Modernizing the Wheel of Time

[snowblizz]

And the Asha'man are strong because their training emphasises strength and combat readiness above all else even to the point of accepting that it will kill them soon.

Well an Ashaman is strong (or weak) because he is inherently strong (or weak), not training.* But first, a man's potential is unknown. He grows in strength in power until he reaches his natural limit, this limit won't be known until he reaches it. A woman's potential, however, is a known quantity by other female channelers. She also grows in power until said limit is reached.

This difference shows in the respective training, as does the different philosophy in the Black (we need people at maximum strength channeling now, damn the consequences) vs. the White towers (we need the maximum number of people alive after training is done, as safely as possible, however long that takes, even if effectively that is forever).

What Ashaman training does, is make sure you reach your raw power limit quickly. Damn the consequences since 1) you are going to be dead or insane soon anyway and 2) there's some really really bad stuff coming up leading to 1) anyway.

Aes Sedai training on the other hand is built to slowly, with maximum carefulness guide you to the limit they known you have. There's no rush here, Elf and safety board is in charge all the way. Quite specifically too, the training isn't just about the power, but to mold you into an Aes Sedai too, with all that entails. (No this is not always a positive, but that's not relevant here).

* I get the feeling strenght here in the thread is measured alot on the axis of "flashy combat magic" though, where Aes Sedai work on a rather crippeled basis (3 Oaths)

All in all, the power differences we see in the main characters stem mostly from different talent (or even magical destiny) or differences in training. There is no need to highlight that a man and a woman of equal talent and training would be different just because the appendix says so or because it is mentioned once in dialogue.

I think the only link mechanic that is important is that a circle cannot be too unbalanced. Which has actually positive implications. I do not think there is ever an instance in the story where two or more male channellers could have done something important by linking but were not able to because of the meta-physics. Similar with the leadership in a circle, I do not think there is ever an instance where they needed to switch control but could not. I think there was a circle where the man had to be the leader, but that man also happened to be the most powerful channeller in the world and thus was probably the most qualified for that position, anyway.

Well conveniently being the most powerful seems to help here, though at least once, I think using the Bowl of Winds, a less powerful but more knowledgeable channeler gets to lead the circle.
In fact that more strength in the power is (almost) always the better solution is IMO a slightly bigger failing in the series. IIRC the more powerful you are the more precise you can be (which is one reason a circle is better), and also the more endurance in channeling you have.

These aspects shouldn't need to be tied together, and we gets hints of exceptions, like the woman who can shield Nynaeve even though she should be massively outclassed in doing so, strengthwise. And the affinity for the various elements count for a lot sometimes.

Basically if we focus a bit less on "strength is everything" then there's no need to obsess over whether men in general are stronger or not. If we wish to continue the example the books literally use, weightlifters have great explosive energy whereas a longdistance runner can take the same energy but spend it over a longer duration, because that's how they trained themselves (and usually have some natural affinity for).
The funny part is we don't really know if they are on spot with the metric either. The Aes Sedai have blindspots you could ram a trolloc army through unnoticed. If there looks to be alot more powerful Ashaman, well, that's the consequence of systematically testing everyone. Any time the Aes Sedai do, they get surprising results too. Not to mention Aes Sedai to a degree have been breeding out the ability to channel.

Also, male/female isn't the only strength disparity either. There is one between those with innate ability and those who can be taught too. The former are, generally the more powerful channelers.

Also ability to channel is genetic, which easily also can be made to have DUN-DUNH-DUUUUN. Unfortunate Implications (tm) . Maybe we shouldn't be opening so many cans of worms...

Finally, speaking of worm cans best left unopened: unlike the real life this thread seem to want to mimic, WoT humans have eternal souls, or whatever. In the real world we do not. Which is basically where all the problems of this thread fundamentally stem from. There is no way you can reconcile this problem.

I guess in short, I tend to agree with the view that it's more effective to put less emphasize on the "problematic parts" instead of making huge sweeping changes that causes further issues and brings it all into the open in a Snarl of OOTs like proportions.

(And then they bring out an extended edition that highlights the fact that Aragorn is 98 years old because he was just born a better person )

Well that is true. If you are born a better person you will live longer. I bet Aragorns genes doesn't tell him fat and sugars are the best and he instead gets a similar response from eating kale and salads with lots of oats*.

* or whatever is supposed to be good for you today

[Mightymosy]

Yes. Then don't make a big deal of it. That is much better than highlighting these things in your adaption and giving a half-hearted explanation "this looks unfortunate but it is actually okay because…".

This is especially true for the three trivia you mentioned. Do they ever even come up in the main story or are they just from the appendix?

Is there ever a direct power struggle between a man and a woman of equal talent and training? As you say, no. And I agree. tiornys says it is important why Rand is so strong but Rand is the chosen hero of destiny, he can be strong for no good reason. And the Asha'man are strong because their training emphasises strength and combat readiness above all else even to the point of accepting that it will kill them soon. All in all, the power differences we see in the main characters stem mostly from different talent (or even magical destiny) or differences in training. There is no need to highlight that a man and a woman of equal talent and training would be different just because the appendix says so or because it is mentioned once in dialogue.

I think the only link mechanic that is important is that a circle cannot be too unbalanced. Which has actually positive implications. I do not think there is ever an instance in the story where two or more male channellers could have done something important by linking but were not able to because of the meta-physics. Similar with the leadership in a circle, I do not think there is ever an instance where they needed to switch control but could not. I think there was a circle where the man had to be the leader, but that man also happened to be the most powerful channeller in the world and thus was probably the most qualified for that position, anyway.

---

I would like to draw a comparison to the popular adoption of the LotR. The original book has multiple instances of both, dialogue and narration, explaining how the race of men from Numenor and their relatives are just naturally better than others, and how you can even (correctly) judge that someone is not a good person by how non-Numenorian they look. And this is even backed up as metaphysically true in the background material regarding the world-building. And has doubly unfortunate implications because these men just so happen to all look like Europeans, while their enemies are scolded for the colour of their skin and the shape of their eyes. So what did they do in the adaption? They don't mention it because it is not important to the story that the descendants of Numenor are actually a superior race of men in the world of Middle Earth. It is just a conflict of the heroes against the people allied to their enemy, because the enemy supreme commander is an evil overlord. The conflict is not called The Decline of the West. The people still look the same as they do in the books, and the general geography still checks out, Aragorn even calls his people "men of the west" once, but never does anyone say that you can tell a person's quality by looking at the purity of their ancestry.
(And then they bring out an extended edition that highlights the fact that Aragorn is 98 years old because he was just born a better person )

Come to think of it, one of the bigger changes they made to the Hobbit was to add Tauriel, a female character that at least does some thing.
If you are willing to change a work for an adaptation, might as well do it right.

[Traab]

Come to think of it, one of the bigger changes they made to the Hobbit was to add Tauriel, a female character that at least does some thing.
If you are willing to change a work for an adaptation, might as well do it right.

She was a shoe horned in character added for no purpose other than to create relationship drama and insert estrogen into a 99% male cast. The actress who played her was ticked off specifically because the only reason she agreed to play the part was if they DIDNT pull that hack trash and turn her into a love triangle interest piece. So they agreed, then rewrote the script later to make it happen anyways.

[Seppl]

Come to think of it, one of the bigger changes they made to the Hobbit was to add Tauriel, a female character that at least does some thing.
If you are willing to change a work for an adaptation, might as well do it right.

Was the Tauriel character not quite horribly received? By the whole audience? They did the opposite of what I suggested, and what they did in LotR: Instead of just ignoring something that is not even a problem, they highlight it and offer a dishonest token "solution".

[snowblizz]

She was a shoe horned in character added for no purpose other than to create relationship drama and insert estrogen into a 99% male cast. The actress who played her was ticked off specifically because the only reason she agreed to play the part was if they DIDNT pull that hack trash and turn her into a love triangle interest piece. So they agreed, then rewrote the script later to make it happen anyways.

Interrestingly I find the concept at least plausible in the badwrong that the entire Hobbit trilogy was. At least it was parts were actors were doing acting, exploring something meaningful. Examining the potential to bridge the deepseated elf/dwarf antagonism that existed. Especially if they could have turned it into an homage to Legolas subsequent friendship with Gimli. As in Legolas has already a window opened in his mind and so can explore the idea that Dwarfs and Elfs can work together, perhaps better than any other elf. I'm not saying they succeed or even tried, but I imagined it that way.

Instead of more redicilously CGIed "action" scenes that made my head hurt watching.

Was the Tauriel character not quite horribly received? By the whole audience? They did the opposite of what I suggested, and what they did in LotR: Instead of just ignoring something that is not even a problem, they highlight it and offer a dishonest token "solution".

For many people yes that's exactly how it came over. That's why I say the concept had potential, I'm not sure they executed it entirely appropriately. Then again I ahven't rewatched the Hobbit even a fraction as much as I did LotR so I may be remembering more of what I wanted than what was.

[Aedilred]

Was the Tauriel character not quite horribly received? By the whole audience? They did the opposite of what I suggested, and what they did in LotR: Instead of just ignoring something that is not even a problem, they highlight it and offer a dishonest token "solution".

There were some of the usual wholly-uncritical-fanboy persuasion who loved her, but they're the sorts who would applaud literally anything so they don't really count. Leaving them aside, I think she, or at least the way she was used, was pretty poorly received overall, yes. Certainly I haven't found anyone who's prepared to defend that to any meaningful extent.

[snowblizz]

There were some of the usual wholly-uncritical-fanboy persuasion who loved her, but they're the sorts who would applaud literally anything so they don't really count. Leaving them aside, I think she, or at least the way she was used, was pretty poorly received overall, yes. Certainly I haven't found anyone who's prepared to defend that to any meaningful extent.

*Raises hand*

Even bought a Tauriel model to give to a lady friend.

If you are going to level the wholly-uncritical and don't count card, don't forget that of the haters you found quite a few who were simply opposed to any female having agency whatsoever in anything too. And therefore by extension any challenging female role is bad and tokenism.

[tiornys]

But I am - just at the end. The end of a story is the most important part, as it sums up the theme and the takeaways for the audience. If the ending sucks then the journey doesn't matter - see also the reaction to Game of Thrones and the Matrix.

Obviously, but the question is how much? I would wager this approach wouldn't be enough to be a big deal for the traditionalists, but enough to matter a great deal to the modernists.

Journey before destination, friend.

To clarify my first point, I was taking it as given that making changes only at the end was bad as that had already been pointed out upthread. There's no worry here about any lack of good ending material (unlike certain other shows); all we have to worry about is the execution, so let's not be throwing things in that could mess that up. I disagree with your thoughts on how different audiences would react to your proposed changes. However, I think I agree with snowblizz--this whole topic is best handled in the show by giving it minimal spotlight.

Rand can still be the strongest channeler in the world (he's the Dragon after all), without men being stronger. They're not the same thing.

Fair. Although it would be just as valid to apply my comment to the whole concept of false dragons. That said, just focus on the eventual insanity and there's plenty of reason for the fear existing without putting emphasis on additional reasons.

[Traab]

The concept had potential if only because they were already adding so much random stuff to the story to stretch it out for three films that adding in some female elf character to tag along and have her own made up adventures to fill time would have worked, but they basically made up a female elf character so they could create a love story that never happened which justifiably upset people for a variety of reasons. From angles like, "Oh, so the only reason to include a female character was to have her fall in love with someone?" to "Yay, lets continue to rewrite tokiens work and instead of filler stuff that doesnt matter, create love stories for main characters that never happened."

Which is basically a similar argument that many are unhappy with on the original topic of wheel of time, its one thing to change little bits and pieces that dont have a huge impact on the original work, as an example, julio the gay warrior, is off in shara having his adventures, it never really impacts the main storyline, but hey, we got us a gay male character! Which has its own problems yes, but not as much as julio the gay warrior having a torrid affair with lan all of a sudden because why not? One is clearly going to cause more objections than the other, and I think we all know which. Because its altering the main storyline to shoehorn in more "diversity" or some such thing. And its going to make a huge change for a constantly branching number of reasons that all feed into each other as you try to make it fit.

[dancrilis]

... its one thing to change little bits and pieces that dont have a huge impact on the original work ...

For example of things that can be ignored/changed (subject to how they are changed):
Star Wars: Occurs a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away - this can be ignored without impacting anything.
Wheel of Time: Occurs in some version of the future of our world, Neil Armstrong went to the moon, Mercedes used to be a symbol of wealth - this can be ignored without impacting anything.

For example of things that should likely be left alone:
Star Wars: The basics of what the Force is.
Wheel of Time: The basics of what magic is.

[Psyren]

Yes. Then don't make a big deal of it. That is much better than highlighting these things in your adaption and giving a half-hearted explanation "this looks unfortunate but it is actually okay because…".

This is especially true for the three trivia you mentioned. Do they ever even come up in the main story or are they just from the appendix?

Several of these weird attributes that RJ inserted I would be fine just leaving out, yes. As I mentioned several times now, presenting them as universal rules rather than simply attributes of the characters we see on screen doesn't add anything.

Well an Ashaman is strong (or weak) because he is inherently strong (or weak), not training.* But first, a man's potential is unknown. He grows in strength in power until he reaches his natural limit, this limit won't be known until he reaches it. A woman's potential, however, is a known quantity by other female channelers. She also grows in power until said limit is reached.

This difference shows in the respective training, as does the different philosophy in the Black (we need people at maximum strength channeling now, damn the consequences) vs. the White towers (we need the maximum number of people alive after training is done, as safely as possible, however long that takes, even if effectively that is forever).

What Ashaman training does, is make sure you reach your raw power limit quickly. Damn the consequences since 1) you are going to be dead or insane soon anyway and 2) there's some really really bad stuff coming up leading to 1) anyway.

Indeed. If you need an explanation as to why the average Asha'man can 1v1 the average Aes Sedai (something we barely see come up anyway ) then this is more than enough.

Well conveniently being the most powerful seems to help here, though at least once, I think using the Bowl of Winds, a less powerful but more knowledgeable channeler gets to lead the circle.

Differences in knowledge are perfectly fine. Caire didn't lead the bowl circle solely because she's a woman (everyone else there was a woman too after all.) Rather, she led the bowl because she was the most talented weather-witch from a whole seafaring society whose magic deals almost entirely with manipulating the weather, thus making her a subject-matter expert in using it. (And here too is another example of the "age of enlightenment and knowledge" being totally ignorant of key aspects of the Power - Ishamael was caught completely off-guard by the Sea Folk fixing the weather, because in his Age all weather manipulation needed artifacts like that.) Caire leading that circle was thus eminently logical. It also set up the plot point of the Sea Folk gaining a foothold in Andor, causing political troubles for Elayne later as well as leading into Egwene's ultimate reforms to the Tower's approach to other channeler societies.

The funny part is we don't really know if they are on spot with the metric either. The Aes Sedai have blindspots you could ram a trolloc army through unnoticed. If there looks to be alot more powerful Ashaman, well, that's the consequence of systematically testing everyone. Any time the Aes Sedai do, they get surprising results too. Not to mention Aes Sedai to a degree have been breeding out the ability to channel.

Also, male/female isn't the only strength disparity either. There is one between those with innate ability and those who can be taught too. The former are, generally the more powerful channelers.

Also ability to channel is genetic, which easily also can be made to have DUN-DUNH-DUUUUN. Unfortunate Implications (tm) . Maybe we shouldn't be opening so many cans of worms...

Channeling is genetic to a degree, sure - but in practice that's irrelevant, because when the Wheel needs more channelers or stronger channelers it just starts making them anyway, no matter what people have been doing bloodline-wise. Logain and Mazrim Taim for example were complete nobodys heritage-wise (lacking even the "Manetheren" tie) - yet they ended up being equal with mega-channelers like Demandred and Sammael. Even at the beginning when random dudes start showing up at the farm and Rand asks Taim to start testing people, I think they had a near 100% strike rate due to his ta'veren probability manipulation, despite men who could channel being for all intents and purposes nearly extinct. Rand ended up with more recruits in a year than the Red Ajah had found in the last several centuries.

(Not even beginning to touch the "eternal souls" stuff.)

[Mightymosy]

She was a shoe horned in character added for no purpose other than to create relationship drama and insert estrogen into a 99% male cast. The actress who played her was ticked off specifically because the only reason she agreed to play the part was if they DIDNT pull that hack trash and turn her into a love triangle interest piece. So they agreed, then rewrote the script later to make it happen anyways.

Shoe horned, yes maybe. But that's what a shoehorn does. Insert foot into shoe, which fits the foot per se, but has a hard time going in.
I think she fit the story pretty well, the actress did fine.
Yes it was also the most lazy way to do it (love triangle), but better that than nothing I guess.

They could have done well better, but at least it's not entirely testosterone as in the original.

I also liked they made Galadriel the badass one of the trio who almost took down Sauron. Nice idea.

Was the Tauriel character not quite horribly received? By the whole audience? They did the opposite of what I suggested, and what they did in LotR: Instead of just ignoring something that is not even a problem, they highlight it and offer a dishonest token "solution".

Not the whole audience.
I disliked the love triangle and that she didn't do more interesting stuff but I actually liked her. Also I think they couldn't do tooooo much with her without changing the story too much.

I can get why many people disliked her, but I liked her.

In an adaptation you need to decide how pure you want to go.
Of course she disturbs me as a purist - but they did NOT go the purist route with these movies.
Once I accept change to the pure Original, I must say she is certainly one of those changes that improve the story, and not Only because she adds girl power.
As someone else said, she laid a foundation for Elf-Dwarf relations (arguably - the guy was much too tall for a dwarf, actually. Just as the dwarf boss. I guess cinema doesn't accept small people as leader characters)

[Traab]

For example of things that can be ignored/changed (subject to how they are changed):
Star Wars: Occurs a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away - this can be ignored without impacting anything.
Wheel of Time: Occurs in some version of the future of our world, Neil Armstrong went to the moon, Mercedes used to be a symbol of wealth - this can be ignored without impacting anything.

For example of things that should likely be left alone:
Star Wars: The basics of what the Force is.
Wheel of Time: The basics of what magic is.

As proof of the star wars one, I submit phantom menace.

Entire Internet: "WTF ARE MIDICHLORIANS?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?" Now too be fair the entire movie was a dumpster fire of exploding biological waste, but that really seemed to be the unifying hatred of the film right there. Yes yes jar jar, yes yes this is pod racing, yes yes, 14 year old queen and 8 year old slave is totally gonna work out in the end. But dang those midichlorians!

[dancrilis]

Now too be fair the entire movie was a dumpster fire of exploding biological waste ...

The primary villains were decent.

And while I do not mean the Trade Federation in the above - even they came across as ... ok in a 'out of their depth and knew it but had no way out' kindof way.

[Psyren]

As proof of the star wars one, I submit phantom menace.

Entire Internet: "WTF ARE MIDICHLORIANS?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?" Now too be fair the entire movie was a dumpster fire of exploding biological waste, but that really seemed to be the unifying hatred of the film right there. Yes yes jar jar, yes yes this is pod racing, yes yes, 14 year old queen and 8 year old slave is totally gonna work out in the end. But dang those midichlorians!

Commenting on this is tough because it's so easy for any thread that mentions Star Wars to become "a Star Wars thread", but I'll try anyway.

Midichlorians are in some ways a particularly useful example of the point I'm making - they took a magic system that was otherwise inherently mental/metaphysical/spiritual, and grounded it in mundane biology. Certainly some of the backlash to them was purely due to them being a change/expansion of people's existing understanding - but the nature of that change was in my view even more important to explaining why it was so hated. Red Letter Media's now famous reviews of the prequels highlighted this point explicitly - midichlorians cheapened and degraded the Force into something that was dependent on your physical makeup, rather than your mental fortitude and understanding. ("Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.")

That was distasteful enough on its own, but then came the unfortunate implications - like the eugenics point made towards other properties, which the new trilogy (NB: I'm not here to debate their overall quality with anybody) dedicated at least part of its purpose to undoing, by decoupling protagonist-level/antagonist-level Force potential from one specific bloodline. Phantom Menace also established that you can measure Force potential with a rather simple "midichlorian count" in someone's blood - if the Council were so worried about a secret Sith lurking amongst them, blood tests seem like a good starting point for flushing them out.

About the only thing they could have done worse would have been to tie Force ability (or even worse, Light-side/Dark-side) to gender in some way. We dodged that bullet at least.

[tiornys]

Shoe horned, yes maybe. But that's what a shoehorn does. Insert foot into shoe, which fits the foot per se, but has a hard time going in.
I think she fit the story pretty well, the actress did fine.
Yes it was also the most lazy way to do it (love triangle), but better that than nothing I guess.

They could have done well better, but at least it's not entirely testosterone as in the original.

Hmmm. I'm not sure I agree with the logic here. I think that doing something poorly, even with good intentions, is often worse than not doing it at all. I'm with some of the other posters--and apparently the actress herself--on Tauriel: I like the concept behind her addition, but I strongly dislike the way she was actually used. I'm not sure if her presence does more positive than negative for my experience, but what's really unfortunate is that I'm even having that debate. I didn't have that debate with the expanded role of Arwen in LotR--I just enjoyed it.

[Psyren]

I'm a bit torn on Arwen. On the one hand, I'm very happy about the expanded role she got in Fellowship - using her for the Bruinen scene instead of Glorfindel/Elrond was great, and gave her a lot more depth and agency than the shrinking elven wallflower we got in Tolkien's books.

On the other - they kept her characterization in the OTHER movies unchanged from the books. So she went from badass elven battle-maiden in Fellowship... to doing nothing at all for the rest of the trilogy, seemingly with no explanation as to why she couldn't. If they wanted her to stay in Rivendell, fine, but a reason why - say, getting scouted by Uruk-hai, or needing to guard the homestead while Elrond took off with Anduril - would have been nice.

[Sivarias]

So I know I'm going to get a LOT of flack in this thread, but I feel the need to step in as one of the "traditionalists".

Changing the magic system because some people find it problematic is absolutely ridiculous because it drives SO much of the plot here. Just to hit some high points:

• The entirety of Saidin was tainted in the War of Power. RJ did a fantastic job of exploring the ramifications of such a catastrophic event. As a result, all Saidin users are reviled and feared. As a result, anyone who COULD be a Saidin user is viewed with distrust, and therefore only people who CANNOT use Saidin under any circumstances can rise to power.
  
• Because of the above, the only magic users in the world use Saidar, and because magic is so much more powerful then mundane folk (as an aggregate) a group of Saidar users rose to power and dominated the political landscape.As a result, those who could theoretically use Saidar are treated with respect and authority.
  
• Because Saidar and Saidin are split along sex lines, this means that most of the power in the developed nations is matriarchal. Kings are regularly shown to be inefficient or puppets, while queens are able to rule and consolidate power. The primary trading force for the continent is run by women, despite being built in a city that was around an artifact that acts as a permanent anti-magic field. The other primary trading force is run by another council of exclusively women, while the highest authority a man can have is body-gaurd/general to the elected "queen".
  
• The best country is a strict matrilinial line. Only queens can rule, and the throne itself is shaped for women specifically so (basically) no man can sit comfortably in it.

All of the above flows directly from two facets of the setting. 1, magic is split along sex lines. 2, male magic got corrupted by the devil. If you remove or change those two things, you need to rewrite the entire history. All it takes is one presenting female going insane from the taint on Saidin for them to distrust magic users entirely and the White Tower never having a chance to rise to peaceful political powerhouse. It never would have had a chance, and would have had to rely on fear and military might to keep power internationally.

With regards to there being differences in magic based on sex, that reinforces an idea you DON'T see explored in literature anymore. And that is the idea that groups of people can still be different, while still being equal. Too much emphasis has been placed on blank-slatism, especially in literature. (As an aside, I don't believe in blank-slatism as a concept, but such a debate will inevitably end up brushing up against forum rules).

For comparison sake, male magic users tend to be stronger on the aggregate, but exceptions exist (e.g. Lanfear). However, women can pool their resources together while men cannot. The end result is 13 of the weakest female channelers together can shield the strongest male channeler to ever exist. It even happens in story, to drive home the point about arrogance, pride, and the brutal nature of the world.

As far as which of the 5 powers each gender typically uses, that's just a heuristic. Most men can typically use earth and fire easier then air and water, and most women can typically use air and water easier then earth and fire. Except we are shown women strong in Earth, and men strong in Water.

All this to say, mucking with the magic system is just going to piss off the traditionalists at best, and leave so many gaping plot-holes the entire cosmology quits making sense at worst. And frankly, I find the idea of modifying someone else's work because it doesn't agree with your preconceived notions insulting.

[dancrilis]

So I know I'm going to get a LOT of flack in this thread, but I feel the need to step in as one of the "traditionalists".

I am going to assume you didn't really read the thread beyond the first post, because you are going to get a lot less flack then you think, because:

Changing the magic system because some people find it problematic is absolutely ridiculous because it drives SO much of the plot here.

Nearly everyone agrees with this.

[Rodin]

I'm a bit torn on Arwen. On the one hand, I'm very happy about the expanded role she got in Fellowship - using her for the Bruinen scene instead of Glorfindel/Elrond was great, and gave her a lot more depth and agency than the shrinking elven wallflower we got in Tolkien's books.

That section has always pissed me off, because they came so close to getting it right. Instead, they screwed up one of Frodo's defining moments of badassery that proved he was the one capable of bringing the ring to Mount Doom.

The ride to the Bruinen was an incredibly important moment for Frodo. He's been stabbed by a Morghul blade, a wound which would kill many instantly. He's carrying the One Ring, which badly wants to be found by the Ring Wraiths. And he has no experience in riding a warhorse that's so unlike the pack ponies from the Shire. He does it anyway. On his own, he rides hell for leather to the ford. Glorfindel assists by running interference with the Ring Wraiths, but the ride is Frodo's. Then Elrond raises the waters at the ford, which from a lore junkie perspective is important. He has one the Elven rings, and that's what gives him the power to do that.

In the movie, Frodo is reduced to a quivering wreck on the back of Arwen's horse. He doesn't grow, he doesn't show his worth - it's an argument for not giving Frodo the Ring, since at the first sign of danger he got himself stabbed and had to be rescued.

The scene works with only a simple change - put Frodo on his own horse, like in the book. Arwen replaces Glorfindel and rides around clashing blades with the Ring Wraiths and generally being awesome, but we see Frodo riding toward the Ford while the world grows grey around him. Arwen also replaces Elrond to cast the spell, which is an insignificant change and gives her another moment of awesome.

[Aeson]

like the eugenics point made towards other properties, which the new trilogy (NB: I'm not here to debate their overall quality with anybody) dedicated at least part of its purpose to undoing, by decoupling protagonist-level/antagonist-level Force potential from one specific bloodline

Obi-Wan Kenobi is one of the two main protagonists of the Prequel Trilogy and is not known to be a blood relative of the Skywalker family.

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Also, praise the Sequels for making Rey not a blood relative of the Skywalkers all you want, but if the Sequel Trilogy does anything for the eugenics implications I'd say it strengthened them - Kylo Ren's the third generation of powerful Force adepts out of the Skywalker family, and Rey just so happens to be a powerful Force adept who's the granddaughter of another powerful Force adept. This is reinforcing a pattern that says that Force sensitivity is a heritable trait, not weakening that particular implication. Additionally, whereas the Original and Prequel Trilogies indicate that great potential is not particularly meaningful without training and dedication, the Sequel Trilogy simply hands Rey powers with seemingly no justification other than who her grandfather is, which is significantly worse in terms of what it implies for a hypothetical eugenics program than just making people from the 'right' families have higher potential.

The Prequel Trilogy is much better than the Sequel Trilogy in terms of eugenics implications:
- Skill and experience trumps strength in the Prequel Trilogy: Anakin loses to Dooku and Obi-Wan despite The Phantom Menace indicating that he has the highest Force potential of any known Jedi. By contrast, in the Sequel Trilogy Rey's a better Force user than Kylo from at least the point where he tries to interrogate her despite Rey being entirely untrained, and she also beats him in every fight they get into.
- Anakin is the only "protagonist-level/antagonist-level" Force adept from a 'special' family in the Prequel Trilogy; Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Darth Sidious, Darth Maul, and Count Dooku are unrelated to the Skywalkers as far as we know from the films. By contrast, Rey is the granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine, Kylo Ren is a Skywalker, and Snoke is apparently something Palpatine created in a test tube.
- The Prequel Trilogy has by far the highest incidence of Force adepts who are not related to the Skywalker family or any other known Force adepts. Sure, most of them are barely deserving of the 'character' in 'background character,' but they're still there. The Sequel Trilogy - fan theories about Finn aside - only has Temiri Blagg, who isn't any more of a character in The Last Jedi than, say, Eeth Koth or Plo Koon are in the Prequels.
- If the Jedi Order represents a reasonable fraction of the galaxy's Force sensitive population, then the Prequel Trilogy shows that there are far too few of them for Force sensitivity to be a simple matter of genetics - there's only ten thousand or so Jedi in the waning days of the Old Republic whereas Coruscant alone probably has a population in the trillions.

[dancrilis]

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The Prequel Trilogy is much better than the Sequel Trilogy ...

I think the quoted element might be all that really needs to be said about the two trilogies.

[Psyren]

All of the above flows directly from two facets of the setting. 1, magic is split along sex lines. 2, male magic got corrupted by the devil. If you remove or change those two things, you need to rewrite the entire history. All it takes is one presenting female going insane from the taint on Saidin for them to distrust magic users entirely and the White Tower never having a chance to rise to peaceful political powerhouse. It never would have had a chance, and would have had to rely on fear and military might to keep power internationally.

Well for starters, we actually did have women die from the taint on saidin in the books - when the Breaking-era Aes Sedai filtered out enough of it to create the Eye of the World. They had to work with men to do that obviously, but it still shows that the taint affecting genders besides cismale is possible. (Nynaeve also briefly feels it during the Cleansing, but her exposure is too limited for it to have had any kind of effect.)

More importantly however - you don't have to rewrite history if that history is just based on what people believe to be true. As I highlighted in multiple examples earlier in the thread, even the Age of Legends doesn't know everything there is to know about the Power (despite thinking that they do). You can present the story setup as being a gender binary, foreshadow that the AoL and the current age has more to learn about the power, and then end with the true difference between saidar and saidin being based on something else - and that's all you really need.

With regards to there being differences in magic based on sex, that reinforces an idea you DON'T see explored in literature anymore. And that is the idea that groups of people can still be different, while still being equal. Too much emphasis has been placed on blank-slatism, especially in literature. (As an aside, I don't believe in blank-slatism as a concept, but such a debate will inevitably end up brushing up against forum rules).

For comparison sake, male magic users tend to be stronger on the aggregate, but exceptions exist (e.g. Lanfear). However, women can pool their resources together while men cannot. The end result is 13 of the weakest female channelers together can shield the strongest male channeler to ever exist. It even happens in story, to drive home the point about arrogance, pride, and the brutal nature of the world.

1) Lanfear isn't an exception to this rule at all. She's the strongest woman, sure, but even the weakest of the male Forsaken (Be'lal and Asmodean) are canonically well above her, despite that fact not fitting with the story at all. That would be one of the things I'd change, because it helps explain how she could browbeat Asmo all over the Aiel Waste as easily as she does, as well as why Be'lal gambles everything on getting his hands on Callandor the way he does. I don't think Lanfear needs to be on par with the very strongest (e.g. Ishamael / Demandred / Sammael), but I would certainly give her and Semirhage at least a bit of a boost. (Moghedien can still be weaker than Nynaeve since her primary asset for the Shadow is dreamwalking.)

2) The issue i have isn't "different people can work together" - I agree that's a good message for a work to have. Rather, the issue is that "there are two types of people." In addition to not being particularly useful for our world, it isn't particularly useful for this one either, so having it be a universal truth instead of just one more limitation of using the Power that people of have to grow past is a missed opportunity from the books, in my view.

As far as which of the 5 powers each gender typically uses, that's just a heuristic. Most men can typically use earth and fire easier then air and water, and most women can typically use air and water easier then earth and fire. Except we are shown women strong in Earth, and men strong in Water.

Exactly - this attribute doesn't end up meaning anything from a narrative sense and so should be removed.

All this to say, mucking with the magic system is just going to piss off the traditionalists at best, and leave so many gaping plot-holes the entire cosmology quits making sense at worst.

See first reply - I believe it can be changed fairly easily without "plot-holes," and doing so improves its fidelity for providing meaningful lessons about our own world - an end-state I consider desirable for the same reasons the Giant does, as noted in my extended sig.

Obi-Wan Kenobi is one of the two main protagonists of the Prequel Trilogy and is not known to be a blood relative of the Skywalker family.

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Also, praise the Sequels for making Rey not a blood relative of the Skywalkers all you want, but if the Sequel Trilogy does anything for the eugenics implications I'd say it strengthened them - Kylo Ren's the third generation of powerful Force adepts out of the Skywalker family, and Rey just so happens to be a powerful Force adept who's the granddaughter of another powerful Force adept. This is reinforcing a pattern that says that Force sensitivity is a heritable trait, not weakening that particular implication. Additionally, whereas the Original and Prequel Trilogies indicate that great potential is not particularly meaningful without training and dedication, the Sequel Trilogy simply hands Rey powers with seemingly no justification other than who her grandfather is, which is significantly worse in terms of what it implies for a hypothetical eugenics program than just making people from the 'right' families have higher potential.

The Prequel Trilogy is much better than the Sequel Trilogy in terms of eugenics implications:
- Skill and experience trumps strength in the Prequel Trilogy: Anakin loses to Dooku and Obi-Wan despite The Phantom Menace indicating that he has the highest Force potential of any known Jedi. By contrast, in the Sequel Trilogy Rey's a better Force user than Kylo from at least the point where he tries to interrogate her despite Rey being entirely untrained, and she also beats him in every fight they get into.
- Anakin is the only "protagonist-level/antagonist-level" Force adept from a 'special' family in the Prequel Trilogy; Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Darth Sidious, Darth Maul, and Count Dooku are unrelated to the Skywalkers as far as we know from the films. By contrast, Rey is the granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine, Kylo Ren is a Skywalker, and Snoke is apparently something Palpatine created in a test tube.
- The Prequel Trilogy has by far the highest incidence of Force adepts who are not related to the Skywalker family or any other known Force adepts. Sure, most of them are barely deserving of the 'character' in 'background character,' but they're still there. The Sequel Trilogy - fan theories about Finn aside - only has Temiri Blagg, who isn't any more of a character in The Last Jedi than, say, Eeth Koth or Plo Koon are in the Prequels.
- If the Jedi Order represents a reasonable fraction of the galaxy's Force sensitive population, then the Prequel Trilogy shows that there are far too few of them for Force sensitivity to be a simple matter of genetics - there's only ten thousand or so Jedi in the waning days of the Old Republic whereas Coruscant alone probably has a population in the trillions.

Just two points here:

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- While I certainly wouldn't have minded if Rey were a true "nobody" protagonist, I think what we got was the next best thing - that she was descended from darkside/evil incarnate and ended up being the best Light-side user of the current generation was still a finger in the eye of genetic determinists.

- All those other Jedi and Sith you mentioned (Qui-Gonn, Dooku etc.) failed and died. You're right that they were protagonists and antagonists, but they don't exactly prove anything regarding heritage.

[Sivarias]

Well for starters, we actually did have women die from the taint on saidin in the books - when the Breaking-era Aes Sedai filtered out enough of it to create the Eye of the World. They had to work with men to do that obviously, but it still shows that the taint affecting genders besides cismale is possible. (Nynaeve also briefly feels it during the Cleansing, but her exposure is too limited for it to have had any kind of effect.)

More importantly however - you don't have to rewrite history if that history is just based on what people believe to be true. As I highlighted in multiple examples earlier in the thread, even the Age of Legends doesn't know everything there is to know about the Power (despite thinking that they do). You can present the story setup as being a gender binary, foreshadow that the AoL and the current age has more to learn about the power, and then end with the true difference between saidar and saidin being based on something else - and that's all you really need.

1) Lanfear isn't an exception to this rule at all. She's the strongest woman, sure, but even the weakest of the male Forsaken (Be'lal and Asmodean) are canonically well above her, despite that fact not fitting with the story at all. That would be one of the things I'd change, because it helps explain how she could browbeat Asmo all over the Aiel Waste as easily as she does, as well as why Be'lal gambles everything on getting his hands on Callandor the way he does. I don't think Lanfear needs to be on par with the very strongest (e.g. Ishamael / Demandred / Sammael), but I would certainly give her and Semirhage at least a bit of a boost. (Moghedien can still be weaker than Nynaeve since her primary asset for the Shadow is dreamwalking.)

2) The issue i have isn't "different people can work together" - I agree that's a good message for a work to have. Rather, the issue is that "there are two types of people." In addition to not being particularly useful for our world, it isn't particularly useful for this one either, so having it be a universal truth instead of just one more limitation of using the Power that people of have to grow past is a missed opportunity from the books, in my view.


Exactly - this attribute doesn't end up meaning anything from a narrative sense and so should be removed.


See first reply - I believe it can be changed fairly easily without "plot-holes," and doing so improves its fidelity for providing meaningful lessons about our own world - an end-state I consider desirable for the same reasons the Giant does, as noted in my extended sig.

I don't recall the eye of the world creators explicitely being called out as dying in the process from the taint. I remember them asking Shomasta to watch over it because they knew they would die (going out into an armegeddon hellscape).

Lanfear is an exception, because she's shown to be stronger them the average male channeller. I do think the companion is odd for stating she's weaker then Asmodean however. I will concede that point.

Why does there need to be more then two? Why do we have to cross lines? Why does his work have to be rewritten for your sensibilities? The only statement I see there is "I believe it's wrong so change it" except you rephrased it as a fact rather then an opinion.

The attribute is there to highlight that there are differences. Since you've already conceded that differences are ok, it should be left alone. It's a world-building development to help highlight how ill equipped any female channeller is to teach Rand. If I recall correctly, it's the audiences first introduction to that concept.

Except your proposed solutions do nothing to address the plothole that I pointed out. All it would take was one apparently female channeler going insane from the taint, and the common folk would never trust any magic user ever again. With regards to the Giant's quote, if it's the one I'm thinking of, it doesn't bear any validity here. The Giant was talking about authors changing their own work, not some "well-meaning" fan using representation as an excuse to replace the original work with their fan-fic interpretation.

[Sapphire Guard]

There can be a tangible distinction between them. The part I think should be in people's minds (i.e. ultimately false) is gender being the inviolate reason for that distinction. That's the part I hope they revisit in an adaptation.

Okay, but what is that tangible distinction? You need to replace it with something, what would work?

(This is re saidin and saidar, it's getting hard to keep track)

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The PT couldn't be much stronger a refutation of bloodline alone. The most powerful Force sensitives are Yoda and Palpatine, not any Skywalkers. Anakin, he of the super bloodline, suffers a comprehensive defeat at the hands of Obi Wan Kenobi, of no bloodline of note.

Midichlorians are only a departure from the lore if you thought Luke and Leia were powerful force sensitives by coincidence, not because they were Anakin's kids.

[Psyren]

I don't recall the eye of the world creators explicitely being called out as dying in the process from the taint. I remember them asking Shomasta to watch over it because they knew they would die (going out into an armegeddon hellscape).

Moiraine: "They worked through the taint of the Dark One on saidin to make it, and make it pure, knowing that doing so would kill them all."
Green Man: "They died, all, to make it pure."

It was filtering the taint specifically that killed them - not the breaking, nor even the quantity of power (since they had time afterwards while dying to task the GM with protecting it, instead of immediately being burned to cinders as normally happens to people that overchannel - not that you can overchannel in a link anyway, which is more reason for it not to be that.)

Why does there need to be more then two? Why do we have to cross lines? Why does his work have to be rewritten for your sensibilities? The only statement I see there is "I believe it's wrong so change it" except you rephrased it as a fact rather then an opinion.

Why should a statement on gender from thirty years ago be immune to all examination?

The attribute is there to highlight that there are differences. Since you've already conceded that differences are ok, it should be left alone. It's a world-building development to help highlight how ill equipped any female channeller is to teach Rand. If I recall correctly, it's the audiences first introduction to that concept.

Except your proposed solutions do nothing to address the plothole that I pointed out. All it would take was one apparently female channeler going insane from the taint, and the common folk would never trust any magic user ever again.

I'm fine with the story starting that way, but that doesn't mean it has to end that way too. As we see elsewhere in the story, believing something erroneous about the Power might as well be a law.

With regards to the Giant's quote, if it's the one I'm thinking of, it doesn't bear any validity here. The Giant was talking about authors changing their own work, not some "well-meaning" fan using representation as an excuse to replace the original work with their fan-fic interpretation.

As I pointed out several times before, updating a work through adaptation to be more relevant to a modern audience is not a foreign concept. And doing it to make the work more relevant to the world of its viewers is inherently valuable, provided it's done right.

Okay, but what is that tangible distinction? You need to replace it with something, what would work?

(This is re saidin and saidar, it's getting hard to keep track)

I don't want to get too far into what I would replace it with, as that would lead us down a path of philosophy that's likely to get the thread locked. Suffice to say that if the power itself is mental, the means of separately accessing it should be rooted in the mind as well. What I can say is what I wouldn't do, which is tie it to genitalia, chromosomes or other physical characteristics.

[dancrilis]

Suffice to say that if the power itself is mental, the means of separately accessing it should be rooted in the mind as well.

You don't see a problem arising from linking which of the sets of power an individual accesses to the mind of that individual?

[Seppl]

Shoe horned, yes maybe. But that's what a shoehorn does. Insert foot into shoe, which fits the foot per se, but has a hard time going in.
I think she fit the story pretty well, the actress did fine.
Yes it was also the most lazy way to do it (love triangle), but better that than nothing I guess.

Did Tauriel really do no harm? The message that got sent here certainly was not "it does not matter who you are, you can still be a hero!". The message was "Girls only get to be the hero because we had to check that box on the list that marketing gave us". A lot of people understood that message. They even doubled down on that by also using that same character for the cheesy romance subplot, thus ticking off another box. Just in case that anyone missed the message that representation in movies serves only marketability. Remember, girls, you only get included for token representation!

That is not just a horrible message, it also sours the chances for other such characters to be well received, even when the intentions of the writers might be genuine.

[Psyren]

You don't see a problem arising from linking which of the sets of power an individual accesses to the mind of that individual?

Not at all - no more than it would be a problem that your mind and personality is what determines whether you are a Light Side or Dark Side user of the Force, or which Robes you join up with in Dragonlance etc.

[Ramza00]

Changes the subject, to have someone refresh my memory.

Is there a reason why we see no women Black Ajah or Forsaken to use Compulsion (or another means) to break an Aes Sedai or a Wilder who can "channel" and then use said broken women as a Saidar enhancing battery via linking?

We do see both men and women Aes Sedai / Ashaman / Forsaken seeking out angreal and sanangreal to enhance their power, but with the women channelers it is so easy to create a link with another women, and you can then force yourself to be in control of the link if you are dirty and limit the abilities of the other women.

-----

I ask this for all the Male vs Women power battle things with strength of the power reminded me of this.