[TV] The Wheel of Time

[Shadowferal]

I don't think they cut it, they postponed it. They introduce so many characters who will be come major later but are only in it for a few chapters in book 1.

Kicking the can down the road doesn't end. And usually means more cans getting kicked.

[Gigantique]

Kicking the can down the road doesn't end. And usually means more cans getting kicked.

I do get that the bumpkin innocent young teen Rand falling into Elayne's garden story doesn't work as well with now grown and already semi-douchey Rand in the show, but jamming the Caemlyn plots into Tar Valon is hella weird. Also, how are they planning on dealing with Mat's dagger? If they cure him there and then, what hook will they invent to have the plot of book 2 happen?

[Xath]

Which, IMO, shows a fairly distinct lack of understanding of how the Wheel actually works.

Another turning of the Wheel isn't going to produce a "nearly identical but with slight changes" version of the previous iteration. The Wheel re-uses large scale plot devices and general character beats every time the cycle repeats. It operates on very broad stroke abstracts. A repeat of the cycle sees "a hero" chosen to represent the light face off against "a champion" chosen to represent the dark. It is populated with the occasional return of noteworthy "characters", such as "female archer who falls in love with the ugly guy" or "Arthurian style hero king". But that is about as close to specific details as it gets. It does emphatically NOT just re-tell the story of "Rand-Al-Thor from The Two Rivers who this time decided to go directly to Tar-Valon instead of Caemlyn", because literally NONE of those people or places would even exist on the next turn around.

Yup the wheel turning would be massively different not a rafe fanfic

[rhorle]

Portal stones are a completely different beast compared to actual Turnings of the Wheel though, when it comes to the metaphysics of the world Jordan was building.

It was never explicitly stated what they were though right? They predated the Age of Legends and the only learned to use them through trial and error. The stones/worlds could very well just be different turnings of the wheel. You also contradict yourself. If every pattern repetition is different then "a different turning of the wheel" can produce "nearly identical but similar". Because it is still different. Which again points to the remarks about the portal stones able to show an infinite amount of possibilities even some with slight changes.

So it really just seems like nit picking a "I don't like the answer" rather then it not actually working that way.

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Yup the wheel turning would be massively different not a rafe fanfic

Where does it say that though? Why would it be massively different? A low chance? Sure, but it is an infinite cycle so it is bound to repeat somethings at some point.

[Surfd]

You also contradict yourself. If every pattern repetition is different then "a different turning of the wheel" can produce "nearly identical but similar". Because it is still different. Which again points to the remarks about the portal stones able to show an infinite amount of possibilities even some with slight changes. [/spoiler]

So it really just seems like nit picking a "I don't like the answer" rather then it not actually working that way.

A low chance? Sure, but it is an infinite cycle so it is bound to repeat somethings at some point.

Sure, you could argue that as a technicality, but if you are going to do that, you might as well just straight up admit that what you are doing is basically tantamount to metaphysical naval-gazing in a deliberate attempt to justify your argument based on ridiculous assertions regarding probability.

Yes, since the Pattern repeats in overall theme with each full turning of the Wheel, there is eventually the possibility that some Cycles may closely resemble eachother. The chances of that happening to the degree we are talking about here though would be damn close to statistically zero. Like, you are talking about billions to the power of billions of things that would have to "closely resemble" eachother to get that close to a reproduction of a previous turning.

It would be like arguing that because there is a statistical probability of a coin toss coming up heads one billion times in a row, that it will happen twice as long as you toss that coin an infinite number of times. I mean, sure: It's statistically probable. It's just not likely to happen in any meaningfully measurable time frame.

Attempting to assert that it will happen just because you can plausibly conclude that we just need to run an infinite number of cycles of the wheel and eventually it will happen is a ridiculously weak argument.

[rhorle]

Sure, you could argue that as a technicality, but if you are going to do that, you might as well just straight up admit that what you are doing is basically tantamount to metaphysical naval-gazing in a deliberate attempt to justify your argument based on ridiculous assertions regarding probability.

So in short it is possible and not against the rules of the book. You just don't like it.

[Gigantique]

So in short it is possible and not against the rules of the book. You just don't like it.

By that logic any franchise that accepts a multiverse can do whatever it wants.

Tune in for the next exciting Spider Man movie where we follow Peter Parker as he herds camels in the Sahara desert, slowly dies to starvation and is promptly forgotten. There's an infinite amount of multiverses so you fans can't say this isn't a Spider-Man story!

[Kharadin]

By that logic any franchise that accepts a multiverse can do whatever it wants.

Tune in for the next exciting Spider Man movie where we follow Peter Parker as he herds camels in the Sahara desert, slowly dies to starvation and is promptly forgotten. There's an infinite amount of multiverses so you fans can't say this isn't a Spider-Man story!

That was an unfortunate example to use.

[Xath]

It was never explicitly stated what they were though right? They predated the Age of Legends and the only learned to use them through trial and error. The stones/worlds could very well just be different turnings of the wheel. You also contradict yourself. If every pattern repetition is different then "a different turning of the wheel" can produce "nearly identical but similar". Because it is still different. Which again points to the remarks about the portal stones able to show an infinite amount of possibilities even some with slight changes.

So it really just seems like nit picking a "I don't like the answer" rather then it not actually working that way.

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Where does it say that though? Why would it be massively different? A low chance? Sure, but it is an infinite cycle so it is bound to repeat somethings at some point.

Portal stones aren't a wheel turn they are different outcomes of the same turn. A wheel turn is a huge cataclysmic event.

[Surfd]

So in short it is possible and not against the rules of the book. You just don't like it.

It's not that I "just don't like it". It's rather that it's a ridiculously weak ass excuse for justifying a ridiculously shitty "adaptation" of the book. "It's just another Turning of the Wheel" as if Turnings of the Wheel are cheap dime store novels that mysteriously develop spelling errors and have chapters appear out of order between re-printings or something equally inane.

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Portal stones aren't a wheel turn they are different outcomes of the same turn. A wheel turn is a huge cataclysmic event.

They aren't even different outcomes. I am pretty sure it was fairly heavily implied that they were "potential" outcomes. They were "what if's" and "might have beens". As I mentioned earlier, it was heavily suggested that there is only one "True" Weaving of the Pattern, and all the "alternates" that the portal stones connected to became more and more unstable as they deviated farther and farther from the "True" reality because they were basically reflections or echoes of the original. They were ALL basically doomed to eventually fade out and cease to exist.

Loial at one time quotes an old saying ""From Stone to Stone run the lines of "if", between the worlds that might be.""

[Aphrel]

Finally got around to start watching this. Somewhat pleasantly surprised (i was expecting a cringe shitshow given how the dialogue's in the books are).

5 episodes in and i see the showrunners have decided to deviate quite alot from the books. Understandable but somewhat worrying for the future seasons.

some thoughts:

Trollocs and the fade looked cool. Moirane and the one power looked cool. But why instantly spoil that the trader was a darkfriend?

I like that the show decided to leave it uncertain who the dragon reborn are sofar, the books did no such attempts. +1 for effort.

I like that the whitecloaks are now seen as a serious threat given that the questioner has 7 dead aes sedais under his belt. In the books the white cloaks are murderes of peasants but otherwise no threat at all to the aes sedai.

I liked most casting choices, i could instantly tell who most ppl were be4 they introduced themselves. But Egwene stands out like a sore thumb... It as if they decided to cast Legolas with Will Smith...

and WTF is that hair on Loyals head?! and isnt he supposed to have bigass ears that instantly give away his mood like the tail of a dog does.

Shadar logoth was cool by why cut it so short? No Mordeth...

Odd of them to put Kerene Nagashi in the show. Makes me wonder if the showrunners are changing the past events surrounding the late amyrlin Tamra Ospenya (and the poor fate of everyone she entrusted the secret prophecy to) or if they just drew an aes sedai name out of a bucket and decided to use it.

Also, in one scene we see the sisters talking about how unnerving it is that they cant see Logains weaves, and in the next scene Kerene sees and block two of his attacks?! Now im confused, are the show gonna make women/men see each others magic attacks or not?

It seems theyve thrown the powerrankings around. In the books Logain are freakishly strong in the one power almost at the power of the forsaken and the dragon reborn. Now it seems theyve reduced his power by half or 3x, and upped Nynaeves power quite abit. The show clearly makes her out to be far above Logain in powerlevel.

Im assuming we will be introduced to Min/Elayne/Gawyn/Galad later in the white tower from Egwenes and Nynaeves white tower storyarc.


Overall, like it, gonna keep watching. Its got a long way to go if they ever hope to beat shows like game of thrones (even accounting for horrible ending) or Vikings.

I feel what its overall lacking right now is charismatic characters. Vikings was somewhat riding on the shoulders of Ragnar and GOT had tons of super charismatic characters. Who will hold the beacon in this show? Moirane maybe... I wasnt very impressed with how they introduced Thom. Lan is following the book depiction which means hes about as charismatic as a stone.

And thank you for reading my blog lol, this became a long post xD

[jdbond]

As for as changes are concerned. Consider the "treatment" of Dragon. Dragon was most hated character after DO. Worse than forsaken. He broke the world. Surely he worked for the shadow. Discussing him was as bad as discussing Dark One. Him being a "man" was just incidental. Now imagine the turmoil of our Mcs if someone told you that you might be Dragon Reborn.

In books, there seem to be no indication that Dragon has any reputation. Moraine says 3 lines and that's it. Moraine openly calls our team potential DRs and there is not one gasp. In fact, Mat is only concerned that he would go mad (if DR was even he). This is how Aes Sedai would think but not our MCs who grew in a remote village greatly fearing dragon. Mat even claims he was most popular male channeler. Not only this is incorrect (he was most powerful channeler), how would Mat even know such a thing? Even current Aes Sedai don't know such things. Sounded more like Mat was praising him!
Entire atmosphere of story is wrong. There is no menace of fade, shadow or DO, let alone Dragon. WCs have done more "threatening" than Trollocs. These things are not discussed. Story is so rushed where it matters.
Sense of scale is missing from world. There is no map! Some country bumpkins walked from their home to TV in a month or so, mostly through empty lands being roamed by WCs! They just threw in couple of names here and there but world is mostly empty! Might as well be Kingdom of North from GoT!
A simple map would have done wonders to ground the story but then, they couldn't have make such a jump. Now where exactly is Camelyn really? Where is TRs located. Is there even a ruler?

This is Witcher level of story telling except Witcher is fun.

[Shadowferal]

Sanderson says "this is inspired by..." rather than a direct adaptation...and "like it for what it is. Don't hate it for what it isn't."

[Smallfruitbat]

Sanderson says "this is inspired by..." rather than a direct adaptation...and "like it for what it is. Don't hate it for what it isn't."

I get where he's coming from. I wish he would use the word 'bastardised' instead of the prettier phrase 'inspired by', because in reality like or the show or not, that is what Rafe and his crew have done, bastardised the story.

As to the comment about 'like it for what it is etc.' and 'you still have the books' I think it undermines the disappointment in fans who have been waiting years for this and got presented with a barely recognizable version of the story they love. I lost a lot of respect for him, the tone is 'I like what we got, screw you, your opinion doesn't matter'. It would have been far better and outright say 'you're right, its NOT Wheel of Time and no, you likely won't get an adaptation in your lifetime.'

The changes are not at the Arwen rescuing Frodo instead of Glorfindel (and I'm still salty on that one) level as many have pointed out, they are far further reaching. I understand that BS has his own legacy etc. to protect and I have sympathy for him being in the position where he can only recommend. Honestly I wish they had named it something else.

As a fantasy show, its passable. It has major pacing issues and other things that are jarring.

[Biomega]

Sanderson says "this is inspired by..." rather than a direct adaptation...and "like it for what it is. Don't hate it for what it isn't."

I'll go with "hate it for what it is", personally

[jdbond]

Sanderson says "this is inspired by..." rather than a direct adaptation...and "like it for what it is. Don't hate it for what it isn't."

Yes, "inspired". Hence the hate from fans. Hope they can get enough non-fan audience or they are done for. Amazon won't release the numbers so one can only imagine.

[Smallfruitbat]

Yes, "inspired". Hence the hate from fans. Hope they can get enough non-fan audience or they are done for. Amazon won't release the numbers so one can only imagine.

I honestly don't see it achieving 8 seasons at 10 mill per episode, having chased off a large portion of the fanbase. Viewers will likely tail off and when engagement drops, shows gets dropped. There are 3 episodes left to drop, and nothing so far has made it stand out as anything but another average fantasy show. Even if they finish with a big cliffhanger, the show will fade into the background as soon as the last episode has dropped. The content creators who are trying to make a living off the shows coat tails will either move onto something else or stop producing content.

[Deadite]

Yes, "inspired". Hence the hate from fans. Hope they can get enough non-fan audience or they are done for. Amazon won't release the numbers so one can only imagine.

Boggels the mind why they risk 'adaptations'. They seem to have terrible track record. I have never read the books and am waiting till they are all there before i watch the show so i will have absolutely no clue about any changes. So who are they trying to appeal to by making them? If you have never seen it then no change they make will make the show more appealing and will possibly just annoying the standing fan base. I guess it is "Sheer Fucking Hubris". They think they can do better.

[Mace]

Finally got around to start watching this. Somewhat pleasantly surprised (i was expecting a cringe shitshow given how the dialogue's in the books are).

5 episodes in and i see the showrunners have decided to deviate quite a lot from the books. Understandable but somewhat worrying for the future seasons.

Agree with you here, , soffar my verdict i, show good, but book = so much better

some thoughts:

Trollocs and the fade looked cool. Moirane and the one power looked cool. But why instantly spoil that the trader was a darkfriend?

The monsters were the best done thing.. the one power was coolish, but I would have preferred them to make it clear repeatedly only the caster sees the weaves, s it stands you think everyone sees them. It's alarming the things they cut, lots of caveats that made the series very charming.

But i didn't notice they spoilt that Padan fain was a darkfriend.. how did they do that?

I like that the show decided to leave it uncertain who the dragon reborn are sofar, the books did no such attempts. +1 for effort.

Agreed here, but this is obscured by the fact hey made women a possiblity, which si a major change in lore.. they did a good enough job if it was just one of the 3 boys, it's sold well with Matt, but Perrin so far is rather disappointing.

I like that the whitecloaks are now seen as a serious threat given that the questioner has 7 dead aes sedais under his belt. In the books the white cloaks are murderes of peasants but otherwise no threat at all to the aes sedai.

I don't like this, because it is out of context, how can a sword and shield person stand against the one power? Given the nature of the Aes Sedai, the book got the weight right. What the show should demonstrate is how cunning and guile to is used in manipulating the Aes Sedai use of the 3 others to get them and this is how it happened.. or even better, just show the hand of the light as the lowest of cowards, basically stabbing already exhausted Aes Sedai in the back as their only means of capturing them.

However the children do seem a much bigger threat, but I don't like how much more this seems to make men look evil in the series un-necessarily, - men are all out villainous in every organisation they run, both historical and presently, this is how it looks, and i don't think the author intended to make men look bad.

I liked most casting choices, i could instantly tell who most ppl were be4 they introduced themselves. But Egwene stands out like a sore thumb... It as if they decided to cast Legolas with Will Smith...

I have come to terms with Egwene's race, though I expected her to be much paler, currently i don't find the actress pretty enough to fit the description of Egwene, that's my only gripe, and I'm not the only one, but then this is subjective, and this has nothing to do with her being brown. I also didn't like her in episode 5, it's too much, and feel Perrin should have owned that scene, and it was again lifting the female roll more, and not enough for the actual original Ta'veren, she has so much going for her character in the books. This has become my biggest annoyance so far with it. The message it's telling with the changes, is blatant. It's not a fem series, but it's been made one. The books were immensely popular because they appealed so well to everyone, my first impression of this from the trailer and description was that this is for girls" if i hadn't read the book, I wouldn't have known. don't get me wrong, I've watched and enjoyed many a fem show, made for women, where women are the all round heroes and show of well, and I've enjoyed many of them for what they are, it's different when you take such a well balanced book and skew it so badly that way.. and for what reason?. Women are already powerful and the world runners in the original narrative, but in a way that works realistically and sensibly, these changes, especially to the warders, and the 3 male ta'veren are just stupid and tip the scale un-necessarily. women aren't treated unequally, they aren't down or low or any of the terms that men would value.. yet they still went ahead.

I don't resent Perrin having a wife, although the age raise of the boys is weird, however making her a blacksmith? Come on - I know and that skinny It's overly feminised, and un-necessarily so

and WTF is that hair on Loyals head?! and isnt he supposed to have bigass ears that instantly give away his mood like the tail of a dog does.

I found Loial interesting looks wise.

Shadar logoth was cool by why cut it so short? No Mordeth...

Agree 100% - seeing episode 5, and how much content was cut for a self insert that totally changes the dynamic of the Ae Sedai and warders... makes the men look like salves rather than equal partners, in the books, Moiraine had to show herself worthy of Lan, in the film, Lan implies he begged to be her friend.. it's pissing on men.

And the men that are writing the changes, think this sells or is helping the women's cause that needed no aid in this story - it's made what could have been a superb show, a lot weaker.. still fancy enough to watch, but very generic with all the over used cliches of female power. Making even less of it grounded in reality, but which is bad for fantasy, and worse if you politicise or insert your views to supersede and override the actual author's work.

Odd of them to put Kerene Nagashi in the show. Makes me wonder if the showrunners are changing the past events surrounding the late amyrlin Tamra Ospenya (and the poor fate of everyone she entrusted the secret prophecy to) or if they just drew an aes sedai name out of a bucket and decided to use it.

Hmm.. I missed that. can you expand?

Also, in one scene we see the sisters talking about how unnerving it is that they cant see Logains weaves, and in the next scene Kerene sees and block two of his attacks?! Now im confused, are the show gonna make women/men see each others magic attacks or not?

I would like them to clarify too, and if changed from the book, why do they feel they needed to change that?

It seems theyve thrown the power rankings around. In the books Logain are freakishly strong in the one power almost at the power of the forsaken and the dragon reborn. Now it seems theyve reduced his power by half or 3x, and upped Nynaeves power quite a bit. The show clearly makes her out to be far above Logain in powerlevel.

I'm not convinced by this though, Logain still easily over powers 3 sisters shielding him when it was time. Nynaeve has a burst of incredible power, we know she is capable of, but she doesn't need to be as strong a s Logain to have pulled off what she did.. remember he is stunned in the show, like he is seeing new light and new salvation or new love, mesmerised, this gives the Aes Sedai enough time to link and subdue.. to me I'm not sure how or why people think Nynaeve's display means the power ranking is changed.. but I could be missing something.

Im assuming we will be introduced to Min/Elayne/Gawyn/Galad later in the white tower from Egwenes and Nynaeves white tower storyarc.

I was thinking that too, but then they may not at all, i haven't checked the casting listing, they could completely remove them. I was looking forward to see what they would do for Caemlyn, I wonder if the skip was budget motivated or agenda driven (as judging by the replacement scene), still it was very key moments in the series, a lot of places, characters are set up and introduced here. there is such a feel of fairy tale fantasy with the Elayne, Gawyn and Galad encounter in the books that sets them up very affectionately for later. I feel they would have done much better sticking to the author closely rather than fiddling for gender politics and intersectionalism.

Overall, like it, gonna keep watching. Its got a long way to go if they ever hope to beat shows like game of thrones (even accounting for horrible ending) or Vikings.

I feel what its overall lacking right now is charismatic characters. Vikings was somewhat riding on the shoulders of Ragnar and GOT had tons of super charismatic characters. Who will hold the beacon in this show? Moirane maybe... I wasnt very impressed with how they introduced Thom. Lan is following the book depiction which means hes about as charismatic as a stone.

And thank you for reading my blog lol, this became a long post xD

It's likeable for what it is. I like it to, and can appreciate that's it's quite some bit far off from the book, the lack of charismatic characters is due to all the changes they've made, much of the charm of the narrative in the book is gone by changing all those things they've done and they haven't replicated it .

The focus switches from the 5 Emond Fielders to Moiraine and the Aes Sedai.. the Aes Sedai were a much bigger mystery in the book till you reached the white tower, we see so much of them before in the series.

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Sanderson says "this is inspired by..." rather than a direct adaptation...and "like it for what it is. Don't hate it for what it isn't."

I want to see a 30 episode animation proper adaptation of this simply blow this well done but massively inferior inspired alteration of the work. out of the water. The weird thing is that i actually quite like the show and cant bring my self to call it bad, but also annoyed by it knowing how so much better the book is. How this could have been so much better if it was made in 2016

[rhorle]

By that logic any franchise that accepts a multiverse can do whatever it wants.

And what is wrong with that? That is what a multiverse is, right?

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It's not that I "just don't like it". It's rather that it's a ridiculously weak ass excuse for justifying a ridiculously shitty "adaptation" of the book. "It's just another Turning of the Wheel" as if Turnings of the Wheel are cheap dime store novels that mysteriously develop spelling errors and have chapters appear out of order between re-printings or something equally inane.

You are still describing how you don't like it. You first went from "the book doesn't allow it" and when it was pointed out that the book actually allows it. Then when you finally admitted the book does allow it you've latched on to "it is weak". So what if it is weak? It is an explanation for why the story is different from the books using a valid in-universe explanation.

Does it suck the adaptation is not telling the story of the books? Yep. But it is clever to use an actual "in-universe" explanation for why. It being a week or strong reason is irrelevant to it being a valid reason. You are just finding ways to still hate the statement when your first reason was wrong.