[TV] The Wheel of Time

[Katchii]

Oh, I understand that changes from the source material can have huge consequences in the adaptation.

I'm just saying that that doesn't make the adaptation bad. It just makes it different.

If this is supposed to be an adaptation, they shouldn't change something so central to the original works. That makes it a bad adaptation. Doesn't make the show itself bad, but it makes the show a bad adaptation from the book.

[Egomaniac]

When faced with the idea that one person could either be 1. sane or 2. insane, who do you think people would think is more likely to do something catastrophic? Because, again, the original Dragon was a GOOD person. He fought against the Dark One. He was a paragon of virtue. He only did bad things and broke the world BECAUSE HE WENT INSANE. If you take that part away, why would people be afraid?

The Prophecy says that the Dragon Reborn will save the world...or destroy it. The possibility of the world being Destroyed is something for people to be afraid about...don't you think?

[Biomega]

The Prophecy says that the Dragon Reborn will save the world...or destroy it. The possibility of the world being Destroyed is something for people to be afraid about...don't you think?

Yes, but you can't just erase historical context. People KNOW the original Dragon went insane, just like they know all male channelers go insane. That adds a whole different weight to the prophecy, and colors people's responses.

If you have a prophecy that says "Jack Reborn may love women or hate them" that's a whole different ballpark from "Jack THE RIPPER Reborn may love women or hate them". Context matters. A lot.

[Corvus]

The level of changes we are talking about here are on par with making men also handmaids in the handmaid's tale. It rewrites the entire premise of the story and makes no sense.

[Katchii]

I've never said "You have to like it". I've watched all 4 episodes. I wouldn't say it's great. I havent been scared off yet....but I have concerns.

And of course "Good" and "Bad" are subjective. I'm not saying it's objectively either one. I'm just asking why, in your subjective opinion, the changes are bad. And the only answer I'm getting is "because the books say X".

The prophecy being less specific in this series is "bad" because in the books it was specific. But that doesn't change the fear/hope that normal people are going to have regarding The Dragon being Reborn. He/She is either going to save the World...or Break it again. Plenty reason for normal folk to have concerns...regardless of gender.
Whether The Dragon is male/female when he/she saves/breaks the world is rather unimportant to the average person.

If you're not understanding why the Dragon Reborn being a male is pretty central to the original story, specifically because of the madness male channelers get, then I'm not sure what series you read.

The Red Ajah exists, almost exclusively, because of this. If it were a woman, they wouldn't go out of their way to find them and gentle them, they'd be fighting tooth and nail to get them into the white tower and trained as an Aes Sedai.

And the way the series was written, each of the 5 characters; Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene and Nynaeve all have very role dependent storylines that will be completely changed, removed or fucked up beyond recognition if they don't keep the story the same.

This is supposed to be an adaptation of the books. That means the big story beats should remain the same. Small changes to make it feasible to adapt to a TV show are expected and inevitable, but changing who the Dragon Reborn is would be fucked up....seriously fucked up.

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The level of changes we are talking about here are on par with making men also handmaids in the handmaid's tale. It rewrites the entire premise of the story and makes no sense.

Also this^

That's a pretty good analogy.

[Egomaniac]

Yes, but you can't just erase historical context. People KNOW the original Dragon went insane, just like they know all male channelers go insane. That adds a whole different weight to the prophecy, and colors people's responses.

They know that the Dragon Broke the world. And that The Dragon Reborn might break the world again. Male or female, Good or Bad, Sane or Insane...the Dragon Reborn may break the world again. There's no guarantee the Dragon Reborn wins the Last Battle.

[WernerCD]

I'm definitely watching this. Not expecting too much though.

I'm both in love with and hate it deeply.

It's obviously a different turning of the wheel... or maybe one of the shadow worlds. If, somehow, they make "her" the Dragon? Destroys it to the core. Can't have a woman fix the male half of the power.

With that said? I love the visuals. The white cloaks are on point. No boat trip and no wolf brother to introduce the pup. Trollocks look more like demons than animals and the eyeless look like they came from LotR on their skeletal horse.

I love and hate everything about so it's already 100x better than I expected.

[Egomaniac]

If you're not understanding why the Dragon Reborn being a male is pretty central to the original story, specifically because of the madness male channelers get, then I'm not sure what series you read.

Very important to the Books. Not disagreeing. Of course, they haven't, thus far, actually changed who the dragon reborn is, so it's not really a big deal yet. The only thing that's different is that prophecy is less specific regarding who TDR is.

The Red Ajah exists, almost exclusively, because of this. If it were a woman, they wouldn't go out of their way to find them and gentle them, they'd be fighting tooth and nail to get them into the white tower and trained as an Aes Sedai.

Sure, that would be a major deviation from the story. But again, it hasnt happened yet.

And the way the series was written, each of the 5 characters; Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene and Nynaeve all have very role dependent storylines that will be completely changed, removed or fucked up beyond recognition if they don't keep the story the same.

And yet changing the prophecy itself doesn't have to change anything about their individual roles.

This is supposed to be an adaptation of the books. That means the big story beats should remain the same. Small changes to make it feasible to adapt to a TV show are expected and inevitable, but changing who the Dragon Reborn is would be fucked up....seriously fucked up.

They ahven't made any major chnages to the story yet. They've changed the wording of the prophecy

[rhorle]

They know that the Dragon Broke the world. And that The Dragon Reborn might break the world again. Male or female, Good or Bad, Sane or Insane...the Dragon Reborn may break the world again. There's no guarantee the Dragon Reborn wins the Last Battle.

But only one half of the one power broke the world. It wasn't that the Dragon broke it. It is that the Dragon, the most powerful user of the one power ever, went insane and broke the world. It was his greif at killing his own family in a fit of insanity that caused him to start the breaking . People fear the White Tower and Saidar but it isn't to the same extremes.

They have been told since the Age of Legends, including with stories and texts passed down from that time, that Saidin is dangerous because it is tainted. It isn't even close to the same feeling it would invoke.

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They ahven't made any major chnages to the story yet. They've changed the wording of the prophecy

Which is a major change. The cycle, the prophecy heard by Moirane, and the general knowledge that went through out the world post-breaking that it could be a female or male to break the world with the tainted Saidin. Or rather not since the whole story has been changed.

[WernerCD]

They know that the Dragon Broke the world. And that The Dragon Reborn might break the world again. Male or female, Good or Bad, Sane or Insane...the Dragon Reborn may break the world again. There's no guarantee the Dragon Reborn wins the Last Battle.

The Dragon can't be female... with that said, nothing states the prophecies can't be from a bad translation.

[Biomega]

They know that the Dragon Broke the world. And that The Dragon Reborn might break the world again. Male or female, Good or Bad, Sane or Insane...the Dragon Reborn may break the world again. There's no guarantee the Dragon Reborn wins the Last Battle.

Again, you're just completely glossing over the fact that he broke the world BECAUSE HE WAS INSANE, as a direct consequence of being a male channeler.

Could a female Dragon also break the world? Absolutely. But they wouldn't AUTOMATICALLY GO INSANE, and that is a fundamental characteristic that goes beyond being merely a detail.

If I told you person A or B might both kill you, but person B is insane, who would you be more afraid of? Can you truly, honestly say that you'd just go "well you said they might both kill me SO IT'S EXACTLY THE SAME"? Be real now.

[Egomaniac]

Again, you're just completely glossing over the fact that he broke the world BECAUSE HE WAS INSANE, as a direct consequence of being a male channeler.

Could a female Dragon also break the world? Absolutely. But they wouldn't AUTOMATICALLY GO INSANE, and that is a fundamental characteristic that goes beyond being merely a detail.

If I told you person A or B might both kill you, but person B is insane, who would you be more afraid of? Can you truly, honestly say that you'd just go "well you said they might both kill me SO IT'S EXACTLY THE SAME"? Be real now.

I'm not glossing over anything. I'm just saying what is known about the prophecy.

If Person A is Lews Therin Telamon and Person B is Lanfear....I'd be more worried about Lanfear. Crazy guy at least has good intentions.

[Ragedaug]

Very important to the Books. Not disagreeing. Of course, they haven't, thus far, actually changed who the dragon reborn is, so it's not really a big deal yet. The only thing that's different is that prophecy is less specific regarding who TDR is.
...
They haven't made any major changes to the story yet. They've changed the wording of the prophecy

Having the Dragon capable of being either gender changes the story. There's important reasons all the Aes Sedai are female. There's important reasons the Reds hunt down and gentle any man caught channeling the One Power. Also to note, they had some of the most powerful Aes Sedai locking weaves around Logan, a self taught male, who's only been channeling the One Power for a handful of years, where you needed multiple of these very powerful Aes Sedai to hold the weave, and it was taking everything they had. Saidin and saidar are different and it's pretty important point and reason that the Dragon uses Saidin.

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That said, I think they are just messing with us. I suspect Rand will still be the dragon. The other differences feel more cosmetic, so they don't bother me so much. Overall I have enjoyed the series so far.

I suppose one thing that sticks in the back of my head, that I can overlook, but takes me out of the immersion is the way the show runners handled diversity in the series. There's plenty of diversity in the books, but it's not within every town. In the books, every area is mostly ethnically homogeneous, to the point that people have a good idea where you came from by how you look. So far in the series, every town looks like a mini-sampling of America's big city diversity, to the point that you would have no idea where anyone comes from based on how they look.

For example, I don't have a problem at all with the casting choices of Lan, Moraine, and Egwene, as they all come from different regions, so their diversity from each other makes sense. But in the show when you look at Mat, Egwene, Nynaeve, and Perrin; they also look like they all come from different regions which doesn't feel right. And their differences makes Rand not stand out so much, like he does in the books, where folks note that it does not looks like Rand belongs in the Two Rivers region.

Anyway, that's more of a minor complaint, I can look past it, just takes me out of the immersion of the show sometimes.


...oh yeah, and in the books the Aes Sedai have ageless appearances, which did not make it to the show. So again cosmetic, doesn't really change the story at all, just another thing that regularly pops in my head while watching the show.

[Egomaniac]

Which is a major change. The cycle, the prophecy heard by Moirane, and the general knowledge that went through out the world post-breaking that it could be a female or male to break the world with the tainted Saidin. Or rather not since the whole story has been changed.

I disagree. Unless they actually change who the Dragon Reborn is....it's a minor and unimportant change. And I highly doubt they are going to change that.

Prophecy is often vague, misleading, and misunderstood. That's even commented on in the books. The fact that they weren't given the Dragon's Gender and the Exact Time, Date, and Location of his/her birth doesn't overly concern me.

[Surfd]

No, the prophecies being changed is not a reason why it is "bad". It's just a difference from the books. It doesn't mean it's automatically good either. Just different.

And a female dragon could be just as dangerous...even while connecting to Saidar. Not all the Forsaken were men after all. Women just don't go insane using the power. It doesn't mean they can't use it for Evil.

You know, it's amazing how badly you are missing the point even with like half a dozen people explaining it to you.

Female Dragons existing straight up breaks BEDROCK CORE TENANTS of how the WoT universe works. The entire universe, all it's lore, all it's power dynamics, it's politics, it's legends, literally EVERYTHING that makes WoT WoT is built from the ground up on a fairly nuanced Yin/Yang Male/Female dynamic of play and counterplay along a hard line gender divide.

Almost everything in the series, from simple Men's / Women's point of view advice on how to have a happy marriage, to the way the Women's Circle / Mens Council in small towns play off eachother, to the reason the White Tower is a feared political power across the entire continent, to core elements of the magic system and how it functions differently depending on if you are a Man or a Woman are all DEEPLY entwined with that Yin/Yang hard line divide.

You introduce Female Dragons, of literally any sort (even "fake" ones) and you basically toss out a fundamental aspect of what makes WoT WoT, reducing it to something much closer to just another generic fantasy series.

And this has ripples across EVERYTHING because of how deeply that Yin/Yang balance is threaded into everything:

Allowing Female Dragons to exist literally requires you break the fundamentals of how magic in WoT works:
The Dragon is feared in legend because the Dark One's counter attack just before being sealed in his prison at the end of the previous cycle Tainted the Male half of the source, literally driving every single male channeler on the planet insane at once. This resulted in tens of thousands of Male channelers literally breaking the world: destroying cites, laying waste to countries, flattening mountains, etc, etc. It took the combined might of basically every surviving Female channeler out there to subdue them, which given the power differences between men and women meant that almost ALL of the women died.

So you then have literally hundreds of centuries of people attempting to pull themselves out of a literal Mad Max style global apocalypse, while periodically some poor dude awakens his channeling gift and goes stark raving mad, potentially destroying entire enclaves of survivors before someone can stop him, which basically constantly puts the fear of god into everybody when it comes to Men and Magic.

And after a while, when some of the few survivors of the Female team manage to create the White Tower and bring a semblance of stability back, there is still the "prophesies" hanging over everybody's head: That the guy directly responsible for a global apocalypse is going to come back, and break the world AGAIN because the Male half of the power is still tainted and broken.

Straight up almost none of that works if the Dragon can come back as a woman. Because it all literally hinges on the Male half of the duality being tainted while the Female half is fine. If they can come back as a woman, that would play absolute hell with the idea that the White Tower and the Aes Sedai (an organization composed entirely of Female Channelers) are basically the last line of defense between men going nuts and another breaking of the world. It undermines their entire powerbase because then Female Channelers, ALL FEMALE channelers, immediately become just as potentially dangerous as the male ones. If the Dragon could be a Woman, the entire White Tower basically wouldn't exist, because crazed mobs of normal people would have stoned every female channeler to death along with the men centuries ago.

Like, I don't understand why this seems difficult to grasp for you, but actually adhering to core elements of what makes your IP unique and different from other IP's in the same genre is actually really fucking important when it comes to pleasing the fans. It's playing a dangerous game of trying to see how much you can change without crossing over into "This TV Series is Wheel of Time in Name Only" territory. And frankly, as a fan, they seem to be well over that line in regards to a lot of shit.

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Whether The Dragon is male/female when he/she saves/breaks the world is rather unimportant to the average person.

Except that this is 100% incorrect.

If the Dragon could be Female, it straight up breaks EVERYTHING about the way history played out after the breaking. The only reason the White Tower exists is because the Men went insane. ONLY the Men. And because the Dragon is destined to be Male, only Men remain a concern when it comes to Channelers. The White Tower and the Aes Sedai only exist because they were the anchor that the world clung to after the breaking because they were "safe", and because they had the power to find and contain a flare up when some poor Man discovered his gift and went nuts.

If the Dragon can be Female, that makes literally EVERY channeler on the face of the planet a potential danger. It removes the "safe" aspect that allowed the Aes Sedai to eventually become a political power that commands kings across an entire continent and turns them into people who the "average person" is no longer going to look at in Awe, but rather into just a bunch of people who could go insane at any moment and break the world again. Crazed mobs would be slaughtering them in their sleep rather than going to them for help.

I mean, hell, if you were to look at it realistically, if the Dragon COULD be Female, then the White Cloaks would have had a MUCH MUCH MUCH bigger powerbase, because it would have been WAY more easy to convince the "average" person that every channeler is a danger to civilization. That's a lot easier to do when you can point the finger at ALL of them, instead of only the Men (who have for the most part been nearly extinct for generations).

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Just a minor nitpick as well, but I really wish people would stop confusing Prophesies with the Fortelling.

Gitara's fortelling IS NOT A PROPHESY. The Foretelling is a "Talent", and it was literally her having a "The Universe Interrupts Your Daily Broadcast To Bring You This Special Announcement" moment where cosmic forces straight up hijack her to announce that "The Universe has Decreed that The Dragon is Reborn RIGHT FUCKING NOW and HIS destiny burns with the fury of a thousand suns" and then she promptly keels over dead from shock. It's a literal message straight from the mouth of god, so to speak, and absolutely not "vague" in any way. It's also something that you literally can not argue with. If the fortelling says the dragon is a "him" then he is a him.

The prophesies were something completely different, and mostly dealt with the "signs" by which you would know the Dragon when he showed up (Thrice and Thrice He shall be Marked) and the like, as well as the things he would do when reborn, but almost all the prophesies were ANCIENT compared to Gitara's fortelling.

[Triceron]

Except that this is 100% incorrect.

If the Dragon could be Female, it straight up breaks EVERYTHING about the way history played out after the breaking. The only reason the White Tower exists is because the Men went insane. ONLY the Men. And because the Dragon is destined to be Male, only Men remain a concern when it comes to Channelers. The White Tower and the Aes Sedai only exist because they were the anchor that the world clung to after the breaking because they were "safe", and because they had the power to find and contain a flare up when some poor Man discovered his gift and went nuts.

If the Dragon can be Female, that makes literally EVERY channeler on the face of the planet a potential danger. It removes the "safe" aspect that allowed the Aes Sedai to eventually become a political power that commands kings across an entire continent and turns them into people who the "average person" is no longer going to look at in Awe, but rather into just a bunch of people who could go insane at any moment and break the world again. Crazed mobs would be slaughtering them in their sleep rather than going to them for help.

I mean, hell, if you were to look at it realistically, if the Dragon COULD be Female, then the White Cloaks would have had a MUCH MUCH MUCH bigger powerbase, because it would have been WAY more easy to convince the "average" person that every channeler is a danger to civilization. That's a lot easier to do when you can point the finger at ALL of them, instead of only the Men (who have for the most part been nearly extinct for generations).

As an average person who didn't know about this, I still don't care what the book says if I'm watching this show for the sake of watching the show.

I'll say that I definitely may not agree with all the choices they've made for this TV adaptation, but they're doing something fun out of the Dragon Reborn by seeding it amongst more characters and giving them moments to root for. The latest episode had a lot of entertainment value in seeding the possibility of characters-other-than-the-main-character being the Dragon Reborn, and for the average person who doesn't follow the books, they might not know the Dragon Reborn is the obvious main character yet.

The TV White Tower doesn't have the same lore as the books, and that's something you gotta understand if you're jumping into this whole thing. It's not the book. I mean, it's just like the Game of Thrones shit all over again. Book readers can nitpick all they want about the TV series changing core elements here and there, but at the end of the day the TV series is not the Book series. The lore is different.

From what we know of the TV series, the Aes Sedai are there to track down men and prevent them from using the Power since it drives them to madness. It doesn't pertain to gatekeeping the world from the Dragon Reborn exactly, and it doesn't gatekeep to say any female channeler is 'safe', only that they're not prone to the same madness that men are. The rules have changed, but the core concepts haven't been undone, at least not to the level that you may be explaining. It's only of you stick with the book lore that the Dragon Reborn can only be a man that you'd have that conflict, whereas the TV series hasn't really set that up. It's shown that Men who use the power are afflicted with madness, and it's foretelling that the 5 main characters could all be the Dragon Reborn (as opposed to the 3 in the books), while also showcasing the potential and power of one who thinks they are the Dragon Reborn themselves.

As for the direction of the series and the rest of the lore you've brought up... well the Dragon Reborn hasn't shown up till late. The TV series hasn't fully established how powerful or influential the Whitecloaks are. We've only started to see the Aes Sedai organization. There's plenty of material that you're applying from the books to stuff that simply hasn't been established in the TV series, and I think you're jumping to too many conclusions about the established TV lore.

There's plenty of stuff that isn't making sense in this series, but really the points you've brought up haven't even really been established in the TV series yet so there's no real debate to be had about why a certain faction or group should or should not be more powerful than it already is. We have to wait and see how the showrunners choose to address this and how they're going to tie it back into the mythology of the TV series.

[Dancaris]

cutting Elaida would mean cutting the whole white tower coup as she is the one who leads it and becomes amyrlin seat. And that would cause massive disruption to the plot.

It can be Liandrin who did that. We can practicaly merge her and Elaida, and nothing changes. And even better, both of them became damani to Shonchan

[Shadowferal]

When you change core elements of an established story it is a pretty big deal. Does it ultimately matter for the show? Not really because they can still create a good fantasy show. The thing is this is not just a generic fantasy story but it is supposed to be an adaptation. It also doesn't bode well for the future episodes and seasons if they are already changing core things.

It's a big deal to fans of the source material. If a production is making something based upon an enormous success of books then if they want to see a similar success then they need to adhere as closely to the books that they reasonably can.

[jdbond]

They are changing so much that it will be worse than last season of GOT once they hit season 2. If they survive that long. I mean man can't see weave of women and yet, all the audience can and so did Logain. Logain is weaker than Nynaeve so he is going to be a joke around Dragon, won't he? Just read the comments, most people think "black" stuff around Logain was part of his magic.

So yeah, they will protect the "names" but they intend to rewrite the story in some serious way. Thing is that just like GoT, they won't be able to keep it up. By season 3, show will look just absurd thanks to changes being made right now without any thought to how it affects future seasons. I mean did they claim that Egwene as strong as Logain, even stronger?

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It can be Liandrin who did that. We can practicaly merge her and Elaida, and nothing changes. And even better, both of them became damani to Shonchan

You mean leader of Black Ajah leading WT and then what, getting caught by SeanChan? Or shadow losing WT while ruling it?

[Dancaris]

You mean leader of Black Ajah leading WT and then what, getting caught by SeanChan? Or shadow losing WT while ruling it?

And why not? Its not like that arenot a thing anyway. Make black ajah rule WT, then rebels are Light sister. To me its better reason than some inner problems with respect in woman groups.