Wheel of Time, Amazon Prime

[Psyren]

It makes a massive difference, and I've already explained why. I'm not surprised you'd defend it though considering your position on the show seems to be that they can change literally everything about the story and you'll still consider it a good adaptation.

When the position I'm faced with is "this shouldn't exist" or "this isn't Wheel of Time" there is clearly no room for any kind of nuanced discussion. That's not my fault.


And yet you're so vocal with your own opinion. Funny how yours is valid and other people's isn't.

"This is an official adaptation of the series" is a fact, not an opinion.

[Traab]

Was the 2000 X-Men movie judged by this standard?

Was the 2000 xmen movie an adaptation of a specific comic instead of a movie BASED off the comic characters?

[Saph]

With regard to whether the show is a direct adaptation of the books or just an 'inspired by' story, it is very important to recognize that the marketing is 100% on the side of the former. This show has been sold as the live action Wheel of Time series.

Yeah, it does seem as though they shot themselves in the foot on this one. If they'd been clear from the start that this was an "inspired by" story with only a loose connection to the books, rather than an "adaption" like LotR or early Game of Thrones, readers would have come into the show with quite different expectations.

As it is, it's felt like a bait-and-switch. We had Episode 1 which was a sort-of-faithful-ish adaption of the events of Chapters 1-10 of Eye of the World, and Episodes 2-3 still followed the same story beats, more or less. Then we had Episode 4 which diverged a lot, followed by Episode 5 which diverged a lot a lot, and now we're at Episode 6 and 90% of the episode is Aes Sedai arguments and Moiraine and Siuan's hookups, with book events like Mat's dagger healing being shoehorned hurriedly in so that they can get back to their original content.

I'd be really fascinated to get a look at the development process of this show. It feels to me at this point as though there are two or three different influences fighting over the show's direction, which is why we're getting such weird writing decisions.

[Anteros]

When the position I'm faced with is "this shouldn't exist" or "this isn't Wheel of Time" there is clearly no room for any kind of nuanced discussion. That's not my fault.


There have been plenty of nuanced arguments made, and plenty of room for discussion, as demonstrated by the fact that people are having those discussions. Acting dismissive of other people's opinions doesn't give you any sort of moral high ground.



"This is an official adaptation of the series" is a fact, not an opinion.

Yes, but no one disagrees that they purchased the brand. What people are saying is "this is a bad official adaption of the series".

By your logic the Hobbit movies are incredible adaptations since they're "official" adaptations of the series...right?

[Psyren]

There have been plenty of nuanced arguments made, and plenty of room for discussion, as demonstrated by the fact that people are having those discussions. Acting dismissive of other people's opinions doesn't give you any sort of moral high ground.

...

Yes, but no one disagrees that they purchased the brand. What people are saying is "this is a bad official adaption of the series".

By your logic the Hobbit movies are incredible adaptations since they're "official" adaptations of the series...right?

Your opinions on the series (and my "morals" for that matter) are wholly irrelevant to me. I'm disputing statements like "this isn't Wheel of Time" or "they can't call this a new Turning of the Wheel" which are factually inaccurate. That's all.



I'd be really fascinated to get a look at the development process of this show. It feels to me at this point as though there are two or three different influences fighting over the show's direction, which is why we're getting such weird writing decisions.

I agree that there appears to be an element of executive meddling at play, particularly with regards to the pilot, which could have used more room to breathe. I long for the days when streaming shows embrace the potential of their nontraditional format.

[Sivarias]

Because it doesn't. There is no meaningful difference between "There are a bunch of simultaneous ta'veren because plot/random/destiny" and "there are a bunch of simultaneous ta'veren because each has a piece of what made the Dragon the Dragon." The mechanics behind what makes an individual into a ta'veren are never explained.

You misunderstand me.

I don't think they are going to have Ta'veren at ALL. I think the concept is going to go out the window. Which does drastically mess with the cosmology. It's irritating.

[Tyndmyr]

With regard to whether the show is a direct adaptation of the books or just an 'inspired by' story, it is very important to recognize that the marketing is 100% on the side of the former. This show has been sold as the live action Wheel of Time series.

Agreed. There is, I think, a certain implicit promise for any work to live up to its marketing. Now, I didn't read the books, and wouldn't know or care about deviations myself, but it's inherently a factor for any adaptation with a big fanbase if you're selling it as #thing in order to reel in the fans of #thing.

You sell it as something entirely different, and people will be fine with it being different. It's not just this work that has a problem with it, it's been a point of contention for many works. I do get that advertising is *much* easier if you have a baked in fanbase to appeal to, and this is much of the reason for adaptations instead of original works, but that financial benefit should come with a certain obligation to deliver on the promise.

[Seerow]

You misunderstand me.

I don't think they are going to have Ta'veren at ALL. I think the concept is going to go out the window. Which does drastically mess with the cosmology. It's irritating.

There being rumors of 4 taveren in the two rivers is one of the first lines of the show. I highly doubt they're dropping the concept.


In Brandon's podcast talk about the show, he mentioned that the wheel of time is basically four different eras. Books 1-3, books 4-7, books 8-10, books 11-14.

Most people will generally agree that 4-7 is where the series hits it's stride and is what most people think of when thinking of what they like about the books. The first three are kind of meh, and 8-11 is Jordan deciding he wants to explore more of the world before being done.

It makes sense given that perspective that the show runners are blowing through the generic early parts of the show to try to get to the parts people on average care much more about. It also sets some context for the things they are pulling in much earlier than the books.

It's a risk, but honestly I'm not mad about what I've seen so far. The first episode was by far the worst. I enjoyed 4 the best, with the others somewhere in between.

After the AMA from rafe a few weeks back I am at the very least confident the show is in the hands of someone who loves the books, and if mistakes are made, it's not for lack of care or love for the source material.

[Ramza00]

You misunderstand me.

I don't think they are going to have Ta'veren at ALL. I think the concept is going to go out the window. Which does drastically mess with the cosmology. It's irritating.

Does it mess up the cosmology? From a metaphysical perspective Ta’veren can not be known, only inferred by some people have a talent that is even more rare than Ta’veren to see people “glowing”, and the people who are glowing (which is not a lifelong thing that goes away and can come again) start doing low level reality warping with probability where absurd things which are possible suddenly happen. And these low level reality warping feats become high level reality warping feats when the dark one’s prison / the pattern becomes weaker.

Then people create models and stories to explain why this happened. But how do we know for sure, the models and glowing is merely an inference.

[Anteros]

Does it mess up the cosmology? From a metaphysical perspective Ta’veren can not be known, only inferred by some people have a talent that is even more rare than Ta’veren to see people “glowing”, and the people who are glowing (which is not a lifelong thing that goes away and can come again) start doing low level reality warping with probability where absurd things which are possible suddenly happen. And these low level reality warping feats become high level reality warping feats when the dark one’s prison / the pattern becomes weaker.

Then people create models and stories to explain why this happened. But how do we know for sure, the models and glowing is merely an inference.


Well, since viewers aren't characters within the setting and aren't restricted in those ways...yes it messes with the cosmology. Obviously.

[Ramza00]

Well, since viewers aren't characters within the setting and aren't restricted in those ways...yes it messes with the cosmology. Obviously.

But the readers only trust the cosmology since the characters inside the story trust the cosmology.

Yet many of the cosmologies (not the Ta’veren) that we thought were fixed and immutable, is later revealed to be fluid when we interact with multiple cultures in Randland and we see the things we thought were 100% confident about do not interact that way.

Things are going to get adapted in adaptions, why are these specific “security blankets” are the most immutable things that can not change?

[Psyren]

There being rumors of 4 taveren in the two rivers is one of the first lines of the show. I highly doubt they're dropping the concept.

This, it's one of the first damn lines in the show. The concept exists, and has already been applied to the EF5, even if they don't bother doing much explaining of it.


You misunderstand me.

I don't think they are going to have Ta'veren at ALL. I think the concept is going to go out the window. Which does drastically mess with the cosmology. It's irritating.

See above but also - even if they had "not-ta'veren, but the plot centers around them and they are natural leaders and reality/chance does weird things around them but they're called something else" - again, can you elaborate on what exactly changes from a narrative standpoint?

Like, the label itself just boils down to "pro'tagonist." It's an in-universe justification for how a bunch of country bumpkins are able to take center-stage so quickly as well as survive improbable odds - which, incidentally, Nynaeve and Egwene do too even in the books despite lacking it. You could probably call Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin "ta'veren" if you wanted to.


that financial benefit should come with a certain obligation to deliver on the promise.

Sure, and whether they've done that is (thankfully) up to more than one person, or even more than one thread on one message board.

[Ifni]

It's a risk, but honestly I'm not mad about what I've seen so far. The first episode was by far the worst. I enjoyed 4 the best, with the others somewhere in between.

After the AMA from rafe a few weeks back I am at the very least confident the show is in the hands of someone who loves the books, and if mistakes are made, it's not for lack of care or love for the source material.

This is pretty much how I feel too, although I'm probably a bit more positive - I'd say I'm thoroughly enjoying the show overall, but episode 4 was the high point for me and I haven't been completely sold on some of the decisions in episode 5-6. I've seen some leaks from episodes 7-8 that look amazing though, so I am hopeful I'll have a new favorite episode in the next couple of weeks.

[Sivarias]

There being rumors of 4 taveren in the two rivers is one of the first lines of the show. I highly doubt they're dropping the concept.


I honestly didn't remember this. If it's there then that eases my mind a bit, but it then highlights another issue where they haven't set up the concept enough at ALL that I don't remember the statement in the first place.


Does it mess up the cosmology? From a metaphysical perspective Ta’veren can not be known, only inferred by some people have a talent that is even more rare than Ta’veren to see people “glowing”, and the people who are glowing (which is not a lifelong thing that goes away and can come again) start doing low level reality warping with probability where absurd things which are possible suddenly happen. And these low level reality warping feats become high level reality warping feats when the dark one’s prison / the pattern becomes weaker.

Then people create models and stories to explain why this happened. But how do we know for sure, the models and glowing is merely an inference.

Yes it does, because while Rand et. al. are powerful Ta'veren, they are not the only ones. Artur Hawkwing was one, Brigitte mentions she has been a minor one in previous cyclical incarnations. The idea that the Pattern is semi-sentient (instinctual? some other word that implies intent?) and imbues souls with extra "oomph" to correct timelines that deviate too far is intrinsic to the series. It's the font from which destiny and prophecy arise in the series, and a cool one at that.


If you tie a ta'veren nature to being the Dragon, that means that the dragon gets fragments of his soul splintered out willy nilly? Hawkwing was a Dragon that never fought the Dark One and couldn't channel? Brigitte was a baby Dragon doing who knows what, who knows where? Why does Rand only remember Lewis Therin? Why does he not remember every "Dragon" soul shard then (a la Matt)?

[MammonAzrael]

If you tie a ta'veren nature to being the Dragon, that means that the dragon gets fragments of his soul splintered out willy nilly? Hawkwing was a Dragon that never fought the Dark One and couldn't channel? Brigitte was a baby Dragon doing who knows what, who knows where? Why does Rand only remember Lewis Therin? Why does he not remember every "Dragon" soul shard then (a la Matt)?

Let me preface this by saying that I dislike the idea of tying ta'veren explicitly to the Dragon.


Hawkwing doesn't need to be mentioned as ta'veren, simply a successful emperor.
Brigitte can be (and I'd guess will be) cut. Or be a brief cameo as a female warder (has the show only shown male warders thus far?)
Rand hearing Lews Therin can be cut, and they'll show him going "crazy" in other ways. Or Mat will just hear different voices. And Perrin hears wolf "voices." And Egwene, I guess, ...hears recklessly impulsive voices? :smalltongue:


Regardless of whether you like or agree with the changes, I don't see this idea preventing the end goal of "Rand & Co fight the BBEG." I focus on the surface level plot moments because I get the feeling that is what the show will be measured internally against. Apart from a list of bullet points, I make no assumption on plot details, themes, characterization, and so forth. Any search for a diegetic answer to questions that changes raise can always be created by making further changes. Nothing is sacred.

I mention this because it sounds like part of the argument here is if they can change such details, rather than if they will. When you're willing to alter as much of the original material as Amazon has shown they have, almost nothing is out of reach for modification or removal. That may be a deal breaker for you (and that's ok!), but it won't stop Amazon from doing what it will to the source material.

[Ramza00]

Sivarias my point is one can be a Ta'veren for a single day, and there is different levels of Ta'veren-ness.

Thus inside the text, aka the show, the mimesis we really have no way to know if past people are Ta’veren or not, or if people post hoc claim X is Ta'veren to create a mythical lineage. Think of it like false dragons, except false dragons are by definition present actors and then they somehow get discredited. How can one prove someone was Ta'veren in the fullness of history? And even if you were Ta'veren for a day, months, or 3 years, you may not be Ta'veren for your entire life.

How can we resolve this contradiction. We can resolve it via telling, aka diegesis, narration. But there is different types of diegesis. Robert Jordan laying out the metaphysics is a higher level of trust than Moiraine explaining something for inside the story characters are either all knowing, or all too human, or somewhere in between depending on the author.

Why does this matter? Well the tv show is it’s own thing, with a new audience and they are not going to read Robert Jordan interviews in the past, or the 1997 Big White Book encyclopedia, the 2015 encyclopedia, or the appendixes at the end of the 15 books. Sure they can talk to 3rd party intermediaries such as fellow fans who read the books, wikis, forums, YouTube etc, but those are just as untrustworthy as Moiraine trusting an Aes Sedai book from 70 years ago, 700 years, or 2700 years ago. By having an adaptation, a show runner, etc we can have red hearings, new lore, etc. Much like how facts in Book 4 contradict lore in Book 1, but hey we were told X about Saidan by female channelers and not Male Aes Sedai / Channelers, etc.

I feel we should be critical of the text and how we are certain to knowledge, and thus this makes a little skeptical but also not warded off but instead open to new possibilities for there are dozens of ways to tell similar tales. How Ta’veren o works may change, and even we should not trust the Ogier Loial in the books, even if we should trust the deceased Robert Jordan in things like interview.

Consistency, Canon, etc well they are kind of “arguments”


Let me preface this by saying that I dislike the idea of tying ta'veren explicitly to the Dragon.


Hawkwing doesn't need to be mentioned as ta'veren, simply a successful emperor.
Brigitte can be (and I'd guess will be) cut. Or be a brief cameo as a female warder (has the show only shown male warders thus far?)
Rand hearing Lews Therin can be cut, and they'll show him going "crazy" in other ways. Or Mat will just hear different voices. And Perrin hears wolf "voices." And Egwene, I guess, ...hears recklessly impulsive voices? :smalltongue:


Regardless of whether you like or agree with the changes, I don't see this idea preventing the end goal of "Rand & Co fight the BBEG." I focus on the surface level plot moments because I get the feeling that is what the show will be measured internally against. Apart from a list of bullet points, I make no assumption on plot details, themes, characterization, and so forth. Any search for a diegetic answer to questions that changes raise can always be created by making further changes. Nothing is sacred.

I mention this because it sounds like part of the argument here is if they can change such details, rather than if they will. When you're willing to alter as much of the original material as Amazon has shown they have, almost nothing is out of reach for modification or removal. That may be a deal breaker for you (and that's ok!), but it won't stop Amazon from doing what it will to the source material.


They could easily make Egwene hear voices / memories of others via her dreams. She is a dreamwalker, is Egwene originally the butterfly, or is the butterfly originally Egwene, there must be a distinction between the two! This is the transformation of [] things.

Nynaneve is harder…perhaps she hears voices / currents via hearing weather / the winds?

[Sivarias]

Let me preface this by saying that I dislike the idea of tying ta'veren explicitly to the Dragon.


Hawkwing doesn't need to be mentioned as ta'veren, simply a successful emperor.
Brigitte can be (and I'd guess will be) cut. Or be a brief cameo as a female warder (has the show only shown male warders thus far?)
Rand hearing Lews Therin can be cut, and they'll show him going "crazy" in other ways. Or Mat will just hear different voices. And Perrin hears wolf "voices." And Egwene, I guess, ...hears recklessly impulsive voices? :smalltongue:


Regardless of whether you like or agree with the changes, I don't see this idea preventing the end goal of "Rand & Co fight the BBEG." I focus on the surface level plot moments because I get the feeling that is what the show will be measured internally against. Apart from a list of bullet points, I make no assumption on plot details, themes, characterization, and so forth. Any search for a diegetic answer to questions that changes raise can always be created by making further changes. Nothing is sacred.

I mention this because it sounds like part of the argument here is if they can change such details, rather than if they will. When you're willing to alter as much of the original material as Amazon has shown they have, almost nothing is out of reach for modification or removal. That may be a deal breaker for you (and that's ok!), but it won't stop Amazon from doing what it will to the source material.

Thanks for the new word. I like it, tastes yellow-green.

And I'm aware that grumbling online will not change the course of events for Wheel of Time by Amazon Prime. (Rhymes are fun honestly). I'm just venting.

They've made some changes that I like (Egwene being a possible Ta'veren is a good one imo, it actually smooths issues rather than raising them.) I just wish, like was said above, they had tagged it as - inspired by - rather - tv adaptation-.

[Rodin]

Thanks for the new word. I like it, tastes yellow-green.

And I'm aware that grumbling online will not change the course of events for Wheel of Time by Amazon Prime. (Rhymes are fun honestly). I'm just venting.

They've made some changes that I like (Egwene being a possible Ta'veren is a good one imo, it actually smooths issues rather than raising them.) I just wish, like was said above, they had tagged it as - inspired by - rather - tv adaptation-.

As someone who doesn’t like most of the changes, I disagree. Inspired by is typically used for original stories
that use the IP. The Watch was “inspired by”. The Watchmen TV series was “inspired by”.

WoT isn’t. It’s an adaptation of an existing story.

While they change a lot, they are trying to tell the same story. The first season will end with broadly the same events the book did, and season 2 will kick off trying to follow book 2. Etc, etc.

The question (which is still up in the air) is whether it’s a good adaptation. But saying inspired by would be confusing at best

[Psyren]

Yes it does, because while Rand et. al. are powerful Ta'veren, they are not the only ones. Artur Hawkwing was one, Brigitte mentions she has been a minor one in previous cyclical incarnations. The idea that the Pattern is semi-sentient (instinctual? some other word that implies intent?) and imbues souls with extra "oomph" to correct timelines that deviate too far is intrinsic to the series. It's the font from which destiny and prophecy arise in the series, and a cool one at that.


If you tie a ta'veren nature to being the Dragon, that means that the dragon gets fragments of his soul splintered out willy nilly? Hawkwing was a Dragon that never fought the Dark One and couldn't channel? Brigitte was a baby Dragon doing who knows what, who knows where? Why does Rand only remember Lewis Therin? Why does he not remember every "Dragon" soul shard then (a la Matt)?

You can have "these specific young people" or "these specific ta'veren" contain fragments of the Dragon's soul without going on to conclude "EVERY ta'veren is related to the Dragon."

In addition, you don't need the split to be even. If could be 80/5/5/5/5 in Rand's favor instead of 20/20/20/20/20. This would justify only him getting the Lews arguments in his head etc.

[Saph]

While they change a lot, they are trying to tell the same story. The first season will end with broadly the same events the book did, and season 2 will kick off trying to follow book 2. Etc, etc.

How far can you change things and still use the "it's the same story" defence, though? Assuming that they pull the show back towards the Eye of the World for the climax, then at the end of the season you'll still juuuuuust about be able to say that it's still an adaption of the Eye of the World. But the overall trend of the show has been towards diverging further and further from the source material – each episode follows the books less than the last one did.

[Chen]

From the AMA with Rafe it seems the intent is to tell the same overall story of the full series. Due to both time and money constraints Im assuming this will result in significant book to book modification as we’re seeing in season 1 so far.

[Ramza00]

How far can you change things and still use the "it's the same story" defence, though? Assuming that they pull the show back towards the Eye of the World for the climax, then at the end of the season you'll still juuuuuust about be able to say that it's still an adaption of the Eye of the World. But the overall trend of the show has been towards diverging further and further from the source material – each episode follows the books less than the last one did.

This is the literally one of the many definition of metaphysics, how much of the Ship of Theseus can we change until common day people will not use the same word. The answer is, it is unanswerable and it is merely a conversation / argument like all language is. We are not describing physics, we are describing “localized” physics on a meta level where we give something a name and identity and that identity has an essence with unique rules to it. But how many rules can we change till it is a new thing.

—————

Came here to post Carl Jr has pretty wheel of time cups I saw on Twitter.

[Anteros]

Regardless of whether you like or agree with the changes, I don't see this idea preventing the end goal of "Rand & Co fight the BBEG."

Is that the level of preserving the original material an adaptation should shoot for? Protagonists still fight the bad guy! You can boil almost any story down to that.


From the AMA with Rafe it seems the intent is to tell the same overall story of the full series. Due to both time and money constraints Im assuming this will result in significant book to book modification as we’re seeing in season 1 so far.

Most of the statements I've seen from him seem like he's much more concerned with stamping his own name onto the story than adapting anything. You don't get to cite time and money constraints as a defense when they've basically told a completely different story with whole new plot lines. Everyone understands that adaptations need to condense and cut plot lines, but they lost that defense the second they invented a wife for a character and had him stab her in the stomach for shock value, and they've only gone further from it since. If it's so hard to preserve the material due to time and money constraints, stop creating entire new plot lines and focusing on those instead.

[Psyren]

How far can you change things and still use the "it's the same story" defence, though? Assuming that they pull the show back towards the Eye of the World for the climax, then at the end of the season you'll still juuuuuust about be able to say that it's still an adaption of the Eye of the World. But the overall trend of the show has been towards diverging further and further from the source material – each episode follows the books less than the last one did.

Loial is leading the party through the Ways so they can all get to Fal Dara in time to stop a rather vague yet potentially world-ending threat in the vicinity. Sounds like EotW to me.


Is that the level of preserving the original material an adaptation should shoot for? Protagonists still fight the bad guy! You can boil almost any story down to that.

He specifically wants to get to the book's final climactic conflict. Doing that is going to need some very specific pieces to be in place, which means there are indeed guardrails around what they can alter.

He's also on record about definitely wanting certain major setpieces on screen (e.g. Dumai's Wells, Falme) and several of the circumstances behind those are pretty specific too.


Most of the statements I've seen from him seem like he's much more concerned with stamping his own name onto the story than adapting anything. You don't get to cite time and money constraints as a defense when they've basically told a completely different story with whole new plot lines. Everyone understands that adaptations need to condense and cut plot lines, but they lost that defense the second they invented a wife for a character and had him stab her in the stomach for shock value, and they've only gone further from it since. If it's so hard to preserve the material due to time and money constraints, stop creating entire new plot lines and focusing on those instead.

While again I don't agree with the Laila thing and think it could have been done much better, it did accomplish the goal of setting up Perrin's primary internal conflict from the books (desiring a life of peace vs. needing to embrace violence/savagery to achieve it.) The books did that by spending pages and pages inside his head, going through his childhood and changing mental state etc. The show simply does not have that kind of time.

[MammonAzrael]

Is that the level of preserving the original material an adaptation should shoot for? Protagonists still fight the bad guy! You can boil almost any story down to that.

I don't think it matters if that's the level an adaptation should shoot for, I think it's the level that at least some people, who may be in charge of this adaptation, are shooting for. My point was not focusing on what I, personally, wanted or thought should happen, but rather what I see that is happening.

[Anteros]

I don't think it matters if that's the level an adaptation should shoot for, I think it's the level that at least some people, who may be in charge of this adaptation, are shooting for. My point was not focusing on what I, personally, wanted or thought should happen, but rather what I see that is happening.

I suppose I can't argue with that.

[Saph]

While again I don't agree with the Laila thing and think it could have been done much better, it did accomplish the goal of setting up Perrin's primary internal conflict from the books (desiring a life of peace vs. needing to embrace violence/savagery to achieve it.) The books did that by spending pages and pages inside his head, going through his childhood and changing mental state etc. The show simply does not have that kind of time.

This rings pretty hollow when they spent most of last episode on Moiraine's hookups with Siuan and most of the episode before that on Sad Warder Guy. We don't have time to establish Perrin's character? Okay, then why did we have time to have a long scene of Siuan's childhood with more dialogue than Perrin got all episode? The show hasn't set up Perrin's internal conflict at all! He hasn't made any choices, or had any kind of character development, or even learned anything about his wolfbrother abilities. He's just moped around looking miserable. This wasn't something forced on the writers, it was a choice they made, and they did it really badly.

The problem is NOT that the writers don't have enough time. Eight 1-hour episodes is LOTS of time – it's certainly a hell of a lot more than most adaptions get. The problem is that they're choosing to spend so much of those eight hours on sideplots that are only tangentially relevant to the main story.

[Ramza00]

Putting my cards on the table, 1st seasons / movies are always the hardest ones to adapt for long series whether tv / movie. This is because you are doing first impressions for old and new viewers alike, doing information set up for later things to build on, and still having a “resolution” for almost all books, television, and movies want a conclusion for the first story* even if this is not the end of the journey.


Now why you would you want an end for the first story? It shows the protagonists are some form of competent in a world of threat, they have some agency. Likewise you are not confident there will be a remaining story after this. Perhaps season 2 never gets made, or the sequel book or movie. Likewise humans do like some form of ending to form a cornerstone key memory which future memories will build on.

Thus 1st seasons / movies are the hardest to adapt, ever minute of screen time should not be wasted. If it is a waste move it to season 2, but we as the viewers also do not know what will be wasted (we know less than the writers / directors / show runners) for sometimes Season 1 scenes are paid off in Season 2, 3, 4, etc.

It is impossible to fully judge a thing, even though we can start judging a thing, until we get to the middle of the story. *shrug* That is my cards on the table, I disagree with several people’s vibes. Yet they are NOT wrong!. We will know now 100% if the train derailed till the train is completely off the track. A ballerina, dancer, or a gymnast can make a mis-step or few catch it and throw a thrilling and fabulous routine.

[Corvus]

A Rand/Perrin/Egwene love triangle? Seriously?

[Psyren]

Moiraine's rationale for being okay leaving Mat behind actually makes sense. If he's not the Dragon, it doesn't matter, and if he is, bringing him in front of the Dark One as he currently is would be a disaster based on what they know of the prophecies.

Not that it matters because there you go - Rand is confirmed to be the Dragon, causing him and Moiraine to set out for the Eye alone to protect the others. We even get both the Blood Snow (complete with Shaiel the ass-kicking sand-ninja) and Quarry Road scenes.

Min is awesome, can't wait to see more of her, especially when she starts kicking ass of her own. Lan gets some solid emotional beats this episode, and his story about being Dai Shan is much more potently delivered here than in Eye.

The Waygates do appear to need channeling, but Padan Fain and Trollocs are using them. How is unclear. I'm leaning towards the ter'angreal theory or a Black Ajah channeling for him (there was that tidbit about Liandrin meeting with some guy by the north dock) but as of now its unclear.

[Rynjin]

A Rand/Perrin/Egwene love triangle? Seriously?

I'ma be honest: you gotta be drinking some extra strength Haterade if that was all you took away from this episode. That **** was barely a blip.

The episode was far from perfect, but it's the first one so far that I felt I didn't care because the bits that were good were damn good, and more than made up for the minor cringe elements.

[Corvus]

There was a lot more than just that.

Not content with with a love triangle involving someone who just killed their own wife you have;

Lan and Nynaeve sleeping together despite it being totally out of character for her.

Agelmar, one of the most decent men going around, a wise, compassionate poet of a man being a discourteous to Moiraine. Talk about character assassination.

Shienar in general being hostile towards the Aes Sedai, the complete opposite of the books.

Moiraine threating Mat with the Red Ajah. Moiraine? Really?

Moiraine being rude to Min. Another total 180 to the books.

Moiraine not even taking Lan with her and Rand into the blight.

And the Black Wind being reduced to a minor inconvenience that makes people sad.

[Rynjin]

There was a lot more than just that.

Not content with with a love triangle involving someone who just killed their own wife you have;

Anything involving Laila is a mistake, yes, because SHE was a mistake. I don't really feel a need to harp individually on all the narrative problems that stem from that because they're self-evidently ****.


Lan and Nynaeve sleeping together despite it being totally out of character for her.

Accelerating the Lan/Nynaeve relationship is an extremely good choice IMO. No complaints.


Agelmar, one of the most decent men going around, a wise, compassionate poet of a man being a discourteous to Moiraine. Talk about character assassination.

He made an assumption based on the knowledge he had (that his wife sent for help) and did a complete 180, apologized, and followed Moiraine's advice without hesitation once it became clear that he was mistaken. Your standards for "character assassination" are loooow. Character assassination is what they've done to Moiraine (made her much more impulsive, less competent, and a bit lazy).


Shienar in general being hostile towards the Aes Sedai, the complete opposite of the books.

Literally when was ANYONE in Fal Dara hostile to Moiraine in this episode? Min was a bit rude I guess...but she's not Shienaran.


Moiraine threating Mat with the Red Ajah. Moiraine? Really?

I'm curious as to what comes of this.


Moiraine being rude to Min. Another total 180 to the books.

Moiraine not even taking Lan with her and Rand into the blight.

And the Black Wind being reduced to a minor inconvenience that makes people sad.

Agreed, but all save for Moiraine abandoning Lan are extreeemely minor blips in the grand scheme.

[Psyren]

Lan and Nynaeve sleeping together despite it being totally out of character for her.

They're all older in this version, if you're holding out for them all to start stammering as soon as someone shows a little ankle you'd best adjust your expectations.


Agelmar, one of the most decent men going around, a wise, compassionate poet of a man being a discourteous to Moiraine. Talk about character assassination.

Shienar in general being hostile towards the Aes Sedai, the complete opposite of the books.

Improvement over the original, the Borderlanders being proud does a better job of explaining why there are so few Aes Sedai manning the Border than... actually, why the hell aren't there Green Ajah stationed up there all the time? Especially after what happened to Malkier?



Moiraine threating Mat with the Red Ajah. Moiraine? Really?

He's not the Dragon and as far as she knows, might be able to channel. Tipping off the Reds isn't just her job, it keeps them off her scent while she protects the real one.


Moiraine being rude to Min. Another total 180 to the books.

Rude how?


Moiraine not even taking Lan with her and Rand into the blight.

She's trying to save Lan's life :smallconfused: totally in character for her.



And the Black Wind being reduced to a minor inconvenience that makes people sad.

A "minor inconvenience" that would have killed them all if not for Nynaeve?

Edit: promo stills from e8 got leaked that may answer the Waygate question:
Padan Fain holding something very Avendesora-looking (https://twitter.com/WotTVSeries/status/1471635504840032259)

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Let's see.

I like the 'once more, with clarity' reveal of Rand's channeling.

I like the clear juxtaposition of Rand's archery attempts: the first time, his mind is muddled and chaotic and he's missing, and the second time Rand is clearly using the Flame and the Void technique, improving his archery even as his cleared head allows him to put all the pieces together and decide what he needs to do about it. It's a little detail that will still work for people who haven't read the books, even if they don't know how direct the connection between his archery and mental clarity is, and I appreciate it.

I hate that Rand's defining character trait is "possessive of Egwene". He has other character traits, sure, and Light do I hope they expand on that dutifulness and loyalty to his friends in the future, but that's definitely his most prominent, even appearing in little ways like how he offers to become Egwene's Warder.

The aesthetics have been niggling at me for a while, and I think I just put my finger on the theme. They're making all the bad places cold and black and grey. Mashadar becomes a creeping shadow instead of a flowing white mist, the Ways become black hexagonal stone instead of arching white (but rotting) bridges hanging in empty blackness, and the Blight becomes damp and dreary instead of sickly yellow and poisonous like a fever. It all works, but none of it stands out, and it makes the setting come off as more generic than the vibrant colors of the books. To be honest, it feels like they're cribbing too much of The Lord of the Rings' visual language.

In a similar vein, now that I think about it, Sheinar's ruler wanting to stand alone instead of desperately welcoming an Aes Sedai to hold back the unstoppable tide they know is coming... is an odd change. It works, but it would have worked just as well if Moraine had had to refuse to help like she did in the books because her purpose was greater even than saving the Borderlands. Now I wonder if that change wasn't made, consciously or unconsciously, to make Sheinar more like Gondor.

Egwene-Perrin-Rand love triangle. It's a well done scene, that's been built up well before hand, but I hate it because it serves no purpose. The only thing it accomplishes is to further emphasize that he's still not over Egwene, further overshadowing how Rand was standing up for Mat (to the point that when they talk about it later Rand apologizes for this and gives up on defending Mat).

[Gnoman]

I think the intention is that Rand is using his feelings for Mat and Egwene as a method of denial. He was so focused on protecting Mat, and mooning over Egwene, that he could lie to himself about what Tam told him and pretend he hadn't been channeling. He knows he's the Dragon, but can't face it.

Note that both are direct from the books - the first time he channels is to keep Bela strong enough to bear Egwene to safety, and he spends much of the first book trying to keep Mat alive.

The Perrin-Rand-Egwene triangle was probably put in to break that chance of lying to himself.

[Mechalich]

I hate that Rand's defining character trait is "possessive of Egwene". He has other character traits, sure, and Light do I hope they expand on that dutifulness and loyalty to his friends in the future, but that's definitely his most prominent, even appearing in little ways like how he offers to become Egwene's Warder.


Rand is supposed to represent the virtuous yeoman-farmer archetype, just as Perrin is supposed to represent the meticulous artisan and Mat the cunning entrepreneur. It is very much drawn from LotR, in the sense that Jordan simply altered the 'country virtues' utilized by Tolkien from a specifically English frame of reference to an American one. This is, admittedly, rather old-fashioned in approach and it's also bound up in how Jordan conceptualized gender roles since the boys represent traditionally male jobs: farming, smithing, and commerce, while the girls mostly represent traditional female ones such as medicine (Nynaeve). Though there is the twist that Jordan actually assigned leadership preferentially to female characters (Elayne, Tuon, and others).

I don't think the show understands just how much these idealized and ultimately rather archetypes (the virtuous yeoman farmer, for example, was a concept heavily promoted by Thomas Jefferson, not any sort of economic reality in 19th century America) are baked into the characters, even very late in their development. For example, there's a practically an entire chapter in Book 11 devoted to Mat buying a horse, and Rand's desire to produce something that will outlast him is fundamental to his later-book motives. My impression of the show is that they went ahead and changed the traits of the characters without understanding why they were that way in the first place. This leaves the characters without depth.

[Saph]

I don't think the show understands just how much these idealized and ultimately rather archetypes (the virtuous yeoman farmer, for example, was a concept heavily promoted by Thomas Jefferson, not any sort of economic reality in 19th century America) are baked into the characters, even very late in their development. For example, there's a practically an entire chapter in Book 11 devoted to Mat buying a horse, and Rand's desire to produce something that will outlast him is fundamental to his later-book motives. My impression of the show is that they went ahead and changed the traits of the characters without understanding why they were that way in the first place. This leaves the characters without depth.

I think this might be why I'm finding the show so unsatisfying – the core of the characters just isn't there. The show writers have picked up on a few individual traits of the main cast (Rand is dutiful, Perrin is slow, Mat is a gambler, Nynaeve is a herbalist) but they stop there. This means whenever the characters don't have plot-related stuff to do they just sort of stand around dumbly, because all of the depth of their personalities and backgrounds from the books has been left out. When you look at it that way, it's not surprising that the writers have ended up falling into relationship drama to fill up screen time – they can't think of anything else to do with the characters!

[Psyren]

I love show Mat far moreso than book Mat so far. Mat wasn't a gambler in book one, he sucked at it. He was an annoying brat, bumpkin and prankster who largely existed to create internal conflict. The show (and Barney's performance) have taken that non-foundation and turned it into something interesting.

For Perrin, I'm still dissatisfied with the Laila thing, and trebly so now that they're leaning into the romantic tension between him and Egwene in book one. For me, that's even more reason for him to not have been married (admiring Egwene from afar if they're going there) and have killed Harral instead if they need that drama.

I agree that Rand is less fleshed out here than in the book, but there's no way around that when we spend almost the entirety of book one in his head to the detriment of everyone else. That's just not going to work for an show where the ensemble cast needs to grow massively important as the series goes on.

[runeghost]

Speculation about production-related meta stuff:

See how abruptly Mat got left behind, and given that: 1) production was interrupted by the pandemic after episodes 1-6 were "in the can", and 2) Mat is being re-cast for Season 2, I wonder if rather than any problems with the Barney Harris' performance (which seemed fine to me), there was some logistical or health issue that prevented him from continuing with the roll?

[Psyren]

Speculation about production-related meta stuff:

See how abruptly Mat got left behind, and given that: 1) production was interrupted by the pandemic after episodes 1-6 were "in the can", and 2) Mat is being re-cast for Season 2, I wonder if rather than any problems with the Barney Harris' performance (which seemed fine to me), there was some logistical or health issue that prevented him from continuing with the roll?

I don't think there were issues with his performance. That leaves personal or health reasons for his departure/recasting, neither of which are known at this time beyond speculation.

What we do know is that, yes, he did indeed leave the production during the COVID hiatus between episodes 6 and 7.

[Sivarias]

I know I'm late to the party but:

Aeil ass kickery. I'm all for the blood snow preview, that was sweet.

Rand's reveal was done very well imo. (This time with feeling, type montage).

The contrast with Rand being distracted vs. focused with the arrows was also well done.

Spears are not swords, so that choreography was ****ing awful. Although I will say this is not a WoT specific complaint. A lot of fantasy type stories get this very very wrong.

The love triangle. It's a) Completely out of character for Perrin. b) Egwene being oblivious too it was a very odd choice. c) makes Leila even MORE pointless to the show. Dislike all around.

The sneering glances Moraine got walking though the bar in Sheinar. The idea that borderlands would be hostile to Aes Sedai at ALL is an anathema.

Moraine not taking Lan with her into the Blight. She knew he was in love with Nynaeve in the books too, and flat out told him the mission around the Dragon Reborn is more important. So the idea that she would grant some sort of reprieve here so he can live his best life is a major and bad story telling deviation imo.

Egwene turning on Matt, and then then turning around and verbally saying she trusts him. Actions speak louder than words, and there were few people Egwene trusted more than Matt. It would have been much more in character for her to lash out that Matt left, and then had a brief scene of her trying to open the Waygate, or mutter to herself that Matt would find a way. It would have been much more in character.

It took me an hour to watch this with my wife. Do you know why? Because I was having to answer questions.

My wife paused the opening cutscene and had to ask me what all the thread were about. Especially because she saw how happy it made me, and told me she didn't understand the theming. That made me realize that we are seven episodes in and there has not been a good explanation of the Wheel and the Pattern. When I mentioned Ta'veren, she went "wait didn't they use that term in episode 1? I Thought it just meant men who could channel. Does it mean something else?" So I had to explain that. Then when they got out of the Ways she asked. "Wait, the Waygates can go to other places? I thought it was part of the Dark One's prison, and was just a path to the Eye of the World?" What really hurt was "you know, I wish they had made this series more accessible, because I see you are picking up on all kinds of subtle jokes and nods, and I still feel lost as to what's actually going on, why any of this matters, or what any of these titles mean."

So... yah. They need to stop trying to **** around and do their fanfiction garbage and exposit a bit. Lets quit trying to make characters unrecognizable and start having characters be themselves. Like having Loial needless ramble on about in universe topics that the others already knows but the audience does it. You could even make it a fun character development moment by having other characters smile/roll thier eyes/sigh in frustration to signify it's common knowledge or something.

[Psyren]

I was hoping for a bit of Loial exposition around what ta'veren are myself. I agree that dropping the term but not covering it in more detail was a miss. At the very least they could stick the definition in one of the extras.

I also agree that the love triangle does worsen Laila's inclusion even further.




Moraine not taking Lan with her into the Blight. She knew he was in love with Nynaeve in the books too, and flat out told him the mission around the Dragon Reborn is more important. So the idea that she would grant some sort of reprieve here so he can live his best life is a major and bad story telling deviation imo.

In this version
Moiraine believes that anyone brought to the Eye who isn't the Dragon will die. Having him watch her back in a dangerous situation is one thing, but it's completely in character for her to keep him away when she believes she's headed to almost certain death, as we clearly see in both Books 3, 4 and especially 5.




Egwene turning on Matt, and then then turning around and verbally saying she trusts him. Actions speak louder than words, and there were few people Egwene trusted more than Matt. It would have been much more in character for her to lash out that Matt left, and then had a brief scene of her trying to open the Waygate, or mutter to herself that Matt would find a way. It would have been much more in character.

Trusting him to be able to survive on his own isn't the same as saying she forgives him for leaving in the first place. (Also, I think they did the best they could dialogue-wise with the awkwardness around Barney. Only so much you can do when an actor breaks contract.)

[Maelstrom]

I'm not sure where this 'love triangle' is coming from...it seemed pretty clear to me that the Machin Shin planted those seeds of discontent, making Rand/Nynaeve seeing things where, in fact, there was nothing... At least not at this point (there certainly may have been when they were younger, but that was *in* the books that Perrin at one point had a crush on Egwene)

[Gnoman]

There are some bits in the first episode that kind of back it up, mostly in the tension between Perrin and Leila.

[Rynjin]

I got a huge chuckle out of this chart I found on the show's subreddit. (https://preview.redd.it/7s5ty4i257681.png?width=2500&format=png&auto=webp&071440c1)

Perrin Aybara, primary character of the series, comes in with less spoken lines than a character who only appears in one episode.

I'm not even mad, that's an impressive commitment to the bit.

[Gnoman]

Link doesn't seem to work, but I know the chart you're probably talking about.

Dana The Darkfriend has more words-per-minute than any character of the show. She's only on-screen for 13 minutes, and has almost 900 words spoken.

[Rynjin]

The raw power of a villainous monologue at work.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Rynjin
I'm not even mad, that's an impressive commitment to the bit.

Can’t work out what you mean. What is “to the bit” here?

And yes, posted link isn’t working.

[Psyren]

Can’t work out what you mean. What is “to the bit” here?

Perrin is known for being terse/taciturn in the books, especially for a central main character. I think there's a couple of conversations that he carries out almost entirely in grunts. His show counterpart meanwhile is taking that to new heights.

[Sivarias]

I got a huge chuckle out of this chart I found on the show's subreddit. (https://preview.redd.it/7s5ty4i257681.png?width=2500&format=png&auto=webp&071440c1)

Perrin Aybara, primary character of the series, comes in with less spoken lines than a character who only appears in one episode.

I'm not even mad, that's an impressive commitment to the bit.

Broken link. Try again?

[Psyren]

Finale is out!

What I liked:
- We finally meet Ishamael, and he stole every scene he was in.
- The Age of Legends! Lews Therin!
- Confirmation that all of the EF5 are Ta'veren.
- Rand throwing off Ishamael's temptation by valuing free will and agency - great foreshadowing for later in the series.
- Egwene healing Nynaeve.
- Moiraine, even having been perma-shielded (I don't think she was stilled as both the Oaths and the Bond are intact) - ready to fight the Dark One with her belt knife if she has to, very on-brand.
- Moiraine survived, but she may have been taken off the board as a channeler for the time being.
- Min's visions getting shown to be correct with Rand and the baby.
- The epilogue with the Seanchan, who look downright terrifying in this version.

What I didn't like:

- The short runtimes and number of episodes continue to hurt the series. I really want Amazon to loosen the reins a bit here.
- While we get the tiniest glimpse of Lews' showdown with Ishamael, it's far too brief. I was also hoping we'd see the aftermath of sealing the Dark One, i.e. the Kinslayer prologue here.
- Perrin was grossly underutilized. Picking up the axe was great, but he should have proceeded to wolf out and solo a Fade with it like he does in Book 3.
- Loial and Uno... might be dead? Like, getting stabbed with that dagger - or a Fade's sword for that matter - is supposed to be a pretty big deal, and there are no healers in the vicinity. Nynaeve is back in action but even she normally can't do much unless she's right there when it happens.
- The Trolloc horde being stopped in its tracks by 5 channelers (two of them albeit being as strong as an army themselves). Sure they (mostly) burned themselves out doing it, but I would have liked a bit more desperation there, a bit more of an impasse, to show a clearer tie between Rand's actions and the tide turning.


What's next:
- Obviously the Seanchan's arrival + Fain making off with the Horn mean we're heading into Great Hunt territory.
- ...But at the same time, Rand is heading to what looks like the Aiel Waste, so we're heading into Shadow Rising territory?
- And we see a very wicked-looking Mat heading back to Tar Valon. At least Fain has the dagger.

Overall, 7/10, I can definitely see the issues that COVID had on production but I'm eager to see more. Had they fixed the things in my "didn't like" spoiler it would have been 10/10 for me. Hopefully Amazon gives Rafe more breathing room next season.

[Saph]

I've been meaning to get around to watching Episode 7 for a week now, but I've had trouble mustering any enthusiasm.

After reading the summary/reactions to Episode 8, I think this is where I get off. I'm not watching any more. The only thing that was keeping me engaged at this point was finding out how they were going to handle the reveal of Rand being the Dragon, and his subsequent big moment at the Eye of the World/Tarwin's Gap, and from reading plot summaries, it seems as though the answer is "badly".

I'm just done at this point. The show is thoroughly mediocre, and I think it's pretty clear by now that it's going to stay that way. It's really depressing since I've been a fan of the books for over 20 years, and I'd been really hoping for a good adaption. This is not a good adaption and it's never going to be.

What a waste of a good story.

[Mechalich]

I've been meaning to get around to watching Episode 7 for a week now, but I've had trouble mustering any enthusiasm.

After reading the summary/reactions to Episode 8, I think this is where I get off. I'm not watching any more. The only thing that was keeping me engaged at this point was finding out how they were going to handle the reveal of Rand being the Dragon, and his subsequent big moment at the Eye of the World/Tarwin's Gap, and from reading plot summaries, it seems as though the answer is "badly".

I'm just done at this point. The show is thoroughly mediocre, and I think it's pretty clear by now that it's going to stay that way. It's really depressing since I've been a fan of the books for over 20 years, and I'd been really hoping for a good adaption. This is not a good adaption and it's never going to be.

What a waste of a good story.

This seems to be the general review consensus too. The show is fine, no more and no less. It does everything acceptably, while doing nothing especially well and lacks focus, edge, and impact as a result. It's not different enough from the books to be engaging on its own terms, and its not impactful enough to bring great scenes from the books to life in an awesome way. Also, it's a dour, fairly grim presentation that's not fun to watch and pretty much no one involved looks like they're having any fun.

I can't help but compare this show with The Witcher season 2 (which dropped a week ago and I blasted through). The story elements of Witcher are much weaker than WoT, and the show lacks coherency in many ways, but everything else about the production is better: the fights, the sound, the lighting, the VFX, the character designs and costumes, and definitely the acting. It's just a higher level production all around. It's certainly possible to dislike the Witcher, but the effort put into to trying to make the best show they possible could is undeniable. I just don't feel that way about WoT.

[Psyren]

After reading the summary/reactions to Episode 8, I think this is where I get off. I'm not watching any more.

Genuinely - thanks for watching.


pretty much no one involved looks like they're having any fun.

The villains look like they're having a great time to me :smallbiggrin: Particularly Fain, Valda, and - I guess I'll call him "Guy At The Eye" outside of tags.

Is there a lot I wish would have gone differently this season, yes, but what missteps I see I lay squarely at the feet of a global pandemic and meddling executives not giving the show the room it needed to breathe. The bones for me are there, and the S2 hook is solid, so personally I'll continue to be on this train.

[Lord Ruby34]

I'd been enjoying the show thus far, and giving the producers the benefit of the doubt, but that last episode was terrible. No spoilers, but they changed the ending of the first book in a big way, and definitely not for the better. It almost feels like the writers did not understand why certain plot elements were set up the way they were. Maybe there's a grand plan to unify things and slim down the plot of the second book, but I doubt it.

Very disappointing.

[Seerow]

Things to keep in mind for the finale: They had to do a rapid rewrite based on both Mat's actor leaving, and new covid restrictions (the first 6 episodes were all filmed pre-lockdowns). In particular they lost access to the area they planned to film basically the entire sequence, as well as the ability to bring any of the actors in trolloc suits onto set. The combination is the reasoning for a lot of the more awkward scenes, and most likely a huge part of the reason Tarwin's gap was shown the way it was.

Everything at the Eye itself I thought was actually a huge step up from the books. The rest of the episode I thought was fairly lackluster, to downright hokey in a few places. But I'm able to forgive that due to the above, and genuinely enjoying the rest of the season.

[Telwar]

Yeah...disappointing is the best I can give it. If I'd picked up Prime to watch this, I'd be very upset.

[Psyren]

Things to keep in mind for the finale: They had to do a rapid rewrite based on both Mat's actor leaving, and new covid restrictions (the first 6 episodes were all filmed pre-lockdowns). In particular they lost access to the area they planned to film basically the entire sequence, as well as the ability to bring any of the actors in trolloc suits onto set. The combination is the reasoning for a lot of the more awkward scenes, and most likely a huge part of the reason Tarwin's gap was shown the way it was.

Everything at the Eye itself I thought was actually a huge step up from the books. The rest of the episode I thought was fairly lackluster, to downright hokey in a few places. But I'm able to forgive that due to the above, and genuinely enjoying the rest of the season.

To paraphrase Rafe - maybe there will be another Turning (read: reboot/remake) where we get the 2 hour premiere and lack of COVID/cast issues we deserved. That is much more likely if this becomes a success than if it fails (see also Amazon taking another swing at LotR a mere 2 decades after the first.)

[Rynjin]

Yeah, I'm not sure if I even want to bother watching the finale myself. The highest praise I've seen for it from the biggest defenders is "Well, you see, there were a lot of production issues, so it makes sense that it sucks".

I understand the production of the series was a nightmare, and that's rough for all involved...but that doesn't do any more to make it a show worth watching, it just makes it more understandable why it ISN'T.

Here's hoping they take the time to potentially make the season 2 premier a "do-over" of the finale.

[Taevyr]

Yeah, while I always felt the ending to EotW was a bit iffy, this wasn't the way to adapt or try to improve upon it. Many of the changes just felt... unnecessary, and some of the key aspects like

Rand first showing what the Dragon Reborn will be capable of were essentially removed. I can get that it might have been impossible with the pandemic, but well... a real waste nonetheless.

Still, I'm curious what Sanderson'll say on the subject in his year retrospective: I've no doubt he'll have an opinion, and he probably has better insight in the circumstances and studio mandates and such. His first commentary on it offered good insight, so I hope for some more.

As for some personal nitpicks, possibly due to me being a bit of a lore purist: anyone else feel like the Lews stuff was really off? He's wearing what looks like an Ashaman coat for some reason, begging the Tamyrlin for aid while he's the supposed bearer of the ring of Tamyrlin and gender shouldn't yet matter as much for the Aes Seda , and generally seems more like a stubborn gloryhound than a man desperately wanting to keep the Aes Sedai unified for a high-risk last-ditch effort.

[Maelstrom]

...

I can't help but compare this show with The Witcher season 2 (which dropped a week ago and I blasted through). The story elements of Witcher are much weaker than WoT, and the show lacks coherency in many ways, but everything else about the production is better: the fights, the sound, the lighting, the VFX, the character designs and costumes, and definitely the acting. It's just a higher level production all around. It's certainly possible to dislike the Witcher, but the effort put into to trying to make the best show they possible could is undeniable. I just don't feel that way about WoT.

I've been a lukewarm watcher of the WoT show now for a bit, enjoying some parts and interpretations, questioning others, and being downright disappointed in many others. Kept in in it though because of the enjoyment of my wife.

Last night we made the mistake of finishing off the Witcher (of which I am a huge fan, books, games and the TV interpretation) just before watching the last episode of WoT, and I cannot agree more. For as much as Amazon has spent on their series, it looks and feels like watching Hercules or Zena after a AAA film. The differences were quite jarring and unless Amazon ups their game and production value...

[Traab]

I've been a lukewarm watcher of the WoT show now for a bit, enjoying some parts and interpretations, questioning others, and being downright disappointed in many others. Kept in in it though because of the enjoyment of my wife.

Last night we made the mistake of finishing off the Witcher (of which I am a huge fan, books, games and the TV interpretation) just before watching the last episode of WoT, and I cannot agree more. For as much as Amazon has spent on their series, it looks and feels like watching Hercules or Zena after a AAA film. The differences were quite jarring and unless Amazon ups their game and production value...

Hey hercules and xena may not have had as high a production value but they were ALWAYS fun to watch! For a dude who really isnt that bulky kevin sorbo did a great job being hercules.

[Anteros]

Hey hercules and xena may not have had as high a production value but they were ALWAYS fun to watch! For a dude who really isnt that bulky kevin sorbo did a great job being hercules.

Well...Xena was probably about as true to Greek lore as WoT has been to theirs.

Looks like the show ended up with a 7.2 critic rating and a 72% audience score with RT. That's actually worse than even I expected. Of course that somehow magically becomes an 82% on the "tomatometer" so that the show can be rated fresh.

IMDB is a bit higher at 7.4 and amazon has them as 0.7 or 3.5/5. I don't know what the watch numbers look like, but these are not the review scores you want for a product you dumped tens of millions into. I would imagine that the watch count probably started very high and dropped hard as the show went along judging from the fact that even the most staunch defenders are saying things like "well, it's not their fault it's bad" or "we have to support this adaption if we ever want a good adaption in the future". Even the show's subreddit has started to get a bit lukewarm...which is really saying something considering they've been banning anyone who dares criticize the show for months.

[Psyren]

As for some personal nitpicks, possibly due to me being a bit of a lore purist: anyone else feel like the Lews stuff was really off? He's wearing what looks like an Ashaman coat for some reason, begging the Tamyrlin for aid while he's the supposed bearer of the ring of Tamyrlin and gender shouldn't yet matter as much for the Aes Seda , and generally seems more like a stubborn gloryhound than a man desperately wanting to keep the Aes Sedai unified for a high-risk last-ditch effort.

I didn't think so, and here's why:

The Black Coat uniform was more or less a whim from Rand/Taim in the books. Having it be subconscious prodding from Lews (he creeps into Rand's mind in many other ways) fits just fine, especially since Saidin was visualized with black even back in the AoL (see the ancient AS symbol.) Its especially fitting if they decide to go with Taimandred in this version, as "Taim" would be even more gung-ho about dressing up the Asha'man the way the male Servants used to be.

As for Lews being an arrogant gloryhound - uh, yeah, that's him to a tee, he says so himself during his numerous laments in Rand's head. He wasn't just the strongest channeler in the world, he was also the most brilliant mind of his age, some degree of hubris did indeed go along with that. Sure he wanted the women along to seal the Bore, but when they said no he was convinced he'd worked out how do succeed anyway, and did what he always did - sprang into action.

[Lord Ruby34]

I didn't think so, and here's why:

The Black Coat uniform was more or less a whim from Rand/Taim in the books. Having it be subconscious prodding from Lews (he creeps into Rand's mind in many other ways) fits just fine, especially since Saidin was visualized with black even back in the AoL (see the ancient AS symbol.) Its especially fitting if they decide to go with Taimandred in this version, as "Taim" would be even more gung-ho about dressing up the Asha'man the way the male Servants used to be.

As for Lews being an arrogant gloryhound - uh, yeah, that's him to a tee, he says so himself during his numerous laments in Rand's head. He wasn't just the strongest channeler in the world, he was also the most brilliant mind of his age, some degree of hubris did indeed go along with that. Sure he wanted the women along to seal the Bore, but when they said no he was convinced he'd worked out how do succeed anyway, and did what he always did - sprang into action.


None of this is wrong, but the scene still felt off. I think it was the surrounding context. In the novels, this plan comes up while the Aes Sedai are actively losing a war against the Dark One. The show doesn't have that context at all, and it isn't helped by the panning shot of the utopian city in the background. Whether or not there even is a war against the Dark One in this version, I couldn't tell you from that scene alone.

Additionally, the actors didn't seem to be speaking with any particular urgency. I would have probably done the scene as a public debate, with Lew Therin wearing a sword. Several faces could have been stained with ash or streaked with blood, something to show that the Aes Sedai were actively in trouble.

[Psyren]

None of this is wrong, but the scene still felt off. I think it was the surrounding context. In the novels, this plan comes up while the Aes Sedai are actively losing a war against the Dark One. The show doesn't have that context at all, and it isn't helped by the panning shot of the utopian city in the background. Whether or not there even is a war against the Dark One in this version, I couldn't tell you from that scene alone.

Additionally, the actors didn't seem to be speaking with any particular urgency. I would have probably done the scene as a public debate, with Lew Therin wearing a sword. Several faces could have been stained with ash or streaked with blood, something to show that the Aes Sedai were actively in trouble.

The cold open takes place after the public forum, based on Latra's opening comments.

As for Lews, I think you're overstating what "losing" means in this context:
There was likely time for Lews Therin to consider alternatives, or refine the plan to address Latra's concerns. The Choedan Kal hadn't even been used yet. It's even worse because it turns out she was very likely right, and the Dark One could have tainted both sides of the source had they attempted to reseal him without using the True Power, as we see him do in one of the possible futures in AMoL.

Lews however was not only convinced he was right, he set out from the forum at roughly that very moment - likely stopping only to visit his baby, which is when their final conversation takes place.

[Velaryon]

Hey hercules and xena may not have had as high a production value but they were ALWAYS fun to watch! For a dude who really isnt that bulky kevin sorbo did a great job being hercules.

I rewatched all of Hercules on Netflix about 5 or so years ago. It does not hold up well at all. It has some of the worst, laziest fight choreography I've ever seen in a TV show, and the plots are lazy and predictable even by 1990's syndicated sci-fi standards. From the few episodes I watched again at that time, Xena seems like it probably holds up better, but I decided to leave the memories alone just in case.

[Traab]

I rewatched all of Hercules on Netflix about 5 or so years ago. It does not hold up well at all. It has some of the worst, laziest fight choreography I've ever seen in a TV show, and the plots are lazy and predictable even by 1990's syndicated sci-fi standards. From the few episodes I watched again at that time, Xena seems like it probably holds up better, but I decided to leave the memories alone just in case.

I mean, hercules fights are generally simple punch and kick and launch bad guy across the screen. Xena had all the acrobatics with yelling that involved tons of camera cuts. The thing that puts them above some of the terrible modern tv show fights is, at least most of them took place in daylight with clearly seen actors. Not a jump cut full of blurry shadows swinging randomly. :smallbiggrin: The show was campy as heck. it was adventure and comedy, not a martial arts extravaganza so the actual battles being silly was actually fun for me. Then again, i did grow up watching reruns of adam west doing the batusi so maybe I was just warped by that. :smallbiggrin:

[Anteros]

I was just about to reference Adam West's Batman before I saw you did. The fights are campy and silly, but that's ok because the show doesn't take itself seriously. It's a bit different from a multi million dollar project that's actually trying to look good.

[Psyren]

While not all of the fight scenes in WoT landed for me, Blood Snow and Winternight give me a much better idea of what the show can pull off when they aren't dealing with quite so many production woes.

Tarwin's Gap was a letdown, I won't argue there, but even then I enjoyed the channeling part. I'm eager to see what they can pull off without a global pandemic getting in the way. (Every indication is that we're getting Toman Head, which is going to be the real test for their big battle capabilities.)

[DrK]

I’ve been a massive fan of the books for decades and after due consideration I’ve come down in favour of the series. Some things I really liked and thought were great additions, others if didn’t but I can live with and hope they improve in book 2/ season 2



Moraine and Lan - stole the scenes they were in and the extra bits with their relationship I thought was really good

Nyneave - hated her in the early books (loved her in the later ones) but really liked her in these and nice she got the glory in Tarwins Gap

Sinister white cloaks - I liked this change and thought Valda was a great villain

Winternite and the look of Tar Valon and the flavours of Aes Sedai politics

Min, I thought she was great

The new look Senchean look amazing




Tarwins gap battle - awesome set up scenes of the wall and all these women warriors them for some reason the 5 woman stand in the open and mostly kill themselves

Too long on the warder sad thing (whilst I liked it, dominating 2 episodes was too much dead time

Evil Matt - for a character that was a book favourite I didn’t like this portrayal. Wasn’t done badly, I just wasn’t a fan

[Anteros]

Ventured over to r/fantasy out of curiosity and man, they are tearing the show to shreds. Last time I visited the site was for Sanderson's thoughts about episodes 1-3 and the sentiment was mostly mixed/positive. I'm honestly shocked they turned on it so hard. It makes me wonder just how bad this finale was. I'm almost tempted to watch it out of morbid curiosity, except it's not worth investing that much time into something that's just going to make me angry.

[ereinion]

Ventured over to r/fantasy out of curiosity and man, they are tearing the show to shreds. Last time I visited the site was for Sanderson's thoughts about episodes 1-3 and the sentiment was mostly mixed/positive. I'm honestly shocked they turned on it so hard. It makes me wonder just how bad this finale was. I'm almost tempted to watch it out of morbid curiosity, except it's not worth investing that much time into something that's just going to make me angry.

Well, I watched episode 1-3, found the show astoundingly "meh", and stopped watching. If it gets even worse, I think I made the right decision...

[Psyren]

I’ve been a massive fan of the books for decades and after due consideration I’ve come down in favour of the series. Some things I really liked and thought were great additions, others if didn’t but I can live with and hope they improve in book 2/ season 2



Moraine and Lan - stole the scenes they were in and the extra bits with their relationship I thought was really good

Nyneave - hated her in the early books (loved her in the later ones) but really liked her in these and nice she got the glory in Tarwins Gap

Sinister white cloaks - I liked this change and thought Valda was a great villain

Winternite and the look of Tar Valon and the flavours of Aes Sedai politics

Min, I thought she was great

The new look Senchean look amazing




Tarwins gap battle - awesome set up scenes of the wall and all these women warriors them for some reason the 5 woman stand in the open and mostly kill themselves

Too long on the warder sad thing (whilst I liked it, dominating 2 episodes was too much dead time

Evil Matt - for a character that was a book favourite I didn’t like this portrayal. Wasn’t done badly, I just wasn’t a fan



I too loved the much greater agency given to the Shienaran women.

I also honestly liked the tweak to the Borderlands to play up their distrust of Aes Sedai. Works for me a lot better than the book's approach of just having the Tower be massively incompetent at every turn.

[Saph]

Ventured over to r/fantasy out of curiosity and man, they are tearing the show to shreds. Last time I visited the site was for Sanderson's thoughts about episodes 1-3 and the sentiment was mostly mixed/positive. I'm honestly shocked they turned on it so hard.

Even r/WOT has pretty much done a 180 – there are lots of posts along the lines of "ok, I've defended the show up until now, but this finale was ****ing awful". Which is really something given how aggressively that sub has been supporting the show up until now.

I think a lot of book-readers were expecting that the reason that Rand was being downplayed so hard for Episodes 1-6 was that show was building up to do something really special and impressive with him at the Eye of the World/Tarwin's Gap. There was lots of anticipation that we'd finally see Rand being awesome and wiping out the Trolloc army as he does in the book. So when Rand's big moment ends up being a total anticlimax, while his destruction of the Trolloc army gets given to Nynaeve and Egwene instead . . . yeah. Pretty major disappointment.

The most sad/hilarious thing has been all the non-book-readers saying "so, uh, we've been told all season that this Dragon guy/girl is supposed to be really powerful and special, but now he just seems kind of useless, what gives?"

[Ramza00]

Still have not watched, was waiting for the season to be finished, and for some time after the "busy" that comes with Holidays.

Yet I am responding for my younger brother who has not read the books, and he remembered I read them decades ago in high school...

Well he loved it! :smallbiggrin:

[Anteros]

Someone brought an interesting quote from the showrunner to my attention recently.


A lot of writers in the room obviously who weren’t familiar with the books were like, “Why are we doing the Horn of Valere?”

Read that again. They literally have writers who aren't familiar with the books. Honestly, that explains so much.

Here's another interesting quote


I can't wait to kill surprising people that are going to really pain book fans in their deepest heart of hearts

So. Look forward to that.

[runeghost]

Someone brought an interesting quote from the showrunner to my attention recently.



Read that again. They literally have writers who aren't familiar with the books. Honestly, that explains so much.

Here's another interesting quote



So. Look forward to that.

Ouch.

Sounds like they're planning on imitating GRRM, which is totally the wrong move for WoT. Jordan's main characters are hurt, both emotionally and physically, but they aren't killed off. Secondary characters certainly do die, and if they're changing which supporting characters die, that can certainly work. But if they kill off too many characters viewers do care about, then the real heavy hitting stuff in the Last Battle won't have the impact it should.

As for not requiring the writers to have read the books, that's what I see as a recurring problem in all sorts of genre adaptations: producers assume that all creativity is fungible, and that if you can write or direct an action movie or successful drama, that translates directly to writing or directing SF. And I really don't think that's the case. (Nor would the reverse necessarily be.) In order for suspension of disbelief to work, speculative fiction requires the perception of a coherent framework behind the fantastic elements of the story. That doesn't mean every technical or magical detail needs to be spelled out, or that the audience needs to be deluged with fictional history. But if that 'skeleton' isn't there behind the scenes, it's going to manifest on screen in odd ways, that the audience will pick up on, even if it's unconscious, and the resulting dissonance will diminish the end result. (<cough> J.J. Abrams. <cough> IMHO, of course.)

As for WoT... I've got some non-book reader friends and family who liked it, and know one book reader who liked it. Myself... I'm going to give it another season. TNG's first season was awfully weak compared to what came later, and I didn't hate WoT's freshman effort... I'd just hoped for more. (And I'm really hoping that Amazon's LotR's... thing is of superior quality to this.)

[Divayth Fyr]

I can't wait to kill surprising people that are going to really pain book fans in their deepest heart of hearts
So. Look forward to that.
Why does it read as "you didn't like our changes? just wait!" or "you dared not to like our changes? face the consequences!"? :P

And a chart mentioned previously
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/897825422836920320/924618060713840660/aa3027iuvk781.png

[lord_khaine]

Ouch.

Sounds like they're planning on imitating GRRM, which is totally the wrong move for WoT. Jordan's main characters are hurt, both emotionally and physically, but they aren't killed off. Secondary characters certainly do die, and if they're changing which supporting characters die, that can certainly work. But if they kill off too many characters viewers do care about, then the real heavy hitting stuff in the Last Battle won't have the impact it should.


It seems like a massive mistake. Just for a start. Im quite certain GRRM mostly got popular on sex and violence. TRW was something that turned a lot of people off from the serie.

Honestly i have not heard a single thing yet that makes me think the showrunner would be up to the task.
Lots of bad choices. Not one that seemed good.

[Rynjin]

It turns out hiring some random hack with no prior experience is a bad idea, who knew?

[Gnoman]

The cold open takes place after the public forum, based on Latra's opening comments.

As for Lews, I think you're overstating what "losing" means in this context:
There was likely time for Lews Therin to consider alternatives, or refine the plan to address Latra's concerns. The Choedan Kal hadn't even been used yet. It's even worse because it turns out she was very likely right, and the Dark One could have tainted both sides of the source had they attempted to reseal him without using the True Power, as we see him do in one of the possible futures in AMoL.

Lews however was not only convinced he was right, he set out from the forum at roughly that very moment - likely stopping only to visit his baby, which is when their final conversation takes place.


The Strike At Sayol Ghul says that Lews Therin carried out his plan because the acces keys for the Choedan Kal had been captured by the Shadow's armies.

[Saph]

The Strike At Sayol Ghul says that Lews Therin carried out his plan because the acces keys for the Choedan Kal had been captured by the Shadow's armies.

Yeah, if you read the original story (https://library.tarvalon.net/index.php?title=The_Strike_at_Shayol_Ghul), then the argument between the two Light factions makes a lot more sense. The Light forces are losing, and they're searching for some way to turn the tide. The options are:

use the seals
use the Choedan Kal
keep fighting as they've been doing
The "seals" plan is incredibly risky, is likely going to result in the deaths of everyone on the mission, and might even tear the Bore open completely if it's mishandled.

The "Choedan Kal" plan isn't actually a permanent solution – the Dark One can in all likelihood continue to expand the Bore from behind the barrier, and eventually break free entirely, at which point things will get much, much worse.

The "win the war the conventional way" plan is failing – the Light armies haven't regained any territory in two years, and are getting closer and closer to total collapse.

All the available options are bad. That's the point. The only reason that Lews Therin decides to give up on persuading the female Aes Sedai and do the seals plan alone is that Sammael's armies have just overrun the area where the access keys were being constructed, causing them to be lost with no guarantee that they'll ever be recovered.

The show writers decided to completely remove all this ambiguity and complexity and reduce the storyline to "Lews Therin is stupid and arrogant and if he'd only listened to the women everything would have been fine." The mind boggles as to how anyone could have thought that this was an improvement.

[Divayth Fyr]

The show writers decided to completely remove all this ambiguity and complexity and reduce the storyline to "Lews Therin is stupid and arrogant and if he'd only listened to the women everything would have been fine." The mind boggles as to how anyone could have thought that this was an improvement.
Honestly it kinda feels the people who decided to go in that direction also have to love Masters of the Universe: Revelation... Seems the same school of thought was behind both...

[ereinion]

Yeah, if you read the original story (https://library.tarvalon.net/index.php?title=The_Strike_at_Shayol_Ghul), then the argument between the two Light factions makes a lot more sense. The Light forces are losing, and they're searching for some way to turn the tide. The options are:

use the seals
use the Choedan Kal
keep fighting as they've been doing
The "seals" plan is incredibly risky, is likely going to result in the deaths of everyone on the mission, and might even tear the Bore open completely if it's mishandled.

The "Choedan Kal" plan isn't actually a permanent solution – the Dark One can in all likelihood continue to expand the Bore from behind the barrier, and eventually break free entirely, at which point things will get much, much worse.

The "win the war the conventional way" plan is failing – the Light armies haven't regained any territory in two years, and are getting closer and closer to total collapse.

All the available options are bad. That's the point. The only reason that Lews Therin decides to give up on persuading the female Aes Sedai and do the seals plan alone is that Sammael's armies have just overrun the area where the access keys were being constructed, causing them to be lost with no guarantee that they'll ever be recovered.

The show writers decided to completely remove all this ambiguity and complexity and reduce the storyline to "Lews Therin is stupid and arrogant and if he'd only listened to the women everything would have been fine." The mind boggles as to how anyone could have thought that this was an improvement.

In addition, the DO's armies have captured the keys to the Chodan Kal (or was it the statues themself and they were about to get the keys?), and the commanders of the Light are worried their opponents will learn how to use them, so there's that putting pressure on them for coming up with a quick solution. I seem to recall that it's more than hinted at that if the men and women cooperated instead of going for different solutions, LTT's plan of sealing the bore would have worked without anything getting tainted.

[Sapphire Guard]

That's such a strange scene. Good acting though.

Why is this conversation happening in a baby's bedroom?

They play it like Lews just randomly decided to seal the Bore and there's not pressure from the wider context.

The thing about this in the books is that Latra and Lews were both correct, using both sides of the source may have tainted both sides, but there's no other solution. The Choeden Kal have not been used, but if they wait for that it will be too late.

Somehow Latra knows about the taint in advance, but if so, why is she not more forceful about stopping him? She's... a bit sad, about a plan she believes will set the world back 1000 years?

"It serves only your pride" What the hell?

[Psyren]

I find the belief that having some non-book-reader writers in the writing room is somehow a negative to be very odd. You realize the show isn't just being made for book readers, right? Understanding how a non-book-reading audience might interpret or react to a plot point or addition is very important. We know there are already plenty of book readers in that room too, including the showrunner himself.


In addition, the DO's armies have captured the keys to the Chodan Kal (or was it the statues themself and they were about to get the keys?), and the commanders of the Light are worried their opponents will learn how to use them, so there's that putting pressure on them for coming up with a quick solution. I seem to recall that it's more than hinted at that if the men and women cooperated instead of going for different solutions, LTT's plan of sealing the bore would have worked without anything getting tainted.

AMoL indicates that wouldn't have been the case and Latra's concerns were justified.


Yeah, if you read the original story (https://library.tarvalon.net/index.php?title=The_Strike_at_Shayol_Ghul), then the argument between the two Light factions makes a lot more sense. The Light forces are losing, and they're searching for some way to turn the tide. The options are:

use the seals
use the Choedan Kal
keep fighting as they've been doing
The "seals" plan is incredibly risky, is likely going to result in the deaths of everyone on the mission, and might even tear the Bore open completely if it's mishandled.

The "Choedan Kal" plan isn't actually a permanent solution – the Dark One can in all likelihood continue to expand the Bore from behind the barrier, and eventually break free entirely, at which point things will get much, much worse.

The "win the war the conventional way" plan is failing – the Light armies haven't regained any territory in two years, and are getting closer and closer to total collapse.

All the available options are bad. That's the point. The only reason that Lews Therin decides to give up on persuading the female Aes Sedai and do the seals plan alone is that Sammael's armies have just overrun the area where the access keys were being constructed, causing them to be lost with no guarantee that they'll ever be recovered.

The show writers decided to completely remove all this ambiguity and complexity and reduce the storyline to "Lews Therin is stupid and arrogant and if he'd only listened to the women everything would have been fine." The mind boggles as to how anyone could have thought that this was an improvement.

I don't see any ambiguity or complexity in that story, just female AS being written as unreasonable with no real plan of their own, and a whole pile of plot convenience (the Forsaken "by chance just happened" to all be at Shayol Ghul when the 100C arrived, and here I thought there was actually some kind of strategy behind causing that.) But maybe some of that can be chalked up to unreliable narrator too.


That's such a strange scene. Good acting though.

Why is this conversation happening in a baby's bedroom?

They play it like Lews just randomly decided to seal the Bore and there's not pressure from the wider context.

The thing about this in the books is that Latra and Lews were both correct, using both sides of the source may have tainted both sides, but there's no other solution. The Choeden Kal have not been used, but if they wait for that it will be too late.

Somehow Latra knows about the taint in advance, but if so, why is she not more forceful about stopping him? She's... a bit sad, about a plan she believes will set the world back 1000 years?

"It serves only your pride" What the hell?



I don't think any of them knew for certain what the consequences would be beyond theories.

[Anteros]

Well...is there a male character in the series that hasn't been made worse so that the "strong women" could shine?

Lan went from the greatest warder of all time to someone that can't even track someone he spent his entire life with. All so that Nynaeve could show him up multiple times.

Rand has no agency at all in the show, and his entire character revolves around Ewgene.

Mat and Perrin...don't do anything. They don't even get the little bit of development they do in the books.

Agelmar went from a military genius that holds Aes Sedai in great respect to a bumbling buffoon that gets all his men killed by an army that 4 untrained girls could defeat.

Now you have the thing with Lews Therin.

These are the things that people have been worried about ever since they hired a self proclaimed feminist who said he was going to "fix" the series, and they released that teaser about how stupid selfish men ruined the world by not listening to women.

[Gnoman]

The Wheel Of Time has always been a feminist work. "Strong women" are a backbone of the entire series.

[Anteros]

The Wheel Of Time has always been a feminist work. "Strong women" are a backbone of the entire series.

I agree with that. But it was done without marginalizing the male cast to make the women look better. The show goes the opposite route.

[Divayth Fyr]

I agree with that. But it was done without marginalizing the male cast to make the women look better. The show goes the opposite route.
Because that is how a lot of people view feminism nowadays - showing strong/important women is not enough, you also need to sideline all the men, make them inept, unimportant, harmful or all of the above.

Bonus points if they keep telling the women how great/special they are.

[Chen]

Just started reading the books and finished book 1 just before the last two episodes of the show. Spoilers for the whole season:


The vast majority of the the choices they made seemed to work well IMO. Not having Rand and Mat go through tons of Darkfriends and just having one seemed reasonable.

Skipping Caemlyn doesnt seem to have any problems with book 1. Presumably they will need to work around Rand not meeting Elayne and co early in the next season or so. But within the confines of book 1 Caemlyn seem pretty irrelevant.

The major problems I see are related to Rand and Perrin. Mat doesnt really do much at all in the first book so I dont find the show missed much here. Along with the actor leaving before the end what they did with Mat through the season was pretty close to the books.

Fridging Perrin’s wife (aside the problem of fridging in general) actually happened too early to try and show Perrin’s violence/peace relationship. He didnt kill the Whitecloaks in the show and he didnt do anything special at the end of the last episode to show him giving in to the violence. The only violent thing he really did was accidently killing his wife which even then wasnt a blind rage or anything. Show very much failed giving the same development for Perrin.

And then Rand. All the way to the reveal of the Dragon he definitey didnt have much to do. I get part of that in trying to hide who the Dragon is. And honestly that seemed to work well for non-book readers. Hiding the Dragon gave the show a bit of a hook for non-readers that worked well. But not having Rand have his visually grand moment in the last episode is a huge failure. Yes he defeated the bad guy which was more important than defeating the Trollocs (big picture wise) but it didnt give any real indication of why the Dragon Reborn was so big deal. The end of the book is a bit wonky in that everyone kinds just stands around at the end while Rand accidentally solves everything but they pre-emptively solved that by not sending everyone to the Eye. But by taking Rand’s single handed destruction of the Trolloc army away, it didnt show us why the Dragon is both a potential savior or destroyer of the world rather than just some strong male channeler.

I enjoyed the season but they really failed hard in this last episode. Perrin’s sections in this one were just as pointless as what he did at the end of the book, but in a weird and inconsistent way. Giving Eg’wene and Nyneave something to do was a good thing but they shouldnt have taken Rand’s thing. Could have done any number of other things (like supporting the troops at the actual gap before maybe needing to fall back, for example). And god, why did they make Eg’wene heal Nyneave? Are they both supposed to be healers? I thought that was Nyneave’s schtick. Just reversing the two here would have made it that much more consistent (unless Eg’wene is some super healer later in the books too I guess, as I said I’m just at book 2).


I will still watch the next season. But episode 8 really pushes the whole season down IMO. I’d rate it somewhere in high 7/10 (7.7, 7.8ish) prior to the last episode. After the last episode I’d drop it to a solid 7/10. On par with other random shows I watched lately (Money Heist, Foundation) and behind the two high end ones (The Witcher and The Expanse).

[Anteros]

Because that is how a lot of people view feminism nowadays - showing strong/important women is not enough, you also need to sideline all the men, make them inept, unimportant, harmful or all of the above.

Bonus points if they keep telling the women how great/special they are.

Well, I didn't mean to steer the direction into a discussion about feminism as that's probably against forum rules. I'm just talking about the characters in this specific show being sidelined to make room for others.

Regardless of the reason, making half the cast look ineffectual to make the other half look good is not good writing.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Anteros, quoting The Showrunner
I can't wait to kill surprising people that are going to really pain book fans in their deepest heart of hearts

That’s a showrunner who feels like the books are his private game reserve.

It hardly demonstrates much respect for the characters or the lore, much less the readers who appreciate those things. Even if I didn’t know anything else about the show, that one quote would convince me to steer clear.


Originally Posted by runeghost
TNG's first season was awfully weak compared to what came later….

Agreed, to the point that much of Season One is difficult to watch these days. The difference, however, is that TNG was struggling to establish the characters while simultaneously telling stories with them, all more or less on the fly.

This show shouldn’t have to worry about establishing the characters, since that’s already been done in the books many years ago. But unfortunately, it doesn’t seem as if the writers and showrunner are using what’s available to best effect.

[lord_khaine]

The Wheel Of Time has always been a feminist work. "Strong women" are a backbone of the entire series.

I disagree it has been a feminist work. Its core concept has always run on the Yin-Yang symbolism.
Equal but different. To such a degree it had directly been baked into the metaphysics of the world.
With the greatest wonders of the world accomplished by working in unison.


These are the things that people have been worried about ever since they hired a self proclaimed feminist who said he was going to "fix" the series, and they released that teaser about how stupid selfish men ruined the world by not listening to women.


That’s a showrunner who feels like the books are his private game reserve.

It hardly demonstrates much respect for the characters or the lore, much less the readers who appreciate those things. Even if I didn’t know anything else about the show, that one quote would convince me to steer clear.

It does sound someone made a Monkey Paw wish.
As it seems the director we got is an incompetent hack who should not have been allowed within miles of the script.
Honestly its getting to the point where i wished this had newer been picked up.

[Traab]

I disagree it has been a feminist work. Its core concept has always run on the Yin-Yang symbolism.
Equal but different. To such a degree it had directly been baked into the metaphysics of the world.
With the greatest wonders of the world accomplished by working in unison.





It does sound someone made a Monkey Paw wish.
As it seems the director we got is an incompetent hack who should not have been allowed within miles of the script.
Honestly its getting to the point where i wished this had newer been picked up.

I think there is a difference between feminist and "feminist" In a legit work creating a society thats as near to equal as possible is exactly what a feminist would be working towards. No superior gender, just equals of equal value and importance. But there are "feminists" out there who go the other way with their goals, making women strong by making men weak. Which is... not ideal. its more of a "How do YOU like it?!" stance than one interested in helping matters get better. The book was feminist, the tv series is "feminist"

[Taevyr]

I think there is a difference between feminist and "feminist" In a legit work creating a society thats as near to equal as possible is exactly what a feminist would be working towards. No superior gender, just equals of equal value and importance. But there are "feminists" out there who go the other way with their goals, making women strong by making men weak. Which is... not ideal. its more of a "How do YOU like it?!" stance than one interested in helping matters get better. The book was feminist, the tv series is "feminist"

Couldn't put it better myself. The books aren't without their problems in how they go about their representation of equality and gender (e.g. gender as an objective, soulbound thing), but the way the series seemed to drain the 3 original ta'veren of their relevance and key actions in EotW is ridiculous. If you can't have a strong female character without removing all agency from your male characters, you're not "empowering women", you're depowering everyone else to make'em seem strong. Which is kind of insulting to women in its own right, if they can only be strong when there aren't any capable men around. I doubt Rafe intends it that way, but it's not the message you want to send.

One youth series that'll always stick with me in that regard is the Last Airbender: plenty of capable female characters, present on both sides of the conflict, and they were written well enough that their strength and capability remained clear even when confronted with a strong male character. Katara's interaction with Pakku in book 1 is an excellent example how to handle a gender conflict without simply having one side overpower the other as the "solution".

[Psyren]

Avatar doesn't render all men incapable of bending without going crazy, so I don't think that's the strongest comparison. Of course Randland's gender dynamics are off-kilter.

I do agree that nearly everyone who wasn't Nynaeve and Moiraine were underutilized this season, though it's not that far off from how a lot of them were underutilized in the first book. I would have liked to see more fight scenes with Lan, especially when he was charging into the Blight. And Perrin didn't do anything this season except mope and knock out Valda, and of course Mat was unfortunately and unavoidably sidelined. Those are things I'll be looking for the show to correct in season 2, but I'm confident they will - Perrin certainly won't be trying to follow the Way of the Leaf forever.

But with that criticism, I see the positives too. Rand's dreamscape battle with {spoiler} was very well done. Moiraine was awesome from start to finish. Nynaeve was great too. All the villains so far are stellar, and much more fleshed out than they were at this point in the books. So I'm seeing a lot still to make me stick around.

[Chen]

And Perrin didn't do anything this season except mope and knock out Valda,

Not even though. Egwene stabbed Valda and thats all that happened to him. Perrin just looked at him menacingly and subconsciously (I assume) called the wolves to help them escape.

[Kornaki]

You can't think of anything else that Perrin did this season? :P

[Corvus]

He put something in the fridge I think. Can't remember what so it can't have been that important.

[Anteros]

It makes sense in a twisted way if you think about it. No wonder they said that they had to make a wife for Perrin to fridge as a clumsy way for them to introduce his internal struggle between violence and pacifism. They got it out of the way right at the start and never have to revisit the character again!

[Clertar]

I have a friend who is a huge TWOT fan, reads through the ton of books in the series periodically. He told me that there are a few books that he finds almost unbearable, and some others are just OK. The feeling I get is that TWOT fans have very high levels of tolerance for "bad" material, which is not a bad skill to possess :smalltongue:

[Mechalich]

I have a friend who is a huge TWOT fan, reads through the ton of books in the series periodically. He told me that there are a few books that he finds almost unbearable, and some others are just OK. The feeling I get is that TWOT fans have very high levels of tolerance for "bad" material, which is not a bad skill to possess :smalltongue:

I feel that any honest assessment of the Wheel of Time is that it is a good but not great piece of epic fantasy. It's above average compared to the majority of its peers, but the flaws are numerous, deep, and readily apparent. Truthfully, Wheel of Time is perhaps most notable that among the modern breed of fantasy series characterized by huge individual books of 200,000+ words and series that stretch to five books or more it is the rare series that managed to actually reach a satisfying conclusion. That it did so despite the fact that the main author died in the process is doubly notable.

I also feel it's important to say that while Jordan was far from the most gifted of fantasy writers, his prose is very readable, and most of the 'bad' material is not problematic because it's miserable to read at the time (though there are several characters who are truly interminable), but that there are huge chunks of the books, especially in books 7-12, that simply don't amount to anything in the end are essentially a word tax on the whole series.

[lord_khaine]

One youth series that'll always stick with me in that regard is the Last Airbender: plenty of capable female characters, present on both sides of the conflict, and they were written well enough that their strength and capability remained clear even when confronted with a strong male character. Katara's interaction with Pakku in book 1 is an excellent example how to handle a gender conflict without simply having one side overpower the other as the "solution".

The 3 initial books of the last Airbender is likely the best youth serie of its decade.
Its almost whatever you want an example of, it got it.
Great villians with depth, redemption arcs, strong characters of both genders, non-sucky comedy relief. The List goes on.
So far it sounds like its still far superior to this million dollar trainwreck.


Avatar doesn't render all men incapable of bending without going crazy, so I don't think that's the strongest comparison. Of course Randland's gender dynamics are off-kilter.

With how few channelers there is. And how distrusted it sounds like the Aes Sedai became (for.. reasons?), then bending/channeling dont seem relevant.


I feel that any honest assessment of the Wheel of Time is that it is a good but not great piece of epic fantasy. It's above average compared to the majority of its peers, but the flaws are numerous, deep, and readily apparent. Truthfully, Wheel of Time is perhaps most notable that among the modern breed of fantasy series characterized by huge individual books of 200,000+ words and series that stretch to five books or more it is the rare series that managed to actually reach a satisfying conclusion. That it did so despite the fact that the main author died in the process is doubly notable.

I also feel it's important to say that while Jordan was far from the most gifted of fantasy writers, his prose is very readable, and most of the 'bad' material is not problematic because it's miserable to read at the time (though there are several characters who are truly interminable), but that there are huge chunks of the books, especially in books 7-12, that simply don't amount to anything in the end are essentially a word tax on the whole series.

Truthfully yeah. Book.. 7-11 is basically a word tax. You could likely have boiled the content of them down to 1 book without missing anything relevant. Or 2 books and easily kept the pace.

Also.. well.. when Jordan is good he is great. When he isnt good its a bit of a slog.
But he did create a living, breathing world. And i do think he did a massive job for the fantasy genre.
Clearing the road for further authors and inspiring a generation of authors. I mean Eye of the World is more than 30 years old.

[Sapphire Guard]

Who would you consider 'great', then? Jordan is about on the level of Martin or Hobb, making up the three big names that can reliably sell. I like Malazan, but it's not as big, the only other comparable name successwise is Stephen King

Brandon Sanderson is okay but not on their level in success or skill. Joe Abercrombie and Mark Lawrence don't impress me. Raymond Feist is pretty solid.

[Traab]

Mercedes Lackey? Im a huge fan of her valdemar world, and like several of her other works. For a series written almost entirely out of any set of timeline its surprisingly well crafted and flows together well. It is a nicely crafted world that makes sense and has a consistent story that lasts thousands of years in universe with eventual tie ins across history. Also, most of the series can be read in any order you want and leave you neither confused as to whats going on, or spoiling the rest. There are a few series that involve the same characters where that doesnt apply but its mostly the case.

[Anteros]

Mercedes Lackey? Im a huge fan of her valdemar world, and like several of her other works. For a series written almost entirely out of any set of timeline its surprisingly well crafted and flows together well. It is a nicely crafted world that makes sense and has a consistent story that lasts thousands of years in universe with eventual tie ins across history. Also, most of the series can be read in any order you want and leave you neither confused as to whats going on, or spoiling the rest. There are a few series that involve the same characters where that doesnt apply but its mostly the case.

I find her work to be pretty simplistic and targeted towards a younger audience, although I haven't read a ton of it.

I agree with the sentiment that if Jordan isn't a "great" then who is? Any author who puts out a lot of work is going to find that some people don't love all of it. And Jordan put out a lot of work. Martin can't finish a series. King can't write endings. Etc. No author is perfect. Even Tolkien is incredibly dry and he's basically the grandpappy of modern fantasy. Personal opinions on their works are going to vary, but all of these wildly famous authors are "greats" in one sense or another.

Now, I'm probably one of the biggest Jordan fans there is, and even I'll skim through the sloggy late book Elayne and Perrin bits on re-read since I already know what will happen, but a few mediocre storylines in a series with dozens doesn't bring down the whole series. If we start hacking away at the source material to make things shorter we're going to lose a lot of the world building and expansiveness that made WoT unique.

[runeghost]

Who would you consider 'great', then? Jordan is about on the level of Martin or Hobb, making up the three big names that can reliably sell. I like Malazan, but it's not as big, the only other comparable name successwise is Stephen King

Brandon Sanderson is okay but not on their level in success or skill. Joe Abercrombie and Mark Lawrence don't impress me. Raymond Feist is pretty solid.

Gene Wolfe. Ursula K. LeGuin. Jack Vance. Fritz Leiber. L. Sprague de Camp. Tanith Lee. C.J. Cherryh. Terry Pratchett. Neil Gaiman. (And, personally, I'd add Steven Brust and Mary Gentle to the list as well.)

[lord_khaine]

Who would you consider 'great', then? Jordan is about on the level of Martin or Hobb, making up the three big names that can reliably sell. I like Malazan, but it's not as big, the only other comparable name successwise is Stephen King

Brandon Sanderson is okay but not on their level in success or skill. Joe Abercrombie and Mark Lawrence don't impress me. Raymond Feist is pretty solid.

Well. Terry Pratchett didnt write epic fantasy. But he certainly deserves a major spot. The same with Sanderson who i think is just about the most versatile writer i can think off.

Martin and Hobb are both good writers yeah, even if they stuck in a slightly different genre.
And Erikson would have been good if he could manage any degree of internal consistency.

[Rynjin]

I've grown colder and colder on Sanderson over the years. I couldn't even bring myself to finish Oathbringer and I haven't touched another of his books since. Mistborn still remains, to me, his best book. Not even the series, just the first book.

His obsession with interconnectivity and meaningless power scaling is just so tiresome. I get enough of the latter from shonen manga/anime, where the visual component can sell it as being more of interest, and have never liked the former as a main focus. I should never have to read an unrelated book series to understand the current one I'm reading.

It reminds me a lot of modern comics and their obsession with "epic" crossover events. I really don't give a ****, would you like to focus on telling a good standalone story instead? No? Okay...

[Anteros]

Sanderson's good at world building and magic systems. What he's not good at is characters, and arguably plots. Which is why he's such a strange pick for ending the WoT. The stuff that he's good at was all already done and all that's left was what he's bad at.

You could take Raoden, Lightsong, Kelsier, and his version of Mat...put them all in a story together, and you would not be able to tell them apart by dialogue. If you strip away external descriptors and individual magic powers, they're all basically the same guy. If I was a betting man, I'd bet that you could add some of his newer characters to that list as well. Say what you want about Jordan, but all of his characters had their own thought processes, tics, and personalities. Sanderson just writes on a much shallower level. He's a half step above mindless pulp authors like Salvatore.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by runeghost
Gene Wolfe. Ursula K. LeGuin. Jack Vance. Fritz Leiber. L. Sprague de Camp. Tanith Lee. C.J. Cherryh. Terry Pratchett. Neil Gaiman.

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/EnchantingExemplaryHoverfly-max-1mb.gif

C.J. Cherryh is one of the best writers out there. One of the few authors I can think of who is superbly talented at both fantasy and science fiction.

[lord_khaine]

Meaningless power scaling is a strange complain to level against Sanderson, who is one of the authors i know off where raw power does the least to influence the ending.
Key examples found in Starsight or Calamity.
I also cant think of a single of his books where you need to read anything but the books in the previous serie to understand what goes on.
The interconnectivity is just easter eggs.


If I was a betting man, I'd bet that you could add some of his newer characters to that list as well.

Its a good thing your not a betting man, that bet would be lost :P


What he's not good at is characters, and arguably plots.

See this could be argued. I would claim he has some of the most differently distinct characters.
Every main character in the Stormlight Archive is differently flawed.
And he certainly is the author i know whose plot most often manages to defy expectations.

[Rynjin]

Meaningless power scaling is a strange complain to level against Sanderson, who is one of the authors i know off where raw power does the least to influence the ending.


It's been many moons since I read it, but I'm still salty about the ending of the Mistborn trilogy where one of the characters becomes a god out of absolute nowhere and handwaves away the entire plot.

[DrK]

I’d agree with some of the above that some of the Jordan books aren’t great, but the sheer length and scope of the books (and a healthy dose of nostalgia) means that I still revisit WoT every few years. Although books 2-6 are my favourite I’ll read the lot and just skip the chapters I don’t like (mostly Elayne). Also, whilst I like Sanderson in this series I struggle with his others. Radiance 1 was good but struggling to do even finish 3.

In terms of other authors I’m a huge Erickson fan for the sheer depth and complexity but it’s not light reading. For that I like Eddings even if, like, Jordan, he isn’t great but I like the stereotypical tropes. Others I like are David Wragg, Phil Tucker and William King.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Rynjin
...but I'm still salty....

What does this mean?

[Wintermoot]

What does this mean?

It's an idiom that means "I'm still angry about/I'm still upset about/I'm still annoyed by"

[Traab]

I’d agree with some of the above that some of the Jordan books aren’t great, but the sheer length and scope of the books (and a healthy dose of nostalgia) means that I still revisit WoT every few years. Although books 2-6 are my favourite I’ll read the lot and just skip the chapters I don’t like (mostly Elayne). Also, whilst I like Sanderson in this series I struggle with his others. Radiance 1 was good but struggling to do even finish 3.

In terms of other authors I’m a huge Erickson fan for the sheer depth and complexity but it’s not light reading. For that I like Eddings even if, like, Jordan, he isn’t great but I like the stereotypical tropes. Others I like are David Wragg, Phil Tucker and William King.

Im a big eddings fan, his belgariad series especially, feels like its a pure form of the chosen one heroic journey story. It doesnt really try to be more than that, and it doesnt have to. I would suggest it as a first book series to read to see if that sort of sword and sorcery heroes journey story genre is one you would like. After finishing that you can decide if you want to branch out into the more involved series.

[Anteros]

Meaningless power scaling is a strange complain to level against Sanderson, who is one of the authors i know off where raw power does the least to influence the ending.
Key examples found in Starsight or Calamity.
I also cant think of a single of his books where you need to read anything but the books in the previous serie to understand what goes on.
The interconnectivity is just easter eggs.



Its a good thing your not a betting man, that bet would be lost :P



See this could be argued. I would claim he has some of the most differently distinct characters.
Every main character in the Stormlight Archive is differently flawed.
And he certainly is the author i know whose plot most often manages to defy expectations.

I'll take your word for it. I'm certainly not going to subject myself to that much Sanderson looking for a counter argument. Apparently he finally learned how to write more than 4 or so personalities? Good for him!

The upside of this thread is that I actually have a few new authors to check out. It's odd that some of these slipped past my radar for so long, but I'm always down for a new good book.

[tiornys]

It's been many moons since I read it, but I'm still salty about the ending of the Mistborn trilogy where one of the characters becomes a god out of absolute nowhere and handwaves away the entire plot.
Uh, if you think that came out of nowhere, you weren't paying attention to the clues.

[Rynjin]

It doesn't really matter how well it was foreshadowed, solving the plot of your trilogy with a literal Deus ex Machina is terrible. Sanderson can't write endings, The Reckoners ends pretty similarly with everything being wrapped up in a neat little bow in a way that seems super rushed.

So does his take on the WoT ending for that matter, though it's mitigated by Jordan's notes.

[tiornys]

The reason that deus ex machina is considered bad writing practice is literally the lack of foreshadowing, so no, I fully disagree with you re: Mistborn. Reckoners wasn't nearly as satisfying and I agree it felt rushed; frankly it's one of Sanderson's weakest endings. However, to say that Sanderson can't write endings is absurd. You want someone who can't write an ending, you want Neal Stephenson. He doesn't so much end his stories as just trail off after he gets through the stuff relating to the themes he wanted to explore.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

If we're counting Urban Fantasy, well, there are a lot of authors I love, but Jim Butcher definitely deserves to be on the list because his books are also extremely popular.

[Rynjin]

His Codex Alera series was good epic fantasy too, so he counts either way.

[Anteros]

The reason that deus ex machina is considered bad writing practice is literally the lack of foreshadowing, so no, I fully disagree with you re: Mistborn. Reckoners wasn't nearly as satisfying and I agree it felt rushed; frankly it's one of Sanderson's weakest endings. However, to say that Sanderson can't write endings is absurd. You want someone who can't write an ending, you want Neal Stephenson. He doesn't so much end his stories as just trail off after he gets through the stuff relating to the themes he wanted to explore.

Well....no not really. Deus ex machina can be foreshadowed and still be bad. Like, no one debates the existence of the Greek gods in classical plays, or their participation in events, but it's still bad writing if they show up at the end and solve the problems for the protagonists.

We know the creator exists in WoT and that he can overpower the dark one, but no one wants a book where he shows up at the end and does so.

If we're bringing up authors who rely far too heavily on deus ex machina, I have to mention Brent Weeks. I've read two of his series, and both were reasonably interesting...until the end where the solution to all of their problems comes out of nowhere. In one case with a literal god stepping in.


His Codex Alera series was good epic fantasy too, so he counts either way.

Wasn't Codex Alera explicitly Butcher's attempt to take some of the most hackneyed ideas possible and turn it into a decent story? It's odd you'd bring it up though since the early books in that series were much better than the later ones. In the early books the protagonist is forced to be clever. In the later ones he gets a bunch of arbitrary power ups. It's not quite deus ex machina, but I wouldn't call it good writing either.

[Rynjin]

Wasn't Codex Alera explicitly Butcher's attempt to take some of the most hackneyed ideas possible and turn it into a decent story? It's odd you'd bring it up though since the early books in that series were much better than the later ones. In the early books the protagonist is forced to be clever. In the later ones he gets a bunch of arbitrary power ups. It's not quite deus ex machina, but I wouldn't call it good writing either.

He pulled two random ideas out of a hat (Pokemon and the lost Roman legion) and made a series out of it.

While Tavi gets more powerful as the series goes on, none of them are arbitrary save maybe the reveal that he does have abilities, his mother was just suppressing them. Everything else is pretty well earned, and none of it is ever enough for him to just wave his hands and solve the plot; only to keep up with the current threat level. He never stops having to be clever.

[Anteros]

He pulled two random ideas out of a hat (Pokemon and the lost Roman legion) and made a series out of it.

While Tavi gets more powerful as the series goes on, none of them are arbitrary save maybe the reveal that he does have abilities, his mother was just suppressing them. Everything else is pretty well earned, and none of it is ever enough for him to just wave his hands and solve the plot; only to keep up with the current threat level. He never stops having to be clever.

The series literally features the manifestation of a godlike figure right before the climax that grants the main character a massive powerup so he can deal with the enemy threat. It's about as close to a deus ex machina as you can possibly get without Zeus himself dropping in.

[Rynjin]

The series literally features the manifestation of a godlike figure right before the climax that grants the main character a massive powerup so he can deal with the enemy threat. It's about as close to a deus ex machina as you can possibly get without Zeus himself dropping in.

Said event also features long term consequences, and does not in and of itself solve the plot, again.

When I say someone becomes a god in the 11th hour and literally handwaves the plot away in Mistborn, I literally mean LITERALLY that is what happens. It is not at all the same thing as a character getting a power boost at the start of the final book that they can practice with over the course of the novel to beat the big bad at the end.

Tavi isn't given literal omnipotence to the point he can just snap away all the problems, along with any long term consequences that might have arisen from them. Though if we're drawing a 1:1 Mistborn comparison it'd be more like if Bernard (his uncle) became a god and solved everyone's problems instead, since it's a supporting character who does the "become a god fix everything" schtick.

[Anteros]

Said event also features long term consequences, and does not in and of itself solve the plot, again.

When I say someone becomes a god in the 11th hour and literally handwaves the plot away in Mistborn, I literally mean LITERALLY that is what happens. It is not at all the same thing as a character getting a power boost at the start of the final book that they can practice with over the course of the novel to beat the big bad at the end.

Tavi isn't given literal omnipotence to the point he can just snap away all the problems, along with any long term consequences that might have arisen from them. Though if we're drawing a 1:1 Mistborn comparison it'd be more like if Bernard (his uncle) became a god and solved everyone's problems instead, since it's a supporting character who does the "become a god fix everything" schtick.

He might not be given omnipotence, but he goes from someone who is virtually powerless that gets by on his wits to being able to transport armies across continents and have flashy landscape changing anime battles against the enemy they previously had no chance against. It might not be as extreme as what happened in Mistborn, but I still consider it pretty egregious.

[Rynjin]

I don't really consider consistent power scaling across 5 novels (untrained plucky boy > trained spy > soldier > magic user > powerful magic user) to be egregious at all, much less when compared to characters staying largely stagnant in terms of raw power for 2 and 3/4 books and then one guy suddenly becoming a god and fixing everything.

[Anteros]

I don't really consider consistent power scaling across 5 novels (untrained plucky boy > trained spy > soldier > magic user > powerful magic user) to be egregious at all, much less when compared to characters staying largely stagnant in terms of raw power for 2 and 3/4 books and then one guy suddenly becoming a god and fixing everything.

Alright, well agree to disagree. I think we've derailed the thread enough.

[BloodSquirrel]

It doesn't really matter how well it was foreshadowed, solving the plot of your trilogy with a literal Deus ex Machina is terrible. Sanderson can't write endings, The Reckoners ends pretty similarly with everything being wrapped up in a neat little bow in a way that seems super rushed.


It's a bit more than "foreshadowed". The entire series is building up the mechanics of how to make it possible. It's an awesome ending precisely because of how it suddenly makes a ton of different pieces (especially Sazed's character arc) fit together and relies on the heroes having figured this stuff out in a way that relies on the journey they went through.

Also, I'm going to have to push back on "It can still be a Deus ex Machina if it was foreshadowed". The term has evolved since its origins in Greek theater. Nowadays, it pretty explicitly means "Solution that comes out of nowhere". "Character spends the series trying to learn how to use a power and finally figures it out just in time to defeat the main villain" is a widely accepted trope in modern storytelling. The complaints are always that it's unexplained or unearned.

[Anteros]

It's a bit more than "foreshadowed". The entire series is building up the mechanics of how to make it possible. It's an awesome ending precisely because of how it suddenly makes a ton of different pieces (especially Sazed's character arc) fit together and relies on the heroes having figured this stuff out in a way that relies on the journey they went through.

Also, I'm going to have to push back on "It can still be a Deus ex Machina if it was foreshadowed". The term has evolved since its origins in Greek theater. Nowadays, it pretty explicitly means "Solution that comes out of nowhere". "Character spends the series trying to learn how to use a power and finally figures it out just in time to defeat the main villain" is a widely accepted trope in modern storytelling. The complaints are always that it's unexplained or unearned.

Gonna have to disagree with that as well. Vin's big plan at the finale is
Each time the mists had helped her, they had done so when she was most desperate. This was her plan, weak though it seemed: to put herself in more trouble than she'd ever been in before, then count on the mists to help her. As they had twice before.
We also have this from Sazed after he ascends.


Preservation chose her from a very young age, as I have mentioned. I believe that he was grooming her to take his power. Yet, the mind of Preservation was very weak at that point, reduced only to the fragment that we knew as the mist spirit.

She doesn't figure out anything. She doesn't earn anything. She just gets a magical powerup granted from god or "preservation" at the climax. If being chosen by god to receive a powerup and become a godlike being in order to defeat the villain through no merit of your own isn't deus ex machina....what is?

Then Sazed just absorbs the leftover power from the corpses.

"This is how you leave us?" he whispered.

And then, he felt something. He looked down. Vin's body was smoking slightly. Not from the heat. It seemed to be leaking something . . . or, no. It was connected to something. The twists of mist he saw, they led to a vast white light. He could just barely see it.

He reached out and touched the mist, and felt an awesome power. A power of stability. To the side, the other corpse—the one he didn't recognize—was also leaking something. A deep black smoke. Sazed reached out with his other hand, touching the smoke, and felt a different power—more violent. The power of change.

He knelt, stunned, between the bodies. And, only then, did it start to make sense.

The prophecies always used the gender-neutral, he thought. So that they could refer to either a man or a woman, we assumed. Or . . . perhaps because they referred to a Hero who wasn't really either one?

He stood up. The sun's power overhead felt insignificant compared to the twin—yet opposite—powers that surrounded him.

The Hero would be rejected of his people, Sazed thought. Yet, he would save them. Not a warrior, though he would fight. Not born a king, but would become one anyway.

He looked upward again.

Is this what you planned all along?

He tasted of the power, but drew back, daunted. How could he use such a thing? He was just a man. In the brief glimpse of forces that he touched, he knew that he'd have no hope of using it. He didn't have the training.

"I can't do this," he said through cracked lips, reaching to the sky. "I don't know how. I cannot make the world as it was—I never saw it. If I take this power, I will do as the Lord Ruler did, and will only make things worse for my trying. I am simply a man."

Koloss cried out in pain from the burning. The heat was terrible, and around Sazed, trees began to pop and burst into flames. His touch on the twin powers kept him alive, he knew, but he did not embrace them.

"I am no Hero," he whispered, still reaching to the sky.

His arms twinkled, golden. His copperminds, worn on his forearms, reflected the light of the sun. They had been with him for so long, his companions. His knowledge.

Knowledge. . . .

The words of the prophecy were very precise, he thought suddenly. They say . . . they say that the Hero will bear the future of the world on his arms.

Not on his shoulders. Not in his hands. On his arms.

By the Forgotten Gods!

He slammed his arms into the twin mists and seized the powers offered to him. He drew them in, feeling them infuse his body, making him burn. His flesh and bones evaporated, but as they did, he tapped his copperminds, dumping their entire contents into his expanding consciousness.

The copperminds, now empty, dropped with his rings to the pile of blue corpses beside the bodies of Vin, Elend, and Ruin's nameless body. Sazed opened eyes as large as the world itself, drawing in power that latticed all of creation.

I'll agree that it's foreshadowed, but it's not an earned victory in any sense. They win because the previous god "preservation" gave them his power.

I would say the parts where Sazed knows how to fix things because of his extensive knowledge isn't deus ex machina....the power itself absolutely is.

[JoshL]

Sanderson and Butcher are the two authors I hear so many great things about, but just don't see it. I mean, I'm not comparing them to Rushdie or Irving or anything, but they both seem to fall flat compared to their peers. Sanderson can't write a belivable person to save his life, and it was thrown in sharp relief following Jordan (who wasn't perfect, but characters were one of his strong suits and why I'm a huge fan) and Butcher, well, my criticism aren't appropriate for the forum and let's leave it at that.

Gene Wolfe is definitely an author of note in more modern fantasy (though some racist/sexist tropes in his earlier works to be aware of). I'd argue N.K. Jemison as another author in the space that hits high literary quality.

I also want to argue Charles de Lint, but that's not really accurate. He's not high lit. He is the best urban fantasy has to offer (my love for Gaiman and disdain for Butcher accounted for), but not because he's writing literary fiction. He leans on tropes (folklore) and almost every book has a recap "what is this magic?" section that is tiresome if you read a lot. But he writes trauma as metaphor in a more sensitive way than most other authors do, and he presents understanding through metaphor in the way that fairy tales should better than most others I've read.

Oh, and Peake's Gormengast is mysogynist trash and absolutely as high literature as its reputation would have you believe. It's amazing, important and better than probably everything else mentioned, should be read, but should be aware of the awfulness of the perspective that it tells.

And on topic, I love Wheel of Time, flaws intact, and I enjoyed the adaptation. looking forward to more. Lots of things I didn't like, but the same could be said for the books, and they're among my favorites because there's so much to them I feel maybe i shouldn't like everything.

[Rynjin]

Sanderson and Butcher are the two authors I hear so many great things about, but just don't see it. I mean, I'm not comparing them to Rushdie or Irving or anything, but they both seem to fall flat compared to their peers. Sanderson can't write a belivable person to save his life, and it was thrown in sharp relief following Jordan (who wasn't perfect, but characters were one of his strong suits and why I'm a huge fan) and Butcher, well, my criticism aren't appropriate for the forum and let's leave it at that.

I don't think it skirts any board rules. Butcher's work, or more specifically the character of Harry Dresden, indulges in a lot of casual sexism. I'm pretty sure this is an intentional stylistic choice to fit the noir theme, because it's not really present in Codex Alera or The Aeronaut's Windlass.

If that's what you're talking about, I agree; it's one of the biggest black marks on an otherwise great series.

[JoshL]

I don't think it skirts any board rules. Butcher's work, or more specifically the character of Harry Dresden, indulges in a lot of casual sexism. I'm pretty sure this is an intentional stylistic choice to fit the noir theme, because it's not really present in Codex Alera or The Aeronaut's Windlass.

If that's what you're talking about, I agree; it's one of the biggest black marks on an otherwise great series.

It wasn't just Dresden's character, but the women in the series as well. Again, that doesn't preclude great literature (see Peake) but certainly put me off. I'll give Alera a shot; I hadn't for my distaste for Dresden, which I was expecting to enjoy, if even just on a pulpy/trash level. It's one of my primary complaints about Sanderson, really. None of his female characters actually seem like women. I know my perspective is tinted by reading a lot of literary fiction by women (Barbara Gowdy is one of my favorite authors), but Jordan managed it in a way that Sanderson never did. I grant that it's tough; I don't think I could effectively do it, but if we're comparing authors, few really get that balance right.

That said the one Sanderson mucked up the worst was Mat, so I don't know what was going on there!

[Clertar]

I also want to argue Charles de Lint, but that's not really accurate. He's not high lit. He is the best urban fantasy has to offer (my love for Gaiman and disdain for Butcher accounted for), but not because he's writing literary fiction. He leans on tropes (folklore) and almost every book has a recap "what is this magic?" section that is tiresome if you read a lot. But he writes trauma as metaphor in a more sensitive way than most other authors do, and he presents understanding through metaphor in the way that fairy tales should better than most others I've read.

I really enjoyed Moonheart. Any other highlights of his work that you can recommend?

[JoshL]

I really enjoyed Moonheart. Any other highlights of his work that you can recommend?

Start with Dreams Underfoot. If you're still with it from there, go to Onion Girl. At that point you'll either not care about the whole thing, or want to read anything Newford related. I'll grant that it appeals to a certain type (I've been a busker and am into folkore and traditional music) but for those who want to see the intersection between the modern world and folklore, that's the gold standard that everything is judged against.

hard to not be biased here; he's a favorite. Read some more, hit me up, we can discuss!

[Traab]

David Weber is primarily a sci fi guy, but his War God series is, imo, an excellent foray into fantasy writing. He takes the standard fantasy races of elves dwarves halflings and humans, and gives them all his unique twist, while at the same time adding in a new race, which is that of the main character, the hradani. As an example of the broad personality traits,

Elves are an intentionally created race of immortal beings that are almost entirely near suicidaly depressed for a very many good reasons dealing with the history of the world. They have minimal impact on the story directly, or even indirectly.

Halflings are an accidental race, servants of the evil wizards in the distant past, too much exposure to unshielded magic and rituals and whatnot twisted them into the short, horn bearing race they are now.

Dwarves are probably the closest to classic iterations. They live inside mountains, are prolific miners and craftsmen, and are also MAJOR traders, running large portions of the economy. They have a culture based around family and clans to the point where they have specific titles for relatives like my wifes sisters second cousins husbands nephew. They thankfully dont object to the wonderfully vague term "kinsmen"

Humans are basically bog standard, remnants of an old empire the bad guys destroyed, think if sauron had conquered middle earth and everyone who survived fled to the grey havens after the good guys triggered a magical nuke to ensure they couldnt be pursued. Whats interesting about them is, they were the first race and literally every other race is descended from them. Not that they really know this fact. On top of that, they are the only race that can use magic. Every wizard or mage (there is a difference) is either human or at least half human.

Hradani are interesting. They tend to be 6ft+ bare minimum, far stronger faster and tougher than humans. They have fox like mobile ears and in general culturally are barely outside of barbarism. Our main characters father, the clan chief of his people is trying to change that. Hated and feared by the other races because they were the shock troops for the bad guys in that war I mentioned 1200 years back. Not willingly, they were enslaved and forced to fight, but the other races generally dont care about that detail, they also have a condition they call The Rage. Tick them off and they go berserker, being unstoppable from anything other than death, and hradani take a LOT of killing for it to stick.

The last group are half elves, arrogant, greedy, power hungry, They are basically every cruel noble trope rolled into one.

[Anteros]

Hradani are interesting. They tend to be 6ft+ bare minimum, far stronger faster and tougher than humans. They have fox like mobile ears and in general culturally are barely outside of barbarism. Our main characters father, the clan chief of his people is trying to change that. Hated and feared by the other races because they were the shock troops for the bad guys in that war I mentioned 1200 years back. Not willingly, they were enslaved and forced to fight, but the other races generally dont care about that detail, they also have a condition they call The Rage. Tick them off and they go berserker, being unstoppable from anything other than death, and hradani take a LOT of killing for it to stick.


So....furry orcs.

[The Glyphstone]

Yeah, basically if Orcs started from a lupine baseline instead of a porcine one. Its been a while since I read the War Gods books, but they do tend more in the 'noble savage' direction than the 'chaotic evil XP fodder'. But thats about all they've got for originality.

[Clertar]

Start with Dreams Underfoot. If you're still with it from there, go to Onion Girl. At that point you'll either not care about the whole thing, or want to read anything Newford related. I'll grant that it appeals to a certain type (I've been a busker and am into folkore and traditional music) but for those who want to see the intersection between the modern world and folklore, that's the gold standard that everything is judged against.

hard to not be biased here; he's a favorite. Read some more, hit me up, we can discuss!

Thank you! I will follow up on it. I've never busked, but I play Irish trad and a couple of instruments from other traditions (one-handed tabor pipe, clawhammer banjo) so the folk aspect of Moonheart was definitely one of the appeals that it had for me.

[BloodSquirrel]

Gonna have to disagree with that as well. Vin's big plan at the finale is
We also have this from Sazed after he ascends.


She doesn't figure out anything. She doesn't earn anything. She just gets a magical powerup granted from god or "preservation" at the climax. If being chosen by god to receive a powerup and become a godlike being in order to defeat the villain through no merit of your own isn't deus ex machina....what is?

Then Sazed just absorbs the leftover power from the corpses.


I'll agree that it's foreshadowed, but it's not an earned victory in any sense. They win because the previous god "preservation" gave them his power.

I would say the parts where Sazed knows how to fix things because of his extensive knowledge isn't deus ex machina....the power itself absolutely is.


I don't think you're remember the end of the book very clearly. Vin's plan didn't work until she figured out why the mists had been avoiding her in the first place- because of her earring, which was also letting Ruin whisper in her ear. And Sazed was only able to use the power to actually be able to fix things (instead of screwing them up like the last guy did) because he had spent the whole book reading about different religions whose teachings contained the knowledge he needed to correctly put the planet back in its proper orbit, fix the plantlife, etc. And there were a lot of other factors too- like them figuring out what the vaults were for and figuring out what the atium was and keeping it out of ruin's hands.

[Anteros]

I don't think you're remember the end of the book very clearly. Vin's plan didn't work until she figured out why the mists had been avoiding her in the first place- because of her earring, which was also letting Ruin whisper in her ear. And Sazed was only able to use the power to actually be able to fix things (instead of screwing them up like the last guy did) because he had spent the whole book reading about different religions whose teachings contained the knowledge he needed to correctly put the planet back in its proper orbit, fix the plantlife, etc. And there were a lot of other factors too- like them figuring out what the vaults were for and figuring out what the atium was and keeping it out of ruin's hands.


I'm not sure why you're questioning my memory when I'm quoting actual text from the books. Vin doesn't figure out anything, and she doesn't remove the earring herself.

Also. If all your protagonist has to do to achieve Godhood is remove an earring, it's still deus ex machina.

Yes, Sazed using his knowledge to be a better God is a nice touch. Him ascending to Godhood through no effort of his own is still deus ex machina.

Are there other plot beats prior to this? Yes. Does that make the ending not deus ex machina? No.

[Traab]

Yeah, basically if Orcs started from a lupine baseline instead of a porcine one. Its been a while since I read the War Gods books, but they do tend more in the 'noble savage' direction than the 'chaotic evil XP fodder'. But thats about all they've got for originality.

They have a bit more revealed over time, and their culture is more nuanced than that, but yeah, they started out as somewhat furry earred orcs, and have been rising above that for the last 1200 years, slowly, not even always intentionally, but getting better. Noble savage is a decent description at the start of the series and they are working to drop the savage part over the course of it. In several meanings of the term. The main characters father is looking to unite the clans under one government and modernize their homes to take advantage of all the advances they have been too busy killing each other to attain. In D&D terms they were smaller firbolgs that got cursed into being near mindless rage beasts to be used as shock troops and cannon fodder. In fact, the more I read the description the more it matches up. They have spent the last 1200 years locking that rage beast curse down and learning to control it.

[BloodSquirrel]

I'm not sure why you're questioning my memory when I'm quoting actual text from the books.

Quoting text from the books requires that you have a reference handy, not that you remember what happened in the book.

Also. If all your protagonist has to do to achieve Godhood is remove an earring, it's still deus ex machina.

Yes, Sazed using his knowledge to be a better God is a nice touch. Him ascending to Godhood through no effort of his own is still deus ex machina.

Are there other plot beats prior to this? Yes. Does that make the ending not deus ex machina? No. [/SPOILER][/QUOTE]

I have zero interest in this kind of absurd reductionism. It's like saying that all Frodo had to do to defeat Sauron was get his finger bitten off, or that all Tony had to do to defeat Thanos was snap his fingers. Are there other plot beats? Sure, but I'm going to completely ignore them!

[Anteros]

Quoting text from the books requires that you have a reference handy, not that you remember what happened in the book.


Ok....but you're the one citing things that didn't happen in the book like Vin figuring things out and removing her earring.

Not me.

If you're going to accuse me of not remembering things correctly, maybe you should brush up on it first and make sure the events you're stating actually happened the way you say they did?



I have zero interest in this kind of absurd reductionism. It's like saying that all Frodo had to do to defeat Sauron was get his finger bitten off, or that all Tony had to do to defeat Thanos was snap his fingers. Are there other plot beats? Sure, but I'm going to completely ignore them!

Those are terrible examples. Frodo has to get the ring to the volcano and struggles with it the whole way. Tony has to get the gems from Thanos. In both cases it's an established victory condition that the protagonists work towards. Vin on the other hand is groomed from childbirth by the godlike figure "preservation" to receive his power. She achieves godhood through no merit of her own whatsoever. She doesn't even know it's happening until after the fact. The prior plot points you've brought up with atium, or the vaults have nothing to do with her ascension. She receives power because a godlike figure granted it to her. That's it.

There's no goal or plan there. It's not "we need to accomplish this goal in order to ascend and have a chance!" it's pure "struggle along until God grants you a powerup and you win." It doesn't devalue their struggles to that point, but it does devalue the victory.

I have to wonder what it would take for you to consider something a deus ex machina if this doesn't qualify.

[Mechalich]

In a broader sense Sanderson is interested in systems rather than plot or characters. It's not a trait unique to him by any means, but it is unusual in high fantasy writing. Systems-focused writing is more common in science fiction where the systems being investigated are at least derived from the real world. Interest in Sanderson's writing is largely dependent upon how interesting one finds the fantasy systems he's created and explores through his work. The portion of the Wheel of Time he authored carries this along as well, notably in the oft-maligned character of Androl, who Sanderson created purely to explore the gateway function. One of the weaknesses of a systems-based approach, especially in fantasy where the systems spring entirely from the vision of the author, is that the systems may not balance out in a way that makes a functional ending to the story possible without some kind of deus ex machina rebalancing. Sanderson, one gets the sense from his record, simply doesn't care that he often has to do this because the overall integrity of the plot doesn't mean that much to him. Contrast that without someone like GRR Martin, who cares so much about that issue that he can't bring himself to write the deus ex machina events necessary to actually complete ASOIAF.

The Wheel of Time does include some late-game handwaves to solve long-standing deviances built into the over-extended plot, many of which bear Sanderson's not-exactly-subtle touch. The resolution of the Black Tower issue, and everything involving Perrin/Isam being notable offenders in this regard, which are a fairly significant contrast to Rand's personal resolution of his internal motivational issues. We'll never know how Jordan would have handled them, regrettably. The show, to shift back toward that topic, offers little confidence so far that it can handle any of the more complicated plot threads that unfold in the latter half of the series, since it stumbled so much with the far simpler setup of The Eye of the World.

[Morgaln]

Ok....but you're the one citing things that didn't happen in the book like Vin figuring things out and removing her earring.

Not me.

If you're going to accuse me of not remembering things correctly, maybe you should brush up on it first and make sure the events you're stating actually happened the way you say they did?



Those are terrible examples. Frodo has to get the ring to the volcano and struggles with it the whole way. Tony has to get the gems from Thanos. In both cases it's an established victory condition that the protagonists work towards. Vin on the other hand is groomed from childbirth by the godlike figure "preservation" to receive his power. She achieves godhood through no merit of her own whatsoever. She doesn't even know it's happening until after the fact. The prior plot points you've brought up with atium, or the vaults have nothing to do with her ascension. She receives power because a godlike figure granted it to her. That's it.

There's no goal or plan there. It's not "we need to accomplish this goal in order to ascend and have a chance!" it's pure "struggle along until God grants you a powerup and you win." It doesn't devalue their struggles to that point, but it does devalue the victory.

I have to wonder what it would take for you to consider something a deus ex machina if this doesn't qualify.


A deus ex machina is an unexpected plot device that comes out of nowhere and resolves the plot suddenly. Preservation is a force involved in the story from the beginning; it created the Well of Forever and tries to influence people throughout the whole story (up to and including stabbing Elend at the Well of Forever). As such, it is neither sudden nor unexpected that its power is central in fixing the problem it is partly responsible in creating in the first place. I won't say the ending is great, because it isn't, but it's not a deus ex machina either. A lot of things are foreshadowed and Preservation is a known force actively involved in the story long before it is taken up by Vin and Sazed.

[Traab]

Wasnt the ending to the lotr being a deus ex machina kind of the point? Nobody could willingly toss the ring in. Nobody. That was always the only way it could have happened. A chance so thin it can barely be said to exist. A desperate flailing against the darkness as their only hope of survival that SOMEHOW, the ring would get to the cracks of mt doom and wind up in the lava. The plan, such as it was, was always "Lets head for mt doom and hope things turn out well." Because there was no other option that could end in anything but ultimate victory for evil.

[Sapphire Guard]

Whether something technically is a deus ex machina or not doesn't matter too much, like every other writing rule, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I've seen at least one author pull off God in a Machine literally showing up and having it mostly work.

Sanderson is above average, but not top tier for me. Sometimes he trips himself up with his own cleverness, like



Androl's lava trick, which immediately raises a question of 'why not do that again'.



I'm not super fond of 'fantasy X, but with a TWIST', because usually the author ends up talking about how they have improved or fixed the traditional tropes, which is A) usually not true, because they've just made something in line with their own tastes, not improved anything especially, and B) not nearly as impressive as coming up with their own material C) implies that said tropes were bad until they somehow fixed them.

I used to love Terry Pratchett, but cooled on him when I got old enough to start catching the references.

Neil Gaiman seems to write the same book over and over again. Mostly blank lead character gets pulled into crazy fantasy world and finds love and self confidence. Anansi Boys, American Gods, and the one in London with the Doors come across very similarly to me.

[Rodin]

Reading the books again, I'm struck by how much Jordan gets bogged down in little details. It's not just "irrelevant characters doing irrelevant things" that the Internet memes about. The pace slows drastically throughout books 4, 5, and 6. Almost all of Rand's significant plot happens at the start of book 4, and then the rest of his story for that book is a travelogue. Team Magikarp's story for the same book is chapter after chapter about how frustrated they are that they aren't making progress. The only story told at a decent pace is Perrin's. When we get to book 5, Perrin drops off the map and we get Team Magikarp and Rand telling a travelogue for the bulk of the book. Book 6 drops even the travelogue and is pretty much just the characters sat around in their respective places waiting for plot to happen.

There's very little of relevance that happens in these chapters, and they mostly seem to exist because Jordan isn't willing to teleport his characters around or leave them off-screen if they have something to do later in that book. Your characters are on the west coast, but need to be in the central south? They're going to spend most of a book walking there. They've reached their destination, but you're only halfway through the book? Give them a dozen chapters of treading water while the other characters get in position.

It's a real slog to read through to try and get to the juicy bits. Everyone talks up Dumai's Wells as a high point of the series, and it is. But what the heck else happens in that tome? The book is over 1000 pages on my Kindle, and I'm 436 pages through so far. I couldn't tell you a single significant event that's actually ocurred in the novel thus far. Lots of setup, but most of it is for stuff that happens in later books.

[Anteros]

Maybe I'm crazy, but the attention to smaller details and the "realism" are some of the things I like most about the series.

[Mechalich]

It's a real slog to read through to try and get to the juicy bits. Everyone talks up Dumai's Wells as a high point of the series, and it is. But what the heck else happens in that tome? The book is over 1000 pages on my Kindle, and I'm 436 pages through so far. I couldn't tell you a single significant event that's actually ocurred in the novel thus far. Lots of setup, but most of it is for stuff that happens in later books.

Individuals move faster than institutions. Big events involving large numbers of people and a lot of moving parts require big word counts to convey.

These general rules impact WoT in a big way. One notable one, which begins to unfold starting with book four and only continues to grow as the series progresses is that numerous individuals become institutions. The Dragon Reborn, the Amyrlin Seat, The Queen of Andor, these are all institutions, and they carry with them institutional baggage. The books are in fact quite aware of this and include numerous scenes of characters trying to bypass the baggage associated with their institutional existence, to the point of it becoming a whole subplot for Rand. So as the books progress the series spends more and more time dealing with backdrop logistical issues - dispatching person X to place Y for reason Z all of which matters because otherwise when event C happens they seem to appear out of thin air. Lord of Chaos, for example, spends a lot of words setting up the various components necessary for Dumai's Wells to occur. Not just the Asha'man (though they get like four chapters), but also the Aes Sedai involved, the Shaido, and even the Younglings. The mileage of the audience may vary for much of this - I don't think anyone cares much about the Younglings - but that level of setup is necessary.

Jordan (and Sanderson too for that matter) was absolutely both highly detail-oriented and often overly verbose, but high-level political events and major set piece battles require a lot of words no matter who you are. There's a reason modern thrillers are often written about just one significant incident and novel-length works addressing a single historical battle are extremely common. This has a strong fantasy pedigree too. LotR spends a massive portion of its overall wordcount describing just two brief (neither lasts longer than a few weeks, with the focus on just a few critical days) military campaigns.

The general detail orientation of WoT is frankly a feature, not a bug. The problem is that Jordan repeatedly miscalculated on whether or not certain plots were actually important (ex. the entire Andoran succession struggle, which simply isn't), and whether or not the readers actually cared about certain characters (such as Gawyn and the aforementioned Younglings). This is particularly frustrating for those rereading the books, because the reader knows certain things are of minimal consequence and therefore checks out. There's an interesting contrast with rereading ASOIAF, which because it will never be finished it is impossible to know what actually matters and what doesn't (for example, does all the many, many words spilled on Arya's assassin training amount to anything? Probably not, but there's no way to tell).

[Anteros]

Wasnt the ending to the lotr being a deus ex machina kind of the point? Nobody could willingly toss the ring in. Nobody. That was always the only way it could have happened. A chance so thin it can barely be said to exist. A desperate flailing against the darkness as their only hope of survival that SOMEHOW, the ring would get to the cracks of mt doom and wind up in the lava. The plan, such as it was, was always "Lets head for mt doom and hope things turn out well." Because there was no other option that could end in anything but ultimate victory for evil.

Well, supposedly Tolkein said that no one could willingly give up the ring....but he also wrote a scene where Sam willingly gives up the ring...sooo...

[The Glyphstone]

Bilbo also surrendered it willingly, if reluctantly.

[Mechalich]

The real deus ex machina aspect of the end of LotR isn't how the ring is destroyed, but how the eagles show up and save everyone from dying at the moment of triumph.

[The Glyphstone]

Eh...the eagles literally did that exact thing for Gandalf earlier. coming to the rescue is basically the only thing eagles do in the entire story.

[Anteros]

Well, Tolkien is another author who is better at world building than actual story writing anyway. For all that he's the father of modern fantasy, I don't think anyone would try to emulate his actual writing.

[Traab]

Well, supposedly Tolkein said that no one could willingly give up the ring....but he also wrote a scene where Sam willingly gives up the ring...sooo...

Frodo also tried to give it away a few times. I think tolkien meant nobody could drop the ring into the volcano willingly. Handing it off to other people isnt as big of a deal. The ring doesnt care who holds it, just that somebody does and can be manipulated into getting back to sauron.

[hamishspence]

Frodo also tried to give it away a few times. I think tolkien meant nobody could drop the ring into the volcano willingly. Handing it off to other people isnt as big of a deal.

It's still a pretty big deal - in the 'resigning it to another's custody' sense, rather than the 'allowing someone to handle it for a bit' sense, as when Frodo let Bombadil hold it:


A Ring of Power looks after itself, Frodo. It may slip off treacherously, but its keeper never abandons it. At most he plays with the idea of handing it on to someone else's care – and that only at an early stage, when it first begins to grip. But as far as I know Bilbo alone in history has ever gone beyond playing, and really done it. He needed all my help, too. And even so he would never have just forsaken it, or cast it aside.

[Traab]

It's still a pretty big deal - in the 'resigning it to another's custody' sense, rather than the 'allowing someone to handle it for a bit' sense, as when Frodo let Bombadil hold it:


A Ring of Power looks after itself, Frodo. It may slip off treacherously, but its keeper never abandons it. At most he plays with the idea of handing it on to someone else's care – and that only at an early stage, when it first begins to grip. But as far as I know Bilbo alone in history has ever gone beyond playing, and really done it. He needed all my help, too. And even so he would never have just forsaken it, or cast it aside.

Oh no, i agree, its a big deal because it helps to show just how strong a hobbits will is against that sort of corruption. First we have smeagol who has managed to hold it for CENTURIES without turning into a mindless wraith trudging towards mordor. Then we have bilbo who held it for decades then willingly gave it up for frodo. Then we had frodo who was willing and eager to get rid of the dang thing. Bombadil, rivendell, gandalf, galadriel, I think even aragorn at one point. Dude wanted nothing to do with it as he felt others could deal with it better. Wait, DID he let bombadil take it? I seem to recall bomby took it, laughed at it, made it vanish then reappear and gave it back to frodo. Anyways, that doesnt matter, the point was, even frodo, this dude who spends half the adventure trying to get someone else to take it, fell to its power in the end and couldnt manage to destroy it. Because nobody could do it willingly. Not even frodo. Pure chance and accident was all that could destroy it.

[hamishspence]

Wait, DID he let bombadil take it? I seem to recall bomby took it, laughed at it, made it vanish then reappear and gave it back to frodo.

Bombadil asked, Frodo handed it over.

'Show me the precious Ring!' he said suddenly in the midst of the story: and Frodo, to his own astonishment, drew out the chain from his pocket, and unfastening the Ring handed it at once to Tom.

It seemed to grow larger as it lay for a moment on his big brown-skinned hand. Then suddenly he put it to his eye and laughed. For a second the hobbits had a vision, both comical and alarming, of his bright blue eye gleaming through a circle of gold. Then Tom put the Ring round the end of his little finger and held it up to the candlelight. For a moment the hobbits noticed nothing strange about this. Then they gasped. There was no sign of Tom disappearing!

Tom laughed again, and then he spun the Ring in the air - and it vanished with a flash. Frodo gave a cry - and Tom leaned forward and handed it back to him with a smile.

[Traab]

Bombadil asked, Frodo handed it over.

'Show me the precious Ring!' he said suddenly in the midst of the story: and Frodo, to his own astonishment, drew out the chain from his pocket, and unfastening the Ring handed it at once to Tom.

It seemed to grow larger as it lay for a moment on his big brown-skinned hand. Then suddenly he put it to his eye and laughed. For a second the hobbits had a vision, both comical and alarming, of his bright blue eye gleaming through a circle of gold. Then Tom put the Ring round the end of his little finger and held it up to the candlelight. For a moment the hobbits noticed nothing strange about this. Then they gasped. There was no sign of Tom disappearing!

Tom laughed again, and then he spun the Ring in the air - and it vanished with a flash. Frodo gave a cry - and Tom leaned forward and handed it back to him with a smile.

Hmm, sounds like he was influenced to hand it over, but either way the point works, the grip the ring had on him was astonishingly minimal until they reached mordor. After that it started ramping up faster. Also, a side note, I totally expected the ring tom handed back to be fake with that little display when i first read it. After all, they were in the black forest and bad stuff had already happened. A final trick to cause them problems with the seeming nice couple turning out to be bad themselves wasnt out of expectations.

[hamishspence]

I totally expected the ring tom handed back to be fake with that little display when i first read it. After all, they were in the black forest and bad stuff had already happened. A final trick to cause them problems with the seeming nice couple turning out to be bad themselves wasnt out of expectations.

Frodo was a bit suspicious too - which is why he promptly tested it.

Frodo looked at it closely, and rather suspiciously (like one who has lent a trinket to a juggler). It was the same Ring, or looked the same and weighed the same: for that Ring had always seemed to Frodo to weigh strangely heavy in the hand. But something prompted him to make sure. He was perhaps a trifle annoyed with Tom for seeming to make so light of what even Gandalf thought so perilously important. He waited for an opportunity, when the talk was going again, and Tom was telling an absurd story about badgers and their queer ways – then he slipped the Ring on.

Merry turned towards him to say something and gave a start, and checked an exclamation. Frodo was delighted (in a way): it was his own ring all right, for Merry was staring blankly at his chair, and obviously could not see him. He got up and crept quietly away from the fireside towards the outer door.

‘Hey there!’ cried Tom, glancing towards him with a most seeing look in his shining eyes. ‘Hey! Come Frodo, there! Where be you a-going? Old Tom Bombadil’s not as blind as that yet. Take off your golden ring! Your hand’s more fair without it. Come back! Leave your game and sit down beside me! We must talk a while more, and think about the morning. Tom must teach the right road, and keep your feet from wandering.’

Frodo laughed (trying to feel pleased), and taking off the Ring he came and sat down again.

[KorvinStarmast]

At the end of the day, Jordan's wife is signing off on these changes. As much as I personally hate them, I doubt Jordan would have wanted anyone else in charge of things.

Of course, she's also the one who picked Sanderson to mangle the end of the series so while she has every right to make decisions, she isn't particularly good at it. Good thing I stopped reading somewhere around book 9. Jordan's Waste of Time was a nice start that was not finished and some of us who liked how the series started, and the world building, gave up in disgust. Also, he was padding his word count all over the map... I gave all of my RJ books to second hand books for some cash, and so far have no interest in reading the last volumes, be they his or Sandersons.

I wanted to see how the series went and I have Prime.

So I watched it. Took a few days here and there, and I keep getting interrupted and have not really gotten a chance to watch it in the way that I would prefer.

They did OK, but what they did to Perrin was a mess.
I like Lan's characterization.
Pike's a bit tall to be Moiraine, but she does a good job.
Mat ... edgelord ... pandering to a particular demographic/audience there.
Thom was different from what I expected but fit well enough.

Tons of stuff from the books has been cut in favour of character/relationship scenes with the 5, but nearly all of those scenes are really freaking boring! Stuff like Rand & Egwene's relationship drama is actively painful to watch, and the way they're handling Perrin is awful (which is a shame, since so far he's been the best actor out of the 5). Pandering to the YA audience. Twilight without the fangs.


But right now, none of the three boys are any fun to watch! Nice summary of my impression. Too moody, too brooding.

Part of Jordan's problem isn't just the excessive descriptive text dedicated to these largely inconsequential details, but the fact that towards the end he would often cram them in between two lines of dialogue being spoken by a single character. It can really bog down a scene.
He was also maddeningly repetitive without advancing the plot beyond about book 6 .... can't recall if it was 9 or 10 where I just gave up and swore off Waste of Time. His editor didn't earn his pay.

Back to the show:
Logaine's characterization and arc was a pleasant surprise.
Nynaeve: she got an upgrade, and I like her strong character.

I'll watch eps 7 and 8 again, this time without interruptions.
over all I am looking forward to season 2.
Liked how they presented Siuan, particularly her origin story.

As a closing note, for the All Pro selection and leader of Team Btich, Liandrin is the clear choice.

[runeghost]

Frodo also tried to give it away a few times. I think tolkien meant nobody could drop the ring into the volcano willingly. Handing it off to other people isnt as big of a deal. The ring doesnt care who holds it, just that somebody does and can be manipulated into getting back to sauron.

Amusing (but dark) alternate takefor LotR: Boromir is right and The Wise are overly paranoid. Any strong-willled, moral personality (such as Aragorn) could have taken the Ring, used it to defeat Sauron and his forces and then requested help from some loyal and strong willing comrades to dispose of the thiing in Mount Doom once and for all.

(This goes along with another rather unserious take I've had for decades: the primary reason Gandalf wanted the hobbits along was as back-up Ringbearers if something happened to Frodo. And the reason he wanted hobbits as Ringbearers is because they were physically easy to physcally subdue. Get the Ring to Mt. Doom, pick up the hobbit, chuck hobbit and Ring into the Fire. Quest Done.)

[KorvinStarmast]

Amusing (but dark) alternate takefor LotR: Boromir is right and The Wise are overly paranoid. Any strong-willled, moral personality (such as Aragorn) could have taken the Ring, used it to defeat Sauron and his forces and then requested help from some loyal and strong willing comrades to dispose of the thing in Mount Doom once and for all. My take on this take is that Aragorn is humble enough to know that the ring would corrupt him. He took a risk with the palantir, and that was to distract the enemy, not to dominate him.

Get the Ring to Mt. Doom, pick up the hobbit, chuck hobbit and Ring into the Fire. Quest Done.) That's the D&D murderhobo approach. :smallsmile:

Back to the Series.

Winter's Heart is the last one I read. The three year delay for the next book and his already established habit of spinning his wheels, not to mention the amount of liposuction needed for the books not to be excruciatingly dull (pacing died somewhere around book 7 or 8) led to my disgust at him digressing in a way that would make Melville proud.

For this story to work on TV, it must have massive liposuction. Cut the blubber away, and get to the meat of the story. I have finished the outrage sections of this thread (all of it before the show actually aired) - my eyes hurt from their rolling. To a greater extent that LoTR, the story has so much fat that to tell it coherently on the small screen a great deal has to be left on the abattior's floor.

GRR Martin's decision to do a Jordan - not bother to finish his work and begin to crank out prequels (not to mention a TV series) - has led me to the same position: while I am glad that his TV show was a success, I enjoyed most of it, I'll never spend a dollar on his writings ever again. Fan abuse needs to be answered for.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first three GoT books, liked the next two enough to hold out some hope, but then he started with his prequel shenanigans while leaving his work (which was supposed to be 5 books, but then the bloat got seriously bad and the stretch to 7 happened, and who knows how oversized each volume will be?) - unfinished.

Coffee is for closer's, George.

[Taevyr]

I read the entire book series in one go somehwere 'round the mid 2010's, which probably helped mitigate the bloat compared to people who had to wait between books; While I didn't quite experience a bloat for the first 7-8 books, 9-10 are notably bloated and have been a struggle for each of the 3 times I've read the series. I seem to remember all Perrin does in book 9 is walk from one tent to the other, for example. And I don't mean walking between tents, I literally mean walking from one distinct tent to another distinct tent, once. And 9's the better of the two: the only one I remember getting some decent scenes in 10 is Mat, though they're pretty good.

It's part of why book 11 is so great: Jordan doesn't just finally gets the ball rolling, all the setup and exposition and endlessly slow putting everyone and everything in place clearly pays off in that book (imo). It just... doesn't justify essentially having an entire book consisting of nothing but setting up the last parts. You can get away with that if it's a chapter, or perhaps a few scenes with enough progression sprinkled in, but that's definitely not the case for Jordan. Sure, even books 9-10 have their trademark moments, but the bloat between really gets tiring.

[KorvinStarmast]

It's part of why book 11 is so great: Jordan doesn't just finally gets the ball rolling, all the setup and exposition and endlessly slow putting everyone and everything in place clearly pays off in that book (imo). It just... doesn't justify essentially having an entire book consisting of nothing but setting up the last parts. You can get away with that if it's a chapter, or perhaps a few scenes with enough progression sprinkled in, but that's definitely not the case for Jordan. Sure, even books 9-10 have their trademark moments, but the bloat between really gets tiring. I tip my cap to your persistence. :smallsmile:
That you have re read the series more than once makes me wonder if I might not be able to start again at 1 ... we'll see. I am sure that I can dig up the various paperbacks here and there.

[Taevyr]

I tip my cap to your persistence. :smallsmile:
That you have re read the series more than once makes me wonder if I might not be able to start again at 1 ... we'll see. I am sure that I can dig up the various paperbacks here and there.

It's an odd series: I wouldn't say it really drew me in fully until 3, and my favourite part'll always be 4-7/8. 9 is about half great half "I didn't know Winter's Heart referred to the glacial pace". 10's those meandering late middle chapters of a book/manga where you can see the writer carefully setting up everything for the final arc but almost nothing really happens, except it's an entire book. 11-14 is great again, but unfortunately not entirely written by him, which does affect it a bit. Not nearly as much as I expected, which is how I first got interested in Sanderson, but still.

As for not getting burned out, I tend to switch it up between styles like flowery and to-the-point, first-and-third, that sort of thing every now and then: helps me not get exhausted when a writer takes a certain method of description or general style too far for too long. My first re-read was after I'd finished devouring what was essentially every Cosmere book by Sanderson: All good books, but I'd gotten to the point where Jordan's vibrant, overly verbose descriptions of every detail felt like a fresh drink of water compared to Sanderson's relatively utilitarian prose. Probably played its part in the reread.

It also helped that, on a reread, there's so much more that suddenly fits into the greater whole. All the small hints at channeling during the first book that now click beyond just being an odd occurence or a lot of attention given to a minor thing, the Dragon's gradually growing madness being a lot clearer, all the minor details that play into later developments, allegiances or connections.... It's fascinating.

[snowblizz]

The three year delay for the next book and his already established habit of spinning his wheels,
The man you are kicking on there is literally lying down, deathly ill heading in and out of hospital for the disease that did eventually kill him. And he spent a lot of his last time trying to ensure the series could be finished. Last I checked GRRM is still alive and just can't be arsed.

I've read WoT multiple times excepting the last 3 books. Used to be a yearly thing as the new book came out start from book 1. Some of us are thankful the books are long, try sitting on an 8 hour boat-trip every other week or so with no wifi, smartphones not invented or decent computers and see if having a whole trip plus return journey covered in one book volume wasn't convenient.

[Anteros]

Yeah, whether you like Jordan's style or not, his work ethic isn't really questionable. We're talking about a book series with a word count nearly 4 times as large as Martin's. Also, despite the much deserved criticism for the "slog" of later books, he did seem to have things moving again towards the end. His last book was actually full of resolved plot lines, and apparently he wrote one of the major plot lines of ToM.

[KorvinStarmast]

The man you are kicking on there is literally lying down, deathly ill heading in and out of hospital for the disease that did eventually kill him. That series was, and became, bloated long before he went terminal. That he had been engaging in side quests for a decade before he kicked the bucket was a part of the problem, and a part of my frustration as a fan since I enjoyed the first few novels and began to get disillusioned long before he became that ill.

And he spent a lot of his last time trying to ensure the series could be finished. Which I am sure his long time fans appreciate.

Last I checked GRRM is still alive and just can't be arsed. Indeed; his cynical approach to his fans as regards his magnum opus usually leads me to cursing.

Some of us are thankful the books are long, try sitting on an 8 hour boat-trip every other week or so with no wifi, smartphones not invented or decent computers and see if having a whole trip plus return journey covered in one book volume wasn't convenient.
I don't mind long books. I've read LotR nearly a dozen times. Read the Count of Monte Cristo back when I was 12.
(Heck: Robin Hobbs' books all began to approximate phone books as she lost her self-discipline yet I still read them because they are so well written - and she finished each series in 3 or 4 books).

his work ethic isn't really questionable. Fair point; that isn't where my criticism is based. It's on loss of focus. In one of his author / biographical notes on one of his books it said something about "he'll keep writing until they nail his coffin shut" or words to that effect. (Something I am sure he wrote).

[Psyren]

Neither being terminally ill nor dying magically absolves RJ of all criticism. It just puts it into context.

And frankly, I don't find the opinions of anyone who despises Sanderson's continuation of the series to be especially persuasive. His writing is not without fault either (I have a lot of complaints about how both the BT and Fain got resolved) but he also got handed a lot of overgrown hedges that needed drastic trimming and overall, he did so quite well.

[KorvinStarmast]

I don't find the opinions of anyone who despises Sanderson's continuation of the series to be especially persuasive. I was gone long before that effort was undertaken; another friend suggested that I read the Mistborn books and someday I suspect that I will.
Currently enjoying RA McAvoy's King of the Dead ( second book in Lens of the World) so that's got my SF/Fantasy case handled for a while. (I read no more than a chapter at a time, these days, and find that I enjoy it more ...)

[Anteros]

Neither being terminally ill nor dying magically absolves RJ of all criticism. It just puts it into context.

And frankly, I don't find the opinions of anyone who despises Sanderson's continuation of the series to be especially persuasive. His writing is not without fault either (I have a lot of complaints about how both the BT and Fain got resolved) but he also got handed a lot of overgrown hedges that needed drastic trimming and overall, he did so quite well.

Eh. I can dislike the job Sanderson did while still recognizing the mess he was left and that no one else who could have done it better would take the job. Sanderson did all we could reasonably expect someone to do. That doesn't make it good though. He was put in tough situation and delivered a below average product.


I was gone long before that effort was undertaken; another friend suggested that I read the Mistborn books and someday I suspect that I will.
Currently enjoying RA McAvoy's King of the Dead ( second book in Lens of the World) so that's got my SF/Fantasy case handled for a while. (I read no more than a chapter at a time, these days, and find that I enjoy it more ...)

If you disliked Sanderson's other works, I really doubt that Mistborn would be the books to change your mind. For better or worse, they're definitely peak Sanderson.

[Tvtyrant]

Eh. I can dislike the job Sanderson did while still recognizing the mess he was left and that no one else who could have done it better would take the job. Sanderson did all we could reasonably expect someone to do. That doesn't make it good though. He was put in tough situation and delivered a below average product.



If you disliked Sanderson's other works, I really doubt that Mistborn would be the books to change your mind. For better or worse, they're definitely peak Sanderson.
I gotta disagree there. The first Mistborn is very different from most of Sanderson's books, cleaner and more character driven. I would skip the rest of the trilogy but Mistborn itself is a fresh read.

[Anteros]

I gotta disagree there. The first Mistborn is very different from most of Sanderson's books, cleaner and more character driven. I would skip the rest of the trilogy but Mistborn itself is a fresh read.

It reads very similar to Elantris or Warbreaker. In very broad terms and attempting to avoid spoilers, Young naïve woman who is the primary viewpoint character is introduced to a wondrous new world of magic and leans on older more learned roguish male figure for mentorship. They are then betrayed by someone close to them, but the male mentor figure manages to overcome his emotional baggage and reach a new height of power at the last minute to carry them to victory. All of Sanderson's early work is the same story with different worldbuilding. It's one of the reasons I gave up on him as an author.

[KorvinStarmast]

If you disliked Sanderson's other works, I have read nothing of his.

[Taevyr]

All of Sanderson's early work is the same story with different worldbuilding. It's one of the reasons I gave up on him as an author.

While I disagree with all his early work being fundamentally the same story, I do have to agree that his early works revolve around inventive worldbuilding and magic systems (particularly the way he can play around with them), and care for those far more than they do for building a good story. That doesn't necessarily make them bad: they're solid stories, if a bit bland at timesn, Hrathen from Elantris is one of his better villains (likely 'cause he could build on his own missionary years for him), and the first Mistborn's an excellent book, but if you're not into worldbuilding or pushing at the boundaries of magic systems, tabletop-style, you're not gonna get much if anything from'em.

His recent work does a lot better in that regard, though the focus on grand, epic, slightly overblown scenes and developments on one hand and world/magicbuilding on the other remains. Which is exactly how I like it: they're clearly his strength, and the worlds and magic setup are the main reason I love his works so much.

Jordan's strengths (to me) were in the depth to which he went to show and portray the different societies, cultures, politics, the changed gender roles, and the way it affected the way these people interacted or behaved, the way they influence each other and how it affects the main characters. How those roles influence and are influenced by the magic system and setup in turn. The depths to which he set up every development, the movement of all groups, the military logistics and stuff are ridiculous for a fantasy novel, but also part of why I love them so much. Could be the historian in me who likes seeing that in fantasy, as the chronicle-like nature of The Black Company is certainly part of why I loved those, but the degree to which every little thing got a dedicated chapter wasn't as much a problem for me as it was for the people who felt the slog starts in 8, or gods forbid, 7.

I can certainly complain about the glacial pace in parts of 9 and 10, but I'm not certain I'd want him to have written it that differently. Just..... compact it a little :smalltongue:

[Mechalich]

Jordan's strengths (to me) were in the depth to which he went to show and portray the different societies, cultures, politics, the changed gender roles, and the way it affected the way these people interacted or behaved, the way they influence each other and how it affects the main characters. How those roles influence and are influenced by the magic system and setup in turn. The depths to which he set up every development, the movement of all groups, the military logistics and stuff are ridiculous for a fantasy novel, but also part of why I love them so much. Could be the historian in me who likes seeing that in fantasy, as the chronicle-like nature of The Black Company is certainly part of why I loved those, but the degree to which every little thing got a dedicated chapter wasn't as much a problem for me as it was for the people who felt the slog starts in 8, or gods forbid, 7.

I can certainly complain about the glacial pace in parts of 9 and 10, but I'm not certain I'd want him to have written it that differently. Just..... compact it a little :smalltongue:

I am quite sure that if Jordan had the chance to do it all over again, he would have compacted things considerably. Any moderately close reading of Knife of Dreams makes it quite clear that Jordan understood, whether on his own, due to editorial or fan feedback, or any other possible reason, that the story had gotten rather lost between books 8-10 and he was doing the best he could to get it on track.

Ultimately the project was simply conceived at an unreasonably massive scale, it only grew in the telling, and Jordan's stylistic predilections - massive amounts of description and heavy introspection by the characters - only worked to make the story ever more voluminous. Wheel of Time is one of, if not the, longest single stories ever written. There are fictional worlds with considerably more words dedicated to them, but not compressed into a single coherent narrative. It's impressive that it manages to be as good as it is, considering the inherent problems of trying to spend 4 million words telling any story.

[Sapphire Guard]

I'm not fond of trying to speak for the author. It's very easy to say 'this author was motivated by this, this author was motivated by that, they would have done this, they would have done that'They may very well be motivated by something that isn't public knowledge, or whatever you saw in the books could have been mandated by an editor, etc.

[Rynjin]

This pretentious air of "whatever, the original sucked anyway and the author was a hack" that pops up every single time a book gets adapted to screen always makes me roll my eyes in sheer contempt.

Obviously, a lot of people liked the thing. It is literally the only reason it's being adapted in the first place. The original had to do SOMETHING right for so many people to like it.

And yet so many people jump on this bandwagon that whoever is adapting the series must "know better". Where does this even come from? Usually it's objectively not true.

Rafe Judkins is about as unqualified for the position as it is possible to be. He has a bare handful of writing credits, NONE of them for series' which require a cohesive, tightly woven narrative, and zero showrunning experience. There are two episodes of the season which people universally agree are hands down THE WORST of the entire series so far: 1 and 8. Both written by Rafe.

Why am I supposed to believe he "knows better" and should "trust him"? I'm sure he's a nice guy, but he's a ****ing nobody, and his debut outing has done nothing to instill that level of confidence in the final product, certainly not to the extent that I would be comfortable getting high off the scent of my own farts and disparaging the original, deceased author of one of the most popular and beloved fantasy series of all time in order to build up some random guy literally nobody had ever heard of before this show came out.

[Anteros]

I really do have to wonder why they picked him of all people. You have one of the most well known and beloved fantasy series of all time...and the guy you pick to adapt it has absolutely no writing credentials, and is best known for his appearance on survivor? He absolutely has to be sleeping with someone who makes these decisions.

[Mechalich]

Rafe wasn't entirely a nobody. He had reasonably substantial roles on Chuck, Agents of SHIELD, and Hemlock Grove. That's not a lot, but it's enough to get you known in TV production. If this were a low-budget adaptation, like Shannara or Winx, that would be enough. However, this was supposedly a flagship project by Amazon. There should have been no problem getting a noteworthy name. It's just one more way in which the show plays like a low-budget version of itself.

Looking at it more, I somewhat recall the first two seasons of Agents of SHIELD and they had a lot, and I mean a lot, of the same problems that WoT possesses. The problems with SHIELD were not Rafe's fault - that show had some genuinely unique circumstances - but perhaps he learned the wrong lessons.

[KorvinStarmast]

There are two episodes of the season which people universally agree are hands down THE WORST of the entire series so far: 1 and 8. Both written by Rafe. For reasons that are unclear to me, I recall some of the fan reaction to various Breaking Bad episodes that were directed by different people.

Can you summarize, briefly, why you were so upset with eps 1 and 8?

I'll admit to being a little puzzled at how they finished 8 ~ Ok, the ladies did the big channelling, not Rand, but they had already established Nynaeve as hella strong in the Source ~ (but Rand has been undersold since day 1, see the critiques about the three male primaries being diminished by numerous posts here). And I think that they needed at some point to illustrate for non book readers that the Source can burn you out if you use it carelessly. Don't remember when that was presented as fact in the books (It's been nearly 20 years since I read the first 3) but I do recall that being a caution offered to new users.

They had to change the intro somewhat, didn't they? What it is about Ep 1 that really got on your nerves?

The story was going to have to have some liposuction - may as well build it in structurally from the beginning. (See also the outrage versus Peter Jackson as "no Bombadil!" and "No scouring of the Shire" among other detours from the books that he took).

FWIW: I only got into WoT due to its world building. I was reading a D&D supplement (World builder's something) and it mentioned LoTR and "wheel of time" as good world building examples. I had seen a couple of the paperbacks (this would be mid 1990's) at a local book store so I picked up 1 and 3, ordered 2 since they were out. Enjoyed them all enough to seek out the next 2 ...

[Psyren]

There are two episodes of the season which people universally agree are hands down THE WORST of the entire series so far: 1 and 8. Both written by Rafe.

Yeah, that's the only possible common factor. Never mind he begged for a 2-hour pilot for the former and got denied, while the latter was heavily impacted by both COVID and Barney's departure. Nope, all Rafe :smallsigh:

[KorvinStarmast]

[COLOR="#0000FF"]Never mind he begged for a 2-hour pilot for the former and got denied, while the latter was heavily impacted by both COVID and Barney's departure. Nope, all Rafe :smallsigh: Yeah, I'd say that the 2 hour pilot being nixed was a mistake. That show needs the two hour pilot / Ep 1.

[Anteros]

Yeah, that's the only possible common factor. Never mind he begged for a 2-hour pilot for the former and got denied, while the latter was heavily impacted by both COVID and Barney's departure. Nope, all Rafe :smallsigh:

Well. Again. You don't get to blame lack of time as a reason you couldn't do things properly when you completely waste the time you do have. If he was so pressed for time in the opener, maybe he shouldn't have invented an imaginary wife for Perrin to fridge before he immediately forgets her and pines for his best friend's girlfriend.

Besides, has anyone here seen the leaked original script? It contains high points like...more Perrin and Egwene relationship despite Perrin being married. Or Nynaeve sacrificing a goat. A graphic sex scene with Mat, and some truly cringe inducing smutty writing that I can't post on a family friendly forum.

Truly, if only Rafe had more time....he could have danced a full foxtrot on the corpse of the source material instead of a quick jig!

[Psyren]

Good news for the show as Wheel of Time continues to perform strongly into 2022. (https://www.thewrap.com/book-of-boba-fett-in-demand-new-series/)

Edit: non-paywall version courtesy of Yahoo (https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/book-boba-fett-crashes-onto-230125219.html)


Well. Again. You don't get to blame lack of time as a reason you couldn't do things properly when you completely waste the time you do have. If he was so pressed for time in the opener, maybe he shouldn't have invented an imaginary wife for Perrin to fridge before he immediately forgets her and pines for his best friend's girlfriend.

Besides, has anyone here seen the leaked original script? It contains high points like...more Perrin and Egwene relationship despite Perrin being married. Or Nynaeve sacrificing a goat. A graphic sex scene with Mat, and some truly cringe inducing smutty writing that I can't post on a family friendly forum.

Truly, if only Rafe had more time....he could have danced a full foxtrot on the corpse of the source material instead of a quick jig!

Giving Perrin a source of drama outside his own head was not an inherently bad decision. That thing should really have been Harral or Alsbet Luhhan instead of Laila, I've said that more than once, but I have no issues with the decision to add something. And nothing else you mentioned would have taken much time in a 2-hour pilot either even if it had stayed.

Rather, a longer pilot would have given us more time with Moiraine interacting with each of the EF5 before they set out, more time to establish the tension and stakes of the Trollocs/Fades, and more time to set up Fain's lurking menace.

[Chen]

Yeah, that's the only possible common factor. Never mind he begged for a 2-hour pilot for the former and got denied, while the latter was heavily impacted by both COVID and Barney's departure. Nope, all Rafe :smallsigh:

Losing Mat in the finale probably affected the Fain stuff (should have been Mat instead of Perrin) but it didnt really do anything regarding the issues with Rand. There are certainly some consistency issues that were COVID related (no big hand to hand fighting, having the women do their channeling alone nowhere near the battle etc) but the massive failure to show why The Dragon is actually important and such a big deal is the biggest issue of the episode and is not related to either of the above concerns.

The whole passage of time at the end of the episode is completely wonky too which is just bad writing. The women are standing together at what looks like dusk. They kill the trollocs in what looks like the middle of the night and its dawn when Egwene heals Nyneave. Presumably Nyneave was meant to not be “dead” just very injured but then the extreme passage of time makes no sense. Not to mention Nyneave was the healer so why did they swap this at the end here? Its super sloppy writing and Rafe definitely deserves criticism for it.

[Rynjin]

Yeah, that's the only possible common factor. Never mind he begged for a 2-hour pilot for the former and got denied, while the latter was heavily impacted by both COVID and Barney's departure. Nope, all Rafe :smallsigh:

There are several production related issues with the series, especially episode 8. These are compounded by a plethora of unforced errors. I'll try to separate the two as I respond to Korvin.


For reasons that are unclear to me, I recall some of the fan reaction to various Breaking Bad episodes that were directed by different people.

Can you summarize, briefly, why you were so upset with eps 1 and 8?

I'll admit to being a little puzzled at how they finished 8 ~ Ok, the ladies did the big channelling, not Rand, but they had already established Nynaeve as hella strong in the Source ~ (but Rand has been undersold since day 1, see the critiques about the three male primaries being diminished by numerous posts here). And I think that they needed at some point to illustrate for non book readers that the Source can burn you out if you use it carelessly. Don't remember when that was presented as fact in the books (It's been nearly 20 years since I read the first 3) but I do recall that being a caution offered to new users.

They had to change the intro somewhat, didn't they? What it is about Ep 1 that really got on your nerves?

The story was going to have to have some liposuction - may as well build it in structurally from the beginning. (See also the outrage versus Peter Jackson as "no Bombadil!" and "No scouring of the Shire" among other detours from the books that he took).

FWIW: I only got into WoT due to its world building. I was reading a D&D supplement (World builder's something) and it mentioned LoTR and "wheel of time" as good world building examples. I had seen a couple of the paperbacks (this would be mid 1990's) at a local book store so I picked up 1 and 3, ordered 2 since they were out. Enjoyed them all enough to seek out the next 2 ...

As far as episode 1, the issues with the pacing begin there. Where much of the rest of the first season is paced abysmally slowly, the first episode feels rushed.

Many important, character establishing scenes are cut in favor of moving the plot along more quickly. Some of this can be put down to not getting the two hour premiere. However, knowing what you have to work with and, well, working with it is the mark of a good showrunner. The rest of the series could have been restructured quite easily to allow for the time to breathe needed for episode 1, while shunting off the attack on Emond's Field to the start of episode 2.

So, this is partly a "forced error".

Some things, however, were cut for the purposes of the asinine "Who is the Dragon?" mystery plot (which to my knowledge was ALL Rafe's idea), including the key scene of Rand carrying Tam through the woods back to the town, which establishes Rand's...entire character. Selfless to a fault, incredibly resilient (mentally), and a skilled hunter and tracker to boot (overshadowed by Nynaeve in the books, but still established). The cutting of this scene can be blamed entirely for audiences (book readers and show audiences alike) being dissatisfied with the reveal in episode 7 and finding Rand to be a bland character. It's also just...really silly how the tense flight from his cabin starts...and then he abruptly just shows up in the village a scene later like "Oh there was no trouble, actually".

Others are just plain ****ing rock stupid decisions. Giving Perrin a wife, spending a precious minute or so of screen time developing their relationship, and then having him KILL her is both just an overall dumb move (it adds absolutely nothing to Perrin's storyline, and takes away quite a bit with regards to his "Hammer or the Axe?" decision making; he even leaves the axe behind in town!), and takes away valuable screen time you could have used for literally anything else.

Likewise, changing Mat to come from an abusive household does some serious things to his character, none of them good. The first is that it makes it difficult to justify him staying away from town once he has the chance to return in season 2. In the books, it's just like "Oh my family will be fine as long as I'm gone". In the show, he has the added motivation of "I have to protect my sisters from my parents".

It also makes him moodier and more harsh with people from the get go, which makes the dagger's influence over him starting in episode 3 much, much less clear. Which is also an intentional, bad choice to help further the asinine mystery plot by pulling the "Oh he might be a male channeler he has all the signs" bull from Thom.

On to episode 8.

Production issues abound. Not Rafe's fault, but it impacts the enjoyment of the episode. CG is all around terrible for instance.

Writing issues are also on display. Understandably, you couldn't have Mat in episode 8 because his actor left. This does not mean you need to shunt off his plotline with Fain to Perrin(???) and seemingly nix the "the dagger leaves cursed wounds which never heal" aspect of the dagger...one of the all of TWO things it does. Just ****ing...not have Fain show up until season 2.

The Egwene/Nynaeve scene is just dumb from start to finish, and there's no production problem here to blame it on. It tramples over established book worldbuilding in three separate ways that are going to be an issue later. The first is a partially trained Accepted being able to effortlessly link with two COMPLETELY untrained wilders; this establishes linking as not a skill to be learned, but something anybody can just...do.

The second is having them be able to burn out in a circle. This is the...singular thing that links were designed to prevent. It is literally why linking exists.

The third is Egwene casually healing Nynaeve from being at or near burnout for cheap drama. Nynaeve healing people instinctively works for her character. It is her affinity, and the entire focus of her character as both a person and a channeler. A protector and a healer. So her being able to use the complex weaves for healing naturally makes sense, and is established in the show already.

Egwene is a battle mage. Her natural talents lie in the literal opposite direction of Nynaeve's.

This is on top of the issues with, at best, being able to heal the knock-on effects of near burnout so easily at all, or at WORST negating Nynaeve's most major contribution to the plot by just letting Egwene cure stilling, casually.

Oh, yeah, and having the combined might and skill of maybe 2 and a half Aes Sedai between the group wipe out a vast Trolloc army is also idiotic, let's not forget that. It was dumb in the book when Rand did it, but there was at least a token effort to explain why he was able to do this, and that it was a one-time thing. Here? It makes it seem like an Aes Sedai link creates all-powerful deities from the Channeler equivalent of conscripted peasant levies. This will be a problematic issue to address later.

And the third major issue: removing the nuance from Lews Therin's conflict with Latra. This has been apparent since the early trailers. "Arrogant men broke the world" and all that. I wrote a much longer spiel about this over on the WotShow sub, but the long and the short of it is: framing Lews Therin as wrong is a narrative mistake. Latra was not the voice of reason to his over-inflated ego. She was another, equally arrogant Aes Sedai of the Age of Legends who disagreed with his plan.

The entire point is that nobody knows what will happen if Lews' plan is attempted. Latra believes it is too dangerous, and could doom them all. Lews thinks it is the only shot they have. They are both right. Without the charge of the 100 Companions and assault on Shaitan, they all die, and he wins for all time. If the female Aes Sedai joined with them, then Shaitan also wins; tainting both halves of the Source and ensuring further victory.

This nuance is completely lost in the show, and it's all created by writing mistakes that didn't need to be made.

Everything wrong with episodes 2-6 stems from the mistakes made in episode 1. Everything wrong with 8 stems from it just being overall poorly written on its own merit, and Rafe's seeming belief that he can do better than the original...by completely removing all subtlety and nuance from the series, shattering the worldbuilding, and rewriting the series from the "lens" of a very shallow interpretation of feminism (the women are always right and cool, the men are just kinda...there. See also: Lan having zero fights in the entire first season).

Edit: Ah, as well the random attempts at cheap drama, like Moiraine's "stilling" and Loial's "death" which just come across as cringe.

Edit 2: Also, don't forget killing off fan-favorite, if minor, characters like Uno for literally no discernible purpose. Show only watchers won't care if "random soldier guy" dies, book readers will be annoyed.

[KorvinStarmast]

So, this is partly a "forced error".

Some things, however, were cut for the purposes of the asinine "Who is the Dragon?" mystery plot (which to my knowledge was ALL Rafe's idea), including the key scene of Rand carrying Tam through the woods back to the town, which establishes Rand's entire character. Selfless to a fault, incredibly resilient (mentally), and a skilled hunter and tracker to boot (overshadowed by Nynaeve in the books, but still established). The cutting of this scene can be blamed entirely for audiences (book readers and show audiences alike) being dissatisfied with the reveal in episode 7 and finding Rand to be a bland character.
Check.
It's also just...really silly how the tense flight from his cabin starts...and then he abruptly just shows up in the village a scene later like "Oh there was no trouble, actually". Check.

Giving Perrin a wife, spending a precious minute or so of screen time developing their relationship, and then having him KILL her is both just an overall dumb move (it adds absolutely nothing to Perrin's storyline, and takes away quite a bit with regards to his "Hammer or the Axe?" decision making; he even leaves the axe behind in town!), and takes away valuable screen time you could have used for literally anything else. The change to Perrin I already commented on, yes, concur, that was an unforced error. Well put.

Likewise, changing Mat to come from an abusive household does some serious things to his character, none of them good. Yes, the 'edgelord' move wasn't a good one. But now that I read your more detailed assessment, the writers all channeling Liandrin seems to be a possible root cause. :smallyuk:

On to episode 8.
{snip dagger} now that you spell it out, I agree with you points.

The first is a partially trained Accepted being able to effortlessly link with two COMPLETELY untrained wilders; this establishes linking as not a skill to be learned, but something anybody can just...do.
Yeah, and she had already had the discussion with Moiraine that established her not being a full up Aes Sedai in a previous ep. Own Goal.

The second is having them be able to burn out in a circle. This is the...singular thing that links were designed to prevent. It is literally why linking exists. Indeed.

The third is Egwene casually healing Nynaeve from being at or near burnout for cheap drama. Nynaeve healing people instinctively works for her character. It is her affinity, and the entire focus of her character as both a person and a channeler. A protector and a healer. So her being able to use the complex weaves for healing naturally makes sense, and is established in the show already.

Egwene is a battle mage. Her natural talents lie in the literal opposite direction of Nynaeve's. Not to mention, with a whole lot more qualified Aes Sedai during that battle when the armed men came to rescue Logaine, nothing close to that kind of power was let loose on the attackers by Aes Sedai working together in combat, which is what one might expect if multiple Aes Sedai were out and got attacked. Granted, we got some nice looks at a Green in action during combat, which I enjoyed.
(The linking to put Logaine down was, on the other hand, a decent 'this is why we have links' demonstration)

This is on top of the issues with, at best, being able to heal the knock-on effects of near burnout so easily at all, or at WORST negating Nynaeve's most major contribution to the plot by just letting Egwene cure stilling, casually. OK, objection sustained. :smallsmile:

It makes it seem like an Aes Sedai link creates all-powerful deities from the Channeler equivalent of conscripted peasant levies. This will be a problematic issue to address later. Consistent with above points, concur.

And the third major issue: removing the nuance from Lews Therin's conflict with Latra.
One more casualty of the pilot being too short, but your point on tone is quite frankly resonating. And concur again on the Own Goal.

FWIW, this makes Moiraine's choice to talk to Logaine all the more striking, in terms of her being a paradigm breaker.
{snip elaboration}

See also: Lan having zero fights in the entire first season).
Yes, he's badass, we need to have Lan wipe the floor with a few enemies.

Show only watchers won't care if "random soldier guy" dies, book readers will be annoyed. I have no strong feeling either way about Uno, but the whole 'wall of arrow slits that is overwhelmed' smelled a bit to me - his demise did feel kinda cheap.

[Rynjin]

FWIW, I think the show between episodes 3 and 6 is really good. And while episodes 2 and 7 are a bit weak, I found them pretty entertaining overall. Even though episodes 4, 5, and 6 represent their own narrative structure problems when plugged into the overall season, they are exceptionally good standalone TV written by writers who seem to get the spirit of the work they're writing for. Episode 3 is above par for the season though not as good as 4/5/6.

But episode 1 really fails to set up a lot of what it needed to, and episode 8 completely fails to deliver a satisfying conclusion to the whole deal.

[Gnoman]

What we see from Season 2 information says that Uno's not dead, and neither is Loial. The best speculation I've seen is that they're going to move Mat's dagger poisoning to one of them, and that's going to be the reason they need the dspagger back.

[Rynjin]

I knew they weren't going to kill off Loial, but I hadn't seen anything about Uno and Ingtar surviving.

[KorvinStarmast]

Not your fault, but I just came out of a deep dive on WoT fandom.
Where did that hour of my life go? :smalleek:

[Gnoman]

There's shots of Uno's actor in-character in the season 2 filming, there are reliable media reports that he's been contracted as a recurring character in Season 2, and his actor is still posting in-character on Twitter.


Ingtar appears to be dead, and I've seen reports that this was because it takes so long for him to show up again in the books that they couldn't expect the actor to be available.

[Anteros]

Ingtar appears to be dead, and I've seen reports that this was because it takes so long for him to show up again in the books that they couldn't expect the actor to be available.

He....shows up again at the same time as Uno.....actually he literally never disappears from the story at any point. What??

[Gnoman]

No, I mixed up the names due to being half-awake. Ingtar's alive as well. I was thinking of Agelmar.

[Taevyr]

There are several production related issues with the series, especially episode 8. These are compounded by a plethora of unforced errors. I'll try to separate the two as I respond to Korvin.



As far as episode 1, the issues with the pacing begin there. Where much of the rest of the first season is paced abysmally slowly, the first episode feels rushed.

Many important, character establishing scenes are cut in favor of moving the plot along more quickly. Some of this can be put down to not getting the two hour premiere. However, knowing what you have to work with and, well, working with it is the mark of a good showrunner. The rest of the series could have been restructured quite easily to allow for the time to breathe needed for episode 1, while shunting off the attack on Emond's Field to the start of episode 2.

So, this is partly a "forced error".

Some things, however, were cut for the purposes of the asinine "Who is the Dragon?" mystery plot (which to my knowledge was ALL Rafe's idea), including the key scene of Rand carrying Tam through the woods back to the town, which establishes Rand's...entire character. Selfless to a fault, incredibly resilient (mentally), and a skilled hunter and tracker to boot (overshadowed by Nynaeve in the books, but still established). The cutting of this scene can be blamed entirely for audiences (book readers and show audiences alike) being dissatisfied with the reveal in episode 7 and finding Rand to be a bland character. It's also just...really silly how the tense flight from his cabin starts...and then he abruptly just shows up in the village a scene later like "Oh there was no trouble, actually".

Others are just plain ****ing rock stupid decisions. Giving Perrin a wife, spending a precious minute or so of screen time developing their relationship, and then having him KILL her is both just an overall dumb move (it adds absolutely nothing to Perrin's storyline, and takes away quite a bit with regards to his "Hammer or the Axe?" decision making; he even leaves the axe behind in town!), and takes away valuable screen time you could have used for literally anything else.

Likewise, changing Mat to come from an abusive household does some serious things to his character, none of them good. The first is that it makes it difficult to justify him staying away from town once he has the chance to return in season 2. In the books, it's just like "Oh my family will be fine as long as I'm gone". In the show, he has the added motivation of "I have to protect my sisters from my parents".

It also makes him moodier and more harsh with people from the get go, which makes the dagger's influence over him starting in episode 3 much, much less clear. Which is also an intentional, bad choice to help further the asinine mystery plot by pulling the "Oh he might be a male channeler he has all the signs" bull from Thom.

On to episode 8.

Production issues abound. Not Rafe's fault, but it impacts the enjoyment of the episode. CG is all around terrible for instance.

Writing issues are also on display. Understandably, you couldn't have Mat in episode 8 because his actor left. This does not mean you need to shunt off his plotline with Fain to Perrin(???) and seemingly nix the "the dagger leaves cursed wounds which never heal" aspect of the dagger...one of the all of TWO things it does. Just ****ing...not have Fain show up until season 2.

The Egwene/Nynaeve scene is just dumb from start to finish, and there's no production problem here to blame it on. It tramples over established book worldbuilding in three separate ways that are going to be an issue later. The first is a partially trained Accepted being able to effortlessly link with two COMPLETELY untrained wilders; this establishes linking as not a skill to be learned, but something anybody can just...do.

The second is having them be able to burn out in a circle. This is the...singular thing that links were designed to prevent. It is literally why linking exists.

The third is Egwene casually healing Nynaeve from being at or near burnout for cheap drama. Nynaeve healing people instinctively works for her character. It is her affinity, and the entire focus of her character as both a person and a channeler. A protector and a healer. So her being able to use the complex weaves for healing naturally makes sense, and is established in the show already.

Egwene is a battle mage. Her natural talents lie in the literal opposite direction of Nynaeve's.

This is on top of the issues with, at best, being able to heal the knock-on effects of near burnout so easily at all, or at WORST negating Nynaeve's most major contribution to the plot by just letting Egwene cure stilling, casually.

Oh, yeah, and having the combined might and skill of maybe 2 and a half Aes Sedai between the group wipe out a vast Trolloc army is also idiotic, let's not forget that. It was dumb in the book when Rand did it, but there was at least a token effort to explain why he was able to do this, and that it was a one-time thing. Here? It makes it seem like an Aes Sedai link creates all-powerful deities from the Channeler equivalent of conscripted peasant levies. This will be a problematic issue to address later.

And the third major issue: removing the nuance from Lews Therin's conflict with Latra. This has been apparent since the early trailers. "Arrogant men broke the world" and all that. I wrote a much longer spiel about this over on the WotShow sub, but the long and the short of it is: framing Lews Therin as wrong is a narrative mistake. Latra was not the voice of reason to his over-inflated ego. She was another, equally arrogant Aes Sedai of the Age of Legends who disagreed with his plan.

The entire point is that nobody knows what will happen if Lews' plan is attempted. Latra believes it is too dangerous, and could doom them all. Lews thinks it is the only shot they have. They are both right. Without the charge of the 100 Companions and assault on Shaitan, they all die, and he wins for all time. If the female Aes Sedai joined with them, then Shaitan also wins; tainting both halves of the Source and ensuring further victory.

This nuance is completely lost in the show, and it's all created by writing mistakes that didn't need to be made.

Everything wrong with episodes 2-6 stems from the mistakes made in episode 1. Everything wrong with 8 stems from it just being overall poorly written on its own merit, and Rafe's seeming belief that he can do better than the original...by completely removing all subtlety and nuance from the series, shattering the worldbuilding, and rewriting the series from the "lens" of a very shallow interpretation of feminism (the women are always right and cool, the men are just kinda...there. See also: Lan having zero fights in the entire first season).

Edit: Ah, as well the random attempts at cheap drama, like Moiraine's "stilling" and Loial's "death" which just come across as cringe.

Edit 2: Also, don't forget killing off fan-favorite, if minor, characters like Uno for literally no discernible purpose. Show only watchers won't care if "random soldier guy" dies, book readers will be annoyed.

I have to say, this encapsulates virtually all my own issues with the series better than I could've put it. An excellent summary, and well constructed.

[Anteros]

Good news for the show as Wheel of Time continues to perform strongly into 2022. (https://www.thewrap.com/book-of-boba-fett-in-demand-new-series/)

Edit: non-paywall version courtesy of Yahoo (https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/book-boba-fett-crashes-onto-230125219.html)



Giving Perrin a source of drama outside his own head was not an inherently bad decision. That thing should really have been Harral or Alsbet Luhhan instead of Laila, I've said that more than once, but I have no issues with the decision to add something. And nothing else you mentioned would have taken much time in a 2-hour pilot either even if it had stayed.

Rather, a longer pilot would have given us more time with Moiraine interacting with each of the EF5 before they set out, more time to establish the tension and stakes of the Trollocs/Fades, and more time to set up Fain's lurking menace.

I agree that a longer pilot could have given more time to make things flow better. I disagree that it was impossible to write a better pilot given the time they had, or that the writers would have properly utilized the extra time given.

Here's the leaked original script by the way if anyone is interested. http://tvwriting.co.uk/tv_scripts/2021/Drama/Wheel_of_Time_1x01_-_Leavetaking.pdf

I've only skimmed it. I've seen summaries of it. From the descriptions I've seen, there's a few good things in there....and a whole lot of bad. Which is perhaps unsurprising since that's how most people describe the show.

From my quick skimming, it seems like most of the scenes that would have helped the pilot got cut, while they left a lot of the pointless stuff in.

[Rodin]

No, I mixed up the names due to being half-awake. Ingtar's alive as well. I was thinking of Agelmar.

Agelmar shows up at the beginning of book 2. I don’t think he’s terribly important, but he’s there. Does he show up again 10 books later? I can’t remember.

Not surprising if they decide to cut him, but you’d think they could have arranged for a cameo from him to set the Hunt on its way.

[Corvus]

The original script reads of really bad fanfic erotica, the kind of thing Jordan hated and came down on like the hammer of the gods (his words). Got to wonder if Rafe didn't fall foul of that at some point and a lot of his changes are petty vindictiveness.

[KorvinStarmast]

The original script reads of really bad fanfic erotica, the kind of thing Jordan hated and came down on like the hammer of the gods (his words). Glad they cut out some of the noise {bad fanfic indeed} but it would not have hurt to see Mat defending his sisters with some staff fighting.

Just watched ep 1 again: Lan, in action, puts paid to about a dozen trollocs on screen during the battle in the village.
Decided to watch ep 2 again but fell asleep.

Got to wonder if Rafe didn't fall foul of that at some point and a lot of his changes are petty vindictiveness. Maybe, it being a draft, he got some feedback during a script/show meeting that his muse was harshing the groove of the story. :smallwink: (I will say that how Mat is to get the bracelet, during a steamy scene in the barn that turns into some bad fanfic, seems a bit more plausible to me than somehow lifting it off of her wrist by merely flirting with her in the bar ... ) (spoiler)

[snowblizz]

Was discussing this with my friend, also a WoT fan, last week now we both had caught up on the ep 8.

Someone earlier mentioned their wife asking all kinds of questions all the time. And then we have this discussion about how unnecessary details are. Jordan's writing was sometimes dragged out, but a lot of it was necessary. These issues are related.


I've been pondering Loial and the Ways. And none of it makes any sense.
Why does Loial exist at all? He has no purpose in the tv series. He is needed to read the the street-signs in the Ways. Yay! But why? No Ogier can access the Ways because you need the power to do so. Apparently. What does Ogier and Ways have to do with each other? There is no internal logic here. The shadow can use the Ways. This was a big deal because it had IMPLICATIONS for the free world. In the series it just meh is a thing. Because we lack huge amounts of story that might explain these issues. No one ever explains the Ways, why they were built, why Ogier are involved, why and how they actually matter. And then they even stray from the books in how it works so am completely lost. The really hilarious part is the whole "brick up the waygate! ASAP! OR STUFF HAPPENS!" but why should it, what does bricking it up actually do? You need Aes Sedai to even operate it. Does that actually stop anyone with the power doing anything? In the books this all had explanations, in the series it's just "brick up the gate!" because reasons. And yet the line stays in there. For no reason what so ever.
Padan Fain can apparently use them, somehow. Why did he though, the series gives him no motivation, and no mention. I read the books I know he should show up, but the series doesn't deign to explain anything at any point. Everything just is until it isn't. We are literally missing 2-3 seasons worths of episodes of vital world building so even the little we've been shown could make some danged sense, even in it's own scaled back internal little world. And it's driving me nuts.

[Psyren]

Its super sloppy writing and Rafe definitely deserves criticism for it.

I never said he doesn't "deserve criticsm." Everything deserves criticsm. I said that "he wrote the two lowest episodes of the season, ooh interesting!" is a disingenuous take.


@Rynjin - there's a ton of Monday Morning Quarterback (as well as some really naive statements like "could have been restructured quite easily") in that writeup, but perhaps the biggest parts I disagree with are that the Dragon Mystery was a mistake (everything I've seen from non-book-readers showed how engaging that mystery was to them), saying we should have dropped Fain for the rest of the season due to Matt's departure, and a slew of nitpicks that just don't matter to the big picture. Ooh you can burn out in a link now, you mean there might actually be drama and danger in a linking scene, how terrible. Egwene doesn't utterly suck at healing in this version, character ruined for all time. Amalisa learned how to link before leaving the Tower - being able to link doesn't mean you have what it takes to be an Aes Sedai, as we clearly saw with the Kin who all know how to link as well. Just a bunch of bookcloak gripes that amount to nothing.

As for "arrogant men broke the world" - Aes Sedai wrote the history books, and by and large that is what they believe, true or not. The show having them say that is not a change.

[Sapphire Guard]

So terminal illness is not a good excuse, but being cut for time is?

"The Arrogance" could be a history written by the winners situation, but the AOL scene confirms it as truth.

Creative Differences aside, that's a fairly solid script.

[Divayth Fyr]

I never said he doesn't "deserve criticsm." Everything deserves criticsm. I said that "he wrote the two lowest episodes of the season, ooh interesting!" is a disingenuous take.
It still is true. Say what you want, but Covid doesn't excuse all the bad stuff with the last episode, while the first one is on him. He may have wanted a longer pilot, but he was hired to make a series with a specific length, and not getting more time wasn't unexpected. Sure, it would be good to have more time, but you don't always get what you want (or even need). Maybe if some stuff was moved down the line, trimming the parts added wholecloth and leaving more room at the start for a proper introductionary episode things would be better? Or maybe if someone more talented got to do it?


@Rynjin - there's a ton of Monday Morning Quarterback (as well as some really naive statements like "could have been restructured quite easily") in that writeup, but perhaps the biggest parts I disagree with are that the Dragon Mystery was a mistake (everything I've seen from non-book-readers showed how engaging that mystery was to them), saying we should have dropped Fain for the rest of the season due to Matt's departure, and a slew of nitpicks that just don't matter to the big picture. Ooh you can burn out in a link now, you mean there might actually be drama and danger in a linking scene, how terrible. Egwene doesn't utterly suck at healing in this version, character ruined for all time. Amalisa learned how to link before leaving the Tower - being able to link doesn't mean you have what it takes to be an Aes Sedai, as we clearly saw with the Kin who all know how to link as well. Just a bunch of bookcloak gripes that amount to nothing.
Ah yes, how terrible - people complaining because an adaptation of a book throws worldbuilding elements from said book into the fire...

[Psyren]

It still is true. Say what you want, but Covid doesn't excuse all the bad stuff with the last episode, while the first one is on him. He may have wanted a longer pilot, but he was hired to make a series with a specific length, and not getting more time wasn't unexpected. Sure, it would be good to have more time, but you don't always get what you want (or even need). Maybe if some stuff was moved down the line, trimming the parts added wholecloth and leaving more room at the start for a proper introductionary episode things would be better? Or maybe if someone more talented got to do it?

I never said it "excuses all the bad stuff" either. But I do believe it excuses some.


Ah yes, how terrible - people complaining because an adaptation of a book throws worldbuilding elements from said book into the fire...

I don't think "it was in the book" is a good enough justification on its own to exempt a given element from examination or alteration by the adaptation. Others might and that's fine, we can (continue to) agree to disagree.


So terminal illness is not a good excuse, but being cut for time is?

Again, please show me where I said you can't criticize the show.


"The Arrogance" could be a history written by the winners situation, but the AOL scene confirms it as truth.

The AOL scene shows that both sides were neither right nor wrong.

[Traab]

There is a difference between "It was in the book" and "Its a fairly important bit of world building that has far reaching implications"

[Wookieetank]

Since we're nearing the end of the thread, some title suggestions:

Wheel of Time, Amazon Prime 2: The Arguing Continues
Wheel of Time, Amazon Prime 2: The 2nd Crank of the Wheel
Wheel of Time, Amazon Prime 2: Electric Boogaloo
Wheel of Time, Amazon Prime 2: This time with More Wheels, less time

[Sapphire Guard]

"Arguing Continues", no contest.

[Psyren]

I vote "More Wheels, Less Time" personally but I'm okay with whatever.


There is a difference between "It was in the book" and "Its a fairly important bit of world building that has far reaching implications"

I agree. But none of the gripes I saw mentioned, like Egwene being better at healing, or a Tower initiate knowing how to link but being put out anyway (again, just like several of the Kin in the books do), have "far reaching implications."

The unsafe linking one I agree is a bigger change that does - but it's a change which I think makes for better television. It means that you want the most strong-willed and mentally sound sisters leading a circle, which surprise surprise, you wanted anyway (even in the books), and it also means that the protagonists no longer have links as a get-out-of-strain-free card that drains all dramatic tension from a scene. Just imagine scenes like the bubble of evil in Salidar, or the Cleansing and how much more dangerous they'll be with this change. Or imagine a scene like the attack on the White Tower, where the sisters are trying to link to stop the Seanchan and failing, but Egwene teaches the Novices how to link and does way more damage which again, is going to make for much more dramatic television when we get there.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Anteros
From my quick skimming, it seems like most of the scenes that would have helped the pilot got cut, while they left a lot of the pointless stuff in.

What’s left certainly doesn’t dazzle, that’s for sure.


Originally Posted by Sapphire Guard
Creative Differences aside, that's a fairly solid script.

Can’t say I agree. This thing is a slog to get through. The writing is competent on the sentence level—but from the first page there’s nothing to make me really care about these characters, and nothing that makes me want to keep reading. I don’t know who any of these people are, and there’s nothing about them that draws me in.

Worse, the beginning actively puts me off. It starts with a long but shallow monologue from a blind woman, but then she has a vision or something—

—And her response is to order the murder of a newborn child?

No. As far as I’m concerned, these are the villains and I have no reason to want anything but their demise. I don’t root for people like this. If this is how we meet a character called Moraine, then I’m just waiting for the good guys to end her.



I find the constant references to real-world people and locations to be distracting. It clutters the scene descriptions and constantly breaks immersion, and it’s the sort of thing best left out.

There’s an awful lot of eye-rolling, which is a little odd to keep repeating. This isn’t the only thing that actors can do, but it comes across as the only expression the writer can think of to accentuate the interactions.

And, the note at the bottom of p. 14. Not sure what the purpose of that is supposed to be. If the director wants to take a certain approach to filming a scene, he can just…do it. Adding a note like this just calls attention to itself for no good reason except to wave the flag.

Also, I find it hard to believe she wouldn’t immediately miss that bracelet. Yes, she had a nice few minutes there, but the missing weight should be obvious the moment she walks out of the barn.

The big initiation is pushing someone over a bridge? Not impressed. Also not impressed with the super-ominous, super-subtle Rider on a Black Horse. I think we've seen that before.

And so on. There’s just not much that feels original or all that interesting here. Fans of the books can decide whether salient passages were well-represented, but for those of us who haven’t read them, this draft isn’t doing any favors to the characters or the world.

[Anteros]

I'd vote for something like "Wheel of Time 2: Now with even less Wheel of Time" I don't really care that much about the title though, so whatever is fine.

Re script: The scene where Mat faces the Trolloc for his family despite thinking he's going to die, and the scene where Rand brings Tam to town would have done a lot of work establishing those characters and why we should care about them. Those are about the only two things from the original script I'd keep. I guess it was more important to Rafe that we keep scenes where we establish that Mat's a thief, or Perrin murdering his wife so he can chase his friend's girl though.

[Rodin]

So, I've been continuing my reading of Lord of Chaos. And I think I've finally settled on why I find this book unsatisfying compared to the others.

This is the point where the series changes from traditional fantasy into a more Game of Thrones style. Yes, I'm aware WoT predates GoT. But that's the best way I can describe the change in style.

In the first 5 books, our characters are always On An Adventure. They're trying to reach the Eye of the World, or Hunting the Horn, or....you get the idea. Each book begins with a slow portion for each group of characters which then takes off partway through the book, and after that they are actively trying to accomplish a specific goal that is life and death for them, their friends, or maybe the entire world.

It's a bunch of inexperienced youngsters trying to survive and trying to do the right thing while evil people actively work against them. It's a standard formula, but it's quite compelling even when some of the stories are obvious sidequests (like the Tanchico plot in book 4).

Book 6 is a different kettle of fish altogether. We draw out from our cast and are now looking at politics. There is no quest, no MacGuffin to retrieve, no world ending threat. The characters are sat in one place, trying to navigate the web of deceit at a royal court (or equivalent in the case of the Aes Sedai). We see lots of small snippets of characters plotting, but it's all set up for things later to come - many of them not in this book.

It's an assembling of small details, the calm before the storm...only that calm has now gone on for over 600 pages.

I agree with everyone that says the rot doesn't set in until book 8 (or maybe book 7 at a push), but the seed of it is definitely there in book 6. It marks the point where the books stop being about multiple adventuring parties getting into hijinks and settles into the "everyone is too busy fighting each other to care about the bad guys" formula that is so intrinsic to GoT.

It's still good at this point, but I don't think Jordan does this style as well as GRRM and I'm not looking forward to when it does bog down in the following books.

[Rynjin]

I never said he doesn't "deserve criticsm." Everything deserves criticsm. I said that "he wrote the two lowest episodes of the season, ooh interesting!" is a disingenuous take.

I didn't say it was interesting, I said it was telling. Generally I assume the showrunner is eithr A.) the most talented writer on the staff or B.) Has a proven track record of making good showrunning decisions.

Neither appears to be the case.



@Rynjin - there's a ton of Monday Morning Quarterback (as well as some really naive statements like "could have been restructured quite easily") in that writeup

I wrote a much longer, detailed description of how the show could have been restructured over on the WoTShow sub weeks ago, but the cliff notes because it really all is basic narrative mistakes/lack of coordination.

Ep. 1: Allow for the entirety of episode 1 to establish characters in Emond's Field. Trolloc attack commences at the end; that scene of the Trolloc impaling Egwene's dance partner is an excellent image to leave off on for a week. Notably, introduce Thom like he should have beeen.

Ep. 2: Attack on TR and all relevant scenes that come with it, gives us an idea of how all the characters function under pressure. Include them fleeing partway through the episode, crossing the ferry, etc.

Ep. 3: Shadar Logoth

Ep. 4: A more ensemble-centric version of what happened in episode 3. Dana the Darkfriend was interesting. She did not carry an entire episode on her own.

Ep. 5: Continuation of the above. Include Moiraine and co. traveling with the other Aes Sedai on their way to Tar Valon, Logain, etc. Cut the big dumb battle scene because it looked terrible. Thom "dies". Audiences care now because he doesn't just appear from nowhere and then "die" an episode later.

Ep. 6: Much of the current content could remain, with Moiraine and Liandrin's "trial" and everyone else sort of trickling in over the course of the episode. Cut Siuan/Moiraine scenes in the riverside shack. Move to season 2 as a flashback. It's good content but wastes a lot of time and actually takes much of the impact out of the Oath scene. Having Moiraine be exiled and then LATER revealing it was by choice allows for a double whammy of emotion rather than the one shot we get.

Ep. 7: Can stay largely intact. Cut Perrin/Rand bickering. Take the time to explain the Flame and the Void if you hadn't already, as even with the extra time it could have been difficult to fit into episode 1. Fix the Machin Shin just being some dork who whispers mean things in your ears.

Ep. 8: I got nothin'. I wrote the original schpiel when ep. 7 came out and there's no way I could have anticipated how much of an ill-thought mess it could be. Ep. 8 isn't borne of structuring problems, but writing ones, which are harder to fix.

All of this is assuming the content of the season stays largely the same. No trying to cram in Caemlyn, etc. The 8 episodes we have to work with and much of the same content.


but perhaps the biggest parts I disagree with are that the Dragon Mystery was a mistake (everything I've seen from non-book-readers showed how engaging that mystery was to them)

Right up until the reveal happened and almost universal disappointment was expressed. Very clearly, the mystery was not a success in the long run. As early as episode 5 I saw a lot of show-only people saying "Well the Dragon must be Rand, he's the only character who hasn't done anything yet".


saying we should have dropped Fain for the rest of the season due to Matt's departure

You can very safely and easily drop Fain from the one episode in the entire season he had a single proper scene, yes.


and a slew of nitpicks that just don't matter to the big picture. Ooh you can burn out in a link now, you mean there might actually be drama and danger in a linking scene, how terrible.

Already covered below. You know exactly why this is narratively problematic.


Egwene doesn't utterly suck at healing in this version, character ruined for all time.
Yes, turning Egwene into mini-Nynaeve instead of her own character, with her own goals, own skillsets, and own personality is a ****ing problem.


Amalisa learned how to link before leaving the Tower - being able to link doesn't mean you have what it takes to be an Aes Sedai, as we clearly saw with the Kin who all know how to link as well. Just a bunch of bookcloak gripes that amount to nothing.

Amalisa being able to initiate a link isn't a huge stretch, but it's a stretch that...didn't need to be made at all, so it doesn't really matter how big of one it was.

And if you call me a "bookcloak" again I'll report you for flaming. I'll give the benefit of the doubt and assume you're unaware of the full implications of the term as people are throwing around (that you are associated with the Whitecloaks subreddit, and by extension are a misogynist, homophobe, and quite possibly a racist).


As for "arrogant men broke the world" - Aes Sedai wrote the history books, and by and large that is what they believe, true or not. The show having them say that is not a change.

Having Moiraine say that is an enormous change, and so is having the show back that up in the AoL scene. When, if taken out of context, I can't tell if a line is said by Moiraine or Liandrin, it's a poorly written line.

RE: Thread name: I'm partial to "Wheel of Prime 2: The Recastening".

[Mechalich]

So, I've been continuing my reading of Lord of Chaos. And I think I've finally settled on why I find this book unsatisfying compared to the others.

This is the point where the series changes from traditional fantasy into a more Game of Thrones style. Yes, I'm aware WoT predates GoT. But that's the best way I can describe the change in style.

What you're describing is a change in story structure. Specifically from an adventure-based structure to an epic-based structure.

Stories with an adventure structure are about "participation in exciting undertakings or enterprises" (from the dictionary.com definition of adventure). Stories in the epic mode are about "a series of great achievements or events" (again from dictionary.com). Epic structure stories (often called 'sagas') focus on societal movers and shakers - traditionally kings, nobles, powerful mystics, etc. - and the wide-reaching consequences of even small decisions they make.

This transition is a common one in long-running stories, especially in ones where characters undergo dramatic increases in power that massively elevate their status, taking them from essentially nobodies to individuals with broad societal influence. This makes is particularly common in fantasy, because such increases in power are especially common, but it's hardly unknown elsewhere. For example Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan novels begin as spy thrillers but transition into epics as Ryan gets promoted to the upper echelons of power.

This transition is also difficult and it has a tendency to absolutely destroy stories that don't handle it properly, most often because the world-building doesn't work to handle the drastically increased scale demanded by epics. Harry Potter, for example, is a very noteworthy case of a story that breaks, hard, at this transition, because all the material designed to produce a (very good) coming-of-age tale about a boy going to boarding school crashes hard when the story turns into a secret war between good and evil. Wheel of Time actually handles this transition better than most. For one, Jordan deftly brings various characters and their attendant plotlines across the boundary at different points, Rand arguably crosses the boundary at the end of book 3, but Mat doesn't fully embrace his destiny until book 11 (and manages to have a significant adventure afterward), and the other major characters are all in-between.

The bigger issue is that epic tales involve big and complex events with lots of people, lots of moving parts, and lots of logistics. This makes them extremely ill-suited to writing that is verbose, detail-oriented, and uses lots of flowery language. Many of the great 'classics' among epics, such as Three Kingdoms, are written in highly sparing styles such that events unfold fast, which keeps the narrative moving and avoids getting bogged down. A good example of this, from the same author, is LotR versus the Silmarillion. LotR has epic elements but is mostly written as an adventure, to the point of cutting away to the hobbits to avoid getting bound up in political debate (ex. at Isengard). The Silmarillion, which is absolutely a straight up epic saga, is written very differently and moves through events at a comparative rampage.


It's still good at this point, but I don't think Jordan does this style as well as GRRM and I'm not looking forward to when it does bog down in the following books.

Jordan wasn't as good as GRRM at writing unsympathetic characters. Many of his characters who are wrong but not evil, such as Elaidia, just sort of collapse into incoherency over time. As an epic necessarily has lots of unsympathetic people who are still, by virtue of position or personal power, extremely important, this is a comparative weakness. Otherwise though, ASOIAF mostly just has a head start on WoT, since it's an epic from the very beginning and features Ned Stark, a mighty lord, as the initial protagonist who meets with the king right away as the series begins. ASOIAF absolutely got bogged down massively by books 4 and 5, and parts of Dance are just as miserable to slog through as any portions of books 8-10 of WoT. And, of course, Jordan managed, with difficulty, to extricate his story from the mud, while Martin's is still stuck.

[Saph]

Right up until the reveal happened and almost universal disappointment was expressed. Very clearly, the mystery was not a success in the long run. As early as episode 5 I saw a lot of show-only people saying "Well the Dragon must be Rand, he's the only character who hasn't done anything yet".

It's really hard to overstate just how much goodwill the show lost with how it handled the finale. The show's rating on IMDB stayed steady at 7.5 throughout the first seven episodes. Then Episode 8 came out and the show's overall rating dropped to 7.3 within a fortnight.

I think a lot of viewers were watching the show thinking "huh, they're really emphasising the mystery of who the Dragon is, but they're downplaying Rand super hard, that must mean they've got something really special planned." So they kept on watching and waiting in anticipation of a big payoff that never came.

[Taevyr]

For next thread title: "The arguing continues" may be fitting, but I doubt it'll be conductive considering the discussion's already tense at times. And it might be a bit of a red flag for people who'd otherwise join in on the discussion.

"The re-castening" and "another crank of the wheel" both sound good to me.

[Anteros]

In that case I'll vote for the arguing continues. Nothing wrong with people knowing what they're in for when they choose to join a thread.

[Corvus]

WoT 2: The fanfic strikes back

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Mechalich
LotR has epic elements but is mostly written as an adventure, to the point of cutting away to the hobbits to avoid getting bound up in political debate (ex. at Isengard). The Silmarillion, which is absolutely a straight up epic saga, is written very differently and moves through events at a comparative rampage.

This isn’t a fair comparison, though. Tolkien was able to see LotR through to completion as the sole author, whereas the Silmarillion was pulled together from story notes he left behind.

As a result, the Silmarillion varies widely in its scope and perspective from section to section. Some portions are very detailed and immediate, but others are more of an eagle’s-eye overview and much less fleshed out.

LotR is a single coherent narrative, but the Silmarillion is a pastiche of myths, narratives and summaries. They don’t make a good pair for illustrating the point you’re trying to make.

[Gnoman]

Was discussing this with my friend, also a WoT fan, last week now we both had caught up on the ep 8.

Someone earlier mentioned their wife asking all kinds of questions all the time. And then we have this discussion about how unnecessary details are. Jordan's writing was sometimes dragged out, but a lot of it was necessary. These issues are related.


I've been pondering Loial and the Ways. And none of it makes any sense.
Why does Loial exist at all? He has no purpose in the tv series. He is needed to read the the street-signs in the Ways. Yay! But why? No Ogier can access the Ways because you need the power to do so. Apparently. What does Ogier and Ways have to do with each other? There is no internal logic here. The shadow can use the Ways. This was a big deal because it had IMPLICATIONS for the free world. In the series it just meh is a thing. Because we lack huge amounts of story that might explain these issues. No one ever explains the Ways, why they were built, why Ogier are involved, why and how they actually matter. And then they even stray from the books in how it works so am completely lost. The really hilarious part is the whole "brick up the waygate! ASAP! OR STUFF HAPPENS!" but why should it, what does bricking it up actually do? You need Aes Sedai to even operate it. Does that actually stop anyone with the power doing anything? In the books this all had explanations, in the series it's just "brick up the gate!" because reasons. And yet the line stays in there. For no reason what so ever.
Padan Fain can apparently use them, somehow. Why did he though, the series gives him no motivation, and no mention. I read the books I know he should show up, but the series doesn't deign to explain anything at any point. Everything just is until it isn't. We are literally missing 2-3 seasons worths of episodes of vital world building so even the little we've been shown could make some danged sense, even in it's own scaled back internal little world. And it's driving me nuts.

Everything here except for one point is explained in the show.

The show explicitly says that Fain used the Ways to bring the Trollocs to attack the Two Rivers. The same scene where they demand the gate be secured includes a explanation that the Trollocs are getting past Fal Dara by using the Ways.

The one point not covered was edited out. There exists a brief segment showing Fain exiting a way hate holding an object that is clearly acting as a key. This appears to have been cut for time, but demonstrates you can access them without the Power.

[Rynjin]

The fact that a key establishing scene, which could have been under 10 seconds long, needed to be "cut for time" when they had time for multiple full episodes of non-canon material is...fascinating to think about.

[Rodin]

What you're describing is a change in story structure. Specifically from an adventure-based structure to an epic-based structure.

snip



Well summarized. I guess what I'm finding out is that I much prefer the adventure-based structure. My favorite parts of the later books are in adventure-based portions of the story too, like Ebou Dar. Outside of that there's only individual scenes that stuck with me.



Jordan wasn't as good as GRRM at writing unsympathetic characters. Many of his characters who are wrong but not evil, such as Elaidia, just sort of collapse into incoherency over time. As an epic necessarily has lots of unsympathetic people who are still, by virtue of position or personal power, extremely important, this is a comparative weakness. Otherwise though, ASOIAF mostly just has a head start on WoT, since it's an epic from the very beginning and features Ned Stark, a mighty lord, as the initial protagonist who meets with the king right away as the series begins. ASOIAF absolutely got bogged down massively by books 4 and 5, and parts of Dance are just as miserable to slog through as any portions of books 8-10 of WoT. And, of course, Jordan managed, with difficulty, to extricate his story from the mud, while Martin's is still stuck.

Agreed here too. Outside of Perrin and the Shaido, I don't recall any portion of WoT that engendered the "Oh my God I Do Not CARE" at the same level as parts of Feast and Dance.

At this point I don't know if I'd read...Winds of Winter was it? He's left it so long that I'd need to re-read my least favorite bits of the books just to get caught back up, and there's no way its good after he's sat on it for over a decade. Jordan knew he was ill and hurriedly tried to do right by his fans by taking a chainsaw to the Plot Kudzu, which made for a gratifying novel getting him out of the corner he'd written himself into. Martin has no excuse.


The fact that a key establishing scene, which could have been under 10 seconds long, needed to be "cut for time" when they had time for multiple full episodes of non-canon material is...fascinating to think about.

It sounds like it was cut for consistency instead. Can't have Fain using the Ways without channeling if you just saw Moiraine channeling them open. Of course, you then have to explain how Fain got them open in the first place...

As I didn't see episode 7 or 8 (and good thing too it sounds like), did Moiraine have to channel open and closed the one at the other end? If she didn't, they could still be saying that you need to channel open the first Waygate but can exit without a channeler. That opens a mystery of "who let Fain into the Ways?" for future seasons.

It's still dumb, mind you. Especially if nobody in the party questioned how the heck Fain got there. But it would at least be an explanation.

[Rynjin]

Yep, she needed to channel open the gate to get out at Fal Dara as well. This is why Nynaeve needed to channel to hold off Machin Shin while Moiraine opened it.

There are...so many things wrong with the Ways in the show. Everything about the above sentence hurts me.

[Gnoman]

"You can channel the Waygates open, or use a ter'angreal" isn't even remotely inconsistent. And it isn't like Fain isn't explicitly using the ways anyway. Not only could you hear his whistle, that's explicitly how he's moving Trollocs around.

[Rynjin]

It's just another example of a meaningless change that creates more problems than it solves. It's a lot simpler to understand "Ogier can open them, or anyone can with a special key" than "Aes Sedai can channel them open; other people can use them via unspecified means only revealed via cut content".

The former is also vastly more interesting and helps explains why Loial is even along for the trip at all.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Rodin
Martin has no excuse.

I’m no fan of Martin, but this is extremely unfair.

People who aren’t writers often fail to recognize that writing is genuinely difficult. Even the most productive writers sometimes go for long stretches without much to show for it. Everyone has crises in their lives that no one else has a right to comment on.

So I’m not going to judge Martin, or anyone else, for taking a long while between books. Life happens, interests change, what once flowed like fire now lies cold and grey. If he’s having a hard time, kicking him while he’s down won’t help anyone.

[Rodin]

I’m no fan of Martin, but this is extremely unfair.

People who aren’t writers often fail to recognize that writing is genuinely difficult. Even the most productive writers sometimes go for long stretches without much to show for it. Everyone has crises in their lives that no one else has a right to comment on.

So I’m not going to judge Martin, or anyone else, for taking a long while between books. Life happens, interests change, what once flowed like fire now lies cold and grey. If he’s having a hard time, kicking him while he’s down won’t help anyone.

I'm sorry, but no. If his life circumstances have changed and he doesn't think he can finish it, or if he doesn't have the interest and wants to drop it, or whatever reason you like...all he has to do is say so.

Instead, we got 8 years of "It's my top priority! It's only months away! I'm canceling convention appearances to finish it!" (https://www.theringer.com/game-of-thrones/2018/6/14/17462698/george-r-r-martin-winds-of-winter-timeline) Note the date on that article - three and a half years ago. Robert Jordan published FOUR NOVELS in that window alone. He published 8 in the full window of time since Martin's initial prediction of when it would be done. Heck, Martin himself released 4 ASoIaF books in the 9 year time frame since he announced he had begun writing it.

Martin dug his own grave with the fandom on this one. I realize that authors don't owe a completed series to the fans of their work, and that they can't be working on one project constantly. They're owed patience from their fans to allow them to put out a quality product.

But that relationship goes both ways, and the very least fans can expet is a minimum of honesty. Even if it's just a "due to personal issues I'm not willing to discuss, I may not finish this". Dangling a book on a string the way Martin has done is shocking behaviour that I can't recall seeing from any other author, ever.

Even if he publishes tomorrow I can't see any but the most hardcore fans coming back for it. It's been too long and his antics have pissed off too much of the fanbase.

[Palanan]

Second thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?641244-Wheel-of-Time-Amazon-Prime-II-No-Key-Required&p=25327038#post25327038) is now up.

[Saph]

I realize that authors don't owe a completed series to the fans of their work

I actually think they kind of do. If you advertise your book as being Part 1 of a 3-part series, there's an implicit promise there that you're intending to write a Part 2 and a Part 3. It's one thing if circumstances mean that you genuinely can't finish it, but it's another thing if you decide you just don't want to.