Wheel of Time, Amazon Prime

[Psyren]

I want to see the Wheel of Time, not someone's fan fiction re-write.

Then I have great news! Your books haven't gone anywhere.

[Rynjin]

That's such a disingenuous argument and I'm tired of seeing it. I'm not sure where this trend started, where wanting an adaptation to hew close to the thing it's based on became a controversial opinion.

Understandably, some things need to be changed in adaptation. But when one of those things become large plot details and characters, just make your own property instead of ****ing up someone else'.

Yes, "the books will always be there", but a lot of fans want to see the books come to life. There's not a damn thing wrong with that and I get more and more annoyed every time someone says there is.

[Corvus]

Then I have great news! Your books haven't gone anywhere.

Then generally expectation is that when someone does an adaption that they won't play fast and loose with the setting, characters or plot. If they go all fan fiction it tends not to be received well. You just have to look at S8 GoT or The Watch, which was so loosely based on Discworld that if you changed names it'd be barely recognisable from the source material. Just go with your own IP in that case, rather than trying to piggyback off name status.

In the same manner, when shows are said to be 'based on' historical events you want them to actually reflect what happened in reality, not rewrite history.

[Psyren]

That's such a disingenuous argument and I'm tired of seeing it. I'm not sure where this trend started, where wanting an adaptation to hew close to the thing it's based on became a controversial opinion.

Understandably, some things need to be changed in adaptation. But when one of those things become large plot details and characters, just make your own property instead of ****ing up someone else'.

Yes, "the books will always be there", but a lot of fans want to see the books come to life. There's not a damn thing wrong with that and I get more and more annoyed every time someone says there is.

It's equally disingenuous to dismiss any adaptation that makes changes you don't like, however practical for the realities of its medium, as "fan-fiction." Rafe Judkins isn't just a "fan," he is an official agent of the license-holders for the work in question - whether you like that or not.

[Mechalich]

Then generally expectation is that when someone does an adaption that they won't play fast and loose with the setting, characters or plot. If they go all fan fiction it tends not to be received well. You just have to look at S8 GoT or The Watch, which was so loosely based on Discworld that if you changed names it'd be barely recognisable from the source material. Just go with your own IP in that case, rather than trying to piggyback off name status.

In the same manner, when shows are said to be 'based on' historical events you want them to actually reflect what happened in reality, not rewrite history.

Audiences are also generally more susceptible to changes that are at least plausibly necessary due to the needs of the new medium, rather than simply the whim of the adaptors. For example, some amount of cutting, condensing, and conglomerating is obviously necessary to bring this to TV. Likewise, certain character and set designs will need to be changed in order to allow them to physically exist and certain roles will be adjusted to accommodate actor scheduling, ages (the common practice of 'aging up' young characters has much to do with child labor laws), and in some cases makeup. The WoT trailer seems to suggest that Trollocs are going to be more or less functionally human from the neck down in the show, which is definitely not how they appear in the books, but absolutely makes things easier on the stunt crew that has to play them and drastically reduces makeup and costume expenses.

There's also the issue that the more an adaptation departs from the source material, the less the source material is able to guide and support later portions of the adaptation and the more the result is likely to become some bizarre Frankenstein's Monster of a production that falls apart under its own weight. This is especially true with something as unbelievably massive as WoT. Any changes made early on will reverberate further down. This seems particularly relevant in the early seasons because WoT is actually pretty darned conventional early on. All of the Randland cultures in the first three books are fairly standard fantasy Europe derivatives, and the glimpse of the Seanchan in book two is quite limited. The characters hew fairly close to archetype and there's a whole lot of very Tolkienian journeying going on in service of a fairly straightforward good vs. evil battle (Ishamael even repeatedly appears as a Sauron-esque figure with burning eyes and everything). It's only later on that things start to get weird.

It's equally disingenuous to dismiss any adaptation that makes changes you don't like, however practical for the realities of its medium, as "fan-fiction." Rafe Judkins isn't just a "fan," he is an official agent of the license-holders for the work in question - whether you like that or not.

'Fan-fiction' should not be used as a term of denigration generally, since all it does is demarcate legally authorized versus not legally authorized use of a work, something that is purely dependent upon copyright law.

That being said, there's a difference between an adaptation and a rewrite, reboot, spin-off, or 'inspired by' series. The fans have a perfectly reasonable expectation of fidelity to the source material when possible.

[Rynjin]

It's equally disingenuous to dismiss any adaptation that makes changes you don't like, however practical for the realities of its medium, as "fan-fiction." Rafe Judkins isn't just a "fan," he is an official agent of the license-holders for the work in question - whether you like that or not.

Any adaptation, good or bad, is glorified fan fiction. I don't have the same inherent respect for "license holders" as you seem to.

Many signs point to this adaptation being good, mind you, but it's not going to be good BECAUSE someone holds the license. That's completely irrelevant.

If you want proof, see the last attempt made at adapting the Wheel of Time (which was so ****ing terrible the license got stripped from the previous "holder" because it pissed off Jordan's wife so much). If you can find it anywhere, I think it's been scrubbed form the upper parts of the web.

A highlight includes Billy Zane cast as Lews Therin.

[Psyren]

'Fan-fiction' should not be used as a term of denigration generally, since all it does is demarcate legally authorized versus not legally authorized use of a work, something that is purely dependent upon copyright law.

Perhaps it shouldn't be, but the connotation is still there. And as you rightly pointed out, it's incorrect in this case even wholly divorced from considerations of quality and going off pure semantic meaning, because what Rafe is making is an official adaptation.

[Saph]

That's such a disingenuous argument and I'm tired of seeing it. I'm not sure where this trend started, where wanting an adaptation to hew close to the thing it's based on became a controversial opinion.

In the case of Wheel of Time, it's definitely not controversial. The vast majority of fans do want a faithful adaption.

Comments like "if you don't like it, read the books" don't represent fan opinion, they're just a way to dismiss other people's opinions.

[Psyren]

In the case of Wheel of Time, it's definitely not controversial. The vast majority of fans do want a faithful adaption.

Comments like "if you don't like it, read the books" don't represent fan opinion, they're just a way to dismiss other people's opinions.

Yet calling this official adaptation "fanfiction" somehow isn't dismissive? Discourse is a two-way street.

Any adaptation, good or bad, is glorified fan fiction. I don't have the same inherent respect for "license holders" as you seem to.

Many signs point to this adaptation being good, mind you, but it's not going to be good BECAUSE someone holds the license. That's completely irrelevant.

Sure, but your epithet handily skipped over all those other indicators of quality - Rafe's resume, Amazon's track record and selection process (previous Amazon adaptations like The Boys, The Expanse, Invincible, Good Omens etc have all ranged from solid to excellent), etc.

You just have to look at S8 GoT or The Watch, which was so loosely based on Discworld that if you changed names it'd be barely recognisable from the source material.

The thing about GoT was that it was actually an excellent adaptation. The problems arose when they ran out of stuff to adapt around S6, and were forced to start making things up themselves - D and D were great adapters but terrible writers. Whatever other challenges WoT may face, that at least won't be one of them, the books are a complete product and the ending was generally well-received.

[Rodin]

For me it depends on degree, and how well done the final product is. The Witcher had to go through somersaults to justify showing the first book (mostly set decades before Ciri was born) while simultaneously introducing Ciri without cramming her entire arc into a couple of episodes. Ciri also isn't around for much of the first book featuring her. Therefore, Ciri gets "fanfiction" to do while she's running around without Geralt, and Geralt's stories are shown out of time with hers. The result is a merging of the two book that works very well, even if it did throw some of the audience off. Ditto Cahir, whose early characterization in the show is quite different from the books. However, this is largely because Cahir didn't HAVE any characterization for the first two books he was in - he was basically a Nazgul. The show needs to introduce him, so it gives him plots to sink his teeth into and gives him a role at the Battle of Sodden. Yennefer's past isn't discussed by her until the very end of the books, so they put it in at the start to give a smoother introduction to her character.

Etc, etc. There's a lot that's in the show that wasn't in the books, but it all served a purpose to make the TV adaptation work better. All the main story beats were present, they just got shuffled around a bit.

You see the same with the early Game of Thrones seasons. There are plots that play out quite differently from the books, but the aim is to always keep the most important events intact and move the characters to where they were in the books. It's only in the later seasons that they started going off on their own entirely with less than great results.

For Wheel of Time the sequence can be fairly vague and still leave me happy. Rand needs to be the Dragon, Mat needs to get the Dagger, they go to the Eye of the World, go on The Great Hunt, and then head off to get Callandor to prove Rand is The Dragon Reborn. There's a lot of flex in there to tell your own stories, and I'm fine with that as long as the writing that replaces it is good. That's where a lot of adaptations fail - you have to either stick to the original or be better than it, and if you can't do either the justification has to be pretty darn good.

[Mechalich]

The thing about Wheel of Time is that at it's core it is a very conventional epic fantasy. Yes there's some (okay, a lot of) weird stuff about gender roles and cultural variation, but the core plot is about a chosen one passing through a hero's journey to face the incarnation of evil, the various efforts of his allies and companions to gather together the resources necessary to win that battle when it finally happens, and the moves and countermoves as the minions of the dark one work to prevent this from happening. The central storyline is perfectly suited for TV adaptation and requires essentially no adjustment at all.

The other key aspect of WoT, from the perspective of adaptation, is that it's bloated. The books are massive, the cast sprawls across the continent, and a wide array of plots that ultimately have rather minimal importance are given tens or even hundreds of thousands of words of unnecessary detail. It's quite clear as a result that adapting WoT is about what gets cut rather than any need to add anything. This is similar to Game of Thrones, which was equally sprawling but less bloated, since Martin invested even tiny subplots with considerable importance at points, only with the advantage of knowing which plotlines don't actually matter in the end because the series is thankfully complete.

With the limited information we have, the show seems to understand this. None of the Trakands have been cast yet, suggesting that they won't appear in season one and that everything about Andor's internal politics - the second most obviously pointless plotline in the series behind the Shaido - will be curtailed significantly

[russdm]

If you want proof, see the last attempt made at adapting the Wheel of Time (which was so ****ing terrible the license got stripped from the previous "holder" because it pissed off Jordan's wife so much). If you can find it anywhere, I think it's been scrubbed form the upper parts of the web.

A highlight includes Billy Zane cast as Lews Therin.

Now I need to find that, because seriously Billy Zane???

For Wheel of Time the sequence can be fairly vague and still leave me happy. Rand needs to be the Dragon, Mat needs to get the Dagger, they go to the Eye of the World, go on The Great Hunt, and then head off to get Callandor to prove Rand is The Dragon Reborn. There's a lot of flex in there to tell your own stories, and I'm fine with that as long as the writing that replaces it is good. That's where a lot of adaptations fail - you have to either stick to the original or be better than it, and if you can't do either the justification has to be pretty darn good.

No, no. I don't think that Mat needs to get the dagger. From my memory of reading the books, the only thing that the Dagger getting incidinent provides to make Mat go through a books worth of time being Smeagol/Gollum (Because of said Dagger) and releasing Fain/Phain/Whatshisface from the cursed city, which Mat was also warned not to ever visit, so that said guy could then go cause trouble with Rand's male channelers. And then Mat loses Dagger, loses the cursed City whatever, the guy continues to go on to cause trouble.

Mat acts pretty much like I would expect Elan to act like. Mat does something incrediably stupid (visit the cursed city despite being warned multiple times to avoid the place), does another stupid thing (takes something from the cursed city that he was warned not to visit and warned not to take anything, in fact warned to just like avoid the place) and then is stupid for a while (holds on to the dagger and tells no one about it)

later, Mat starts becoming a bard and cooler, after he loses the Dagger.

then there the guy that comes out as a result of Mat visiting the forbidden city

The other key aspect of WoT, from the perspective of adaptation, is that it's bloated. The books are massive, the cast sprawls across the continent, and a wide array of plots that ultimately have rather minimal importance are given tens or even hundreds of thousands of words of unnecessary detail.

With the limited information we have, the show seems to understand this. None of the Trakands have been cast yet, suggesting that they won't appear in season one and that everything about Andor's internal politics - the second most obviously pointless plotline in the series behind the Shaido - will be curtailed significantly

Were the Shaido that Aiel Clan(s) that captured Faile and from whom Perrin rescued? then Perrin went and tried to hunt them all down. Those Shaido?

I don't remember much of anything about the Andor other than some events and then it ends with Elayne getting the throne.

[Sapphire Guard]

One of WOT's main selling points is how deeply it goes into the worldbuilding. Take away the bloat, and what you have left is WOT with its WOTness taken out.

[Anteros]

Dagger: Without the dagger you lose Mat's whole motivation for at least 3 books. It explains why he acts the way he does for the first book, gives Rand a personal reason to chase the horn in book 2, and explains why Mat goes to Tar'valon in book 3 with the Aes Sedai who he dislikes instead of staying with Rand and Perrin who he is much closer to. It's also the catalyst to him getting his luck, although why is unclear. You definitely have to keep it.

Gender roles: Jordan gets a lot of unfair flack about "his views" on gender roles from people who don't realize that he's actually trying to subvert them. Don't listen to what a character says. Watch what they do. The boys will monologue about how the girls do this or that and then immediately go do that exact thing. The same is true in reverse. This is intentional. The vast majority of the time, when one of Jordan's characters is espousing some backwards view, the story goes on to show you that they're wrong. He doesn't beat you over the head with it though, so a lot of people miss what he's doing.

[Blackhawk748]

One of WOT's main selling points is how deeply it goes into the worldbuilding. Take away the bloat, and what you have left is WOT with its WOTness taken out.

I rather agree. There's a bunch of bloat that can get cut, but the Andorian politics are actually kind of important for Elayne's character and since she and Rand are thing later and there's the whole giant battle that happens there where Rand goes all FINAL FLASH on someone with Balefire we kinda can't just sweep that under the rug.

Its weird how much some of that bloat adds to the whole thing.

Gender roles: Jordan gets a lot of unfair flack about "his views" on gender roles from people who don't realize that he's actually trying to subvert them. Don't listen to what a character says. Watch what they do. The boys will monologue about how the girls do this or that and then immediately go do that exact thing. The same is true in reverse. This is intentional. The vast majority of the time, when one of Jordan's characters is espousing some backwards view, the story goes on to show you that they're wrong. He doesn't beat you over the head with it though, so a lot of people miss what he's doing.

I always found it funny how, in private, the men and women would complain about each other and the complaints are near identical.

[Rynjin]

Even better, it's all the hype of the original Final Flash but it actually works.

[Blackhawk748]

Even better, it's all the hype of the original Final Flash but it actually works.

Being fair to Vegeta if he had aimed like a foot to the right it probably would have.

But yes, Balefire was so much more effective. Kinda curious how they're gonna visually do it considering it's a bar of blinding light. The effect of someone dying to it is easy enough, just flash a negative of them a few times.

Yes it'll look weird but that's the point.

[Psyren]

Mat and the Dagger are very prominently in the trailer, and Padan Fain's casting was one of the first announced, so that plotline is a done deal.

I think comparing him to Elan isn't quite right, he's closer to Haley (greedy) but not as genre savvy as her (she'd never be caught dead grabbing a clearly cursed item.) In short, he's a farmboy bumpkin and a troublemaker. Yeah I was right there with everyone else yelling at him for

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taking the others wandering in the very clearly haunted city,

but it fit his character just fine.

I rather agree. There's a bunch of bloat that can get cut, but the Andorian politics are actually kind of important for Elayne's character and since she and Rand are thing later and there's the whole giant battle that happens there where Rand goes all FINAL FLASH on someone with Balefire we kinda can't just sweep that under the rug.

If you mean Rahvin, that happens BEFORE all the tedious Andorian politics.

[Rynjin]

I don't think visually representing what it looks like will be the issue, it'll be explaining to the audience how the retroactive continuity effect works.

[Blackhawk748]

If you mean Rahvin, that happens BEFORE all the tedious Andorian politics.

It does? *thinks a tad* Oh, right, it does. It's been over a decade for me so I'm gonna muddle up my timeline. Still I do remember all that Andorian stuff fleshing out Elayne. Obviously we can cut it down, but it still needs to exist.

I don't think visually representing what it looks like will be the issue, it'll be explaining to the audience how the retroactive continuity effect works.

Honestly, I feel that's easy. It's straight-up stated that it does that which is why its so dangerous. I believe the stated effect is something like "It burns them out of the Pattern. The stronger the attack the more it burns" or something to that basic description. Its also shown really obviously in that incident.

[Mechalich]

I rather agree. There's a bunch of bloat that can get cut, but the Andorian politics are actually kind of important for Elayne's character and since she and Rand are thing later and there's the whole giant battle that happens there where Rand goes all FINAL FLASH on someone with Balefire we kinda can't just sweep that under the rug.

Its weird how much some of that bloat adds to the whole thing.

Amazon is doing this in in 8-episode seasons. Each episode will probably be 50-60 minutes of actual footage, so you're looking at about 7 hours per season. The Eye of the World is 696 pages, so that means each hour has to cover 100 pages of material. That's doable, but you're still going to have to cut a lot.

And that's at a straightforward 1:1 book:season ratio, which can be done for the first three seasons, but isn't sustainable over the long term. 14 seasons is not going to happen, it just won't, there are simply too many obstacles to making any non-reality or non-sitcom show in that fashion in the modern era. Even in a 'massive hit, can play with all the money' scenario you'd be lucky to manage ten seasons. To actually get to the end will require a truly epic measure of cutting and compression. Outright elimination of certain unimportant subplots is almost certainly necessary.

[Psyren]

I don't think visually representing what it looks like will be the issue, it'll be explaining to the audience how the retroactive continuity effect works.

Honestly, I feel that's easy. It's straight-up stated that it does that which is why its so dangerous. I believe the stated effect is something like "It burns them out of the Pattern. The stronger the attack the more it burns" or something to that basic description. Its also shown really obviously in that incident.

Balefire hits someone and

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we get some kind of blatant rewind/undo effect for the stuff they did,

seems reasonable enough to me.

Still I do remember all that Andorian stuff fleshing out Elayne.

I hated almost everything about it.

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The no-stakes tedium of slooooowly gathering the Houses' support. Dyelin being so firmly in her corner meant zero tension.

Her pregnancy making her routinely irrational and temperamental out of nowhere. (Women, amirite fellas?)

The absolute idiocy of thinking Min's prophecy about her children = god mode. (I really expected her to die or be maimed here, instead she got Sareitha, Vandene and Reanne killed.)

More screentime for obnoxious Windfinders, just what we needed.

Above all, the complete lack of payoff. Yay, she became queen and... the Great Captains / Mat led the armies, which they were going to do anyway.

I'd much rather she die than Egwene in the show.

[Anteros]

Balefire hits someone and we get some kind of blatant rewind/undo effect for the stuff they did, seems reasonable enough to me.



I hated almost everything about it.

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The no-stakes tedium of slooooowly gathering the Houses' support. Dyelin being so firmly in her corner meant zero tension.

Her pregnancy making her routinely irrational and temperamental out of nowhere. (Women, amirite fellas?)

The absolute idiocy of thinking Min's prophecy about her children = god mode. (I really expected her to die or be maimed here, instead she got Sareitha, Vandene and Reanne killed.)

More screentime for obnoxious Windfinders, just what we needed.

Above all, the complete lack of payoff. Yay, she became queen and... the Great Captains / Mat led the armies, which they were going to do anyway.

I'd much rather she die than Egwene in the show.

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Egwene is just such a mary sue though. Her death is the best part of her arc. I don't mean that in a "I'm glad she's dead" way, but in a "one of her actions finally has a meaningful consequence for her" way.

[Mechalich]

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Above all, the complete lack of payoff. Yay, she became queen and... the Great Captains / Mat led the armies, which they were going to do anyway.

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This was the biggest issue with the whole plot. It didn't really amount to anything. Andor's forces didn't offer any sort of special contribution to the Last Battle and the difference in the overall muster capacity of the nation between Queen Elayne and a hypothetical Queen Dyelin is minimal considering the total scale of the conflict. We're talking about 10-20k soldiers in a conflict with something like 1 million humans under arms and several times that on the Dark One's side.

Overall the second half of the series has a small number of major overarching plots: there's the Rand plot, the Mat/Seanchan plot, the Perrin plot, the Egwene/White Tower plot, the Elayne plot, and the Black Tower plot. The Rand, Mat, and Egwene plots are the central ones. Perrin, regrettably, spends most of his time devoted to cleaning up various lose ends - Shaido, Whitecloaks, Isam, etc. The Elayne plot is exceedingly pointless and has effectively no final impact on anything. The Black Tower plot is tragically neglected for a bunch of dumb reasons and Sanderson hijacked the narrative to play gateway games and resolved it in an ultimately very unsatisfying fashion. So purely on relevancy the series is batting around 50% for books 8-14.

Which is not to say that there isn't good or interesting writing in the half of the material that doesn't amount to a whole lot. Some of the dynamics regarding Elayne and the various secondary and tertiary characters orbiting her are actually fun and Andor's politics clearly fits Jordan's limited grasp of the relevant historical norms better than those of some of the other cultures he invented (ex. the idea that the Borderland armies would stay loyal to their monarchs after they journey inflicted on them is highly dubious). I actually like the Perrin & the Whitecloaks bit and Galad's personal journey is surprisingly compelling even though it doesn't make any real difference in the end. And of course, at the same time there's plenty in the three main plots that could have gone a lot better. Rand spends way too much time being mopey, and Egwene's entire plot lacks tension because the ending was explained, in succinct detail, in the Prologue of Book 7

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I'd much rather she die than Egwene in the show.

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Egwene sacrificing herself is perfectly in character though. Honestly, I hope - in the unlikely event the Last Battle ever gets filmed - they manipulate the timeline slightly so that it comes closer to the ultimate victory for the light rather than with 12 chapters and hundreds of pages left to go. If Egwene's contribution is intended to be equal to that of Rand, something the text at least tries to imply, the rather considerable number of events that stand between it and ultimate victory undercut that presentation significantly.

[Anteros]

If Sanderson is involved in the final product he'll give all these plot points to Androl anyway.

We'll be lucky if it doesn't get renamed to the Androl show and we get 8 episodes of him playing with portals each season while the main characters occasionally show up in the background.

[Ashen Lilies]

My hope is that they'll kill Androl and give his stuff (back) to Logain.

My fear is that they'll kill Taim and give his stuff to Logain.

[Blackhawk748]

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The no-stakes tedium of slooooowly gathering the Houses' support. Dyelin being so firmly in her corner meant zero tension.

Her pregnancy making her routinely irrational and temperamental out of nowhere. (Women, amirite fellas?)

The absolute idiocy of thinking Min's prophecy about her children = god mode. (I really expected her to die or be maimed here, instead she got Sareitha, Vandene and Reanne killed.)

More screentime for obnoxious Windfinders, just what we needed.

Above all, the complete lack of payoff. Yay, she became queen and... the Great Captains / Mat led the armies, which they were going to do anyway.

I'd much rather she die than Egwene in the show.

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I guess it didn't feel all that slow to me. Then again I enjoy Elayne and so hanging out with her for long stretches never bothered me.

I know a few women who got like this while pregnant. Also the face that she kinda knows that's what's happening and it bugs her got the occasional chuckle out of me.

I agree that was stupid, but she's young and Elayne had always been a bit to self assured

My hope is that they'll kill Androl and give his stuff (back) to Logain.

My fear is that they'll kill Taim and give his stuff to Logain.

We can keep Andol he just needs to stay the supporting character he was meant to be. This does mean giving Login a bunch of stuff back

[Psyren]

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Egwene is just such a mary sue though. Her death is the best part of her arc. I don't mean that in a "I'm glad she's dead" way, but in a "one of her actions finally has a meaningful consequence for her" way.

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I don't necessarily mind how she died, it was definitely a badass way to go out. But all that buildup and training for her being the ultimate Amyrlin for like a few weeks only to go back to Cadsuane, who spent her entire life avoiding the job? Without implementing any of her reforms regarding the Kin and Sea Folk, or a TAR training program, or tying the Aiel to the Tower... it just felt like a giant waste.

Not going to bother with the Sue accusation as I disagree pretty fundamentally, every culture she absorbed felt earned to me.

If Sanderson is involved in the final product he'll give all these plot points to Androl anyway.

We'll be lucky if it doesn't get renamed to the Androl show and we get 8 episodes of him playing with portals each season while the main characters occasionally show up in the background.

As I mentioned to you in the other thread, you might be in luck, Sanderson was actually grumbling after meeting with Rafe.

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This was the biggest issue with the whole plot. It didn't really amount to anything. Andor's forces didn't offer any sort of special contribution to the Last Battle and the difference in the overall muster capacity of the nation between Queen Elayne and a hypothetical Queen Dyelin is minimal considering the total scale of the conflict. We're talking about 10-20k soldiers in a conflict with something like 1 million humans under arms and several times that on the Dark One's side.

Exactly. I was really hoping Elaida's Foretelling about Andor's importance meant more than just Rand, but I just didn't see it..

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Egwene sacrificing herself is perfectly in character though. Honestly, I hope - in the unlikely event the Last Battle ever gets filmed - they manipulate the timeline slightly so that it comes closer to the ultimate victory for the light rather than with 12 chapters and hundreds of pages left to go. If Egwene's contribution is intended to be equal to that of Rand, something the text at least tries to imply, the rather considerable number of events that stand between it and ultimate victory undercut that presentation significantly.

Oh I know it's in character, but I don't care - for the reasons stated in the first spoiler I still considered it a waste.

We can keep Andol he just needs to stay the supporting character he was meant to be. This does mean giving Login a bunch of stuff back

This is the most elegant solution imo. Given that Logain is getting a much bigger role this time around I'm optimistic.

[Saph]

My hope is that they'll kill Androl and give his stuff (back) to Logain.

My fear is that they'll kill Taim and give his stuff to Logain.

Yeah, same.

Of all the characters that you could cut in order to slim the adaption down to a manageable length, Androl has got to be the single best choice. So many chapters devoted to that guy that added nothing to the overall story at all.

[Rodin]

One thing I'm hoping for is a tightening up of the timeline so that characters finish their respective arcs at the same time. One of the big problems with WoT is that character development is very unevenly distributed.

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Perrin arrives at the spot he needs to be for the Last Battle around about book 4. He spends about 8 books doing filler side quests of little importance.

Elayne's queen plotline plods along because the only thing that really mattered for it was her taking the throne, which occurred in book 5. She then doesn't do much, mainly acting as someone for Nynaeve to talk to as Nynaeve goes through her plotline.

Mat's plot is all over the place. He develops in fits and starts in books 1-3, gets some serious development in the next few, then vanishes from the story until Tuon shows up.

Reducing the scope of the plot and slashing filler stories is great for this. You move some events back a bit (like Perrin and the Two Rivers), move some a bit forward, and then you merge characters together to give meaningful things for the cast to do with the remaining storylines.