Wheel of Time, Season Two

[KorvinStarmast]

I wonder if it is too soon to begin discussing WoT season two.

I was browsing a few articles about the series on the web yesterday, and noted that the filming/production was completed this past summer, and that a release after LotR:RoP wrapped up, or self destructed, was how Amazon would space their two high fantasy series so as to not conflict with each other.

The last 'spoiler' type info I saw was that season two would fuse some of the stuff from books 2 and 3 together - if they didn't, Moiraine and Lan would barely fit into season two, in terms of screen time. With the major star and one of the most popular characters being absent that would not fit into the translation into TV very well. (Daniel Henney, IMO, does a great job of capturing the feel of Lan, the character).

Do any of you have an insights or inside info, on release dates?

[Saph]

The last 'spoiler' type info I saw was that season two would fuse some of the stuff from books 2 and 3 together - if they didn't, Moiraine and Lan would barely fit into season two, in terms of screen time. With the major star and one of the most popular characters being absent that would not fit into the translation into TV very well.

I think this is a strong indicator that Season 2 isn't going to be any better than Season 1, and might well be worse. Making Moiraine and Lan the main characters of Season 1 could have worked if they'd used that as an opportunity to build up the rest of the cast. Instead it feels as though they decided right at the start to make Moiraine the main character of the entire story (sidelining the actual protagonist in the process), and then belatedly discovered that, whoops, turns out she's actually a relatively minor character for books 2-4 and then disappears completely in book 5.

Apparently their solution to this problem – a problem that THEY CREATED – is to completely rewrite the entire series. There's no way this is going to work unless they have an amazing writing team, and it's fairly clear at this point that they don't.

It's so frustrating to watch them do such a poor job on this project. Some of the problems that WoT has had, like the Covid shutdowns and losing an actor, could be put down to bad luck. But their writing decisions have been just one long series of unforced errors, one after another.

[Gnoman]

I wonder if it is too soon to begin discussing WoT season two.

I was browsing a few articles about the series on the web yesterday, and noted that the filming/production was completed this past summer, and that a release after LotR:RoP wrapped up, or self destructed, was how Amazon would space their two high fantasy series so as to not conflict with each other.

The last 'spoiler' type info I saw was that season two would fuse some of the stuff from books 2 and 3 together - if they didn't, Moiraine and Lan would barely fit into season two, in terms of screen time. With the major star and one of the most popular characters being absent that would not fit into the translation into TV very well. (Daniel Henney, IMO, does a great job of capturing the feel of Lan, the character).

Do any of you have an insights or inside info, on release dates?

The consensus from the large group of people I've seen eagerly awaiting the second season is that February or March of next year is the most likely release date. All reasonable evidence is that the show is a massive hit (for one thing, they're already filming Season 3, with a higher budget, and have done most of the things they'll need to do for Season 4 - an amount of money they wouldn't be spending if the show wasn't popular), so they're likely to release it in a window where there's nothing much to compete with it - the same way they are handling all their big IPs. There's a big hole in Amazon's release schedule around that time after the next season of Vox Machina. There's been a very short teaser released, but no full trailer yet. This isn't particularly surprising - the trailer for Season 1 wasn't released until very close to the launch date, a pattern they followed with Rings Of Power. They don't start their marketing blitz until just before launch.

I'm perfectly happy to wait, because the first season's release was mixed into the holidays, which are a much busier time for me and made it difficult to watch every episode on release day. February or March wi

[Sapphire Guard]

This is one of the rare occasions where the compression is warranted, they have 14 books worth of content to get through. Best case, they split the party, Rand goes for Tear and some follow him, others go to Toman Head chasing the horn. It might work.

Speculating, Moiraine, Lan and Perrin chase Rand, Egwene and Nynaeve go to the Tower and meet Min and Elaynme there, and they end up in Falme. Mat... probably goes for the horn. Take out the second confrontation with Ba'alzamon and have Rand get wounded at the Stone instead.

[Gnoman]

There's a shot in the preview that is almost certainly "Tuli", and Moraine's Blue Sitter friend is confirmed to be showing up, so the damane pens are probably going to show up in much the same way. Mat's currently in Tar Valon, but they've done enough with the dagger to suggest he's every bit as drawn to it in the show as in the books, and Perrin has been shown in promo shots with Loial and Uno. Join them up with Mat, and you get the basic Great Hunt party sans Rand, with Perrin pushed into the leadership role. There's a lot of hints about the Aiel showing up sooner, including an Avihenda casting and sets clearly intended to be the Waste, so he might be off doing He Who Comes With The Dawn stuff, or else hitting Tear early. My guess is that they're going to be having Rand off exploring, wind up getting Ta'verened into taking the Stone of Tear, while everybody else pulls their Great Hunt roles. Rand takes the Stone halfway through, finds out Egwene is in danger, and runs charging after her. Basically plugging most of Book 3 into that big timeskip in Book 2. The part I have no idea about is what to do with Moraine and Lan.

[Psyren]

Do any of you have an insights or inside info, on release dates?

Nothing concrete yet. Assuming Twitter is a going concern for the next few months, I've been keeping a close eye on "Twitter of Time" (including the official WoT account, Amazon Prime, Rafe and several of the cast) for announcements.

There was a teaser released a month or so back for NYCC but no dates, if you've seen that:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua4SU8oKjx8

[Mechalich]

The consensus from the large group of people I've seen eagerly awaiting the second season is that February or March of next year is the most likely release date. All reasonable evidence is that the show is a massive hit (for one thing, they're already filming Season 3, with a higher budget, and have done most of the things they'll need to do for Season 4 - an amount of money they wouldn't be spending if the show wasn't popular), so they're likely to release it in a window where there's nothing much to compete with it - the same way they are handling all their big IPs. There's a big hole in Amazon's release schedule around that time after the next season of Vox Machina. There's been a very short teaser released, but no full trailer yet. This isn't particularly surprising - the trailer for Season 1 wasn't released until very close to the launch date, a pattern they followed with Rings Of Power. They don't start their marketing blitz until just before launch.

It's important to qualify terms like 'massive hit' with appropriate context with regard to streaming. Right now, every streaming service except Netflix is losing money (and Netflix has it's own problems). Disney+ apparently lost something like 1.5 billion dollars in the past year and the company just abruptly dumped its CEO last night. The streaming wars are, right now, a race to see who can set the largest pile of money on fire in the hopes of securing sufficient IP to sustain a paying subscriber base over the long term. As such, Amazon is absolutely willing to spend huge amounts of money on shows that aren't popular. Rings of Power is actually the perfect example of this - that show was made for such a jaw-droppingly immense amount of money that even as a Game of Thrones-level super-hit, which it wasn't and which at this point it is difficult for any show to possibly be, it would still fail to be profitable.


I think this is a strong indicator that Season 2 isn't going to be any better than Season 1, and might well be worse. Making Moiraine and Lan the main characters of Season 1 could have worked if they'd used that as an opportunity to build up the rest of the cast. Instead it feels as though they decided right at the start to make Moiraine the main character of the entire story (sidelining the actual protagonist in the process), and then belatedly discovered that, whoops, turns out she's actually a relatively minor character for books 2-4 and then disappears completely in book 5.

They absolutely should have used Moiraine like GoT used Ned Stark - bring in a high-profile actor to build buzz and carry early episodes while the younger crew finds their feet and then transition away from them to the actual main characters. Not only is this helpful for storytelling, but it also saves money because clearly Rosamund Pike is being paid so much more than everyone else in this show and her contract will become ridiculous after a renegotiation or two. Honestly, it would make sense to have her actually die in the events of book 5 and cut out all the later stuff involving her that wasn't that important in the grand scheme.

[Thomas Cardew]

They absolutely should have used Moiraine like GoT used Ned Stark - bring in a high-profile actor to build buzz and carry early episodes while the younger crew finds their feet and then transition away from them to the actual main characters. Not only is this helpful for storytelling, but it also saves money because clearly Rosamund Pike is being paid so much more than everyone else in this show and her contract will become ridiculous after a renegotiation or two. Honestly, it would make sense to have her actually die in the events of book 5 and cut out all the later stuff involving her that wasn't that important in the grand scheme.

If the show even makes it that far, they could just switch actresses. They've got a decent excuse with the Finn captivity causing unknown side effects. Other actors have been replaced before with far less plausible in-universe explanations.

[Velaryon]

My sense is that this board is harsher on the show than the fan base in general. I think they didn't do as good a job building up the ta'veren as they could have, but I don't think things are as bad as some are saying, either. There's still plenty of time to get them where they need to be before Moiraine exits the cast, and if done right it will work just as well as Ned Stark's death did in Game of Thrones.

It's been a while since I watched GoT, but I don't remember Robb being built up all that much before his father's death. I think WoT has mostly been mediocre so far except for a couple of brief bright spots - it's certainly doing better than Shannara Chronicles or Legend of the Seeker were at this point in their runs - but they definitely need to up their game next season if they're going to be successful.

[Mechalich]

My sense is that this board is harsher on the show than the fan base in general. I think they didn't do as good a job building up the ta'veren as they could have, but I don't think things are as bad as some are saying, either. There's still plenty of time to get them where they need to be before Moiraine exits the cast, and if done right it will work just as well as Ned Stark's death did in Game of Thrones.

It's been a while since I watched GoT, but I don't remember Robb being built up all that much before his father's death. I think WoT has mostly been mediocre so far except for a couple of brief bright spots - it's certainly doing better than Shannara Chronicles or Legend of the Seeker were at this point in their runs - but they definitely need to up their game next season if they're going to be successful.

It largely depends on how you measure success, and in this case, specifically whether or not budget is taken into account. For example, yes, WoT is better than Shannara Chronicles, but Shannara cost a puny fraction of what WoT did. You could make four or five Shannara-budget shows for the cost of one WoT, and if you actually did that, probably one of them, through a combination of casting, direction, and general creativity, would actually be good. When you make only one show, using all that money, and it turns out to be broadly mediocre that feels like a failure to me. This is especially the case that despite all the money spent on it, WoT didn't look like it cost a fortune. For that matter, neither did RoP. Amazon seems to have trouble getting their money's worth out of shows. Say what you want about House of the Dragon, but the giant piles of cash expended turned into some decidedly worthy spectacle.

It's not a bad show, and it certainly has room to get better. Long-running shows with young actors in the main cast usually do simply because the actors both improve generally and gain a greater understanding of their characters and even because the crew gets better at optimizing things like makeup so that more time can be spent doing additional takes (trading an hour or two each working day between makeup and actual shooting is huge).

[Sapphire Guard]

It's hard to tell, because the streaming services don't have to release their metrics. So they are incentivised to release only positive info, while critics are incentivised to discover that it was a massive failure because that drives clicks.

I recently watched WOT, and it was indeed better than I expected from the fan reactions. Like with ROP, step 1 is 'ignore the books.' That aside, it becomes an average show with some ropey moments.

As a business model, that works, because it draws in crowds, and you don't have to be as good as a new IP to get lots of interest. Netflix Resident Evil got a solid crowd despite being horrendous because they were using the Resi name. 'Average show with big name' is a shortcut for the streaming services to pull in subscribers.

[KorvinStarmast]

I think this is a strong indicator that Season 2 isn't going to be any better than Season 1, and might well be worse. Making Moiraine and Lan the main characters of Season 1 could have worked if they'd used that as an opportunity to build up the rest of the cast. Instead it feels as though they decided right at the start to make Moiraine the main character of the entire story (sidelining the actual protagonist in the process), and then belatedly discovered that, whoops, turns out she's actually a relatively minor character for books 2-4 and then disappears completely in book 5. As they aren't going for 14 seasons, we all expect a bit of compression.


Apparently their solution to this problem – a problem that THEY CREATED – is to completely rewrite the entire series. There's no way this is going to work unless they have an amazing writing team, and it's fairly clear at this point that they don't. Yeah, the RoP example may not be what we have here, but we'll see if they can raise their game.

But their writing decisions have been just one long series of unforced errors, one after another. It's almost like Amazon knows how to sell books / stories but isn't very clear on how to create one. :smallwink:

The part I have no idea about is what to do with Moraine and Lan. My wife's suggestion: at least one more hot 'in the tub' scene with the two of them. I had to break it to her that the two are not, in the stories, lovers. This made her sad.

There was a teaser released a month or so back for NYCC but no dates, if you've seen that: I had not, thank you. :smallsmile: (But what a strange way to present the trailer/sneak peak. Max Headroom / Edison Carter would have had trouble parsing that one. :smalltongue:

Right now, every streaming service except Netflix is losing money (and Netflix has it's own problems). Disney+ apparently lost something like 1.5 billion dollars in the past year and the company just abruptly dumped its CEO last night. This is karma slamming them for their treatment of Star Wars, right? :smallannoyed:

They absolutely should have used Moiraine like GoT used Ned Stark - bring in a high-profile actor to build buzz and carry early episodes while the younger crew finds their feet and then transition away from them to the actual main characters. Not only is this helpful for storytelling, but it also saves money because clearly Rosamund Pike is being paid so much more than everyone else in this show and her contract will become ridiculous after a renegotiation or two. Honestly, it would make sense to have her actually die in the events of book 5 and cut out all the later stuff involving her that wasn't that important in the grand scheme. What a good suggestion, too bad they didn't take that approach.

[Psyren]

It's almost like Amazon knows how to sell books / stories but isn't very clear on how to create one. :smallwink:

They've been fantastic at adapting stories. The Boys, Expanse, Invincible, Good Omens all say hi.

WoT season 1's biggest problem was the pandemic (especially its effect on the finale), and even that didn't have nearly the negative impact detractors believe it to have had.


My wife's suggestion: at least one more hot 'in the tub' scene with the two of them. I had to break it to her that the two are not, in the stories, lovers. This made her sad.

They're very much not lovers in the show either, so respectfully, I'm not sure where your wife got that impression :smalltongue:

But I cosign more Daniel Henney tub scenes :smallbiggrin:



This is karma slamming them for their treatment of Star Wars, right? :smallannoyed:

So long as they keep JJ Abrams far away from the property going forward I'm good.

[Rodin]

The obvious solution of what to do with Moiraine in book 2 is give her Verin’s story. Verin is important but mostly becomes important in later books - in book 2 she’s mostly discount Moiraine.

Of course, there’s also a lot of good reasons to compress book 2. That book was a slog with very little to do for many characters and shrinking the timeline just makes sense.

[warty goblin]

I recently watched WOT, and it was indeed better than I expected from the fan reactions. Like with ROP, step 1 is 'ignore the books.' That aside, it becomes an average show with some ropey moments.


The GF and I gave WoT a whirl, with neither of us having read the books, but dropped it after like 4 episodes because it was a kinda dull mess. The first episode was strong, I will absolutely credit it with a top notch fantasy village sacking by monsters, and solid kickass magic at the end, but it went downhill from there. It fell very much into the streaming TV trap of having lots of dramatic stuff going on, but getting so tangled up in that it forgot to add up to a cohesive story. So somehow everything feels rushed, but also like it isn't going anywhere.

And yes, Rings of Power absolutely fell into the same trap. Though even when nothing happened there for half an episode, it at least had some really top notch art direction.

[KorvinStarmast]

They've been fantastic at adapting stories. Expanse, The others don't interest me, but Expanse was pretty good.


So long as they keep JJ Abrams far away from the property going forward I'm good. He seems to have killed it.
I will not pay money to Disney to get streaming Andor, but I have heard some good things about it.
I'll see if my son still has that subscription, might have a look.

[Psyren]

The obvious solution of what to do with Moiraine in book 2 is give her Verin’s story. Verin is important but mostly becomes important in later books - in book 2 she’s mostly discount Moiraine.

Of course, there’s also a lot of good reasons to compress book 2. That book was a slog with very little to do for many characters and shrinking the timeline just makes sense.

I agree with this. Verin's purpose in 2 is "hey I know Trolloc prophecies and Cairhienin politics" and "I know what portal stones are and the symbol for Toman Head" - the former is firmly in Moriaine's wheelhouse too, and the while the latter is certainly a more Brown Ajah thing to know, it's something that Moiraine could have reasonably ferreted out in her search too.

Verin's role in 3 is much more specific to her - being the one that sets Egwene on the path of becoming a Dreamer (complete with some heavy foreshadowing), and bookending her later and much more climactic scene with Egwene towards the end of the series.

[Mechalich]

They've been fantastic at adapting stories. The Boys, Expanse, Invincible, Good Omens all say hi.

The Expanse doesn't count, they acquired it half-finished. As for the other three, the interesting correlation between those shows is that they all feature well-known, capable actors who know how to handle the genres they are in. Good Omens is the most obvious - that show absolutely lives and dies on the contributions Michael Sheen and David Tenant, and the quality plummets when they aren't on-screen. Good Omens is one of the best examples so far this century of the power of casting.

One of the problems with a show like WoT is that the casting decisions are inherently unpredictable. The show has to cast young actors with limited experience and even in the case of older actors they often have little on their resume that suggests 'epic' which is a very different mode, with very different demands from the sort of network sitcom/drama zone that is common among US actors. GoT/HoD leans heavily on British actors for a reason, as they seem to have a better handle on the kind of acting fantasy epics lean into compared to American actors (I have no evidence, but I think Shakespeare has something to do with that). WoT reveals this in that standout performance from season one was Daniel Henney as Lan, which, ah, very nice for him, but that's not exactly how the show ought to have unfolded.


This is karma slamming them for their treatment of Star Wars, right?

Unfortunately, probably not, as the Star Wars shows are part of it. While not on the level of Rings of Power, the various Star Wars series are extremely expensive to make, as are the Marvel ones, Disney's other big property, and Disney absolutely flooded the market with these really expensive shows. Even though most of these shows were generally popular by streaming standards that's actually a fairly low standard and because Disney+ costs significantly less for a subscription than Netflix that meant they weren't recouping costs. Shows like Andor, or Moon Knight, however good they might be (and Andor is very good, though at times awfully grim) simply don't have the kind of audience necessary to justify the massive expense of production. At the same time, it really isn't possible to make shows within such notable IPs on the cheap. She-Hulk, for example, had to spend an absolute fortune on VFX and still took tons of flak for it but there's absolutely no way to do that premise without spending a fortune.

Note that Netflix, by contrast, invests heavily in lower budget projects. Their recent big hit is Dahmer, a crime thriller, which is comparatively cheap to make. When they do go the fantasy or science fiction route they tend towards urban fantasy, which can be shot cheaply on real world sets in BC or Georgia with the incentives. There's also a front-loading issue. Netflix spent a huge amount on the new season of Stranger Things, but that show's a proven commodity by now. Too many of the Marvel and Star Wars shows Disney puts out are one-shot miniseries, with the costs massively front-loaded.

More broadly various pieces of news this year suggest that the Streaming Wars are moving into a new phase. Netflix's struggle to sustain it's subscribe base, massive losses at Disney+, Amazon spending far too much on mediocre shows, and the general wheel spinning of the various lesser services (Hulu, Peacock, etc.) combined with overall changes in interest rates, which impact the ability of investors to accommodate losses in exchange for the promise of growth seem to indicate the huge torrent of money directed to produce an endless supply of new content is about to tighten, significantly. A wave of acquisitions and consolidation is also likely. Exactly what shape this will take, and what it will mean for a show like WoT is unknown, though it seems safe for now.

[Psyren]

The Expanse doesn't count, they acquired it half-finished.

Irrelevant, they still had creative control and thus the show would live or die on their adaptation decisions. Amazon now has an equal number of seasons as Syfy, even with the pandemic throwing a wrench into things.


As for the other three, the interesting correlation between those shows is that they all feature well-known, capable actors who know how to handle the genres they are in.

As does WoT. Rosamund Pike, Sophie Okonedo, Alvaro Morte and Fares Fares are hardly unknown actors, and they're certainly not new to either longform drama or sci-fi/fantasy.

[Gnoman]

We actually know where a lot of the Wheel money went - they've shown some of the background work put in.


According to some really solid sources, they've already designed most of the various cultures in the series (a ton of work, given the scope) to ensure consistency. Might well be others that are less identifiable. This doesn't sound like much at first, but when you actually look at what it encompasses (clothing styles require an absolute ton of work from the costumers, any distinct weapons or equipment need worked out with the armorers and stunt coordinators, developing reasonable mannerisms is a deceptively complex job, etc) it starts to look like a money-eating hole in the ground. Very little of that has shown up on screen yet, because the first season (like the first book) only really shows the frontier of Andor and one of the Borderlands. Everything else is fragments - Logain's story shows a bit of Ghealdan, there's a tiny bit of the Aiel in, the Seanchan of course, and there's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it Sea Folk trader in the background of Tar Valon. Not to forget, of course, Suian's flashback to her early life in Tear.

That's not the only expense - a ton of the effects are actually practical instead of CGI, which is expensive. There's a fair bit of subtle CGI going around, that's not cheap. A ton of filming was done on-location across Europe - that's not cheap.


The Expanse doesn't count, they acquired it half-finished. As for the other three, the interesting correlation between those shows is that they all feature well-known, capable actors who know how to handle the genres they are in. Good Omens is the most obvious - that show absolutely lives and dies on the contributions Michael Sheen and David Tenant, and the quality plummets when they aren't on-screen. Good Omens is one of the best examples so far this century of the power of casting.

One of the problems with a show like WoT is that the casting decisions are inherently unpredictable. The show has to cast young actors with limited experience and even in the case of older actors they often have little on their resume that suggests 'epic' which is a very different mode, with very different demands from the sort of network sitcom/drama zone that is common among US actors. GoT/HoD leans heavily on British actors for a reason, as they seem to have a better handle on the kind of acting fantasy epics lean into compared to American actors (I have no evidence, but I think Shakespeare has something to do with that). WoT reveals this in that standout performance from season one was Daniel Henney as Lan, which, ah, very nice for him, but that's not exactly how the show ought to have unfolded.



Unfortunately, probably not, as the Star Wars shows are part of it. While not on the level of Rings of Power, the various Star Wars series are extremely expensive to make, as are the Marvel ones, Disney's other big property, and Disney absolutely flooded the market with these really expensive shows. Even though most of these shows were generally popular by streaming standards that's actually a fairly low standard and because Disney+ costs significantly less for a subscription than Netflix that meant they weren't recouping costs. Shows like Andor, or Moon Knight, however good they might be (and Andor is very good, though at times awfully grim) simply don't have the kind of audience necessary to justify the massive expense of production. At the same time, it really isn't possible to make shows within such notable IPs on the cheap. She-Hulk, for example, had to spend an absolute fortune on VFX and still took tons of flak for it but there's absolutely no way to do that premise without spending a fortune.

Note that Netflix, by contrast, invests heavily in lower budget projects. Their recent big hit is Dahmer, a crime thriller, which is comparatively cheap to make. When they do go the fantasy or science fiction route they tend towards urban fantasy, which can be shot cheaply on real world sets in BC or Georgia with the incentives. There's also a front-loading issue. Netflix spent a huge amount on the new season of Stranger Things, but that show's a proven commodity by now. Too many of the Marvel and Star Wars shows Disney puts out are one-shot miniseries, with the costs massively front-loaded.

More broadly various pieces of news this year suggest that the Streaming Wars are moving into a new phase. Netflix's struggle to sustain it's subscribe base, massive losses at Disney+, Amazon spending far too much on mediocre shows, and the general wheel spinning of the various lesser services (Hulu, Peacock, etc.) combined with overall changes in interest rates, which impact the ability of investors to accommodate losses in exchange for the promise of growth seem to indicate the huge torrent of money directed to produce an endless supply of new content is about to tighten, significantly. A wave of acquisitions and consolidation is also likely. Exactly what shape this will take, and what it will mean for a show like WoT is unknown, though it seems safe for now.

Disney+ is operating at a loss because they're in a growth phase - they're operating below cost in order to draw in customers. The last time financials were publicly discussed, the company stated that they still expect to be profitable by 2024, due to a combination of increased subscription fees and the addition of a cheaper ad-supported version. The recent change in leadership has nothing to do with streaming - the outgoing CEO was badly mishandling the theme park division which is where Disney makes most of their money.

Which brings around the other major point. Some of the streaming services (such as Netfilx) make all of their money directly via content, that isn't the case for Amazon and Disney. Disney's big moneymakers are merchandising (Star Wars toys alone are a half-billion dollar yearly asset, as best as anybody can tell) and their theme parks. The profitability of which is directly influenced by the strength and diversity of the Disney brand - you have to have lots of eager fans to buy your toys and go to your parks. Amazon is more subtle, but they still derive a ton of money as a secondary effect of their video service - you have to have Amazon Prime in order to watch Amazon-produced shows, and people with Amazon Prime are much more likely to spend lots of money on Amazon because of the Prime shipping, Prime-only deals, etc. This means that both Disney and Amazon can treat their entire streaming division, including the original programming, as a loss leader and still wind up with higher profits overall as long as lots and lots of people tune in.

[Morgaln]

We actually know where a lot of the Wheel money went - they've shown some of the background work put in.


According to some really solid sources, they've already designed most of the various cultures in the series (a ton of work, given the scope) to ensure consistency. Might well be others that are less identifiable. This doesn't sound like much at first, but when you actually look at what it encompasses (clothing styles require an absolute ton of work from the costumers, any distinct weapons or equipment need worked out with the armorers and stunt coordinators, developing reasonable mannerisms is a deceptively complex job, etc) it starts to look like a money-eating hole in the ground. Very little of that has shown up on screen yet, because the first season (like the first book) only really shows the frontier of Andor and one of the Borderlands. Everything else is fragments - Logain's story shows a bit of Ghealdan, there's a tiny bit of the Aiel in, the Seanchan of course, and there's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it Sea Folk trader in the background of Tar Valon. Not to forget, of course, Suian's flashback to her early life in Tear.

That's not the only expense - a ton of the effects are actually practical instead of CGI, which is expensive. There's a fair bit of subtle CGI going around, that's not cheap. A ton of filming was done on-location across Europe - that's not cheap.



So they did all of that designing of costumes for various cultures, but they couldn't afford to give Perrin and Egwene a second outfit for the show? When they meet with the rest of the group at Tar Valon, the two are wearng the exact same clothes they had been wearing when the Children of Light captured them. The clothes that, in Egwene's case, got taken from her and in Perrin's case, got cut to ribbons. I know it's a minor thing and completely irrelevant to the story, but it's a continuity error that really irritates me for some reason.

Overall, the whole show to me felt off, probably because I do know the books. It felt like they really did want to write their own story, but since they were using an IP, they had to pay lip service to some parts of the story that were so important they couldn't justify leaving them out. That's particularly noticeable with those characters they clearly weren't especially interested in telling stories about, especially Rand, Mat and Thom. I'm not even touching the mess they made of Perrin with a ten-foot-pole.

It's clear that the creators of the show want to make it mostly about the female characters, i. e. Moiraine, Nynaeve and Egwene. This is very apparent in the scenes with the White Cloaks; in the book, those are very much about Perrin; he's the one who faces the threat of execution; he's the one who killed two men and has to come to terms with that. He's the one who just lost a friend (who doesn't even show up in the show). In the show, it's all about Egwene; her being threatened, her having to make the choice whether she lives or Perrin does, her trying to use the one power to save them both. You could replace Perrin with Egwene's favorite dog in those scenes and it would work mostly the same.
There are many other scenes that underline this; most prominently, in the last episode, the actual climax centers around Nynaeve and Egwene and the aftermath of what happens in the blight is more concerned with what it means for Moiraine than for Rand. The dagger's impact and danger has been vastly decreased, probably since it's something only really relevant to Mat's story (I don't expect the parts that concern Rand to even be in the show, considering they rely on properties the dagger clearly doesn't have in the show).
I don't mind putting the female characters into a more prominent role, the first book is very Rand-centric, after all, and Nynaeve is one of my favorite characters, but it shouldn't come at the cost of sidelining the male main characters.

Incidentally, the best episodes are those they almost completely invented (the one with Moiraine, Lan and Nynaeve in the Aes Sedai camp, as well as the episode in Tar Valon). They are the episodes that really give depths to characters. After the Tar Valon episode, we probably know more about Siuan than we do about Mat or Rand. We've spent more time getting to know a warder that is dead by the end of the episode than we did on Thom Merrilin, Loial or Min, all of whom are supposed to be part of the show until the end. It's somewhat justified with Min, as she really doesn't have more of a part in the book, and Loial is so irrelevant to the plot that I'm almost surprised they didn't cut him completely, but if you want to add new stuff, why not add it to canonical characters to make them better known to the viewers? All of which goes to show that the writers for the show can write, they just didn't want to write Wheel of Time.

[Gnoman]

So they did all of that designing of costumes for various cultures, but they couldn't afford to give Perrin and Egwene a second outfit for the show? When they meet with the rest of the group at Tar Valon, the two are wearng the exact same clothes they had been wearing when the Children of Light captured them. The clothes that, in Egwene's case, got taken from her and in Perrin's case, got cut to ribbons. I know it's a minor thing and completely irrelevant to the story, but it's a continuity error that really irritates me for some reason.


Character's clothing, and most importantly changes to them, are a massive Thing in the books. Nyneave's obsession with "stout Two Rivers wool" and disgust at having to wear silks is a metaphor for her refusal to change, while the way Egwene eagerly goes from Two Rivers clothing to Novice White to Aiel garb is a mark of her willingness to leap into every new frontier. Same with the men - increasingly fancy coats symbolize them going from simple farmboys to rulers. Avihenda gets into the action as well, where her acceptance of wetlander clothes is almost as big a mark of her status as bridge-builder than her bonding with Elayne or Rand, not to mention her transition from the clothing of a Maiden to the dress of a Wise One.

In the books, none of them put off their Two Rivers clothes until after they travel to the Eye Of The World, because until then they don't know what's in store and think they'll be able to go home soon. The same dynamic is in play for the show - when they reunite in Tar Valon, they're all fundamentally the same people they were when they left - the big reveals haven't happened yet, and they don't have any real idea how much their lives have been changed. Granted, that's not literally the same outfit, but this is a visual medium. The easiest way to show that they're still wearing the same metaphorical clothes is to show them wearing the same literal clothes.

[Sapphire Guard]

Huh. I can't say that came across much. There wasn't much that I thought made cultures distinct across Season 1, at least. The Aes Sedai had distinctive dresses in the same colour, which was a nice touch, but I didn't see much by way of cultural mannerisms. I don't know if there was a way to tell, for instance, where Eamon Valda was born. The Two Rivers clothes didn't seem particularly distinct from anywhere else. Thom says at one point that the only notable physical characteristic is red hair, and that two rivers dress is distinctive, but I didn't notice that it was.

The closest we get are the Tinkers, who have Irish accents, even though they probably should be a hodgepodge of different accents instead, and Aram has a Dublin accent which is completely different accent to his grandparents. Even the cad'in'sor doesn't look that distinct (Also, it's white! An Aiel wearing white!)

WOT is an interesting show. On its own, it stands okay, but there are some really weird creative decisions, and it is hard to tell if they are intentional or not.

[Psyren]

(Also, it's white! An Aiel wearing white!)

They were fighting in the snow for over a month by that point, why wouldn't they be wearing white?


Character's clothing, and most importantly changes to them, are a massive Thing in the books. Nyneave's obsession with "stout Two Rivers wool" and disgust at having to wear silks is a metaphor for her refusal to change, while the way Egwene eagerly goes from Two Rivers clothing to Novice White to Aiel garb is a mark of her willingness to leap into every new frontier. Same with the men - increasingly fancy coats symbolize them going from simple farmboys to rulers. Avihenda gets into the action as well, where her acceptance of wetlander clothes is almost as big a mark of her status as bridge-builder than her bonding with Elayne or Rand, not to mention her transition from the clothing of a Maiden to the dress of a Wise One.

In the books, none of them put off their Two Rivers clothes until after they travel to the Eye Of The World, because until then they don't know what's in store and think they'll be able to go home soon. The same dynamic is in play for the show - when they reunite in Tar Valon, they're all fundamentally the same people they were when they left - the big reveals haven't happened yet, and they don't have any real idea how much their lives have been changed. Granted, that's not literally the same outfit, but this is a visual medium. The easiest way to show that they're still wearing the same metaphorical clothes is to show them wearing the same literal clothes.

You're forgetting the show doesn't have the luxury of constantly letting us ride around in the characters' heads the way the books do. Acts like Egwene immediately undoing her braid or the dissonance between Nynaeve's repeated mental dismissal of silks contrasted with her gleeful attitude to wearing them when she has the excuse of being undercover or wh en Lan is around are much harder to show in a medium where we don't have access to the running commentary in their minds anymore. And the show certainly doesn't have nearly as much time to spend on dresses as the books do.

[Morgaln]

Character's clothing, and most importantly changes to them, are a massive Thing in the books. Nyneave's obsession with "stout Two Rivers wool" and disgust at having to wear silks is a metaphor for her refusal to change, while the way Egwene eagerly goes from Two Rivers clothing to Novice White to Aiel garb is a mark of her willingness to leap into every new frontier. Same with the men - increasingly fancy coats symbolize them going from simple farmboys to rulers. Avihenda gets into the action as well, where her acceptance of wetlander clothes is almost as big a mark of her status as bridge-builder than her bonding with Elayne or Rand, not to mention her transition from the clothing of a Maiden to the dress of a Wise One.

In the books, none of them put off their Two Rivers clothes until after they travel to the Eye Of The World, because until then they don't know what's in store and think they'll be able to go home soon. The same dynamic is in play for the show - when they reunite in Tar Valon, they're all fundamentally the same people they were when they left - the big reveals haven't happened yet, and they don't have any real idea how much their lives have been changed. Granted, that's not literally the same outfit, but this is a visual medium. The easiest way to show that they're still wearing the same metaphorical clothes is to show them wearing the same literal clothes.

Whle I agree in general, you're ignoring that the same literal clothes were destroyed previously. These are not anime characters; they are supposed to have several changes of clothes. I can somewhat overlook it with Perrin; his shirt is just nondescript brown without any distinguishing marks, it's somewhat believable that he has a second very similar one. Egwene's dress, on the other hand, should be one of a kind in a medieval world. Also, the fact that the White Cloaks take her clothes from her and put her in a simple white dress is a mark of the exact same symbolism that you mention here. Giving her back the dress that was specifically taken from her undoes a lot of that and the ensuing character development.

[Taevyr]

They were fighting in the snow for over a month by that point, why wouldn't they be wearing white?

....Because white clothing is literally the one thing that distinguishes Gai'shain from the rest of the Aiel in their society? They make a point of white not being a thing for non-gai'shain in the books.

[Mechalich]

The closest we get are the Tinkers, who have Irish accents, even though they probably should be a hodgepodge of different accents instead, and Aram has a Dublin accent which is completely different accent to his grandparents.

Choices like this, and many, many others that displayed a distinct lack of attention to detail seem to me emblematic of how WoT was produced as if it were a standard network or cable teen fantasy rather than the 'prestige TV' sort of fantasy series that it's budget and limited run would lead the audience to expect. Rafe Judkins, the showrunner, has experience in the network world, having been most notable prior to WoT for work on Agents of Shield and the shows actually feel similar. In a sense the current show gives the WoT the Shannara treatment and not the Game of Thrones treatment. Yes it still manages to be better than Shannara Chronicles but that's a low bar especially given the much higher budget and the simple fact that the Wheel of Time is a better series than the early Shannara books (apologies to Terry Brooks but there's a clear divide).

[Gnoman]

The Tu'athan are heavily inspired by specific groups in the real world. One of those is Irish. The show version having Irish accents isn't "failure to pay attention to detail", it is calling out the inspiration for the source material. Even ignoring that, it is very common for people to gradually accept the accents of the people they live around, particularly in a setting with no transmitted or recorded audio where the people you live around are the only consistent voices you hear. It is far from unheard of for actors (Schwarzenegger is a famous example) to take classes to maintain their birth accent if they've made it part of their trademark.

[Psyren]

Are there really people out there in the fanbase whining about Tuatha'an accents now?


....Because white clothing is literally the one thing that distinguishes Gai'shain from the rest of the Aiel in their society? They make a point of white not being a thing for non-gai'shain in the books.

It's not the "one thing." Gai'shain are also forbidden weapons (and jewelry). And cadin'sor are very obviously not robes, regardless of their color.

Even if the color was all that mattered - "hey, we need to actually be able to hide in this frozen water we've never seen before in order to fulfill our mission of killing Laman, can we get a small exemption Wise Ones" does not seem farfetched.

[InvisibleBison]

They were fighting in the snow for over a month by that point, why wouldn't they be wearing white?

It's reasonable to think that the Aiel would not have been able to obtain winter camo cadin'sor even if they had wanted to. Cloth and clothing is expensive in a pre-industrial society, and the Aiel are strictly limited in how much loot they can take from a city. Even if there's no issue about looking like a gai'shain, how many warriors would be willing to give up some actually valuable plunder for a temporary tactical advantage? And even if there was a warrior willing to do so, and their share of the Fifth was big enough to get that much cloth, would they have had the sewing skills and time necessary to make a new cadin'sor? Aiel warriors are full-time fighters, they don't cultivate civilian skills.

[Mechalich]

The Tu'athan are heavily inspired by specific groups in the real world. One of those is Irish. The show version having Irish accents isn't "failure to pay attention to detail", it is calling out the inspiration for the source material. Even ignoring that, it is very common for people to gradually accept the accents of the people they live around, particularly in a setting with no transmitted or recorded audio where the people you live around are the only consistent voices you hear. It is far from unheard of for actors (Schwarzenegger is a famous example) to take classes to maintain their birth accent if they've made it part of their trademark.

I was referring to the part where Aram speaks with a vastly and obviously different accent from that of the two grandparents who raised him. That makes no sense to the point where Aram's relationship with these people appears extremely dubious.


It's reasonable to think that the Aiel would not have been able to obtain winter camo cadin'sor even if they had wanted to. Cloth and clothing is expensive in a pre-industrial society, and the Aiel are strictly limited in how much loot they can take from a city. Even if there's no issue about looking like a gai'shain, how many warriors would be willing to give up some actually valuable plunder for a temporary tactical advantage? And even if there was a warrior willing to do so, and their share of the Fifth was big enough to get that much cloth, would they have had the sewing skills and time necessary to make a new cadin'sor? Aiel warriors are full-time fighters, they don't cultivate civilian skills.

White clothing, in particular, is comparatively rare, because it requires a lengthy bleached process to be produced and then, if worn for any sort of serious labor, stains almost immediately. White clothing is extremely common ceremonial clothing, worn only on special occasions or by high-status individuals in a wide range of cultures as a result. The Aiel can get away with putting forced laborers in white because they live in a desert with drastically reduced amounts of mud and other common stain sources (also because the Aiel have a highly advanced case of Fremen Mirage and very little about them actually makes sense).

[Psyren]

It's reasonable to think that the Aiel would not have been able to obtain winter camo cadin'sor even if they had wanted to. Cloth and clothing is expensive in a pre-industrial society, and the Aiel are strictly limited in how much loot they can take from a city. Even if there's no issue about looking like a gai'shain, how many warriors would be willing to give up some actually valuable plunder for a temporary tactical advantage? And even if there was a warrior willing to do so, and their share of the Fifth was big enough to get that much cloth, would they have had the sewing skills and time necessary to make a new cadin'sor? Aiel warriors are full-time fighters, they don't cultivate civilian skills.

You don't need to re-sew everyone's outfits, just bleach the colors out. Which they clearly know how to do, otherwise gai'shain whites wouldn't be. And keep in mind this is a society that kills each other over puddles of water.


White clothing, in particular, is comparatively rare, because it requires a lengthy bleached process to be produced and then, if worn for any sort of serious labor, stains almost immediately. White clothing is extremely common ceremonial clothing, worn only on special occasions or by high-status individuals in a wide range of cultures as a result. The Aiel can get away with putting forced laborers in white because they live in a desert with drastically reduced amounts of mud and other common stain sources (also because the Aiel have a highly advanced case of Fremen Mirage and very little about them actually makes sense).

If you acknowledge that they're a fantasy society and a several things about them don't make sense with our world, then why are snow camo outfits such a massive narrative leap? It just seems like an odd hill for anyone to die on.

[Mechalich]

You don't need to re-sew everyone's outfits, just bleach the colors out. Which they clearly know how to do, otherwise gai'shain whites wouldn't be. And keep in mind this is a society that kills each other over puddles of water.

Bleaching takes months, and requires the garments to be laid outside, often in a bleachfield (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleachfield), to be exposed to as much sunlight as possible. During that time, no one is wearing the garments. This is not something that an army, on the move, can do.


If you acknowledge that they're a fantasy society and a several things about them don't make sense with our world, then why are snow camo outfits such a massive narrative leap? It just seems like an odd hill for anyone to die on.

Snow camo, at the army scale, didn't come into development until WWI. Pre-modern forces utilized concealment on the march, and to get into ambush position (brown is going to be functionally just as good as white for this purpose in most temperate winter landscapes), but it was not a feature of combat, because fighting involved lots of movement, which gives away position. It was only the development of powerful and long-range firearms in the 19th century that made fixed position concealment in combat valuable.

The broader point is that the Aiel, in the books, have an extremely strong associate with white garments being only for prisoners of war. The association was strong enough, and referenced sufficiently often, that Robert Jordan felt secure in allowing various Aiel characters in later books to use idioms related to this taboo without any follow-up explanation. For example, one of the Shaido leaders, scattered about by Sammael in Crown of Swords in front of Rand's armies, tells his wife 'you must prepare to put on white' and it is expected that the audience will understand exactly what this means.

This type of element, one already expressed in a visual fashion, is the kind of thing that should get an adaptor jumping up with joy. Changing that, and thereby rendering this incredibly valuable bit of text useless, is a massive unforced error.

[Rynjin]

You don't need to re-sew everyone's outfits, just bleach the colors out. Which they clearly know how to do, otherwise gai'shain whites wouldn't be. And keep in mind this is a society that kills each other over puddles of water.



If you acknowledge that they're a fantasy society and a several things about them don't make sense with our world, then why are snow camo outfits such a massive narrative leap? It just seems like an odd hill for anyone to die on.

Because it's one of a thousand different "hills" that add up to a mountain of reasons for why the show sucks: it fundamentally either misunderstands or willfully disregards almost every aspect of the worldbuilding of the novels.

The world and setting with its intricacies are one of the only things about the novel that gets near-universal praise. Adapting it properly should be a top priority.

It'd be like doing a Lord of the Rings adaptation and including an elf named Buttdork the Grotesque, a hideous and inept elf with zero usable skills.

It doesn't make sense in the context of the setting it's adapting and never needed to be added at all.

[Psyren]

Bleaching takes months, and requires the garments to be laid outside, often in a bleachfield (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleachfield),

Aiel clothes aren't made of wool, they're made of {fantasy desert plant that doesn't exist IRL}. The same goes for the "leather" for their boots. Suspend your disbelief or don't, I don't actually care either way, but this is still an utterly inconsequential thing to lose it over.



It'd be like doing a Lord of the Rings adaptation and including an elf named Buttdork the Grotesque, a hideous and inept elf with zero usable skills.

Yes, changing the color of one Aiel's uniform in one on-screen battle for a visual medium is the equivalent of elves going out the window in a LotR story. Oh wait, I should have used blue text there.

[Morgaln]

Aiel clothes aren't made of wool, they're made of {fantasy desert plant that doesn't exist IRL}. The same goes for the "leather" for their boots. Suspend your disbelief or don't, I don't actually care either way, but this is still an utterly inconsequential thing to lose it over.



Yes, changing the color of one Aiel's uniform in one on-screen battle for a visual medium is the equivalent of elves going out the window in a LotR story. Oh wait, I should have used blue text there.

It might be inconsequential on its own, but it is another one in a long list of things that show the creators just don't care about the details of the setting. They don't have any respect for the source material, not surprising since Rafe has outright stated that several writers haven't even read the books.
At this point, and having seen the casting choice for Aviendha, I have no faith in the show's future depiction of the Aiel. I fully expect Aiel with swords to show up sooner or later.

[Sapphire Guard]

The mechanics of bleaching are not the point, book Aiel have a strong cultural taboo against wearing white because that is for gai'shain. (It's noted explicitly that they add green to their clothes after crossing the Dragonwall, but not white)

I honestly can't remember what the other dead Aiel in the cage was wearing, maybe it was just a one off. She also fights unveiled, but I'll give them that one because we needed to see the actress' face.

It's not a massive deal, I didn't even notice it until yesterday. It's a small detail that gets you wondering 'does tthat mean something? Did they do that on purpose or not?' It doesn't make it a bad show.

There are a lot of similar moments, like Siuan going from Tear to the tower in a fishing boat by herself (that's a long way, it'd be like going from Rotterdam to Basel or something.)

The big weird moment is Moiraine swearing fealty and obedience to Siuan on the oath rod. There are whole plot arcs in the books about why that is a Really Bad Thing to do to anyone for any reason.

Having writers that haven't read the books is actually kind of important, they need to have someone on the team who has the perspective of ' I know nothing about the lore, does this still make sense'. Most of the above things are things you don't notice if you haven't read the books, so it's questionable whether they count as faults or not. it's not clear if they are mistakes or deliberate changes for a reason.

[Psyren]

It might be inconsequential on its own, but it is another one in a long list of things that show the creators just don't care about the details of the setting.

"It makes sense to change this detail for a visual medium" != "they don't care about the details." If you want perfect book fidelity, read the books.

[Morgaln]

"It makes sense to change this detail for a visual medium" != "they don't care about the details." If you want perfect book fidelity, read the books.

If you keep nothing that's in the books, don't name your show after them. Hey look, I can also make dismissive statements to try and invalidate your points without addressing them in the slightest.

[Psyren]

If you keep nothing that's in the books, don't name your show after them. Hey look, I can also make dismissive statements to try and invalidate your points without addressing them in the slightest.

I never said you couldn't, go nuts. People are allowed to complain about whatever inconsequential pointless minutiae they want.

[Rynjin]

"It makes sense to change this detail for a visual medium" != "they don't care about the details." If you want perfect book fidelity, read the books.

Visual details make more sense in a visual medium. Things stick with people when they see them. Especially when the scene wirh the Aiel is probably the most memorable in the entire show; it's the only scene that had "crossover appeal" to people who didn't even watch it.

I don't need "perfect book fidelity". But it would be nice if they gave a single **** sbout anything in the series they're claiming to adapt.

So far, the only thing truly recognizable as WoT is the names for locations and characters. Characterization is different (and worse) for most characters. Plot is completely off the rails. The way organizations operate is different.

I'm simply tired of these corporations using fans of existing mediums as tools to drive up interest in a property for short term profits and then shills coming out of the woodwork to shame us for daring to want something more than lazy, watered down slop.

[Sapphire Guard]

Does it make sense to change that detail for a visual medium? What advantage was there in it?

Be interesting to see what will happen when more Aiel show up.

[Psyren]

Be interesting to see what will happen when more Aiel show up.

Given that we'll likely encounter them in the desert, they'll probably be wearing desert colors.

[Gnoman]

Aiel clothes aren't made of wool, they're made of {fantasy desert plant that doesn't exist IRL}.

The algode that the Aiel use is almost certainly an exotic plant called "cotton". Which is a greyish-white when woven unbleached and undyed.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff: Things are getting a little heated in here. Tone down the sharp phrasing and be more civil to each other.

[KorvinStarmast]

I'm simply tired of these corporations using fans of existing mediums as tools to drive up interest in a property for short term profits and then shills coming out of the woodwork to shame us for daring to want something more than lazy, watered down slop. A similar complaint can be levied at LotR:RoP.

The algode that the Aiel use is almost certainly an exotic plant called "cotton". Which is a greyish-white when woven unbleached and undyed. They grow cotton in the desert? I seem to recall that IRL growing cotton in similar environments, not even a desert (the Llano Estacado1 region is what came to mind), requires access to irrigation/underground water sources ... so maybe it's magic cotton. :smallsmile:
1If the rain don't come the cotton crop fails, basically.

[Psyren]

Those of us who support these properties (and by that I mean both Rings of Power and Wheel of Time) and see them as being overall positive entries in their respective canon are fans too. The gatekeeping gets really tiresome.



They grow cotton in the desert? I seem to recall that IRL growing cotton in similar environments, not even a desert (the Llano Estacado1 region is what came to mind), requires access to irrigation/underground water sources ... so maybe it's magic cotton. :smallsmile:
1If the rain don't come the cotton crop fails, basically.

This is a setting with plants that can turn off psionics and come to life to eat horses. I'm not saying all of its biology is completely alien, but it's easy to handwave the discrepancies between their world (era?) and ours.

[Taevyr]

While most of the Aiel's oddly-named products, like oosquay (Whiskey) and most obvious zemai (maize), are clearly based on a real-life substance, I don't think equating them to the real-life thing is feasible unless desert agriculture is really different post-breaking.

However, whether they're the same or not is kind of moot; It doesn't change anything about the clear emphasis that's placed on the Aiel never wearing white even when doing so would benefit them; culturally, it's about as fundamental as the meaning behind their veils.

Hell, the Aiel aren't even the sole example of Jordan putting an immense amount of effort into the cultural quirks of his world, e.g. the importance of braided hair as a symbol of maturity among women in the Two Rivers, which is then used to symbolize Egwene letting go of her home customs. All of that is perfect for a screen adaptation, as they're essentially pre-made visual cues that are that much more important in a visual medium: A veiled Aiel means concrete danger. Long lacquered nail(s) signify Seanchan nobility. A pure white-haired fellow in GoT's a Targaryen. Someone with robes and a thin side-braid in Star Wars is a padawan. Et cetera


I don't need "perfect book fidelity". But it would be nice if they gave a single **** sbout anything in the series they're claiming to adapt.

Exactly this: its about verisimilitude, not about it being perfectly accurate or whether it's truly realistic. Every big series/universe has its visual cues and lore elements that are key to it. Breaking those cues breaks the verisimilitude expected when you market your "based on" series as a proper adaptation of/addition to the given series/universe.

You don't make a Star Wars series and give the Jedi red lightsabers, even if it's technically a minor change. You don't create a brunette Targaryen in a work in the GoT setting, even if it makes sense genetically. You don't adapt Wheel of Time and give the Aiel swords, even if they're the only weapons they could feasibly have at that moment. All of those are deeply embedded in the lore of the setting as either taboo or straight-up impossible, despite being relatively minor things, and offer clear visual cues for both the characters themselves and, for adaptations, the viewers. The only reason for a screenwriter to ignore that is if the violation of that taboo is an in-world plot point (e.g. Aram's sword), they're deliberately going against established lore for some reason, or they're simply too lazy to know/care about the source material.

[KorvinStarmast]

The gatekeeping gets really tiresome. That's needlessly insulting to those discussing this show. It is hard to convert a book to a movie, or a book to a TV show, and there is fertile ground to discuss how well, or poorly, that has been done. That's not gatekeeping, it's legitimate critique.

And number me among the critics of Jordan's writing, in the books, as regards his mind numbing digressions about the quirks of the various sniffers, as well as the filler and poor pacing after about book 4. Editors are supposed to impart a bit of discipline and "clean up" on the works an author presents; in Jordan's WoT case they fell down in the job. (The more egregious abdication comes in Rowling's case, vis a vis the Potterverse, as each new tome came out with its associated bloat they abdicated their position entirely).

This is a setting with plants that can turn off psionics and come to life to eat horses. Which book was that in? One of the Sanderson books? A Dark Sun novel? :smallconfused: I guess I can see the overlap between Dark Sun and Jordan's world, given that Aes Sedai are basically nuns with psionics.


Hell, the Aiel aren't even the sole example of Jordan putting an immense amount of effort into the cultural quirks of his world, e.g. the importance of braided hair as a symbol of maturity among women in the Two Rivers, which is then used to symbolize Egwene letting go of her home customs. All of that is perfect for a screen adaptation, as they're essentially pre-made visual cues that are that much more important in a visual medium: A veiled Aiel means concrete danger. Long lacquered nail(s) signify Seanchan nobility. A pure white-haired fellow in GoT's a Targaryen. Someone with robes and a thin side-braid in Star Wars is a padawan. Et cetera

Exactly this: its about verisimilitude, not about it being perfectly accurate or whether it's truly realistic. Every big series/universe has its visual cues and lore elements that are key to it. Breaking those cues breaks the verisimilitude expected when you market your "based on" series as a proper adaptation of/addition to the given series/universe.

You don't make a Star Wars series and give the Jedi red lightsabers, even if it's technically a minor change. You don't create a brunette Targaryen in a work in the GoT setting, even if it makes sense genetically. You don't adapt Wheel of Time and give the Aiel swords, even if they're the only weapons they could feasibly have at that moment. All of those are deeply embedded in the lore of the setting as either taboo or straight-up impossible, despite being relatively minor things, and offer clear visual cues for both the characters themselves and, for adaptations, the viewers. The only reason for a screenwriter to ignore that is if the violation of that taboo is an in-world plot point (e.g. Aram's sword), they're deliberately going against established lore for some reason, or they're simply too lazy to know/care about the source material. Said it better than I could, although I was a little puzzled in The Mandelorian as regards the Boba Fett helmet he was wearing ... :smallyuk:

[MammonAzrael]

Which book was that in? One of the Sanderson books? A Dark Sun novel? :smallconfused: I guess I can see the overlap between Dark Sun and Jordan's world, given that Aes Sedai are basically nuns with psionics.

Pretty sure that is referencing A. Forkroot and B. The journey into the Blight in The Eye of the World (Chapter 49 The Dark One Stirs)

[Psyren]

Pretty sure that is referencing A. Forkroot and B. The journey into the Blight in The Eye of the World (Chapter 49 The Dark One Stirs)

That's indeed what I was referring to.


That's not gatekeeping, it's legitimate critique.

I'm not against critique of the show. But I am against getting namecalled for defending it, and being implied to not be a real fan.

[DaedalusMkV]

You don't create a brunette Targaryen in a work in the GoT setting, even if it makes sense genetically.

Somebody better tell GRRM, then. He created a bunch of them, including one of the characters introduced in Game of Thrones itself. One of the major plot points regarding the Targaryens is their pride in the platinum hair and their long-standing and ultimately brutally self-destructive efforts to preserve it in the face of genetic heredity. The hair is a shorthand for 'genetic purity' in the Targaryen line, not an ironclad rule to identify one. I could point out the Jedi who use red lightsabers too (it's usually a metaphor for Jedi struggling to avoid the Dark Side, admittedly, but Obi-Wan does it for a while too).


With specific regards to the WoT show, it's fine to change details when adapting a story to a visual medium as long as the spirit of things remains. White-veiled Aiel? Not a problem as long as the distinction between warriors and Gai'shain remains visually distinctive and obvious. Let's say, for example, that you're planning on filming the Aiel Waste sections of the show in a salt flat in Utah. Black robes and veils for the Cadin'sor become somewhat impractical in a white desert, and in general white is just a more pleasant colour for desert-dwellers anyways. There's a reason the Bedouin prefer it. So, the Cadin'sor gets changed to white and Gai'shain wear black, or maybe brown because that's easy and also visually distinct. Boom. You've maintained all of the purpose behind the actual worldbuilding while making life much easier for the costuming department and cinematographers. You never depict a warrior wearing Gai'shain colours or vice versa, when we get introduced to the Aiel properly they explain the significance of the colours and everybody's happy... Except maybe the nit-pickiest of hardcore fans, who might be mad about any change at all.

I have my gripes with the Wheel of Time show. I think they made Egwene able to Channel effectively far too quickly, trivializing the learning process. I think they underdeveloped Rand for the sake of maintaining the 'mystery' of who the Dragon Reborn is. I think the last two episodes are a hot mess and their pacing is off. I think they butchered poor Matt's entire everything and didn't do much better by Perrin. But visually? The show feels fantastical. The One Power looks great. The Trollocs came out looking way better than I thought they would. Tar Valon looked perfect. It certainly has room to grow into something wonderful.

[Gnoman]

And number me among the critics of Jordan's writing, in the books, as regards his mind numbing digressions about the quirks of the various sniffers, as well as the filler and poor pacing after about book 4. Editors are supposed to impart a bit of discipline and "clean up" on the works an author presents; in Jordan's WoT case they fell down in the job.

Speak for yourself only. All those digressions are what sets this work apart from most fantasy books, and an editor chopping them out would kill the soul of the work.

[KorvinStarmast]

Pretty sure that is referencing A. Forkroot and B. The journey into the Blight in The Eye of the World (Chapter 49 The Dark One Stirs) OK, been a few decades since I read that, thanks.
Speak for yourself only. All those digressions are what sets this work apart from most fantasy books, and an editor chopping them out would kill the soul of the work. Had the pacing been better I'd not have that criticism, but he spent a lot of time on mind numbing detail while neglecting the point of moving the story forward. Part of why I simply stopped caring and stopped getting the books, even used. He lost me. I can't recall if I picked up Crossroads of Twilight or got fed up with Winter's Heart. Will maybe check the attic one day and see if I still have that pile of books, or if I traded them in for beer money back in the 00's. I came to the series on advice from someone about world building and loved the first four or five ... it was a grind to get through Winter's Heart.

[Rynjin]

Thing is, the pacing issues weren't really caused by the detail-oriented writing. It just got bogged down by too many side perspectives that each had their own entirely disconnected plots. That's why you'd get entire books where it feels like nothing happened, because it was like 12 different perspectives spread across 26 chapters per book. All happening concurrently, no less, so he couldn't even hit us with the sliding timescale.

The pacing would have been better if he'd figured out earlier to just either focus on a couple of perspectives for long periods and/or start combining plotlines.

[Taevyr]

Somebody better tell GRRM, then. He created a bunch of them, including one of the characters introduced in Game of Thrones itself. One of the major plot points regarding the Targaryens is their pride in the platinum hair and their long-standing and ultimately brutally self-destructive efforts to preserve it in the face of genetic heredity. The hair is a shorthand for 'genetic purity' in the Targaryen line, not an ironclad rule to identify one. I could point out the Jedi who use red lightsabers too (it's usually a metaphor for Jedi struggling to avoid the Dark Side, admittedly, but Obi-Wan does it for a while too).


Fairly certain I already adressed this:

The only reason for a screenwriter to ignore that is if the violation of that taboo is an in-world plot point (e.g. Aram's sword), they're deliberately going against established lore for some reason, or they're simply too lazy to know/care about the source material.

Please avoid taking sentences out of context to make an argument: it makes things annoying for everyone - including the person who did it - since it completely undermines the prospect of a honest discussion.


As for changing these lore-centric visual details when adapting: I don't mind if it happens for a reason, e.g. Jordan probably didn't intend for general Two Rivers folk to be darker skinned, but I like the representation it adds and it doesn't really conflict with anything established in-lore. Your example is similar, though it would admittedly annoy me a bit as I doubt keeping the main servants of a desert people in full black robes would work out well (and Cadin'sor's generally gray/brown to blend in better), but your general point of "I don't mind changes if the core concept is kept" is fair, even if we might not agree fully.

[Sapphire Guard]

Expansive worldbuilding among many characters is essentially the main USP of WOT. The plot doesn't progress fast, but a lot of worldbuilding happens in that slog. The job of an editor can be to excise extra stuff, but a lot of it actually has a worldbuilding purpose even if not directly plot relevant (and sometimes the purpose is actually to be not relevant but to disguise the things that are relevant among the irrelevant parts, like the Gray Men)

Lorewise, black robes are given to 'Da'tsang' who are the despised ones who are intentionally made to suffer a much as possible. Cadin'sor were never black, they're a variety of colours to blend in in the waste.

And this is the important point. If that's done by mistake, then it just shows a lack of attention to detail. If it's not done by mistake, that may be fine depending on why the change was made. We shall see when more Aiel show up.

[InvisibleBison]

And this is the important point. If that's done by mistake, then it just shows a lack of attention to detail. If it's not done by mistake, that may be fine depending on why the change was made. We shall see when more Aiel show up.

I suppose it is premature to say that the show has erred in its depiction of gai'shain before we have actually seen any gai'shain.

[Mechalich]

And this is the important point. If that's done by mistake, then it just shows a lack of attention to detail. If it's not done by mistake, that may be fine depending on why the change was made. We shall see when more Aiel show up.

I'd go with lack of attention to detail for most things regarding the show. Season One played fast and loose with just about everything, including a number of really obvious bits that aren't related to world-building at all. Consider, for example, this shot (https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-721af2e41151e16d6d2f704d1cfa31ce) of the Whitecloaks 'burning' an Aes Sedai at the stake. Notice how the fire is merely a double-layer of logs surrounded by bundles with the actress clearly standing on a stool, a quantity insufficient to actually consume a human body and with no kindling present whatsoever. This appears to be derived from the artistic depiction of the Burning of Catherine Hayes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_women_in_England) which appears on wikipedia and in the top results if you type 'burn at the stake' into google image search (which I just and discovered that connection, it took me about three seconds), rather than anyone actually thinkings about how big of a fire you'd really need to burn someone with any kind of thoroughness. It's a sloppy, poorly considered shot that falls apart if the audience thinks about it much.

At the same time, it's one very brief scene purely intended to show malice on the part of the Whitecloaks. In a 24-episode season of a network show the lack of detail would hardly matter, because there would be so many more scenes to follow, and the hurried approach would be useable because there's always more filming to be done. However, this was an 8-episode limited series made for staggering amounts of money. That's prestige TV, a higher standard.

Frankly, that's my tl:dr opinion on the show as a whole: it's the network TV treatment of WoT masquerading as the prestige TV treatment.

[Clertar]

I haven't read WoT and was less than impressed with the Amazon show's first season. Still, I'll give it a try when the second season comes out.

Regarding the faithfulness to the asthetics of the source material when it gets adapted into TV, I wonder what fans would say if, for example, a non-redhead Kvothe appeared in a Name of the Wind adaptation.

[Mechalich]

Regarding the faithfulness to the asthetics of the source material when it gets adapted into TV, I wonder what fans would say if, for example, a non-redhead Kvothe appeared in a Name of the Wind adaptation.

Almost certainly they would complain, because that exact case occurred in season one of The Witcher regarding Triss Marigold - a character who's most notable descriptive trait is her chestnut hair (it was vividly red in the games) who was portrayed by a distinctly brunette Anna Shaffer. Fans complained, loudly, and funny thing, when Triss reappeared in season two, Anna Shaffer's hair was now the appropriate color (https://cinedope.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Triss-Merigold-1-1.jpg).

[Whoracle]

Almost certainly they would complain, because that exact case occurred in season one of The Witcher regarding Triss Marigold - a character who's most notable descriptive trait is her chestnut hair (it was vividly red in the games) who was portrayed by a distinctly brunette Anna Shaffer. Fans complained, loudly, and funny thing, when Triss reappeared in season two, Anna Shaffer's hair was now the appropriate color (https://cinedope.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Triss-Merigold-1-1.jpg).

I personally don't have a horse in that specific race, I just found the actress in S1 really dull, and I attribute most of that to the script writers, but the "appropriate" color is way closer to what google shows me as "chestnut" in your comparison picture. Well, after the "washed out" filter, anyways. So from where I'm sitting I'd say S2 Triss is way more on the mark.

(relevant google result: https://htmlcolorcodes.com/colors/chestnut/)

[warty goblin]

I kinda just found the first season visually dull. Not bad, and the trollocs were genuinely good, but stuff like the costumes were decidedly meh. I get that in a lot of cases they were trying to show that the societies in the show inherit stuff from our world through the costumes, but it mostly made the wardrobe look like second rate cosplay stuff. What's his face the singer dude was really guilty of this, he looked like somebody sent him to the thrift shop with $50 for a post-apocalyptic Bard costume.

Next to both Rings of Power and House of the Dragon, which absolutely nailed costume aesthetics, it comes up extremely short. HotD really got the believable but slightly elevated medieval fantasy look. Everything everybody wore was awesome and made sense. RoP just went whole hog on high fantasy and boy was it high fantasy. There's a lot wrong with that show, but it looked excellent, like a lost golden age should look.

[Taevyr]

Regarding the faithfulness to the asthetics of the source material when it gets adapted into TV, I wonder what fans would say if, for example, a non-redhead Kvothe appeared in a Name of the Wind adaptation.

Never was that big a fan of Name of the Wind, but I guess my opinion'd be that it's somewhat understanadable if the actor's a practically perfect fit except for the hair, but still quite lazy to not get said actor a bottle of high-quality hair dye anyway.

Essentially "While small changes are understandable when they aid the production and don't really impact the lore/source material, this is just laziness masquerading as that".

And for WoT, the "problem" is that its filled to the brim with unnecessary detail, except a surprisingly large chunk of that turns into a plot element 5 books later: it's Jordan's trademark worldbuilding depth adding a ridiculous amount of minor cultural elements/personal quirks, and a large of those end up playing into each other for plot or being important for that one scene or the like, which I can imagine makes it very hard for any "lore director" or whatever they call the person responsible to separate the vast bushels of wheat from the equally vast fields of chaff. And then you have to assume the showrunners/writers are willing to listen to said lore director when she insists the twice-mentioned odd quirk of side Aes Sedai #268 is actually of vital importance 6 books later. Even if the writers were already very passionate and highly familiar with the series (and I won't deny harbouring doubts about that), that's still a tough job. And as seen in part of the previous thread's discussion, some of Rafe Judkins' comments in AMA's/interviews on the subject didn't generally instill trust in that regard.

[KorvinStarmast]

... bogged down by too many side perspectives that each had their own entirely disconnected plots...snip...The pacing would have been better if he'd figured out earlier to just either focus on a couple of perspectives for long periods and/or start combining plotlines. Said it better than I did, thank you. :smallsmile: I bolded the part that got me fed up: I was expecting to see the threads weave together sooner than they did, and I lost patience with the digressions. But yes, world building he does / did well.

This appears to be derived from the artistic depiction of the Burning of Catherine Hayes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_women_in_England) which appears on wikipedia and in the top results if you type 'burn at the stake' into google image search (which I just and discovered that connection, it took me about three seconds), rather than anyone actually thinkings about how big of a fire you'd really need to burn someone with any kind of thoroughness. It's a sloppy, poorly considered shot that falls apart if the audience thinks about it much. As compared to the burning of Stannis' daughter in GoT ... or even the burning of the hunchback in the Movie Name of the Rose from a few decades ago. (Sean Connery, F Murray Abraham, et al).

Frankly, that's my tl:dr opinion on the show as a whole: it's the network TV treatment of WoT masquerading as the prestige TV treatment. One hopes that they'll raise their game. :smallsmile:

[Sapphire Guard]

Not physically matching the characters is not usually a big deal for me, the performances are more important.

If the hair colour is narratively important, that might be different. It is a large plot point that Robert Baratheon's children had golden hair, for instance.

Honestly, I don't care about incorrectly burning someone at the stake either.