Wheel of Time, Amazon Prime

[Mechalich]

What do people think? Is there any sort of consensus on whether this is good.

I read the first book, and thought it was quite good, but I didn't like it enough that I was driven to read the rest.

Do you think I'd like the tv show?

Wheel of Time, the show, is stunningly, astoundingly, almost unimaginably mediocre. It manages to be neither notably good nor bad with regard to basically every technical, story, and character component. In many ways it is exactly the sum of its parts, highly watchable but bland.

If you haven't read the books there's nothing to hate about the show, but equally there's nothing to love. Nothing pops. Nor is the show humorous in the way some fantasy shows are. It's played relentlessly straight and none of the in-universe characters are having any fun (nor have they acquired the sort of world-weary cynicism that passed for humor later in the books).

The most notable thing about the show, so far, is that despite being one of the most expensive TV series ever made it somehow manages to look cheap and low-quality compared to its budgetary peers (this means it doesn't look bad overall, but it doesn't look as good as comparable shows like Got or Witcher).

For those people who already have Amazon Prime and have a bunch of free time, sure watch it if you want. Also, I suppose WoT is fairly family-friendly as high fantasy goes, there's little foul language, explicit sex, or even all that much brutal violence, so there's that for those who have kids. Otherwise, I can't recommend it. Maybe it will get better, shows like this often do when given some time and a second season is coming, but if so, I'd suggest waiting for that to happen first.

[Ramza00]

Can you give me examples of them not making sense? I dont remember much specifics about male channelers versus female aside from the basics. Men cant link with each other, but tend to average stronger than women, which im assuming is some gender norm thing like women tend to work together men tend to be solo strong man types or whatever. And also the areas they specialize in tend to be different element wise than women. That sort of thing. When you say make no sense do you mean by their own established lore they break the rules? Or you just dont think the rules jordan wrote for them make sense?

We are giving an unreliable narrator "type thing" with power levels for our first introduction to The One Power (with its two halves) is via the Tar Valon White Tower Aes Sedai and their whole entire culture is built around one thing I am about to discuss but not reach till the 2nd half of the post. We are introduced later to other cultures that challenge our previous given out knowledge with how the One Power works via things such as other women channeler traditions starting in Book 2 with The Seanchan, Book 4 The Wise Ones, Book 7 The Kin, whatever book I can not remember Atha'an Miere / Sea Folk, etc.

How these other cultures care about power levels with The One Power vs other forms of power inside the culture with ones position is very different and thus this influences how they see male channelers differences instead of female channelers differences. Aka we are questioning two different things a) what is the nature of the object's or person's existence, and b) what is the nature of the object or person's in relation to other objects or persons.

-----

Lets look at it from a different perspective from "outside the text" from a cannon source which is the 2015 The Wheel of Time Companion which is assembled from Robert Jordan's notes. It is canon but there are contradictions with the text occasionally, but the text itself is contradictory over 4.4 million words.

https://wot.fandom.com/wiki/One_Power

In the Wheel of Time Companion there are 78 levels of The One Power and how much power you can hold / grab. Now what you can do with the power is depending on other factors such as dexterity, technique, weaves you know, talents, your elemental profiency, etc. But there are 78 base levels of one power you can grab before the use of angreal, sa'angreal, etc.

72 levels of power for Women, and 72 levels of power for Men. And the males are able to access 6 levels of power stronger than the equivalent women, and thus Rand Al Thor is able to access 72+6=78 levels of power, while the weakest theoretical male is able to access 1+6 levels of power and have a larger raw battery and output than equivalent women if one knows the total numbers of a society and we are distributing these percentages over all of society.

But does that really matter when we are not seeing the actual curve for all the men and all the women? For example of those 72 levels of power, there has been no living, non retired Aes Sedai that could access more than 60 units of power. This is the level that Moiraine could access but also Siuan, Eladia could access but also Lelaine of the Blue and Romanda of the Yellow. But there are 12 levels above what Moiraine can access on the women side (such as Lanfear) and 18 units above that on what the most talented / lucky men can access (such as Rand.) Likewise if Cadsuane was not retired she could channel 68 units (+8 units above Moiraine), if Meilyn Arganya and Kerene Nagashi were not killed by the Black Ajah prior to New Spring (only 18 years earlier) they could channel 63 units (+3) and 62 (+2) respectively above what Moiraine could channel, so on and so on. The two river girls are special but not that special as we are given in Book 1 in a hyperbolic type fashion.

Thus the raw potential of the new Two River girls were 65 units for Egwene when fully trained (+5), 65 for Elayne (+5), and 70 for Nynaneve (+10). Nynaneve is thus 2 below Lanfear, 1 below Cadsuane when Lanfear was reborn, same rank as Graendal once Nynaneve reached her full potential, and 1 rank above Moghedien the Forsaken rival for Nynaneve for half of the series.

Women who are above 60 units of Power get a +number with how many levels above 60 so a +12 is 72 units aka Lanfear. Likewise men who are stronger than Lanfear get a ++ number and thus Rand Al Thor is ++6 but Logain and Mazrim Taim are +5 and thus can channel 17 higher units than what Moiraine can do unaided, and thus Logain can channel 10 units higher than what Nynnaeve can do unaided.

Other important milestones are as follows

• 60 units of power a 13(1) is the old max at the white tower. 1 is the max at the white tower but the 13 is the 13th highest potential for what a women can be (and a man can be 6 above that)
• 51 units of power a 22(10) needed to open a gateway to travel. Note via linking 2 women of Aes Sedai strength, or 4 Kin (specifically kin who are weaker than the weakest aes sedai) you can obtained the 51 units of power
• 45 units of power, 28(16) is the average Aes Sedai
• 28 units of power, 45(33) is the weakest Aes Sedai. Anyone weaker is not offered the test for the Shawl.
• 26 Units of power, 47(35) is the weakest Accepted, any weaker is not offered the test.
• 07 Units of power is the weakest man rank equivalent to a women with 66(54) rank. We know no men who were this strength but this is Moiraine strength after the Finns without her magic angreal artifact.
• 01 Units of power is the weakest women. Elayne's mother Morgase Trakand is this rank with a 72(60)

More info is in the 2015 A Whell of Time Compendium but most of it is localized here in a wiki url]https://wot.fandom.com/wiki/One_Power[/url]

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All of the indented stuff comes from the Wheel of Time Compendium an outside source which is literal true and they know more than people inside the series for it is objective source straight from the creator (edited by mortal hands.)

But we are given an unreliable narrator by the internal perceptions, lore, etc of the Aes Sedai and so on. Their entire culture is built on the 32 ranks of One Power between Moiraine and the weakest Aes Sedai such as Daigian Moseneillin who is 32 ranks lower than Moiraine in the ability to grab the One Power hold it, and output it. When two Aes Sedai have conflict and their logic is internally consistent and there is an impasse the weaker Aes Sedai is supposed to defer to the stronger Aes Sedai or they do not cooperate. Everything in this culture is a [censored] one power measuring contest, much like how some people in western cultures have men who want to compete and show off in front of other men. 32 ranks of measurement in this insular culture of about 1000 women (a little more than that prior to A New Spring)

Thus the idea of one person being 6 ranks higher which every man gets compared to every women attacks the idea of fairness and culture the White Tower tells itself. Sure they are saying the man and women parts of the one power are equal but due to the taint on Saidin they are saying the male half is dangerous / inferior in some ways that the Women half Saidar is not . This creates and reinforces a form of gender essentialism, and men being 6 units of power higher than women at the same time challenges ones place in the hierarchy which is The White Tower (it is producing a tension it reconciles with in the lore but the Aes Sedai are uncomfortable about). It is both "literally true" but also a social construct much like the word "tall" is a social construct even if people are taller or shorter than one another, or the word "healthy" is a social construct even if we can create measures of health. It is describing ones place / orientation in the hierarchy.

Other cultures which have different forms of authority besides literal one power output are less threatened by men being slightly stronger than women, but how most women can still be slightly stronger than most men due to the law of averages (for not everyone with potential to channel is taught)

Yet men being better at the one power, well this idea is kind of nonsense for in theory there can be as much as 1 in 20 people who are channelers either having in born talent where they naturally reach for the spark or they can learn this ability. We do not find and train all the raw potential in the 3rd age society, and not even at the 5% rate during the Age of Legends.

The weakest Aes Sedai at 28 units of power (45th out of 72 women positions, and 33 out of 60 positions with the old Moiraine scale) is still 37.5% percentile of the theoretical strongest women, the average Aes Sedai is 45 units of power, and Moiraine is 60 units of power with Lanfear being 72 units of power. Being a man merely moves you up 6 units of power which is not much in the grand scheme of things unless we are talking pre sorted men, the rarest of the men who are stronger than Moiraine or Lanfear.

Furthermore Women are supposed to have higher dexterity with the weave so Lanfear can keep up with male forsakens who are stronger than her, but who knows what that means in actual effect.

-----

It is all culture what we are told inside of the text, the amount of things we are told is gender essentialism is ONLY **actually** partly true. Some of its gender essentialism and some of it is projection that does not seem like projection for it is cultural myths and social constructs.

Women linking far makes up for 6 units more of one power, but that would require The White Tower to have a culture that celebrates linking. (But hey it could be worse the Seanchan's Damane and Sul'dam has its own form of limit their culture does not allow them to see beyond.)

[Corvus]

It's definitely better than Shannara (which was hot ass, in a completely different way from the books) and Legend of the Seeker (which was fun, but very cheesy, and actually better than the books).

I really enjoyed Legend of the Seeker. Yes it was cheesy fun, and it took the very sensible decision to throw out pretty much anything to do with the books because they were shockingly terrible.

Having WoT rating only at the same level as Legend of the Seeker isn't good for it. WoT wants to be compared to big, serious fantasy like GoT rather than cheap, campy fun like LotS. Even after its disastrous final season, GoT is still rating 9.2 on IMdB.

[Psyren]

Episode 5 is out and a decent amount happens in this one:`

Spoiler

Show

The audience gets a decent explanation of what happens to a warder when their Aes Sedai dies, through Kerene and Stepin.

The Forsaken get name-dropped for the first time. Stepin's altar (for warding them off, much like the catechism from the books) contains figurines of each one, and it definitely looks like less than 13 (I counted... 8? Anyone get a better look?) Also, good on this Age for at least capturing what they look like.

Confirmation that Moiraine has no tracking coins in this version, so she leaves it up to the youths to reach Tar Valon alive. Mat and Rand arrive, but with Mat's dagger symptoms spiking Rand is understandably afraid to go to the Tower. Thankfully he runs into Loial, who is a bit shorter than I was expecting and provides more hints about Rand's heritage. Loial's main purpose this episode is to run into Nynaeve in the Tower Gardens (I expect that to be a deleted scene later) which causes the reunions to begin.

Egwene finally gets her moment to shine in this episode as she and Perrin are separated from the Tinker caravan by Whitecloaks and ultimately captured. Valda finds a not-so-creative way to get her channeling, which she does, quite smartly - but it's Perrin who is the hero of the day, by overrunning the Whitecloak camp in the way you'd expect. All in all, them freeing themselves is a change, but one I didn't mind.

We're pretty short on time this season, so I expect the next one to be about Siuan and Moiraine, then the group to reunite and realize they need to run off to the Eye somehow.

Can you give me examples of them not making? I dont remember much specifics about male channelers versus female aside from the basics. Men cant link with each other, but tend to average stronger than women, which im assuming is some gender norm thing like women tend to work together men tend to be solo strong man types or whatever. And also the areas they specialize in tend to be different element wise than women. That sort of thing. When you say make no sense do you mean by their own established lore they break the rules? Or you just dont think the rules jordan wrote for them make sense?

Short version:

Spoiler

Show

"Men can't link" means any big feats of saidin are individual - since you'd be relying on one male channeler's strength at a time (unless of course they brought a woman in). But we have canonical examples of big saidin-only feats - Sealing the Bore and making the Ways. The Ways are simply put too BIG to be the product of one channeler, and too cohesive to be a bunch of individual weaves butting up against each other, at least the way they're presented in the books. Having them be the product of a circle of men or a series of circles would have made more sense. And the Ways worked fine, at least until the taint used in their forging grew strong enough to overtake them.

Meanwhile, I can't think of any plot point "men can't link" actually enables in the books. The Forsaken wouldn't do it anyway, and none of the Asha'man would get any benefit from it even if it were possible. It's just more pointless boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider inequality for its own sake.

Even after its disastrous final season, GoT is still rating 9.2 on IMdB.

Yeah as I mentioned, I don't put any stock in IMDB's "series rating." It just seems to be based on the first episode. RT at least has ratings by season.

[Ramza00]

Psyren about one of the male feats after the breaking started before it finished.

Spoiler: No prizing it

Show

Perhaps the Ways were not created by individual use of the one power via weaves, but were instead created by male Ter'angreal which may operate in a different way than just male one power use by itself. Especially since we can consider two caveats. Men gave the Ogier Talisman of Growing which did not need one power use to operate, merely tree singing. Likewise we found a new Talisman of Growing in the Kin Storeroom and it resonated with Sadiar. Furthermore the 2nd reason is we know Ter’angreal can work in ways normal one power use can not, though Ter’angreal that do not need one power use were more rare, and in the age of legends some Ter’angreal that required one power use can have substitute Ter’angreal that can power them though that was not further elaborated on when The Forsaken person was talking to the third ager. So what I am saying is perhaps there is a linking substitute with Ter’angreal for the really big male only feats.
—————
As for the 7 seals I already covered that feat if we can use the big white book from 1997 as a reference. The 7 seals were not about a real big feat, merely reinforcing what was weak and thus required precise placement. Even though the original goal was 7 women and 6 men, but it did not need a large feat like a link of 72 people (35 men and 37 women)

[Mechalich]

Short version:

Spoiler

Show

"Men can't link" means any big feats of saidin are individual - since you'd be relying on one male channeler's strength at a time (unless of course they brought a woman in). But we have canonical examples of big saidin-only feats - Sealing the Bore and making the Ways. The Ways are simply put too BIG to be the product of one channeler, and too cohesive to be a bunch of individual weaves butting up against each other, at least the way they're presented in the books. Having them be the product of a circle of men or a series of circles would have made more sense. And the Ways worked fine, at least until the taint used in their forging grew strong enough to overtake them.

Meanwhile, I can't think of any plot point "men can't link" actually enables in the books. The Forsaken wouldn't do it anyway, and none of the Asha'man would get any benefit from it even if it were possible. It's just more pointless boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider inequality for its own sake.

Spoiler

Show

A large number of Age of Legends Era feats are poorly accounted for, not least of which is the Breaking itself. Is the best Lews Therin - supposedly the most powerful male channeler ever - can do while drawing on enough of the source to utterly obliterate himself it produce one massive volcano, there's no way the rest could completely reshape the planet to the point of relocating continents and mountain ranges. And yet apparently this happened. Clearly the Channelers of that era had access to some other resource - probably a combination of sa-angreal and ter-angreal - that allowed the massive amplification of their abilities in certain fashion, for both women and men. We do in fact see examples of this during the books, most notably in the case of the Bowl of Winds, a device capable of altering the global climate in a single use. The Ways, specifically, were probably made using some similar incredibly powerful tool, most likely the 'Talisman of Growing' mentioned by Loial.

And this makes sense, actually, since the Age of Legends was a worldwide magitech utopia. Its infrastructure was a massive force multiplier in terms of the capabilities of Channelers. The various fragments of said infrastructure remain immensely powerful even when left alone. The Green Man, who should appear in the season finale, is once such remnant.

Grr...ninja'd by Ramza.

[Gnoman]

Episode 5 is out and a decent amount happens in this one:`

Spoiler

Show

The audience gets a decent explanation of what happens to a warder when their Aes Sedai dies, through Kerene and Stepin.

The Forsaken get name-dropped for the first time. Stepin's altar (for warding them off, much like the catechism from the books) contains figurines of each one, and it definitely looks like less than 13 (I counted... 8? Anyone get a better look?) Also, good on this Age for at least capturing what they look like.

Direct response:

Spoiler

Show

I didn't get a good count (more interested in trying to get an idea who each one represents, but there's no guarantee he has a complete set there. He was (supposedly) specifically warding off Ishamael (perhaps as penance for his deception of Nyneave and Lan about what the sleep tea was really for), and he salvaged the set from his mother's house. She might not have had all of them, or he might not have gotten them all out because there was a specific one he wanted, or whatever. It wouldn't surprise me if they did reduce/merge the Forsaken, but I wouldn't take the altar as hard evidence.

Idle speculation

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The focus on the effects of a severed bond and the repeated discussions of Lan and Moraine kind of give me the impression they might be moving her "death" up a lot.

Overall, this was a very slow episode, which allowed great handling of the focused material.

[Sapphire Guard]

Spoiler: Power Mechanics

Show

You can do superpowered stuff with the power if you're willing to explode yourself in the process. Aeldrene melted an entire city in order to solo an army. The breaking could have been done by male channelers exploding themselves.

Waygates are made by a ter'angreal, the Talisman of Growing, not raw power. The Ogier can even grow new paths themselves without any channelers involved at all.

Sealing the Bore doesn't mean all of the hundred companions were doing it. Lews needs guards while he works. Rand was able to reseal it with only a handful of people, Lews may well have done the imperfect seal himself.

'Men can't link' denies them a powerful teaching tool, so ensures that false dragons are always alone.

[Psyren]

Psyren about one of the male feats after the breaking started before it finished.

Spoiler: No prizing it

Show

Perhaps the Ways were not created by individual use of the one power via weaves, but were instead created by male Ter'angreal which may operate in a different way than just male one power use by itself. Especially since we can consider two caveats. Men gave the Ogier Talisman of Growing which did not need one power use to operate, merely tree singing. Likewise we found a new Talisman of Growing in the Kin Storeroom and it resonated with Sadiar. Furthermore the 2nd reason is we know Ter’angreal can work in ways normal one power use can not, though Ter’angreal that do not need one power use were more rare, and in the age of legends some Ter’angreal that required one power use can have substitute Ter’angreal that can power them though that was not further elaborated on when The Forsaken person was talking to the third ager. So what I am saying is perhaps there is a linking substitute with Ter’angreal for the really big male only feats.
—————
As for the 7 seals I already covered that feat if we can use the big white book from 1997 as a reference. The 7 seals were not about a real big feat, merely reinforcing what was weak and thus required precise placement. Even though the original goal was 7 women and 6 men, but it did not need a large feat like a link of 72 people (35 men and 37 women)

Spoiler

Show

A large number of Age of Legends Era feats are poorly accounted for, not least of which is the Breaking itself. Is the best Lews Therin - supposedly the most powerful male channeler ever - can do while drawing on enough of the source to utterly obliterate himself it produce one massive volcano, there's no way the rest could completely reshape the planet to the point of relocating continents and mountain ranges. And yet apparently this happened. Clearly the Channelers of that era had access to some other resource - probably a combination of sa-angreal and ter-angreal - that allowed the massive amplification of their abilities in certain fashion, for both women and men. We do in fact see examples of this during the books, most notably in the case of the Bowl of Winds, a device capable of altering the global climate in a single use. The Ways, specifically, were probably made using some similar incredibly powerful tool, most likely the 'Talisman of Growing' mentioned by Loial.

And this makes sense, actually, since the Age of Legends was a worldwide magitech utopia. Its infrastructure was a massive force multiplier in terms of the capabilities of Channelers. The various fragments of said infrastructure remain immensely powerful even when left alone. The Green Man, who should appear in the season finale, is once such remnant.

Grr...ninja'd by Ramza.

The Talismans only make the Gates, not the Ways themselves. All we hear about the Ways is that the Male AS made them, and he didn't elaborate how.

Now, I'm normally one who's more interested in explaining how things could work than complaining that they don't - except in this case,

Spoiler

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the very easiest solution (they were made because men can link, just like women linked to make Tar Valon and Rhuidean, done) was thrown out simply so RJ could continue his essentialist crusade of {scrubbed} Which, again, something I hope they change in the show.

Direct response:

Spoiler

Show

I didn't get a good count (more interested in trying to get an idea who each one represents, but there's no guarantee he has a complete set there. He was (supposedly) specifically warding off Ishamael (perhaps as penance for his deception of Nyneave and Lan about what the sleep tea was really for), and he salvaged the set from his mother's house. She might not have had all of them, or he might not have gotten them all out because there was a specific one he wanted, or whatever. It wouldn't surprise me if they did reduce/merge the Forsaken, but I wouldn't take the altar as hard evidence.

I agree it's not hard evidence, but it is interesting.

Idle speculation

Spoiler

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The focus on the effects of a severed bond and the repeated discussions of Lan and Moraine kind of give me the impression they might be moving her "death" up a lot.

Possibly but also

Spoiler: Major book spoilers, 14 AMoL

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The effects of bond severance are a major plot point for Rand and Nynaeve at the end so this is important groundwork to lay now as well.

Spoiler: Power Mechanics

Show

You can do superpowered stuff with the power if you're willing to explode yourself in the process. Aeldrene melted an entire city in order to solo an army. The breaking could have been done by male channelers exploding themselves.

Waygates are made by a ter'angreal, the Talisman of Growing, not raw power. The Ogier can even grow new paths themselves without any channelers involved at all.

Sealing the Bore doesn't mean all of the hundred companions were doing it. Lews needs guards while he works. Rand was able to reseal it with only a handful of people, Lews may well have done the imperfect seal himself.

'Men can't link' denies them a powerful teaching tool, so ensures that false dragons are always alone.

As noted above, the Talismans only make the Gates - they did not make the Ways themselves.

The teaching tool point is frankly bunk, they have no problem teaching without it later on. For False Dragons, they have nobody to link with anyway, they are popping up in the post-culling era.

[lord_khaine]

Now, I'm normally one who's more interested in explaining how things could work than complaining that they don't - except in this case,

Spoiler

Show

the very easiest solution (they were made because men can link, just like women linked to make Tar Valon and Rhuidean, done) was thrown out simply so RJ could continue his essentialist crusade of {Scrub the post, scrub the quote}Which, again, something I hope they change in the show.

Spoiler

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A) i think your cap lock button broke?
B) That men and women are fundamentally different is a scientific fact that begins on the genetic level and move upwards.

[Psyren]

Spoiler

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A) i think your cap lock button broke?
B) That men and women are fundamentally different is a scientific fact that begins on the genetic level and move upwards.

Nah the button is fine, but I'll leave it at that.

Back to the episode:

Spoiler

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I'm definitely a fan of the Whitecloaks in this version, they seem genuinely menacing and dark rather than the Stooge Army they are in the books.

We also get confirmation that channeling doesn't necessarily have somatic components in this universe, or at the very least, that the somatic components while potentially making channeling easier or more effective are ultimately not necessary. This does beg the question of how he was able to slaughter so many sisters in this version, but this may be hinting at the rigidity / weaknesses inherent to Tower training.

[theNater]

B) That men and women are fundamentally different is a scientific fact that begins on the genetic level and move upwards.

There's a lot of steps between genes and behavior, and unusual things can happen at every one of them. So let's not conflate scientific facts like "there is a strong correlation between being a man and having a Y-chromosome" with bioessentialist nonsense like "men are genetically incapable of teamwork."

[Traab]

There's a lot of steps between genes and behavior, and unusual things can happen at every one of them. So let's not conflate scientific facts like "there is a strong correlation between being a man and having a Y-chromosome" with bioessentialist nonsense like "men are genetically incapable of teamwork."

Not being able to link doesnt mean cant work together, at least for a given value of working together. And there are plenty of things men can do that women cant and vice versa. I can write my name in the snow, a woman needs a funnel and some interesting hip wiggling to approximate the same. And in all seriousness, men and women are different is kinda a major pillar of the entire wheel of time universe so erasing that would be problematic. It factors into everything in ways both minor and major. Some up front and obvious, others subtle details of how things work culturally speaking. You might as well go "Lets do a harry potter tv series, but instead of being intrinsically magical, they require warlock style pacts to use magic." Yeah you totally could do that, but would it really still be harry potter? It would require absurd rewriting of the background lore, and canon events to explain why it all works out properly despite such a strange and unneeded alteration. "Oh the sorting hat decides which demonic being you should bargain with for the best fitting deal!" You might as well just write your own story entirely at that point. Instead I posit that, if you dislike the setting of a series so much that you want it thrown out and replaced, maybe you should instead find a book series you actually like?

[Psyren]

It would require absurd rewriting of the background lore, and canon events to explain why it all works out properly despite such a strange and unneeded alteration.

As stated, I disagree wholeheartedly with this. Saidin's inability to link is never a necessary plot point in the books, it's just a random setting detail that can be safely discarded, and I defy you to point out a good counterexample to me.

False Dragons are alone simply because, of the men who can channel, they would only arise from the tiny subset who will touch the Source involuntarily, and moreover the even tinier subset of those who mistakenly believe they have a grand destiny because of it (instead of wanting to hide as long as possible, kill themselves before they can go mad, or turn themselves in to be gentled.)

And later on,

Spoiler

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when there are a LOT more men who can channel, they are able to teach each other and learn just fine without it.

Simply put, allowing men to link does not break the lore in any way, and even has benefits as I listed previously.

[Saph]

Only a week behind, let's have a look at Episode 4.

Spoiler: Good Bits

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Logain's character was good and his scenes were fun, if cheesy. One of the things that a lot of WoT fans were really encouraged by was the decision to focus a bit more on his character – it's one of those things that was obviously supposed to be important in the series but which got short-circuited by Jordan dying.

We actually get to see Perrin pick up a hammer and be a blacksmith! For 5 seconds, sure, but it's the first indication that he has an identity beyond being whatshername's husband.

Lan is fun to watch in his dialogue scenes, even if he's decidedly less impressive than Book Lan when it comes to actually doing stuff.

Spoiler: Mixed Bits

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I liked Kerene, and I didn't mind her scenes, but I seriously have to wonder why they're spending so much time on her and the rest of the Aes Sedai in the camp when the Emond's Field 4 are still so underdeveloped . . . particularly when Kerene promptly dies. What was the point of this whole plotline?

Getting a first look at Aes Sedai politics was fun . . . at first. But I'm not really that interested in watching long conversations with Random Aes Sedai #7 and Random Aes Sedai #9 and Random Warders round the campfire.

The battle looks . . . well, it looks like a LARP in the woods with better special effects, but the bigger question is: why is it there? What's the point of inserting a giant random battle mostly featuring largely-unimportant characters which isn't there in the books and isn't going to have any long-term consequences? Is the whole thing just to make Nynaeve look good?

Spoiler: Bad Bits

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The Tuatha'an scenes were flat-out boring. For the first half of the episode I was tabbing out for them because I didn't care enough to pay attention. Perrin is just depressing to watch – I hate what they've done with his character, he was one of my favourites in the books, and now his entire personality has been replaced with "guy who hates himself because he killed his wife". The long discussions about the Way of the Leaf aren't much fun either.

We're halfway through the season at this point, and neither Rand nor Mat has yet to do anything particularly interesting. Last episode it was doing chores at an inn, this time it's doing chores on a farm. They run into a Fade which acts like a horror-movie monster and hisses at them from the shadows a bit, then they run away again.

The "ooh Mat might be the Dragon", "ooh Nynaeve might be the Dragon" false trails are getting tedious. It was one thing when it was just a gimmick, but it's eating up more and more screentime. They REALLY need to stop trying to keep it a mystery and just get on with it.

So . . . is it me, or has the storyline just completely ground to a halt at this point? Moiraine's big objective was supposed to be "bring the ta'veren from Emond's Field to the White Tower". But Moiraine spends the whole episode chilling in a camp having water-cooler chats with other Aes Sedai about stuff like the name of her childhood pet, while the rest of the Emond's Field crew are wandering aimlessly around the wilderness. Moiraine beats herself up a bit at one point and says "we lost them" but doesn't seem to be making any particular effort to find them again. Book Moiraine, by this point, would be single-mindedly combing the entire countryside and would have about 3 backup plans for tracking the Emond's Field kids down in case that failed. There's no sense of urgency or purpose, we're just sort of hanging out waiting for stuff to happen.

[theNater]

And there are plenty of things men can do that women cant and vice versa.

I've seen no evidence of this, and your example seems to be the result of treating a correlation as a universal law. Consider a situation in which you had experienced some sort of accident, perhaps involving a vacuum cleaner being used in a way its designers did not intend, which rendered you unable to write your name in the snow without mechanical assistance. I would not then suddenly consider you a woman, and I suspect you wouldn't, either.

Now, if you want to say there are things most women can do that most men can't, and vice versa, I'm with you. But one of the best lessons I learned in a science class is that when it comes to biology: never say always, and never say never.

[Psyren]

Moiraine relying on faith that they make it to the city in one piece is pretty consistent with the books actually. Eye of the World:

"I know they were here," Moiraine said in that insufferably calm voice, "but beyond that I cannot say if they went east or north or south. I trust they are smart enough to have gone east, toward Caemlyn, but I do not know, and lacking their tokens, I will not know where they are until I am perhaps within half a mile. In two days, they could have gone twenty miles, or forty, in any direction, if fear urged them, and they were certainly afraid when they left here."

"But-"

"Wisdom, however fearful they were, in whatever direction they ran, eventually they will remember Caemlyn, and it is there I will find them. But I will help the one I can find now,first."

Nynaeve opened her mouth again, but Lan cut her off in a soft voice. "They had reason to be afraid." He looked around, then lowered his voice. "There was a Halfman here." He grimaced, the way he had in the square. "I can still smell him everywhere."

Moiraine sighed. "I will keep hope until I know it is gone. I refuse to believe the Dark One can win so easily. I will find all three of them alive and well. I must believe it."

Yes, she does say in that passage that she'll go after "the one she can find" (i.e. Perrin, who kept his token) - but if none of them had any, like they don't in the show, the passage is pretty clear that she'd have simply headed for Caemlyn directly and waited for them there. The only real difference here, aside from no tokens, is that they agreed to meet up in Tar Valon without a Caemlyn diversion.

I'll add too that this is consistent with having aged them up. They're not wide-eyed teenagers in this version, they're all adults and so can look after themselves out in the woods. (Not to mention, they might all be

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ta'veren in this version

and therefore her confidence would be decently warranted.)

[Rodin]

Yeah as I mentioned, I don't put any stock in IMDB's "series rating." It just seems to be based on the first episode. RT at least has ratings by season.

GoT is a particularly bad measuring stick because of how the last season(s) and ending affected viewer opinions. If you look at GoT objectively, it is the most successful fantasy series to ever exist and is unlikely to be beaten any time in the near future. If you ask the Internet subjectively, the show is so bad it should be buried along with all those copies of the ET video game.

So far, WoT is averaging out somewhere below expectations for me. I never expected it to hit GoT level goodness, but it hasn't managed to hit Witcher/His Dark Materials level goodness either. It stands above total trash made by a team that didn't understand anything about the source material, but neither am I gripped by it. If I was not a fan of the books I don't know if I would have stuck with it.

Mostly, it's been a good "play videogames and have on in the background" show. The slowness of the show means I'm not in danger of missing something, the plot isn't complicated enough that I can't follow it, and if all else fails I have book knowledge to sustain me.

[Saph]

So far, WoT is averaging out somewhere below expectations for me. I never expected it to hit GoT level goodness, but it hasn't managed to hit Witcher/His Dark Materials level goodness either. It stands above total trash made by a team that didn't understand anything about the source material, but neither am I gripped by it. If I was not a fan of the books I don't know if I would have stuck with it.

Mostly, it's been a good "play videogames and have on in the background" show. The slowness of the show means I'm not in danger of missing something, the plot isn't complicated enough that I can't follow it, and if all else fails I have book knowledge to sustain me.

Yeah, I think the 7.5 rating on IMDB is fair. The show is average. Not good, not bad.

It's just a bit frustrating because the Wheel of Time books as a whole are MUCH better than just "average". They're in the top 10 best-selling fantasy series ever! With that kind of source material, and with the truckloads of money that Amazon are throwing at the project, they should have been able to produce something better than this.

[Sapphire Guard]

The Waygates are the Ways. There's no point in making a railway station if it's not connected to any tracks.

The assumption seems to be that they were all created together, but it could easily be a network that starts with two or three relatively close waygates and grows over decades or centuries.

Spoiler: links

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Good point re teaching, it doesn't make it impossible, but it does make it more difficult.

If you do believe the ways required links, there is an even easier solution- they had help from sympathetic female Aes Sedai, like what happened with the Eye, Callandor's defences, and so on.

Jordan was fairly consistent that great works in the power need both Saidin and Saidar to reach their full potential. Even the apparent exceptions are not, the Bowl of the Winds draws on saidin too.

Rand needs Saidir users to help him achieve his two great works, cleansing saidin and sealing the bore. That is kinda important.

RJ wanted saidin and saidar to have different strengths and weaknesses that could be compensated for by working together, which required different people to work together. It may have some unfortunate implications, but that does not make it a 'essentialist crusade.'

[Seerow]

The Waygates are the Ways. There's no point in making a railway station if it's not connected to any tracks.

The assumption seems to be that they were all created together, but it could easily be a network that starts with two or three relatively close waygates and grows over decades or centuries.

Spoiler: links

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Good point re teaching, it doesn't make it impossible, but it does make it more difficult.

If you do believe the ways required links, there is an even easier solution- they had help from sympathetic female Aes Sedai, like what happened with the Eye, Callandor's defences, and so on.

Jordan was fairly consistent that great works in the power need both Saidin and Saidar to reach their full potential. Even the apparent exceptions are not, the Bowl of the Winds draws on saidin too.

Rand needs Saidir users to help him achieve his two great works, cleansing saidin and sealing the bore. That is kinda important.

RJ wanted saidin and saidar to have different strengths and weaknesses that could be compensated for by working together, which required different people to work together. It may have some unfortunate implications, but that does not make it a 'essentialist crusade.'

Spoiler: Links

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If you have to keep a difference there (and I am not entirely sold that the ability to link or not is the fundamental difference between Saidin/Saidar that needs to be kept to keep things working), I'd rather see it be a change to how many can link.

Especially given how weird the rules are around who has to control a circle the bigger it gets depending on the balance of male to female channelers, it would be an easy enough change to allow say 5-6 men to link while women can still link up to 13. Now you still have women able to cooperate in larger groups, but men can still work together in smaller groups, and when you mix the two you get the much bigger circles, up to 72 or whatever it was.

[Psyren]

They're in the top 10 best-selling fantasy series ever!

So is Dune and its first attempt is 6.4, with an even lower RT. Some things are just not easy to adapt to a visual medium, especially for the first time.

The Waygates are the Ways. There's no point in making a railway station if it's not connected to any tracks.

Per Wheel of Time Companion, the Talisman of Growing to make Waygates was created after the Ways were (the Ways were developed outside of this reality by studying the Portal Stone worlds, while the gates and the talisman are part of this world.) Moreover, all three of these (Talisman, The Ways and the Waygates) have separate entries in the Compendium, so they are not considered by Word of God to be one and the same thing.

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If you do believe the ways required links, there is an even easier solution- they had help from sympathetic female Aes Sedai, like what happened with the Eye, Callandor's defences, and so on.

Jordan was fairly consistent that great works in the power need both Saidin and Saidar to reach their full potential. Even the apparent exceptions are not, the Bowl of the Winds draws on saidin too.

Rand needs Saidir users to help him achieve his two great works, cleansing saidin and sealing the bore. That is kinda important.

RJ wanted saidin and saidar to have different strengths and weaknesses that could be compensated for by working together, which required different people to work together. It may have some unfortunate implications, but that does not make it a 'essentialist crusade.'

1) I wouldn't mind this explanation but again, the books don't say that. They say the Ways were made by saidin, period. So does the Compendium.

2) I'd say the implications of "women casters can cooperate and men can't" are indeed pretty unfortunate, whether or not they were intentional. More importantly - intended or not, that's a part of the lore that can be improved through adaptation, especially since it's a detail that has no bearing whatsoever on the plot. Even you yourself are saying "hey, if they made the Ways a collaborative effort it wouldn't actually change anything important" and you're right to say that. There would still be Taint involved in their construction etc.

Spoiler: Links

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If you have to keep a difference there (and I am not entirely sold that the ability to link or not is the fundamental difference between Saidin/Saidar that needs to be kept to keep things working), I'd rather see it be a change to how many can link.

Especially given how weird the rules are around who has to control a circle the bigger it gets depending on the balance of male to female channelers, it would be an easy enough change to allow say 5-6 men to link while women can still link up to 13. Now you still have women able to cooperate in larger groups, but men can still work together in smaller groups, and when you mix the two you get the much bigger circles, up to 72 or whatever it was.

I'm totally fine with this. "Saidar users are better at linking" is very different than "men can't link."

[Saph]

So is Dune and its first attempt is 6.4, with an even lower RT. Some things are just not easy to adapt to a visual medium, especially for the first time.

WoT isn't easy to adapt to a visual medium, but it's not even close to the hardest-to-adapt fantasy series out there, either. All of the biggest problems with the show come from writing and adaption decisions, not from the inherent difficulty of the source material.

[Psyren]

WoT isn't easy to adapt to a visual medium, but it's not even close to the hardest-to-adapt fantasy series out there, either. All of the biggest problems with the show come from writing and adaption decisions, not from the inherent difficulty of the source material.

I think those (adaptation decisions and the medium) are inextricably linked.

And "other series are harder to adapt" might be true - I'd have no way of knowing other than a high-profile failure - but it's also pretty irrelevant.

[Rodin]

A part of the problem is that the books haven't aged especially well, particularly the early ones. It's all very well pointing out that Jordan couldn't publish Eye without aping LOTR - the resulting book does, and that's a big problem when trying to write the first season of a potential TV series. Trying to write your way around that means trying to write as good or better than a bestselling author, which is something the GoT writing team found the hazards of.

That's my biggest impression of the show. It's being pulled in multiple directions not because they're trying to adapt the first book (which is dead simple to adapt), but because they're trying to set up adapting the entire series. They race through early characterization because they're trying to get characterization for the entire cast, characterization that happens much later in the book or even in later books. The plot stops dead for a bit because there's a massive exposition dump they need to do from exposition that was doled out in sections of the plot they've cut, while bits of the book that were a big exposition dump (Perrin learning about wolves) has to be spread out over a longer period to stop the show from focusing on one character for too long.

At the same time, they've shifted the tone of the show to be more GoT-like in order to sell the show. They've gone to great lengths to modernize the show, without heed for the inevitable lore problems that result. And sometimes it's not about modernizing, but about improving the storytelling in books that are not without their share of faults. This falls back into "writing better than the bestselling author" problem mentioned above.

And the result is...okay. I can see that the showrunners care a great deal about the books. I can often see why they felt a change was needed, or see what they're trying to set up. It just doesn't always work.

[Saph]

A part of the problem is that the books haven't aged especially well, particularly the early ones. It's all very well pointing out that Jordan couldn't publish Eye without aping LOTR - the resulting book does, and that's a big problem when trying to write the first season of a potential TV series. Trying to write your way around that means trying to write as good or better than a bestselling author, which is something the GoT writing team found the hazards of.

The thing is, though, accepting that as true makes a lot of their decisions MORE inexplicable. Okay, so a lot of EotW is very similar to Fellowship of the Ring. So if working around that problem was your first priority, what would you focus your opening on?

The prologue!

Literally the first thing in the entire series, with Lews Therin wandering around insane in a post-apocalyptic ruin after just having murdered his entire family. You want to set yourself apart from LotR – well, that's about as far from the Shire as you can get. But instead they've tangled themselves up in this mess of their own making with "oh, no, we can't do the prologue, we don't want to give away who the Dragon is".

[Seerow]

The thing is, though, accepting that as true makes a lot of their decisions MORE inexplicable. Okay, so a lot of EotW is very similar to Fellowship of the Ring. So if working around that problem was your first priority, what would you focus your opening on?

The prologue!

Literally the first thing in the entire series, with Lews Therin wandering around insane in a post-apocalyptic ruin after just having murdered his entire family. You want to set yourself apart from LotR – well, that's about as far from the Shire as you can get. But instead they've tangled themselves up in this mess of their own making with "oh, no, we can't do the prologue, we don't want to give away who the Dragon is".

To be fair, while the mystery of who the dragon is is falling flat for you, a reader, every reaction video or post I've seen from non-readers indicates the mystery is keeping them engaged. Same for the Perrin's wife thing. While these are changes that are super unpopular with the book fans, new viewers coming into the show with no knowledge of what's in the books seem to be latching onto these things, giving them an immediate investment in the different characters.

If we made it obvious Rand was the chosen one from go, it is much harder to get the audience to care about everyone else in this large ensemble cast. Showing everyone has special things about them, reasons they could plausibly be the special chosen one, means people are invested in them and happy we get to keep seeing their story even when it turns out they aren't the chosen one. It's a deliberate choice to help engage new viewers, and from what I've seen, it's mostly working.

[Ramza00]

The thing is, though, accepting that as true makes a lot of their decisions MORE inexplicable. Okay, so a lot of EotW is very similar to Fellowship of the Ring. So if working around that problem was your first priority, what would you focus your opening on?

The prologue!

Literally the first thing in the entire series, with Lews Therin wandering around insane in a post-apocalyptic ruin after just having murdered his entire family. You want to set yourself apart from LotR – well, that's about as far from the Shire as you can get. But instead they've tangled themselves up in this mess of their own making with "oh, no, we can't do the prologue, we don't want to give away who the Dragon is".

The company who is making TWOT has already adapted the prologue and it is CURSED. Also free on YouTube. I am not linking it for it is CURSED but it is the 2015 Winter Dragon

Backstory, there is a company Red Eagle Entertainment who sat on the televisions and movie rights since 2004, trying to sell it to other people such as Sony. This company had no other history and the name literally comes from TWOT books from Red Eagle Banner that The Two Rivers / Manetheren used. Well Jordan was pissed with them, and later the widow of Jordan “Harriet“was posed with them. Harriet also being editor of the TWOT books (they got married prior to Jordan writing Eye of The World.)

When both parties were already pissed (and Jordan being dead for 7 years) Red Eagle Entertainment has a problem tell the deal was use it or lose it and it was going to expire in 2015 unless their was a tv show or movie in production. Thus Red Eagle Entertainment in a single weekend adapted the prologue and broadcast this 22 minute pilot in an infocommerical time slot on basic cable. Well Harriet sued, both sides settled in 2016, the details were not disclosed to the public, but later in 2018 Amazon pick up The Wheel of Time. Note TWOT has 6 production companies, and IWOT productions is now what we are previously calling Red Eagle Entertainment. A good marketing tactic for Red Eagle name was mud and keeping it would only piss off fans who are familiar with the history. Note Sony Entertainment is another one of the 6 companies, as is Amazon, and the 3 remaining companies are Radar Productions, Long Weekend, and Little Island Productions.

So I am talking about the cursed Prologue (which was very good in the book) for it is a Monkey’s Paw situation.

Note if the tv show is successful IWOT wants 3 Age of Legends movies prior to the show being finished. Gotta milk the IP you have rights too and likely the Jordan Estate with Harriet has very little profit sharing or creative control (but we will never know since we are not privy to the 2016 settlement, not any possible NDA since some of the people are being used for consulting work such as Sanderson.)

[Rynjin]

To be fair, while the mystery of who the dragon is is falling flat for you, a reader, every reaction video or post I've seen from non-readers indicates the mystery is keeping them engaged. Same for the Perrin's wife thing. While these are changes that are super unpopular with the book fans, new viewers coming into the show with no knowledge of what's in the books seem to be latching onto these things, giving them an immediate investment in the different characters.

If we made it obvious Rand was the chosen one from go, it is much harder to get the audience to care about everyone else in this large ensemble cast. Showing everyone has special things about them, reasons they could plausibly be the special chosen one, means people are invested in them and happy we get to keep seeing their story even when it turns out they aren't the chosen one. It's a deliberate choice to help engage new viewers, and from what I've seen, it's mostly working.

...No, people were engaged in the mystery for the first 2-3 videos.

By episode 4, a lot of the wind has shifted to "It's Rand because he's the only one who hasn't had a big character scene yet, and I'm going to be angry it's Rand because he's so boring and whiny".

That last part is really important, because I don't know if you know this, but being able to engage with Rand as a character is somewhat important for the rest of the series.

[Psyren]

To be fair, while the mystery of who the dragon is is falling flat for you, a reader, every reaction video or post I've seen from non-readers indicates the mystery is keeping them engaged. Same for the Perrin's wife thing. While these are changes that are super unpopular with the book fans, new viewers coming into the show with no knowledge of what's in the books seem to be latching onto these things, giving them an immediate investment in the different characters.

Agreed. I'm living for threads like this one

EDIT: There is new bonus content on X-Ray - during any episode, simply press up on your remote and navigate to "bonus content."