Wheel of Time, Amazon Prime

[Sivarias]

Spoiler

Show

Stepping back from the minutia of the issue, it's fairly clear that the 'flaw' in Callandor is something Jordan came up with later on (since it certainly doesn't appear to possess that trait in books 3 and 4 when Rand's using it) in order to present a circumstance by which Rand would not be allowed to save the world by himself but would need female help. This, much like Egwene discovering anti-balefire at the last minute, is one of several steps where the story clearly evolved towards a broader ensemble approach with greater roles for the female characters over time and moved away from the single-character chosen one narrative with which the series began.

There are numerous likely reasons why this happened, and most of them aren't political at all. The most obvious reason is that by the end of book two Jordan realized that Rand, as initially devised, was actually astonishingly boring (this is a problem the show has too, actually, rather than fridging Perrin they really should have done something to give Rand a noticeable quirk in episode one) and drastically reduced his role for quite some time until the various complications of his love life came to fruition and gave him something to worry about again. Another reason is that Jordan clearly struggled with what to do with the various not-Rand characters in the first two book. Perrin had the wolf thing, but Mat spends a good portion of those books functionally comatose and the girls are an awful muddle for quite some time. Nynaeve gets herself sorted in book 4, Egwene takes until book 6, and Elayne is a mess until book 7 at least. It simply took Jordan a long time to get a really good handle on certain kinds of characterization, partly because in the WoT you'd better have some powers in order to do basically anything of consequence and it took a while for the various characters to get a handle on their powers, in a fashion that precisely matches the trends of their individual journeys.

Spoiler

Show

Actually it does show the extra taint. Or did you miss him suddenly thinkinghe could bring a dead girl to life? Or he started mumbling to himself directly after?

[Traab]

I would disagree to an extent with the whole

Spoiler

Show

ensemble cast happened later thing. I mean, it was made pretty obvious early on after the fellowship broke apart to do their own things that while yes rand is the chosen one who will in the end do his chosen one thing, every other character is off doing something important and often connected in some way to the main story. From chasing down evil women channelers, to forming alliances, to just getting the training they need to be helpful, all the characters are off doing SOMETHING that will tie into the end game. I will admit the first couple books were slow with this. Honestly, there is a reason i used to reread books 4-6 and not books 1-3. But it hardly took until book 6 or 7 for the ladies to really do anything useful. Meanwhile matt and perin were both doing their own things that lead them to either ruling the two rivers or becoming super generals.

[Rodin]

Just watched episode 4, and it's enough better that I'm beginning to forgive the rough start. The most important thing from this episode was the new content that wasn't in the book...and it was actually good! That was a failing Game of Thrones had right from the start. When GoT put two characters in a room and had them talk to each other in a conversation that wasn't in the books, it was great. Actual plot changes though? Almost universally worse.

The changes here were a great way to introduce a lot of the core concepts they failed to explain in the opening episodes. They were also exciting in their own right. I'm back to being excited about the series again.

Spoiler: Stuff I loved

Show

The dagger making Mat do some pretty heinous stuff that's going to haunt him later.

Spoiler: My take on that scene

Show

I don't think Mat killed that family. You're supposed to think that at first, but what it actually revealed was Mat sensing the Fade. It's possible Mat thinks he killed the family too since he was non compus mentis when he walked in there. He was certainly surprised to see the little girl dead.

Spoiler: Stuff I'm iffy on

Show

- As mentioned above, I don't mind Perrin still being in shock/mourning, but he just doesn't have a lot to do. Ila's speech seems to have made such an impression on him that it wouldn't surprise me if he considers the Way of the Leaf. Naturally the wolves (and the Pattern) won't really let him do that, but I just see more potential angst down the road from him trying that path and failing instead of rejecting it out of hand like he does in the books.

- Egwene still doesn't have a lot to do. We learn more about the Tinkers through her audience surrogacy but that's it.

Spoiler: Book stuff

Show

To be fair, Perrin and Egwene don't have a lot to do period in the first book. I find it interesting that the Tinkers are going to Tar Valon - that indicates one of two things to me.

1) The Whitecloaks aren't going to show up, and Perrin's trouble with the Whitecloaks gets pushed to season 2. There are a lot of advantages to this approach - Perrin does jack diddly squat in book 2, and integrating the Whitecloaks from that point gives a smoother narrative from his point of view. This may also mean a show-original plot for Egwene on the journey there, whose form I would not like to guess.

2) The Whitecloaks do show up, and we get an episode that is entirely Perrin and Egwene centric. The Nynaeve/Logain plot is introduced to give Nynaeve the character development she loses by not rescuing Perrin. Instead, Perrin and Egwene free themselves and make their way to Tar Valon alone. There will also be some bonus action, where a plot point from later books gets inserted here - the Tinker caravan will be wiped out by the Whitecloaks. As I recall, Aram vanishes for several books before showing up again in book 4-5 or so no longer following the Way of the Leaf. Do it now, and the audience doesn't need to be reminded who the Tinkers are later and you can get Aram engaged with the main cast sooner.

2 seems the more likely by far to me. It kills a lot of birds with one stone, covering the important bits of Perrin's story and moving up Aram's role so you don't have to try and get the actor back several years from now. Removing Moiraine/Lan/Nynaeve means that Egwene gets to do her bit and get her character development. Best of all, you can do all this in a single episode since the rest of the cast is now in "they all go to Tar Valon" mode having completed their respective plots.

It also sets the stage for what I think they're going to do for season 2, which is to move up a lot of Perrin's plots so it's more evenly distributed instead of all happening in books 3-4.

[dancrilis]

It is fine and watchable but I am dubious on the whole.

I read the books many years ago and read the last few due to losing interest after Robert Jordon died - so my memory of them is very spotty at best on individual bits, so I am more or less looking at the show with somewhat fresh eyes and am unlikely to notice anything other then very major changes (Rand is not the Dragon Reborn, Trolloc are people too etc level changes).

Reason for being dubious.

Spoiler: Mostly epidode 4 but applies earlier also

Show

While I remember liking Nynaeve in the books and her actress seems to be fine it isn't really reasonable for her to track down Lann without magic - Lann and team ran away on horse back, used magic to keep the horses healthy, crossed a river, and avoided Trollocs.

In order for Nynaeve to find him she need to:
a) go back to the village and hear that they have left
b) outpace them while avoiding Trollocs
c) fail to actually track the people she is actually tracking in favour of the two people she is not tracking
d) give up on her clearly amazing tracking ability in favour hoping to stumble upon the people she was tracking by simply trusting the people who lost them in the first place

This seems far fetched.

Next is her healing ability for Lann and the grief she seemed to have which activated it - her own village was attacked, many were injured, she herself had to resort to stabbing a trolloc in the back to kill it rather then being able to tap into the power to heal or harm then she does it for some guy she has spoken to a handful of times.

I get that they want her there and that they likely want to highlight her as the likely candidate for the Dragon Reborn (and hey maybe that is a change they are making for the tv show) and want a relationship between her and Lann (which if I recall correctly did happen in the books) but it just feels very rushed - and if they continue to just say 'person A is in location B doing thing C - don't question it' it will get old fast for me.

[Mechalich]

I've seen episode four now, and based on seeing it, I've decided it's time to drop this show.

There are things about the fourth episode that are better than previous ones, but it also retains all of the problems that have been there through, especially a general sloppiness and lack of attention to detail with regard to smaller things that continually kills my suspension of disbelief and continually bad action sequences. To make a headliner show with fight scenes this bad is just embarrassing, there's better fight choreography on Syfy and the CW. It's just not worth the time.

Spoiler: missing details

Show

Ultimately this show is just really bad about detail, in ways that often undercut the plot. Episode Four has a big problem in this regard, and also a lot of little ones. The big one is that the Aes Sedai are supposed to be taking Logain to the Tower 'as fast as they can' - a line literary spoken during the episode. Yet Nynaeve, Moiraine, and Lan arrive in the middle of the day and the Sisters are stopped and encamped. They stay encamped all through the rest of the day and night - long enough for the sisters shielding Logain to switch shifts multiple times - and aren't making any effort to move in the morning when it is clearly well after dawn before Logain's army arrives. Hey, I wonder why his army caught up to you, could it be because you spent twenty-four hours in exactly the same place?

There's plenty of smaller things in this vein, lots of little inconsistencies that add up. Examples are extensive. The Sisters are apparently shielding Logain in pairs, but are not linked to share the burden even though at the end of the episode they all link up to Gently him. No reason is supplied. Aram says Egwene and Perrin were wandering the wilderness in rags, even though both of them are still wearing the same completely undamaged outfits. The Grinwells, the family of Andoran farmers Rand & Mat run into, are shown carrying longbows, a weapon that is supposed to be exclusive to the Two Rivers (which is a very important factoid for later books).

It the details area there's also a problem with accents. The show chose to cast people without any consideration to their ethnicity at all, which is quite nice until you assemble those people into in-universe ethnic groups and have actors speaking English with different accents. This is very obvious during the (interminable) Tinkers bits, since Maria Doyla Kennedy (playing Ila) has a very pronounced Irish accent she can't fully suppress and Daryl McCormack (playing Aram), the grandchild she's supposed to have raised, possesses nothing of the kind. The actors playing Alanna and Logain have similar issues, in that it continually sounds like they don't know whether they should just be speaking naturally or trying to emulate a specific form of English. The whole issue feels amateurish, as if the directors could decide what they wanted to do.

None of these problems are crippling on their own, but one you start seeing them you can't stop seeing them, and it really obliterates any flow the show is trying to put together.

Spoiler: bad action

Show

I've said repeatedly in this thread that a show of this kind needs to have a good handle on the action sequences. There's inevitably going to be a lot of them and they're tied to a lot of other drama, so if they don't work, that collapses. This is the front where WoT has most clearly and substantially failed. It's somewhat ironic, actually, in that episode four contains the show's best fight sequence so far - the roughly fifteen seconds of Thom vs. Fade - but also it's absolute worst - everything about the attack by Logain's 'army' at the end. The latter extended sequence is genuinely awful. It's just a bunch of guys running around through the woods gesticulating vaguely at each other with their weapons while pyrotechnics burst aimlessly and the camera shifts around constantly to avoid focusing on anything. No one is wearing armor (except the king, who's wearing completely incorrect armor), no one is carrying the right kind of pseudo-early modern period weaponry (no longspears or polearms at all), everything is covered in smoke because reasons, no formations, no careful weapon-work, just nothing. It's terrible.

And it shouldn't be terrible. It would be one thing if the actors playing Nynaeve, Lan, and the various Aes Sedai struggled to handle the stuntwork, but that's not the case. Zoe Robins actually gets into some very game fisticuffs. Instead its the Warders and Soldiers, who should be played by members of a professional stunt crew.

All of this matters, as mentioned, because it undercuts the drama. Since the big action sequence was almost comic in its production, my ability to take the 'Logain might escape' connection, including Nynaeve's big moment was completely lost, and the episode's climax failed to retain impact.

It shouldn't be that hard to put together decent sword & spear fight sequences at this point. Hollywood is flooded with people who have experience doing it by now. Why does it seem like Wot couldn't manage to hire any of them?

[Gnoman]

I've seen episode four now, and based on seeing it, I've decided it's time to drop this show.

There are things about the fourth episode that are better than previous ones, but it also retains all of the problems that have been there through, especially a general sloppiness and lack of attention to detail with regard to smaller things that continually kills my suspension of disbelief and continually bad action sequences. To make a headliner show with fight scenes this bad is just embarrassing, there's better fight choreography on Syfy and the CW. It's just not worth the time.

Spoiler: missing details

Show

Ultimately this show is just really bad about detail, in ways that often undercut the plot. Episode Four has a big problem in this regard, and also a lot of little ones. The big one is that the Aes Sedai are supposed to be taking Logain to the Tower 'as fast as they can' - a line literary spoken during the episode. Yet Nynaeve, Moiraine, and Lan arrive in the middle of the day and the Sisters are stopped and encamped. They stay encamped all through the rest of the day and night - long enough for the sisters shielding Logain to switch shifts multiple times - and aren't making any effort to move in the morning when it is clearly well after dawn before Logain's army arrives. Hey, I wonder why his army caught up to you, could it be because you spent twenty-four hours in exactly the same place?

There's plenty of smaller things in this vein, lots of little inconsistencies that add up. Examples are extensive. The Sisters are apparently shielding Logain in pairs, but are not linked to share the burden even though at the end of the episode they all link up to Gently him. No reason is supplied. Aram says Egwene and Perrin were wandering the wilderness in rags, even though both of them are still wearing the same completely undamaged outfits. The Grinwells, the family of Andoran farmers Rand & Mat run into, are shown carrying longbows, a weapon that is supposed to be exclusive to the Two Rivers (which is a very important factoid for later books).

It the details area there's also a problem with accents. The show chose to cast people without any consideration to their ethnicity at all, which is quite nice until you assemble those people into in-universe ethnic groups and have actors speaking English with different accents. This is very obvious during the (interminable) Tinkers bits, since Maria Doyla Kennedy (playing Ila) has a very pronounced Irish accent she can't fully suppress and Daryl McCormack (playing Aram), the grandchild she's supposed to have raised, possesses nothing of the kind. The actors playing Alanna and Logain have similar issues, in that it continually sounds like they don't know whether they should just be speaking naturally or trying to emulate a specific form of English. The whole issue feels amateurish, as if the directors could decide what they wanted to do.

None of these problems are crippling on their own, but one you start seeing them you can't stop seeing them, and it really obliterates any flow the show is trying to put together.

Spoiler

Show

If you read the books, they never use a circle to hold a shield. Every time somebody is shielded, it is done by an individual or a group of individuals, with the strong implication that this makes the shield stronger because the one shielded doesn't have the ability to throw their entire strength at one point.

The Grinwell's weapons are ordinary bows. The "Two Rivers Longbow" was unique in the books for sheer size - they're supposed to be significantly taller than the archer when unstrung, to the point where they are easily mistaken for a walking stick. Such bows have not shown up in the show, but that doesn't make all bows longbows.

Trying to force a "consistent" accent requires you to either have all your actors from the same area (which is an absurd requirement) or else have them constantly faking one (which most people, including most actors, can't do). The most likely result of trying would be for the entire cast to have the horrible pronunciation and stilted delivery that is a hallmark of bad fantasy. Ditching that is one of the smartest things they could have done.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Mechalich

Spoiler

Show

…since Maria Doyl[e] Kennedy (playing Ila) has a very pronounced Irish accent she can't fully suppress….

Spoiler

Show

I hadn’t realized she was in this. She's a superb actress, and she does exactly the accent she intends to.

Originally Posted by Gnoman

Spoiler

Show

…or else have them constantly faking one (which most people, including most American actors, can't do).

Spoiler

Show

Fixed. Just off the top of my head, Jamie Bamber and Michelle Dockery can do perfect American accents consistently throughout a series (in BSG and Good Behavior, respectively).

Originally Posted by Mechalich
I've seen episode four now, and based on seeing it, I've decided it's time to drop this show.

I’ve watched a few clips, mainly from the village fight plus the traveling song and affiliated lore. Not having read the books, I’m not seeing much to draw me in.

Spoiler: Trollocs, Songs & Swirly Lights

Show

The trollocs only look good in the head shots, but even then they mainly feel like Uruk-hai with horns. They don’t look great in the full-body shots, and some of the CGI is extremely bad, as if someone didn’t have time to finish and hoped no one would notice.

The CGI of the swirly lights is…not impressive, almost chintzy, and the double-helix pattern is making me wonder if there’s some DNA reference I should be getting. Rosamund Pike did her best, but using the swirly lights to throw CGI bricks seems a little silly, since the swirly lights on their own can cut the trollocs in half—until they suddenly can’t? For reasons that aren’t clear during the fight?

The song was nicely done in itself, but Rosamund Pike’s soliloquy only made me wonder why the queen didn’t go nova on the fourth or fifth day, rather than waiting until her entire army was wiped out. Maybe there are valid reasons in the lore, but it’s not coming through here.

And as noted above, their clothing looks like it just came fresh from wardrobe. Aren’t they survivors of a desperate fight against ravening monsters? Haven’t they been traveling for days through lonely wilderness? Aren’t they in a world without laundromats? Or do the swirly lights also serve as prestidigitation?

I’m having a hard time seeing how this would appeal to anyone who isn’t already a strong fan of the books. For those who love seeing the books come to life in any form, then I can imagine this would serve them well.

Not having read the books, I could have enjoyed a less-than-strictly-faithful adaptation if it was engaging and well-done, but I’m just not feeling it here.

[Mechalich]

I’m having a hard time seeing how this would appeal to anyone who isn’t already a strong fan of the books. For those who love seeing the books come to life in any form, then I can imagine this would serve them well.

Not having read the books, I could have enjoyed a less-than-strictly-faithful adaptation if it was engaging and well-done, but I’m just not feeling it here.

The show looks and feels like a low-budget adaptation of WoT, and I think the show has greater appeal to audience members who aren't aware that Amazon dropped a giant pile of money on the show, because they don't know enough to expect a higher level of quality. This adaptation is not the best version of itself. That's the biggest problem. You could make the same story modifications, use the same actors, and still make a much better show entirely based on improvement to technical categories like sound, lighting, fight choreography, and makeup, and improved awareness of the scene to scene structure. The usual reason a show fails in these areas is budget, something that can impact even high-budget shows (ex. why there were no elephants in the final season of GoT), but as far as I can tell WoT hasn't even tried to do anything particularly expensive.

[Psyren]

Their contribution is absolutely negligible.

Well go back in time and tell Jordan to write it differently then.

Yeah, you clearly have no understanding of that scene.

Spoiler

Show

Actually it does show the extra taint. Or did you miss him suddenly thinkinghe could bring a dead girl to life? Or he started mumbling to himself directly after?

Not to mention the havoc it causes in Book 8. It's not the only reason for that but it's a big part.

Spoiler: My take on that scene

Show

I don't think Mat killed that family. You're supposed to think that at first, but what it actually revealed was Mat sensing the Fade. It's possible Mat thinks he killed the family too since he was non compus mentis when he walked in there. He was certainly surprised to see the little girl dead.

Indeed, on rewatch I came around to thinking this too. Doesn't change the "haunting" aspect though.

Spoiler: Book stuff

Show

To be fair, Perrin and Egwene don't have a lot to do period in the first book. I find it interesting that the Tinkers are going to Tar Valon - that indicates one of two things to me.

1) The Whitecloaks aren't going to show up, and Perrin's trouble with the Whitecloaks gets pushed to season 2. There are a lot of advantages to this approach - Perrin does jack diddly squat in book 2, and integrating the Whitecloaks from that point gives a smoother narrative from his point of view. This may also mean a show-original plot for Egwene on the journey there, whose form I would not like to guess.

2) The Whitecloaks do show up, and we get an episode that is entirely Perrin and Egwene centric. The Nynaeve/Logain plot is introduced to give Nynaeve the character development she loses by not rescuing Perrin. Instead, Perrin and Egwene free themselves and make their way to Tar Valon alone. There will also be some bonus action, where a plot point from later books gets inserted here - the Tinker caravan will be wiped out by the Whitecloaks. As I recall, Aram vanishes for several books before showing up again in book 4-5 or so no longer following the Way of the Leaf. Do it now, and the audience doesn't need to be reminded who the Tinkers are later and you can get Aram engaged with the main cast sooner.

2 seems the more likely by far to me. It kills a lot of birds with one stone, covering the important bits of Perrin's story and moving up Aram's role so you don't have to try and get the actor back several years from now. Removing Moiraine/Lan/Nynaeve means that Egwene gets to do her bit and get her character development. Best of all, you can do all this in a single episode since the rest of the cast is now in "they all go to Tar Valon" mode having completed their respective plots.

It also sets the stage for what I think they're going to do for season 2, which is to move up a lot of Perrin's plots so it's more evenly distributed instead of all happening in books 3-4.

It's almost certainly #2 going by the trailer (1:30).

[Anteros]

Yeah, you clearly have no understanding of that scene.

Well why don't you explain it to poor little stupid me? Since you understand things soooo much better.

[Psyren]

Well why don't you explain it to poor little stupid me? Since you understand things soooo much better.

I didn't say you or anyone else was stupid. But if you truly thought their contributions were "negligible" then yes, you grossly misunderstood what was happening.

Spoiler: AMoL, end of series spoilers

Show

Callandor is a saidin + TP sa'angreal, which various prophecies put as being a key component of the Last Battle.. It has two key flaws - (1) a man using it alone cannot wield the flows safely, he must be in a link with two other women, with one of them in control. (2) While using it, a man can be forced into a link with those women against his will.

It takes Rand, Min and Cadsuane quite a while to learn the purpose of these two flaws, but ultimately they figure it out - Callandor is supposed to be at the Last Battle, brought there by the Dragon, but not used by him. Rand tricks Moridin into picking it up, allowing Moiraine and Nynaeve to exploit flaw #2 and take control of Moridin, thus exploiting his Nae'blis access to the True Power. They weave the flows that sheathe Rand in all three Powers, allowing him to contact the Dark One without letting him/it taint saidin (or saidar) again.

This would not have been possible without Moiraine and Nynaeve. Not only are they strong enough to wield the amount of saidar he needs (both women are using their angreal in addition to the link with Callandor), and not only are both women he trusts completely (and who are also not needed to lead armies in the fighting above), they also have specialized knowledge he needs to succeed down there - Nynaeve's herbalism to save Alanna from Moridin's gambit, and Moiraine recognizing the pool of darkness that used to be Shaidar Haran. (Though whether her knowledge came from the Finns, the rings, her studies of the prophecies with Vandene and Adeleas or something else entirely is unclear.)

TL;DR their contributions were vital, both magically and non-magically.

[Rodin]

It is fine and watchable but I am dubious on the whole.

I read the books many years ago and read the last few due to losing interest after Robert Jordon died - so my memory of them is very spotty at best on individual bits, so I am more or less looking at the show with somewhat fresh eyes and am unlikely to notice anything other then very major changes (Rand is not the Dragon Reborn, Trolloc are people too etc level changes).

Reason for being dubious.

Spoiler: Mostly epidode 4 but applies earlier also

Show

While I remember liking Nynaeve in the books and her actress seems to be fine it isn't really reasonable for her to track down Lann without magic - Lann and team ran away on horse back, used magic to keep the horses healthy, crossed a river, and avoided Trollocs.

In order for Nynaeve to find him she need to:
a) go back to the village and hear that they have left
b) outpace them while avoiding Trollocs
c) fail to actually track the people she is actually tracking in favour of the two people she is not tracking
d) give up on her clearly amazing tracking ability in favour hoping to stumble upon the people she was tracking by simply trusting the people who lost them in the first place

This seems far fetched.

Next is her healing ability for Lann and the grief she seemed to have which activated it - her own village was attacked, many were injured, she herself had to resort to stabbing a trolloc in the back to kill it rather then being able to tap into the power to heal or harm then she does it for some guy she has spoken to a handful of times.

I get that they want her there and that they likely want to highlight her as the likely candidate for the Dragon Reborn (and hey maybe that is a change they are making for the tv show) and want a relationship between her and Lann (which if I recall correctly did happen in the books) but it just feels very rushed - and if they continue to just say 'person A is in location B doing thing C - don't question it' it will get old fast for me.

Spoiler

Show

Nynaeve tracking Lan non-magically happens in the book exactly as it does in the show. In fact, she does it multiple times - the first for the party as a whole, the second time she tracks down Lan and Moiraine specifically. She's an experienced hunter and is one of the best trackers in the Two Rivers. The books explicitly mention how shocked Lan is that she could follow any Warder who didn't want to be found, nevermind a badass like himself.

The second time she tracks Lan and Moiraine for the same reason she does in the show - the trail of the rest of the cast ends as they hurl themselves into the river. Perrin and Egwene swim across, Rand, Mat and Thom land on a boat that carries them away. Lan and Moiraine are the only two she can reach. Nynaeve is frustrated that she can't track them beyond the river but is forced to trust Lan and Moiraine to find them. The only difference is that book Moiraine gave a coin to the boys she can use to magically find them - and even so, Rand and Mat use theirs so she can't track them very well.

For the Trolloc scene - Nynaeve in the books has several instances where she fails to get angry enough to channel. I'm pretty sure there's even a sequence where she's approached by Trollocs and flubs channeling. She's only saved by the Trollocs not being interested in her and leaving on their own. She finally breaks her block by being in a "channel or die" situation" where she cannot get angry enough.

When we apply this to the Trolloc scene, it's easy to imagine that she's too scared to channel or simply cannot channel on demand (since she's entirely untrained at this point). She also has a non-channeling out - her hunting skills (something which the show doesn't establish well but which are detailed in the book) which allow her to ambush the Trolloc without resorting to channeling. Given her distaste for Aes Sedai, this is entirely in character.

I somewhat agree that this particular event being the one that causes her to go nuts is a bit off, but overall I'm not fussed. Given their plan to obfuscate who the Dragon is this is as good a way as any to do it.

[The Patterner]

I read the books many years ago and read the last few due to losing interest after Robert Jordon died - so my memory of them is very spotty at best on individual bits, so I am more or less looking at the show with somewhat fresh eyes and am unlikely to notice anything other then very major changes (Rand is not the Dragon Reborn, Trolloc are people too etc level changes).

I'm pretty much exactly in the same position. I don't remember a lot of the character names being thrown around here so them not being in the show or showing up at the wrong time isn't a problem at all.

Spoiler: Mostly epidode 4 but applies earlier also

Show

Next is her healing ability for Lann and the grief she seemed to have which activated it - her own village was attacked, many were injured, she herself had to resort to stabbing a trolloc in the back to kill it rather then being able to tap into the power to heal or harm then she does it for some guy she has spoken to a handful of times.

I get that they want her there and that they likely want to highlight her as the likely candidate for the Dragon Reborn (and hey maybe that is a change they are making for the tv show) and want a relationship between her and Lann (which if I recall correctly did happen in the books) but it just feels very rushed - and if they continue to just say 'person A is in location B doing thing C - don't question it' it will get old fast for me.

Spoiler

Show

So a lot of the points you made simply comes down to standard rules of drama, suspension of disbelief etc.

But the ones regarding her powers I actually think there are good answers to if you consider the fight, flight and hide responses.

The first time they are attacked she is in shock, she never gets angry and anger powers her. After the attack she is more in a state of desperation than anything else, so once again she isn't angry.

Now in the cave, she has just begun trusting people, and feeling safe once again. Just to once again get attacked and running to a what she think is safety (the cave), just for that to land her in even more danger. She is seeing people dying around her feeling just as helpless as last time. The difference now is that fleeing or hiding are simply out of the question, she knows she can't get away. So that triggers the fight response, which is just a fancy word for andrenaline fueled rage if we are being honest.

And that's why she goes nova, finally she snaps enough to get seriously pissed off.

[Anteros]

I didn't say you or anyone else was stupid. But if you truly thought their contributions were "negligible" then yes, you grossly misunderstood what was happening.

Spoiler: AMoL, end of series spoilers

Show

Callandor is a saidin + TP sa'angreal, which various prophecies put as being a key component of the Last Battle.. It has two key flaws - (1) a man using it alone cannot wield the flows safely, he must be in a link with two other women, with one of them in control. (2) While using it, a man can be forced into a link with those women against his will.

It takes Rand, Min and Cadsuane quite a while to learn the purpose of these two flaws, but ultimately they figure it out - Callandor is supposed to be at the Last Battle, brought there by the Dragon, but not used by him. Rand tricks Moridin into picking it up, allowing Moiraine and Nynaeve to exploit flaw #2 and take control of Moridin, thus exploiting his Nae'blis access to the True Power. They weave the flows that sheathe Rand in all three Powers, allowing him to contact the Dark One without letting him/it taint saidin (or saidar) again.

This would not have been possible without Moiraine and Nynaeve. Not only are they strong enough to wield the amount of saidar he needs (both women are using their angreal in addition to the link with Callandor), and not only are both women he trusts completely (and who are also not needed to lead armies in the fighting above), they also have specialized knowledge he needs to succeed down there - Nynaeve's herbalism to save Alanna from Moridin's gambit, and Moiraine recognizing the pool of darkness that used to be Shaidar Haran. (Though whether her knowledge came from the Finns, the rings, her studies of the prophecies with Vandene and Adeleas or something else entirely is unclear.)

TL;DR their contributions were vital, both magically and non-magically.

I said the power she supplied was negligible. Apparently I'm not the only one who struggles to understand the things I read.

Spoiler

Show

Rand perfectly seals the bore at the end basically by himself. The girls are present, but that's to buffer his own power through callandor. Morraine can barely channel and she's still chosen for that mission. The raw power in that scene is all Rand. I don't doubt Lews Therin and his companions also all took powerful sa'angreals for their assault. I always pictured it as most of the companions protecting the few most powerful while they made the seal.

Morraine and Nynaeve are both incredibly talented, and certainly contribute, but the actual power being supplied is almost entirely through Callandor, which they can't draw from. Rand is fully in control of the final weave, and he (and Moridin) supply the vast majority of the power. The girls are a droplet next to the ocean. We know this because Nynaeve is almost as strong as Rand and that's the comparison given to us about Rand's own power when he uses the sa'angreals. It has nothing to do with them not being useful or talented and everything to do with the nature of Callandor not benefiting them or allowing them to be in control.

[Psyren]

I said the power she supplied was negligible. Apparently I'm not the only one who struggles to understand the things I read.

You're still wrong, as I explained previously:

Spoiler

Show

As for Moiraine, she was using the bracelet angreal which actually made her stronger than she was originally.

Nynaeve was also using her rings-and-bracelet angreal for that scene.

It's possible to use more than one angreal/sa'angreal simultaneously, the most crucial example of which was Rand's defeat of Asmodean in TSR.

Spoiler

Show

Nynaeve tracking Lan non-magically happens in the book exactly as it does in the show. In fact, she does it multiple times - the first for the party as a whole, the second time she tracks down Lan and Moiraine specifically. She's an experienced hunter and is one of the best trackers in the Two Rivers. The books explicitly mention how shocked Lan is that she could follow any Warder who didn't want to be found, nevermind a badass like himself.

The second time she tracks Lan and Moiraine for the same reason she does in the show - the trail of the rest of the cast ends as they hurl themselves into the river. Perrin and Egwene swim across, Rand, Mat and Thom land on a boat that carries them away. Lan and Moiraine are the only two she can reach. Nynaeve is frustrated that she can't track them beyond the river but is forced to trust Lan and Moiraine to find them. The only difference is that book Moiraine gave a coin to the boys she can use to magically find them - and even so, Rand and Mat use theirs so she can't track them very well.

For the Trolloc scene - Nynaeve in the books has several instances where she fails to get angry enough to channel. I'm pretty sure there's even a sequence where she's approached by Trollocs and flubs channeling. She's only saved by the Trollocs not being interested in her and leaving on their own. She finally breaks her block by being in a "channel or die" situation" where she cannot get angry enough.

When we apply this to the Trolloc scene, it's easy to imagine that she's too scared to channel or simply cannot channel on demand (since she's entirely untrained at this point). She also has a non-channeling out - her hunting skills (something which the show doesn't establish well but which are detailed in the book) which allow her to ambush the Trolloc without resorting to channeling. Given her distaste for Aes Sedai, this is entirely in character.

I somewhat agree that this particular event being the one that causes her to go nuts is a bit off, but overall I'm not fussed. Given their plan to obfuscate who the Dragon is this is as good a way as any to do it.

Also for the Trolloc scene:

Spoiler

Show

If she ends up being ta'veren in this version, that would definitely explain how she was able to 1v1 a Trolloc even if her general hunting skill somehow couldn't.

The trolloc blood forming the shape of the Dragon's Fang in the water might be one of the show's ways of visualizing ta'veren weirdness on-screen.

[Saph]

Finally got around to watching Episode 2.

Spoiler: The Good

Show

The Whitecloaks were the first change they've done that I actually think is an improvement on the books. They managed to make them seem genuinely menacing, even if it kind of breaks down as soon as you think about it (if the Whitecloaks can kill 8 Aes Sedai that easily, they'd have wiped them out centuries ago).

Shadar Logoth looked really impressive, and I liked the visualisation of Mashadar.

Mat's improving from how he was in episode 1, and Perrin, Moiraine, and Lan are all good.

Spoiler: The Bad

Show

It's frustrating how unsubtle the show is, and how little they trust the audience to be able to figure anything out for themselves. We have the Three Oaths spelled out, but then, instead of just SHOWING us how Moiraine avoids breaking them, we have to have it explained in painful detail.

Large amounts of Episodes 1&2 are just plain boring, especially when they're doing Teen Relationship Drama. I was looking at my clock for the Rand/Egwene scenes. Luckily the pace picked up for the second half.

Egwene is really tedious to watch. She feels as if she's some writer's favourite character and so she gets lots of focus despite not doing anything particularly interesting.

The "you all carry Manetheren's blood" scene is incredibly awkward given how obvious it is that everyone in the Two Rivers is very clearly descended from places thousands of miles apart.

Overall it's . . . okay, I guess? It's all just a bit mediocre. If I wasn't a Wheel of Time fan I'd have given up on the show by now.

[Rynjin]

I also finally got around to watching the first two episodes.

I'm glad I kept up with all the spoilers; it let me brace myself for all the stuff I knew I'd hate (like the changes to Perrin) and focus on the stuff I'd enjoy.

Overall, decent show. I downgraded it from a "full attention show" to a "play on my phone while I watch it" show after episode 1, but there's plenty of shows I quite like that I do that to; I save my full attention for extremely good shows (like Vinland Saga). It hasn't been downgraded to "background noise while I cook or clean" which is a good sign, so far. Might throw up more detailed impressions later.

[Gnoman]

Finally got around to watching Episode 2.

Spoiler: The Good

Show

The Whitecloaks were the first change they've done that I actually think is an improvement on the books. They managed to make them seem genuinely menacing, even if it kind of breaks down as soon as you think about it (if the Whitecloaks can kill 8 Aes Sedai that easily, they'd have wiped them out centuries ago).

Shadar Logoth looked really impressive, and I liked the visualisation of Mashadar.

Mat's improving from how he was in episode 1, and Perrin, Moiraine, and Lan are all good.

Spoiler: The Bad

Show

It's frustrating how unsubtle the show is, and how little they trust the audience to be able to figure anything out for themselves. We have the Three Oaths spelled out, but then, instead of just SHOWING us how Moiraine avoids breaking them, we have to have it explained in painful detail.

Large amounts of Episodes 1&2 are just plain boring, especially when they're doing Teen Relationship Drama. I was looking at my clock for the Rand/Egwene scenes. Luckily the pace picked up for the second half.

Egwene is really tedious to watch. She feels as if she's some writer's favourite character and so she gets lots of focus despite not doing anything particularly interesting.

The "you all carry Manetheren's blood" scene is incredibly awkward given how obvious it is that everyone in the Two Rivers is very clearly descended from places thousands of miles apart.

Overall it's . . . okay, I guess? It's all just a bit mediocre. If I wasn't a Wheel of Time fan I'd have given up on the show by now.

Fair criticisms, but a lot of them can be fairly applied to the book as well. The scene I felt was clunkiest was a straight adaptation.

[Saph]

Fair criticisms, but a lot of them can be fairly applied to the book as well. The scene I felt was clunkiest was a straight adaptation.

The books are way more subtle. Compare something like the ferry scene in Episode 2 – in the books Moiraine and Lan come across during that scene as understated and menacing, while their motives are left ambiguous. The show version of the ferry scene goes out of its way to remove all ambiguity, and then has the characters literally recap the events that we just saw happen three minutes ago to explain it again!

[Psyren]

Ep 4 gave me chills. It shows that some of the stuff they're adding (like the Warders around the fire bonding with Nynaeve, and her Old Tongue scene with Lan, and Logain in Ghealdan) are coming from a place of true heart and desire to elevate the source material.

Fair criticisms, but a lot of them can be fairly applied to the book as well. The scene I felt was clunkiest was a straight adaptation.

Ooh, now I'm curious.

[tiornys]

The books are way more subtle. Compare something like the ferry scene in Episode 2 – in the books Moiraine and Lan come across during that scene as understated and menacing, while their motives are left ambiguous. The show version of the ferry scene goes out of its way to remove all ambiguity, and then has the characters literally recap the events that we just saw happen three minutes ago to explain it again!

The show is less subtle because it has to be. If they hadn't discussed this scene in character, we'd have people here/on reddit/etc. screaming about how they "changed" the oaths because of Moiraine "killing" Master Hightower here (edit: she didn't, she stops channeling as soon as he jumps in). As evidence, I nominate all of the things various people are screaming about that are flat contradicted by relatively subtle details such as

Spoiler: Eps. 1-4

Show

"Why does Nynaeve have a sword to fight the trolloc with?" (she didn't--she stole it from the trolloc), "Why wasn't Fain/Mordeth in Shadar Logoth?" (at least one was, as evidenced by the whistling), "Why did Thom pickpocket Mat?" (he didn't--he picked from the guy who picked Mat; yes, this is a separate complaint from why Thom kept the purse), "Why did Mat kill the Grinwells?" (he didn't, the fade did, as evidenced by the state of their weapons), not to mention nitpicks that are probably baseless but which haven't yet been explicitly contradicted e.g. "Why could Logain see Nynaeve's weaves?" (probable answer: he couldn't, but he could see other effects that Nynaeve was producing).

[Saph]

The show is less subtle because it has to be. If they hadn't discussed this scene in character, we'd have people here/on reddit/etc. screaming about how they "changed" the oaths because of Moiraine "killing" Master Hightower here (edit: she didn't, she stops channeling as soon as he jumps in).

They could have kept the scene as it was in the book, where no-one gets killed at all. It would have been tighter, better-written, and less clunky.

The bigger problem at the moment, though, is that so far they haven't made any of the Emond's Field 5 particularly interesting. Tons of stuff from the books has been cut in favour of character/relationship scenes with the 5, but nearly all of those scenes are really freaking boring! Stuff like Rand & Egwene's relationship drama is actively painful to watch, and the way they're handling Perrin is awful (which is a shame, since so far he's been the best actor out of the 5).

[Mechalich]

The bigger problem at the moment, though, is that so far they haven't made any of the Emond's Field 5 particularly interesting. Tons of stuff from the books has been cut in favour of character/relationship scenes with the 5, but nearly all of those scenes are really freaking boring! Stuff like Rand & Egwene's relationship drama is actively painful to watch, and the way they're handling Perrin is awful (which is a shame, since so far he's been the best actor out of the 5).

I agree, and I think the show struggles with a lack of urgency overall. Sometimes this is literal, as I mentioned with regards to the logistical issues in episode four, and sometimes its story related. The moment the various characters aren't under immediate threat they lack for motive beyond vaguely heading towards Tar Valon, and it's not entirely clear that any of them aside from Egwene want to go there, something the show actually called out directly.

And in part I think playing coy with who the Dragon Reborn is, and also not actually explaining what ta'veren are, falls into that. If you're watching the show without any book knowledge there's really nothing to explain why all four out of the five characters who aren't the Dragon Reborn have any role to play in the greater story at all. And there's the contrast with the books in that, in book one, they really don't play that much of a role. Book One has only four viewpoint characters that count: Rand (81%), Perrin (14%), Nynaeve (4%), and Lews Therin Telamon (1%). Trying to make that into an ensemble setup is a trick, and honestly they've gone too far away from Rand since his character feels the most utterly ambivalent of all.

[Saph]

And in part I think playing coy with who the Dragon Reborn is, and also not actually explaining what ta'veren are, falls into that. If you're watching the show without any book knowledge there's really nothing to explain why all four out of the five characters who aren't the Dragon Reborn have any role to play in the greater story at all. And there's the contrast with the books in that, in book one, they really don't play that much of a role. Book One has only four viewpoint characters that count: Rand (81%), Perrin (14%), Nynaeve (4%), and Lews Therin Telamon (1%). Trying to make that into an ensemble setup is a trick, and honestly they've gone too far away from Rand since his character feels the most utterly ambivalent of all.

Rand especially worries me since his character is (spoiler alert) kind of important to the series. So them deciding to cut out pretty much all of his important character background from the show is . . . concerning. It's been replaced with scenes focusing on his relationship with Egwene, which has the unfortunate result that at the moment, Rand's entire identity seems to be "guy Egwene broke up with who's upset about it".

[Rodin]

Rand especially worries me since his character is (spoiler alert) kind of important to the series. So them deciding to cut out pretty much all of his important character background from the show is . . . concerning. It's been replaced with scenes focusing on his relationship with Egwene, which has the unfortunate result that at the moment, Rand's entire identity seems to be "guy Egwene broke up with who's upset about it".

This is something I've noticed as well. They've done a decent job obfuscating who the Dragon is, with red herrings for everyone except Rand. That shift in perspective has become a problem in the other direction - Rand has become remarkable by being so unremarkable. Keeping in Tam's fever dreams and the convenient lightning bolt would have been wise choices.

[The Patterner]

This is something I've noticed as well. They've done a decent job obfuscating who the Dragon is, with red herrings for everyone except Rand. That shift in perspective has become a problem in the other direction - Rand has become remarkable by being so unremarkable. Keeping in Tam's fever dreams and the convenient lightning bolt would have been wise choices.

They did one scene, when he broke down the heavy wooden door, sure it looks like he is just very strong (or the door weaker than the darkfriend claimed), but I saw it as sign of him channeling.

[Rynjin]

That was definitely supposed to be Channeling. The whole building shook.

[The Patterner]

That was definitely supposed to be Channeling. The whole building shook.

I was thinking more from the perspective of someone who have not read the book. They might not realize what for us is obvious.

But still, it's a scene that clearly shows that there is more to Rand than people might think.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by The Patterner
I was thinking more from the perspective of someone who have not read the book. They might not realize what for us is obvious.

Exactly this. I would have watched that and wondered if the hinges were just really rusty. So much seems to be depending on the viewers having read the books.

And yet they’re also relying on the subset of viewers who are already familiar with the characters and their roles, yet unperturbed about what seem like major changes to those characters and roles.

Originally Posted by Saph
…at the moment, Rand's entire identity seems to be "guy Egwene broke up with who's upset about it”.

And this sounds like more of the CW vibe.

.

[The Patterner]

Exactly this. I would have watched that and wondered if the hinges were just really rusty. So much seems to be depending on the viewers having read the books.

And yet they’re also relying on the subset of viewers who are already familiar with the characters and their roles, yet unperturbed about what seem like major changes to those characters and roles.

I would like to add that I don't find this to be a bad thing as of yet. Right now the strongest candidate for being the dragon seems to be Nynaeve for people who haven't read the books.
That's actually a good red herring, as long as they don't draw it out for to long that is.

To me a bigger problem is that they haven't explained what an ta'veren is yet, why drag that out?