Wheel of Time, Amazon Prime

[Rynjin]

That thread (or more accurately its followup) is in part where I was getting what I posted above BTW.

[Mechalich]

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.

Yeah. The second part especially.

The Wheel of Time is the most expensive fantasy show since game of Thrones. It has a massive budget, and yet it has the visual presentation and the overall story sloppiness of the kind of fantasy that shows up on the CW or Syfy. I mean, for various reasons I've seen a significant amount of Syfy's The 100 in the past couple of weeks, and that show, despite being an incredibly cheese heavy post-apocalyptic teen drama, often looks better visually, than WoT. And has better fight sequences (yes including ones with swords) than WoT.

There's just too many amateurish things in WoT. You can't have a character openly say 'we're moving as fast as we can' and then have that character spend an entire day sitting in place and expect no pushback. That kind of thing was the difference between early season and late season GoT, and fantasy audiences, being perceptive, notice when a show makes such blatant missteps.

The current version of the show is very mediocre and generally unimpressive, and while I don't think a great show is possible with the choices they've made and the actors they've cast - when the guy playing a support character like Lan is measurably out-acting everyone else, that's a problem - but there's a good show buried in here if they'd tightened up the plotting and spent the money more effectively.

[Anteros]

Feel free to link to that then, because clicking through the 85% just takes me to the individual reviews.



I'm sure you'd have been making this exact point if the review scores were low too.



Keep hoping for it to fail, you'll end up watching it eventually

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https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_wheel_of_time/s01

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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.

Ok. Then find me a woman who can kick a 65 yard field goal. Or one who can run a sub 10 second 40 yard dash. Or a man that can give a natural child birth. You can pretend that biological differences don't exist all you want, but it remains a scientific fact that they do.

Now, if you want to talk about separating the concept of gender from birth sex...that's a whole other conversation that I'm pretty sure we're not actually allowed to have on this forum (even though some posters bring it up constantly).

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.

Book one is basically just people running through the woods while scary things chase them. If that were a hard concept to adapt to television then Lord of the Rings wouldn't be the beloved classic it is. The difference is an actual respect for the source material rather than a desire to rewrite things into one's own fan-fiction. I imagine that LoTR would have a different reputation if it opened with Samwise axing Rosie Cotton in the gut, and we spent the first several hours being led down false trails about whose piece of jewelry was actually important. That's why you don't create random meandering plot lines that don't actually exist in the books.

[ecarden]

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https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_wheel_of_time/s01

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I think the issue is that they're using two separate rating systems. The first is based on averaging something (not entirely sure if they're assigning numerical scores to reviews or going solely based on the ones which have them, but that produces the 7.25/10 or other average scores.

Then there's the tomato-meter, which grades each professional review as positive or negative and gives you the percent of positive reviews. For more on this see (https://www.rottentomatoes.com/about). The basic way it works is, say you've got 10 reviews:

6/10, 6/10, 6/10, 6/10, 6/10, 6/10, 0/10, 0/10, 0/10, 0/10. That would show up as 60% positive, even though the average rating is 3.6/10.

[Corvus]

You can also get the weird situation that if everyone gives it 6.0 then you get 100% rating.

[Anteros]

I'm going to recommend cutting out the real world discussion before this thread gets locked.



I think the issue is that they're using two separate rating systems. The first is based on averaging something (not entirely sure if they're assigning numerical scores to reviews or going solely based on the ones which have them, but that produces the 7.25/10 or other average scores.

Then there's the tomato-meter, which grades each professional review as positive or negative and gives you the percent of positive reviews. For more on this see (https://www.rottentomatoes.com/about). The basic way it works is, say you've got 10 reviews:

6/10, 6/10, 6/10, 6/10, 6/10, 6/10, 0/10, 0/10, 0/10, 0/10. That would show up as 60% positive, even though the average rating is 3.6/10.

But, that method would give you a 68% for the season. You can look on the page I referenced and see that there are 48 positive reviews and 22 negative. Even a dummy like me can do that math. 48/70=68%. Even if you add in the reviews from individual episodes and count them all at 100% you'd still only get to 73%.

Reddit said they're averaging the total season score with the latest episode, but that math doesn't quite work out either.

They're doing something screwy though. Look at episode 4 with its questionable 100% rating despite the actual reviews averaging 7.6 out of 10. It seems like sometimes they might be doing what you said...and other times assigning a completely arbitrary number? I don't know their exact methodology, but it's an objective fact that they're falsely inflating the rating of the show.

[theNater]

Ok. Then find me a woman who can kick a 65 yard field goal. Or one who can run a sub 10 second 40 yard dash. Or a man that can give a natural child birth.

I'll take option B.

The women in this video complete a 100 meter (roughly 109 yard) dash in under 12 seconds. They are all well past the 40 yard mark at 10 seconds.

[Anteros]

I'll take option B.

The women in this video complete a 100 meter (roughly 109 yard) dash in under 12 seconds. They are all well past the 40 yard mark at 10 seconds.

Ah, my bad. I meant to write 100 meter dash. For which the women's world record is 10.49. Meanwhile there are 100+ men with sub 10 second times. I certainly did accidentally give a poor example though. You got me there.

This isn't some sort of mysoginistic agenda. Biological differences are an objective scientific fact. There's a reason that taking testosterone is against the rules in most sports.

[Mechalich]

This isn't some sort of mysoginistic agenda. Biological differences are an objective scientific fact. There's a reason that taking testosterone is against the rules in most sports.

And in the Wheel of Time, differences in the power reflect biological differences as Robert Jordan understood them. This was even the example given in the text. When asked why men were usually stronger than women in the power, the response was 'well, it's like how most men have stronger arms than women.' This approach was very much not without its flaws. Jordan studied physics at a military school and his approach to mapping biological differences is emblematic of this xkcd in action, but it cannot be denied that he worked it into the central structure of the world and story he created.

In my opinion the show should have accepted that this is the way this universe works and simply tried to minimize the particularly problematic parts (the most problematic bit is clearly Aran'gar, who can very easily just be eliminated outright). Instead the show has pulled out all the uniqueness is favor of an incredibly generic fantasy world. They did this with the distinct cultures too, and other elements, gradually robbing WoT of everything that made it itself.

My favorite example is the profanity. Jordan a specific set of swears for people in Randland and however dumb you think they were, they were at least a recognizable part of the series. The show dropped them completely, and instead characters use profanity adjacent British terms like 'bugger.' Seriously, there's a line in episode three where Rand says 'he's done bugger all' and it's painful how much lack of effort the existence of that line reveals.

[lord_khaine]

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."

Yeah, and when unusual things happen, such as accidents involving a vacum cleaner, then perhaps those should be blamed, instead of it being used to try and deny basic biological facts.

Certainly it means attempts to use it as arguments against Saidin and Saidar being fundamentally different forces, that mixes like oil and water, kinda falls flat.

And that, it being fundamentally different forces, are kinda central to the entire story. The Ying/Yang symbolism is directly fundamental.
That men is unable to link is one way of representing that. That Saidin and Saidar are different cosmic forces. That works on different rules.

[theNater]

Ah, my bad. I meant to write 100 meter dash. For which the women's world record is 10.49. Meanwhile there are 100+ men with sub 10 second times. I certainly did accidentally give a poor example though. You got me there.

This isn't some sort of mysoginistic agenda. Biological differences are an objective scientific fact. There's a reason that taking testosterone is against the rules in most sports.

If you want to be scientific, let's be precise about what the science shows.

"Men have been recorded breaking 10 seconds on the 100 meter dash, and no women have" is true; a direct statement of observations.

"Men can break 10 seconds on the 100 meter dash" is technically true but kind of misleading; it seems to imply all men can do it, when it's really a tiny, tiny fraction.

"Women cannot break 10 seconds on the 100 meter dash" is unscientific because it is unproveable in any practical sense; you can't be sure that no woman has done it while unrecorded and that no woman will ever do it in the future.

[ecarden]

But, that method would give you a 68% for the season. You can look on the page I referenced and see that there are 48 positive reviews and 22 negative. Even a dummy like me can do that math. 48/70=68%. Even if you add in the reviews from individual episodes and count them all at 100% you'd still only get to 73%.

Reddit said they're averaging the total season score with the latest episode, but that math doesn't quite work out either.

They're doing something screwy though. Look at episode 4 with its questionable 100% rating despite the actual reviews averaging 7.6 out of 10. It seems like sometimes they might be doing what you said...and other times assigning a completely arbitrary number? I don't know their exact methodology, but it's an objective fact that they're falsely inflating the rating of the show.

I'm not sure what's going on there, as your math on the overall show seems correct (not challenging math on individual episodes, just haven't looked). I've submitted a question to rotten tomatoes on how the 84% is calculated. I'll let you know if I get a response, assuming this thread isn't locked by then.

[Whoracle]

I'm not sure what's going on there, as your math on the overall show seems correct (not challenging math on individual episodes, just haven't looked). I've submitted a question to rotten tomatoes on how the 84% is calculated. I'll let you know if I get a response, assuming this thread isn't locked by then.

IIRC their reasoning is: "anything 5/10 or higher is a positive review, everything below is a ngeative one, so if 7 out of 10 reviews are 5/10 or higher that gives a 70% positive rating" or something along those lines. Don't quote me on the specifics, but that's roughly how I remember how it is.

[ecarden]

IIRC their reasoning is: "anything 5/10 or higher is a positive review, everything below is a ngeative one, so if 7 out of 10 reviews are 5/10 or higher that gives a 70% positive rating" or something along those lines. Don't quote me on the specifics, but that's roughly how I remember how it is.

I believe that's correct, the issue is that they've labelled 48/70 as 'fresh' and the other 22 as 'rotten' which equates to 69%, not 84% by their own metric. I'm guessing maybe there's additional reviews which made it into their average but haven't been updated or something, but I admit it looks weird, hence my filling out their 'ask a question' form. I'll see what, if anything they say.

Though, you know, weekend.

[Velaryon]

Going back to the last page because I just watched episode 5 (and because I'm not getting into the RT sub-discussion)...

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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.

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I'm quite pleased with the Whitecloaks in this adaptation so far. Valda in particular is extremely menacing. I hope other prominent Children of the Light can live up to the high bar that Abdul Salis (Valda's actor) has set for them as a group.

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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.

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I feel like Logain hasn't done much yet, but the actor has definitely won me over quickly. I'm curious to see what he's going to do going forward in this show, if they're really serious about expanding his role.

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.

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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?

Lan is one of the few main cast who I'm genuinely on board with so far. Nynaeve is getting there, Mat is... fine, given that his character was basically a total waste in the first couple books anyway. Jury's still out on the rest of them, including Moiraine, as far as I'm concerned.

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I think the point of the focus on the other Aes Sedai and Warders is to show what Nynaeve (and eventually Egwene) are stepping into. Show Nynaeve doesn't seem to be as vehemently opposed to joining the White Tower as her book counterpart was at first. I do think they're spending a bit too much of their limited runtime on it, especially given how much characterization the other Emond's Fielders still need, but I don't dislike any of it on its own merits so far. I'm largely indifferent to the special effects so far.

[SPOILER=Bad Bits]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. [/quote]

In fairness, Mat didn't do anything interesting in the books up to this point either. He was basically insufferable as a character for at least two or three entire books. Rand needs more development, but there's plenty of time to do that still. I actually like the uncertainty around which of them is actually the Dragon Reborn (so long as they don't actually change the answer, anyway). I agree that they've screwed up Perrin fairly badly so far, and I'm not very invested in Egwene yet either, but I do think the groundwork is being laid well, and am optimistic that they all can still improve.

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".

While I agree that doing the prologue would have been a good way to help the show feel a lot less generic, I suspect it's a casualty of the practical side of making a TV series. That is, casting someone as Lews Therin for one or two scenes and then not using him again for several seasons runs the huge risk of that actor not being available later on when he's needed. It makes much more sense from a financial perspective to delay introducing such characters. I suppose they could keep the actor under contract to prevent them getting into other projects that might conflict with when WoT needs them, but that might involve paying them to sit around for several years not working. No studio is going to sign off on that for what ultimately is a minor character in terms of screen time.

[Anteros]

While I agree that doing the prologue would have been a good way to help the show feel a lot less generic, I suspect it's a casualty of the practical side of making a TV series. That is, casting someone as Lews Therin for one or two scenes and then not using him again for several seasons runs the huge risk of that actor not being available later on when he's needed. It makes much more sense from a financial perspective to delay introducing such characters. I suppose they could keep the actor under contract to prevent them getting into other projects that might conflict with when WoT needs them, but that might involve paying them to sit around for several years not working. No studio is going to sign off on that for what ultimately is a minor character in terms of screen time.

Considering that they replaced Mat's actor between season 1 and 2, I don't think they're that concerned with replacing a relatively minor character like Lews Therin....who most likely never actually needs to appear as anything but a voice after the prologue.

[truemane]

Metamagic Mod: closed for review

[Pirate ninja]

Modly Roger:

Thread reopened.

Aspects of this show are polarising, but please ensure all posts stay civil and within our rules. In particular, please remember that it is against the rules to say or imply that a person is not misunderstanding you because they are not smart enough, or that a person is not posting in good faith.

[Rodin]

Just watched episode 5. I feel like it's a big step backwards despite a couple of very good scenes.

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Most of the characters don't act in a way that makes sense. Tar Valon looks like they re-used the sets for King's Landing. And the whole thing lacks urgency. The farm folk are supposed to be fleeing for their lives from unknown terrors. Moiraine is supposed to be desperately looking for the chosen three five, but has no way of doing so and doesn't appear inclined to start. She brags of her spy network, yet this spy network somehow misses an OGIER taking one of those five from under her nose and going directly to where two of the others are.

The stuff with the Warders was over-wrought and I didn't buy the incredibly stoic Lan letting out a primal scream over a fellow soldier dying. Taking up an entire episode with it was ridiculous as the "Warders go berserk and get themselves killed" bit could have been much more easily shown in the previous episode.

The Whitecloak stuff was mostly good, but I feel like I missed something to kick it all off. How did Valda know they were with the Tinkers at all? Why did the Whitecloaks stop the caravan? How did he draw the conclusion that Egwene could channel from meeting her twice and never seeing her (or anyone with her) channel in his presence?

It all felt horribly contrived, and I fail to understand what was wrong with the book version of events. If they're wanting to give Egwene something to do during that sequence, just have her do what she did in the show - channel under stress to break the bonds. Job done.

And then there's Loial. Oh Loial, what have they done to you. The dialogue lines were pretty okay, but everything else about him....oooh my. He looks awful in a way that the earlier still can't convey. He's clearly a dude in bad makeup, and even Star Trek/Babylon 5 would be sending him back to the makeup department with a "do better" note. I wasn't a fan of the acting either - his voice was all over the place.

You know what the worst thing is though? This felt like a filler episode. There was exactly one plotline that made major progress, and that filled maybe 15-20 minutes of the episode. The rest was invented new story which served little purpose and characters sitting around waiting for...something. The writers, maybe. You don't get to complain about needing to cut things and not getting the pilot length you wanted when you spend one of only eight episodes spinning your wheels.

It's a bad sign when Liandrin gets the best scene of an episode.

[Ramza00]

It's a bad sign when Liandrin gets the best scene of an episode.

Hey she is a good character

Team Rocket needs a good matching Villian

[Rynjin]

Just watched episode 5. I feel like it's a big step backwards despite a couple of very good scenes.

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Most of the characters don't act in a way that makes sense. Tar Valon looks like they re-used the sets for King's Landing. And the whole thing lacks urgency. The farm folk are supposed to be fleeing for their lives from unknown terrors. Moiraine is supposed to be desperately looking for the chosen three five, but has no way of doing so and doesn't appear inclined to start. She brags of her spy network, yet this spy network somehow misses an OGIER taking one of those five from under her nose and going directly to where two of the others are.

The stuff with the Warders was over-wrought and I didn't buy the incredibly stoic Lan letting out a primal scream over a fellow soldier dying. Taking up an entire episode with it was ridiculous as the "Warders go berserk and get themselves killed" bit could have been much more easily shown in the previous episode.

The Whitecloak stuff was mostly good, but I feel like I missed something to kick it all off. How did Valda know they were with the Tinkers at all? Why did the Whitecloaks stop the caravan? How did he draw the conclusion that Egwene could channel from meeting her twice and never seeing her (or anyone with her) channel in his presence?

It all felt horribly contrived, and I fail to understand what was wrong with the book version of events. If they're wanting to give Egwene something to do during that sequence, just have her do what she did in the show - channel under stress to break the bonds. Job done.

And then there's Loial. Oh Loial, what have they done to you. The dialogue lines were pretty okay, but everything else about him....oooh my. He looks awful in a way that the earlier still can't convey. He's clearly a dude in bad makeup, and even Star Trek/Babylon 5 would be sending him back to the makeup department with a "do better" note. I wasn't a fan of the acting either - his voice was all over the place.

You know what the worst thing is though? This felt like a filler episode. There was exactly one plotline that made major progress, and that filled maybe 15-20 minutes of the episode. The rest was invented new story which served little purpose and characters sitting around waiting for...something. The writers, maybe. You don't get to complain about needing to cut things and not getting the pilot length you wanted when you spend one of only eight episodes spinning your wheels.

It's a bad sign when Liandrin gets the best scene of an episode.

I'ma be honest, it feels like you (and a lot of people) weren't paying very close attention to a lot of important details, because almost every question you ask here is answered in episode, if subtly.

"Why does Lan scream?" - because he was in charge of releasing everyone's grief, as he was bid by the Warder officiating the ceremony. This is a real practice in some cultures. And also because frankly, Lan's whole deal of being stone-faced and silent all the time forever is not very interesting to watch. Really the biggest issue with Lan ATM is he isn't enough of a superhuman badass swordsman; a lot of his cooler action scenes have been bypassed entirely.

"How did Valda know they were with the Tinkers?" - he...saw them. Like they're standing out in the open and he says "Hey you guuuuys!" because, as he told them when they met before, "I'll remember your faces".

"Why did he think she could channel?" - because she's a woman on the road close to Tar Valon (which is far away from where she SAID she was going before) who ran away from him when he called out. It also seems to be implied he has some kind of ter'angreal that can see weaves or maybe even protect him from them.

The only thing that really bugs me is Moiraine's constant passivity, everything else is heavily implied or even explicitly shown.

Episode 5 is so far my favorite of the season, because it actually has some substance to it. The show has been severely lacking in character building, and with only 3 episodes left it needed SOMETHING.

[Psyren]

Whoa, I missed a lot.

FYI, Lews Therin has reportedly been cast - Swedish actor Alexander Karim:

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It's a bad sign when Liandrin gets the best scene of an episode.

Giving her a ton more depth in this version is one of the best decisions they've made. In fact,

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ALL the Darkfriends/overt villains we've seen so far have been huge hits - Liandrin, Dana, and Valda alike. It gives me a great deal of excitement thinking of what they may add to the Forsaken to make them truly horrific/menacing.

[Rodin]

I'ma be honest, it feels like you (and a lot of people) weren't paying very close attention to a lot of important details, because almost every question you ask here is answered in episode, if subtly.

"Why does Lan scream?" - because he was in charge of releasing everyone's grief, as he was bid by the Warder officiating the ceremony. This is a real practice in some cultures. And also because frankly, Lan's whole deal of being stone-faced and silent all the time forever is not very interesting to watch. Really the biggest issue with Lan ATM is he isn't enough of a superhuman badass swordsman; a lot of his cooler action scenes have been bypassed entirely.

"How did Valda know they were with the Tinkers?" - he...saw them. Like they're standing out in the open and he says "Hey you guuuuys!" because, as he told them when they met before, "I'll remember your faces".

"Why did he think she could channel?" - because she's a woman on the road close to Tar Valon (which is far away from where she SAID she was going before) who ran away from him when he called out. It also seems to be implied he has some kind of ter'angreal that can see weaves or maybe even protect him from them.

The only thing that really bugs me is Moiraine's constant passivity, everything else is heavily implied or even explicitly shown.

Episode 5 is so far my favorite of the season, because it actually has some substance to it. The show has been severely lacking in character building, and with only 3 episodes left it needed SOMETHING.

I missed the bit about why Lan screamed, true.

The rest though? He only saw them because the Whitecloaks were accosting the Tinkers in the first place, which goes against what it says in the episode about the Whitecloaks not bothering Tinkers.

Him having a ter'angreal that lets him see weaves would be just...no. Ter'angreals typically mean the one using them can channel. A Whitecloak using one even if it didn't requite channeling is also a big nope - they wouldn't touch "filthy Aes Sedai work".

-----

After watching episode 5, I watched the final 3 episodes of Arcane. Those episodes flew past and had my undivided attention, whereas WoT I started tooling around on my phone (hence how I missed the Lan moment). I was wondering the whole time how they were going to it everything that needed to happen in. In WoT, it feels like they're filling space.until the season ends. The difference in how tight the storytelling was shocked me.

I'm now pretty much watching just so I can participate in this forum discussion, even while I continue to read (and enjoy) the books. I shouldn't be tempted to stop watching the show and go back to the books. I really shouldn't.

[Rynjin]

Aram says they don't KILL Tinkers, not that they don't bother them. Everybody bothers Tinkers.

Also, there are several ter'angreals used in the books that don't require the user to be a channeler.

...Including Mat's fox head medallion that makes weaves slip off of him. And you better believe the Whitecloaks are stupid and hypocritical enough to use such an item if they had one.

[Mechalich]

After watching episode 5, I watched the final 3 episodes of Arcane. Those episodes flew past and had my undivided attention, whereas WoT I started tooling around on my phone (hence how I missed the Lan moment). I was wondering the whole time how they were going to it everything that needed to happen in. In WoT, it feels like they're filling space.until the season ends. The difference in how tight the storytelling was shocked me.

Have to agree. WoT - at least the four episodes I saw - has no bite, no edge. It's just sort of rambling along. And okay, you absolutely can make a show that just rambles along. However, if you do that it either has to be funny and/or fun, which WoT is neither, or the character dynamics have to be great, which is fundamentally not the case with WoT either.

Many low budget fantasy shows get by on the former. Netflix's adaptation of The Magicians, for example, rambles like crazy, has a hokey, jokey, bananas story, and couldn't find the budget for a decent fantasy fight scene if its life depended on it, but it was often funny and always fun and in later seasons leaned into that hard, to the point of having whole cast musical numbers.

High budget shows that ramble tend to get by on character. Game of Thrones, for example, thrived on putting talented actors playing interesting characters into small rooms where they could bite at each other, and managed to produce good scenes in this way even when the rails were coming off (ex. the Jamie/Olenna confrontation near the end of season 7). Many other high budget shows in this space, such as Westworld (which cast a murder's row of Hollywood powerhouses) or even Loki (which was like two-thirds 'Tom Hiddleston has a long conversation with person X') have a similar approach.

I think WoT wanted to go the later route, and there are hints. The Moiraine/Lan dynamic has promise. Several of the smaller characters like Logain and Liandrin are sowing seeds that could be harvested for a big payoff down the line. Thom definitely has potential as a foil. And so on, but out of the main five characters none of them are capable of locking down a scene in this way, and while some of them might get there - IMO I'd bet on Zoe Robbins' Nynaeve portrayal - none of them are there yet, and for the most part they aren't even close.

This is, I think the fundamental challenge of a WoT adaptation. You have five characters who must be played by young actors and they have to hit it from the jump. Contrast with Game of Thrones where the Stark kids (and Dany to a significant degree) had almost a whole season to grow into their roles and for the showrunners and directors to figure out their ranges, strengths, and weaknesses as performers.

Now, there were options to try to work around this, at least to a degree, but the show has mostly avoided them. For example they could have done a prologue, any prologue - if you're not going to do Lews Therin, then do the Aiel War, or show the Breaking, or condense New Spring down to ten minutes, or something. They could have played up the villains more. Flashing a guy with glowing eyes once an episode accomplishes nothing. Let the bad guy monologue a little (I mean, has the Eye itself even been mentioned through episode five? I feel like old Ishi spilled the beans long before that in the books). There's any number of choices but instead they rolled their very expensive dice on five young, mostly unknown actors who have turned out to so far be pretty average. I mean, it could be worse, none of them is a catastrophe, but that's not ringing endorsement.

[Saph]

Finally caught up on the show with Episode 5.

Spoiler: Episode Thoughts

Show

Lots of funerals for characters we don't really care about. It's . . . pretty confusing. Apparently we're supposed to be very sad about that random Aes Sedai who got killed last episode, and also about her Warder afterwards. I'm not really sure why? All the deaths of innocent villagers in Episode 1 and all the slaughter of Logain's followers in Episode 4 were just brushed over in 15 seconds, but for some reason these two characters are supposed to be really really special.

Wait, so a month's gone by? What about all the Darkfriends and the Fade who were supposed to be chasing Rand and Mat? Did that just all happen offscreen?

"Red hair is one of the few physical traits that can let you work out where a human is from" – This scene was an example of why casting choices matter. When you pretend that physical appearance has nothing to do with where you're from, you end up having to tie yourselves in knots writing stuff like this.

Stepin/Stepan's storyline is flat-out boring. We don't care about how he met Kerene or whatever. And listening to him go on and on about how amazing she was and he had to become "worthy of her" is tedious. No-one cares about these characters, what's the point of this scene? Nynaeve just killed a man in the last episode - you'd think that would be more important.

The "I think Mat can channel" scenes just don't work. Every time we've seen Moiraine, Nynaeve, or Logain channelling it's been about as subtle as a fire alarm, so it's really hard to believe that Mat did the same thing without anyone noticing it. Mat's scene with Nynaeve is also terrible compared to the book version. The dagger's supposed to have been working on him for a month, but there's no sense of menace or urgency – we just cut away from them and back to the "random Warder is sad" plotline.

OK, the "once you're bonded you'll be having sex with Alanna and two other men" thing is flat-out creepy. They try to play it for comedy but given that book readers already know how the Warder bond works . . .

Moiraine: "If the boys enter the city my eyes-and-ears will find them and I will bring you to them." Yeah, uh, about that.

The "relieve us of our grief" scene was incredibly cringy, and went well into narm territory. Do the writers just have no clue what "stoical" means?

Five episodes in and I'm getting really frustrated with the portrayal of pretty much all of the male characters. You notice how both Nynaeve and Egwene get speeches about them in their absence building them up and talking about how amazing they are? You notice how the male leads very specifically DON'T get that treatment? In the books, Perrin's interactions with the Whitecloaks are supposed to be a big character point for him but in the show he's reduced to a sobbing helpless wreck while Egwene does all the work. Book Lan decapitates a Fade in a one-on-one duel, Show Lan gets himself fatally wounded in his second battle so that Nynaeve can save him.

At this point I'm mostly just watching the show to see how the hell they're going to handle Rand being the Dragon Reborn. They don't seem to WANT any of the three boys to be a strong character, or do anything remotely impressive, so after having made Rand so bland and passive throughout the entire season I'm genuinely fascinated to see how they're going to handle the big reveal.

[Rynjin]

I'm interested to see what they do as well. It's clear to see they've mishandled the episodes they've been given in terms of balancing screentime for various characters. 8 episodes was always going to be too short, but I think they've focused a bit too much on the wrong characters. A lot of Mat's stuff, as much as I love the boy, could be made more lowkey and fed into bolstering Rand's character early (focus more on Rand's reaction to watching his friend waste away and die).

Perrin could have, shockingly, not have a dead wife and we'd have a lot more screentime to focus on the stuff that actually matters with him. Still the main choice the writers made that I think is objectively wrong. It has no conceivable upsides, and every possible downside.

...Belay that slightly. Removing Rand's struggle through the woods to get Tam back to the village for healing is probably the second biggest mistake they made. If they wanted to keep the Dragon mystery active, whatever, they can skip Tam's muttering and do it in a flashback later. But showing off his level of determination and grit when the people he loves are in trouble early is an establishing character trait, which current show Rand lacks entirely.

Giving an increased focus on Nynaeve, however, I think is quite good as we spend a LOT of time with her, and she's kind of ****ing insufferable in the books. I quite like her in the show.

As for "we don't care"...who is "we"? I found myself caring quite a bit about Stepin. All his scenes are well done, and the grief is extremely easy to identify with if you've ever lost anyone important. It's a short tragedy, and it serves to set up some very good parallels to how Lan will react when Moiraine "dies". Setting all that **** up early is a vast improvement.

Narratively speaking episode 5 is by far the most important of the episodes so far, in my book. It does more to get characters closer to where they need to be for **** to actually start happening than any episode save the first one. That it's largely material unique to the show is to its credit, not its detriment, unlike a lot of the changes made. Elevating and expanding on important moments with the benefit of hindsight is what an adaptation is MEANT to do.

Re: funeral scene: again, this is a real tradition, and like all things in Randland is a combination of multiple cultures: Roman funerals (chest beating, wailing) and traditional Jewish ones (tearing of the clothing). I found it quite fitting.

Sure, it doesn't fit the definition of "stoic", but you haven't been paying attention if you think they've EVER planned to stick to Lan being an outwardly unfeeling wall of meat. It was never going to make for good television, and they've never made any pretenses they were going to stick to that. In the first episode he shows more emotion than he does in the first 7 books.

[Anteros]

Sure, it doesn't fit the definition of "stoic", but you haven't been paying attention if you think they've EVER planned to stick to Lan being an outwardly unfeeling wall of meat. It was never going to make for good television, and they've never made any pretenses they were going to stick to that. In the first episode he shows more emotion than he does in the first 7 books.

I have to take issue with this. There are plenty of fantastic stoic characters in cinema. To go back to the obvious Lord of the Rings comparison, Aragorn is incredibly stoic, and that's one of the most beloved portrayals of a character of all time.

[Rynjin]

Aragorn, likewise, is much more expressive in the movies. Or do you forget the scene where he yells, kicks a helmet, and then sobs a little because the actor broke his toes doing it?

[Anteros]

Aragorn, likewise, is much more expressive in the movies. Or do you forget the scene where he yells, kicks a helmet, and then sobs a little because the actor broke his toes doing it?

Sure, he has a few scenes like that and the "you kneel to no one" scene, but for the most part he's pretty flat.