot is one of the reasons I disliked it, it was far from the biggest one.

So to get into it:

***=Spoiler-filled grumblings***

click to show

• If five channelers (four of them entirely untrained, one a former Accepted) can destroy the largest army the Shadow has sent out in living memory what is the point of the show? What would multiple Aes Sedai do? Hell, why need the Dragon Reborn at all?

• Speaking of this, one of the most important themes - not plotlines, themes of the Wheel of Time - is how significant training is. Characters need to earn their power levels. Female channelers join the White Tower or risk burning out simply by grasping the source, warriors need to learn the forms to become Blademasters, Forsaken mock recent-day Aes Sedai for not knowing weaves. This is completely disregarded here.

• Speaking of that the power levels themselves are off the charts too early. Egwene literally brought Nynaeve back from the dead, and after she had burned out? Rand apparently could alter reality itself? At that point what achievements would possibly impress the viewer? Why would Nynaeve discovering how to reverse Stilling/Gentling be significant? That's a downgrade! And Moiraine casually carried around an angreal (is that the little fat man statue?) that increases a male channeler's ability by a hundredfold ? What is Callandor supposed to do then?

• I couldn't tell - and I had to read an interview by the showrunner! - to understand just what happened in the episode. Apparently Egwene managing to Heal Nynaeve was the payoff from episode 1 when Nynaeve promised her she'd be able to do everything she can? Huh? At first I didn't get that Nynaeve kicked Egwene out of the linked circle to protect her but maybe that's on me. The special effects in that scene... left a lot to be desired, but not being able to even tell what was going on was bad.

• The whole geography is whacked. Malkier was apparently a half-day's slowed walk away from Fal Dara... what? That's not how kingdoms and nations work, they're not practically next door from each other.

• Rand's entire arc is obviously altered from the books but that's okay. I could deal with it. I just don't know what the hell is going on. He didn't get to do almost anything than make the choice to not join the Shadow which hadn't been really a big thing at all. If anything he was by far the most traditional 'let's do the right thing!' of the three men so far in the series. He didn't channel or do anything impressive. The saddest moment was when he said "I felt the insanity" to Moiraine - but did he, really? Because we didn't see it. Did he doubt himself, have visions or voices in his head, or... anything? We were told about it in exposition. It felt really lazy.

Meh. Just meh.

[crayon]

My thoughts, more specifically:

***=Whining***

click to show

• The show seems to be making a concerted effort to go out of its way to justify the Aes Sedai in various ways. I think we can see this happening with the episode 8 opener where instead of confusing the audience with the political squabble over Choedan Kal vs. Seals they had the female Aes Sedai predict exactly what wound up happening and where the tenor changes from Lews Therin feeling betrayed and politically stonewalled to it just being kind of an amicable disagreement. I suspect we'll also see this with Elaida getting rolled into Liandrin and all of the bad Aes Sedai being Black Ajah. The correct way to accomplish this justification (and to add proper stakes to male channeling) was to show Lews Therin losing his fucking mind in the episode one cold open. Sure it takes a minute before the audience understands what was going on but it's worth infinitely more than the cold open they wound up using for episode one.

• The power levels are completely skewed. We have Nynaeve - as a complete novice - awing Logain who, even when Nynaeve is experienced and the strongest/most accomplished female channeler outside the Forsaken, is at worst on par. Nevermind that male and female channelers can't see each others' weaves. In the books Nynaeve couldn't even channel for shit, for multiple books if I recall correctly, because of a mental block. Egwene bringing her back from the dead just destroys stakes for the rest of the series. It seems like there's a concerted effort to preemptively juice the power of these two well beyond what's reasonable or necessary for the story. There's no reason narrativistically to have Nynaeve burn out and then be healed, or to have Nynaeve handily overpower Logain, and it takes away from the characters' growth.

• I suspect this is something nobody really had any control over, but it seems like Mat's actor leaving the show prematurely drastically changed things and I don't think they did the greatest job of patching the rest of the season back together in his absence. It's weird because in the series Mat was by far my least favorite character for several consecutive books and he was mostly kind of whiny and annoying, but the show was doing an excellent job of making him more relatable and interesting with the slight alterations and embellishments to his backstory. Unfortunately, they didn't do so well with Perrin, who didn't disappear halfway through the season. I think this is mostly their attempt to portray the mental gymnastics of axe vs. hammer since we can't peek inside his head, but they're still doing a pretty bad job of it.

• I'm big mad over the skipping of Caemlyn. I think Caemlyn was absolutely critical for worldbuilding in that first book, and I'm very concerned that Elaida is going to get clipped from the story which, in my opinion, means less nuance and a push in the direction of very clear 'good' and 'evil' characters, with all of the latter being darkfriends.

• I think the ending of EotW was a disaster even in the book, so I can't be too mad about the show ending being a bit of a trainwreck too, but still feel like they threw away a lot of opportunities and butchered much of the canon worldbuilding.

• On the plus side, Ishamael's portrayal and casting was perfect.

Tbh I think I preferred Rafe's run in Survivor to the show.

[Wretched]

As someone who never read the books for some reason despite loving fantasy (maybe it was the shit cover art at the Barnes & Noble i worked at) i am feeling a lot of these complaints, just because the pacing felt really weird, like, wtf is with these 6 episode seasons. It felt really disjointed and rushed and like... am i supposed to care about these people? These really bland people, who might have some personalities... if like, they spent time on it? These are just my thoughts as someone without any attachment to the characters from reading. like, so far none of the romances or characters have any real weight to me?

Edit: Don't get me wrong, i enjoyed it, I WANTED a lot more, like I can tell there is some depth somewhere... real motivations... but yeah, I left wanting?

[Derp]

@wretched

As someone who read the books, they have more personality in the show than the first book.

Rand, in the books, is your basic personality-free neutral mask hero where anyone can slot themselves in a la Keanu in the Matrix.

Mat is a hyperactive trickster type that never stops fucking talking and testing limits to just test them.

Egwene is Ms. Men Are Stupid, Women Rule to the point of being almost comically obstinate if the suggestion came from anyone other than a woman, even if it's the exact same conclusion a woman reaches later, worded differently.

Nynaeve is almost absurdly standoffish. To everyone. On everything. Always. She is a walking pile of righteous anger and indignation.

Lan is a condescending prick who is really, really hard to like.

Moiraine only has half the story and is wrong about half the time but speaks with such utter confidence that you want to trust her, until you get into the later books and realize how much she was just pulling out of her ass and making up on the fly because Aes Sedai R Right, Duh.

And Perrin is the slow, pensive type that would make a LotR Ent look almost brash by comparison.

They got more nuance in the show than in the books.

[Arkandel]

A bit of spoiler-free stuff from me. And folks... I have Strong Opinions about this series since I played in the setting for a long time. Please tell me if I'm ranting too much or detracting from anyone's ability to enjoy the show.

Anyway, in terms of 'what happened in the books'... the fandom was there first. The novels were there first. I believe showrunners who have stories to tell should do so - but under their own label, so that they stand or fall on their own merit.

The strong feeling I get from watching this show is that the people in charge didn't like the Wheel of Time. They wanted to borrow the upsides of an existing fan base and then go off to do their own thing - which is disingenuous at best. It's one thing to adopt a body of work to fit a different medium and another to essentially do one's own thing completely.

It's even written itself into a corner because of its own affiliations. In the interview the showrunner gave he said that because they already signed the actors for Moiraine and Lan (the former of whom happens to have a producer credit) they have to use them even though their role diminishes a lot after the first book. But this was never a tale about Moiraine, dammit. She's not its protagonist, they are supporting characters. The folks from Edmond's Field are the protagonists.

This is not an adaptation. It's expensive fan fiction, and not very good at that. I am sorry but this Judkins guy is no Robert Jordan. Worse, if it fails, the message it will send is that the Wheel of Time was unsuited to be a TV series, not that this person tried to do his own thing with it.

[Derp]

@arkandel

I mean, I get that you have STRONG OPINIONS for reasons, but I think I am going to to with Hard Disagree that any work transferred between mediums has to be absolutely chained to the original, especially when the original had both aged poorly and been met with so much criticism of the content in it.

The Expanse is another one that has done relatively well, and has now diverged quite a way from the books it is based on.

[Paradox]

@arkandel

I actually agree with you. I finished it, I rewatched the whole thing over the past two days in solid sequence to get a true feel of it.

This is not Wheel of Time. It is a Fan Fiction with Wheel of Time Characters and some concepts, but taken to the point that if you changed the names, would you be able to identify it as WoT?

I do not think you would. In the end, I really want to like it because I want this book series to have this moment. But I don't like it. I don't think it has a future. It'll be done after next season.

[Arkandel]

@derp said in The Wheel of Time:

@arkandel

I mean, I get that you have STRONG OPINIONS for reasons, but I think I am going to to with Hard Disagree that any work transferred between mediums has to be absolutely chained to the original, especially when the original had both aged poorly and been met with so much criticism of the content in it.

But I never said the work needs to be chained to the original. I do think any changes need to be tied to the change of mediums, however.

For example it's perfectly legitimate to greatly simplify the 'mechanics' of channeling since you can't fit that much exposition into a TV series without making it boring. It's also reasonable to amalgamate characters, trim some plotlines that don't advance the plot, etc. All of that is expected, even celebrated in other successful adaptations; Lord of the Rings (once again!) did a great job of it.

On the other hand I do think if content creators think they can tell a better story than someone else's then that's what they should do. If they have the talent to do it then it will stand on its own merit.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

Overall, I enjoyed the season pretty decently. I still think the major issue with it was the short episode order, which I hope changes (supposedly the show's getting more money next year but I didn't think the budget was, per se, the problem, so I'll be curious to see how they use it). On a base level I'm glad that money and attention to quality are being put behind genre TV. The WoT seems successful by whatever metrics Amazon was hoping for, which means more places will be willing to try more stuff like it. The finale was kind a mess but I'm among those who think the climax of EotW was also kind of a mess, so I guess it's a wash for me. I do think some of what it did wasn't good long-term when it comes to making it feel like there are actual stakes for these characters. They can't bring people back from the dead every week (one would hope). The big battle stuff is the kind of thing that would've had more impact if it'd been set up over...well, another episode or two, but that's a core issue the show either can change or it can't.

The books aren't terribly precious to me, as the actual story was never what appealed to me about Wheel of Time. I always found the strength of the material to be more in its world-building and, occasionally in its better moments, individual character relationships. The latter kind of is a problem for me right now, the Emond's Fielders don't really feel like people I'm terribly invested in, but at least some of that seems to be down to the issues COVID caused in filming and in theory can be fixed with some more attention to character moments over spectacle (when the show let its actors display personalities, they generally did a decent job with it). The show does, I think, capture a certain amount of the feel of the world as I pictured it. Not perfectly, but it evokes it well enough for my tastes, even if it's another version of it. I'm looking forward to the second season, I think on balance it was good not great, but I was entertained and a lot of my issues with it are pretty fixable.

[WildBaboons]

@rucket said in The Wheel of Time:

Well, I'm not angry about it,

I'm not really angry. Just so so disappointed.

I said to some other folks a few episodes back that it was like the showrunner found a horde of old WoT RP MU logs from the 90s and turned them into scripts for the show. Lots of attempts at being gritty and pushing boundaries while showing only the barest understanding of the actual source material.

@Wretched I have not watched them myself, but I have heard that if you watch all the extra material on Prime (that really should have made it into the episodes) it fills in some of the holes and makes it a bit better? Why they chose to leave that stuff out and put other stuff in.. I dunno.

[Seraphim73]

I, who loved (many of) the books (despite their many, many flaws), was terribly disappointed by the finale (but not angry about it). Blu, who did not like the books, enjoyed the finale quite a lot.

I agree with @Arkandel that it feels like some MUSHer's fanfiction of the books, and I think that they've set up some things that will be problematic in the future if they stay anywhere even remotely close to the books (Stilling Moiraine, disconnecting Mat from the dagger/Horn, for instance), and some things that will be problematic no matter if they stay close to the books or not (Healing the dead removes all stakes from the series until they introduce balefire). But if I disconnect myself from the books, the series was enjoyable as generic fantasy fiction, and I'll watch Season 2.

[Derp]

@seraphim73 said in The Wheel of Time:

Healing the dead

Everyone keeps making a big deal about this and getting up in arms about what the One Power can and can't do, etc.

But I think people forget that Egwene is a Dreamwalker, and in Tel'aran'rhiod that is absolutely possible. The same as it is possible to spin up entire people out of the world of dreams -- which is bad. Because they have no soul. Kind of like Rand's little girl wouldn't have had one.

And Rand was very clearly in the world of dreams.

So.

This doesn't seem that big of a stretch to me. Egwene could have shunted them off to Tel'aran'rhiod or the In Between Place for that instant that it took to manifest that reality, the same as Rand could have manifested the little girl out of the In Between Place.

It's not even that much of a stretch from book canon.

[Arkandel]

@derp I pretty guarantee you spent more time thinking about that explanation than the showrunners did.

***=Let's protect non-book readers!***

click to show

Even then, if you told me Egwene from the end of the series - the Amyrlin Seat, learned in Tel'aran'rhiod, one of the most powerful and accomplished channelers of her Age - could pull this off and bring someone back from the dead, even if 'it never happened in the books' I'd be fine with it. Go for it.

But fucking make a big deal out of it. Set it up. Tell us, the viewers, that this is impossible. That even in the Age of Legends there was no way to resurrect someone by channeling! Then break that rule to make it a crowning moment for the character. Don't fucking just throw it in there because it sounded cool at the moment.

More so, Egwene - at this point - is a girl with potential. She's not even a Novice. She's untrained, and has channeled exactly once (or twice, not sure what happened in the Ways). What's the point of being trained, what kind of arc is it to even become Aes Sedai, if she can already pull off this kind of feat?

More it detracts other characters from their own moments. Is it supposed to be impressive later on when Nynaeve cures being Stilled as the cultivation of her arc? It was a true badass moment for her. But is it, really? I'd say bringing a burned-out corpse back to life is better, and the person doing it isn't even supposed to be a great Healer.

It's stuff like this that reminds me of how quick, and far, Game of Thrones fell. It had spent 5-6 seasons of being pretty loyal to the material that it followed as the more or less number 1 show on television. It acquired a massive following, merchandise, re-watch parties. Then its showrunners infamously wanted to (and I quote here) 'subvert expectations'. Well, they did! And it died the quickest death I've ever seen a cultural phenomenon like that within a few episodes. It's barely even brought up any more other than as a cautionary tale.

It's quite possible authors like George Martin - or Robert Jordan - told a pretty good story. I wish those who adopt them actually showed more respect for it rather than try to 'fix it'.

[Seraphim73]

@arkandel said in The Wheel of Time:

It's quite possible authors like George Martin - or Robert Jordan - told a pretty good story. I wish those who adopt them actually showed more respect for it rather than try to 'fix it'.

I agree with almost everything that you said, but I think that it's absolutely possible to fix what's actually wrong with a book series (misogyny, for one) without "fixing" what isn't wrong (giving Perrin a wife and then fridging her for one).

[Rucket]

@seraphim73 said in The Wheel of Time:

@arkandel said in The Wheel of Time:

It's quite possible authors like George Martin - or Robert Jordan - told a pretty good story. I wish those who adopt them actually showed more respect for it rather than try to 'fix it'.

I agree with almost everything that you said, but I think that it's absolutely possible to fix what's actually wrong with a book series (misogyny, for one) without "fixing" what isn't wrong (giving Perrin a wife and then fridging her for one).

100%. I really really REALLY wish they had gone with Sanderson's suggestion of killing off Master Luhan in Episode 1. Would I have loved to see Master Luhan eat it? No, but I'd understand it and be okay with it. Having Perrin be married and then axe-murdering his wife just felt at odds with a lot of the other stuff they were trying to do.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

I was OK with the wife-killing initially but it doesn't feel like they've done anything particularly worthwhile with it in terms of Perrin's character (and it makes other stuff they are doing more cringe than it'd otherwise be). In general I'm fine with the characterization of the Emond's Fielders with the exception that everyone's character except Moiraine's could use some more time and attention, but Perrin's the one I feel like they did a little dirty. Maybe the writers will sit down and fix him in the off-season.

[Derp]

@three-eyed-crow said in The Wheel of Time:

I was OK with the wife-killing initially but it doesn't feel like they've done anything particularly worthwhile with it in terms of Perrin's character (and it makes other stuff they are doing more cringe than it'd otherwise be).

...what?

Seriously, what do you mean 'anything particularly worthwhile with it'? Because right now he's very much struggling to embrace the Way of the Leaf because of it, even though he's being called to violence.

I'd say that's pretty significant. It's only slightly different between his hammer-and-axe arc from the books.

And I still don't get why some people are bent out of shape about it. Why could it possibly matter whether it was her or Luhan? Why is Luhan better other than to like, score brownie points with the ultra-woke? A wife is an easy explanation in a short time window, your mentor wracking you full of guilt and sending you on a quest takes a bit more time.

Like. Guys. It's fine.