Board 8 > Wheel of Time show has begun (SPOILERS)

(+) Yeah! (+)

First three episodes are up now on Amazon Prime

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Nice. Excited to check it out tomorrow.

(will probably avoid this topic though because of people who spoil plot points by talking about the books)

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Much of what I've seen about it so far has looked questionable. Yeah it's an adaption and they have to make changes, I just think they made some weird ones. But maybe it's just not for me.
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just watched the first episode

some of these changes are just bizarre

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I've never read a page of the book, so I'm really just interested in how it is in a vacuum.

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I've only read the first book. What changes were made?

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Anagram posted...

I've only read the first book. What changes were made?

they randomly gave Perrin a wife and had him accidentally kill her in the Trolloc invasion for no apparent reason

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most of the changes make sense. spoilers for the first four or so books and the first episode:

Perrin having a wife (who he then kills) is pretty useful for establishing his "I'm scared to lose control" holdup which is one of his core character traits, and could be good to make his relationship with Faile less pointlessly horrible
Rand and Egwene actually seeming to have a real relationship is also good, since their "we love each other except we never really act like it also we suddenly don't have romantic feelings out of nowhere" relationship isn't strong at all
I don't love it, but for a TV release having a lot of the lore be revealed early is expected
Nynaeve being yoinked could work out, too early to tell, but her chasing after the boys to protect them is pretty integral. her being rescued would be bad, and her escaping on her own to establish she's a badass is alright but kind of redundant and weaker than what we have. plus her knowing she can channel already instead of being in denial is ???
no idea what the hell they were thinking of having Egwene be suspected to be the Dragon. Her being ta'veren arguably makes more sense than her not being one, otherwise it's just wrecking havoc with the system

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Fridging is super lame
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KingButz posted...

Fridging is super lame

I mean, I don't think it's really fridging since he did that himself, and even you think it fits the spirit, it's both likely better than what we had in the books and excusable in a series where women get more POV time than men that definitely doesn't treat them as objects to be rescued (at least when Elayne isn't involved)

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First episode watched. I think its awesome - though moving too fast. They should spend more time here. Strongly disliked the first minute of exposition especially.

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first ep watched! some things i liked, some things i didnt like, but overall not bad. not sure if ill watch more today or spread it out

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I've watched the first episode and a half. It's pretty solid so far. Atmosphere is good. I think Mat might be the best done character of the younger ones? Moiraine and Lan are good too.

The Perrin stuff made me burst out laughing. Felt very silly to me and it's a bit strange it hasn't been more focused on. One Power effects are pretty good, but Moiraine moves way too much IMO. Not a fan of her dancing to use it. Mat's parents' issues felt a bit silly too. The other changes all seem fine, though I wasn't a fan of how easily Valda was able to kill an Aes Sedai - should've had her be unconscious imo.

The songs haven't been amazing. I hope they do the Play for Your Supper chapter well, since that was my favorite part of book 1.
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ep 2 watched

biggest issue is egwene calls rand a stubborn bastard instead of some variant of woolhead. actually really liking it kinda surprised. still early of course so plenty of time for things to get fucked so im trying to not get my hopes too high but this is a good start

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Never read the books but I'm liking this!

Radix posted...

biggest issue is

cancelling my pre-order

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Just finished the second episode. Yeah, that one was a lot better.

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Finished episode 3 now

the foreshadowing is super obvious on some of this stuff

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Tom Bombadil posted...

cancelling my pre-order

Lan hasn't called Rand a sheepherder once!

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That's unfortunate. The thing that really set Wheel of Time apart from other works in its mold is that the main character wasn't a clueless, backwater farm boy.

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Ep 4 good, despite being a bit fillery. They sure do kill a lot of Aes Sedai in this show...
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Finally got a chance to watch the first 4 episodes. Here are my thoughts as I went along:

• Perrin wasn't married...
• Where's Moiraine's staff or her head jewelry? I believe the gem was a minor angreal of some sort?
• Most of the casting seems pretty alright, except for Egwene for whatever reason. Not to say I think the actress is bad, just that she's not matching up with my head canon for the character.
• They didn't mention at all about Rand being given Tam's heron marked blade. I'm pretty sure Rand understood the significance of it in the books (or maybe Lan mentioned it) but maybe not.
• Didn't remember that the whole crew went into Shadar Logoth...but maybe that is what happened in the books
• Where's Thom's big, white, bushy mustache?!?
• Really liked the way the represented the weaving of the One Power, especially the taint on saidin.
• That scene with Nynaeve healing all those Aes Sedai was definitely not in the books!

With all that said, I'm not a super stickler for keeping things exactly the same as the books. An adaption should do what it needs to do to tell the story, just as long as it keeps the spirit of the source material intact. By the time I finished episode 4, it felt like the series had really started to find its footing. I'm excited to continue watching.


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They definitely all went into Shadar Logoth together (including Nynaeve and Thom) in the book. That was where they all got separated, so the show mostly preserved that. And yeah, they showed a close-up of the heron on the blade when Tam first draws it but it hasn't been shown or mentioned since.

I don't mind most of the changes and additions, but I do think giving Perrin a wife for the sole purpose of killing her off was dumb.

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Forgot to mention one big headscratcher, the insistence that the Dragon Reborn could be either male OR female.

I'm 99.9% sure the books make it abundantly clear that it's a male because Lews Therin was male and the DR being able to channel is super scary because of the madness. Which would still leave the "mystery" of whether it's Rand, Mat, or Perrin who's the DR, without bringing Egwene or Nynaeve into it.

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Yeah, that was another thing that felt like they were doing drama for the sake of drama.

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The showrunner addressed that on a Reddit AMA, as it happens.



https://www.reddit.com/r/television/comments/r19e96/im_rafe_judkins_showrunner_and_executive_producer/

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I dont feel like that works as an explanation in this case. Moraine obviously believes in the dragon reborn, she has dedicated her life to it. And believing that Lews Therin will be reborn but not as a male channeler doesnt really make sense. Only way that works is if they are going to make being reborn as the wrong sex but with your original power source a naturally occurring thing, which would be a huge change.

You can remove the Lews Therin part but believing that the prophecy is just about a random person being born to save/destroy everything seems sillier than believing its Lews Therin reborn with all his power.

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Granted its been a while since Ive read the books, but it seems like hes really downplaying how much distrust/disbelief in ancient prophecy is already present in the series.

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Also, the way hes wording that explanation is a bit off. Hes literally saying that their interpretation is more true to the world than what Jordan originally wrote!

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He probably believes that
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His explanation there isn't the best. He posted some other stuff about it too, as did Brandon Sanderson, who consulted on the show. I think the idea is that people can be reborn as the other gender in this version (not 100% sure about this part), which makes some people think the Dragon Reborn could be female, but that part's not true - the Dragon Reborn is guaranteed to be male.

KingButz posted...

He probably believes that

Edit: missed this earlier. If you look through more of what he's said, most of the changes are do to demands from studio executives, the cost of squishing it into 8 episodes (he wanted 10), and budget/actor/etc. issues. His original image of the show was more faithful to the books.
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Ugh. Studio exec demands.

Anyway, the main thing that jumps at me is that canonically male channelers are stronger than female channelers -- which I can totally see being something they may want to remove -- but under that stipulation the Dragon basically has to be a male channeler.

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redrocket posted...

Granted its been a while since Ive read the books, but it seems like hes really downplaying how much distrust/disbelief in ancient prophecy is already present in the series.

Yeah, this is already an important plot point in the books, so there was no need to one-up it.

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azuarc posted...

Ugh. Studio exec demands.

Anyway, the main thing that jumps at me is that canonically male channelers are stronger than female channelers -- which I can totally see being something they may want to remove -- but under that stipulation the Dragon basically has to be a male channeler.

Logain was considerably stronger than Nynaeve in the books, so it looks like they probably are removing that

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I want to say though that despite the changes I am definitely still enjoying this!

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NFUN posted...

Logain was considerably stronger than Nynaeve in the books, so it looks like they probably are removing that

Is that something they did(n't)? I'm just reading this thread from the sidelines.

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Logain is clearly weaker than Nynaeve in the show, yes. It's not 100% clear who's stronger in the books (there's one line about it from Nynaeve's perspective, and it's not like they actually fight to confirm it). On top of that, it was implied that Logain got stronger after being healed from being Severed which complicates things even further, and makes it so the show might not even be going a different way in this case.

In any case, I'm cool with female channelers not being weaker than male channelers in the show version.
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nynaeve is canonically much weaker and logain was just restored to his original strength when getting healed

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It's a silly point anyway (who the DR is going to be) considering it'll very, very likely be known who the DR is by the end of the first season, assuming it matches with what happens in the first book, timeline-wise.

Book spoilers: I know that there IS some gender swapping when people like some of the Forsaken are reborn/reincarnated. Personally, that was one of the things I hope the tv show eliminates. I hated all the speculation about every new character being someone brought back. Was always glad when someone got balefired out of existence.

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NFUN posted...

nynaeve is canonically much weaker and logain was just restored to his original strength when getting healed

Both of these are false.
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Wasn't Nynaeve able to keep Logaine shielded after she healed him until other Aes Sedai arrived?

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Mac Arrowny posted...

If you look through more of what he's said, most of the changes are do to demands from studio executives,

Oh no.

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Leonhart4 posted...

Wasn't Nynaeve able to keep Logaine shielded after she healed him until other Aes Sedai arrived?

he almost broke the shield without even trying. and he wasnt trying because he was in a village with hundreds of aes sedai so it wouldve been a bad move

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I will say that male and female channelers being equal is a good change. I don't think there was any good reason for that plot point, and it didn't matter much in the books anyway

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It was about linking. Women can link and men cannot without a woman's help, plus the woman controls the link.

So the raw power of men was offset by the inability to combine their power easily.
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also the The Wheel of Time Companion book has power levels (depending on canonical it is)

logain is said to be one step below rand and 5 steps above the strongest women

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KingButz posted...

It was about linking. Women can link and men cannot without a woman's help, plus the woman controls the link.

So the raw power of men was offset by the inability to combine their power easily.

Yeah but that's still not a fun form of balance, and in a fantasy story like these individual expression is important. The notion that someone like Nynaeve wouldn't have actually been a big deal compared to top male channelers is just kind of...lame? That's my best way of describing it.

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Mac Arrowny posted...

Both of these are false.

Logain: Strength ++2 (5 above 1)
Nynaeve: Strength 4

Where the hell does it say that Healing severing makes them stronger than their earlier potential?

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Radix posted...

also the The Wheel of Time Companion book has power levels (depending on canonical it is)

logain is said to be one step below rand and 5 steps above the strongest women

They're not canon at all - Lanfear's explicitly stated in the books to be stronger than all the Forsaken other than Ishamael, while this chart has her as weaker than all the male Forsaken (and also Narishma lol).
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NFUN posted...

Logain: Strength ++2 (5 above 1)
Nynaeve: Strength 4

How does this scale work?


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